Page 83 of Out of My Mind

“I’m sorry,” his dad said, a quiet and humble admission. “There are so many things I’d redo if I could, but time only moves in one direction.”

“We love you, Mac,” his mom said.

His dad wrapped him in a tight hug, and Mac didn’t realize how much he’d missed this.

“I love you, too.”Damn, it felt good to say that and mean that.

“Here for the holidays?” His mom asked, a hopeful note in her voice. Mac hadn’t spent Christmas with his parents in four years, which was a depressing thought. “I’ll make a pecan pie.”

“I’d like that.”

“Is your, uh, friend with you?” His dad asked.

“No. And he was just trying to defend me. He didn’t know the whole story. I didn’t either.”

“I like him! He’s got spunk!” His mom said and helped Mac unload the box of merchandise. They all laughed at her outburst, and wounds in Mac began to truly heal.

CHAPTER twenty-eight

Gideon

Gideon picked up his clothes off Mac’s floor, got dressed, and shuffled back to his apartment. He was in dire need of coffee, but instead, he got an even bigger jolt.

His mom. On his front steps.

One of the barbers from downstairs was waiting with her, peering through the front window. He was totally old school, with the white smock and everything.

Gideon darted across the street and joined the fray. “Mom, what are you doing here?”

“Gideon!”

“Is this your son?” The barber asked her in his thick Italian accent.

“Yes. Thank you,” she said.

“We do not own the apartments upstairs,” the barber said. He still had a comb in his hands and was pointing it at his mom. “This is our shop. We do not own the apartments.”

“I’ll take it from here.” Gideon clapped the barber on the shoulder. He sneered, ready to be done with this screaming lady and her son. Good thing Gideon never got his hair cut there.

Gideon opened his door. They trekked up the steep staircase. “What are you doing here, Mom?”

“I feel like I’ve barely heard from you these past few weeks. We don’t talk as frequently, and when you do, you just…you just haven’t seemed like yourself, Gideon.” Pain crossed her face. This was already an Orange Alert situation for her. “And I know that today is the last day of finals, so I wanted to surprise you and pick you up. We could get breakfast at that kitschy pancake house I like and catch up on the drive home.”

Gideon unlocked his apartment door. He tried to mentally calculate if any of Mac’s stuff was laying around.Did I leave out the Astroglide?

He spun around, his back pressed against the door. “Mom, can you give me a second just to clean up?”

“You want me to wait out here? Gideon, I used to clean your room and wash your dirty underwear. And it was really dirty.”

“Just one second. Please?”

She gave him one of her trademark passive-aggressive sighs. “Okay.”

He pecked her on the cheek. As soon as he stepped inside, he was a tornado of catastrophe avoidance. He zipped around the apartment, swiping up any of Mac’s clothes and any sign of sex. That meant shoving condom wrappers deep into his trashcan and covering them with old papers. The whole thing lasted thirty seconds, but it probably was an eternity to his mom.

Gideon opened the door. “Welcome!”

She gave him a suspicious look. “I’m surprised your apartment would be messy. You’ve always been so good about cleaning.”