Page 16 of Road Trip

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

MATT

San Diego, CA

T he story of my parents’ divorce wasn’t very exciting. Just, one day Mom said that Dad was leaving and they weren’t going to be married anymore. They didn’t tell me together because Dad was hardly ever home, which looking back made the whole thing blindingly obvious, but I was eight. What the hell did I know when I was eight?

Turned out I didn’t know much more at eighteen.

When he was leaving, I’d asked Dad where he was going to go and if I could come with him.

“When you’re old enough,” he’d said and tousled my hair.

Last time I saw him.

Stupid fucking kid for believing it.

Stupid fucking?—

“Matt?” Jacob asked. “Matty?”

He’d sent letters. A bunch of them at first, then not many. But he sent cards for my mom to pass on to me on my birthday and at Christmas, brightly colored envelopes with just my name on the front. Presents sometimes. Money mostly, maybe five or ten dollars at a time. But when I was a kid, money seemed a lot more exciting than a present. Money made me feel grown-up. Gave me something to brag about. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized he couldn’t even be bothered going to a toy store or ordering something online.

And even then, I still believed it when the cards said things like, “I wish you lived closer, kid. I’d love to see you.”

I’d thought he meant it. I’d taken it as an invitation.

Stupid fucking kid.

Not stupid enough that you checked with him first, a voice whispered in the back of my skull. Because you didn’t want to know for sure, did you?

And where the fuck did that leave me?

Standing in my dad’s driveway in Del Mar staring at his closed front door while Jacob said my name over and over again.

My dad hadn’t even recognized me, for fuck’s sake. What kind of father didn’t know his own son? Not the kind of father who was going to welcome me with open arms, that was for sure.

My eyes burned and I blinked furiously.

“Matty?” Jacob asked again. “What’s going?—”

The door swung open, and hope swelled in my chest even though I wanted to stomp it down.

My dad stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind him, forcing me to step backward. He glanced around like he was in a spy movie or something and said, “What are you doing here? Do you need money?”

“No,” I said. “It’s?—”

“Good, because now you’re eighteen you’re not my responsibility.” He paused. “You are eighteen, right?”

“Jesus,” Jacob murmured, and the sympathy in his voice had me close to my breaking point.

Well, fuck that. I hadn’t come all this way for nothing. I squared my shoulders.

“Yeah,” I said. “Eighteen now. And you always said I could live with you when I was older.” Even though my gut was churning I said it casually, like this was all some misunderstanding or maybe a joke. Like any minute now my dad would tell me to grab my bags and come inside, that he was just messing with me.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he looked me up and down again, then let out a long breath and said, “Jesus Christ, Matthew. How did you even find me?”

Like I was a stalker and not his son.

“I found your address in—” My voice rasped, but I forced the words out. “In some of Mom’s paperwork. For the child support stuff.”

My dad dragged a hand through his hair. He looked upset, like I was the one ruining everything. “You’re not supposed to have my address, Matthew.”

“But you said I could live with you.”

His face twisted. “That’s—that’s something people say. I didn’t think you’d take me seriously. You were a kid. What the hell else was I supposed to tell you?”

The truth?

I’d spent most of my life being this angry, angsty asshole, so where the hell was some of that fire when I needed it? I wanted to be mad at him. I wanted to be able to scream at him, or punch him, or put a fucking rock through the front window of his nice house. But I couldn’t get angry—not at him anyway.

I was angry at that stupid fucking kid, though.

That stupid fucking kid who’d believed his dad’s bullshit and now just wanted to drop to the ground and start bawling his eyes out. Instead, I said in a voice that barely sounded like mine, “But what am I supposed to do now?”

I could still hear the roar of the ocean in my head, louder than almost everything else. Loud enough to drown me, except I was still hanging on by a thread. Hanging on for his answer.

When my dad spoke at last, he didn’t look me in the eye. “You can’t stay here. You need to leave.” He pulled his wallet out of the pocket of his khakis. “You need gas money?”

I stared at the bills he waved in front of my face .

Then he waved them in front of Jacob’s.

“Let’s go,” Jacob said. He didn’t take the money. “Matty, let’s just go.”

The roar of blood in my skull was like the sound of the ocean from under the water. I was dimly aware of Jacob draping an arm around my shoulders and leading me down the driveway toward the car. He took my backpack from me and stashed it in the back along with my duffel while my dad watched, probably to make sure we left.

The door opened and a kid stepped outside. Maybe six or seven. Messy dark hair like mine. “Daddy? Who is that?”

And my dad turned his back on us and said, “Nobody. Nobody at all.”

J acob didn’t say anything as we drove away. Just gripped the steering wheel tightly and stared out the windshield, as tightly wound with nerves as he had been the day we’d hit the interchange outside Norfolk.

He didn’t have his phone plugged into the car, so there was no route showing on the screen. If he had any idea where the hell we were going, he didn’t share it with me, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask, too busy listening to the echoes of nobody playing over and over in my brain.

Did he play baseball with his other son? He’d gotten me a glove when I was about six or seven, but I’d never been good at it.

Watch the ball, Matthew! Don’t run away from it!

In the end, he’d been as good at parenting as I’d been at catching. At parenting me , anyway. He was probably doing a bang-up job with that other kid—apart from, y’know, not telling him he had an older brother.

Jacob was still focused on the road, his knuckles white, and I still had no clue where we were going. He could drive us right into the ocean for all I cared. Maybe he was so pissed at me that was what he was planning.

We pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall and he turned the engine off. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t, so I said something instead.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No!” he yelled, sounding pretty fucking mad actually. He twisted to face me. “No! Matty, I’m mad at him !”

Jacob was the best person I knew, but I bet even he would be pissed when he realized it was my fault we’d just driven all the way across the country for nothing.

“Okay,” he said, drawing in a deep breath. “Are you okay? That’s a dumb question. Okay, so we have gas. I don’t think…” He grabbed his phone and started to scroll. “Okay, I think if we drive away from the coast for a while, motels will be cheaper than around here. But we should get one pretty quick, don’t you think?”

Why the hell was he asking me? I’d wanted him to drive us into the sea. But I shrugged.

“Because…can you look at me, Matty? You’re not looking at me.”

I reluctantly lifted my head.

“We’re gonna get a motel,” Jacob said. He looked almost scared, and I hated that all of this was my fault. “Okay?”

“Whatever,” I said, hating the way my voice cracked. I cleared my throat. “Yeah.” At least I wouldn’t be sleeping on the beach my first night in California, but after that? Who the fuck knew?

Jacob nodded and started the car. “Okay, let’s go find somewhere.”

Somewhere turned out to be a La Quinta at Miramar with twin beds, a gas station out the front, and a McDonald’s right across the road. Jacob’s brow creased when he handed over his card.

“That your college fund?” I asked in a low voice as I trailed him down the corridor on the way to our room. “You’re not supposed to spend your college fund. ”

“Shut up,” he murmured. “Come on.”

I’d been keeping it together by sheer force of will since we’d left my dad’s, determined not to look like the pathetic mess I was, but I could feel my control crumbling as we approached the motel room door—like now there was a safe space in sight, all the rage and confusion that was bubbling up inside me was desperate to spill out.

I just had to make it to the other side of that door.

“Hey,” I said as Jacob held his card up to the reader and opened the door, “I bet you wish we’d taken my dad’s money now.” I forced a wry smile.

We stepped inside and Jacob whirled to face me, eyes blazing. “Don’t you say that! Fuck him! You don’t need anything from him!” Two bright spots of color appeared on his cheeks, and his chest heaved.

I’d never seen him this fired up, not over anything.

He sucked in a deep breath, and when he spoke again he was calmer, but I could tell he was deadly serious. He reached out and cupped my face. “The only thing of your father’s that’s worth anything is you .”

And just like that, that thread I’d been holding onto since standing on my dad’s front doorstep snapped, and I fell apart.

My eyes flooded with tears, my lip wobbled, and an ugly sob tore its way out of my chest, because how dare Jacob care about me this much when my own father didn’t even want me? When all I was worth to him was fucking gas money ? It was too much to take, and when he opened his arms and said, “I’m here, Matty,” I fell right into them, shaking and crying in a way I never had before.

When shit happened, I didn’t cry . I got mad and lashed out. That was what I’d always done. But somehow, Jacob had stripped all my layers away, and now he was stuck with this—a sobbing, pathetic mess. But I couldn’t stop and I didn’t care. And weirdly, he didn’t seem to care either. He just held me and rubbed a soothing hand up and down my back as I cried out all my disappointment and betrayal and hurt in a flood of tears.

It took a long time, but eventually I was able to take a snuffly breath without crying. I kept my face buried against Jacob’s chest, though. He shuffled us over to one of the twin beds and sat down, drawing me with him.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. The crying wasn’t the bad part. This part was the bad part. I’d stopped crying, but if I pulled away from him, at some point I’d have to make eye contact. And possibly words. And I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay here while the world carried on without me. Forever, if I could.

Jacob moved first, leaning back from me a little. “You want to grab a warm shower and then a nap?”

I didn’t reply at first. The flood of emotions had left me exhausted, and undressing and walking to the bathroom seemed like too much effort. But I was still covered in dried salt from our swim at the beach, and at least I wouldn’t have to talk to Jacob if I was in the bathroom. So I sat up and scrubbed my palms over my face, then nodded.

“Yeah.” My voice was hoarse but Jacob didn’t mention it. He knew better. When I glanced at him, he didn’t look weirded out or disgusted at me being a crybaby. He did have that little worried crease in his brow that he got when he wanted to fix things and didn’t know how, though. I leaned forward and smoothed a thumb over it. “I’m fine,” I lied.

I was fine—as long as I didn’t think about what had happened or what the hell I was supposed to do now.

Standing, I shuffled into the bathroom, moving as slowly as an old man. I undressed and turned the shower on. I made it as hot as I could stand and then stepped under it. Stood there for a while. Then I sat down. Well, sat. Slid down the wall in a wave of despair. Same thing.

I stayed on the floor staring at the off-while tile and not thinking about the future, just listening to the static in my brain. I had no idea how much time had passed when there was a faint knock on the door and Jacob asked, “Did you drown in there?”

The forced note of levity in his tone didn’t hide his concern.

“Not yet.”

“I got food,” he said.

I dragged myself to my feet, my fingers squeaking on the wall tiles. Turning off the water, I dried myself on the thin hotel towel before wrapping it around my waist. I stepped out into the room to find Jacob on the phone. He pointed over to the tiny round table in the corner where a McDonald’s bag sat as he said, “Yeah. Yeah, we will. Thanks, Mom.” His gaze lifted to meet mine. “I gotta go. Bye.”

I sat down on one of the beds.

“I got you food,” Jacob said, grabbing the bag and setting it beside me. “And your clothes.”

A pair of track pants and a soft T-shirt landed on the bed next to me. I brushed the fabric of the T-shirt with my fingertips. “This is yours.”

“Is it?” He wrinkled his nose and looked genuinely confused. “Nah, I don’t think it is.”

It was.

Just a plain blue T-shirt I’d borrowed one night when I was sleeping over at his place and never given back. It had been in my possession for so long that I wasn’t surprised he didn’t remember it was his. But I remembered, because I’d worn it to sleep for weeks after, imagining I could smell him on it when all it really smelled like by that point was me.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked, because maybe his answer had changed since last time.

The mattress dipped as he sat beside me. He shook his head. “Still no.”

I nodded slowly. “I think I’m mad at me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m stupid. ”

He shook his head. “You expected your dad to mean what he said. How does that make you stupid?”

“Because he never came to see me in ten years, Jacob. Ten fucking years . He never even called. I only knew he’d remarried because I stalked his Facebook, so it’s not like he was going out of his way to stay in touch, you know? He didn’t want anything to do with me. But I was still dumb enough to ignore all of that and plan my whole fucking future around a comment he made when he walked out on us when I was eight .” My throat hurt and clearing it didn’t help. Not when a fresh wave of tears was waiting right behind my words. “So yeah, stupid.”

Even though my stomach was churning, I opened the takeout bag and shoved a handful of fries into my mouth so I wouldn’t say something that made me start crying again. I unwrapped my burger with shaking hands.

Jacob tilted his head back and stuck out his chin the way he did when he was getting ready to argue. “So your dad’s a liar. So what? Doesn’t make you stupid. I mean, you had a whole plan. You found out where he was, and you found a way to get here. That sounds pretty clever to me.”

“Yeah, I’m a genius,” I muttered, biting into my burger.

“And your dad’s an asshole.”

“Yeah. I guess Mom was right. Like, whenever we’d fight, I’d yell that I’d go live with Dad then, and she’d yell back that he—” My voice cracked. “That he didn’t want me. It only came up when we were fighting. I thought she was just…I don’t know what I thought. That she was only saying it because she was angry with me, not because it was true.” My shoulders slumped. “What the hell am I going to do now?”

I was just so fucking tired.

“Hey,” Jacob said. “We don’t have to do anything right now. We can figure it out in the morning, okay?” He gently took my food wrappers and dumped them in the trash, then closed the curtains, shutting out some of the traffic noise and making the room darker. “I’m gonna take a shower, okay? I’ll be right back. Try and sleep.”

Part of me wanted to snap at him for treating me like I was broken or something, except right now? I sort of was . Or at least I was too wrung out to fight with him about it. That was frightening in its own way. I’d never been too tired to be angry in my entire fucking life, and it was like I didn’t even recognize myself. I didn’t know what to do , except listen to Jacob.

So I climbed under the comforter, squeezed my eyes shut, and fell asleep to the sound of the shower.