It Started with a Bet...

“Trevor, I need to talk to you.”

I’m sitting numbly in my car. I haven’t moved from the supermarket parking lot for an hour now. That stupid bag of potatoes is sitting in the passenger seat. Clarice is tapping on the window of the car. I finally roll my head over to look at her. She points to the door, motioning for me to unlock it. I do.

“Trevor, I need to talk to you,” she says again, urgently. She sits down beside me and slams the car door shut. I raise shrug listlessly and keep my eyes on the parking lot before me.

“I’m not going anywhere.” She nods and then pauses.

“Crap. I don’t know where to start.” She thinks for a second. “Okay, you like Haley, right?” I lean my head back and sigh.

“It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t like me back.”

“And you believe that? I mean, look at the way she treats you. Her feelings should be obvious.” I turn to look at her seriously.

“Clarice, you know that moment when you confess to someone that you like them?” She nods and blushes; must be thinking about Spike. “Do you ever feel confident that you’ll be accepted, no matter how much you’ve gone through with that person?” She looks down and shakes her head. “Haley wouldn’t lie to me,” I say with a sigh. “She’s never straight-up lied to me before and why would she over something like this? I’m a guy, she knows I don’t read between the lines!” Clarice sighs.

“Okay. You know what, Trevor? Let me walk you through a little scenario, okay?” She rubs her eyes and sits up, looking at me intently. “Let’s say that you have someone very important in your life that’s dead. And, for whatever reason, you feel extremely guilty about their death. Let’s say that person tends to live with you and when you go shopping for clothes, her voice tells you what to pick, okay?”

“I don’t go shopping for clothes very often, Clarice.” I know she’s talking about Haley, but I’m not sure where she’s going with this. She rolls her eyes.

“Focus, Trevor! For God’s sake, I know you’re a guy, but try to pay attention to something a little more complicated than a football game!” I cross my arms.

“I resent that,” I mutter with a pout.

“Prove me wrong then,” she says in exasperation. “Now, this person is very important to you. Let’s say you go to their grave and you ask them a question. Say a question about a certain someone you’ve gotten very friendly with. Perhaps a question about, I don’t know, if it’s okay to be friends with that person when this very important person is cold and ten feet under. Are you following?”

“Yes. So I ask this VIP if it’s okay to be friends with this person…” I say slowly. I’m holding my breath, waiting to hear the answer. Though I think I already know.

“And at that moment, your mother, who symbolizes the empitome of the way you were before you met said friend, appears at that very moment and drags you off to the life you led before. Would you believe that it was the answer to your question?” I scrunch my eyebrows in concentration.

“Only…only if asking at the grave had given me some kind of answer before…” Clarice shrugs.

“I can’t vouch for that, but here’s something else. I am not allowed to tell you how Haley feels. What does that tell you?” She pauses expectantly.

“That…whatever she told me is a lie?” I ask. Why are girls so freaking complicated? Clarice throws her hands up and lets out a whoop.

“He’s more than a caveman!” she yells enthusiastically. “Haley, you have chosen well!” She looks at me carefully. “So if you want Haley back, all you have to do is find some way to convince her that Trina doesn’t mind if she…does what she wants.”

I watch Haley the next day. She looks relieved, like she spilled a huge secret and she feels a lot better. But she still has that look in her eye that says something is bothering her.

***
"I'm home!" I'm tired and sweaty after soccer practice but as I head upstairs to shower, I see the back of Haley's head in the living room. My mom comes in the from the kitchen and hands her a cup of tea.

"What did you want to talk about?" Mom asks.

"Haley?" I ask. I'm not sure what to think or how to feel. Part of me is excited, even happy to see her face. The other part still stings from the rejection yesterday. No matter what Clarice says, it still hurts to remember, or think for even a minute that Haley doesn't love me back. The head on the couch turns as I approach and I realize that though those are Haley's electric blue eyes, it's not Haley. It's her mom.

I move quickly to my mom's side, ready to defend her if Haley's mom starts yelling. This woman is nothing like Haley. The woman lets out a deep breath and begins.

"I, Uh, I wanted to apologize," she begins slowly. "It's been bugging me for a week now." Never mind, that's typical Haley. Mom looks at her.

"Apologize?" Mrs. Waters nods.

"The first year after Trina's death, my husband and I did everything we could to help Haley out. It just...she didn't seem to get better. She just got quieter and quieter and she'd space out and she'd never cry but she'd look so lonely it would make you want to cry looking at her. We just...we did what we could and prayed that it would pass." She takes a sip of her tea and continues.

"And then there was this night where Haley was slitting her wrists in the kitchen and she nearly..." she trails off and raises her cup to her lips, her fingers trembling. Mom leans over to pat her hand.

"It's okay," she says. "We know." Mrs. Waters nods and puts down her tea.

"The point is, Haley went through a lot of pain and when we took her to the therapist I suddenly find out that everything I was doing to try to help her was completely wrong. How....I'm her mother! I'd never want to...to...to hurt her!" Tears start welling in her eyes and she wipes them away quickly.

"Essentially what I'm trying to say is that I'm a horrible mother. And when I got that letter from Dr. Thornton and found out that maybe I had screwed up yet again I went berserk and found the first flight here from Milan and the minute I got off the plane I headed straight here and all that jet-lag and frustration and self-loathing..." She looks at my mom pleadingly.

"I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. I'm so sorry. You were there for Haley when I wasn't, and I should be thanking you instead." My mom opens her mouth to speak, but Mrs. Waters holds up a hand.

"That being said, I'm still not entirely sure what you were doing with her was correct. Her psychiatrist specifically said she should not be reminded of Trina in any way and it was..." her voice drops to a mumble, "it was working fine." Mom raises an eyebrow.

"Was it really?" Haley's mom shrugs.

"She wasn't the same, obviously. She never went back to the way she was. The therapist didn't realize it, but a mom knows these things. I mean, she was better, so I didn't push, but she was never the same." Mom nods.

"And what's she like now?" Our guest leans forward suddenly, the cup of tea in her hand.

"That's the other reason I came. My first thought would be to trust the psychiatrist, but now that I've watched Haley for a bit, she seems much more like her old self. She seems upset about something, but it's the old 'Haley when grappling with an issue' that I'm used to, not the 'post-psychiatrist everything is fine Haley.' I was wondering if...if she was like this when you first met her." Mom looks at me.

"Trevor was the first to meet her," she says, beckoning for me to speak. I clear my throat.

"Well, uh, I couldn't really tell she was faking it before, but she...she definitely was not the way she is now. I would never be able to tell if something bothered her and she would always react perfectly to everything I did. After...after she moved in with us, I told her that she didn't have to fake anything around me and she changed a lot. Now if something's bothering her, I can tell, even if no one else can." Haley's mom looks at me when I say this and I can't help but blush. Her eyes make me think I'm talking to Haley.

She looks confused now. Confused and apprehensive. Mom looks at me.

"Trevor, why don't you go get Mrs. Waters some crackers." I know what she means; she just wants me to leave while she explains. As I pour some crackers into a small silver serving dish, I hear Mrs. Waters sit back with a cry.

"It was just an experiment? A PhD thesis?"

"You didn't know?" I come back in and place the crackers on the coffee table. No one moves.

"I'm sure he told us at some point, but, I mean, we only met him an hour after Haley's...accident. I wasn't really paying attention to him. All I remember hearing was that he would help Haley as long as I trusted him." She covers her face with her hands for a long moment.

"And you think he was wrong?" she asks finally, her face still buried in her fingers. Mom nods.

"Haley was the only one considered 'cured' after the trial was done." Mrs. Waters stands up suddenly, tears overflowing.

"I-I-I need to go. Thank you, again. Um..." she looks at the floor, opening and closing her mouth a few times as she tries to speak.

"Call again sometime," Mom says gently, touching her hand. "And bring Haley over, we'd love to see her again." Haley's mom wipes her eyes and nods. We see her to the door, but when Mom has gone back to the kitchen, I peer through the glass door.

The car hasn't moved, and the driver is hunched over the steering wheel, sobbing.