~ Chapter 4: Adrian ~
I couldn't express how excited I was that Jeffrey was coming over. I thought that when Tia Lera went into labor, we'd have to cancel, but Victor called Jeffrey's parents and worked it out. He'd said it was surprisingly easy to convince them to let him come over and I wondered if it actually helped. I mean, Victor was the whole reason Jeffrey was coming over. If he hadn't talked to Jeffrey's mom, the only time I'd see Jeffrey was when I went over there. Every time Jeffrey talked about his life before he moved… it hit me how quickly things could go bad when parents were involved. I thought if I had a kid like Jeffrey, I'd trust someone like Victor with him in a heartbeat.
Victor even managed to swing a sleepover. I didn't know if he'd gotten permission from our mom and I was honestly a little too afraid to ask. It seemed easier to believe he had than to fact-check that.
Victor was taking off of work all day which was exciting. He didn't even HAVE to take off work. Pilar could have watched us, but he wanted to be here. He was going into work tomorrow afternoon after Jeffrey got picked up, so he told me that he could justify taking off.
I dunno. It seemed like a really big deal that he was choosing me and Jeffrey over work, especially when he'd been working so much lately.
When Tuesday morning came around, it was hard to tell who was more excited. Victor was going overboard trying to make our apartment as presentable as possible for Jeffrey. I told him Jeffrey wouldn't care if there were dishes in the sink, but I think Victor was channeling our mom's cleaning habits. He even scrubbed Heather's tank even though he'd just cleaned it last week.
We'd agreed on having pizza for dinner, but Victor still took me to the grocery store to get some extra snacks and drinks for tonight - like I said, it was over the top, but it meant that I got to pick out some junk food that our mom probably wouldn't have let me get, so I wasn't complaining.
Benji called him around noon and he left me with Pilar so he could talk to him. "Finally," Pilar muttered. She pulled off her rubber gloves.
"What?" I asked.
She looked at me like she was surprised I could hear her. "Nothing," she said. "Just glad that we're done getting ready for Jeffrey. I don't know why he's making this such a big deal." I didn't know what I looked like, but it must've been a little offended because she hastily said, "not that it's not a big deal. It's great that you have a friend coming over for the first time since we moved."
It was actually the first time ever, but I didn't want to tell her that. It was embarrassing enough telling Victor last night when I couldn't sleep.
I wasn't sure if he'd checked in on me every night and I'd just been asleep, but he'd quietly opened my door last night to find me sitting crisscrossed on my bed. He came in and sat down next to me. I had no intention to tell him the truth, but he always managed to get it out of me. I didn't understand how it happened. I didn't know how I went from standing my ground to spilling my guts. It was his magic trick.
He hadn't believed me at first. He thought there was no way I went nine years without inviting a friend over. Back in Texas, it was easy to avoid because no one wanted to be friends with me. I carried that with me here. This was the first time I'd trusted someone like this (outside of family). I'd had to break it down for him. No one wanted to be friends with me in Kindergarten or 1st grade and no one had brought it up since we moved.
I thought it was part of the reason he was being so extra about this.
It wasn't that I hadn't had friends back in Texas, but most of my friends were from our church. When I'd been bullied, one of the things they'd made fun of me for was living in an apartment, so I avoided having people over even once I had friends. I always had an excuse - our apartment was fumigated about a dozen times - I didn't even know what that meant at the time, but I thought it sounded official. It probably would've been inevitable eventually, but we moved a few months after the bullying stopped and there was so much happening with that… it wasn't a possibility. Until now.
Instead of telling Pilar any of that, I shrugged. "Jeffrey's my best friend. Maybe if he has a good time, he'll want to come over again."
"Of course, he'll want to. Who wouldn't want to spend more time with you?" she pointed out.
I shrugged again. "I'm gonna make sure my room's good." When I escaped to my room, I squeezed my eyes shut. Pilar didn't know, no one knew. They didn't know I'd overheard an argument between our mom and Pilar back in Texas. It was maybe nine or ten months before we moved.
"Why do I have to watch him? Why can't Victor?" Pilar asked.
"Victor has plans with Matt," our mom told her. I couldn't see her because I was on the other side of the wall to the kitchen where they were arguing. It was a weird coincidence that I was here. My birthday was coming up and I was trying to find where my mom hid my present. I wasn't going to open it. I just wanted to get an idea of if it was too light (probably clothes) or if she'd gotten the board game I asked for. She'd said I was too young for it because it said it was for ages 10 and up, but I'd laid it on pretty thick when she found out about the bullying (i.e. I'd begged with every tool I had in my arsenal), so I hoped I'd cracked her. "He asked first. I'm sorry. Your father has work, and I have a few piano lessons lined up. I'm starting with a new client today. You'll have to see Alex once we get home."
"I have a life too, you know. I shouldn't always be stuck babysitting a six-year-old!" Pilar complained.
"Matt and I can figure something else out. See the movie another day," Victor offered.
"See! Matt and Victor can watch him. Or you can. You're his mom. You can't keep pawning him off on me! Why'd you even have him if-"
"Pilar!" Victor said. I knew the tone of his voice well. It got an almost protective quality to it. I'd heard him use that tone more times than I cared to admit; it was a tone he almost exclusively used when I was involved. It probably should have bothered me, but Victor was my superhero. It always made me feel kind of special.
There was a long silence. I didn't know when they started it up again, didn't know exactly how that argument ended. All I knew was that a couple of hours later, Matt and I were sitting across from one another while he showed me some magic tricks, and Pilar was hanging out with Alex.
Already, a lot of stuff from Texas had faded but that had stayed with me as one of my few memories of the place we'd left behind.
It was probably silly to be holding onto that, especially when I knew Pilar loved me, but I had trouble letting go of the fact that, at one point, I'd been an inconvenience to her. I'd never felt that way with anyone else. It always made me wonder if everyone else felt that way as well and they'd just been good at hiding it. I certainly never would have known Pilar had felt that way if I hadn't been snooping.
I didn't have long to wallow in that before Victor found me. He knocked on my door and walked in holding his phone up. "Benji wanted to say hi," he told me.
I expected him to sit down next to me, so I was surprised when he passed me his phone and left. "Uh, hey."
"Hey." Benji looked like he squinted at his phone. "Why do you look like Victor made you listen to Baby Shark again?" I couldn't help the small laugh that built inside me. The more I thought about that, the funnier I found it until it was peeling out of me. When I'd calmed myself down, Benji was smiling big. "That's better. Vic says your nervous."
I shrugged. "Not really. I'm excited for him to be here. I guess… I didn't think about how weird this might be for him."
Benji frowned. "Why do you think it's going to be weird?"
Something dawned on me at that exact moment. Something I should have connected a long, long time ago. "You weren't allowed over," I realized.
"I'm in Florida," he said gently. "If I was in Atlanta, I could be there."
"No, I mean before. Before I knew about you and Victor. You never came over."
Benji instantly looked uncomfortable. I knew Victor probably didn't want me to know this. He'd gone through great lengths to make sure I didn't know the whole story about why he waited so long to tell me (though I'd pieced together bits from conversations I'd overheard; one of the benefits of everyone thinking I was a little kid was that they thought I couldn't hear them when I left the room). This was the first time that I thought about why Benji hadn't been around before I knew.
We were quiet for a long time as I figured out how to fit this into my understanding of the early months of their relationship. I hadn't asked a question, but he gave me an answer anyway. "It's not that I wasn't allowed; I came over once. When you were at your dad's," he admitted. He chewed on his lip.
"Why do you look like Victor's making you listen to Baby Shark?" I asked, echoing his earlier question.
The faintest smile crossed Benji's face. "I'm trying to decide if this is worth the fight with Victor."
"I don't want to be the reason you fight."
"You wouldn't be," he said seriously. "Victor just… he thinks it's better for you to not know some things."
"Like about when he came out?" I guessed. "And why you were never over even though you were his boyfriend."
"Exactly," Benji agreed.
"But you don't agree?" I pressed. I was hoping that maybe I'd be able to convince Benji to tell me the truth.
"I don't not agree. I think that some stuff's just ours, you know?"
I had no idea what that meant, but I found myself nodding anyway. "So, you're not going to tell me either."
"I didn't say that."
There was a long silence. "I won't tell Victor if that will help," I offered. I didn't like the idea of that because Victor seemed to know whenever I was intentionally keeping something from him, but this felt like my one chance to get answers.
Benji snorted. "No, you can tell Victor. I'm gonna tell him once I'm back with him."
"Okay."
"When we first started dating, it was easier to avoid your apartment. It was less tense. I love your mom, but she…"
"Struggled?" I guessed. It was what Victor had said the only time we talked about it. That she'd struggled, but she'd gotten over it.
By the look on Benji's face, I had a feeling struggle wasn't a strong enough word. "Yeah. You could say that."
"What would you call it?"
"I would say she didn't like me. I was everything that was wrong with her life. Our relationship was another thing for her and your dad to fight about. Before I came into her life, she felt like she knew Victor. Then, he was with me and a lot of that didn't make sense to her. I knew she didn't like me. It's why I didn't try to come over. If I'd pushed it, Victor would have had me over. He would've picked that fight, but I never asked about it because it was really hard for me to know that it would have to be a fight. I couldn't just come over without worrying about what was going to happen."
"When you could start coming over, was it weird?" I asked. "Did you feel like… I don't know. Like this was still the place you avoided?"
"It was that place for a while," he admitted.
I hadn't realized that. I figured once he started to come over, it was because he was allowed to. "Then why'd you keep coming back?"
"Because your brother was more important. I didn't think it could be better. Victor doesn't know this, but I just kind of accepted that being with him meant there would always be a certain level of awkwardness. After his birthday… everything changed."
"It took that long?" I asked incredulously. "How did I miss that?"
Benji chuckled. "I'm not surprised you didn't notice. When we hung out with you… everything was great. You weren't part of the awkwardness."
I hoped he wasn't just saying that to appease me. "What made it better?"
An uncomfortable look crossed his face. "I'm not going to lie to you, but I can't answer that question. Part of the answer is time, but the other part… I agree with Victor on that one. We don't want you to know. We don't want anyone to know, really, but that can't be helped."
"Is this about how you and Victor had sex?" It was the only thing I could think of. I knew it had happened right before his birthday. Even if I didn't know the specific details, I knew it was why he went to visit Mia.
Benji stared at me. "You know about that?"
I nodded. "Everyone was talking about it. When you went to visit Mia, I asked Pilar about it. She didn't say you hadn't. I just…" I frowned. "I don't understand anything about what happened. I don't know how you two can have sex."
"Um… what do you mean?" Benji asked cautiously.
"None of my classmates knew either." Well, Mallory said she knew, but I think she just wanted us to keep asking her so she could keep saying 'that's for me to know and you to find out'. "Like… how does it work? And what does it have to do with anything? And how did everyone know?"
"It shouldn't have had anything to do with anything," he muttered. "I'm sorry. I can't go there. I know you want to know, but-"
"Right." I sighed. "That doesn't help me."
"Help with what?"
"If it's really weird for Jeffrey, who hasn't been over anywhere since before he told his parents he's a boy, how do I make it less weird?"
"Oh. That's what you're getting at?" Benji laughed but not in a mean way. "You and your brother are always worrying about the wrong things. It's not going to be weird unless you make it weird."
"How do you know?"
"Because you are welcoming Jeffrey into an apartment filled with people who want him to be here. The thing I can't tell you about? That's what it did for me. It made me feel like I wasn't just tolerated when I was here; I was welcomed."
"Oh."
"Hey, I promise; it'll be fine. Just don't put so much pressure on yourself. If you're nervous, Jeffrey will pick up on that."
"I'll try."
Benji laughed again, so I knew I wasn't convincing. "I'm gonna FaceTime later. It's why Victor passed you his phone; I wanted to make sure you're okay with that. I want to meet the infamous Jeffrey."
I chuckled. "Honestly, I think he feels the same way about you and Victor." It was true. Especially about Victor.
"So that's a yes?"
"Of course."
"Great," he said enthusiastically. "Can you pass me back to Victor?"
I didn't answer him right away because I didn't want to pass him back. "Hey, Benji? Thanks."
"For what?" he asked.
"For treating me like I'm old enough to know the truth."
He shrugged. "I think you are."
I wanted to say something, but I wasn't sure it was okay to say. I figured I'd get a pass if I crossed a line. "Can I ask you one more question?"
"Of course."
It was the no hesitation way he said that that made me think he really would answer my question. "You love Victor."
It wasn't a question, but he said, "yes" anyway. I looked down at my bed because suddenly it seemed childish to ask Benji if he wanted to be with Victor for the rest of his life. "I love all of you too, you know. You and Pilar and your parents. Even Heather. Even if she tries to eat my fingers."
"I still think that's your fault for putting them anywhere near her mouth," I pointed out. "But, uh, that wasn't what I wanted to ask." He tilted his head sideways. "Nevermind."
"You know you can ask me anything."
I nodded. I did know that. "I just… do you want to be with him? Not right now, but… you know."
"Adrian?" I looked back up at the phone. "I want to be with Victor for the rest of my life."
"Okay." I couldn't help my smile.
"You know, when we were fighting a lot, part of what we were fighting over was all of you."
"What? Why?"
"It's just me and my parents and things haven't always been great between us. My ex… his parents were divorced and it was messy. I've never been with someone that was this close with his family. It was hard for me to understand why it was so important to him that I get along with all of you. The night that we talked about this, he told me if I was dating him, I was dating his family. I didn't just choose Victor. I chose all of you."
"You are part of our family," I said quietly. "My mom calls you her son and everything."
"Yeah, but she calls Felix her son too."
"Yeah. And that means something," I told him seriously. "Before we moved here, Victor was closest to Matt." Benji made a face. "Wait… did they date?" I asked incredulously. I'd assumed Benji was Victor's first boyfriend but had he had others?
"No. And Victor says he never had feelings for him but… I don't know. I've met Matt, and I could see it."
I had no idea whether Victor crushed on Matt. "I don't know," I admitted. "But, he was over all the time and knew Victor his whole life; my mom never called him anything but Matt. Sometimes Matthew if she was annoyed with him."
Benji got a smug smile on his face. "Good to know." He looked behind him and shook his head rapidly. "Not there. Yeah. Perfect."
"Wait… are you supposed to be practicing right now?" I asked uncertainly. I knew he had concerts every night this week, but I wasn't sure exactly what he did during the day.
"We were taking a break," he told me. "The other band was running late. They just got here."
"So you have to go."
"Yeah." He didn't look happy about it. "Tell Victor I'll call him later."
He hung up and I walked out of my room. "Benji had to go. He said he'll call you later." For a second, Victor looked disappointed and I realized I'd taken up almost all the time he had to talk to Benji. He couldn't have been on the phone more than a minute or two before he came in. "Sorry. I didn't mean to talk to him so long."
"It's all good," he promised. "You look like you're feeling better."
I nodded. "Benji helped."
"Yeah. He's good like that."
I thought about what Benji had told me. If you're dating me, you're dating my family. "Yeah," I agreed.
"What do you think ab-"
I never got the chance to figure out what Victor was going to ask because his phone rang. It was our mom and dad. The three of us crowded in the living room. Victor and Pilar fawned over Mila. I didn't see the big deal. She was kind of red and wrinkly and she slept the entire time we were on the video.
We only talked to them for about half an hour before Victor got the notification that he was getting another call. "Oh, we gotta go, mom. I think Jeffrey's here."
Huh. So I guess they did know. "Alright. Have fun. I want to hear all about it tomorrow," our mom warned.
We waved for a second before Victor ended the call and called back Mr. Miller. "Hey." I couldn't hear what Jeffrey's dad said, but Victor nodded at me. "Yeah. Adrian's coming down now to bring him up. Are you sure you don't want to come in for a few minutes?" There was a shorter silence. "Of course. We'll see you tomorrow."
I was out the door a second later. Jeffrey was waiting right outside when I got downstairs and I waved to his dad. It was weird to me because my parents never, not in a million years, would've just dropped me off somewhere.
Jeffrey followed me upstairs. Felix had somehow shown up in the minute it took me to get Jeffrey and the three of them were standing in the living room. "Hey," I said when I stepped in. "This is Jeffrey. That's Victor, Pilar, and Felix. He's Pilar's boyfriend."
"It's so nice to meet you all," Jeffrey said timidly. In all the time I'd known him, I'd never seen him this shy before.
"And this is Heather."
Jeffrey squealed as he got close to her cage. "She's perfect."
"We can take her out," I offered.
"She doesn't leave the living room," Victor warned. "Last time you brought her in your room, you ran to the bathroom and it took us an hour to find her."
"There are two of us," I complained. Victor raised his eyebrows at me. "Fine."
Maybe he made us stay out in the living room, but he went to his room and Felix and Pilar followed his lead, so it wasn't like he was watching us. He also gave us some lettuce. We sat, making a diamond with our legs, and bribed Heather with lettuce to get her to go back and forth between us.
For a few minutes, we were quiet. I worried that it was every bit as weird as I'd been building it up to be. I couldn't begin to figure out what to say to break the silence. Then, Victor called from his room, "don't forget to ask him about pizza toppings!"
Maybe he wasn't watching us but he was definitely listening in. If you even can listen in when there's nothing to listen in to. I was grateful for it because it got us on a conversation about the perfect pizza and what combination of pizza toppings that would be.
After that, things were smooth. We seamlessly transitioned to a conversation about what Heather's superhero name would be if we accidentally gave her radioactive water. The Lettuce Annihilator was my favorite. It was kind of like it had been at his house. I think we both managed to forget that this was Jeffrey's first time going over to a friend's house since before he moved and this was my first time having a friend over ever.
We spent nearly an hour talking about Jeffrey's family pool party that he was hoping I'd go to. He reluctantly admitted that a lot of his family wouldn't be there and he'd like to not think about why they weren't going to be there. I didn't need to ask to know what he meant. I agreed to be there even though I hadn't gotten permission to go yet. I hoped that they'd be able to make it work. Worst case scenario, I figured Pilar could take me on a bus to Jeffrey's house. It wouldn't be the first time.
When Victor came out of his room to let us know that we needed to put Heather back in her cage because the pizza was going to be here soon, I was shocked that hours had already flown by. Shocked but pleased because Benji was right - if I didn't make it weird, it wasn't weird.
Even though we were just doing pizza, we set the table. Benji called when Victor ran out to get the pizza, so I answered with, "Victor will be right back. He's picking up dinner."
"Right on time," Benji said with a grin. "Do you mind if I join you?" He held up a slice of pizza.
"You're gross!" someone said from behind Benji. Benji rolled his eyes.
"Ignore him."
"Who is that?" Jeffrey asked. He poked his head over my shoulder.
"Benji, this is Jeffrey. Jeffrey, this is Benji."
"Hey… oh."
Benji suddenly got uncomfortably pale and Jeffrey's eyes widened. "Benji," he whispered. I looked at Jeffrey, then back at Benji, then back at Jeffrey.
"What just happened?" I asked.
Neither of them spoke. God bless Victor who walked in with the pizza. "Somebody order pizza?" he asked in a terrible Italian accent. He put it down on the table. "Pilar. Felix." His voice carried through the apartment.
He remained oblivious to the weird staring contest Benji and Jeffrey were having until he put a slice of pizza on the plate in front of me. "Oh. I didn't know you got off already." The smile on his face faded. "What's going on?"
"Vic." Even I could hear the desperate edge to Benji's voice.
Victor held out his hand for his phone and disappeared into his room. After a minute, he came out to grab his earbuds. He never used those when he was home, so I knew something was going down.
"Do you know him?" I asked Jeffrey. He remained silent. "Come on. You're not supposed to keep secrets from me!"
He chewed on his lip. "I just never knew his name. I mean, you told me his name, but I never knew…" he trailed off. "Can I go talk to your brother?"
"Uh… I guess so."
Jeffrey ran to Victor's room and knocked on the door before, he too, disappeared inside.
That left me alone at the kitchen table which stunk. Whatever. If they were going to leave, I wasn't waiting for them. I put a slice of pizza on a plate and went into my room. I took a bite of my pizza, but I couldn't make myself take another. This was supposed to be my sleepover and all of a sudden, it revolved around another secret that I couldn't be a part of.
I heard Victor call my name a few minutes later, but I didn't answer him. It was probably irrational but, after Jeffrey had told me so much about his life before he moved, I'd gotten used to there being no secrets between us. I could talk to Jeffrey about anything and it sucked that he didn't feel the same way.
When Victor and Jeffrey just walked in, I wished my door had a lock on it.
"Hey, papa," Victor said gently.
"What?" I asked.
Victor moved my plate and sat next to me. "We're going to tell you something, but you can't tell anyone, okay? Not Pilar or Felix or even mom and dad. This stays between the four of us."
I stared. "You're going to tell me?"
Victor nodded. "Benji says he's okay with it and Jeffrey wants to tell you, so… yeah. We're going to tell you."
He motioned towards Jeffrey. Jeffrey remained as silent as he'd been before.
"I'll start," Benji offered. I hadn't realized he was still on the phone. He was currently getting an unobstructed view of my ceiling. His face was red and puffy like he'd just been crying. He let out a shaky breath. Victor bunched his hands into fists. I could see how worried he was about Benji. "Do you know what it means to be an alcoholic?"
"It means someone drinks too much," I said simply. Our whole health unit this year had been on drugs and alcohol.
"Yeah," Benji agreed. His face twisted. "Well. Before you moved here and before I was out… I used to drink too much."
The words just kind of sat there for a minute. I felt stunned. I'd always thought Benji was so perfect and larger than life because that's how Victor made him seem; it was hard to reconcile this information with who I thought Benji was.
"He got help," Victor picked up. He nudged me. "This doesn't change who he is. It just means that Benji doesn't drink. He never will."
"Neither will my dad," Jeffrey whispered. His eyes were shut tightly. "I told you that we moved here because it was where my dad's company could transfer us too and that was true, but my dad got fired like four months after we moved here. It was stressful, you know. Moving and everything. He'd always had a bit of a problem, but I think being away from our family for the holidays pushed him over the edge. He got out of control."
"His dad started going to meetings for people like us that were struggling." Benji's voice shook nearly as much as Jeffrey's. "We went to the same one a couple of times. I only knew him as Ezra…"
"My dad took us to a few meetings," Jeffrey whispered. "When he was getting his monthly chips. My dad got his five-month chip the day Benji…"
"The day I got my one year. I thought his mom looked familiar when we met her, but I didn't realize…"
Benji had been sober a whole year? How was that even possible? I filed that away to think about later.
"And your dad is okay?" I confirmed.
Jeffrey nodded. "He'll be sober a year on Thursday."
"Wow. Wait. A year? I thought you said it happened around Christmas."
"It did."
"Getting sober… it's one of the hardest things someone with a problem can do. The urge to drink, especially at the beginning… it's not easy to fight off. It takes most of us a lot of time before we get sober and stay sober," Benji explained.
"Do you have any questions for us?" Victor asked.
I couldn't begin to figure out what questions I had. I felt like my mind was mostly blank, unable to comprehend everything that I had just been told. I shook my head.
"Okay. I'm gonna talk to Benji for a bit. You need to eat. Pilar and Felix are out there."
"A bit" turned out to be over an hour. Victor didn't emerge until Felix went to see what was taking him so long because we were all going to play one of the games he and his mom had made up when he was little.
The game was fun, but I had trouble concentrating. It was usually right up my alley. Enough strategy to challenge me but not so much that it was hard to follow. They wiped the floor with me.
When Jeffrey started to yawn, Victor declared that it was our final game and, when he secured his victory, sent Felix home so he could help us set up sleeping bags in the living room.
Once Pilar and Victor went to their rooms, I cocooned myself in my sleeping bag. "Why didn't you tell me?"
I thought he maybe fell asleep already but, a minute later, he answered, "only me, my parents, and my brother knew."
"Why?"
"It's hard to talk about. It's been the family secret. Mattie told one of his teachers when my dad got kicked out and my mom freaked on him. She told him that we weren't allowed to tell anyone. Our other family doesn't even know. To her, this was worse than me being a boy."
I frowned. "What do you mean it was worse?"
"At least my family knows about me. My mom doesn't make me pretend to be a girl when we get together," he explained. "But this? No one's allowed to know that my dad's in AA."
"No… I mean, if it was worse then that means there's something bad about you now and there's not."
"No, I know. I guess I'm trying to rank it. I should have said it's a bigger secret than me."
"Okay." I chewed on my lip. "Was it really bad? When he was drinking?"
"Does it matter?"
"I don't know," I admitted.
Jeffrey sighed. "It was mostly really scary. When he was sober, my dad was the best. He was funny and liked to do stuff with us. But when he drank… he'd get angry. Really angry."
"Did he ever…" I hesitated because I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer to the question I needed to ask. I liked Jeffrey's dad. He was cool. I couldn't imagine him any different than how I'd known him. But I needed Jeffrey to know that he could talk about it. My words came out as a whisper. "Hurt you?"
"No. My mom never would have let him come back."
"Come back?" I asked.
"She kicked him out a few days before Christmas." I turned on my side so I could see him. Jeffrey was already facing me.
"Because of the drinking?"
"Sort of. His drinking had been bad my whole life. There were a couple of days a month where he was sober and amazing, but the rest of the time… I don't remember not being afraid of him. Mattie had to put up with it longer than I did."
"What did he do?" I was worried that at some point the questions would be too much, but if it bothered him, he didn't say.
"He shouted. A lot. Mattie and I couldn't do anything right. He once yelled at Mattie for like fifteen minutes because he was sick and had to blow his nose and he said it got in the way of the game he was watching." Jeffrey was quiet for a minute. "He blamed me for his problems. He said he always wanted a daughter and I was doing this just to hurt him and that I didn't care what he'd given up for us. You know that my mom got pregnant with Mattie before they planned to have kids."
"I didn't know that." I tilted my head. They'd always seemed like the picture-perfect family to me.
"Oh. Yeah. I figured you knew after my mom's birthday. She turned thirty-two. Mattie's twelve."
Huh. He was right. I knew all of that. I just never tried to do the math because… why would I? "Oh."
"Yeah. My mom was only a sophomore in college when she got pregnant. My dad had just finished culinary school, but he was having trouble finding a job. They moved so my mom could be closer to my grandparents, but… you know. It wasn't a big town. There was a local bakery, but they weren't hiring, so my dad found a job where he commuted over an hour to do work he hated so that they could afford everything they needed for Mattie. It was never the right time for them to move. They had to save for their wedding and then they got pregnant with me almost right away." Jeffrey sighed. "Then everything was happening with me. It was a lot for him. I think it was too much. When we moved… it got really bad. He got fired like three months after we moved here, and then he didn't have a reason not to drink. My mom kicked him out one night after he punched a hole in the wall."
"For how long?"
"Only until Christmas. She told him he needed to get help if he wanted to stay. It did get better for a bit, but he never stopped. He thought he could drink only a little each day, but a little turned into a lot. The last day he ever drank, he told me none of this would have happened if I could just be normal and that he wouldn't have had two kids if he knew we were going to be such a handful." Jeffrey sniffed. "The moment he said it, I knew he heard himself because he walked out. He didn't come back for two days. When he did, he told us that he was going to do it for real this time. He'd gone to a meeting and it was the first time I remember him admitting he had a problem that he couldn't handle himself."
"That sounds intense. I can't believe he said that to you."
"Sometimes…" he trailed off.
"What?"
"I wonder if he still feels that way."
"No," I said adamantly. I'd seen Jeffrey with his dad. If I knew anything, it was that his dad loved him. "I don't think he meant it then. He was drunk."
"You didn't see him. He meant it."
I sat up. "Look, I can't pretend to know what it's like to have your dad do… that, but I can say that you're not a handful just because you're yourself. And… sure, you're not normal, but who wants to be normal? We're Team Weird, remember?"
"Team Weird," he agreed.
"Thank you. For telling me about this."
He shrugged. "Thanks for not thinking I'm broken because all of this happened to me."
"You're not broken and none of this is your fault."
He nodded, but I could tell he didn't believe it.
We didn't talk after that and, eventually, Jeffrey's breathing slowed.
Eventually, my racing thoughts must've calmed as well because, suddenly, I was waking up to the faint sound of something sizzling.
Everything was blurry when I opened my eyes, and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust. Once they did, I realized Jeffrey wasn't in his sleeping bag.
I heard his voice a moment later and realized that he was in the kitchen with Victor. I tried to be subtle as I moved closer so I could hear them better.
I stopped when I heard Victor say, "I know."
"Does it ever stop being scary?" Jeffrey asked.
"No," Victor said seriously. "But it becomes scary in a different way. When I first found out, I was terrified that if I said the wrong thing, he'd drink again."
"That's what I worry about. Maybe who I am will be too much for him one day," Jeffrey told him.
"I get that." It wasn't what I expected from Victor. I thought he would've immediately told Jeffrey he wasn't too much. It's what I would have done. "All I can say is Benji needed me to trust him. It took me a long time to realize that… I couldn't go through this with him and I couldn't hold myself responsible for his sobriety. I wanted to. If there was something I could do then it wasn't out of my control."
"Then what can you do?"
"Be there." I could vividly picture the way Victor would look like he was seeing into your soul when he sounded like that. "Show him you believe in him. Even if it's an act at first… eventually, you'll realize that you do believe in him. One of the hardest things Benji has ever done was open up about exactly what he went through when he was drinking. I know, in my heart, that he's going to fight hard every day to stay sober."
"But you're still scared."
"Yes," Victor confirmed. "But I'm not scared of him. Scared might be too strong of a word. I worry about him. I worry that this is part of his life that I can't help him through, and I worry that he's fighting a battle I can only witness, and I worry that one day he'll realize I have no clue what I'm doing.."
"So that's it? It's just going to be scary forever?"
"I think so." I heard a slight shuffle. "It's worth it though. I'd take a lifetime of worrying about him if it means I get to have him in my life. It's a little different for me though. I didn't know Benji before he got sober. He'd already pulled himself together by the time I got here. You're in a different position. You don't just have to forgive your dad for what he did; you have to forgive him for how he hurt you." I guessed Jeffrey told Victor. Or… maybe Benji had. He did say they went to the same meetings. I only had a vague idea of what AA was, but it was very possible that Benji knew more details about Jeffrey's dad than even Jeffrey.
"I don't know how to do that." Jeffrey's voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear him.
"I'm not going to lie; it's really hard. You have to decide if the relationship you have with your dad is more important than your anger."
"That's what you did?" he asked.
"Yeah," Victor confirmed. "Again, it's different because the things that made me angry happened during our relationship and not while he was drinking. When Benji told me… there was no doubt in my mind that he'd learned from what happened."
"From his accident?" Jeffrey asked.
"How much do you know about that?"
"Not much outside of that. I only heard him talk once. When my dad got his ten months. I guess Benji got his license back and everything was coming up for him."
"It's gotta be intense for you to be at those meetings, huh? You must hear a lot for, you know, your age."
"I guess. My mom always said she'd rather us learn about this stuff in a safe space. We're gonna learn about it anyway; at least this way, she has the chance to make sure we know everything we need to know. Someone talking about their sex life or the things they did while drunk or the relationship problems it caused or… you know… when a sex video comes out and makes it difficult to stay sober… we talk about all of it because she'd rather we know the truth instead of what someone else tells us. "
Victor groaned. "Are you the one that told Adrian? Benji said he was asking questions earlier."
"No. I didn't know he was talking about you. I thought he was in college or something. I never realized that the Benjamin from those meetings was the Benji Adrian talked about."
"And you don't feel like it's too much? To know all of that?"
"No," Jeffrey told him. "I think it's helped. You know, Adrian talks a lot about how tired he is of being treated like he's too young to know stuff. He can handle a lot more than you give him credit for."
"You're probably right. What do you want in your pancakes?"
"Whatever you're making is fine."
Victor laughed. "I know you're new here but, in the Salazar household, we don't do 'whatever you're making'," Victor told him. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. It was probably one of our mom's biggest pet peeves. Few things irritated her as much as one of us telling her whatever she felt like making was good for us when she asked us what we wanted to eat. She always said she shouldn't have to make the decisions AND cook the food; it took no time for that to become a whole thing in the Salazar household.
I figured they were done talking, so I pretended to wake up and made my way into the kitchen. "Morning."
Jeffrey was sitting on the counter and had a bowl of strawberries next to him. Somehow, I didn't picture their tense conversation happening while Jeffrey was swinging his legs off the counter. "Morning," he said with a grin.
"Do you want to hear something funny?" Victor asked. "I asked Jeffrey what he wanted in his pancakes and he said whatever I was making."
"Rookie," I teased.
"Hey, I'm learning," Jeffrey protested.
A certain peace settled around us. It amazed me how much could have changed in a single night. I felt different, kind of like I knew a little bit more about the world I lived in.
Jeffrey's dad picked him up a little after noon. I expected it to be different, especially after everything we talked about, but he looked the same as he always had. Maybe that was the point Victor was trying to make. It was easy to see him as the Mr. Miller I'd met and not as the man Jeffrey had described last night because I'd never known him when he was drinking. I wasn't sure how they could be the same person, but I figured he was different now.
It felt like Jeffrey had barely left before Victor had to go too.
I wasn't surprised when Felix came over. They were a package deal most days. I didn't mind. I thought Felix was really funny… and hopelessly bad at magic. He desperately wanted to learn how to do it, but he kept confusing himself. "Is this your card?" he asked, holding up a King of Clubs. It was nowhere near the four of diamonds I'd pulled.
"Nope," I said simply.
"Okay. I need you to do it one more time. Slowly," he requested.
"It's not gonna help," I told him. "You just need to practice… a lot." I started to shuffle the cards anyway.
Felix made a face. "I do practice."
"Pick a card."
We could spend hours like that. There was something about Felix… it was the same thing I felt around Benji. Like I knew he could be doing anything else and he was choosing to spend time with me anyway. And it wasn't just because of Pilar. He saw me as more than just a little kid.
It almost made it worth it to be shuffled around. My days were always a mix of who was going to watch me. That day, it had been Victor then Pilar and Felix. The next day it would be Pilar then Victor.
I wondered when I'd be trusted to be home by myself. Victor hadn't answered when I'd asked him. He just said that he didn't want to think about what would happen when I didn't have to hang out with him. I would've thought he was just saying that, but I saw him when he said it. I think he was really sad about that thought which was mindblowing because he'd be leaving us to go to college in a year, so it wasn't like he was going to be around much. It didn't feel like the right time to point that out.
Especially since ten seconds after we had that conversation Lake just showed up at our apartment to kidnap Victor. I thought I was going to be home with Pilar, but she was apparently in on it. Victor's confusion was pretty funny.
Lake only made about ten comments about how much more fun they'd have if they didn't need to keep things PG, but Victor told her none of those things would be nearly as fun as a night with me.
Victor sent me to bed once I got home. I could hear their faint whispers and occasional spurts of laughter.
When I woke up, I felt disoriented. It was too dark for it to be morning. I didn't know what had woken me up; usually, if it was a nightmare, it lingered - it was the only time I could remember what I'd dreamed about (I still didn't understand why good dreams were fleeting and bad dreams haunted me for days). I was starting to think I just spontaneously woke up when I heard, "Victor!" Until Pilar repeated herself, I thought they were fighting. Then I heard footsteps running in the hallway.
Just like that, I felt wide awake. I scrambled to get out of bed. Pilar was on the floor with Victor crouching in front of her.
"What's going on?"
"Hey, papa. I need you to stay in your room for a bit. I'll come in soon. Promise." I didn't move at first, so Victor stood up. He put his hand on my back and led me back to my room.
"Is she okay?" I asked.
"Of course. She just fell."
"Then why do I need to wait in my room?" I asked.
Victor sighed. "She hurt herself," he reluctantly said. "And I need to get an idea of how badly."
"And you can't do that if I'm there."
"I'm sorry." His hand squeezed my shoulder. "I will come back here as soon as I figure out if I need to take her to the ER."
He left. "The emergency room." I said it out loud even though I was alone. I tried to remember if Pilar had even been awake, but I couldn't. Had she hit her head?
I squeezed my eyes shut. Breathe, I reminded myself. I took deep breaths. Pilar would be fine; Pilar would be fine. Over and over, I said that in my head, hoping to will it into existence.
I had no concept of how much time passed. I reopened my door, but they were talking quietly enough that I only caught a handful of words. At least I knew Pilar was awake.
Felix showed up and then Victor came back to me. I didn't bother trying to pretend I hadn't been sitting in my doorway to try to figure out what was happening. He sat down next to me. "She's okay; she might've broken something," he told me. "We're going to go find out. Felix is going to stay here with you while we're gone."
"I want to come with you," I told him.
"I know, but it's late. You need to get some sleep."
I didn't try to tell him I wasn't going to sleep. "This stinks."
"If mom and dad were here, I wouldn't get to go with her either. I know that this is scary and different, but it's what Pilar needs, okay?"
I couldn't argue with that. I nodded and he climbed to his feet. "Come on." He offered me his hand and pulled me to my feet. "When you wake up, we'll be back. Maybe I'll do pancakes in the morning as a treat."
I reluctantly got into bed. "Will you let me know when you get back?"
"Yeah." He kissed my forehead. "Get some sleep."
I squeezed my eyes shut but knew it would be futile. I couldn't fall asleep. I gave it as long as I could bear before I went out into the family room. Felix was sitting on the couch. His elbows were on his knees and his forehead rested in his hands.
"You okay?"
"Hey, buddy." He lifted his head. "Can't sleep?" I shook my head. "Yeah, I get that. We could watch a movie." I shook my head again because that was the last thing I wanted. "Then what do you want to do?"
"I don't know," I whispered.
He pat the spot next to him on the couch and I sat down. "This must be pretty scary for you, huh?"
"I guess. I hate that I can't be there. It makes this worse."
"It's hard for me too," he said quietly.
I looked up at him. "It is?"
"I've been left out of stuff my whole life. I know I couldn't have gone with them, but it still brings all of that up."
I studied Felix for a minute. I felt like I never actually looked at him before. Now, I could see what I'd missed. I could see the worry that was embedded in his frown lines. The way the smile on his face didn't quite reach his eyes. I'd once told Jeffrey that there was something about him that made me feel like I could talk to him, and I was starting to realize that it was that he knew what it was like to not be good enough. Felix had that look too.
"What kind of stuff?" I asked quietly.
"Everything," he said seriously. "Until you moved here, I was on my own. I wasn't going to school dances because no one wanted to be seen with me, no one was inviting me to the movies or anywhere."
"Why…" I trailed off because I knew how much I hated when people had asked me why I'd been bullied.
He answered me anyway. "Why does anyone do anything? It feels good to be laughed with and not at. Laughing at me meant a lot of people were laughing with each other."
"Did Pilar tell you about Texas?"
"A little," he admitted. "Just that you had a tough time the year before you moved here."
"Do you ever wish that you'd been different?" My question came out as a whisper. I'd asked Victor the same thing once and I knew he didn't understand. I couldn't bring myself to ask Jeffrey about it because I knew how hard it was for him to be different. Maybe Felix would get it.
"No," he said honestly.
"Why not? Weren't you… lonely?"
"Yeah, I was. But… maybe I wouldn't have gotten to know Victor and wouldn't have fallen in love with Pilar if I'd already found my people."
"Huh."
"What about you?"
"I don't know. It doesn't feel like anything good came out of it." Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe if I'd moved here with a ton of friends, I wouldn't have befriended the other outcast in class. Did I owe my friendship with Jeffrey to what I went through in school?
"It took me a long time to see it," he told me. "I convinced myself it wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be. The notes that were slipped in my locker were just pranks, you know. The fact that I had to change in the bathroom stall for gym…" he closed his eyes. "You probably don't want to hear this."
"I do."
"Why?"
I thought about his question for almost a minute. Why did I want to know? "Because I'm not alone," I finally said. "I love my parents and Victor and Pilar, but they don't get it. They don't understand why I didn't want them to know. Why them knowing only made it worse."
"Yeah, it sucks," he agreed. "That was always the hardest part for me. The few people that wanted to make it better didn't get how that made it worse because…"
"The wrong people wanted to make it better?" I finished.
He nodded. "It's like… all the teachers in the world and my mom couldn't make up for the fact that all the people my age didn't like me or weren't willing to let anyone know they liked me."
"Do you forgive them? The kids that did it?"
Felix frowned. "No," he answered. "Did you?"
I shook my head. "Maybe I have a little because it doesn't make me angry when I think about it."
"It scares you?" he guessed.
"You too?"
"Of course. When you know what it's like for everyone to turn their backs on you, it's really hard to believe it won't happen again."
Maybe it was fate that Pilar fell off that chair because this was the first conversation I'd ever had with Felix by myself, and I felt like it was a conversation I needed to have.
"Back in Texas, I was the weird kid that liked to do magic tricks. Everyone I knew also knew Victor, and we all knew I wasn't as good as him."
"Why do you think that?" he asked.
"Because Victor was perfect. He was the basketball star and the perfect son and he was so smart. He had his whole life together."
Felix snorted. "Oh, you're serious. Look, Victor was having a hard time in Texas too. It wasn't just you."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean… he thought he might be gay, even then. The perfect Victor you saw was someone so terrified of sticking out for the wrong reasons that he hid the most important parts of himself. He was scared someone would see him for who he is, and he was scared to figure it out himself."
"I never knew that. He always seemed so confident."
"He felt like he had to." Felix got a far-off look in his eyes. "I used to think like you, you know. Victor was dating the pretty girl, he was handsome, smart, perfect. Him choosing to spend time with me changed so much. It was like other people started to give me the same chance he gave me. Part of me kept wondering why he even bothered. I wasn't doing him any social favors. Then he came out to me, and I realized… I was never going to have that answer. I don't know why Victor likes being my friend but, when we've been through what we've been through, it's kind of undeniable."
"I know why." Felix looked at me surprised. "How much do you know about Matt?"
Felix frowned. "Aside from the fact that your sister was in love with him?"
I looked down at my lap. "Did Victor and him…"
Felix shook his head before I finished my question. "No. He never thought about Matt like that."
At least I hadn't missed it. "Did he tell you that Matt's weird?"
"Uh… no? I thought Matt was kind of like Victor. Didn't they play basketball together?"
"Yeah. And?"
"I don't know," he admitted.
"Matt was weird." I smiled to myself. I missed Matt; he was weird, but he was great. "He's the one that introduced me to magic. But, it wasn't just a hobby for him. He went to magic conventions and competed and stuff."
"That's not too weird," Felix said slowly.
"Trust me… for where we lived? It was about as weird as you could get. I heard them talking about it a few times. I think Matt got made fun of for it before they started playing basketball together in middle school. Then, all that seemed to matter to anyone was how good they were."
"So, Victor has a thing for weirdos," Felix said. "That checks out."
"No. It's not a thing for weirdos," I corrected. "I wonder… I think Victor liked that Matt was himself." I shivered. "I always thought it was because he was himself too, but maybe it gave him hope. My best friend… he's like that. He's so himself and he makes me want to be like that too."
"You should be," Felix told me. "You should always be yourself because you're great. It's hard to believe that you're only nine." I didn't know what that had to do with anything. He reached for a mug I hadn't noticed before and took a sip. "Do you want some hot chocolate? I could go for another cup. Or… I mean, Victor technically said no sweets, but I won't tell him if you won't."
I couldn't help my chuckle. "Let's do it."
Hot chocolate tasted better when it wasn't allowed. Felix refilled his cup and gave me my own. Neither of us wanted to watch a movie, so we ended up sitting at the kitchen table while Felix looked up hilarious and terrible laws on his phone.
Victor texted Felix when they were leaving the hospital, so we destroyed (i.e. cleaned) any evidence of our illicit nighttime adventure.
Before Felix left, he gave me a quick hug. We didn't say anything about what transpired that night, but I think we both got some stuff out that we needed to talk about.
Victor set up a sleeping bag for me in the living room, and I was asleep before he got back with his own.
When Pilar woke up the next day, we went on what Victor called a "family field trip". It was a really fun way of describing something that was incredibly boring. We sat in a waiting room for over an hour until Pilar got called back. The whole process of actually getting the cast was anticlimactic. I thought we were going to be there forever because of how long we waited to get in, but we were pretty much in and out.
Quick enough that Victor and I only ended up being ten minutes late for his shift. He was working with some girl… Polly, I think? Or Patricia? Or maybe I was wrong and it didn't start with a P. I thought Victor had mentioned her name once, but I wasn't sure; it was inconvenient that they didn't have to wear name tags. Victor never said her name and she never introduced herself to me. Then, I felt like I waited too long, so I accepted that I was never going to know her name. She and Victor talked a lot. Most of what they talked about was work stuff because he was training her, but they talked about other stuff as well; she asked him about Pilar and seemed genuinely relieved that she was okay.
I'd only been to work with Victor once, and he'd been working by himself. Somehow, that was what I always pictured. That unless he was working with Felix or Benji, Victor would mostly keep to himself… he didn't. Huh, Victor really was a people person.
Another girl showed up nearly an hour late to her shift and you could tell she was nervous when she walked in. She said she was sorry about a thousand times before she even made it to the front counter. Victor told her that he would talk to her about it later and sent her into the back to grab her apron.
It dawned on me while I watched him work that he was essentially their boss. If he told them to do something… they did it. No questions asked. It was surreal to watch because Victor wasn't a bossy person. My mom used to say that he would let anyone walk over him if they asked nicely enough. I didn't know if he was different now or if this was agony for him.
"Karissa," he called when they started to close. The girl I thought was Polly hastily finished wiping down a table before she went to Victor. Wow, I hadn't even been close. Where did Polly come from? She listened intently while Victor walked her through some process of cleaning something in the espresso machine. When Victor complimented her when she tried it herself and I saw how pleased she looked, I got how someone like him could make a really good boss.
The other girl, Lauren, didn't seem thrilled to be working here, but she listened just as carefully as Karissa when he explained something
After a warning to Lauren that being late today was her second strike and that he didn't want to fire her, he let them go, and we walked home.
When we got home, Rahim and some girl I didn't recognize were in our living room. The girl was drawing something onto Pilar's cast.
"Oh, hey," Victor said. "I didn't realize you were coming over." He peered at Ryker's drawing before he shook his head. "I like the hair."
She had shoulder-length hair with a bright blue streak in it.
"Thanks. I was going back and forth between this and red, but Rahim liked the blue better."
"Go big or go home," Rahim said without looking away from his phone. "And you can't go home, so…"
Ryker snickered. "And the award for awkward, still too-soon jokes goes to…"
"Too soon?" Rahim asked. "You've been living with me for a month. Don't pretend you give a sh-"
"You remember Adrian, right," Victor interrupted.
Rahim finally looked up from his phone and gave Victor a sheepish smile. "Oh. Sorry. How was your boring afternoon?"
"It wasn't boring," I found myself saying defensively. In truth, it wasn't that boring, but it definitely hadn't been fun.
"Go shower and get into your pajamas. It's late."
It was late, but I didn't feel too tired. Probably because I'd slept in so late this morning. "I want to stay out here," I complained.
"No. You should've been in bed an hour ago. You can say goodnight to everyone once you're ready for bed. Go."
I stomped away. "Fine," I grumbled.
After I changed into my pajamas, I did manage to squeeze in a little bit of time before Victor put his foot down and insisted that I needed to go to sleep. Maybe his promotion at Brasstown rubbed off on him because I couldn't remember him being this stern before.
Our parents got back midday on Sunday and it was hard to tell what they wanted to worry about first - Pilar, whether I'd eaten enough, Pilar, if I'd listened to Victor, and Pilar seemed to be their top priorities.
Victor pulled our dad aside and had what looked like an intense whispered conversation with him. I figured he was filling him in about what had happened while he was gone.
We ended up ordering pizza because my mom said she didn't want to cook. She got annoyed when Victor paid for dinner and made passive-aggressive comments about it the entire time we ate.
After dinner, we sat together until my mom announced that I needed to go to bed. Maybe it was the excitement of the day, but I fell asleep right away.
My dad was at work by the time I woke up, and my mom was rushing to get out the door. Rushing didn't mean that she didn't have time to tell me to make my bed. I still didn't understand why it mattered. It wasn't like anyone else had to see it.
I made it anyway because Victor pointed out that she was going to be home before me. I'd half-heartedly asked if Pilar could watch me if I was really, really good, but Victor pointed out it wasn't about whether I could be on my best behavior. If something happened to me, Pilar wouldn't be able to help. I didn't know what Victor thought could happen to me from the comfort of my bedroom, but I knew there was no point in arguing with him.
So, when he needed to go to work, he dropped me off with my dad. I knew this was going to be the arrangement a lot. Victor couldn't always take me to work with him. Especially with his promotion, he needed to be able to focus on work sometimes. I got it but that didn't mean I had to like it.
I thought work with my dad was going to be mind-numbingly terrible, but it wasn't too bad… at first. Then Andrew had to leave and it was just me and my dad for hours… okay, hour… okay, like thirty minutes. But it was a long thirty minutes.
Thank God I didn't have to go every day. Victor and our dad had agreed to three times a week. The other two days, our mom would be picking me up from Brasstown when she got off of work.
My second day with my dad wasn't too bad. It helped that Andrew stayed until we left as well. It got even better when my dad asked if we wanted to get ice cream once we were in his car.
"Really?" I asked hopefully. "It's before dinner."
"Eh. I think we can make an exception for today. What do you think?"
I was thinking there were strings attached to his offer of ice cream, but I honestly didn't care. He never wanted to do stuff like this, so I'd take it.
We got our ice cream and he even took me to a park. We walked slowly around the edge of a lake. I wished we had some oats to feed the ducks, but I had to settle for watching them.
I was nearly done with my ice cream before he spoke. "Victor told me you were asking some questions this past weekend."
I looked at my dad because I could've sworn that Victor said what we talked about needed to stay between us. "I guess."
"He said you were asking questions about how two boys… uh, I mean two young men can be, uh-" he seemed to be grappling for the word, but I understood right away. I never in a million years thought I was going to get answers, but here we were. Unless I was woefully wrong, this was the moment.
"How they can have sex," I said quietly. I looked away from my dad. I'd gotten a whole talk a little over a year ago and a "we'll talk more about this later". I didn't know if this was later or if this was just an addendum to our conversation.
"Yes," he agreed. He rolled up the napkin in his hand. "Do you remember what I told you about sex?"
"That it was what a man and a woman did when they were in love."
He frowned. "I did say that, didn't I?" He shook his head. "I was wrong. It's what two people do when they are in love. Any two people."
"But how?" I asked.
He sighed before he nodded. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I think you really are too young to know some things." I grimaced. "But, Victor made a good point. He'd rather you hear it from me than get the wrong information from someone else. When your mami and I went to our meeting yesterday, we talked a lot about what was appropriate for you to know."
I barely chanced breathing because I was afraid he'd change his mind. Instead, he started to explain it all to me. He explained that when two men loved each other, they wanted to express that love and that there were a lot of different ways they could do this. I'd never seen my dad so flustered before.
Admittedly, it wasn't exactly a walk in the park for me either (get it?). My dad liked to use hand gestures and that was kind of weird and uncomfortable, but I'd take it over not knowing. He didn't get too specific… it was almost the same talk he'd had with me last time, except he talked about two boys instead.
We were quiet for a long time after he finished. Long enough that our mom called to find out where we were. Still, he didn't push me about leaving. "Can I ask one more question?"
"Of course."
I looked down at the grass. "Why couldn't I know this before?"
"It's not that you couldn't know. We never thought to talk to you about it."
"Then how'd you know to talk to Victor about it?" It wasn't until he looked away that I realized they didn't. "Oh."
"You have to understand that no one ever talked to us about this either," he told me. "We didn't know it was a conversation we needed to have because it wasn't something we'd ever had to deal with."
"Then how'd you find out about it?" I asked curiously.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you knew all this before Victor came out, right? How'd you find out."
"Oh… I guess we found out through other people. Through them talking about it or…" He looked at me. "You need to go into some kind of interrogation field when you grow up, macho, because you are good at this."
"Good at what?" I literally had no idea what he was talking about.
"I hear you. It's messed up that the first time Victor heard about… this stuff, it was probably people making fun of it or joking around. All I can say is we're better now. We know better. That's part of the reason we're talking about this."
I nodded. I thought it kind of must have stunk for Victor to have to figure it out on his own.
"Do you have any other questions for me?" I shook my head. "Then, let's head home."
I thought things would be weird now that I knew, but it was just kind of like life went on.
Pilar being hurt was a lot like living with the Incredible Hulk. No one knew what would set her off. One minute, she was fine. The next she was angry because her charger came out of the wall and she didn't want to get up to plug it back in (because it was a whole process), but she didn't want someone else to have to do it for her.
Because she was out of commission, I spent a lot of time at work with Victor or my dad. I thought it was going to stink, but they made it fun. Victor worked all the time now. I wasn't sure if he was trying not to be sad that he couldn't go see Benji - I'd only gotten small pieces of the story, but I'd figured out that with Pilar unable to watch me, Victor had to pick up that responsibility which meant he was firmly stuck in Atlanta until he left for his program. I thought it only made Pilar angrier that he wasn't more upset about it. She felt like he should be angry at her.
It was worse after Victor left because I think Pilar missed him but she didn't want to admit it. Or maybe she was lonely because Felix picked up a ton of extra shifts after Victor left, so she spent a lot of time muttering under her breath while she moved around the apartment or sitting on the couch and grumbling.
Andrew said that we needed to be flexible with her because she was adapting to being dependent. Maybe he was right.
It didn't change that our parents, in particular, were not in the mood for Pilar's moods. About two weeks after Victor left, Mia came over early. She knocked on Pilar's door. I could hear Pilar from where I was sitting in the kitchen and heard enough to know that my mom decided she was done sulking around the apartment. Pilar was going to work with her.
"I don't understand why I have to do this," Pilar seethed as she crossed the apartment. She had the same tortured look that she always had on her face when she was using her crutches.
"Because it'll be good for you," our mom said sternly.
"I thought you said you couldn't bring us with you," I said quietly. It had been why I'd essentially been going to work with my dad full time lately. Today, my mom was going to drop me off at Jeffrey's but, usually, I would already be with my dad and Andrew.
"I can't just bring you. She'll be working," our mom explained gently. "She's going to be doing some activities with my kids today."
Pilar made an annoyed sound. "I think this might be fun," Mia said optimistically.
Pilar rolled her eyes. "At least you're coming with me," she muttered. "It could be worse."
That was honestly the nicest thing she'd said in weeks.
"We're leaving in five."
The drive to Jeffrey's was quiet. I was grateful when my mom dropped me off. I didn't want to be around Pilar and her bad mood any longer.
Plus, Jeffrey's parents were hosting a family pool party and about thirty of their relatives had flown or road-tripped to Georgia for it; Jeffrey promised it would only be a little terrible.
I'd been looking forward to it since he invited me a couple of weeks ago. My mom walked me inside and Jeffrey's parents told her he'd just woken up and would be down in a minute. After my mom left, I went up to him.
Everything was normal. We spent the morning watching a movie with Mattie. Mattie kept trying to spoil the ending for us but kept coming up with the weirdest possibilities since he hadn't seen it before either.
A little after lunch, his family started to show up. His family was honestly kind of like if someone wrote a family but only focused on the boring pieces. I'd feel worse about that, but those were Jeffrey's words, and… he wasn't wrong. I listened in to a conversation between his aunt and his mom where they literally talked about the weather for nearly twenty minutes before Jeffrey and I moved on.
Jeffrey's backyard was huge. Even with his massive pool, everyone could comfortably fit outside. There were a lot of kids around our age here. Jeffrey didn't seem particularly fond of his cousins, so I followed his lead.
When his dad finished skimming the pool, in a voice like a conductor, he said, "jump on in."
I pulled off my shirt. "Race you."
Jeffrey looked terrified for a second before he ran inside. It wasn't the direction I thought we'd be racing. I looked at his mom who seemed as confused as I felt. The rest of Jeffrey's family didn't seem perturbed in the slightest by his departure, so I went inside to look for him. I found him in his bedroom. "Why did you come inside?" I asked uncertainly. He shrugged. "Come on. It's so nice out! Come back."
"I can't," he hissed.
"Why not?"
He turned the brightest shade of red I'd ever seen. "I just can't."
"That's not a reason," I pointed out.
Jeffrey crossed his arms and looked at the ground. "I can't take off my shirt," he grumbled.
I stared. "Why not? Are you embarrassed or something?"
He shook his head. "This would be way easier if you could just figure this out instead of making me say it."
"If it helps, I wish I could, but I have no idea what the problem is." I hated that I didn't know. I tried to think of if Jeffrey had mentioned anything that might have left a scar he didn't want anyone to see, but nothing was coming to me. I felt like it had to be obvious if he thought I could figure it out.
He turned around so his back was towards me. "I can't take off my shirt because my chest doesn't look like yours."
"What do you… oh." I was an idiot. Jeffrey was right. It was obvious. I just never had to think about it. "Don't you have a… I don't know… a top you could wear." I tried to remember what Pilar's friend had called it. Rahim's mom had ordered it for them. Ryker had been very excited about it - Victor and I could hear every word they said from his bedroom. The whole nonbinary thing was new to me, but Victor had been patient with my questions and I realized it wasn't so different from anything else. They just weren't a boy or a girl. "You remember Ryker? They wear something so that they don't have… you know." I shifted on my feet. I sometimes forgot that Jeffrey would have to deal with stuff like this. I wondered if that was part of the problem. Maybe it made it harder for him to tell me stuff like that because I was so clueless.
"I haven't told my parents," he whispered. "I don't want them to know."
"Why not?"
"Because there's nothing they can do and it's so embarrassing! I don't want my mom to talk about taking me to get a training bra. That's not who I am. I hate this. I hate how wrong this feels and that there's nothing I can do to stop it. I want it to stop." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I just want it to stop, but it's only going to get worse."
I felt like my heart was crumbling. It wasn't fair. "I'm sorry," I told him seriously. "This sucks."
"You can go back out. I just want to stay in here for a bit."
I sat down on his bed. "If you're staying here, I am too."
"Don't do that. Don't stay in for me. Go out and have some fun."
"I'm not not having fun," I argued. "I don't want to spend time with your cousins. I'm here for you."
He looked at me skeptically. "You want to hide out in here with me? You've been saying that you were excited to go swimming in a pool that strangers haven't peed in."
Something like a simple pool party was so different for him, and I thought that stunk. If the only thing I could do was make sure there he got to forget that he was different for a little while, then I wanted to do it. "Yeah, well, I'd guess that your cousins have peed in your pool, and I don't know them, so technically…" I trailed off. "Let's stay in. We can play a game and go swimming another time. Maybe when it's just the two of us and we can wear our shirts or something." I didn't know if that made it better. I hoped it wasn't the worst thing I could've said.
"Really?" he asked.
"Why not? You don't want to go outside. We can have as much fun in here as we could out there." I was startled when Jeffrey hugged me.
After a moment, I hugged him back. He stepped back a few seconds later. "Sorry," he muttered.
"Don't be. What do you want to do?"
That was how, a couple of hours later, Mattie found us sprawled on the living room floor while we worked on a complicated three-dimensional puzzle. "Why am I not surprised that you'd rather be nerding out over a puzzle than swimming?" he asked.
"Hey, this is fun," I protested.
"Sure. Mom and dad say you have to come out now."
I glanced at Jeffrey. "I'm not feeling well. That's why we came in. My stomach hurts." As far as lies went, I thought it was pretty convincing.
Mattie seemed to buy it because he left us alone. "You didn't have to lie for me."
"For you? Are you kidding? We're like a thousand pieces into a five-thousand-piece puzzle. I did this for me."
Jeffrey snorted. "Sure. Thank you anyway. I'm really lucky."
I knew he felt that way but as we worked on the puzzle, I thought he had it all wrong. I was the lucky one. Because Jeffrey was pretty amazing. I didn't know if I'd have the same patience he always showed with me.
So, yeah. I was undeniably lucky that he was my best friend.
