7. Making Mistakes
Dexter
My sugar must have been low before to warrant the type of hypoglycemic attack where I craved everything that had a high-sugar content. Half-dazed, I opened the pantry, seeing a week-old package of cookies lying open, a bag of potato chips, and some chocolate. After eating half of all of them, I wobbled away, realizing I’d have to work all week at the gym to get my shape back.
I pick up my guitar, strumming chords after a few minutes of abusing myself for being so careless with my cravings. Sure, a hypo made any diabetic hunger-craved but that was no excuse. I’m better than that.
So for the next half hour, I practice the sheet music I bought for Maroon 5’s classics, Sweetest Goodbye, She Will Be Loved and Harder To Breathe.
Everyone’s gotta be worth something, be the best in this world at something and that, for me, is music. This afternoon, I play some simple chords to start with because my muscles are lethargic from the hypo. Even more so, it’s drained my brain. And comfortable is easy because I don’t need to look at music. I close my eyes, hum, and don’t even remember the fingerings. The millisecond before my fingers press the strings is the first time I remember what I should press. I think the melody is ingrained in my muscle memory—not my mind.
After the three Maroon 5 songs I need another task. Maybe I should go to the gym after all. When my muscles burn and my lungs are hungry for oxygen, I can’t wonder about Charz.
And that’s what I do.
I strip to my boxers and then change those for briefs, for, you know, less bounce. I pull out my shorts and white tank and sneakers.
As I pass the bathroom, I look back in the mirror. Two symbols stamp my left inner forearm for a person I’ll never forget, Jack. I hate my last memories of him, though, because it isn’t his devilish ability to win over our mom’s heart for favors. It’s his car, flattened against a tree, with two perfect zigzagged lines where the wheels lead up to the wreck.
The other forearm is an ugly forest strangling things like a thorned heart, a jellybean, and the death reaper’s scythe with the letter “J” on the stem. Girls either love them or hate them. Would Charz hate this, my body? As soon as I’ve wondered that I vow never to think any more girly things like that again.
Dad’s voice interrupts my dash to the laundry for clean clothes. He’s on the phone to someone from what I can hear of the one-sided conversation behind the shut door.
Mom and Tahny aren’t home, so, ear pressed to the door, I reach my bag around the corner and drop it out of the way. Dad’s tones are clipped, making his voice ridiculously hard to hear, which also makes me realize how vulnerable my position is. I’d have no way to talk or run my way out of this one.
Pulling my hoodie from my gym bag, I hurl the rest into my room. The air outside is frigid when I step out the back door. At first, I rationalize that it isn’t so bad because Chicago winters shit all over Melbourne when you compare weather and freezing temps. Snow either flutters—Mom’s word—or it pummels you and you’re either cold to the bone or your balls are so high inside you, you wonder how much of a man you are on those days. But we always have layers to protect us. Here? My calves have goose bumps and the bargain price I paid for this hoodie makes total sense, because it looks a helluva heap better than it is at keeping the warm in. I find a beanie in one pocket, mess out my hair and pull it over my head.
The room Dad’s in has the window open. Our junk room needs airing whether we’re home or not because our house has piles of stuff we haven’t used since way before Tahny got pregnant. Stuff that old leaves a smell.
The grass is a bit mushy when I test out the firmness, so I settle for squatting and crab-walk until I’m under the windowsill.
Yes. Out here it’s loud.
Dad says, “I can’t do that. That’s a fucking rip. What do you take me for?”
The sound coming through the receiver is muffled but I reckon if I shuffle in closer and squat higher… and I catch one word. The voice says, “Payback”.
Payback in any terms isn’t good. No one says I’m giving Jim payback for gifting me a grand.
Children use payback for kids who steal crayons, teenage girls use payback for girlfriends who tell their secrets, and adults use payback only when it’s worth it because by this stage, you’re no longer worried about petty issues.
Payback by my father is worse.
Childhood seems like another world once you’ve grown up, and you wonder how you could ever have been as stupid as kids these days seem to be, but this conversation sparks a memory and suddenly it’s just yesterday for me.
The images flicker through my brain. Mom walking me to school every day; me playing Nintendo 64 by myself; having to learn what to do on my own at the age of eight to impress a girl in my class. All because some people Dad knew had him too busy for his own family and got him involved in stealing donations from a fake organization for parents of cancer patients who gave money to research cancer drug trials. Kept him out of my life for four years and eight months.
“What about what fucked up at MSR?” Dad says, his voice traveling from one side of the room to the other.
MSR. A medical term? A new trial drug? But he said at MSR. Sounds like a place.
The penny drops. Mason’s Ski Resort.
Is Dad worried about the plan falling through again if he did actually have something to do with that disaster? Falling through is a cowardly fucking euphemism for shifting blame. For keeping himself out of trouble for what happened at Mason’s—the same thing that had the cops all over my ass—his son—and killed Melissa May.
A feeling churns inside me. It’s a hook grabbing onto my insides and pulling them into a swirl, knotting it—a type of pain that only my mind understands. The way I deal with this is muttering fuckfuckfuck as a single breath.
My thigh muscles are so tight they start to shake. I slip a little and my beanie rides up my head, caught on the nicks in the brick wall. I grip the beanie and yank it down before the freezing air slips through and coats my head.
“How, huh?” Dad replies. “Why, after everything,” Dad repeats, a dose of rage in his tone.
My cell vibrates in my pocket and I forget about the air biting at my calves and my shaking thighs, falling into a heap on top of Mum’s flowerbed. While I’m down, I check my phone. It’s Raych.
Want me to come round baby? it says.
I tap, Busy.
Then I tuck the cell away in my pocket and squat just below the windowsill again.
“Years. It’s been years. I don’t feel comfortable with that. That man was a lowlife piece of shit. He’s the one who fucked up my family, your family.” A breath. “Forget it. Trust me,” Dad says, his voice sounding from the middle of the room, finishing at the far end wall.
I can’t hear the response because Dad’s too far away from the window. My phone buzzes again and it can only be Raych because no one has techno fingers like her.
But I’m on my way already baby ;)
Great. Can’t she go a few days without nagging me?
I’ll make it quick. I’ll blow your mind, Dexy.
I’m busy Raych. I just saw you. Cya next week, I reply.
“They’re not my millions,” Dad says. “That ski disaster didn’t kill—” but the other person must cut him off.
Shit. This is harder than I thought it’d be. Dad sounds threatening, yet at the same time he’s fishing for something else I can’t figure out.
In record speed, my cell vibrates again, saying, I know you won’t dump me cuz I know people who’ll fuck you up. Haha jks.
As my fingers hover over my cell’s keys to ask if she’s being fucking serious because we’re not even together the doorbell rings.
Dad’ll see me if he comes out to get the front door. In a spur-of-the-moment decision I tip-toe-race to the side door and pop my head through. “Home, Dad! I’ll get that.”
And while I jog around the front to let Raych know I can’t dump her because we
were never together and I don’t want to see her again all I think is this:
I only get one chance to redeem myself to Charz, and it’s only going to get fucked up because of the mistake waiting at the front of the house.
* * *
Elliot is waiting by my front door when I clear the corner. Thank the fuck.
“Erm, you ‘kay?” he asks.
“Bad timing, bro.”
“You look like shit.”
“Still lookin’ better than you,” I say, landing one in his shoulder.
He scowls, throws one back but I duck and he wobbles, saves himself with flailing hands and wipes away my smirk with a swat.
“What?” I say. He’s just staring. It’s too weird.
“What’s been going on?”
For some reason I turn, surveying my neighbors, while tugging my beanie lower. Bits of blue poke through expanses of gray clouds. The houses are dull. Even the one with the terracotta roof seems colorless and drab. Just neverending rows and rows of mirrored driveways, and alternating double- and single-story houses. They all blend together to form a muted backdrop as Charz’s face forms over one house, and an image of Walter keeling into a ball and coughing up blood is plastered over the one in front of us. Lastly, I see Dad grinning to the person on the phone about Walter having millions. To what? To steal from him?
Bastard.
“Uh,” I say, hands clamped under my hood, on top of my beanie, “Nah, nothing much.”
I’m still getting used to hanging with Elliot alone. Sometimes our other buddies, Robby and Ben used to tag along and chain fart for an entire day of gaming, or they’d keep rolling out horrible ‘your mom’ jokes, which is funny the first time, but gets old by the tenth. Still, it’s weird not having their annoying quips to deal with. And right now I wish that past life I thought was shit was what I could have now.
“Let’s pretend I’m not confused.” Elliot jumps down the front steps, squelches through the mushy grass and opens his car door. He plops into the seat for a count of two, then reverses each action exactly the same until he’s on the porch again, hands dug in his pockets.
“Erm, you ‘kay?” he repeats.
I roll my eyes. “Look…” But I stop. I need to tell him I really can’t talk. If I’d been taking a piss that would be a better time than now, but now is the worst timing ever. Or it was, because now Dad’s footsteps are approaching the door. I’ve missed my chance to tell Elliot about Dad and his secret call.
Dad pulls the door open, keys looped over his fingers and waves goodbye, driving away.
Fighting the urge to ditch Elliot and run like hell, I turn back to him. “Uh, yeah. I…forgot what I was going to tell you,” I say. Ditching Elliot isn’t such a good idea anymore. If Raych really comes around…well, I’d be screwed. I’m such a dick for trying to pull a Sherlock Holmes. As if I was actually going to get anywhere.
Suddenly, I realize what a wimp I’ve been, sneaking around, listening in on Dad’s phone conversations. I never analyze shit like this. It was probably nothing. The time between my hiding like a little boy, my thighs burning from squatting, and now is something I’d rather not share.
“Wanna hang?”
Elliot claps his hands. “Halle-fucking-lujah!” He nods to his car. “Thought you’d never ask.”
He has spare gym clothes from another lifetime when he attempted to go to the gym. We were seventeen at the time. He went to one session; I’ve been going ever since. He probably thinks I’m a health nut. But I go because it keeps my blood sugar levels steady and why should I care what others think? The fewer injections I have to do, the fewer chances there are of someone finding out about my condition. That my body is nicely screwed.
I go to the bench press first because maybe if I pump my arms until they want to fall off, I’ll physically not be able to kill Dad when I see him tonight. I press somewhere around half my weight and lose count after twenty reps, imagining how Charz would feel to hold. Then I increase my speed, swearing my head off and mentally punching Dad for wanting me to go back to work at Mason’s when I’m perfectly happy at the mechanic’s, perfectly happy being as far away from the place that almost landed me in the slammer as possible, far from the place that screwed up every chance I would ever have of ever finding out how my arm would fit around her—
“Dude! Your face is like a beet.”
Panting, I lift and drop the bar in its holder and hang my head between my legs. I rest my elbows on my thighs and look up. “Huh?”
“Your face. It’s somewhere between a beet and a tomato now, though.”
I look in the mirror. He’s kinda right. My heart suddenly thuds in my throat and my lungs are about to burst through my skin. After a minute I’m fine, apart from the lactic acid burning me up.
“Now might not be the best time.”
“But?” I say.
He swivels out from the leg press and avoids my eyes. “Does Raych care if you wear sweats to the movies?”
“I don’t care what Raych thinks to be honest, and we’ve never been to the movies.”
“You never make it to the movies?” he asks, as if he’s correcting me.
I throw my hand up. “What the—? No, I don’t know. I don’t know what I wear and she always seems to think everything I put on is ‘hot’.”
“Oh,” Elliot says.
I lie down, spread my legs and shimmy into a comfortable position and start pressing again. Elliot’s my closest buddy but he does these weird things sometimes. When he’s worried what other people think. He comes to me for some unknown reason. Why would I know what he should wear to the movies? It sounds like Elliot has started the leg presses again but it’s too awkward to check.
It hits me. “You little bastard. Who is it?” What a champ. Elliot hasn’t dated, heck, hasn’t dipped his wick in weeks. I reckon several weeks but I haven’t had the balls to ask.
When Elliot is still silent, I call out to the ceiling, “Elliot’s got a girl!”
That gets him going. In my peripheral vision, I notice a few people glance in our direction.
“Good one.” Pause. “I’m thinking of asking her to the movies. Sorry that was dumb to say.”
I pant, slow my reps, and add, “What’s stopping you? With her, I mean.”
“Um…I don’t have her number.”
Elliot and I both stop at the same time. I crack first, basically falling into fits of unstoppable laughter until a hand swats my head.
“Let’s start with a simpler question. What’s her name?”
“Charlee.”
One word.
Seven letters.
Not the name I give her.
A whole gym full of letters jammed full of her name, flooding me in meaningless sounds, noises, scattered everywhere, serving to choke my throat. I turn away and cough out the tight feeling, but it’s still there and I need to say something to Elliot, so I turn around and say, “That was close. Pushed myself too hard.”
Elliot nods, agreeing. Thank God he doesn’t normally come to the gym with me because that’s far from pushing myself hard. At Charz’s name I’m no better than him though, breath coming in ragged gasps, face red. We’re both spent but I can’t imagine he’s half as lethargic as I am.
“Sounds…hot.” I mumble.
This is not good. Maybe it’s not my Charlee. Maybe twenty years ago, Charlee was a popular name for baby girls here in Australia. Maybe Americans just use normal names and Australians use weird names like Charlee all the time.
Come to think of it, there must have been a few chicks named Charlee over the years. There must have been.
Now I imagine his arm around her slim waist.
The worst part? It slips around the slenderest bit and wraps seamlessly around her skin.
No. Fuck it. In my mind she’s mine. In my mind we’re mind-blowing together. It’s just when she actually gets close my guilt rears up and decides to remind me I don’t deserve her or happiness after what I’ve done.
“Great. Well let me know how you go with the date. Wanna shower?”
Elliot agrees too easily. He slips off the machine too easily. He says what a hard session that was and wipes down his sweat too easily. “Sure, I’m beat. Reckon Charlee would like this?” he asks, curling his fist over his bicep. “Who am I kidding?” He laughs then taps me as if he means let’s go now. This is over.
Why won’t he just punch me? Why can’t I stay here forever and run that stupid belt off the treadmill? Why isn’t the lactic acid burning me up yet?
I. Want. To. Feel. Hurt.
There’s pain in my chest somewhere, but I can’t get it out.
I think it’s her. My Charlee. I know that’s bad.
The drive home takes forever as images of Charz waving to Elliot, groaning into Elliot’s lips and pressing her hips against Elliot wrack my mind. I really do too much imagining.
When I slam the door, Mom calls, “Dex? You home?”
“Yes.” What else would a door opening and shutting mean?
“You staying?”
“Yup.”
“Everything fine?”
“Yep.” Not going to talk about it if it’s not.
I dump my gear in the corner and splay out on my bed, inching up to the headboard, pushing back with my feet. Although I’ve had a shower, although these clean gym shorts have an elastic waist and are loose as hell, my skin is on fire and I’m sticky as shit.
Cell in hand, I just stare at it, wondering what to say to Charlee. After an eternity of typing combinations of “hello” and “Charz” and calling her number only to end it before the line connects.
I finally settle for, ’Sup?
The cell beeps before the next minute shows up. I know this because I’ve been staring at each second as it goes by, hanging on to the hope she’ll pick me over Elliot.
Just finished training. You?
Same.
I wonder what she does. It’s obvious she does something to get a killer bod like that.
I add, Was at the gym. What do you do?
Swimming.
Charz pops out of a pool, flicking her hair back like a brilliant streak. Water drips from her chin, over her breast, nipple…and she falls back into the waiting arms of that fucker. Not me.
Drowning in You Page 5
