Page 65 of You Had Me at Hello World
She cannot be serious. I grit my teeth. “What. Am. I. Not. Seeing?” I’m not tripping, right? Because Iamseeing the alcoholism, the gambling, the toxic, controlling energy, the straight-up unhinged rage. It’s not like I’m hallucinating those things.
“He gave us a roof over our heads, he put food on the table. He pays our bills. He helped me get a green card and then citizenship. Once you get older, you’ll see those things don’t come easily.”
There must be other ways of securing all that, I want to say. But my mind is giving nothing. My mother dropped out of her doctorate program, and besides, the degree was in art. I don’tknow what employment opportunities are out there, but the job market probably hates her. Maybe if I could work too…
“He’s been here consistently,” Mom continues. “Unlike your father.”
Of course. The bar is so deep underground, it’s paying rent to Satan.
“Quinn? Who you talking to?” Michael’s voice sounds faraway. “I heard Chinese.”
Raising her voice, she calls in English, “Nobody, honey! Telemarketer.” I can’t decide if it’s more insulting to be described as nobody or a telemarketer.
My stepdad says, “Which one is it? A telemarketer or nobody?”
She whispers, “I have to go.”
“But—”
“He won’t be happy if he finds out it’s you. I’ll call you back later.”
Before I can get another word in, she hangs up.
I stare at my phone, feeling like I’ve been punched in the gut. God. I can’t believe she’s so terrified of him, she won’t even speak to her only daughter. I know I should put aside my own anger and focus on Mom’s well-being—it sounds like things are deteriorating back in Chinook Shore—but I’m too upset to care.
Why won’t she ditch his ass? At the very least, it’s not like her citizenship is going to get revoked if she divorces him. I think.
I guess he makes decent money with his veteran’s pensionand that job where he scams tourists on overpriced timeshares. And because he inherited the house, we only pay property taxes and utility bills. I know not everyone is lucky enough to even have that. A few of my classmates have had their homes foreclosed on.
And he used to be nice. He bought my mom these beautiful sable brushes so she could paint. He talked about how her stuff would hang in the Louvre someday. He took us camping in Oregon’s high desert, way out east. He showed us the constellations and taught me how to make a campfire.
Like, yeah, he always had bad days. PTSD is a bitch. But his bad days were balanced out by plenty of good days, so it was okay.
But life happened. Olive’s mother, who he coparented with, dipped to go live her best life with an Italian tour guide. Michael’s dad passed and we moved to Chinook Shore. His chronic pain got worse, which led to more drinking. He started playing cards with some bar regulars. One night he and his friends hit up the casino on a nearby reservation, and then he started going there by himself. Summarized like this, it sounds like a bad episode ofEuphoria, but you have to remember this happened over a stretch of years. It was this awful train wreck in slow motion, so slow that I didn’t even get what was happening until it had already demolished half the town.
And if Mom isn’t going to leap off a train that’s barreling straight for the cliff, it’s on me to save us both. And thishackathon could give us the money and the connections to find a new life. Otherwise… well, I don’t even want to think about otherwise.
So, no pressure or whatever, but I have to win this whole thing.
On the last Sunday of July, Khoi isn’t at breakfast, which is weird.
“Maybe he’s at church,” Obi suggests.
I frown. “Last I checked, his only Bible was Stack Overflow.”
“Who knows. Maybe he found a bug so unholy, he’s seeking divine intervention.”
So that’s on me for expecting Obi to be helpful. Anyway, maybe Khoi slept in, which isn’t like him. He’s usually such a chipper morning person, it’s like he swallowed a rooster.
So after finishing my Canadian bacon—which is just ham with a foreign passport—I go up to his room.
His door is ajar. He’s still in his pajamas, frantically digging through his dresser drawers.
I lean against the doorframe. “You good?” I hope this isn’t some random side quest of his. I want to get back to working on Hello World.
“Char, I can’t find my meds.” His hair sticks up in all directions, and his eyes are wild and confused. He reminds me of one of those cautionary “After” photos on posters that warn younot to snort crystal meth. “The bottles are always on my desk. I saw them this morning before my shower. I think someone stole them.”
Which is a lot of paranoia for Khoi. “Why would someone take your medication?” I don’t know anything about seizure meds but they don’t seem like a hot commodity on the dark web. I would know. Haru spends a lot of time talking about where he gets his weed.
