Chapter Text
Being grounded was not something that Jeremy was used to. He’d never done anything particularly worthy of such a punishment. Well, not until…not until he wasn’t himself for a while. And even then, it seemed like he might be able to avoid such a fate. But unluckily (or luckily—Jeremy still wasn’t sure), his dad had finally worked up the nerve to ground him. It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t exactly…unfun either.
Jeremy wasn’t allowed to go over to Michael’s house, full stop, for a whole month, and Michael was only allowed to come over on weekends, and he could only spend the night on Fridays. Jeremy had to let his dad know where he was going if he took the car (it was usually school), and Jeremy had to introduce his dad to any person who he wanted to hang out with. (Two weeks in, and the friend count was at zero. He still talked to Christine and Rich, even some of the others, but he didn’t want to push any of them to hang out—or face the mortification of having his dad grill them about what they’d be doing.)
Still, being grounded was…kind of nice. His dad made an effort to talk to him more, and they had pizza nights on Sundays and Thursdays, where they sat in the living room together and either watched sports or Adult Swim, depending on who got to the remote faster.
And during commercial breaks, they would talk. The first Sunday, it was stilted and awkward, and Jeremy barely ate a bite. But by Thursday, his dad finally asked, “So, Jeremy. What. What happened? What was…going on?”
Jeremy knew the topic would come up eventually, and in truth, he was glad that his dad had been the one to broach it (and that it had taken him almost a week). It gave him enough time to come up with a story. He took a deep breath, watching as a very attractive woman on screen advertised toothpaste. “There were some, uh, some kids in theater. Who, um. They were kind of, like, druggies, I guess? Or well, they weren’t, but one of their cousins had all of this…stuff. A-and it was cheap, and it was supposed to help with stage fright, but I guess I got kind of….” Jeremy trailed off, feeling his cheeks burning already. So fucking pathetic. Even whenever I’ve got a story prepared, I still don’t know what words to say.
Because it was hard, it was so legitimately difficult to go from having dialogue fed into your ear back to radio silence. (Even if it wasn’t quite silence—not all the time. Apparently, it was only silent when it mattered.)
Jeremy glanced over at his dad. There was yelling on screen, but his dad had turned down the volume while Jeremy spoke. His dad looked uncomfortable. “Jeremy….” He took a deep breath and sighed. “I—I never wanted to be the kind of parent that you couldn’t tell things to.”
Jeremy felt panic rising in his throat, thinking that he had been caught in his lie, before he remembered—drugs, right, most parents would be upset that their child had done drugs. Right.
He went on, “So, really. Thanks for tellin’ me now. I know that that isn’t an easy thing to do. To, uh, talk to your dad about this kind of stuff.” He seemed like he was about to turn back up the volume, but then he glanced over at Jeremy again. “Well, did it? Help with stage fright, I mean.”
Jeremy blinked and took a bite of pizza before answering. “Oh, well. Um, yeah, I think that it did, actually. I-I’m sorry I never told you about it. At the time, there was just a lot going on—” He cut himself off. “But—but I signed up for—I knew I was going to do the play before I even took the....drugs.” Jeremy seemed to realize that for the first time. “Oh my God, that’s—that’s totally, like, just my fault for forgetting to tell you.”
His dad let out a quiet laugh. “Hey, well, you always have been pretty scatterbrained, champ.” Seeming to feel that the matter settled, he leaned back against the couch and turned up the volume on the TV just as one character instigated an emotional talk with another.
Jeremy tried to ignore it, not wanting to be reminded that he was so much worse at communication than fictional characters were.
It was at their fifth pizza night, the beginning of Jeremy’s third week of being grounded, when he saw it.
It really shouldn’t have made him freeze the way he did. He shouldn’t have felt his eyes go wide and his stomach churn and his palms sweat because it was just a—just a soda. What kind of freak, what kind of loser gets freaked out over soda? He forced himself to take a deep breath and relax, but he still couldn’t bear to look at the green bottle sitting menacingly on the coffee table.
His dad hadn’t noticed him enter the living room yet, and Jeremy hung back as he examined the scene. The Mountain Dew was open and had at least two cups’ worth poured out already. The plastic cup on the table told him that his dad had already begun drinking it.
He tried not to let the thought worry him. He failed.
Of course there weren’t any more—of, of those pills. Rich wouldn’t allow it! Rich made sure that his hook-up guy at Payless got rid of them. Right? But there couldn’t have only been one dealer—anyone could have easily had some left over—what if his dad somehow—?
And then he heard it. He swore he heard it; his name, whispered in the back of his head, and it wasn’t the first time it had happened, not by a long shot, but suddenly he really felt like he might be sick, so much so that he spun on his heel before his dad could see him, and quickly made his way to the bathroom.
“…Jeremyyy.”
No! Not now! Shut up!
His hands were shaking like crazy and he was close to hyperventilating. He somehow managed to lock the door to the bathroom and tried to take a few deep breaths as he gripped the edge of the sink. He—he hadn’t really heard that, right? Of course not! Or well, even if he had, it shouldn’t matter, because he’s been dealing with wisps of that voice for long enough to ignore it! Why the heck was he so shaken this time?
He knew the answer. Just seeing Mountain Dew made him panic.
He laughed, and it came out sounding hysterical. What a lame thing to freak out over! Even as he thought that, he couldn’t stop the burning feeling in his chest, or the panicked tears that he felt in his eyes.
Get over it, he told himself. Chi—Calm down! It’s not there! It’s not here!
“Jeremy.”
“No!” he blurted. “No, no, no!” He covered his face with his hands, and whispered harshly. “You’ve been dealing. You’re not gonna drink it. You’ve been dealing with this for weeks now. You’re not gonna drink it. And your dad is fine. Dad is fine. Dad is—”
“Jeremy?” His dad’s voice came through the door, and Jeremy whirled around to face it. He heard the knob rattle, and then his dad’s voice came again, sounding surprisingly concerned. “Son, I know we talked about privacy, but are you—good?”
“Fine,” he said too quickly. His voice was raspy. “I’m not feeling well, actually, now that I think about it. Stomach. My stomach hurts. I think I’m gonna pass on pizza tonight?”
There was a beat of silence, then, “Oh, well. Alright then.” Jeremy waited for him to say something else, but he soon realized that his dad had left.
Jeremy sank to the floor, leaning back against the toilet. He wished he could apologize, but what would he even say? “Hey, sorry for messing up our pseudo-routine, but apparently Mountain Dew gives me paranoia now!” Yeah, right, like that’d go over well.
He wondered for a moment if he should call Michael. Michael was the only one who knew that he still sometimes heard its voice. Michael might even not make fun of him for crying about a soda.
Yeah, okay, decision made.
He took a few more moments to compose himself. He rubbed his cheeks harshly to make them red and warm, just in case his dad saw him before he could escape to his bedroom. He dabbed some water near his hairline and on the back of his neck, too, trying to ignore the bad feeling that came along with lying to his dad (again).
No confrontation—he made it to his bedroom without incident, and closed the door behind him, still breathing a bit heavily. He should have grabbed a water bottle or something because he still really didn’t feel great.
He sighed and made his way over to his bed, taking his phone off the charger and sending:
Jerry Present [6:48 PM]
> Hey dude are you
> Available?
MOM [6:48 PM]
> yeah sure whats up
Jerry Present [6:50 PM]
> Im like
> Not feeling great so like
> Can we skype?
MOM [6:51 PM]
> ill call
Jeremy felt some of the pressure in his chest ease as he talked to Michael (as per usual). He reached over and grabbed a pair of tangled earbuds, not managing to get them straightened out before his phone screen went blue, telling him that Michael was calling. He clicked the video icon and set his phone on his chest, mumbling out, “Hey.”
“Heyo, Jer, what’s up?” Michael asked, seemingly unfazed by the sight of Jeremy’s ceiling.
“One second.” Earbuds finally untangled, Jeremy plugged them in (they were noise-blocking, which was a hollow comfort when the only voice he wanted to avoid was inside his head), and adjusted his phone so that he could see Michael. “It’s dumb,” he started.
Michael, illuminated by the light of his computer screen, smiled. Jeremy could hear a keyboard clacking as Michael did God-knew-what online. “Well hey, you’re pretty dumb, so that follows.” He stopped typing and changed tabs, and Jeremy could see the moment that Michael saw his face. “Oh, shit, dude. Tell me what happened?”
“It’s dumb,” Jeremy repeated pointlessly. He used a free hand to rub his face, already feeling drained as adrenaline left his system. “There was—y’know how my dad and me are doing those pizza nights?”
“Oh, did your dad try to make you watch porn with him?”
Jeremy laughed weakly. “No, that’s only on Tuesdays.” Michael laughed as well, but didn’t say anything else, waiting for Jeremy to explain the situation. So he did. “There was—on the coffee table, I saw—So, like for dinner, Dad had bought some—” Jeremy could feel his heartbeat rising again. He avoided looking at Michael. “And I freaked out because I saw Dad drink some of it and I then heard it, so then I started freaking out even more, which is like, so dumb, right?
Michael was silent, and Jeremy finally glanced at him. Only to see that Michael had a hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh. “Wait, you really freaked out over Mountain Dew?”
Jeremy felt shame and panic and discomfort start to build again. “I—”
“Shit, shit, I mean, I didn’t mean that,” Michael interjected. His hands had gone to the collar of his hoodie, tugging at it lightly. “It totally makes sense, actually, it’s just kinda…weird.”
Jeremy huffed. “Tell me about it. You’re not the one who just had a freakin’ panic attack over a two liter.”
“That super sucks, man, sorry about that.” Michael leaned out of the frame for a second and Jeremy knew he was grabbing one of his toys—this time, it was an oddly-textured stone that he could rub while he talked. (Michael’s parents didn’t like it when he did stuff like that while talking to them, but Jeremy barely noticed it by that point.) “But hey, you were also saying that you heard the S—uh, heard it. What was it saying?”
Jeremy shrugged, feeling even more idiotic for getting worked up. “I dunno, just the usual stuff, I guess. It’s just that the Mountain Dew made me jumpy, so when I heard its voice—”
“You lost it.”
“Pretty much.”
Michael tossed the stone from one hand to the other. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Really?”
“Of course it is, but I’m your best friend, meaning I’m legally obligated to lie to you to make you feel better.”
Finally, Jeremy felt himself smile. “I thought that best friends were supposed to always tell you the truth,” he teased.
If Jeremy hadn’t been watching the screen, he wouldn’t have seen the way Michael’s shoulders twitched uncomfortably. “That too.”
“So is it one or the other?”
Michael looked at his camera and shrugged. “Both.”
Then Jeremy heard it again.
“Cute.”
Jeremy started, making his phone shake violently. Michael noticed. “Uh, you good?”
“I—It just said something again. I wasn’t expecting it so soon, usually it’s quiet for a little while between trying to psyche me out.”
“Huh. What did it say?”
Jeremy ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t like to repeat it.”
Michael knew that, but he still seemed to think that it would be healthy for Jeremy to share what it said and work through to try to combat and more effectively ignore those thoughts. To which Jeremy would reply: You’re not my therapist or my mom. To which Michael would reply: Your Skype nickname for me says otherwise. (Most people would be mortified that their initials were “MOM,” especially if they were a guy, but Michael seemed to embrace it, and Jeremy thought it was kinda funny, too.)
“All right,” Michael conceded. He went back to typing and Jeremy just watched him, managing to finally calm down while studying the weird shadows that the monitor’s light cast on Michael’s face (because Michael was the kind of person who never turned on the lights in his room—he had one lamp, and even that only came on at 3 AM when he had to make emergency bathroom trips). Michael’s eyes darted across his screen and Jeremy watched their movement, comfortable with the lack of conversation because silence with Michael wasn’t weird. After (according to Skype) nearly ten minutes, Jeremy saw Michael click back over to Skype, and his eyes went soft. “Hey, go ahead and get some rest, man. You look like ass.”
“Mmm.” Jeremy stretched a bit. “Thanks.”
“Any time. See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Jeremy ended the call.
It was only a few minutes past seven, but he felt close to passing out. He only barely remembered to double-check his Monday alarms before he wrapped the covers around himself, still fully clothed, and drifted off into a restless sleep.