I spread out a few outfit options on my bed, trying to keep my mind away from my brother, who was still pestering me to call him. There was nothing I wanted to say to him, though. He didn’t understand why I had done what I had (or at least attempted to), even if he thought he was the expert on the subject. I hid inside of my shame for the next few days, waiting for Mac to decide he was ready to drive home.
I opened my top most drawer and found my bathing suits. I only had a couple. I tossed them both over to my bed, suddenly painfully aware of my body and the space that it took up. I didn’t understand how I hadn’t noticed it before. Before all the pictures on all the websites. Suddenly I was so sensitive to how I looked, no matter where I was or who I was with. The other night, I weighed myself, and before I knew it, I was checking the scale every single morning. I needed to get out of this house, and definitely away from my computer.
“Hey, do you want to leave in the morning?” Mac asked, as if on cue. He had poked his head into my room, where I was blasting music in order to drown out my own thoughts.
“Yeah! Let’s do it!” I replied, before realizing I sounded a bit too eager.
“Cool. I’ll wake you up bright and early,” he said, with a wink, and bounded down the stairs. I ran after him.
“Where are you going?” I called down to the first floor, where he was already standing in the front hallway.
“Out.”
“You’re always going out.”
“Wanna come?”
“Can I?”
“Why not? Come on, weirdo.”
I looked back into my room, where my clothes were sprawled across my bed spread. I decided I could pack whenever we got back, or even in the morning. I grabbed my purse and followed my brother.
“I still need to ask Mom about the return trip,” I mentioned as I climbed into Mac’s car.
“Taken care of, Zo Bug.”
“What?”
“Ike had a free flight.”
“Wow.”
“Yep.”
I sat in silence for a moment, grateful for my brother and the way he could just get people to do things.
“Where are we going, exactly?”
“Out downtown! Just meeting up with some friends for bowling.”
“…Okay.”
“What? You said you wanted to come!”
“I…do, I do. It’s just. I don’t know.”
“What? Scared Mom will find out?”
“Well, yeah, kind of!”
“Don’t worry Zo. You’re with me, it’ll be fine.”
“That’s not exactly comforting.”
My brother laughed loudly. “That’s valid. It’ll be fine. You need to like…I don’t know. I feel like you need to break away from Mom a little bit. You don’t have to be her minion anymore, Zo. You don’t have to spy on Avery. You don’t have to report back to her on me. You don’t have to eavesdrop on the phone…”
“I don’t –”
“Please.”
“Okay, fine. What’s your point?”
“We’re all grown up and long gone, so you don’t have to be Mom’s little spy and report back to her anymore. You can grow up, too, you know? You can go do your own things without feeling like you need her approval.”
“But…I don’t know…”
“Trust me. I know the feeling. I think we all did, at some point. Some of us more than others. But seriously, Zoe, don’t feel like you’re only goal in life needs to be making Mom and Dad happy. If that was what we were all striving for, well…we have all failed.”
I looked over at my brother, a look of confusion still lingering on my face. I was pulled out of my daze when I felt my phone vibrating. I looked down and saw Zac’s number calling me. I rolled my eyes.
“Who is that?” Mac asked, trying to peer over to see.
“Zachary.”
“Why?” He asked incredulously. He had a point. Why on earth would Zac be calling me? We barely ever talked, outside of greetings and goodbyes before and after evenings of babysitting.
“I don’t know, he’s been weird lately.”
“You can answer it.”
“Nah.” I said, and declined the call, tossing my phone back in my purse. A few moments of silence followed before the buzzing started up again.
“Jesus, just answer it. You know he won’t stop trying.”
I reluctantly fetched my phone back out and answered.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Zoe. Where are you?”
“I’m with Mac.”
“At home?”
“No, we’re headed…um…out with friends.”
“What friends?”
“Why do you care?”
“Just wondering.”
“You don’t…you don’t know them.”
“Are you free to talk?”
“Zac, I’m literally in the car with Mac right now. No! I’m not free to talk. I’ll call you later.” I hung up the phone before he could get another word in. Mac looked over at me with shock scrawled across his face.
“Wow, what happened with Zac?”
I looked over at my brother sheepishly, desperately not wanting to go into detail about my irrational episode over the toilet. He could very clearly see in my eyes that something wasn’t right.
“Nothing, just our usual spats.”
“The two most stubborn Hansons.”
“You think?”
“I know,” he replied with a chuckle. I didn’t know if I liked that award, but I supposed he was right. If there was one person in the world that could outlast me, it was Zachary. “Do you want to like…get that resolved before we go in, or?”
“It’s really not a big deal, Mac. Let’s just…just forget about it, okay?”
“Okay,” he said as he pulled the car into a spot right outside the bowling alley. He got out of the driver’s seat and ambled inside, me right on his heels.
I was pulled into a group of people who all seemed to know Mac and who all looked familiar. That’s what happens in a town like Tulsa. It’s not small enough for everyone to know each other’s names, but you become aware of everyone that runs in the same circles as you. I knew some of these faces from Mac’s pictures on instagram, and some from church.
“Hey Zoe!” A cheerful voice called out, walking over to me from the snack stand, a fresh beer in hand. “I didn’t know Mac was bringing you!”
The voice belonged to Madison, Mac’s friend from infancy. This happened a lot in my family. We had friends because they were the children of my parent’s friends. All my closest friends I had known since before I could remember, even if many of them didn’t live in Oklahoma. Madison was Mac’s age so they had been thrown together by our mothers pretty early on.
“Hey Madi! I didn’t know you were home!” I replied, matching her cheerfulness.
“Yep. Just for the summer.”
“How’s college?” I asked.
“It’s good. I’m almost done, which is crazy.”
I wondered what she was planning to do after school, but I didn’t have the courage to ask her. It seemed rude, and if there was one thing we were taught in our family, it was being polite. True, I could be outspoken, but I also knew when to shut up.
After the small talk died down, I went and got some bowling shoes and ball, glancing down quickly at my phone. I had 5 missed calls from Zac. I sighed heavily, and began to play.