“No thanks,” I said weakly. “I don’t feel so great.”
“Oh, honey.” My mom came closer to the bed. As she touched my hair, I bit my lower lip to keep from crying. “Do you think you have heatstroke? Want me to get you some Gatorade?”
“No…I just want to sleep.”
My mom stayed with me for a few minutes and then left the room. A little while later, Skye walked in. She flipped on the bedside light and began gathering things into her bag. I closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
“Jena?” Skye asked, standing over me.
I didn’t say anything.
“Jena?”
When I still didn’t respond, she switched off the light and headed out the door. Once she was gone, I banged my head against the pillow and began sobbing all over again. My throat was so tight I kept gagging and coughing and dry-heaving.
It’s all a lie, I said to myself. Romance. The Bridges of Madison County. This notion that some guy is going to swoop in and fall madly in love with me and change my life and make everything perfect. It’s one big, horrible lie and I bought it. Hook, line, and ten-thousand-pound sinker.
Or I guess I should say it’s a lie for a girl like me. For Skye, that’s another story. The first time Dakota kissed me, down at the hot tub, I remember thinking, This is too good to be true.
But if something feels too good to be true, maybe it’s not true. Maybe the truth is that Skye deserves him. She’ll always be the winner. And I, pathetically, will always be me.
MAY:
DAKOTA’S STORY
one
My day started out like shit and went downhill from there. It was May 19, which would have been Natalie’s eighteenth birthday. Knowing Natalie, she would have forced me to take her out to dinner in Rochester. Someplace fancy I couldn’t afford, not on my paycheck from Wegmans, especially not since my dad makes me pay my own car insurance. But Natalie’s family has money and she was used to being treated like a princess. After dinner, we would have met up with her cheerleading friends. Someone would have produced a cake, someone else would have brought a chick drink like Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Then we would have gone back to my place and gotten it on. Natalie had promised me she was going to ask her doctor for the pill this spring. I used to complain that it was over a year and we were still using condoms.
All of this would have happened, of course, if we hadn’t been in one of our breakups. Natalie and I were always taking breaks and getting back together. I’d lost track of how many times she screamed at me that it was over, and then hung up the phone or jumped out of my car, slamming the door. We’d ignore each other for a few weeks. Sometimes I’d start hooking up with another girl. Then I’d run into Natalie at a party and she’d be all over me, saying she loved me. I’d apologize for whatever I’d done to piss her off. We’d patch things up and soon we’d be back on track again.
Natalie used to say, “You’re an asshole, Dakota. But you’re my asshole.”
I’d laugh, like it was a compliment. But do you really want your girlfriend to think you’re an asshole? Especially if it’s sort of your fault that she died.
May 19 was a Friday. I set my alarm for six fifty to give me enough time to shower, shave, and put on my suit for the ceremony at school. But I didn’t end up needing the clock because I woke at six thirty with an ice pick crushing my temples. I was really hung over. I stayed up last night until one, messing around on the web and drinking too much Jack and Coke. Anything to get my mind off what was going to happen today.
I kicked aside my sheets and trudged down the hall to take a leak. My dad and I are the only people who live here so it’s a guys’ bathroom all the way. We rarely put the seat down. The mirror is flecked with toothpaste. The tub has a permanent crud ring. We even keep a container of Vaseline in the medicine cabinet.
A few times a year, my dad hires a cleaning lady. But besides her, and besides Natalie, I can’t remember the last female who came upstairs. My mom and brother live in Rochester, a half hour from here. That’s how we got divided up when my parents divorced three years ago. In the beginning, my mom used to pick me up for her custody weekends. But then I got my license and started driving into Rochester by myself. These days, I tend to skip visits, especially if I have a wrestling meet or a ball game.
I splashed my face with water. My eyes were bloodshot and my face was pale. I looked like hell. Shit, I felt like hell. This is pretty much how it’d been since Coach Ritter pulled me into his office two weeks ago and told me about the ceremony.
Today, on what would have been Natalie’s birthday, the school was having a ceremony for her, putting up a plaque and everything. I saw the plaque on Wednesday, when the principal called a bunch of us down to the auditorium to review the specifics of the program. The cheerleaders would kick it off. Then the principal explained how Natalie’s parents and older brother would come onstage. They’d do a slide show accompanied by Natalie’s favorite playlist. After that, I was supposed to go up to the podium, say a few words about Natalie, and lead everyone to the English corridor, where they’d unveil the plaque.
After the principal explained everything, he hoisted the plaque out of a wooden crate and held it up for all of us to see. It was bronze and big, much bigger than I’d imagined. On the left side, it said:
IN MEMORY OF NATALIE AILEEN BIRCH
DEVOTED DAUGHTER
DEVOTED SISTER
DEVOTED FRIEND
BELOVED MEMBER OF THE
BROCKPORT HIGH SCHOOL COMMUNITY
On the other side, beneath a pair of pom-poms, they had a picture of Natalie. It was taken last fall, before she cut her hair. She’d chopped it up to her ears at the end of October. I only remember that because we were in one of our breakups. She was mad because I bailed on some surprise dinner for her brother. But then I ran into her at a Halloween party. I went with a few guys from wrestling and a carload of cute sophomore girls. At some point, I tweaked Natalie’s cat ears and whispered, “I liked your hair better long.” By the time we got back together, she was growing it out again.
We all sat there in the auditorium, staring at the plaque. The cheerleaders started crying and wrapping their arms around each other. That’s what they did for the entire month after the accident. You’d see clumps of them in the hallway, bawling into tissues. As I reread the plaque, I was frozen in my seat. I’m not a crier, but I could feel a lump in my throat. I used to talk to that girl five times a day, I kept thinking. I knew what her tits felt like, how her skin smelled. I had sex with her, for God’s sake.
So now, here I am, two weeks later. The big day. I downed a couple aspirin and stepped into the shower. As I was drying off, I could hear my dad hollering from his bed. Something about my fucking alarm. I must have forgotten to switch it off when I woke up. My dad is a sheriff who works the first platoon, the night shift. He goes to sleep at six and has threatened to kill me if I disturb him while I’m getting ready for school.
I wrapped my towel around my waist and sprinted back to my room, where I pounded the off button on my clock. Then I pulled on some boxers and dug through my closet for my suit. Coach said I should wear one today, out of respect. He just didn’t say for whom. Natalie’s family? Natalie? Too bad she’s six feet under at Lakeview Cemetery.
Natalie used to go crazy when I wore a suit. She said it turned her on. If she’d seen me today, she would have crawled into my lap and started kissing me, unzipping my pants. I can still feel how her fingers wrapped around my dick, her rings clinking together as her hand moved up and down.
I sat on the edge of my bed and reached into my boxers. But then I pulled my hand out and stood up so quickly I nearly blacked out. I may do some asshole things, but I can’t jerk off to a dead girl.
two
Twenty minutes later, I was down in the kitchen eating cold pizza and staring at the speech I was supposed to be reading today. I hate public speaking. It’s crazy because I can wear a skintight singlet and wrestle a guy in front of a l
arge crowd without getting nervous. But make me recite an oral report and I’m pissing my pants.
Coach told me that an English teacher offered to help me write this speech.
“Screw English teachers,” I told Coach. It was only supposed to be three or four minutes. Plus, I hate how everyone acts like you’re retarded if you’re not in honors classes and French club. “I’m going to Fredonia in the fall. I know how to put some words together.”
“Good luck, Shakespeare,” Coach said, slapping my back.
It turns out three minutes is a long time. Also, what do you say about a girl you were on the verge of breaking up with when she died? I spent a week typing pathetic attempts, deleting them, and snapping at whoever had the misfortune of talking to me. Finally, I was at work one night, a few days ago. I’d been stocking milk in the dairy section and happened to say a few choice words to the forklift driver, who then went and complained to my boss. When my boss asked me what was up my ass, I told him about the speech for Natalie.
“Use specific examples,” he’d advised. “People like that shit. Oh, and lay off the cursing when you’re on the job.”
Once I’d finished unloading the heavy cream, I’d grabbed an invoice out of a crate and drafted my speech on the back. As soon as I got home, I shoved it in the folder that the principal gave us, with all the information about today’s ceremony, and didn’t look at it again until today.
I should probably practice it once or twice, I thought as I washed down my pizza with some Coke. Maybe even time myself. I glanced at the clock on my phone, and began reading out loud:
“Natalie Birch and I were going out since fall of junior year. She was a great girl and a talented cheerleader. Everyone who met Natalie loved her. She was really funny and she always made people laugh. Also, she wasn’t scared to say what was on her mind, especially to guys like me. And she’d kill you if you called her Nat, so don’t even try.
“Natalie was always the one to decorate your locker on your birthday and bake you cookies and text you all day. Sometimes she’d get mad at me if I forgot our anniversaries, but then she’d make me buy her something expensive. That was something else about Natalie. She liked shopping and she definitely liked nice things.
“Another thing about Natalie is that she once told me she wanted to be remembered forever. By putting up this plaque today, I guess that’s going to happen.”
As soon as I was done reading, I checked the time. One measly minute. Fuck.
My cell phone rang. I glanced at the name and then quickly grabbed it before it woke up my dad again.
“What’s up, Mom?”
“Hey, Dakota. Are you awake yet?”
“Uh, no. I’m fast asleep.”
“But it’s seven-oh-five!” she said. “School starts in half an hour.”
“I’m joking, Mom. I’m about to leave.”
She was quiet, stewing. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Yet another bonding moment in our relationship.
“I wanted to remind you to call Pauline,” she said after a moment. “It’s her birthday.”
I forgot that my grandmother and Natalie had the same birthday. When we discovered that at some point, Natalie had acted like it was an earth-shattering coincidence, a sign that things were meant to be. “Meant to be what?” I’d asked. My mom’s mother is a bitch. No big prize to share a birthday with her.
“You didn’t call her on Mother’s Day,” my mom added. “She’s still upset about that.”
Typical Pauline. She’s never shown interest in me, actively despises my father, and has forbidden my brother and me to call her Grandma. And then she’d be in a huff because I didn’t celebrate Mother’s Day with her.
“She’s not even my mom,” I said. “Isn’t it your job to call her on Mother’s Day?”
“Dakota,” my mom said. “Please just wish her happy birthday. Please.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Do you have her number in Knolls Landing?”
I tried to remember the last time I called my grandparents at their lake house. It’s two hours from here, but I hadn’t been there since early high school.
My mom began reciting the number. I copied it down on the paper next to my speech.
“Have a nice day at school,” she said when she was done. “Do you have anything fun planned?”
I thought about Natalie’s ceremony. I’d mentioned it to my dad, but I hadn’t told my mom about it. I just assumed she knew, like maybe my dad would have told her. After Natalie died, my dad had called my mom to talk about whether I needed to see a therapist. In the end, my mom decided it made more sense to take my little brother and me to a fancy resort in the Caribbean, to help get my mind off things. The problem is, I can’t spend seven consecutive hours around my mom. Forget seven days. My mom and I argued the whole time and my brother completely checked out, as usual, and I hooked up with some girl and then blew her off for her friend, who turned out to be a bitch. All around, the trip was a mighty success.
“Not really, Mom,” I said after a long pause. “It’s just a regular day.”
After my mom and I hung up, I headed back upstairs. I rubbed some gel in my hair, straightened my tie, and then, at the last minute, poured a few inches of Jack Daniel’s in my Blue Devils sports bottle.
On my way back through the kitchen, I scooped up the folder with the ceremony information and the hall pass to get us out of class. There, in the folder, was a photocopy of the news article from the day after the car accident. I don’t know why the principal included it in the packet. Maybe to remind us. Like we’re going to forget.
I didn’t read any articles about the crash when it happened. I knew Natalie was dead. What more did I have to learn? I was one of the first kids to find out because, that night, my dad’s patrol car pulled into the driveway. It was around eleven thirty and I was in bed. I heard my dad’s shoes clomp up the stairs and pause outside my room. He’d sat on the edge of my mattress and told me how his lieutenant heard it over the air and called him because he knew I went to the same high school. When my dad found out it was Natalie, he drove home to tell me.
Now, standing in the kitchen, I pulled the article out of the packet. It was the cover story in the Democrat and Chronicle.
Student Athletes Killed
in Head-on Crash
(February 3) A collision killed two Brockport High School students as they traveled home from a varsity basketball game yesterday evening. The Ford Focus driven by one of the victims, Jake Kulowski, 17, had just passed a vehicle on Penfield Road when it swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a cement truck, Lieutenant Mark Johnson said.
Kulowski was pronounced dead at the scene. The only passenger in the silver Focus, Natalie Birch, 17, was taken by ambulance to Strong Memorial Hospital but died in transport. The truck driver was treated for minor injuries and released late last night.
Kulowski was a junior at Brockport High School and a star soccer player. Birch was a senior, an honors student, and a cheerleader. According to Brockport High School principal Elliot Kerry, Natalie cheered the basketball team to victory at the game in Penfield yesterday evening. School policy dictates that all players and cheerleaders must ride back to Brockport in buses. But an hour after the game, Natalie was not to be found.
“We waited until ten,” Tamara Hedding, the girls’ cheerleading coach said. “She wasn’t answering her phone. Finally we had to leave.” Details of the events after the game are under investigation.
Brockport High School will remain open for the remainder of the week. Grief counselors will be available for any student or faculty in need.
Goddamn.
I crumpled the article, filled the rest of my sports bottle with Coke, and walked out to my car.
three
There were rumors.
Back in February, in the days following Natalie’s death, everyone was whispering about what she was doing in Jake’s car. He was a junior and didn’t even play basketball. I’d seen him at
parties, but had no idea Natalie hung around with him.
Two weeks after the accident, the superintendent summoned me to his office to ask if I knew why Natalie wasn’t on the cheerleading bus that night.
“All I know is that she was at the game,” I said. “We hadn’t talked since that afternoon.”
“Anything else, son?”
I shook my head.
The superintendent jotted something on his yellow pad and then said, “I’m sorry about your loss. It’s a loss for all of us.”
When I left the superintendent’s office, I stood in the icy field between the administrative building and the high school. My coat was in my locker, so the wind was whipping onto my neck. I stood there, shivering, wondering if I should go back inside and tell the superintendent about the fight. I hadn’t told anyone about it and, honestly, I wasn’t planning to. It was wrecking my life enough already. I’d been having stomach pain all week and I even saw blood when I took a shit. It was probably another ulcer, like the one I had after my parents split up.
Finally, I got in my car, cranked the heat, and ditched school for the rest of the day. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how Natalie and I had fought on the afternoon of the Penfield game. We were walking to my car, out in the student parking lot. Natalie was wearing her cheering uniform. She had her jacket on, but her short skirt showed off her legs, which were covered in goose bumps.
We were planning to drive to Taco Bell and grab a salad before her game. The bus was leaving for Penfield at four and Natalie was hell-bent on getting me to follow behind in my car and watch her cheer. I hadn’t been to any of her games that season and it was pissing her off. Most days I had wrestling, or a bunch of us stayed after to lift in the weight room. But Coach had given us the afternoon off and the janitors were disinfecting the equipment. I was planning to go home and chill out, but Natalie kept bugging me about the game. When I said I wasn’t in the mood, she took it as a personal attack.
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