Stealing The Show (Such Sweet Sorrow Trilogy, Book One)

Part Four: Acting, Not Acting - 16

THE THOUSANDS OF miles across the country going back home are a blur. I sleep for a few hours here and there, at rest stations at night, in fast food joint parking lots in the daylight. Every stop for gas, I get about four Red Bulls and the cans start to fill up Eeyore's backseat floorboard, rattling around when the interstate pavement gets rough.  

I try calling Shoe and Jubilee and even Dramatical, but nobody answers. They all go straight to voicemail, like their phones have been confiscated. For my folks, I just send dad an occasional text message about where I am, reminding everyone that I am still alive, too.  

For being alive, I feel very weird. I drink enough caffeine to basically see the electrons everything is made out of. The entire world is reduced to needles that poke into my eyes. 

The landscape passes by me and this time I don't even notice it. I go back the same way, so none of it is new anymore, but I feel like I'M new.  

And the new me doesn't feel like philosophizing about landscapes anymore.  

The new me wants to be home, going after Jubilee Marshfield. 

Except that I do stop in one place. When I cross into Utah, I pull over at the little hill where I first told Jubilee how I felt about her. I park Eeyore on the shoulder and run across the interstate lanes, then out into the field and up the slope. I'm so tired that everything feels like a dream.  

Whatever it is, real or imaginary or out-of-body, it's cool. I stand there and think about what I said and how she reacted. I can hear it all like it's a play.  

But I'm not embarrassed, and I don't cringe or anything. I took a risk, and even though it didn't work right then, it might still work. I actually smile, since this is the place where I first realized I had to do something, and actually did it.  

Then I laugh--I picture Shoe down at the shoulder off the road, holding up that gas can and yelling, "HEY GUYS! I'VE GOT GAS!!" 

It's all over when I pull up to my dad's house--I go there because there's no way I'm going to my mom's. I have no idea what day of the week it is or how long it took me to get back, but I know it was something ridiculous, and I probably am lucky to be alive, driving with so much caffeine and so little sleep. 

My mom keeps reminding me of that when she comes over. Dad called her when I got in, late on that Thursday night, and I get the longest lecture of my life. She gets up in my face like one of those insane football coaches, just shouting at me from an inch away, like I fumbled away the Super Bowl.  

But I don't feel like that. I feel like I won. 

She keeps turning to my dad and saying, "Do you have anything to add to this?" 

"I agree with what you're saying," he keeps adding. 

And though I'm getting skinned alive, I'm having a hard time staying awake.  

"You're going to sleep?!" my mother yells into my face, and even that can't wake me up. I've pushed myself too far. 

"Let's let him get some rest," Dad says. "He's been up for three days in a row. We'll talk about his punishment tomorrow." 

"I already know what his punishment will be. You are always way too lenient with him," she says.  

And I tell them I'm sorry again and walk off to bed. It's funny, watching them together trying to parent me. That was what I thought it was like during all those years they were married. Before I went to California, I already understood that they're better off divorced. But I think I understand love differently now.