The Freshmen - 23. Chapter 23

September 12, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Will

“Will,” I heard Casey calling. He’d followed me out of the dining room. “This is not your fault.”

“Looks like I’m down to two brothers now,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “I have done so much for him, put up with his endless bullshit, and in the end, it doesn’t matter to him at all.”

“I suspect that he was just lashing out at everyone,” Casey said.

“No fucking way,” I said, probably too loudly. “He doesn’t get a pass on this. You can try to brush this off, but I’m not buying that bullshit.”

“I didn’t mean to excuse his behavior,” Casey said. “Now come on.” He wanted me to go into Grand’s study with him, but all I wanted to do was run off and try to digest this.

“I just want to escape to my room,” I said, but it was almost a whine, and that annoyed me enough to do what he said. “Fine.”

We started walking to the study when my father, Jake, Stef, and Grand walked out of the dining room and joined us. “Are you alright?” Dad asked.

“Casey’s going to try and talk me off the ledge,” I said, and gave him a wry smile. “You guys can join us.” It would be better to have them there. I wanted their perspectives, and that way I wouldn’t have to spend a bunch of time telling them what we ended up talking about.

“I will be right there,” Stef said. “I have a quick call to make.”

“That’s fine,” I said. We walked in and I went over to Grand’s desk, took a notepad and a pen, then sat down and started making notes.

“What are you doing?” Grand asked.

“I’m making a list of all the things I need to do, starting with getting a different plane to take me to Boston tomorrow,” I said.

“I’m sure he’ll apologize to you before then,” Dad said.

“I don’t give a shit what he does; I am not going to be in that close of proximity to him,” I said. He sighed. “Don’t you give me that fucking attitude!”

Grand cleared his throat to warm me that I had exceeded, by far, his noise threshold, then spoke calmly. “I am very upset that JJ treated you the way he did, and I want to hear how you’re dealing with it, but I would like to do that at a respectable volume level.”

“I’ll try to do better,” I said ruefully. “My mood is like it was after 9-11. It’s those rages.” I’d hated them when they happened back in 2001, and I hated that they were happening to me now.

“Rages?” Casey asked, since I hadn’t been seeing him when they’d happened.

“I get really angry, almost uncontrollably so, and I lash out, then my mood calms down again until something triggers it again,” I explained. “The last time this happened was when a different brother totally betrayed me.”

“Matt,” Casey concluded. He remembered because he’d been working with Matt after 9-11, or at least after Matt had pulled his head out of his ass enough to go see someone. “Was JJ’s betrayal worse than Matt’s?” That was so typical of Casey, to try to dive into the details, but I appreciated his approach because that made me think about things in broader terms.

“I don’t know,” I said, even as I thought about it. “I think it was the same. Matt screwed me over because he didn’t really give a shit about me, and JJ is doing the same thing, only with him, it’s like he’s happy he has a reason to disown me. I don’t think Matt was ever good with my being out of his life.”

“I didn’t think he disowned you,” Grand said. “Perhaps I heard him wrong.”

“He said ‘we’re not even related’ and that I wasn’t really his brother in a tone that showed he thought I was totally beneath him,” I said. “Or did you miss that part?”

“I didn’t miss anything,” he said in annoyance. “I said I may have heard him wrong.”

He was being a little bitchy, so I decided to make myself feel a little better by staying on the offensive. “I would have thought you’d be tuned in enough about things to realize that people can be a little more insecure when there’s no formal blood tie.” He knew I was talking about both my father and me.

“I am quite aware of that,” Grand said in a snippy way, revealing that beneath his placid exterior he was seriously vexed with this whole situation.

“He may not understand that, but I certainly do,” Dad said angrily, because he periodically questioned whether he was really a part of the family or not.

“I understand the context,” Grand snapped in irritation. Stef liked to see Grand get trapped and embattled like this, so it totally sucked that he wasn’t here to witness this.

Dad ignored him. “I also understand why this is a big deal to you.”

“You do?” I asked, surprised.

“You told me about one of your sessions with Dr. Anderson where you two decided that your family was like the Borg Collective and when you were detached it was painful,” Dad said, making me smile as I thought about that Star Trek analogy. “When Matt treated you like you weren’t a member of the family, you reacted rather violently.”

“Just a little bit,” I acknowledged wryly.

“JJ just did the same thing to you,” he concluded.

“He did,” I agreed. “He was more than happy to have me out of his life. I wonder who he’s going to get to be his punching bag now.”

“I do not think he wants you out of his life,” Jake offered gently. I was going to argue with him, but it would be futile, so I just moved away from what had happened and focused on the consequences.

“I cannot be around him,” I insisted. “If I see him, I will hit him.”

“Violence does not solve problems,” Grand cautioned. “And I will remind you that it is unacceptable in this house.”

“No, but sometimes, in that moment, it can be very satisfying,” Jake said.

I smiled at him to thank him for appreciating my situation. “I know it’s not allowed here. That’s why I said I need to not be around him.”

“Will you be able to attend dinner tonight and not turn it into a brawl?” Grand asked.

“I don’t know if I can do that and be civil to him,” I said. “Maybe I should just skip it.”

“This is your and Marie’s going away dinner, so everyone else will be disappointed if you don’t show up,” Dad observed. “At the same time, if JJ does not attend, that means Kris will most likely not show up either.”

Stef chose that moment to walk in. “I am sorry I was delayed,” he said smoothly.

“We were just sitting here trying to talk Will into not pummeling JJ at dinner,” Jake said, making me chuckle. I normally wasn’t a violent person, but the thought of smashing my fist into JJ’s smarmy face was mighty appealing.

I sighed as I worked my way through the issue. “I can see the basic problem. Just keep him at the opposite end of the table, and I’ll try to deal with him,” I said. “It would be helpful if one of you told him to stay the fuck away from me and not to fucking talk to me.”

“Stef or I will talk to JJ and caution him about his behavior,” Grand said. “Perhaps we can fly JJ and Kris back on the Falcon.”

“I am not sure that will work,” Stef said, and looked at my father. “The Falcon is busy right now.” I wondered what he was up to, but the conversation continued before I had a chance to think about it.

“They can take my plane,” Dad said.

“Thank you,” I replied.

“What would it take for JJ to repair his relationship with you?” Casey asked.

“I need to not think about him for a while,” I said, then felt a rage forming. “I have enough shit to deal with right now, and he doesn’t get to live rent-free in my brain. This is just like it was with Matt. I need him to stay the fuck away from me until I can stand to even look at him. Then I need to decide if I even want a relationship with him.”

“You will pardon me for noting that you already have a relationship with him,” Casey said. “He’s your brother.”

“No, I don’t. He just made that very clear at lunch. And I will explain it to you just like I told these guys before when I was dealing with Matt. How I deal with JJ is my call, not anyone else’s,” I said, and once again, I was at Grand’s volume threshold. I sighed, and the fact that they waited for me to calm down improved my mood enough to think logically. Only then the guilt hit me. “I’m sorry I got upset.”

“I understand,” Casey said. “It’s okay. Maybe you and I can meet later, just the two of us, and then you can yell as loudly as you want.” I actually chuckled at that.

“Come on,” Travis said, as he stood up and held out his hand. I smiled at him, stood up, and we walked out of the room together. Just like I watched out for him and his introversion overload, so he sensed my need to escape and bailed me out.

“You make everything good,” I said to him, and led him out to the stables. “Let’s go for a ride.” I knew he would appreciate doing something physical after all of our drama, and I wasn’t in the mood for sex right now.

“I like that idea,” he said. We changed quickly while they saddled up Psyche and one of the mares. “I still don’t think I can ride Charger.” It bugged him that he wasn’t quite good enough to handle Grand’s stallion yet.

“When I first went riding with Wade, I was so jealous of how good he was with Charger, while at the time I could barely control him,” I told him. “After a while, I realized that, while Wade was a great rider, the real reason he handled Charger so well was because he got to know him.”

“You and that horse are bonded,” Travis said, referring to Psyche and me.

“We are. I’m going to miss her almost as much as I’ll miss you,” I said. I immediately regretted opening that painful topic again. He usually cried when he thought about it.

“I’m not as unhappy about it as I was before,” he said.

“You mean I bugged the fuck out of you so much that you’re not sad that I’m leaving?” I asked, kind of joking, but kind of not.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he said, shaking his head at me for being an idiot. “I know I’ll get to see you every couple of weeks. That takes the sting out of it a bit.”

“I know,” I agreed. “Do me a favor: don’t stay with JJ.”

He laughed. “I’ll get a hotel, or an apartment.”

“I am super-stoked that you’ll be in New York and that means I can see you,” I said.

“It might be better if you came to visit me there, instead of me coming up to Boston,” he said nervously.

“Why would that be better?” I asked. That made no sense at all.

“I just don’t want to show up in Boston and bug you,” he said.

“How would you bug me?” I asked. “Seriously?”

“I mean, you may have plans with friends, or someone else,” he said nervously.

“So. Then you’ll come along,” I said.

“What if you’re going out with someone?” he asked. And this was what he was dancing around: he was worried that he’d have to compete with someone else for my attention, and if he came to town and I blew him off, it would hurt him badly. I totally got that, because I felt the same way.

“Travis, if I made a commitment, like it was something I said I’d do and I’d let the dude down by blowing him off, I’d have to honor it,” I said, and pulled Psyche back so she stopped, and his horse mimicked her moves. “But otherwise, I’d rather hang out with you.”

“I guess I just need to make sure you know my schedule,” he said.

“You know, the same thing could happen to me,” I said, unwilling to be portrayed as the slut of this relationship. “I could breeze into LA or New York and you could be with someone too.”

“I think I’ll play it just like you said,” he told me, and seemed happy that we’d worked that out. But I needed more, and he finally understood that. “And I promise that you have my heart, one hundred percent.”

“I love you,” I said, and moved Psyche over so I could lean into him and give him a kiss.

“I love you,” he responded, then spurred his horse, which prompted us to tear off over the fields. I kept visualizing us as half naked cowboys frolicking across the terrain, and I laughed so hard I almost fell off the horse.

 

September 12, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

JJ

Kris and I left the dining room after the nightmare that was lunch and walked back to our room. While he seemed to be a little out of sorts, I was just biding my time to go off on these people. The door shut and I turned to him, fire in my eyes. “Do you see now why I hate coming back here?” I demanded. “Nothing good ever happens when I visit. Nothing.”

“Tough day for both of us,” he said sadly.

“Not as tough as it’s going to be,” I said. “They kept me in the dark about this. Shit, I put up with my father and his bullshit for years, and I didn’t even have to. All of his control issues, his constant manipulation of my life…all of that was totally unnecessary.”

“I mean…” he began.

“They will pay for this,” I vowed. “All of them.”

“Well, you pretty much got rid of Will, which is sad,” he said.

“What do you mean I got rid of him?” I demanded. “He’ll get over it. He was just putting on a show for everyone.”

“That doesn’t seem like his deal,” Kris suggested. “I think you really hurt his feelings.” Feelings? He’s worried about Will’s feelings? What about my feelings? Why did Will’s feelings get priority?

“Will knew about this. I could tell,” I spat. “He’s just as bad as the rest.”

“J, I want to be there for you right now, but I have to tackle all of this shit that was laid on me,” he said apologetically. So his problems were worse than my problems? I’d been all supportive of him, but when I needed his help, he tells me to fuck off?

“Fine,” I said. “Thanks a lot.” I got up, walked out of the room, and slammed the door behind me, ignoring his calls for me to come back. I went into one of the guest rooms, locked the door, lay on the bed and threw a tantrum, one of the best ways for me to work off my rage. All that exertion calmed me down enough and the stress of the whole situation overwhelmed me, so I actually went to sleep for an hour. I woke up and remembered what had happened, that my father was Jim Crampton and that no one had bothered to tell me that, and I got mad all over again.

I went back to our room so Kris could apologize for not taking my needs seriously, but when I got there I found not just Kris, but Grand and Stef. Kris glared at me, but I just glared back at him because he was so on my shit list. I’d been amazingly nice to him about being the spawn of Nazi peasants who ultimately ended up spying for the communists. “I am glad you have returned. We need to have a conversation,” Stef said.

“So converse,” I said, throwing out some serious bitchiness.

“Will is unwilling to be near you, so that presents some problems with our dinner tonight and your trip home,” Stef said.

“Why is him being a total drama queen a problem for me?” I asked.

“Can you not be a total douche?” Kris asked. “Christ!” He got up and went into the bathroom. I heard the door close and the lock click. I rolled my eyes at him. He was probably being sensitive because of the issues with his own family. I didn’t need his opinions on how I dealt with my own relatives.

“Why am I the villain in this thing? Jim Crampton is my father because he impregnated his niece, and no one tells me that. For 18 years I’ve been living a lie,” I said, starting to get on a roll. “I haven’t even thought about inbreeding issues. I’m genetically flawed and this is all my fault?”

“And if you had known Jim was your biological father a year ago, or maybe two years ago, how would it have changed anything?” Stef asked me.

“That’s not the point,” I said, because I didn’t have an answer for his question.

“You want to rant and rave about who knew what, and when,” Grand said. “In the meantime, you have almost destroyed your relationship with your brother, seriously damaged your relationship with your father, and appear to be irritating your boyfriend.”

“How have I damaged my relationship with my father?” I demanded.

“When your father returned from Paris after you were born, you were still in the hospital,” Stef said. It slowly started to dawn on me how mad both of them were. “As you were premature, you spent a considerable amount of time there before you could come home.”

“Maybe that’s because I’m genetically mutated,” I said.

“It was more likely triggered by your mother’s excessive drug use,” Grand said. Right after Grand said that, Kris emerged from the bathroom and stood off to the side, so it was like there was a triangle, with me at one point, Kris at another, and Stef and Grand at the third.

“In any event, your father agreed to assume parental responsibilities for you since it was obvious that your mother could not,” Stef said. “He took care of you, loved you, and raised you as his own son. And you all but spit in his face.”

“He also tried to control and manipulate my life, every step of it,” I said acidly. “And worst of all, he kept this a secret from me.”

“So you expected him to be perfect?” Stef asked just as sourly.

“He always loved Will and Darius more,” I said. “To him, I was an obligation, not a true son.”

“That is unfair and untrue,” Stef said, and in a rare event, he actually raised his voice. “I have been his confidant as he tackled the challenges you have thrown at him. I have seen him fight hard for you. There was never a time when he wasn’t in your corner.”

“Unless I was arguing with Will,” I spat back in a bratty way.

“I do not think you want to listen; you just want to rant, as I noted before,” Grand said. “I am not inclined to give you an audience for that performance. Instead, I will focus on logistical issues.”

That was incredibly rude. He wouldn’t put up with that kind of behavior, but he expected me to? But I was tired of fighting with these people who had already decided, as usual, that I was wrong and Will was right. “Fine,” I said, then folded my arms in defiance.

“As noted, Will is unwilling to be in a space where he is near you,” Grand said. “For dinner tonight, we have put you at opposite ends of the table.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “And am I allowed to talk at dinner?”

“We are requesting that you do not address comments to Will, or make comments about him,” Grand said. “We would appreciate it if you would thus not provoke him.”

“And what about him? Does he have to be nice to me too?” I demanded.

“I suspect that he will pretend that you don’t exist,” Stef said. Man was he mad. Then again, he always took Will’s side over mine. “If you annoy him, he may possibly become infuriated enough to lash out at you physically.”

“They mean that he will kick your ass,” Kris added unhelpfully.

“And that’s alright? You’re fine with that? You’d just stand there and let him pound me into a bloody blob?” I asked.

“We are talking to you now to try to prevent that from happening,” Stef said.

“The bottom line is that if you cannot go to dinner and ignore Will and avoid saying things that will provoke him, we will have dinner sent up to you,” Grand said, then turned to Kris. “You are welcome regardless.”

“Thanks, I’ll be there, regardless,” Kris said, giving me a dirty look. So he’d go down and eat with my family while I sat in my room and nibbled on carrots? What the fuck?

“Tomorrow, your father’s plane will fly you and Kris back to New York,” Grand said. “Stef’s plane will take Will and Marie to Boston.”

“So we get kicked down to Dad’s plane?” I asked, shaking my head in annoyance.

“It’s a Gulfstream!” Kris said. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s still not as nice as the Airbus,” I snapped. I looked at Kris, then at Grand, then at Stef. All of them were so angry at me, I decided that it was pointless to continue this conversation. “I can work with that.”

“Thank you,” Grand said, then they left.

“You know, all of this you brought on yourself,” Kris said. “The only good thing is that you created so much drama you distracted me from thinking about how fucked up my own life is.” He gave me a withering look, then left the room, shutting the door behind him carefully. I’d have slammed the damn thing. I stomped my foot in rage, then went back to making my list of things to do to avenge myself on these people who had fucked me over so badly.

September 12, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Brad

I sat on the patio with Jake, sipping my gin and tonic, pondering how this whole day had turned to shit. “You don’t deserve this,” Jake said supportively. I smiled at him to thank him for being in my corner.

“I did not see this coming at all,” I said to him. “I actually thought I had a good plan for when to tell JJ that Jim was his father. I really don’t know why he reacted so badly.”

“I’m not Casey, but I’ll play amateur psychologist,” Jake said to me. “He had just watched Kris in agony over his whole background being blown up. I was proud of how well JJ backed him up. Then he turns around and finds out that his own lineage is not what he thought it was. I’m guessing he conflated those things, and that’s why he’s so upset.”

“You mean part of this is because he’s worried about Kris?” I asked, trying to see how that was a reasonable conclusion.

“I was thinking it was because he was stressed out about Kris,” Jake corrected.

“He has always been the hardest son for me to understand,” I said.

“I’m surprised,” Jake said. “I would have thought Will would have been the most difficult.

“Will is the most difficult, but I understand him,” I said, getting a chuckle from Jake. “JJ and I are so different. He’s an artist, and I’m a businessman.”

“You’re an artist too,” he reminded me.

“Not a very good one,” I said, although my time with Marc had really improved my skills. “I’m talking about our basic personalities. JJ does not let logic dominate his life. I do, unless I’m fucked up for some stupid reason.”

“You say you don’t understand him, but it sounds like you actually do,” Jake said.

“Maybe that was a bad way to phrase it. I understand him; I just can’t relate to him well,” I said, getting a little more clarity. “Why doesn’t it bother me more that he’s all but called me an asshole and written me off?”

“Because deep down, you know he doesn’t feel that way,” Jake said. “Right now, he’s freaking out and bouncing from emotion to emotion. When he settles down, he’ll make his peace with you.”

“I was afraid that it was because he’s such a pain in the ass I was almost happy not to have to worry about him,” I joked, even though I was concerned that it wasn’t a joke.

“I think that’s more Will’s deal,” Jake said. “Did he react this badly with Matt?”

“I think he was actually better with Matt,” I said. “At dinner after Will found out that Matt had fucked Tony, Matt offered Will a pretty lame apology. Will accepted it to keep the peace and told Matt to stay away from him. It was funny because everyone expected this major explosion, and it ended up being a few tense minutes then things calmed back down.”

“Stef must have felt so cheated at the lack of drama,” Jake joked, cracking me up.

“That situation was so volatile, and had the potential to completely blow up the family, that I think he was actually relieved,” I said.

“So why didn’t Will handle JJ the same way?” Jake asked.

I took a minute to ponder that before answering. “Well first of all, JJ hasn’t apologized, so there’s really nothing for Will to work with.”

“I can see that,” Jake said. “When he does, do you think Will is going to handle it differently than he did with Matt?”

“I don’t know if JJ will finally see the light on this, but I expect he will, if for no other reason than Kris will probably explain it to him,” I said. I had been impressed so far with how good those two were as a couple.

“I think Kris is probably pretty angry at JJ right now,” Jake offered.

“Probably, but he has his own things to worry about,” I said. “I think that Will’s more violent reaction this time is because his feelings for JJ are deeper than they were for Matt.”

“Will and Matt seem really close,” Jake objected.

“They are now, they weren’t before 9-11,” I said. “They are a lot alike, so it surprised all of us that they weren’t tight, but they never really seemed to like each other all that much.”

“So what changed?” Jake asked.

“Matt finally understood why Will was so pissed off at him and he apologized sincerely ,” I said. “After that, they spent a lot of time together, and learned to appreciate each other.”

“Maybe the same thing will happen with Will and JJ,” Jake suggested.

“I think Matt is much better at mirroring himself than JJ is, but we can hope,” I said skeptically.