by Lindy Zart
“Is he into Cosplay or what?” I try to joke. “What’s the big confession?”
Anna just shakes her head, obviously not finding me funny. Really, it wasn’t all that funny of a comment.
I spend the next thirty minutes listening to puns equally as bad as mine, and well-intended encouragement from various adults who, outside of class, seem mostly indifferent to their students. My back and bottom are sore from the hard bleacher, and I just want to get out of here. There are too many kids, and only a few of them I can stand. I have my weekly appointment with Dr. Larson after school, and that means I get to see Nick, however briefly. A fluttering sensation takes over my stomach, and I hide a smile as I look at the teachers.
Standing near one of the teachers is the school guidance counselor. My jaw tautens. I went to her, this past winter. I told her what was happening. I told her about the kids picking on me, and the comments, and the drawing. She brushed it all aside like I made it up. I was the interloper, the outcast. The one who didn’t belong. Why would she believe me over the kids she’s known for years?
Maybe everyone in this school is so used to how messed up things are that they think it’s normal. It’s not normal to belittle others. It’s not normal to think you’re better than everyone else. It’s not normal to think it’s okay to put others down. It’s not normal to want others to feel bad so you can feel good. Nothing about this place is normal.
Half-hearted applause breaks out as the last of the speeches ends, and then it’s trampling feet and boisterous voices as the gym clears out. Kids bump into one another and push each other toward the gymnasium doors, anxious to leave the school and get to their lives.
Melanie stands with Casey and Jocelyn in the middle of the chaos, unmoving, like the world knows to move for them. It appears they’re right. Everyone forms a path around them. Clothed in vibrant shades of fashionable garments, and with their pretty features, they stand out. They’re chatting about something truly fascinating, I’m sure, like their favorite nail polish color, or the last boy they made out with.
“Nice jacket,” I say to Melanie as I walk by.
I catch the way she glances down and unconsciously grabs the corners of the jean jacket before realizing what she’s doing. I let out a soundless breath, ignoring the way my pulse jumps around like it has no idea if it should go fast or slow. Shame flashes through me, and I shove it back. I’m not doing anything to her she didn’t already do to me.
For me, that was the worst part of the bullying; I was never sure if they were being nice, or making fun of me. I quickly learned it was the latter, every time. It made me doubt everything. It’s a terrible feeling to lose your sense of self. When that’s gone, what’s left?
Anna is ahead of me in the hallway. It’s strange that until today, I had no idea she existed.
I quicken my pace until it matches hers. “Hey.”
She jumps at the sound of my voice. “You scared me,” she mumbles, sweeping hair behind her ear.
“You had something to tell me—about your dad,” I remind her.
She reaches a locker and fiddles with the combination, keeping her eyes hidden. “Um…no. Never—never mind.”
“You sought me out, Anna.” I pause as her hands still. “What is it?”
Grabbing a purple backpack, she closes the locker door and turns to face me. Kids bump and jostle us as they hurry from the school. I hold her gaze, refusing to break eye contact. Maybe what she wanted to tell me is completely insignificant, but then, maybe it isn’t.
“I remember you,” she says quietly. “From before.”
I exhale deeply.
“What was it like?”
I frown, having no idea what she is talking about.
Her voice is soft and eerie as she finishes with, “To almost die.”
Brown eyes stare into me, and it makes me uncomfortable.
“Horrible,” I answer truthfully.
Anna blinks, looking down. “My dad is an EMT. He was…he was one of the responders. He was in the ambulance that took you to the hospital.”
A flash of a hazy memory hits me. A man with glasses and brown hair in the ambulance, talking to me as he hooked me up to things. Looking stricken. He said, “I have a daughter your age. Anna Robertson. Do you know her?”
I didn’t know her.
I focus on Anna.
She looks back with her wide eyes, stamping herself into my consciousness.
“Are you picked on, Anna?”
Anna holds her backpack close to her chest. “Oh. I don’t know.” Her smile is nervous. “Maybe a little—but it doesn’t bother me.”
She’s lying. I was invisible, and yet, she was too. Still is. I turn to go to my locker without another word.
Nine
Nick
SHE SMILES. SHYLY. SWEETLY.
Alexis smiles for me.
My nerves spark.
The room dims.
Alexis glows, holding all the light in the library.
I haven’t seen her since last Saturday. Too many breaths and instances and lost chances to count.
Splayed out on the table are textbooks and notebooks—my independent studies. I’ve been self-educating since I came here. It’s all just numbers and words I learn to pass the online tests. None of it really sticks. Not like Alexis. Her, I can’t get out of my head or heart. I don’t want to even try.
“I’ve never been to prom—or homecoming,” she admits quietly as she traces the letters on the cover of the book she had in her hand when she showed up.
She brought me a book about a half-man, half-alien on a quest to save his kidnapped friend. Alexis went to a bookstore, she looked for a book, for me, and she picked one out, for me. Alexis gave me a gift. The book I’ll sleep with, along with Rosie. Yes, I am aware how that sounds. Not really manly, maybe even slightly obsessed. I am completely uncaring.
“Why not?” I study her pale hand as it moves, noting the short, unpolished nails. She likes to chew on them when she’s nervous.
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know; I guess because it works better when someone asks you.”
I lean closer, bringing my face next to her neck. I see her pulse flutter. I watch her throat move as she swallows. “I would have asked you,” I whisper. Now, this me, this person would have.
Alexis turns her head slightly, bringing our mouths inches from one another’s. Her eyes seem a brighter blue at this proximity, but I catch flecks of silver and green in them too. “I would have said no.”
I frown at her, and she laughs as I sit back. “What? Why?”
Shrugging, Alexis turns toward me in her chair, and our knees touch. She stares into my eyes, and I am centered. Everything I’ve been, anything that hurts; it all fades. “I can tell that if you and I were in school together, you would be in a different social setting than me.”
“Only when I was stupider,” I say fervently.
Alexis laughs once more. I love the sound of her laughter. It’s light, and free. It sounds how I feel when I’m with her.
“Did you do those things?” Her knees are encased by mine, but her eyes are no longer set on me. They’re on the book. “Go to prom and homecoming and whatever else?”
“Yes.” My hands clench at my sides, and my body heats up.
Alexis glances up briefly. “Are you a junior like me?”
“Senior.” My breaths come faster.
“When will you turn eighteen?”
The questions are harmless, but each one peels at a layer of the new me, leaving the old me behind. “July 1st.”
“And then?” Alexis stills. “Will you be here until you can’t?”
“I don’t know,” I reply tightly.
How do I integrate back into a world I no longer know? A world I dislike. How do I go back to that house, to parents who don’t talk, and inescapable guilt and grief? How do I do that? My aunt would tell me slowly, and carefully, and without any expectations. Just thinking about it all makes my stomach sick.
“I’ll make you a cake,” she promises, giving me a sidelong look as she changes the subject. “What’s your favorite kind?”
“Whatever kind you make.”
With a smile on her face, she leans toward me. Alexis touches my hair. Tingles race down my scalp. “What if it tastes like dirt?”
My voice is hoarse when I tell her, “I’ll eat it anyway.”
“It could be a really gross dirt-tasting cake,” she warns. “You don’t know.”
“Can you let me know beforehand? So I’m prepared.”
Alexis drops her fingers, and I feel the absence of them like a void. “I’m not sure. We’ll see. It’s more fun if you don’t know.” She adds, “My mom never baked. All of our birthday cakes were ice cream ones, or store bought. I guess I should learn how to make a cake.”
“If you ever want to get a husband, you should,” I agree with an innocent look.
Alexis grins, shoving my shoulder. “Or I’ll just find a husband who can cook.”
“Good luck,” I say solemnly.
Making a face, she tells me, “I have to go. My appointment is in about five minutes.”
Alexis stands, holding out her hands to me. When I put mine in hers, she helps me to my feet. If she tips her head back, and I lower mine, our lips will meet. I want to tell her I’ll take her to prom next year. And homecoming. And anything else she’s never had a chance to do. But I keep the words unspoken, because I don’t want to promise something I can’t give her.
“There’s a boy doing your kitchen duties now. He’s a poor replacement for you.” I’m stalling because I don’t want her to go. I’m not ready.
“Oh?” Her eyes twinkle. “Why is that?”
“Well, for one thing, he smells like sausage. Always. No matter if sausage hasn’t been on the menu in days. And he has gas, constantly, from both ends.”
Alexis’ lips twitch. “He sounds hideous.”
I school my features to graveness. “I’m about to request a face mask from Manny.”
“That wouldn’t look odd at all.”
“This is the place for oddities.”
“True,” she says.
As if on cue, a boy three tables over swears viciously and loudly as his chair topples over, taking him with it. He then proceeds to kick and punch the table, as if it’s the table’s fault that he fell. A man and woman show up, and he’s gone. The usual. We look at each other as if nothing out of the ordinary occurred, because in this setting, it didn’t.
“You have to admit that it’s rarely dull at Live,” I tell her. My pulse is faster than it should be, but I smile around the inward discord. Each time I see a breakdown, I think of how likely it is for me to have another.
“Again, true.” She tries to smile too, but it falls flat. Maybe Alexis thinks the same for herself. We’re all so close to breaking back open our wounds. Do they ever fully heal?
I step nearer, until we’re toe to toe. I lower my voice as I tell her, “It helps to pretend it isn’t real.”
In a whisper, she replies, “I know.”
“But it is real. It’s always real. You can’t forget that it’s real.” I sound manic, like a ghost from the world of the old me has invaded my tone and wants to force the truth of my words onto the earth. A ghost I see in my dreams, and behind my eyes when I close them. Every day I see him.
Alexis frowns, her eyes seeing more into me than I’m sure I like. She brushes fingers across my furrowed brow, and as if she has an enchanted touch, it instantly smooths. Her hands cup my jaw. “Stay with me, Nick.”
A broken sound leaves me, small and close to inaudible. She knows. She knows I’m cracked. I try to hide it, but sometimes, it leaks out. If she knew…if she knew it all, she would hate me. All the bits and pieces of my broken mind.
“Nick.”
“Yes.” I nod, unable to look at her. I steal air into my lungs, and give it back. Until the library comes into focus, and I can look at Alexis.
With moves faster than I can gauge, she’s holding me. Tightly. Fiercely. The side of her face is pressed to my chest, and I close my eyes and rest my chin on the crown of her head, wrapping my arms around her small form. She’s tiny, but her soul is mighty. Holding her, having her hold me, brings me back to where I need to be. I inhale slowly, and exhale deeply.
“The past is behind you.” The words sound nice, but they’re false.
“The past is all around me,” I counter softly.
“I hate the past,” she says in a wobbly voice.
Without opening my eyes, I hold her closer. Peaches and warmth invade my senses, give me peace. “It brought you to me. It can’t be entirely bad.”
Alexis takes a deep pull of air, her body concaving as she does. “I’ll be back next week,” she vows, stepping back from me.
I remember when she came here. Her hair was short and uneven around her scalp. Her eyes were unseeing. Alexis was gaunt in appearance, and there were dark crescents beneath her eyes. For days, she was in a fog of her own making. I remember the charge when our eyes met for the first time, when she finally noticed me. I only had to run into her to get her to see me. I remember wanting to smile for the first time in a long time when she looked at me. I remember thinking everything would be different from that day on.
I want to protect her from whatever brought her here, but more than that, I want to protect her from me.
So I don’t say all the things I want. I don’t tell her I want to see her this weekend. I don’t tell her how pretty she is. I don’t tell her that she makes me want to be brave enough to step from this building and never return. I especially don’t tell her I had another bad dream about her.
A tiny smile flutters across her lips. “Enjoy the book.”
I’ll worship that book.
Ten
Alexis
THERE IS A CHALKBOARD ON the wall in the kitchen. We’ve had it for years; through all the moves and other changes, it’s remained. My mom got it from a decorative store. She was beaming when she came home with it. She’d leave messages on it for me, and once in a while, for my dad. Sometimes it would be encouraging words, a note, or a task she wanted one of us to complete.
I’m surprised my dad didn’t get rid of it, like he did most of the possessions my mom didn’t take with her. Like me. I swallow, and it hurts my throat. She forgot to take me with her.
More than that, I’m surprised he hung it up. It’s blank. It’s been blank for years. The last message placed on it with pink chalk, though erased, lingers faintly. Like ghost writing. It reads: Don’t forget your doctor appointment at 3:45 on Monday the 17th. So mundane. It doesn’t seem right that such a nonsensical reminder should be the only residual written proof that I ever had a mom. A message not even to me, but to my father.
I eat my cereal before school on Friday, staring at the black board. After washing the bowl and spoon and setting them in the strainer to dry, my attention goes back to the chalkboard. The one question prominent in my mind for months after my mom left comes back with a vengeance. It’s been three years, and it feels like she left yesterday. I walk to the board, grabbing a broken piece of yellow chalk. It digs into my palm, and I lessen my grip. Breathing fast, my heart thundering out a forceful beat, I raise my shaking hand. If my eyes could, they would burn a hole right through the board and directly into my mom, wherever she is.
With scrawling, ungraceful movements, words form. A question. A demand directed at Peggy Hennessy. She’ll never read it. She’ll never answer it. But I ask it anyway.
How could you leave us?
I obliterate her pale words with my own, replacing pink with yellow. Tears burn my eyes, but still, I feel satisfaction in covering up her unimportant words with ones that matter. Anger. I feel that too. Even now. Always. I drop the chalk, brush hair from my forehead with fingers that yet tremble, and grab my backpack. It’s time for school.
I walk the five blocks it takes to get to the stone building. The air is damp and chilly,
sucking the heat from my body through the red sweatshirt and jeans covering me. At my old school, I dressed up once in a while. Nothing overly stylish, but sometimes I’d wear a skirt or a dress. I haven’t felt like looking nice in too long.
My lips press together. Just one more piece of myself I haven’t gotten back since I came here. I tell myself to get it back, vowing next week to wear the dressiest articles of clothing I can find in my closest. If anyone says anything, I’ll punch them in the face. I smile. Okay, I probably won’t do that.
At my old school, I had friends. I talk to them on the phone every so often, but it’s not the same. I don’t see them; they are in another state. They talk about people and events that no longer pertain to my life. I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t think my suicide attempt is really the way to go. Not exactly an icebreaker. We drift apart as time goes on, more and more.
My pulse picks up as the school comes into view, and my stomach flips. It’s pale stone that is wide and long, and fairly unattractive in appearance. My reaction to seeing the building hasn’t changed. This place is the epitome of my definition of perdition. No one likes to step inside the walls of their inevitable suffering, whether present or past. Just a little over two more weeks, I tell myself. Less than fifteen days, and then I don’t know what will happen. But I won’t be coming back to this school next year. I refuse.
It used to bother me, walking into this building, and not having a single place where I belonged.
Now, I roll back my shoulders and deal with it. Life isn’t soft. It isn’t sweet. It’s hard, and in order to survive it, you have to be hard too. It’s sad, and it sucks, and I guess I should be grateful that I learned it by the age of sixteen.
When I think of how Nick would react to everything going on with Melanie and her friends, I almost end it. Almost. He would never stoop to their level, or the one where I currently reside, which is just a shade above them. To get back at my bullies, I have to think like them. Treat them as they treat others.