by Rachel Vail
It was a mean question, and I knew it. I felt mean, but also, like, too bad. I have a right to know. Why is everybody always excluding me?
We walked almost a full block before Dad answered. “It’s complicated.”
“Didn’t you want justice?” I was quoting from an article I’d read.
“Justice.” He chuckled but not in a happy way. “That was the lawyer’s word. We filed a suit against—”
“But you dropped it.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because it wouldn’t . . . Even if we won? If we got a hundred thousand dollars or a million, ten million from her family’s insurance company? Would that be justice?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“What justice could there be? Our little girl was dead.”
I swallowed hard. My anger was wearing off. I couldn’t remember why I’d felt like it would be good to torture him like this. Because he sat waiting, reading at a Starbucks down the block from the terrible party I was at, to be available to walk me home? This wasn’t helping anything. We crossed even though there were only two seconds left on the walk sign before we started. He usually stops if there are five or fewer.
“Anyway, that’s a lie.” Dad’s voice sounded deeper and growlier than usual, his Boston accent stronger than usual. “I didn’t want justice. I wanted vengeance.”
I just kept walking next to him, faster and faster, trying to match his long strides. “I don’t blame you.”
“I blame myself,” he said. “It’s not a noble feeling, wanting vengeance on a kid.”
“A kid?”
“That driver was just a kid herself, twenty years old. Looked down at her phone for a second, maybe. That’s what our lawyer said; we could bring it up as a possibility and at least settle with her insurance company. Get a nice amount of money. But how could a ‘nice’ amount of money pay us back? Our baby was gone. There is not that much money on the planet, nice or otherwise. And meanwhile, the kid was on a suicide watch.”
“So you gave up?” I asked. “To protect the driver, since you couldn’t protect Bret?”
“No,” Dad said. “To protect Mom.”
“Mom? From what?”
“If they had put her on the stand, she would’ve said, It’s not that young woman’s fault; it’s my fault.”
Whoa. What? “Was it?”
“No,” Dad said. “It wasn’t. Understand? It was not your mother’s fault.”
“Okay.” I hadn’t said it was. The thought had never occurred to me.
“When somebody you love is . . .” he whispered. “She was . . . I couldn’t get distracted by lawsuits, or blame. All I could do was pray.”
“Pray?” He’s an astrophysicist. First time I ever heard him use the word. “For what?” I asked. “For time to reverse itself, tocktick, so Bret—”
“No,” Dad said. “It was enough that I was praying to a God I don’t believe in. I couldn’t pray for the laws of nature to nullify themselves and turn back time.”
“I was kind of kidding,” I mumbled.
“And certainly I didn’t pray for a cash windfall or for that poor girl behind the wheel to suffer. Those are small things, and the universe owed me big.”
“So, what, then?” I asked, but then I saw his face, pale and droopy, old-looking. “You don’t have to tell me anything else. Sorry.”
“No,” he said. “Gracie, here’s the . . . I’m going to mangle Aeschylus, but. . . . The pain never lets me forget; even in sleep, the despair is an almost unbearable weight on my heart, but drop by drop, through the awful grace of God, or time, sometimes I manage to remember that there’s still work to be done. And that even if giving up would be easier for me, easier is not the same as better, and there are people who count on me. So, on we trudge.”
“That’s it?” I asked. “‘On we trudge’? That’s your battle cry? Wow.”
“Yes. On we trudge. Because people need us, and also, occasionally, we get some proof of the gravity of passing stars detaching planets into interstellar space.”
“Sure,” I said.
“That’s always a good day.”
“Okay,” I said.
We both turned and started walking again, crossing Broadway at the light and then, at my school, turning uptown.
“You need anything to eat?” Dad asked as we passed the market, its fruit arrayed outside in a rainbow of fresh choices.
“I’m good,” I lied.
“How was the party?”
“Not as much fun as the conversation on the way home.”
“That bad?”
I half smiled.
“Eighth grade is a rotten time,” he said.
“Sometimes,” I admitted.
And we walked the rest of the way home together, my phone still as cold and as quiet as a detached planet, or interstellar space, in my pocket.
41
MORE ROTTEN THAN I EVEN REALIZED, ACTUALLY
On my way to school, I passed the homeless woman outside the bank. She’s not usually there so early. Neither am I. But I didn’t want to risk running into Emmett in the elevator of our building, so I left even earlier than Dad. He let me.
I offered the homeless woman my granola bar.
“You sure?” she asked.
“Absolutely.” I don’t know where the homeless woman sleeps and wouldn’t want to pry. I don’t even know her name. I just think of her as the Homeless Woman, like that’s the only thing about her. “What’s your name?”
“Lina,” she answered. “What’s yours?”
“Gracie.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said. “Thanks. This is my favorite kind of granola bar.”
“Really?” One thing to feel good about.
“Oh yeah, the best,” she said. “Have a great day at school.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You too.”
Ugh. I cannot even have a normal nothing conversation. You too? I now have to quit school and run away from home so I won’t pass Lina anymore.
When I got to school, nobody was there from our grade, so I scarfed down a crumbly muffin for something to do while sitting among the shiny elementary school babies as they chattered all excited with their parents, pumped up for the coming day. I felt like the BFG, hulking there at the table. Plus, check your privilege: I gave away my breakfast granola bar but within five minutes had my choice of muffins to eat. I really have no right ever to feel bad about anything, I reminded myself, unsuccessfully.
The early bell rang. Still no friends. I skulked up the stairs by myself and slumped down in front of my locker.
Sienna hadn’t answered any of my texts. I had written a few more last night, and some to Emmett, too, and fallen asleep with my silent phone in my hand, having told nobody about the conversation with my dad. Or anything.
Just before the late bell, a big rush of kids exploded into the eighth-grade area, Sienna in the midst of it. She looked over at me but then lowered her eyes quickly.
We had to go straight into math. But come on. I stood up and followed her in. “Hey, what did I do?” I asked. “I’m sorry. For whatever it was.”
“Nothing,” Sienna whispered, and kept walking. She looked so sad.
I followed her. Uncool? Sure. I wasn’t likely to make the travel team in Cool, either, even on a good day. And this was already obviously not a good day.
“What? Sienna,” I pestered. “Hey.”
She put her books down onto her desk and then turned around. “Nothing,” she repeated. “You ditched me. But, really, it’s fine.”
“No,” I said. “That’s not what . . . I thought . . . you were with . . .”
“I know,” Sienna whispered.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay.”
�
�Okay,” I said. But she wouldn’t meet my eyes. So I asked, “What?”
“It’s not fair,” she said.
“That I didn’t say good-bye?” I asked. “I said I was sorry, Sienna. I am. I—”
“No,” she said. “Not that.”
“What, then?”
“Can you, Gracie? Can you let me answer? You’re so quick to jump in. I can’t even—”
“Okay.” I put both hands over my mouth and, behind them, said, “I’m listening.”
Sienna smiled, but not like she thought it was funny. “It’s not fair,” she whispered, “how much I need you. How much I rely on you for everything, even to write my texts for me. To the point where, if you have to leave a party, it’s like my voice leaves with you. So.”
“No!” I said too loud. Everybody was looking at us. I lowered my voice. “That’s not . . . You don’t— I’m sure you were great.”
“I wasn’t,” she said. “I was completely . . . befuddled.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I have to figure out how to be . . . I kissed a boy last night,” she whispered really quietly. “And I’ve never had a real conversation with him on my own since we started going out.”
“You kissed him?”
“Yeah,” she whispered.
“How was it?” I asked.
At the same time, she was saying, “But I don’t . . . I think we should stop . . .”
“Stop what?” I was so confused. Did AJ do something rude? Did she want to break up with him already? “What happened?”
“We should have more friends than just each other.”
“You and AJ?” I realized maybe she felt guilty, like she’d ditched me. Which she sort of had. But I didn’t want her to worry about me! I was fine! “It’s okay. You guys can take a minute or two to yourselves! As long as you don’t make a habit—”
“No, Gracie,” Sienna interrupted quietly. “Listen. Us. You and me.”
“Us?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Was she breaking up with me? Is that a thing?
I felt like I was in that elevator again, going down, down, down, even though I was just standing there in math, being told to find our seats and let’s go over the homework.
“We’re . . . but . . .” I said. “We’re already friends with everybody.”
“You know what I mean,” Sienna whispered, and sat down in the seat beside me.
I didn’t.
All I heard the whole period was a whooshing noise in my head.
On the way to chorus, AJ was walking up the stairs next to me. I barely noticed. There was just too much thunder in my brain. How was I going to make it through the rest of the day? Or the year? Sienna just broke up with me? What?
“Gracie,” AJ said. “Gracie.”
“Oh,” I said, after I figured out that he was talking to me. I didn’t know how many times he had repeated my name. “Sorry.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Sure,” I said. “But actually, no.”
“I’m breaking a promise by saying this, but I think it’s the right thing to do.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“It’s important,” he whispered.
“Still,” I said, trying not to be mad, trying to smile, but seriously, if he was going to start telling me truths about Sienna, as if now that he’d been her boyfriend for, oh wow, almost a whole week . . . You know what? Stuff it. She’s been my best friend a long time, AJ. You have no idea who she is, what’s going on between her and me, what she’s feeling. She said herself she’s never had a real conversation with you this whole time, so back up, bruh.
“He went out and spent his own money on it that night! He lied when he said he’d already read it. He’d never even heard of it before.”
“What?” I asked. “Who?”
“He spent his own money he earned from opera to buy it at Bank Street Book Store.”
AJ’s face was all red. We were at the door of chorus.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You gotta ask yourself why he would do that, right?” AJ asked. “And read the whole thing that night? The whole book. He says he’s like the peacocks.”
“What? Peacocks? What are you—”
“Plus, he always makes sure he’s on your gym team. And then you do that to him, in front of everybody?”
“Emmett?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking at me like I was the one not making sense.
“I didn’t mean anything!” I said. “Riley asked. I wasn’t—”
“I used to think of you as maybe the nicest person I knew,” AJ whispered. “And in the top four or five coolest. I was even jealous, because sometimes it seems like you’re almost maybe better friends with Emmett than I am. And he’s my best friend. But I would never dis him like you did last night.”
AJ rushed into chorus, leaving me in the hall. Emmett was standing in the front of the boys’ section, serious, studious, looking over the music I knew he’d already memorized. On top of his pile of books, beside him, was his shiny copy of Brown Girl Dreaming.
Shiny and new.
I took two steps backward and crashed into Ms. Hall, the chorus teacher. I mumbled some excuse about being sick and then rushed down the stairs, away from chorus and toward the nurse’s office, but then, since I wasn’t actually sick, I veered off into the girls’ bathroom on the second floor.
I slammed myself into the far stall. I dropped my stuff onto the floor, locked the door behind me, and just stood there, my head pressed to the metal door, trying to stop existing.
42
APPROXIMATING
Solve for x?
Solve for ex.
Sienna has plenty of right to be mad at me for flirting with her boyfriend. So even though she’s breaking up with me for the wrong reason, I can’t be upset, because what am I going to do, correct her? No, Sienna, what you should actually be mad about is . . . Uh, no. Never. Gonna. Happen. I owe her a cosmic debt for having been a bad friend; I deserve anything she does to me.
And Emmett actually has every right to be mad at me too. All he’s ever done is be the most awesome friend: fun, funny, literally always on my team (until today), always acting like I’m great, and he gets me and likes me and apparently (wait, really?) even spending his own money on a book and reading it all in one night (why? Not sure I follow that whole thing—what happened there?), and then, from his (incorrect but still) point of view, I turn around and announce to everybody that I don’t like him. That is so not what I meant. Stupid Riley was asking a whole different, embarrassing question! If he would just stop turning away from me and not listening, I could explain.
He’d laugh. He’d be like, Oh, that’s what she was asking? Hahahaha. And then he’d say something so perfect and funny, and everything would be fine.
Not that I should be mad at him, for ignoring me. Obviously not. What would being angry even accomplish? Last time I got angry, it was at Riley, and that accomplished zero. I’m not mad. I’m sorry. For everything. But otherwise fine!
I’m fine.
I am always fine.
Show your work.
I am turning in a social studies quiz with three out of ten answers filled in, and those answers are actually just nonsense and crossed-out names of the two people I like best in the world. So. Checking my answer? Not completely fine.
Approximately the opposite of fine.
43
BROKEN
When I finally got home, the one thing I’d been wanting to do all day, Mom was So. Much. Wanting to know how my day was. If I had a lot of homework. If I had plans with Sienna over the weekend. If I wanted to go Saturday night to see the opera Emmett was in.
What?
“They have an extr
a ticket because Daphne has a thing,” Mom said, following me down the hall to the kitchen. “And Emmett wants you to come!”
“No, he doesn’t,” I said.
“His mom told me,” Mom said, putting her arm around me. “I think it’s sweet!”
“Mom.”
“You should probably wear a dress,” she said.
“No.”
“Does your blue dress still fit?”
“Mom!”
“We could go shopping tomorrow. It’s from the fall, that blue dress, and you’ve grown since then. You probably don’t fit in those black pumps anymore either.”
“None taken.” There were banana muffins fresh made and waiting all invitingly on a plain white plate. My mom makes the best banana muffins, usually when she has an article due or is tense about something. But usually they’re arranged on Bret’s plate. Ugh.
I bypassed them and grabbed a store-bought chocolate chip cookie from a package in the cabinet, as self-punishment. I shoved it hard into my mouth, a not-polite nibble. Tough. I obviously wasn’t going to have to squish into that blue dress anyway.
Mom scrunched her shoulders up toward her ears, grinning. “It’s your first date!”
“No!” I yelled, accidentally spitting out a couple of cookie crumbs. “Ew! Mom! It’s so not!”
“Maybe not officially, but in a way it is!”
“Mom! Stop!” I shoved the rest of the cookie into my open mouth and pushed past her. I dashed up the hall toward my room, trying not to choke on the stale cookie shards clogging my throat. I wanted to stop in the hall bathroom to spit the gross mess out in the toilet, but my mother was following me.
“Gracie, what’s wrong?”
“Please leave me alone,” I grumbled incomprehensibly through cookie bits.
She was right behind me, so I couldn’t close my door. We stood on the two sides of the threshold of my room, me inside, her out in the hall. Lightning was hiding in the corner next to my bookcase. I so related. Where is a boot for me to shove my head down into?
Mom leaned against my doorframe. “Daddy said you had some questions about Bret.”