I lean over to Lia, who is holding onto my arm.“Lia, let go. I have to get out of here.”
I don’t look at her. If I do, I will start crying.
I notice the waitress coming with food.
“Look, the food is here, now sit your asses down!” Nikki’s voice echoes through the half-empty restaurant, provoking every guest to look at us markedly with complete judgment written all over their faces.
“Those are the punks involved with that kid that shot up the school.”
Liais still pulling my arm and I’m looking at the exit wishing I had made my move sooner.
I slump back down in my seat and refuse to look across the table at Brody. I can see that he sits back down out of the corner of my eye though. The waitress silently serves us our food. She must have sensed the tension at our table, because she doesn’t even ask us if we need anything else before making a beeline back to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” Brody says among the silence and clanking of forks and knives on our plates. I’m pretty much pushing around my food, figuring he is speaking to his friends and not me when he says,“Evan.”
I don’t want to look at him, but once again it is that whole looking at the sun scenario and I needed to do it, even if it was indirectly. I glance up at him so he knows I hear him, but quickly look back at my plate as I move my rice and beans into a muddy mixture.
***
“Evan, are you awake?” Mom asks from my closed door.
It is Saturday morning, the first day of Spring Break, and after last night’s dinner at G.G’s, I am sleeping in.“No.”
She opens the door.“No?”
I squint at her, roll over, and cover my head with my comforter.“I’m tired.”
I feel my bed sink.“It is almost noon. Weren’t you supposed to visit Gavin today with Mrs. Ferguson?”
Oh shit, I was. Damn it. I told her last week I would go with her since Brody was working. I throw my comforter off, shuffle across my floor to my bathroom, and shut the door behind me.
I don’t hear her leave, so I clarify,“I’m up. I’llbe down in a bit.”
I take off my tank top and shorts,turn the shower on and get in, just as I hear my bathroom door open.“Are you feeling okay, Evan?”
“Mom!” I can’t believe she is in my bathroom! I’m naked and showering. I make sure the shower curtain is tightly pulled along the edge of the shower.“Please get out!”
I slip under the water to keep warm.
“Is everything all right with you and Brody?”
Oh my God, she can’t be serious. She is asking this now?“Mom, I don’t have time. I need to get showered. I am not going to talk to you about Brody. I’m naked!”
“You can shower and talk at the same time.”
“No, I can’t! That is just gross!”
“I haven’t seen you two hanging out much. I know he has been through a lot.”
She is really doing this right now! I grab the shampoo and start lathering my hair, plopping the length of it on the top of my head.“Mom, I can’t talk about this right now.”
She gets quiet, but it doesn’t last.“Are you still taking your medication? You have an appointment with Dr. Larson in a few days you know. I only spread out the appointments more because of how demanding school has been and you seem to be doing better ... I guess.”
She couldn’t leave out the“I guess,” could she?
I stop lathering, snatch the curtain open enough to look out at her. She is holding my medication in her hand, shaking it to check the amount of pills I have remaining, leaning against my counter. I roll my eyes.“Yes, I’m taking my medication and I am aware of the appointment I have in a few days. Anything else? Because I would like to shower now!”
She could never know I have stopped as long as the pills keep disappearing. She quickly puts the medicine bottle back in the cabinet, shuts it, thenfolds her arms over her chest.“I just worry about you, baby. I know I can be overbearing...”
“Uh, you think?” As soon as I utter the well-placed sarcasm, I regret it.
She tilts her head at me in disdain and my regret is two-fold.
“You are in one of your lows, Evan. I used to get that way too. You know, I understand you think you are doing good, but don’t lie to yourself about anything. If you start having symptoms, you would tell me, Dad, or Dr. Larson, right? No bullshit.” My mom’s casual address has turned serious and dangerously accurate with the way I have been feeling lately, the symptoms I mean. The voice inside becoming more prominent, irritability, anxiety. But these are just symptoms mostly of depression. That isn’t the B word. Not the same symptomatic shit she had when she was in high school and college. I close the curtain tightly as I drown myself under the warmth of the shower, letting the shampoo rinse from my hair.“I am not in a low. Just please leave. I need to finish getting ready,” I say flatly
It is moments like this I think that taking Nikki up on the offer of moving in with her and Ash may be a good idea. And moments like this I wonder if I am hiding what is really happening inside of me, telling myself those little differences are not what they think.
Chapter 10:
Breaking
As I step up onto the Ferguson porch, I hear Brody’s voice from within; he is yelling.“You can’t do this! You can’t keep him from us! He has rights. We have the right to see him!”
What is he doing home? I thought he would be at work. Wait, where is his car?
I knock on the front door softly, not wanting to interrupt, and consider that they might not have heard my knock over the yelling. Mrs. Ferguson opens the door just as Brody’s voice yells out again,“My mother and I will be there tomorrow morning and we will see my brother!”
I remain on the porch until Mrs. Ferguson ushers me in then shuts the door behind me. Brody is standing in the middle of the living room, pacing back and forth, ignoring me but focused on his mother.“Screw that shit. I’m not going to wait for them to tell us when we can see Gavin. That is bullshit.”
Something really terrible must have happened.“What’s going on?”
“Wait, what are you doing here?” Brody asks fiercely and with complete irritation. I feel like I have shrunk two feet from his attack and regret entering this house.
“Brody!Don’t you dare talk to her that way!” Mrs. Ferguson demands.“Now I know you are angry as hell, but that doesn’t give you permission to bark at her or me. Do you understand, son?”
Quickly, Mrs. Ferguson holds a napkin over her mouth as she begins to cough profusely.
“Yes, ma’am, sorry,” Brody says, looking at me briefly while his mom succumbs to a coughing attack. I want to tell him that I don’t want his sorry,I just want to know what is going on with Gavin! Mrs. Ferguson’s cough intensifies to the point she has to take hold of the arm of the chair to keep her stance stable. I put my hands on either side of her shoulders and ask warily,“Are you okay?”
She nods, but I don’t hold stock in her answer as she sits down in the chair with my help.
“Did you take the cough medicine this morning, Ma?” Brody asks as he kneels in front of her. She clears her throat and nods, her hollow gasps coming quickly. I don’t know what she needs, but I ask,“Do you need some water?”
Her breath slows, but the phlegmy rattle still carries over into the lessened gasps. Without an answer, Brody steps into the kitchen, then quickly returns with a cup of water.
“Gavin can’t have any visitors. I got it from here, thanks,” Brody says as he puts the water into his mother’s hands.
In other words,“Leave, Evan.”
I ignore the inner voice’s advice.“Why can’t hesee anyone? What happened?”
Something happened to make them say he couldn’t have any visitors. And, it had to be something pretty bad to make Brody react the way he did on the phone with whoever he was talking to. Was it Dr. Larson?
He sits back on his heels in front of his mother as I kneel next to her.“Evan, justdon’t worry about it
.”
Don’t worry about it? Like this is something insignificant, like a broken plate or spilling a soda on the carpet kind of don’t worry about it.
“Don’t worry? How can I not? He is my friend and if something bad happened...”
“Fuck!” Brody growls as he throws his hands up in the air and pushes up to his feet.“All you need to know is he can’t see friends. I am already late for work and I don’t have time to explain every single detail of why Gavin can’t have visitors with you, all right?”
With her strength back, Mrs. Ferguson yells,“Brody Ferguson, I raised you better than this!” Her voice wavers with anger and itching phlegm.
I don’t want to upset Mrs. Ferguson, especially with how bad she sounds, but I can’t stay here and take this. I turn to her, completely removing Brody from my sight.“I’m going to go, but if you need anything just call me.”
All of a sudden I hear the rear door slam shut. Brody has gone out the back door, to the porch, leaving Mrs. Ferguson crying softly and me holding her cup.
“I’m sorry he spoke to you like that, honey. Gavin had some kind of a mental break and he is being monitored,” Mrs. Ferguson says, clearing her throat.
Mental break; that is pretty big.Part of me understands why Brody is so upset, but then the other part can’t allow that to be the sole excuse he doesn’t want me around.
“Did he hurt himself?” I don’t mean to blurt it out, but there is no easy way of asking and I am really worried about him.
She shakes her head and pats her eyes with the worn napkin.“No, Dr. Larson just said she needs a few days to monitor him closely, keep him calm by isolating him from everyone.”
She looks at the back door.“As soon as I know more, I will tell you.”
I feel like she is breaking some kind of code or law, hiding that she will tell me something she knows her son won’t. I want to tell her not to bother, but know it will upset her if I do.“Okay.”
I rise off of my knees, set the glass down on the coffee table, and turn to leave, but not before looking out the rear window to see Brody pacing on the back porch.
Before I can leave, Mrs. Ferguson catches me with her frail voice,“Evan, wait.”
I go back to her side and she takes hold of my hand and looks up at me.“Since the day Gavin met you, you have been a huge part of his life. Don’t let anyone make you think anything different just because they are struggling themselves. Catch my drift?”
I did catch her drift and her telling me that gave me confidence.
The next day, Mrs. Ferguson called. She said she and Brody were able to see Gavin and he is okay, just not himself. Apparently, his seizures caused a period of disassociation. I didn’t understand and she said she didn’t either until Dr. Larson told her that Gavin had somehow had a split in his personality.
I worried that it was going to be permanent and so did Mrs. Ferguson. Dr. Larson told her that it was most likely related to the recent trauma he underwent and wasn’t permanent, but she needed to have Gavin isolated as much as possible from friends and family. Having the family time limited broke Mrs. Ferguson’s heart as she spoke to me about it.
“Brody isn’t handling it well, Evan. His mood, isolating himself from me, his friends, treating you the way he did the other day ... I know he needs time. Men are different that way,” she says.
I have so many things I want to say about that, but I hold my tongue. Hearing her plead with me to understand why Brody is the way is and to give him time,and keeping him from breaking does make me think beyond my anger with him. Who better to know Brody than his own mother? If Brody’s angry and curt reaction the other day was evidence of him breaking, then maybe my presence in his life, his family’s life, is adding to a potential breakdown. Instead of helping and healing, could my company be breaking Brody even more?
***
“Bullshit! You are not ‘breaking’ Brody Ferguson. Period!” Nikki says loudly, then chuckles
“You have seen how he acts with me. You have even called him out on it, Nik. Hell, Asher has too,” I tell her as we lay out at Lia’s pool.
“So, just because Brody dropped off of the radar for a few days after he found out about Gavin being isolated for this disassociation shit, thatmagically means you are breaking Brody?” Nikki questions with intense exasperation to drive her point home.
“Brody hasn’t been himself since Gavin has been gone, Evan. Now thembeing limited to seeing him is just another layer to the pain they are already feeling.”
Nikki stops speaking and looks over at Lia sitting in a recliner on the other side of me, staring into the pool, thenfocusing back on me.“As you can see, everyone is feeling the pain. But Brody ... he is going to feel it hard. It is not you causing it though. And, you aren’t breaking him, Evan, but I am worried he is breaking you and that pisses me off. Yeah, I have known him since he was a little shit, but that doesn’t mean I am going to side with him over you. None of this is on you, Evan.”
“He isn’t breaking me,” I mumble, then glance at Liasitting still and somewhat comatose to our conversation. She is worrying me. I guess after she went through the whole cutting thing, I’m just worried that the way she feels about Gavin and now not being able to see him, she may revert to cutting again.
Nikki told her yesterday afternoon about Gav. She told her in person, just in case. That is why we are hanging out over here at Lia’s house today, just to keep an eye on her. When Nikki and I showed up this morning, we told her that we needed a girl day by the pool with her. She didn’t send us away, but she didn’t seem thrilled to have company either. More of a reason for us to watch her.
“Lia.”
My calling her name brings her out of her trance enough for her to shift her gaze to the water bottle she is cupping between her hands.“He said he wanted to be home for his birthday. That is all he wanted and now it doesn’t look like that is going to happen,” she says before looking at Nikki and me with fear in her eyes.“What if he doesn’t come home at all?”
Nikki and I both declare,“He will,” like it was rehearsed.
“We all know he is strong, Lia,” I add.
Lia nods, but remains unaffected as she looks back out at the aquamarine water.
I feel bad for her. I have mirrored the despondent, glazed-over look on my own face recently because of the other Ferguson brother. I feel called to take action for her and myself. I sit up straight in my recliner and turn to face her.“You need a distraction.”
She looks at me with a hint of curiosity.“A distraction?”
“Something that can take your mind off of Gav,” I clarify as I tie my hair back in a ponytail.
“Nothing will do that,” she shoots back quickly. Her reactiveness to my advice is so similar to my own about Brody, it is scary.
“Sex,” Nikki says, interrupting my train of thought. I nearly fall back in my chair, straining to look back at her. Nikki is stretched out in her recliner, her eyes shielded by her glasses, with a sinister smile stretched across her face.
“Seriously?Is that all you think about?” I bark at her.
Her smile dwindles while she comments,“No, not all of the time.”
I turn back to Lia, just as Nikki adds,“Well, yeah, I guess it is all of the time.”
Nikki’s candid honesty has gotten to Lia and she and I are both grinning and rolling our eyes as I contemplate a good distraction for both of us.
Got it, I think.
“What about a summer job?”
Nikki wastes no time shooting the idea down.“Are you serious, Evan? That is like the worst idea EVER!”
“Go back to sunning, Nik,” I snap at her.
Nikki sighs loudly, expressing her annoyance with me, then lays back on her recliner.“Summerjob,” she mumbles under her breath, just to get another dig in about my terrible idea.
“What kind of summer job?”
Lia questioning is a good sign that she might be interested.
“Well, what do
you like to do? Do you like to shop?”
She shrugs.“Yeah, sure. Who doesn’t like to shop?”
I’m about to say“me,” but I don’t want to ruin the positive momentum.
Chapter 11:
Surprise Me
April
A few days later Mom and Dad surprise me with my first car, my mom’s Honda Pilot.
“Early birthday present,” Mom said as Dad stood by her side in the driveway watching my reaction to the giant bow on the roof of it.
“Thank you!”
“We thought it would be good for you to have it to finish out the school year. Take your friends around a bit, since they have been doing it for you,” Dad says as he looks over my head at Brody’s house, hinting that he would be a good one to start with.
I nod and smile, but say or do nothing else. I’m determined to leave the situation between Brody and me alone and not talk to my parents about it.
I change the subject, asking Mom,“What are you driving?”
Mom’s eyes light up and she claps her hands together in that cheerleader way she always has done.“Well, we are going to pick it up right now at the car dealership. Want to go?”
“Sure. Can I drive?”
“Yes,” Mom says as Dad tosses me the keys.
Watching Mom sit in her new car and Dad intently listening to the salesman, I realize that even though things have been rough due to the circumstances at school and how it has sucked them in, they seem to be content and settled. I mean, Dad’s firm has promoted him twice since being here in Braxton. He is now running a team in Austin and one in Dallas.
Mrs. O’keefe and Mom’s venture of redesigning their home disappeared quickly once Celine was pulled into the school investigation, obviously, but mom barely flinched. She dropped everything and helped Mrs. Ferguson those first few days and is yet to speak of the O’keefes.
She doesn’t need to. She has left that part of life behind, fortunately for her. Mrs. Bell told Mom about this super-hip design firm in downtown Austin, so Mom looked into it. They loved her ideas and she joined their company right after winter break, but not without reserve; she was worried about me. She told me that would never stop no matter how old I was and that I would understand when I have kids; a very mom thing to say.
Reviving Evan (A Dismantling Evan Companion Novella) Page 7
