Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks

by Nathan Burgoine

  Maybe I’d left behind some brain cells at the school.

  New plan.

  I didn’t have many options. I just needed a decent story. Someone was supposed to meet me, maybe. I’d go back inside and ask the guy at the front desk if I could borrow his phone. I could say my ride was very late.

  Worst the guy could do was say no, right?

  “From now on, get your damn phone before lunch,” I muttered. The pizza hadn’t been worth being first in line, and how hard would it have been to stop by my damn locker before I went?

  I pushed at the door to the museum.

  And it happened again.

  Poof.

  Two

  Wherever the hell I was, it was dark, cramped, and I barely fit. When I tried to straighten, I hit my head on something and the hollow metal clash it made was so familiar, it clicked. I heard a variation on that sound so many times in a day I would recognize it anywhere: it was just like someone slamming a locker door.

  I was in a locker.

  I sagged against the tight metal walls, feeling dizzy and weak. Was I going to pass out? I felt even more trashed than I had just a few seconds ago at the museum.

  I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through it. One or two breaths’ worth of fresh air in the locker were with me, and then after that the smells of the bright day outside the museum were gone, and all I got were the scents of the locker itself.

  Which was shoes, mostly. Gross.

  Once I managed to twist around, I saw light coming from the metal slats at the top of the door. And on the inside of the door, I could see a couple of photos and magnets and a whiteboard…

  My whiteboard. My photos. My magnets.

  I was in my own damn locker.

  Well, at least I knew the combination.

  Fat lot of good it did me from inside the locker, though.

  Simple plan: get help, get out of the locker. This time, my phone was close enough to make that happen.

  Reaching behind me, I tried to find my hoodie. It was hung up on the hook, and if I could find my hoodie I could get my phone from the pocket.

  I managed to get my hand into the pocket, but it was a tight fit what with me being shoved up against it. When I pulled out my phone, it came free with a jerk and clattered to the floor of the locker somewhere between my feet.

  Of course.

  I tried to shimmy down, but I didn’t have enough room to bend my knees. I couldn’t get my hands low enough in the confined space.

  I was trapped in my stupid locker. At any moment, the damn bell for lunch was going to ring and then what was I going to do? I’d have to kick and scream to get someone’s attention. Everyone would stare. Austin and his idiot friends would laugh. People would whisper about me every time I walked past for the rest of the school year.

  Again.

  “Goddamn it!” I yelled.

  “Hello?”

  The voice made me jerk my head, which hit the hook where my hoodie was hanging, which made me swear.

  “Hello?” A guy’s voice. Someone was in the hallway.

  I took a deep breath. My choice was public humiliation in front of the whole school, or private humiliation in front of one person.

  No contest.

  “Hey.” I raised my voice. “I’m stuck in a locker.” I rattled the door.

  “Whoa.” Now that he was closer, the voice sounded familiar. Then again, it wasn’t a huge school. Whoever he was, though, at least he wasn’t laughing.

  Yet.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s my locker, though. If I tell you the combination, could you, like, let me out?”

  “Uh. Okay.”

  “Eleven, forty-three, fifteen.”

  The sound of the guy turning the lock was louder than I expected from inside the locker. Thankfully, he got it on the first try.

  When the door opened, I tried to step out gracefully, but it was hard to crouch and duck my head and lift my feet high enough. My left foot got caught on the edge of the locker, and I went face-first into the guy’s chest. He caught me, which was lucky, and he was strong enough that I didn’t knock us both to the floor, which was even luckier.

  “Careful,” he said.

  I’d thrown my arms around him, but now that I was out from the locker, I got my feet back under me and let go, stepping back.

  And that’s when I realized I’d just gotten rescued from my locker by Malik King.

  Because it wouldn’t be my life if the cutest damn guy in school hadn’t just witnessed my humiliation.

  * * *

  “Are you okay?” Malik said. I wasn’t sure if we’d ever had a conversation before.

  “I’m fine,” I said. I seem to be teleporting, but other than that, I’m solid. I managed what I hoped was a decent smile. He stared at me. He had great eyes. Dark brown, but with little flecks of gold in them. Good lashes, too.

  Malik frowned. I was staring. Shit.

  “I just wanted my phone,” I said. It came out in a blurt. I cleared my throat. “Thank you. For…” I waved my hand at my open locker.

  “What happened?” Malik asked.

  Good question.

  I turned my back to Malik and bent down to get my phone. Maybe by the time I turned around again, he’d be gone, and I wouldn’t have to come up with some plausible reason I’d been trapped in my own locker.

  No dice. He was still there. Also I had two text messages from Grayson asking me where the hell I was and how long did it take me to get my damn phone.

  “Cole?” he said.

  Wait. Malik King knew my name? I let the little thrill in my chest play out a couple of seconds before I squashed it. Of course he knew my name. It wasn’t like we had a thousand students. We’d even shared some classes in the last few years since his family had moved here. Also, he was on the same basketball team as Austin. I should probably just consider myself lucky he hadn’t called me the other thing.

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “Who put you in your locker?”

  Oh shit. Well, no sane person would assume I’d willingly locked myself inside. I mean, how would that even work? How would you close the lock?

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  His crossed his arms, opened his mouth to say something else, and then I was literally saved by the bell, which rang above us.

  My phone buzzed, too.

  Another text from Grayson.

  Nat has your stuff. Weirdo.

  Any second now, people were going to start filling the hallways, coming in from the cafeteria and outside.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I mean it.”

  Malik looked like he wanted to say something else, but then he shook his head and walked away. I watched him go. My jeans never fit me like that. The world was an unfair place.

  I shook my head. Man, I could barely stand up straight. My legs felt heavy. As the rest of the student body showed up, I reached into my locker for my biology textbook, turned around, and made it three steps before blackness rushed in from all sides, and I fell over.

  This time? No one caught me.

  * * *

  If there’s a way to face down your dad when you’ve got a split lip that doesn’t make you want to crawl into a hole, I don’t know it. In fact, I was pretty sure I was going to burst into tears, which was totally not what I wanted to do. I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible with whatever shreds of dignity I had left.

  One of the best things about having a dad who’s basically a professional reader of body language? He got it. Right away. He took one look at me and signed, Want go home?

  I nodded, hard.

  “I’ll take him home,” he said to the nurse.

  “It might just be his blood sugar,” she said, speaking far too loud in the small room. Lots of people did that. It was never not annoying. But my dad read her lips and smiled his crooked smile.

  “Got it,” he said.

  That was it. I was sprung.

  The nurse had given me a juice b
ox I’d sucked back while they’d called my mother. She must have texted my dad, who was much closer to the school since he worked from home, and he’d gotten there pretty fast. On a really nice day, I could walk to school in about twenty minutes. Dad had gotten here in less than five.

  Me mess up your work? I asked once we were out in the hallway. My hands were still shaking. I didn’t speak. I didn’t trust myself to talk without bursting into tears.

  He shook his head. Have twenty minutes break! Then more work.

  That was a relief. Some of the hearing interpreters Dad worked with had booked their sessions weeks in advance, interpreting for really important things, usually over the computer through group video chats, but sometimes in person. He once drove three hours to interpret for a funeral, and he often team interpreted for a doctor talking with Deaf patients. He had contracts with a lot of organizations.

  When he got to the car, he turned to me, face-on.

  Lunch, eat finish?

  “Yes,” I said, finally trusting I could hold my shit together. “I just got really dizzy. The nurse says that can happen, though. I got up too fast, maybe.”

  My dad frowned at me. One of the worst things about a dad who’s basically a professional reader of body language? He can tell when I’m not being completely honest.

  Seriously, it’s totally brutal.

  What happened?

  I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I couldn’t tell him the truth, right? No big deal, Dad. I teleported to the aviation museum, and then when I tried to come back, I ended up in my locker. I think the almost-fainting had something to do with that, but I’m not really sure because I might be having some sort of incredibly bad hallucinations, or maybe I’ve lost my mind. Oh, and I finally said more than two words to Malik King, but only because he got me out of my locker.

  Yeah. That wasn’t going to fly.

  But looking into my dad’s eyes, there was no way I could lie. This was my dad. He was, like, the jackpot of dads. He always took time to make sure I was doing okay and seriously seemed to care if I wasn’t. Okay, he told terrible jokes. Dad jokes reach whole new lows when you can add ASL puns, but he was more patient than anyone I’d ever known. He and my mom were basically a walking, talking life-goal for the kind of relationship I wanted some day, even though my plan involved a husband, not a wife. Heck, even the gay thing? Model parenting, which was more than I could say for some of the rest of the Rainbow Club.

  Grayson’s dad had taken months to be okay with his kid being gay, but my dad had opened his arms right on the spot and offered me a hug. It was perfect. After, he told me he’d already noticed how I looked at other boys. Again, professional body-language reader. It had made me supremely self-conscious, but the hug at the time was pretty awesome.

  I had to say something to him. He had dad-face, and dad-face would not be denied.

  I settled on a very, very literal—but not at all illuminating—truth.

  Don’t-know. In ASL, it’s one sign.

  He put his hand on the back of my neck, giving me a little squeeze. It helped, though it made me want to bawl again.

  I’m pretty sure he noticed, because he faced forward again, turned on the car, and then we were on our way home.

  * * *

  Predictably, my phone started pinging the moment I lay down on my bed.

  From Lindsey: Did you really collapse in the hallway?

  Rhonda: Answer Lindsey. She’s worried.

  Nat: Let us know you’re okay, okay?

  Grayson: Gravity sucks.

  I sent back quick messages to all of them saying I was okay, but I was going to take a nap. I asked Rhonda if she’d mind letting me know what we covered in biology class, which we shared. Then I turned off my phone, plugged it in, and grabbed my big grey sweater. It didn’t see life outside my room. It was one of my dad’s old university sweaters, and even though I wasn’t cold, I pulled it on and lay back down on my bed. Comfort sweater, activate. I closed my eyes. I’d catch up on whatever we covered in class, and maybe a nap would do me good after my dose of insanity and public humiliation.

  No doubt everyone was already talking about it.

  Did you hear?

  Colenap passed out in the hallway.

  What a freak.

  Patterns of light moved across my eyelids. My lip hurt where I’d bitten it. I curled up on my side and took a deep breath, my brain spinning too much to fall asleep, no matter how wiped I felt. I didn’t feel quite so dizzy anymore, which also helped. No matter how much I tried to dismiss what had happened as some sort of hallucination, I didn’t think it was.

  Which meant…

  I opened my eyes. It took way more effort than it should have.

  Which meant I’d been at school, and then the museum, and then inside my locker. All within a few minutes. It wasn’t possible, but it had happened.

  I sat up. My dad was downstairs in his office, but he’d be starting his meeting any minute, so I couldn’t talk with him. Also, if I told him what I thought had happened, even the best dad in the world would be taking me back to Dr. Macedo, and that was absolutely not a path I wanted to explore.

  Not yet, anyway. I mean, if I was hallucinating? Then, okay, therapy was definitely the way to go.

  But I wasn’t. I was sure I wasn’t.

  I’d been there. And there was no arguing about being in my locker.

  I picked up my phone again, sitting on my bed so I didn’t have to unplug it, and sent a text to Alec.

  You got a second to talk?

  The reply came almost instantly.

  Sure. Heard about your day.

  Nothing like public humiliation to really wrap up the year, eh?

  You passed out?

  Not quite. I sort of fell down. Bit my lip. It’s attractive.

  Hey, chicks dig scars.

  I don’t dig chicks.

  Life is pain, princess.

  I smiled. Trust Alec to work in one of our favorite movies. This was exactly what I needed. Alec was the coolest guy I knew, and my best friend. If anyone would be able to handle my insane story, it would be him. But could I tell him?

  I typed in: You free tomorrow after the meeting? and then hesitated.

  Before I’d decided whether or not to send the text, another message popped up from him. Seriously, though, you okay?

  I blew out a breath and hit Send on my text.

  Sure. Talk then?

  Talk then.

  Okay, see you tomorrow.

  Kisses, I sent.

  I felt better already. I leaned back on my bed, wondering if maybe I should get up and find my biology textbook. I closed my eyes. That felt better. My brain might have been going a mile a minute, but my body was heavy. And honestly? Biology could wait.

  I fell asleep.

  To-Do

  Bring home calculus textbook

  Exam prep: calculus, biology

  Exam prep: English (reread?)

  Exam prep: French (practice exam!)

  Movie night with Alec this w/e?

  X Make lunch for Tuesday, slacker

  X “What happened?” joke

  Laundry

  Three

  Tuesday morning, I took a deep breath and told myself I would make it through the day. Breakfast had been as normal as it ever was at home, the typical routine being my mom and I falling behind and running late because no one in my family can resist our snooze buttons. The kitchen had been chaos with three of us on a deadline. My dad had an early VRI call, so he’d barely waved and swallowed some coffee before he changed into a shirt and a tie to sit in front of his computer.

  He wasn’t wearing pants, but you can’t tell that sort of thing on a webcam.

  My mom and I were even more of a mess, despite Dad making us packed lunches. By the time I’d run out to the roadside to catch my bus, half a piece of toast in one hand, I’d not really allowed myself to think too much about what had happened on Monday. Even my mother had barely tossed a “you feeling better?�
�� my way as she dashed out the door, which had made it easy to not think about it.

  I mean, okay, the split lip was a bit tender and really, really ugly, but so long as I avoided reflective surfaces, maybe I could get through the whole day without thinking I had lost my mind. Instead, I threw together a quick addition or two to my to-do list on a piece of paper in my pocket. I even had a joke prepared.

  Then I got to school and found myself face-to-face with my locker.

  Right. That.

  My hand was shaking so hard it took me two tries to dial the combination. When I finally opened it, a slick oily feeling dropped into the pit of my stomach.

  My calculus textbook had a footprint on it. Also, the thin metal shelf was dented. That was new, and pretty much shaped like the top of my head. My photos were crooked, the little whiteboard had slid halfway down the inside of the locker door, and the week’s plan was all smudged.

  So. That made it official.

  It wasn’t a hallucination.

  “Here you go.”

  I jumped, and Nat stepped back, blushing.

  “Sorry,” they said. They were holding out my stuff from yesterday.

  “It wasn’t you.” I took my books, my bullet journal on top. “Thanks for grabbing this.”

  “Are you okay?” They had on a long, black button-down shirt with a cool lime-green bow tie. They had a whole collection of bow ties. They also had the habit of looking at me like they could see right through me. Nat reminded me of my dad sometimes.

  “Low blood sugar isn’t sweet,” I said. “Apparently it’s what makes all the cool kids pass out.”

  “Uh-huh.” Nat’s frown made it clear they weren’t buying it, but they didn’t press. “You coming to the meeting today?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  They nodded and gave me one more long look. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “It’s my lip, isn’t it? It’s ugly.”