Say You'll Remember Me(66)

The irony.

“You know, if you want the truth,” she said. “We always figured you’d end up a janitor, flipping burgers. You did better for yourself than I ever thought you would, and that’s probably because you were taught discipline growing up. You’re welcome for that. But you have an attitude problem and you always have. I see it in the reviews how you talk to people. And yes, I read them. Keep it up and you’ll be out of business before you know it because nobody wants to put up with that. I wouldn’t. I’d be surprised if your little clinic is still there this time next year.” She tsked. “I’ll be praying for you.”

Then she hung up on me.

The whole thing lasted less than three minutes. I couldn’t even articulate how I felt.

It was like the leaves in Samantha’s car. Something had dislodged my parents from my memory and they were swirling around me, everywhere and I couldn’t make it stop. I knew I had to deal with them now that they were out, but I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to face the situation. I needed time to reflect and unpack what I was feeling and process the gaslighting I’d just been subjected to and at the same time I didn’t even know where to start.

I put my palms to my eyeballs.

Is that really how she remembered that time? That I was the bad guy? Or was this just what Samantha said was going to happen? That they’d flip the narrative on me to redirect the blame?

I didn’t tend to change my feelings about things. I felt the way I felt and I didn’t budge. Mostly because I considered all the angles, made choices in a level state of mind, talked it through with friends. I wasn’t reactive, I wasn’t prone to dramatics. I settled into a mindset and I stayed there. This revelation that I was the antagonist in their story didn’t shift my memory of what actually happened, not an inch. It didn’t give me the guilt I think she hoped it would. It just made me angry. It made me dig in. And it made me realize the full extent of the power my parents still had over me, all these years later. It was so much worse than I thought it was.

I couldn’t even will my legs to move me so I could get back to what I had to do today. My knees were knocking together like a scared dog in one of my cages.

My immediate impulse was to call Samantha. Not the guys who’d been there for what happened, the ones who knew my mother. I wanted to talk to Samantha because this whole thing made me feel too vulnerable and I didn’t want to be emotionally naked in front of anyone but her.

And that was the moment I knew two things.

The first was that I could never let my parents see me fail. Ever. I could never shutter this business. It would validate everything they thought about me and I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

And the second was that I was head over heels in love with my girlfriend. And that was worse than I thought it was too.





29





XAVIER


MY FLIGHT LANDED at 5:30 the next morning. I was a zombie getting off the plane.

I’d picked a middle seat because it was cheapest, so I hadn’t slept well on the flight—not that I would have slept well after that phone call.

I was starting to second-guess taking the red-eye. My body ached for sleep, and I was getting a headache. But when I came out and saw Samantha leaning on her car, I forgot any tiredness or discomfort.

She broke into a smile and threw her arms around me.

It’s ironic how important things make the world smaller. How a kiss with someone you love can make you feel like you’re alone with them, like you’re in a snow globe with just the two of you when really you’re outside baggage claim at a busy international airport.

I buried my nose in her neck and hugged her like I had spent the last four weeks paddling here on a disintegrating raft and I had collapsed on shore. And the worst part was the raft was going to have to take me home again.

I hadn’t told Samantha yet what happened with my mom. It was too much for over the phone, especially knowing I was going to see her soon anyway. I wanted to tell her in person, when I could hug her and touch her and look in her eyes, and for the first time, I really felt how hard it was to not see her every day.

The need was more than just missing her. It was the absence of my person. The inability to hold her and be held. There was no substitute for this. For the feeling of her arms around me.

The thought of getting two days of this and then six weeks of nothing drained me. It gave me a preemptive emotional exhaustion on top of the real one I was feeling.

She pulled away. “How did you sleep?”

“I didn’t.”

She put out her bottom lip. “Awwww. Well, let’s go home and take a nap.”

“I don’t want to sleep when I’m here,” I said tiredly. “I want to be with you.”

“Well, that’s very disappointing because I’ve been dreaming of napping with you under the blankets for weeks.” She grinned. “Naked.”

“Okay. Maybe a short nap.”

She laughed and bounced up to kiss me again.

We got into the Dart. “I was searching the car for the missing jewelry and I found a new tape in the carmuda triangle,” she said, holding up a cassette. “Want to hear what’s on it?”

“The what?”

“The carmuda triangle? The little space between the center console and the seat? I’ve been listening to all my mom’s old tapes. There’s some good stuff on there. Songs I haven’t heard in years. I thought I’d listened to them all and then I found this. I saved it for you.”