“Why do you need to go to New York?” his father continued in a calm tone, taking a step closer to Drake.
“Japhy was supposed to come over. I need to talk to him,” Drake said, sounding like he might be close to tears.
“Honey,” his mom said gently, “they said no for this weekend even if we were going to be there. Japhy’s mother had a performance, and Japhy is going out of town with his girlfriend’s family.”
In old Road Runner cartoons, Wile E. Coyote is always getting an Acme anvil dropped on his head when he tries to concoct a complicated plan to catch Road Runner. Drake and I were coyotes, eyes spinning and birds flying around our skulls.
“Girlfriend.” Drake’s voice was just above a whisper.
“Drake, what is going on here?” his father asked forcefully. “We didn’t expect you and Gran to meet us here. We reserved a rental car.”
“Where is your gran?” Drake’s mom asked for the third time.
“She’s not here.” Drake sounded defeated. “Celia and I were going to New York.”
“Alone?” barked Drake’s dad. “She would never allow that. What the hell is going on?”
“I was coming to New York to see Japhy.” Drake’s arms hung lifeless at his side like garden hoses. “I’m in love with him.”
Everyone was speechless. Drake’s parents stared at him with so much concern on their faces, they could have hardened into theatre masks. Then they looked at each other. It was a slow movement as his mother embraced Drake, and his father hugged them both. Then they melted together, one hugging lump with Drake at the center. Drake’s mom and dad both said some muffled words to him while they huddled, but I couldn’t hear them.
When they finally pulled apart, they all looked redder around the eyes. “Well, let’s go get the rental,” Drake’s father said when everyone had collected themselves, “and get back to Hershey.”
CHAPTER
32
I lost consciousness almost immediately in the backseat of the rental car and didn’t come to until Drake’s mom was patting my leg and calling to me. “Wake up, Celia,” she said gently. “After I called Drake’s grandmother, she called your mother, so she’s expecting you. They must have been trying to call us when we were on the train and didn’t have reception. Everyone was very worried.”
My head was resting on Drake’s shoulder, and his head was resting on the window. The car was sitting in front of my house. Time to face the music.
I got my backpack out of the trunk and said good-bye to the Berlins, then dragged my boots fearfully to the front door of my house. I was too tired to feel Dark. I stood on the porch and was starting to fish around for my house keys when the door swung open, and there was Mom, a furious Medusa, her curly hair made of snakes, ready to turn me to stone. Red lines crossed the whites of her eyes like tiny bolts of lightning.
“Inside,” she said, pointing so hard she might have dislocated her shoulder. She waved at Drake’s parents and then closed the door behind me.
“This is it, Celia!” She pointed one finger at me. “I’m done.” It was so obvious that I wasn’t going to get a word out that I didn’t even try.
I walked sheepishly over to the couch and sank down, dropping my backpack onto the floor. I wished I could be tiny enough to hide under one of the cushions. Mom was pacing back and forth across the rug.
“I got a call from Dorathea when I was at the hospital. She told me you were running away. So I tried calling and when you didn’t answer, I panicked and came home. I called everyone—your dad, Drake’s grandmother, the police. You can’t imagine how upset everyone was.” Her eyes were burning with anger. They were like lightbulbs or branding irons. She might have given me a sunburn just by looking at me.
I didn’t say anything.
“Celia.” Her voice fell out of her mouth like a rock. “Was it just because you thought I was going on a date?”
I shrugged. “No.”
“Not good enough,” she said. “No shrugging, no whatevers or I don’t knows. I’m sure the separation is difficult for you, and I’ve been trying really hard since your father left to be understanding and nonintrusive, but I don’t know what to do anymore. Do you hate living with me so much?” She collapsed into the armchair and put her hands over her eyes. “Is that it? Say something,” she demanded.
It made me ache to see my mom this upset, but I couldn’t bring myself to console her. “I said a lot of things. I begged you to let me move to Atlanta. I begged Dad to stay. It doesn’t matter when I say anything. You don’t listen.”
“I thought you would learn to be happy here with me.” She slapped her hands on her thighs. “You’re not even trying.”
“I hate it here,” I said, matching her intensity. “They’re so mean to me at school. Did you even notice that I didn’t have any friends before Drake? It’s not like I just chose Dad. I needed to get out of Hershey, and you trapped me here.” I was acutely aware of that crack inside of me.
My mom sat up straighter in her chair. “Kids are mean to you at school?”
That’s when the tide came in. I opened my mouth to speak, but instead I started crying.
The Latin word for tears is lacrimae, which I learned in a book called Human Tides: Our Waterways Within. Tears are regulated by the lacrimal glands and are collected inside our bodies in a place called the lacrimal lake. The dam on the lake burst inside of me and flooded the floor in the living room. I was in deep, heaving sobs that barely let me catch my breath. All of the hurt from Sandy and the Book, from Dad leaving, it was so present it might have happened minutes ago instead of months. My mom came over to the couch and put her arms around me. She started crying, too.
After a few minutes, Mom stood up and got us a box of tissues from the coffee table, then brushed the hair back away from my face.
“Are you going to get back together with Dad?” I asked her, wiping my nose with a tissue.
She looked in my eyes for a long minute and then sniffled. “I don’t think so, June Bug.”
My heart balled up, a messy bunch of yarn. I thought about my dad in Atlanta, staying there.
“You should go get some sleep,” she said. “No point in trying to go to school today.”
I picked up my backpack and started down the hall to my room.
“It wasn’t a date, you know,” she called after me. “Simon is the first friend I’ve made on my own.”
I could relate to needing a friend.
It was close to nine o’clock when I made it to my bed. Hershey High School was in session, as if nothing more important than second period was happening in the world. I fell onto my pillow without taking off my clothes. I slept. I did not dream.
CHAPTER
33
It’s a strange feeling waking up in the dark. For a moment, you have no idea what the world is up to. The sun might be obscured by nuclear fallout from a bomb that detonated while you were sleeping, or it might just be nighttime. The glowing letters on my alarm clock said 7:34 p.m., like it would on any normal Friday evening in September.
I wasn’t ready to face my mom again so I lay there in the dark for a while, wondering what would happen next. Would my dad just stay in Atlanta, and we would always live here? Would Drake go back to New York with his parents? What would happen when I went back to school? What if having Drake as a friend was just a glorious, monthlong break from my otherwise lonely, outcast life?
Eventually, I pulled myself out of bed and emerged from my room. My mom was in the kitchen pulling a handmade pizza out of the oven and putting it on the cutting board to cool. My favorite dinner.
“I was just about to call you,” she said, noticing me in the kitchen doorway.
I saw that the kitchen table was set with plates and forks; all the bills had been cleared away. I realized how long it had been since we sat down to dinner together at that table. It looked lonely with two plates sitting there instead of three.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, feeling like the tears might come back.<
br />
“I talked to your dad while you were sleeping,” she said. “He didn’t want me to wake you up and said you can email him back tomorrow. We decided that you are grounded for two weeks. You can only use your computer for schoolwork or to email family, and that’s on the honor system. Your dad is going to visit Hershey next weekend so we can all talk about what’s next, including where you want to live.”
“Okay,” I said, trying not to sound Dark. Dad was coming next weekend. That was supposed to be Drake’s last weekend in Hershey, the weekend of Homecoming. There was a time when all I wanted was to have a say in where I would live. But I didn’t care that much if I lived in Hershey or Atlanta if Drake wouldn’t be in either place.
“And I talked to your principal. He told me about your poem getting hung up all over school and about what it said. Is that the reason you and Drake tried to run off to New York?”
I felt the tears coming back again. “Mom, I told the whole school that he’s gay.” I wiped away the first two drops from my cheeks, but more followed. “I promised him that I would never tell anyone.”
“Oh, honey. You didn’t do that. The person who posted your poem did.” My mom drew me into a hug. “I wish you had told me what was going on. We’re going to meet with Principal Foster on Monday morning and talk about everything. But for now, he said that you will have a two-day suspension for skipping school.”
“Okay,” I said into my mom’s shoulder. It felt so good to be held by her.
That night my mom and I ate dinner and talked. We didn’t talk about school or Drake or me trying to run off to New York in the middle of the night. She didn’t bring up the suspension again. We talked about books that we liked and movies we wanted to see. She told me stories about the hospital, other nurses, and things patients had done.
After dinner, I helped with the dishes. We were clearing the last of them when my mom suddenly slapped her forehead and said, “Oh, I forgot.” Then she went to the front door and picked up a paper grocery bag. “Someone left this for you,” she said. “I found it on the porch while you were sleeping.”
“Thanks.” I nervously took the bag from my mom and then retreated to my room. I closed the door and sat down on my bed to open the sack. Inside was my black-and-white poetry journal that Sandy had stolen. Along with it was a letter.
Weird—
Got your book out of Sandy’s locker. Don’t ask how. Suspension is just another word for freedom.
Clock
How did Clock know I was suspended? A tingly sensation rippled from my fingers down to my toes and a jolt of relief passed through me. I gave my poetry notebook a squeeze like it was a friend I hadn’t seen in ages.
Then I got up and went to my desk and opened the bottom right-hand drawer. Under all the other papers and knickknacks, floaty pens, Hershey erasers and golf balls, I found it. The Book. It seemed smaller and lighter than I remembered. I turned on a lamp and opened the cover. There was the note titled, Things Celia Needs to Change. Even though a voice in my head told me not to, I started reading through the list. Grooming, clothes, friends, attitude. I read the suggestions saying I should brush my hair, shop at better stores, get some friends. I waited for the old black hole to form in my chest and for the pit in my stomach to grow into a tree and suffocate me with its roots and limbs. I waited for my throat to tighten and for my head to get light and my tongue heavy.
But something else happened.
As I read the list this time, I didn’t feel sick. I didn’t want to cry or disappear. Actually, I didn’t feel much at all. The dull ache of disgust never started aching. I almost missed it. I realized that I didn’t care about the Book the way I used to or what those ridiculous girls thought about me. The kids in Hershey probably weren’t cool enough to get me. I didn’t care if the whole school or even the whole world made me an outcast. All I cared about was Drake, and the fact that he might be leaving.
Tossing the notebook down, I lay back on my bed and pictured myself back in the bathroom, filling up the tub with water and bubble bath, finding my mom’s razor blade. Had I really wanted to die that day? If I had died, I never would have met Drake. I never would have written a poem. Maybe there were more good things coming for me after this, and I just didn’t know what they were yet.
Something had changed since that day. There was a strong place deep inside me, like I was a planet with an iron core. I could feel it in there, molten and churning. I wrapped my arms tightly around my pillow and fell asleep.
CHAPTER
34
The next day was Saturday, and September was drawing to an end. Leaves built themselves into piles against the mailboxes and the sides of houses. Pumpkins magically appeared on both of my neighbors’ steps. Fall had fully taken root in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Mom had to work but left me a chore list that said:
1. Laundry
2. Put a lasagna in the oven at four
3. Email your father!
I started by emailing Dad.
Re: I’m sorry
From: Celia ([email protected])
Sent: Sat 9/25 9:27 AM
To: James Door ([email protected])
hi, dad,
i’m sorry about leaving and not telling anyone where I was going and making everyone worry. things have been hard at school and some stuff happened that I want to tell you about. can we talk about it when you come home next weekend?
celia
I had an email from Dorathea waiting in my inbox.
Re: safe
From: Dorathea Eberhardt ([email protected])
Sent: Fri 9/24 8:45 AM
To: Celia ([email protected])
celia,
i felt conflicted when i got your email. i believe in keeping secrets, but it’s dangerous to be fourteen and out on your own. so i burned sage and chanted until i knew what to do. after two hours in meditation, i started experiencing visions. i saw you, ringed in a fog of smoke, boarding an airplane.
at first the airplane was having a hard time taking off, so the flight attendants opened the windows and started tossing chocolate bars overboard until the plane was light enough to fly. as the plane climbed higher in altitude, i saw your spirit get lighter. finally, the plane was dancing through a sky that did not contain clouds.
it was a really positive vision, but i still realized that i had to call your mom. she called me two hours later and said you were safe. i also saw your spirit animal, but i think it is wrong to reveal another person’s spirit animal to her until she has the vision herself.
don’t run away again. never forget that you are special.
d
Dorathea had outdone herself on the weird emails. But who was I to judge? I had done a lot of weird things in the past month. Maybe my spirit panther got into some catnip.
I had another email in my inbox as well.
Re: Submission for Hershey High Lit Journal
From: Tara Flowers ([email protected])
Sent: Fri 9/24 9:21 AM
To: Celia ([email protected])
Dear Celia,
Our editorial team at the Hershey High Literary Magazine, Nexus, liked the poem you submitted: “whales are not fishes but mammals.” We also saw your poem starting “Since Drake told me that day in the wooded lot,” posted in the hall. We thought it was fabulous! We are inviting you to submit three to five poems to our next edition, published in late October. The theme is Bitter Sweet.
We also host a creative writing circle every Thursday after school in Mr. Pearson’s classroom. Come write with us! We would love to see you there.
Sincerely,
Tara & Warren
Nexus Editors
I was light-headed. An editorial team saw my poem posted in the hall and they liked it! They were inviting me to a writing circle! I had no idea who Tara and Warren were. Were they like Drake and me? Was it possible we weren’t really alone?
I was considering this radical possibility w
hen the phone rang in the kitchen. It was Drake. Our conversation went like this:
Drake: “Any way you can get out of the house?”
Me: “I’m grounded for two weeks.”
Drake: “I leave for New York tomorrow.”
My heart ran away with the spoon. Tomorrow? Tomorrow! “Five minutes,” I said.
“Wooded lot.”
When I got close to Drake’s house, I left the sidewalk and took my usual path through the neighbor’s yard, behind the fence. I wasn’t sure if his parents and grandmother were home, and I didn’t want to be spotted in case they would report back to Mom that I was already breaking the rules of my grounding. Ducking behind the fence all the way to the wooded lot, I caught sight of Drake emerging from his lawn, zipping up his jacket. We met just beyond the tree line.
Before I could say a word, his arms were around me. He pulled me into a hug so tight that I lost most of my breath.
“Drumph,” I said into his jacket.
“Huh?” He let a little space between us.
“Drake,” I repeated with more enunciation. “I can’t breathe.”
“Oh, sorry.” He released his arms from my ribs and let my lungs fill up again.
“Let’s get farther away from the house.” He took my hand and led me deeper into the trees. A few wild crocuses still poked their brave heads through the grassier areas of the lot, but overall it felt like a room that warm weather had been inhabiting and, one day, just up and left. We went to our usual log.
The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door Page 17