After, it turns out that Jason and I are going the same way. Blake and Erin live in the opposite direction. Jason says he’ll drive me so Erin doesn’t have to. We split up and I get in Jason’s car. I know that Erin’s psyched about this development. I’m sure she can’t wait to call me later to find out what Jason said about her.
The weird thing is, I feel really comfortable with Jason. Like I’ve known him for a long time. Like we’re already good friends.
Jason goes, “Aren’t you in my lunch?”
“Do you have lunch fifth period?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I am.”
“Cool.”
Jason plays with the radio.
“Where do you sit?” I ask.
“Over with the other dorks and losers.”
I laugh. Jason is all Golden Boy: popular, friendly, and cute. “Yeah, right. You’re like the total opposite.”
“How do you know? We just officially met an hour ago.”
“I can tell.”
“You can tell.”
“Absolutely. I’m a great judge of character.”
“Wow.”
“Bet you didn’t know that about me.”
“How could I possibly know that? We just officially met—”
“—an hour ago. I remember.”
Jason looks over at me and smiles. Something really intense is happening. It’s so different from anything I’ve ever felt before that I don’t even know what it is.
“So where do you live?” Jason says.
“On Lake End Road.”
“Isn’t that near Echo Lake?”
“Yeah. My backyard is basically the lake.”
“Why do they call it that?”
“My dad says it’s because if you yell across to the other side, you can hear an echo.”
“Have you tried it?”
“Yeah. No echo.”
“Huh. The landscape probably looked a lot different back when the lake was named.”
“That’s what my dad says.”
Jason drives. We don’t say anything for a while.
“Erin’s really great,” I blurt out.
“She’s fun,” he says.
I wait for him to talk about Erin some more. But there is no more.
I feel the need to talk about her. Not like I’m doing anything wrong—Jason’s just driving me home; it’s nothing—but something’s bothering me.
I go, “We’ve been best friends for a long time.”
“Yeah, she told me. You guys were in a car accident?”
I can’t believe she told him that. They’ve only been talking for, what, not even two weeks? Okay, everyone already knows about the accident. Big news plus a small town equals everyone knowing stuff that’s none of their business two seconds after it happened. But that was years ago. Most kids at school don’t remember the details. I’m sure some of them have forgotten it ever happened. So Jason probably heard about it at the time, but then he forgot.
There’s no way he knows the whole story. Unless Erin told him everything.
“That was a long time ago,” I say. “I don’t really like talking about it.”
“No, totally, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, it’s okay.”
When we get to my house, I go, “Thanks for the ride.” “You’re welcome. Nice house, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
“Have you always lived here?”
“Yeah. It was my grandparents’, but they moved to Florida.”
“So did mine. I think there’s a conspiracy with old people moving to Florida.”
“I thought they liked it there because it’s warm.”
“Oh, it’s more than that. Believe me.”
I like it when Jason gets weird-funny like this, but I don’t always know what to say back. I just go, “I’m sure you’re right.”
I can usually tell when a boy likes me. There have been a few. But the reason I’ve never had a boyfriend is because they all seemed really immature. I mean, I’ve gone out with a few different boys, but I’ve always kept it casual. I just never felt the kind of connection I’ve always wanted to feel.
Until now.
This is so messed up.
When Blake calls me later, he’s immediately like, “I have never seen a boy look at you that way.”
“What way?”
“Like he wants to lick you up.”
“Stop.”
“Lick you up like a sweet little ice-cream cone.”
“Can we not?”
“Like he was stranded in the desert.”
“This is so messed up.”
“We can’t help who we like.”
“I don’t like him!”
“Well, he sure likes you.”
“I seriously doubt that. And even if he did, there’s no way he’d do anything about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s already going out with Erin!”
“Erin would deal. She wouldn’t have a choice. Anyway, it’s not like they’re official.”
“You are so wrong about this.”
“Ice-cream cone with a cherry on top.”
“I’m asking Magic 8 Ball.” I pick it up and say, “Does Jason like me?” Then I shake it.
“What does it say?”
I turn it over. “‘It is decidedly so.’”
“There’s a news flash.”
“He doesn’t.”
“You can’t deny reality. So what if the reality is particularly harsh? You and I both know that this life thing is anything but easy.”
There’s no way Jason likes me. Even if he did, I could never like him back. What kind of person would do something like that to their best friend?
6
We’re doing pottery in art this week. I kind of suck at it.
Of course, Connor rules at it. He stands next to the pottery wheel, watching me struggle.
He’s like, “Try not to press in so much.”
My hands are wrapped around a lump of clay that I’m spinning on the wheel. My hand-foot coordination seems to be severely lacking today. Every time I want to slow down the wheel, I press harder on the pedal. And yes, I have accepted that my only artistic talent involves making posters.
I press in the clay too much. It oozes up over my hands and flows down onto the wheel.
“Oh, well,” Connor goes in his mellow tone. It’s an instant stress-reliever. “Try again.”
I love Connor. He has a calming effect on me in times of crisis. We had art together last year, too. Not that I wanted to take art again. We’re required to take three years of creative electives. Whenever I’m having a hard time with a project, Connor swoops over to rescue me, all laid-back and helpful. He never worries about the things everyone else worries about. Maybe it has something to do with him being Canadian. He moved here in ninth grade from Montreal. He still has a strange accent and a stranger vocabulary. This one day when he was talking about gym, I had no idea what he was saying. He was trying to tell me something about his jogging pants.
I was like, “Your what?”
He went, “I forgot my jogging pants.”
And I was all, “You mean your sweatpants?”
But Connor didn’t know what those were.
I lump the clay together again. I smack it down on the wheel. The clay needs to know who’s in charge.
“Only press down a little on the pedal,” Connor advises.
“I know, I’m trying.”
“So let’s see.”
I try again. This time, I don’t crush the mug I’m trying to form.
“Looking good, eh?” he says.
“Yeah, eh.” That’s another thing about Connor. He totally laughs when you imitate his Canadian speech habits, like saying “eh” all the time.
Keeping my fingers together, I wrap my hands around the sides of the clay. Then I slowly push my thumbs down into the top.
Connor goes, “A little faster is g
ood.”
I gently press my foot down on the pedal. I can feel the wheel working the way I want it to. I’m finally getting the hang of this. I pull my thumbs apart, still sinking them down into the top of the lump. As the clay spins, the place where I’m pressing my thumbs in gets wider. I can actually tell that this part is the inside of the mug.
When my mug looks like a real mug the next day, I’m stoked. I bring it over to our table and show Connor. “Check me out!” I brag.
“You rock,” Connor says. He’s glazing his piece. After we glaze our pieces, we’ll put them in the kiln and they’ll be ready to take home tomorrow.
“How did you do that?” I ask. Connor made a beautiful vase. It’s tall, which is really hard to do on the wheel. The one time I tried making something half that tall it ended up collapsing in a heap.
“Patience,” he says, “and practice.”
“You sound like my mom.”
“Your mom must be a very intelligent woman.”
“More like annoying because she’s always right.” I start glazing my mug.
“Did I say you could sit here?” Ryan growls at Sophie over at the next table. Sophie looks around for another space. There aren’t any left.
“You can sit here,” I tell her.
Sophie looks at me with so much gratitude that my throat tightens up. I hate how Ryan picks on her. Ryan is one of those people who senses weakness, then attacks. Anytime the two of them have a class together, it’s like his personal mission to humiliate her in front of everyone. She’s not the only one he hates. Ryan and his stupid prepped-out friends pick on anyone who doesn’t fit their warped standards, like kids who are geeky or overweight. Sophie happens to be both.
Ryan also hates Blake something severe. I can’t figure out why. Blake lays low and tries so hard to blend in. But every time Ryan passes Blake in the hall, he gives Blake the nastiest looks.
Last year, Ryan ripped up Blake’s English essay for no reason. Blake was just sitting there in class, waiting for the teacher to come in and collect everyone’s essays. Ryan went over to Blake’s desk, snatched up his essay, and ripped it to shreds. It was fifteen pages (fifteen real pages, not the bootleg ones with huge fonts and ridiculous margins) and worth most of his grade for the marking period. A bunch of kids saw Ryan do it, but no one told on him. Ryan got away with it. Blake got a zero. Blake was going to hand in the pile of shreds and explain what happened, but he decided to take the zero, as much as it killed him to hurt his grade like that. I think Blake had a feeling where Ryan’s hatred was coming from. The last thing Blake wanted to do was push Ryan over the edge.
“Thanks, Lani,” Sophie says. She puts her bowl on the table next to my mug.
“No problem,” I tell her. “Ryan is a dumbass.”
I glare at Ryan. He makes kissy lips back.
Dumbass.
Some kids are watching as Sophie swings her leg over the bench. I’m not even sure if she can fit into the space between me and the hostile sophomore girl on Sophie’s other side, but I’m really hoping she can. I’m already scrunched over as far as I can go, teetering on the edge.
Sophie manages to squeeze in between us. The girl on her other side makes an annoyed tooth-sucking sound.
“I like your bowl,” I say.
“Thanks.” Sophie holds it up. “It’s for my sister. She’s in college.”
“Sweet.”
We all zone out in a glazing daze.
When I eventually look up, Ryan’s leering at me. I refuse to let him provoke me. I just don’t believe in putting more hatred out into the world when someone’s directing bad energy at you. I think your fate gets affected by energy, and too much negative energy can be detrimental to your fate.
Example. You ask the Energy for a sign that everything’s going to be okay, then you look up and there’s some graffiti on the wall that says OK. Those kinds of messages are harder to read when you’re all twarked up in a big snit ball of negativity.
I ignore Ryan. It bothers me so much that he makes other people’s lives miserable. I think the purpose of life is to help make the world a better place, not to make things worse for everyone. I wonder what it would take for him to get a clue. It’s so tragic to think that he’ll be like this for the rest of his life.
Sophie gapes at Connor’s vase. “Your vase is so tall!”
“Thanks.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Patience,” I inform her, “and practice.”
“Gee, Lani,” Connor goes. “That’s right. How did you know?”
“Oh, just a wild guess.”
He smirks at me. I smirk back.
“Thanks for letting me sit with you guys,” Sophie says.
“You don’t need an invitation,” Connor says. “You can sit with us anytime.”
I’m not worried about Connor’s karma at all. I hope my karma’s as good as his. If I’m destined for any kind of greatness, I don’t want to end up damaging my fate.
7
I can’t swim.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re like, How can you be almost seventeen and not know how to swim? The thing is, no one ever taught me. When I was little, I never went to camp or to the pool in the summer or anywhere else you would normally learn how to swim. My parents never forced me to be interested and it just never occurred to me to go out and learn.
Until now. We’re having a family reunion in Hawaii the summer after graduation (I’m one-fourth Hawaiian on my mom’s side). I really want to swim in the ocean while I’m there. I love tropical fish. I have a big aquarium in my room with neons and rainbows and two angelfish. My French angelfish is Wallace, and my queen angelfish is Gromit. She’s the most gorgeous queen angelfish ever. She also happens to be my favorite. I know you’re not supposed to play favorites with your pets, but I don’t think the other fish can tell.
It would be awesome to swim with more tropical fish like mine. I hate being unskilled about something so basic that everyone else can do. So I’m taking a swimming class.
In a lot of ways, I’m a water person. Water is an earth element, so it goes with my Taurus tendencies. If I feel really tired, taking a shower is this totally refreshing, therapeutic experience for me. My bathroom is all set up like a spa. I have tons of shower gels and bath bubbles and I’m into aromatherapy, especially ylang-ylang and lavender and lily of the valley. I even like having wet hair fresh from the shower, especially in the summer.
So I’m all about the water. It’s just that I’m scared of water when it comes in the form of a lake or an ocean. Or a pond. Or a pool.
I’m terrified of drowning.
Drowning has to be the scariest way to die. Ever since the accident, I’ve had these nightmares about sinking deeper and deeper underwater, my lungs straining beyond belief. I’m hoping that after I learn how to swim, those nightmares will go away.
My swimming class is every Wednesday after school at the rec center. The only things I’ve learned how to do so far are to tread water and doggy-paddle. A lopsided, damaged sort of doggy-paddle. I’m the oldest kid in my class. By a lot. Even the first graders can doggy-paddle better than me.
We’re supposed to be doing drills with our buddies. My buddy is actually the instructor’s assistant, so he already knows how to swim. Everyone else is paired up with another kid their age. For this drill, I have to stretch my arms out and kick my legs straight back. Except I can’t. As soon as my feet leave the pool floor, I feel like I’m going to sink and I spaz out.
I hate being so scared. I want to experience that awesome feeling of slicing through smooth water, the way I imagine it feels to other people when I watch them swim. It just seems like I’m never going to get there.
My buddy disagrees.
“You got this,” he says. “It’s all you.”
He holds his hands out for me to lie on. I press my stomach against them and stretch my arms out in front of me. Then I lift my feet up.
Can’t. Do. This.
> My feet frantically scrabble for the pool floor. I stand there with my heart pounding. I can’t even look at him, I’m so ashamed. It’s not that I think he’ll let me drown. I know he won’t. It’s just that I might be safe in this pool, but who’s going to save me when I’m swimming by myself in the ocean, out there where anything can happen?
8
I’m all frustrated about what happened in swimming yesterday. Why don’t I just admit that I’m never going to learn how to swim? Forget diving and all that fancy stuff. Never going to happen. I’m obviously destined to drown in some freak boating accident.
I should just accept my fate and call it a life.
We have a new salad bar in the cafeteria. Which should be good news. Except that it’s seriously lame. Idiots are throwing stuff in. The lettuce looks like it’s been sitting there for a really long time. Even the carrot shreds are trying to jump ship. So I’m avoiding the salad bar, sliding my tray along the railing. I frown at the lunch selection. I’ve narrowed my choices down to two: bad or worse.
Someone comes up behind me and bumps their tray into mine. I spin around, annoyed. Then I realize it’s Jason.
He’s like, “Hey.”
“Oh! I didn’t know it was you.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Or. Maybe not.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not especially.”
“That’s cool.”
We push our trays forward.
“So who do you sit with?” he says.
“Um . . .” I glance over at my table. “Some friends from One World.”
“Oh, nice.”
We push our trays some more.
“We have a variety of delectable selections this afternoon.” Jason makes a sweeping gesture over the food case. “Appetizers include suspicious-looking potato things, an array of crumbly apple slices, and some green stuff over there.”
“Sounds delicious.”
“Absolutely. Moving on to the main course selections . . . uh . . . yeah, I don’t know what any of that is. But there’s some questionable Jell-O-like substance for dessert, which could be a plus.”
“Yay.”
“That’s exactly what I said when I saw it.”
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