Or, more accurately, his mom told him, standing in the backyard in her pajamas with the first and only cigarette Ryan had ever seen her smoke clutched between her fingers. “It’s a long time coming, lovey,” she said, clearly trying to keep her voice even. “You had to kind of know that, right?”
Ryan both had and hadn’t, he guessed: on one hand, it wasn’t as if he’d thought his parents liked each other, exactly. On the other, he’d always figured it was a chronic, manageable condition. Like diabetes.
“It’ll be fine,” his mom continued, and sniffled, though Ryan wasn’t sure if she was crying or if it was just the cigarette smoke. “I’ve got you, don’t I? You’ve always been the best man in this house anyhow.”
“Sure,” Ryan said, patting her on the shoulder. “Yeah, of course.”
His dad was in the small, cramped bathroom, tossing various items from the medicine cabinet into a dopp kit perched on the edge of the sink. “Where are you gonna go?” Ryan asked him, hovering awkwardly in the doorway.
“Who knows,” his dad said, conscripting the anti-itch cream and a battered box of Band-Aids. “Your mother would have me be fucking homeless, probably. But anyplace is better than here.” He looked at Ryan then. “No offense, kiddo.”
Ryan waved his hand to show there was none taken.
“You know I don’t mean—”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “No, I know.”
His dad paused for a moment of deliberation, took the toothpaste out of the cup on the bottom shelf, then gestured for Ryan to move out of the doorway. “I’ll be back to get the rest of my stuff sometime this week,” he said as he headed into the master bedroom, Ryan following at his heels. “You wanna do your old man a favor, you can haul those boxes of my Thunder gear out of the garage.”
Ryan watched as his dad yanked open the top drawer of the bureau, began tossing handfuls of socks and boxers in the general direction of a gym bag on the bed. “Um,” he said after a moment, feeling like a putz even as he opened his mouth. “We’ve got that game against Hudson High on Thursday, the one you said you were gonna try and make it to? If you wanted to maybe time it so you came by then.”
His dad sighed loudly. “I don’t know, kid. I’ll try.”
“I—sure,” Ryan said, nodding like a ventriloquist’s dummy, hating both his parents a little bit. Hating himself most of all. “Absolutely.”
Back in his room he shut the door and lay down on top of the bedspread. He felt like he had too much energy to be by himself. He was thinking he’d go for a run even though he’d just worked his ass off at practice when his phone let out a chime from the back pocket of his jeans: Remy Dolan, his Big Brother from the team. PARTY TONIGHT, FRESHMAN, the text said. You ready to get sloppy?
He thought for a second about telling Remy his parents were getting divorced, which was laughable. Ryan actually didn’t think there was anybody he would tell. Two months into freshman year and he had a million people to hang out with, hockey teammates and cafeteria buddies and a not-insignificant number of girls who were trying to date him, but none of them were exactly the kind of friends he wanted to talk to about stuff that actually mattered. It occurred to Ryan all of a sudden that he didn’t know if he knew anyone who fit that description. But that seemed like a colossally dopey thing to be worrying about when there was a party to go to, so he put it out of his mind and looked at Remy’s text again.
Yeah, he typed back after a moment. I really am.
GABBY
Gabby slammed her book shut and tossed it onto the quilt in her bedroom, huffing loudly even though there was nobody to hear her. The party was clattering on downstairs, all buzz and laughter; she’d been hiding up here for the better part of an hour now, reading the same paragraph over and over. As much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, she couldn’t stop stewing about what Celia had said.
Whatever, Gabby thought. It wasn’t like she couldn’t go to a party. There was a difference between not wanting to go and not being able to.
Right?
Gabby hesitated another moment, then slung her feet over the side of the bed. She could be normal. She could attempt that, somehow. She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans and headed for the door to her bedroom, stopping at the last minute to run a brush through her hair and slick on a little bit of lip gloss. Then she gritted her teeth and went downstairs.
Their house was packed. There were people in the hallway and slouched on the sofas; Gabby had to scoot around three different bodies just to get down the stairs. Something had spilled on the rug in the living room. The cloying smell of weed was thick in the air.
“Look who showed up!” Celia crowed across the living room when she saw her. Celia was drunk; Gabby could tell by her flushed cheeks and the looseness in her limbs. It made Gabby even more nervous than she already was.
“Guys, this is my sister!” Celia called loudly; Gabby winced as a dozen pairs of eyes cut directly to her. “I’m on a mission to convince her that parties aren’t all devil-worshiping ceremonies with ritual human sacrifice.”
Gabby felt herself flush. “That’s not what I think,” she muttered. Everyone was looking at her. She could feel the beginnings of a full-blown panicker, that telltale numbness in her hands and arms. Sometimes it even happened in the tip of her nose, though she’d never told that part to her parents. They’d think she was crazy, and she wasn’t crazy. No matter what Celia seemed to think.
She stood there awkwardly for another endless moment—a total and obvious outsider, even though this was her house where she lived. It felt like she didn’t belong anywhere. It felt like she probably never would.
“Little sister, how come you’ve been hiding upstairs this whole time?” asked some stupid-looking guy friend of Celia’s sporting the shadowy beginnings of a beard. It reminded Gabby of a little kid dressing up as a hobo for Halloween. “Don’t you like us?”
“Not particularly,” Gabby muttered. God, this had been a huge mistake. She should have known better than to put herself in this stupid position. She should have known better than to even try. “I just came down to get a snack,” she said to Celia, hoping her sister was drunk enough not to notice that she hadn’t actually made it to the kitchen. “See you.”
“Aw, where you going, little sister?” the guy called after her. Gabby ignored him. She scrambled back up the stairs so fast she almost tripped over them, like when she was a little kid and her dad used to chase her up to her room for bedtime. Gabby had never actually liked that game, and she didn’t like this, either. She wanted every single one of these people out of her house. She knew Celia would have called her an old lady, a wet blanket, a loser. She kind of couldn’t bring herself to care.
There was no way she was going to sleep anytime soon, but there was nothing left to do but get ready for bed and sulk with the lights off and the door locked. She guessed she might as well brush her teeth. She crept down the hallway, pushed the bathroom door open—