Me You Us

by Aaron Karo

  Sometimes, that’s all you need.

  44

  I BURST INTO THE TEACHERS’ lounge and start scanning the room. I’m on a mission. But I’m also disheveled and have a black eye, so all the teachers in the lounge are wondering why a feral student is going rogue in their private area.

  Buoyed by Hedgehog and Balloon’s reconciliation, I’ve come here to see if I’ve still got it. Maybe I can still make a difference.

  At first I think I’ve come up empty. I stalk through the lounge without finding what I’m looking for. Finally I reach the kitchenette in the back. Inside are a coffee machine, a fridge, a two-person table, and Deb sitting with her back to me, reading her iPad. Her seemingly floor-length hair is unmistakable. Bingo.

  “Ms. Solomon,” I say, “can I talk to you for a second?”

  Deb turns around to look at me. “Oh my. What happened to your eye?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Is that from the same boy who was harassing you in the Student Council office?”

  “No,” I lie. “This was just an accident. Thank you, by the way, for helping me that time. Everything is fine, though.”

  “Okay,” she says, remaining unconvinced. “What can I do for you?”

  I enter the kitchenette area and sit across the table from her.

  “It’s Mr. Kimbrough,” I say.

  “Shane.” She lowers her voice. “I don’t think we should talk about this right now.” As in, all my coworkers are in the other room.

  “It won’t take long,” I say, trying to be as discreet as possible.

  “You shouldn’t be involved, Shane. You shouldn’t even be in here.”

  “Please let me say what I have to say. You need to hear it.”

  “All right,” she says, crossing her arms.

  “First you should know that this is coming from me. He doesn’t even know I’m here. It’s just that Mr. Kimbrough, um, Bob . . . he’s great. He’s a good teacher and a great guy. I know he gets a little carried away sometimes and is a little over the top, but that’s just because he cares about you so much. I’ve never met anyone with such a heart of gold.”

  “I appreciate you saying all this, Shane. Bob is lucky to know you. He really is. It’s just . . . that formula. That algorithm. It was too much. And too public.”

  “I know,” I say. “The texting. And the ‘moves.’ It’s a ­little creepy. But that’s my fault. All those things were stupid stuff I told him. He only posted it because he was excited. He was so happy when he was around you. I just think it was his misguided attempt to share some of that happiness with the world. His heart was in the right place. And it’s a big heart.”

  She looks at me like she’s possibly considering my plea.

  “You have to give him another chance, Ms. Solomon. I promise you he’s worth it.”

  Suddenly another voice is heard.

  “Shane? What are you doing here?”

  We look up to see Mr. Kimbrough.

  “Your eye! What happened?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  He enters the kitchenette area as well.

  “Hey, Deb,” he says.

  “Hi, Bob. Shane here was just telling me some very nice things about you.”

  Mr. Kimbrough looks at me, ashen. Then to Deb: “I swear I didn’t put him up to it. I—”

  “It’s okay,” Deb interjects. “I know. It’s all right.”

  “Mr. Kimbrough,” I say, “I was just telling her that the whole Galgorithm thing was my fault and that she shouldn’t blame you for it and that you got a little carried away and that she should give you another chance.”

  “Well, I think a little carried away might be a bit of an understatement,” he says.

  Everyone chuckles, and this thankfully cuts the tension just a bit.

  “I’m grateful for you coming here, Shane, and for everything you’ve done, but I can handle this myself.” He turns to Ms. Solomon. “Deb, I know I’ve said this before, but I’m sorry again for my behavior. It was inappropriate. It was immature. It was downright one three five seven nine.”

  Deb and I both look at him quizzically.

  “Odd. My behavior was downright odd.”

  I shake my head, but Deb laughs. I guess in a weird, teachery way, Mr. K. can be quite charming.

  “I would love to go out with you again,” he continues, “under more . . . normal circumstances. But if you would prefer to just be friends and coworkers, I totally understand.”

  Taking the high road as always. Good for you, Bob. Now Deb will take the bait, accept your apology, and be so impressed that she agrees to take you back. Happy ending for all!

  Deb smiles. “Bob, I’ve really enjoyed our time together. You’re sweet and funny, and I love your math jokes.”

  Mr. K. looks at me as if to say: See, at least someone appreciates them!

  “But,” she continues, “I think I would like to just be friends. It would be so much less complicated. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”

  Mr. K. nods his head solemnly. “I understand,” he says.

  They share a tender little moment.

  But I’m having none of it.

  “What do you mean, you understand?” I exclaim. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go!”

  Bob and Deb look at me like the naive teenager I am. “Things don’t always work out the way you want them to,” Mr. K. says. “But it’s not always a bad thing. It’s just the way things are.”

  Deb adds: “Bob’s right. You’re something else, Shane. I’ve never met a student quite like you.”

  Mr. K. nods in agreement.

  I stamp my feet like a child.

  “Are you gonna be okay?” Deb asks me.

  I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. So I say the first thing that comes to mind. “Does this mean you’re gonna start giving pop quizzes in history again?”

  Deb furrows her brow at first, having no idea what I’m talking about. “Ah,” she says, “right. Your friend Jak is in my class. Well, tell Jak she has nothing to worry about. And I didn’t even count her as absent that day she cut.” She smiles. “Now you should probably get to your next period.”

  Deb stands up, next to Bob.

  I stand as well.

  “Thank you for everything, Shane,” Bob says.

  I give them one last look before I leave. I used to avoid Mr. Kimbrough when he needed advice. Now I want nothing more than to see him and Ms. Solomon together. He seems content to just be friends with Deb, but I hate the fact that he’s accepted defeat.

  I guess he’s right: Not everyone gets what they want.

  And I’m resigned to the same fate.

  45

  I TRUDGE BACK TO MY locker. The next period has started, and the senior hallway is empty. I open my locker and just stare into it blankly. The day has already been a whirlwind. Only a few more weeks of this, I try to reassure myself.

  I can’t sit in a classroom right now. I also don’t want to be alone. I want to text Jak and see if she’ll cut and meet me to hang out. Then I reconsider. Seeing her but not being with her is just too painful. My head is spinning. I should really go to class. My truancy has become chronic, even for a senior.

  I close my locker and then literally jump and grab my heart. Tristen is just standing there, out of nowhere, like in a horror movie.

  “What the!” I yelp.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Tristen, you scared the crap out of me.”

  “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “It’s not avoiding if I told you directly that I can’t see you anymore.”

  “You didn’t mean that.”

  Oh boy. I have been doing my best to end things with ­Tristen amicably. I’ve really been giving it the ol’ college try. But she refuses to let me go. Yes, I may have slipped up a little bit in the parking lot. But I quickly came to my senses and told her we were through. Since then I’ve been making sure I’m not giving her the wrong imp
ression. She just keeps coming back, like a hot zombie.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I just wanted to see how your eye was.”

  “Well, now you can see: It’s swollen and gross.”

  “I actually think it’s really sexy.”

  Of course you do.

  Sometimes I hate myself. After all, 99.99 percent of me knows that Tristen isn’t right for me. But even after everything that’s happened, there’s still that .01 percent saying, Hey, listen, Jak is out of the picture; why not? I hate that .01 percent of me. I hate the testosterone that courses through my body, over which I seem to have no control.

  “You wanna sneak into an empty classroom?” she asks.

  I pause, but quickly gather myself. “No, Tristen. I don’t want to sneak into an empty classroom. Please. I’m begging you. Leave me alone.”

  Tristen does not leave me alone. Instead she moves in closer and starts caressing my bruised face.

  And just when I think that this already terrible moment, in this absolutely dreadful month, of this totally disastrous year, in my increasingly meaningless life, could not get any worse, I see him: my sworn enemy, Harrison, fully clothed this time, walking toward us down the hall.

  I briefly consider using her as a human shield, but I pry Tristen off me instead.

  “We just have a way of bumping into each other, don’t we, Chambliss?” Harrison says when he gets to my locker. “I’m glad I was running late for class.”

  He doesn’t look very glad. I don’t say anything.

  “Hey, Tristen,” Harrison says.

  “Hello,” she replies.

  She puts her hand on my arm.

  I make a calculated gamble and say, “Tristen, Harrison is the one who did this to my eye.”

  Who knows? Maybe she’ll kill him. That could work.

  She caresses my face again. “You did this?” she asks ­Harrison. “Why?”

  “He doesn’t know how to mind his own business,” he says.

  “That’s a lie,” I say to Harrison. “I’ve done nothing but mind my own business. Rebecca is gone. Let her go. I’m not the problem.”

  “Oh yeah?” Harrison says. “How about the fact that I sprained my hand and couldn’t pitch? I almost lost my scholarship.”

  “Really? You’re gonna blame me for punching me in the face and hurting your hand?”

  “Yeah, that’s just crazy,” Tristen adds, being an expert herself.

  Harrison grits his teeth and begins to crack the knuckles on his good hand.

  Witnessing me about to get pummeled turns Tristen on, because what doesn’t? She holds me closer.

  And that’s when, by the grace of God, I have two epiphanies:

  One, Tristen and Harrison are both bullies.

  And two, they belong together.

  How could I have been so dense? Here we have two of the most attractive people in school. They keep running into each other. They’re both obsessed with me. They both have a few screws loose. They both want to save the world. Tristen, for all her psychosis, is still a good person deep down—and she must be lonely. Harrison, despite his bloodlust, is really just nursing a broken heart (in addition to a sprained hand). It was meant to be!

  I peel Tristen off me once more and try my best to keep Harrison at bay.

  “Guys,” I say, “I want you to hear me out. I think, maybe, what you’re both looking for is right in front of you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Harrison bristles.

  “Tristen here may seem like just a pretty face—” I say.

  “Thank you,” she interrupts, mistaking this for a compliment.

  I continue: “But this summer she’s doing both Habitat for Humanity and helping dolphins in the Congo.”

  “Technically Gabon,” she says.

  “Technically Gabon,” I clarify.

  “And Tristen, you may only know Harrison as the star of our baseball team, or former star.”

  Harrison growls.

  I press on: “But he is actually quite committed to conserving natural resources. Right?”

  There’s a moment of silence . . . but then Harrison engages.

  “Did you know those dolphin-safe labels on cans of tuna aren’t regulated?” he says to Tristen. “They basically don’t mean anything.”

  She perks up. “No, I didn’t know that! I love tuna fish. Does that mean all those cans of tuna are hurting dolphins?”

  “You’re probably fine,” he says. “But after you finish with the cans, I hope you—”

  “Recycle them,” they say simultaneously.

  A spark flies.

  “I hate dolphins and recycling,” I interject for emphasis. It’s ignored.

  “Of course,” Tristen says to Harrison, “I always recycle. I have like six bags of soda bottles in my trunk I’m gonna recycle after school.”

  “Really?” Harrison says, as he steps toward Tristen and I slowly back away. “Do you want company? I can carry everything.”

  Tristen glances at Harrison’s biceps. Then they lock eyes.

  “But what about Shane?” Tristen asks, suddenly turning and remembering little old me.

  “Who, me?” I reply from halfway down the hall. “Don’t worry about me. You have my blessing. Please.”

  Tristen, incredibly, is satisfied by this, and turns back to Harrison. He, on the other hand, is now glowering at me.

  “Are we even?” I ask.

  Harrison loses focus and sneaks a peek at Tristen’s cleavage. Total kryptonite.

  “Even,” he mumbles, and I can sense he’s already forgotten his own name.

  I backpedal the rest of the way down the hall.

  They are lost in each other’s eyes and are finally out of my hands.

  Sweet relief.

  46

  IT’S A BREEZY BUT WARM Saturday night. The kind of night that should be filled with parties and hijinks. I always figured my senior year would wind down in a haze of booze, girls, and fun. Instead, none of those things are present and I’m driving around aimlessly with Reed.

  My eye has finally healed enough for me to show my face in public outside school. But things with Jak are still frayed, and everyone else seems to be busy with their significant others or scrambling for prom dates or cramming for finals. I’ve given up on it all. Reed told me he had news, so I figured I would pick him up and we’d make a night out of it. Some night. Reed has mostly been silent as he sits in the passenger seat of my Jeep.

  “We’ve been driving in circles for half an hour,” I say. “Either tell me the news or let’s pick a destination.”

  Reed takes a deep breath. “I’ve been talking to Marisol,” he says.

  “Oh,” I say.

  Reed has been pretty mum about Marisol ever since I tried to inspire him to win her back. He never brought it up, so I just assumed the worst.

  “I decided to end things,” he says.

  I cock my head. “What do you mean you decided to end things?”

  “Well, after I explained to her what the Galgorithm was really about, and she had a chance to let it all sink in, she forgave me.”

  “Nice.”

  “She said that she was actually flattered that I had gone to such great lengths to win her over. I told her I would have followed a thousand Galgorithms if it meant we could be together.”

  “So she’s not mad.”

  “Nah. She said everyone at school kinda got worked up about it, and she just got swept up in that. She wanted to give it another try.”

  “So what do you mean you ended it?”

  “Well, I decided I’m not ready to be in a relationship. Now that I know what it’s like, I mean. Marisol was my first girlfriend. And it was amazing. But I told her she’d be better off with someone else.”

  “Why on earth would you say that?”

  “Because I feel like I’ve found a higher calling.”

  I glance over at Reed in the passenger seat. He’s adopted a middle ground be
tween his mom-certified wardrobe and the more fashionable attire I picked out for him. He looks good now. Upbeat and comfortable in his own skin. Even his posture looks better.

  “A higher calling?” I ask. “You’re gonna become a priest?”

  “No,” Reed says. “Even better. I’m gonna become you.”

  “Huh?”

  “I wanna be your successor.”

  I do a double take.

  “My successor?”

  “Yeah. I want to take over where you left off. I want to use everything you taught me. I want to help people find love. I wanna reboot the Galgorithm.”

  A million thoughts cross my mind, and I struggle to process them while continuing to drive in my lane.

  “But Reed, you know as well as anyone that the ­Galgorithm isn’t real. That thing Mr. Kimbrough created was a joke. I never wrote down any of my actual methods.”

  “But I did.”

  Reed holds up his little notebook.

  Of course.

  “I’ve been keeping notes from day one,” he says. “Including some stuff you told only me. What I have in here is more exhaustive and more accurate and more secret than anything that’s online. This is like Galgorithm 2.0. And the world deserves to see it.”

  I shake my head and smile in disbelief.

  “I was also thinking,” he continues, “that this doesn’t just have to help guys. You have plenty of tips that will work for girls, too. Especially if it’s all about confidence and being present. There’s no reason why I can’t offer girls a ‘secret formula’ into our minds.”

  “So . . . ,” I say. “Like a Guygorithm.”

  “Yes! Guygorithm. I need to write that down.”

  He scribbles in his notebook.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this, Reed?” I ask. “Being known as a dating expert is a lot of pressure.”

  “Well, maybe it’s not so much about advising and coaching. Maybe it’s more of a matchmaking service. You know, finding the right girl and the right guy and bringing them together. Plus relationship advice. You did all of that, too, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “True.” I choose not to mention the times this went horribly awry, or, in the case of me and Jak, the time it failed completely.