The Roommate Situation (31 page)

“So your mom flipped out, huh?”

“I don’t even want to get into it. Thanks for letting me stay with you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“It was my idea,” he says.

“Changing the worst Christmas ever to the fucking best.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t my worst Christmas, but this does improve it anyway.”

“What was your worst Christmas?” I ask.

“The one my grandmother died.”

“Ouch. Sorry.”

He lifts a shoulder. “It was the twenty-first, not actual Christmas Day, but it kind of overshadowed things.”

“Yeah, I guess it would. I barely remember my grandparents passing, except Grandpa Pete, who died when I was twelve. I didn’t really know how I was supposed to feel. I mean, it sucked, but I remember, like, when we got home from the funeral, I changed and headed out skateboarding.”

“It was kind of like that, except without the skateboarding. Just kind of…strange. Like, was it okay to celebrate Christmas, or was I supposed to be in a funk for a year? Don’t get me wrong: I hated that she died.”

“You were close.”

“Yeah, she was more my mother than my mom was. I got drunk on New Year’s. Really drunk.”

I smile.

“I was using her passing to justify filling up and draining my glass, and filling it up and draining it again, until the room was spinning and I just kept trying to crawl into a corner and go to sleep, while this party was going on around me. God, I barely remember that party, outside of wishing I could throw up so I would stop feeling so awful. I tried to crawl into a closet, but there was all this stuff in the way, so I think I only got my head inside.”

“I have not been that drunk,” I say.

“Yet.”

“Yet,” I agree.

It occurs to me that I’ve never actually been
inside
a vehicle with Derek driving before. If it had been warmer out, I wouldn’t have minded riding to Derek’s on the back of his bike, my arms around his waist. But, given the circumstances, sitting cozy in the cab of a truck is pretty good too. “I don’t really like to throw up,” I say.

“I don’t think anybody really likes to throw up.”

“It just feels so awful. Your throat clenches, then opens up, and blaaaaaagh, everything comes up all steamy and acidy.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I was really hoping to hear something like that during the drive.”

I shift lower in the seat, pressing my knees against the glove box. “I’m really glad I don’t have to sleep on Quaid’s front steps for the next week.”

“Fuck yeah. It’s not any warmer there.”

“Probably snowing.”

“Could be.”

“Will we have to sleep in separate beds at your house?” I ask. I could probably deal with separate beds, but I’m hoping we’re not looking at separate rooms. Although even that beats the hell out of staying with my parents.

“There are only two beds in the house,” he says, “and I’m sure my dad doesn’t want you in his.” He shakes a cigarette loose from his pack and plucks it out with his teeth. He leans over to push in the cigarette lighter—another difference between the truck and the vehicles my parents drive. All their lighter sockets are for plugging phone chargers into and have been for as long as I can remember.

“How did the discussion about your major go?” he asks. “Or did you even get to that?”

“My mom said I wasn’t likely to get into the music program.”

“Bullshit.” His cigarette waggles as he says it. “Why not?”

I pull in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She probably has a point.”

“What do you mean? What I heard at the party and when you were checking out that amp sounded pretty good to me.”

“I mostly play by ear. I mean, I learned how to read music in high school, but not so I can look at a sheet of music I’ve never heard before and just play it. I have to work it out measure by measure. And usually I don’t bother because it’s just easier to listen to the song and figure out how to play it that way. So if they played a piece of music and asked me to play it back, I could maybe do that and not do too badly, but that’s not what they do.”

“So talk to them. Tell them you’re willing to show you can play, what, by ear? That you can read music, but you need to catch up on reading it faster.”

“Maybe.”

“The worst they can do is say no.”

“Right.” My voice sounds about as sure as I feel.

“So what are you gonna do if you don’t do music?”

I shrug. “Anything. It doesn’t really matter if it’s not music. Whatever I think I can pass, so I can keep staying in school. Otherwise I’d have to go back home, and there’s not much going on there. But at school there are musicians, clubs to play at if I can get in a band.
You
.”

“There you go. You’ve got a plan: either they let you in the music program, or they don’t, and if they don’t, you major in basket weaving.”

I smile. “I’m not the one who should major in basket weaving.”

“What, you think I should?”

“I was thinking of the insane woman who gave birth to me.”

“She was that bad, huh?”

“Bad even for her.” I thump my head against the seat. “She’s been worse lately anyway, ever since I left for school. Then from worse to unbearable. Then from unbearable to unconscionable. That’s one of her words, by the way—
unconscionable
. When the president does anything, it’s unconscionable. When the Democrats do anything, it’s unconscionable. When Miley Cyrus sticks her tongue out…”

“Unconscionable,” Derek says.

“And unbefitting a young woman. Please tell me about your awesome family. Or your own crazy birther. Did you talk to her on Christmas?”

“Yeah,” he says, his face lit and shadowed by the dash lights. “She’s in Colorado Springs.”

“That’s not in Oregon,” I say, fiddling with the heat control.

“Nope. She had a change of mind when she was passing through. I spent twenty minutes hearing about how breathtaking the mountains are, how inconsequential they make you feel. How crisp and clean the air is. I think she just realized she liked the idea of being able to buy dope legally.”

I smile.

“And my dad is the same old, same old. Uncle Dan—same old, same old.”

“Does he have a boyfriend?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Is your dad seeing anyone?”

“Not at the moment.” He crushes his latest cigarette in the ashtray.

My radio station’s starting to static out. I twist the dial until I get a classic rock station in, Jim Morrison singing about how many times he wants to be loved. I think he’s short-changing it with expecting twice to last through a whole week.

“I made you something for Christmas,” I say.

“You made it?”

“Well, I saved it to a flash drive. Some music I think you’ll like.”

“Cool. Thanks. The Black Angels?”

“Some live stuff from them. Some Uncle Acid and the deadbeats. Wolfmother. A bunch of stuff. Like a mix tape.” A warmth rises to my cheeks. A mix tape, like we’re in junior high. I lean forward and pull my jacket off.

We ride in silence for a while, familiar landmarks passing in the dark. The way to Derek’s is, for a long stretch, exactly the same way I go to get to school. The interstate’s not busy at this time of night, mostly truckers. The roads are dry. The stars are out.

He reaches across the seat and laces his fingers into mine.

I give him a squeeze. “Let me know if you get tired.” I shove my duffel bag closer to the door to make more room for my feet.

“I’m good. Thanks for the coffee, by the way.”

“Least I could do. Let me know if you need gas money. I don’t have much, but…”

“Don’t worry about it.”

It feels like we’re alone in the world, us and the pickup’s dim dash lights, the vents blowing warm air. The hum of the engine. I yawn and slouch down more, giving Derek’s hand another squeeze. I close my eyes.

Eventually he slips his hand free to smoke another cigarette. The corner of my mouth lifts—the things my mother would have to say about this, secondhand smoke wafting around my head.

“You can lie down,” he says. I’m about to say I’m fine, but he adds, “Put your head on my leg if you want.”

“Okay.”

He lifts his arm so I can settle my cheek on his thigh. The back of my head nudges his hip. Lazily I watch his one hand on the wheel while the other massages my scalp.

Best Christmas ever.

Eventually he puts on his turn signal. The truck starts to lose speed.

Rubbing my eyes, I sit up.

“Another fifteen minutes or so,” he says.

“Cool.” I take in the sights, what I can see of them in the dark. We pass out of town, onto a stretch of highway dotted with the occasional house or church. After a while, the houses start coming closer together, then a fire station, a school. When we’re at what looks to be the edge of a downtown area, he turns off, bringing us down a street of small houses built close together, driveways separated by no more than a strip of grass. The turn signal again, and we head up another street. Derek turns in at a single-story bungalow with a porch that runs straight across the front of it. Its windows are dark, like no one’s home.

That’s the porch he woke up on when he was six. Unless they were living in a different house then. “How long have you lived here?” I ask, gathering my backpack into my lap as he cuts off the lights, then the engine.

“Always. At least it seems like it. I guess my parents had an apartment when I was a baby, but I don’t remember it. It used to be my dad’s uncle Doug’s house, my grandmother’s brother? He died of stomach cancer and left the house to Dad.”

I slide out of the truck with my bags and shoulder the door shut. Coming around the back of it, I say, “Did your uncle mind?”

“Nah. My dad had a family, so he needed it more. Speaking of which, he’s probably getting some shuteye, so…” He touches a finger to his lips.

“Right.”

We climb the porch steps quietly, and Derek takes a moment to unlock the door. Inside, a dim light spills through the kitchen doorway. Someone left the lamp over the stove on for us.

“Bathroom’s here,” he whispers, touching a half-open door before he walks through another doorway. I follow behind, and the light comes on. He shuts the door as I get my bearings. We’re in his room. He grew up here. Lived here most of his life. It’s more
him
than any room in a residence hall ever will be.

“You can put your stuff over there for now.” He gestures toward a clear space in front of an old bookcase. “I’ve gotta get rid of that coffee. Make yourself comfortable.” His voice is a low murmur.

I nod, keeping quiet.

After the bedroom door closes, I crouch in front of my duffel bag and unzip it, looking for my pajama bottoms—which I’m not entirely sure I managed to pack. My attention keeps being drawn to the shelves: old textbooks, a George R.R. Martin series, a pile of comic books. Lifting the top few, I find
100 Bullets
,
The Killing Joke
,
Hellblazer
. Higher up sits a plastic model of an old WWII plane, shark’s teeth decals on the nose. The cardboard box on the bottom shelf is filled with now familiar tools, some dull and duct-taped, some shiny new, like they hadn’t been satisfactory and he’d dumped them in the bone pile.

Rising to my feet with my pajama bottoms clutched in one hand, I look at a picture of what had to be Derek’s grandmother, a thick woman with a broad smile, her dark hair shot through with steel. A ten-or-so-year-old Derek smiles at the camera from under her arm, dimples denting his cheeks, his front teeth too big for his face. I almost want to take it off the shelf and slip it into my bag.

Behind the photo sit more books, beat-up secondhand paperbacks of Stephen King novels, the Harry Potter books, which make me smile, imagining ten-year-old Derek poring over Harry’s adventures.
Fight Club
is there. Neil Gaiman’s
American Gods.

The toilet flushes on the other side of the wall. I slip
American Gods
out. I only know Gaiman from
The Sandman.

When Derek comes in and gently pushes the door closed again, I say, my voice just over a whisper, “I didn’t know you read.”

“Jesus, I haven’t since I started college.”

I put the book back.

“I kinda miss it,” he says. “You need to use the bathroom?”

“Yeah.” I drop my balled-up pants on the end of the bed and let myself out.

Even the bathroom has stuff to gawk at—two toothbrushes are stuck in a ceramic holder that juts from the wall tiles. The hairbrush I’m used to seeing in our dorm room sits on the edge of the basin, Derek’s dark hairs caught in it. Two bath towels hang on metal rods, one for Derek, one for his dad. The smell of shaving cream and aftershave—not Derek’s.

Light snoring sounds come from the other side of the wall—not Derek.

When I’m finished, I let myself back into the bedroom. He’s gotten out of his boots, jacket, and shirt. He’s bent over the desk with one hand braced on it as he checks his e-mail.

“Find everything okay?” he asks as I close the door.

“Yeah, the toilet was hard to miss.” I grasp the bottom of my shirt and pull it over my head. “Big white bowl sitting next to the toilet paper holder.” When I drop my shirt, he’s standing in front of me, his belt undone, that familiar trail of dark hair climbing from the waistband of his cotton briefs.

I smile. “I fucking missed you.”

He puts his hands on my hips. “I missed you too.”

Snaking my arms up between us, I put my hand on his beard-grizzled cheeks, the hairs grown out long enough that they’re starting to get a little soft, instead of sandpapery. We kiss, openmouthed. Like coming home.

He wraps his arms around me, his hands warm on my bare skin.

“I missed this,” I murmur against his mouth, making his lips spread into a smile. His body’s hard against mine.
He’s
hard against me. The ridge jamming my hip makes my eyes close, makes my arms wrap around his neck. I push a hand into his hair and kiss him again, deeply.

When I let him get a breath of air, he uses it to say, “Phone sex was fun, but it’s got nothin’ on the real thing.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, I liked the phone sex. But…”

“What?”

“What we talked about during it… The fucking? I’m not sure I’m ready to actually do that. Yet. Just so you know.”