Scratch the Surface

“But that suddenly changed?”

“Yeah. The other night when you had to leave, I saw him on the way home. That’s when he offered me the job at the halfway house I couldn’t take.”

“I see.”

“And then last night after we all got fired, he wanted to talk, and we were gonna, but then I got hurt.”

“So you said.”

He was quiet as I threw my suitcase on the bed, unzipped it, and returned to my armoire.

“I was trying to tell you something.”

“Yes, you were. You said that a lot of bad things have happened to you.”

“That’s right. A lot of bad things have happened to me,” he repeated, picking the conversation back up, “and I’ve handled it myself, and I got used to doing it and not being close to people, but when I got hurt last night, I wanted to call you.”

I would need to place several people on a hit list. It wouldn’t have been hard for anyone to get in touch with me; my number was in his phone. Even if he’d passed out, they could have used facial recognition or his thumbprint to unlock it.

“And I wanted you to know that just ’cause I’m used to bein’ alone and taking care of myself and stuff, it doesn’t mean I wanna keep doin’ it.”

I went out on a hopeful, wishful ledge. “Being alone, you mean?”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“I made a lot of plans very quickly, and you agreed,” I confirmed.

“I know you did, and I went along,” he confessed, his voice cracking. “And I’m sorry if I didn’t say how happy I was, or if I made you feel like I didn’t care, or I wasn’t––what’s the word?”

“Invested?” I hazarded a guess.

“Yeah. See, I knew you’d know ’cause you’re an accountant.”

I cleared my throat. “Finish what you were going to say.”

“What was it?”

“About being invested,” I reminded him.

“Oh yeah, well, I want you to know I am, okay?”

“Yes” was all I could manage around the lump in my throat.

“In school we get observed, and people always say the same thing about me. They say I’m nice, sometimes they say I’m charming and they think I’ll make a good social worker, but they worry about my ability to network and make connections with my peers.”

“I think if they saw you at the restaurant, they wouldn’t worry.”

“That’s what Betty said, and she wrote them a recommendation letter about all that.”

I suspected it was because they didn’t see him with friends or making overtures toward being social at school. The balance of coursework and working two jobs and a personal life was sometimes hard for those in academia to parse. I had heard similar concerns when I first joined my firm. I was drowning in work, wanting to show my boss my commitment to growing with the company while making sure I made no mistakes, and I was still expected to be a team player and spend time socially with my peers. For me, as an introvert, there were land mines that came with mandatory social interactions, but for Jeremiah, who was barely keeping his head above water, the expectation was ludicrous.

“I think them insisting on you having a balanced academic, social, and work life is a bit ridiculous, not to mention an overreach on their part.”

“I get why they push it, the balance part. Lots of social workers burn out superfast ’cause they have no balance. They do the job but have no personal life and end up having nervous breakdowns, or get jaded, or whatever. But it’s hard for me, and for the people already working who need a master’s degree to move up or get the job they want.”

“Of course.”

“Sorry, I know you probably don’t care about all this stuff, but––”

“You’re wrong. I care about all the things you think about.”

He was quiet for a moment. “That’s a nice thing to say. I don’t talk to many people like I’ve talked to you, so yeah, it’s really nice.”

“I don’t talk to many people either. I have no interest in doing so. But you…you I want to know everything about.”

He made a noise.

“No?”

“I worry.”

“About?”

“I’ve done some bad stuff.”

I suspected what he considered “bad” had been done purely for survival. How a fourteen-year-old boy was abandoned, and no one cared, was beyond me. I knew things happened, especially in small towns with even smaller social services and child welfare budgets, but there was no excuse for turning a blind eye. He had teachers and counselors and principals and the Bowens, and yet no one had stepped in to offer him true shelter from the storm.

Everything about him made sense. Of course he wanted to be a social worker. That way he could become the safety net he’d always wanted for himself. Of course he didn’t trust easily or share parts of himself. It was madness not to protect himself at all costs.