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“It was less graceful when I landed right on my tailbone and cried.”
“Yes, well, we can work on sticking the landing tomorrow,” he says.
I roll my eyes at him. “No way, I’m never going down the hill of tears again.”
I reach across the dashboard and flick the butt warmers on and pray the heat will keep my ass from bruising. I lean back in my seat, reveling in the renewed feeling in my outer extremities.
“Okay, let’s do the thing,” he finally says, and I sigh.
“Do we have to?”
“Where would you like to start?” Dad leans his car seat back to match mine and puts his feet up on either side of the steering wheel. He’s offering me a great courtesy by not forcing me to make eye contact. He tucks his arms behind his head and keeps his gaze up and out the moonroof.
“Well, I guess, my first question is how the hell did you know I was here at the park?”
“Lyft,” he says. “My phone notified me you changed your destination and I figured something was up. I saw your bag by the hike entrance and knew where you’d be.” I don’t say anything, I just nod. “So, what’s up?” He asks.
I fiddle with the zipper on my coat. “I don’t even know anymore.”
“Well, why don’t you try telling me why you went out in freezing weather without proper winter gear and without telling anyone?”
“I needed to make a tough phone call and I didn’t want to do it at home. I dunno why I came here, it was just the first place that came to mind, I guess.” I pause and look out the window long enough for my mind to start wandering back to the events of the past few days. I start to feel queasy and anxious again. I sit up, pull out my phone and check the clock. “Shouldn’t we get going? It’s almost dinnertime, don’t we need to get home to help Mom?”
“Enough, Elliot.” He swipes the phone out of my hand and puts it in his pocket. “Start talking, now.” But when I still don’t, he reaches over the center console and holds my hand. And that does it. That gesture, so small and so loving, cracks me open and releases everything that’s been building up inside these past four months.
I cry.
And then, I tell him everything.
I tell him about the fight with Lucy.
I tell him about how Micah spread rumors about me.
I tell him about my grades.
I tell him about Kenton.
I tell him about my shame.
I tell him about how lost I am.
And he listens. He doesn’t interrupt or scold me or share his own freshman year stories. He just listens. I talk and cry until the thermos is completely empty—and then I talk and cry some more. I talk until the snow accumulates enough to completely cover the windshield. And when I’ve said all I can say and my tears run dry, Dad finally speaks.
“You ready for some dinner?” He pops his seat upright and turns the keys the rest of the way to ignite the engine. The windshield wipers fail miserably at clearing away the snow.
“What? That’s it? You’re not going to give me advice or tell me what to do or do whatever it is parents do when their middlest child royally screws up?”
“Nope,” he says as he pulls on his seat belt and puts the car in reverse.
“I don’t understand,” I tell him. “I need help; I thought that’s why you came out here.”
“It sounds to me like you’re figuring things out just fine.”
“Am I though? Because 99.9987 percent of the time I feel like I am flailing through life.”
“Good,” he says.
“Good?”
“Yes, good. If you weren’t flailing then I’d say you weren’t doing your freshman year right.”
“I—I don’t understand,” I say.
He puts the car back into park. “Would you like me to go all Father Figure on you and rant and rave? Because I can totally do that,” he says jokingly, but part of me wishes he would. “What would you like to hear? That you’re not in high school anymore? That your friend Micah behaved no differently than he normally does? That the only reason Lucy is mad at you is because you didn’t immediately do the right thing and tell her the truth? That the choices you make as an eighteen-year-old have real consequences? Honey, I don’t think you need to hear that kind of speech because you already know all of this.”
“Izzy didn’t screw up her freshman year—”
“Stop that, this isn’t about your sister!” he snaps, and I instantly regret interrupting him. Sometimes I forget that he can be stern. “Everyone makes mistakes, all right? Stop deflecting and own up to yours, Elliot. Yes, you’ve made some bad choices and chances are you have a few more ahead of you, but you have to at least start recognizing when you’ve made a bad choice and learn from it so you don’t do it again. And when it comes to your grades, I will give you one more shot to pull those grades up or you will have to find an alternative source of funding for your sophomore year. I’m not spending thousands of dollars to send you to a fancy, east coast private school just so you can slack off. You hear me?”
“Yes . . .” I slump even farther into my seat and start picking at my nails. Neither of us says anything for a full five minutes. My dad is not the type of man who regularly raises his voice, so when he does it visibly unsettles him and he always needs a moment to collect himself.3
When he’s ready, he says, “You’re not alone, Elliot, but you do have to start taking care of yourself. I can’t have my middlest going out in a snowstorm and freezing to death.” My dad reaches out and gives my hand another squeeze before returning it to the wheel. “And as for that fuckface Kenton, well, he can just go eat shit and die.”
It’s so unexpected and aggressive and something my dad would normally never ever, ever, ever say. I burst out laughing and he smiles as he puts the car in reverse and we take off for home.
“I really missed you a lot this semester, Dad,” I say when we pull into the garage ten minutes later. He turns off the engine, reaches over, and we hug awkwardly.4
“You are tough, Elliot. You are my kid and I didn’t raise you take shit from anyone,” he says as we continue to hug. “Well, anyone except for your mother. She’s going to want to talk to you about those grades, by the way.”
“Any chance you could talk her out of yelling at me?” I ask as I pull away. He smiles at me and it gives me more comfort than he could ever know.
“Like I said, sometimes in life you have to do things that are scary.”
* * *
1 I know this decision isn’t going to sit well with many of you, and I can accept that. Filing criminal charges would have meant a long, drawn-out process where I’d have to relive the experience day in and day out while also having my own character called into question. It would define me. It would consume me. I absolutely, 1,000,000 percent believe in a person’s right to justice—but I also believe in a person’s right to move forward. And Kenton will have to explain to his family why he suddenly decided to leave Emerson. I hope that will be enough of a punishment. I hope this was the one mistake that changes his behavior. I hope.
2 Have you ever sledded in one of these things? YOU HAVE NO CONTROL. It’s essentially a close-your-eyes-and-pray-you-don’t-die situation. Once, when we were younger, our dad sent Izzy down a hill in one and she came so close to hitting a tree at full speed, my dad pissed himself in fear. Now that I’ve recalled this memory, I really have to wonder why the hell we still own a saucer.
3 In the McHugh house, my mom is the one who usually doles out the verbal reprimands and after all the times I snuck out of the house in the middle of the night during high school, she’s gotten really good at it too.
4 Like I told you back in chapter 2, the McHugh family are terrible huggers.
CHAPTER 11
Before we resume the second act of this story, which begins at the start of my second semester, let’s do a little montage and recap the past two weeks of my life.
ELLIOT MCHUGH PRESENTS: THE WINTER BREAK SPECIAL
December 18
“Elliot, welcome home!” My mom greeted me in her Kentucky drawl from across the big kitchen. “Where’ve you been? I thought y’all were going to be home by four?”
“Hey, mom.” I waved to her as I set my suitcase down.
“GIRLS, YOUR SISTER IS HOME!” she yelled while dumping a cup of flour into the stand mixer. She turned it on high, then started going to town on some carrots. Without even looking up she said to me, “Can you reach up and grab another cutting board? And don’t leave your suitcase there, take it down to the basement.”
“The basement?” I asked as I grabbed the cutting board out of the cabinet and handed it to her.
“You and Izzy are sharing the pullout couch in the basement—Remy! Get over here and welcome home your sister!” she shouted across the room to my little sister.
Without losing eye contact with her phone once, Remy got up from the chair, walked over to me, said hello, punched me in the butt, and then went back to her chair. Bugsy finally got over my return and trotted after Remy into the living room and laid down by her feet, while Fred, having abandoned his perch atop the chair, started scooting his butt across the hardwood floor. I turned back to my mom, who was shoving vegetables into the business end of an uncooked turkey.
“Why do I have to sleep in the basement with Izzy? What happened to her room?”
“We were going to convert it into a guest bedroom for you two, but since neither of you came home for Thanksgiving this year, I turned it into my painting studio.”
“Can’t I sleep with Remy?”
“No,” she grunted as she lifted the heavy roasting pan into the oven. She set the timer and zipped over to the dinner table and started decorating cookies. “Nana is coming in tomorrow and she’ll be sharing Remy’s room. Now go and get your stuff out of here before someone trips and breaks their neck.” I picked up my suitcase and made my way to the basement steps, careful to avoid stepping on Fred. Before I got very far, my mom called out to me again from the kitchen.
“And Elliot?”
“Yeah?” I grumbled.
“I’m so happy you’re home,” she said sweetly, then set down the cookie she was icing and gave me a look that sent shivers down my spine. “But after dinner tonight I think you and I have some things we need to discuss.”
Fuck.
I left the kitchen and descended into the basement where Izzy was sprawled on the pullout couch mindlessly scrolling through Netflix. Her clothes and shit were everywhere. She glanced over at me for a second before returning her attention to the TV.
“Are you gonna make room or what?” I asked as I dropped my suitcase at the foot of the bed.
“No thanks, I was here first,” she said casually.
“Are you serious?”
“You can share with me if you want, but I like to sleep naked.”
I shuddered at the thought. “Ew, gross. Never mind, I’ll take the floor.” I grabbed a pillow and a blanket Mom had left for us and started setting up a makeshift bed on the floor.
“How did finals go?” Izzy asked while she continued to scroll through movie options.
“Let’s just say . . . there was room for improvement.”
“So, you bombed?”
“Pretty much.” I looked over and Izzy was trying to stifle a laugh. “Mind your own business, Izzy.”
Izzy tossed the remote aside and flopped onto her stomach. “You know, your GPA is fucked now. Starting off low is really hard to come back from—”
“Iz, for real, can we not talk about this, please?”
She grinned, so satisfied with her ability to stir shit up. “All right then, let’s talk about Theo. You remember him, don’t you? My friend you slept with in my bed over Thanksgiving?”
My face burned. “Oh, so, uh, you know about that.”
“Yeah, he wouldn’t shut up about it. I mean, damn, Elliot. Theo is one of the biggest players at Columbia Med, but he spends one night with you and now he’s a total wreck.”
“Oh please, he’s fine. He knew exactly what that night was about.”
“I dunno,” she teased. “Ever since Thanksgiving, whenever I see him in labs, he always asks why you haven’t called him back.”
“Why would I take his calls? It was just one hook-up, and besides, the dude lives in New York. What, does he think I’m gonna take the bus down there every weekend and be his girlfriend? Please.” I finished making my floor bed and shoved all of Izzy’s crap into a corner in order to make room for all of my crap.
“Just call or text him that you aren’t interested and put him out of his misery already.”
“I already did! It’s not my fault he can’t take a fucking hint and get over it.”
“Whatever,” she muttered. “You still didn’t have to do him in my bed.”
“Consider it pre-payment for you not sharing the pullout with me.” I kicked my shoes off and laid down on my new floor-bed while Izzy flipped over onto her back again. She resumed looking for something to watch until she scrolled past Mad Max: Fury Road.
“Wanna watch Fury Road?” she asks me.
“Always,” I said, and then for the next two hours, we watched Fury Road in silence until Mom called us upstairs for dinner.
December 19
My nana arrived from Louisville, Kentucky, with a back seat full of presents and a trunk full of bourbon. Over dinner that night, she asked me if I had a boyfriend up there at that school and I told her no. My nana, master of the backhanded compliment, replied, “Oh honey, don’t worry! You’ll catch one soon enough with that sparkling personality, but I’d mind the waffles, my dear. It looks like you put on a few extra pounds.”
December 20
Why is it you always run into people you don’t want to see when you look your absolute worst? I was at Target, putting random shit into my cart that I had no intention of purchasing, when in the tampon aisle I ran into three of my friends from high school. The same friends I hadn’t spoken to since I found out they knew the entire time my ex was cheating on me but didn’t say anything. I tried to back out of the aisle before being spotted, but my red cart knocked over a row of Tampax and caused a scene.
We exchanged pleasantries, they asked how I was doing at Emerson, I lied and told them I was killing it, and they updated me on their new lives as well. The one I had been closest to, Jane, said, “We should get coffee and really catch up some time,” and I said sure even though I don’t think either of us had any intention of sticking to that plan. And that was that.
For the past year, I had been so angry and hurt by what they did. But what’s interesting was even though seeing them reopened old wounds, the pain from their betrayal didn’t feel quite as acute anymore. The second I found out they didn’t have my back, I dropped them. I didn’t think twice about it. It felt right. I thought I was better than them, that I couldn’t possibly keep a secret like that from my best friend. And yet, when I had the opportunity, I didn’t tell Lucy the truth right away either. And so, I began to regret being so rigid in my belief that cutting them out of my life was justified. Maybe it was, maybe they had been assholes for knowingly keeping me in the dark. Or maybe I was the asshole for never giving them the chance to explain. Both of these things can be true.
I don’t know how long I stayed in that Target, wandering the aisles, lost in my thoughts, but by the time I left I had decided I would find a way to tell Lucy the truth and I wouldn’t cut Micah out. I’ve seen what happens to a friendship if neither side fights for it a
nd I can’t let that happen again. Lucy and Micah are friends are worth fighting for.
December 21
I attended the winter solstice party at my Uncle Bo’s house with my entire extended family—all forty of us. As per annual tradition, we gathered in the backyard to light the ceremonial firework that contained just a sprinkle of my dead grandfather’s ashes.1
December 22
Izzy caught the flu playing her and Dad’s annual See Who Can Roll Around in the Snow Longest While Wearing Nothing but a T-Shirt and Shorts Game while my mom and I finally had that chat about my grades. I will spare you the details of that scene. Let’s just say if I don’t bring my grades up soon, this book will end very prematurely.
December 23
Remy and I had a heart-to-heart while doing our laundry together. And Remy, oh, Remy. My little sister isn’t so little anymore. In the span of four months, she managed to grow two inches and sprout some chicken cutlets for boobs. We used to be so close, she was my little shadow for all of her life but even though we video-chatted every week, I had missed out on so much of her life.
“No, Lucy and I didn’t exchange gifts this year,” I told my little sister as we did our laundry on Christmas Eve Eve morning. “We, uh, we decided to save money this year.”
“Izzy told me you had a fight with Lucy,” Remy said as she turned the dial on the washer.2 “Don’t be mad at Izzy, she didn’t give me details, she just said you’re having a rough time and I should be nice to you.”3
“Izzy really said that?”
“Yep. Do you want me to send you back to college with some dryer balls? I just got these new ones and they are much better than dryer sheets.”
“I’m good on the balls, Remy, but thanks.” I started sorting the next load. Remy squatted next to me in her trademark pose she likes to call Frog-oonie and helped me sort.
“Are you gonna be okay, big sis?” Remy asked sweetly, and it knocked the wind out of me. If someone as innocent and optimistic as my little sister was worried about me, then that really means shit has gotta change.