It Happens All the Time: A Novel

I met Amber Bryant on a Saturday, the Labor Day weekend before I would start my sophomore year at a new high school in a new city. My parents had moved us from Seattle to Bellingham in late August, after a series of state budget cuts had forced my dad to leave the fire station where he had worked for over a decade.

“Fucking bureaucrats,” my father had muttered when he got the notice of his pending layoff and optional transfer. “I lose my job because bleeding heart liberals decide to use all our tax dollars to support these stupid girls who keep spitting out babies because they don’t know how to close their slutty legs.” He’d looked at me as we sat across from each other at our kitchen table, eating the lasagna my mom had made for us before she left for her shift at the pharmacy, and pointed a thick finger in my direction. “Be careful who you stick it to, Ty. No matter what they say about being on the Pill, don’t forget—no erection without protection.”

I was fourteen at the time, and I’d nodded, uncomfortable with my father’s graphic and casual reference to sex, but also unable to clear the images that suddenly filled my mind at hearing his words: images of slutty girls—girls like the ones in the Victoria’s Secret catalogs I kept hidden under my bed, who wore nothing but spiked high heels, push-up bras, and black lace thongs. Without meaning to, I pictured them spreading their legs, then ended up flushed and squirming in my seat, trying to find a way to change the subject.

Three months after that conversation, my parents and I packed up our house and drove northward, eventually pulling up in front of the yellow, two-bedroom house we’d bought, which turned out to be only four doors down from the Bryants’ place. The movers hadn’t even taken the first box off of the truck when Amber’s mom, Helen, showed up in our front yard holding a plate full of chocolate chip cookies and an invitation to the neighborhood’s yearly end-of-summer party.

“It’s at our place this weekend,” Helen said. “Hopefully the weather will hold out so we can still use the pool!” She smiled at me, and I could immediately tell she was someone I would like. She was shorter and heavier than my mom, but there was something inviting about Helen’s round, soft edges, and the kind light in her eyes. She had long, dark red hair and freckles, reminding me of a teacher I’d had in second grade who told me that someday, with my dedicated interest in dinosaurs and bugs at the time, I might make a good scientist. Helen seemed like the kind of mom who would sit you down after school, feed you a snack, and ask to hear about your day—unlike my mother, who more often sat me down, poured herself a glass of chardonnay, and proceeded to tell me all about hers.

“Do you like to swim, Tyler?” Helen asked.

“Nope,” my dad said, crossing his big arms across his chest. “He’s afraid of water.”

My cheeks flamed as I lowered my eyes to the grass.

“Jason, please,” my mom said.

“Please, what?” my dad replied.

My mom ignored him in favor of giving Helen an apologetic look, then offered explanation in a low voice. “Tyler had a scare a couple of years ago. He went over the side of a canoe at summer camp and got tangled up in some lily pads. It took a while for the counselor to cut him loose, and he hasn’t really been crazy about swimming since.” She put her arm around my waist, which I knew was meant to be comforting, but I yanked away from her touch. My dad had already made me feel like a baby—I didn’t need her to make it worse by coddling me, too.

“Well,” Helen said, “there are lots of other things to do at the party besides swim. Lawn darts and badminton. And so much good food! We like to eat in this neighborhood! My daughter, Amber, is about to start eighth grade. What about you, Tyler?”

“He’ll be a sophomore at Sehome,” my mom answered for me. “He just turned fifteen last week.”

“Oh, that’s a great school. Amber will go there next year, too.” She smiled again. “I should leave you all to unpack. Just wanted to welcome you, and say I hope we see you Saturday!” She waved as she turned and walked down the street toward her house.

After she was out of earshot, my mom turned to my dad, her blue eyes flashing. “You think it’s funny, embarrassing your son like that?”

I held my breath, waiting for my father’s response, worried that they might get into a screaming argument on the lawn. My parents had fought with each other for as long as I could remember, bickering over things as silly as taking out the garbage and more serious issues, like his long shifts at the station or my mom’s tendency to charge too much on their credit cards. Over the past couple of years, though, things had gotten worse. Their fights had become louder and more frequent; they’d started calling each other names. I would lie on my bed with my pillow over my head, trying not to hear the ugly words they said to each other. My heart shook inside my chest—I was terrified that my dad might come into my room and direct his anger at me, if only for another place to put it. Part of me hoped that moving to a new place would somehow press a reset button for them. Maybe it would help our family make a fresh start.

“A little embarrassment might do him some good,” my dad said, talking about me like I wasn’t standing right there. “Maybe he’ll man up and get over it.”

His last words were the ones that floated through my head when we arrived at the party a few days later. “Man up, Son,” might as well have been tattooed on the backs of my eyelids, my father said it to me so often. It was a hot afternoon, already eighty-five degrees at one o’clock, so my dad insisted I wear my swim trunks, and I knew better than to argue. He wore his trunks, too, but my mom put on a denim sundress, saying that if she got too hot, she’d just stick her feet in the water.

The Bryants’ backyard was full of people when we made our way through the gate, most of them engaged in animated conversations, laughing and talking like they’d known each other for years, which they likely had. There were mostly adults, a few teenagers, and lots of younger kids; many of the littler ones were already in the pool. I told myself that I was going to get into the deep end on my own, even if it killed me, just to prove to my dad that I wasn’t the scared little boy he kept making me out to be. Everyone told me how much I looked like him, only a skinnier version. I was five-foot-nine, and he was six-two; I ate like my entire body was hollow and needed to be constantly refilled, yet I remained scrawny, while my dad spent enough time fighting fires and lifting weights at the station house that he maintained an impressive physique.

As my parents shut the gate behind us, I scanned the crowd and saw Helen standing over by the tables of food, which were in the shade, beneath a covered part of the patio. As she moved things around to accommodate what everyone had brought, she looked up, saw us, and headed over. On the way, she grabbed the hand of a dark-haired girl who had been standing alone near the back door.

“You made it!” Helen said as she and the girl stood in front of us. They had the same hazel eyes and heart-shaped faces, so I assumed that this had to be Helen’s daughter. Helen’s cheeks were bright pink, and she waved her hand in front of her face as though it were a fan. “Whew! It’s a scorcher, isn’t it? Can I get you something to drink? A bucket of ice to pour over your head?” She laughed, speaking so quickly, she didn’t pause between sentences long enough to give us a chance to reply. She smiled and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “This is Amber. My husband, Tom, is hiding somewhere around here, too. Probably inside, in front of a fan.”

“Hi,” Amber said, holding a single hand up in greeting. Like her mother, she had round, soft edges, and they both wore summery dresses. I struggled to maintain eye contact with Amber, which was a particular challenge because her outfit was doing a pretty awesome job of showing off her cleavage.

“This is Liz and Jason Hicks, honey,” Helen said. “And their son, Tyler. Our new neighbors. I told you he’s starting at Sehome as a sophomore, right?”

“Yep,” Amber said as she gave me a slight roll of her eyes, which I interpreted as meaning “Parents are so annoying.”

“Hey,” I said, managing a smile.

“You’re such a pretty thing,” my mom said to Amber, and then turned to my dad. “Isn’t she pretty, Jason?”

“Very pretty,” my dad said, his eyes roving over Amber, and I saw a strange look flash across her mom’s face.

“Want something to drink?” Amber asked me, apparently oblivious to, or perhaps blatantly ignoring, what was being said by the adults. I nodded, following her to the big green Coleman ice chest that sat on the patio closer to the house. “There’s soda, iced tea, or water,” she said, grabbing a bottle of water for herself, and I grabbed a Coke.

We stood together in silence for a moment, watching the younger kids splashing in the pool, until Amber finally spoke. “Where’d you move from?”

“Seattle,” I said after I took a long swallow of soda. “My dad got transferred to a fire station up here.”

“He’s a fireman? That’s so cool. My dad just sells insurance.” She paused. “Well, actually, he owns the insurance company, but still. That’s nothing like saving people’s lives.”

“Yeah, I guess. He’s gone a lot. Like, twenty-four hours at a time. Sometimes more.”

“That sucks,” Amber said, screwing up her face. “What about your mom?”

“She’s a pharmacist, but she only works part-time, since my dad is gone so much. She doesn’t like to leave me alone. Which is stupid, because it’s not like I’m going to burn the house down or anything.”

Amber bobbed her head. “I know, right? My mom’s so protective. When I started kindergarten, she decided to get a job at the elementary school so she could have all the same vacations as me. She’s like a stalker, but a nice one who bakes me cookies and does my laundry.” She made another funny face, and I laughed. It usually took me a while to get comfortable talking with someone, especially a girl, but something about Amber made me feel like we’d known each other for years.

“Does she still work there?” I asked.

“Yep. She’s the secretary. She offered to try and get a job at my middle school, but I told her I’d kill her if she did. Of course, she still joined the freaking PTA.”

We went silent again for a minute, until this time, I found my voice. “Want to get something to eat?” I asked. Just looking at the tables overflowing with food made my stomach growl, even though I’d eaten a sandwich at home only an hour before.

Amber’s eyes followed mine, and then she quickly looked away, almost as though she’d been caught doing something wrong. “No, thanks,” she said, her voice at a higher pitch than it had been when she was talking about her mom. “You can, but I’m not really hungry.” She chugged from her water bottle until the entire contents were gone, then grabbed a red Solo cup from a stack of them on a table and filled it with ice from the green chest. “I like to chew on it like it’s popcorn,” she explained, holding up the cup, rattling its contents.

“Oh,” I said. “Okay.” It felt like kind of a random thing to tell me, but I didn’t comment on it because I wanted to keep talking with her.

“Hey, Tyler!” my dad yelled from across the yard, interrupting my train of thought. He stood next to the pool with a beer bottle in hand. “Time to bite the bullet!” His voice was full of mischief.

“What bullet?” Amber asked, tucking her long, dark hair behind one ear. “What’s he talking about?”

“Nothing,” I mumbled, setting my soda down on a table. I looked up and saw that my dad had put down his drink as well, and was now charging toward us with a determined look on his face. My stomach clenched, and the Coke I’d just sipped burned in the back of my throat. I glanced around and realized that everyone else was busy, even my mom, who was already sitting at a table with Helen, each holding a glass of white wine, heads together, looking like they were deep in conversation. I willed her to sense my eyes on her and then do something to intervene.

“Are you okay?” Amber asked, but before I could answer, my dad stood in front of me, his body only inches from my own, his hands on his hips. Amber took a step to the side, away from us, but didn’t leave, and before I knew what was happening, without a word, my dad scooped me up, cradling me like a baby.

“Dad, stop!” I screeched, my voice cracking on the words. I kicked my legs, trying to break free as he turned around and carried me toward the pool. “Please, don’t!” I begged, continuing to kick, but his arms were thick with ropy muscles; it was useless for me to protest. He held me over the water for a couple of seconds, locking his green eyes on mine. “This is for your own good, Son,” he said, and then he dropped me, fully dressed, in front of the entire party, into the deep end.

The world went silent as I plunged into the pool. Chlorinated water assaulted my eyes, then filled my mouth and ears, making them sting. Bubbles rose up as I coughed and choked, flailing and panicking the same way I had when the lily pad tendrils had wrapped themselves around my legs. When I bobbed to the surface, I opened my eyes, blinking fast, treading water as best I could, feeling like I might be sick. The muscles in my chin twitched, involuntarily pulling down the corners of my mouth. Don’t fucking cry. Keep your shit together.

My dad stood by the edge of the pool, watching me with a satisfied look on his face. “There you go,” he said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I didn’t answer; instead, I fought my way to the shallow end, where my mom had rushed. “Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked, putting a hand on my back as I stumbled up the steps to the patio. I had to throw out a hand and grab on to the railing so I wouldn’t fall. All of the other people at the party had stopped their conversations and were staring at the pool. At my dad and me.

“I’m fine!” I jerked away from her touch, keeping my head down as I grabbed the towel she held and wrapped it around my body. Despite the heat, I shuddered, and rivulets of water raced down my legs. My flip-flops had come off in the water, but I didn’t even care. I just wanted to leave.

“C’mon, Ty,” my dad said from the other side of the pool. “Don’t be a spoilsport!”

“Please, Jason!” my mom snapped. “Enough!”

“I’ll decide what’s enough, Liz,” he replied, leaning hard on her name. His brows furrowed as he made his way over to join us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amber look at her mom, like what should we do? But Helen simply pressed her lips together and gave a small shake of her head. I couldn’t believe my parents were fighting in front of everyone, that this was the first impression they wanted to make. So much for our family getting a new start.

“We were just horsing around,” Dad said, in a much more controlled, lighthearted voice, glancing around at the other people at the party, as though only now realizing he was being watched. “That’s what fathers and sons do. Right, Ty?” He gave a hearty, friendly-sounding laugh, one so convincing that if people didn’t know him, they would think it was genuine.

I stood still and didn’t answer, refusing to look at him.

Just then, there was a commotion of activity as the gate opened and more people arrived. With the distraction of the new company, the strain in the air dissipated. While the younger kids began to play in the pool again, the adults grabbed drinks and food, sitting in the shade or lounging in the sun, chatting with each other and keeping an eye on their children. Someone turned on some music, and a stocky man with black hair and a friendly smile greeted my father. If I had to guess by the way he clapped my dad on the back and maneuvered him away from me and over to the food table, I would have said that this was Helen’s husband, Tom, trying to assure that the situation remained diffused. My mom sat down with Helen again at a table by themselves, and they put their heads close together again, talking. In between sips of wine, my mother kept biting her bottom lip and shaking her head, looking like she was trying not to cry.

Seeing this, I left the patio and strode across the lawn, knowing that witnessing her tears might bring on my own, which was the absolute last thing I needed—I’d had enough humiliation for one day. I sat alone near the back fence, staring at the thick grass, kicking at one spot with my big toe until a small chunk of the lawn lifted. I thought about leaving. About running away from this stupid small college town and going back to Seattle, even if there was nothing for me there. For the most part, I kept to myself. I didn’t really have any friends, certainly not the kind that would invite me to live with them. I was too quiet, too hesitant to engage in the sort of rough-and-tumble activities other boys my age seemed to love. My grandparents on my father’s side lived in Southern California, where he’d grown up, and after some sort of squabble they’d had with my dad years ago, we didn’t talk with them. My mom’s parents had had her later in life, when they were in their early forties, and now they lived in an assisted-living community in Bellevue that didn’t allow residents under the age of fifty-five, so I couldn’t stay there. I had nowhere to go, no one in my life to save me. As I looked up at the cloudless blue sky, a shadow fell over me, and Amber dropped my flip-flops on the ground next to my feet.

“Thought you might want those,” she said, plunking into the empty chair next to me.

“Thanks.” I was too embarrassed to look at her, so I pulled the towel from my shoulders and wadded it up into a ball in my lap. It was hot enough that my hair and T-shirt were already almost dry.

“It must suck to move somewhere new, huh?” Amber said. “I’ve lived here all my life. Same house, same people, same everything. Talk about boring.” She pretended to snore, and I couldn’t help but laugh—a short, dry sound that emanated from my chest.

“It does suck. I don’t know anyone.”

“Well . . . you know me,” she said, with a lilt in her voice. “And I’m pretty great. Just ask me.” She grinned, revealing straight white teeth and a single dimple in her full, round cheek.

I laughed again, this time from my belly, and the tension in my body slowly began to melt away. I fiddled with the thick hem on my towel, then gave her a grim look. “Sorry about my dad.”

“What are you sorry for?”

I shrugged.

She waited a moment before speaking again. “Why’d he do it?”

The words “Because he’s an asshole” almost came out of my mouth, but instead, I said what my mother always told me when he acted like a jerk. “He just wants me to be more like him.”

“Oh.” Amber cleared her throat, and then looked at me. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Like him.”

I glanced over at my dad, who by this time had left Tom’s company to sit near the pool and a woman in a bathing suit that showed off her big boobs. She laughed at something my dad said, and in response, he briefly brushed the backs of his dangling fingers against her bare leg. “No,” I told Amber. My voice was flat. “I’m not.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Yeah,” I said, wondering how it was possible that after barely a ten-minute conversation, this girl might already understand me.

“C’mon,” she said. “You wanted to eat, right? So let’s eat. I can tell you what’s good.”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.” I gave her another shy smile then, grateful for the way she made me feel. It didn’t matter that she was two years younger than me or that we were going to different schools. In that moment, one thing felt clear. Amber and I were going to be friends.

•  •  •

“What about that one?” Amber asked me as we stomped our way through the plot of forest that the tree farm opened to the public during the holidays. Her parents and my mother had gone off in a different direction to pick out the Bryants’ tree, while Amber and I were put in charge of finding a smaller one for my mom’s house.

“You two know what I like,” she told me as they waved us away. The truth was that Helen was much more particular about these kinds of things than my mother was. If Helen, who was my mom’s closest friend, wouldn’t have given her a bad time about it, my mom most likely wouldn’t have bothered putting up a tree. But when my parents divorced only six months after moving to Bellingham, the Bryants basically adopted my mom and me into their family, and my mother’s gratitude for their kindness ran deep. So did mine.

I stopped and stared at the tree Amber pointed at, a lush noble fir that was about the same height as her. “I don’t think my mom has enough ornaments to decorate one that big,” I said.

“She can borrow from the ten million extra ones my mom has in the attic,” Amber said, laughing. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, highlighting the scattering of tiny brown freckles that peppered her nose, and her eyes were bright with amusement. I was happy we’d managed to resolve the tension between us on the drive to the farm, even if it had required me to lie to her about my hoping her relationship with Daniel would work out. I loved her so much, it made my stomach hurt, and that made me willing to do anything—say anything—to make sure I didn’t lose her.

“Remember the time we poured some of her boxed wine into coffee mugs and snuck it up there to drink?” I asked.

“Oh my god!” Amber exclaimed. “I totally forgot about that. How old were we?”

“You were a freshman and I was a junior. It was during spring break and we were bored out of our minds so we decided to see what it would be like to get drunk.”

“That’s right.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffy black ski jacket and jogged in place a minute, presumably to warm up, which made me have to fight the urge to offer her my body’s heat. “You chugged the whole mug in, like, thirty seconds,” she said. “You were so dizzy when you stood up, you knocked over a box of ornaments.”

I cringed and shook my head, remembering the thud of the box as it hit the floor, the sound of shattering glass. “I was seriously terrified your mom was going to kill me.”

“But then I insisted that you keep your trap shut and she’d just assume it fell over on its own. Which she did.” Amber gave me a triumphant look, and I laughed.

“You corrupted me. I never lied to anyone until I met you.”

“Pfft, whatever!” she said, and then shot out her right arm, grabbing the noble fir near its tip, wiggling it. “Come on, your mom will love this one. Chop the sucker down so we can go get some damn cocoa and stop freezing our asses off!”

“Okay, okay!” I said. “Bossy, much?” I lifted the hatchet I carried, and then took a few steps over to crouch down next to the tree. I whacked at the base of the trunk a few times, while Amber stood by with her arms crossed over her chest, watching.

“You need me to do that for you, big man?” she asked. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“You’re so not funny,” I said, smiling. This was what I loved most about Amber. She forced me not to take myself so seriously. She made me feel like the absolute best version of myself.

“Oh, I’m hilarious. Just ask me.” This was one of our private jokes, after she had used the “just ask me” phrase at the party where we first met, and I later confessed that was one of the funniest things anyone had ever said to me, the moment I knew we would be friends. Her use of it now confirmed the fact that she had fully forgiven me for what had happened in August.

“Smart-ass.” I shook my head and put my focus back on chopping down the tree.

“Better than a dumb-ass.” She jumped up and down a few times, her arms still crossed and her fingers shoved under her biceps. “How’s your dad?” she asked. “You going to see him for the holiday?”

“Probably.” I hit the trunk with the hatchet with as much force as I could muster, and it finally began to lean to one side. “And he’s fine, I guess. We don’t talk that much.”

“You don’t see him at work?”

“Not really,” I said, glancing up at her. “We’re assigned to different station houses, so the only time we see each other on the job is if there’s an emergency that requires more than one team of responders and we happen to be working the same shift.”

“Ah, got it,” Amber said. “Is he still living with that one chick . . . what’s her name? The one with the smelly gray cat?”

“Diana. And no, he broke up with her. As usual.” Like my mother, my dad had never remarried; instead, he plowed through relationships with mostly younger women—some of them the same age as me—leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake.

“I need to sow my oats,” he once told me, not long before I graduated high school. “Your mom trapped me into getting married too young, and I’m never gonna fall for that again. I spent too many years giving her everything she wanted. It’s about getting my needs met now.” He winked at me, like we were in on some kind of secret together, and I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t deny my dad’s ability to charm women. I’d watched over the years, when we went out for dinner on the weekends I had to spend at his house, how he had a way of talking and touching women—plying them with compliments, making them laugh, and discreetly brushing his knuckles somewhere against their bare skin. It almost always got him what he wanted—them, at his house, in his bed.

“Sorry,” Amber said, and I knew her well enough to understand that she wasn’t just referring to the fact that my dad had broken up with yet another woman. She was sorry that he and I didn’t have the kind of relationship that she had with her parents. She was sorry that I used to come home from a weekend at his condo and lock myself in my bedroom, wishing I never had to go back there again, that I never had to wake up to find some half-naked, strange girl in his kitchen—to make stupid, awkward conversation with her until my dad told her she needed to leave.

“It’s fine,” I said, giving the tree trunk one last strike. It fell over, hit the ground, and I thought about the other lie I’d told Amber in the truck—the one where I said that I wasn’t dating anyone. It’s just a white lie, I told myself as I picked the trunk up and Amber held on to the tip, slowly making our way back to the barn where, I hoped, our parents would be, too. I wasn’t dating Whitney, my twenty-year-old, college-student neighbor, I was sleeping with her. I’d met her back in September—not long after my argument with Amber—in our building’s parking lot, where she was lifting a backpack out of her car.

“Here,” I said, striding over to her. “Let me get that for you.” I smiled, taking in her petite frame, her straight, long black hair, and equally dark, almond-shaped eyes. She wore a red, form-fitting dress that was short enough to make it clear what would show if she bent over.

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got it.”

“I can see that,” I said, “but I’m trying to impress you with my gentlemanly skills, so please, let me.” I reached out, took the bag from her, and she finally smiled, too.

“I’m Tyler.”

“Whitney Cho.” Her gaze swept over me, and I was happy that I was in uniform. I still was getting used to how much attention women gave me when I wore it.

“Well, Whitney Cho, are you busy right now? I just got off work, and I’m thinking about watching a movie. Want to join me?”

“I don’t know . . . I kind of need to study.” She looked upward, where I assumed her apartment was.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll just go home and try not to think about how lonely I am.” I fake-sniffled and wiped beneath my eyes with the back of my hand.

Her posture relaxed and she laughed. Five minutes later we were in my apartment, the television on while we sat together on the couch. We chatted a little, and I learned that she was a business major, and that she had grown up in Bellevue. Currently, she lived with three other roommates in a two-bedroom apartment upstairs, and she only got along with one of them.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” I asked, thinking about Amber sitting in the exact spot where Whitney was now, telling me about Daniel—the harsh edge in my friend’s voice when she said, “You’re just jealous.” My skin began to itch and my heart, to pound. I set my hand on the top of Whitney’s leg.

“No,” she said. “I kind of like older guys.” Her cheeks flushed, and taking this revelation as permission, I kissed her. I rolled to my side, pressing my erection against her hip, and she didn’t pull away. When I gently lifted her hand and put it on me, she hesitated, but didn’t protest. She kept her eyes closed.

It was over quickly, and afterward, when she had gone home, I lay in bed, telling myself that I deserved something like this—something fun, something casual—something that was nothing more than no strings attached. Because the truth was, while Whitney was many things—she was young, she was hot, she was available—she would never be enough.

She would never be Amber.