North & West

Twenty-One

It was invigorating and we hadn't even gotten there yet.

West glanced over at me, his hands tight around the steering wheel. He had a forced smile on his face, his lips thin and tight across his face. It was a different look for him, and I almost wanted to reach across from my seat in the passenger side and massage the tension from his shoulders.

“It's gonna be alright, you know.” I told him, keeping my gaze focused on him, fighting the urge to tell him to just turn around and forget it.

“I know,” He paused. “I've got you with me.”

A hint of a real smile shined through his forced one, and I turned away from him to light a cigarette, taking a drag so long my lungs felt like they were about to ignite just as the tip of the cigarette had been lit.

West hadn't told me much yet, but I'd taken his sister's advice and asked him what happened with his father. He has frozen then, not a single movement in his body, before he had said through gritted teeth, “He left.”

I hadn't wanted to push him, but I had done something of the sort. When he'd closed himself off for the first time since I'd met him, I had finally backed away, simply asking if he knew where his father was as of recent. He'd told me that he only knew of the country club his father belonged to, golfing every Saturday afternoon.

Which was why we were headed for the very same country club, golf clubs in the backseat of his car – only they weren't really for playing golf.

West turned the corner and pulled into the parking lot of the country club, parking his car and taking the key from the ignition. Instead of getting out immediately, we simply sat there in silence, West's head leaning back against his headrest as though he was afraid he couldn't keep it up himself. I had my window cracked, the end of my cigarette just leaning out of the crack, and I wondered what was going on in West's head.

“It tore my mom up. She's still not completely alright, you know? I guess when you love someone and then they just up and leave it tears you up inside, so much that you never really feel whole again. She'd just gotten a promotion the night he left, coming home to find all his things packed and gone, without a single note left behind.” West was speaking in a low tone, his voice full of barely concealed anger and resentment.

I didn't speak in fear that if I did, he would stop talking and then I would never get the whole story. I simply watched him carefully, taking in the lines of his jaw and watching as he worked to swallow past all the anger bubbling up inside of him – a feeling I knew all too well.

“She waited for the longest time, sometimes pulling the sofa beside the door and falling asleep on it. She was late to work so much that she lost the promotion – and God, it hurt watching her lose yet another thing she deserved – and then one day, she finally gave up. It was like something clicked inside of her. I sometimes catch her staring at the door for longer than necessary, probably hoping that he'll one day show back up with a good reason as to why it's been four years without a single word.” He explained, pausing to pull a cigarette from the pack laying in my lap.

“The worst part is that I think she'd let him come back. She'd welcome him with open arms and pretend as though she hadn't spend days, weeks, and even months crying and losing sleep over the son of a bitch.” He was laughing drily by that point in his explanation, placing the cigarette between his lips to let me know that he was done talking.

I knew that it hadn't been easy to admit that all to me – things like that could never be anything close to easy – and I was really flattered, my heart breaking a little bit for his mother. That would explain why she was so strange sometimes, spacing off when she saw my mother and father together. It made me want to hug the entire Monroe family, as I'd come to learn that they were three absolutely wonderful people.