I walk down the stairs and hurry past my father's office as quickly as I can, but as I'm stumbling out into the foyer, I hear my father call after me.
"Where are you going?"
Voice gruff and accusing.
He doesn't say my name.
I told them it was Steve, but now they don't call me anything.
"Out." I mutter my response on purpose.
They don't deserve to know everything about my life.
"What was that?" He shouts back.
"I'm going to see my friends for dinner," I call back louder, flipping him off in my pockets.
"Let us say goodbye then," he responds gruffly.
"Goodbye?" I question, but I already know what he means from the tone of his voice.
My father always sounds minutely guilty when the two of them are about to take off somewhere.
It's like a tiresome duty for him to tell me.
"Your mother and I are catching a midnight flight to New York."
As he speaks, I make my way slowly back down the hallway towards them.
It's not even a surprise.
"Really?" I try to keep the bitterness out of my voice, but not really.
I suppose it's my tiresome duty to act like I wasn't expecting this.
"Yes."
I can see them now, from in front of the glass doors.
My mother is perched on the oaken desk, wineglass balanced in her pale hand.
My father is in his leather armchair before her. His glass sits on a stack of impressive looking books.
He'd be lying if he said that he ever actually read any of them.
"What for?" I ask, inching forwards until my hand can clasp the doorknob.
The metal is cold against my fingers, but I like it.
A distraction from my mother's disappointed eyes, which trail over me blankly.
"Your aunt and uncle invited us up there a while ago, so we said we'd come."
Her voice is cold and tinkly, much like the surface that my skin clings to.
I push open the door and step inside.
If either of them notices my flattened chest, they don't say anything.
But it's not because they love me, but from ignorance.
They'll pretend that I'm their version of me until the day that they die.
"Why now?" I ask, staring them both down.
"Because we've got the time," my father interjects with an expression that shows he is affronted at the idea of me caring.
"And not the time for me?" I hiss back.
My mother startles at the change of tone and I watch behind reddened eyes as the wine in her glass sloshes by unsteady hand.
"Don't take that tone with me, young la—."
I've already slammed the door shut behind me, already raced halfway out of the house.
"Fuck." I run a hand through my hair, leaning against the entrance to my parent's home.
Not mine anymore.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck."
I'm never sure what to do with the feelings that come up after talking with my mother or my father.
I usually spit them into words for the night.
How many times exactly have I cursed into sharp, cutting air in the gardens?
Or after a night spent only with them, when have I not screamed into a pillow on the bathroom floor?
It gets worse with every visit home because I've changed a bit more each time that they come back.
I pull myself up and tug my coat around myself.
For early September, it's colder than usual.
There's evening frost already bloomed across the lawns, stark against the soft onset of night.
I picture Robin pacing back and forth outside of her house, waiting for me to arrive so that everything can begin.
Everyone else is probably there already, waiting around her dining table.
I start out down the drive.
I'll walk and maybe she'll realize that it's okay to start without me.
That way, I can miss all of the awkward words and Eddie won't have to handle me for a couple minutes longer.
I try to imagine who his friend could be.
Probably some effortlessly cool, university drop-out who slouches and smokes like a fiend.
The perfect person for Eddie.
The guy will probably have secret tattoos all up his spine and a well rehearsed explanation for them all, each one more obscure than the last.
I'm going to try and be happy for them.
But I'm still going to walk as slowly as possible.
Maybe it will all be over when I get there.
