I changed editors because I was getting a lot of complaints about the old one. I hope this guy did a better job. Some dialogue is written like it is on purpose to match the way people really talk. No one talks perfectly all the time.
*****
The day I left our house for the second time I was hopeful. I was hopeful that with a few days' time everything would work itself out, and we could start to try to get past this major road block we ran into. That's what I hoped would happen, that was not the case. True to his word, dad wouldn't let Rita and I communicate the whole time at was at Chris' house, not even for a second. She had to use the freaking house phone whenever she called here, and she had to be on speaker just to prove she wasn't talking to me. Anything private she wanted to talk about had to go through mom, or one of the parents, or someone had to come in person. He made every full effort to make sure we stayed apart, even to the fact that he used two weeks' vacation just so nothing cloud happen while he was at work.
He was determined to separate us, and he was pulling out all the punches. To make matters worse than they already were, the three days he needed to work things out? Turns out he needed longer than that, an extra eleven days to be exact. He used up his entire vacation not taking a vacation. The whole situation is kinda funny actually. He took an actual vacation with all the parents to go on a cruise, then got off that vacation and took another two weeks' vacation right after that, and spent the entire thing playing spy vs spy. I don't know how accurate the dates are, I'm just going off of what Stephanie and Chris tell me since I can have no contact with Rita, which has been the most purest form of hell.
Not seeing her or talking to her for two whole weeks was something I never planned on happening. I tried to go back after the three days, then again a few days later, then a few days after that, and after that, but each time dad would not let me in, he kept saying to go back to Chris' until he "found a way to deal with everything", but each time he said it he always said it in that same tone of voice, like he's making no effort at all to try to deal with it. The most I've seen of Rita was when she looked out the window whenever I tried to come back. She looked down at me like she wanted to cry every time she saw me, like being apart was killing her just as bad as it was killing me. I'd look up at her as long as I could before I was pushed back to Chris' house by dad. There was no way I'd be able to get past dad long enough to even give Rita a hug. He took my house keys the second time I came back so sneaking in was out of the question either. He had her locked up so tight there was no way I'd be able to get to her without him noticing, and it depressed the hell outta me.
The whole time I was at Chris' house I was in a noticeable funk that I couldn't get out of. I put on a good enough acting job when Jim was around but other than that I was a killjoy, but no one gave me crap for it since they knew what I was going through. They tried to cheer me up most days, and it worked some of the time, but mostly I'd just keep to myself. My only bright spot of the day was when someone had a message from Rita for me, and that's when they'd usually try to capitalize on bringing me out of my funk. Two weeks, two whole weeks of no contact with Rita. I thought about that as I once again sat on the couch that's been my new bed for the last two weeks. I heard Jim laughing with Marie as they came down the stairs and I hurried up and turned on the TV so I could avoid tipping him off about anything. Jim was the only one out of all of us who still didn't have a clue about anything going on, and I wanted to keep it that way.
"Hey what's up Randy, so what's on the agenda for today?" Jim asked.
"You know, watching some TV and some video games, it's a lazy day today."
"Ah, by my count it's your third lazy day in a row. Having trouble adjusting without Rita?"
"You can say that, if she were here we'd have a million things planned by now."
"I can't believe you made it two whole weeks without talking to each other! I didn't think you'd last a day! I guess I owe you that dinner, whenever you wanna cash it in just let me know."
"I'll use it on the day you make liver or something. You guys heading out?"
"Yeah Marie's taking me antiquing, you wanna come? Please say you wanna come!"
"I'm standing right here Jim, don't be such a baby," Marie laughed.
"As fun as that sounds, Breaking Bad is on, gotta get my daily dose of methamphetamine on, but I'll rain check you for next time."
"Come on, it's the new 'it' thing, everybody's doing it, give it a try," Jim said.
"New 'it' thing?" I laughed. "Ok, I'll go if you can get Chris to go too."
His face expression dropped. "Yeah well enjoy your show then, see you when we get back."
"You go ahead and start the car Jim, I wanna talk to Randy for a second," Marie said.
"Ok, don't take too long... on second thought take as much time as you need, we don't need..."
"Nice try Jim, we're still going, I'll only be a second. Get your butt out there and start the car."
"It was worth a try. Who knows, maybe I'll like it... yeah no this is gonna suck."
Jim went outside and both Marie and I couldn't help but share a laugh. "I swear, sometimes I don't know what to do with him, but he does know how to lighten the mood."
"Yeah, I actually laughed. I didn't know my face could still make that expression," I said.
Marie muted the TV. "So how are you holding up? I thought you were only supposed to be here for three days, it's been what, two weeks? This must be killing the both of you."
"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't. I had no idea it would be this long. I wasn't ready for it."
"Who would be? The fact that you're twins must make it that much worse."
"There's absolutely nothing I can do. I don't know how much longer I can take this."
"This kinda reminds me of when Jim and I first got together. We were in our early twenties and we just started dating, he was always sweet, even back then, that's what attracted me to him. The first three months of our relationship we spent every moment together, it didn't matter what we did, as long as we did it together we were happy. One time he even managed to make going to the city dump fun, but that's a story for another time. Anyways, something came up where he had to go out of state with his family for a week. He told me about it and I understood, things come up and you have to go with it, so I kissed him goodbye and wished him a safe trip. What I didn't count on was how much I'd miss him.
I found myself calling him every chance I got and thinking about him when I couldn't call him. I didn't know him leaving would hit me that hard. We spent so much time together that I didn't know what to do with myself when he wasn't around. That was the week I found out I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, and as it turned out he felt the exact same way I did. From that moment on we made sure we didn't let anything keep us apart if it didn't need to be."
I listened intently to what Marie told me, and after running over it in my head again, something jumped out at me. "Are you telling me to go against my dad?"
"I'm not TELLING you anything, I'm just giving you my two cents. What you do with it is completely up to you. I will say one more thing though, I took that same advice, knowing the consequences of what could come, but I don't regret it for a single second. That man out there in that car is the man of my dreams, and he gave me two beautiful children. He'd do anything for me and I'd do anything for him, someone like that doesn't come around often."
"So you are telling me to defy my dad, you're just not straight out saying it."
"Sometimes, parents don't know what's best for you, and it's up to the kids to show them. This is one of those times. If you have to defy your father, then you gotta do what you gotta do. Ok, that's all the wisdom I have for you today. Let me get back to this man outside before he decides to rearrange the car out of boredom. See you when we get back."
She rubbed her hand across my cheek and got up and headed out the door, leaving me to think about everything she said. She made sense on almost everything she said, it was just that though, what she said is where the issue came in. If I were somehow able to defy dad what would the consequences be? Who would they affect? How long would they affect? Could it be forgiven? Could we actually cut someone out of our life that's been there as long as we could remember? I know we said we would, but once we're actually in that situation I don't know what we'd do. Doing it is a lot harder than just saying it.
While Marie's advice was helpful, it really didn't help me. All it did was bring about more questions that needed to be answered. I turned the volume back up on the show and tried to somewhat forget about my impossible situation and get back to Walter White's drug problem. I was sprawled out on the couch for about ten minutes when Stephanie and Chris came jogging down the stairs laughing at what seemed like one of their inside jokes when they saw me on the couch.
"So is today the day you finally get that imprint of your ass off the couch?" Stephanie asked.
"Nope, I figure I have at least a couple more days. Did you hear anything from Rita?"
"Nah nothing man, she hasn't been calling much lately, don't know why," Chris said.
I muted the TV again. "Dad's doing it. He knows she's relaying messages to you to give to me."
"He's really not taking this well. How much longer is this gonna last?"
"I don't know, but two weeks is long enough. I need to figure something out."
