“I just finished speaking with Clint Hammel,” his father said, skipping hello entirely.
“Papa,” Tobias managed. He should say that it wasn’t a good time, but Papa was iron in his ear with that one sentence. What could he do against iron? What should he do? Why couldn’t he think?
“Do you know what he told me? He told me you’d missed the appointment I set up for you.”
What appointment? Tobias couldn’t—
“He’d moved his schedule around for you, Tobias. For me. As not only a courtesy, but as the act of a colleague and friend whose opinion of me matters a great deal.”
I didn’t have an appointment. Did I?
“You couldn’t even call him? You didn’t—” Papa broke off, exhaling as if he were trying to stay calm. “I understand that you’re upset, son, but this is... I wouldn’t have expected you to do something like this. To undermine my professional relationship with someone so thoughtlessly? I...what am I supposed to think of this? Are you striking out? Did you do it to hurt me?”
“I don’t—What appointment?”
“You don’t remember?” There was a small, sharp laugh. “This is extremely unproductive behavior. This is an attack, both on my relationship with a colleague and on yours and mine as well, but never mind that. You’ve torpedoed a sterling opportunity for yourself. Do you know what an internship with Clint Hammel could do for your application to medical school? I’m at a loss to understand how you could be so careless with your future.”
“What internship?” Tobias managed.
“The one that Clint Hammel was going to offer you at the meeting I set up for you,” Papa snapped, the words vibrating right on that fine line that demarcated speech from yelling.
The itch was there, under his skin, making him fit so badly into the space he occupied, and Tobias said, “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t have to. This is what fathers do for their sons, and you’ve thrown it in my face. I don’t know where this anger is coming from.”
“Don’t you?” Tobias bit his lip so hard it bled. He couldn’t say—he shouldn’t...that itch was dangerous, it made him reckless and stupid, like it had at the picnic. It made him hurt people, people he loved and needed—
Papa sighed. “We wanted only to protect you. That creature who gave birth to you did an abominable thing. Of course we couldn’t allow her contact with a child.”
“I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with you not allowing her contact with an adult.” He closed his eyes. Stop it, he told himself. Stop talking. The itch didn’t listen. He’d let everything out, and now nothing would go back where it belonged. “And I didn’t know about the appointment. I didn’t ask for it. You can’t be mad at me for not showing up when I didn’t know.”
“I sent you the email. As I have whenever I’ve set up meetings for you in the past. How am I to know that you’ve—”
“My student email.” Of course. Tobias had been checking it only infrequently since the blowup with his parents and he’d begun skipping class. He hadn’t checked it once in the last week. “I didn’t know—I didn’t look.”
“You’re—you’re not checking your email now? I—I am bewildered by this behavior. You’ve completely... I think you should see Dr. Thornton.”
Tobias laughed, but it was a shocked, choked laugh. “What? I’m not—I’m not depressed, Papa. I’m—”
The itch wanted him to say I’m finally living, but the part of him that’d screwed up this morning told him to keep his mouth shut.
“You’re behaving erratically. You should come home. I’ll set up an appointment with Dr. Thornton. We can get you a new prescription, and—”
“No!” Tobias shouted, making Sullivan jump where he stood halfway across the room, leaning against the table and shamelessly eavesdropping. “I’m not sick! The problem is not that I’m sick again. It’s that you’re not listening. You don’t listen, and then you’re shocked when I resent you for it. I don’t—Bondye, it’s—I don’t know how to talk to you, because no matter what I say, you don’t care. You just...you try to wrap me back up in this box that I don’t want to live in.”
“You will not speak to me like this—”
“I dropped out of school! I dropped out. I’m not going to medical school. I’m not coming home. I’m not sick. I’m just tired of putting everything I want last, and it’s been fucking me up for years and I’m not doing it anymore, do you hear me? I’m not—”
There was no sound in his ear. No sound at all. Tobias pulled the phone away and the screen was flashing numbers—7:04, the duration of the call.
Because his father had hung up.
“God,” Tobias whispered. “Oh, God, what did I do?”
“You stood up to him,” Sullivan said, gently prying the phone out of his clenched hand. “In a fairly destructive manner, yeah, but I’ll bet it got the job well and truly done. So good work there, I guess. Breathe.”
“I can’t. God, I can’t breathe.”
“Well, you are, since you’re talking, but I meant something deeper and slower. You’re going to hyperventilate if you don’t get it together.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I could’ve gotten you killed today.”
“Breathe, Tobias.”
“I can’t. I don’t—I can’t.”
Sullivan clamped a hand over his mouth, forcing him to breathe through his nose, and that helped a little, since no one could hyperventilate through their nose as easily. When he’d gotten some breath back, Sullivan peeled his hand away and kissed his forehead, but Tobias had almost gotten Sullivan and Ghost hurt, and damaged the case, and he—that phone call—God, what had he done?
He jerked back.
Sullivan’s brow was creased, his gaze concerned, and Tobias didn’t deserve any of it. “Don’t do that. Don’t—you can’t.”
“It’s going to be all right,” Sullivan said.
