Page 75 of Past Tents

THIRTY

CLAY

The timing was good at least. If I was going to ruin my life and spiral down into despair, at least I had Senior Project Week to do it in.

While the seniors worked on their final projects, teachers had the week off. In theory, we were available to supervise students and give them feedback on their work, but all of my students had taken the opportunity to work off campus at a Shakespeare festival that would be premieringAs You Like Itin a few weeks.

Some of them had found jobs painting sets or sewing costumes, and a few were learning theater production from the lead producer and would be working through the summer during performances.

All of that made for the perfect setup for wallowing, which was what I’d been doing all week. Eating bags of chips and greasy take-out burgers. Running miles and miles. Drinking too much coffee and not sleeping for days. Now it was Saturday, but it felt like any other day.

The junk food made me feel nauseated and hungover even though I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol, but the coffee made mehollow and jittery. I was punishing myself, and the worse I felt, the better I felt, strangely.

I really wanted to avoid having to think, but I’d done some of that as well, evidenced by the full journal I’d written over the past few days. Some of it was illegible due to late-night writing in the dark, but the upshot of my soul-searching was that Ally was correct and I was the idiot who’d listened to her but didn’t hear her.

Of all the people in the world, Ally deserved the knight on the white horse. Not sure how or why she imagined I might be that knight, but she was smart enough that I shouldn’t doubt her.

Now I just had to figure out how to take a chance.

“Go away,” I said to no one. Well, not no one. I said it to whoever was out there pounding on my front door, but it didn’t matter who it was because I didn’t intend to see that person. Might as well have been Walt Whitman himself, telling me to get into the woods and inhale some fresh air. Didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to listen to him or anyone else.

I’d been on my couch for the past twenty-four hours at least, minus a couple bathroom breaks and a few staggering trips to the kitchen to refill my coffee cup. Even that was a failure. If I’d been smart, I’d have brought the pot over to the couch so I wouldn’t have had to get out from under the gray blanket.

Yes, the same gray blanket I’d wrapped around Ally that first night we’d spent in my yard. It still smelled like her, and I wasn’t ready to give that up yet, even though I’d all but given her up. Even though I’d sabotaged us.

The banging continued. I did my best to ignore it. If I didn’t acknowledge the person outside, eventually they’d get bored and take off.

Well, a normal person might do that. Unfortunately, Jefferson Dalbotten was not a normal person.

So not normal that he figured crawling in through my kitchen window made perfect sense. I’d left it cracked in order to get some circulation going—even I knew the place was feeling musty after just a day of me staying inside here moping—and apparently Jefferson took that as an invitation to push the sash up all the way and make himself at home. I ignored the rustling in my kitchen the same way I’d ignored the knocking.

Eventually, the man strode into my living room, after having made himself a fresh cup of coffee and having poured one for me as well. Then he walked right past me and opened my front door, where my brother, Shane, stood leaning one shoulder against the frame.

“Jesus, both of you?”

It wasn’t going to be a problem. One, two—twenty—it didn’t matter how many bros, real or otherwise, showed up at my doors and windows. I didn’t feel like talking to any of them, and it was dark enough in my house that if I sat still long enough, they might forget I was here.

Good thing I had that attitude because my parents walked in after Shane. That was new. I eyed him to see why he’d organized a fam bam and he returned my look with a stony stare.

“I think it’s time you had a little more support,” Jefferson said.

“Yeah? That’s for you to decide?”

My mom knelt down next to me. “Well, I’m glad he did. Honey, how could you not tell us how bad things got?”

I rolled my eyes. “Can we not do this?” I looked accusingly at Jefferson, then at Shane. They looked back at me as though I was the problem. I’d never considered it because keeping things to myself just felt like I was saving everyone else the trouble of dealing with my issues.

My dad, ever stoic, nodded. “We’re not here to do anything. We’re just here to let you know we’ve got your back. All the time. Anytime.” His voice cracked on the last word.

I had no idea what Jefferson had told them—I presumed he’d told them all of it—but it had the effect of visibly shifting something in my parents.

“That’s all we came to say,” my dad said, moving toward the door. My mother bent down and hugged me. A wave of flowery perfume washed over me, and it struck me for the first time as vaguely comforting. Something I didn’t mind feeling.

After the door closed behind my parents, Shane’s weight landed on the arm of the couch, judging from the way it shifted. At least he knew enough not to sit down right next to me. I’d either vomit coffee on him or slug him. “That was pretty good, for them,” he said.

Arm over my forehead, I nodded in agreement.

“Getting back to the question of why we’re both here,” Jefferson started, “my sister called me. I went to see her, made sure she was okay. Then I called Shane.”

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