by Rachel Hruza
While Megan was jerking on ponytails and running curling irons through my hair, I’d wondered if the accidental tugs on my scalp where she exclaimed “Oops! Sorry!” were really accidents. I knew she was mad about my date with Brendan, but I didn’t want to talk about why. I’d even let her put some mascara on my top eyelashes, with several swipes that nearly cut through my corneas. If she was that upset about my “date that was not a date,” why would she help me get ready for it, let alone still be talking to me?
Since we were going to a movie and the theater was sometimes cold, I took a zip-up hoodie to wear over my fitted white long-sleeve shirt and dark jeans. I wore a long necklace with a gold heart at the end of it, and hoop earrings. It was a simple outfit, but it was awesome because I didn’t have to wear my brace.
Brace-free for the night. Isaac Newton could do whatever he wanted. If I had wings, I would have lifted off the ground and flown—his gravity would have no effect on me.
As I checked my foreign-feeling mascara one more time in the bathroom mirror, the doorbell rang. I heard two young male voices greeting my father, who sounded more serious than I’d expected him to be.
Charity ran out of our room and grabbed my arm. “Come on. They’re here.” She sounded a little nervous, but I knew she didn’t want to leave the guys in the clutches of our protective father for long.
“We’re coming,” she called down the steps, as we began our descent.
I suddenly felt silly, as if this were some kind of practice for prom (my mom had already taken pictures of Charity and me, and she’d promised she wouldn’t ambush us again). But then Brendan looked up at me, and I was pleased to see his eyebrows lift in surprise when he saw me. He had on a plain blue t-shirt and fitted khaki pants, and he’d styled his hair with some kind of gel, so it lifted at the front above his forehead. I stared at his smile, gripping the banister railing so I didn’t lose my footing on my way down the steps, and smiled back. My initial embarrassment faded as I met him at the bottom of the steps.
“You look great,” he said.
“You too,” I said.
“Yeah, but you look so different.”
I looked away and tucked a renegade curl behind my ear. I knew I looked better without my brace on—I felt way better about myself too—but I hadn’t expected Brendan to comment on it. Was my brace as physically repulsive to him as it was to me?
“Come back right after the movie, okay girls?” Dad said, his arms crossed. My mother was putting together a puzzle with Harold in the living room, but she stopped to watch us go.
“Yes, Dad,” Charity and I said.
Jacob smiled politely and thanked my parents. “We should be home by nine-thirty. Have a good night,” he said. He seemed nice enough.
“Bye, Brendan,” my mom said.
“See you later, Trendons!” he said.
We walked out to the car. Jacob and Charity walked ahead of us.
“You look great,” Jacob said to her.
“Thanks,” Charity said. “So do you.”
Charity didn’t blush or giggle nervously like I expected her to. She seemed really comfortable around Jacob. He opened the door for her and she slid gracefully into her seat, while Brendan and I climbed into the back.
Brendan was talking about a football game he’d been watching before Jacob picked him up. “I didn’t get to see the end. It was tied 14–14 and the Broncos had the ball at the thirty with a minute left on the clock.”
“You’re annoyed you had to come?” I asked him.
He frowned. “Not at all. I’m excited..”
“I’m excited to see this movie,” Charity said.
“What is it again?” I asked.
“A chick flick,” Brendan moaned.
“It won’t be that bad, man,” Jacob said, looking at Brendan in his rearview mirror.
I liked Jacob’s attitude. “Yeah, man,” I said, playfully punching Brendan in the shoulder.
“Oh yeah?” Brendan grabbed me by the waist and tickled me. I screamed with laughter as Charity turned around in her seat.
“Truth!” Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at Jacob. He held his composure, his face forward. “I am not here to babysit you,” she said.
My neck flushed with anger, annoyed that I, the youngest person in the car, had been singled out. “I am here because Mom and Dad don’t trust you with boys.”
Charity’s eyes widened and I knew if Jacob hadn’t been there she would have cuffed me like a lioness swatting one of her cubs. Luckily, Jacob laughed and the tension eased.
“Your sister’s funny,” he said.
“That’s one word for her,” Charity said.
“That’s three words,” I said. Jacob laughed again. I realized I was too focused on being an annoying sister, rather than a mature seventh grader on a (chaperoning) date with another mature seventh grader. I leaned back and looked at Brendan, jutting my chin in what I thought was an easygoing gesture. “Ya know, if you’re counting,” I said.
“I wasn’t,” Brendan said. He yawned.
We finally pulled up to the movie theater. Jacob tried to drop us off, but Charity insisted we could all go together. I could tell she didn’t want to be left alone with me and Brendan like a babysitter. As if I needed a babysitter.
“You can drop Brendan and me off,” I said. “We’ll wait for you inside.”
Brendan leapt out of the parked car as Charity said “Ooookay.” She was hesitant, but she didn’t dislike the idea.
“Let’s go, Truth,” Brendan said, standing on the curb. I thought he might open the door for me, but instead he looked impatiently over his shoulder at the theater.
“See you inside,” I said. I crawled out of the car and Brendan smiled at me.
“I hate feeling supervised,” he said. “I was sneaking into movies with friends in fifth grade.”
“Me too. Well, I paid for them. I feel bad for the guy who has to clean up all the popcorn and sticky soda pop residue. He has to get paid somehow, right?”
“Sometimes I wonder how we ended up friends, Trendon,” Brendan said.
I paused. “Is that what we are? Friends?”
He took my hand. “Of course.”
As my face burned with a mixture of nervousness and excitement at Brendan’s fingers intertwined in mine, I tried not to focus on the fact we were just “friends” to him. Friends could become more than that, couldn’t they?
“Thanks for asking me to come tonight,” he said. “The movie may be really lame—okay, let’s be honest, the movie will be really lame—but I like being here with you.”
“You sure that’s not just because I agreed to write your paper?”
He dropped my hand, and I immediately regretted my guilty conscience’s outburst.
“I thought you’d want to help me because you like me, too.”
“I do,” I said. “But I thought the whole teaching you to read after school thing was helping you. You’re doing really well.”
He scowled. “I don’t want to talk about that. Tonight’s supposed to be fun.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.” We walked into the building in silence, but Brendan took my hand again as we waited in the lobby. He dropped it when Charity and Jacob sauntered through the doors, their hands grasped so tightly together their fingers were turning purple.
Charity smiled at me. “I expected you two to have run off by now, to get away from the ‘controlling adults.’”
“Adults? Where?” I asked, glancing in all directions.
Brendan and Jacob laughed, but Charity shook her head. “I still can’t believe Mom and Dad made you come along.”
“I’m just too cool,” I said. “The public needs to see me out and about.”
Charity rolled her eyes.
“You guys get your tickets yet?” Jacob asked.
“Nope,” I said.
Brendan and I paid separately, since it wasn’t a “date,” but Jacob paid Charity’s way in
. He also paid for their treats at the concession stand. I got a soda pop and Brendan got popcorn. Charity thanked Jacob each time he paid, and I watched her watch Jacob as he led us into the right theater.
I wondered if I looked as obviously doe-eyed gazing at Brendan as she did with Jacob. Part of me didn’t like that; it left a bad taste in my mouth, knowing guys didn’t look at me the same way. I couldn’t blame them—what guy wanted to look at a girl in a back brace longer than he had to? I comforted myself with the fact Brendan would at least look at me, even if it wasn’t in a complete worshipping fervor. And we were friends.
That was enough. For now.
“Sit wherever you want,” Charity told me, as we filed into the rows of chairs after getting some quick snacks. “We’re gonna sit toward the back.”
“Keep it PG,” I said.
Charity huffed. “You know I don’t like sitting too close. It hurts my neck.”
She followed Jacob without looking back at me. I’d made her mad.
“Did she say they’re going to neck?” Brendan asked me, once we’d found our seats.
I almost shot soda pop out of my nose. “No!” I said loudly, laughing.
People around us filled the air with “shhhh” noises.
“Already getting shushed and the movie hasn’t even started? Not good form, Trendon.” Brendan shook his head. I threw a piece of popcorn at him.
I heard a lady behind me say, “Does she realize someone has to clean that up?”
We both laughed as the previews started. Brendan made fun of them, and I laughed, clearly making the lady behind us upset. She finally moved.
“I feel bad,” I said.
“Don’t,” Brendan said. “We’re just kids to her. We were going to make her mad no matter what.”
I sighed. I was tired of being reminded of how immature I was. I lay my head back and watched as a bouncy beat began with the intro to the movie. Soon I forgot my adolescent woes and began to fall into the plot, predictable as it was. I was rooting for the cute underdog with the good heart, who wanted to get the girl. He did.
Brendan and Jacob hated the movie.
“There’s no way that measly, nerdy guy would get that girl,” Jacob said, as we walked out of the theater.
“No kidding,” Brendan said. “She was a ten, and he was, like, a negative two.”
“I thought he was adorable!” Charity said.
“Me too,” I said.
Charity put her arm around me. We walked down the street toward the parking lot. “We girls have to stick together,” she said into my ear.
I grinned, glad to be on her good side before we got home so she’d give a good report to Mom and Dad.
“He had a certain je ne sais quoi,” I said. “Nerdy, but sophisticated. He wasn’t just interested in her body.”
“Yeah. Exactly,” Charity said.
“That wasn’t a true portrayal of men,” Jacob said.
Charity’s grip around my shoulders tightened. “Oh yeah? And what did they get wrong?”
Jacob scratched the back of his head, apparently regretting his word choice. “Can I retract my previous statement?”
“Only if you have a time machine,” Charity said. Her voice was serious, but she was teasing him at the same time. “So if I was as hot as that girl in the movie, I could get any guy I wanted?”
“Duh,” said Brendan.
I wanted to slug him so badly, but Charity had me restrained. “Huh,” she said. “So, Truth, we’ll go get our nails done, slather on makeup, and buy a couple of push-up bras, and we’ll find us some real men.”
“Sounds great,” I said, glaring in Brendan’s direction.
“According to that movie, you’ll end up with a scrawny kid who can’t grow a beard,” Jacob said.
“I think you’ve already got him,” I said to Charity.
Jacob laughed. “Oh yeah?”
He lunged at me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and picked me up. I was surprised, but it was a happy reminder I didn’t have hard, immobile plastic wrapped around me.
“Still think I’m scrawny?” He asked as he set me back down.
“Yes,” I said, “but not as scrawny as Brendan.” Brendan stopped to stare at me, aghast, and then he smiled and grabbed for me. I squealed and took off at a fast sprint across the parking lot, passing cars that turned into blurs of lights and colors. I could hear Jacob chasing us, Charity laughing after him. I hadn’t run this fast since I’d gotten my brace, and it was exhilarating.
I could feel my arms pumping; my feet pounding the pavement, sending shockwaves up my legs and into my back; and my heart beating as if it were going to explode at any second. It felt amazing. I didn’t want to stop. Ever.
But as I heard the boys running after me and Charity yelling at me to stop, a huge light suddenly appeared in front of me, blocking my vision. I’d run out in front of a moving pickup truck.
The driver blared his horn, brakes squealing as he slammed to a stop. I leapt out of the way and skidded to a halt, slamming my foot against the tire of the nearest parked car.
I waved apologetically at the startled driver and the truck slowly continued to move past.
Brendan ran up behind me first. “Are you okay?” he asked, placing his hand on my shoulder.
“I stubbed my toe!” I said, laughing. I looked up and then I froze. Oliver sat in the passenger seat of the pickup. His large, brown eyes held my gaze. I could feel the pressure of Brendan’s hand still on my shoulder, but my brain was focused on the sad eyes in front of me. I’d seen those same eyes crinkled with laughter and wide-eyed in anger, but never purely, utterly disappointed. My lips moved to speak, to apologize, to simply say hello, but the truck continued to move, and Oliver disappeared behind the reflection of a streetlight on the passenger side window.
“Are you hurt?” Charity shouted, running up to me. “That was really stupid of you!”
Physically, I was fine. But it felt like my heart had somehow been stung. I felt guilty for being there—on a date with Brendan, running without my brace, everything.
Part of me wondered what it would be like to hold Oliver’s hand, or if he’d think I looked completely different without my brace on. But I knew the answer to that—he’d seen me without my brace, and it didn’t matter to him. I knew Oliver was the kind of guy who wouldn’t resent people for not having the same disease as him, but I wondered if he ever thought about it, deep down in the darkest of his dark thoughts. He didn’t ever get the chance to hide his physical differences.
I tried to shake my mind clear. Charity helped. She slapped me across the shoulder.
“What were you doing?” she shouted.
“Running!” I said, out of breath.
“It looked like you were playing chicken with that Chevy,” Jacob said.
“It’s okay, Truth. You probably would have won if we hadn’t stopped you,” Brendan said.
I laughed, trying not to think about Oliver. “I didn’t see it. It just felt good to run.”
I didn’t add it was the freest I’d felt in a long time. Closing my eyes, I could still hear the rush of the air in my ears and feel the burst of adrenaline and excitement. I think that’s the closest humans can come to flying—sprinting as fast as we can and not caring what’s going on around us.
But though I relished the adrenaline pumping through my body, my heart still hurt. I had dreamed about being seen out in public with Brendan, and what that would feel like. Every time I had imagined it, I’d pictured jealous girls at my beck and call, moaning and throwing themselves at my feet, hoping to be friends, and boys drooling with desire for me now that I was on the arm of one Brendan Matthews.
I hadn’t expected to feel like I was in the wrong place, with the wrong person.
I shook my thoughts away and heaved one final sigh as a few beads of sweat formed on my forehead. I stepped back from the car in front of me. “Did I dent this car?”
“Better hope not. It’s mine,” Jacob said
. We all laughed and climbed in.
When Jacob dropped us off, he didn’t get out of the car to tell Charity goodbye like I thought he might. Brendan remained in his seat as well. I’ll admit to being disappointed, but I wasn’t surprised. Dad was waiting at the window, the curtain barely shifted over enough so he thought he was inconspicuous. I waved, and the curtain quickly dropped back into place.
“Thanks again,” Charity said.
“Yeah, thanks Jacob,” I said. “Next time I won’t try to get killed.”
“You make for an exciting date, Truth,” Jacob said. “Maybe next time we can switch dates. You can be my arm candy.”
I laughed. “I’ll be a hard candy, and square looking,” I said, referring to my brace.
By Jacob’s confused face, I could tell he had no idea what I was talking about.
“If there is a next time,” Brendan said. He was joking, but the tone of his voice, short and steely, reminded me I owed him an essay about weapons.
“Goodbye,” Charity said, with a short wave, and Jacob pulled the car away.
“Doesn’t Jacob know I have a back brace?” I asked Charity.
“I didn’t tell him,” she said.
“Why not?”
“It didn’t come up.”
“But he’s probably noticed it, right?”
Charity sighed. “Truth, unless you’ve told people, they most likely can’t tell. You’re way more observant than most people, and way too self-conscious. Quit worrying about it.”
“Okay,” I said, a bit baffled.
We walked into the house where Dad stood in the middle of the living room, his arms crossed. “He should have waited to make sure you got into the house okay,” he said.
Harold popped out from behind Dad’s legs, where he had been hiding. “That’s right!” he shouted. “You’re late!”
“No, we’re not,” Charity retorted.
Mom laughed. “They were practicing in case you were.”
“You’re both grounded, young ladies!” Harold commanded.
Charity grabbed Harold’s face, kissing him on the cheek. He screamed. I, however, floated on air, my mind hovering far from my family, whose muffled voices I barely heard as the reality of my life sunk in. One, I may have had to wear a brace that locked down my movements, but it didn’t change the way people perceived me. Two, I had just gone on a date with the cutest guy in school, with the possibility of going on another. Three, my social status was sufficiently “neutral” and Isaac Newton could choke on an apple seed for all I cared.