by Laura Tims
“Everything looks worse than it feels for me.”
I wonder how his shoulder looks underneath his dark-blue shirt. “What did your family say?”
“They wouldn’t care. I don’t feel pain.”
“They’re legally obligated to care.”
“I wouldn’t presume to know what they’re legally obligated to do.”
Maybe his family is messed up, too. I shift awkwardly. “Yeah, my family is—”
“You’re sitting with me.” He cuts me off, his silvery eyes rising above the page. The food on his tray is untouched.
“Oh. Yeah. That’s weird.”
“At lunch.”
“That’s what it’s called when we get the food and stuff, yeah.” If he tells me to leave, I’m going to javelin myself into the trash can.
“Which means you’ve decided to be my—”
“Friend.” I’m petrified. “If that’s cool.”
I could have picked Georgia Wilson. She knits. Or Zoey—she has a horse. Instead I’m asking the weirdest person I’ve ever met. But friend is a better word for the person who’s going to make sure Anthony doesn’t kill you because she’s decided it’s her responsibility for some reason.
“You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met,” he says so quietly I’m not sure if I heard my own thoughts.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He starts smirking. “Never had a friend before. What are the steps?”
If he’s not kidding, we’re screwed, because I don’t remember the steps either. “First, one person has to save the other person’s ass from getting kicked, at least twice.”
“A textbook beginning.”
“And one person has to relocate the other person’s shoulder.”
“We have all the ingredients. We’ll call it an experiment.”
Jokes are involved in friendship, right? I used to make jokes. I have vague memories of Kendra and Erin laughing at them, the only time I felt like a real part of the group. “Do you like to . . . experiment?” Oh, what the fuck.
“It’s one of the few things worth doing,” he says in the voice of someone who has completely failed to pick up on a dirty joke.
“Sorry, that was . . . I was kidding.”
“Of course. The experiments in question are assumed to be sexual, for no reason other than that our society is stupid. Are you asking if I like to sexually experiment?”
“Holy shit.” Is he torturing me on purpose or not?
“Because sexual experimentation is overrated and an impediment to clear thinking.”
“Eliot.”
“Yeah?”
“Eat your lunch.”
He picks up his fork. “Are you going to be here every day now?”
“I don’t know; I haven’t worked out the details of the contract yet.”
“Do we have to sign it in blood? Because that’s perfectly fine with me. You can borrow some of mine if you don’t want to prick yourself.”
“I think that defeats the purpose.”
“Suit yourself,” he says, and goes back to his book.
And just like that I’m no longer that girl whose MOM got KILLED, but that girl who sits with ELIOT ROWE. When did THAT happen?
Now that it has, I’m surprised it didn’t earlier. It’s like the two leftover kids pairing up after all other group project alliances are made. Everyone stares when I sit with him again on Tuesday, and by the end of the day, I’m an encyclopedia of knowledge about everyone who goes to Forest Hills High. What Eliot does is really just an intellectualized version of gossip. He points out the patterns in people like he’s charting constellations. He’s a paradox—he understands people so well, and still he’s alone. He knows everything about everyone, and nobody knows anything about him. For someone so interested in other peoples’ lives, he has zero desire to be a part of them. Except mine, for some reason.
“Have you ever thought about studying psychology?” I ask him once after a rousing analysis of Why Georgia Will Break Up with Emory in Exactly Two Weeks.
“Psychologists are hack scientists with antisocial personality disorders,” he says.
I change the subject. “Why haven’t you told anyone about your congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis?” I ask, having practiced pronouncing it for an hour last night.
“There are two possible reactions: jealousy or pity, or the former followed by the latter. Can’t stand either.”
“Awful,” I agree passionately. “Totally unreasonable.”
While he watches other people, I watch him. Once I get used to the silk shirts and the scalpel eyes, there’s nothing that weird looking about him. He’s actually kind of stunning, like an alien model. But there should be something off. His skin should be armor plated; there should be a force field shimmering in the air around him. Something to hint at what his body can withstand. I feel like the only one at the school who knows the superhero’s true identity.
Which might make me the sidekick.
On Wednesday, I introduce him to Tito.
I already know Eliot would confuse Dad, concern Lena, and piss off Rex; but I trust Tito’s judgment. He’s fallen immediately in love with every human he’s ever encountered, except the plumber who overcharged us and the girl down the street who stole flowerpots from our porch. If anyone can pronounce Eliot safe, it’s Tito.
I make him presentable, smoothing the tufts of fur on his head while he writhes in throes of ecstasy because I’ve returned from mysterious lands. Then I tuck him into my elbow and awkwardly carry him outside. He and Eliot stare at each other.
“That is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” says Eliot. “When did you take it out of the dryer?”
“It’s my dog,” I grumble.
“That’s a dog?” He recoils.
Tito sniffs his shoe. I hold my breath.
“I’m not an animal person. I’m especially not a this-animal person.”
“Maybe he’s not an Eliot animal,” I retort, but Tito finishes his inspection, finds the goods adequate, and bangs his head into Eliot’s leg, proving that he is, in fact, an Eliot animal.
Eliot tries unsuccessfully to push him away. “What do I press to make it stop?”
“Here’s the thing. If you’re going to hang out with me, you can’t be a dick to Tito. You just can’t.”
“I can’t insult this animal?”
“No.”
“Sam.” He gestures at the slobbering, heavy-breathing mess that is Tito. “I can’t not insult this animal.”
“Be nice to him,” I say sternly.
He crouches, addressing Tito with immense suspicion. “I haven’t interacted with an animal since before my brain developed enough to retain consistent memories. I haven’t had a friend who owned an animal. I haven’t stopped to pet an animal in a park. Do you understand?”
“Hhh,” says Tito reassuringly.
“So let’s set up some ground rules. You will not bark while I’m around. You will not pee near me. You will not touch my person. You will not—”
Tito licks his face.
I tense. Eliot’s unpredictable, and he could be one of those people who fly off the handle at dogs, which would be a deal breaker. But he just sighs, wipes his cheek, and scratches Tito behind the ears.
Maybe choosing Eliot as my new friend wasn’t such a bad idea.
“Are you actually dating Eliot Rowe?”
It’s the first thing Kendra has said to me in, like, two weeks, and it’s unfortunate that I’m drinking from my water bottle when she does. She winces as I mop water from the wet part of my shirt with the dry part of my shirt. Ms. Robbins, the Calc teacher, pretends she doesn’t notice and writes next week’s homework on the whiteboard.
“I am not,” I whisper valiantly, “dating Eliot Rowe.”
“Are you sure? Like, five people told me you were.”
“Oh, my bad then.”
“Cool. I—”
“Kendra.”
She shrugs. “E
rin told me Anthony punched Eliot in the face the Monday before last, and you started screaming at him not to touch your boyfriend.”
The sad thing is that this is the most normal conversation we’ve had SMD. “Erin is high twelve-hundred percent of the time.”
“Listen, Sam.” Her big blue eyes get bluer and bigger—a warning sign. She touches my hand. “I think it’s great that you found someone, after—”
“I’m single, Kendra. S-I-N—”
Ms. Robbins turns, and everyone turns with her. Kendra gets rapidly engrossed in page forty-three of the textbook.
“G-L-E,” I finish.
Send me to the office, Ms. Robbins. You once stormed out of class because I sneezed during a test. Instead, she bites her lip and faces the whiteboard, underlining the due date for the homework. “I hope everyone brought the worksheets I passed out last class. . . .”
I slump in my chair.
Halfway through class, my text notification—I imagine it wheezing, hoarse from lack of use—goes off. Amy and Erin have both sent me little hearts.
If I’d shown interest in Eliot BMD, they would have held an intervention. Now I could date a serial killer and they’d be so proud of me for moving on. Aka, becoming someone else’s problem.
When the bell rings, Kendra follows me into the hall.
“I think Eliot’s perfect for you,” she chirps. She’s the type of person who chirps. I stop by the water fountain even though there’s a bottle of Poland Spring in my backpack, because standing still is better than noticing how much she has to slow down for me.
“You have an understated style, you know? You’re the bread and he’s, like—blackberry jam. It works!”
Understated. Bread.
I lean on one crutch to access the spigot. Whoever designed these assumed all high schoolers are three feet tall. I decide to keep drinking until she goes away.
“You’ll have to give me insider details on Mr. Mystery.”
Glug, glug.
“Let me know if you need any relationship advice!”
I’ll never be dehydrated again.
“It feels like we haven’t gotten to talk much since . . .”
SMD.
“ . . . I mean, lately.”
This is how it goes with Kendra and the rest of the team: they try, because they’re nice; but they don’t know what to say, and they don’t realize that saying nothing is a valid option, so they bang into the wrong topics like drunk people in a closet. They can’t avoid it—with every step I take on crutches, I’m throwing the accident at them. Eventually we all signed an unspoken agreement that it was easier to not say anything. But Kendra is persistent, probably because her mom tells her to be persistent.
“You’re super thirsty,” she notes.
I surface. My stomach sloshes.
“Honestly I’m just glad you never ended up making a move on Anthony. I always thought you’d take advantage of having an in with him.”
“The only move I’d make regarding Anthony is moving away from him as fast as I can. Which isn’t that fast, because crutches.”
She flinches. I said the bad word.
“I don’t like Anthony,” I enunciate, saving her.
“Oh, good, because he’s awful.” She sighs.
That’s not why I expected relief. “Kendra, you stole his sweatshirt from the cafeteria when we were freshmen and wore it to bed for a year.”
“Well, I threw it out.” She presses the tip of her tongue against her teeth. “After he and Trez broke up, I thought I’d go for it, so we made out at Erin’s party after the Senior Plunge at the lake, but he’s kinda—”
“He’s a dick. Everyone is forever surprised by this.”
“Seriously. I felt sick so I stopped, and he got so pissed, and it freaked me out so I went home.”
She actually does look scared. My stomach sinks. “I heard about him and Trez.”
“You know how she was out of school for, like, weeks after they broke up? She said she was sick, but my mom knows her mom, and I guess she just wouldn’t get out of bed. Hopefully now she appreciates the massiveness of the dick bullet she dodged.” She twists her necklace nervously. “Listen, Sam, I overheard a bunch of his friends shit talking Eliot yesterday. They think he got Anthony in trouble. You two stay away from those jerks, okay?”
I’m surprised by a sudden pang. I wish she and the team really had abandoned me because I couldn’t play, but I’m the one who avoided the table, who ignored the texts. I was scared of being asked if I was okay because I wasn’t, and they had to have been asking because their moms told them to, not because I actually had enough friend credit stored up that it was safe to be an emotional burden.
All she’s doing by pestering me about Eliot is circling, looking for a safe place to land. But I’ve missed too many key developments: her making out with Anthony, throwing out his sweatshirt. The worst part is that I’m not even hungry for details. I left our friendship lying out too long and it rotted, and now the only thing to do is chuck it and start over with something new.
“Thanks, but I’m literally not dating Eliot. I’ll see you later.”
She wilts, and I leave before I can deal with the fact that it feels like I’m doing something wrong.
I spend the rest of the afternoon worrying. I assumed Anthony wouldn’t be a problem until his suspension was over, but I forgot about his friends.
After school, one of them tails Eliot and me to the parking lot.
“What happened to your face, Eleanor? Does she beat you up with the crutches?” Jaden-something is one of Anthony’s minor undersecretaries who aspires to be just as much of an asshole someday. He’s a sophomore only half an inch taller than me, which doesn’t make it better.
“Go away,” I growl very intimidatingly, hobbling faster.
“Is this upsetting you?” Eliot asks, like the possibility has just dawned on him.
“No. I love this.”
“Just making sure.” Without breaking stride, Eliot whirls and begins walking backward, facing Jaden. “So you’re an ESFP—the Performer. You’re insecure and you like being the center of attention, and you figure if you slip in ahead of your group to fight me or something, it’ll raise your status in the hierarchy of pathetic—”
“Eliot,” I practically scream.
“What?”
“Car. Now.”
Jaden is purple. His shock earns us a head start, but even so, I have to fend him off with a crutch through the window as Eliot starts the car. As soon as we zoom off, we both explode in laughter—mine panicked, his deep and warm. I never laughed like this with Kendra, unmonitored noise just coming out.
Once I can breathe, I repeat, “‘Is this upsetting you?’ Seriously?”
“How am I supposed to know what it means when your face turns bright red? You could be sunburned or choking to death.” Eliot lights a cigarette, obviously pleased with himself.
“Was it not upsetting you?” For all the time I’ve spent as a loner SMD, no one’s harassed me before, not even in middle school. I kind of forgot it was a thing that happened to people. My heart’s pounding, and Jaden is the least intimidating of Anthony’s friends. Am I really equipped to get dragged into it when they all start in on Eliot?
“Was it supposed to be? Can’t believe that’s what passes for bullying here.”
I blink. “Were you bullied before?”
“It’s inconsequential if I have or haven’t been, because it doesn’t bother me. The day I let myself be bothered by a Neanderthal stringing words together in order of how loudly they make his idiot friends go ohhhh is the day I launch myself into outer space.”
I’m coming to the realization that Eliot can be a little bit dramatic. “Well anyway, you don’t need to do that for me. That whole thing with Jaden.”
“Friends stick up for each other, at least according to wikiHow.”
“You looked up friendship on wikiHow?” I laugh, but at the same time my stomach goes warm.
Suddenly my phone buzzes. I dig it out of my bag. Before I can say hi, distant shouting echoes.
“Northton has an excellent community college—”
Rex’s voice surges into my ear. “Please tell me you need a ride home.”
“Is that Lena? Why is she home? We don’t have counseling this weekend.”
Eliot rolls up the window so he can eavesdrop better, which is unnecessary, since Rex starts yelling. “THANK YOU for informing me I’m a failure at life. I DIDN’T KNOW THAT BEFORE.”
Eliot looks intrigued. On the other end, Rex lowers his voice and begs, “Save me, Sam.”
I mumble an excuse and hang up. My leg is throbbing, probably from speed walking away from Jaden. I force broken glass out of my mind and pop half a Vicodin.
“You won’t like my house,” Eliot says before I can ask. “And if my brother’s back, you’ll be treated to a thoroughly bullshit encounter.”
He doesn’t mention parents. “Believe me, your brother is not worse than mine.”
He snorts doubtfully, so his brother must be pretty bad, considering what he just overheard. My stomach hurts at the prospect of going home to a war zone. Hopefully Lena’s gone by the time I get back from Eliot’s.
Shit. I’m going to Eliot’s.
As we drive, the lawns get greener and the fences whiter, like someone’s turning up the color saturation the closer we get. He lives closer to Anthony than I do. The house we stop in front of is the biggest on the block, and there’s even a gate at the end of the driveway, though it’s propped open.
“His work car’s not here. The gods smile on us.” Eliot gets out of the car and beckons.
When we walk in, I notice that the house is weirdly empty. No welcome mat or pictures on the walls, no lamps or shelves in the front hallway.
He brings me to the living room. I stare. There are cardboard boxes strewn all over the place, some torn open, bleeding clothes. The white couch is still in its factory plastic. The only other furniture is a coffee table heaped with cigarette butts.
“You didn’t tell me you just moved again,” I say.
He stubs his cigarette out on the wall, adding to a Milky Way of gray marks. “I didn’t.”