Knee Pads - Chapter 14: Chapter 14

Katrina had successfully managed to corner me.
At least, she'd had the decency to do so when I was by myself, with a minimal amount of people around us, and I knew this wouldn't get out into the world, as it was mortifying enough even when I was the only one who knew it. Granted, Corinne kind of knew about it, kind of didn't, choosing to be pettily cryptic instead and denying she was doing it, and that was all the Corinne-induced frustration I could deal with at the moment.
Katrina Stone, my beloved, didn't have a mean bone in her body, and I could count on her to not make a big deal out of things, but I wasn't sure I wanted to trust anyone with this knowledge. It was honestly embarrassing and Katrina had known Corinne for way longer than I had; surely, she would be able to tell me just how badly I'd screwed things up.
"Can we . . . not do this here? Please?" I asked. "I really need to take a shower."
Her eyes widened. "Wow, okay, I'm definitely counting that as confirmation. I was just messing with you at first, but I was expecting you to either deny it or ironically admit to it just to get me to shut up." I groaned, pulling her away towards the showers by an arm. "Oooooh, this is juicy. Since when? I thought you hated her—"
"I don't hate her. Actually, I think I hate you a lot more."
She scoffed. "Please. It's impossible for anyone to hate me. I'm a very lovable person."
"Really? I'd beg to differ right now."
"You're stalling." She crossed her arms, leaning a shoulder against a wall. She was barely taller than me, but I still felt significantly smaller when cornered like this. "Elaborate, please. I'm all aflutter."
"Look, it's not a big deal, okay? It's really not. You're blowing everything out of proportion—"
Kat quirked an eyebrow, already skeptical. "Wren, no offense, but if it really wasn't that big of a deal, you wouldn't be freaking out nearly as much. It's only a big deal because you're making it out to be a big deal; Corinne is just a person—"
"Then why did you corner me like this? It honestly just feels like you're trying to get a reaction out of me, and you even said you thought I hated her. If anyone is making a big deal out of this, it's you." She straightened her shoulders. I hated arguing with her, as it felt horribly similar to yelling at a puppy, but my frustration was growing increasingly faster. "I don't know how it happened or why, but it just did. They're really, really small feelings, like the ones you get over that one pizza you ate at some obscure restaurant you never found again. She gave me a ride when I really needed to be somewhere in time, then we grabbed something to eat on the way back to campus."
"Why didn't you ask me? I could have given you a ride wherever you wanted to go."
I knew my personal life story would eventually come out the longer I stayed in Connecticut and was part of a tight-knit group, with people with zero sense of personal space, but this hardly felt like the right time or place to spill it all out to Katrina. I'd like it to come out on my own terms, the words spilling out of my own mouth out of my free will, not maliciously whispered and treated as hot, petty gossip.
This would not be the moment when I'd do it.
"It's complicated," I said. It was the easiest way I could explain it, and I'd learned to keep things vague enough to not make anyone wonder too much. "It was a family matter, and I don't know this place well enough to not get lost. She overheard me arguing with my mother on the phone and just . . . offered me a ride. I would have asked you for a ride had she not been there."
"Okay. So, she gave you a ride so you could deal with your family, then you went out for dinner. That sounds innocent enough."
"Yeah, well. I think things would be a lot easier if I could just hate her. I don't know how it happened, but . . . it's been growing. She's been growing on me." I ran my hands through my hair, brushing it away from my face in frustration. I could only hope I wasn't getting all flustered while discussing this in a locker room, out of all places, but I could blame it on the heat and humidity. She wouldn't buy it, not fully, but she'd, at least, pretend to for a little bit. "It was easier when she felt so one-dimensional to me I couldn't even look at her that way." I fell to a bench, leaning forward, and set my elbows on my knees. "Did you know about her and Marley?"
Kat sat next to me, with a leg beneath her. "Yeah. Everyone does. I think some of the girls expected some drama to come out after that sorority party at the beginning of the school year, but Corinne wasn't bothered." She paused, then threw me an almost apologetic look. "You know, because of Drew."
"Drew."
"Look . . ." She wrapped an arm around me and I realized, with scorching daggers going straight through my heart, that it was one of the worst things she could have done. Even if it was an act of comfort, part of it just felt a bit too condescending, like she was pitying me for liking a girl with a boyfriend. "I'm saying this because I care about you and I don't want you to get hurt, but I know how it's going to sound. Corinne and Drew are the kind of people that get married after college. I don't really see it happening any other way, but I really wish I did. I know it sucks." I sucked in a shaky breath, wondering when I'd turned this soft. I wouldn't cry over Corinne Fontaine, ever. "I'm all for the two of you being friends and no longer being at each other's throats, though, so that's the silver lining. I'm sorry, babe."
Against my better judgment, I gave into temptation and leaned into the hug. It went against everything I'd ever thought possible, everything I'd ever thought would happen to me when we moved across the country, but I clung to Katrina like a lifeline, unable to not feel like a tidal wave would wash over me at any moment. It was stupid—I certainly felt incredibly stupid—and there was no possible way things could move as fast as they had, but I was beginning to think my feelings were slightly stronger than I'd previously thought.
A crush wouldn't leave me feeling nearly this shipwrecked.
I liked my banter with Corinne. It was funny, a dynamic that kept us both entertained, especially when intertwined with friendlier, more genuine moments that proved to both of us there was more to it than just mere tolerance. Once we'd realized we were friends, once we'd realized we'd grown to care about one another, things would change. Maybe in another life, there could have been more.
In this life, I'd never stood a chance.
"Come on," Kat said, tugging at my arm. "Go take a shower. I'll take you out for a nice meal."
"Can't you just take me out? Like, knock me out cold?"
"Absolutely not. I'm not letting you mope over this."
▂ ▂ ▂ ▂ ▂
There was another family therapy session in November, right before the Thanksgiving break, again with disastrous results.
As previously witnessed, my parents took every comment about the family dynamic personally, treating it as personal attacks instead of a mere statement about the way we treated and communicated with each other, which ended up proving Doctor Nguyen's point. This left Jordan and I with nowhere to turn to, while Doctor Nguyen remained calm and impassive, refusing to take the bait and be dragged into an argument, when that was far from being the main goal of these sessions.
"You're missing the point," I tried to argue, exasperated. "These aren't criticisms about who you are as individual people; it's about how we function as a family—"
"Nonsense," my father chimed in, before I even got to complete that sentence. "We've done things our way for years now, just like our parents did with us. If this—all of this—was caused by these 'dynamics'"—he drew the air quotes with his fingers—"then why is everyone else fine? Why did this only happen now? Jordan started drinking after his injury. It doesn't take a Psychology degree to put two and two together and figure it out, Doctor."
"Have you ever stopped to think about how these dynamics only made things worse for him, then?" I continued, ignoring how he had tossed the hot potato of the argument towards Doctor Nguyen. "It also doesn't take a Psychology degree to explain the sheer amount of pressure the two of you have put on Jordan and me for years now."
"If anything, we believed in your potential and didn't want you to throw it all away for nothing," my mother argued. "Pushing you two to be the best version of yourselves isn't bad parenting. It would have been a lot worse if we'd left you to your own devices and let you be careless. Jordan even had a college scholarship."
"Like we've ever had money problems—"
"Mrs. Wu, no one is questioning your parenting," Doctor Nguyen intervened. Both me and my parents were boiling with anger, on the edge of our seats, while Jordan could barely keep up with the screaming and the crying, head turning from side to side like we were playing tennis. "Whatever your intentions might have been, it's important to consider how they were executed and how they were perceived by your children. Different people might interpret the same situation in different ways."
"Tell me, Doctor Nguyen." My mother crossed her legs, hands set over knees, and I knew Doctor Nguyen was fighting a losing battle. It was a constant cycle of her trying to be reasonable, only to be quickly shot down by two people who refused to listen or admit to any wrongdoings. "Do you have any children?"
Doctor Nguyen straightened her back. "No, I do not."
"Then how are we supposed to take your word as evidence of anything, when you have no parenting experience? Who are you to tell us we're bad parents, or that we're to blame for all of this? It wasn't our parenting that turned Jordan into an alcoholic, and it wasn't our parenting that made him throw a bottle at Wren—"
"I'm a certified family therapist who has been in the business for over ten years. I've studied, I've written papers and books, and I've worked closely with families for a long time. I don't need to be a parent to study families and their dynamics, just like you don't have to be a licensed therapist to be able to examine your functioning. I'm here to help you with that, but only as long as you let me. I cannot force you to do so against your will, but everyone in this room agreed this would be beneficial for Jordan's recovery." That shut her up nicely. If I wasn't dreading confrontation, I would have applauded in support and agreement. "No one is here to point fingers at anyone, but I need you two to understand that studies have shown that certain aspects of family functioning can contribute and exacerbate substance abuse. The abuse itself will also affect the family as a whole, and it's a cycle of snowballing. This is no one's fault, but it's on all of us to help Jordan and the family."
To Doctor Nguyen's credit, she did try. She kept trying for the remainder of the session, but my parents had decided to turn a blind eye on their own behavior patterns, the one they were so proud to have carried with themselves for generations, and little to no progress had been made.
On the other hand, I could see where I had been affected and where I had affected Jordan. I'd spent a long time trying to protect him from the world, from any negative consequences that could come to him, and, in a way, I'd once thought I could fix him. I'd thought I could help him heal, just the two of us, like it had always been, but there came a time when I had to acknowledge my powerlessness and define some boundaries. Up until we moved, up until he'd thrown that bottle at me, our limits had been so meshed together it was hard to separate me from him, even though I kept both parts of my life perfectly separated when it came to other people; no one else got involved in my home, personal life.
Until they did. Until the day I nearly lost Theo.
So, in a way, I'd enabled him. Whatever my intentions had been, they had completely backfired, and had, in part, landed us all here.
Outside, Katrina wasn't the one waiting for me.
I hadn't stuck around to chat with my parents and give them an excuse to be borderline rude to Corinne one more time, especially when I'd come to her with my tail between my legs and a heavy dose of embarrassment to ask her for a ride. She didn't hang around for long, either, never giving my parents a chance to acknowledge her presence outside of the clinic once more, and, as quick as a blink, we were out of there.
She knew damn well how exhilarating her presence was. Being around her left me in a constant electrified state, like I could catch on fire just by standing near her, and I was so exhausted of pretending it wasn't happening. Now that I knew she was well aware of it and knew I didn't stand a chance with her, I was determined to keep those stupid feelings stagnated and hope they'd go away. Not arguing with her—genuine arguing, not the friendly banter that amused us both—was relieving, a nice change I'd gratefully welcomed.
We didn't stop for dinner. I wasn't in the mood for a salad, courtesy of Coach Fontaine's detailed and demanding meal plan, and she didn't try to convince me to do so, so we headed straight back to campus. She was unusually quiet, lacking the Corinne sparkle, and, out of courtesy, I didn't ask any questions. If we truly were friends, I needed her to know I was concerned about her, as this somberness hardly felt natural, but I'd be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I tried to press her for information.
"How did it go?" she asked, once we'd hopped off the bike and had taken off the helmets.
"The usual," I replied. "People argued. People cried."
She flashed me a weak smile. "Sounds brutal."
"It was. My parents can be . . . intense. I'm sure you noticed." She hummed, holding the door open for me as we entered the dorm. My stomach was growling, but, mentally, I didn't have much of an appetite. "Do you want to stay with us for a while, hang out with me and Kat, if you don't have anything better to do?"
She shrugged, now that we were standing right outside of my room. "Sure. I need to pick up a book from my room, but I can come back right after." Corinne abruptly stopped. "It seems like you have a visitor."
"Huh?"
I turned to face the door, but Kat was the only person I saw. At first, at least. Then, when I pushed the door open just enough to let me see what Corinne had seen, I quickly realized what she was talking about.
"Hey, stranger," Theo greeted, sprawled out on my bed. "Missed me?"