26

sebastian

 

“So, Greyson, do you like rollercoasters?” Mel asked as we walked through the Hershey Park entrance.

Greyson shrugged, walking ahead of me alongside my nephews, Johnny and Travis. “I don’t know. I’ve never been on one.”

“Oh, man!” Travis exclaimed excitedly. “You’re gonna love it.”

Dinah sidled up to Greyson. “Do you get motion sickness?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

She clapped him on the shoulder. “Okay, you’ll be fine. Just be warned, these two will be dragging you on everything, if your dad doesn’t.”

“You like rollercoasters?” Greyson asked me, looking over his shoulder, and I nodded enthusiastically.

“Hell yes.” I pounded my fist against Jen’s. She was always the other ride enthusiast in the family. “Everyone else is a bunch of wimps,” I teased, reaching out and tugging on Dinah’s ponytail.

“Sebastian, stop,” she whined, swatting me away like I was an annoying, buzzing gnat. “I’m sorry I don’t like feeling my intestines in my throat.”

Mel nodded sympathetically. “Girl, same.”

While all of the kids jumped on the carousel, I hung out with my sisters, watching the kids from the surrounding barricade. Dinah, Mel, and Jen whispered amongst themselves while I listened in, trying to pick up on whatever the hell it was they were saying and failing miserably, with all the amusement park ruckus happening around us.

“Are you guys talking about me?” I finally asked, ducking into their little pow-wow.

“Maybe,” Dinah confessed. “Mom told us. Well, she told me, and I told them.”

“Told you what?” I narrowed my eyes, turning my gaze onto each of them.

“About you and Tabby,” Jen scowled.

“Oh, cool. That was nice of her,” I grumbled with a roll of my eyes, making a mental note to strangle my mother.

Stepping forward to point a finger at my chin, Jen continued, “And by the way, I can’t believe you’re such a disgusting pig. I mean, I think we’re all aware of what you do on the road, but with your kid’s aunt? That’s a whole new low.”

“Oh, come on, Jen,” I groused. “That’s not fair.”

“How is it—”

Dinah cleared her throat, interrupting whatever snide remark Jen was about to make. “He’s kinda right. Tabby’s a big girl and she’s obviously okay with it, so …” She shrugged incredulously.

“Thank you, D. I always knew you were my favorite,” I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and just as quickly, she brushed me off.

“That doesn’t mean I think it’s okay,” she tossed in, and I shrugged. “What I just can’t understand is why.”

“Why what?”

“Why you’d want to. With her.” Dinah chewed on her upper lip, eyeing me expectantly.

Cocking a brow, I pulled in a deep breath and stuffed my hands into my pockets. “Uh, you really want me to get into this here,” my gaze flitted around the amusement park, “at a family theme park?”

“Keep it vague,” Mel suggested, pursing her lips and waiting.

It was easier for me to talk to my sisters than it was my mother. I pulled my hand from my pocket and reached for my neck, gripping and squeezing. “I don’t know. We just have … this chemistry, I guess. It just happened and turned into this … thing. I couldn’t stop it. And to be fair, she started it.”

“Couldn’t stop it or didn’t want to?” Dinah questioned.

I took a moment to consider that, and wobbled my head. “Didn’t want to.”

“So, we were right,” Mel smirked triumphantly. “You do have a crush on her.”

Putting my entire body into an eye roll, I took that moment, in the middle of Hershey Park, to stretch my arms out and say, “Yes, Melanie. I have a crush on a girl. There you go. Congratulations. Are you happy now?”

“Oh my God,” Jen and Dinah squealed in unison and I groaned, hiding my face behind my palms.

“So, how does she feel about you?” Mel asked. “Why don’t you make this thing official?”

“Because she thinks I’m a big man-child and she’s just humoring this whole thing until she finds someone better,” I rambled. Someone like Roman.

“Well, she wouldn’t be wrong about the man-child thing,” Dinah muttered as the large group of kids and toddlers approached us. “But, and I’m not just saying this because you’re my baby brother, I’m not sure there’s anyone better.”

 

***

 

I’d never realized how much I was missing out on, by not hanging out with my sisters and their kids more often. Johnny, Travis, Greyson, and I rode every rollercoaster in the place, while Jen tagged along every now and then, when her other kids weren’t badgering here for this or that. The boys liked having me around to go on the rides—it was better than hanging out with all the girls, they’d said—and all of the kids appreciated that I never said no to snacks. My sisters appreciated that they didn’t have to pay for anything. And I appreciated the company.

“It’s fucking hot as balls,” I complained, pulling my shirt off. “I’m hitting the water rides. Who’s down?”

“We don’t all look like that,” Mel groaned with a roll of her eyes.

“Who cares how you look?” I asked, balling up my shirt and shoving it into my backpack. “Whether you’re fat or not, it’s still hot.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a little self-conscious,” Mel replied, and Jen and Dinah nodded. “Try having four kids and see how good you feel about yourself.”

“Four?” I laid a hand over my abs. “Try six, girlfriend. I bounce right back.”

The kids laughed while my sisters groaned and rolled their eyes. Then I added, “But seriously, you guys look fine, and anybody who doesn’t think so can suck a dick,” I laid my hands on the heads of Johnny and Travis, “‘cause you made these things and that’s a lot cooler than looking like a supermodel.”

Mel pressed a hand to her heart. “Sebastian …”

Jen pinched my cheek. “You can be such a sweetheart. Too bad you’re an annoying pain in the ass most of the time.”

“Gotta balance it out,” I grinned, wrapping an arm around Greyson’s shoulders. “But seriously though, you down for some water rides, kid? Because I’m ready to fucking die out here.”

Until the sun went down, we rode the rides, ate nearly everything in sight, and by the time we were ready to leave, I was sufficiently exhausted and one hot dog away from barfing. Walking back to our respective cars, we hugged and promised to hang out soon, with my sisters insisting that it was stupid we didn’t spend more time together. I couldn’t say I disagreed, and thought it was stupid I’d felt that I needed a kid to have an excuse to be with them.

I texted Tabby and asked if it’d be okay to crash at her place again for the night, and she replied with an, “of course.” I drove with the hope that I could actually keep it up this time and not think.

“Today was fun,” I commented in the dark of the car, the Foo Fighters playing through the stereo. “I never hang out with my sisters. I don’t really know why.”

“You’re lucky,” Greyson mentioned ruefully, and I tore my eyes from the road for just a second to look at him.

“Lucky?”

“You have this kickass family, with your sisters and your parents, and I bet you had grandparents too.”

I nodded, feeling oddly apologetic. “Well, yeah, I did …”

“I bet they liked you and did things with you,” he continued, slumping against the door and pinning his gaze to the roadside.

“Um, well, on my mom’s side, they were a little old and didn’t like to do too much,” I explained, just for the sake of talking. “But they were nice, and my Grandpa would talk with me sometimes. Grandma just liked to knit things, as Grandmas sometimes do. She’d knit the ugliest fucking hats though, and every Christmas, she’d make me a new one and … I know I should, but I don’t feel bad that you missed out on that. My dad’s side—"

“Well, I do.”

I glanced back to him. “What?”

“I fucking hate that I missed out on that.” He tucked his lips between his teeth, biting and twitching. The push and pull of his breath through his nose was loud and heavy and overpowered the music. “What were your other grandparents like?”

He was going to cry. I scraped my teeth over my bottom lip and ran a hand through my damp hair. “Uh … Well, they were younger than my mom’s parents, so they were a lot more active. You would’ve liked Grampa. He was awesome. Really into music, and he wasn’t scared of technology, you know? Like, my dad is terrified of his iPhone, but Grampa was on the computer and downloading music before Dad ever embraced a cellphone. Gramma was a fucking badass too. She actually had a tattoo and took me to get my first when I was sixteen.”

Greyson turned to me, disbelief blending with the tears in his eyes. “You’ve been getting tattoos since you were sixteen?”

I nodded. “Yep. Mom was pissed when I came home with the Punisher logo on my arm.” I laughed, pointing to the old faded ink. “I’ve gotten a lot of my older ones touched up or covered over the years, but I won’t do a damn thing to this one.”

“I want a tattoo when I turn sixteen,” Greyson told me. It wasn’t a question, it was a demand.

I caught his eye and asked, “When’s your birthday?”

It was the wrong question to ask. I realized that immediately, when one lone tear slid over his cheek, catching on his lip. “You don’t know,” he uttered the bitter statement, and what was I going to do? Lie to him? So, I shook my head and said, “No, I don’t.”

“You’re supposed to know.” His voice broke, and he cleared his throat, swallowing relentlessly. “You’re supposed to fucking know when my birthday is, and she never fucking told you.”

I leaned my elbow against the window ledge, balled my fist and pressing it to my cheek. “Greyson, it’s—”

“It’s not fucking fair!” he shouted, giving up the fight. “It’s not fucking fair. It’s not. Why didn’t she think I’d want to know you? She knew how to find you, she had your fucking address—she knew, and she never even gave me the fucking choice! Why didn’t I get a fucking choice?”

I wanted answers to give him. But I didn’t have any. “I wish I knew, kid.”

“I hate that I’m happy,” he admitted in a whisper, his tears unrelenting.

“You’re happy?” I couldn’t help myself from asking.

He faltered in his nod. “And I fucking hate it.”

Everything made sense. His backpedaling. The flip-flopping.

“Greyson, you should want to be happy,” I told him. “It’s okay to be happy.”

“No, it’s not,” he cried, shaking his head. “The happier I am, the more I stop thinking about her.”

Jesus Christ. I never knew that parenthood could be so uplifting and yet so soul-crushing, all at the same time. “So, you think that by being with me, you’re forgetting about her,” I offered, glancing at him to watch him nod. “Kid, I won’t ever let you forget about your mom, okay?”

“Why not? She made you forget about me.”

I breathed the words in, clotted my throat with them and struggled to find air. I couldn’t drive, not like this, so I pulled to the side of the quiet country road. Leaning my elbows against the steering wheel, I pinched the bridge of my nose, listening to the Foo Fighters sing “February Stars” mixed with the sound of Greyson’s tears.

God knows I’d spent time being angry at Sam for what she’d done. God knows I had hurt and mourned. But no amount of anger could take any of that time away, and no amount of guilt was going to change the way things were right now.

“Greyson,” I turned to him, laying a hand against his shoulder. He reluctantly looked to me, his face sodden. “Bad shit happens. Unfortunately, that’s a part of life, and unfortunately, we just have to deal with it the best that we can. And I think that sometimes, good things come our way in the middle of that bad shit, to help us cope and get through it and become happy again. And I know that, by feeling less sad, you think you’re forgetting your mom, but I promise you’re not. You’re just moving past the part that made you sad in the first place, so that you can remember the good stuff again.”  

Greyson sobbed, and while I looked at him in those moments, with his hair matted against his forehead and the never-ending tears streaming down his smooth cheeks, I thought I could envision him as a little boy. I was reminded of what I didn’t know—God, there were so many things I didn’t know. I didn’t know what his first word was, or if he walked before he could speak. I didn’t know what movie he couldn’t stop watching when he was a toddler, or how old he was when he lost his first tooth.

How could I possibly be his father, when I didn’t even know when he was born?

Inadequacy and helplessness sat over me like a two-ton elephant, hunching my shoulders and pressing every last bit of air from my lungs. I couldn’t do anything, other than press my hand to his cheek and wish I could be more than just some guy that stumbled into his life.

“I … I miss her, Dad,” he whispered around another sob, and just like that, I could breathe again.

My hands clutched to him as he threw his arms around me, pressing his face against my shoulder as he let himself go, gripping my back with his fingers and audibly sobbing. I rocked, closing my eyes and pressing my cheek to his hair, the same color as mine, and all I could promise was that it was okay, I’ll make sure it’s okay, it’s all going to be okay.

And as his tears quelled and his sobs calmed to quivering breaths, he sighed with spent relaxation and said, “I love you.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I told my dad that I loved him, but I would always remember the first time I whispered “I love you, too” to my son.