“Are you worried you’re an alcoholic?”
It took a moment for his words to penetrate mylust-foggedbrain. “What?”
“I noticed you haven’t been drinking and when I tried toofferyou some yesterday, youactedlike I tried to murder you.”
I pushed him away from me.He thought I was analcoholic?What the hell?A persondidn’tsay that to someone unlesstheyhadalineupof people ready to explain how yourpartying ishurting them. Liquored up, I was a damn fun time.Granted, gran made more than enough pointed comments about my drinking. Had she put him up to this?
About to fall overthe cliffside of tearing him a new one, Iremembered the reason I wasn’t drinking was because I was harboring a secret baby.Hissecret baby.My behavior had been kind of whack, plus,it wasTravis’sbirthday.I didn’t want to ruin my awesome surprise just because he askedastupid-ass question.
Wow. How mature of me. Emma would be so proud.
“No, Travis, I’m not a freaking alcoholic. I do what I want when I want and that includes not doing what I don’t want.Stop peer-pressuring me and buy mesome nachos before I kick your ass.”Granted the line would have to move a single inchforward, which it hadn’t.Turning the attention off myself, I asked,“So where did you go last night?”
Travis shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket. “Went to see my parents.”
“Oh yeah, they probably sang kumbaya over a nice birthday cake for you, huh?” Ididn’t know why, but the thought of his perfect platonic family celebrating him created a hollow ache in my stomach.
Probablybecause I was starving for nachos, and not anything to do with the factI could never give thatkind of lifeto him, or to any damn kid.Nope. No feelings here, just a hangryKrystan.
He scoffedand studied the menu.“No, they forgot, but I hadn’t seen them in a while and wanted to check in on them.”
That stopped me cold. “They forgot your birthday?You’re joking.”
Travis gave me a wry smile and a shrug.
He wasn’t joking.
“I may not be the queen offunctional families but if my gran forgot my birthday I would flip out. I’d blow up so bad she would probably throw two birthdays a yearfrom then onto make up for it.”
“Yeah, you would,” he said, laughing slightly.
“Don’t laugh, it’s what you should have done.” Ipoked him in the chest,lookingat him in all seriousness which gave him pause.
“Listen, they aren’t shitty people, they’re just”—he seemed to grapple with himself for the right words—“not interested in me.”
“I don’t understand.Yourmom was a teacher.If she wasn’t interested in kids, why the hell would she work at our high school?”
He shrugged again, seeming increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation from the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Too bad.
“Yeah well, I think she kind of figured that was enough for her. She got her fill of kids at work.”
“That’s stupid, if she got her fill, why would she have one?”
A blush crept up into his cheeks, and I knew he was trying to talk around something that was key to me understanding why the hell his parents would be soignorant.
“They were older when they had me, so I don’t think I was...”he trailed off.
“What they wanted? Like a girl? What Travis, spit it out,man.”
“Why do you always have tohack into everything like a damn macheteanywayyou please?”
“Why do you have to be such a goddamn sissy and hide from every little thing?”
“I was a mistake,okay?” he shouted over me to shut me up. The conversations died on either side of us. Travis’s face reddened even morebefore he ducked it.
I didn’t know what to say.Travis’s hands had reappeared from his pockets and were clenched into fists. He looked like he wished he could catch the words he’d just let loose and swallow them down.
“I mean, I don’t know for sure,” Travis mumbled. “God, I’ve never even said it out loud, but I’ve always gotten the distinctfeeling I didn’t fit into their life plans so they just kind of went on with their lives whether I was there or not.Sometimes, I think they forgot me entirely.”He rushed to say,“It wasn’t so bad though. Isn’t every kid’s dream to have freedom? They didn’t care if Iwas comingorgoing,or if I spent all day getting blazed in the basement. So really, it’s a good thing.”
