What Happened to Goodbye(83)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“At least you can claim you were at a distance. It was right in front of my face,” he replied.

My mom was quiet for a moment. “You did your best. That’s all you can do. That’s all any of us can do. You know?”

My dad nodded, looking up at the road. It had been so long since I’d seen them like this, just the two of them, that for a moment I just stood there, taking it in. He was rubbing a hand over his face, while she held a coffee cup with both hands, her head cocked to the side as she said something. From a distance, you couldn’t guess all the history and changes. You would have just thought they were friends.

My mom turned then, seeing me. “Honey,” she said. “You’re up.”

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked.

I watched as my dad got to his feet. “You left your mother’s house in the middle of the night, Mclean. Did you really think we wouldn’t be worrying?”

“I just needed some time,” I said quietly, as he came closer, pulling open the door. Once inside, he put his arms around me, squeezing tight, and kissed the top of my head.

“Don’t scare me like that ever again,” he said, before moving on so my mom could join us. “I mean it.”

I nodded, silent, as the door banged shut behind her. And then it was just us three, alone in the room. I sat down on the bed. My mom, taking another sip of her coffee, took the chair by the air-conditioner unit. My dad, by the window, stayed where he was.

“So,” he said after a moment. “I think we all need to talk.”

“You read my notebook,” I said.

“Yes.” My mom sighed, brushing her hair back from her face. “I know it was probably supposed to be private … but we had a lot of questions. And you weren’t exactly up for answering them.”

I looked down at my hands, knotting my fingers together.

“I didn’t realize …” My dad stopped, cleared this throat. Then he glanced at my mom before saying, “The different names. I thought they were just … names.”

God, this was hard. I swallowed. “That’s how it started,” I said. “But then, it got bigger.”

“You couldn’t have been happy,” he said. “If you felt like you needed to do that.”

“It wasn’t about being happy or unhappy. I just didn’t want to be me anymore.”

Again, they exchanged a look. My mom said slowly, “I don’t think either of us really realized how hard the divorce was on you. We’re …”

She looked at my dad. “We’re sorry about that,” he finished for her.

It was so quiet, I could hear my own breathing, loud in my ears. Outside, the ocean was crashing, waves hitting sand, then pulling back to sea. I thought of everything being washed away, again and again. We make such messes in this life, both accidentally and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn’t really make anything any neater. It just masks what is below. It’s only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are.

Thinking this, I looked at my mom. “How did you know I was here?”

“Your friend told us,” my dad said.

“My friend?”

“The boy …” He glanced at my mom.

“Dave,” she said.

“Dave? ”

She put her coffee on the floor by her feet. “When I realized you were gone, that you’d taken the car … I just panicked. I called Gus, and he left the restaurant to head down here, to help me look for you.”

“I stopped by the house first, to pack up,” my dad said. “And, just as I was leaving, Dave came over. He told me where to find you.”

“He was worried about you, too.” My mom slid a hand over my shoulder. “He said you were upset when you left there, and when you called you were crying….”

She stopped, clearing her throat. My dad said, “I wish you’d felt like you could have called one of us. Whatever was going on, you know we love you, Mclean. No matter what.”

Warts and all, I thought as I glanced at the notebook, the pictures and yearbooks piled near it. I swallowed, then said, “When I found out about Hawaii, and then came down here and everything was so different, the house …” My mom wced, looking down at her hands. “I heard you talking to Heidi. About how having me here wasn’t what you expected.”

“What?”

I swallowed. “You said you thought you’d wanted me to come, but—”

She was just looking at me, clearly confused. Then, suddenly, she exhaled, putting a hand to her chest. “Oh, God! Honey, I wasn’t talking about you when I said that. I was talking about the party.”

“Party?”

“To watch the ECC tournament,” she said. That was an acronym I knew well: Eastern College Conference, the one to which Defriese and the U belonged. “I’ve had it here the last few years, when I didn’t go with Peter. It was planned way in advance for this week, but once we got here, I realized I didn’t want to have to deal with it. I wanted it to be … just us. That’s what I meant.”

So that was the party Heidi had mentioned. “I just assumed …” I stopped. “I just felt lost all of a sudden. This was the only place that was familiar.”

“This place?” my dad said, glancing around the room.

“We had a lot of good times here,” my mom told him. “It was where we always stayed when we took road trips to the beach.”

“You remember,” I said.

“Of course; how could I forget? ” She shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Colby. And Peter’s right, there isn’t much here anymore. But I still drive down here now and then. I like the view.”

I looked at her. “Me, too.”

“Although I have to say,” she added, “I don’t remember it smelling quite so mildewy.”

“It did,” I told her, and she smiled, squeezing my shoulder.

For a moment, we all just sat there, no one talking. Then my dad looked at my mom before saying, “Your mom and I think we all need to sit down and talk. About what happens next.”

“I know,” I said.

“Maybe, though,” he said, “we can talk and eat. I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”

“Agreed,” my mom replied. She tipped her wrist up, glancing at her watch. “Last Chance opens at seven a.m. That’s only ten minutes.”