Beautiful Boy

by Leddy Harper

  “You don’t need to remind me, Share. I remember high school vividly.” And I did. Those years were clearer in my mind than any other throughout my life.

  The hallway was filled with kids, some standing along the wall in groups, some strolling alone with backpacks over their shoulders, and some with their faces stuck in their lockers. I’d walked down the same hallway every morning since school had started in August, but this morning was different.

  As I moved past, some of the kids stared at me, probably noticing the difference in my appearance. I’d never worn makeup before, but I’d decided to put some on—just a little color to my eyes and a shimmery gloss to my lips. I also curled my hair. Instead of jeans and a plain shirt, I wore a simple dress with a light sweater. It felt like all eyes were on me as I strode to my locker.

  One of the seniors stopped in front of me, halting my steps, and licked his lips. “You look good enough to eat,” he said with his eyes zeroed in on my chest, even though he couldn’t see anything. Then he laughed and shuffled away, the guys he was with eyeing me as they all passed.

  I put my head down and finished making my way to my locker, feeling exposed and uncomfortable. No one had ever stopped me before, especially a jock or upperclassman. No one had ever made ludicrous comments or inappropriate remarks to me. But the one morning I showed up in a dress with a little color to my face, it seemed like I had a spotlight on me, and everyone had either a facial expression to make or a comment to say.

  I didn’t understand it, but once I opened my locker, things became very clear—and unclear all at once. A piece of paper fell to my feet. It wasn’t until I picked it up that I realized it was a picture…of me. My eyes were closed in the shot, my head tilted back with my mouth wide open. You couldn’t see the shirt hanging off my shoulders, but my white, cotton bra was very clear, and so were my erect nipples through the cups.

  I gasped and shoved the photo back into my locker, worried others would see it. But as I glanced around the hall to verify no one had been looking, I got the sense something was off—wrong. A few people mindlessly strolled by, but everyone else seemed to watch my every move. Some smiled, others whispered and giggled, and a few guys wagged their eyebrows at me. I couldn’t take their unwanted attention anymore and slammed my locker closed, ready to run away and cower.

  I made it five steps before I found Nolan standing in the middle of the hallway surrounded by his fellow football players. His dark eyes locked with mine, and then I noticed the photo in his hand. His friends all stood around him, saying something, or maybe just laughing, I didn’t know. But it was too much for me to handle, so I turned around and ran down the hall, plowing people over in my rush to get away. As I ran past them, I heard, “Oh!” being screamed out behind me. Except it wasn’t the kind of “oh” you’d say when you remembered something you forgot or when you figured out the punch line to a joke. It was long and drug out, sometimes squealed, but always inappropriate.

  Crude.

  As I ran, I could hear my name being called out through the obnoxious commentary, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t answer or turn around to see who’d called it. Just a constant “Novah!” followed the clapping of my flip-flops as I ran.

  “Novah!” Shari’s voice pulled me from my depressing memory. “Are you going to answer me, or do I have to come find you and beat it out of you?”

  “I’m sorry. I got sidetracked for a minute. What did you ask me?”

  “I asked…if you remember high school and everything he did to you so well, then why the hell are you talking to him? I thought the plan was to make him eat dirt, tell him off, and then leave him alone?”

  “He wasn’t the one who spread the pictures, Share.”

  “Oh, so you believe him now? Don’t let him fool you. He tried this before. Just kick him in his nuts and leave him alone.”

  I sat down on my couch and curled into the cushion, knowing this would be a very long conversation. “I believe him.”

  “And what about the stunt he pulled with wanting you to take all those pictures this past weekend? He’s an asshole, Novah. You even said it yourself. He’s full of himself and apparently likes to humiliate the disabled.”

  “Nolan isn’t the same person we remember him being, nor is he anything like we expected. After he left high school, he went off to war.”

  “Is there anything he says you won’t believe?” The irritation in her tone was heavy, and it dragged down each word until her voice was deep and condescending.

  “It’s the truth. He didn’t send us those people because he thought they were hideous—well, maybe he did, but not for the reasons we thought. He has a problem seeing anything attractive about a disfigured person because…he’s disfigured himself. He lost a leg in the war.”

  Silence.

  Nothing but complete silence came through the line. Then small, quiet breaths broke through, followed by shocked stuttering.

  “That’s what I’m saying, Shari. We’ve hated him for something he doesn’t deserve. The pictures he took were stolen out of his room by some of the guys at school. He had no idea. And he’s paid a very high price for it—way more than I ever did.”

  “Wow…I don’t even know what to say.”

  “I’ve held onto this anger for years, blaming and hating him. I was wrong. It was a shitty situation and it never should’ve happened, but he’s not the bad guy here. In fact, seeing him again and talking about everything has opened my eyes. I can’t live in the past, live with the resentment of something I can’t change. He’s proof of how damaging it is to hold onto it all. I have to let it go…and I think I already have.”

  I told her about the junkyard and about going to his house for dinner—both times. She remained silent as I talked about the way he’d trashed his place the first night, and about the way he fucked me against the desk earlier. Once I got into that part of the story, she had a few things to say, but it was mostly just personal questions about him I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer.

  We talked on the phone for another hour as she told me about Mike, and then I went to bed. Nolan stole every dream I had and filled me with mixed emotions. Shari’s advice drifted into some of it, and no matter how hard I tried to block out the dark cloud of dread, it wouldn’t seem to fully go away.

  At noon the next day, I sent Nolan a text inviting him over to my house for a lazy day of movies. With my mind muddled over what to do, I had no desire to go anywhere, but I couldn’t fight my need to see him, either.

  It took him almost an hour to get to my house, but he brought lunch with him. We ate our subs—he sat by himself on the loveseat—and we watched the first Borne movie in silence. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but I couldn’t pull myself together enough to speak my mind. And he seemed to feel the same way.

  Finally, just as the second movie came on, he leaned forward and hung his head as if his thoughts were too heavy and weighed him down.

  “What’s going on?” I asked after pausing the movie. He’d been quiet since showing up, but this was the first time he actually exhibited any real emotion.

  “You’re being very standoffish and I don’t know how to take it. I want to give you whatever space you want, yet I can’t help but be scared you don’t want this…or me.”

  I moved to the coffee table in front of him and held his face, making him look at me. “A lot happened last night, and I’m battling a lot of emotions right now, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want you. I’m just having a hard time figuring out how to be what you want me to be. What you want from me.”

  “I only need you to be there. I don’t need anything other than you,” he whispered. “But I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be happy with someone when I’m unhappy with myself. Or how to love someone when I hate who I am.”

  “I’m going to be honest with you, Nolan. I can be there for you and help you see the good in life. I can try to show you what’s worth living for, but it’s up to you to see it. I can’t help you find
happiness or make you love yourself. That’s on you. And you have to be willing to see it, to believe it if you ever want things to change. I’ll be here, and I’ll do everything I can to help, but you’re the one who has to put forth the effort. Not me. If you’re expecting me to perform magic and transform you from this to where you want to be, all it’ll do is hurt us both.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Then let’s start off by talking. Open up to me about what you’re so unhappy about, and maybe it’ll give way to a solution.”

  He leaned back into the couch, tipped his face to the ceiling, and rubbed his eyes like a tired child. “I’m unhappy with everything. I feel like I’m living in someone else’s world without my own place. I don’t have an identity, nothing to say ‘this is me in a nutshell’ other than things that don’t mean shit to me. I fought someone else’s war and lost my leg. I had to take the fall for someone else’s actions, and I’ve spent years paying the price. I’ve been fulfilling someone else’s vision of me, and it’s left me with nothing. I’m nothing.”

  “I know it’s hard to grasp, but the war you fought was yours. It was mine, our families’, our friends’…our country’s. You fought for our freedom, to give us peace and security.”

  “I know.” His grumbled response interrupted my thoughts, but I let him have it for a moment, knowing he needed to get it out. “I’m a fucking hero. I killed people, shot them, murdered them, and I’m a hero. Again, Novah…someone else’s vision. I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like a thug, the country being my mafia, sending me out to handle its vengeance. I’m a criminal.”

  I leaned forward and braced myself with my hands on his thighs, the extra material beneath the fabric of his left pant leg evident. “Okay. I get that. I can’t even wrap my head around what it must be like for you. But whether you see yourself as a hero or not, you are one. And the fact you harbor so much regret for the things you had to do over there proves you’re a good man. You have a good heart, regardless of how you see yourself. I’m looking at you, and I know what I see.”

  “Then why can’t I see it?”

  “Because self-hatred is a debilitating disease. It blackens your soul and clouds your sight. It can be terminal if you let it, but that doesn’t mean it’s untreatable.”

  He stared at me, unmoving and silent.

  “Take some time and find something that makes you happy. Start small. If it’s the sun on your face, then we’ll spend an hour every day lying in the grass as we watch clouds float by until you accept it. Then we’ll move onto something else.”

  “Football used to make me happy, but I can’t exactly get out there and play again. Having one leg makes it a little difficult to run around and to not get tackled.”

  I grew irritated with his pessimism. “You’ll never be happy if you find the bad in everything. I love to sing, but I can’t carry a tune to save my life. Do you think I let that keep me from belting out a song in the shower or from singing along to the radio in my car? No. I love blue diamonds, but I can’t afford them. However, my inability to buy one doesn’t make me cringe every time I see one. Egg rolls are one of the best things I’ve ever eaten, but don’t ask me to make one, because it just might poison you. Yet it doesn’t stop me from wanting them on a weekly basis.”

  “Okay,” he said sternly, dropping his head until he could see me again. “I get it. But how would you feel if you woke up tomorrow without your sight? Just blackness everywhere you looked? How would you feel knowing you’ll never be able to take another picture again, or see photographs?”

  I shifted and sat next to him, grabbed his hand, and held it in my lap while my eyes locked with his. “It’s no secret Beethoven was deaf. But if there’s one thing to learn from him, it’s adaptation. When he was younger and he could hear well, he loved high notes, and used them often in his compositions. As his hearing began to deteriorate, the notes drifted away from the high ones because he had a hard time detecting them. But the real lesson was when he went completely deaf. It was then he brought back the presence of the high notes in his music. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t hear them, because he already knew what they sounded like. He could compose music solely on the memory of the notes.”

  “So you’re telling me if you woke up tomorrow blind, you’d still be able to take pictures because you remember what something looked like?”

  “I’m sure if I took a picture it wouldn’t be the same as any I take now, but I wouldn’t say it’d be impossible to do. I know the controls on my camera, and if I could touch the object or subject, I’d be able to do it.”

  “But you’d never be able to see what it looks like when you’re done.”

  The corners of my lips lifted into a soft smile as I tilted my head at him. “No. You’re right, I wouldn’t be able to see it. But others could and then explain it to me. I know what a face looks like, so if they described it, I’d be able to use my mind’s eye and imagine what they were seeing.” I squeezed his hand and then pulled it to my chest where I held it over my heart. “Everything has a positive and a negative side. Everything. You can sit back and only think about what you’re missing or what you can’t do, and then live life watching everyone and everything pass you by. Or, you can find the good side and live in it.”

  He nodded, and the way his gaze fell to his lap, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth, I could tell I had made an impact on him. I only hoped it was enough for him to accept.

  Twelve

  I hadn’t seen Novah all week, mostly because our jobs had been busy for us both. It worked out for the best because I clearly had a lot to think about, and even more to process. I could tell my issues were bringing her down, and it was the last thing I ever wanted to happen. The truth was, I needed her in my life, but she would be better off without me. However, I couldn’t find the strength to let her go, so I selfishly held on.

  After our day together on Saturday, I thought a lot about her insistence for me to find something that made me happy. And in a small way, she did. Talking to her, listening to her laugh, made things easier to bear, and lifted some of the weight off my chest. So starting Sunday night, I called her after dinner and listened to her tell me about her day. She asked about mine. If I had something to tell her, I did, but most of the time, I just listened to her stories of Shari’s antics and the clients who came in requesting strange pictures.

  Every day at lunchtime, she sent me a text. We messaged back and forth for the remainder of our breaks while she worked on her computer, and then nothing else until my call after dinner. It was strange to have someone there to talk to on a daily basis without leaving me an emotional wreck. Even more bizarre, it wasn’t a one-way street. It wasn’t just me reaching out to her.

  We’d talked about getting together on Friday night, maybe go out and grab something to eat, but I ended up having to work. Most of the time, my job ended at five, but since retail stores were open later than my office—and they technically employed me—the work didn’t end when my office shut down. And instead of changing shifts around to fill in the gap, I went ahead and took the job. I apologized to Novah, and then made plans for the next day.

  My phone rang early Saturday morning, waking me up. I didn’t often sleep past eight, but working a fourteen-hour day before coming home to unwind, I was more tired than normal.

  “Get dressed and meet me at my studio. I have a surprise for you,” Novah said excitedly over the phone once I answered.

  “Are you going to give me some sort of hint?”

  “No. Just get dressed and meet me there. I’m already on my way. It’ll be fun, so make sure you’ve had your daily dose of caffeine before you show up.” And then the line went dead, leaving me scratching my head and rolling out of bed.

  I made it to her studio in a little over thirty minutes, and before I could even lock my car behind me, a short woman with dark, wild hair met me in the parking lot. I ignored her at first, because I had no idea who she was, but once she came to stand in f
ront of me, I assumed her to be Novah’s best friend, Shari.

  “I wanted to talk to you before we go inside.”

  I blinked at her, glancing back and forth between her dark eyes and the front door. “Okay.”

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  I shook my head, honestly unable to recognize her from anywhere, yet thinking maybe I should’ve been able to.

  “I’m Shari. Novah and I were like attached at the hip in school. Surely if you remember her, then you’d remember me.”

  The muscle in my forehead tightened as my gaze narrowed on her, my mind wildly trying to picture Novah with anyone in high school. Truth was, I knew Novah had a friend, probably a few…but I couldn’t remember anything about them.

  “I’m sorry, Shari, but I don’t remember. That was such a long time ago.”

  She perched her hand on her hip and extended a leg while she tilted her head at me. “Then how can you remember Novah so well?”

  I shrugged, not caring to give this woman any answers. “The mind is a funny thing sometimes, Shari. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “Okay, I’ll accept that.” She started to turn around, but then stopped and glared at me. “You’re not here to get some kind of revenge against her, are you? I know a lot of shit went down, and you blamed her for what happened to you… Just tell me this isn’t some kinda game.”

  My chest suddenly clenched and the air around me grew thick and muggy, making breathing extremely difficult. “What all has she told you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m her best friend, and ever since you showed back up, her life has been flipped upside down. She has the right to talk to someone about it. Don’t blame her for opening up to someone she trusts.”

  Was I mad Novah decided to share my secrets with someone? I knew I shouldn’t be. Her friend was right—we all needed people to talk to when things got hard. Otherwise, it sits in our minds and turns everything else foggy and unbearable. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me to have people talking about me behind my back. Granted, I didn’t know what she’d told Shari, and she could’ve told Shari the bare minimum.