Afterward

by Jennifer Mathieu

  My mom is standing by the fence, talking on her phone. When she hears the back door slam, she comes toward me. Her eyes are pink from crying.

  “Hey, I’m going to go inside and talk to Aunt Josie for a sec, okay? Will you watch Dylan?” She hesitates a little as she says this. Like for some microsecond she’s debating if leaving me responsible for him is a good idea.

  The hesitation is like a knife in my gut.

  “I’ll watch him, Mom. I won’t even go to the bathroom. I promise.”

  I plop myself down on the white plastic lawn chair dotted with bird poop and draw my knees up to my chin. Dylan doesn’t even look up to see I’m here. The back of his hair is curling down over his collar. He needs a haircut bad. My mom likes to take him to this kids’ stylist in the city who’s trained to work with kids who have autism because anyone else who tries to cut Dylan’s hair usually can’t handle him.

  When we were younger, I had to get my hair cut by that stylist, too, and I hated how she always cut my bangs too short. But I couldn’t say anything because it didn’t make sense for my mom to have to drive all the way into the city for Dylan to get his hair cut and then spend some other Saturday afternoon driving some place local for me. Eventually, I stopped getting my hair cut at all, letting it grow out super long and trimming the bangs myself.

  Dylan tries to line up a block and something goes wrong, and suddenly he’s yelping in frustration. He throws the block across the yard and starts thumping the ground in anger.

  “Hey!” I say, sliding off the chair. “Hey, Dill Pickle, I’ll get it.”

  I race across the backyard for the small blue block. It has the letter D on it.

  “Look, it’s a D!” I say, heading back, showing Dylan the block. The doctors told my mom to read and talk to Dylan because it would help if he was ever going to develop real language, and even though he’s old enough now that I doubt that’s ever going to happen, I still like to help remind Dylan of letters just in case. “You threw the D block. Duh, duh, duh. D! Dylan! D is for Dylan! Duh, duh, D.”

  Dylan snatches the block out of my hand and knocks it a few times on the wooden deck of our porch. Then he adds it to his line, nice and straight like he likes it, and keeps going, his tense limbs relaxing again. I sit back down in my chair.

  I like watching Dylan work on his block lines and his marble lines and his Lego lines. His little fingers with the dirt-filled fingernails move the blocks around carefully. Precisely. Like a surgeon but for blocks. I keep staring at the curls of hair at the back of his neck, and something about them makes me feel like crying. He looks so helpless with his hair all long like that. My throat tightens up, and I fight my brain, which wants to think about what happened to Dylan when he was gone. To find out whatever it is that still upsets him so much. And then I want to explode in fury at the way my parents seem more caught up in their own stupid drama instead of Dylan.

  Finally, Dylan finishes, and he looks up at me, and his eyes fix on mine. My mom likes to call it a magic moment. When he seems to be acting like he really understands you. Like whatever fog separates him from us has lifted for a minute or two.

  His light eyes blink once. Twice. And then Dylan moves over to me and presses his soft cheek against my calf.

  Hesitant, I reach out to ruffle his too-long hair. I’m worried he might flinch or pull away. But Dylan stays put.

  “Dylan, you made a nice line of blocks,” I say, petting him and trying to take in the moment. “I love this nice line of blocks.”

  As quickly as it starts, it’s over, and Dylan scoots away, taking the blocks and moving them in a different direction, starting a new line from scratch. I watch him and his curls and his little boy hands, and I wonder how anyone could ever hurt someone like him.

  ETHAN—226 DAYS AFTERWARD

  I’m not totally sure, but I think Dr. Sugar has been working on convincing my parents to take time for themselves or something, because lately on Friday nights they’ve been going out for an early dinner and leaving me alone in the house. And when we have our family sessions we talk about how to create a functional family or establish trust or whatever. Dr. Sugar is okay, but he’s not Dr. Greenberg. Everything he says sounds like he’s repeating it from a textbook or a website about mental health. With Dr. Greenberg, it just feels like we’re talking.

  So anyway, my parents have gone out to an early dinner at Tony’s, the one sort of fancy restaurant in Dove Lake. I told them to drive into the city if they wanted to, but I don’t think they feel ready for that yet.

  I’m whacking away on my drums, as usual, singing my latest lyrics in my head. I still haven’t gotten the guts to show them to Caroline, but maybe tomorrow when she comes over I will.

  Like a face without a name

  And you think that I’m to blame

  But I will not feel the shame

  You want to put on me

  I’ll walk the street so free forever

  As those bonds I start to sever

  What happened to me ain’t a measure

  Of the man that I can be

  “Hey.”

  I look up. Caroline is standing just under the garage door, wearing that stained Violent Femmes T-shirt again, and her face looks busted up somehow, like she’s been crying. She isn’t carrying her guitar, but a red backpack is slung low on her shoulders. She chews on her bottom lip.

  “Hey,” I say, smiling. “Did you bike here?”

  “No,” she says. “Walked.”

  I want to be glad she’s here. I am glad. But Caroline doesn’t seem like herself.

  “Wanna go down by the creek?” she asks. I know she means Dove Lake Creek down behind my house. She looks me right in the eyes, and I think she’s daring me to say yes. She’s like a force tonight.

  I peer out beyond the open garage door at the empty street. The sun is just starting to set. I know my parents are going to be home soon. Going out without permission will mean huge trouble with them.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “I need to get out of here. I need to just walk by the creek, and I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll go.” My hand goes to my phone to text my mom, but I can’t do that. She’ll freak and tell me not to go anywhere. And I feel like going somewhere for once. Like a normal teenager would. So I tell Caroline to hang on and I go inside, grab a jacket, and leave a note on the kitchen counter.

  Went out with Caroline. I won’t be gone long. Don’t worry.

  I think about my mom reading it and I add Love, Ethan at the end.

  Caroline doesn’t look at me as we walk down the sidewalk to the place where the muddy path begins that ends by the creek bank. She just holds her backpack tight to her shoulders. It’s weird because I’ve never really been anywhere with Caroline except my garage. Seeing her outside like this, outside of where we normally hang out, feels strange. Surreal, even.

  “So what’s up?” I ask.

  “Shit at home.” The words come out quick, like she’s spitting them out instead of speaking them.

  “Okay,” I say. I have to double step to keep up even though I’m taller.

  She leads the way, and we make it down to the creek bank and she slips her backpack off her shoulders and tosses it onto the ground. She sits down, and I follow her lead because what else am I going to do? The bank is wet from the rain we’ve just had, and the dampness seeps through the bottom of my pants. The smell of fresh mud is strong.

  Unzipping her backpack, Caroline pulls out a 20-ounce plastic bottle of Diet Coke and unscrews it. She takes a neat sip, and I know it’s not just Diet Coke in there.

  “Want some?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. I take a swallow from the bottle. The taste is metallic, but I know it will relax me.

  Sometimes he used to get me to drink.

  No, don’t think about that now.

  We sit there staring at the creek for a while. Plastic bags and a couple of empty cans of Busch are trapped in t
he tree roots that disappear under the water. Caroline matches me three sips for every one.

  “Why’d you have to get out of your house?” I ask. Whatever Caroline gave me to drink has made my bones and muscles feel all loopy and numb.

  “My parents got into a fight this afternoon and my dad left, and then he came back and they got into their most epic fight of all time, and then my dad left again. I think, like, for good.”

  “Oh man,” I say. “I’m sorry, Caroline.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I actually don’t want to talk about anything. I just want to sit here. And drink.”

  “Okay,” I say, and I’m almost relieved because I don’t know what else to say to her.

  Maybe half an hour passes but it’s hard to say. We don’t talk. Just drink. Darkness falls around us. Finally, Caroline starts to screw the cap back on the mostly empty bottle, but as I watch her, I can tell she’s struggling.

  “Let me do it,” I say, reaching for it. But Caroline flings the bottle into the creek in one sure motion.

  “Hey,” I say, “what the hell?”

  But she just digs into her backpack and finds her sunglasses and tosses those into the water, too. She smiles a little half smile.

  The weird thing is that something about it makes sense somehow, and the next thing I know I’m sliding my Sperrys off my feet and throwing them into the creek, too. One and then the other. I hurl them so hard one makes it all the way to the other side of the creek where it smacks a tree and lands with a splash into the water. Something about that is satisfying.

  Caroline takes off her shoes, too, and tosses them one and then two. Next she jumps up and peels her T-shirt off and whips it around her head a few times and throws it toward the creek bank where it falls like a deflating balloon.

  Caroline has on a bra. A plain, old white one. I’ve never seen a real girl in a bra before. I’m not breathing really well. She slides back down onto the mud and doesn’t look at me. Her little half smile has changed into a full-on frown.

  “Shit,” she says. “I liked that shirt.”

  “I can go get it. If you want.”

  “No, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Okay,” I say, not sure where to look. So I look at the shirt sinking into the water. I can barely make it out now because the sun has gone away almost completely. It’s starting to get cold, too, but it’s hard to tell just how cold since we’ve been drinking.

  “Hey, can you come here?” Caroline says to me, and her voice is soft and slow.

  I look at her face and glance down real quick at her breasts. They don’t seem too big or too small, but I’m not sure because I don’t have a lot of experience to go on.

  “Come here like how?” I ask. My heart is up in my throat. I try to swallow it back down to where it belongs.

  “Like over here,” she insists, and she reaches out for me kind of clumsy and not sure of herself.

  Let me be able to do this. I want to be able to do this. I should be able to do this.

  Caroline is touching my shoulder all tentative, but then she reaches over and puts her face near mine, so close I can smell the liquor on her breath. Her lips are stained cherry-red and they’re open, but just barely.

  “Kiss me,” she says, and she sort of leans into me and we’re kissing. We’re kissing. Her tongue is in my mouth, and she’s putting her hands on my shoulders and my back. Her body feels so small next to me, and warm, too.

  We fall back into the mud and roll toward one another, and we’re kissing like it’s our job. Pushing into each other all insistent.

  This should feel good. I want this to feel good. Please make it feel good.

  I can feel myself getting hard. Caroline is making little noises in the back of her throat.

  This is different. This is a girl.

  Suddenly Caroline’s hands are down by my waist. She doesn’t do anything, but I feel them there, almost hovering her touch is so light. Her hands are so small. A girl’s hands. I push into her, kissing her harder than before.

  “Wait,” she says, and she falls back a little. I pull away. I have to catch my breath.

  “I’m kind of drunk,” she whispers. But she reaches for me again, and we kiss some more. It’s the first time I’ve kissed a girl. Or anythinged with a girl. And it’s Caroline and we’re drunk and I don’t know what I’m feeling except I want it to be the right thing. It has to be.

  Hands on me. Rough hands. Big hands. Not stopping. Not when I pleaded for them to stop and then gave up because the pleading only made it worse. No, not now. Don’t think about this now.

  I kiss Caroline so hard I don’t think it counts as kissing anymore, but it’s like if I kiss her hard enough I can push the other thoughts out of my head.

  “Ethan,” she says, drawing back and sitting up, “that hurts.”

  Any good feeling I had in my body flickers off immediately.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry.” Suddenly, I feel kind of queasy. Please don’t let me throw up.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “But this is fucked up.” She blinks a few times, and I look down at my bare feet caked in mud. She’s right. This is fucked up so many times over I can’t even figure out where to start counting.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say. My head is starting to throb, and I close my eyes. But all I can think is that I hurt her. I can’t turn into someone who hurts people.

  “I kissed you,” Caroline says. “I started it.”

  She stands up and wobbles a little. I stand up, too, and reach out to try and steady her. Only I’m not sure if I should touch her.

  “I need to go,” she says.

  “What about your shirt? Our shoes?” It’s full on dark now. I’m not sure we could even find them by the creek.

  “Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Let me walk you home.”

  “No, just go. Your parents will be worried.”

  Her words make me reach for my phone. There are so many texts from my mom I’m surprised my phone hasn’t melted. Shit.

  Caroline grabs her backpack and slips up the creek bank pretty fast for someone not wearing any shoes. When we make it to the top, she looks at me but I have a hard time looking at her.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” she says. I don’t know if I should kiss her or hug her or just stand there. But Caroline turns around and darts off into the night, still dressed in her jeans and white bra.

  I race home, and about fifty yards from my house I see the spinning blue and red lights of a police car. Shit shit shit.

  “Megan, he’s here! He’s right here!” My dad is standing in our front yard, holding his phone, yelling in the general direction of our house. He looks at me and takes a deep breath.

  I’m going to be in so much trouble.

  The screen door bangs open and my mom comes running out, crying and pretty much hysterical. She screams my name and starts clutching at me, her fingers digging into my back, hugging me like she did when I was found. I hug her back.

  “Mom, I’m fine,” I say. “I’m okay. Didn’t you get my note?”

  She doesn’t answer, just pulls back a little like she’s making sure it’s me, and then she hugs me again. Over her shoulder I can see my dad talking to the police officer who gets into his car and drives off. Then my dad walks over to my mom and me.

  “You okay, son?” he asks. He pats mom on the back. He’s wearing his “It’s all going to be great let’s just focus on how great it’s going to be,” smile which isn’t really a smile but this expression that makes him look like he threw out his back and doesn’t want us to know.

  “I only went on a walk. With Caroline.” I’m waiting for one of them to notice I’m not wearing any shoes. But they’re too busy staring into my face. Mom’s touching it, still sniffling and blinking back tears.

  “Honey,” she says, “when we text you, you have to text us back. Immediately. You understand that, right?”

  I exhale. I want to t
ake off. Run. Run back to that creek and jump in and sink to the bottom and hide there with the frogs and the dead leaves and the rusty, empty cans of beer. I’ll transform into a swamp creature that never has to figure out what to do with girls and never hurts his parents. And when I die I’ll be swallowed up by the muck and the mud and it’ll be an easy way to go.

  Forget what Dr. Greenberg said about me being okay and enjoying life like a normal or typical person. I am too fucked up for that.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t text back,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  We go back inside the house, and I realize I’m still feeling a little weird from whatever was in Caroline’s Diet Coke bottle. “Caroline and I were walking by the creek. I got some mud on me, so I’m going to go take a shower, okay?” I say. My mom nods. I have a feeling she’s going to wait for me right outside the bathroom door.

  I make the shower as hot as I can stand it and get in, turning my face upwards, letting the water pound down on me. I think about Caroline and her breasts and kissing her. I wait for my body to react again but nothing happens. I don’t know why. I’m scared to wonder what it might mean. I stay in the shower, letting the hot water run until there’s no hot water left and my mom is knocking on the door, asking me if everything is okay.

  CAROLINE—232 DAYS AFTERWARD

  It’s actually really easy to skip school. I tell my mom I’m going, and then I just don’t go.

  Every morning I get dressed like I’m heading to Dove Lake High, and then I walk to the bus stop and I just keep walking. I walk all the way into downtown, and on the way there I call the school attendance office and fake my mom’s voice and say I’m sick. The attendance clerk must be deaf or stupid or both, but it doesn’t matter which because she never acts like she doesn’t think I’m a depressed woman in her late thirties with two screwed up kids and one asshole husband.