don't know, do you?”
“I'm here to talk about what is bothering you.”
“God, you
are
nothing! Just an invisible nothing!”
I saw something turn in his eyes then. Something good. Something angry. He set his jaw. “What would you have me do? Tell you that you were immature and childish today? Tell you that when your goal now is to simply hurt and destroy and bully, it reminds me of your mother? This is why I left, Poe! THIS!”
Silence for a moment, dead and still as a corpse. I looked at him. “Maybe she went insane with you because you're too chickenshit to stand up for yourself. And maybe now I understand why there was no way you could be with Mom. Or anybody.” My eyes seared into his, and I couldn't stop myself. Something in me wanted this to go on, because I was disgusted. But he was right. I was just like my mom. Search and destroy. Find the weakness and rip it to shreds.
So I left.
Chapter Thirteen
Saturday rolled around with the melancholy of bad relations in the house. After our one-sided fight, I had walked around Benders Hollow six times in four hours. I hated this place. I wanted Los Angeles. I never wanted to know him again.
David avoided me, spending all day doing yard work. I watched Velveeta shoot things with a paintball gun, pretending trees and rocks and plants were God knew what prey, then watched David pick weeds. I didn't understand him, and thinking about our argument the night before, I didn't even understand me. I'd used him as a punching bag, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew that sometimes people needed to be punching bags. Just like Velveeta.
I don't know what I was so cranked up about. It
was
like he was a lamp, and every time you tried to get close to him, he turned his little switch off and used fancy say-nothing talk to keep himself apart from things. To be on the outside. That's what I didn't like. He could talk about feelings and the truth and getting to know each other until he was blue in the face, but the second you wanted to getpersonal, he couldn't handle it. He'd sat in that office like I was a stranger.
I thought about our first conversation after I got here. The one about what we saw in each other, and knew it was the truth. His language was just like the school. Distant and impersonal, like an analysis, and I didn't know what to do.
So I called Mom. Mistake. Deep in the jungle somewhere in South America, she'd told me to call only for emergencies. She had some sort of GPS super-duty military cell phone that got reception anywhere, but it cost something like ten bucks a minute to talk. Ninety grand for a Mercedes, okay, a hundred bucks for a phone call from your daughter, not okay.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mom.”
Static on the line. “What's wrong? Are you okay? Poe, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just calling.”
“Poe, what's wrong?”
I wanted to say my dad was impossible and that I wanted to go home. I wanted to tell her to come home. I wanted, of all things, to tell my mom she wasn't that bad. “How's the jungle?”
“Poe, I told you this line is for emergencies. I thought we talked about this? I go to the city every week and check my e-mail. You haven't even sent one, by the way, and I was disappointed.”
She hadn't sent one, either. “Oh.”
“Listen, I have an emergency appendectomy in five minutes. I'm going to be late, and I can't have this young woman burst on me.”
“Sorry.”
Her tone softened. “How are things? Good? Your father?”
“Yeah. Great.”
“Good, good. I knew things would go well. Gotta run. Bye.”
“Bye.”
So much for that.
• • •
At five-fifteen, Theo skated down the street to pick me up for the cocktail party, and I waved through the window. David was on his hands and knees at the sidewalk digging dirt out of the cracks with a butter knife. He'd told me it keeps the weeds away. When I told him to squirt gas in them and light a match, he thought I was joking. I wasn't.
I hopped down the steps and
“I'm here to talk about what is bothering you.”
“God, you
are
nothing! Just an invisible nothing!”
I saw something turn in his eyes then. Something good. Something angry. He set his jaw. “What would you have me do? Tell you that you were immature and childish today? Tell you that when your goal now is to simply hurt and destroy and bully, it reminds me of your mother? This is why I left, Poe! THIS!”
Silence for a moment, dead and still as a corpse. I looked at him. “Maybe she went insane with you because you're too chickenshit to stand up for yourself. And maybe now I understand why there was no way you could be with Mom. Or anybody.” My eyes seared into his, and I couldn't stop myself. Something in me wanted this to go on, because I was disgusted. But he was right. I was just like my mom. Search and destroy. Find the weakness and rip it to shreds.
So I left.
Chapter Thirteen
Saturday rolled around with the melancholy of bad relations in the house. After our one-sided fight, I had walked around Benders Hollow six times in four hours. I hated this place. I wanted Los Angeles. I never wanted to know him again.
David avoided me, spending all day doing yard work. I watched Velveeta shoot things with a paintball gun, pretending trees and rocks and plants were God knew what prey, then watched David pick weeds. I didn't understand him, and thinking about our argument the night before, I didn't even understand me. I'd used him as a punching bag, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew that sometimes people needed to be punching bags. Just like Velveeta.
I don't know what I was so cranked up about. It
was
like he was a lamp, and every time you tried to get close to him, he turned his little switch off and used fancy say-nothing talk to keep himself apart from things. To be on the outside. That's what I didn't like. He could talk about feelings and the truth and getting to know each other until he was blue in the face, but the second you wanted to getpersonal, he couldn't handle it. He'd sat in that office like I was a stranger.
I thought about our first conversation after I got here. The one about what we saw in each other, and knew it was the truth. His language was just like the school. Distant and impersonal, like an analysis, and I didn't know what to do.
So I called Mom. Mistake. Deep in the jungle somewhere in South America, she'd told me to call only for emergencies. She had some sort of GPS super-duty military cell phone that got reception anywhere, but it cost something like ten bucks a minute to talk. Ninety grand for a Mercedes, okay, a hundred bucks for a phone call from your daughter, not okay.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mom.”
Static on the line. “What's wrong? Are you okay? Poe, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just calling.”
“Poe, what's wrong?”
I wanted to say my dad was impossible and that I wanted to go home. I wanted to tell her to come home. I wanted, of all things, to tell my mom she wasn't that bad. “How's the jungle?”
“Poe, I told you this line is for emergencies. I thought we talked about this? I go to the city every week and check my e-mail. You haven't even sent one, by the way, and I was disappointed.”
She hadn't sent one, either. “Oh.”
“Listen, I have an emergency appendectomy in five minutes. I'm going to be late, and I can't have this young woman burst on me.”
“Sorry.”
Her tone softened. “How are things? Good? Your father?”
“Yeah. Great.”
“Good, good. I knew things would go well. Gotta run. Bye.”
“Bye.”
So much for that.
• • •
At five-fifteen, Theo skated down the street to pick me up for the cocktail party, and I waved through the window. David was on his hands and knees at the sidewalk digging dirt out of the cracks with a butter knife. He'd told me it keeps the weeds away. When I told him to squirt gas in them and light a match, he thought I was joking. I wasn't.
I hopped down the steps and
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