“He knows everybody,” I said. “He feeds everyone when he’s in town.”
“Ah,” Everett said. “So the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“If we’re calling Hank my tree.”
“I think we are,” Everett said. I grinned sideways at him. “How is that your thing?”
I’d said it before; to Laurel, to Gabe and Davi, to Zoey. It always came up somehow. People tended to be curious why Igrew up with my uncle instead of my parents. I’d added themostlya while ago—I wasmostlyraised by my uncle, because there were the years I still lived with my parents while school was in session and with Hank only in the summers, but even then, the summers seemed like the time most of the raising was actually being done.
“My parents love their jobs more than much else,” I said finally, Everett’s eyes finding mine in the quickly fading light. “My mom is in finance, my dad is in tech, they’re always busy. I think having at least one kid was kind of something to check off a list?” I tried to tell the simplest version of it, none of the ins and outs, none of the stretches of silence or darker moments. Just facts.
“Anyway, every summer, they would send me to stay with Hank in San Francisco. And there was this one summer, right before seventh grade, when my mom called me the night before I was supposed to get on a plane to fly back to New York, and she told me I was going to stay with Hank awhile longer. That I might even start the school year there.”
“Did you?” Everett asked when I went quiet for a minute, the conversation replaying itself in my head.We’re coming out at Thanksgiving anyway,my mom had said, like all my things weren’t back home, like I didn’t know what was happening.We’ll revisit things again.Revisitwas a word I’d heard her use a lot growing up, on the phone with clients during things like dinnertime or our walk to school in the morning.Revisit, circle back. Pick your brain.I hadn’t thought those things applied to her kid, until they suddenly had.
“I did,” I told Everett. “And I never moved back home.”
Everett shook his head at this, the motion barely there. I knew I’d skipped over about a hundred steps in the process—the first school year I spent in San Francisco without seeingmy parents at all, when the trips for Thanksgiving and spring break and my birthday were all canceled, when another year went by and my mom tried to pick me up and I had to tell her I wanted to stay. I’d been ready for a fight, but it didn’t come. She’d almost seemed relieved.
“What about now?” Everett asked. I raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s your relationship with them like?”
“We talk on the phone once a month,” I said, without addingif they can make it work. “They helped pay for college.”
“Did they come to graduation?” Everett asked.
I shook my head. “Hank was there,” I said. At Everett’s expression, I insisted, “They’re not bad people,” the same strange defensiveness I felt for them cropping up whenever I told this story. Most of me really believed it, maybe because I’d loved living with Hank so much, had been instantly happier than I ever was with them. And it was so routine to not talk with them much that I didn’t question it. Didn’t want to. “They just... they love their work. And honestly, sending me to live with Hank is the best thing they could have done. They didn’t have the time for a kid. So—” I tilted my head toward him, said around my straw as I brought it to my mouth “—that’smy thing.”
Everett’s brow pulled together momentarily, relaxed again. It was a look I’d seen before, a rote response. It wasn’t pity, exactly. Somewhere more in the realm of concern, of disbelief. On Everett, it looked almost like recognition.
Everett huffed. “Hell of a thing.” Something in my expression must have shifted, because he asked me, “What?”
I opened my mouth, closed it. This was the hard part, the part I hadn’t ever really been able to put into words. Hadn’t tried to, even with my friends, because I didn’t want to seem insensitive or insincere. “It is,” I started. “I know that. But I almost think it might seem worse to other people?”
We’d reached the end of the pier by then, and Everett settled against the railing next to me, our elbows just brushing.
“Like, if I spent my whole life sitting around thinking about how my parents just decided they didn’t really want to parent anymore, I’d go crazy,” I continued. “If you spent all your time contemplating all the ways your dad fucked you up, you wouldn’t get anything done. So just—you’re right. We all have our thing, but it’sourthing, and I think it always sounds worse to someone who hasn’t been through it.” I laughed. “I’m Laurel’s worst nightmare,” I said. “She still thinks I’m not dealing with my trauma.”
“Are you?” Everett asked.
“I think I already did,” I said. “Hank had me talk to someone when I was younger. They helped a little.”
“So you don’t think there’s anything in your life now or in the future that could be a result of what happened,” Everett said. “You’ve worked through it? You’re done?”
“I just don’t see the point in revisiting it,” I said. “Rehashing what’s already been—” I waved a hand, searching for the right word “—hashed.”
Everett smiled, and I knew he got it. All of his sunny-eyed smiles, casual jokes, easy confidence. He didn’t want to revisit his shit either. I was sure of it.
“Whatever you say, Sutton Hale,” he said. “Let’s not rehash the already hashed.”
“Hear! Hear!” I said, extending my cup his way so he could tap his against mine. “To leaving the past where it should stay.”
And so we didn’t rehash it. We started back toward the car once the sun had set, walking past the restaurants and shops, and didn’t bring up my parents or his dad. Some measure of space between us was gone, taken up by what we now knew. But it didn’t have to matter. It didn’t have to change things.
“Interesting to know this is what we’ve been missing out on,” Everett remarked after a while.
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“I’m just saying, this is nice,” Everett said. “We could have been hanging out like this for a couple months now.”
