The Way I Am Now (The Way I Used to Be)

Eden called me last night at midnight to tell me happy birthday. She said she thought through what I’d said to her about doing it alone and she’d asked Mara to go with her. I stayed on the phone with her until she fell asleep. She didn’t say so, but I could tell she was really nervous. I wished she would’ve just let me come.

I’ve been distracted all day waiting for word from her. I spaced out during our team meeting this morning, and Coach reamed me out in front of everyone. Even Dominic pulled me aside in the locker room to ask what was going on with me.

“Nothing,” I told him. “I’m just tired.” Which was true; even after Eden finally fell asleep around two o’clock and I hung up the phone, I couldn’t sleep at all.

I texted her before afternoon practice to check in.

When I get out at six, I still haven’t heard from her. I call and leave a voice mail.

“Hey, just me. Thinking of you. Hope everything’s going okay. Well, call me when you can. I love you. Miss you.”

On my walk home, I’m barely paying attention to anything— not other people or traffic or street signs—I’m staring at my phone the whole time.

“Josh!” my mom’s voice calls out to me, laughing. “What are you doing?”

I look up. I’ve walked right past my building, past my parents, waiting on the front stoop, each holding coffee cups from Eden’s work.

“Head in the clouds much?” Dad says as he steps closer and hugs me.

Mom stands now and passes her coffee to Dad. She places her hands on my shoulders and holds me at arm’s length, smiling as she studies me for a moment. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

“Happy birthday, Josh,” Dad echoes.

I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever been happier to see them in my life.

“You look tired,” Mom says as we walk up to the apartment. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” she repeats, her voice an octave higher than usual. And as I glance back, I see her looking at my dad, all wide-eyed.

“Mom,” I groan. “I’m fine.”

I unlock the door to my apartment and let them in.

“So, where’s Dominic?” Dad asks.Têxt © NôvelDrama.Org.

“He went to get dinner with some of the other guys on the team.”

Mom says, in her best casual voice, “And what about Eden, where’s she?” Then looks all around like she’s searching for evidence of her having been here.

I sit down on the couch in the living room, and they follow.

“Listen, she’s not gonna be able to make it tonight.”

“What?” Mom shouts as she sits down on the couch next to me, then adjusts her volume. “She’s not going to make it for your birthday?”

“We celebrated on Friday. She had to go out of town.”

“Out of town?” she repeats, like that’s the most absurd thing she ever heard. “In the middle of the semester?” She shakes her head. “Joshua.”

“No, don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m naive or getting taken advantage of or being lied to or something. I’m not. It’s not like that.”

“Well, tell me.” She crosses her arms and looks at my dad like he should be getting upset along with her. “What’s it like, then?”

I glance up at my dad, sitting on the ottoman next to the couch. He gives me a half smile, a nod, sort of squints, drawing his eyebrows together, tilts his head in Mom’s direction.

“What’s this?” Mom asks, not missing anything. “What’s going on with you two?”

Dad sighs. “Just tell her, Joshie.”

“Dear God, tell me what?” she says, clutching the collar of her shirt. “She’s not pregnant, please tell me she’s not preg—”

“No!”

“Thank you thank you thank you,” she whispers into her clasped hands.

“Why is that the first thing you guys jump to? Do you really think I’m that irresponsible?”

“No,” Mom says. “But shit happens, Josh. You can be careful ninety-nine percent of the time and all it takes is one—”

“Oh my God, please,” I say, raising my voice. “All the safe sex talks are scarred into my memory for life, I assure you. Can we drop this now?”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” Mom insists. “I don’t like this. I have to be honest. I don’t like this girl for you, Josh, I just—”

“Fine,” I relent. “Just please stop saying that.”

So I tell them everything. And by the time I finish, they’re sitting on either side of me on the couch, Mom’s arm around me, Dad’s hand resting on my knee. When I look up at Mom, she has tears running down her face.

“Sorry,” she says, wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “That’s a lot, Josh.”

“I know,” I agree, “it’s been a lot for her.”

“Well, for you too,” Mom says.

“No, come on.” I shake my head. “I’m not comparing anything I might be feeling to what she’s going through.”

Dad speaks up. “No one’s saying you should compare anything, but just acknowledge, all right, this is not an easy thing to be dealing with in any relationship.”

I nod. I know he’s right. But I don’t know how to explain that when we’re together it doesn’t feel hard. When we’re together it feels like we can handle it—could handle anything.

We order food and stay in. D and Parker join us. Parker shows my parents the video from the hibachi restaurant of everyone singing “Happy Birthday.” Eden kissing me at the end, with total abandon. Everyone cheering.

“Let me see that.” Mom takes the phone and watches the video two more times, smiling by the end of it. “You look happy, Josh,” she says quietly.

They leave to go to their motel at eleven. Outside, at the car, Dad says, “Come on, group hug.” And they both wrap me in a giant hug. A different day I might’ve said something stupid like aren’t I getting a little old for this, but not today. Today I just let them and feel grateful.

“You need more rest.” Mom jabs her finger into my chest. “Hear me?”

“Yes.”

“We love you,” Dad says.

“Love you guys too.”

I watch as they drive away, my dad’s arm darting out from the passenger-side window to wave at me all the way down the road. I walk down to the end of the block and back again, just to burn off some of this anxiety I’ve had building up in me all day. I pull out my phone again, just in case I’ve somehow missed her.

Still nothing.

Upstairs, I try to fall asleep, but I toss and turn.