Page 237 of Falling Backwards
My fight with Maggie, my knotted-up mood about my dad; every emotion, every word.
Of course it is.
I slept fine enough once I finally dozed off, but then a new day arrived.I wondered why I was on the couch, and all the shit woke back up along with me.And although I’ve managed for most of the day to keep it in the background of my mind, it’s starting to push forwards.
Now I’m on the way to meet Jayden and I’m trying to focus on that, which isn’t helpful because it reminds me so damn much of Maggie.
Magnolia.My girl.My heart.
I shove a hand through my hair.I still feel so…everything…towards her.Angry and hurt and like I should have called or texted when I briefly thought about talking to her—but I’m also sad and wrought with stubbornness because she didn’t call or text me either—even though I don’t know what I’d say if I had the chance to say anything.And I’m almost weak with how badly I’ve come to want to see her face and touch her and make her smile instead of cry.I’ve started worrying she’s thinking of breaking up with me.I feel like I want to hug the life out of her and like I want to kick myself, and at the same time, I keep thinking of high school and keep being awash with bitterness all over again.
Yeah, everything—I feel everything.
It’s too much.
Something’s gotta give.
I grip the steering wheel and then reach over and change the song that’s playing because it reminds me of her…and the next one does, too, but my fingertip stops short of skipping it as well, and I don’t know why.
It’s still playing when I get to Merritt’s.I park and see that I’m a little early, so I just sit here and listen.
She’s who I should be with,something in me whispers.Not Jayden.I shouldn’t be here to meet him.I should be….
Torn between letting that really settle on me and clinging towhyI’m here, I swallow hard and close my eyes.
And something else comes up in the darkness.
‘Congratulations, Ryan!That’s my boy!I’ve never been prouder, son.Damn, you just made me one happy dad!’
The text my dad sent yesterday at lunch to start a group chat with me, Aunt Joni, and a bunch of numbers that I don’t have stored in my phone but that must belong to various relatives.One of them definitely belongs to my stepbrother Ryan, because he gleefully replied both to the picture of him holding some kind of award and to my dad’s message about him.
‘Thanks dad!I never could’ve done it without your support!You’re the freaking best!!!’
What followed was a playful back-and-forth presumably with my stepmom and stepsister about the support they also gave him during his time earning whatever award that was.The three of them joked around and my dad joined in.It wasn’t long before other people started chiming in, too, with their own praise.
It takes some time for me to realize my eyes have opened again and are staring at a point around the steering wheel that matches where my phone had been in my hands during all of it.
I can’t seem to stop, just like I couldn’t stop myself from rereading those first two messages again and again, until it hit me that I needed to put the shit away before Maggie came back from the bathroom and asked what was wrong.
Well, I’d managedthatmuch.Just hadn’t managed to look like nothing had gone wrong at all.So, even with my hands innocently folded on the table upon her return, she noticed my mood had taken a turn.
I really tried not to be bothered by the messages.I did.I tried to enjoy our food and get back to us having fun together before her work shift.
But one little bit of knowledge dug its claws into me the moment I read my dad’s text to Ryan, and I couldn’t shake it loose.
He has never told me he’s proud of me.
I feel the fresh claw of it now through my memories, wishes I used to have, the sidelines I had to get used to calling my place in his life.
“Fuck,” I mutter through the grip it all suddenly has on my throat.
I rub at the bridge of my nose, still unable to look away from that phoneless place in the lower gap of my steering wheel.
He said he’s never been prouder than he is of Ryan.Said he’s one happy dad because of him.
Not of me.Not of me a single time that I can remember.
Ryan said he’s the best and talked about the support my dad gave him—support he’s never given me.To hear my mom tell it, he didn’t even pay child support after he left.And on Thanksgiving, Wendy said my dad is a great dad and a great guy and acted like I’m the one to blame for how things are between us, like I’m the one who has been hurtful.
