3. Arik

Spring break came, and against my better judgment, I decided to go home. I'd put off telling my parents about my plans for far too long, and guilt sat on my chest, making every conversation I had with them harder.

Home wasn't far. Only to the suburbs. An easy trip on the metro and then a short walk to my parent's modest house on the south side. The houses were worn; once a shining beacon of the blue collar, they now sat in disrepair. Peeling paint and roofs needing repair. Overgrown hedges and potholes. A place abandoned by capitalism.

My parents were lawyers but stayed in public defense for a long time before moving into corporate, and raising a family wasn't cheap. They did a noble duty that helped a lot of people in our community, but it didn't make us synonymous with how people think about lawyers.

"You can't take a semester off college to go play on tour." My mother said the words like I'd just asked her to sacrifice her firstborn. Maybe it was a mistake to tell them at all.

I sighed because I didn't know what to say to her. "It's only one semester."

"You only just signed with a major record label. You don't know if it's going to go anywhere." She sounded like she didn't understand how big any of these things were.

"We signed a year ago, and we already have an album out." Not to mention the underground success of our first album, which was why we got the record deal for the second. But she knew all that. She'd been here for every step of this journey with me. "This is what happens after you release an album with a major label. You have to tour it. It's the best way to promote it. We can't have a better opportunity." I wasn't so much trying to convince her but make her supportive. Maybe it was a lost cause.

I had the feeling that if I'd gotten a book deal or displayed in a gallery, she'd be much happier about my goals to pursue art. It was all about which art was socially acceptable in her circle.

"Do you remember telling your father and I that this was a side project and it wouldn't affect applying to law school next year?" She got the little crease in her brows telling me she was seconds from making herself a drink and saying she was too stressed out to talk about it.

"This changes things…" I didn't know how to break it to her and Dad that I didn't want to be a lawyer. I'd made those promises when the band thing had been a shot in the dark.

"You can't put off your education for a maybe."

"This isn't a maybe." I was going to do it either way, but it would be a lot easier with their support. "The record is already platinum."

"How many bands fail, Arik? I want you to look at the numbers. You are making your future uncertain." It was all by the numbers, and I guess I should have expected that, considering she and Dad both worked in big law.

"A lot, but we have so much momentum right now. I can always go back to school. I can't recreate the excitement around this album." I didn't know how to get it through to her.

"You know how competitive Chicago Law is. T14 schools aren't going to like the appearance of taking a semester off, and neither will law firms. You have to show you are serious." Her tone wasn't mean. It carried concern, and I guess I understood where they were coming from considering my father was a second-generation immigrant and both my parents were the first in their family to go to college.

But no one thought they would succeed, so wouldn't that make them want to see me succeed? I guess only if measured by their metrics.

"It's one semester, and didn't you say it was better to be well-rounded?" I didn't know how to tell them I didn't want to go at all and this was a compromise. "Maybe they'll see it as getting it out of my system." I had to try every angle before I gave up.

"How are you going to take the LSATs while touring?" She crossed her arms and leaned against the counter.

I rubbed a hand over the back of my head, trying to think of a way to deflect her question. Or to admit I had no plans of studying for or taking the LSAT. I'd tried but none of the information stuck in my brain, so I'd slacked off the last six months.

"Arik."

"What?" I lifted my eyes from the floor, realizing how long I'd been silent.

"You can't throw away your entire future for this." My mom pleaded with her eyes and I felt bad. The guilt was real, and my mom knew just how to drive it home.

"You act like law school isn't a maybe. I might not get in anywhere."

"You're a legacy. Of course you'll get in." Mom and Dad met at the University of Chicago Law almost three decades ago. It was everything to them.

"That's not a sure thing. They tell you that." It basically was, but they did save that for total fuckups. They weren't letting someone in who had a 2.0 and got a 150 on their LSAT. They had a reputation to uphold. But I didn't think anyone who was a legacy had that issue. Most of their parents were big-shot corporate lawyers after going to a T14 school. And maybe I should want that for my life. My brother wanted it, my sister wanted it, and here I was, the little punk of the family with my long hair, painted nails, and no intention of ever being a lawyer.

"You have a 3.95 GPA in pre-law. I think you'd get in even if you weren't a legacy."

None of that was really the point. I was hyperlexic, and I loved words. They made sense to me, so I had an easier time with English than most kids. But that was undergrad, and law school was entirely different. I couldn't skate by in something I don't love. I didn't want to dig through case law for hours on end. I didn't want to be in college at all. The only reason I'd gone was because it was the thing to do, and in my family, you didn't just not go to college.

"Not if I fail my LSAT." It was a bit of a dick move, but I didn't know how to get the point across to her.

"You need to speak to your father about this when he gets home."

This whole conversation made me want to drive back to college to spend spring break on the empty campus, but I knew that would only push it off with them, and I didn't think I could handle being alone right now. The thoughts were too loud. "What do you think he's going to say?"

She lifted her shoulders. My parents held onto this idea that poor was the worst thing anyone could be in life. And I understood it was rooted in trauma and how their generation saw the world, but it wasn't my view of the world. I'd rather be a starving artist than stuck in a high rise all day.

I should probably crave stability, but I didn't. Law would bore me out of my mind.

My mom pulled her legal pad out of her briefcase and took the pen from behind her ear, clearly done with this conversation until my dad got home. She'd made the move to corporate before he did, so while she'd made partner, he hadn't yet and worked longer hours. Not that mom ever stopped working. She was as much a workaholic as my father. She just did it in different ways. Hers were all last minute. Lots of nights and weekends.

I abandoned the living room when she began speaking into the little tape recorder she took with her everywhere.

My father walked in the door at a quarter past seven to my mother finishing dinner. He slipped in behind her at the stove, and she half-turned to greet him with a kiss. They were so sickeningly in love I never hoped to live up to that kind of thing. They'd been obsessed with each other since the day they met. No one else mattered in their little world. I didn't want to be jaded, but what were the odds of finding anything like their love? It seemed like this far-off concept that I'd never grasp as all my friends'— parents went through nasty divorces.

When you grew up watching two people drenched in love, anything less sounded like a waste of time.

I hated how it made me think of Nicole and what she'd done to throw so many years down the drain. Would I always be bitter? Maybe I didn't have the capacity to love like they did. I felt too broken.

"When will dinner be ready?" Dad asked.

"In about twenty minutes. I got stuck on a call and started late." Mom grabbed a spoon and dipped it into the sauce she had on the stovetop, then held it out to him.

Dad tasted it and moaned softly. "I don't know how you do it all. But you are my favorite cook."

Mom laughed. "Because I'm super-woman. You could never dream of doing what a woman does." She liked to tease him about it, but the truth was cooking for dad was part of her love language. She loved taking care of him and even when he offered, she wouldn't let him do a thing in the kitchen. "Arik has something he wants to speak to you about. Why don't you two set the table and do that?"

My father gave me a look but grabbed dishes and headed to the dining room before asking me what it was about. I gathered napkins and silverware and followed. There was no point in putting it off. I didn't want it to be a topic of conversation at the dinner table and have to deal with two lawyers tag-teaming me.

"What does your mother mean?"

"I want to take a semester off."

My father froze. "What? Why would you do that? Is your mental health okay?"

I cringed. That seemed to be the new buzzword all the parents were talking about. "I'm fine." I wasn't, but was anyone? I took my pills and made do with the brain chemistry I'd been given. We didn't need to get off on a tangent. "They asked us to play Warped Tour, and I want to take the fall semester off."

"If you take the fall off, what does that mean for taking the LSATs in June?"

I broke our eye contact to arrange the forks. "I could do it in October."

"After touring all summer?" he asked, but I couldn't tell how he felt from his tone. He was too guarded. Fucking lawyers.

"I'll have to do an extra semester so I'll be a spring admit. I can take it in February, which gives me time to retake in June." I'd thought through the entire argument while waiting for him to get home, but I still felt wildly underprepared.

My dad didn't speak as he finished setting out glasses and then added wine glasses to each of our settings. He crouched down to select a wine bottle from the rack and finally spoke. "I don't think either of us will tell you not to follow your dream, but have you thought about the type of lifestyle a musician has? And I'm not talking about rock stars. Very few are afforded the life of the Beatles or Elvis. Or even…" He snapped his fingers. "Who are all the kids listening to? Metallica…or Green Day. Most bands don't reach those levels. They are in the low to middle ground, which creates a grueling lifestyle. You'll be touring all the time and barely making ends meet. Your mother and I want the best for you, and we are trying to make sure you've thought about the comforts you're used to and what the rest of your life will look like if you don't pursue higher education." Dad loved legal research, so it didn't surprise me he'd researched this.

"I understand what the odds are, but I can't not do it. I have to see it through." It was more than that, but I couldn't explain to him I would do whatever it took to make it. Failure wasn't an option.

"This record company really has faith in you?"

I nodded. "After how well our first album with them is doing, yeah, they think we have what it takes to break into mainstream. So many bands have done it. It's not just pop and boy bands, Dad. Blink, Metallica, Green Day—they're playing stadiums. They are huge."

He screwed the bottle opener into the cork, weighing and digesting what I'd said. "I support you. You know that, son. Your mother does too. She's just worried about you with your mental health and all."

You get admitted for one psych break in high school, and your parents never leave you alone again. "I'm fine. I've got my antidepressants, and I've been really good at college."

"Life on tour just seems like it will be more of a challenge. The doctors said you need to get a good amount of sleep."

"I know." I held out my hand for the bottle of wine so I could pour it into their aerator.

"Okay," he said, wiping his hands on his slacks.

"So you're not going to be upset?" I asked carefully, setting the empty bottle aside. I wasn't exactly asking for permission, but their blessing.

"As long as you keep up with your studies."

"I will." I kept my voice even, wanting to call the guys, but then…the face that popped into my mind wasn't Nicole but Varian.

I wanted to email Varian.

No, it was more than that. I wanted to find out where his band was playing next and drive all night to tell him myself.

* * *

I typed an email three times. And deleted them all.

I'd been thinking about what we shared since that night.

I don't know why I felt stuck on it. Stuck on Varian. Maybe because he felt like a different kind of magic than I was used to.

Real in a world of those barely breathing.

I put my fingers over the keys and stared at the blank screen.

What could I even say? ‘Hi' was so surface level after the depth of our night.

I closed my email and opened the maps app. They were playing a show tomorrow night.

Chicago to Brooklyn—twelve hours and forty-one minutes, but I could do it in eleven. If I left now, I'd make it there by midafternoon. A quick nap in the car and I'd be golden.

Depression sucks, but when my mind latched onto something and took off with it, there was nothing better than the high. My doctor told me it was manic, but I'd take it over not being able to get up any day.

I shoved a few things into a duffel and slung it over my shoulder. My parents would be long asleep, but I'd take my brother's beater. He left it in the drive when he moved to NYC for law school. I got it started without too much trouble and backed out of the driveway, finding the tank full.Lucky break.

My dad probably drove it once a week to keep it in working order.

I shoved Dopamine-Fiend's album into the disc player and put it on repeat.