I say “Thanks” again. I don’t know what else to say, or how much I can just be normal right now, which I know they don’t expect but it’s kind of like, I don’t know how to show them what’s real right now.
She says, “Let’s get you situated,” and she leads me to the hallway where all the bedrooms are. I feel like I’m dreaming as I walk the hallway. In what used to be our house, my mom was in the main bedroom, I was across the hall, and the two rooms in between were storage. Here, Max is in one of those two rooms, and one is an office. Across from Max’s mom’s bedroom, the room that was mine at our house, is a guest room, painted bright yellow.
“This will be yours,” she says. “So you have your own space. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks, Ms. Gutierrez.”
“Rosa,” she says.
It’s weird being here and trying to get through my head that I’m a visitor but not really. That I’m not going back home tonight, because I have none. It’s strange to have one suitcase with clothing and toiletries and my backpack with my laptop, and that’s it. It’s like I’m holding all my possessions. I know I can go back and get more, but really, so much of the stuff that’s in my room back home is things I don’t use. I don’t even want my ’80s bordello room anymore. It’s tainted, because it was Mom and me who bought all that stuff. It was another life.
Mom has probably been picked up from our house now, and who knows where they took her? It feels like the blood has been drained from my veins, and I’m so, so tired.
Rosa lets me get settled, and Max lingers in the doorway.
“You wanna call the girls? I can call the Amigos. We can do a swim thing here.”
I shake my head. I don’t want to see anyone. I love my girls but the idea of everyone pitying me is way too much for me right now.
“You wanna just hang out?” He sits down on my bed.
I nod, and Rosa comes back and tells us she’s gonna do some work in her office unless I need her. When she walks off, I shake my head amazed at how not like my mom Rosa is. Lucky Max.
“So we’ll just hang?” he asks.
“What I really want is my truck,” I say. “Our truck. In some ways, I’m more pissed about that than I am about my mom.”
He winces. “Really?”
I plop down next to him. “No.”
“Yeah. Didn’t think so. I miss the truck too. But that’s your mom.”
I think about the night I took her to Sweeties, and what she said when we were in my room. That I was great just as I am. And I think two things. One, how can I trust that now? Because when she said it, she knew that she was fucking us over and screwing up our lives. And two is how much I can’t believe that as of this moment, I no longer live with her.
“She used to be so different,” I say. “One time a couple summers ago, we did this experiment where we tried to cook an egg on the actual sidewalk in June.” I laugh. “I have no idea why I’m telling you that.”
He laughs. “That’s cool.”
“It worked when we put it in a pan.”
“Nice.”
“When my dad died, it was like my mom became real fragile. And yeah, she gambled, and then she went in this program for it. But she told me it wasn’t that big a deal even when it was bad, and she told me she’d stopped, and I believed her.”
“Yeah,” Max says, and I’m glad he doesn’t try to make things better, because he can’t.
I’m thinking about how she made a point of telling me she was thinking about gambling but that she hadn’t. And is that in some ways worse? That she tried to make it seem like she was honest, but she was lying? And how do you ever trust a person again after they gamble away your house? You don’t, that’s what. You don’t. When I think that, the tear ducts fill up again, and Max puts his hand on my arm and squeezes.
“It’s okay,” he says. “You let me cry. I’ll let you cry.”
I crack up. “Permission granted,” I say. “But nah. Too angry to cry. I want to burn something.”
“I hear ya,” he says, and I know it’s not his fault, but momentarily I want to yell at Max, because no, he doesn’t know what this is like. No one does.
“Tired,” I say. I’m exhausted. From feeling all this stuff.
“Wanna take a nap?”
I nod.
He comes and puts his arms around me. I put mine around him, but I’m not feeling it. Too something. Like how I feel about him is behind something. A screen I can’t break through. I pull him closer, too close for intimacy, because I don’t want him to feel like I don’t care about him. I do. I’m just the boy in the bubble right now I guess.
He kisses me lightly on the cheek, stands, and walks out of the room.
“You do you, friend,” he says, and he leaves.
It’s kinda weird, but having my mom home from work is actually really nice. When she comes into the living room, Jordan is asleep in his new room, and I’m sitting on the couch, watching episodes of Catfish.
“Quite the day,” she says, and she gives me a hug and sits down next to me.
“Yup,” I say.
“How are you doing with all this?”
I shrug. “I can’t make him feel better. That part sucks.”
“You just have to give him time. This will always be one of the hardest days of his life, as long as he lives.”
“Yeah.”
“Just like you, when you were assaulted. You weren’t ready to talk about it right away. Sometimes people just need a little time to stew in their juices.”
“Sometimes I think I’m a superhero,” I say, and my mom laughs.
“I know,” she says.
“You know?”
“I know you a little bit, mijo. You like to think you can save people and make people better, and nicer. Your superpower is your smile.”
I can’t help but grin at that, and she does too.
“It’s okay, though, if sometimes you don’t smile and make everything better.”
“I know,” I say.
“Okay. I just worry sometimes. That you take too much on yourself. Other people can figure out their problems. And you have to take care of you.”
The thing is, I don’t know if people can. Figure out their problems. Would Jordan have gotten here, or somewhere like here, if it weren’t for me? I don’t think so.
Then this thought comes to me, and it makes me gasp out loud.
“What?” my mom asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “Nothing,” she repeats.
The thought is that no, Jordan wouldn’t be here. But I wouldn’t be, either. Without his help. Without my mom. Without the Amigos.
That feels like a profound thought. Cheesy as shit, but also simple and true.
“So you’re not going to tell me?”
I shake my head. “No. But something else I will say.”
She sits back on the couch and puts her legs across my lap and waits for me to speak.
“Thanks,” I say. “For being you. For loving me. I know I’m a pain in the ass, but you’re always there for me, Mom.”
This reddens her eyes.
“Do you know that I basically told Dad I was raped? Before you. He made jokes. I mean, he confirmed that what happened was rape, but he, like, didn’t say anything more. Or help me.”
She sits up. “What?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“What are you talking about? You told him and he didn’t do anything?”
“Well, I basically called at like four in the morning after a bad dream. Because the dream made me wonder if I should say something to someone or if I was making shit up. I told him not me, but hypothetically. Like a friend. But who calls their dad at four in the morning and asks something like that without it being about them?”
She shakes her head, hard. Her face is creased and rigid.
“He didn’t get it, I guess. It’s not his fault —”
“The hell it isn’t,” she says, just about exploding, and I worry she’ll wake up Jordan. “He’s your father. It’s not okay for him to hear that and not follow up. With me. Has he followed up with you?”
I shake my head.
“Damn it,” she says. “He tries my patience, mijo. I hate to talk bad about your father, but the man needs to grow up.”
“Well there ya go,” I say, my insides tightening.
She nuzzles the side of my leg with her foot. “Sorry,” she says. “I don’t like to do that. That’s your business between you and your father. But can I say one more thing?”