Growing Pains

Chapter 71 - Being with her was the one thing I was really good at

L U K E

I closed the door behind me and walked down the stairs, hoping to fall down and hit my head so hard it killed me. Of course, I didn't fall. Instead, I walked right into Jason coming around the corner, which was worse.

"Fuck, I'm sorry," I said.

"Are you leaving already?" He was looking at my backpack. "You just got here."

"Yeah, well."

He looked up the stairs, at the door of Daisy's room, closed shut, and asked, "Did you get into a fight or something?"

"I don't really wanna talk about it."

"Well, I'm on my way out too, I can give you a ride, if you want," he said, reaching for the car keys on the table by the door.

"You don't have to –"

"Obviously," he said, opening the door. "Where are you going?"

"My mom's." I was supposed to go to my dad's. "Where are you going?"

"Physiotherapy." I followed him outside. "Where does your mom live?"

"At a condo downtown, but it's fine, I don't –"

"Just shut up and get in the car," he said, unlocking the green SUV parked in the driveway.

I would rather walk than have to spend a whole car ride with Jason after just getting dumped by his sister, but I didn't know what else to do. Call my mom and ask her to come pick me up like a kid at a sleepover gone wrong? No, thank you.

Before I could think of something else, Jason was already pushing me towards the car, and opening the passenger's door for me.

I frowned, "Are you kidnapping me?"

"Are you a kid?" he asked. "I can't kidnap you if you're not a kid, can I?"

I watched him get on the driver's seat, the frown still on my face, "People would be scared if they knew how smart you are."

He smiled, "I know."

I got in the passenger's seat. The thought of having to sit on the curb waiting for my mommy to come pick me up was exactly what my insomniac brain would remember later at night when I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep. It was bad enough that I had been broken up with for essentially failing at the most basic term of a relationship.

I put my seatbelt on. Jason started the car, and asked, "Are your parents divorced?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," he said, turning the radio on. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine."

He got us on the road, all the way tapping his fingers on the wheel, humming along to some disgusting rap song I didn't know, and honestly didn't care to. I leaned my head against the window and waited for it to be over.

We were stopped at a red light when Jason said, "She really likes you, you know? She talks about you all the time."

I didn't say anything. I wasn't mad at her. I was mad at myself.

The light turned green, and he hit the gas again, "I don't know what happened, but I know you really like her too, so don't fuck it up, I'm serious."

"I think it's too late for that," I said under my breath.

He must have heard it, even over the music, because he said, "I don't think so. I think what you have together isn't something you find every day, you know? I think it's something you grab by the ankles and don't let go even if it drags your ass through the fucking mud."

I didn't say anything, and he didn't either. I thought we were good together too, really good. I thought being with her was the one thing I was really good at, but it turned out I wasn't half good enough. It turned out we weren't even really together in the first place, not in the way we were supposed to.

I only opened my mouth again to say thank you. We were stopped in front of my mom's place in town, but Jason waved my words away like it was nothing, turned the radio up, and drove off, disappearing around the corner.

Mom was on the couch, watching one of her period dramas, but paused it when I walked in to look worried at me, her face suddenly wrinkled with it, her arms stretched out, and then wrapped around me when I laid on the couch next to her, my head on her lap.

She ran her fingers through my hair, "What happened, honey?"

"Daisy broke up with me."

Her fingers came to a stop in the back of my head, and she looked down at me, even more worried than before, "Why?"

I shrugged, "She thinks we're better off as friends."

She frowned, "And what do you think?"

"I think maybe I should go back to therapy."

More frowning, "That's not funny."

"I'm not trying to be funny."

"I thought we were over it," she said, moving my hair away from my face.

"I don't think I am."

She didn't say anything else, and after a long silence, she finally pressed play on her show again, and I closed my eyes, and thought of it, of this years-long silence, shared between my parents like a child, the one that actually ruined their marriage.

I knew it like a brother, sitting across from me at the dinner table, sharing a room with me, keeping me up at night, following me to school, making it hard to pay attention in class, pushing away everyone around me. I had known this silence since I was ten years old, trying to impress a girl twice my age, who was only supposed to teach me math, and instead taught me how to do what the grown-ups were doing behind closed doors, the wet dream of every pre-pubescent kid, and my personal nightmare.

I had grown up with this silence. It was all I could hear.