Shutout by Brendan Halpin

Author:Brendan Halpin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781429969901
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

I was hoping Mom, the more perceptive one, would be asleep when I got home, and Dad would be watching a movie. That way I could sneak my lying, beer-soaked self up to my room.

But of course Mom wasn’t asleep. She was in her pajamas like three feet from the front door about to head up the stairs when I walked in. Perfect timing.

“Amanda! Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Lena and I had a fight,” I said, and waited for her to answer, “That’s not what her mom said, she’s been worried sick,” or something.

Instead she just said, “Really?”

This was why I wished it was only Dad I had to deal with. Because not only is Dad less perceptive than Mom, he is also completely transparent. If Dad had said, “Really?” like that, I would have known that he was actually curious about whether Lena and I had had a fight. But when Mom said it, I could just hear in her voice the possibility that she was going to call me on my lies, that this was my chance to either tell the truth and dig myself out of the hole a tiny bit or else lie some more and seal my doom.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to put on a sad face.

And then I was sure Mom was on the level, which made this so much worse. She gave me a great big hug. “Sweetie,” she said. “I’m so very sorry. You’re really having a tough time of it these days. I’m sorry it’s so hard. I wish there was something I could do to make it hurt less.”

As much as I complain about being five feet ten inches tall, it turns out that feeling about one inch tall is even worse. Mom was showering me with sympathy and compassion I totally didn’t deserve. I felt like I was looking at myself from the outside, this liar soaking up sympathy, and I suddenly remembered what I’d wanted to say to Lena: this isn’t us. Well, this wasn’t me. The whole lying-to-my-parents thing, the sneaking out to parties, the coming home drenched in beer and hoping that my parents had temporarily lost their senses of smell—none of it was me, and I was going to end it.

“Agh, Mom, stop.” I pulled away. “Don’t be nice to me. We didn’t have a fight. We just snuck out to a party so Lena could meet some boy.” Saying it out loud made me feel ashamed, but it was also a relief. I had gotten myself out of a lot of worrying about what would happen if they found out. Now I wouldn’t have to lie anymore. I would probably end up grounded, but one way or the other I was going to suffer for tonight, so at least I was getting it over with.

“Dan,” Mom called. “I need you.”

“Okay, but the zombies are about to eat the biker’s guts while he watches.”

Mom gritted her teeth. “This is more important than Dawn of the Dead, honey.

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