What Kind of Girl

by Alyssa Sheinmel

  “Door-to-door service,” he announces. I’m surprised he dropped me off first since technically Maya’s house is in between his house and mine, but maybe he didn’t realize that because it’s not like he knows where Maya lives any more than he knows where I live. (I had to give him my address before we got in the car tonight.) Then again, he offered to drive Maya home before we went to the beach this afternoon, so maybe he knows exactly where she lives.

  * * *

  My parents are sitting at the kitchen table when I walk in the door, which isn’t a good sign. It’s late enough that normally they’d be in bed by now, or at least getting ready for bed, but they’re still dressed and the lights are still on.

  “First things first,” Mom begins. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I answer quickly.

  “And Maya’s okay?”

  Mom must’ve seen Maya in the car with me just now. “Yes,” I answer.

  “Who was that driving?”

  “A friend from school.” I add, “Hiram,” so that she doesn’t think I’m trying to keep anything from her. Mom likes to think she knows everyone at North Bay Academy, but she’s never met Hiram, and I’ve never mentioned his name before. “A new friend. You don’t know him.” Maybe that’s too much information, but it’s hard not to talk when I’m nervous.

  “Okay, then.” Mom takes a deep breath. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?”

  “I’m sorry,” I begin, but Mom holds up her hand.

  “Not only did you cut class—”

  “I couldn’t leave Maya—”

  “Not only did you ignore my calls and texts—”

  “I didn’t have my phone with me.”

  “Oh, and I suppose Maya and Hiram didn’t have one you could borrow? You couldn’t have sent us a message so we’d know you were okay?”

  I don’t have an answer to that. I thrust my hands into my pockets.

  “You’re grounded,” Mom says finally. Her voice is perfectly calm. At the hospital on Valentine’s Day, talking to the doctors about my cutting, she kept her voice reasonable even though she was blinking between sentences, which I knew meant she was fighting a migraine. She was in pain, but she was still able to keep her voice even and clear. Why couldn’t I have inherited that ability?

  Instead, my voice is shaking when I say, “But tomorrow night, Maya and I—”

  Mom shakes her head. “Don’t use Maya as an excuse. I happen to know that Mrs. Alpert and Maya spoke hours ago.”

  I bite my lip. “Oh.” Mom and Dad told Maya to call them by their first names from the day they met her, but Mom likes me to call adults Mr. and Mrs. because it’s more polite. Dad used to argue against it, but he gave in eventually. (Gotta choose your battles, he told me later with a wink.)

  Mom softens. “I know you want to be a good friend. This is a difficult time for Maya. But it’s a difficult time for you too. Let’s not forget everything that’s happened.”

  “I’ve kept up my side of the deal.” I haven’t cut. I’ve gone to therapy every week.

  “I know you have,” Mom says. “And we’re proud of you. But you can’t imagine how worried we were today.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. “What about the protest?” I ask. “On Sunday.”

  “Grounded is grounded,” Mom begins, but Dad interjects.

  “We’ll talk about that tomorrow.” Dad’s trying to sound as strict as Mom, but he can’t keep the excitement out of his voice. He’s proud of me for planning a demonstration. “For now, why don’t you head to your room? We asked your teachers to email your assignments so you won’t fall behind after missing this afternoon’s classes.”

  I nod. I’m pretty sure if Dad has anything to say about it, I’m not missing anything on Sunday. He thinks my participation will look as good on my college applications as the straight A’s I’ll keep by making up today’s schoolwork.

  “Tess brought your backpack home,” Mom adds as I head up the stairs.

  My heart starts to pound. Mom obviously didn’t go through my backpack. If she’d seen the pills, we’d have been having a different conversation. But what if Tess saw them? Well, it’s none of Tess’s business. We’re not together anymore. What would she care?

  Well, maybe she’d care a little bit, since she’s the one who picked up my bag and brought it home for me. I feel myself smiling and try to set my mouth back into a straight line. Happy isn’t the appropriate way to feel right now.

  With my bedroom door closed behind me, I open my bag and sort through the contents. I take out the Ziploc and shake the pills into my hand, counting out the reds and the blues to make sure they’re all still there. I’m not going to take one to sleep tonight. I don’t think I deserve any help, not after the way I made my parents worry. Grounded or not, Dad will drive me to school in the morning so I can bring my car back home. He won’t want me leaving the car in the parking lot all weekend. I shove the Ziploc back into my bag.

  I take my phone out of the side pocket and the screen lights up, showing all the missed calls and texts from Mom and Dad.

  I jump when my phone buzzes in my hand, alerting me to a new message from Maya.

  Thanks for today.

  Before I can write back, she adds, Were Aaron and Frida freaking out?

  Yeah, I type. I’m grounded. How about your mom?

  She was okay. Mostly I had to apologize for making her worry so much. You know how she gets.

  I know.

  If you’re grounded, does that mean we can’t go to Big Night?

  Before Maya and Mike got together, she and I always texted before we went to sleep. Sometimes we talked about the test we were studying for or my latest crush or Maya’s mother’s latest date with some loser. Sometimes we talked about TV or which celebrity feud seemed faked, but we always talked. This feels familiar.

  I picture Mom blinking in between sentences. I worried her so much today that it made her sick.

  That just means I’ll have to do a good job sneaking out tomorrow. Mom can’t know I’m gone. As long as she doesn’t know, she won’t have to worry.

  Of course we’re still going to Big Night, I type. Wouldn’t miss it!

  Saturday, April 15

  Five

  Maya

  “I’m so glad you’re going tonight. It’ll be good for you.”

  Junie has to sneak out tonight, but not me. My mom is practically pushing me out the door. After all, I’ve never missed Big Night before, not even my freshman year, and not that many ninth graders go to Big Night. I think Mom feels better, seeing me getting dressed for an evening out, like it means maybe what happened with Mike isn’t such a big deal after all—things are going back to normal, and her daughter’s going to be okay.

  She doesn’t realize that Mike will be there tonight. She probably thinks Mike’s parents are making him stay home as punishment for what he did. But I know Mike’s family well enough to know his parents would never do that.

  Mom lingers in my room while I get dressed, commenting on my potential outfits, even though I never listen to her opinion when it comes to fashion. I still have half an hour before I have to leave. Big Night starts at nine, but Junie said we shouldn’t arrive too early, so we’re planning to get there at nine forty-five. Late enough that Kyle’s house will be full of our classmates, but early enough that the students who are running tomorrow will still be there. Junie didn’t mention it, but I think she knows—the track team never stays at Big Night late. Mike and his teammates will leave by ten thirty, eleven at the latest. This way, I won’t have to be there with him for too long. And Junie won’t have to be there with Tess for too long either.

  Not that either of us will be with either of them. I can’t imagine Mike will want to talk to me, and I can’t imagine Junie wants to talk to Tess.

  I hate the way Mom’s lingerin
g. Not only because I’m not interested in her never-ending commentary, but because I don’t like changing my clothes in front of her.

  I threw up after dinner tonight. I thought I wouldn’t, now that there’s no Mike to impress, but I did anyhow. And I skipped lunch, to make up for not throwing up after dinner last night. As I reach for another T-shirt, I wonder whether Mom notices that my stomach is flat, empty, even though we had dinner together an hour ago.

  Yesterday, Hiram said I looked good the way I am, but the way I am is a result of making myself throw up, so how can I be sure he’d like me any other way? Not that I threw up for Hiram. But I’m not throwing up for Mike anymore either—am I?

  I start to shake my head, then stop myself before Mom can ask what I’m thinking about. Maybe I threw up because I knew she’d watch me get dressed tonight and I wanted to at least look good in front of her.

  I didn’t used to be like this. As a little kid, when we had to change into our bathing suits in the communal locker rooms at camp, I really didn’t care who saw, even as some of the other girls engaged in some serious acrobatics to change under their T-shirts.

  Clothes are like armor, when you think about it. Those girls in the camp locker room hid beneath their clothes because it made them feel, safer, more secure. Clothes allow you to choose what the rest of the world gets to see—literally, clothes determine how much of your body is exposed to the world. And figuratively—the clothes you wear let you decide who they’ll see: Cool-girl casual in jeans and a T-shirt? Unafraid-to-be-overdressed in skirt and button-down? Trendy girl in tight black pants and cool boots?

  I thought about dressing up tonight—a dress, a skirt—but I never wore anything but jeans to Big Night before. So, jeans and a T-shirt. But which T-shirt? Which jeans? I’ve tried on three different options so far and none of them feel right.

  Everyone’s going to be looking at me tonight. (Not the way they look at Junie, who’s hard not to stare at because she’s so beautiful.) I never minded when they looked at me before. They looked because I was popular and stylish, because I was lucky to have landed Mike, because we were so in love. But tonight, they’ll be looking at me because I’m the girl who accused Mike of hitting her, the girl who stayed for months after the first time it happened, the girl who drove off with the school burnout after lunch yesterday, the girl who might get Mike expelled.

  Just thinking about walking through Kyle’s door makes my palms all sweaty. I’m scared to see Mike, but I’m also curious to know how he’ll react to my being there. Will he look at me with anger? With hatred? With love? And maybe a part of me is excited to see him, the same way I’ve been excited to see him every day for the last six months.

  Junie would say I’m entitled to feel however I want. But she wouldn’t understand that my feelings are completely at odds with one another.

  No one else could possibly feel such different things at the same time.

  Finally, I decide on my Led Zeppelin T-shirt, even though I already wore it this week. I pair it with my favorite dark blue jeans, just a little bit ripped over one knee, and black boots with a short heel. I turn to face the mirror over my dresser and pull my hair into a loose ponytail. I put on earrings that make my neck look long.

  “Those are so pretty,” Mom says from her perch on the edge of my bed. She’s picking up my discarded shirts and putting them down, but she doesn’t bother folding them because she knows I’ll do it better than she will.

  Unlike Mom, I make my bed every day. I fold my clothes, and my closet isn’t overflowing, and the books on my shelves are arranged by color, not stacked haphazardly, because I like the way it looks. I once arranged the books in Mike’s room in ROYGBIV order while he was studying, just for fun.

  Now, I twist his bracelet around and around. There are still bits and pieces of Mike strewn about my room: his sweater, out of sight but neatly folded beneath my bed. A picture of the two of us printed and framed on my dresser. That same picture is the background on my phone. Maybe I should’ve removed all traces of Mike before I headed for Principal Scott’s office on Monday. That’s what women do in movies and books, isn’t it? I shouldn’t want to be reminded of him after everything that happened.

  But I framed that picture of the two of us after he hit me the first time.

  I cross the room and look at my reflection in the mirror above my desk. I can’t decide what to do about my makeup. It would be easy enough to cover up my bruise—it’s fading now, turning more yellow than pink, but still visible, a shadow beneath my skin. Covered up or not, everyone knows it’s there—my classmates saw it all week long. If I do conceal it, will they think that means I’m ashamed of it? Or will they think maybe it’s already healed and I made too big a deal out of too small a hurt?

  I put on bronzer, tap blush onto the apples of my cheeks, run a comb through my eyebrows. I brush mascara onto my lashes and lip gloss over my lips.

  I wear concealer almost every day because I’ve always had circles under my eyes. Mom even complained about them to my pediatrician, and he said they were hereditary—from my dad’s side, Mom insists—and the only thing that might improve them was to take a decongestant every day. And Mom may have wanted her little girl to look nice, but she didn’t want me to be overmedicated, so the dark circles stayed put. But as soon as I was old enough for makeup—and my mom wasn’t the kind of mom who made me wait until I was a certain age or anything like that, it was more that makeup didn’t occur to me until I was fourteen—I started covering the circles with concealer.

  Which means I was self-conscious about my looks before Mike ever asked me out. So maybe I would’ve started throwing up anyway.

  Then again, I always enjoyed wearing makeup and trying on clothes. I don’t enjoy sticking my fingers down my throat. Sometimes I have to silently beg my mouth to open wide enough for my fingers to slide inside.

  “You look beautiful,” Mom says. I always thought that was something mothers had to say, no matter how their children actually looked. I look fine, but surely I don’t look beautiful, not with this bruise messing up the symmetry of my face.

  Or maybe she thinks I’m beautiful despite the bruise. Maybe she loves me so much that I’m beautiful to her no matter what, under-eye circles and all.

  Or maybe she thinks I’m beautiful because of the bruise. Because Mike hit me and I stood up for myself and said enough.

  Eventually.

  What would Mom say if she knew about the part of me that’s excited to see him? The part of me that hid his sweater under my bed instead of throwing it away. The part of me that doesn’t want to take his bracelet from around my wrist.

  I rub concealer on my under-eye circles, but leave the bruise bare.

  Six

  Junie

  I shouldn’t be thinking about the fact that Tess will be at the party. Shouldn’t be thinking about the fact that just a week ago, I thought I’d walk into Big Night at Tess’s side, maybe even holding hands, and everyone would cheer. (Not for me, of course, but for her, because she’s the best runner on the girls’ team.) I shouldn’t be thinking about the fact that for once I didn’t think I’d mind everyone looking in my direction, because mostly they’d be looking at Tess, and if they were looking at me, they’d be thinking how lucky I was to be with her. Which gets me thinking about the way our classmates used to look at Maya. Which gets me back to what I should be thinking about, which is Maya and whether she’s going to be okay tonight.

  Actually, that’s not even what I should be thinking about. I mean, that’s important and deserves my attention, but at the moment I should really be concentrating on one thing more than anything else—how I’m going to get out of the house without my parents knowing.

  I am not a sneaking-out kind of daughter. Okay, sure—I snuck around cutting for months, but that’s literally my only sneaking experience. And that’s not the kind of experience that’s going to help me get
out the door tonight.

  I’m not planning to shimmy down the drainpipe or tie my sheets together into a makeshift rope to rappel down from my bedroom window. Maybe it’s not the most creative plan, but I’ve decided to simply wait until my parents go up to their room—they almost always watch a movie in bed on Saturday nights, and they inevitably fall asleep with the TV on. When I was younger, all three of us would watch together, usually some movie I probably wasn’t old enough for, but I never minded. I almost always fell asleep before they did, but the next morning, I’d wake up in my own bed. (My dad carried me to my room after I fell asleep.) As I got older, I started spending my Saturdays with Maya, and then with Tess, or maybe I was in my room studying, or in the bathroom cutting. Whatever the reason, I stopped spending my Saturday nights with my parents.

  But anyway, my plan tonight is to wait till they go to their room and then tiptoe down the stairs and sneak out the back door. Am I a Goody Two-shoes because—despite the fact that I’m sneaking out—I also plan to leave a note on my unmade bed letting them know that I’m okay, I’m with Maya, I won’t be too late—just in case they happen to check up on me before I get back?

  I mean, I won’t be gone that long. Maya and I are going to make an appearance to prove she’s not scared to show up where Mike might be (and I’m not scared to show up where Tess might be), and then we’ll leave after we’ve made our point. I can be there and back before my parents even know I’m gone.

  Right?

  I have literally no idea. Because like I said, I’ve never actually snuck out before. The only rule I ever broke (other than the kind of rules my dad encouraged me to break, ones that he thought were socially unjust) was cutting, and to be fair, it’s not like my parents had ever explicitly forbidden cutting. At least, not before we made our three-month deal.

  Which brings me to another thing I shouldn’t be thinking about. My hands are shaking while I pick up a T-shirt and jeans from the pile of (clean) clothes on my bedroom floor. (Mom’s rule is she’ll wash my clothes, but she’s not going to clean my room for me, so if I can’t be bothered to put my clean clothes away, that’s my problem, not hers, as long as I confine my mess to my room.) My hands are shaking while I brush my short hair. I tell myself it’s normal to be nervous before going to a party your gorgeous ex-girlfriend will also be attending. And it’s normal to be nervous before walking into Kyle’s house, because he probably knows about the protest by now, and he probably knows that I planned it, and he definitely knows that I’m Maya’s best friend. And it’s normal to be nervous the night before a big event, even though Dad says he never gets nervous before a protest, that he’s always too excited.