Page 39 of When We Were Magic
Instead, I take a deep breath. I let them see that I’m taking a deep breath. I let them see that I’m calming myself down, sothat maybe they’ll give me a little room to exist before they start trying to fix my life for me.
“Alexis,” Pop says softly, his hand still resting on Dad’s shoulder. “Your dad told me about the party you went to on prom night.”
I feel my brow knit and try to smooth it out but fail. I’m not surprised that Dad told Pop. Not exactly. But part of me feels betrayed, like when Dad and I talked about the party, things were fine and it shouldn’t ever have come up again.
“O … kay?” I say it in the shittiest teenager voice ever. I want to slap myself at the sound of my own voice. I don’t talk like this, especially not to my dads. They always do their best to listen to me, to let me be whoever I am and let me feel whatever I’m feeling, and in exchange I try not to be an asshole to them even when I’mfeelinglike an asshole. It’s a deal we’ve never discussed, but I know that’s the trade: I try not to be awful, and they try to let me figure myself out. But that weightless anger is still expanding in my chest, and it’s hard not to let it out. That snide tone I just used with him is the best I can do right now. Pop gives me a look that says he’s letting me get away with it this once. For a soft-faced bald guy, he’s really good at expressing “don’t try that again” with a single glance.
“We know what kinds of things go on when you’re a teenager and you’re about to leave for college and … everything,” Dad says, reaching up to rest his long fingers over Pop’s short, blunt ones. My heart sinks. This isn’t the talk I was expecting. “And we get it. We do.”
No you don’t, I don’t say.
“But if you’re sneaking off with some boy—” Pop starts, and I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. Technically, I am sneaking off with some boy. Not a whole boy, but … some of him. My laughter comes out bright and mean. They both look startled, and I suck the laughter back in. “Or girl,” Pop adds slowly, an edge to his voice. “Either way. If you’re sneaking off withsomeone…” He trails off, and he and Dad both look at me expectantly.
“If I’m sneaking off with someone, what?” I ask.
“So you are?”
“No, Dad, I’m—look, it was a nice day and I wanted to be outside, okay? It’s not a big deal, it’s not like I missed anything important.” I’m talking too loud and too fast. The balloon behind my sternum is still expanding, and I feel like I’m made of sharp edges and smooth, hot metal. I glance down at my hands to make sure that they aren’t glowing.Shit. My nail beds are luminous. I tuck my hands under my thighs and hope that I look natural. People sit like this all the time, right?
“How do you know you didn’t miss anything?” Dad presses. “You weren’t there.”
I roll my eyes. “I know because the last month of school doesn’t matter!” Pop’s eyebrows shoot up, but I act like I didn’t see the clear warning sign. Those eyebrows meanturn back, but I steam on ahead anyway. My palms are hot and tingling, but the more I talk, the less they burn. “It’s all worksheets and crap and we’re not learning anything anymore, and honestly,I’d be amazed if any of my teachers even noticed that I was gone. I’d be amazed ifanyoneeven noticed that I was gone!”
I exhale, feeling like the balloon in my chest has suddenly deflated. I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears. Or at least, I hope it’s my heartbeat, and not Josh’s heart beating under my bed. I’m so tired. My hands hurt, and there’s a smell like cut grass in my room that wasn’t there before. I feel light, clean. Empty.
I look up to find Dad and Pop watching me. Dad’s eyes are wide, but Pop—Pop is incandescent. His face and his bare scalp are both bright red, and he’s got one hand over his mouth like he’s holding himself back from screaming. His eyebrows are raised so high that his forehead is creased by bloodless white lines.
Dad looks up at him and notices.
“Bill, why don’t I take it from here?” he says softly.
Pop shakes his head. His hand is still over his mouth, and he’s not looking at me. He’s staring through the wall. Not at the wall, not at anything on the wall—through it, like on the other side of it there’s something that requires his complete attention. He finally lowers his hand, crossing his arms. “I can’t believe you,” he growls.
“What?” It comes out as a whisper, and I look at Dad to see if he understands, but he’s watching Pop and I feel like there must be some mistake.
“This is the most selfish goddamn thing you’ve ever done,” Pop says in that same low, furious voice. “We raised you tobe more thoughtful than this, Alexis.” He’s holding his own elbow in a white-knuckled grip that looks like it will leave bruises in the morning.
“I don’t understand,” I say, but some part of me must understand because my stomach lurches like I’m at the peak of a roller coaster hill, right before that first big drop. I want to throw up. I want to run away. I want to be anywhere but here.
And then Pop looks at me, and the roller coaster drops. His eyes are shining and red, and he’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before. I’ve certainly never seen him like this before—furious, horrified, on the verge of tears. “One of your classmates is missing,” he hisses. “Nobody knows what happened to him, nobody knows if he’s evenalive, and you think it’s okay to disappear for an afternoon without telling us where you are? Because you want to gooutside?”
“I just—”
“No,” Pop says, “you don’tjustanything! You have no idea what the hell it feels like to get a text message that says nobody knows where your daughter is, Alexis. You have noidea—” He doesn’t yell, just speaks at full volume, but I still flinch. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
“Bill,” Dad murmurs, “we said we’d listen, right?”
“I can’t, I’m sorry,” Pop says, running a hand over his scalp, his eyes still closed. “She’s sitting there laughing and talking about how none of it matters, and I can’t.” He opens his eyes and looks at Dad as he talks about me like I’m not here, and I realize his hands are shaking. “I can’t.”
He walks out of the room without looking at me. Dad and I are sitting on the bed, and I feel like I should go after Pop, but I also don’t know how to pursue one of my parents when he’s too upset to see me. I look at Dad. He’s staring at the open door to my bedroom, and he’s rubbing his half-grown-in beard with one hand, and he looks small.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t think about it that way.”
“I know you didn’t, bug,” Dad says. He runs his hands through his Nico-hair again, making it stick up in the opposite direction from where it was pointing before. “But maybe you should, next time. People care about you, you know? You can hurt them just by forgetting that.”
“That’s not fair.” I chip at my nail polish, scarring one of the little hearts Maryam gave me.
“It’s how it is, though,” he says. “You scared us. We love you, and you scared us. And that line about nobody noticing if you were gone?”
