First, Last, and Always

by Lehman, Kim

  Wait. His eyes? What? Oh, sh...!

  He’s looking directly at me. In a panic I jump into the next hallway—upperclassmen territory. I’m desperate. Leaning against a locker, I take a deep breath and pause. That was so stupid. What was I thinking? At that same moment, I notice Alexa on the other side of the hallway. She’s standing perpendicular to Lance Donovan, sifting through her locker. He slides his arm around her waist. She gives him a sideways glance and a coy smile. It’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her in months.

  “You’re looking good, Lexie,” Lance says in a sly voice.

  “Yeah?” She flirts back.

  “Am I going to see you at Jazz’s party this weekend?” he asks.

  She shrugs. “If you’re lucky.”

  He pulls her closer into him. She laughs, a happy, carefree kind of laugh. The kind of laugh I remember her having that summer day we spent rolling down hills in the park. For a moment I think about that day again, and can’t help wondering where everything went so wrong. Then, in the middle of my daydream, I’m jolted by a force that rams up against me from behind. “Oh, my gosh! I am so sorry!” I manage to catch myself, before completely falling over. Across the hallway I check to see if Alexa noticed. It looks like she’s still preoccupied, thank God. When I turn around, I see Vanessa and my relief vanishes. She’s beaming. Renee is standing next to her. “Are you okay?” she asks.

  I look down at my knee that dusted the floor. “Yeah. I think so.”

  “Geez. I didn’t even see you there.”

  I’m sure she saw me. “It’s fine,” I tell her.

  “I don’t know how you couldn’t possibly see her,” Renee snarls.

  I grit my teeth and try not to show any emotion.

  “Renee, the halls were crowded. It was an honest mistake.” I can’t tell if Vanessa is defending herself or me. “Anyway,” she continues. “We’re on our way to class. Want to walk with us?”

  This, I’m sure, is some kind of trick. “That’s okay. I’m good.” I’d rather eat nails.

  Vanessa rolls her eyes. “Suit yourself. Come on Nay-Nay.”

  Both of them glance back at me and laugh. It makes me feel three inches tall. I’d almost rather deal with a punch in the gut than being laughed at. At least then you know there is a legitimate reason for the pain. When they are out of sight, it takes me a second to remember where I am and what I was doing. Gasping, I whip my head around to where Alexa and Lance were standing. The hallways are emptying. They’re no longer there. I hope she didn’t see me. I think she’d kill me if she knew I was anywhere near her. The last thing I need is verbal torment from both Alexa and Vanessa, however both are apparently inevitable. Making sure I keep more than half a hallway’s length between us, I follow Vanessa and Renee to algebra class.

  Miles

  As I walk into history class and sit down, there’s a buzzing vibration, which, I can only assume, is coming from somebody’s cell phone around me. I always shut my phone off—school rules—so the buzzing has to be coming from someone else. I look around. The buzzing happens again.

  “Are you going to answer your phone?” the girl next to me asks.

  “It’s not me,” I tell her.

  “Sounds like it,” she says. “I think it’s buzzing in your pocket.”

  I dig my hand into my pocket and pull out my phone. She’s right. It’s me. I thought I’d turned it off. The name and number popping up makes me nervous. It’s my dad. I shouldn’t answer, but Dad never calls me during the day. I glance at the clock—sixty seconds until class starts. “Hello?” I answer.

  “Hey, Bud! I thought you were in class. I was just gonna leave a message.”

  “I am in class, but we haven’t started yet,” I whisper.

  “Oh. Well, hey, I’m in between meetings too, but wanted to call you as soon as I could to let you know that I booked my flight. I’m comin’ out there to see you.”

  My body catapults into an erect seated position. “Really?” I yell. Everyone looks at me. The teacher lifts her head from the desk and gives me a disapproving shake of the head before mouthing, Get off the phone.

  “Yeah,” Dad continues. “I’ll be there on the seventeenth. My flight gets in late.”

  I look at a calendar that my teacher, Mrs. Blanchard hung in the front of the room. The eighteenth is a Wednesday. The teacher is still glaring at me. “That’s cool, Dad. Seriously. Hey, I’m sorry. I have to go. Can we talk later?” I’m doing my best to whisper and restrain my excitement.

  Mrs. Blanchard finally speaks up. “Mr. Fiester, am I going to have to take that away from you?”

  “I’ll be in meetings late tonight, but I’ll call you later in the week,” Dad says.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Just as I’m about to hang up, Dad blurts, “Oh, Miles?”

  “I really gotta go, Dad.” Mrs. Blanchard is walking toward me, her steps determined, the long skirt she has on sways like ringing bell. The entire class is honed in on my phone conversation.

  “Just curious,” Dad says. “Did you think about our last talk? What did you decide to do about basketball?”

  Stopping at my desk, Mrs. Blanchard rips the phone out of my hands. “Whoever this is, he’ll call you later,” she says before hanging up, and then to me, she waves the phone in my face and says sternly, “Find me at the end of the school day. That’s when you can have it back.”

  There are a couple chuckles around me. I don’t care. I’m actually relieved. Mrs. Blanchard has no idea that she saved me.

  Charlotte

  “Homework, please!” Ms. Ming calls out as I stroll into class. I walked so slow, it looks like every student made it to class before I did. Grayson, Vanessa, and Renee are all in their seats. “Lay it on my desk. Right here,” Ms. Ming says, pointing to a tray, before turning to jot our next assignment on the board. Walking up, I set my backpack on Ms. Ming’s desk and dig through the pockets, looking for the two pages of algebra problems I completed late last night. My fingers slide past a spiral notebook and a pencil before reaching the folded papers tucked at the bottom of my bag. The edge of one of the pages is stuck under a book. I have to tug a little to pull it out. Snickers trail across the room behind me. I turn my head slightly and notice Vanessa whispering with Renee beside her, both of them smirking. Another round of chuckles erupts as I lay my assignment in the tray. When I turn around to take my seat I pan the room. I’m not sure what’s going on. It feels like everyone is looking at me. What’s so funny? The bell rings.

  “All right, everyone!” Ms. Ming says, her back still to the class. “Let’s get started. Take out your books and please turn to page twenty-three.”

  Two boys sitting in the front of the class on the right side of the room flip their heads around to look at me. They smile like they just heard a joke. Pixie Haircut is staring at me too.

  Lowering my eyes to the desk, I attempt to avoid the faces turning in my direction, the smiles and chuckles that make no sense. Discreetly I look down to see if there might be toilet paper stuck to my shoe. No sign. I rub my tongue along my teeth just in case there is food on them. I don’t feel anything. There must be something. Pulling my fingers through my hair I make sure there aren’t any spitballs or bugs or something. When I pull out my algebra book, Grayson, who is sitting next to me, leans over and clears his throat. “Uh...Charlotte?”

  Just hearing him say my name causes my breath to hitch. Acting as natural and calm as possible, I turn to meet his eyes. He’s staring at me. Hard.

  “Yes?” I wheeze out. My entire body feels like Jell-O.

  “Uh.” He clears his throat. “Sorry to stare,” he says.

  I smile. Not a problem.

  “I don’t mean to seem rude or anything, it’s just...you have something on the back of your shirt.”

  A flushing sensation heats my face, travels down my spine, and flares into my legs. Oh, no. “I do?”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t sure what it was, from across the room, but I can
see it now. It looks like chocolate.” He blushes. “It’s uh, on the back of your pants too.”

  When I glance around the room again, eyes are still peering in my direction. Every smile reminds me of the Alice in Wonderland Cheshire Cat—large and obscenely comical. Vanessa’s smile appears bigger than all of them. Vanessa’s lips are moving, but there’s no sound.

  I remember her hands pushing me in the hallway. She’s mouthing something in my direction. It takes a moment to process. You... look... like... you... shit... yourself, she’s saying, a sneer of gratification plastered across her face.

  I want to crawl up into myself and die. “Thanks,” I mumble to Grayson, brushing past him and excusing myself to go to the girls’ bathroom.

  Miles

  “Have you seen Charlotte?” Lani asks, running up to me after school.

  “Not yet,” I tell her.

  She’s bummed at this response. “Huh. That’s weird. She was supposed to meet me at my locker. She didn’t show.” She looks at me for a response, as if I know something she doesn’t. When I don’t say anything else she shrugs. “Eh, maybe she forgot?”

  “Probably,” I agree.

  “So? Did you tell her yet?” Lani raises her eyebrows. “Did ya?” Lani would make a good interrogator someday. Mostly because the person across from her would eventually say anything to get her to stop talking. I hesitate and sigh. “Well?” she presses.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” I say, “I haven’t seen her in the three hours since you first told me to tell her.”

  “You’re not really a reactive kind of guy,” Lani says. “I can see you’re going to be a challenge for me.”

  “I’m thinking about what you said, really.” Which is sort of true, just not in the way Lani wants me to be thinking about it. I’m actually trying to come up with a way to get Lani to forget what happened. “Just let me go at my own pace with this,” I tell her, to buy some time. “Give me another two, maybe three—”

  “Days?” Lani jumps in. “I can work with that.”

  “I was going to say years.”

  She scowls and puts her hands on her hips. “Don’t annoy me, Fiester.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “I’m serious. Annoy me and you’ll be in trouble. I know shiatsu,” she threatens.

  “I think you mean jujitsu.”

  She nods. “That too. I’ll kick your ass. It won’t be pretty.”

  I don’t flinch. This isn’t a conversation I want to have right here. “Are you done cross-examining me?”

  “I only just started,” she says.

  I start walking away. “Okay,” I say with little intonation. “Well, if I see her on the bus I’ll tell her you were looking for her.”

  “All righty, then. We have an understanding,” she yells to me as I walk away.

  All I understand is that she doesn’t understand.

  “We’ll talk more later,” she promises.

  I can’t wait.

  “Ooh, hey, tell her to call me too. Would ya?” she shouts at my back. “Thanks, Miles! You’re the best!”

  When I board the bus, I notice that Charlotte is already sitting in the back waiting. Usually I get on before she does or I’ll wait for her outside. She doesn’t look at me when I sit down next to her. “I just saw Lani,” I tell her. “She thought you were going to meet her at her locker. She asked me to tell you to call her later.”

  Charlotte doesn’t respond. Her gaze is focused out the window of the bus, but it doesn’t seem as if she’s actually looking at anything. Her eyes are puffy; her lips are set in a straight line. It seems like she may have been crying.

  “Charlotte? What’s wrong?” The bus pulls away from the school buildings.

  “Charlotte?” I attempt again. For the next five minutes neither of us says anything. When the bus squeals to the first stop Charlotte gets up as if in a trance and steps over me into the aisle. When she stands I notice something smeared on the back of her pants, like she tried to wash it off, but only made it worse. She hurries down the aisle. Where is she going? Next thing I know, she’s walking off the bus. By the time I react to follow her we’re moving again. From the window I watch her cross the street. The kid in the seat in front of me has the same befuddled expression I do.

  “Did she just get off at the wrong stop?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” I nod.

  At the next stop, I react much faster, jumping off the bus and heading in the direction Charlotte was last seen.

  Charlotte

  As soon as I walk into the house, the kitchen beckons me. My arms move rhythmically from one cupboard to the next. I grab a jar of peanut butter, a sleeve of Oreos, a snack-size bag of Doritos. I microwave half a dozen pizza rolls and I take it all up to my room, where I wash it down with a sixteen-ounce, sugar-laden, make-me-feel-better soda. I expect it to replace the pain. I expect it to hide the embarrassment. But by the time I’m half finished, I don’t feel better at all. I feel gross. I feel ugly. I feel like I need a stomach pump.

  Miles

  I find her buried under a purple blanket in her room. Food wrappers are scattered around her. Half a dozen tissues lie crumpled on the floor. “Your mom let me in,” I say to the mound of purple bedding.

  There’s no movement.

  “You got off at the wrong stop,” I say, as if she didn’t already know that. “I wasn’t sure where you were going, so I got off at the next stop to follow you. I walked around for an hour, but when I couldn’t find you I came here.”

  Still no movement, no response.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  I’m beginning to wonder if she’s even here.

  “You want me to leave you alone?” Before I can say anything else, Charlotte’s sister, Alexa, barges into the room. She sees me, looks around, makes a face, and then walks over and crosses her arms by the bed.

  “Hey, Feed Bag, what are you doing? Don’t you know your boyfriend is here?”

  A muffled moan rises from the bedcovers. “He’s not my boyfriend.” Her quick response hurts. I have to remind myself that she’s just upset.

  Alexa rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Mom says it’s time for dinner.” She looks around the room again. “But if you want, I can just tell her you’re not hungry because you’ve already eaten your body weight in junk food.” Alexa waits a couple seconds for Charlotte to respond. “Well?”

  “I’m coming,” the purple mound says.

  Alexa barely looks at me as she leaves the room and shuts the door.

  The purple mound shifts, hands appear, and then Charlotte’s head pokes out. Her eyes are puffy. Her hair is disheveled. I smile at her, hoping to make her feel better. She doesn’t look at me. Her gaze stays fixed on the ceiling. Her expression doesn’t change. “Vanessa and her friend totally humiliated me today,” she says with a sigh. “And I tried not to care. I tried to shake it off like I always do, but this time was different. It happened right in front of Grayson. Miles, the look on his face...it was...it like he thought I was the most pathetic thing on earth.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” I say, trying to make her feel better.

  She hangs her head. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter,” she finally says, her voice barely audible. “He’s so out of my league.”

  “You mean he’s out of yours.” The words were supposed to stay in my head. I can feel the base of my neck heating.

  She lifts her head and smiles. I wonder if she realized I really meant it. I wasn’t just trying to be nice.

  “Will you stay for dinner?” she asks.

  I’m supposed to be home by seven. Mom’s making my favorite tonight: marinated steak tips and cheesy mashed potatoes. We haven’t had it in a while. Charlotte tilts her head and waits for a response. Her glassy eyes rip open my heart. “Of course.”

  When dinner is over Charlotte walks me to the front door. “Thanks for staying for dinner and for cheering me up and stuff.”
<
br />   “What are you doing this weekend?” I ask.

  “Not much.”

  “Want to watch movies at my house?”

  She perks up. “You, me, and Lani?”

  Lani wasn’t actually part of my plan. “Okay.” I feign equal excitement.

  “I’ll bring a couple movies and some popcorn,” Charlotte says.

  “Cool.”

  “It’ll be fun,” she says.

  I smile and nod. “Can’t wait.” I know exactly how this is going to go. On Saturday we’ll watch two movies—five hours of action-adventure scenes with four hours and forty-five minutes of commentary from Lani. Somehow she’ll end up sitting right between Charlotte and me the entire time. On Sunday we’ll watch two more movies. Lani will be less talkative, mildly winded from the previous day. She’ll only say something when she knows what’s going to happen in the movie, giving the play-by-play for every major scene before it happens. She’ll cry during the death scenes, laugh obnoxiously during the humorous scenes, and gasp at the surprise endings even thought she knows what’s going to come. Charlotte will find this funny, me, not so much.

  “Fun” is an understatement. It doesn’t even begin to describe my excitement.

  Sunday night, following two days and ten hours of movies, I crash onto my bed after Charlotte and Lani leave and exhale, letting all the air out of my lungs.

  As it turns out, I was totally wrong about Lani. She wasn’t winded at all. In fact, when she left my house I’m pretty sure her mouth was still moving.

  5

  Charlotte

  On the following Tuesday, Lani runs up to me just before lunch with a frenzied smirk. “So, Vanessa is gonna come around the corner any second. If she comes up to us, just pretend you have no idea what’s going on.”