I’ll Give You the Sun(69)
Author: Jandy Nelson

“No one will find out,” I said.

“You don’t know that. You remember that idiot cousin of Fry’s I nearly decapitated last summer, the one who looks like an ape? His little brother goes to my school. I thought I was hallucinating. He looks exactly like him.” He licked his bottom lip. “Anyone could’ve seen us the other day, Noah. Anyone. Fry could’ve and then . . . I didn’t even think about it I was so . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t get forced off this team. Can’t lose my athletic scholarship. We have no money. And this high school—the physics teacher’s an astrophysicist . . . I just can’t. I need to get a baseball scholarship for college. Have to.”

He came over to where I was standing. His face was crazy red and his eyes were too intense and he seemed about twelve feet tall and I didn’t know if he was going to kiss me or punch me. He took me by the T-shirt again except this time he balled a piece of it up in his fist and said, “It’s done with us. It has to be. Okay?”

I nodded and something really big and bright in me crushed to nothing in an instant. I’m pretty sure it was my soul.

“And it’s all your fault!” I spit out at my mother.

“What is, honey?” she says, alarmed.

“Everything! Don’t you see? You’ve crushed Dad. You banished him like a leper. He loves you! How do you think he feels all alone in that dying room breathing gray air and eating cold stale pizza and watching shows about aardvarks while you cook feasts and wear circus clothes and hum all the time and have the sun follow you around in the pouring rain? How do you think that makes him feel?” I can see I’ve hurt her and don’t care. She deserves it. “Who knows if he even has a soul left thanks to you?”

“What do you mean by that? I don’t understand.”

“Maybe you stomped it to nothing and now he’s hollow and empty, a shell with no turtle inside.”

Mom pauses. “Why would you say that? Do you feel that way sometimes?”

“I’m not talking about me. And you know what else? You’re not special. You’re just like everyone else. You don’t float or walk through walls and you never will!”

“Noah?”

“I always thought that you blew in from somewhere so cool, but you’re just regular. And you don’t make anyone happy anymore like you used to. You make everyone miserable.”

“Noah, are you done?”

“Mom.” I say it like bugs live in the word. “I am.”

“Listen to me.” The sudden sternness of her voice jars me. “I didn’t come in here to talk about me or about me and Dad. We can have those conversations, I promise, but not now.”

If I don’t look at her, she’ll drop it, she’ll disappear, and what she saw Brian and me doing will disappear with her. “You didn’t see anything,” I yell, completely out of control now. “Guys do that. They do. Whole baseball teams do it. Circle jerks, that’s what it’s called, you know?” I drop my head in my hands, filling them with tears.

She gets up, walks over to me, puts her hand under my chin, and lifts my face so I’m forced into the earnest hold of her eyes. “Listen to me. It takes a lot of courage to be true to yourself, true to your heart. You always have been very brave that way and I pray you always will be. It’s your responsibility, Noah. Remember that.”

• • •

The next morning, I wake at dawn in a stark raving panic. Because she can’t tell Dad. She has to promise me that. After fourteen years, I have a father, I like it. No, I love it. He finally thinks I’m a fully functioning umbrella.

I prowl through the dark house like a thief. The kitchen’s empty. I tiptoe to Mom’s bedroom door and sit down with my ear to it and wait for her to stir. It’s possible she already told Dad, though it was late when she left my room last night. Could she ruin my life anymore? First she destroyed everything with Brian. Now she’s going to do the same with Dad.

I’m falling back asleep, Brian’s lips on mine, his hands on my chest, all over me, when the sound of Mom’s voice jolts me. I shake off the phantom embrace. She must be on the phone. I cup both hands around my ear and place it against the door—does this actually work? It actually does. I can hear better. Her voice sounds strained like it gets when she talks to Dad now. “I need to see you,” she says. “It can’t wait. I’ve been up all night thinking. Something happened with Noah yesterday.” She is going to tell him! I knew it. Dad must be talking now, because it’s silent until she says, “Okay, not the studio, at The Wooden Bird. Yes, one hour’s perfect.” I don’t think she’s ever even been to his studio. She just leaves him at that hotel to rot.

I knock and then swing open the door after I hear her say come in. She’s in her peach robe, cradling the phone to her chest. Mascara’s smudged all around her eyes like she’s been crying all night. Because of me? My stomach rolls over. Because she doesn’t want a gay son? Because no one does, not even someone as open-minded as her. Her face looks old, like she’s aged hundreds of years overnight. Look what I’ve done to her. Her disappointed skin is hanging all over her disappointed bones. So she just said what she did last night to make me feel better?

“Morning, sweetheart,” she says, sounding fake. She tosses the phone on the bed and walks over to the window, opening the curtains. The sky has barely woken up yet. It’s a gray, homely morning. I think about breaking my own fingers, I don’t know why. One by one. In front of her.

“Where’re you going?” I manage out.

“I have a doctor’s appointment.” What a liar! And she lies so easily too. Has she been lying to me my whole life? “How’d you know I was going out?”

Think of something, Noah. “I just assumed because you weren’t up early baking.”

This works. She smiles, walks over to her dressing table, and sits down in front of the mirror. The Kandinsky biography she’s reading is facedown beside her silver brush. She starts rubbing cream around her eyes, then takes cotton and wipes off darkness.

(PORTRAIT: Mom Replacing Her Face with Another)

When she’s finished doing her makeup, she starts sweeping her hair up into a clip, then changes her mind, shakes it back out, picks up the brush. “I’m going to make a red velvet cake later . . .” I zone out. I just have to say it. I’m the expert blurter too. Why can’t I get the words out?