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July Sophomore Summer
The bright light of the blazing afternoon sun flooded into our apartment as I tiptoed through the front door with Wiley. Inside, every curtain was drawn shut, and my eyes had to adjust to the darkness of the room after I closed the door as quietly as I could behind us.
The darkness amplified each jangle of my keys while I slipped them back into my pocket and every metallic clink of Wiley's tags on his collar. I winced at every decibel we made when I slipped off Wiley's collar and leash and commanded him under my breath: "Stay!"
But no such luck though. As soon as I released his collar, Wiley shook his whole body loudly and bounded across the room towards the short hallway leading back towards my parents' bedroom. I wasn't surprised. Even though he was a mutt whose lineage was unknown to us, Wiley had inherited strong herding instincts from somewhere. They always drove him to check up on the whereabouts of everyone in his flock the moment he was back home. It stressed him out to not know where we all were, and he could never relax until he'd sniffed us all out and nudged us together into a spot where he could keep watch over us all at once.
I raced behind Wiley across the living room, but I was too late to stop him: By the time I reached the hallway, Wiley was already nosing open the slightly ajar door to my parents' room and slipping inside.
"Wiley!" I called in a low voice, but it was futile. I could already hear the rustling inside the bedroom. When I reached the doorway and peeked inside, Wiley had his front paws up on the bed and was nosing at my mom as she stirred awake.
"Fuck," I cursed under my breath. "Sorry, mom!"
Mom groaned a little, then sat up and stretched her arms over her head as she opened her eyes.
"You should sleep some more," I said, stepping behind Wiley and trying to nudge him away from the bed. "I'll take Wylie back out to the park."
"What time is it?" my mom asked through a yawn.
"Just after six."
Mom took in a deep breath, leaned forward, and patted her hands atop the covers. "Come here, buddy!"
Wylie didn't need to be invited twice. He leapt up onto the bed and wedged his whole body into my mom's side, tail thumping as she started scratching his belly.
"You're the only one here?" mom asked, looking up at me with bleary eyes.
"Yeah, dad picked up an extra shift for someone at the body shop."
Mom raised an eyebrow at that. "It's Sunday."
"Fuck, I told him not to," I shrugged. Mom just shook her head as she scratched behind Wiley's ears and he panted in ecstasy.
"And Tom's still at work, too," I added. "So seriously, just go back to bed. You need to fucking sleep."
"I'll sleep when you and Tom are both gone," mom replied.
I sighed, knowing I wasn't going to win this one with her. "Okay, I'll make you some coffee."
I turned and headed back out to the kitchen, Wiley leaping down to follow me only a few steps behind. I fed him his dinner, started a pot of coffee, and got to work on fixing a meal for my mom.
As I worked in the cramped kitchen of our apartment, it struck me that mom would be waking up and eating all alone if I weren't here- and that would probably happen a lot next year with Tom off at college too. She and my dad seldom got to work similar hours at the jobs they had.
Mom padded into the living room in scrub bottoms and a t-shirt just as the coffee was done brewing.
"Here," I said, handing her a cup across the bar that separated the narrow kitchen from the living room as she settled into a stool at the counter with Wiley plopping down at her feet. "At least relax some before your shift starts tonight."
"I wish," she yawned. "But I should study for my test tomorrow."
"Can I help you?"
"Maybe quiz me after I eat."
I handed her a plate with the burrito I'd made, and then I picked up the nursing textbook mom had left on the counter. I flipped through the pages until I found the place where mom's highlighting stopped off and started skimming as she ate.
Growing up, mom had worked as a home health aide for an agency that filled in the gaps for places across rural New Mexico that had staffing shortages. In exchange for the long hours, late night shifts, and moving from small town to small town every few months, she'd earned a slightly higher wage than she would've in a more stable position, and that'd helped to keep our family afloat over the years. But as I'd helped Tom to research his college options last year, we discovered we could all get slightly better financial aid packages if mom went back to school to get her nursing degree and we were all enrolled as students at the same time. It'd taken some persuasion from my dad, Tom, and me, but we finally prevailed in convincing mom that now was the time for her to stop putting her own dreams on hold and to go after them too. That's what had brought my family here to Las Cruces this summer, even though mom insisted over our protests on picking up a night shift job at the hospital while she went to school.
"What are you doing tonight?" mom asked, interrupting my reading.
"Not much," I shrugged, looking back up at her. "I'm just going over to Matteo's. We'll probably play with his xbox and do some lesson planning for the week."
"You're not hanging out with Marissa?"
"No," I dropped my eyes back down to the textbook's pages to avoid my mom's eyes. "I, uhh, saw her this afternoon already."
"You used protection."
It was spoken as a statement, not a question. I felt the heat of my cheeks flushing. "Oh my God, mom," I groaned. "Of course I did."
"Good," she said, taking another sip from her coffee. "Don't be a dumbass."
She got up from her stool and came around into the kitchen to refill her mug.
"Your hair's still a mess," she said as she walked behind me, reaching up to muss it a little.
"Mom!" I protested, batting her hand away and smoothing it down myself, suddenly self-conscious as she took her seat again.
"So Tom doesn't like you with Marissa."
I nearly choked on the glass of water I was drinking as mom said that. Even though I really didn't want to get into this with her, mom was always blunt with me when she had something on her mind.
"Not really," I mumbled in vague reply. I knew there would be no fucking point in denying it and having her catch me in what we would both know was an obvious lie.
"It's weird," mom continued. "Tom likes everyone."
"Maybe he's growing up to be a grumpy old man like me," I offered, trying to deflect.
Mom just snorted at that. "Yeah right."
I didn't know what else to say, so I didn't respond and just hoped mom would drop the subject. I filled up her water bottle and handed it to her across the counter.
"You like her though," mom continued, undeterred.
"I do," I shrugged, hoping that keeping it short would make her take the hint. The hard look I got from her in response told me that evasion wasn't going to cut it though.
"But it's not like this big thing," I elaborated. "We both know we're leaving in a month and that this has an expiration date." And that was true, at least. While we'd continued hooking up ever since that night of the pool party, Marissa and I both understood that as fun as it all was, this wasn't something that was going to extend beyond the summer. We knew what this was- and what it wasn't.
"So is she why you and Tom have been fighting?"
I groaned, wanting this conversation to be over. "Maybe you should ask him what his fucking problem is."
"It takes two to fight."
"Fuck, he doesn't say he doesn't like her."
Mom snorted again to dismiss that reasoning. "We both know Tom sucks at hiding anything he feels."
"No, Marissa's cool," I shook my head. "I don't think it's really about her exactly."
"Then what?" mom pressed.
I shrugged again, evading the question. That was always my go-to move with my mom- and maybe that was also the reason why she'd figured out long ago that she needed to be blunt if she wanted to get anything out of me.
"He says you're turning into a player."
"I'm gonna fuckin' beat his ass," I replied grimly, shaking my head.
"Are you though?"
"No!," I huffed incredulously. "Look, Marissa and I are in the same boat. College is stressful, and we're both happy to be home for the summer. We know we don't get to be here forever anymore, so we're just enjoying ourselves while we're here. Summer will end, and we'll both go back to the rest of our lives at school. We know this is just fuckin' summer. For both of us."
"But she likes you," mom said, her eyes scrutinizing my face for whatever my expression was saying that my words weren't.
"And I like her! I wouldn't be hanging out with her if I didn't. But it's not like a thing." And that was true, too. I really did like Marissa even more and more as I'd gotten to know her better.
"Maybe so. But you are spending a lot of time together."
"Relax, mom, she's not going to, like, break my heart or anything."
Mom raised a skeptical eyebrow as I said that.
"And I'm not playing her either!"
"Uh huh."
"Fuck, you forget that not everyone believes I'm as special as you do. She's perfectly capable of hanging out with me without getting attached. It's really not a big deal."
In fact, even though hooking up with Marissa had become a much more frequent thing than I ever would've thought it would, she'd made it clear that's what she wanted with me and nothing more. Her parents' unfolding divorce had made for rocky times for her at home this summer, and Marissa wanted hanging out with me to be a way to escape and to release some stress. While she'd rarely discuss it directly with me, I could tell the family drama was taking its toll. That boundary that kept this topic off limits frustrated me sometimes because I wished I could support her through a tough time, but it was probably good for me in some ways too. I knew we'd be going our separate ways and that I was going back to Pete soon, so maybe it was helpful to have that boundary as a guardrail to keep things light and to remind me not to get in too deep with Marissa.
Mom sighed at my familiar evasions to her questions. "Even so, I suppose it wouldn't matter what I think. You know how it turned out when my parents tried to get me to back off about your father."
And I did know. I knew that my grandparents didn't much like my dad. It wasn't ever a subject of open conversation growing up, but I'd heard enough to piece together that mom's white family hadn't liked her dating a Chicano guy in high school- and then really hadn't liked her running off with him when she got pregnant with me. In fact, I knew that those family tensions were the entire reason mom had decided to name me Maxwell. She'd hoped that naming me after the town in northern New Mexico where her family had raised her would be an olive branch to her parents that would make the point that she still wanted to be connected to them even though she'd moved away with my dad against their wishes. But while my name had stuck, that olive branch hadn't. Even the fact that my parents had gotten married and stayed together hadn't dissolved the wedge between mom and her family that still persisted to this day.
"Not really," I shook my head. "And I do appreciate that you don't fucking comment on my shit all the time. Tom's done that enough for you already."
"So what is his problem?"
"Fuck if I know," I shrugged, groping for an explanation that wouldn't tip off the real root of it, which I was sure had something to do with Tom's ongoing cheerleading for me to give things with Pete a real shot. "He's so fixated on this idea that I should be, like, serious with... with someone." I'd already learned this summer that I had to be vague about my pronouns whenever I talked about this stuff. That way, one day when I could be more open about me and Pete, I'd be able to say that, technically, I hadn't ever lied to anyone.
"And you disagree?"
"No, not necessarily. But I don't need you to gang up on me! He needs to remember I'm not actually an old man who needs to be in a rush to settle down. Fuck, I'm only nineteen."
"Which makes you older than I was when your dad and I met. Nineteen is young. But it's also old enough for something you're feeling to really matter," mom said, leveling her eyes with mine. "Look, Tom can't hide anything he's feeling, but I know you don't always see what you're feeling when you're in the middle of it."
"You both need to chill the fuck out. I'm fine."
"Uh huh," mom murmured, clearly unconvinced.
"No, I'm serious! Me having fun with Marissa isn't something you need to spend any time worrying about."
Mom sighed. "Max, all I'm saying is don't try to be a player. You-..."
"...- Mom, I'm not! Tom just needs to shut the fuck up. I'm not playing anyone here."
"Yeah, and that's exactly my point," mom replied, leaning forward across the counter. "You shouldn't try to be a player because you'd suck at it. You're just not wired that way. You're always happiest when you feel like you have a purpose or something serious to focus on, so fucking around isn't your style."
Mom leaned back into her chair as she took another sip of her coffee and continued: "... Tom, maybe. But he's so gullible that it's way more likely he'll get steamrolled by some girl who figures out he turns to putty in the hands of anyone he likes... But you? You're the one who could steamroll someone. Not because you'd ever want to but because you wouldn't even realize you're doing it."
"Great," I sighed. "It's good to know that you think I'm like a fucking danger to anyone who's dumb enough to like me."
"That's not what I was saying!"
"So then what the fuck was your point? That you're on Tom's side and think I should just quit things with Marissa since they're not going anywhere?"
"No, I'm not taking sides here," mom replied quickly, holding up her hands. "That's your decision to make, and I trust you to make the right one. I'm just bringing this up because I think it's weird that Tom seems so concerned about it- like there's something he knows that I don't."
Oh shit, did Tom say something??
No, he wouldn't. He gave me his word.
But then what if something had slipped that made mom wonder...?
I scrambled for something to say that could change the subject. I knew I had to tell my parents about Pete sometime- not necessarily because I had any clue how to have that fucking conversation with them but because it was dawning on me that my impulse decision to tell Tom had put an unfair pressure on him after I'd also asked him to keep his mouth shut about it.
Damn it, if I'd actually thought things through, I would've known better.
Tom was a fundamentally honest person who was fuckin' lousy with any kind of secret. It wasn't really fair of me to have put this one on his shoulders because now it was pitting his loyalty to me against his open book nature. And I could tell the whole thing was stressing Tom out and making him pissed at me. In all the moments this summer when there'd been some natural opening for me to say something to my parents about me and Pete, Tom would shoot me these looks of frustration and disappointment when he'd see me chicken out and let the opportunity pass again and again... And that was all before my ongoing thing with Marissa had muddied shit up even further. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to say to my parents now? I love fucking Marissa but I also can't stop jerking off thinking about sucking my best bud's dick because that gets me hard as fuck too??
Ugh, this was going to be so fucking awkward.
And then what the hell were my parents going to think when they did know?
Shit.
I shook my head to clear away those worries and to refocus on the conversation at hand.
"Fuck, you know what I think this is actually about? Tom's freaked out about leaving for school at the end of the summer. And I think he knows that he needs to break up with Maribel before then too, even though he really likes her and doesn't want to end things."
"No shit," mom snorted.
"I know," I shrugged. "I mean, I've been there. I was freaked out about that same shit last summer with Juliana too. And as fucked up as I was, in hindsight I didn't even know the half of it. It's gonna hit Tom like a fuckin boulder, and I- I'm freaked out for him."
"I know you are," mom nodded. "I am too."
"And I know it's fucking stupid now," I said, catching my eyes with mom's. "But remember how you and I fought so much last summer?"
"I do," she said, nodding again.
"I was just being an asshole because of the head trip I was on, and I took it out on you. And I'm sorry about that."
"Remember, it takes two to fight," she sighed. "I was an asshole too. And I'm sorry."
"Thanks," I nodded. "But that wasn't my point. I was trying to say I think that's what Tom's doing now. He's stressed out and he's being a dick to me because he doesn't know a way around it and has to let it out somewhere."
But what I didn't say out loud was that Tom was probably channeling his frustration at his lack of a future with his girlfriend into envy that I was lucky enough to have the possibility of one with Pete- and that he thought I was an idiot for maybe risking that by hooking up with Marissa while I was here.
"Probably," mom agreed, sipping her coffee again. "So what are you going to do about it?"
"Tell him not to take it out on me," I mumbled for lack of a better idea.
"And?" mom pressed.
"I don't know! I know he'll be fine next year."
"But have you told him that?"
"Yeah," I nodded, but then I thought harder about it. "I mean, maybe... I think so."
"You should," mom said, reaching across the counter to squeeze my arm. I looked down at her hand and felt guilty because I knew this was important to her. Mom wasn't close with any of her siblings anymore, and it was something she regretted. She'd made attempts at patching things up with them here and there, but I knew she was invested in me and Tom doing better at staying close as adults leading our own lives than she'd been able to manage.
"Okay, I will."
Mom smiled at me, released my arm, and leaned back into her stool. "Okay, so tell me something: when you were being an asshole for the same reason last year, is there anything I could've done that would've helped you out?"
"Fuck, I don't," I shook my head, thinking back to last summer. "I don't know."
"I'm sorry your dad and I couldn't have helped you more. I know we couldn't tell you what college would be like. But now you can do that for Tom at least."
"No, don't," I replied, catching her eyes with mine again. "Mom, that's fuckin unfair to you. No one can tell you. Your life changes, and it's the unknown. I mean, just look at Pete. Half his family went to the exact same fucking school for generations, so he grew up on all these stories about it. But even he didn't know what it would be like for him until he actually lived it for himself."
"Maybe," mom said, now staring absently into the bottom of her now empty mug.
"If anything, you and dad helped us by getting us so used to dealing with starting over and our lives changing."
"Tom always takes it so fuckin' hard though," mom sighed, looking back up at me.
"But he'll be better off for it. I am. He's as ready as anyone could be for college. It's intimidating now, but remember he's always been fine at every new school."
A half smile tugged at the corners of mom's mouth as I said that. "You say `fine' too much when you talk about college."
"Fuck, because it is!" I shook my head. "It's school, not fuckin' Shangri-la. Some of it sucks, but some of it is cool, too."
"So, just to be one hundred percent clear here: I'm right to worry about Tom, but I have absolutely no need to worry about you, ever?"
"Fuck off," I groaned.
"I'm serious," mom insisted, straightening up in her stool. "You've never been so dead-set on having fun as you have been this summer, and that's not like you. You were always the serious one. It feels like something's up and that I'm missing something."
"Shit, I'm just fuckin happy to be home, and I wanna enjoy my time because it's so short. Maybe it just seems different because every summer before this one I felt like I had to have a fire under my ass just so I could make it to college. And now that I finally have, I feel like I need to breathe and let my foot off the gas for a minute."
"And you should," mom nodded quickly. "You push yourself too hard. You never really got to be a kid."
"But I'm not, like, taking it all the way off," I clarified. "You know getting to college isn't the end. I've gotta finnish. And I've gotta do something with my degree and all this shit after."
"I know," mom nodded.
"I'm just enjoying myself this summer. And I really like the friends I've met here- Marissa, Matteo, the whole crew... That's not, like, something you need to worry about."
"I know."
"And I'll be fi-...," I caught myself. "... Good when I go back next month. I mean, I'll miss you again, but there are some things I'm actually looking forward to about it."
"Well, there better be for how much we're all paying for it," mom laughed.
"There are! Good things," I felt myself smiling as I thought about finally getting to see Pete again. "Great, actually."
Mom smiled back at me. "You mean that."
"I do!" I agreed, even though I could feel myself turning a little red under my mom's gaze as I said that.
"Something I should know about?" mom asked, her eyebrows raising at the shift in my tone.
"Fuck off," I mumbled, trying to wipe the incriminating smile off my face.
"Uh huh," mom laughed. "I think maybe you just answered my question about what I'm missing."
I didn't want to continue this conversation and bog myself down with even more half-truths and evasions, so I turned my eyes back to the textbook I'd left open on the counter. I cleared my throat and read out a line that my mom had highlighted on the page: "The defense mechanism where a patient separates a thought or feeling from the rest of his or her thoughts of feelings is known as...?"
"It's called isolation of affect," mom replied, still smiling. "But are you seriously going to make me do this right now?"
"Yes," I insisted, resolutely keeping my face turned down towards the pages of the book in front of me rather than looking back up at my mom.
"Tom's right," she groaned in reply. "You're an asshole."
To be continued.