The Boy Who Wore Boat Shoes

35⎜The Mediation

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Mediation

When Ari had said that she wanted to go “home,” I had assumed that meant to the glorious land of beaches and sun, known as California. As far as I knew, that was where her current residence was listed, and where her dad owned a condo. Unfortunately for me, when it came to Ari Remon it was best not to assume. Evidently, Ari did not mean California when referring to “home.” She meant Pennsylvania.

           So, after quickly packing everything that we needed (I made sure to bring clothes this time), I said goodbye to the house in which I had grown up, and then we went out to my car. Like Houston and his truck, my car was my baby. It had been with me through a lot, and it was one of the things that I had missed most when I left for California. Sure, it was just an oversized SUV that guzzled more gas than a small plane and was probably responsible for at least some percentage of global warning, but I still loved it. It was also the same vehicle that I had obtained for my sixteenth birthday—the one that I couldn’t for the life of me remember.

           I began to pull up a map of Pennsylvania on my phone, but then Ari stopped me because she was Ari, and we couldn’t even do something as simple as drive to the next state over without some sort of delay. She told me that she didn’t want to go straight to Pennsylvania. I asked her where she wanted to go. Uncertainly, she answered with a casual, “Wherever your parents are.” I told her that that would be putting us in the exact opposite direction as we needed to go. She told me that she didn’t care.

           Thus, I began my journey to the last place I wanted to go right now: my aunt’s house for Christmas day. I had absolutely nothing against my aunt, but more a lack of a desire to travel all the way to her house and be confronted with the grueling task of facing family. My family was about as American as a family could get without going tribal, which was why seeing them again since last Christmas would be a bit problematic. Last Christmas, they didn’t know that I was a drug addict. No one did. Now, though, I just couldn’t even think about how they would react. Eric, I heard you quit football? How was rehab? You don’t still do drugs, do you? You’re not still using at Stanford, are you? My son would never use drugs! Eric, you used to be such a nice boy—what happened? What happened, indeed?

           During the drive deeper into the not-at-all-scenic depths of New York, Ari and I were both silent. It wasn’t a good silence. Back at the house, something had snapped in Ari when she met the people from my past. I wasn’t sure what or who did it, but she had transformed in a millisecond from this strong girl who could tackle a lion with a mere glance of apathy into a pool of fragility. All I could do was watch, listen, and allow her to trace my fingers as I tried not to get us killed with only a single hand on the steering wheel.

           Eventually, we arrived at my aunt’s house. I didn’t dare to leave my vehicle before it was explained to me why exactly we were here. So, I waited until Ari had at least somewhat collected herself and then asked a hesitant, “Ari, what are we doing here?”

           “We’re not doing anything,” she said, basing her answer strictly off of my word choice. It always bugged me when she did that, but it was Ari, so even the littlest things like nitpicking my sentence structure could be overlooked for a girl like her. Sure, her constant attention to preciseness in linguistics bothered me to no end, but it was just one of those quirky idiosyncrasies that I would have to deal with if I wanted to be with Ari Remon—which I did, obviously.

           “Okay,” I sighed, mentally figuring out how I could rearrange my phrasing, “then what am I doing here?”

           “Talking to your parents,” she stated as if she had it all figured out. And knowing Ari to a certain extent, I had a hunch that she did, indeed, have it all figured out.