Page 21 of Watch Me

“It’s eight twenty-nine a.m.,” my home device replies.

“Shit.” She swings her legs off the bed and stands. “I’m late for class. Fuck!” She pushes hair out of her face and tugs at her sweatshirt, looking down at herself, and even though there’s panic in the air, I notice how irresistibly cute she is in the morning, her bun messier than ever and her cheeks pale. “Shit. All my stuff is in Tate’s room.”

Tate’s room.

The idea that she might have to go down there and see some other girl in bed with Tate spikes my blood with adrenaline. When I see that kid today, we are going to have some serious words.

“I’ll get it.” I get up and pull jeans out of the bottom drawer of my dresser. “Tell me what you need. And I’ll drive you.” She lifts wide green eyes to me. I can see the polite refusal forming before she speaks. “And don’t fucking say no,” I say, walking to the bathroom with my jeans under my arm. “Just accept the offer and tell me what you need from downstairs.”

* * *

In the car, we don’t talk about what happened the night before. I learn that Zoë moved to the city to audition for the ballet company here, and that she trains for four hours a day on top of working nights—at the bar, she tells me, obtusely.

I don’t dare ask any questions about work, nothing that could lead to talking about the night we met, so I’m careful to keep the conversation on neutral territory. I ask her if she always wanted to be a dancer, and where she grew up, keeping my eyes on the road ahead of me and my thoughts as far away from her body as possible.

When I get home, Tate is sitting on the couch, waiting for me—but not straight-backed and looking nervous, which I would have preferred. He’s shirtless, as usual, hunched over a tablet and so consumed by whatever game he’s playing that he doesn’t appear to notice me when I walk in.

I’d been strict when I walked in his room that morning, in a way he hasn’t seen me be before. I’d let myself into his apartment and was immediately struck by the mess and chaos. Clothes were strewn over the floor and furniture—much of it beaded and sparkling, so Zoë isn’t off the hook there. Two figures were curled up under the covers in the bed, just as I’d feared. The hulking form of my son and a smaller form beside him with dyed blonde hair splayed over the pillow.

“Tate.” I’d used the most booming voice I could muster, and it worked. He startled and sat up. “Tate, get up. I’m driving Zoë to her class, and then we’re going to talk when I get back.”

The blonde head had lifted then, too. Mascara-streaked eyes blinking in confusion at me.

“It’s time for you to go home. Tate, call your friend an Uber and meet me upstairs in a half hour.”

I’m pleased to see that he at least obeyed, except that now that I’m here with him, I don’t know what I’m going to say.

I’ve failed Tate as a parent again and again. From the moment he was born, I didn’t seem to know what to do. When he cried, I fumbled awkwardly while Rebecca knew just how to hold him. I never seemed to know the right thing, while she stepped into the role so effortlessly. Even now, I find myself wishing we could call her in and see what she would say and do. How do you reprimand your adult son for cheating on his girlfriend? Is this even my responsibility?

But the way he chooses to conduct himself in a relationship is important. I don’t want to be responsible for setting another toxic male loose on society. Not to mention that the hurt he inflicted on Zoë impacts me—not just because I’m inappropriately tuned into how she feels, but because he brought her here into my house, made her part of my community, and then caused problems for all of us through his actions.

The more I think about Zoë, the less I worry about parenting Tate, and the more clearly my argument forms.

“Put down the tablet and give me your full attention,” I command, sitting on the chair opposite Tate.

He does, but sets it down languidly on the coffee table and raises his eyes to meet mine slowly. His way of trying to be in control. I recognize the tactic.

“When I suggested that you could live here, it was because I hoped it would be an opportunity for us to get closer. I wanted to get to know my son. And when you moved a girl in without even asking me, I didn’t say a thing.”

“Dad—” he interjects, but I cut him off.

“Do not interrupt me. I assumed you were serious about the girl, that it meant something. So I let it be. I sure as hell did not think there would be a revolving door of girls coming through this place. I’m not mad that you have a sex life. I was young once, too. But Zoë lives here, Tate. The amount of disrespect you have shown her is unbelievable. It made me ashamed of my son.”

He gapes in surprise, and the word reverberates between us.

Ashamed.

I can see the outrage forming in the flush that rises over his cheeks.

“It’s honestly none of your business what happens in my personal life,” he retorts. “Where do you get off even thinking you have a say? You haven’t been around in forever, and now you think you can comment on my relationship? You don’t know what’s happening between me and Zoë. You don’t know any of it. And why should you?”

“Not my business?” I demand. “It’s my business when I can’t sleep for all the noise you two were making. It’s my business when your girlfriend is sitting in my kitchen because you have a girl downstairs, and she has nowhere left to go. It’s my business when I’m the one who has to get your girlfriend’s clothing from your room in the morning because you’ve got some other girl in your bed. You have made this my business, Tate, and even if it wasn’t, I’d be just as mad. Can’t you at least acknowledge how monstrous your behavior is? How could I have raised a son like that?”

“Because you didn’t raise a son like that!” He jumps to his feet, points a finger at me, and speaks in the loudest, most outraged voice I’ve ever heard from him. “You say you’re ashamed, that my behavior reflects on you. Well, where the hell have you been my whole life? How do you even feel you have any say over what kind of person I am?”

I should cool us both down, lower the temperature, and hear what he’s saying. He’s calling me out for my absence as a father and there’s pain there, I know it. But all I can focus on is how he deflects the blame, refuses to acknowledge that what he did was shitty in the extreme, and so I jump to my feet as well, matching his tone.

“I have every say over it when it happens under my roof! Whose fault was it if not yours that Zoë and I had to sit together listening to you have sex with some stranger?”

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