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Atlas

I am, to put things delicately, freaking the fuck out. There is something strange about the way time is moving right now—barreling forward like a sprinter off the starting line. How could it be possible that tomorrow is the last day campus is open, but Christmas had been only yesterday?

I can tell it’s bothering Henri, too, particularly since his hockey season ended and his calendar has had a great deal more free time. Free time which he mostly spends with me, and mostly spends worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, looking nervous. Several times in the past few weeks he’s tried to start a conversation with me, and even without letting him get on with it, I knew exactly what kind of conversation it was going to be. Each time, I’d distracted him and each time he’d looked a little more crestfallen.

And then, to top everything off, I’d received a call last week from my dad, explaining that he’d “had a scheduling mishap” and would no longer be able to pick me up from the airport when I flew home. Reading between the lines, I was able to deduce that he’d forgotten his promise from months ago when he booked my ticket. He had, as per usual, forgotten me. It was a not-so-gentle reminder that distance from Henri would not do me any favors. He’d be here in South Carolina, and I’d be back in D.C., and eventually he’d forget why he ever put in the effort for me in the first place.

Unable to stand the way my insides feel as though they’re being shaken about, I light up a cigarette and stand next to my window. My phone rings, and I glance down to see my dad’s name on the display. I am really not in the fucking mood, and his calls never provide anything but distress. Even so, he’s my dad and I can’t very well ignore him. Something could be wrong with my brothers.

Filling my lungs with as much nicotine as I can manage, I answer the call with trepidation and a hefty dose of resignation. Two phone calls in less than two weeks is not a good sign.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Atlas. I need to talk to you.”

Obviously, I refrain from saying. Closing my eyes, I angle the phone away from my mouth and take another drag of my cigarette. If Dad notices the sounds of me smoking, he doesn’t comment.

“Okay. About me coming home?”

“Sort of. I heard from your mother.”

My elbow bangs against the wall as the words hit me like a lightning bolt. Instinctively, I know he’s not talking about my stepmother despite him always referring to her as my mom. The tone strongly suggests he’s talking about my mom .

“What?” I whisper, and hate myself for the tiny spark of hope that flares in my chest. I’m too old to care if she wants me. Too old to need her.

He huffs in annoyance. “I’ve been sending her emails periodically through the years, updating her on her son. Not that she ever replied,” he adds testily, even as the words are like a knife in my chest. “The emails were never returned as non-deliverable, though, so I kept at it. This is the first time she’s sent one to me.”

I open my mouth but words don’t make an appearance. I’m stuck on the fact that he’s been emailing her about me for years— years— and she’s never replied. I’ve always known she didn’t care about me, but being slapped in the face with it randomly feels like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. I knew I shouldn’t have answered this call.

“What did she say?” I finally manage to ask.

“Well, I’d told her when you started college that you were in your first year at South Carolina U. As I said, this is the first I’ve heard back, but apparently she is living in Florida.”

My hand shakes violently as I bring the cigarette to my mouth. Unfortunately, not even nicotine can save me from the high-speed wreck I fear this conversation is heading toward. My nerves, which have already been brittle with the end of the school year looming, feel raw and exposed.

“She remarried years ago, and apparently has a two-year-old. Her husband works in fishing. ” Dad snorts, and I can easily picture the contempt on his face. “That’s not why I’m calling, though. Apparently, she’s decided that now the time is ripe to reconnect. She asked me to pass along her phone number in case you wanted to give her a call.”

Me, give her a call. Even now, it would be me coming to her when she’s the one who left in the first place. My chest hurts so badly, I fear I might be having a heart attack .

“She knew I was going to school in South Carolina?” I clarify. “You told her when I started?”

“Yes. No reply, naturally.” Another disdainful sound. He hates being ignored in any capacity.

She’s been in Florida this whole time, I realize. Only a couple states away from where I’ve been going to school, and she couldn’t even be bothered to reach out, let alone try and visit. My own mother, and I was nothing more than an email to be ignored and a son to replace. I will myself to feel angry, but can’t manage more than a sort of panic-induced numbness. The sort of feeling you have when you’re experiencing a terrible day, and one bad thing happens after another, so you just learn to accept it.

“So, the ball is in your court now,” Dad continues, casually throwing grenades without waiting to see if any have landed. “I told her I’d pass along the message. Do with it what you will.”

“I don’t…”

“Anyway, we’ll see you tomorrow, or whenever you get home. I’ll text you your mother’s phone number.” He’s already done with the conversation. Message passed along, time to get on with his day.

“Dad, wait—” I pull the phone away from my ear and look at the screen. He’s already hung up.

Exercising what I consider to be an incredible amount of self-control, I lay my phone gently on the bed instead of smashing it against the wall. It pings with a message, but I ignore it the same way I intend to ignore my mom’s new phone number. I’m not going to call her up and beg her to love me—if Dad had waited more than five fucking seconds, I would have told him to not even bother sending it over.

The doorbell rings, making my already galloping heart jump. Henri . I’d forgotten that we’d made plans for today. Forgotten, that in my fucking delusional state, I’d allowed him to get too close. Thank you, Dad, for the reality check.

Panic eats at my insides until I’m almost sick with it. So much so, in fact, that when I answer the door of my shared house and see Henri’s handsome face on the other side, my vision tunnels dangerously. The lizard part of my brain is screaming at me to run. Self-preservation is my default state, and today Henri is a threat. Breathe , I remind myself, and work to unclench my fingers from the doorhandle.

“Hello, Atlas,” Henri greets me, smiling like he always does, his face open and warm the way it always is when he speaks to me. I want to cry, just now, at the unfairness of it all. Of being presented with someone so perfect, and knowing he deserves someone much better than me. Of knowing that every good thing comes with an expiration, and today the piper needs to be paid.

“Hey,” I mumble, wishing like fucking hell that he wasn’t here. “Come on in.”

Shoving the door wide, I watch as he carefully wipes his feet on the mat, before turning and leading him upstairs. Nate and I are the only two still here. I send up a silent, desperate prayer that he has his headphones in and doesn’t have his ear pressed to our shared wall.

“What is wrong?” Henri asks, the moment we get to my room and I shut my door. “You are looking sad.”

“Nothing,” I mutter back, desperately trying to think through my panic-disordered mind.

I need time alone to think. I need him to leave. I need him to stop being able to read me like a book, like he’s trying to do now. He angles his head and looks at me quizzically, as though he can tell I’m lying but can’t think why. As it usually does, defensiveness comes to my rescue and turns my words hard and unyielding.

“What do you want?” I snap.

Henri’s eyes pop wide, and I can hardly blame him. It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to him like that. I hate myself so much in this moment, I can barely stand it.

He deliberates for a second, before carefully touching the back of my neck and kissing my lips in a silent hello. I don’t kiss him back; don’t even move until he removes his hand.

“I am wondering if we might talk about the summer,” he says, sitting down on my bed and nervously running his hands back and forth on his thighs. If he noticed that I didn’t return the kiss, he doesn’t let on.

“Nothing to talk about.” I shrug with a casualness I do not feel. “I’m going home to D.C., and you’re staying here for your internship.”

“Right,” he agrees slowly, “but I will have weekends off, and I was wondering if you might like to come visit? I have already asked Carter and Zeke, and they are happy to let you stay with us. With me.”

My heart beats frantically against my rib cage, alarm sending my pulse skittering dangerously. I’m going to faint.

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” I tell him, and watch as his face falls. “I mean…we might as well end things now, on our own terms. School is over, Henri. What’s the point?”

“The point?” he repeats, accent a little thicker the way it gets when he’s tired or nervous.

“I don’t want to pretend for half the summer, only for us to decide that we should break up. We weren’t even really together in the first place,” I tell him harshly, hating each word as I say them, but unable to stop. “We never had a conversation about being together . If we had, I would have told you no.”

Henri pushes himself to standing, facing me from across the room. I’m not the only one panicking now. His eyes are wide and fearful, hurt already recognizable on his features. He holds up a hand, palm facing me, as though needing me to stop or slow down.

“Wait, wait . I do not…why are you saying this? We are not breaking up,” he says firmly. “If you do not want to visit over the summer, that is fine, but there is no reason to?—”

“We aren’t going to be in the same state for three months , Henri.”

“And so?”

So you will realize how much better things were before I was there, I want to scream at him. But it won’t work. Not with Henri, who is both stubborn and a people-pleaser. He’ll tell me I’m wrong until he’s blue in the face.

“I want to break up.” Straightening my spine and squaring my shoulders, I practically spit the words at him. He flinches back, cheeks coloring and eyes wide. He look like I’ve hit him.

“I do not understand,” he says quietly. “You are not making sense.”

“I want to break up,” I repeat, enunciating each word carefully as though he’s hard of hearing and stupid. “This shit got out of control—I told you at the start that we were just fooling around. It was never supposed to be more than that.”

“But it was.”

“Not for me,” I lie, and have to clench my hands into fists, nails digging painfully into my palms, to fight the sudden burn in my chest. Henri stares at me silently, chest rising and falling beneath his polo shirt.

“You are lying,” he says.

“What the fuck do you think is going to happen?” I explode. “You don’t live here, Henri! You’ve got one more year of school, and what then? What happens if you don’t get a job here? Or you can’t extend your visa?”

“This is all…it’s all…” He makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and runs a hand through his hair. Unable to come up with the word, he abandons that thread and tries again. “You are saying things that may never happen. You are ruining something right now, and using the future as an excuse.”

“This”—I gesture between us—“is why I told you I don’t do relationships. I fucking told you, Henri. I’m not going to sit around and wait for you to get your fill of me and leave.”

Mutely, he shakes his head at me. He looks stricken, and I want so badly to pull him into my arms and apologize that I have to take a step backward. Leave. Please leave, I beg silently. I don’t want to waver on this, and the longer he stands there, the less firm I become. I know I’m doing the right thing to protect myself, but it’s hard to remember that fact when Henri’s standing in front of me looking close to tears.

“Atlas,” he whispers.

“No.” I shake my head. “I want you out. I want you to leave.”

At an impasse, we stare at each other. I can see the struggle on Henri’s face, as he wars with the desire to do as I ask and the desire to fight for what he wants. I know him well enough to see the argument in his eyes, even if he’s struggling to put it into words. He’s not good with confrontation—by putting him on the spot, I’ve made sure this is a fight I’ll win. I’ve made him uncomfortable enough that he can’t think of a way to argue back in English. Way to go, Atlas, you piece of shit.

“This is it?” he asks, voice breaking over the words. I nod sharply, unable to trust myself to speak any more. Resolutely, I stare at the wall over his left shoulder so I don’t have to look at his face. “Atlas?—"

“Just go , Henri.” I’m not looking at him, so I don’t see his reaction to the words. Nor do I see him leave the room.

I don’t hear the front door slam, because of course Henri is too polite to do so. Even so, I can feel the absence of him like there is a gaping hole in my chest. Pressing my palms to my eyes, I swallow down the frustrated scream building in my chest. I hate you, I tell myself vehemently. I fucking hate you .

A noise at the door draws my attention, and I drop my hands, fearing that it’s Henri coming back. Nate stands in my doorway, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his basketball shorts and face unusually serious.

“I don’t want to hear it,” I tell him. He and Henri play hockey together—I can’t imagine being roommates will trump that relationship. He’s not going to be on my side in this.

“You okay?” he asks, and I’m shocked into silence.

“We broke up,” I explain, even though it’s painfully obvious he heard. The look he gives me says I am correct in this assumption. “You don’t have to tell me, I already know I’m an asshole.”

Nate opens his mouth—probably to agree—but closes it again and contents himself with a shake of his head instead.

“Just say it,” I tell him wearily. It’s not as though he can make me feel worse.

“You’re a damn idiot, you know that?” I nod, and he makes a frustrated noise. “I can’t understand you, Atlas. I really can’t.”

“Might as well not even try.” I can hardly understand myself, let alone expect anyone else to. “Things would have ended, anyway. I just sped it along and ended them on my terms, that’s all.”

Nate’s green eyes snap to mine.

“So, what? You broke his heart before he could break yours?” I stay silent because there really isn’t anything to say to that. “Wow. Well, on behalf of Vas, I’d just like to say: fuck you. But as your roommate and sometimes-friend even though you’re a dick, feel free to text me if you need to talk.”

“Aw,” I try to tease, but it lacks all conviction and merely sounds sad. Mutely, he shakes his head and leaves my room. Not even the wall between us is enough to mask the disappointment radiating from his room.

Nate and I pack our things silently after that. He’ll be the last to leave, driving back to the ranch tomorrow after I catch a flight to D.C.. I can tell he’s frustrated with me, but trying to toe the line as someone who is friends with both of us. Instead of trying to talk, he chooses silence and I’m grateful for it. I realize that I still don’t know who’s supposed to be picking me up from the airport, but I can’t bring myself to care. Maybe they’ll just leave me there, and I can rot on the floor in the baggage claim until it’s time to come back to school.

I text my dad once I’ve landed and am waiting in baggage claim, but he doesn’t reply. There aren’t any texts from Henri, either, which somehow hurts worse even though I know not to expect any. When my bag makes it’s slow way to me on the conveyor belt, I tug it off and head outside to wait on a bench in the passenger pickup. I should probably call my stepmom, since I can’t get in touch with my dad, but I just don’t care. I feel awful—foggy-headed and achy, like I’m coming down with a cold and not heartbreak.

Heartbreak—Atlas, you piece of shit. Annoyed with myself and my feelings, I desperately try to think of anything but Henri and the devastated look on his face when I’d yelled at him. I don’t deserve to feel sorry for myself. I’m the one who did that to him, and I did it on purpose . It doesn’t matter that I was only trying to protect myself or how hard the words were to say. What matters is that I said them, and there is no going back now.

A slick little silver Audi pulls up to the curb and the driver taps the horn in a quick staccato. Glancing behind me, I try to figure out who they’re picking up. I’m the only one out here. It’s only when the passenger window rolls down that I see my brother’s face grinning at me.

“Hey!” he yells, and indicates the rear of the vehicle with a wave of his hand. “Trunk is open.”

Stowing my luggage, I slide onto the smooth leather seat of the passenger side. After clicking my seat belt into place, I look over at Ethan with eyebrows raised.

“Whose car is this?”

“Mine,” he says excitedly, hands rubbing the steering wheel fondly. “Do you want to drive it? I’d let you.”

I stare at him, nonplussed. “Yours? You’re seventeen, how the fuck—” Realization dawns and I scoff, shaking my head. “Dad bought it for you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Ethan replies, still in that same giddy tone of voice. He’s too excited to hear the anger in mine. “What do you think? Mom was going to come pick you up, but I asked if I could instead. I couldn’t wait to show you.”

I take a deep breath, tempering my annoyance so as not to ruin his excitement. It’s not his fault our dad picks favorites, or that he’s the chosen one. It’s definitely not his fault that I’m in a bad mood because I broke up with my boyfriend.

“It’s pretty cool,” I tell him, and he beams as though this is the highest of praise.

“Right? I’m so excited you’re here. Do you want to go to the new Marvel movie with me and Ryan? Maybe we could go tomorrow, since weekdays are usually less busy at the theater.”

I sit in silence, listening to his idle chatter as we fly down the interstate. Ethan has always been the excitable one of my stepbrothers, prone to going “off to the races” as my stepmom likes to say. He can talk about anything to anyone. Ryan, on the other hand, is both shy and sensitive, disposed to getting teary-eyed over ASPCA commercials. I, of course, fill the role of the angry and unfriendly brother. Together, we are the perfect trifecta.

“Do you think you know what you want to major in, yet?”

Realizing that I’m actually needed in the conversation now, I pull myself out of my stupor to answer his question.

“Uhm, no. Not really.”

“Do you have any cool classes, though?”

“Ceramics was a lot of fun,” I admit.

“Holy crap, that would be so cool,” Ethan agrees, voice rising an octave as he gets himself worked up over the thought. I can’t help but smile a little bit—Ethan is contagious. “So, what do you make? Can I see something? Can you make me something? ”

We talk aimlessly as he drives us home, the conversation bouncing all over the place the way it usually does when Ethan is involved. He’s so distracting, I’m able to forget my private misery for the length of the car ride. It’s not until I’m home, and in the bedroom that used to be mine but is now a guest room, that the pain resurfaces.

Both of us will be better off in the long run , I tell myself miserably, as I try to fall asleep. Maybe if I repeat it enough times, it’ll actually be true.