half a dozen times; I just have to wait for a good moment, a lull in the night, when we’re all feeling pretty good.
It was going to be fine; Mariam kept telling me that.
Everything was going to be fine and I was finally going to get this huge thing off my chest and it was going to be great and they’d respect what I was telling them.
And it was all going to be fine.
I keep telling myself that now is the right moment. Over and over again as the movie keeps playing and commercial breaks keep coming. But every time I open my mouth, the words fail me, and I can’t force them out.
I shouldn’t be scared.
But for some reason I am, no matter how much I’ve willed myself to not be. I can’t get over this feeling. Maybe it’s an omen or something. A sign that I shouldn’t do this. Except I have to do this. I can’t explain it; I just feel it inside me. And underneath all that, I really do think it’ll all be okay.
It’s cheesy, but I wait until the end of the movie, when everyone is together and happy and I see a smile on Mom’s face.
Dad looks indifferent, but he pretty much always looks that way.
It has to be now. I can actually feel it.
“Hey, I wanted to talk to you two about something,” I say, my voice really dry.
“Okay.” Mom leans back on the couch, tucking her legs underneath her and balancing her head in the palm of her hand. “What’s up?”
Dad reaches for the remote and turns the volume on the TV down.
“I …” I can do this. Just keep breathing.
There’s that tightness in my stomach, like something is just twisting and twisting and it won’t let go until the moment is over. And everything will unravel, and I’ll feel free.
“I wanted to tell you two something.”
Dad looks at me now.
This is it.
It’s kinda funny actually; the script I wrote for myself, the one I typed in Word so I’d cover everything I wanted to, it’s just totally gone from my memory now. Like someone zapped it all away.
Maybe that’s for the best; maybe this is how I’ll be the most honest with them.
If it just comes from me and not some rehearsed version of myself, maybe that will help; maybe that’ll be better?
I tell them. Slowly.
At first, relief floods over me. I think I can actually feel myself relax.
I just wish that feeling could’ve lasted longer.
“Please pick up. Please pick up,” I whisper into the receiver of the pay phone, bracing against the sharp chill of the night, watching the glow of Christmas lights still hanging in shopwindows, even though it’s New Year’s Eve.
Just an hour, that’s all it’d taken for my life to crumble around me. And now I’m here, walking around downtown without any shoes, calling collect to a sister I haven’t seen, let alone spoken to, in a decade.
“Hello?” Hannah’s voice sounds tired, but it isn’t even that late yet. At least, I don’t think it is; I don’t have a watch. And my phone is sitting at home on my nightstand, charging, because the battery is total crap.
“Hannah, it’s me.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me,” I whisper. Of course. She wouldn’t know my voice, not anymore. Hell, she probably wouldn’t even recognize me. “It’s Ben.”
There’s a slip, or noise, or something on her end. “Ben? What are you—”
I cut her off. “Can you come get me?”
“What? Why? What’s going on?”
“Hannah.” I look around. The sidewalk is totally empty, probably thanks to the sinking temperatures. Everyone else is inside, somewhere nice and warm. And here I am slowly losing the feeling in my toes, trying my absolute hardest not to shiver from the sharp gusts of wind.
“Ben, are you still there? Where are you?”
“Outside Twin Hill Pizza.” I tuck my hands under my armpits, balancing the phone between my cheek and shoulder. There’s some more rustling on her end, and the sound of someone else talking.
“What in the actual hell are you doing there? It’s like thirty degrees outside.”
“Mom and Dad kicked me out.”
The line goes silent, and for a second, I think the call dropped without warning. Oh God, I don’t know if calling this way will work a second time.
“What?” Her voice almost seems emotionless, the way it’d get when she was truly, needlessly enraged. Usually with Dad about something that didn’t call for it. “Why would they do that?”