by Shen, L. J.
She dangled that negative, lackluster report about my progress, threatening to send it to Sonya, my long-time therapist back home, too.
I took April to a taco joint and ordered two of everything on the menu. Then I flashed the fake ID Knight had hooked me up with as a joke on my eighteenth birthday and got us margaritas, too. I made an effort to speak to her in sign language, because texting from across the table seemed extra weird. I even smiled. I was desperate not to go back home with my tail between my legs. So I decided to fake it till I made it.
It worked.
April smacked my back when we left the restaurant. “You’re cool, Raymond. Who’d have thought? Not me, that’s for sure.”
I was mentally exhausted from talking. I needed to close my eyes and shut the world out for a month or two.
“Hey, so my friend is throwing a party next week…” she started, and I darted my eyes to her pleadingly.
I’d die if she asked me to join them. I shook my head slowly.
April burst into howls of laughter. “Um, no, my little grasshopper. Redirect that thought. I was wondering if I could give you money for some beer and other liquor.”
I nodded. That I could do.
She grinned, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “You’ll need to lighten up eventually. You know that, right?”
I didn’t, but people were starting to make it impossible for me not to.
November
Then there was a boy.
An actual boy.
With limbs and everything. A real boy. That noticed. Me.
Josh: Party 2nite?
“Ask him if the party’s in his pants, and if you can bring a plus one.” April peeked at my phone behind my shoulder, reading my incoming text message. “I’d climb Josh like a tree hugger saving a rainforest given the slightest opportunity.”
I tucked the phone back into the pocket of my jeans, chuckling.
“Come on.” She flung herself over my bed—we had bunk beds, and of course, I’d agreed to take the lower bunk on day one—kicking her socked feet in the air. “We’ve been here for months, and you haven’t gone to one party. That’s, legit, the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m happy you’ve never had to deal with truly sad things, then,” I signed to her.
I’d been doing a lot of signing lately. More than I had in years in Todos Santos. I finally got why Dad had been so desperate for me to come here.
It forced me out of my shell.
It broke said shell like a glass ball.
Truth was, I couldn’t not sign. I needed to buy groceries. Communicate with people around me. Talk to teachers. Survive.
“I have some homework to catch up on,” I lied, ducking my head to my MacBook. The typewriter next to it was getting dusty.
April threw a pillow at me, laughing. “Liar, liar, thong on fire. You’re acing all your courses and flying back home tomorrow morning. You don’t have anything going on. Come. Party. Chill. And give Josh a decent chance.”
Something in my gut twisted at the mention of Josh’s name. Not because I didn’t like him. The opposite, actually. He was mute—as a kid, he’d suffered trauma to his vocal cords in a car accident and could no longer produce any sound—and I felt oddly defensive about our tender friendship.
I’d seen Josh on campus for the first time three months ago, in the cafeteria. He had a smooth, young face, dark skin, and striking features. He’d been clad in white jockey silk and a hoodie. A flock of girls had cawed around him, so loud against his comfortable silence. His eyes had met mine across the room, as if I’d called his name. I’d clutched my books tighter to my chest and slipped out of the cafeteria.
I’d tried to convince myself he hadn’t really noticed me, that I was just so thirsty for the attention I was no longer getting from Knight, I’d started imagining things.
Then, overnight, I saw Josh everywhere—on the front lawn on campus, at the local Starbucks, at the library, in three different lectures, and at the stables where I volunteered as part of my ongoing therapy with animals. No matter where I went, he was there, until we had no choice but to smile hello at each other—not because we knew one another, but because it was pointless to pretend we weren’t familiar with each other’s faces.
April and her friends were gaga about him, so I found out his name and that he was teaching special needs kids horseback riding three times a week. The first time I noticed he spoke in sign language, my heart slowed, almost coming to a full stop.
He hadn’t noticed me, focused instead on his conversation with April. They’d stood across the hallway from me, oblivious to my presence. He had a laid-back, confident smile, like he didn’t consider his muteness a disadvantage. He had a roommate, Ryan, who’d sometimes interpret for him, the way April did for me. And sometimes he’d type things on his phone to communicate. But he always walked with the self-assurance of someone unstoppable, inspiring me to think maybe I could feel that way someday, too.
I knew with fierce certainty that our paths were bound to collide. We were both freshmen, studying in a small college in North Carolina, and both of us were mute. My instinct had proved true about four weeks after I initially saw him.
I’d hurried into Starbucks to escape the drizzle, tossed my scarf and pea coat onto a table by the window, got myself hot cocoa, and had the barista, Nicole, punch the timesheet Malory had given me—testimony that I was keeping up with my twice-a-week sessions. I’d always kept my Starbucks visits as brief as possible, staying the twenty minutes Malory requested from me and dashing back home.
But this time, when I’d turned around to take my seat, Josh was perched on a stool at my table, clad in his jockey outfit and a smile that could melt hearts. Nervous, but open. I’d liked that he was confident, but still not completely well-versed in his attractiveness, like Knight was.
“Am I that invisible?” He’d tilted his ball cap down and signed to me, knowing I would understand him.
There was something in my stomach. Not exactly butterflies, but not the usual, empty hum I usually got when guys—even handsome guys—spoke to me. I’d lifted my eyebrows.
I could do it. I could answer him. I could use teenage as a verb.
“You weren’t here when I came in,” I signed, poking out my lower lip.
“Prove it,” he challenged, knotting his arms across his chest.
He was long-limbed and lean—good looking, but not intimidatingly so. I could imagine him accompanying his mother to the mall or playing Xbox. Things Knight did, technically speaking, too, but he still looked too untouchable and beautiful to be bothered.
“That’s ridiculous,” I motioned.
I reminded myself to breathe. I was doing it. I was having a conversation. With a stranger. A breakthrough.
“Says who?” he asked.
“Says me.” I nearly snorted.
“Pretty sure you’ll need to prove your case and not vice versa. I’ve been taking some pre-law courses.”
“Where’s your drink, then? If you were here before, you must’ve ordered something.” I bit my lip.
His eyebrows shot up to his hairline, which was buzzed close to the scalp.
He sighed. “You got me. I just saw an opening to talk to you and went for it. Clearly, my plan was not bulletproof.”
“Are you stalking me?” I asked, mostly joking, but I couldn’t help but feel a dash of panic, too, a familiar tug in my stomach. I was not in the best headspace.
I couldn’t get Knight out of my mind, as if talking to Josh was cheating on him, though he had no claim. I’d tried Skyping Knight a dozen times since I’d been at college, but he never answered. He did text me sometimes, and I kept reading and rereading his messages, trying to decode some deeper meaning, especially after how we’d left things at Vaughn’s party.
We’d never talked about the slap. I was too embarrassed to bring it up, and these days he seemed to tiptoe around me, dipping his toes in mindless pleasantries but avoiding an actual conversat
ion.
Knight: Broke my middle finger. Switching to running plays. Killing my pass percentage. I’m getting hit more. Texting less. Stay safe. x
Knight: Sorry couldn’t answer. Need to rest. How’s school?
Knight: Missed your call again. Sorry. x
Luna: How’d you break your middle finger?
Knight: Fingering the wrong asshole.
Knight: JK. Practice.
Luna: I miss you.
Knight: xx.
Luna: How is Rosie?
Knight: Fine.
Luna: You know how I feel about that word…
Knight: Sorry. Good. Mom’s good. x
I sometimes wondered what hurt more: Losing someone all of a sudden, like in a plane crash, or losing them piece by piece, like I did Knight. It was like feeling a once-warm body growing cold next to you in bed. Chills ran through my back. I wanted to throw up half the time I thought about him.
“Stalking you!” Josh had thrown his arms up, feigning exasperation and commanding my attention. “For your information, yes, I did stalk you. But only a little. And only when we were both already out and about. I don’t know where you live or anything creepy like that. But I was walking on Main Street on my way to get chicken noodle soup for my sick roommate when I saw you walk in and thought, there’s my in.”
I’d smiled at him. Really smiled, for the first time in a long time. He was charming and pleasant and normal. Yes. That was the part I liked most about him.
“Luna,” I’d signed, offering him my hand.
He took it.
“Josh. Joshua. Whatever you want to call me, really. Just as long as you do.”
Josh had then said he really needed to go get his roommate that soup before he got kicked out of his dorm room.
“You’re here a lot,” he’d observed, flipping his ball cap backward.
I couldn’t deny it, because Malory was going to make sure I’d be here, whether I wanted to or not. I shrugged.
“Mind if I invite myself to tag along sometime?”
I’d shrugged again, fighting the urge to shut him down. Vaughn was right. It was high time I made my own friends, and connections, and life.
After that, Josh had come every day, even when I wasn’t there. I knew because the baristas told me.
At the stables, I sometimes watched Josh teaching other kids who spoke sign language as I swept with a wooden broom. Sometimes, he’d buy me hot cocoa and put it outside the door, knowing how embarrassed I was to be given things.
We were just friends. I’d quickly made it clear I was still hung up on a boy from home. I told Josh Knight was my ex-boyfriend. It felt less pitiful than being desperately in love with your childhood friend, who was probably screwing his way to the top of a Guinness record for being the most obnoxious, desired teenager to ever live.
I’d tried to Skype Knight a few more times before completely giving up. We’d just see each other at Thanksgiving. Our parents always spent it together, so we couldn’t delay talking to each other much past that, no matter how much he dreaded it.
When I returned from my lengthy trip through my thoughts, April had thrown her head back on my bed and was rolling around and moaning Josh’s name to highlight how hot he was.
And he was. But he wasn’t Knight. Though I reminded myself that Knight seemed to have moved on. He didn’t have an active Instagram account, but sometimes, at night, I stalked the accounts of girls he went to school with and found pictures of him from parties and football games. He looked happy, and that made me unhappy. The fact that it made me unhappy made me even more unhappy.
“Don’t tell me.” April rolled to a sitting position and blew a purple lock from her face. “You don’t want to go because then Josh might finally kiss you, and you will lose the precious notion that the idiot back home is going to get back with you.”
April thought Knight was my ex-boyfriend, too. The lie had grown larger, wings bursting from its back. The more it matured, the less I was comfortable considering myself her and Josh’s true friend.
“Let it go, Luna. You’re going to spend the next few years away from this dude. It’s over.”
I swiveled in my chair and pinned her with a look.
“That is not what it’s about,” I signed.
Or maybe it was. But either way, social gatherings made me physically sick. However, I knew with Josh and April there, I wouldn’t be alone.
“Before you say no to Josh, I want you to consider something.” April sprang up from my bunk and sashayed over to my laptop, hovering above me. “I didn’t want to show you this, but I guess I have no choice.”
My heart jumped to my throat. April leaned down and punched an Instagram handle into the search bar, opening an account I was familiar with. It was one of the popular senior girls Knight went to school with, Poppy Astalis. He’d never mentioned her throughout our friendship, but of course, my weekly searches included her. She was an English rose, sans the thorns—all sweet, delicate, and trimmed where appropriate. Her father was one of the most well-known sculptors in the world, and after her mother had passed away, he’d agreed to take on a consulting job, assisting in opening Todos Santos School of Art, uprooting Poppy and her younger sister, Lenora, from their London residence.
Poppy was pretty, but she wasn’t made from the same velvet, tainted cloth of the rich Todos Santos girls. She’d always been nice to me during the two years we’d spent at All Saints High together, and she was a straight-A student. She played the accordion, skipped most parties, but attended the important ones, and from what I’d heard, she was always the one to drive drunk girls home before they did something stupid.
“Maybe this will inspire you to give up on the dickhead.” April clicked on the newest picture in Poppy’s Instagram, and my throat closed in on my heart.
It was a perfect Pinterest picture: pint-sized Poppy standing on top of Knight’s helmet in an empty field, her arms wrapped around his neck, both of them lost in a deep, passionate kiss. He was still wearing his football gear, dirty and sweaty and so alive he nearly burst out of the screen. Gorgeous. Victorious. Like a god who’d descended from the sky. Friday night lights shone on the beautiful couple, highlighting his glistening, disheveled brown hair. Against the backdrop of the black night and empty bleachers, they looked nothing short of high school royalty.
The caption read:
We Won! #StillLikeRealFootballBetter #NoItsNotCalledSoccer #KnightColeForPresident #MineMineMine
The pen I’d been chewing slipped between my fingers, and I bent down to pick it up, hitting my head on the edge of my desk. I lost my footing. I didn’t even feel the fresh wound on my forehead. I patted it, confused, feeling warm, thick liquid between my curls.
“Jesus, Luna! You’re bleeding! We need to go to the nurse.”
The nurse glued my head, which, of course, was super fun. Then she gave me a painkiller and asked me to promise her to be less clumsy next time. I nodded—what else could I do?—thinking deep down it was ridiculous to ask me to be less clumsy. No one chose to be clumsy. It was hardly a trait one tried to excel at.
But sure, I would try to be less clumsy.
Less quiet.
Less of a screw up.
More normal.
Less dead on the inside. Because that’s what it felt like—seeing Knight moving on with another girl.
I needed a drink. And I needed it bad.
Knight had a girlfriend. Of course he had one. Of course. Or he wouldn’t publicly kiss her. Everyone knew the infamous HotHoles weren’t about public displays of affection. Yeah, they were just like their dads had been—hot assholes. Hence the name.
Knight, Vaughn, and Hunter completely disregarded the fairer sex as a concept. Publicly, anyway. Knight didn’t have just any girlfriend, either. Poppy was love material. Beautiful, kind, and sweet. She was probably the reason he’d stopped texting me. God, what a fool I was—telling him I missed him, coaxing him to answer me.
As soon as April and I
got back to our room from the nurse, I took out my phone and texted Josh.
Luna: I need a drink.
The message was seen before I could put my phone down.
Josh: Is that your way of accepting my party invitation?
Luna: Yup.
Josh: I have a better idea. Meet me at the stables.
Luna: …
Josh: !!!
Luna: We’re not supposed to be there after hours.
Josh: Didn’t you tell me you want to use teenage as a verb?
Luna: Yes. My stepmom tells me to do that all the time.
Josh: Well, she’s right. Trust me?
Funnily enough, I did. I did trust him. Was it insane that I put my faith in this stranger? Was I going to get burned?
Luna: I’ll be a little bit, but I’ll get there.
I dragged myself to the communal showers. My gut twisted and clenched as the hot stream hit my body, and the Instagram image of Knight kissing Poppy played in my head, on a loop.
I threw up straight into the drain, the sound of the water drowning the retching.
The barn was located behind the main college buildings, on a rolling green hill, surrounded by a low wooden fence, overlooking a water tower. The stable looked almost like an ordinary house, red-roofed and swan white. It nearly glowed in the dark as I pedaled my way toward it. I left my bike propped against the fence and hopped over. A trickle of fear slithered in my empty stomach. Everything was dark, silent, and deserted.
I’d always been shy and reserved, but never cautious. I was actually a tomboy. Edie had taught me how to swim and surf at a young age. Dad encouraged me to loosen up and take risks. He’d signed me up for a martial arts class so I could defend myself, but told me not to be scared of boys, so I never was.
I knew Dad would cheer for me, had he known I was meeting Josh.
Edie would be elated.
But Knight? He would be angry. Furious. Betrayed. Even though Josh was exactly what I needed. Maybe if I’d taken more risks, met more Joshes and Aprils in my life, Knight and I would be together today. But then I’d never have met Josh and April at all, never left home in the first place.