“Candace –”
“Oh, I can already see the thinking here. You’re already halfway to forgiving him –”
“Why is it a question of forgiveness?”
“Always just this laissez-faire approach, not giving a damn as long as you can do your precious little projects. It’s no wonder he’s acted like an idiot.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Seth said, arms crossed, looking down at his sneakers.
“What the hell do you call it?” his mother demanded. “How exactly is this situation not one big idiotic catastrophe for you? You know what they’re like here –”
“Candace, that’s enough,” his father said, more strongly now. His mother made a sign with her hands of sarcastic surrender, then stared firmly at the ceiling. His father turned to look at him, and Seth realized with a shock how rare it was for his father to look him straight in the eye. It was like having a statue suddenly ask you for directions.
The thing was, though, Seth couldn’t even say that his mother was wrong. About it being a catastrophe. The pictures had been found. Had gotten out. From an impossible source, one they’d never expected. But then they’d been stupid to ever think they wouldn’t, because how could you keep anything for yourself in this uselessly connected world?
“Seth,” his father continued, “what we’re trying to say is that . . .” He paused again, thinking how to phrase it. For a horrible moment, Seth thought he was going to have to help him along, say the words for him. “Whatever . . . choices you make, we’re still your mum and dad, and we’ll still love you. No matter what.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence at this.
No matter what, Seth thought, but didn’t say. “No matter what” had happened eight years ago. It had come and gone, and it turned out it hadn’t been true then, either.
“But this . . .” – his father sighed again –“ . . .situation you’ve got yourself into –”
“I knew we couldn’t trust that boy,” his mother said, shaking her head. “I knew he was bad news from the moment I met him. Right down to his stupid name –”
“Don’t talk about him that way,” Seth said, quietly but the anger in his voice shocked both his parents into silence. He’d only been able to see Gudmund today for just enough time to tell him, to warn him, before Gudmund’s parents had thrown Seth out of their house. “Don’t you ever talk about him in any way, ever again.”
His mother’s mouth dropped open. “How dare you speak to me like that? How DARE you think you can –”
“Candace –” his father said, trying to stop her as she rose from her chair.
“You can’t possibly think you’re going to see him again.”
“Just try and stop me,” Seth said, his eyes burning.
“Enough!” his father shouted. “Both of you!”
There was a moment of stand-off as Seth and his mother locked eyes, but she eventually sat back down.
“Seth,” his father said, “I’d like you to think about maybe taking some antidepressants, or even something stronger –”
His mother let out a cry of exasperation. “That’s your answer to this? Disappear into oblivion like you do? Maybe you can both do silent DIY projects for the rest of your lives.”
“I’m just saying,” his father tried again, “Seth is obviously struggling with something –”
“He’s not struggling with anything. He’s crying for attention. Can’t bear that his little brother needs more care than he does, so he goes and does something like this.” She shook her head. “Well, you’re only hurting yourself, Seth. You’re the one who’s going to have to go to school next week, not us.”
Seth felt a twisting in his gut. She’d nailed exactly what had been worrying him.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” his father said. “Not until this blows over. Or we can change schools –”
His mother gave another exasperated gasp.
“I don’t want to change schools,” Seth said. “And I’m not going to stop seeing Gudmund.”
“I don’t even want to hear his name,” his mother said.
His father looked pained. “Seth, don’t you think you might be a little young to be taking decisions this enormous? To be doing these . . . things with . . .” He trailed off again, not quite able to say “another boy.”
“And all this when you know how much we’ve got to deal with for Owen right now,” his mother said.
Seth rolled his eyes. “You always have to deal with Owen. That’s what your whole stupid life is. Dealing With Owen.”
His mother’s face hardened. “You have the gall to say that? You, of all people?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Seth spat back at her. “‘Of all people’?”
“All we’re saying,” his father said, talking loudly over them both, “is that you could have come to us. You can come to us with anything.”
And there was another long silence that none of them bothered to fill, as perhaps they all wondered if that was true.
Seth looked down at his feet again. “What’s wrong with Owen now?” he asked, unable to stop himself from putting all his anger into the last word.
His mother’s answer was to rise quickly to her feet and leave the kitchen. They heard her stomping upstairs, heading straight for Owen’s room, heard him start an excited explanation about the new video game he’d gotten at Christmas last week.
Seth looked at his father in confusion. “What’s she so mad about? How does any of this hurt her?”
His father frowned, but not at Seth. “It’s not entirely you. Your brother’s scans came back.”
“The ones because of his eyes?”
Owen’s eyes had started a strange twitching a few weeks back. He could see something when it was directly in front of him, like his computer games or his clarinet, but walking anywhere had become a wild hazard of knocking things over or simply falling all the way down to the ground. He’d given himself four bloody noses in the past ten days.
“The neurological damage,” his father said. “From . . . from before.”