“Right now, I mean. As soon as possible. Tomorrow, even.” Ryan laughs, and it does nothing to my heart. Why couldn’t it have been that way with Mike?
“Finally realizing you’re in over your head? What’d he do this time?”
“I can’t do it anymore. All of it. Maybe we could sneak me into your place. Not tell the RA? Just until we find somewhere else. Man, I don’t know how we can even afford a place. I’m gonna have to pick up so many hours—”
“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll find something. Maybe your brother could help out a little bit. I’ve got some cash saved up from working over the summer. We got this.”
“Okay. Yeah. You’re right. I’m sure Nate wouldn’t mind helping.”
“I know of a few places available right now,” he tells me, and that takes a massive weight off my chest. “We should be able to get in by the end of the week if we hurry.”
“Thank god.”
We hang up after making plans to meet early tomorrow to go look at places. I shoot a text to Nate, hesitantly asking if he’d be willing to help.
I hate asking Nate for money.
It’s already bad enough that he had to spend the last twenty years taking care of my sorry ass, and now I can’t even make it as an adult without his help.
Fuck my life.
I take a nap, watch two movies, and try to do some homework that gets so tedious that I have to stop.
And it’s still only six.
I wish I had my guitar right now. I wish my hand worked right to play it. Because being trapped in your room all day with nothing to do is not for the weak.
I am weak.
So I go downstairs.
It’s fine, I tell myself. I don’t even know if he’s home. He could’ve been gone all day. I haven’t heard a peep out of him since this morning, and usually Sundays are party days. Maybe he found somewhere better to go.
When I make it downstairs and still don’t see him, I start to think that I stayed upstairs all day for nothing.
But when I round the couch to sit down and play some Xbox, I find him, curled up on the couch, eyes heavy, staring at the TV that isn’t even on. “Hey, you good?”
“Oh, hey,” he says, sitting up with the big goofy smile that would be ridiculous on anyone, but on him, it’s ridiculously cute. “I’m great. This weed is really good, wanna try some?”
He gestures to the bowl on the table, andoh. I get it now.
I sit down on the couch when he sits up, curling up into a ball. We can do this. I can hang out. Talk to him. It’s all good now. I’mmoving out at the end of the week. I don’t have to worry about the long-term effects ofhimanymore.
The sadness that thought leaves behind goes unacknowledged.
“I’ve never—” I look at the bowl again.
He gasps, covering his mouth in shock, way too dramatic for what I said. “You’ve never smoked weed? Oh my god! That’s why you’re so uptight!”
“I’m not uptight,” I defend, but he’s already standing up, running up the stairs faster than I’ve ever seen him move. He comes back down with a box that he opens on the table and begins to pull out a bunch ofactual drugs.
“What the fuck, dude?!”
“Relax, it’s all recreational.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Oh, you will, though. Just a sec.” He pulls out a bag that makes me scrunch up my nose when he opens it, along with a little piece of paper. “I’m gonna roll a joint, that’s easier for beginners.”
