Accidental

by Alex Richards

  Gran’s eyes jerk over to me. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m—it’s too hot in here.”

  She subtly presses the back of her hand to my forehead. “You don’t feel warm, honey. Are you dehydrated? And pick that up off the floor.”

  I tug at the neckline of my dress, desperate for a little help breathing. “I can’t. It feels like my skin is on fire. I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Johanna!” Gran yells, but it isn’t nearly as dramatic as me stumbling out of our pew and running up the aisle. I don’t even care when a few kids laugh and almost everyone else gasps. I ram my whole body against the heavy wooden door, hurling myself onto the sidewalk. By the time I realize how cold it is, there’s nothing I can do. It’s not like I’m going back in. Not with hot tears streaming down my cheeks and bile inching up my throat.

  The door creaks again, and Gran hurries out, horror-stricken and holding my coat.

  “Sweetie, are you all right? I’ve never seen you so pale. I wonder if I have any Pepto in here …”

  She starts rooting through her giant handbag, but I shake my head until she stops.

  “Weren’t you listening in there?” I ask, still clutching my stomach. “Pastor Thompson was telling us to honor our parents, and I—” I shake my head. “I couldn’t sit there, knowing what God let me do to my own mother.”

  “Oh, you poor, sweet child.” Gran pulls my temple to hers, patting the other side of my head. “Grandpa and I never wanted any of this for you. Please try to calm down.”

  “Oh, am I being too dramatic?” I shriek, pulling away. “What the hell do you expect?”

  “Johanna!” she gasps.

  But I shake my head. “You’ve known about this for over a decade. You are not allowed to criticize the way I freak out!”

  “That’s not it. I just don’t want you to—”

  The door opens again, but it’s only Grandpa. He looks back and forth at the two of us and furrows his brow. “Everything all right out here? Things are wrapping up inside.”

  Gran’s face pales. “Maybe we ought to go.”

  “Yeah.” I snort. “Wouldn’t want to cause another scene.” I stare hard at her, eyes ablaze. “That’s literally all you care about, isn’t it?”

  “No, of course not,” she says, heartbroken. “You’re the most important thing in the world to me.”

  The church doors swing wide, and people start pouring out, full of compliments and gossip, on their way to fancy brunches or maybe a dozen assorted from Dunkin’. Every single one of them looks at me—wide-eyed and uncertain after my outburst.

  “Everything all right?” asks a white-haired woman in dangly, turquoise earrings. She offers Gran a sympathetic smile, eyes flicking over to me.

  “Oh, we’re fine, Belinda. Poor Johanna’s got the flu. Don’t get too close!”

  Belinda nods. “It’s going around. Y’all’re in my prayers.”

  “That’s kind of you. Thanks.”

  Once she’s out of earshot, Grandpa pats his belly. “Who wants lunch?”

  “Better not.” I glare at Gran. “With my flu and everything.”

  “Jim, no one’s in the mood to eat,” Gran says, an eye roll in her voice. “Let’s go home.”

  “I’m not going home,” I say.

  She frowns. “What?”

  “I’m not, like, running away. I need to cool off for a while. I’ll go to the library or something.”

  “Come on home with us,” Grandpa says.

  But Gran presses his arm back down as he’s reaching for me. “Let her go.”

  He looks down at her. Double-checking those words came out of her mouth. They did, though, and all three of us are too stunned to speak.

  So, instead, I go. Without saying goodbye, without telling them when I’ll be home. I simply spin around and stalk across the parking lot toward my car, the whole time trying not to think too hard about the fact that Gran so willingly let me go. The fact that maybe I’m not worth fighting for anymore.

  • • •

  I drive straight to Milo’s house (because fuck the library), and this wildly pungent chemical smell hits me as soon as he opens the front door.

  “Jesus, what is that?” I ask, shielding my nose. “Are you fumigating?”

  Milo laughs and leans in for a quick kiss. “Intense, right? Mom wanted her bedroom painted gold, and I’m pretty sure there’s, like, a million more VOCs in the metallic paint. You want to come in, or …”

  “Or. Definitely or. It stinks like dead C-3POs in there. Can we take a walk? Hit up Baja Tacos or something?”

  He nods. “Sounds good.”

  Milo grabs his coat and yells goodbye over his shoulder. I crack a grin when Anna’s warm, spy-novel voice wafts out from her bedroom. She’s probably ten seconds from drifting into a golden coma. We bound out onto the sidewalk, sucking in lungfuls of glorious piñon-scented air. It’s not until we get to the corner that I realize neither one of us is talking.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  He nods and puts an arm around my shoulder—which makes me feel legit girlfriend-y, grateful that at least one part of my world isn’t crumbling—but there’s something off too. A heaviness in his steps.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry. It’s my dad.” He lets out this pained exhale. “He called this morning. In addition to throwing in these passive-aggressive jabs about how I’m a traitor for moving here, he’s not-so-passive-aggressively refusing to pay for my creative writing program in Berkeley this summer. I beat out over a hundred people for a spot there, and he’s just like, nope.”

  “He can’t do that!” I yelp, swallowing my feelings about the idea of Milo spending a whole summer in California. “What does your mom say?”

  “She’s already paying my Chavez tuition. Even with financial aid, that shit ain’t cheap.” He shrugs. “What am I supposed to do? He broke up our family, and now he won’t support my future unless I move back in with him? I don’t even think he really wants me there. He’s just being a selfish, vindictive—”

  “Asshole?” I supply.

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “My mom’s going to help me look at options,” he says. “It just sucks.”

  “I didn’t know you wanted to be a writer.”

  “Musician-slash. I don’t always advertise it. Not at a new school, anyway. How do you think guys like Tim Ellison would look at me if I said I write poetry?”

  I wince. “Tim would probably call you a very rude word. But only if nobody was looking.” I glance sideways toward Milo and smile. “You write poetry, though?”

  “Mostly song lyrics.”

  I blush. “Cool.”

  We walk a little farther, but I can still feel tension, thick in Milo’s arms.

  “I wish my dad didn’t have to make everything about him,” he groans. “Refusing to pay for this program is so stupid. He blames me for choosing Mom’s side, so now he wants to suck me into their shitty divorce. It makes my mom so neurotic too. She’s like, ‘If you want to be with your dad, don’t let me stop you!’ But nobody actually cares what I want, they just want to hurt each other, and it sucks.”

  “It sounds like it sucks.”

  “It does. It chop-your-finger-off-with-a-mandoline sucks.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “That was oddly specific.”

  He laughs. “I cut off the tip of my finger with a mandoline once, slicing potatoes. But it grew back, see?”

  I squint at the ring finger he’s wiggling. “So it did. The human body is a miracle.”

  “Sorry to vent like that.”

  “Are you kidding?” I bang my head against his shoulder. “We’ve been together for a week, and in that time, I’ve submerged you in a swampland of my drama. Listening to you go off on your parents is the least I can do. Literally, I could not do less. So, lay it on me. Scream, cry, write a rage song about your dad’s epic assholery. And we are gettin
g you into that writing program,” I insist. “Talk to your dad again. Tell him how much this means to you. Has he heard your music? Flood his inbox with MP3s and don’t take no for an answer. Let him know that if he ever wants you to visit, he needs to support your dreams and love you no matter what.” I pause to catch my breath, then shrug. “And if that doesn’t work, I’ll rob a bank. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

  “You’d pull a heist for me? Aw.” He squeezes my shoulder into him, close enough so he can kiss my forehead. “Now it’s your turn—how’d it go, researching at Gabby’s?”

  My stomach free-falls down onto the sidewalk. I wait for it to settle back in place before answering. “Gross, creepy, and depressing. And then church this morning was super weird, and I kind of had an existential breakdown. Publicly.”

  “You lost your shit in church?”

  I flash a cheesy, guilt-ridden grin.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not really,” I say. “All I want to do is drizzle my problems in green chile and pretend my life isn’t a complete shitshow for a while.”

  “And kiss,” he says. “Kissing would help both our moods, right?”

  I grin. “I suppose we could give it a try.”

  I round the corner onto Apache Avenue, but Milo pulls me back, hands firm against my hips. My breath catches, still shocked by the superb newness of it. His Adam’s apple bobs as he leans in. And then, it doesn’t even feel so much like pretending. When his lips meet mine, warm and sweet, at least part of my world really does stop crumbling.

  17

  I’m so surprised to see Gabby and Leah on my front porch Monday morning that I forget to invite them in. “What are you guys doing here?”

  Gabby screws her eyes up, clearly confused. “We pick you up every Monday. Why would today be any different?”

  I guess she has a point, but we haven’t talked or texted since the Teddy-Bear-Club-Shooting-Research-Crossover-Sleepover, and I thought they might need a break. Like—I don’t know—a get-out-of-friendship-free card. But, then, here they frigging are.

  “Are you ready?” Leah asks. “Or should we come in?”

  “No, don’t.” I quickly glance over my shoulder toward the kitchen where Gran is humming as she bakes banana bread. We haven’t spoken a word since church, somehow managing to silently coexist. I shout a quick goodbye and then push the girls down the porch steps.

  Gabby whistles. “What was that about?”

  “We aren’t talking.”

  “Clearly,” she mutters.

  “It’s so weird that they’re mad about all of this now,” Leah adds. “You shot—I mean, it all happened so long ago.”

  She thinks I don’t see her eyes flick over to Gabby, but this recent nervous tic between the two of them is impossible to miss.

  I fiddle with my earrings. “Yup. Weird.”

  “It’s a coping mechanism,” Gabby says wisely. “Think about it. They spent all these years trying to shield you, never putting up any pictures, reinforcing that car accident story. You can’t blame them for trying to stop the PTSD from kicking in. And then, bam! Your dad comes in and blows down their card castle. If there’s anybody you should be mad at—”

  “Robert?” I pause, fingers curling around the passenger door handle. “After everything that’s happened, you think I should be giving him the silent treatment?”

  “I mean …” Gabby shrugs. Like, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck … but instead of actually saying that, she forces a controlled exhale.

  We flop silently into Leah’s Volvo, and I examine Gabby’s face in the rearview mirror. Lips pinched, biting back words. An unfamiliar anxiety rushes through me—shamed by the sullied mention of Robert’s name, guilty that Gabby is policing herself. I love her protectiveness, but I hate that she won’t budge. So savvy, thinking she knows fucking everything. I swivel toward the back seat so she can unleash this pent-up buffet of concern, but a tall figure outside catches my attention.

  “Jo, is that your—”

  “Dad,” I choke.

  Standing there in his navy bomber jacket and ball cap, Robert looks freezing. As if he’s been waiting for me for hours. He walks around to my side of the car, making the roll-down-your-window gesture. Instead, I get out and meet him on the sidewalk, ushering him toward Mrs. Zelazny’s hedge where Gran won’t see us.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to say goodbye.”

  My heart swerves into my lungs “Wait, you’re leaving? But w-when?”

  “Now,” he says, glancing down at his watch. “There’s some all-hands-on-deck stuff going on, and they want me in Houston. You’ll be okay, right?”

  I nod, ignoring a thickness in the back of my throat, ignoring Leah and Gabby gaping at us through the windshield. They have the radio on, but I can feel their troubled eyes. Judging us, dissecting our body language.

  A gust of wind blows, filling me with icy desperation. This goodbye is happening too fast. I’m not ready. I need time to stop or rewind or at least slow down. Robert opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off, wrapping my arms around him. Our first hug. And now he’s leaving.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” he says, squeezing back. “It’ll be okay. I can visit again.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  He lets me go and I wobble.

  “I’d like that. I feel like we were just starting to …”

  … connect, I want him to finish. But Robert only smiles. “I’ll miss you, Joey.”

  “I’ll miss you too.”

  “Sorry for the short notice,” he adds, looking down at his watch again as he steps off the curb. “You be good, kiddo.”

  I watch him jog over to his car and hop in. Watch him try a couple of times to start his rusty Corolla, then drive slowly up the street. He taps the horn gently as he passes, waving through the windshield. I swallow the lump in my throat and wave back. It’s stupid to think he’d stick around forever. Houston is his home, not Santa Fe. Of course he has a life to get back to. But I keep staring at the empty road, long after he’s turned. Unable to move. Waiting for something that isn’t going to happen.

  The car door bumps against my thigh as it opens. Leah’s leaning across the gear shift with her fingers on the door handle. “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey.” I clear my throat, training my voice not to shake. “Sorry about that. We’re going to be late now, aren’t we?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she says softly. “So that was your dad?”

  I slide onto the seat and busy myself with the seat belt.

  “He’s cute.”

  “Leah, gross,” Gabby says.

  “Shut up! I only meant he’s not dad-looking. He seems nice.” She hesitates. “What were you guys talking about?”

  “Huh?” I swallow, forcing a shrug. “Oh, he wanted to say goodbye. He has to head back to Texas. It’s fine, though.”

  “Wait, what?” Gabby sputters.

  “It’s fine,” I say, stronger this time. “He’s got a life. He can’t abandon it.”

  “Like he abandoned—”

  “Gabby,” Leah snaps. She squeezes my knee, but I jerk away before she can mother me too much or make me cry.

  “I said, it’s fine. He’s going to come back. Now, will you drive already?”

  Gabby clears her throat but says nothing.

  A melancholy smile hangs off Leah’s lips. “Away we go.”

  • • •

  It’s not until Milo stops me after first period that I cry. Soon as I rest my cheek against his chest, just—boom. Faucet.

  “My dad left,” I say, salty tears soaking into his soft, black sweatshirt.

  “What do you mean, he left?”

  “He went back to Texas. For work.”

  “Seriously?”

  He rubs my back, and I let myself drown in the weight of it all. It helps that kids are streaming up and down the hallway, giving me sideways glances�
��helps me stop blubbering, I mean. I sniffle, my eyes locking with Milo’s.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

  “I don’t know why I’m freaking out. It’s not like I’ll never see him again. He’s my dad,” I say, the word still funny on my tongue. “He came all this way to find me. I know he wants to be a part of my life. He’ll probably call me tonight. At least, I want him to. Do you think he will?”

  “Me?” Milo blinks. “I’ve never even met the guy.”

  “Yeah, but, you think he’ll keep in touch, right?”

  “You know I can’t answer that.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Okay.”

  He walks me the rest of the way to second period with his arm tight around me. Which feels nice, but it doesn’t erase my disappointment. Maybe he can’t answer, but I wish he’d at least try.

  • • •

  At lunch, I sit listlessly between Milo and Leah, listening to Gabby ramble about a recent A in English, and how she’s now considering liberal arts colleges for creative writing, rather than law (yeah, right). I feign best-friend enthusiasm, occasionally looking idly down at my butternut squash soup. Stupid soup and my new vegetarianism while the rest of them eat steak quesadillas and chicken Caesars. Not that I’m hungry.

  “You okay?” Leah asks.

  “It’s just this nasty soup. It looks thick enough to be a Korean face mask. Whatever. It’s fine.”

  “Maybe you should get ‘It’s fine’ tattooed on your forehead,” Gabby mutters.

  My eyes snap over to her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “In the car?” she says, pitching her voice way up. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Oh, don’t worry about me, it’s fine that my father just up and left me. Again.”

  Her words have spikes attached, but I dodge them. “Maybe it is fine.”

  “That’s all you’re going to say? How can you pretend this isn’t killing you?”

  “Jesus, what do you want from me, Gabby?”

  “Anything!”

  “You guys,” Leah starts to say.

  I slam my wet spoon down on the table. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I’m keeping my mouth shut for you?” I whisper, anger in my voice. “I see the way you guys look at me. All terrified, like I’m some kind of monster. Which I am, so …”