This Is My Brain in Love - I. W. Gregorio Page 0,47
wide open and Mr. Wu leans in to get a look at who’s in the driver’s seat. His eyes widen with shock, then the surprise turns into a complicated expression halfway between disappointment and disgust.
Then he’s gone, probably on his way to dig me a hole so deep I may never see sunlight again.
JOCELYN
My dad sits in stony silence the entire ride home, which is how I know that I’m in deep, deep trouble. Everyone knows that my dad is a blusterer, so my family’s learned to just let his ramblings roll off our backs, and his fits of loud outrage tend to burn out quickly. When he’s quiet, though, it means that his anger has so entrenched itself that it’s become part of the very marrow of his bones.
The last time I saw my dad this upset was when he found out that Alan was falsifying my mom’s signature on the math tests he’d flunked. Failing a test was bad enough. I had to admit to being kind of in awe that my kid brother had leveled up to forgery. For a while I couldn’t decide whether to feel good that I was suddenly the golden child or pathetic that I seemed like such a Goody Two-shoes in comparison.
Months later, my dad still has a short fuse when it comes to Alan, and they do a lot of ignoring each other when they are in the same room, which suits Alan just fine. His big punishment was summer school—he’s happy to fly under the radar for the rest of the time. I can only hope that I will be that lucky.
As we drive home, I pray that my dad will yell. I just want him to tell me what he’s most mad about, so I can feel bad about that one thing, instead of all of it. He could be mad at me for not doing my summer project with Priya, or that I lied about where I was. He could be upset that I was kissing a boy, or pissed that I was alone in a dark parking lot with said boy. When you put it all together, it’s just a freaking Niagara Falls of bad decisions, and I want to hit the undo button of my life so, so much right now.
But my dad stews, and my guilt simmers.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a small voice after a few minutes of silence. My dad doesn’t even look at me, just stares straight ahead. There’s a jerky acceleration as he puts on more gas, but he doesn’t respond.
I am in so much trouble.
When we pull into the lot behind A-Plus, my dad brakes harder than he usually does, and I wince at the crunch of gravel. He doesn’t spare me a glance as he yanks the keys out of the ignition and opens the driver door. After my dad disappears into the rear entrance of the restaurant I sit for a couple more seconds, bracing myself for the reckoning.
They don’t still make chastity belts, do they?
By the time I’ve finally dragged myself upstairs, my dad has broken his vow of silence. My poor mom, who probably just sat down on the couch to watch one of her beloved Law & Order episodes, eyes me with a pinched expression when I walk in before turning back to my father, who is standing in the middle of the room gesticulating wildly as he enumerates my transgressions in Mandarin. Alan is slouched on the floor by the coffee table, making himself as physically small as possible while pretending to do work. I was hoping that the minutes I spent sitting in the car would have given my dad time to get the whole story out, but he’s just getting started.
“Nide nuer pianle women.” Your daughter lied to us, my dad tells my mom. She wasn’t at the library at all. She left her bicycle at the library unchained, after all the people were gone! It could have been stolen! I had to get out that stupid bike rack that is such a hassle to put on. And then a car comes in and just sits there, and when I go up to see if our daughter is in it, she is kissing. A boy!
“Aiyo,” my mother exclaims, glancing over at me. For a split second she seems almost excited. Then her eyes narrow, and she asks my dad who it was.