Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

I rushed to Ms. Freeroast’s class. God, I hated being late for that. I just hated that class in general. Advanced Literature and Writing wouldn’t be so bad if Ms. Freeroast didn’t turn every class into a group therapy session. After every poem we read, story we wrote, or movie we watched, she expected us to sit in a big circle and discuss how that work made us feel.

This literature-based group therapy didn’t bother me. But this month’s topic of discussion was Lolita. And since I was dealing with my own Amy Fisher of sorts, I didn’t think I could give constructive criticism. The worst part about the class, though, was being late. Ms. Freeroast would make students stand in front of the class and tell a story about what caused their tardiness. Then everyone would vote on whether or not you deserve detention. 

Luckily, Father Time was on my side, and I made it into class as the last bell rang. I walked around the circle of sharing, trying to find the seat furthest away from Brittney. Too bad that bitch was onto me.

“Jacob, shove over. Don’t you see that someone that matters needs this seat!” Brittney bullied one of the more unfortunate students into giving up his seat. “Ryan over here! There’s a seat right here, although you may have to disinfect it first. I would hate for my best friend to catch Jacob’s horrible fashion sense disease.”

The entire class erupted into fits of laughter, and poor Jacob hung his head. I was used to Brittney insulting people for sport, but the way she said: “best friend” irked me. It was as if she was saying, “Bitch I own you!”

“Naw, Brit, I’m fine where I’m at. Besides, I hear there’s a rampant case of shallow ass bitch going around. It appears that you have all the symptoms. We wouldn’t want me to catch that too, now would we?” My delivery was light and fluffy. Under normal circumstances, the comment would have been taken as a joke. 

“What’s that supposed to mean, Ryan? I mean, you’re the one who blew all your friends off. Then you stole all your dad’s money so you could run off with some college guy.”

“Ladies, that is quite enough.” Ms. Freeroast tried to interject, but it was too late.

“You’re DAMN RIGHT I blew off my ‘friends’ and spent spring break alone. Especially since my best friend, who we all know is a total whore, has been trying for weeks to fuck my father!”

“You lying bitch! I’m gonna kick your ass if you don’t shut the fuck up!”

“THAT IS IT! BOTH OF YOU LADIES, COME WITH ME! I will not tolerate this type of behavior in my classroom.” 

I grabbed my things and was halfway out the door. Then I realized that Brittney was having a war of wills with Ms. Freeroast.

“But she provoked me. She started to call me all those names first! Why should I have to go to Principal Dannon, too?”

We spent the next hour waiting outside Principal Dannon’s office. By the time he got to us, he shook his head, spouted off a few words about kindness and respect. Then he gave us both Saturday detention. I thanked Principal Dannon for his leniency and walked out of the office. LUNCHTIME! Thank God. I needed to get away from Brittney and that school as soon as possible.

I ducked and dodged my way through the parking lot congestion. As I walked, I discovered that my day was about to get worse. It was the reflection of my ruby red paint job in the pristine white sleeves of his letterman that first caught my eye. I couldn’t understand what he was doing here.

“Before you even tell me no, please take a drive with me and let me explain,” he begged.

“Michael, what is there to explain? You cheated. I got that.”

“Ryan, just take a drive with me.”

What the hell did I have to lose? Every bit of normalcy I’d been striving for this morning went out the window in first period. I handed him the keys to my car. He drove me around like a parent who was trying to soothe a fussy baby. At first, there was complete silence, but the novelty of the silence was fleeting.

Michael began opening and closing his mouth in an attempt to find something to say. Each time he failed. Every few minutes, he would give me pleading looks. He wanted me to ask the question that he so desperately wanted to answer. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Brittney told me about what happened with your dad,” he whispered.

“Did she? And what did that BITCH tell you?”

“Uh, that you saw your dad comforting her about her dad, and you flipped out.”

“Really, and you believed that shit!”

“Well,”

“Did everybody get an extra dose of stupid with their vitamins?” I screamed. Flames had to be coming out of my nostrils. “I thought you knew me better than that. Hell, I thought I knew you better than that.”

“I do know you better than that, Ry, and that’s another reason why I’m still here.”

“Still?”

“After you left my dorm, I called Brittney, and she told me what happened. She asked me if what we were fighting about was epic enough for you to blow off Tahoe. I told her that it was a misunderstanding.”

“Yeah, because I misunderstood that being in a committed relationship involved you screwing your teammates.”

“Ryan, I fucked up, but that’s not the point!” he yelled at me, obvious frustration etched across his face.

“Oh, then what the fuck is the point?”

He pulled the car to a stop in a random parking lot, got out of the car, and slammed the door. He paced for a couple of minutes, waiting for me to follow him. Again, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Taking a deep breath, he got back in the car and sat rigidly for a couple of minutes before he spoke again.

“THE POINT IS,” he made sure he annunciated each syllable. A habit he’d had since childhood and stuttered when he got upset. “I asked her if you’d called, and she said no. You’d left a note.”

“Big deal, I left a note telling my dad we were fighting. I don’t see why it matters!”

“It matters, Ryan, because there’s no way you drove back to Torrance and left a note for your dad in ten minutes, babe.”

“Ten minutes! Of course, it took more than ten minutes. You’re making no sense!” This time I got out of the car and paced around. Michael followed me.

“Ryce and Beans,” he said, grabbing me by my shoulders, “that’s how I knew she was lying.”

“What?” I was beyond confused.

“I asked her if she had talked to you, and she said no, that you had left a note. I called her ten minutes after you left! That means that you had to have written the note before you came to see me. You lied about us fighting because you didn’t want to be found, and that worried me more than you know.”

The look on his face broke my heart even more. I’d been right in my decision to visit Michael. He knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. But if he knew me so well, why didn’t he know that cheating on me would ruin me? I cried, slowly at first and then in heavy gasping sobs.

“Please, Ryce, don’t cry. You don’t deserve to cry.” His shining blue eyes had become cloudy and gray with guilt and depression.

“Why’d you do it?”

“I don’t know if I did or not. That’s the honest to God truth,” he paused as he looked up at the sky and said a quiet prayer for help. “We had been fighting, and I was so frustrated that something in me snapped. So I went to this party, and I started drinking like my father used to. Every cup someone handed me, I threw back.”

At this point, Michael started to cry. His father was a horrible drunk. He was serving a life sentence in prison for the deaths of a young family he killed because of his drunk driving. Michael had been in the car with his father. When he woke up in the hospital after the accident, he vowed he’d never drink as long as he lived.

“When I woke up, I was in the hospital.”

“You told me you had a severe case of food poisoning!”

“That’s what Darren told me when I asked what had happened. I couldn’t remember anything except not feeling well the day before. Darren said food poisoning. I didn’t question him because I was exhausted. I’d been on a brain food binge for three days. It all made sense to me. I didn’t even remember the party or having gone to it until that morning you heard me talking to Lynn.”

We had both stopped crying, and Michael was holding his head in his hands, his shoulders slumped in shame.

“Ryan, please believe me. I didn’t lie to you. What I told you was what I knew to be the truth. I know it doesn’t make anything better, but I didn’t set out to hurt you or us. You’ve got to believe me.”

“I do. But where does that leave Lynn and the baby in this picture?”

“I have asked her for a DNA test. If it is, in fact, my child, then I’ll do what is right by my child.”

“And what about me?” I asked in a timid whisper.

“I have no right to ask this of you, but please stand by me in all of this. Please don’t leave me Ryce and Beans. I love you, and it’s killing me to know that I hurt you.” He was crying again, and so was I.

“I don’t know, Michael. My life is screwed up, and I did nothing to make it that way.”

“I know, I know, but I need you, and now more than ever, you need me. We need each other.”

“I do need you, but how do you expect me to forget all of this?”

“I’m not asking you to forget, just to see past all of this. See the me you’ve known your entire life. The me that has never done one off-color thing in his whole life. I can’t ask you to still love me like before, but I am asking you not to leave me. Not now, at least.”

“Okay, Michael. I won’t leave you. Stop talking and take me home.”

As we walked back to the car, I noticed for the first time he had brought me to the La Brae Tarpits. It was our depression spot. It was where he told me for the first time that his father was an abusive drunk. We came here to share our darkest secrets and leave them there. We knew no matter how heavy our burdens were, they were nowhere near as bad as being stuck in pits of tar for all eternity. At least we could move past our mistakes. We were different from the poor souls that took one wrong step and had their misery on constant display for all the world to see.

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