The Van Pact

32: Valerie

"Daaaaaddd," I whined. "Let me work on my shit college essay that I'm not really gonna submit."

"Valerie," my dad rested his chin on the palm of his hand, "We need to talk about Stevie."

***

"You are friends," my dad crossed his arms. "You don't give up nine years of friendship over one stupid comment."

Oh contraire.

"You don't," my dad repeated. He sounded sterner than I'd ever heard him. "I know I can't tell you how to feel, but don't cut her out completely. Give yourself time to cool down."

"I am cool," I insisted, "I don't care."

"You do care," my dad argued, "otherwise you wouldn't even remember the one comment."

"It wasn't just one comment." The words jumped out of me before I could stop them. I didn't want to talk. Why was I talking? My dad looked at me confused. Oh Lordy. Now he'd expect me to explain myself further.

"Okay, I was trying to help her, okay?" I felt like there were spiders all over my skin. "She could hardly talk to the cashiers when we'd go to the damn Chick Fil A."

"I know you meant well," my dad set his hand over mine, "but sometimes you can only help someone who wants to be helped."

"But, she needed help, and-" I began.

My dad shook his head.

I closed my mouth.

"Valerie," he said, "I'm going to tell you something that Stevie doesn't know, and you can't tell her. You promise you'll keep this to yourself?"

I didn't plan on seriously talking to Stevie ever again, so, I had to agree to those terms and conditions.

"You know I'm friends with Gary," my dad's gaze fell to the floor, then jumped to my desk, and then to the ceiling. "He's had some trouble for a very long time."

"What kind of trouble?" I pictured the most dramatic scandals: embezzlement, prostitution rings, type two diabetes-

"I can't make a diagnosis," my dad parroted one of my mom's classic lines, "but I think he's depressed."

Not so much of a scandal, I thought.

"He never bounced back after Stevie's mom left," my dad continued. "A few years ago, I mentioned one of your mom's college friends, she's a therapist now. I thought maybe it'd spark something in him." He pursed his lips. "Nothing." He looked about as uncomfortable now as Stevie ever did. Things were about to get interesting.

"Anyway, he called me a couple weeks ago," my dad pulled on the fingers of his left hand. "He had his first second date in years. It went so badly that he started to think he'd be alone forever and didn't want to live anymore."

Okay. I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn't. Mr. O'Shaughnessy? Had a death wish? Over a bad date?

"And that's what did it," my dad shifted his gaze back onto mine. "He caught himself thinking about suicide when Stevie came home. He realized then that she would be the one to find his body."

WHAT THE HELL? I thought. TOO INTERESTING. TOO MUCH.

"I got him in touch with the therapist I mentioned, and they've been considering treatment options." My dad must have seen the look on my face, because then he said: "So, why am I telling you this, right?"

"I don't know if I wanna know," I stammered.

"I've been wanting to help Gary for years," my dad said, "but he had to want the help too."

"Yeah, but Stevie doesn't have a mental illness," I said, even though I admit I haven't read enough psychiatric literature to make a definitive diagnosis, "she's just awkward."

"That might be true," my dad conceded, "but it always takes a lot of work to change habits. You can't trick somebody into putting in that work."

"But-" I don't know why I objected. I didn't have anything intelligent to say.

"That's not to say you shouldn't try to help someone," my dad pressed down on my mattress and stood up. "You should and you can. Just not always in the way you think they need to be helped."

For some reason, that last sentence of his stung. It was as if he had said I went too far. When Stevie showed me what Jesse had texted her, I got that same stinging feeling too. It's a very specific feeling. Hard to explain. The closest analog was the last Halloween I trick or treated on, maybe three years ago, when I gorged myself on Swedish Fish and A-Treat Big Blue. I remember lying on Stevie's bathroom floor, chunky purple vomit in my hair, and thinking, quite succinctly, that I went too far. And I know myself, at least. Going too far is one mistake I'm very capable of making. I do it all the time.

I think my dad knew how I felt then, because he kissed the top of my head.

"So you made a mistake," he shrugged. "That's what erasers are for."

***

A/N: Thanks for reading, voting, and commenting! I promise the melodramatic plot turns will be slowing down shortly- let me know what you think!