“That’s all you have to say? Sorry?” Mom grabs the handles of my wheelchair and gives me a big shove. Our car is double-parked and blocking traffic. I’m maneuvered toward the backseat; my bag is removed and tossed in through the open door. Her hands grip under my armpits, as if she could lift me, and I come to.
“I can do it,” I tell her, and get into the car by myself.
“Wonderful,” she says, lightly dripping with sarcasm. “I wasn’t sure. I thought you might have brain damage or something terrible.”
“You mean horrible.”
“Fine, horrible. Why weren’t you waiting for me at the hospital?”
The city whizzes by. Somewhere behind me, Jamie’s taking pictures. I want to be there with her as she listens for the cracks and dents to call her camera near.
“Dylan!”
“Sorry.” The inside of my head feels like whipped butter. I scoop out my story. “I thought I’d make it easier on you and take the bus home. It was the wrong bus. We ended up downtown.”
“Who was the girl?”
“Jamie. We met in group.”
“If you two are in group together, then that’s where you two should be. Not flying all over the city together.”
The car feels very small. More than usual, given that the shotgun seat is all the way down for my broken leg, and my toes can almost touch the glove box.
“You should’ve called, Dylan. Or texted. I searched the hospital. I asked security; I asked every doctor and nurse in the hall. No one knew where you were. It was very upsetting. I’m very upset.”
“You mentioned that.”
“And you don’t seem to care!”
“I care,” I mutter. Jamie didn’t say goodbye.
“You need to call me before you pull a stunt like that,” she grumbles before launching a giant sigh. “Okay. Compromise. You can ride the bus with your friend, but you have to call me first.”
“I can’t have some time to myself?”
“I am not having this argument with you right now, Dylan.”
“It’s not an argument!”
“Don’t raise your voice at me.”
I glare at her in the rearview mirror. Fighting with my mom is a lose-lose situation, so I drop it. Her version of brass knuckles is guilt. No matter what I do, Mom snuffs it out with her trump cards: Widow, Single Mother, and We Don’t Have a Lot of Money. Whatever I’m going through, it pales in comparison to her struggles. Because I have no idea how hard life is….I usually run to my room with my books, but I’m stuck in the car with her this time, and I don’t even think studying would make me feel better right now. “How did you find me?”
She looks to heaven. “I asked your father for a sign. He told me where I needed to go.”
My eyes bug.
Mom pats her heart and drives on. We aim for home. I say nothing and look at the sky with jealousy. Over the years, I’ve asked my dad a million times to help me with a million different things. I’m still waiting for an answer.
EIGHT
One day later and it’s like my escape to the city never happened. Mom and I are tucked snug into our tiny two-bedroom bungalow with one extra plate at the table tonight. But we don’t mind. JP has a stacked, infinity-bedroom, infinity-bathroom palace far away in Irvington, and yet he lives in a tree house his dad had built for him instead. It’s a nice tree house, don’t get me wrong, all hooked up with electricity and stuff, but it’s a little cold and crappy in the wintertime, so Mom and I just say hi when he comes here. A place to be, a house on the ground, where he can sit and eat and feel normal. When we were kids, I always wanted to go to his house—his toys were way better—until I realized there’s a stark difference in parenting techniques between his mom and mine.
We never talk about it. Ever. But it’s there, like shadows attached to the bottom of your shoes, following you in silence. Because I mean, shit, if I were JP, I’d never go home either. And I’d be sitting on my best friend’s living-room floor and playing video games too, which is exactly what we’re doing.
“Get the fuck out of here, you piece of shit.” JP’s fingers fly with his new controller.
I run over his corpse as it evaporates and switch guns. “Kiss my ass,” I say.
“You mean, kiss my Sasquatch ass.” JP wastes a life and respawns at the start of the level way the hell over by the crumpled-up Empire State Building. “In which case, that’ll never happen,” he says, and runs to catch up. “I don’t want furballs.”
“Whatever,” I say. “Come over here again. I’ll still kill you.” Angling my guy to jump off a pile of crushed taxis, I stall. I hate this part. I always screw up here. Something about jumping doesn’t sit well with me anymore.
Crap. I die and regenerate over by the Empire State Building.
“And the Beast chokes again,” JP says.
Sometimes I want to choke him. He’s always just…I don’t know. Lucky. He’s lucky. I have no idea how he does it, but whatever tricks he has up his sleeves, girls practically wait for their turn with him. If only they knew his skater bro shit was a farce. He might look like one of the original Z-Boys of Dogtown, but in reality he gets off the bus two stops early to fake like he skated the whole way to school.
JP curses me out after I kill him: “Blow me, you hairy asshole.”
“Blow yourself.”