My back finds the comfort of a few stacked boxes, so I decide to spend the next thirty minutes waking up right here, just like this. I consider crawling back to the bed and forgetting about heading to the club when my door pops open. My mom carries a stack of fresh towels and my latest round of laundry, folded into perfectly neat squares. I smile at it, or at least, I think my face is smiling. I’m not entirely sure because I can’t be certain that I feel my lips right now. I bring my hand to my mouth and rub it, relieved when I feel my touch.
“You’re a mess,” my mom says after setting my basket of laundry on the mattress. She picks up last night’s dress and a few other items I’ve left on the floor, then rolls them into a ball and tucks them under her arm as if she’s going to drive them to the end zone. She’s pissed. I can tell by the way her hand is on her hip.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I moan. I let my head roll to one side along the soft cardboard behind me.
“Like what? Like my daughter is throwing away the most important thing in her life?”
I blink a few times before lifting my head to meet her waiting stare. She is not blinking.
“I’m not throwing anything away. I just wanted to blow off some stress last night, maybe show the new girl a good time,” I say, pulling my knees in. Step one to standing.
“You also showed her what it feels like to throw up in a stranger’s toilet,” my mom says, lips pursed and weight shifting, jutting out her other hip.
She’s really pissed.
I scrunch my face.
“Amber got sick?” I ask.
“Yeah. Your friend Holly took care of her. She drove her back this morning to get her car. Told me to tell you she’d give you a call later tonight,” my mom says, moving to the doorway.
“Where…was Will here? He…he drove us,” I say.
My mom stops at the door, her back to me.
“I didn’t see him. Your dad said he walked home last night, though. Your father heard you all come in and offered to drive him, but Will refused,” she says. She tilts her head to the side, glancing at me over her shoulder just enough that our eyes meet one more time.
I was wrong. She isn’t pissed. She’s disappointed. Whole different emotion. Whole lot more guilt.
I wallow in my self-made misery for another thirty minutes, eventually tying my hair up and getting changed into my swim suit, sliding on my cut-off shorts and favorite flip-flops.
My mom is at the table, reading through what looks like a set of planning documents.
“I’m heading to swim,” I say.
I pause at the other end of the table. She looks up at me, pushing her black-rimmed glasses down her nose, and nods. We both glance at the top of each other’s heads, our brown hair twisted into knots. I smirk as she chuckles.
“You’re more like me than you care to admit,” she says.
My lips pinch in as I fight against my smile, eventually giving in and grinning.
“I hope so,” I say, walking around the table and kissing my mom’s cheek when she gives it to me. “Try not to piss off too many lobbyists today.”
She groans and turns her attention back to the pile of documents, and I run my hand along the table’s edge as I head to the door. My father and I pass one another, and he stops on the stoops as I rush past him, his arms folded across his chest and his keys dangling from his thumb.
“Don’t worry. I’m going to swim. Always getting faster,” I say, waving over my shoulder without turning around.
My dad’s not as forgiving as my mom, and if he was here when we came home, he probably has a good visual on how off my game I was. As long as I don’t let any of that carry over in the pool, he’ll get over it. I just need to avoid talking about it until he sees me swim again.
I get to my car and don’t look his direction until I can see him in my rearview mirror. He’s still standing in the same spot, one hand on the side of his face. We haven’t been coach and athlete in a while. When I went to Valpo, my dad let them take over the reins completely. He said it was good for me, and he was right. But now we’re both in this position where we need to navigate back to those old roles, only we’ve both changed a lot since the last time we were in them. My father has to think about more than just me. I have to think about myself. We’re both still trying to figure out what’s in the middle.
I flip through a few radio stations, settling on the local news on my way to the club. Every song makes me think of something, but local sports and traffic seems to empty my head, and that feeling is welcomed. Will’s car is in the same place it was last night, and Amber’s car is gone. I pull up to park next to Will, but I wait with the air running, my eyes glazing over as I stare at the weeds and brush along the gravel drive.
One thing became abundantly clear last night—Will’s company makes me feel just a little bit better. It’s also the reason I feel worse, but the scales seem to balance somehow when he’s around. I missed him. I missed us.