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“I’m not sure about this boy you’re going on dates with, if this is the way you act.”
Ryan shakes his head. “Seriously?”
“See it through my eyes, Ryan. Before you met this boy, you weren’t disappearing. You weren’t locking your door every night. You weren’t angry all the time.”
“First off, Iwasangry all the time. And second, these days I’m only angry around you. Not when I’m with him.”
“I just don’t know what kind of influence he is. That’s what I’m saying.”
Ryan wants to kick over the remaining boxes, or run his arm over the shelves to make all the bottles he’s so carefully placed crash to the floor. But he wants to keep his job. He wants to be responsible.
He isn’t going to say another word to her. Not a single word. But then she says, “What? Tell me.” And he thinks,Fine. Enough.
“You think Caitlin is a bad influence. You think Alicia is a bad influence. And now you think Avery is a bad influence. Why is it that you think everyone who might possibly love me is a bad influence? What could that possibly mean?”
“Welove you, Ryan.”
Ryan pauses, then says, “I’m sure you think you do.”
He doesn’t mean it as a cut-down. He actually thinks he’s been generous, conceding that in their own twisted way his parents think what they feel is love. But his mom looks for a second like she’s lost her breath. The bottle in her hand almost comes loose. Then she recovers and puts it back on the shelf.
“You are to come home as soon as your shift is over,” she tells him evenly. “You are going to sit down to dinner with your father and me. We are not going to indulge your sulky behavior anymore. And if you cannot bother to listen to us,you will be grounded again. You really don’t have to do this, Ryan. Whatever this is.”
Ryan realizes there are other people in the aisle, and they are looking at him strangely, critically. They’re wondering who this jerk of an employee is, to make his mom tear up in the middle of the grocery store.
He doesn’t care enough for it to really be called caring. He turns his back to all of them, returns to the shelves. He works hard until the end of his shift.
It’s only then he allows himself to realize:
I can’t go home.
—
He could goto Caitlin’s. Or Alicia’s. Or even Miles’s, if he had to.
But the thing is, his parents would find him in those places.
And if they find him, his keys will end up in their possession, and he’ll never be able to see Avery’s play.
So he texts Avery and asks,How do you feel about me coming a night early?
He doesn’t expect an immediate response.
He starts driving toward Avery anyway.
—
As he drives,he tries to lose himself in music and the road. He makes promises to himself that he won’t let his parents get to him, and breaks these promises immediately with the same fervor with which he made them. He assures himselfthat Avery will be welcoming, that this isn’t too much drama to be bringing to his door. Then he succumbs to doubt and makes the music louder.
He can’t turn off his phone, because he wants to see if Avery responds. So he has to sit there as his phone rings, his mom calling. And as it rings again, and again. He sees she’s left messages, but he doesn’t listen to them. She texts him and he doesn’t check those, either. He’s driving. He can already hear himself telling her,I was driving—you don’t want me texting while I’m driving, do you?
He doesn’t check when he stops driving, either. He’s about a half-hour short of Avery’s town, and since Avery’s clearly still rehearsing, Ryan goes to a Target, because he’s going to need some clothes for tomorrow, and maybe the next day. Also, a toothbrush.
It’s only as he’s walking the Target aisles that Ryan truly feels like he’s making some kind of break from home. Knowing he has enough money in his account to pay for these things. Knowing he’s in control of his own time. His actions feel purely his own.
He finds three shirts he likes, and decides to buy all three. He almost changes into one of them once he’s back in the truck, just for it to feel more like a new start.
—
