Tell Me Three Things

by Julie Buxbaum

  Me: Are you this weird in person?

  SN: just you wait.

  Me: I’ve been waiting. I have my theories about you, by the way. New theories.

  Are you Ethan? Please. Be. Ethan. But I don’t say this. When I really think about it, we’ve grown so good at talking around things, never drilling straight to the point. I think about studying with Ethan, our chats at Starbucks, wondering if he’s dropped a single clue. No, nothing that I can think of, even with twenty-twenty hindsight.

  I click back to some of Ethan’s old messages. Crap. He uses proper punctuation. Capitalizes the beginning of each sentence.

  I lie on my bed, close my eyes. Send out a wish to the universe. Not to God, because if he exists, he’s ignored me too many times before.

  SN: you do? hope I’m not a disappointment.

  Me: Ha. Hope you’re not too.

  SN: you’ve always said this arrangement is unfair—me knowing who you are but not vice versa—but when we meet, I don’t know. I think everything will suddenly flip.

  Me: So when are we doing this flipping? And don’t you dare waffle.

  SN: Tomorrow after school?

  My heart sinks. I already have plans with Ethan tomorrow after school to work on “The Waste Land.” Is this some sort of trick? To see which version of him I’ll pick? No, maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe Ethan is not SN after all. The disappointment begins its slow bloom.

  Me: Can’t. Have plans already for a school thing. Have to work Tuesday. Wednesday?

  SN: you are a busy woman, but I know you’re worth the wait.

  Me: I am. Are you?

  Again, there it is. That weird flirty tone I used to use when we first started writing but have largely dropped since. The voice that isn’t mine, that creeps in only when I’m trying too hard. Have we lost it already, our comfortable rapport, because I’m too nervous to be normal around a guy I could actually care about? No. I rub my finger along the ninja that is now stuck to the back of my laptop. I will not be afraid. This is SN. This, whatever this is, whoever this is—Ethan-or-not-probably-not—is worth fighting for.

  CHAPTER 32

  “What?” Ethan asks after he hands me my latte and I haven’t offered to pay, like I practiced in my head. We are sitting on the stuffed chairs at Starbucks, Ethan directly across from me. I’m having trouble forming words, because I’m too busy trying to sort this all out. I feel stupid for assuming SN was Caleb. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice.

  “What-what? I didn’t say anything.”

  “You’re looking at me funny. Do I have something on my face?” Ethan begins to swat at his lips, which do have a tiny crumb stuck to them from his blueberry muffin, but that’s not why I’m staring.

  “Sorry. Just a little out of it today.” I hold on tight to my cup, both hands cradling it like it’s something fragile: an injured baby bird. “I guess I’m tired from the weekend.”

  “How was it?” Ethan asks, and smiles, as if he really wants to know. Which makes me think he’s SN, because SN always wants to know everything. And which, of course, also makes me think he’s definitely not SN, because SN already knows how my weekend was.

  But most of all, I think he can’t be SN because I want him to be SN, and that’s the quickest way for it to not happen: for me to want it badly.

  “Great. I mean, a little rocky at first. Long story. But then it was great. It was hard to leave,” I say, which is true and untrue. It was hard to leave and it would have been hard to stay. Not feeling like I belong anywhere has made me crave constant motion; standing still feels risky, like asking to be a target. Maybe that’s why Ethan doesn’t sleep, come to think of it. Eight hours in one place is dangerous.

  “Yeah, I bet. Is that sticker new?” Ethan points to my ninja, and I realize that though I’ve had it on my computer all day at school, he’s the first to notice. Even Gem didn’t see it, because her only jab today was to call me “sweaty.” Not that creative, considering it’s ninety degrees in November.

  “Yeah. My best friend from home, Scarlett, made it for me. They’re supposed to be like tattoos. I’m kind of in love with them.”

  “They’re all really cool. She should sell them, like on Etsy or something.”

  “That’s what I said!” I look up, and then, when I catch his eye, I look down again. This is all too much. I just need to fast-forward to Wednesday, meet SN, move on. If he’s not Ethan, I will let go of this silly crush. Theo is right and wrong: this is playing with fire. I like being around him too much.

  He too is cradling his coffee cup now. I’ve read somewhere that when someone mirrors your body language, it means they like you. Then again, if that were true, I’d be sitting cross-legged, and I’d have long ago caught Ethan’s nervous habit of rubbing his hair. Instead of mirroring him, I want to crawl into his lap. Rest my head on his chest.

  “Great minds, man.”

  “Great minds.”

  Are you SN?

  Why do you wear a Batman T-shirt every day?

  Why don’t you sleep?

  “Why don’t you sleep?” I ask, because it seems the easiest of my questions. The least invasive, although maybe we’re past all that now. I wish conversations came with traffic lights: a clear signal whether you need to stop or go or proceed with caution.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been particularly good at it, but this past year it’s like sleep is this fast-moving train and it only comes by, like, twice a night or something, and if I don’t run really fast to catch it, I miss it altogether. I know. I’m a weirdo.” He looks out the window, that “weirdo” dropped so casually it could be a reference to our messages, or it could just be that he uses the word “weirdo” too. It’s a common noun. It means nothing.

  “That’s very poetic. A train metaphor. Maybe you should take something. I mean, to sleep.”

  Ethan looks at me, a question in his eyes, or an answer. Maybe both. “Nah. I don’t like to take anything.”

  “Did you really memorize the whole poem?”

  “The first section, yeah. I like how it speaks in so many different voices. It’s sort of loud, you know?” I picture Ethan practicing with Oville, strumming his guitar and singing his heart out. Noise as balm. I listen to them on repeat on my headphones after school every day. Try to parse out Ethan’s voice, like a middle schooler obsessed with a boy band. He sounds stronger, rougher than Liam. Gravelly. Equal parts angry and resigned.

  “I’m sorry about your brother.” I blurt it out, and he looks as surprised as I am that I have taken the leap and mentioned it. “I mean, I know ‘I’m sorry’ is pretty useless, but I just heard—I’m like a year and a half behind on all things Wood Valley—and like you said a few weeks ago, I didn’t want to be one of those people who didn’t say something just because it’s uncomfortable. Anyhow, it sucks, and nothing I can say will make it better. But yeah, I’m so sorry.”

  I stop talking, even though I have more to say. I want to tell him that he will sleep again, that it gets easier, sort of, despite the fact that it will never be okay. That those cards, time heals all wounds, start to feel a bit more true and still not true at all. I want to tell him I understand. But I’m pretty sure he already knows.

  “Thanks,” he says, again drawn to the window. He’s so far away now, I feel like even if I were to indulge my need to touch him—my hand on his arm, my fingers in his hair, my palm on his cheek—he wouldn’t feel it. “You’re the only person who didn’t know me before. Everyone else assumes I’m just like him or wonders why I can’t just go back to being how I used to be. But I’m not him and I’m not the same me either, you know?”

  “Ethan is Ethan is Ethan. Whoever that may be now,” I say.

  Ethan’s head snaps back, as if he has again come to, the window forgotten. He looks at me instead; his eyes bore into mine, almost pleading, though I don’t know for what. God, I want to touch him, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin. What if he doesn’t want me to? What if he just needs to occ
asionally have coffee with a person who didn’t know him before? Maybe that’s all I am.

  I can understand that. The idea of leaving Chicago—of not being surrounded every day by the people who had always known me, who expected me to keep on being the same Jessie they had always known—once seemed like the answer, until it turned out it wasn’t.

  “Exactly. You get it. I am who I am, whoever that may be now.”

  “I wish I could recite ‘The Waste Land,’ because I feel like that would be so appropriate right now.” I smile, which is almost the same as feeling his skin against mine, but no, not the same thing at all.

  “Liam’s going to ask you out. I thought you should know that.”

  “What?” I heard him, of course I heard him, but I don’t know what to say. Liam has nothing to do with whatever is going on here. I’m still not sure whether Ethan is SN, but I’m also not sure how much that matters. Because Ethan is real and right in front of me, not just carefully written words on a screen.

  I was wrong. I will not just let go of this silly crush, because this is not silly. Not even a little bit. Maybe it’s my crush on SN that’s ridiculous. He could be anyone. Typing is easy. But talking like this? This is hard.

  Ethan shrugs. He knows I heard him.

  “I…I don’t want him to,” I say. Now my eyes are pleading, though again I don’t know for what. For him to touch me? Please touch me. Your hand is right there.

  Ethan’s coffee cup is interesting to him again; he stirs the black. He doesn’t touch me. “Then I think you should say no.”

  —

  Later, I lie on my bed and replay the conversation over and over again. I think you should say no. I measure the literal space that was between us—no more than a foot, probably less—and wonder how, if, we’ll ever cross it.

  SN: t minus forty-eight hours. i’m nervous.

  Me: Me too. But I think if it’s a disaster, we can just go back to this. Being friends here.

  SN: you think? I don’t know.

  Scarlett: Did you know you can order the pill online?

  Me: Do NOT order drugs online. If you want the pill, GO TO THE GYNO.

  Scarlett: Yuck. I hate stirrups. The whole thing is so humiliating. So many personal questions…

  Me: Come on, put on your big girl panties. YOU CAN DO THIS. Maybe I need to start making you empowering computer tattoos, because I’ve suddenly become the you in this relationship.

  Scarlett: So I’ve been listening to Oville.

  Me: AND?

  Scarlett: YUM.

  Ethan: I think we need to start writing our paper. Not just discussing.

  Me: You do?

  Ethan: Yup. I know it’s not due until spring. But it’s a long poem, and we need to get started. Maybe meet more than once a week.

  Am I dancing around my room right now, rocking out, my whole body smiling? Maybe. Maybe I am.

  Me: Yeah. Totally.

  Ethan: Cool.

  Me: Cool beans.

  • • •

  SN: interesting fact of the day: in the days of the telegraph, people used to write in code too. how we do now with abbreviations. like ttyl. that sort of thing.

  Me: I didn’t know that.

  SN: I don’t know why, but I thought you’d appreciate the randomness of that.

  Me: It’s cool that there are so many different ways to talk.

  SN: EXACTLY.

  CHAPTER 33

  “So you need to talk to your dad,” Theo says as he throws me a green juice from the fridge before school. I have developed a taste for these potions, though not for juicing as a verb or, come to think of it, as a lifestyle. Unlike Theo, I still require food. Which is why this is not my breakfast; this is my appetizer.

  “Why?” We are the only two in the vast kitchen, the only people home. Rachel and my dad both left hours ago. Rachel does prework Pilates. My dad has the early-morning shift. Soon he’ll take his exam, graduate to the position he had in Chicago.

  “Because he’s your dad.”

  “So?”

  “How old are you?”

  “Seriously, this coming from Mr. Temper Tantrum?” Turns out Theo did leave a soy sauce stain on the dining chair when he threw his fork. No matter: it is currently being reupholstered.

  “One time, dude. I don’t do well with change.”

  “Why do you care about me and my dad?” I sip my juice, imagine it cleaning up my insides, like a Clarisonic for my intestines. Yeah, drinking liquefied kale totally makes me smug.

  “You’re bringing negative energy into this house. We have enough bad juju as it is.”

  “Come on.”

  “You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. How long they’ll last. You only get two parents, and we’re each down to one. Better to be good to them while you can.” Theo grabs a wooden spoon, drums the counter. He can keep time. I wonder if there is anything he isn’t good at.

  “Whatever.”

  “Seriously. You’re starting to sound like one of us Wood Valley brats.”

  “Fine.” Of course, Theo is right. Just like Scar was. I need to be better, stronger, more courageous. A ninja, but not really, since we need to talk, not fight.

  “Fine, what?”

  “Fine, I’ll talk to him.”

  “Good. Glad we had this chat.” He chucks me under the chin, like this is the 1950s and I’m his son who hit a homer in a Little League game.

  “You are a ridiculous human being. Do you know that?” I ask.

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  • • •

  Me: Fine. Let’s talk. Nice move deploying Theo.

  Dad: Didn’t deploy Theo, but happy you want to talk. This has been TORTURE. I MISS YOU.

  Me: Now you’re the one being a little melodramatic.

  Dad: I read a parenting book, hoping it could help. It was total crap.

  Me: What did it say?

  Dad: To give you some space.

  Me: Hmm. Probably didn’t factor in the size of the house.

  Dad: When can we talk? Where?

  And it has come to this: my dad and I need to schedule our make-up. I remember how normal things used to be between us. Not only normal, but natural. Before, you know, before, my mom would cook us dinner each night and we’d all sit around the table and chat. We had a game where we’d each share one thing that had happened since the night before, and I remember I used to save up anecdotes—that Mr. Goodman called on me in chem and I didn’t know the answer, that the Smoothie Bandit had come back to the King and nicked some kid’s drink, that Scar and I were partners for the science fair and we wanted to build a volcano because it’s fun to occasionally be cliché. I remember I would sift through my day, like picking a filter for a photo, and choose the story I wanted to present to my parents like an offering. Not unlike SN and our three things, come to think of it.

  What would my mom want to know about the last twenty-four hours? Maybe I’d have told her about the kale juice. Or SN’s message this morning, counting the number of minutes till we’re going to meet. Or best of all, Ethan’s I think you should say no, which I haven’t stopped replaying on a loop in my head. Six perfect words.

  Then again, maybe not. Maybe I’d have kept that nugget just for myself.

  Me: I dunno. Later?

  Dad: Deal.

  —

  “Jessie, you mind staying for a minute?” Mrs. Pollack asks me after English, and my stomach drops. What did I do this time? According to Crystal, Gem’s out with a stomach flu and is “like, you know, puking her guts out, hashtag jealous,” so the day has been uneventful, which is a relief, since I’m in a striped cotton dress that I’m sure would have made me a perfect target. A little girlier than I normally wear, but damn, it’s hot here.

  And so I stay in my seat while the rest of the class files out. Ethan gives me a curious glance, and I shrug, and he smiles and mouths Good luck on his way out, and I want to pocket that smile and his words, carry them around with me like a tali
sman. My own goofy smile lingers on my face too long after he has left. Ethan’s fault.

  “I just wanted to talk to you about last week. I owe you an apology,” Mrs. Pollack says, and this time she doesn’t sit backward in her chair. She stays behind her desk, like a proper teacher. She has given up the whole buddy-buddy thing, which actually wasn’t the problem. Her blame was. “I spent the whole weekend thinking about our conversation, and I realized I handled it all wrong.”

  I stare at her, thinking of the right words to say. “Thank you”? “No problem”? “No big deal”?

  “It’s okay. It’s not your fault Gem is a total bitch,” I say, and then look up in horror. I didn’t mean to say that second part out loud. Mrs. Pollack smiles, which is a relief, because I wouldn’t know how to explain to Ethan that we got an F on our “Waste Land” project just because I have a big mouth. Until last week, Mrs. Pollack was my favorite teacher, and not just because I was grateful to her for not making me stand up in front of the class on the first day of school.

  “When I was in high school, I wasn’t particularly cool. Actually, that’s a lie,” she says, and shrugs. “I was tortured. Really bullied. And when I saw what happened with Gem, I didn’t know what to say. I just wanted to help.”

  Mrs. Pollack looks a little teary. Maybe no one ever gets over high school. She is shiny-haired and beautiful now, a grown-up Gem. It’s hard to believe she ever looked any different.

  “I just…anyhow, I just wanted to say sorry. I’ve been watching you, and you so know who you are already. Most girls your age don’t have that comfort-in-their-own-skin thing, and that’s probably what makes you threatening to Gem,” she says, and I wonder what the hell she’s talking about. I don’t know anything about anything. “Anyhow, high school is just…The. Worst.”

  “Funny that you became a high school teacher, then,” I say, and she laughs again.