going to have to go without sleep, because there was no way I could go back to bed now. My nerves were all jangly; I had to do something. Hayden’s playlist was supposed to give me answers, so I pulled it up on my computer and looked over the songs again.
Hayden had included an epic from the Decemberists, my all-time favorite band. I remembered the first time we’d gone to the mall together by ourselves. We were eleven and my mom dropped us off with clear instructions: two hours, no purchases over two dollars, no McDonald’s. We broke the last two rules immediately, ordering five dollars’ worth of totally random stuff from the McDonald’s value menu and splitting everything, which was awesome but made us feel sick. We’d sat at the table and he’d listened to me bitch and moan about my dad, who had canceled yet another visit. He lived in California now and never invited me and Rachel out there—couldn’t afford the tickets, he said. He would come to visit when he wanted to hit up his own parents for money, money they didn’t have either, though I knew they always gave him something. Kind of sad when you get old enough to realize your dad’s a d-bag.
“You’re lucky you’ve got your mom,” Hayden would say. “One good parent’s better than two shitty ones.”
He would know. He rarely invited me to his house, and at first I’d thought it was because he was embarrassed that his family had money when mine so clearly didn’t. But after I’d been there a couple of times I figured out that it was really about his parents. His mom wasn’t afraid to express her disappointment with him in front of me, and his dad was almost never around; when he was, he joined the party. His brother picked on him at school, and his parents picked on him at home. Even at that young an age, I must have started to understand that there was nowhere he felt safe except with me.
There was one other safe place, of course: the ITC. Our happy place. I’d never been allowed to buy comics—they were expensive and my parents thought I’d stop reading “real” books. Which turned out to be kind of accurate, though it still didn’t mean they were right. Hayden, in contrast, already considered himself a collector. He made a point of buying the first issue of every new comic that came out, just in case one of them took off and the original turned out to be worth something. His parents, like Mom, didn’t approve, but his father was a money guy and thought it was important for Hayden and Ryan to have allowances so they learned how to budget. I think maybe on some level he also respected that Hayden was thinking about his hobby in terms of investment, though he never actually said it out loud. God forbid he actually praise Hayden for something.
That was the day I discovered how into comics Hayden really was. I’d borrowed copies of all the old Batman series from the library, but he was into way different stuff. He introduced me to all the comics written by people from the bands we liked—there was one from the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, and one from the guy from the Dandy Warhols, even one from a bunch of members of the Dresden Dolls. I figured there had to be one from Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decemberists. “He’s all literary, and his wife’s a graphic artist—there’s no way he doesn’t have a comic if all these other guys do.”
This led to our first fight about music, the first of many, so many I couldn’t count. I wish I’d realized how important those fights would be to me. Maybe I’d have realized how much fun they were.
I couldn’t believe Hayden wasn’t into the Decemberists—they were smart and creative and weird, all the things he loved. But maybe they were too smart; it pissed Hayden off when there were words in the songs he didn’t know. I thought that was part of the fun, but he didn’t see it that way. We were still yelling at each other right up until the time my mom showed up; I made her
Hayden had included an epic from the Decemberists, my all-time favorite band. I remembered the first time we’d gone to the mall together by ourselves. We were eleven and my mom dropped us off with clear instructions: two hours, no purchases over two dollars, no McDonald’s. We broke the last two rules immediately, ordering five dollars’ worth of totally random stuff from the McDonald’s value menu and splitting everything, which was awesome but made us feel sick. We’d sat at the table and he’d listened to me bitch and moan about my dad, who had canceled yet another visit. He lived in California now and never invited me and Rachel out there—couldn’t afford the tickets, he said. He would come to visit when he wanted to hit up his own parents for money, money they didn’t have either, though I knew they always gave him something. Kind of sad when you get old enough to realize your dad’s a d-bag.
“You’re lucky you’ve got your mom,” Hayden would say. “One good parent’s better than two shitty ones.”
He would know. He rarely invited me to his house, and at first I’d thought it was because he was embarrassed that his family had money when mine so clearly didn’t. But after I’d been there a couple of times I figured out that it was really about his parents. His mom wasn’t afraid to express her disappointment with him in front of me, and his dad was almost never around; when he was, he joined the party. His brother picked on him at school, and his parents picked on him at home. Even at that young an age, I must have started to understand that there was nowhere he felt safe except with me.
There was one other safe place, of course: the ITC. Our happy place. I’d never been allowed to buy comics—they were expensive and my parents thought I’d stop reading “real” books. Which turned out to be kind of accurate, though it still didn’t mean they were right. Hayden, in contrast, already considered himself a collector. He made a point of buying the first issue of every new comic that came out, just in case one of them took off and the original turned out to be worth something. His parents, like Mom, didn’t approve, but his father was a money guy and thought it was important for Hayden and Ryan to have allowances so they learned how to budget. I think maybe on some level he also respected that Hayden was thinking about his hobby in terms of investment, though he never actually said it out loud. God forbid he actually praise Hayden for something.
That was the day I discovered how into comics Hayden really was. I’d borrowed copies of all the old Batman series from the library, but he was into way different stuff. He introduced me to all the comics written by people from the bands we liked—there was one from the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, and one from the guy from the Dandy Warhols, even one from a bunch of members of the Dresden Dolls. I figured there had to be one from Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decemberists. “He’s all literary, and his wife’s a graphic artist—there’s no way he doesn’t have a comic if all these other guys do.”
This led to our first fight about music, the first of many, so many I couldn’t count. I wish I’d realized how important those fights would be to me. Maybe I’d have realized how much fun they were.
I couldn’t believe Hayden wasn’t into the Decemberists—they were smart and creative and weird, all the things he loved. But maybe they were too smart; it pissed Hayden off when there were words in the songs he didn’t know. I thought that was part of the fun, but he didn’t see it that way. We were still yelling at each other right up until the time my mom showed up; I made her
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