How to Make Friends with the Dark

by Kathleen Glasgow

  13 days, 11 hours, 39 minutes

  I PRESS THE ICE PACK Principal Vela hands me against the palm of my hand, which is now swelling up.

  I hit Ellen Untermeyer in the face so hard I knocked out one of her teeth, which is sitting in a plastic baggie on Vela’s desk.

  Principal Vela sighs and rests her chin on her hands. “This is grounds for expulsion. Do you even realize the gravity of this situation, Grace? You may be having the worst crisis of your life, but that is no excuse for violence, do you understand?”

  I nod, tears poking my eyes.

  “Grace, I know right now you feel the worst you have ever felt, but as time passes, you’ll begin to feel some peace.”

  She’s talking like my mom is a lousy boyfriend that I’ll get over after a few weeks.

  Stay strong. Be brave. Time heals.

  I can’t even breathe, I want to scream so loudly. My head pulses.

  Principal Vela takes the Eastwood hat off my head and throws it on her desk. “We respect rules here. We do not wear our hats indoors.”

  She checks her watch.

  “Where is your sister? It’s been an hour.”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper. My hand actually really hurts now that I’m not so full of adrenaline anymore.

  She calls my sister again from her phone, leaves another terse message.

  Her voice softens. “Is everything all right? With the sister, I mean? You can tell me.”

  “Her name is Shayna. She eats cake for dinner.”

  Principal Vela frowns.

  We stare at each other.

  There’s a soft rap on the door. Ms. Delgado, the school secretary, pokes her head in. “I’ve got the sister here. Send her in?”

  Principal Vela nods and leans back against her desk. Her office is filled with Eugene Field banners and books and plaques. She and my mother liked each other. Every year, she would buy prickly pear jam to send to her son in Fort Collins, Colorado.

  Shayna breezes in wearing cutoff jeans and a tank top, her hair still damp from the shower. She’s enveloped in a cloud of coconut shampoo. My mother’s shampoo.

  Another thing that means nothing to her, but the world to me. I mean, she could go to the Stop N Shop and pick up some goddamn Garnier Fructis, for God’s sake.

  I wish I could cut off my nose so I don’t have to smell it.

  I press the ice harder against my hand.

  “Sorry I’m late. I’ve been a little under the weather. Hey, slugger, how are you?” She bends down to look at my swollen hand. “You got quite a left hook there, I guess.”

  “I don’t find any of this funny, Ms. Franklin, and I’m surprised that you do.” Principal Vela’s voice is sharp and disapproving.

  My sister plops down in the chair next to me.

  “I didn’t say it was funny. I’m just trying to make my sister feel better, that’s all.”

  “Our school counselor has spoken to the other girl’s family. They’re using the word assault, which might mean we have to call the police.”

  “Call the police because my sister slapped their daughter in the face? That kind of just sounds like high school to me, and girls. You know how girls are. We can be wicked mean.”

  “Ellen Untermeyer has lost a tooth.” Principal Vela picks up the baggie.

  My sister leans close, inspecting the pinkish-white tooth through the plastic. Then she pulls her phone out of her purse.

  “Well, that’s not the worst thing in the world.” She starts tapping the phone. “From what I see on her Instagram account, she’s got buckets of money. She can get that fixed. This is a really interesting Insta account, by the way.”

  She holds the phone up to Principal Vela, who squints.

  “Look at this post, in particular.”

  Principal Vela blinks rapidly. Her face changes. “Oh, Lord.”

  My sister chuckles. “See what she says there? That’s a picture of my sister in the cafeteria two weeks ago, crying the day her mom died. I mean, she wasn’t dead yet, that happened later, but something upset her, and she was crying, and this girl, this Ellen what’s-her-name, took a photo of it and put it on Insta. What did she call my sister there? Oh, right, she hashtagged her #crybaby #freak #mamasgirl. That seems like…bullying.”

  “We have zero tolerance for bullying,” Principal Vela says firmly.

  “Hmm,” my sister says, fingers working her phone. “That’s funny. Because when I search Insta using some of Ellen Unctious’s tags, and then find some other Eugene Field kids, I see a whole lot of pictures of my sister, with a lot of not-nice things said about her, and I see a lot of stuff about other kids who go here, and some pretty messed-up photos, like this one of a kid getting his face pushed in the dirt. See here, this little guy.”

  She holds the phone up again.

  “What was that about zero tolerance, again?”

  Principal Vela says angrily, “Nevertheless, your sister hit Ellen Untermeyer, causing her bodily injury. There are witnesses. Her parents could sue us and you.”

  “Tell me why you did this, exactly.” My sister looks at me coolly.

  “Because…because…because she told me to get over it. Like, get over the boy, the one we talked about.” I sniffle. “He was the one who took me to the hospital the night…the night it happened, and then he just…left me there. But she…Ellen…really meant…get over my mom…dying. And they were laughing. About my dress.”

  And Cake and I…no, I fought with Cake because this is turning out to be the Summer of Everyone Leaving Tiger.

  “Wow,” my sister says, turning back to Principal Vela. “It sounds like my grieving sister was provoked. That must really hurt, don’t you think? When your mom dies and some girl in the hallway, at school, in front of a crowd of kids, tells you to get over it. And you know what’s like a knife dragging across the wound? If that girl is standing right next to the boy who gave you your first kiss and then ditched you the night your mom died.

  “Do I have that right?” Shayna asks me. “The kissing and the ditching?”

  I nod.

  My sister holds up the phone again. “I’ve been texting with Cake Rishworth, who kindly forwarded me texts from six people who swear that Ellen Untermeyer started the fight by picking on my sister, and while I don’t condone violence, I do take into account that my sister is one screwed-up piece of motherless kid at the moment, and if she forgets her p’s and q’s and lashes out when some nasty girl baits her, well, maybe I’ll just sue that nasty girl for harassment, seeing as how she took pics of my orphaned sister crying in the lunchroom and posted them on social media, a post that has now reached 4,452 views. The poor little kid eating dirt at your school has 9k views.”

  My face is flaming from a mixture of embarrassment, fright, and shame, and, um, well, pride.

  The phone rings on Principal Vela’s desk. She tells us to wait outside.

  In the reception area, my sister inspects my hand, which is turning a plump purple. “Sorry I took so long. I was gathering evidence. Getting my Olivia Benson on, if you will.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’m in deep shit, but thanks.”

  “You’re in the shit, but I don’t think it’s that deep. I think we have room to negotiate, here. I haven’t watched ten seasons of Law and Order for nothing, you know.”

  She gives me a half smile, like we’re in this together. A team.

  Blood is blood.

  From behind her desk, Ms. Delgado motions to my sister. “The principal would like to see you, Ms. Franklin. Just you.” She gives me the hairy eyeball and I sit back down.

  “Just me?” my sister says, standing up and straightening her shorts.

  “Just you.”

  “Well, dang, ain’t I lucky?” My sister goes into the principal’s office.

  Ms. Delgad
o stares over her sparkly silver glasses at me.

  “Your mother,” she says. “She would not like this behavior. Punching and kicking and wearing dirty clothes. Is this the girl she would want you to be?”

  I look down at my lap.

  #failuregirl #baddaughter #mess

  13 days, 12 hours, 9 minutes

  MY MOTHER WOULD HATE the way Shayna drives. She’s one of those drivers who’s perpetually distracted, yet never seems fazed by the prospect of a grisly death. She keeps her phone in her lap, glancing down every time it pings. She checks her face in the rearview, brushing strands of hair off her cheeks. The coffee from the gas station we stopped at is wedged perilously between her legs.

  “Please don’t kill us,” I say desperately, cradling my hurt hand. “I might be in mourning, but that doesn’t mean I have the desire to shuffle off this mortal coil.”

  “That’s from a play, right? I was checking out all the books in your house. You a big reader?” She takes a drink of coffee. “Stop clutching your pearls. I’ve been driving since I was eleven. I know what I’m doing.”

  “What do you mean, you’ve been driving since you were eleven?”

  She gives me a slow side-eye, like she’s thinking very carefully about what to say. She still hasn’t told me yet what happened in Principal Vela’s office.

  “Dad,” she says finally, her voice flatter than it was before. “Daddy. Dusty. He was a drinker. A bad one, but you probably guessed that by the prison thing. He went up and down with it. He taught me to drive. At first I thought he was just being a cool dad, but then I realized it was so when he was on a bender, I could pick him up at the bar after my mother fell asleep.”

  I try to picture Shayna that young, driving some sort of junky car late at night, peering over the steering wheel into the dark streets. For some reason, even little Shayna, with her hair in an innocent ponytail, is still wearing the ultra-tight Victoria’s Secret tracksuit, which is not a totally pleasant image.

  I still have no idea what my father looks like, so I can only picture a dark-haired man slumped on a curb outside a dingy-looking bar, stray dogs licking his pant cuffs and snuffling.

  “Eleven? That’s kind of awful. That must have been really hard.”

  Shayna shrugs. “That was in a small town in Kansas. It was what it was. We didn’t live there very long. He’d have a job, then get fired, and we’d move on.”

  Tentatively, I ask, “Were you…did you live in…Albuquerque? Where he met my mom?”

  Shayna keeps her eyes on the road. “No. He took off after he lost a job in San Antonio and we didn’t see him until after all that. I don’t remember. I was really young.”

  She changes the subject. “So, about your pugilistic tendencies.”

  My heart sinks. “Yeah. I’m sorry. Am I expelled? Do we have to pay for her teeth? I’ll get a job to help. I guess I can…maybe I can bag groceries at the Stop N Shop.”

  “No, not expelled. You have to stay away from that girl, Ellen Fullermeyer—”

  “Untermeyer.”

  “Whatever. You have to write her a letter of apology, which, if she posts on social media, I will personally go over to her house and rough her up myself, and you have to go to some grief group with some counselor who sounds like a character in a book for kids.”

  “Wait, what? Walrus? Walrus Jackson?” The Grief Group. GG.

  “That’s him. He seems nice. You have to go to at least six sessions, two a week, or her parents will make us pay the dental. They weren’t too happy when I brought out my evidence that she provoked you, or about all the shitposts she puts up about kids on Insta.”

  “I should tell him I’m sorry, too.”

  “Who?”

  “Kai. The guy I pushed. The kisser-ditcher.” I don’t tell her about the phone call where I made him cry.

  “I think you get a pass right now. There will be plenty of disappointing lovers in your life, trust me. And Ellen Untermeyers, too, unfortunately. Mean girls multiply like guinea pigs the older you get.” She takes a big swig of her coffee and grimaces, pulling over to the side of the road.

  “Here.” Shayna tosses the car keys in my lap. “You drive. This coffee is horrid. I’m getting a headache.”

  The keys are warm from her fingers. My mother’s keys: the gold house key, the silver car key, the matted rabbit’s foot. I rub the tawny fur. She said her mother gave it to her on her seventh birthday. But maybe that was all a lie, too.

  “Can’t,” I say, throwing the keys back. “No license.”

  “What? Not even a learner’s permit?”

  “Nope.”

  “How long have you been sixteen? I was out at the DMV the same day I turned sixteen. I couldn’t wait to legally drive.”

  “My mom didn’t want me to, yet. She said I had lots of time.” Cake doesn’t get it, either, but she got used to it, the way my mom would restrict certain things.

  Shayna presses the keys back into my hands. “Welp. No time like the present. Hop along, cowgirl.” She climbs over the gearshift toward the passenger seat, and if I don’t want to get crushed, I’m going to have to scramble under her to the driver’s seat. Our hips collide mid-crawl and she laughs.

  Briefly, I think, Oh, so this is what it’s like, laughing with a sister, getting tangled up together in a car.

  It feels nice. Almost…comfortable.

  I sit there, absorbing this feeling, until Shayna blurts out, “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!” and that nice feeling’s gone. Poof. Kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk.

  Nervously, I pull the seat belt on, trying to favor my good hand. I rest my hurt hand on the steering wheel.

  It’s a whole other world in this seat, on this side of the car. There seems like so much…responsibility. My heart thuds in my chest. “We probably shouldn’t do this,” I say nervously. “I mean, look at my hand. And I don’t have a license or even a permit.”

  Visions of eighteen-car pileups, mangled metal, and blaring sirens swim through my brain, even though we’re the only car on the road.

  “A woman without wheels is a woman without freedom,” Shayna says. “Now shove that key in the ignition and let’s get started.”

  She points out everything in the car: what all that stuff is on the dash, the weird letters on the gearshift, the parking brake, lights, windshield wiper, gas pedal, all of it. She tells me how to adjust the mirrors, how to reverse, and how to, well, drive.

  I have a sister, and she’s teaching me how to drive a car, like sisters do. Like family does.

  My heart kind of jumps with happiness.

  I pretty much instantly forget everything she’s telling me, so it’s a bit rocky at first, and I’m so excited to be doing this that I just ignore the dull pain in my swollen hand.

  But she doesn’t yell or anything, she just patiently corrects me as I jerk forward and back. She keeps repeating, “No worries.”

  I finally relax, though I check all the mirrors obsessively approximately every half second. It feels kind of like being in a small cloud, just drifting. I mean, a metal cloud capable of major injuries, explosions, and decapitation, but a cloud nonetheless. A cloud under my complete control. And I’m having completely insane thoughts, like I could drive to Kentucky! Where is Kentucky? It doesn’t matter! I could just go there! Right now! Kentucky is an attainable dream!

  Shayna’s resting her head on the headrest, watching the landscape.

  She’s so pretty, with the sun shining on her face.

  Which is a weird thing to think, because I can also see traces of me when I look at her, and if I can see some of me, well, then maybe that means I might be, well, kind of pretty, too. Not that I think I’m not, it’s just hard to tell. My mom always says I am, but she’s my mom, so she has to; it’s in her job description. But she also follows that up with, “But it’s your insi
des that really count,” because that’s in her job description, to try to build my character, which is a very mom-ish thing to do.

  Or it was, at least.

  Truth be told, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be pretty, or look nice, or take care of your hair and skin and wear pink if you want to, whoever you are. If you feel good about doing all those things, won’t you just naturally feel good about yourself? And then you’ll feel good about being in the world? Confident, I guess? Is that a bad thing?

  As I look at my pretty sister, and see a little bit of me in her, I realize what I’m really seeing is glimpses of future me, Future Tiger, somewhere way down the road after high school and college and a little more life under my belt. It’s scary to think about.

  Is that a cat on the road? What is that? Jackrabbit. I slow down to a crawl. The jackrabbit glances at me over his shoulder, like Dumbass, this road is MINE.

  Shayna murmurs, “Cake said your mom was a little overprotective.”

  I wait for the jackrabbit to saunter away. What was Cake doing talking to my sister about me?

  “I guess. I mean, that’s not a crime or anything.” Does my voice sound madder than it should? I press the gas too hard and we jump forward.

  “Easy,” Shayna murmurs.

  “I mean, it makes me crazy sometimes, sure. Like, no camps or classes or dances or anything. She didn’t even let me stop going to daycare until I was eleven and Cake’s mom yelled at her. I’ve never had any friends but Cake. And Kai, a little.”

  Shayna grunts. “That sounds kind of extreme.”

  I frown, watching the road. “Yeah. Like when her boyfriend, this guy named Andy, he took me out skateboarding, and I really liked it, she got really weird about it. She let me do it, but then I broke my arm and she freaked out. They broke up over it.”

  Shayna glances over at me. “Really.”