Dedicated to BringEmDown because her last comment made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Also, her comments are always ah-mazing and anyone who gets them is very lucky :)
________________________________________________________________________
Eight
It doesn’t take me long to realize that doing nothing in the living room is a whole lot different than doing nothing in my bedroom. For one, my mother isn’t writing her book like she usually does during the day – she’s in the kitchen, doing nothing. Well, not nothing exactly. I’d bet good money that she’s listening to me, waiting for a sound of movement every few minutes to know that I’m still breathing.
For two, when my father is home both my parents are always coming and going past me, each time asking if I need anything, to which I decline. It’s like I can never be alone for more than five minutes and every time that I am, I end up anticipating the next time somebody is going to come into the room.
For three, I’m not allowed to really do nothing. During the day, Mom makes me put on the TV so she can trick herself into believing that I’m actually watching. So here I am, hoping that I can get some time to myself staring at the screen without really seeing what’s in front of me, when Mom’s kitchen façade finally ends.
“I found you something,” she says, walking out of the kitchen archway holding something behind her back. From her smile I can already tell that she’s rehearsed this conversation three-hundred times in her head before she came through the door.
“I don’t need anything,” I reply blankly.
Mom’s smile wavers but she acts excited anyways as she holds something small and grey in front of my eyes. I squint to see it because her hands are shaking so I take it and read the familiar printing on the plastic shape.
Pokémon Stadium.
I look up at her. “Why did you give me this?”
Mom shrugs, but smiles proudly. “I remembered you used to play it all the time when you were little, so when we moved up here and left most of our electronics behind, I dug it out. I was saving it for a rainy day but I thought this counted.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say to be nice. I gently set the plastic down on my blanketed lap and try to smile. “Thanks.”
My mom looks like I’ve just given her the biggest compliment in the world. Ecstatic, she holds up one finger and runs as fast as a mom can into the kitchen. When she returns, she has a plastic bag containing the Nintendo 64 I hadn’t seen in years.
She sets it all up for me, talking non-stop about how much I used to play the game and random things about my childhood that I never knew because I was too busy living it than making mind-snapshots.
“Do you want me to play with you?”
Before he left for work this morning, my dad left a note on the floor beside me saying that Mom was upset about last night and that I should be easy on her after the worry and scare I put her through. So as much as I don’t want to spend time with her right now, I shrug and tell her yes. I guess her watching over me from somewhere I can see is less weird than when she was in the kitchen.
I pull off the blanket and make room for my mother. Cat ends up sitting in my lap, his front legs hanging over my own as he watches us choose Pokémon as if he understands the movements and words on the screen.
Halfway through our battle, which takes longer than it should because I have to help my own mother cheat because she has no idea what thunderbolt or quick attack do, the doorbell rings and she gets up to go get the door.
While she’s gone, I rush through our game by battling for her, then taking my own turn and then hers.
“Oh, hello! Come on in!”
I let my own mother win for the sake of her ego.
“Alabama, there’s someone here to see you,” she says, walking into the room. I turn around and look over my shoulder to see her move aside to let none other than porch boy into my home. Well, Evan as his name now goes. “Bama and I were just battling.”
Evan raises his eyebrows as he steps forward. He’s as tall as my mom and for some reason this makes me want to laugh, but I stifle it once Mom looks at the TV screen.
“I was going to say that you can take my place but I guess I’ve…I’ve won?”
I smile. “You’re the better Pokémon trainer.”
Mom says a few words to Evan before leaving to go into the kitchen, now to change her pastime to eavesdropping.
“How are you doing?” Evan asks, walking over to me. He looks awkward standing in front of the couch so I move over a bit and he sits down.
“Fine, I guess.”
He reaches across the space between us and when I see his hand go towards my lap, I open my mouth. His fingers land on Cat’s head instead and I close my lips, forgetting that I’ve been practically straddling a cat.
“You guess?” He stops petting Cat and looks up at me, raising his eyebrows again. Something about the expression strikes me as cute and I look away.
Shrugging, I turn back towards the TV. “Want to play?”
Something about focusing on a video game is much less awkward, especially with conversation that’s distracted that not. At first I was wary about Evan coming here, especially I’ve only been around him twice, and one time I got hit by a car.
“I came by to see how you were doing, just so you know.” He starts button mashing and I steal a glance at him. He looks ridiculously focused.
“How did you know where I live?” I ask, sounding more patronizing than I mean to.
“Your parents told me when we were in the waiting room.”
“Can I ask you something?” I turn to him and he meets my eyes, but somehow we both continue the game without even looking. “What happened?”
Evan looks confused. “You got hit by a car?”
I roll my eyes and give him a look. “No, I mean like, how did the person hit me? Who was the person? What happened to them? Nobody will say anything to me about it, especially not my parents. I tried to bring it up at dinner and they looked at me like I grew another head.”
Evan pauses for a minute, looks down at his lap. I contemplate doing the same but realize that there’s still a cat there, so I wait for him to meet my eyes.
“Does it really matter?”
I shrug. “I guess not.”
Evan nods, but doesn’t say anything.
“Are you going to tell me?” I ask.
Evan laughs and brushes his hair away before it can fall into his eyes. “I thought it didn’t matter.” When I don’t answer, he looks down at Cat and pets his head again. “It was Craig, this guy who’s known to be the beach drunk.”
“Beach drunk?”
“Like town drunk, but we’re at the beach,” he says. “Anyways, he was drunk driving, and I’m just assuming here, but he must of thought the side of the road was the middle, and he knocked you over. You fell and hit your head, and I suppose you know the rest.”
I nod. “Yup.”
Evan seems pretty easy going compared to the buzzed guy I saw on the porch the first day. I don’t know if it’s because he’s sober or saw me get hit by a truck, but now he seems different. Nicer.
“So he just drove off?” I ask quietly after a few minutes. I don’t want my mom to hear this part of the conversation and I hope that her slightly off hearing might help the situation.
“Yeah,” Evan says, scratching Cat underneath his chin. “But when the ambulance came so did the police, so your parents filed charges on top of the ones the police did.”
My mouth falls open. “My parents filed charges?” Without telling me, or even consulting me first, they went behind my back? I don’t know whether to be happy that the guy is in trouble or mad that my parents hid this from me.
“I’m taking it you didn’t know.”
“Change the subject,” I snap, waving my hand in the air as if to wave the conversation away. “Change the subject before I freak out.”
“Um…I…”
“Why don’t you like your parents?” My words come out so rushed that I can barely tell each one apart from the other, but Evan understands and doesn’t look anything but like he’s thinking, trying to come up with an appropriate answer. And for this, I’m thankful.
“Well, there’s the usual reasons a teenager slash almost adult doesn’t like their parents, but there’s also the fact that my mother is living in her oblivious bubble of rainbows and sunshine while my step-father tries and succeeds, by the way, to control her, and me.”
“Divorce Child,” I nod.
Evan looks at me with a strange expression, more confused than upset. “Is that what I am?”
I shrug. “You’re as much of a Divorce Child as I am a Shielded one.”
When my father comes home he asks – or forces, as I like to call it – Evan to stay for dinner. Our little, barely big enough for three people table is now squished in with four. Evan and I’s elbows touch, which I would consider awkward with all the bumping and sorrys if it weren’t for the fact that he’s having the same problem with my father.
Dinner is filled with questions about Evan and his parents, what they do (Mom is a teacher and step-father is a sports writer), if he has a job (not until school starts), where he lives (in his cottage year-round. It’s his full-time home), and if he has any siblings (an older brother).
Eventually, the lightning round dies down and sounds of clattering cutlery and more sorrys fill the air. When we’re done I stand up to help clear away some of the dishes, but Mom makes me stay seated.
“Bam,” Dad says, finishing a bite of his food. “You should show Evan the lighthouse. He’s seen the outside the whole time he’s lived here, so why not show him the view?”
I shrug and ignore my mother’s warning glance.
“There are rumors that it’s haunted,” Evan says.
“Well,” Dad replies, leaning back in his chair. “That’s interesting! Bam, any ghosts haunting you in the night?”
I shake my head. “None that I’m aware of.”
My father frowns. “That’s disappointing.”
On the way upstairs Evan takes each step slowly, looking up at the tunnel to my room in amazement. I’m not sure what it must feel like to see something your whole life from the outside and finally get to see the inside of the place. It must feel strange.
In my room he doesn’t say anything, just looks around once and nods before I lead him to my balcony. He leans forward on the railing, staring off over the rocks and into the ocean. Gently, I kick the on button on the tape deck and the same tape starts to play. I turn the volume lower than usual.
“It would be cool to explore down there,” Evan says, removing one of his arms from the railing to point at the rocks. “Things wash up on the rocks all the time and there’s a rumor that a ship crashed there once when the lighthouse keeper died.”
I frown. “That’s sad.”
Evan shrugs. “The legend goes that nobody knew, he was left in his house down the road and lived on his own since his wife died. Personally, I think she left him, but nobody really knows. So the light went out one day, nobody knew how to replace it but the keeper, but he was gone and the ship crashed into the rocks.”
“This rumor sounds more thought out that the lighthouse being haunted,” I note.
Evan smirks. “I think the two are kind of tied together. So we’ll go then? When you’re better?”
I don’t know why Evan wants to hang out with me all of the sudden, or why he even came here today at all. I didn’t plan on making friends here; Hadley was an accident, and I haven’t seen her since she walked me home that day. I’d much rather sit on my deck all day, staring up at the sky. But Evan’s look is one I can’t pass down, so I shrug one shoulder.
“Sure.”