Apology by Jon Pineda (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

“You think he had nothing to do with it?” his mother said.

“Had nothing to do with what?” his father said. The man’s eyes widened.

Mario could barely breathe.

“What are you saying, mijo?” his father said.

“I don’t know,” Mario said.

“Yes, you do,” his mother said. “Take it slow. Start from the beginning.”

Mario began to sob, but his father would have none of it. He looked as if he would punch the wall his son was leaning against. He looked as if he would take apart the house with his hands.

“Tell us,” his mother said.

His father said nothing now.

Mario took a breath and told them what neither could believe.

Tom’s original thought had been to take it slow, wade into the experience before committing to a club or even a major. He thought he might want to be either a lawyer or a doctor of some sort; however, after orientation, he realized the majority of the students he had met had similar aspirations. There would be work to do. To make matters worse, most had been valedictorians or salutatorians of their graduating classes, and common sense dictated that if all of them followed through on this shared dream, there would hardly be room left for him.

His first night on campus, though, had proved too exciting. Just getting ready to go to the dining hall could be an event. He meandered with others who lived in his dormitory. Just a first year in a gang of other first years. They wandered the grounds in new orange or navy-blue T-shirts with clever Wahoo sayings and looked to meet other students, to see what was going on. Around them, a force field of Polo and Drakkar emanated.

There were the numerous, banal questions one had to answer. Questions that felt attached to a rhetorical merry-go-round, specifically designed to accommodate both the person asking the question and the one having to provide a response. Instead of lacquered, colorfully painted horses, there was the inquiry, “So where are you from?” or “What kind of bands do you like?”

Tom met Rachel the first week. When he walked into the party, she pointed right at him and at first, he didn’t get it. Then she walked over and said, “Nice shirt.” She was wearing the same one he had on. Before he could respond, she started in on other questions he had already answered throughout the day. Someone on his floor had thrown together this party, replete with grain punch and stacked cases of Milwaukee’s Beast.

He didn’t tell her he was from Norfolk. He felt it would be better if he just said, “the beach.” Norfolk being close enough in his mind, and she said she thought that was cool. It turned out she was from Northern Virginia, but she called it NoVa, a word he had never heard associated with the region. She had three older brothers, all of whom had graduated from here. With a slight pout, she added she was sad she couldn’t bring her puppy Rufus to live with her. Maybe next year, once she could grab a place off campus. Tom suspected Rufus had been a gift from a boyfriend back in Occoquan.

“What about you?” she said. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

He looked around the room. Everyone was happy, smiling.

“No,” he said evenly. “Only child.”

“That’s sad,” Rachel said and made a point of frowning.

And there it was. His new life.

Tom lay in her loft-style bed and studied a shadow on the ceiling.

A desk lamp had been left on. He thought maybe her roommate was up early, but when he leaned over the side to search the room, he found it empty.

He could tell by Rachel’s steady breathing that she had drifted off. She was still in her jeans and J. Crew blouse, her suede buck shoes and socks the only things she’d discarded. It felt practiced to him, this controlled abandon, but then she started jerking slightly, her legs mostly.

He remembered how he and Teagan, when they were really little, used to sit on the living room floor while their parents huddled together on the couch. The television would be on, and the family dog, a shepherd-hound mix, would be sprawled out near the set, dreaming. The dog’s legs would kick in sleep as if trying to function. To run. Tom and Teagan would cup their mouths to contain the bursts of laughter. With bodies shuddering, they would both look back at their parents on the couch, who would also be holding back. In that moment, there would be a shared secret as they all watched the dog chasing the invisible thing.

Only when the dog became so engrossed that there was yelping did he and Sissy drop their hands and laugh loudly. Tom pounded the floor. He couldn’t help it. The dog looked confused. It had been startled, stunned by the laughter. Teagan would be the one to apologize and nuzzle the dog’s muzzle, rubbing its soft ears and whispering, “We’re sorry, Pilot. We’re sorry,” until the laughter died down and there was still Teagan, consoling for having taken the dog away from its dream. No one in the room spoke; they just wiped their eyes because it had been too much, their happiness.

It was not sadness now. He had felt that before, been consumed by it actually. He watched this girl sleep, the girl whom he had met in the city of his new life.

Days later, on his way to his Introduction to American History class, he was approached on campus by a third year. His name was Chase and he wore a crushed baseball cap sporting Greek letters and covering a spray of sandy blond curls. His blue Oxford had been unbuttoned just so to reveal a tight, surfer necklace of bleached white shells.

Chase was from the same hometown as Tom’s roommate, Landon, somewhere in the western part of the state. Chase asked