“He’s totally shameless. You should know better by now, shouldn’t you, boy?” Nathan asks him.
Ryder looks back at Nathan before giving me a mouthful of gross, hot breath right in my face.
“Hey, you want to go outside?” Nathan’s voice switches from serious to that fake sort of excited you use for dogs and babies.
Ryder kicks up his legs, bouncing up and down all the way to the back door, waiting impatiently for Nathan to finally slide the glass open. The moment the door is wide enough, Ryder bolts.
“I swear, I love that dog, but he’s a total doofball most of the time.” Nathan hurries back over to help me up off the floor.
“That’s been the case with every golden retriever I know.” We walk back over to the door.
“Wouldn’t trade him for anything.” Nathan whistles, interrupting Ryder’s very important task of rolling around in the grass. “Ryder, ball!” Nathan uses his excited voice again.
Ryder’s ears perk up. He waits just a split second before starting to run around the yard in a big circle, grabbing something without stopping and bringing it to Nathan.
Nathan grabs the slobber-covered ball and chucks it into the far corner of the yard. Ryder was gone the moment Nathan raised his arm, ready to catch the ball before it even hit the ground.
I sit back and watch them repeat this a few times, Ryder never failing to jump up and catch the ball with his mouth. “He’s good at that,” I say.
“We’ve had a lot of practice.” He throws the ball lazily one more time, wiping the slobber on his jeans. “You ready to do some book learnin’?” He says this with what I can only describe as the worst southern accent I’ve ever heard.
“Sure.” I follow Nathan back inside and up the stairs, trying not to get nervous at the fact that I am probably being led to his bedroom. I try to distract myself with the photos lining the walls. Young Nathan is cute. I mean, teenage Nathan is cute too, but he doesn’t have the pinchable cheeks anymore.
And why am I thinking about that?
Different thoughts. Different thoughts.
His parents look really happy too. It’s incredibly obvious that he got his smile from his mom. In fact, he seems to share most of his traits with his mom, at least at a glance. They have the same eyes, same nose, same smile.
“You look like her, like your mom,” I say, stopping at a picture of the two of them at what I guess is Easter. The big purple wicker basket and the bright polo shirt Nathan is wearing are sort of giveaways.
“I get that a lot.” He grins.
“Is this your dad?” I point to another picture of a much older man and Nathan behind the wheel of a boat.
“Stepdad. Mom married him when I was about twelve.”
“Oh.” That explains why he doesn’t seem to be in any pictures with baby Nathan.
“Yeah.” He bounces on his heels. “Come on, my room is just up here.” He leads me up the rest of the way and down the hallway to his bedroom.
It’s messy. Not quite disastrous, but there are clothes over everything, posters of various bands and rappers I’ve never heard of hanging on the walls. And there’s a shelf in the corner filled to the brim with books. What he hasn’t managed to fit on his shelf there or the ones above his desk, he’s stacked on his nightstand or on his dresser. Oddly enough, his bed is completely made. “Sorry, should’ve thought about cleaning up.” He kicks off his shoes.
“It’s cool,” I say, wondering where I can take a seat. The chair at his desk is filled with discarded clothes, and Nathan just plops down on his bed, grabbing his backpack.
“Okay. So, what do you want to do first?” The springs squeak underneath him.
“Algebra’s probably easiest.”
“Yeah, ‘easiest,’” he says, making the quotations with his fingers. “Come on, don’t be shy.” Nathan pats at the empty space next to him on the bed. “This is where the magic happens.”
“Are you more of a rabbit-out-of-a-hat guy, or do you do card tricks?” I ask.
“Oh, funny boy.” Nathan reaches for his algebra textbook.
“Yeah, funny.” I try to force a laugh, but even I can’t believe it. Every “boy” or “him” has been like a stab in the gut. And for some reason, it hurts worse when it comes from him. Even worse than when Mom or Dad called me their “son” or their “boy.”
“Okay, so, Mrs. Sever said that the test would cover these two chapters.” Nathan shows me the part in his textbook.
“So how much do you need to review?”
“All of it.”
“Oh, okay. Wow. Well, let’s go ahead and get started.”
Nathan isn’t totally hopeless, and I’m not sure why he thinks he is. There are a few times where he’ll mess up on an equation, or misremember the order of something, but he isn’t a lost cause. I try to recall all the ways I’ve remembered the dozens of formulas over the years, rhymes or songs or acronyms.
“How do you remember all this stuff?” he asks me.
“Don’t know.” I’ve always been good at math. “It’s sort of easy.” I flip through his review packet again. “It says there’s a practice test online you can take, and you’ll get ten extra points on the quiz.”
Nathan grabs his laptop and types in the website. “Math should be illegal.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Says you.” When prompted for his school, he picks “North Wake High School,” types in his student ID, and hits the big blue start button underneath. “Shit,” he whispers under his breath after reading the first question.
“Look.” I grab his notebook and flip to an empty sheet. “Here, just work it out.” I watch him copy down the problem, carefully making his way through it. “Remember to move that over,” I add.
“There?” He shows me his work.
“Type it in, see if it’s right,” I say, even though I know he’s got it.
The website gives him a little “Good Job!” before it moves on to the next question. “Jesus, how long is this quiz?”
I reach for my bag at the foot of his bed. “You’ve done one question, stop whining.” I open my sketchbook to the newest page. It’s only been a few weeks, but I’m already close to needing a new one. The pages are sticking out, notes and sketches pouring from the seams, and I’ve only got a handful of empty pages left. “Just keep going.”
“Fine, Mom.” He groans, pulling the laptop closer. “What are you drawing?”
“Not sure yet. I’ll let you see when you’re finished.” I turn so I can hide the sketchbook from view. “Now get to work. Those ten points will come in handy.”
“Fine, fine.” He starts to work again. “Hey, what about this?” Nathan hands me his notebook, and I check over his work. “The answers aren’t adding up.”
I read over his equations quickly. “Close, you got the root wrong here.” It’s not that far up into the problem, so he won’t have to redo too much work. “Try that again and it should work out.” I hand the notebook back to him.
He lets out a long sigh and erases his work. “This is torture.”