If I'm Being Honest

by Emily Wibberley

  “Use the keys to move. Click to use your sword,” he says gently. “Here, try again.”

  I do. This time I manage to run away for a minute before I get killed. On my fifth try, I kill one. I give an involuntary whoop, which echoes in the empty room. Brendan cheers with me. A mummified basketball player pops up behind me, and I dispatch him easily. “Okay, I sort of understand the appeal,” I say. “The virtual stabbing is oddly satisfying.”

  “I don’t know if you’re aware how disturbing you just sounded,” he replies.

  I pull out my sandwich while Brendan takes my place in front of the keyboard. He opens up a toolbar, and I watch him fiddle with the settings. It’s quiet for a few minutes, a restful, comfortable quiet. “See?” I say. “This isn’t terrible, is it?”

  “What?” He faces me.

  “Having lunch with another human being.”

  His smile fades. “No, it’s not terrible,” he says.

  “Then come sit with me,” I implore.

  “I want to. It’s just . . .” His eyes return to his computer. “I really do have to work on my game. I’m not allowed to when I’m home.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My parents—my dad, really, doesn’t love my interest in game development. Computer games won’t get me into colleges with good financial aid. They won’t get me scholarships,” he continues. I remember he’s on scholarship here at Beaumont, too. “When I’m home, I’m expected to study. If I were caught doing this . . . I don’t know, he’d be pretty upset. It’s just easier if I work on the game here. Besides, getting scholarships is important.”

  “Not if you can’t study what you’re interested in,” I find myself replying almost instantly. I start to tell him scholarships and finances aren’t worth giving up his passion, but I stop myself. Sometimes choosing financial security is responsible, like I’m doing with Wharton. Even if you might have other interests, too. Other dreams.

  He shrugs. It’s not a carefree gesture, rather one weighted with resignation. “I make time,” he says simply.

  I say nothing, realizing, for the first time, that I understand Brendan. Understand why he confines himself in here even though he could easily have friends. It’s like Paige said: it’s his choice. A choice he’s been forced into, but a choice he’s made to pursue his passion.

  “Well, surely you can have fun occasionally.” I bump his shoulder playfully.

  His lips twitch. “Occasionally.”

  “Good.” I reach for the controls. “Because I want to kill more zombie teachers.”

  Brendan laughs, his features brightening. He leans over me to reload the game, and I notice that the tension normally in his shoulders is gone. Then, grinning, he takes a carrot from my bag.

  Twenty-Two

  I WALK INTO MY MOM’S CLOSET IN my running clothes after school. I have only a few minutes before Andrew and his mom get here for dinner—and much more importantly, for Andrew’s and my run.

  The closet’s a mess. I push past dresses and jackets smelling of mothballs, packed way too tightly, and falling halfway off the hangers. I shove aside empty shoeboxes, remove old shopping bags and fling them onto the floor outside the closet. I ignore the unopened carton of Healthifex cleanse powder in one corner.

  Finally, I find what I’m after. The cardboard box is pushed deep into the far end of the closet, its corners flattened from years of having things piled on top. I have to wrestle it free. When I do, a cloud of dust follows me out into the bedroom.

  I fold open the cardboard flaps, holding my breath because I know I’m going to sneeze. I recognize immediately the white feather boa on top of the box’s contents. I remember putting it back in the box when I was ten years old. I’d play dress-up with the clothes inside, parading through the living room pretending to be my mom while she got ready for performances. I feel a wave of longing—to be younger, to want to be my mom, to watch her chasing her dream before she decided it was behind her.

  I pull out the boa, and with it I put aside a flapper dress and a pair of ruby slippers. I have something specific in mind. I spent the afternoon researching Rocky Horror on the internet. I’d planned on watching the movie itself, and at lunch I asked Hannah if I could borrow her copy. Part of me hoped it might be the thing to get her to have a conversation with me.

  It half worked. She looked me up and down, hesitating, her expression conflicted. I knew her desire to avoid me was warring with her intense fandom for Rocky Horror.

  “If you really want to do this,” she said finally, “your first viewing has to be with an audience. It’s the only way to really understand Rocky.”

  I’m curious what exactly I’m getting into, but I didn’t want to ignore the first thing Hannah’s said to me since the parking lot. I dutifully avoided the movie and kept my research to Google, which in turn led me to some admittedly disconcerting fan forums. In a couple hours, I had a good idea of how I could put together a costume.

  From the box on my mother’s bedroom floor, I remove what I’m looking for: a woman’s tux jacket with tails, complete with a frilly dress shirt. My mom wore the outfit on a kick-line ten years ago. She let me try the jacket on in the dressing room while she did her makeup. I hardly remember the performance. I do remember the cherry lollipop Mom got me in the lobby on our way in, and I remember the way the actresses would bustle in and out between acts for quick changes and retouches. It had felt unbelievably grand and glamorous at the time.

  “Cameron?”

  My mom’s voice pulls me from the memory. I fold the jacket in my arms and turn toward the doorway, where she’s waiting with one hand on the frame. Her eyes move from me to the box on the floor, and she frowns.

  “What are you doing with that?” she says. “Andrew and Deb will be here any minute.”

  “Can I borrow some of this stuff?” I ask.

  Mom walks into the bedroom, eyeing what I have in my hands. “I don’t know why you’d want to,” she says, an edge entering her voice, “but okay.” She stares into the box on the floor for a long second, then the boa on the bed. Her frown deepens. Finally, she averts her eyes. “Throw everything away when you’re done.”

  I turn to face her quickly, stung by her resignation. “Come on, you don’t mean that,” I implore. Reaching into the box, I take out the black satin dress she wore for her only starring role. She played an heiress in a small, critically acclaimed short film. “This stuff is great.”

  She reluctantly places a hand on the dress I’m holding, fingering the fabric, her eyes straying like she’s remembering. “Your father came to the screening we had in L.A.,” she says after a moment. “It was our second date.” She drops her hand from the dress. “For all the good that brought me.”

  I blink, pushing down her painful implication. “You can’t get rid of all this,” I try again. “You were really great. Remember this play?” I hold up a 1940s evening gown. The play was And Then There Were None. I remember the murders even if I wasn’t old enough to understand the plot.

  I’d thought my mother, under the lights in her gown and pearls, was the most beautiful woman in the world. I was six.

  “I remember. Your father was in town,” she replies, her voice turning cold. He was, and I was dropped off for a conveniently timed sleepover with Morgan following the play. I only realized why a few years ago, once I’d come to expect the extra layers of bitterness and depression I’d find in my mom every time I came home after. Every time he rejected her after briefly rekindling whatever screwed-up semblance of a relationship they had.

  “Your father said I wasn’t right for the part,” she reminds me.

  “He was wrong. I remember,” I say. I don’t know how often I’ve wished I could just erase from the fabric of time every awful thing my dad’s said to her.

  She laughs ruefully. “What did you know? You were just a kid.” She walks to the door. I wil
l her to pause, to retract her words, to say she’s proud of her past on stage. To grow a spine. “Take whatever you want. I’ll toss the rest,” she says instead. “No use holding on to that dream. Your dad was right. He always is,” she adds and leaves the room.

  I hear her walk down the hall to the kitchen.

  I stare down into the open box.

  Before I’ve even decided what I’m doing, I’m packing every scattered piece of clothing back into the box. The feather boa goes in on top of the slippers and the satin dress. I’m charged with defiance—defiance of my mother, who let her dream die, and defiance of my father, who crushed the life out of it with a million cruelties.

  I fold the flaps closed and haul the box to my room, where I push it under my bed, hiding it behind old yearbooks and shoes I inherited from Elle and Morgan. I stand upright, looking for something in my room to straighten, to dispel my stress. I shuffle the small pile of recent homework on my desk, revealing the Wharton brochure from the college fair. I hastily close it and put it in a drawer, not wanting to dwell on the future the representative laid out for me—the future I’m beginning to doubt my place in.

  I’m pulling my hair into a high ponytail when I hear the front door open. Deb’s voice echoes down the hall, greeting my mom.

  I fly into the front room and find Andrew waiting in the doorway, dressed in his running shorts and shoes and a Beaumont shirt. He’s holding a plastic bag I know contains clothes to change into before dinner. When he catches sight of me, he smiles.

  Day made.

  “Want to go?” he asks.

  The moms have moved into the kitchen, where they’re gossiping at full strength. I hear mention of Laura Walter’s dad drunkenly hitting on waitresses at a fund-raiser. “Definitely,” I tell Andrew, and we’re out the door.

  It feels exactly like I hoped it would. We leave in the direction of our normal route. It’s sunset, and the sky, behind a tangle of telephone wires and streetlights, is breathtaking. Even this far from the beach, the light paints the evening a vibrant gradient of oranges and violets. To warm up, Andrew and I jog the hill from my house to the corner.

  When we hit flat ground, I pick up the pace. I’m expecting Andrew to fall in step behind me. Instead, he matches my stride, catching me off guard. We run side by side in the direction of Olympic Boulevard. I push the pace, forcing myself to run faster and faster.

  I keep waiting for him to drop back. He doesn’t.

  Finally, I notice I’m winded, and we’re running much faster than we usually do.

  “Damn, you really haven’t slacked off,” Andrew says, echoing my thoughts.

  Wondering what it means that he’s not running behind me, I ease off the pace, and we come to a corner where we have to wait for the light. “What?” I chide. “Don’t tell me you’re out of shape. Doesn’t your coach have you do distance runs?” I glance at him when I bring up the team, nudging the conversation in the direction of what I know he’s told Paige.

  He laughs, and I feel a thrill of hope. “Oh, he loves distance runs. The rest of the team not so much.” I wait for him to go on, to elaborate.

  We jog in place until the light changes. “Do you like your teammates?” I ask after a minute. I jump sidewise to avoid a fallen palm frond.

  “Yeah, well enough,” he says.

  A three-word response. I’d sigh in frustration if I weren’t winded. “I know some of those guys can be hard to be around,” I offer. “Sometimes I think they only care about the next party.”

  “I guess,” Andrew says neutrally. “They’re all right. You should come to a game,” he adds, and I feel my heart jump.

  “I’d love to,” I say enthusiastically.

  “You could try to get Paige to come,” he goes on. “She’s made some vow never to attend an organized sporting event.”

  “Oh,” I say. My heart crashes to the ground like a dancer who’s lost her footing. “Yeah. That would be fun. We could maybe watch a movie or TV afterward,” I suggest, recovering. “I just started Sherlock, and I’m dying to watch the next one.”

  I watched the whole thing, actually. When Doctor Strange came out, I went on a pretty bad Benedict bender. But Andrew doesn’t know that.

  “Sherlock’s pretty cool,” Andrew replies, not even glancing in my direction. I feel frustration rising in my chest again. What does he want to hear? Why does everything he’s interested in bringing up to Paige fall flat when it comes from me? “Or we could hang out at another party,” he suggests.

  I feel my stride falter. “You’d want to?”

  Andrew’s steps slow. “As friends for now,” he says carefully. “But . . . I’m beginning to feel like I misjudged you, Cameron. I’m not saying I’m ready for something more. Not yet. But . . . sometime. I hope.” He gives me a smile, which I find myself returning.

  We run in silence, passing palm trees on our left. It’s a few moments before I notice he’s running behind me, the way he used to.

  But the frustration hasn’t entirely subsided. I should feel happy, satisfied, validated. He’s almost ready to give me a second chance. It’s exactly what I wanted. Exactly what I’ve planned for. Instead, my mind circles on unanswered questions. If what we have is real, or if it’s ever going to be, wouldn’t he want to share his worries, insecurities, and interests with me the way he does Paige? Why doesn’t he want to know what interests me, what worries me? And, if we’re going to be more than friends, why is it always me working my hardest to be enough for him?

  Real love is never easy. I remind myself of my mother’s words.

  They’re more hollow comfort than they were the day she said them.

  I struggle to find my stride, my breath pinched and feet heavy. We only get half our usual distance before I tell Andrew I want to turn back. We head for home, the sun dipping into twilight.

  Twenty-Three

  I CROSS THE FINISH LINE IN FIRST place in our Wednesday cross-country meet. For the first time I can remember, there’s no one in the stands waiting for me.

  I wipe the sweat from my face, feeling it stick to me in the uncomfortable October sun. Finishing my stretches on the red rubber of the Beaumont track, I fight wishing my friends were here. It feels juvenile, and I know they have good reasons. Morgan’s out of town for the week, filming on location in Vancouver. Elle told me she had to work on her next video—which I’ll admit was an unusual excuse. She’s never skipped one of my races, not even the time she got mono. Part of me twists uncomfortably, wondering if Elle resents the time I’ve spent with Paige’s group instead of her and my other friends. I have to find a way to bring them together.

  I won’t pretend I’m not a little lonely without Elle and Morgan here. I pull off my gray sweatband, a birthday gift from Andrew a couple years ago, along with the thoroughly worn Nikes on my aching feet. Wringing the band in my hands distractedly, I watch my teammates join up with family and friends for congratulatory hugs. Wrestling down resentment, I walk in the direction of the locker room, unable to keep myself from searching the bleachers in irrational expectation of finding my friends. I recognize Leila’s younger sister, who’s a sophomore, and—

  Brendan?

  He’s sitting on the bottom bleacher, right behind the low green chain-link fence separating the stadium concrete from red rubber. Our eyes meet, and he grins. He’s not on his phone or watching other runners. He’s sitting on his own, expectant. Like . . . he’s waiting for me.

  I walk up to him. “Are you here for me?” The question comes out blunter than I intended, and I’m struck with self-consciousness. If he’s not here for me, this isn’t a good look.

  “Of course not.” Brendan watches me, running a hand through his curls. “I’m a huge cross-country enthusiast. I’m amazed you didn’t know that about me.”

  A winded laugh escapes me. “You do constantly surprise me.” I’m joking, yet the moment the words
leave my lips, I realize how true they are. First his quiet but unwavering confidence when he was rejecting my apologies, then his sense of humor, then his easy charisma with the MIT rep.

  “I stayed after school to work on The Girl’s a Sorceress,” he explains. He stands up from the bleachers, and we walk together toward the locker rooms. “I had time before my dad expects me home and decided I’d come watch. You’re fast,” he says, eyeing me. “I’m trying not to be intimidated by your obvious athleticism.”

  “A girl has to do something to impress the boys who stay late to work on their video games,” I reply without thinking.

  Brendan raises an eyebrow. I meet his gaze evenly. Flirting with Brendan just . . . happens, and it’s not worth fighting. It’s harmless. I know I like Andrew. I view flirting with Brendan as practice for him, for when he’s no longer unpopular—thanks to me—and he needs to know how to handle himself with girls drawn to his tall frame and defined jaw.

  “Well, thank god you’re good at running,” he says. “Because before I saw this, I really felt bad for you. You’re thoroughly unimpressive otherwise.”

  I shove him playfully. We round the corner, and a clash of colors catches my eye. On the bulletin board beside the door to the boys’ locker room, flyers posted on top of each other in explosive hues create an unexpected collage of lines and lettering. Intrigued, I pull my phone from my armband and take a picture.

  Brendan follows when I continue in the direction of the girls’ locker room. “If I’m so unimpressive, then explain why you’ve hung out with me three times now,” I say, staring up at him challengingly.

  “Wait, what was that?” Brendan asks, his brows coming together with curiosity. “Why did you take a picture of the bulletin board?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” I say haltingly. I didn’t expect he’d be interested. “I just thought the fonts and textures were cool. I sometimes draw inspiration from stuff like this when I design websites.”