Away From Here_A Young Adult Novel

by Christopher Harlan

  I remember the time dad was changing in front of that big armoire he had in his room, and I asked him where he got those scars across his neck? Yeah, I remember that; Mom got so mad she couldn't control that Latina temper any longer and did her best impersonation of an angry tiger on good-old dad's chest. I remember all the ‘talks’ they used to tell me they were having, and even as a kid I knew that was bullshit ‘cause their talking sounded a hell of a lot like fighting, bad fighting, angry fighting. I also knew what to do, I had lots of practice, years of it actually. Never go up to your room, that was rule number 1. Obvious one there, your room was upstairs right across from theirs, no sense in getting closer to the battle grounds, that didn't make any sense.

  The only other room up there was the bathroom, and no one needed to pee that bad. That left downstairs, didn't it? Nowhere else to run and hide, so I learned what to do. Turn up the volume on the TV, but the trick was to make it loud enough to drown out the yelling, but not so loud for it to be obvious what you were doing. If you interrupted their 'talk' with some forced parental discipline about the television being too damn loud, you just knew they were going to overreact. No, had to do it just right, loud enough to make the sound of their marital fury a muffled buzz on the periphery of your consciousness. That was enough; enough to bear the slow, decades long harmonies of a marriage committing suicide in the background. I mean, if I’m being honest I’d seen and heard worse fights, but there was always a next day; always some actual talking to accompany all the fake talking, then the cycle repeated itself at some point, like the phases of the moon. But that day was the last; that night was the closing scene of a tragedy, and it all started like any other.

  Laundry.

  Mom went upstairs to fold laundry. Took the basket up and everything, I can still see it rested against her hip as she took it up the stairs. Dad was up there already doing some dad shit - shaving, picking his shirt and tie for the next day, who knows. Doesn't matter. But their paths crossed in a series of unrelated tasks that led to a meeting of consequential words that break wedding vows; the kind that brought to a head decades of toxic and unhealthy patterns; the type of words that broke people.

  What you really remember is how quick it was, how short. Not a bang so much as a whimper, a fight that the bigger, stronger fights would have made fun of and shoved in a locker at school. How quickly the world could change forever. Dad walked out. Mom stayed on the bed, sobbing and shaking. I’d seen sadness and dysfunction of all varieties and magnitudes, but I understood, even at fifteen, that I was seeing a different type of thing. I used to wonder if there were other sad kids like me who spent all of their energy worrying if their moms would commit suicide. I used to have these thoughts while lying awake late at night, wondering if Mom was alive in the next room; those times when the muted sobbing she tried in vain to hide from me finally quieted, I’d wonder if she snuck up a bottle of her pills and an extra-large glass of water. The sobbing disturbed, but the silence frightened, like with babies—it might be annoying when they scream, but when they’re too quiet your first impulse is usually fear. My mind did its own crazy dance in that silence, and I'd envision the possible scenarios playing out in the sad bedroom. After that night everything changed. Mom became a patient, and I became her caregiver, a reversal of the natural order of life, only I still had a life of my own to attend to.

  Anyway, back to Our Story. . .

  I’d gotten home from being with Anna and Mom was half catatonic, a side effect of all the meds, staring out the window in her favorite chair in the living room. That was her spot. My spot, accordingly, was up in my room by my lonesome, but I didn’t really like it up there. I wasn’t a room kid. Most kids were room kids. What do I mean? Like that cliché, I’m going to go be all dark and sad in my room while texting my friends and blasting music. Wasn’t me. For me it was a displacement behind enemy lines, the only safe spot within a larger territory I didn’t really like spending time in, but I didn’t really like it in there. In fact, as soon as I found myself staring at my four walls I was actively engaged in trying to get the hell out of there. And that meant involving Pete.

  Forgetting that I was playing the role of dirt bag truant for the day, I suddenly realized that Pete was still at school, and I was the one sitting at home in the middle of the afternoon, so I decided to text. He’d write me back, even if he was in class. It was best friend code. To not do so would’ve been an immediate and irrevocable breach of the best friend contract we signed when we were five.

  “Hey,” he texted back immediately. “Where are you?”

  “I’ve got a lot to tell you, man. What do you have right now?”

  “See what happens when you get a taste of the outside world? You forget the bell schedule like you never even knew it.”

  “You’ve just been institutionalized. Don’t blame me for resisting that mind control. Now what class do you have now?”

  “Right now I’m sitting in math.”

  “So you’re probably happy to be hearing from me, then. How’s Mr. Krueger’s sweat today?”

  “Intense,” he wrote back with a laughing emoji. “He’s trying his hardest not to have to raise his arms, but he wants desperately to point to the equation up on the board for Jenny.”

  “Shit, has Jenny ever not needed fifteen recitations of the same point during a math lesson? I swear that girl needed to be classified years ago, but her family’s just too embarrassed.”

  “These texts are getting too long,” he wrote back, another laughing emoji following his text. Pete’s emoji game was strong, but he overused them. I used to tell him I was worried that one day he’d go full caveman and cease expressing himself with human words. He told me I was being my usual overthinking self and then we stopped talking about it. That’s how our relationship was.

  “I agree,” I wrote. “Whatever you have the next two periods, skip it. Let’s get caffeinated and talk. Like I said, a lot to tell you.”

  “I’m in. Side ramp of the school in fifteen?”

  “Shit, I’d better get going then.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Home,” I replied. “I’m home now.”

  “And here I am sitting through this bullshit and you’re chillin’ in your room. Get dressed and get in your car, I don’t wanna linger outside school for too long. You know how security guards are here.”

  “Think they’re cops.”

  “Exactly,” Pete wrote. “Fifteen. Don’t be late.”

  I changed into something a little warmer, my body still chilled from the aggressive wind on the rocks. When I was done I caught myself in the mirror and I stopped for a second to stare. No, I wasn’t some Narcissus-type character who liked to steal glimpses of himself whenever possible. What I realized, though, was that the Me in the mirror was different than the Me in the mirror last time I looked. That Logan was a boy, a lost soul, the loser of losers who asked the universe for things he wanted. And, to be honest, I was still most of those things, only the Now Logan had kissed Annalise, and no matter my other cosmic shortcomings, that made me proud to look at myself for a minute or two. But once I realized it was getting weird and going on for too long I broke from my dissociative madness and headed downstairs. I was hoping Mom would ignore me, but no such luck.

  “Where are you headed, baby?”

  “Going to meet Pete. We’re getting coffee. You want me to bring you back anything?”

  “You’re so sweet, but no, I made some already this morning. I don’t need any more caffeine.”

  “I can’t relate,” I joked, looking at her and smiling. She smiled back. She always smiled back, but it was a rehearsed sort of thing, a strained push of her cheek muscles upwards for my benefit. She looked like that scrawny dude at the gym who tried to lift too much weight to impress the other people, but deep down I appreciated the show for my benefit. She knew I’d seen too many tears. “I’ll be back in a little while and we’ll get something for dinner, okay?”

  “Okay, b
aby, have a good time. Be careful driving and say hi to Pete for me. I feel like I haven’t seen him in forever.”

  That’s because you haven’t. That’s because no one’s been here in forever. “I will. Bye.” There was always a weird guilt that came with every close of my front door. I don’t know, maybe I had survivor’s guilt, or maybe being the only person in this world my mom had to rely on was a burden I wasn’t ready to bear. Either way, I had bigger things on my mind that day, so I took my usual guilt-ridden walk away from our house, my worries about Mom overridden by my excitement to tell Pete what had happened.

  I got to the school with a minute to spare from when I told Pete I’d meet him. My boy came strolling out of the side door like a seasoned school criminal, evading the overzealous security guards who goose stepped through the inside and outside of the building, eventually slipping around the passenger side of my car and hopping in next to me. “Tight move,” I said as he put his seatbelt on and we watched the kids shuffle along to their next class.

  “The transition,” he said back, grinning like he just captured the Hope Diamond. “It’s all in the transition between classes. You’ve got to make your move in the chaos.” He was right. Those three minutes were the absolute best time to cut out of the building, when the hallways became a human ant farm and all the kids sounded their battle cries as they made their way to wherever they were scheduled to be. Why were we so loud? Maybe it was our collective battle cry, our vocal resistance within the confines of that building. Or maybe I just thought weird shit like that while I waited for my best friend to buckle his damn seatbelt so we could get coffee.

  “So,” Pete began as we pulled out of the parking lot all incognito. “You’re in a world of shit, huh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well not only did you skip school but you skipped out on your jail sentence, too. Now it’s gonna be doubled.”

  “They could quadruple it for all I care. Put my ass on high school death row. Screw it.”

  “Wow,” Pete joked. “Someone grew a set. I like it. What’s the inspiration for sticking it to the Man?”

  “My only inspiration. The only one I’ve ever had.” Pete looked over at me, methodical as all hell, like his neck was in some dramatic slow motion shot in a movie, and I knew right away that he got my meaning.

  “No,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “That isn’t very nice. Keep that up and I’m not paying for your coffee.”

  “Oh, shit, you must be telling the truth. You’d never offer to buy me coffee unless you were in a state of pure bliss.”

  He was right. That wasn’t like me at all, but my head was still in the clouds, or on the rocks as it were, and I was happy to empty my wallet if it meant I got to gloat for once. I drove him to our favorite diner that was only a few blocks away, and even though I was somewhat of a coffee snob, even then, this place knew how to push water through a bean like no other place around. So it was only fitting that it was there, at the booth in the back where we always sat, that I told him how I’d spent my morning as he listened to lectures on World War II. He responded in typical, elegant Pete fashion.

  “Bullshit.”

  “I shit you not, my oldest of friends. For real.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. When have I ever just bold faced lied to you.”

  “Never”

  “That’s right. So why would I start about something like this, of all things?”

  Pete pondered my question. He knew I wasn’t lying, and I knew that he knew I wasn’t lying, but his brain needed a moment to accept the truth. If I could have been inside his head I would have seen new wrinkles forming.

  “We have a lot to talk about.”

  “I know, why do you think I brought you here?”

  “Wait, are you really paying?”

  “I’m really paying.”

  “Sweet. Now tell me.”

  And that’s exactly what I did, sort of. I gave him the broad strokes that best friends just needed to know, but I modified the truth to keep the parts that weren’t anyone else’s business to myself. I told him about the email, but I didn’t mention her maybe dropping out. I told him about the rocks but not about the kiss. I told him that we talked for a long time, but I didn’t get into what we actually talked about. He didn’t pry, he wasn’t like that.

  “Here,” he said, getting out of his side of the booth and standing about as upright as I’ve ever seen a person do. He extended his hand to me and had this dumb grin on his face that I’ll never forget.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked, staring at him like he was as crazy as he was acting.

  “Stand up, my friend, we’re about to have a moment here.”

  “I think we’re having it, people are staring, man, sit down.”

  “Let them stare,” he said, his voice raising like he was giving a commencement speech. “Let them remember where they were on this fine day for years to come. Rise!”

  I stood up just to stop him from yelling. Once I was up I couldn’t stop seeing all the eyes of the random elderly people who came to diners during the day to avoid loud teenagers like us. I reached out and shook his hand and went to sit again, but he wouldn’t let go. “We’re not done?”

  “Oh no, not even close. Everyone, an announcement,” he was yelling now, and I saw the owners getting ready to come over and ask us to leave, but they weren’t as quick as his tongue, which was embarrassing me with every passing syllable. “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention for a brief moment.” I wanted to die. I wanted to literally crawl inside myself and disappear. “My best friend of over a decade has finally stopped being such a—”

  “Stop,” I yelled. “Don’t finish that sentence.”

  “He’s finally been brave enough to talk to the girl of his dreams, and that, ladies and gentlemen, deserves a round of applause.” Pete started clapping uncontrollably. Loud as hell. Embarrassing. Being applauded is just like getting Happy Birthday sung to you. . .there isn’t much you can do but sit there like an idiot until the thing runs its mortifying course. No one else clapped, and I wanted to run out of there screaming, but our coffee was on the way so I just grabbed Pete by the arm and pulled him down.

  “Any more clapping and you’re buying your own coffee.”

  “What, I can’t be happy for my best friend? I’d say this was a big deal.”

  “Be happy for me quietly.”

  Pete joined me back in the land of the sane, deciding that making a public spectacle of us was less important than getting some free caffeine. When we were done talking he got this look on his face like one of these cartoon characters who’s having a revelation. I wouldn’t have been shocked if a lightbulb appeared briefly over his head. “What?” I asked.

  “I have an idea.”

  “That’s obvious. What’s your idea?”

  “Our month-a-versary. You guys should come with!”

  This requires some explanation. Time for another brief interlude, the Pete and Lindsey edition. So remember when I said that Pete was the ladies’ man of our dynamic duo? That he had all the initiative I lacked when it came to just walking up to beauty and introducing his goofy self? Well that’s exactly how he met Lindsey, his high school wife. Lindsey was hot. Now I never would have said it that emphatically to Pete because he leaned towards jealous and overprotective at times, but it was the truth. Lindsey was that girl that dudes broke their neck to watch walk away, but she was down to earth and a real sweet heart. At the time of Our Story they’d been together going on eleven months, which was like a silver anniversary in adolescent relationship time. No drama, no cheating, no bullshit, just two of my favorite people in love with one another.

  He’d christened their 11 month anniversary as their 11th month-a-versary, a term to this day I’ve only ever heard Pete use. He’d hijacked our plans to go to Comic Com together and instead tried to turn two geeks geeking out into his stupid anniversary day
, dinner and hotel stay included. This last part seemed shady at best, but he’d been saving up some money to get a nice room for them to spend the night together.

  “Wait,” I broke in. “So you want me to go with you?”

  “Not you, moron. You and Annalise.”

  “Like a double date?”

  “No, like the double date. No indefinite articles here. That shit will be epic. You guys can get a room too.”

  “Woah, woah, slow your roll. I’ve literally spent one morning with the girl and now you have me taking her to dinner and a hotel. I’m honored for the invite, but I don’t think that’s gonna work out.” Pete was impulsive like that. It didn’t even occur to him that asking a girl you’ve spent two hours with to spend the night in a hotel room with you wasn’t something you could actually do. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued by the idea.

  “Well, if you change your mind, the invitation’s there.”

  “Much appreciated.”

  When we were finished I drove Pete home. I was exhausted even though it was barely the middle of the day. I got home and went back up to my room. Mom was asleep. She slept in the day a lot, both as a side effect of her medication and from a general boredom with life. It was fine with me that afternoon, because I wanted to just be alone with my thoughts. Random texts are a theme here, and just as I was settled in front of my TV I got one from none other than Annalise.

  Annalise: Hey. I need to talk to you about something.

  Me: What’s up?

  Annalise: Did I tell you about Peru?

  Me: Like that it exists? I was already aware, but no you didn’t mention it.

  Annalise: No, not that it exists. I’m Peruvian. I don’t know if you knew that. I mean, I know you know I’m Spanish, but specifically I’m Peruvian.