AUGUST 26, 2009

The entire first week of school is a weird limbo zone. My old life is pretty much over, but what I am heading for is mooshy and vague. At the same time, the feeling that Tyler’s face can pop out at me at any second is sharp. That and thinking about my dad getting in touch with me are these random adrenaline spikes in the endless boredom.

So I come home and, as usual since Mom’s business has gotten so busy, there is nothing decent to eat. She calls, but I don’t answer, and she leaves a voice mail saying there is some kind of population explosion and she will have to stay late at the hospital. Which is fine except for the lack of edibles and me being starved, since I was too nervous at lunch to eat.

I make some cinnamon toast and watch while the butter melts and the cinnamon sugar turns all bubbly under the broiler. I take it out, put both pieces on a plate, pour a glass of milk. Consume. Suck butter-sugar from my fingers. Repeat.

Then, without any planning at all, I get the laptop out, go to Facebook, and, like pulling a Band-Aid off with one fast rip, I confirm my father’s friend request.

I have barely begun to believe that I’ve actually done it when Facebook makes the bloopy sound it does to alert you that someone wants to chat.

Chat?

I hadn’t considered the possibility of chat. Since I’ve already jumped off the cliff, though, I click on his message, and keep on falling while the first real words my father has communicated to me in sixteen years appear on the screen.

4:34 P.M. AUGUST 26, 2009

=Aubrey, hello. Thank you for confirming me.

I come so close to slamming the laptop shut and calling Mom and telling her everything. About Dad. About Tyler. Everything. But I know that if I hesitate for one second I will freeze up and this will turn into an impossibly big deal, and I’ll never do it, so I just dive in and start writing whatever pops into my head.

I quickly sign out, because I don’t actually Got To Go. I actually have GTB, Got To Breathe. Breathing. Something that pretty much stopped the instant that chat box blooped open.

I don’t know how long I spend reading and rereading what he wrote and what I wrote back, but it startles me when Mom pounds on my door, yelling, “Hey, punkalunk! There’s groceries in the car. Can you at least get the ice cream and milk in? I’ve got to pee like a racehorse.”

Thanks for the image.

I open my door. As she sprints to the bathroom, she yells back at me, “How was your day?”

“Fine.”

She stops dead in her tracks and studies me. One word. One single word and she knows. I am certain that she knows about me chatting with Dad. “What happened?”

“Nothing! God! I’m sorry my life is so boring.”

She laser-scans me, gathering clues.

“Groceries,” I say, and rush out to the garage, to the safety beyond her force field.