“Should we go eat?” He removed his arm but stayed right at my side. “I hope that didn’t make you lose your appetite.”
“No, it didn’t.” I wanted to look back and see if Corbin was still there but I managed to stop myself. “I’m surprised he came to talk to me. It took some nerve.”
“If he’d had any nerve, he would have apologized months ago. He wouldn’t have let his friends treat you that way, if that story was even true.”
“You don’t believe that he’s sorry? Do you still think he planned it out in advance?” I asked. I did look back but families and grads had blocked my view.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve seen groups of men act like that, following a stupid idea because nobody has the balls to stand up and say no. Sometimes it just takes one person to tell them to knock it off and then they come to their senses. Too bad Corbin wasn’t that person.”
“Were you ever that person?”
“If I needed to be. Let’s talk about lunch instead of that clown,” he suggested.
In honor of my graduation, Shane had told me to pick whatever restaurant I wanted and that he would take me out. I chose one that had both meat and foods high in omega-3 fatty acids, soboth of us were able to get what we liked without anyone being picky or feeling like she was chewing on a tree branch.
In fact, it was delicious and we had a really nice time. I spent almost the entire day not worrying about the house getting sold, the restaurant closing permanently, and my family falling into poverty. I enjoyed myself a lot and it seemed like he did, too. We had a fun time together, but we always did. That was why I wanted to spend time with him, like my sister had complained about before. Lately, she’d been keeping her comments about him to herself, probably because we had so many other things to worry about.
The fun lasted up until we pulled into his driveway. “Thank you for taking me out,” I said. “Thanks again for coming to my graduation.”
“Can I just ask…” He hesitated. “Why was I your only guest?”
“I never made a lot of friends,” I answered. “I knew people from high school, but we didn’t stay in touch. I was always so busy.”
“I meant your family,” he told me. “Why weren’t any of them there today?”
“My dad is still gone.” My mom had heard from him again and it appeared that he was in Reno, Nevada—how he’d paid his way there was a mystery. “My brother wouldn’t have noticed this happening even if he still lived at home. My mom and Morgan are also focused on other things.” After cowering in fear when we’d experienced the initial shock of Dad taking off and closing the restaurant, the two of them suddenly seemed charged with energy and hope for the future. My sister had gotten a really cutehaircut (I assumed she had paid for it out of the funds from my mother’s secret stash) and they were excited about moving into a new place and moving on from our former lives.
“It’s strange to me, since you’re all so—” He hesitated. “What did you call it?”
“Enmeshed,” I supplied. “But maybe we’re un-meshing now. My dad and brother are establishing their own lives and Mom and Morgan seem to be getting on with things, too.”
“What about you? What’s next?”
All at once, my stomach flipped and the delicious lunch roiled inside it. “I don’t know.”
“You had talked about getting a job outside of what you did at the restaurant,” Shane said. “Now you could, since you don’t know when or if that will reopen. You have a lot of possibilities.”
“Yes. Yes, so many possibilities.”
He turned and looked at me carefully. “Why do you sound like that? Your voice just went up.”
“This was a big day and I’m probably tired,” I said. “That’s it, tiredness. I’ll go rest.”
“That’s what my grandma used to do,” he mentioned, nodding. “She always went to lie down after church or a family party. Then she’d say she was rejuvenated.”
“I need some rejuvenation,” I agreed. A lot of it. “Thanks again.”
When he got out, I pulled away fast, before he could say anything that put me into more of a tailspin. My house wasempty when I arrived. Where was everyone? Why hadn’t even one of them come to my graduation? I had mentioned that it was approaching but there were so many other things going on in our lives, they must have missed that. I thought back to my high school graduation, which my dad had skipped to open the lunch service at Walter’s. Morgan had already taken to her bed and Max had been out of town with friends. Had my mom been there? I remembered that she had been present for part of the ceremony. Afterwards, she’d said congratulations and then headed right over to the restaurant. I had, too.
At least I wouldn’t have to go there today. I carefully folded the graduation gown so that I could return it without any problems, and then I sat down on my bed. What was next? Not just today, but forever? I had spent a lot of time looking forward to my graduation. It had felt like a hurdle that I’d needed to clear, but I hadn’t spent enough time thinking about what was on the other side of it. I’d had weird delusions about somehow enticing a Woodsmen football player to solve all my financial problems but I hadn’t spent any time job searching, not in a serious way. Obviously not, since I didn’t have a job right now. Nothing. Not even a basically unpaid one at the restaurant.
I had felt like I was trapped by that place but at the same time, I hadn’t tried very hard to escape it. Now, my family was happily scattering and here I was, sitting in my nicest dress and the shoes that gave me blisters on my heels, in a house that didn’t belong to me and would soon be sold out from underneath me.
It seemed like everyone had been busy making plans. My dad had somehow saved enough to be able to take off and my momhad been hiding money for years. Max had met a girl and had enticed her into wanting to live with him (and, I assumed, support him, since he didn’t have a job). Morgan had a guy teaching her German and she seemed ready and able to step into a new future with him and our mom.
What was I doing?
It didn’t take me very long to pack up my stuff. I would leave my desk, since it didn’t really belong to me—the furniture was part of thefamilyhouse, and we were no longer a family. I didn’t have a lot of clothes, books, or memorabilia. There were no pictures in frames, no posters or art on the walls. The bed had also been here before I had made my appearance in the world and I decided that I would leave the sheets, too (but I did make it before I left).
