Even though I keep my eyes focused straight ahead, it’s impossible to avoid all of the sympathetic smiles, the raised eyebrows, occasionally even a hand on my arm followed by How’re you doing? or sometimes How’s Mike doing? I tell them I’d rather not talk about it.
Mike’s already sitting at our usual lunch table, flanked on either side by his two best friends. I wonder if Anil and Kyle have been getting as many questions from our classmates as I have. Then again, they’re a lot more intimidating than I am, so maybe not. In fact, maybe they’re sitting beside Mike now expressly to stop people from asking questions.
They’ve always sat like that. We picked this table freshman year and haven’t moved since. (We’re juniors now.) Every so often an unknowing group of underclassmen will sit down, and all Mike has to do is throw them a look—he doesn’t even have to say a word—and they move.
Mike always seemed so much more grown-up than the rest of us. Even in kindergarten, when most boys could barely keep still for more than a few minutes at a time, Mike sat at the same table for lunch every day, and he never tried to get up until the teacher clapped her hands and announced that it was time for recess. Then he sped off like a shot and won every game of tag, every relay race. I used to think he was so fast because, unlike the other boys, he held still the rest of the time, like he’d made the decision to store up his energy for when it mattered.
I linger near the school entrance, one hand against a stucco pillar. Our school is only one story tall, spread out so that it’s long and curvy like a snake. On one side of the snake is the track where Mike runs almost every day, the parking lot beyond it. There are tables on either end of the school, but anyone worth anything sits at the tables on the south side like we do.
There aren’t any girls sitting at our table. Maybe none of the female students will want to sit with Mike now. Or maybe they just haven’t gotten here yet.
Someone grabs me from behind. I spin around.
“You scared me,” I say. It’s my best friend, Junie.
“Let’s eat in the library today,” she suggests. “I mean, who wants to deal with all that drama?” She gestures with her chin to the table where the boys are sitting. I see that a girl has sat down across from Mike and his friends. So much for female solidarity. It’s a sophomore whose name I think is Eva Mercado. She’s always had a crush on Mike. He never so much as smiled at her, though. I mean, he wasn’t rude about it or anything, he was just a really faithful boyfriend.
I glance at the parking lot, where the losers and stoners slink off at lunchtime, then turn back to Junie. “The library sounds good to me.”
* * *
“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.” We’re sitting at one of the five round tables set up in between the stacks of books, and Junie can’t stop talking. “I mean, I’m not saying I don’t believe it, of course I do believe it, I just can’t believe it—you know what I mean?”
I shrug, wondering why my best friend seems so nervous. It’s not as though she’s the one accused of anything. Or the one doing the accusing. But Junie can be kind of intense—her parents raised her to care about everything, to try to see every side of every story. That must get overwhelming from time to time.
Especially at times like this.
Junie shifts in her seat, twisting a lock of her short dark hair around one finger, then dropping it to chew on her nails. Unlike me, Junie looks like she always has a tan, thanks to the rich complexion she inherited from her mom. Plus, she got green eyes from her dad’s side of the family, and they’re so light they make her skin look even darker. Also unlike me, Junie’s wearing long sleeves that come down to her wrists and boots with her jeans. Junie’s one of those girls who’s so pretty, she doesn’t need to show any skin or wear makeup or put product in her hair to get people to look at her. People will always look at her.
“Where were you yesterday?” she asks finally. “I didn’t see you.”
“I ate lunch in here,” I explain. “I sort of just stayed after the bell rang.”
“Right.” Junie nods absently. “It was crazy out there.” She gestures vaguely to the hallway beyond the library entrance.
“What are people saying?” I know they’re saying more than asking how everyone involved is doing, even if that’s all they’ve been saying to me so far. I wonder how long until they start saying those other things to me.
Junie goes back to toying with her hair, trying to look nonchalant. (We’ve been best friends ever since her family moved here halfway through sixth grade—I know when she’s lying.) “Oh, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. That’s why I asked.” Sometimes I wonder if Junie and I aren’t really well-suited as best friends. Maybe the choices you made in sixth grade should expire before junior year.
“I mean, I think people believe it—’cause like, the evidence is hard to ignore.” Junie points at her own face, as though she’s the one with the bruised eye. “I think it’s hard because everyone’s always loved Mike.”
“Right.”
“Right!” Junie echoes enthusiastically. She starts chewing at her thumb again, her eyes darting around like she’s worried someone might be watching us.
Finally, she says, “I heard the track coach said that this could ruin his chances for that college scholarship.”
I know how much that scholarship means to Mike. Mike’s told me that his parents are stretched pretty thin. His little brother, Ryan, goes to a private school too—not here at North Bay, but to another school that caters to children with special needs, because Ryan was born with a learning disability. I got the idea that Ryan’s school is even more expensive than North Bay.
And college is even more expensive than that. So the scholarship would be a big help. Plus, I think he just wants to win it.
“Why? It’s not like any of this is going to affect his ability to run fast.”
“Apparently there’s, like, a morality clause to the scholarship that he’d be in violation of if it turns out he really did it.”
“What do you mean if he really did it? You said people believe it. The evidence and all that.” I point at my face like Junie pointed at hers.
“Yeah, but maybe it was an accident. Or just, you know, a misunderstanding?” Quickly, Junie adds, “I mean, that’s what some people are saying.” Junie always says I mean a lot, but I think she’s saying it even more than usual today. “Some people are saying the opposite.”
I wonder what the opposite is, but I don’t ask.
Junie continues, “I heard some girls are planning a rally to call for his expulsion.”
“A rally?”
Junie shrugs. “Yeah. You know, a protest. Some kind of demonstration.”
“Will you go?”
“Will you?”
The truth is, I never actually considered that Mike could get expelled. I’ve only ever heard of one student being expelled from North Bay Academy, and that was for plagiarizing a paper.
I don’t think I’ve heard of any student getting expelled for this from any high school. Because I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this happening. I’ve read about sexual assault accusations at other schools, and of course, I believe that boys who commit sexual assault should be expelled. But Mike isn’t accused of that.
“If he gets expelled, then he definitely wouldn’t be eligible for the scholarship anymore,” I say finally.
Mike must be freaking out about losing the scholarship, must be wondering how his girlfriend—the person who’s supposed to love him the most—could jeopardize his future. Even if he did hurt her—bruises heal, but college debt can last a lifetime. I should know; I’m already looking into student loans even with college still a couple years away. I’m on scholarship here at North Bay, for academic excellence. I have to keep my grades up and even though no one ever said so, I think I’m also supposed to be generally well-
liked, well-behaved. I try not to forget that I’m here out of the goodness of the administration’s hearts.
“True.” Junie nods. “But I’m not sure that students can call for expulsion. Even with a protest it’s not, you know…” Junie pauses like she’s searching for the right word. Finally she says, “It’s not definite he’ll get expelled. The school doesn’t have a policy for something like this.”
Junie looks like she’s waiting for me to say something, but I don’t know what to say. That I’m happy it’s not definite? That I wish it were?
“What do you think will happen?” she asks finally.
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
Suddenly, I feel very, very tired.
This all would be so much easier if everyone involved had just kept quiet.
Plenty of women never tell. They don’t come forward and say their boyfriends are hitting them. They find thicker cover-up and better cover stories. They opened a cabinet and a mug fell on their faces. They walked into a doorknob in the middle of the night. Sure, it’s completely implausible—why would anyone be eye level with a doorknob?—but that’s what women in the movies say. They cover for the men in their lives, at least at first. Eventually the woman stands up for herself and says: Enough.
Couldn’t this have waited until after Mike won the scholarship?
Anyway, Mike isn’t like those guys in the movies—they’re all bad guys. Their abuse escalates until it’s actually dangerous, until those women get seriously hurt: rushed to the ER, emergency surgery, that sort of thing. Mike is a good guy. He didn’t mean anything by it. Everyone knows he was the perfect boyfriend.
Everyone would tell you that.
Eight
The Girlfriend
Okay, so yes, Mike asked me out to begin with, but I was the one who made things between us official.
I don’t think anyone else knows that, because I was so embarrassed afterward that I begged him not to tell anyone, and he promised. Then again, now that we’re broken up, I guess all bets are off in the promise department.
Although, we never technically broke up. I’m just assuming we’re broken up. Under different circumstances that might even be funny because I was so unwilling to assume we were boyfriend/girlfriend in the beginning. Under different circumstances, it would make Mike laugh. (He always thought I was funny.)
We’d gone on three dates. Which isn’t really that many. Two dates the two of us alone and one date that wasn’t really a date since it was a party that I would’ve gone to anyway. But I would’ve gone with my best friend, and instead, I went with Mike (he has his own car, he drove) and we walked in holding hands. At that point, I was still keeping track of how many times we’d held hands.
One: The end of our first date. Dinner at an Italian restaurant. He held my hand from the restaurant to the parking lot, and then from my driveway to my front door. I kind of wished he hadn’t been holding my hand that second time because I knew my mom would be watching and she’d be so excited that at least one of us had a boyfriend, and I would’ve had to explain that Mike wasn’t my boyfriend, someone doesn’t become your boyfriend after just one date no matter how well it went or how much you already loved him.
Two: The beginning, middle, and end of our second date. From his car to the concession line at the movie theater; and then he took my hand halfway through the movie; and then after the movie we walked back to his car holding hands. That was the night of our first kiss, but kissing Mike for the first time didn’t feel as important as getting to hold his hand. I’d seen him kiss girls in dark corners at house parties and even at school once or twice, but I’d never seen him holding those girls’ hands. Then again, as of our second date, no one had seen us holding hands, unless you count my mother, which I didn’t.
Three: This was actually between dates. He held my hand for about ten seconds during lunch one day. But it was under the table, so I’m not sure anyone saw it.
Four: The party. Our third date. It was a belated Halloween party. Costumes were optional, and Mike and I had both opted out, though we hadn’t discussed it ahead of time. We were hand in hand practically the whole night. When Mike wasn’t looking, our friends—most of whom had come in costume, unlike us—would shoot kissy faces or thumbs-up or pretend to swoon. They were happy for me. They were jealous. Until then, I didn’t realize people could be both at the same time.
Mike and I left the party early. Anil and Kyle shouted that he was whipped, even though leaving hadn’t been my idea. Mike shrugged off his friends’ shouts. He never laughed when Anil and Kyle made jokes about the girls they’d hooked up with (or wanted to hook up with), about how Mike was pussy-whipped, about which celebrity had the best ass, about the latest free porn they found online. At least, he never laughed at that stuff in front of me. We held hands on the way to his car. (You okay to drive? I asked, and Mike said, Of course. I don’t know why I asked. It’s not like I would’ve suggested that I be the one to drive instead. I never drove Mike’s car.) Mike drove toward my house but he parked down the block. He said he thought my mother might be watching, and I said, Thank you so much. I was touched that he’d picked up on how uncomfortable my mother’s prying eyes made me.
We kissed for a long time. That was all, just kissing—I don’t want to give the impression that Mike was aggressive that way. We never did anything I didn’t want to do too.
After a while, he pulled away. “You’ll miss curfew if you don’t leave.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, leaning in. “My mother doesn’t actually enforce curfew. It’s more like she saw it in a TV show and thought it was something I should have without actually understanding what it was.”
Mike laughed. I hadn’t realized I’d been making a joke.
“So…” I began. “What happens on Monday?”
“On Monday?”
“At school.”
“At school?”
“Stop repeating everything I say!” I gave him a shove. He pretended I was so strong that my touch left him leaning up against the driver’s-side door. “I mean…” Ugh, I thought, is he really going to make me say it? I wasn’t even sure whether I should say it at all. Part of me thought I should just keep my mouth shut and take what I got and be grateful because it was already more than Mike gave most other girls.
But I didn’t want to be like my mother, who at fifty years old still didn’t understand the difference between a declaration of love and a booty call. (She’d recently had some misadventures with online dating.)
So I screwed up my courage and asked point-blank: “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
Now, I look back at that moment with wonder. Not because I was so brave to just ask the question. Almost exactly the opposite: I think of the way I worded it—like what we were was entirely up to him and not me. Was that when he realized that he was the one in charge?
Then again, perhaps it never occurred to him that he hadn’t been in charge all along. Not until I showed up in Principal Scott’s office yesterday morning.
Mike laughed. Again, I hadn’t meant to be funny, but like I said, he always thought I was funny. I was too embarrassed to even pretend-shove him again. But not embarrassed enough to open the door and walk away. I wanted to hear his answer. Even while he laughed at me, I was hoping he’d say yes.
And even if he said No, I still would’ve gone on kissing him if he let me.
But he said yes. Actually, he said of course, like it was something he’d already decided. Now, I wonder whether it was my idea or his that we make things official.
After that, we held hands all the time. In front of everyone. I was never so proud as when we were walking down the halls at school hand in hand.
Nine
The Bulimic
Okay, so I throw up after dinner. It’s no big deal.
I tried skipping every other meal first, but I could never
keep it up for very long. I always got too hungry. Or too bored. Or too fed up with trying to starve myself, which is an ironic choice of words, I know, but what can you do? So eventually I stopped skipping meals and started throwing them up instead.
I’m not fat. I was never really fat. I’m just not that thin. But about six months ago, I started dieting. Over the years, I’d gotten good at disguising my fat bits with the right outfits—I had skinny legs but a bulge around my stomach, so I could stick with tight jeans or leggings or short shorts paired with long flowy tops. It had served me well, for the most part.
But it wouldn’t work if I took my clothes off. And for the first time, it seemed like maybe someone might want to take my clothes off. And I wanted to look good. With my clothes off, that is. Even if I’d barely been so much as kissed before.
I never really understood why I was kissed so rarely. I went to the right parties and knew the right guys. I wasn’t the prettiest (or obviously, the skinniest) girl, but there were plenty of girls who were less pretty—I know that’s subjective, but I wasn’t ugly anyhow—and even heavier—that’s not subjective, that’s math—who’d been kissed more than I had.
Finally, I decided it was probably a chemical thing. Like maybe those other girls gave off more pheromones than I did. Or maybe they were just more approachable—maybe guys were less intimidated by other girls because they weren’t as pretty or thin. By which logic the super-pretty-fit girls would never get kissed, but I told myself that guys were willing to get shot down if it meant a chance at that level of hotness. Whereas I was somewhere in between—not pretty enough to be worth the risk and not plain enough to be a sure thing.
What Kind of Girl Page 3