She laughs, opens the box, and selects a slice. I watch in fascination as she brings the pizza to her mouth and takes a bite. As she chews, she smiles in delight. Once she’s finished, she says, “You don’t know what you’re missing. A Greek Canadian invented Hawaiian pizza. Weird, right?”
I pick up my piece of pie and grin. “Well, regarding your endless amount of obscure knowledge, I’m impressed. I can assure you, though, that I do know what I’m missing and you can keep it.”
She giggles. “You’re crazy.”
“You sure I’m the crazy one, Lennon?”
She peers down and, for a beat, I’m worried I’ve hurt her feelings, until she surprises me. Her gaze swings upward, and with conviction, she stares at me square in the eyes and says, “I may be stark raving mad, but talk about living in glass houses and throwing stones, Kyler Benton. You hide away from the entire world and everybody in it. Literally. Like some tortured emo kid. That’s also kind of insane. Maybe more insane than OCD. Life isn’t intended to be spent alone.”
My eyebrow inches skyward, and I abandon the notion of pretending I’m not surprised. “A girl who calls it like it is. I like that.”
“Do you ever wish you were normal?” she wants to know.
“Well, I’d like it if my face weren’t fucked up, but otherwise not a chance. How about you?” I ask, even though I can predict her answer.
“Every single day.”
“First let me point out that average can never attain greatness, Lennon.”
“Is that what you’re after? Greatness?”
I shake my head. “Not quite. I’m after a life I don’t wake up to fifteen years from now wishing it was different.” I tap my temple. “Thinking ahead.”
“What do you see?”
“A place somewhere away from here, a dog who is fiercely loyal and, if I’m lucky, a hot girlfriend. After graduation, I hope to take something that’ll make my dad rage, maybe a trade of some kind instead of law school, like he’s hoping, so I can make sure I’m the epic disappointment he’s expecting.”
“A tradesperson is an asset,” she says. “How is that disappointing?”
“Ah,” I say, “an asset. The standard individual has the intellect to recognize that without tradespeople, laborers, all those skyscrapers built on the foundation of the American dream, where rich people get richer, would not be possible. But to people like my father, who believe in some utopian creation of social elitists, seeing your only son become a laborer is a worse fate than you can imagine. To him, I’d be better off dead.”
Her nose screws up as if my words leave offensive traces in the air. “That’s both a super grim and bold statement, but allow me to point out the obvious. If you really wanted to piss him off, wouldn’t aspiring to be in a band and travel the world doing drugs and playing rock and roll be a surefire win?”
“Not only pretty, but you’re smart. That seems like the obvious way to go on the surface, doesn’t it? But between you and me, I’m not into showing off my face. If I was even marginally famous, can you imagine the media coverage? I’d be the biggest sob story on the planet. Pass.”
“I disagree,” she says. “You’d be inspirational.”
I don’t much care for talking about this anymore, so I put a stop to it. “Not hoping to inspire anyone. Just looking to make it out alive. Speaking of which, want hand sanitizer, Davis? To wash off your Inedible? That’s a thing for you, right? Clean hands, no germs.” I smile, hoping my delivery can issue a small salve for the sting I’ve inflicted and put the aspirational bullshit conversation to an end.
She doesn’t seem to notice because when I grin at her, her entire face lights up. She can’t quite trust we’re half-insult-flirting with each other, but she loves it. “No thanks. If we’re going to hang out, you’ll need to brush up on your OCD knowledge base.” She wipes her greasy hands on her jeans, looks up at me, and says, “There. Perfect.”
I think I just fell in love.
“So bring me up to speed. I get you’re into the number five and tapping so much that I bet you’d slay Emmett at the drums, I get that crappy thoughts infect your brain and what makes it worse is that you’re aware they’re crappy and ridiculous, but you can’t help but give in to the pull of the mad drumming skills you possess, and you hate riding in cars. Am I right?”
She looks down at her notebook. “So far, so good. What else do you have?”
“You said you hated red, and judging from your backpack and almost always polished appearance, minus that mass of hair on your head, I’m guessing you like things organized.”
“Also correct. Got anything else?”
“I don’t,” I say, shrugging. “To be honest, I assumed OCD meant people were clean freaks or germophobes.”
Her eyes dart up from her pizza, her tone clipped. “I hate that.”
My hands fly up, palms forward. I surrender. “Don’t hate, Davis. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make it less than it is. I guess it was a shameful belief I held on to. I blame modern pop culture for its alarmingly inaccurate portrayal of OCD.”
“That’s not entirely unfair. It’s a sad representation of what it’s like.”
“Curious minds,” I say. “What’s it like?”
“Truthfully?”
“Well, I’m not asking you to lie.” I take a huge bite of my pizza and wait.
“Imagine constantly battling a demon that controls every single aspect of your day-to-day life. Where you’re trapped in a prison alone, a place where nothing makes any sense and you’re uncertain about everything except being scared. I don’t mean a little on edge, I mean genuine, terrifying fear. The kind that melts into your pores until it runs through your veins. It makes your heart pound, your ears ring, it takes away your breath. And it’s all because of some stupid, morbid, horrible idea your brain is trying to convince you is your truth and the whole time, you know it’s not. It’s like the cartoon angel on one shoulder and devil on the other.”
I’m at a loss for what to say, but I search for something. “That sucks.” No, that response sucked. “Obviously. So can you be cured? I mean, is there a cure?”
She shakes her head. “It’s chronic,” she says. “I’ll always have it. It gets better with treatment and with medicine. Back in Maine, I was doing fine. I mean, it was okay. I still had it, but it wasn’t so bad. But then my mom died, and trauma triggers the illness. It went from zero to one hundred really fast. I was in a hospital back home called Riverview. But only for a little while until I came here.”
“You doing okay here?”
She shrugs. “More or less. I still ritualize. I mean, the tapping you see me do. But I try to convince myself more and more that I’m in control. That’s what they tell you to do in the hospital. To sit there. Be with the panic, because it always goes away, but you have to make it through the dread, the part of your brain telling you something catastrophic will happen if you don’t ritualize.”
Well, fuck. That’s horrible. I don’t tell her that. Instead I say, “For what it’s worth, Davis. You don’t need to be afraid, you can do your weird shit around me whenever you want. You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”
The pout in her lips turns upward. “You’re not exactly boring, either.”
We finish eating and Lennon grabs her notebook and pen. “We were on act one, scene five, but I finished that. I got us to act two, scene two.” Her chin tips in a display of pride.
I lean back and cross my arms over my chest. “Nicely done. I trust you, Lennon. So what scene is that? Refresh my memory.”
“Romeo texts Juliet that he saw her on his way home, suntanning on her balcony.”
“Suntanning?”
“We’re in LA,” she points out, as if I will forget.
“Okay.” I motion with my hand. “Continue.”
“So then he says to her: ‘You are the sun.’” She pauses and brings a finger to her lips. “Or is it something about the east?” Her face scrunches in con
centration, her nose wrinkling as she looks through her notebook.
“Watch and learn,” I say, clearing my throat. “‘Juliet, you were outside today. I know because the world was brighter, but not as bright as my world was, my love. Because you are my sun, sweet Juliet. You’re brighter than the sun, more mysterious than the moon, and more infinitely beautiful than the stars themselves. You shine more than a hundred suns, a thousand moons, a million stars.’” I pause, for effect. “‘And God, I want to touch you.’”
I look up, expecting to see her smirking. Instead, her cheeks are red as tomatoes, her bottom lip is between her teeth, and she’s writing, pretending she isn’t turning over the same thing I am.
I want to touch you.
* * *
Later that night, I stand in front of the sink in my en suite bathroom, eyes narrowed in fierce concentration, casting a careful glance at my reflection. I lean in closer, tracing the tip of my finger along the outline of my scar. The sensation is odd. Feeling without feeling. Aware of the touch to my face, a numb trail left behind by the pads of my fingers, but no sense of weight, pressure, body heat. The nerves under the burned skin have no real sensory function. Still, I look different.
My eyes are brighter. My posture is straighter. My mouth curls with some kind of contentment I haven’t felt in a long time.
Shit.
I’m displaying all the classic signs and symptoms.
I’m catching feelings for her.
Lennon from Maine with Serious Issues Who Sews and Is Broken, get out of my head.
* * *
After school on Monday, we jam at Silas’s house. It’s his aunt Lena’s house, technically, a far cry from anything recognizable to him a few short years ago. Silas doesn’t talk about it much, but I’d be willing to bet my life that Bel Air is the last place he’d ever expected to be. I suspect for a while he thought he’d be in prison somewhere or dead.
I do know he grew up dirt-poor with an addict for a mother. At age eight, he was removed from his home and bounced around in foster care until his mother’s sister, Lena, and her husband, Patrick, took him.
Now he’s a quiet guy who expects nothing from anyone. Makes sense considering he learned from a young age that expectation only leads to disappointment.
So rather than throw a huge house party when his aunt Lena and uncle Patrick leave for the weekend, we end up practicing at their lavish estate and grilling burgers by the pool. Perfect way to spend the afternoon, if you ask me.
Austin and Emmett are already there when I pull up the long circular cobblestoned drive. When I let myself in the monstrous entryway, I spot our band equipment set up to the left, and Silas, Emmett, and Austin seated on the couch.
The large maroon wall behind them is covered in masks from all over the world. A small piece of a place in the Universe or a part of history brought home to remind Lena and Patrick that they are loaded and love to travel. I have hundreds of eyes on me instead of three sets.
I look at my watch. “Am I late?”
Austin stands and rubs his hands together. “No. We were early. Everyone’s excited about the gig.”
Right. The gig.
What Austin meant was Everyone’s excited about the gig except you.
Silas raises an eyebrow as if he can read my mind. “You’re still cool about it, right?”
“Yeah,” I say.
But I’m not. I’ve never been cool with the gig and it’s hard to pretend otherwise, but all three remind me of kids waiting on Santa Claus, and contrary to what my father might think, I’m not a grade A jerk. So here goes nothing. I force a laugh and point toward the wall, as if looking at it somehow reminded me. “Macy thinks we should wear masks like Slipknot.” I say it like it’s absurd. As if it’s the most ridiculous idea on the planet. As though it is the worst idea in the entire Milky Way.
And I wait.
Three…
Two…
One…
Emmett’s spine stiffens.
It’s registered.
I said it.
Slipknot.
One word.
But Emmett hears Legends.
Gods among music.
That which we aspire to be.
Something changes in his eyes. Something that tells me Emmett considers this the best idea within both the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy combined.
Maybe we can play the gig.
“That’s kind of a cool idea.”
Austin nods to support his twin. “That’s an awesome idea.”
Silas rises to his feet and walks to the sitting room, picking up his guitar, which was resting against one wall. He slings it around his shoulder. “Would that make you more comfortable?”
Buzzkill. I shrug. “I don’t know. Would it be stupid?”
Emmett clears his throat, and his mouth hangs open in offense. “The only thing that’s stupid is you. For asking that question. For the love of all things Slipknot, I’m going to pretend that you didn’t even ask that question. You can thank me later.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say.
Austin laughs.
Silas plugs the guitar into the amp, cranks the dial, and plays a riff. “I couldn’t care less if we came out wearing masks of our dead presidents so long as people can hear us. That’s how the magic will happen.”
Emmett takes his place behind the drums, turning the cap he’s wearing backward, and picks up his drumsticks. “Macy got the looks and the brains in your family, Kyler.” He nods, unable to wipe the smirk off his face at the prospect of being anywhere near as cool as Slipknot. I don’t have the heart to tell him it’ll be a cold day in hell before we’re even on the subpar level of hundreds of levels below Slipknot. Who am I to crush his dreams?
Austin grabs his bass, so I get one of Silas’s extra guitars and plug it in.
Austin twists the pegs on the neck of his bass. If he kept his instrument in a case where it belongs, he’d be less likely to have to tune it every time we practice. His head tilts to the side and his fingers slide along the frets. “We can go to that store in Hollywood…”
I cut him off. “No,” I say. “If I have to wear a mask, I want it to be one of a kind.” Lennon from Maine with Serious Issues Who Sews and Is Broken, I told you to get out of my head. “I think I might ask someone to make mine.”
FACT: PEOPLE IN LOVE ACT FANATICAL BECAUSE OF A DECREASE
IN SEROTONIN, PROVEN IN OCD SUFFERERS. PEOPLE IN LOVE
EXPERIENCE SYMPTOMS SIMILAR TO THOSE WITH OCD.
QUESTION: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR ME?
I COULD TELL YOU IT’S been a little over four months since my mother died. I could even say it’s been six weeks, six days, seven hours, and forty-three minutes since I arrived in Los Angeles to live with my father, but I can’t tell you what day it happens to be when I realize I’ve fallen in love with the night.
After dinner, I often stare out the colossal windows waiting for the sun to dip its brush and paint the sky tangerine and apricot before the sky turns inky and the stars come out to play. I tap my fingers, not on my thighs, and not in patterns of five, but in a steady drumming motion along the surface of a table. I do this as an ordinary person would while they wait hungrily for the moon to rise and eclipse any remnants of the day.
Nighttime is when the uninhibited and very real version of Kyler comes out. Something in him is born in darkness and I get to experience it in all of its raw magic. He’s fascinating.
We talk of big things that are little things. We talk of little things that are huge things. We talk about things that shouldn’t even be things yet somehow are.
I go to bed each night with my tummy in vibrating coils. The twists and pulls that stem from nervous anticipation of pleasure to come. The kind that casts smiles on faces where there were none before.
I like him.
More than I should.
Way more than I should.
Every molecule of my DNA wants to overthink that. I want to anal
yze it, pick it apart, measure it, and put it back together in some semblance, some kind of order I may be able to recognize, but I can’t. I can’t because it counters my survival instinct. The place somewhere deep inside of me where I understand that speaking to him, with him, about important things, trivial things, or shouldn’t-be things, fires each piston in my brain, and for the first time in recent memory, I get deliverance from the storm that forever brews inside my head.
It’s calm.
It’s quiet.
It’s settled.
And it never lasts long enough.
Tonight we’ve just had a lengthy discussion about the likelihood of dreams being a portal to some external, alternate reality.
All signs point to yes. They could be. Inceptions of inceptions and so forth.
I’m in oversized pj pants, lying in my bed with my phone held close to my face as I type.
Kyler?
Yeah?
This is the best part of my day.
Bed? Geez Davis you’re OLD.
I mean talking to you.
I see you every day in English.
I mean really talking to you.
Why?
Dunno. Just is. Hey. Have you thought about it?
What?
Your lyrics. Can I see them?
Depends, will you tell me every shitty thought you have?
What? No.
Well you’re basically asking me to do the same thing.
It’s not the same thing at all! You know my worst secret. A secret that trumps lyrics, even if they are sacred and personal. You choose those thoughts. I don’t.
Fair. I’m a man known to bargain, Lennon, and you have something I need.
I do? I bite my lip. What could I possibly have that you need? I won’t give you my Ativan or any other mind altering narcotics.
Hmmm. Tempting. But no. I need somebody with an artistic eye and some serious skill.
Want me to make your prom dress, Kyler?
Funny. I need a mask.
Like for your face?
Uh yeah, Davis. Where else do you wear a mask?
Why?
Rule one. Don’t ask questions.
Are you trying to make yourself sound way more badass by making like I’m crafting a disguise for a bank robbery?
All Our Broken Pieces Page 12