The door opens with a creak and shuts with a bang.
Before Mom has a chance to fly in and get all in my face, I take my homework upstairs and lie on my bed underneath my blue ceiling. Oh, Dad, I think to the infinite nothingness beyond our roof. That did not go as well as I hoped. And then I wonder, did Dad have anything to do with that?
I wish I knew what his answer might be. It dawns on me I would give anything to have five minutes with him. Just five minutes. To see his face. Hear his voice. Ask him all the questions I ask the air because all I want is to know him.
But I can’t. And I never will. So I try to keep moving, keep dealing with stuff and things. Fill my head up, ignore the void. Forget what I’ll never have. I take out my stack of five thick books with one hand and drop them on the bed. Homework. Time to do just that.
EIGHTEEN
Another day of epic bullshit; signed, sealed, and delivered. What fun I had pretending people weren’t laughing under their breath as I hobbled by. How delightful it was trying to get up the nerve to ask Ethan and Bryce to confirm that they were only kidding, right? They’re not really going after Jamie? And oh! How proud I was of myself when I chickened out every time.
I didn’t eat lunch today. I didn’t know where I would sit, didn’t know who would have me. What if the entire school has secretly hated me this whole time and I never knew? I didn’t feel like finding out.
This was supposed to be my year, dammit.
I shuffle over to the bed in my room. My pillow waits for me and I smother my face with it and yell. Not loud, but enough. I take the pillow off my face and stare at the blue, blue, blue ceiling above. When I was in the second grade, I wanted to paint it sky blue because that’s where my dad was. Up in the clouds.
Hey, Dad.
It’s me. I know it’s been awhile.
If you’re in heaven, you’re really tall now, like miles high, so here’s a joke I get all the time: How’s the weather up there?
If you thought that was funny, ha-ha, me too! I love it when people say that to me, it never gets old! If you didn’t, I don’t like that joke either. It drives me insane hearing it over and over, right? Except I don’t know your thoughts on the matter. I wish I did. I wish I knew what made you laugh, because even though everyone tells me you were a funny guy, that could mean anything. I really don’t know what your sense of humor was like.
I want to.
I wish you’d talk to me and help me out, like you do for Mom. She misses you. I miss you too, in case you didn’t think I did, because I do. I just pretend I don’t sometimes. Like when I shrug off seeing other kids’ dads pick them up after school and stuff. It’s easier that way, but it doesn’t make me miss you any less.
I’m hoping you can help me out, just for a second.
I’m thinking if I was dead inside and soulless, it’d be a really handy way to get through high school. You’ve seen JP—you know what a dick he is. And I’m stuck because he has the entire school on lockdown. He put me on the outs and that’s it for me; I’m done.
So please make me horrible. But not like with Jamie how we used to be horrible, and how we had the greatest days of my life together. I mean really authentically awful, so if I can’t be with her, I can at least survive the rest of high school as a miserable stone-faced curmudgeon.
P.S. Please make me stop growing.
And make me six inches shorter.
And a hundred pounds lighter.
And have no back hair.
Thank you.
Bye, Dad.
I miss you every day.
I close the door on my letter to a dead man and add an addendum to the universe: please, someway, somehow, take away my feelings for Jamie.
That has to go in the postscript, because I don’t want my dad to know how bad it is. All I want more than anything is a sign from above. Since I don’t know what he thinks—what he thought—about any of this stuff, I’m worried all I have is his disapproval. I mean, what if I like Jamie and Dad doesn’t? I’ll never get that sign. He’ll never talk to me.
As if the thought of my dad never talking to me weren’t scary enough, I’m worried my clock is ticking too. If my candle is set to go out at the age of twenty-six, just like his, then I kinda want Dad up in heaven to be waiting for me with open arms.
But this connection I have with Jamie won’t go away. As soon as the front door shut last night, I knew I was sunk. It’s a very strange and uncomfortable feeling because I don’t know which equation will solve the problem.