FIVE YEARS EARLIER
Forcing myself across the lawn and over to Dad’s silver Mercedes is always the hardest part of every day. My legs feel stiff as I drag my feet, my eyes on the grass as I tighten my grip around the strap of my backpack. I know he’s watching me, waiting, and I know he’s going to have a lot to say during the ten-minute ride to school. I wish Mom hadn’t shown him that letter.
I’m still staring at the ground as I reach for the handle and open up the door, avoiding Dad’s harsh glare. I slide into the passenger seat and pull my backpack around onto my lap, then click on my seatbelt. I focus my eyes on my sneakers. All I can hear is the soft purring of the engine, until Dad releases a heavy sigh and starts to drive.
He increases the volume of the radio and groans when he hears that there’s already a forty-minute delay on the freeway. I know how much he hates the drive to downtown LA each morning, and it really doesn’t help that I’ve already ruined his good mood for the day. Now he’s more aggravated than usual at this time. He shuts the radio off entirely.
“So,” he says, “what the hell are you playing at? Skipping class because you felt sick? Bullshit.”
I look at him out of the corner of my eye. He’s shaking his head at the road ahead of us and I can feel his anger in the air around us, thickening it. “I . . . I just didn’t want to go,” I tell him. I’m lying again, but at the same time, I’m thinking, Isn’t it obvious? “It’s track and field. I hate running.”
“Bullshit,” he says again. “Are you trying to rebel? Is that it? Are you trying to get in trouble just to test me?”
“No. No,” I stutter. I pick at a fraying edge on my backpack as I try to think of something to say, anything. “I’m not trying to do anything. It’s just . . . Well, it’s the locker rooms.” I bite down on my lip and hold my breath as I shut my eyes. Being honest with him is the only way I’m going to get out of this car alive.
“What about the locker rooms?”
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. I just hope he isn’t looking at me right now. I hope he’s still looking at the road. “Um. I don’t . . . I don’t want anyone . . . I don’t want anyone to ask questions.” My mouth is dry as each word sticks in my throat.
“Ask questions about what?”
My eyes flash open and I angle my face to fully stare across at him. “Dad . . .” I murmur. “You know what.”
“No,” he says more firmly, “I don’t. There’s nothing to ask questions about.”
He’s in denial. He has to be. That, or he’s crazy. “Okay,” I mumble, dropping the subject. I keep picking at the frayed edge on my backpack until it starts to get worse, splitting open completely. Dad hasn’t looked at me yet since he started driving. I hope it’s because he feels guilty, and not because he couldn’t care less.
“Now tell me,” he says, “you have math today, don’t you?”
Before I can nod, he brakes to a halt at a stop sign. The intersection is clear to go, but he wrenches up the parking brake and shifts in his seat, angling himself toward me. He snatches my backpack from my grip and pulls it onto his lap. Unzipping it, he rummages inside and pulls out my math homework that’s due next week, including the page that’s torn into three. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but whatever it is, he spends a few moments searching the pages for it.
“The second you get home from school today, I want you to sit down and fix this question,” he orders calmly, holding up one of the torn pieces for me to see that same equation from last night again, the only one I got wrong. “And you’ll need to write all of this out again.” He shakes his head at the ruined pieces of paper in his hands as though it was me who destroyed them, then he crumples them into his enclosed fist. His strained knuckles are pale from pressure, and I watch in my usual unsurprised way. My balled-up math homework is tossed into the cup holder in the center console and my backpack is thrown back at me.
“I could have kept the other pages,” I point out as I zip my bag up again. “They weren’t torn.”
“That’s too bad,” Dad says as his eyes drift to the road ahead while he puts the car back into drive. “You can go ahead and do each question all over again. Consider it extra practice. You need it.”
That homework had thirty questions. It took me over an hour to complete last night, and the thought of doing it all over again because of one mistake is enough for me to grind my teeth together until my jaw hurts. Dad does things like this all the time, and although it no longer surprises me, it still aggravates me. But I can’t let him know that, so I try to relax my features as I focus my gaze on a spot on the dashboard as Dad switches the radio back on. He just wants the best for me, I remind myself.
It’s always a relief each morning when we pull up outside Dean’s house. It’s when Dad starts smiling again and it’s when his cold tone disappears, and I know that for the final five-minute drive to school, he definitely won’t lose his cool. He can’t. Not while we have company.
The front door of the Carter house swings open as if on cue, and Dean’s dad appears on the front step, holding his hand up to wave. Dean rushes to his side several moments later, struggling to haul his backpack on. His dad, Hugh, helps him with the strap and then they both make their way across their lawn toward us.
We’ve been picking Dean up for school every morning for as long as I can remember. The Carters are practically family, and Dad does the morning run to school while Hugh does the pickup. Dean opens up the car door and climbs into the backseat at the same time as Dad rolls down his window to talk to Hugh.
I crane my neck and turn around slightly in my seat, looking back at Dean as he tugs on his seatbelt. When he clicks it into place, he glances up at me and curls his hand into a fist, holding it up to me. I bump my fist against his and give him a smile, tuning out Dad and Hugh’s conversation.
“Did you do that science project?” Dean asks, sinking back against the leather of the backseat. “I got my mom to do half of mine.”
“Yeah. I handed it in last week,” I tell him.
Hugh clears his throat and ducks down a little at the window, looking past Dad at both me and Dean. “Right, you two,” he says, “I’ll be there waiting at three.” When he smiles, it’s genuine, and he throws us a thumbs-up before stepping away from the car. I like Hugh. Sometimes I wish he was my dad and not the guy sitting next to me.
Dad rolls the window back up and drives off. The radio is on again, but the volume is low enough to allow him to maintain his friendly persona, where he fills the remainder of the drive to school with questions about our classes for the day and football and if Dean’s excited for his birthday next week. I don’t know what’s worse: Dad when he’s mad, or Dad when he’s nice. It’s always so confusing to me.
By the time Dad cuts the engine just around the corner from the school entrance, I’ve already got my seatbelt off and my hand on the door, ready to escape his constant expression of disapproval for a few hours. Dean hates school. I like it, because it’s the only place I can really get away from Dad for a while.
“I hope you both have a great day,” he tells us with that tight smile of his. He leans over into the backseat, holds his palm out and lets Dean low five him. Then, as both Dean and I push open the car doors and jump out onto the sidewalk, he quickly adjusts the cuff of his shirt.
“Tyler,” he says right before I shut the door behind me. I glance over my shoulder to find him leaning over to look at me, his expression neutral. He stares at me for a long moment until his features begin to shift again. His eyebrows pull together as the corners of his lips pull into a small, sad smile. For the first time all week, I see the tiniest hint of guilt in his green eyes. “Work hard,” he murmurs, swallowing. “I love you.”
No, I think as I turn away from him and slam the door shut. You don’t.