Some Kind of Normal

by Juliana Stone

  I took a moment, a good long moment, and studied the man in front of me. The man who’d always been my rock. My hero. There’s something heartbreaking in knowing that the person you’ve idolized your entire life isn’t the Superman you’d always thought him to be. He’s not made of steel. He’s flesh and blood, and his Kryptonite is his humanity.

  “Can I ask you a question now?” I asked softly, watching him closely.

  Dad’s eyes got all shiny, the way mine did just before I was about to have one of those moments. You know, an ugly one. He dropped his head for a second, as if the stupid mug was going to somehow help him, and then he nodded.

  “Sure,” he said, his voice so low I barely heard him. I think he knew what I was going to ask before I even opened my mouth.

  “Why were you in Baton Rouge with Kirk Davies?”

  Kirk Davies. The guy who’d been coming around our home since I could remember. He’d been at my birthday parties, at family gatherings, and he’d even spent a few Christmases with us. He was funny and charming and hot in a CW kind of way. He liked to draw, told funny stories, and had the most beautiful smile that you can imagine. He was my parents’ oldest friend, a guy they’d gone to college with, and he was totally, unequivocally, one hundred percent gay.

  No one had ever said it out loud, but I knew.

  Dad cleared his throat, took his time just like I had, but there was nowhere to run. No place to hide in this kitchen. There was the pantry, the fridge, and the table. There was the heavy silence full of dark and painful things.

  There was him and me.

  And now, finally, the truth.

  “Kirk and I… We were there for the celebrations.”

  Celebrations. Did he think I was stupid?

  “I don’t believe you.” My heart was beating, fast and hard, but I didn’t waver. This was too important. Too hard. But I had to know.

  Dad’s mouth tightened, and his gaze slid from mine, which spoke volumes to me.

  “He lives in New Orleans, doesn’t he?” I asked. “Is that why you’re there all the time? Is he the reason you go?”

  “What is this? I counsel a—”

  “You’re lying!” Something broke apart inside me. My voice was shrill and loud, and that cliff I’d been standing on forever it seemed, was suddenly right there. My toes were over the edge, and I was going to fall, but I didn’t care anymore. “Can you just be honest with me? I know, Dad.” My voice broke, and dammit, there were those tears again. “I know.”

  And I did. It was suddenly clear as day to me. His secret.

  But my heart wasn’t breaking because of what he was going to tell me. It was breaking because I was afraid. Afraid because my family was already cracked, with gaping wounds that couldn’t be fixed, and when the dust settled, I wouldn’t have him anymore. Not like before. Not like I was supposed to have him.

  “This is hard for me, Everly.” His voice was shaky, his hands fisted. That place inside me, the small soft spot where my heart was…that place expanded and then constricted so tight that I could barely breathe.

  “It’s hard for me too,” I said hoarsely. “And for Mom.”

  He made a weird noise when I said that and exhaled a long, shaky breath.

  “I’ve never broken my marriage vows. I want you to know that. Never.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I mean, it was so personal, and there was a part of me that couldn’t believe I was hearing this stuff.

  “But I’m…” He cleared his throat again and leaned onto the table, his hands spread, his long elegant fingers thumping nervously. I swear it was the only thing keeping him on his feet. “Things between your mother and I haven’t been good for a long time.”

  “And that gives you the right to lie to her? To us? For over a year? How is that dealing with a problem?”

  “I was trying to protect…to…”

  “How is lying protecting your family?” I butted in. “I’m seventeen, and I know that lies only make things worse. Just because it’s easier to lie doesn’t mean you should do it.” My voice was shrill. “You taught me that.”

  He was silent for a few moments. “No. No, it doesn’t, and I’m sorry for that.”

  “Are you gay?” I blurted before I could stop myself.

  “What? No, I…”

  But I saw the truth in his eyes.

  “You’re lying,” I shouted. “This right here is going to change my life. Can’t you at least be honest with me now? There’s no one here but us.”

  “It’s complicated,” he said carefully, eyes falling from mine.

  But it was enough. I saw a truth that was quickly overshadowed by fear. I got that. Fear could make anyone do stupid things. But this was my life too, and he needed to own his shit. Not bury it.

  “Are you gay?” I asked again, moving so that he had to look at me.

  I didn’t think it was a sin or anything. I mean, I don’t think that I did, but staring across the table at my father, I couldn’t deny the fact that along with anger, disappointment, and fear, the only other emotion inside me right now was shame.

  I loved this man. I hated this man. I was proud of him, and I was ashamed.

  How screwed up is that?

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Trevor

  I stared at the acoustic guitar in my room for a good hour before I picked it up. My dad had worked hard to make enough cash to buy it for me on my fifteenth birthday. He’d got it off some old guy out in the swamps, a poor bastard whose talent had been stolen by arthritis. The guitar was battered, beat-up, and used, just like a Gibson should be, and it was worth a small fortune.

  I had, like, six guitars, but this one was my favorite. Partly because it was a ’56 Gibson, but mostly because my dad gave it to me.

  I use to play it all the time, but I hadn’t touched it since the accident. Sure, I practiced scale runs on my electric because it was easier. The strings were lighter and the action was low. But that wasn’t the only reason I avoided this acoustic. The Gibson reminded me of that night.

  The only reason it had survived the accident was because I’d left it behind at the party, too wasted to care about this special thing my dad had given to me. Brent had scooped it up for me. He’d kept it for months, and when I finally came out of the coma, it was the first thing he’d brought to the hospital. I think he thought it would make me feel good, you know, to see it. Touch it even.

  But it didn’t. Something about the guitar triggered a kind of blackness in me, and truthfully, setting it in the corner of my room was almost like a punishment. Maybe one I deserved. A screw you for the stupid mistake that had landed me right where I was. On a road to nowhere.

  I held the guitar in my hands, and it didn’t even feel right. Didn’t feel like there was anything there. No connection. No passion. There was nothing.

  And if that wasn’t scary enough, I sat on my bed and played a few chords, but nothing sounded good. Nothing sounded right. And that blackness, well, it was still there. Still invading every space inside me, falling into every nook and cranny that made up Trevor Lewis.

  I’d just had an epic meltdown, and hiding in my room didn’t make me feel any better. Nothing did. I was going to be eighteen, and I knew I was acting like a damn eight-year-old, but I couldn’t seem to help it.

  We’d been home from Baton Rouge for a few hours, had just finished dinner, and Mom said something about studying and the stupid government test and I just…I lost it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Taylor speechless. And my dad, man, when he could speak, he told me to disappear because he was this close to hurting me.

  He said that, and my mom burst into tears.

  I told my mom to go to hell. My mom. What the hell is wrong with me? Kind of a rhetorical question, because I know exactly what the deal is.

  Epileptic.

  Jesus, the
sound of the word made me sick, and now it was something tangible. Something real. It was a label I couldn’t hide from. Not only was I the stupid bastard who’d scrambled his brains, now I was an epileptic to boot.

  Awesome. Great thing to add to my résumé.

  Fuck.

  I’d started this summer with pretty low expectations, but even I hadn’t seen the freak-on-the-floor thing happening.

  Someone knocked at my door. I considered saying nothing. Doing nothing. You know, ’cause that was the easy way out. The immature way out. Though I guess immature and Trevor were kinda one and the same these days.

  The knock sounded again, and I swore, wincing when I stood, ’cause along with everything else, my knee hurt like hell. I considered pulling on a T-shirt but then thought what was the point?

  It was probably my mom, though I hoped that it was my dad. Hell, I wanted it to be him just as much as I wanted him to kick my ass. Maybe then I’d feel better about things. Maybe then I’d feel.

  I was nearly there, my hand on the doorknob, when I heard her.

  “Trev?”

  For a moment I faltered. I wasn’t ready to see Everly yet. God, would I ever be? I kept thinking of how stupid I’d sounded in the hospital, messing up my words. And of the shame and embarrassment that wouldn’t go away. That’s not what a guy wants to feel when he’s thinking about his girl. Worse than that even was the thought of that freak on the ground. When I thought of Everly, I pictured myself on the ground, with a bunch of strangers staring at us. How was I ever going to get used to that? Bad enough that it was me on the ground, but even worse for Everly to be there with me. That was pretty hard to take.

  “Trevor? I…I really need…to talk.”

  Huh. Maybe she wanted to break up with me. Maybe she’d finally figured out that I was a lost cause. That I was never getting back to the way I was before. Fired up at the thought, I was motivated to get this over with.

  I whipped open the door and…

  She fell into my arms, her body shaking and her fingers cold on my back as she dug in and burrowed against my chest. I was kind of shocked and, if I was honest, a little grateful, but mostly a lot confused.

  I wasn’t allowed to have girls in my room. Not since my mom had caught me feeling up Brooke Smith. I’d been fourteen, and she’d been a year older. It had totally been worth it because, you know, boobs, real live boobs. Still, my mom hadn’t shared the joy that a fourteen-year-old boy feels when that first time happens, and she hadn’t been real happy to find a braless Brooke in my bed and me in my boxers. So the no-girls-in-my-room rule had been firmly established, and that was one the parents were pretty much in agreement on. You don’t want to know how many times I’d been warned about what would happen to me if I made them grandparents before their time.

  After the stunt I’d pulled earlier, this had to be pretty damn important for my parents to let Everly in.

  “You never called me,” she whispered.

  I wanted to tuck that stupid piece of hair behind her ear. I wanted to hug her back and smell her shampoo. I wanted to hold her head and kiss her mouth, taste the cherry gloss that she used. God, there was so much I wanted to do, but something held me back. Some invisible force field that said back the hell off.

  So I did nothing. I said nothing. I just stood there like an idiot (which I sorta was) and listened to her sniffle until there was no more sniffling. Until her body stopped shaking and her fingers were warm.

  Finally she pulled away, and I couldn’t look at her. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to see her. I mean, that would be stupid crazy. She was the most gorgeous girl I knew. I just didn’t want her to see me.

  So I turned around, feeling that familiar spike of anger hit when I spied the Gibson lying across my bed. I stomped across the room, grabbed it up, and placed it back in the corner where it belonged. Where it would stare at me in silence, a reminder of everything I’d lost.

  “Are you okay?” Everly asked.

  “Never been better.” My answer was clipped, but at least I got the words right. Score one for the freak.

  God, I was a prick.

  I heard her move and knew that she was standing just behind me. When her fingers touched my side, I nearly jumped out of my skin. But I stayed still, hands fisted at my sides, anger churning for no reason. It just churned and burned and made me crazy.

  “How did you get this scar?” If I was paying attention, I would have known that her voice was scratchy and used up. It was sore and painful. But I was so focused on me that all I thought about was getting her out of my room so that I could wallow in my own private pity party.

  “I got it jumping from the dam. Jumped in the river just behind Nate and got snagged against a tree that was under the water.”

  “Must have needed a lot of stitches.”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Oh.”

  Her hand was still there, running up and down the scar, and a sudden urge to rip her hand away from me had me breathing heavy and clenching my teeth together so tightly my jaw ached.

  “What do you want, Everly?” I sounded like a cold bastard.

  I think she must have been shocked, because she made this sharp sound, like a gasp or something. The weird thing was I kept hearing a voice in my head, a voice that sounded like it was under water. It kept repeating, do it, do it, do it, over and over again.

  Do what?

  I felt the tic behind my right eye, and the band of pain that circled my head throbbed so hard that I wrenched away from her and took a few steps. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I sure as hell wanted to hurt something.

  I couldn’t explain any of this. The thoughts in my head. The pain in my chest. It was just a big jumbled mess of stuff, and I didn’t want to deal with any of it anymore.

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay. I wanted to see you and I wanted to…” Her voice broke. “I wanted to talk.”

  “That’s a joke,” I muttered.

  “What?” Her hand was on my arm.

  “Let go of me, Everly.”

  “What’s going on, Trevor?” Her hand fell away, but she didn’t back off. She moved a few inches so that I had no place else to look but at her. I thought I looked like hell? She looked like she’d been to hell and back.

  Her hair looked like she hadn’t brushed it for days, and her eyes looked bruised and overly glassy. If I didn’t know her better, I’d think she was high. Her cheeks were pale and her lips even paler.

  “Why are you being like this?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I just can’t do this. I mean, what’s the point?”

  “What’s the point?” Her voice was loud, and little spots of red appeared in her cheeks. “What’s the point?” she repeated even louder. She pushed me, both hands to my chest, and I rocked back on my feet, which considering she was so small told me that the girl was pissed.

  “The point is that I need to know you’re okay. The point is that I care about you. The point is that I’ve been worried all day because you didn’t think to call me. That’s the point.” Her voice broke and she took a step back, but the back of her knee met the edge of my bed and she fell onto it, barely managing to keep herself up. Her hair fell out of her ponytail and covered half of her face. Angrily, she yanked it back and glared up at me. “The point is that I needed you and I thought that you cared enough to be there for me, but I guess I was wrong.” She bit her bottom lip, and I could tell she was on the verge of tears.

  I’ve done some shit things before, but this here, this stupid roller coaster that I couldn’t seem to get off, this had to be the worst. I’d hurt her, and I couldn’t figure out how to make it better.

  “God, you haven’t even asked about my father. About what happened, and you know how much…” She blinked her eyelids fast, as if trying hard not to fall apart. “Trevor, you knew that I was freaking out over that
.”

  I wanted to say something to make her feel better. I really did. But I couldn’t find the words. I had nothing. I was nothing. Couldn’t she see that? Why was she pushing so hard?

  She jumped to her feet. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  The fact that Everly Jenkins had just cursed me should have told me that she was walking that tightrope. And that maybe she was going to fall. But I didn’t pay attention to that because I had other stuff going on.

  I don’t know what it was. The tone of her voice. The actual words that she used. Or the image of me on the ground twisted up and helpless while all around us, a bunch of strangers watched me. That was an image burned into my brain, and when I closed my eyes, it was all I saw.

  Whatever it was, something dark lit up inside me, and finally I found my voice.

  “You want to know what’s wrong with me? Have you got all night? Because I’ve got to tell you, Everly, the list is impressive.”

  She flinched, like I’d slapped her or something, but I kept on because now that I’d found my voice, there was no stopping me.

  “Let’s see, I can’t drive anymore. You know, because of the whole epileptic thing. I doubt I’ll pass the stupid government test, which means I’m stuck here for a lot longer than I want to be, and that sucks more than you know. Um, I have trouble sleeping, my head hurts, and well, as you’ve seen more than once or twice, my vocabulary isn’t always stellar.”

  “I don’t…just shut up,” she said.

  “You started this, Everly. You came here. You need to know that I can’t handle my shit and deal with your crap too.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “Yeah, well, believe it. I’m a dick. I know it, and now you know it, and I think that whatever this is that we have is done.”

  “You’re breaking up with me?”

  The dark fire, it just got hotter and hotter. I let it spread, and being the bastard that I am, I kind of enjoyed the feel of it.