Boy Proof

by Cecil Castellucci

  “I thought you were studying,” he says.

  He just thinks I’m acting normal. He can’t tell that I am suddenly aware of every move, every sound, every word I make. He doesn’t know that suddenly, everything I do or say sounds stupid. He doesn’t realize what the word sweet has done to me.

  “You still going to the merry-go-round today?”

  “Yeah, you going to come?” Max asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, trying not to look abnormal. “Okay.”

  Nelly is leaning on Max’s car. She waves.

  “Hey, Egg,” she says; then she turns to Max. Head sideways. Knowing look.

  “Hey,” she says to Max. Her arm loops under his. “I’ve got good news and bad news. What do you want first?”

  “Bad news,” he says, chewing on a fingernail.

  Nelly looks at me and then at Max.

  “I can’t go with you to Griffith Park.”

  “And the good news?” Max asks.

  “I got a callback on an audition!”

  He unhooks her arm from his and unlocks the door and opens it.

  “Hey, that’s great,” Max says. “What kind of movie is it?”

  “Oh, it’s not a movie,” Nelly says.

  “What is it then?” I say.

  “An acne commercial,” Nelly says.

  I focus in on Nelly’s face. Nelly’s skin is perfect. She has no pores. No acne. No blemishes. They must want her to be the after picture.

  “It’s a national!” Nelly says, and crosses her fingers.

  “Wow!” I say with mock enthusiasm.

  “Hucking for the man, huh, Nelly?” Max says. “That’s really . . .”

  “What?” Nelly says.

  “It’s just not . . . It’s just so corporate. It’s doing something for the money and not because you believe in it. I mean, do you even care about the product?”

  “It’s just a commercial, Max. It’s just a job,” Nelly says.

  I know Nelly is not stupid, but I can’t believe she doesn’t get what Max is saying.

  “I wish you’d understand,” Max says. “It’s what’s destroying the truth and beauty of the world. Advertising. I mean, you don’t even have acne.”

  “Look, Max. I get what you’re saying. I just don’t think it’s that big a deal. I want to be an actress. I have a callback for a job. It’s that simple.”

  Max gets a sullen look on his face that I’ve never seen before.

  “Come on, don’t be like that.” She makes a cute face. “Call you later, okay?”

  Max moves away from her slightly.

  “Okay,” Max says.

  “No hard feelings?” Nelly asks.

  “Nah,” Max says, and gets behind the wheel. “Congrats on the commercial.”

  Does Max like Nelly so much that he will even compromise himself for her? I wonder if that’s what caring is all about. If it is, I’ll never care for anyone.

  Nelly picks up her bag and leaves. She doesn’t care that I’m going to the park with Max, because she’s not threatened by me as a girl. She thinks I’m like Max’s little pocket pal.

  “Come on, Egg. Looks like it’s just you and me.”

  I’m afraid to be alone with Max Carter. Not because he’s scary, but because he’s so real.

  I sit on the horse as it spins on its track. Around and around. Up and down. Max Carter’s mouth is wide open next to me in a smile. His steed is purple. He is standing up. Fist in air. Triumphant. He slaps his purple horse’s ass to make it go faster. But it is constrained by the bar, by the machine, by the mechanics, by the circle it is endlessly forced to travel in.

  The ride stops.

  “Again!” Max whoops.

  We give our tickets to the ticket taker and we ride again. An endless circle. A sure journey. The music piping us back in time.

  I am so happy that if this were a movie, a nuclear bomb would explode right now, ending my life in a perfect fireball.

  We sit down on the grass apart from everyone else. Max pulls out a baguette, some cheese, and cold cuts so we can make our own sandwiches. There is also some bubbly water.

  “This is very fancy,” I say.

  “Really? It’s just bread and cheese,” Max says.

  “Well, the presentation.”

  “Oh. I figured it would be easier. I didn’t know what you or Nelly liked.”

  He fixes himself a sandwich. He’s not shy about it. He just heaps the Brie onto the bread.

  “You’re a pretty comfortable person, aren’t you?” I say.

  Max looks at me, head sideways.

  “Yeah. Is there any other way to be? I mean, this is it. This is my body, my soul; I gotta live with it. I’d better get comfortable. I plan on taking it for a long ride,” he says.

  I laugh.

  “The truth is I feel awkward around people sometimes,” Max says. “I’m really quick to jump into being friends with people, ’cause, you know, I traveled so much growing up. I don’t know how to be friends with people for more than a few days or a few months.”

  “You seem to be doing fine,” I say, not wanting to admit that I envy him his social ease.

  “Well.” He motions over to the group we came to the park with but are not associating with at all. “I made friends with all of them, but I don’t know if I actually like them. For real. Most of the time I still feel lonely.”

  This blows me away. I don’t know what to say, so I open my mouth and put my sandwich in it to stall.

  “I envy you, Egg. You’re truly comfortable with yourself,” Max says.

  “No, I’m not,” I say.

  I want to tell Max that I am uncomfortable all the time, too. I need to hide myself. I need to hide my face. I need to hide my body. But I don’t say it out loud. I almost think he wouldn’t laugh at me for saying what I feel. I almost think I could trust him.

  “Anyone who dresses up like a character from a movie and wears a cloak to school is pretty comfortable with herself,” Max says.

  “I’m not,” I say.

  “You are, too,” he says.

  “I’m not.”

  “You are, too.”

  We laugh like little kids.

  “You really like yourself, Egg,” Max says. “Deep down inside. That’s what I like about you. You’re really true to yourself. I try to be like that.”

  I take another bite of my sandwich. The lemon mayonnaise springs my taste buds to life.

  “What’s up with you and that Terminal Earth movie, anyway? I mean, it’s a good movie. But it’s not a great movie.”

  “It’s pretty great,” I say.

  “But not that great,” Max says.

  “You know, Max. I’ve always been perceived as strange for one reason or another. I guess it’s because of my overflowing amount of knowledge. Nobody seems to get what I’m talking about, so I just don’t talk,” I say.

  “I know about that,” Max says. “I call it loneliness.”

  I notice that the natural highlights in Max’s hair are slightly reddish.

  “Yeah. So everyone always thought I was strange or weird or something out of the ordinary, but not in a good way. Terminal Earth actually put all that knowledge to use for once. It just means something important to me,” I say.

  “I understand that. I even admire that,” Max says. “I just don’t get why you put all your knowledge and energy and passion into something like a movie. That’s not real, you know? And there is this whole world around you, a real one, that’s falling apart. That you could do some good in.”

  “Like march on the convention center,” I say.

  “Yeah, or help a kid to read or do algebra. Get people to vote.”

  “How does that really help?” I say.

  “One person at a time. Many voices joined together become strong and loud,” he says. “Like you said, a drop in the bucket.”

  “I don’t have that much faith in people. I think the human race is going to self-destruct,” I say.

  “You sho
uld have more faith. People, in general, are good.”

  “You’re so holier-than-thou,” I say. “I’m irritated now.”

  Max laughs. “That’s what my dad says.”

  “Besides, Zach Cross is hot.”

  Max laughs again.

  The kids on the merry-go-round are screaming with joy as they whip around on their horses. The horses make a soft blur from where we are sitting on our grassy knoll. The birds. The sun. The outside.

  “I watched my dad interview Zach Cross once,” Max says. “Every time Zach Cross said something he thought was stupid, he would punch his own head.”

  “What do you mean, he beats himself up?” I ask.

  “I mean he punches his head and yells at himself.”

  “That’s not true,” I say.

  “And he’s a drunk.”

  “No,” I say.

  “And he’s gay.”

  “Shut up, Max. According to the National Enquirer, my mom is gay.”

  We are silent for a while. I am lost in my own thoughts. I always said that Terminal Earth wasn’t just a phase. It wasn’t just another thing that I was obsessed with that I’d later discard. Terminal Earth would be forever. And yet, I have gotten rid of Egg’s cloak. And I don’t really care anymore what happens in the sequel.

  I just want to pass trigonometry.

  Max reaches out his hand and smudges my lip with his thumb.

  “You had some mayo on you,” Max says.

  His blue eyes are glinting in the sun. His smile, warm and large, is disarming. I look down at the grass. I feel naked. An army of ants is moving one of the bread crumbs at my feet to an unknown destination.

  I run up to Max as he emerges from the parking lot into the quad.

  “Hey, there’s a four P.M. special screening at the Silent Movie Theater that I was thinking of going to after school. Do you want to go with me?” I ask.

  Dad is out of town. I have the afternoon to myself.

  “Oh, man. It’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right? I saw that on the marquee on the way to school. Shit,” he says.

  “What’s the problem? Tutoring kids? Bringing meals to sick people? Volunteering at an old-age home?” I say. “Don’t save the world — come and hang out with me!”

  “Can we take a rain check? I promised Nelly that we would do something today, you know, just us, and I don’t think she’d want to go to the Silent Movie Theater,” he says.

  “So what? Blow her off,” I say, irritated that he’d blow me off for her.

  “I can’t. I promised her,” Max says.

  “So what? I am way more interesting.”

  “Egg, Nelly and I are, you know . . . hanging out.”

  It’s like a push. It’s like a slap. It’s like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. But I don’t want Max to see how much it hurts.

  “God, Max, I thought you were different,” I say it cool, even, like a hiss between my teeth. “Nelly doesn’t even appreciate the things that you talk about.”

  “Nelly’s a great girl. She’s smart. She’s pretty,” Max says. “I like that she’s different from me.”

  “But she’s typical,” I say. “She’s normal.”

  “She’s not normal.”

  “Say she’s just one of your social experiments. Say that you’re studying her.”

  “No. She’s not an experiment,” Max says.

  “I thought you liked exceptional things. Like me.”

  “I do,” he says. “I do like you. But . . .”

  “But I’m boy proof.”

  “No,” Max says. “You just make yourself so unapproachable. And Nelly doesn’t.”

  The worst thing is that what he’s saying is true. It is difficult to discover that the truth really does hurt.

  My body tenses up. I slam my locker door shut. The textbooks inside jump and clang on the thin metal shelf. The mini-comic from the bande dessinée en directe that I had taped to the door flutters to the floor.

  “Come on, Egg. Don’t be like this.”

  “I let you in,” I say, “because I thought you liked me.”

  I head for AP Global History.

  “I do like you,” Max says, following me. “That’s why I thought I could be honest with you. Egg, I’m not interested in tiptoeing around someone’s feelings.”

  But I can’t be honest with Max. I don’t say what I really want to say, which is I thought that Max Carter liked me, like a girl, like I was pretty and special.

  I can’t even see in front of me, I’m so upset.

  I get into the classroom, and the early sun’s light crosses in lines that make me angry. I slide in behind my desk and slouch into my chair and fume. I try to think about something that makes me happy, but nothing springs to mind. It is all overpowered by my feeling like an idiot for thinking even for half a second that I liked Max or for stupidly thinking that maybe he liked me back. I can’t believe I got myself thinking that it was something real. It drives me insane that I would lose to some girl like Nelly.

  Girls like Nelly always win.

  I’m always going to be invisible.

  Max turns around in his chair to face me. I lean over and pretend to dig something out of my bag.

  “Don’t turn your back on me,” Max says.

  “I’m not. I’m looking for something.”

  “Egg . . .”

  “Oh, God! Now I get it,” I say. “‘Love, and a cough, are not concealed.’ That is so fucking lame!”

  “You knew that something was going on,” Max says. “You never brought it up, either.”

  “I didn’t want to believe it,” I say.

  “Why is this such a big deal?” Max says.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? You should’ve told me. Instead of leading me on.”

  My heart is bursting. I feel savage.

  “I didn’t lead you on,” Max says defensively.

  “Right.”

  He stares me down, hoping I’ll back off. Hoping I’ll let him get away with it.

  “I guess I didn’t want to have that conversation,” Max says quietly. “It seemed complicated.”

  “There’s nothing complicated about it,” I say. “You’re just another shallow person pretending to be deep.”

  Max takes out his sketchbook and places it on the corner of his desk like he always does.

  “I can tell you want to sketch something. I can see you want to retreat into that little book of yours. So why don’t you just sketch me doing this,” I say, and I lean over the desk and pour my latte on the sketchbook. “Try putting that in your stupid graphic novel.”

  Max jumps up and grabs his sketchbook like it’s an injured child and mops the coffee up off the page with his sweatshirt sleeve. I can see some ink running, but I can tell the damage is not as much as I’d like it to have been. It doesn’t match how I feel.

  So I add words.

  “I bet your graphic novel will suck. I bet it’s typical, boring, and pedantic, just like you.”

  “Fuck you,” Max says. It doesn’t surprise me. What surprises me is how still he is when he says it. “You’re angry all the time, Egg. You don’t let anyone in. I don’t know why. It’s obvious that you have a spark, a passion, a heart. You have so much potential to be a fantastic person and you just choose to piss it away.”

  Max is calling me on my shit. I’m just a big baby and I can’t stop being angry. I can’t stop to listen to what Max has to say because everything he is saying is right.

  Max closes his eyes and breathes deeply and then turns away from me. Now it’s obvious that Max has decided not to try to say anything to me anymore. And I know I’ve ruined my life.

  Mr. Gerber enters the class. I want to switch my seat. I want to run out of the room.

  Max’s back is held still but with lots of energy. I can see it flowing off of him. It’s making me uncomfortable.

  Mr. Gerber unfastens the buckles on his briefcase and gets the exam out.

  “Max Carter, hand out
these exams.”

  Max grabs the papers and hands them out to the class. When he gets to my desk, he throws my exam at me.

  I want to melt into my chair and disappear. I want to punch a hole right through the floor. I don’t want to think about Napoleon Bonaparte. I’m having my own private war.

  Groups around me squawking their gossip.

  Black, black cloud surrounding me.

  I look up from my burrito hopefully. Maybe it’s Max. Maybe I’m going to talk to him about how fucked up I am and how stupid I am.

  It’s not Max. It’s Rue, and she has her hands on her large, wide hips.

  “Where were you yesterday? I waited forever for you in the library.”

  “What are you talking about,” I say.

  “You had an appointment with me. To do trigonometry,” Rue says.

  “Oh, shit. I totally forgot.”

  “Well, I was stuck in the library waiting for you for two hours, on half day.”

  “It can’t have been a big deal. I thought you spent all of your time in the library anyway.”

  I can hear the meanie inside of me just coming out. I don’t even have any control over it. I want everyone to feel as bad as I do.

  Rue’s face falls. It slides down off her head and hits the floor. Hard. I didn’t even mean to do it.

  “Is that what you think? That I don’t have a life? That I’m a big nothing that can wait around for you? You’re mean and ungrateful, Egg. I have tried and tried to be friendly to you, but you just push me away all the time,” she says.

  I don’t answer, because it’s true. Everything she is saying is right on target. Today I am taking an emotional beating.

  “You know what? Figure your own shit out.” Rue starts walking away from me. Then she suddenly turns back toward me and shoves some papers into my hands.

  “Here’s some sample problems I wrote down for you. Don’t ask me for any more help. Don’t talk to me. Don’t try to apologize.”

  She’s crying now.

  I’ve broken her. Her nose is running freely and catching on the kewpie-doll lips she has. Her pale skin blotches red all over. It’s as if she’s suddenly sprouted hives. She takes her scarf and dabs her eyes with the corner of it. She’s the kind of girl who’s nice and helpful even when she’s angry and upset. She’s the exact opposite of me.