In Between Days: Raising Jordan (boyxman)✅

Teenage Kicks

Jordan

Thanksgiving was just around the corner and I was glad to be home for it. I loved turkey and apple pie. I liked pumpkin pie, too. Over the past several years, together Tim and I managed to learn how to roast a turkey. I always did a better job. Tim had a tendency to burn himself on the oven.

Things basically went back to the way they were before the summer. My room and desk were untouched, the air mattress put back in its usual spot in a storage closet downstairs. Most of the leaves were gone now. I was disappointed I missed all the foliage. The trees around our house were really pretty in the fall and I missed it. Tim, trying to make me feel better, said "there's always next year."

While I was in the hospital, Jamie texted me or emailed me every other day, but those emails and texts dwindled to a couple of times a week, then once, then hardly ever. I guess I couldn't blame him because I was an ass hole and never once texted or emailed him back. Still, I thought about him all the time and music and school couldn't even distract me.

Wandering around my room, I let Teenage Kicks blare through my headphones. Only a few days before Thanksgiving, Tim and I planned on visiting Mom, but we both procrastinated. As I bobbed around my room, I nearly forgot how much I liked this song. My thoughts turned to Jamie, wondering if he liked the song, too.

Tim tapped my shoulder, scaring the crap out of me. "How many times have I told you to knock?" I snapped at him.

"I did knock," he said. "I knocked for five minutes. Are you ready to go or what?"

"Yeah, I guess," I said.

Parked in the group home driveway, we procrastinated again, Tim and I both hesitating before getting out of the car. "I'll go and you can stay here," I said.

"No, I should go," Tim sighed. "It's Thanksgiving."

Even though it was late fall with a chill in the air, we sat outside at the picnic table. As usual, Mom sat across from us. Today I was obsessed with Teenage Kicks and let it play on my phone, which rested between me and Mom on the table.

"I love this song," Tim said. "I haven't heard it in ages."

"Do you think Jamie would like it?" I asked.

"I don't know," Tim said. "Why don't you call and ask him?" Tim was always after me to call him. He was right; I knew I should call him, but I didn't want to admit he was right.

"I messed up again," I said, talking to Mom while Tim looked off at something else, not really paying attention to us. "It was really bad. It was so bad." In shame and embarrassment, I stared down at the table. "That's why I haven't visited in awhile. I had a complete freak out. I was in the the hospital for like two and a half months, but I'm better now...I think. And I said some really bad things to Jamie. You remember Jamie, right?" Mom only stared back at me. "He used to call and text me all the time, but I haven't texted him back yet or called him. I can't...I can't...I just can't and I lost him...I'm so...I'm so...what's the word...embarrassed I guess. I don't know what to do."

"You know what to do," Tim said, still staring into the distance, away from Mom.

"I wasn't talking to you," I said as tears streamed down my cheeks. Resting my elbows on the table, I held my face in my hands. Up until recently, I had never cried so much before in my life. As I wallowed in my own sorrow, something distracted me, catching me completely by surprise. Opening my eyes, I discovered Mom pressing her hand against mine. There was little expression on her face, but she caressed my hand as if attempting to console me. She had never done anything like that before, a sign she cared, a sign that she was in there somewhere.