Page 29 of Somewhere Only We Know
I’ve looked at his message countless times until the screen blurred and when I went to respond to his simple,hey, I froze up. Can you be traumatized from texting someone? Because if that’s the case, then that’s what I am. But if I want to move forward and not associate texting Nate with doom, then I have to—at least for my sake, find a way to move past this.
16
NATE
COLLEGE, SUMMER BEFORE SENIOR YEAR
Bee: T-minus 4 days.
Me: You must really miss me.
Bee: You have no idea.
Me: I miss you too.
As fun as these two weeks have been, I am so ready to get back to Jax. I’ve seen my high school friends, went to a baseball game, conditioned with my old coach for three days straight, and played chauffeur for my little sister. But I’m ready to spend possibly my last free summer with the girl I’m falling head over heels for. My feelings for Jax aren't a surprise to me. I’ve known I more than liked her since that first kiss. But the feeling of love didn’t slam into me until recently. Jax on the other hand, I think she’s there too. I see it in the lingering glances and the touches that grasp before slowly falling away.
I’m flipping through the pictures she’s sent of somedrawings she’s completed and of butterflies and bees circulating her balcony when I hear my dad having a coughing fit. It doesn’t end and I heave myself off the kitchen chair and go in search of him.
“Dad, are you okay?” I ask as I find him in his office.
He waves me away as he attempts to catch his breath. “I’m fine, Nathan. Just choked on my own spit.”
“Do you want some water?”
He shakes his head and sits back in his chair. The hinges squeak as he tests its movement. But it’s the one consistent thing he’s always done. Every day when he’d get home from work, he would journey to the office and clock in for a few more loose ends he was unable to tie up at work. And every day, whether I’d just be getting home from practice or as I sat at the kitchen table doing homework, those hinges squeaking became an essential soundtrack in this home.
Listening to my dad, I shake off my concern and turn to head back out to the living room, but he stops me.
“How’s Jax?”
We’ve never talked about girls. Mainly because I’ve never dated anyone worth introducing to my parents. And throughout high school, mainly my junior and senior years, I was at parties most weekends while they were raising my baby sister. I lost my virginity in the bathroom at a house party and kind of went from there with girls. Until I met Jax and stopped looking at other girls altogether.
But this–having a girl I’m madly obsessed with occupying large spaces of my brain, is new. And this. Talking about girls with my dad is new.
I backtrack my steps and take a seat on the gaudy printed loveseat to talk with my dad. “She’s good. Ready for me to come back up there.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t join you.”
I snort as I remember her not-so-subtle hints about joining me. “She wanted to, but didn’t push. I figure next year I’ll drag her down here.”
“Next year, huh?” My dad asks and his dark brown, almost black, bushy eyebrows fly to his hairline.
“She said the same thing.”
“Well, if anyone can make a relationship last, it’s you. You’ve been obsessing–”
“I haven’t been obsessing,” I cut him off with a smile.
He chuckles and continues, “as I was saying, you’ve been obsessing over her for three years. You think your mother and I didn’t notice every time you name dropped her?”
I lean back on the couch and scowl at my dad. “I didn’t name drop her that much.”
“The lies our son tells,” I hear from my mom as she floats into the office and kisses my dad on the lips. She takes a seat in her matching office chair and slips her heels off. “Jax this, Jax that…we thought you would come down here with a ring on your finger.”
I open my mouth to sass them, but stop when they let go of the laughter they were holding. Crossing my arms, I wait for them to stop. This is what I’ve been surrounded with for twenty-two years. Love and laughter have been the pillars of the Holloway household. It’s how I want my future household to look.
My dad’s coughing fit returns and my mom sobers up, rubbing her hand down his back until he calms back down. In this moment, I don’t miss the tension that lines her face. My mom told me that kids don’t need to worry about grown-up things until they’re older. But now that I’m older I feel it’s in my nature to know if something is happening. Especiallywith my parents. Because whether I’m a child, an adult, living at home, away at college, or married with kids, I’ll always worry about my parents. Worrying about living a life without them in it, is something I find myself severely unprepared for.
