The Art of Being a F*ck Up - Chapter 13: Chapter 13

Exams have come and gone, and I feel like a free man. Or I should, but honestly all I can think about is this time when I was like twelve that I went to stay with my uncle for a month after my dad got arrested. He had told me this dumb story about a boy who shoves his finger into this hole in a dam or some shit to keep it from breaking, which still sounds kind of dirty to me to this day, but I guess the moral is supposed to be about keeping small problems from becoming much bigger. I'm fairly certain it was meant as a warning, like maybe my dad didn't have the foresight to address those problems when he should've, but that I could be different—that I could make better choices in my life.
While it's not the kind of hole plugging I typically enjoy, I've got to hand it to Bill, because it feels like that's all I've been doing lately. Getting Maddy to help me prep for exams was a lot like sticking my fingers in those proverbial holes, she's probably the only reason I stand a fighting chance at passing this semester. I'll always be grateful for how she stayed up with me all night the day before to study, and even met me the morning of so that we could cram. It's weird, I had thought we might go back to hating each other once her empathy ran dry. I have no idea what's changed, but things are just different with her now.
They're different with Jonah too, he really seemed to take the whole competition and barricading himself in his room thing to heart. I've barely seen him in over a week and I miss him like crazy, but I try to remain happy for him in spite of all the blossoming anxieties his newfound goal is stirring up in my brain. There are so many more unknowns in my life than ever before, and I've always been too much of a coward to thrive in that, but every new day brings its own challenges. Today is no different.
"Hey, kid. You got a minute? I'd like to talk to you about something." Bill approaches my desk forlornly. It's over halfway through my shift but I'd already known to expect that something was coming—he's been peering out of his office for hours trying to work up the nerve. That's odd enough as it is, but more so when you consider that he's been back to work for a while now and acting like normal, like nothing happened. He's hardly paid me any attention in the last week either, though something has obviously changed. "Would you mind coming to my office?"
"Can't we just talk out here?" The unknown still terrifies me, especially coupled with the indecipherable look he wears. Being summoned to the principal's office is never fun, but I follow behind my uncle anyway as I comply with his request. He's never given me any reason to be distrustful of him before, though I start to question that when I join him in the office to find my dad already waiting. I glower first at Bill, the betrayal plain enough in my eyes I'm sure, and then back to my father. "What the hell is this, what did you say to him?"
"Nothing that isn't true. How stupid can you get, you really thought you were going to go a whole week without showing up and we wouldn't notice?" This is pleasurable for him, he's giddy, my dad's ecstatic to have tattled on me to teacher. What else did he expect? No matter how I tried to play it out it just made the most sense to wait until Bill got back, so that's what I did. After that I was sure my dad would return to only showing up periodically like before, but there's something different about him too now, about the both of them.
"Why would I come here just to fight with you?" I ask defensively.
"If you got a problem with me you could always quit." He counters, snidely.
"Knock it off, the both of you! That's not why we're here!" Bill pounds his fist on the desk, reeling the situation in quickly before it can very easily spiral out of either of our controls. He stares hard at his brother, a silent communication between them before my dad backs down and crosses his arms, and then he looks at me. "Eddie's right though, we've all got a job to do, you can't just stay home whenever you feel like it. Given the circumstance I think we can all agree not to make a big fuss about it, but going forward, that can't happen again. If you want to take time off you at least got to call."
"Of course you take his side," with a frustrated sigh I settle back in my chair, muttering under my breath. Bill doesn't have quite the same sway with me, but yet again I consider the difficulties that come with being trapped in the middle and it forces my hand into cooperating. "Fine, I'll call next time. Can I go now?"
"Don't act so smart." He replies dully, not at all amused with my attitude. I think it must be that at first, but when he takes too long to say anything else, and he only glances back to my dad, I start to get weary. The guilty demeanor he gradually adopts continues to fuel a series of wild speculation that grows in the prolonged quiet, right up until he breaches the subject slowly. "That's not really what I called you in here to talk about."
"Then what am I in here for?" I eye our third wheel, leaned over against the far wall, from my peripheral. "Is this about me, or him? Because I still don't get why he's been hanging around here so much."
"Aw, Brent, you've got it all wrong. He's been around more because I asked him to be, I need his help." My uncle shifts uncomfortably, and I'd bet my left nut he'd even give up his favorite Jesus themed sports painting if it meant he didn't have to be doing this right now. "This isn't easy to say, and I know you've been asking a lot of questions lately, so I thought it would be better if I came right out and told you instead of letting you hear it from one of the guys."
"Hear what? Since when do you need him?" I snort, amused at the idea that my dad could be any help to anybody.
"Since I found out I'm sick." Bill confesses. The truth doesn't come cheap to a man who has always held his secrets so close to his chest, precious, and to hear him air them now sounds more like the elaborations of a bad liar than the truth. Yet he insists, "and I was able to make it work for a while on my own, I tried, I really did, but there's just times I can't be here."
"You expect me to believe that?" I say.
"I'm telling you straight, kid."
"If you were sick you would've told me, you're just trying to cover for him for some reason." This isn't me trying to be obstinate, I'm not trying to fool myself as I point my head towards my dad to lay the blame there. It's just, if he were actually sick would he have really been so cruel as to leave me in the dark this whole time, making up stories in my head?
"I didn't want you to worry."
"Bullshit, Bill!"
"I didn't want you to worry, alright? That's the end of it, I'm only telling you now because I know the tough spot that puts you in with," the room goes quiet, and we're all painfully aware of what he means. "Well anyway. Your dad's going to be taking over, I wasn't sure how to tell you."
"You want me to work for him?" The thought is repulsive. As repulsive as realizing that all the work I've put into ensuring he would never have this power over me again has only amounted to this.
"No, you're still working for me, this is only temporary—you hear me? It's just until I get back on my feet, and we already talked about what I expect him to do, and how I expect him to treat you. Right, Ed?" He glances at his brother, waiting for a confirmation, but all we're treated to is a reluctant nod of his head. Even Bill knows that's the best we're going to get, so he accepts the piss-poor response before looking at me again. "I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, so why don't you go ahead and take the rest of the day off to think about things, yeah?"
What can I say? This is his livelihood and I guess there's this part of me that can rationalize his choices, but then the other part just thinks that if he'd been honest from the get-go then I might have been able to help him somehow. And I'm even more pissed at him because it feels like I'm not allowed to be upset, not when he's apparently sicker than I had thought. Between that and my dad taking over I can't tell what makes me the maddest, but its not like I have any say here, what am I going to do—quit? Eventually I take my uncle up on the offer to leave.
I hate this feeling. I hate being asleep and only getting to hang on to the bad stuff. After I call Jonah, hopeful to experience even a second of the fleeting joy I get when we're together, I just end up with his voicemail. Who knows, he's probably so busy working on his stupid competition that he turned his phone off. Following his lead I shut mine off too, then walk down to the corner store to get something to take the edge off of what is already shaping up to be a rough night. Legal or not, I've already got a head start on getting drunk when I return to the frat house to discover Maddy, perched comfortably on the porch steps.
"Are you drinking already, didn't you just get off work?" This is fast becoming a habit of hers, I'm almost not even surprised to see her. She snatches the bag from my hand after I wander close enough to take a whiff, expressing her dissatisfaction with the contents. "I take it someone had a bad day."
"That obvious?"
"You only drink vodka when you're all moody." Maddy reaches into the depth of her memory. "What is that, like a familial trait, do all you Fox men solve your problems with alcohol? Isn't that what your dad used to drink too?"
"No, he likes cheap beer, he's a good old fashioned drunk." As if that's what I need right now, to be compared to him. A comment like that might set me off any other time, but I've already hit my limit, I've got my finger in too many holes to care. I sit on the step beside her and take another drink. "Why are you here?"
"Don't be rude, Hallmark is having a marathon of my favorite movies but I totally blew it off to come over." She huffs. "They're going to start posting grades tomorrow, I thought you might be freaking out. Judging by the size of the bottle you bought though, I'm guessing you're not too worried about that at the moment."
"Jesus, that's tomorrow? I can't believe it slipped my mind," freaking out is putting it mildly. I did the best I could with my exams and I've been anxiously awaiting the results, but between Bill and Jonah both I hadn't realized the day had crept up so soon. I curse quietly, "there goes whatever chance I had of getting any sleep tonight, I'm going to be up all night thinking about it. Thanks for that, I'll add it to my list of reasons to drink."
"It'll be fine. Lucky for you I told my roommate to record everything I miss, so I've got some time to kill." Maddy swipes the bottle from me again, scrunching up her nose after taking a sip. It's not until I laugh that she unclenches, "no fun to drink alone, right?"
I'm still not positive what this is between us, why she would waste her whole evening hiking out here just to kick back with someone I know she still has to hate. But it turns out I'm glad she did, and the evening goes by quicker than expected when it bleeds seamlessly into the night. She doesn't pry about Bill or his revelations, or about my dad, and instead we talk about the dumbest stuff. We'd spent a hundred nights like this before when we were dating, it's kind of funny, that after five years we're still capable of settling back into this familiar routine without any hesitation or grand show.
For this one night we're not ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend, we're just two people who can find common ground under the stars. Maybe it's not the same as it is with Jonah, but after she's succeeded in making me laugh more times than I can count I start to think that this thing with her, whatever it is, must come with it's own kind of comfort. It's so easy to stay in that, which is undoubtedly why we're able to talk all the way through the whole night, like we did before when we were kids.
"It must be about that time." Morning has long since crept into the sky, and while my eyes have been tired with sleep for hours I've been trying to hang in there. I can hear one of the guys stirring inside the house now, I imagine the wait must almost be over. I look to Maddy, "please tell me you're as nervous as I am."
"A little, I had some of my toughest courses this semester, but I have a good feeling about it. You should too, there are a couple things I wish we could've gone over again but it is what it is." The thought of our impending grades doesn't seem to intimidate her much, but then, the stakes aren't as high for her. "How do you think you did, when you took the exams?"
"Okay, I guess? I don't know, it felt like I was doing decent at first but then I started forgetting stuff and there was all this pressure, and the questions just kept getting jumbled in my head."
"What does that mean, they got jumbled?"
"You know how things get all mixed up, especially when you're rushing," I explain it the best I can, which is difficult when I don't entirely understand it myself. Regardless, she stares at me blankly and I scoff, "what, that never happens to you?"
"Not really, no." Maddy frowns, going completely silent for a full minute while she considers it. The way she acts over there, no more than an arms reach from me on the step, reminds me a lot of Bill trying to work up to his confession earlier. "I hate to sound like that horrible teacher we had in tenth grade, but just out of curiosity, have you ever been tested for like a learning disability or anything?"
"A what?" The idea induces another laugh on my part, "come on, I'm dumb but I'm not that dumb."
"It's not dumb," she begins. It's obvious she has more she wants to say on the matter, but before she can her phone vibrates. She takes it out of her pocket and checks it over, a grin slowly crossing her lips. She clicks her tongue, "looks like grades are in. I passed all my exams, what about you?"
"Let me check," I had completely forgot that I'd shut my phone off, and when I turn it on again there are a shit ton of notifications. Most importantly I see that I have a voicemail waiting, and my immediate thought is that it's from Jonah. Yet what waits for me is the opposite of that fleeting joy I had been hoping for, because when I play it my heart only sinks to learn that it's actually from the dean. Maddy sits over there smiling, such faith in me, not yet aware that I haven't made out as well as she has. I don't know how many of the exams I failed, and it honestly doesn't matter, because I've failed enough of them to be in violation of my academic probation—enough to get me expelled from college.