Glass Girl (A Young Adult Novel)

by Laura Anderson Kurk

  He’d had to fold his long legs into his desk. His boots had seen better days, and his jeans unraveled in a curiously irresistible way at the bottom. He didn’t look like anyone I’d ever seen before. He reminded me of an actor in an old Western—Rock Hudson in Giant—all dark intensity. He was definitely a throwback cowboy who belonged on a horse.

  “Some of you seniors have had a class of mine before,” Mr. Landmann said. “Does anyone remember my favorite poet?”

  “Fro-o-o-st,” an exasperated student groaned from the back of the room.

  Mr. Landmann continued, unaffected by the disdain heating up in the back. He closed his eyes, breathed in through his nose, and recited “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” His complete lack of guile fascinated me. This guy was hilarious.

  “What is Mr. Frost trying to tell us, Henry?” Mr. Landmann said.

  The cowboy I’d known as Whitmire straightened up and cleared his throat. I assumed he had no idea what Frost meant because he was silent for a few seconds.

  “The speaker,” he said quietly, “is at a crossroads.”

  Mr. Landmann waited patiently for Henry to finish his thought.

  “He feels pulled toward the woods,” Henry said. “But he knows he’s got to turn back because there are people relying on him. He’s got to be a man.”

  “Do you think death is represented here?” Mr. Landmann led Henry right to his next point.

  “Yes, sir, I do,” Henry said. “I think he’s tired of life, but he’s too responsible to choose death. He knows living is always harder than dying.”

  Mr. Landmann continued with a quiet discussion of Frost’s psychological makeup. But I had trouble listening to him. I could only think about Henry and his jeans and insight.

  When class ended, Tennyson picked up her books and waited for me to get my things together.

  Henry paused, too, watching me. “Meg Kavanagh, remember me?”

  I shrugged. “You don’t just forget the first person who tried to run over you.”

  He chuckled and scratched his cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Now, I believe I apologized. More than once.”

  Tennyson glanced back and forth between Henry and me. “What am I missing here? You two know each other?”

  “No,” I said, just as Henry said, “Sort of.” He walked closer, towering over Tennyson and me. “Henry Whitmire.” He leaned toward me and said his name like he was sharing a secret and it made me think he probably kept a lot of secrets. His smile was sweet and his teeth the tiniest bit crooked.

  “Thanet told me your name,” I said. “He apologized with coffee and a job offer.”

  A laugh erupted out of Henry. “Yeah, I know. You wouldn’t like any jobs I had to offer you. I heard you didn’t waste any time booking it back to his mom’s store when I left.” He flung his backpack over a shoulder, then lifted mine out of my chair and held it out to me.

  “Well,” Tennyson interrupted, clearly amused. “This is interesting.” Her head tipped to the side as she studied us. She said it like, “This is interesting.” I knew she’d be full of questions on our way to Chemistry.

  “I’ve got Statistics,” Henry said. “I’ll catch up with you two later.”

  He walked backward out the door. “Hope you have a good day, Meg.”

  “What about me, Henry?” Tennyson said. “I’d like to have a good day, too.”

  “Sorry, Tenn, have a good a day,” he called over his shoulder. “Don’t go getting into your usual trouble and, if you do, leave the new girl out of it.”

  Tennyson turned to me, her eyes wide. “That just happened, didn’t it?”

  “What?” I followed her to the door. “What just happened?”

  “Henry Whitmire stayed after class and talked. He more than talked…he flirted.” She grabbed my elbow and directed me down a hall and toward the last classroom on the right. “He’s a senior, so….”

  “So that’s not a…that wasn’t a normal thing for him?”

  She rolled her eyes, throwing her backpack into a seat, and claiming the one next to it for me. “He’s too quiet to flirt,” she whispered just as Mr. Slaten started taking roll. “Plus, he’s adorable but unavailable.”

  EIGHT

  Mr. Slaten ran his class like a Dow Chemical staff meeting. He assumed each of us had a working knowledge of chemical compounds and a drive to change the world with them.

  When he called roll and I told him I preferred to be called Meg, he lost his mind.

  “MEG! Monoethylene Glycol!” he yelled. “You are my favorite formula.”

  He turned toward the white board and wrote C2H6O2 with a bulleted list of words like resin and antifreeze. “That’s you,” he said pointing at me. “You make good things even better because you understand how to keep other compounds calm and warm.”

  “Yay me,” I whispered.

  Some guy made a rude comment about how he’d use MEG to keep warm and I wanted to crawl under my desk.

  Tennyson squeezed my arm and frowned. “Grayson’s like rain on Christmas. He ruins everything.”

  After Slaten calmed down and started talking about the syllabus, I looked around. Thanet caught my eye from the back of the room by holding up a paper that said, “Hi.” I sighed, letting him see my shoulders relax and my head hang down.

  “Where have you been?” I mouthed.

  He shrugged and pointed toward Slaten, who was watching me while he talked.

  I kept my eyes down for the rest of the period. It turned out that Thanet and I had third and fourth periods together. And Tennyson introduced me to her friends—Sara and Taylor—who were just like her. Funny and willing to let me tag along. So I did. The possibility of lunch in the cafeteria at a table became real. I had planned to hide in the library with some crackers.

  From our table in the back corner we saw the entire cafeteria. Tennyson pointed out people I should know and people I should avoid. This cataloguing of people made me uncomfortable.

  “Awkward, that one,” she said, pointing at a guy sitting by himself with a French horn case on the seat next to him.

  “He looks nice, though,” I said. “How about him?” I pointed at a guy who seemed to be heading our way, mouth set in a grin that said he knew we were looking and he enjoyed it.

  “That’s Luke, Taylor’s brother. He’s a senior.”

  When Luke reached the table, he pulled Taylor up into a hug and started jumping around mosh-pit style and singing.

  “He’s a weirdo but we love him,” Tennyson said. “Basketball star, brain, all-around good guy.” Luke air-punched her bicep.

  With all the noise, I didn’t notice that Thanet and Henry had joined our table. I leaned across the table to say hello. I had to yell, though. They both spoke, but I missed what they said.

  “I can’t really hear you over all this folderol,” I yelled. The table got quiet.

  “I’m sorry, did you just use the word ‘folderol’ in a sentence?” Sara said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “’Cause…folderol.” I waved my arms around in the direction of Luke and Taylor, and Tennyson who’d joined their party. Every face at the table turned toward me.

  “Henry and Thanet are here,” Tennyson said, in a bid to rescue my ego. She scooted over to bump into them and nearly sent Thanet scattering off the end of the bench.

  “I was just telling Henry about Mr. Slaten’s crush on Meg,” Thanet said. “I’ve never seen him more excited.”

  I shook my head and tried to think of a way to change the subject. “Slaten’s a little strange,” Henry said. “I wouldn’t worry too much. He falls in and out of love with compounds every day.”

  The conversations went on around me as they caught up on their summers. It gave me a chance to study them. Henry, who looked so tall compared to Thanet, unwrapped an enormous sandwich and started eating. Someone had taught him how to eat in public. He had a napkin in his lap and he was careful not to elbow Tennyson and Thanet next to him. He caught me staring and smiled bet
ween bites of a green apple.

  Thanet was quiet, too, listening to the girls talk and laughing to himself when they over shared. He looked genuinely happy. I wanted to snap a secret picture to show Annie. But, really, that was stupid and presumptuous of me. Thanet was capable of telling his own mother about his day.

  Classes after lunch went by quickly and at the end of the day, I made my way to my locker, relieved about a lot of things—especially Ms. Ewing’s understanding and a schedule that matched Tennyson’s.

  I noticed a group of kids laughing in the hall. Not wanting to push through the mob of familiars, I backed flat against the closest group of lockers. I recognized one of the loudest voices as Grayson, the guy who said he’d like to “rub Meg to stay warm” in Slaten’s class. Through the pauses and breaks in the laughter, I recognized another voice—Thanet’s. He didn’t sound happy like he had at lunch. He sounded mortified.

  “Thanet, you’re such a chicken,” one kid taunted. This one used his size to intimidate. “I saw you staring at her in class.”

  “I told you that was nothing,” Thanet said. “She works for my mom. She’s a friend.”

  A girl leaned around Grayson to look at Thanet. “What?” she said. “Tee woks fo you ma?” She tried out a cruel imitation of his speech.

  My heart pounded out a warning. I wanted to help Thanet, but if I walked into this, he’d suffer more. Also, I was the chicken.

  “Thanet might finally get a date,” Grayson said. “He’ll have to ask his mom to drive, though.”

  “Holy crap, that’s right,” one of the guys said, laughing. “Or she could sit on the back of his little scooter.”

  The group fell apart laughing. Someone walked up slowly behind me and paused. When he passed me, he woke every nerve ending in my body. It was Henry—cue the superhero soundtrack.

  “Hey, Than, what’s up?” he said. “You headed out?” He pushed his way through the group until he was between Thanet and the biggest of the guys and then he made eye contact with every person standing there. His slow gaze cut quicker and cleaner than any words he could’ve said.

  “Just leaving,” Thanet said. Side by side, the two of them created a path through the crowd. Henry hit the door hard and it flew open and banged against the doorstop outside. Obviously intimidated by Henry, the group stopped laughing as soon as he walked up, but when the door closed, they started up again.

  Grayson noticed me next to the lockers. He pointed at me then held his arms out magnanimously. “You’re welcome, new girl,” he said. “I just saved you from having to find a nice way to say no to the leg dragger.”

  I felt my lunch trying to make an appearance. Covering my mouth, I ran into the nearest bathroom and leaned against the door so no one could push it open.

  This kind of scene—crowds batting around a person because they thought he was weak—happened to be my personal trigger.

  I slid down to the floor. The air around me felt wrong and, the more of it I breathed, the lighter my body felt. My arms and legs tingled and I could swear I levitated just off the sticky floor. I sent a text to my dad.

  I won’t be coming back to this school. I can sign up for online classes tonight.

  He responded quickly, characteristically unruffled.

  We’ll talk about it tonight. Love you.

  I’m not sure how long I stayed in the same position—long enough for my legs to go numb. I needed to get to the bookstore, but I couldn’t leave until I knew the hallway was empty. Fifteen or twenty lockers slammed closed and a dozen pairs of shoes scuffled past the bathroom door before things got quiet.

  Still staring at the same cracked floor tile, I breathed deeply and began counting to a hundred one more time. Someone in boots walked slowly down the hall. My eyes shifted to the wall across from me as I floated back to awareness.

  “Meg,” a low voice said. “Are you in there?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “They’re gone. I just wanted to let you know that. I made sure Thanet got to the bookstore.”

  The boots moved closer to the bathroom door, creating a play of darkness and light on the floor around me. He bumped the door with a thud that sounded a lot like a forehead dropping against the wood. And then Henry’s voice again—even softer this time. “I’m sorry you saw that. Thanet doesn’t know you were there and I didn’t tell him. That helps some, right?”

  I turned my ear toward the door because I heard him breathing. When you’re alone and afraid, the simple sound of the steady in and out of air being drawn by another person is good medicine.

  “They’re no good,” he said, answering my unspoken questions. “When they’re making fun of Thanet they feel better about their own inadequacies.” He paused, a sliding of fabric sounded against the door. Maybe he’d turned and was leaning back. “I know that upset you a lot, being new here and knowing Thanet and all. Thank you for liking him that much. You’re nice, Meg. You’re really kind.”

  Hearing my brother’s words coming out of Henry, this stranger in a strange town, made me feel wild with all the loss—wild and wired with no place to put those feelings. I stood up and leaned over a sink, splashing water on my face. When I opened the door, Henry leaned back giving me plenty of room.

  I offered him the only thing I had to give—a smile.

  “You okay?” he said, using my family’s old check-in greeting. He’d put on a dusty baseball cap since I last saw him. Not fair. Too cute.

  “I’m okay.” I walked next to him toward the exit. Neither of us talked until he took a quick step ahead to open the door for me.

  “Here you go,” he said.

  “Thank you.” In the nearly empty lot, his black truck sat next to my Jeep.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I knew you were here because of the Pennsylvania tags.”

  His hands were in his pockets and his shoulders were tense. I tried to look relaxed so that he could relax.

  “Is Thanet okay?”

  “He’s put up with worse.” He gave me that look boys give when they want to say more but know it wouldn’t be polite. I’d grown up around that look and I missed it.

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s so wrong. Were some of them football players?”

  Henry stopped walking and focused on the stadium, or maybe the foothills behind it. Wherever his gaze landed, this was a lingering, thoughtful look. “You know he works with the team?” He glanced back to see my nod. “I like football. I’ve got nothing against football players…just these particular ones, I guess. They treat him like a joke and I wish he’d quit.”

  “He should quit. Definitely.” I had no right to offer an opinion yet. Thanet wasn’t mine in that way. I just wanted to agree with everything coming out of Henry’s mouth.

  “So, other than the end of it, how was your first day?” He searched my face for the truth and I noticed that his eyes were really unusual—light brown with flecks of a metallic color that caught the light. They were liquid bronze—I’ve seen my mom paint with it.

  “Actually, it wasn’t bad—could’ve been much, much worse.”

  “Don’t give up on us,” he said. “Will we see you tomorrow?”

  “I’ll see you in English.” Surprised at my own certainty, I smiled. See? Mercurial. I’d be back after all, if only to see what this adorable but unavailable boy would say next.

  “Well, we’re burning daylight. I’ll let you get to work. Annie’s needed your help for a while.” He glanced at the sky and took in the clouds for a long moment. “I’ve got to patch a barn roof before it rains.”

  “Bye, Henry,” I said quietly, trying to keep my voice level.

  “See you, Meg.” He climbed into his truck and backed out. The truck was muddy and properly beaten up for a work truck. The custom grill on the front had a “W” in the middle of it, and his tag said “Farm Truck.” He looked like a truck commercial.

  ***

  Annie waited patiently for me to return to earth. I’d been at work a good hour before I started making
sense. Stealing glances at Thanet, I noticed that he was subdued, too, but still respectful to his mom, answering, “Yes, ma’am,” when she asked him to do something. Most kids grow sullen and angry when they’re working through issues, but Thanet mustered up another kind of bullheaded strength. The kind that sees beyond circumstances to what really matters. How could anyone hurt a soul that lovely?

  “You had a strange day, I think,” Annie said, leaning over the counter watching me shelve romances. “Your face is flushed.”

  I hated that people knew everything I was thinking by the color on my cheeks. It had been that way all my life—I had my mom’s dark hair but my dad’s Irish complexion. My face shouted my secrets.

  I tucked my hair behind my ears and pressed a cool palm to my hot cheek. “I had a fine day, actually. Don’t mind me.” I fanned myself with the paperback in one hand.

  “Thanet said you met Henry Whitmire.” She walked over, slid the book out of my hand, and looked at the cover—a steamy one with some Fabio-type guy in a cowboy hat leaning over a blonde on the verge of a wardrobe mishap. “Henry makes all the girls blush.”

  “Good grief, Mom, leave her alone,” Thanet called from the back. “If you ignore her, she’ll go away, Meg.”

  Annie giggled and picked through a stack of books that had just arrived. “What happened to that girl Henry was seeing?” She turned toward Thanet, waiting for an answer.

  Thanet rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Brooke,” he said. “She lives in Oklahoma, but she comes to Chapin in the summers to help on her grandparents’ ranch.”

  “Tennyson says they’re practically married,” I said.

  Thanet stopped dusting a bookshelf and looked at me curiously. “Is that really what she said?”

  “Well…it had that flavor,” I said.

  He snorted. “Tennyson’s had a crush on Henry all her life. It’s one-sided. I guess it smarts a little less when she tells herself he’s with someone else.”

  “Who wants the new Murakami?” Annie said, pushing the conversation in a safer direction.

  Thanet and I both raised our hands. He smiled and said, “Ladies first.”