“And I’ll be thankful when you slice that so I can get the biggest piece.” Dad points at the pie.
I’m my father’s son, always focusing on the food. “Nah, she’ll give it to me. I’m a growing boy.”
“You’re so fucking annoying.” Kiersten rolls her eyes.
“Language!” Mom scolds but starts slicing it as Parker slips out to grab the cookies Willow made.
He returns with said cookies, pumpkin chocolate chip, and a pint of vanilla ice cream. And even with all of this incredible homemade food, my stomach is still uneasy.
Being back in Webton will never not remind me of Bevan. Pulling into town, I passed the bench by the bagel shop where we had our first kiss. Then the high school where I touched her boobs for the first time under the bleachers. The movie theater we’d frequent, the restaurant she waitressed at one summer where I’d come in and order water, to the owner’s annoyance. There’s the park we’d often go running together in, and the bowling alley just around the corner from her neighborhood where I first told her I loved her.
This town has our memories written all over it, and my heart aches knowing she’s across town eating alone with her mother and no other family. My heart aches because I nearly broke hers again, and she forced me out. For the first time, the power dynamic of who held our future in their hands has flipped, and I am panicked.
Until Bevan had drawn that line, had made her thoughts clear as to how I was hurting her, I didn’t fully realize just how selfish I’ve been. Yes, I am coming to the realization from my friends explaining it, but what I did the other night was truly shitty and manipulative. The minute she basically said that if I couldn’t get my head all the way around us, don’t even bother coming back to her? Yeah, that was the moment I could wrap my head fully around it.
But now I have no idea what to do. If I go back and grovel, she’ll think I’m acting too quickly and tell me that I just want to get laid. I know Bevan, I know her mistrust of almost everything.
“Are you going to see Bevan while you’re here?” Kiersten has an evil gleam to her eye when I jolt out of my thoughts.
Jesus, could she tell I’d sunken into my mind about my ex-girlfriend? My sisters are too fucking spooky with that shit.
“He lives with her, why would he go see her? And they’re broken up.” Willow looks at our sister like she’s dumb.
“Well, maybe they’re hooking up at the house. You never know.” Kiersten shrugs as if my parents aren’t at the same table.
“Perfect, the exact conversation I wanted to have on Thanksgiving,” my dad says around a bite of pie.
“We’re not,” I mumble, wanting to have this conversation even less than Dad.
“You never told us the whole story of why you broke up,” Willow needles at me, and I know she’s trying to get the tea.
My oldest sister may be the responsible, quieter one, but she still loves to gossip like the rest of the Strass bunch.
“I do miss her. She was such a part of our family.” Mom sticks out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout.
I think Mom loves Bevan because she knows how hard her home life is. Mom grew up in a home that was neither loving nor supportive, and so I think she sees a little bit of herself in Bevan.
“Yeah, how’d you break up?” Kiersten pushes my buttons one more time, and I snap.
“Oh my God, you people are so nosy! We broke up because Bevan has abandonment issues. We were fighting constantly, and our friends fucking hated it. We called each other all sorts of names, said shit we couldn’t take back, and I’m still in love with her but now she’s in therapy and told me to go fuck myself because I was seeing another girl, mostly to make her jealous, and she won’t play second fiddle to anyone in her life anymore. There, are you happy?”
A quiet hush falls over the table after my word vomit, and I feel acid bubbling in my throat. I hadn’t meant to spill at that, but I guess they asked for it. My family was in the dark about the crux of our relationship issues, and I feel kind of bad for Bevan that I just exposed what she’s going through. But they pushed me.
“Callum Maxwell Strass, I taught you much better than that!” Mom cries, tears forming in her eyes. “She has abandonment issues and so you abandoned her?”
“Honey, let us digest this, I’m sure it was more complicated than—” Dad tries to come over to my side a little, but gets cut off.
“Are you kidding? What are you still doing sitting here? Go over there and tell her you’re an asshole and that you messed up. That you’re a selfish moron for not holding her hand through all of it, even if it was ugly! Anyone can see you two are more meant for each other than anyone in the world!”
Kiersten says from out of left field with the belief in everlasting love is both shocking and not. Because, of course, she’d be on Bevan’s side and not mine, not that I wasn’t on Bevan’s side. I kind of want to go over there.
“Yeah, agreed. You should go over there.” Willow nods, not giving us the rest of the thoughts in her head.
My entire family is staring at me, and just like that, it clicks into place. The missing piece that’s been hovering there for weeks, months, since I moved back into the house. It moves into its slot, completing the puzzle.
I’m just as guilty about our demise. I treated Bevan horribly, especially in the last few months. I have always been in love with her, even in the time we’ve been apart. Trying to get over her by flaunting a new girl in front of her was not only wrong, but it fed into exactly what I wished Bevan would seek help for.
“I have to tell her,” I say it more to myself, but it comes out of my mouth.
“Of course you do.”
I look up, and Dad is smiling at me in that knowing way parents do as if they were the puppet master controlling you all along.
“Love you guys! See you tonight!” I shout as I bolt, heading for the car.
I could do the drive to Bevan’s with my eyes closed and meteors raining down onto the roads.
Hopefully, tonight though, nothing is stopping me but the three traffic lights I have to get through to reach her.
After that, it’s only my foolish pride standing between us.
24
BEVAN
Eight thirty and the house is quiet.
There is no festive singing or full bellies on the couch watching football. There isn’t family flopped all over the living room or toasting another beer with each other. No aunts gossiping in the backyard or little cousins causing havoc in the cold, dried mud.
Thanksgiving with my mom is a depressing, pitiful excuse for the holiday, and it’s probably better that both of us retreat to our separate corners of the house after our tiny spread on the kitchen island. She couldn’t even be bothered to set the dining room table, opting for a quick drive by of turkey and stuffing from our local takeout place. Just the two of us, barely speaking, and then that was that.
Being in therapy has helped me understand her more, helped me to wrap my mind around why she’s a cold person. She was pretty much abandoned by everyone who loved her too, and she took on the responsibility of birthing me. She gave me life, so even if she can’t give me the love a child deserves, I have to credit her for that.