Over the weekend, my temperature stayed normal, so I was over the infections. I drove Grandpa to the airport--he was eager to move down and I was eager for him to be nearby too--visited the park to hang out with my friends a little, and started season two of Stranger Things. While I loved the quality and dense plotting of the story, it was frustrating that there weren't more episodes. My friends and I talked about what I'd seen so far, and it was funny how agitated they got in their efforts to avoid spoilers, which I appreciated.
"Poor Will," I sighed. "Those mental returns to the Upside Down suck. He must have a raging case of PTSD." See, I was learning stuff in psychology already. "You gotta wonder why Joyce takes him back to that lab, though. Hello, vortex of all that is bad."
"Maybe it's the only place that has the facilities to deal with it," Maya suggested.
"Or maybe they're doing it for free," Zayna said. "I can't remember if cost is brought up. But they do owe Will." We nodded over that.
"I like Max," Cass said enthusiastically. "I like how she beats the video game scores and doesn't apologize." We all liked Max. I hoped she would keep up her butt-kicking ways.
"The Halloween thing killed me," Keshondra said, laughing. "Dressing up when nobody else did? And they did a coordinated group costume. They were all so proud." We laughed. Middle school wasn't so far behind us that we couldn't feel the sting of the faux pas.
"I'm glad Eleven is ok," I said. "I'm worried about her, though. And I like Bob. But OMG, Dustin! You live in Hawkins! You know that lizard critter is up to no good!"I empathized with Dustin's desire to find something unique and important and stand out, though. The girls laughed and Carol zipped her lips.
"Spoilers! You better finish the episodes fast so we can talk about it," she said, and we all laughed. We talked longer about other things--they all went to the other high school, so our classes didn't intersect, but we were taking some of the same classes and our teachers did things differently. It wasn't the jock school I'd originally thought, but mine was still a little tougher.
"So what's going on with you?" Zayna asked me. "You seem frazzled, and not just because of the tonsillitis and whatnot."
"Strep and a sinus infection," I sighed. The girls winced. "Do you really want to know?"
"We're your friends, Delia," Keshondra said sternly. "We do, and unless you're breaking the law, we can keep it to ourselves. If you have a problem being law-abiding, I'm going to the cops because my folks will kill me if I hang out with a criminal." We all laughed, then I had a silent debate with myself.
"So my older brother is 'Starry' Knight," I said, making the quote marks around his name obvious.
"I wondered," Carol said, and I nodded.
"He started training when he was six or seven. And ever since then, as a result, there has been a change in my parents. They gradually got focused on the skater until they barely noticed me. And the money for training an elite skater is mind-boggling, and it really jumped when we moved here so he could train at the rink." I decided on impulse to spill the whole thing. "It was tolerable until I found that my mom had taken some of the college fund that my grandma left me to pay for the skater's plasma treatments that weren't covered by insurance. Then I blew a gasket. And got sick. And my grandpa came down, uncovered the extent of the problem, and now he's moving here, there will be changes, like the skater has to cut back on all the extras he loves so much, Mom and Dad won't have to work so much... and I'm just so over it. I am so angry and resentful that I can't even. And I have no idea what to do with it all." The girls digested this all in silence. "Oh, and if I hear the word 'sacrifice,' I'm not going to be responsible for my reaction, unless it's in the context of human sacrifice rituals."
"Trigger word," Carol said. "Got it."
"Gotta say that your brother's a dick," Zayna said.
"He didn't always use to be, but the recognition and the attention has gone to his head," I said gloomily. "He was awesome when we were kids."
"Huh," said Maya. "So, what are you worried about?"
"I'm kind of expecting everything to go back to the way it was before I had a meltdown," I said. "After a couple of months, a creep back to the old way of things. Except that now nobody has access to the savings account with my college money but me. And for the life of me, I can't decide if that would be all bad. I've got so much rage and resentment, what's a little more? If they're going to be parents, they're probably going to want to know what I'm doing, have a veto power over my activities, such as they are."
"Delia," Zayna said, "that's what parents do."
"Not my parents. I've gone days without seeing them, and they never asked too much about where I was or anything, as long as I didn't get into trouble. Which I don't. Although Keshondra, you have a choice to make. I have an illegal Netflix account, and it's kind of a gray area that I have my own Amazon Prime account." My friend looked startled, then she laughed.
"You're such a rebel," she said mockingly.
We talked a little more, the girls carefully not being too critical, until I decided I'd better get home. It was getting cold, and I didn't want any leftover bacteria to mount a comeback on my recovering immune system. My friends laughed when I explained.
"You can just say you're going home," Cass said, amused.
"I'm used to justifying," I said, shrugging.
"When did you take anatomy and physiology?" Carol asked. "I took bio, but it was all tree leaf identification and squamata and frog dissection." She wrinkled her nose.
"I haven't. When my brother started getting specific injuries from skating, I didn't know what things like a quandriceps was, so I looked it up."
"Girl, he does not deserve you," Zayna said. I smiled a little.
"No, he does not." And I waved at them and drove off. I was going to enjoy driving Grandpa's car while I could. I was going to go home, but realizing that I'd be mostly depending on my skateboard made me reconsider, and I went shopping for a jacket that was warmer than my pretty windbreaker. I found a really nice rain-resistant forest green jacket that had copper colored details, including the zipper pulls and the fleece lining. It was warm but not bulky like my parka from Michigan and had a hood, and best of all, it was on the clearance rack as the store was getting stuff for spring in. I splurged and got a pair of black mittens that had the top that folded back to let you use your fingers and felt prepared for all-season riding. The nice salesman cut off the tags so that I could wear them out of the store. I zipped the jacket and didn't turn on the heat in the car so I could enjoy it. The color made my hair look brighter and prettier.
When I got home, Mom was curled up on the couch reading a book. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen that. She looked up. "Where did you get that coat, Delia?" she asked. "It looks really pretty."
Points for effort. "I just bought it. On sale, even," I explained, putting my new mitts into the pockets and shrugging it off, hanging it and my windbreaker up. "The windbreaker Grandpa gave me isn't really warm enough but my winter coat from home is too hot. This is water resistant and lined."
"Why didn't you ask for one for Christmas?" she asked, putting her book down, opened on the pages. I wanted to ask her to use a bookmark, but refrained.
"I haven't been asked what I wanted for Christmas or my birthday for what, three years now? No, two." Mom looked a little cross. "If you'd have asked, I'd have given you sizes and colors. As it was, the pants were too big and the colors of the blouses were wrong."
"Delia, you used to love pink."
"When I was a kid. Then the last time that Grandma Knight visited us, she said it looked horrible on me and you agreed." I considered that. "It was bubblegum pink, which yeah, does look awful with my hair."
My mom rubbed her forehead and eyes. "Delia, the last time they visited us was five or six years ago. You shouldn't believe everything that she says. Wear what you like."
"What I like is to look good," I shrugged. "There aren't a lot of people with my particular natural hair color and I'm proud of it. And yeah, Grandma Knight is not my favorite grandma, even with Grandma dead, but she had a point. And you agreed."
"I was trying not to aggravate her. We don't get along. I wasn't aware that you'd heard her. Or me. I'm sorry about that. And I apologize for not checking your preferences."
"Ok," I said reasonably and started for my room.
"What would you like for dinner?" she asked, and I stopped to think about what we had.
We ended up ordering pizza.
It wasn't even a bad night.
I stayed in the next day; the parents were in and out, and I finished the second series of Stranger things, which was both good and bad because there will be a long wait for the next season. Eleven needs serious, top level professional help, I felt really bad for poor Bob, geeze, demodogs, I wouldn't mind having Steve babysit me even if he were a crap boyfriend (which he was, leaving Nancy drunk at the party, but Nancy wasn't a very good girlfriend either), Max's blended family is in dire need of an intervention, I'm strangely disappointed because while Max is still tough, she's kind of one-dimensional, and honestly, Joyce needs to move her kid to Alaska or some such because DAMN, poor Will. I'm also not a big fan of Eleven's diversion to Chicago, although her new look is pretty bitchin', if I've got the old slang right. And I might not. But whatever. And Mike, bless his heart. It's been a hard year for him. Nancy redeems herself in the end, saving Dustin's self-esteem at the Snowball Dance. Max and Lucas are so cute. And Hopper getting Eleven's--excuse me, Jane's-- birth certificate made me tear up a little. And I also don't think that Hopper has any idea what he's really getting into.
I also spent time doubling down for the SATs, because they're coming up. I feel pretty good about them, because even though they'll probably be harder than the PSATs, I know I can kick some butt. Two weeks, right before the national championship. It's going to suck to be John. He's got to take the test and fly right out to Indianapolis for the competition.
I went back to school the next day and it wasn't too bad. We'd covered the most ground in pre-calc, but thanks to John, I was up to speed there. It was nice to be back to my normal, familiar classes and friends. Coach remembered and put me in at goalie, which was nice because I didn't have much to do even trying hard. I made two good saves and let two in, which I didn't think was bad since this was my first outing as a keeper. "That's ok, Knight!" Coach yelled at me after the first miss. "Pick yourself up and try again!"
After school, I went to the guidance counselor and updated her, then shared my concerns about my family and how I felt.
"I'm not going to take sides," she said. (I'd peeked at the diploma on her wall and she had a degree in psychology, so she must have some insight into my problems.) "I think it will be more helpful to you if I can provide you with alternative perspectives to think about. But I can validate that you have a right to your feelings. It's a difficult situation, to have one child in an elite program and the other not, but your parents could have handled things differently. You know this, they know this. I'll tell you frankly, that there is no way to compensate you for the lost time and the damage to your family relationships, the damage it's done to you, erase the past. What you will have to determine for yourself is whether or not you can get past it. If honest regret and whatever your family does is enough. You want your pound of flesh, that's understandable, but you might find that the price to get it is too high. I understand that you may feel like torching the bridge and walking away, checking out emotionally, but something to consider is that they are your family and you might want that connection in the future. It will be harder to bridge the gap the longer estrangement exists."
"What's that thing about the pound of flesh? I don't get it, and it's gross." She smiled.
"It's from the Merchant of Venice. Shylock is actually entitled to a pound of flesh because it's collateral for a loan. Then you get Portia's famous speech about the quality of mercy, and it turns out that Shylock could have his pound of flesh, but not a drop of blood. You see the difficulty there." I nodded. "You have to remember that this is Elizabethan England, and which Jews had been expelled back in the 1200s, so it's an imagining of what Jews were like, and it also alludes to hints of the blood libel, where Jews were falsely accused of using the blood of Christian infants for ceremonies around Passover. Shylock as a character is enraged and vengeful. There's a whole lot of stuff going on, and some Shakespearian interpretators have Shylock not going for Antonio's heart but his privates, because Shakespeare uses 'flesh' in that way elsewhere, he stole it from the Geneva Bible. But the parents would have a fit if the English teachers discussed that, so they don't, and they teach Romeo and Juliet instead."
"That's way more than I wanted to know," I said after it sunk in. "I get the point, though. Ew."
"Sorry, Delia. But just remember that you're entitled to your emotions because they arise from others' actions toward you. Think about what would make you happy, what you might need to forgive. My sister's a lawyer, and they're always talking about what it takes to make a plaintiff whole again in personal injury cases. That's a legal fiction, because after a traumatic event, you're never going to be the same. But it's about what you can obtain in recompense. And it's ok if you don't know. When it's time to discuss it, the others will have to have their input. See what they have to offer, and if it's enough." We talked a little more, and I felt more prepared to deal with my family afterward, and I was told to stop by anytime I needed to talk. It was really nice to have that lifeline. And although she said she wasn't picking sides, I felt like she was on mine, by helping me to see past my own feelings and be receptive to what they would have to say. I wasn't rushing toward a confrontation, though. I was content to let things ride for awhile.
The next couple weeks passed smoothly enough, and I felt that I was well prepared for the test. John was kind of a mess, but he hadn't had as much time to study as I had. "You're smart, though," I said as we waited outside the classroom. Mom was a proctor for the test, but she wasn't in my classroom. Neither was John, so I had to get my pep talk out of the way fast. "The main point is to do well enough to get into a good college, even if it's not the best. There you won't have the distractions from skating, and you can go on to grad school after acing those tests."
He looked at me ruefully. "I'm stealing that in case my parents are disappointed," he said.
"You could always take them again if you really have to," I said, and he groaned and rested his forehead briefly on my shoulder.
"No, we're both going to be amazing," he said confidently, and with that, they opened the school and we went in.