The Unfortunate Occurence at Shenandoah High 2020 - 15. Chapter 15

"So, how long is he going to sleep?"

I'm waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. Dad's at the kitchen table. He's in his Saturday morning clothes which consists of a bathrobe, his favorite pair of Daffy Duck pajamas pants and his reading glasses. Our local newspaper is open in front of him.

Andy’s still passed out. As expected, Dad was up waiting for us when the three of us got home. I'm kind of surprised how chill he's being about the drunk kid in our den.

"I can go wake him up," I say.

I pull mine and Dad's coffee cups down from the cabinet above the stove.

"No, just let him sleep."

"I appreciate you letting him crash here."

"I'd want someone to do the same for you if you were in his condition."

I pour coffee into both our cups and then add sugar and cream to mine. Dad likes his black. I take the chair across from him and slide his cup across the table.

"Dad, do you remember when I came out a few years ago?"

Dad looks up from the paper. His glasses keep sliding to the edge of his nose and ever so often he pushes them back closer to his face.

"Yeah," he says. "Hands down the most memorable Thanksgiving dinner I've ever had."

The two of us laugh before we take the first sips of our coffee.

"What about it?" Dad asks.

"I remember you saying I could come and talk to you about anything.”

"I do remember that," he says. "Is there something you want to talk about?"

I chew on my bottom lip and look down. The tablecloth is light blue with sunflowers and hasn't been changed since Mom.

"I had a drink last night."

"You had a drink?"

"Actually it was a Jell-O shot," I say. "Not that that makes it any better but I just want to be honest with you."

Dad doesn't say anything. The look on his face is completely unreadable.

"Please don't be upset. I'm already mad enough at myself. I know better. Most importantly I broke your promise."

He takes another sip of his coffee and then sits the cup down. He scratches his hair and finally makes eye contact with me.

"Is there a particular reason why you did it?"

Why exactly did I take the Jell-O shot? I’ve tried so hard to suppress the memories of last night but they are at the front of my mind. I can still feel Finn's breath against my face. His lips against mine.

"Have you ever wanted something so badly and you actually got it?" I ask.

Dad nods his head.

"Well last night I finally got something I've been wanting for a really long time but then everything turned bad."

"What happened?"

I shrug and look down again.

"There's this guy I like ..."

"Finn Montgomery," he says.

When Dad sees my eyes go wide he then says, "You and Keisha talk really loud."

I'm speechless so Dad asks, "So ... what about Finn?"

"I kissed him."

"This was last night?"

I nod and say, "He told me he liked me and so I kissed him."

"Was this your first kiss?" Dad asks.

I notice him shifting in his chair. I imagine this is new territory for him. Everett wasn't exactly the let's talk about our feelings kind of kid growing up. He was more the shut up and leave me alone kind of kid.

"Yeah," I say. "It was. I'm pretty sure it was his first kiss, too. With a guy I mean."

"Is that all that happened?" Dad asks, a tinge of nervousness in his voice.

"No," I say.

"Um, Tristan - I meant it when I said you could tell me anything but as your father I don't think I'm quite ready to talk about ... I just want you to be safe. That's all I'm saying."

"Oh no," I say reaching across the table and placing my hand on top of his. "That's not what I mean. No, no we didn't do ... that."

"Well thank God," Dad says a grin spreading across his scruffy face. "I'm not quite ready to have that talk yet. Maybe when you're thirty."

"Same," I say. "No - what I meant is that after we kissed, this guy from our theater class caught us."

"Oh. Is this guy a friend?"

"I wouldn't exactly call Jon-Jon a friend," I say. "He's a pretty decent guy but he seemed really surprised when he saw us. He ran off afterwards and Finn followed him and then I dropped my phone in the lake."

"You dropped your phone in the lake?"

"Long story short, my first and last high school party was a total disaster," I say. "That's why I took the Jell-O shot."

"Have you tried talking to Finn?" Dad asks.

"Well - I would but my phone is at the bottom of a lake right about now, remember?"

"Oh yeah," Dad says slapping his forehead.

"I feel so cut off from the outside world. I don't even know if Keisha made it home or not."

"She did," Dad says. "She texted this morning to say she was okay and to let you know she will be over this evening to talk."

"You'd be happy to know Keisha was completely against me drinking last night and was very disappointed when I took that shot," I say.

"Tristan - it's not just that I don't want you to drink. I'm not against it. I just want to make sure that when you are of legal drinking age when you do decide to have a drink, it's because you want to - not because someone pressured you to do it or because you had a bad day. You and I both know what I went through with Everett when he was your age."

I was in middle school when my brother was in high school. I remember waking up in the middle of the night hearing him and Dad yelling at each other because Everett had been drinking or smoking. Everett's a completely different person now courtesy of two months in juvie and several anger management classes. I do not miss the guy my brother used to be.

"I don't want to go through the same thing with you," Dad says. "I can't go through the same thing with you. I just can't."

When I hear my Dad's voice crack, something inside of me cracks as well. The last thing I ever want to do is make my dad worry. I've spent the last few years of my life making sure my dad will never have to worry about me.

"Dad - I promise I won't drink again," I say "Especially if I'm upset."

"I know," he says wiping his face with the sleeve of his bathrobe. "I'm sorry you had such a crappy night."

"Me, too."

"You feel like getting out of the house today and doing something? Maybe you can come with me to help me pick out some flowers. Feel like getting my hands dirty today."

"Sure - let me go wake up Andy," I say. "It's almost eleven. Time for him to check out of Hotel Tristan."

Dad stands up and finishes off the last of his coffee.

"I'm going to grab a shower and let's plan on heading out around noon," he says.

"Sounds like a plan."

While Dad heads upstairs, I wash both of our cups as well as the coffee pot. There's a knock at the door as I'm drying both cups. We usually don't get a lot of visitors, especially on the weekends, so I'm cautious as I walk to the front door.

Finn is standing on my front porch, hands shoved in the pockets of his letterman jacket. I don't know what to say so I ask him what he's doing here.

"I found your phone," he says and sure enough he pulls my phone out of his pocket.

"I for sure thought this was floating at the bottom of your lake," I say as he hands it over to me. It looks like he's cleaned it. It looks like it did when I first took it out of it's box.

"The creek’s not that deep," he says. "I actually read online that if you let it dry out for a bit, it should still work."

"Thanks, Finn," I say. "You didn't have to make a special trip to bring it to me. You could've just waited until Monday."

"Actually, I wanted to see you. Mind if we talk?"

"Um," I say. I look over my shoulder and see Andy curled up on the sofa. We don't need an audience for this conversation. I step out onto my front porch and close the door behind me. "Is out here okay? Andy crashed here last night and he's still here."

"Oh - yeah. Sure."

The two of us stand there on my porch, hands in our pockets, our eyes refusing to meet. This is awkward. It's like we're back to being strangers who occasionally walk past each other in the hallway.

"I want to apologize for running off like that last night," Finn says. "I shouldn't have left you by yourself but I freaked out."

"I understand," I say. "I was pretty freaked out, too."

"I want you to know that me running off had absolutely nothing to do with you and I also want you to know that I talked to Jon-Jon and he promised me who would not say anything."

"Well, that's good and all but I'm afraid he broke his promise," I say. When Finn shoots me a confused look I say, "Andy knows we kissed, Finn."

"Andy probably overheard us talking," Finn says. "We were standing outside the bathroom and when Jon-Jon left to take Leah home, Andy came out of the bathroom."

Finn reaches out and places his hand on my arm. "I'm not ashamed of what we did, Tristan."

"Good," I say rubbing my hands together. "Neither am I."

"But I have to be honest with you."

Finn looks down at his feet as he shifts the weight of his body from one foot to the other.

"This is all new to me," he continues. "For most of my life I've been attracted to girls. I remember having a crush on this girl in the fourth grade and telling my mom and she told me I was too young to be having crushes. When I first saw Emily, I was so attracted to her. I thought she was the most beautiful person I've ever seen."

Ugh - can we have a conversation without Emily Branson's name coming up?

"I remember the exact moment I saw you. It was the first day of school and I was in the front office getting a copy of my schedule and you came in and you were freaked out because you left your lunch in your dad's car and you wanted to call him."

I smile despite wanting to. I remember that. Dad ended up having to leave the hospital to come drop my lunch off.

"I remember that," I say.

"I remember Ms. Holden let you call your dad and then you left. I don't think you even noticed I was standing there."

"I definitely noticed. But when you're gay and you're a freshman starting your first day of high school, you don't make eye contact. Especially with the hot guy wearing the Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt.

"I guess we both noticed each other back then," Finn says. "Well from that moment on it was like you were everywhere. In my homeroom. In the hallways between classes. In the cafeteria. I wanted to walk up and talk to you, get to know you but I was terrified."

"Why were you terrified?"

Finn shrugs his massive shoulders. "Dunno - maybe it's because I figured out you were gay and I was scared to go near you."

"Afraid of what others would think," I say.

"Yeah," he says. "So, it was just easier to talk to the most beautiful girl at school than it was to talk to the hottest guy."

"Finn," I say. "I know you have a lot at stake here, your reputation and everything, so I understand if you ..."

"My whole life has been about maintaining a reputation. I'm Frank Montgomery's youngest son. I'm the captain of the basketball team. Everyone looks at me like I'm perfect - like having money and a little bit of popularity makes you perfect. It doesn't make you perfect. Every single move you make is carefully orchestrated. Being with Emily only made things worse. Everything had to be perfect. Our pictures had to be perfect. I had to walk on her right side and not her left side. Every single moment was planned out. We study at this time. We go to the movies at this time. It was exhausting.

"I don't want to do that anymore, Tristan. I don't want to be that person anymore."

Finn looks like he is on the verge of tears and I feel like I want to hug him. I step towards him and put my arms around him.

"Then don't be that person anymore," I say, my mouth close to his ear. "Just be Finn. Finn's a great guy."

Finn pulls back a bit and looks at me.

"Thanks," he says.

"Hey," I say. "Why don't we just take things slow for now. Zero expectations. You say you're new to all of this. Well so am I. I don't know what I'm doing either so we can kind of fumble our way through this together."

"You're right," he sniffs. He looks up at me and asks, "Are we good?"

I nod my head and say, "Yeah."

A look of relief washes over his face followed by a huge grin. "Okay, good. I was worried you wouldn't talk to me." He reaches up and scratches behind his neck. "Would you like to go grab lunch or something tomorrow ... if you're not busy."

"Sure," I say. "I'd like that. Just text me. Or better yet, message me on Facebook."

"I'll do that. Speaking of lunch, I'm supposed to meet my brother for lunch here soon. I guess I'll talk to you soon?"

"Sure," I say. "Enjoy your lunch. And thank you for bringing me my phone."

Finn is halfway down the driveway when he looks over his shoulder and winks.

"Don't mention it," he says.

I watch as he climbs into his Jeep. As soon as he turns the ignition, I can hear the loud bass and guitar coming from his stereo. He gives me a wave as he backs out of the driveway. When I no longer see him, I finally exhale. I feel like a ten-ton weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Everything that was bad about last night is good now.

If Finn wants to take things slowly, I can definitely do that, but does this technically mean that we’re dating? God, where’s Keisha when you need her?