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You thought that your daughter would be more offended at the fact that you were openly dating her English teacher. But no, she was very lax about it. Maybe that had to do with the fact that she’s now a college student and he has no authority over her, or maybe she’s just happy that after all these years you’re able to love again after the death of her mother. Either way, she’s happy for you. And you’re happy for her! She’s at her dream school, HIA, pursuing her dreams of being a well known photographer. You can only hope she finds a friend like you had in college that makes all the stress worth it.
But that also means your home is empty. It’s just you and the television most nights. Or you’re just not in your own house and instead are a few doors down with your sexy teacher boyfriend. Often in his wrestling room, letting him go on and on about how much he loves the sport and the recent matches he’s been watching. That, or he’s gushing about a book he’s been reading, or one of his favorite painters- he’s got a lot of things he loves to gush about. And you love listening to him. Some nights you go to trivia. Nothing is better than wine, a cheese board, and crushing your opponents because Hugo is a trivia machine! Despite Amanda being fourteen hours away, you’re doing quite fine for yourself. You have Hugo to thank for that.
As for right now, you’re in your own home. It’s sometime in the late afternoon, meaning your boyfriend is at work trying to inspire intelligence and change in the next generation. But more accurately, he’s being ignored by middle schoolers and high schoolers because very few kids actually care about their assigned readings. The woes of being an English teacher. You’re enjoying some Long Haul Paranormal Ice Road Ghost Truckers, some episode you’ve already seen countless times before, when the doorbell rings. Puzzled, you hoist yourself off the couch and make it to the door. You don’t think you planned a hangout with any of your other friends today. Mat’s got the Coffee Spoon to run, Damien’s working at the shelter today with Mary, and Craig’s got his business to deal with.
Opening the door wide, you’re surprised to see the thirteen year old Ernest standing there. His posture is hunched and he has his orange hood practically held over his eyes. His hands were shoved in his pockets and he painfully reeked of cigarette smoke. “Hey. So, uh, I need a favor.”
“A favor?” You crossed your arms, unimpressed. “Shouldn’t you be in school right now?”
“Yeah, but I’m skipping.” How simultaneously brave and stupid he must be to be outright confessing this to his dad’s literal boyfriend. And you know he knows. He made that quite obvious with your brief conversation at Amanda’s graduation party. “And I’m in some shit. I need somewhere to hide out where the guys don’t expect until it blows over.”
“Ernest.” You sigh, leaning against the doorframe. “What did you do?”
“Dude, just let me in. Please?” You’ve never heard him say anything close to polite, so you might as well. Standing out of the way, Ernest ducks into the house. You glance out to the street, noticing an unfamiliar black car. You make eye contact with the driver, who is wearing sunglasses so you can’t get their facial profile. They start driving off. You close the door, locking it behind you.
Ernest has already flopped himself onto the couch, phone in hand, glued to it. He kicked his feet up on your coffee table, shoes off and messily placed near the front door. So.. Now you have a thirteen year old boy in your home who has no respect for authority and is probably going to ask that you not tell his dad-your boyfriend, that he was ever here. Great. Super. What a fun circumstance you found yourself in. Not knowing what else to do, you take a spot on the opposite end of the couch. There is a good cushion and a half between you, and you rest your arm along the armrest of the couch. You wait for a second, trying to figure out your phrasing. But if you pester him about what trouble he’s in, he isn’t going to open up now is he? You just kind of have to… let this happen.
“Do you want me to make you something to eat?” You finally ask, extending the olive branch. He barely looks up from his phone. “I might have some grocery store cookie dough in the fridge I can pop into the oven.”
“Do you have pizza rolls?” He asks, actually looking up from his phone this time. When you nod in the affirmative, he grunts. “Those.” Well, there goes the ‘please’ from earlier. Then again, two ‘please’s in one day is probably asking a lot from Ernest.
Admitting defeat, you once again lift yourself off the couch. This time you make your way into the kitchen. Rummaging through your freezer, you find the pizza rolls. They’re just generic store brand and pepperoni, nothing fancy. If you were being honest, you bought them just in case Amanda came home for a surprise visit and it was one of those days you really didn’t want to cook or leave the house. But feeding the son of your boyfriend isn’t a bad use for them either. Pouring a good amount into a tin pan and preheating the oven, there isn’t much more to do than wait. But when you turn around to head back to the living room, Ernest is standing directly behind you. You jump- startled. But he is staring at you like you’re the biggest moron on planet earth.
“You’re not gonna microwave them? It’s faster.” His voice is so condescending. But at least he was talking to you? And not just on his phone on the couch?
“Well, they’re crispier in the oven.” You argue, making sure your tone isn’t anything like his. “And I figured you were going to need to be here for a while. Hiding out. So you have the time.” Ernest rolled his eyes, but there was no rebuttal. “Is there something you’d like to watch on the T.V?”
“No.” You watched as his shoulders scrunched in, the same way you do when you get self-conscious. “Are you not going to pester me about what I did? Aren’t you literally banging my dad?” Yikes . Okay. So that’s not the way you’d describe your relationship with Hugo, but it’s not like he’s wrong? “I mean, uh, dating. Dating my dad.” The awkwardness on your face must’ve been so apparent, because Ernest took it back . Another weird circumstance for him.
“Yeah, I am dating your dad.” That is not a sentence you ever thought you were going to say in your lifetime, but now it’s out there. “And I do want to know just to make sure you aren’t in danger or anything- I’m not going to let you get yourself hurt or anything. But at the same time, that’s not my place to badger you. I’m not your father.” Ernest actually looked at you head on. No averted eyes, no hood or curly hair in the way. He just stared at you. And it made you feel like an ant compared to him, despite literally being over double his age. What? Was that weird to say? You cleared your throat, hating that he wasn’t saying anything. “Do you want something to drink? I have soda.”
“Yeah, actually. That’d be awesome.” You cracked a smile. Was this progress? Were you progressing with him? You certainly hope so. Ernest left the kitchen, posture just a little less hunched than before, and found his place back on the couch.
You retrieved a generic soda in front of the fridge. You didn’t bother with a cup. You handed him the cold can, and he cracked it open. Just before you were going to sit on the couch next to him, the oven loudly beeped. It was done preheating. Back in the kitchen, you find yourself some oven mitts and shove the pizza rolls in there. You set a timer for twenty minutes on the oven, extra careful to hit “kitchen timer” and not “cooking time” in case they aren’t done yet when the timer hits. You’ve made that mistake way too many times for it to be funny anymore. Now, it’s just a matter of time for the pizza rolls to be ready. And now you can take your spot back on the couch and not have to stand up for a good little while. Unless you have to pee or fetch Ernest something else.
You flop back into your spot at the other end of the couch, letting your back sink into the cushion. You expected silence to happen, but it didn’t. “Hey. How come you and Amanda have such a good relationship?”
Oh
. That’s kind of a large question out of nowhere. Sitting up on the couch, you notice how closed-off his body language is. His legs are firmly pressed together, and his arms are scrunched up with his hands still in his pockets. “Or had. She’s gone now.”
“She isn’t gone, Ernest. She’s at college.” First and foremost, you had to correct him on that front. Amanda
will
come home for visits. She isn’t
gone
. You wouldn;t dare think of the idea. “And it took a lot of mutual effort. I had to learn to give her space to be her own person, but at the same time lay down important ground rules and teach hard life lessons. She had to learn to be independent, but also how to rely and ask for help sometimes. She also was the one
learning
the life lessons, so there’s that.” You leaned back into the couch again, remembering all the times she cried to herself in her room and didn’t talk to you about it. “There’s growing pains. There’s stuff you never want to tell your parents about. And I get that. But not telling them anything makes them worried, and act out in fear. I just want the best for her, and she knows that. But as long as we talked to each other, it was okay.” And you did talk in the end. It was you two against the world, so if you didn’t have each other- you had no one. “Long story short: communication. Like every other kind of relationship.”
“But there were never too many ground rules.” Ernest focused on one detail and ran with it. “You’re not as suffocating as my dad is. That’s probably why.” Ah, now you see the problem. Hugo’s authoritarian nature and Ernest’s need for rebellion. This now makes a lot more sense where the question came from. “And you actually listen instead of just shouting and making more rules.”
“There’s a reason Hugo has those rules, Ernest.” You try to remind him. But doubling down and affirming Hugo’s constrictive parenting style is not what Ernest wants. Sure, Hugo’s authoritarianism has flaws, but so does every style of parenting. It’s not your job to criticize that. It’s a hard line to balance on. “But I can see how frustrating it can be. I can talk to Hugo about it if you want. Maybe help him ease up?”
“No.” Ernest groaned, retracting his hands from his pockets to rub the sides of his head. “That’ll just make him even worse. And if he’s worse while my other Dad is cracking down, I’ll just be getting it from all sides. I hate it.” You slowly nod, the cogs turning in your head. So Hugo’s ex is starting to get onto Ernest’s behavior too. That would explain a lot. “I’m thirteen . I’m supposed to have fun and cause chaos. That’s the entire point of being thirteen. They need to get off my back about it and leave me alone .”
“I agree. You are thirteen, you should be allowed to have fun.” Ernest was about to burst out with more, but you cut him off. “ But you also can’t be stupid about it. Getting in trouble with the law? Getting yourself into bad crowds and finding yourself beat up in an alleyway? Smoking? Those are all kind of extreme, Ernest. There’s a reason your dads are getting concerned. They just want you to be on a good path in life.” Ernest scoffed loudly, folding his arms overdramatically and turning his head the opposite way. He closed off. Clearly he isn’t being told what he wants to hear, and now he doesn’t want to listen at all. “Compromises need to be made, Ernest.”
“Compromise? Ha. Like that will ever happen with my dad.” You couldn’t prevent your heart from dropping at that statement. Does Ernest think so lowly of Hugo that he can’t even compromise with his own son? “I just need to hurry up and get old enough to move out already.”
You purse your lips into a thin line, shutting up the knee-jerk reaction to defend Hugo with everything you have. Never in your life had you been more thankful that Amanda loved you as much as she did, and had been grateful for the life choices you made to maintain that love. Silence fell between the two of you. You glance over to the kitchen to the oven’s clock. You still have a good chunk of time before the pizza rolls are ready, so you can’t use that as a subject changer. Not only that, but this is bothering you. Viscerally. What could you possibly say in the situation that 1. Wouldn’t make Ernest hate you more than he probably already does and 2. Would put Hugo into a positive light? You really need to have a conversation with Hugo tonight while you’re on your date. This tension between father and son really needs to be fixed. And you can’t do it yourself. It’s something Hugo and Ernest have to do.
“What is it you want from him?” You ask, hoping for some groundwork to use when you eventually talk to Hugo about this. “Total freedom? Lessening up on his rules? …Distance?”
“I don’t want to not have my dad in my life.” Ernest growled out, offended by that last idea. “I want him to stop treating me like a prisoner! I get it- I get in trouble a lot. So what? I still want him to treat me like his son and not a guy he’s the parole officer of!” You’re flabbergasted, but he keeps going. “Ernest, don’t do this! Ernest, you can’t do that! Be polite Ernest! Be all these stupid little things so that people don’t see you as the horrible son I see you as!” His mimicry of Hugo’s voice was extremely bastardized, and quite honestly hurtful But not as hurtful as Ernest obviously feels here. “I get it- I’m a disappointment. But he doesn’t have to remind me with the way he treats me.”
Wow. Just… wow. Ernest loudly sniffles, wiping his nose with the back of his hoodie sleeve. He turns his entire body away from you on the couch. What can you even say after that impassioned speech he just gave? Sure, you can say he isn’t a disappointment and Hugo doesn’t see him that way, but then he’ll demand proof or call you a liar. Your heart breaks for this kid. You notice his soda can is empty and the tab is ripped off, crushed and left on the coffee table. You also notice how his jeans are ripped, and in his side pocket he has a few holes. Knife-shaped holes. He probably wears that hoodie all the time to hide scrapes and bruises from fights he gets himself into. Fights he probably picks because he wants to feel control over his life and like he’s actually strong and worthwhile. You knew a lot of guys like that in college. It is so sad to see that mentality in someone who is only thirteen.
A loud beep echoes from the kitchen. The pizza rolls are done. You slowly pick yourself up off the couch, finding your body to be heavier than it was ten minutes ago. You pat Ernest’s shoulder as you walk by him. He stays there. It barely registers that he was shaking. Heading to the oven, you put on your oven mitts and pull out the pizza rolls. They’re good. Crisp along the edges, and some of the insides are spilling out and sizzling. Turning off the oven and setting them onto the counter with one of your discarded oven mitts underneath, you reach into the fridge and grab another soda. You bring it back to Ernest. You hold it in front of him. He dejectedly looks up at you, trying to get a read. But he can’t get anything. He takes the cold can of soda into his hands and stares at it. You can see the tears form in the corner of his eyes. His face was red. His fingernails dug into the aluminum.
“Thank you.” He cracks out, his voice not wanting to cooperate.
“Anytime, Ernest.” You respond as calmly as you can. “And if you ever feel like I’m treating you like a disappointment…” He looks over at you. “Slap me.” You get a laugh out of him. It’s a small one, and he tried to hide it under his breath. But you got one.
“Yeah.” He wipes his eyes with the same hoodie sleeves he used before. “I will.”
You still have an hour and a half before Hugo gets off of work for the day and you head to your Art Museum date with him. That’s a good hour and a half that you can spend here with Ernest, making sure he knows that someone cares about him. You know his dad does, but he doesn’t know that. If you can be that one guy he has in his corner no matter what, then you;d be a very lucky guy. You have a plan of action: stay here with Ernest, tear into some pizza rolls when they’re done cooling, go on your date, talk to Hugo about having a serious talk with Ernest or maybe just lightening up on the pressure or something, and see where it goes from there. Ernest cracks open the soda can and rips off the tab, shoving it into the pocket of his hoodie. He takes a slow sip that turns into downing the whole can. He crushes it and places it next to the other one on the coffee table. He lets out a large burp. He says nothing. You applaud him. He snickers and starts clapping too.
There doesn’t need to be any rules right now.