But the weird thing was, Amanda was stepping right on it. It wasn’t sticky at all.
I looked at Kendra. She smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “Be careful.”
9
Things that happened in ninth grade:
Ninth grade was the year college scouts started looking at Amanda.
It was the year Nolan got busted for smoking weed on a field trip to the planetarium.
It was the year I started the Caveman Diet and worked out ninety minutes a day, gained ten pounds but not an inch of height.
It was the year the Gay-Straight Alliance wanted a day of silence for gay bullying, but the school decided people should be able to do it for whatever cause they wanted. One girl chose lobster empathy. I couldn’t make this up.
It was the year I was chosen Rookie of the Year but didn’t make varsity. I was too short.
Oh, and it was the year my parents got separated.
Matt and I knew it was coming. Or we knew something was, anyway. For one thing, Dad was actually home a lot more than usual. In a typical week for, oh, most of my life, Dad worked late at least four nights, worked one weekend day, and had an important, work-related golf game on the other. Lately, he’d also started going to the gym at five a.m. so he wasn’t home in the morning either.
But then, for a month, he started coming home semi–on time several days a week, and he and my mom locked themselves in the bedroom after dinner.
“Do you think they’re doing it?” Matt asked when we were clearing the table.
“I can’t imagine them ever doing it.”
“They’ve done it at least twice.”
“Mom must have made an appointment.”
“Listen at the door,” Matt said.
“To see if they’re doing it? No thanks.”
But just then, something broke in their room. I heard Dad yell, “Shit! Why’d you do that?”
“Must’ve been an accident. Like that e-mail Julia accidentally sent you.”
“I told you, she was just updating me on—”
“I’m not stupid,” Mom said. “I’d have to be stupid to trust you after that e-mail. Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
“She was just—”
“I don’t even care if you think I’m stupid. I just can’t do this anymore.”
“Fine. I’m going to the gym.”
“Will she be there?”
“For God’s sake, no.”
Two days later, they sat us down in the family room before dinner or, I should say, instead of dinner, because dinner never happened. Mom said, “Your father and I need to talk to you boys.”
“We need to talk to you boys like adults.”
“They’re not adults, David,” Mom said.
“They’re fifteen and seventeen. You always coddle them.”
“Because you don’t coddle them at all. You don’t even go to Chris’s games.”
“Just because I’m not like Tim Lasky, with all this free time.”
“God, can you stop it?” Matt had his hands over his ears and was yelling.
Both my parents shut up and looked at Matt.
“It’s obvious you’re getting a divorce. We’ve heard all about the e-mail, the girlfriend, not to mention the fact that he’s barely been home for—oh, the last ten years.
“I can’t believe this,” Dad said. “I work to support this family, and I get . . .”
He kept talking, but I stopped listening. He hadn’t denied the part about having a girlfriend. I felt like he was cheating on me, on our whole family, not just Mom.
But I also felt like I hadn’t really lost anything. Nothing was different. It was like I’d always known he wasn’t part of us, but I’d avoided the knowledge. Now it was there, unavoidable, and it was a little bit of a relief not to have to pretend anymore.
He finished his oration, saying, “At some point, I realized I haven’t been happy in twenty years. That’s a hard thing to realize.”
It wasn’t a surprise that he felt that way, only that he said it. Did this guy really have no clue?
I said, “Really, Dad? Twenty years?”
That was when I walked out. Dad was screaming after me. I don’t know why he cared. So was Mom, but the blood was rushing through my ears, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I looked back to see Matt applauding me.
I said, “I’m going to see the people who have time for me.”
And I took off, running. I wasn’t wearing shoes, and the Laskys lived maybe three miles away, so I ran on the street, ran across the neighbors’ gravel driveway, across the grass. I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. I ignored it. There was no one I wanted to talk to. Even though I was barefoot, I could tell I was fast, faster than I’d ever been, and I sort of wished I’d turned on my app, but if I did, it would ruin the pure anger of it, and that was what was pushing me. What a jerk, blaming me, blaming Mom, blaming everyone but himself.
I’d run as far as the park when Matt caught up to me in his car.
“Hey, you want a ride?”
“No. No thanks.”
“You’re not crying or anything, are you? I can’t let you embarrass the family like that.”
I started to tell him to screw off, but then I noticed he was crying. I stopped. I said, “Nah, I’m okay.”