“I hope you at least made it to the base,” Mom said to Tabby, smiling and shaking her head after we explained how Tabby had fallen playing baseball in the circle. No need to mention Corey Sheridan, not unless we wanted to be thrown in the car to hunt him down and drag him to his front door to have a talk with his parents. And we didn’t.
After Mom finished cleaning up the cuts and brush burns on Tabby’s elbows, I went into the kitchen and microwaved a bag of popcorn while Tabby went down to the den to cue up some Ewoks.
Tabby sat in the middle of the sofa, her legs curled under a blanket, intently reading the prologue as it scrolled up the screen, lines she’d read thousands of times. I plopped down next to her and put the bowl of popcorn between us, propping my feet up on the coffee table. Like I’d done a thousand times.
My dad—a serious Star Wars geek—used to always tease Tabby about her love for the Ewoks. Apparently, to the true Star Wars fan, the Ewoks are a joke: George Lucas’s biggest mistake before the Jar Jar Binks debacle. But it’s why Tabby always picked Return of the Jedi over the other five movies. I claimed to love Jedi for Jabba the Hutt, but deep down—and I’d never admit this to my dad—I loved the Ewoks, too.
We fell into a steady rhythm as the movie got rolling, taking turns with our hands in the popcorn bowl. And while the movie played on the screen, my mind rewound and replayed the day, over and over, analyzing every painful moment and fantasizing about what I could have said. How would Trip have reacted, had he stayed? Would he have said something first? Could he have made Corey Sheridan blush with shame? Would he have told him to fuck off the moment Corey rolled into the circle, gotten his ass kicked but gone down swinging? Would it have been Trip’s elbows my mom cleaned up while warning him about swearing in her house? Would Tabby be right there, laughing and smiling at him?
And was I one twisted asshole for being glad it went down the way it did, instead?
I glanced over at Tabby every few minutes, and I felt that same twinge of desperation, and I wondered, What the hell is wrong with my brain?
When the movie hit a slow part, the popcorn bowl down to unpopped kernels, Tabby sat up and turned to face me.
“Do me a favor,” she said, reaching over and wiping a buttery hand on my shoulder.
“Get you a napkin?”
“No, no, I’m good,” she said. Her face looked serious for a moment, and she settled back in beside me, shoulder to greasy shoulder, before continuing. “Never talk about people’s mothers.”
“What?”
“Outside. With Corey. You did that whole your-mom thing to him. Don’t ever do that.” She looked down as she said this, looking neither at the TV nor at me, more like she was addressing the coffee table.
I was stunned for a moment. My fantasies aside, it had taken everything I had to get that out of my mouth, to actually say that to Corey Sheridan. And even if it sounded crude and stupid and embarrassingly unnatural—I could still hear him mocking my “bro”—I did it for Tabby. For Tabby.
“Tabby, he told you—”
“Yeah, Matt, I heard him,” she said, pressing her elbow into my side, letting me know that certain details were not to be rehashed here. “I just…I hate the your-mom stuff. It’s disgusting and degrading and—”
“I didn’t really mean—” I started defensively.
“I know it wasn’t a factual statement. I hate the whole idea of it.”
I couldn’t say anything. Just sat there, looking helpless and defensive. I mean, I knew Tabby’s mom hadn’t been around since she was a baby. We talked about it sometimes. But still.
“Look, what you did was awesome,” she said, and I couldn’t help thinking, No, what you did was awesome; what I did was weak and lame and—apparently—degrading to women. “You stood up for your friend, and nothing’s more important than that. But just…Okay, I think of it like this: the only people who actually say your-mom stuff, they’re either complete buttholes like Corey Sheridan, or they’re people trying too hard to be something they’re not.”
Like me.
“I don’t want you to be either one of those people, Matt.”
“But, I’m not—”
“I know you’re not, Matt,” she said, exhaling and rolling her eyes. “Just no more your-mom stuff, okay?”
“Okay. Whatever you say.” I huffed.
“Good. Now shut up. This is my favorite part.”
And just like that, she turned and settled back in next to me, her focus back on the movie. She laid her head on my shoulder and squeezed my arm as two giant logs smashed an Imperial Walker in the forest of Endor, Ewoks and rebels raising their arms in triumph. Even though nothing made any sense to me at all, I smiled. It was my favorite part, too.
My brain went back to wandering during the rest of the movie, one part wondering why she wasn’t noticing me more, while another part was yelling, Dude! Pay attention! She’s on the couch, right now, with you! Her head is on your shoulder! What else do you want here? Is she supposed to gaze at you for the whole movie? For Chrissakes, are we really jealous of Ewoks now?
I tried to shake the hormones and the stupidity from my head. On the screen, the Death Star exploded into fireworks above the evening Endor sky. A minute later, the theme song blared and the credits started to roll, but Tabby didn’t stir. Her breathing was deep and steady. She’d fallen asleep.
Her head rested against the grease spot on my shoulder. Blood was oozing out from beneath the Elmo Band-Aid on her elbow, soaking into the side of my shirt. Her neon-green toenails poked out from the edge of the blanket. I laid my head back and closed my eyes.
That was the day I fell in love with Tabby.