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At least the day is moving by pretty quickly. We opened presents at home, and now we’re doing the family gathering at my aunt’s. Dad promised me we won’t be staying long, especially not after the showdown from Thanksgiving. I’m hiding out in my aunt’s room to avoid my asshole cousin, but the sound of everyone’s laughter carries over from the living room. I’m not even the slightest bit tempted to explore what’s so funny, but it does remind me of how nice it was to leave my room this morning and find my mom and dad sitting on the floor beside our low-maintenance tree like it was their first Christmas together.
It’s crazy how they’re not tired of each other, or how it looks like they haven’t even lost an inch of love for each other. Second-best part of the morning is when I joined them, and my mom modeled her pajamas for both of us from the living room to the kitchen and back, as if on a runway.
Mom brings my grandmother into the room, and I help out, holding her underneath her arm as we guide her to the rocking chair opposite the TV. Mom tells me that it was getting too loud out there for her, so she hopes I don’t mind Grandma intruding on my “quiet time.”
I put on the news, which she’s obsessed with but can never actually absorb. I missed her ninetieth birthday last week in my brutal haze, but if I wanted to lie and tell her I spoke with her, she wouldn’t actually know any better.
“Is Theo coming? I want to watch his movie with the flowers.”
You’re still alive for Grandma. You’re still around making more films. You’re still around to whip out your camera phone and play one of your videos for her. You’re still around to hold my hand and kiss me good morning. I know you’re not alive, but I know I don’t treat you like you’re dead. I know you’re watching, but I know there’s a chance you’re not. I know you’re not around to live, and I know you’re always going to live through me.
I can’t bring myself to upset her and tell her it’s all over, because, well, I don’t know, if I deny her the fantasy of your immortality, I don’t know if it will ruin my mystery of where you are.
“Theo can’t make it,” I say. It’s a truth hidden in the folds of a lie. “I have his video, though.” I go through the album of videos on my phone and sit down beside my grandmother, feeling very vulnerable as I relive your creations with a woman who watches with the joy of someone witnessing magic for the first time.
Wherever you are, Theo, I hope you’re having a Merry Christmas. I’ll try some damn eggnog for you.
“I’m sorry I don’t have a present for you,” I say, scratching my gloved palm and pulling at my earlobe the entire time I go up the steps outside the subway.
“I don’t have one for you, either,” Wade says. “We’re all good.” He walks over to my left, staying there. I shift over to reclaim my side, but he keeps messing with me. “I’m going to walk on your left for a minute.”
“Nope. I’m going to walk on the left forever,” I say.
“Entertain me.”
“There’s nothing funny about this.”
“Exactly. This is serious, and you never treat it that way. I want to see what you’re like on my right.”
He’s walked on my right side before, but only when you were alive and I was on your left, because you were obviously the more important one, so it didn’t bother me as much in the grand scheme of things. Wade has never been on my right one-on-one, and allowing this feels a lot like a big deal, sort of like my first date with you. I was on edge despite knowing you for what feels like forever and trusting you with everything else I had to offer that the everyday person never experienced.
“It’s not going to last long, but give it your best shot,” I say.
The moment Wade takes a couple of steps back, as if the forces of winter have decided to blow him out of my life for good, I feel myself inching to the left to cut him off, but I remain firm until he reappears on my wrong side with freckles of snow on his shoulders and an anxious kind of smile on his face. “How are we doing?”
“It’s probably better not to draw attention to it,” I say, facing forward and refusing to turn to my left. It’s almost impossible for my neck to shift that way. The moment I give in, this experiment falls apart and I’ll disappoint him, which will snowball into something worse. “Tell me a story.”
He starts right up about this Gatorade chugging competition he once got into with his neighbor. After he won, he went home to pee but his mother stepped out and he didn’t have his own keys yet. So, yeah, screwed. He tried peeing at the bottom of the staircase, but someone started coming down and he ran away. It was daytime so he couldn’t go pee in the corner or bushes without getting caught, and he didn’t trust the outside neighbors not to snitch on him. His bladder hurt so badly, and he kept trying to distract himself but failed because puddles of water were around him and it began drizzling a little again, but not fast enough that it would scare everyone back indoors so he could pee outside in peace.
Right when he charged into the staircase for a second shot, his bladder decided enough was enough and unleashed “a fury” on his jeans, soaking them with a “never-ending piss” so great his eyes rolled back with relief before he could fully register how much this was going to suck once piss stopped running down his leg and into his sneakers.
We arrive at Wade’s building and, sort of like his story, I’ve been holding in all my anxiety about his being on my left, except I didn’t reclaim my side (or piss myself). I’m relieved once we get into the elevator and there are no more sides, just us standing opposite of each other. We get into his apartment and go straight to his room. He’s been given his TV back for Christmas break because he already finished all his holiday assignments and college applications, but he’ll lose it once school starts up again. I thought we were going to watch a movie or something and take advantage of his TV while he has it, but instead he puts on the E.T. soundtrack and sits on the bed while I relax into the chair. The first song ends and another plays.
“Wait, play it again,” I tell him.
“Why?”
?
?It’s relaxing,” I say.
“That’s not it,” Wade says. “Maybe a little bit, but not entirely. You just want it on repeat. I know this game, Griffin. You must hate the radio.”
“I don’t hate it,” I say. “But I wouldn’t call myself a fan, either.”
“Give me your phone,” Wade says.
“Why?”
