Page 37 of Ctrl+Alt Submit

AARYN

B y the next night, I’ve gotten used to the way my folks’ spare bed feels, but I still can’t sleep. I roll over and look at Errol, who’s on his back with the arm nearest me hugging a pillow.

I think for the briefest moment about pulling it out of the way and taking its place, but I don’t want to wake him up.

Instead, I get up and fumble around in the faint glow of the night lightfor my pajama pants and a T-shirt, then open the door as quietly as I can and head into the kitchen for some water.

Mom is sitting in the dark at the little breakfast bar, looking out the window at the backyard. She starts a little when I come in. “Sorry — didn’t mean to scare you,” I whisper.

Light from the table lamp that’s always on in the living room throws off enough illumination for me to get my water and come over to sit across from her. “How’re you doing?”

Mom shrugs without taking her gaze from the windows.

I know she’s worried about Dad, even though the stent procedure went well and he’s supposed to be discharged tomorrow.

Seeing him today was a bigger relief than I expected.

His color was back, he was almost up to his usual level of cantankerousness, and his voice had lost that faintness I heard in it yesterday.

My brain’s going a million miles an hour, like usual. I should say something supportive. “Mom, how’d you know Dad was quote-unquote the one?”

Whoops . That wasn’t what I had in mind. I wasn’t planning on letting that thought sneak out of my head. But here we are.

She grimaces and waves towards herself. “This.”

“What?”

“I can’t sleep without him.” She gives me a sharp look. “Are you asking because of Errol?”

Caught by surprise, I stammer. “I — we didn’t —” She cuts me off, reaching over to rest a finger on my lips.

“I’m not wrong, am I?”

“No,” I admit. “But I feel like I’m going to screw it up.”

“Why would you think that?”

“What if I’m just on the rebound? I mean, I told him I loved him — and I thought I meant it — but what if I’m wrong?” I run a hand through my hair and shake my head at myself. “I don’t want to go all-in on this if my feelings aren’t real. I can’t hurt him —abandon him —again.”

“Is Errol the first…” Mom sounds like she’s picking her words carefully. “Had you been with — dated — men before?”

I shake my head. “Uh-uh. Do you think that’s weird? What did Dad say?”

“You know that both your father and I just want to see you happy.” Her tone is admonishing, like I should have known better than to ask. She’s right. Hadn’t I reassured Errol just a few days ago that my parents wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if I had a boyfriend? Maybe I just needed to hear it.

I realize Mom is studying me as she adds, “And why would I think it’s weird?

Attraction isn’t governed by arbitrary societal boundaries.

” When I don’t say anything back, she asks, “Is that why you’re worried that you might be on the rebound?

Because Errol is different from all your previous partners? ”

It’s a damn good question — shuts me up for a solid minute as I think about it. “I don’t think so,” I finally say. “Things feel different with him. But still! It feels really… soon to have these thoughts. I was with Eliza for more than a year. And I never once felt like I do now.”

She sort of laughs. “Honey, it’s only soon if you don’t count the years the two of you were inseparable.”

“But we were just friends!”

There’s a pause before Mom answers. “In a lot of ways, you seemed to treat him as more than a friend. You were always so protective of him.”

I frown. “He needed somebody to look out for him! He got picked on even worse than I did.”

“Picked on? What do you mean?”

Shit . I’ve never told her how bad it got in high school. I don’t want to get into it now, either. But she’s staring at me with her eyes narrowed in a way that I know is the prelude to an interrogation.

“Picked on how ?” Her voice goes up on the last syllable. “Do you mean teased? Or physically bullied? Did anything else happen after that incident with the football player who got suspended?” The questions come in a barrage.

“ Yes . Bundy got suspended. But honestly, that just made things worse. He was already on some sort of academic probation. I guess getting suspended was the last straw for the coach. He got kicked off the team permanently. From then on, he had it out for me bad . In his lunkhead brain, it was my fault he didn’t spend senior year as the star quarterback and lost his shot at a football scholarship.

” I huff out a bitter laugh. “I mean, he would’ve peaked in high school anyway, but he was convinced I ruined his fucking life. And he didn’t let me forget it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us? Your father and I —”

“Couldn’t have done a damn thing,” I interject.

I put my elbows on the table and drop my head in my hands as unbidden memories send a rush of that old sense of helplessness through me.

I swallow hard, gritting out my words so my voice won’t break.

“I got it bad enough as it was. I wasn’t going to be a snitch. ”

Technically speaking, I wasn’t a snitch.

But I was in more or less of a panic when, right at the beginning of senior year, one of Bundy’s cretin football buddies hauled Errol up by his hoodie for the quarterback to pummel because he fucking could .

So when I shot my mouth off and told Bundy to pick on somebody his own chicken-legged size —something I knew he was sensitive about —he turned on me in a fury…

and had the ill-timed luck to swing a punch that broke my glasses and wound up blackening my eye a split-second before the assistant principalcame around the corner and saw the whole thing go down.

I realize I’m grimacing in the dark when Mom puts her hand on my arm. “Honey, if things were that bad, you should have come to us. We would’ve taken you out of that school.”

I snort. “And what? Put me in a private school? With whose money? It was easier just to keep my head down and remind myself I was going to do something with my life and not be a loser who peaked in high school and blamed everybody else for it.”

“Your father and I would have figured something out.”

“I couldn’t —” It feels so obvious to me now as an adult. I say the thought I never put into words —not even in my own head —as a teenager. “I couldn’t leave Errol behind.”

Mom doesn’t say anything for maybe half a minute. “Mm-hmm. That doesn’t sound like you’re in a rebound relationship when you say it like that, does it?”

“No,” I admit, but there’s a cold, ugly feeling squirming in my guts. “I’m afraid I don’t deserve him.” The words sound harsh in my ears. “He’s just so sweet and pure and good .”

My inner critic cackles at the irony of using all these words to describe Errol when, meanwhile, I’ve been having far and away the filthiest sex of my life with him. But there’s also something about it that’s absolutely, indisputably true.

“I know I hurt him by getting wrapped up in college and work and just… dropping out of his life.”

Mom sighs. “Sounds like you wanted to get away from memories of being bullied in high school, not Errol.”

“But I still abandoned him.”

“You were a teenager, trying to cope the best way you knew how.” She gives my arm a squeeze.

“Don’t say you don’t deserve Errol. I know you think highly of him, but you’re pretty great yourself, kiddo.

” After I mutter out a wan thanks , Mom gives me a faint smile. “You should try to get back to sleep.”

My eyes actually are feeling heavy again, so I nod. As I get up, a sudden thought hits me. “Was there anything else?”

“Pardon?”

“Aside from not being able to sleep without him. Was there anything else about Dad that made you think, ‘Whoa, this is definitely the real thing?’”

She exhales a quiet laugh. “I realized I considered him my best friend.”