Page 38

Now

The next day after Seth let Nina go, he stayed in bed. He had nowhere to go, no desire to go anywhere. Do anything. He laid under the pretense of falling unwell.

“Just the winter weather,” he’d tell his parents.

They didn’t know him at all, because they believed him. Believed it all.

On the second day after Seth let Nina go, he stayed in bed once more. This time, he kept checking his phone. He’d scroll mindlessly through her Instagram account, lingering on her photos.

Embedded her smile into his memory. Tried to delude himself into believing that she was smiling because of him.

Too many times, did he type up a message to send to her.

Different renditions of:

Hey, I miss you

Hi Nina, how are you?

Nina, I miss you like crazy

He deleted every one of them. At one point, at 11:30 pm on Tuesday, he swore he saw three little lingering white dots floating. She was typing. Until she wasn’t, and the bubbles disappeared.

On the third day, his Mum started to ask him questions.

General ones, along the lines of:

Are you feeling better?

Are you sure you’re okay, Seth?

Did you want to talk to me, Seth?

Have you been stressed from uni?

Everytime, Seth dismissed her. Really, did she care? Or was it just out of obligation?

Does she remember the day in Year 10 he was sick from school, and his Dad was staying late at work so he called to ask if he could stay over, but she wasn’t home at her apartment?

On the fourth day, Jae’s texts turned into calls. Seth ought to tell Jae what happened, instead of refusing to reply. Hadn’t he told himself he’d try to stop being a dickhead whenever he was going through something?

At least he can start by being a better friend. By the third ring, Seth answered.

He didn’t say anything at first, and Jae let him just breathe into the receiver. Seth started to realise that Jae truly was a good friend, for letting him just breathe into the phone.

After a couple of minutes, Seth told Jae everything. It was the first time he’d said it out loud, and voicing it seemed to only root it in reality.

“Sorry, I sound like such a- I sound like -” Seth didn’t want to put his fear of vulnerability into words. So what if he was on the verge of tears, because of his situation?

Still, the voices of his high school peers floated in his head.

“You don’t sound like anything, Seth,” Jae said, his voice soft, “You just sound like you. And you’re hurting. Anyone in your situation would. I’m here for you, man.”

Strangely enough, his phone call with Jae made him feel much, much better. That night, he logged online their game and spent all night gaming. It was the first time since Nina’s goodbye that he laughed.

On the fifth day, Seth got out of the house. Did some groceries, even though the fridge was still fairly full.

He went for a jog that evening, and while his muscles still felt rusty from years of lack of exercise, the movement alleviated him. Just like it did, that time he went for a jog a couple months ago.

When he saw Nina again.

He rested against the park bench, the same one that he’d sat upon that day he saw Nina again with Spencer. He waited. And waited.

The sun had its curtain call, painting the sky vermillion, and still.

Nina and Spencer never showed up, and Seth walked home, alone.

On the sixth day, is when everything exploded. Seth thought he woke up, feeling okay. More okay than before. He went for a jog in the morning. Worked on his capstone project. Jogged a little more.

It wasn’t until the afternoon, when he was downstairs clearing the dishes from lunchtime and prepping ingredients for dinner, that he heard a thump upstairs. From where his room was situated.

Concerned that something had fallen from his shelf - one of his Marvel figurines or even his games - he’d run up the stairs. And saw his Dad standing in the middle of his closet, reaching up into the floating shelves.

On the floor was his old school bag, and a couple of his yearbooks. The sight of it set off a flare.

A flare that blazed, bright and blinding, until he was consumed with memories of Nina once again, a montage of moments from the past and the present, merging into one ball of regret.

“What are you doing in my room?” Seth yelled. He couldn’t control it, the frustration. The anger in his voice. The everything.

His Dad’s face morphed into one of surprise.

“Sorry Seth - I would’ve asked you to help me but you were making dinner. Just wanted to see if you had my -”

Seth didn’t give a shit what he needed to get.

“You have no right just going through my things.”

His Dad’s eyes widened, taken aback by his son’s outburst. Holding up his hands in surrender, he stepped out of the closet.

“Okay, alright. I won’t go through your stuff again.”

But it was the casualness of it all, the fact that his Dad had felt he had the right to just go through his stuff, like he had that sort of comfort with him.

That comfort left long ago, when he’d stayed at work into the night, and snuck into the house after a night at the bar when he thought Seth was asleep.

His Dad didn’t even realise that the top shelf of his closet is where he kept his memories, all of which were made in the backdrop of their failure of a marriage. His school bag and yearbooks still lay on the floor, a taunting of his own failure. Nina’s face flashed once more in his mind.

“What’s going on?” his Mum called, from the master bedroom.

Her footsteps inched closer and closer, until she reached the scene.

“Seth are you - what happened?”

“Just get out of my room -”

His Dad stepped forward again, “Son, something has been bothering these last few days and you haven’t - your Mum and I are just concerned.”

Mum and I.

“Oh fuck off. You guys haven’t cared about me for years, don’t pretend you do now.”

His parents both stumbled back, in ridiculous sync, as though Seth’s words had been bullets.

“Seth what are you -”

“Seth, son, come on -”

Their words even came out at the same time, and Seth hated the synchronised act. Because where was this when he was young? When he needed it most?

When he was first forming his views on love, and he needed his parents as an example?

He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Stop, stop it. Both of you,” he exploded.

A still silence followed, just like it would after a grenade.

He breathed in, willing the right words to him.

Willing any tears away. “Don’t act like you’re both some team now.

Don’t act like you both didn’t go and try to fuck other people while you were broken up. ”

His harsh attacks poured from his mouth like acid, and his Dad gasped.

“ Seth, how dare you.”

“Rob, wait. Let’s hear him out,” his Mum said, as his Dad stepped forward.

Seth glanced away, and suddenly, with both his parents standing in front of him, he felt little again. Little 13-year-old Seth again, who had to hear them fight. 15-year-old Seth who had to watch them separate, and pretend not to know each other.

“It’s pathetic isn’t it? A 22-year-old man can’t get over his mummy and daddy’s separation,” he murmured. He waited for his parents to respond, but they didn’t. The space filled with a sharp silence that threatened to burst at any moment.

“I failed because of you. You both showed me the worst side of love and it fucked me up. Everytime I think I’m close to happiness, I keep getting scared that whoever I fall in love with, we’ll end up like the both of you. Because that’s what I saw, isn’t it? The cycle doesn’t end?”

His Mum’s eyes glistened, the sun from the window catching the tears building in them.

“Oh Seth, baby, I -”

“You never helped me understand. You never cared about me. And now, just because you both magically fixed your marriage, you just expected us to be okay? Sure. Sure, alright. Because I’m in my 20s now, is that right?

I’m old enough to just, go with it? I’m going to move out one day, won’t I?

But you never helped the young me understand.

You showed me the ugliest side of your relationship and left me alone in it.

Just because your marriage was fixed, doesn’t make me okay with seeing when it was broken. ”

The words hung over them, suffocating them like gas. He didn’t want to wait to hear what they had to say. Grabbing his phone from his desk, he pushed past his parents, and left his room. He needed to leave the house, to be anywhere but this place.

“Seth -” his Mum called out, following him down the hallway, toward the front door.

“Come on, don’t go,” his Dad said, voice dipping into almost a plea.

Yet, Seth’s fingers had already closed around the knob of his front door. He pulled it open, and a gust of the cold, winter air enveloped him. He heard his parents footsteps slow behind him, likely contemplating whether they should physically try to stop him, or just let him go.

As he stepped out, he paused, his hand gripping the edge of the door.

“You know what the worst part is?” he asked, not in a yell, but in a softness that was as lifeless as the eye of a storm. “The only girl I’ve ever been in love with came back into my life. And I pushed her right back out, just like I did in high school, all because of you.”

Without waiting for a response, Seth stepped out into the cold, slamming the door closed.