Promises

CHAPTER 17

I CALLED him a few times over the next week or two, but he never answered. I left messages.

The first time, three days after my birthday, I tried to sound casual. “Matt, it’s okay. We both had a lot to drink.” I didn’t think that had anything to do with what had happened, but I was willing to give him that as an excuse if it would help. “It doesn’t matter. Call me.”

Three days after that, I was starting to feel desperately lost. “Matt, you don’t have to avoid me. Nothing happened. Let’s just forget it. See you on Sunday, okay?”

And when he didn’t show up to watch football on Sunday, I called again. I had carefully thought out what I was going to say after the beep—something glib about his Chiefs losing to the Raiders. But for some reason, the words died on my tongue. All I managed to say was, “Matt, I miss you.”

I didn’t call again after that.

The next few weeks were miserable. Matt continued to avoid me. And worst of all, he started dating Cherie. Not just sleeping with her, like he had over the summer, but actually dating.

I knew what he was doing. He was trying to convince himself that he could be happy with a woman. He was telling himself that his feelings for me were nothing more than the result of having spent too much time together and that if he just spent more time with Cherie, he could transfer those feelings to her. I didn’t think it would work, and yet I was terrified that it would.

I couldn’t believe how lonely I was. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that my life was now just as it had been for years before he arrived. It hadn’t seemed that bad back then. But now I felt crushed. My house felt like a graveyard. Every time the door opened in the shop, I hoped it was him, but it never was. Every evening, I hoped he would knock on the door. Even football wasn’t as much fun. The few Sundays we had spent together watching it, our perfect companionship, taunted me as I sat by myself, watching the games. Lizzy and Brian invited me over, of course, and I went once or twice, but instead of cheering me up, it only served to depress Lizzy, so I quit going.

“He’s not even happy,” she told me one day. “Brian and I saw them when we went out to dinner, and he looked miserable.”

And the worst part was that I thought she was right. The times I had seen him, he did look miserable. Even his pseudo-smile hadn’t been there.

“Why are you telling me this, Lizzy?”

“I think he misses you as much as you miss him. Why don’t you call him?”

“No.”

“Jared—”

“No!” I stopped short. Lizzy didn’t deserve for me to snap at her. She just wanted me to be happy. But if there was one thing I knew, it was that I couldn’t be the one to make the next move. He was the one who couldn’t face his feelings or what they meant. The only thing I could do was wait and hope.

“HEY, Jared? Can I ask a favor?” Ringo said one day in early October as we were unpacking cases of motor oil.

“What’s up?”

“Do you think that you could tutor me again?”

“With math?”

“Yes. I’m taking calculus now, and it’s kicking my ass.”

“Of course.” It was depressing how much I was suddenly looking forward to spending time with Ringo. Talk about a lame social life.

“And you know physics too?”

“That’s what my degree’s in. You need help with that too?”

“If it’s okay. Can I come by your house to do it? I feel bad taking up time here at the shop.”

“What about your dad?”

“I think it will be okay. I mean, he was really glad that you helped me last spring. And I told him that he needs to trust people. And he needs to trust me. I’ll be eighteen soon. I’m not a kid, and I’m not stupid.” He stopped and looked embarrassed. “Except at math and physics, I guess.”

“You’re not stupid. My house is fine.”

We arranged for him to come by the house on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

The first week, Ringo came alone. The second week, he showed up with a girl.

“This is my girlfriend, Julie.” She was cute, a little heavy set, with dark hair and freckles she tried to cover with makeup. “Do you think you can tutor us both?”

And so I had two students that week. I ordered pizza and was glad to have the company, even if it was just two teenagers who couldn’t figure out integration.

I was surprised to find that Julie had the same bad habit that Ringo had started out with.

“Why do you want to replace the variable with numbers already?”

“That’s how you simplify.”

“Variables are easy. Numbers complicate things. Wait until the end. Here,” I pointed to the physics problem she was working on. “Look at this one. What do you know about F?”

“Force equals mass times acceleration.”

“Right. So what if we put ‘M times A’ in place of F in this equation?”

“But we’re supposed to be solving for F!”

“Yes, but what do you see on the other side of the equation?”

She was looking, and I saw the light start to come on. “M and A.” I watched her process that. And then she was furiously scratching away with her pencil, talking as she went. “I can eliminate M, and then, I have 2A, but then….” scratch, scratch, scratch “Now I have A!”

“Right. And you already had M—”

“So now I just multiply them, and I get F!”

“Exactly.”

“It’s like a puzzle!” Her eyes were bright with excitement.

“That’s one way of viewing it, yes.”

And the look of understanding and accomplishment on her face was a remarkable balm for the ache in my heart.

It didn’t stop there. The next week, they brought another girl. And then she brought her boyfriend. By the end of the month, I had ten different students who would drop by for help in math or physics on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They didn’t all come each time, but there was always at least one and usually as many as four or five. My house was turning into some kind of brainiac high school hangout.

It was only a matter of time before that caused trouble.