Page 42 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
When we got inside, he shed his jacket and boots in the entry and followed me to my room. Glancing across the hall to ensure my mom’s door was closed, I closed my own behind us. Despite what she thought, and all the ways we’d gotten closer, Reid and I hadn’t kissed since the truth-or-dare party. Maybe because we’d been so busy, or maybe because of what he’d said.
When you kiss me again, I want you to mean it.
I watched Reid as he took in my room. The pictures, my camera equipment—my tripod and the big round light reflectors in the corner I borrowed from school—and the messy, open story-map notebooks that covered my small desk.
We talked about his trip, what he’d missed around the mountain and at school while he was gone—most notably that Anderson Beck had been expelled after getting caught selling the answers to Mr. Garcia’s notoriously impossible AP Calculus final.
“Kenji said everyone in that class has to retake the final,” I said.
“That’swhy he sent that text about not playing Magic: The Gathering for a while.”
I nodded, trying not to laugh. “Yeah, all recreational math is canceled for the foreseeable future.”
He plopped in my desk chair and emptied his pockets, setting his keys and notebook in a small pile. It felt strangely right to have him in my space. Cozy.
“What are you always writing in there?” I asked, gesturing with my chin toward the notebook. The black cover was worn, the edges looked soft from constant thumbing.
He hesitated. Drew his eyes slowly to me. “Poetry, mostly.”
“Okay,” I said, my tone borderline acerbic at how unexpectedly hot that was. “I’m going to need a minute to process that.”
He chuckled. “It’s not good, but it does help me.”
“How?”
His eyebrows came together. “My thoughts move really fast. Sometimes too fast and I can’t sleep. For, like, days. It was worse when I was a kid. After my mom left. Poetry makes me slow down, considering each word.”
He shot me a self-conscious look, worried he’d revealed too much. Watching him unfold himself even in small ways felt like a gift. I sank onto my bed directly across from where he was seated. “It always messes me up when my dad leaves, too.”
He pointed to a photo on my desk that I usually put in a drawer before anyone came over.
“Your parents?” he asked.
I nodded.
It was their high school prom picture. It was so embarrassing. My dad had a dyed jet-black shaggy emo haircut that made his white skin paler, and my mom wore a truly alarming amount of eyeliner. But they looked happy. Which I’d rarely seen.
“Yep. They’ve been on and off since then. Classic nerd-jock situation. My mom won some science award and my dad was a football Legacy. But my mom had to drop out of college and move back here when she had me. My dad couldn’t be bothered to do the same, even though he sat on the bench most of the time. ‘Woodhurst remarkable is real-world mediocre’—that’s what my mom always says. Not that it matters if Legacy actually gets you out of here.”
I smoothed the comforter of my bed for something to do with my hands. Reid was quiet. So quiet it made me nervous. He turned toward me then, his brown eyes piercing in the small space.
“Why do you want to leave so badly?” he asked.
It was my turn to hesitate. Normally, I’d dodge the question with a joke or change the subject altogether. But as his brow furrowed with intent interest, I realized he had somehow made me feel safe enough to talk about the one thing that made me feel impossibly small.
“My mom gets depressed.” It felt almost like a betrayal saying it aloud, my heart beating at a rapid rate. But I kept going. “And not, like, low-key depressed. Like… bad. She can get stuck in it for weeks—months. Sometimes she doesn’t go to work, and then it’s on me to take care of everything—” I exhaled, squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s hard to explain.”
I wasn’t ashamed of my mom or the home she painstakingly built for me. I just hated feeling helpless. Hated that I related to my dad being so… restless. Hated that I was either caught in the explosion of them being together, or the implosion of my mom being alone.
Reid’s deep voice went so soft when he said, “You don’t have to.”
Like instead of judging, heunderstood.
My traitorous eyeballs began to sting, and he crossed the room to sit next to me.
He didn’t fill the silence or try to fix it. It was the first time in my life I didn’t feel alone with it.
“I feel guilty sometimes for wanting to leave so badly, but it’s what she wants for me, too. And it’s not only about her. I spend all my time imagining other lives once I’m out of here.”
