Cut Both Ways (18 page)

I breathe. In and out. One. Two. Three. Four.

s-waannnng! bloooooop! ka-ching! pow!

Everyone's side of the story is just how they sugarcoat their own fault in it.

I feel like I grow up, in those breaths and minutes. Like a hundred years. I am the oldest I've ever been.

“I'm sorry.” It's the only thing I can think of. I say it a bunch, over and over. Like I'm singing her a lullaby. I think of Angus, singing with the rubber-ducky girl. I left him to be here, with Brandy, but now I hear his voice in my head. The song, his voice, my words:
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, baby. Go to sleep my little baby.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

NOBODY GETS CAUGHT
the next day. Not DeKalb, who said he was at Angus's house. Not Shania, not Brandy, not even Jack. Shania and DeKalb stayed back to help Jack clean up, even, then took the bus back home together. So romantic.

No, the one who gets caught is me. Only me. And it's all because of my dad.

My dad, who showed up at my mom's house last night, asking for me, only to be told by Jay that I was at Garrett's. Then he called Garrett, who was at the restaurant. So my dad went to Time to Eat, drunk out of his mind, and Garrett said I was at my mom's and what the hell's going on, and my dad started yelling. Garrett had Sierra put him at a booth, just to calm him down so Garrett could grab his keys and drive him home. But my dad was all pissed off and knocked over a bus station, whether on purpose or by accident, no one was sure, and he broke a bunch of dishes all over the place. Then Carl went to clean it up and tried to get my
dad to his feet, and then my dad passed out while trying to lift up a broken glass. Sierra called an ambulance, because she thought my dad had had a heart attack, and then the cops showed up and my dad came to, and then Carl tried to calm him down. Just as the paramedics walked in, my dad punched Carl in the face.

Which is why I'm not busted until after I get back to my mom's later that day, when Garrett finally has a minute to call her from the hospital and tell her that Tom's in detox and does she know where I am.

I'm standing over the sink eating a banana and talking to Taylor when my mom gets the call. The look on her face is something new. A blend of I don't know who to kill, you or your father. Taylor's already a little afraid; she's used to Mom losing it.

But my mom doesn't lose it. Maybe because Taylor's standing in front of me. A little eight-year-old shield.

“We have to go, Will,” she says. “Now. Get your shoes and coat. Now.”

“Why, Momma?” Taylor asks.

“Not you,” my mom says, looking over her daughter and straight at me. I know I'm busted. But then instead of hustling me to the side to bitch me out, she grabs her purse and her phone and flips into her coat, all in one motion, like a snake. Then she points toward the door, toward her Mercedes wagon.

“Don't come out here! You don't even have a coat on!” she yells as Taylor follows us out. Taylor doesn't listen. She walks to my mom and her lip is trembling, she's trying so hard not to cry.

“Go wake Daddy up,” she says to Taylor. She smoothes Taylor's
hair. She's trying to pretend it's all fine, but Taylor's not dumb. “He's in the TV room, watching football. Wake him and tell him to call Mommy.”

“Are you gonna die? Is Will going to jail?”

“No, everything's fine,” my mom says. “Just do what I said.”

Having explained, in various tones, from raging to near tears, the whole story of my father bleeding out and falling over and punching Carl in Time to Eat—she seems more mortified that someone she was ever married to would cause such a spectacle: “there were children there!”—by the time we get to the hospital, my mother is out of bullets. Tired.

My mom sighs as we walk through the automatic doors. Garrett's in the lobby, next to the gift shop, which is full of stuffed animals and those tacky-ass sun catchers you hang in the window.

“He's in detox, so you can't visit now,” Garrett says.

“You've been here all night, then?” my mom asks. Another thing to blame my dad about—Garrett's obvious exhaustion. I see my mom tallying it all up. How much everyone's paid already for this mistake.

“Pretty much,” Garrett says. “They ran a bunch of tests, stitched up a cut on his hand. Gave him a sedative. The detox thing they saw right away but it was a matter of paperwork. He's self-insured, right?” He looks at me.

“I don't know,” I say. Garrett looks at my mom.

“Will's on my insurance,” my mom says quickly. Like to say,
I'm not a loser without insurance! And neither is my kid!

“Well, whatever, it's out of my hands,” Garrett says, sighing. His shirt is greasy and his breath is awful and I feel completely guilty. Again. Like, I was out drinking and staying out all night and this was the cost. Brandy, crying. Angus, giving me the eye. My dad, crashing around town like a drunk tornado.

“I didn't know it had come to this,” my mom says, brushing something invisible off her yoga pants. My mom lives in yoga pants. She has a job in a real company, where she wears business outfits, I know—I see the outfits in the laundry room—but basically, whenever I see her, it's yoga pants. “But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Will never said a thing about it, the drinking. I feel like I need an explanation. Of why my son was living with a man who's not sober”—her voice screeches up a few levels now—“and who has just ripped apart his house and filled it with trash, and now is bouncing around town like some kind of lunatic.” She reaches up toward my face and for a minute I think she's going to hit me. But she just pushes back a little bit of my hair behind my ear.

I shake away from her. Take off my glasses and wipe them on my hoodie.

Garrett doesn't look down, though. He looks right at her and,doesn't flinch. “At this point, it's up to Tom to explain things.”

“Not just Tom.”

Garrett does this half-laugh thing. “That's between you and Will.”

“He lied to both of us,” my mom points out.

“Tess. I know. But I think that—”

“I wish we didn't have to do this here,” my mom says, super
crabby. Looking around at all the old magazines and the people going in and out of the automatic doors and the gift shop. The smell of burned coffee and cafeteria food and floor cleaner.

“Where else did you want to go?” Garrett asks.

My mom sets her mouth in a little line, at that. He's frustrating her, but she knows he's been up all night dealing with her loser ex-husband. She knows he's not the problem. We all sit down in the lobby chairs, as far away from other people as possible.

“Did you call his sister?” she asks.

“I don't have her number.”

“Sharon's got her hands full. She's taking care of his mother now, even though she should put her in a nursing home. She's got dementia. She's been a disaster since Tom's brother died, if you ask me. But that family's too cheap to let anyone help out. So Sharon's just getting her life ground out dealing with that woman because of it. Still, she probably ought to know.”

Garrett nods and my mom finds my aunt Sharon's phone number for him to put in his phone. I can tell he doesn't want to call my aunt and I wouldn't, either. My grandmother Caynes has been in one medical situation after another since I can remember. My dad didn't really get along with her to start with, and then when his older brother died—I think he's who I'm named after, although nobody really says his name much anymore—she kind of lost it. And there's no Grandfather Caynes. He was never
in the picture
, which was how my Aunt Sharon put it.

“So,” my mom says, turning to me. As if we're all done with my dad, and now it's my turn. “Where were you last night, Will?”

I look at Garrett, hoping he'll deflect my mom's hard-ass tone.

His mouth tightens in a way that says he's sorry but he can't take up for me. Fuck.

“I was at my friend Jack's.”

“Jack who?”

I feel like saying “Jack-Off,” just to be an idiot, but there's nothing funny here.

“Jack Telios,” I say. “He goes to Franklin.”

“And what? You just stayed there all night? You couldn't tell us that?”

“Well, I mean, I could have. But I didn't.”

“Why not?” she pushes.

“Because . . .”

“Because, let me guess! Jack Telios's parents weren't home? Is that right?”

I nod. I try not to smile. Nothing about this is funny. My father in detox and my mom reaming me out in the lobby of a hospital, but I have a feeling she's going to say something crazy next. Like, “So! Did you shoot up weed? Have an orgy?” Like some bullshit she read in a magazine for parents. Where everyone gets kidnapped or killed or dies in a meth-lab fire or whatever.

“So, what happened? A party?”

“Not a very big one.”

“As if that makes a difference!” she says. “Who was with you? That girl Brandy?”

Garrett presses his hands together, looks down. I can't tell if
he's embarrassed for me or what. I'd be embarrassed for me.

“Yes,” I say. “Brandy was there and so was Angus, and nothing happened. We just drank beer and . . . that's it. Went to bed.”

“Really?” My mom crosses her arms.

“Yeah.” Because—it was. We didn't do anything but sleep. Of course, I'm not going to talk about the weed. Or confess about other people having sex. I don't know if anyone else had sex. Brandy and I were the first people out the door; we didn't even really talk to anyone. She told me to drop her a block away from her house and she walked home. She texted me that her aunt Megan had taken her nana to breakfast; they had no idea about anything.

“I think I need to speak to that girl's mother,” she says.

“Mom, come on,” I say. “Besides, she doesn't live with her mother. Her mother's crazy. Like, seriously.”

“Jesus Christ,” my mom hisses. She's not a big swearer, so I'm a little caught off guard. “Wonderful. Even better.”

“She lives with her aunt and grandmother,” I say. “They're good people. They take care of her.”

“You're being careful, then,” Garrett says. He clears his throat. “You and this girl.”

I'm surprised he says this. So is my mom. She sort of sits back in her chair.

“This girl?” she asks. “She's, what? Fourteen years old?”

“Fifteen,” I say. “She'll be sixteen in March.”

“Jesus Christ,” my mom says again. She looks at her phone and then stands up. “I need to call Jay. He's texting and has no idea
what's going on . . .” She walks toward the automatic doors and through them, whooshing outside.

Garrett and me sit there, then, quiet.

“So, are you?” he asks. “Being careful?”

There's no reason to lie to him. There's no reason to try to get him to think we're not having sex. It's easier just to tell him, and to tell him that I know what condoms are and we're safe. We're not going to be teenaged parents.

“Yeah,” I say. “We're not stupid.”

He laughs. “You know how they work, then? Condoms?”

“What?”

“I mean, a lot of young kids, they don't really know what they're doing.”

“We know what we're doing.”

“Not in the sack, Will,” he says. “With the rubber.”

I feel like the whole room could be hearing us now and I can't look up. I can't believe he said
rubber
—it's such an old-person word to say.

“No, I know,” I say. “I know what to do.”

“And every time,” he says. “Every single time. The whole time, too. Not just at the last minute.”

I feel like I'm getting a headache, I'm so embarrassed. I see my mom's point, about doing
this
right here.

“I
know
, Garrett.”

He sits back, unclenches his hands. “Okay, okay,” he says, hands up. “I just think you'd rather hear it from me than your mom. Or Jay.”

“Ugh.”

“You know it's not your choice,” he says. “Whether you become a father. It's always the girl's choice.”

“What?”

“I mean, you get her pregnant, it's no longer your call what she does with it. She can have an abortion, she can make you a daddy. You have to do the thinking way ahead of time. That's all I'm saying.”

“I don't think she wants to make me a daddy. Or anyone else, either, Garrett.”

“I get that, Will,” he says, glancing over at my mom, who's just walked back inside and is gesturing while she's on the phone with Jay, slapping her hand against her hip, as if he can see her.

“But once you let it loose that way”—he clears his throat again, and I wish I could be buried alive, the embarrassment's so bad—“it's not your decision. It's hers and hers alone. So if you don't want any kids and she does? Or she doesn't go get an abortion in time? Say she waits too long, deciding, and then can't? Well, then, there you go. Now you're someone's dad. Until you die. Until they die.”

“Garrett, I don't—”

“That's what I mean,” he says. “On the front end. On this side of things—that's where your thinking's got to be. Not in crisis mode.” He glances again at my mom, who's struggling to keep her voice down but not doing a great job of it.

“Look, we're on top of it, it's okay,” I say. “Really. We're being safe. We haven't even really . . . It's not like we're doing it every
goddamn day or anything. It's not like we've got a lot of time. That was why . . .”

“Why you lied.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, and the way it turned out, she got kind of drunk and then didn't feel so good, so we just kind of went to bed. Nothing happened. It wasn't even worth it.”

He looks up at the ceiling, smiles a little. But he looks so tired. It's like he's gotten more wrinkly since I've been around him. And gray, too.

“Look, this thing with your dad,” he says. “I know he'll want to see you. And you'll want to see him. But I don't know if that's anything you want to rush into.”

My mom is back, slipping her phone into her purse. “Why not?” She doesn't sit down, just stands there, staring down at Garrett.

“Well, it's not just me saying this,” Garrett adds. “I mean, my own dad, he was a drunk, but he never did anything about it. No detox. No treatment. But I was talking to Roy last night. He was the first person I thought of to call.