Chapter 5

Five

Josh

April 19, 2019

" J osh, wake up. We're almost there."

My eyes flip open and focus on a plane of gray before I understand what I'm looking at: the interior roof of my mom's white Maxima. Once I've blinked, I wish I hadn't—because now I have to look at her.

I do, and Mom forces a smile. "We're almost to the campus. You should sit up. Look around," she urges.

I sit my chair up and blink out the window. "Looks...developed." I've been to Auburn before, but it was a few years ago, to watch a college football game with Bren and Marcel.

"There are a lot more high-rises than I remember," Mom says. "But it's nice. And everything looks very student-oriented."

Mom starts looking at her phone, aiming us toward campus, with its dark-red brick main building, known as Samford Hall.

"Do you want me to hold it for you?"I ask, waving at her cell phone.

"I've got it."

Two campus side streets and two parking lots later, we're parking in front of another red brick, dark-roofed, tree-shrouded Southern college building.Some kind of random place—the old agriculture building, I think?

"We'll have to walk a block up to the library,” Mom says. “The really large building?"

I force what I hope looks like a smile. "I saw the sign for it."

"Seminar for parents, meet and greet for students, and then back together for the tour. It sounds like they’ve really thought this through.” Mom smiles and gets out of the car. She's wearing jeans, a sweater, and sunglasses, and toting a white leather purse.

"I can't believe we're looking at a college that’s accepted my son,” she says.

I give her another smile and adjust my ball cap, feeling awkward as we walk together across the parking lot and toward the sidewalk, where other people are already trickling toward the library.

"How are you feeling?" she asks.

I assume she means about this college tour, so I say, "Good. I like it. I think."

Mom gives me one of her thoughtful, worried mom looks.

"What?" I press.

"You know what." She picks the pace up, walking half a step ahead of me before she drops back. Still won't look at me, though.

"Just say it,” I tell her.

She stops. When she whirls toward me, her face is tight with anger. "What would you like me to say, Josh? Here on Auburn's college campus? What do you think I have to say about it that we didn't say already?"

"I don't know." My eyes throb as my throat goes too tight. "Whatever it is, you need to say it. Get it off your chest."

"I don't think you want that."

"Is it so terrible?" I manage.

She stops in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at me with wide, furious eyes. "You don't want to do this right now, Joshua."

"Yes I do. I want to do it right now. Let me have it, Mom. Just fucking say it, so you don't have to keep acting weird and awkward."

Her mouth rounds into a small “o” when I use the F-word. Then she wheels around and nearly jogs toward a nearby parking deck. I jog after her, my stomach feeling topsy-turvy. I've never seen my mom act like this.

As soon as we get into the shadows of the parking deck’s first floor, she turns back to me, and there are black lines snaking down her cheeks. Mascara dripping .

"I don't want to do this right now," she says in a stern, I'd-rather-be-mad-than-cry voice.

My stomach flips so hard, I feel sick.

"Do what?" I rasp.

She looks around. There are a few students, none too close to us. She steps closer to me, pointing her finger like she might jab it into my chest.

"Tell you that I'm disappointed," she says in a quiet voice. "Tell you that I can't believe you've done some of these things you’ve done since November. Mostly" —her voice shakes— "tell you I don't know how we can send you here if you can't get your head back on straight." Mom starts crying. "It's my fault, though. I noticed how you looked at him and I should have said something sooner. We were too—"

"Stop it."

"Permissive. And the two of you got overwhelmed, and then he— "

"I said stop talking about it!”

"I know it's my fault, and Carl's. We were the adults in the house. And I know you're hurting, Josh, and confused! But you can't—"

"I'm not confused, Mom.” I can’t help a soft laugh. “You think I'm confused? I'm not. I know exactly what went down, and it's not what you think. You and Carl didn't know shit about him."

"Help me understand, then."

Tears start sliding down my cheeks with no damn warning. "He was messed up. No—not that." I wipe my face. "He wasn't messed up." He was perfect. "People hurt him. Carl didn't keep in touch enough. His mom was—I think his mom messed him up. And by the time I met him, it was done and I couldn't help him."

My throat feels too tight. Then I'm crying in a parking garage. At what's maybe my future college. Mom is crying, and she's looking at me like she thinks I'm six years old and I just crashed my bike, and I don't need that.

"If it was anybody's fault he left, it was my fault,” I say, wiping my eyes. “I got too close to him, and I don't know if he liked it."

"He did like you, Josh. I could always see it. It wasn't that he didn't like you."

He said he loved me. I'm not telling my mom that.

"Doesn't matter," I tell her. "It's over now."

We do the whole tour, after we dry our eyes. I can't eat the pizza they give us in the student portion of things. On the way home, all I think about is getting in my bed and going to sleep.

I do okay faking things with mom—at least I think I do. She seems upbeat when we do dinner at the kitchen table with Carl.He grilled burgers while we drove home.

Finally I go upstairs, shower, and climb into my bed. I pull his shirt out from beneath my pillow and unwrap the bottle of vodka inside it. I drain the bottle dry, so I don't feel like I'm in my bed anymore.

Then I look through photos in my phone. The ones of my car—mangled in the junkyard. For the thousandth time, I want to text one to him. Really pull the fucking lever, see if any part of him still cares.

But I can't. It's too pathetic—even for me.

I reach in my nightstand drawer and find one of the small, white pills. It's only Xanax. I don't take them every night. Just when I feel like my chest is on fire.

I chew it like Ezra did and lie in the dark till sleep takes me.