by S R Savell
“Sure. And what’s wrong?” He’s finished his work and walks around the counter, sitting in his own butt-numbing chair.
“It used to be ‘Are you okay?’ Now you know something’s wrong.” I stretch. “Mom again.”
“I’m sorry.”
The phone buzzes.
“I’m used to it.” I pick it up and read the message.
I’m not driving that late.
“Now she’s saying she’s not driving that late.”
“I could walk you to the bus station if you want.” He smiles, sitting forward in his seat.
“I don’t want you going out of your way.”
“It’s not, really.”
What if Nathaniel takes me 2 the bus station?
I glance up. “Hey, um, Nate?”
“Hm?” He’s eying my history book.
“Never mind.” I lean forward too, chin on hand. “But, hey, you can read my books if you want.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I’m not.”
“Thank you.” He turns it over in his hands.
Two guys walk in and head toward the booze section.
“Have you thought about going back later on?”
He’s still turning it over, rubbing the stiff spine. “I was never smart in school. It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“It would be a good idea. And if you want, we can study together. That way, if you do go back to get your GED, you won’t be—”
My phone buzzes.
I ignore it. “Far behind.”
We both know he can barely find time for his current schedule. Trying to study for a GED that probably won’t happen for years is stupid crazy. But it just might work.
“That would be great,” he says.
Fine.
I pocket my phone, not believing stupidity could be so rampant in my mother’s DNA and hoping I escape the brunt of it. “See if you follow this. Mom’s worried you’re a psycho. She asks you to dinner to see if it’s true, even though she’s met you and let you in her house without her being there. And now she’s letting the same guy, one she obviously does not like, walk her daughter to the bus station at night. Make sense to you?”
The last time he spoke about her, I lost it. He’s choosy with his words. “I think she tries, but she’s not very, um, good at it.”
“You could say that.” I look into his eyes. “Or you could say she’s just a shitty mother.”
Hours later we’re splayed on the floor, rooting through shelves of diapers, cans, and automotive goods.
“Four cans of green beans. And what time is it?”
“Seven after eleven,” I reply, yawning, marking down four cans. “Break time?”
“I can work while you rest.”
“Fat chance. Now help me up.”
He stands, offering a hand to me.
My back pops on the way up. I twist, finishing it out. “You want anything?”
“No, thank you.”
I open the fridge door, press my forehead to the glass. Two of my fingers wipe a window into the foggy surface; he’s drifting, head dipping and bobbing back up again.
I grab a Sprite and a Coke, dock them off the stock list, and head on over, extending the Coke. He can’t see through his closed lids, so I put it in his lap. I press a palm to his forehead.
His eyes shut again.
“No fever.” I run my hand down to his jaw. “Nope, you’re fine.”
If I didn’t feel his quick pulse through my fingers, I would swear he was dead. I grab him around the torso with a quick hug and stick my bottle against his neck.
He yelps and ducks away.
I pull back, smirking. “Ha-ha.”
“What was that for?” He rubs the cold from his skin, half smiling.
“I dunno. Just felt like it.”
“I guess that answer’s good as any.” He takes a swig.
We talk about little stuff here and there, nothing too different. That is, until music comes up.
“A little of everything,” he says, tightening and loosening the bottle’s lid. “What about you?”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have said that,” I say, pitying his misfortune.
A trace of worry settles into his voice. “Why not?”
“Because now I have to tell you everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yes. Every single thing about them.”
His eyes are wide. “Who?”
I pull out my iPod, unwinding the earbuds wrapped around the machine that harbors my salvation. “The Goo Goo Dolls.” My chair rolls to his. “Would you like to listen to one of my favorite songs?” I offer an earbud.
He takes it. “What type of music is it?”
“It can’t be explained. Just enjoy yourself.”
Our heads are nearly touching, connected by green rubber-coated wires.
I stare at the title scrolling across the iPod screen.
You whispered in my mouth and I spit your words right back.
How good do you think I’ll look when the words start to break and crack?
His eyes close.
He mouths a few of the words on the second chorus. And when it’s done, he asks, “Could I hear it again?”
We listen over and over, him missing parts at first, but then he starts to catch them before they tumble out of his mind. And we sing until we can’t because we’re laughing so much. I jump up, pulling him with me, and we start doing a weird dance around the chairs, me hopping like a rabbit on speed and him shaking like an addict in the rain. We’re so happy that the room can’t hold it, so we yell and grab hands, and now we’re both shaking, shifting, grinning, his face on fire and mine wired, so I let out a scream and he gives a yell, then a choked laugh with what oxygen we have left. Our eyes are burning holes in the ceiling, in the walls, in each other, but we keep laughing and dancing, and I’m looking for a place to fall—
The ringing of my phone breaks the moment. And not even the magic words can bring us back up.
It’s Halloween weekend, which means that, in accordance with my procrastinating nature, I must decorate.
The decor consists of two carved jack-o’-lanterns, a dusty skeleton, some fake spiderwebs spun into the chest cavity, a spider or two, black candles, and purple lightbulbs to cast the house in an amethyst glow.
Pretty cool. To me, anyhow.
I’ve decided to be a witch this year. Original, huh?
Last year, I was Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. The previous year, I was the Morton Salt girl. The reason for this sudden bout of unoriginality? I’m failing English class. Which is pretty pathetic because I speak English.
Anyways, Mrs. Cochran told the class that for extra credit, we could memorize some lines from Macbeth and on Monday recite them to the class. We have to memorize a minimum of thirty-five lines for the full credit. She gave us two days’ notice.
Mrs. Cochran is also an asshole. But that is irrelevant to this story.
I’m not missing Halloween, even if it consists of handing candy out to snotty kids and hoping no one eggs or TPs the house.
So, on Halloween night, I spend an hour curling my hair into thick ringlets, then brushing them out into a wild tangle. I paint my eyelids a smoky black, draw a spiderweb across my cheek, and step into a black, long-sleeved Gothic dress I found at a thrift store.
This isn’t the best part.
I get a big pot, a cauldron if you will, and rig it with some dry ice, water, and red submersible lights. I put an upside-down bowl inside and, on top of that, another bowl to put the candy in.
The witch now has her brew.
I’ve studied the lines for three whole days. Have to memorize thirty-eight of them. I write them over and over and over, read them over and over and over, say them over and over and over, sing them—
You get it.
I’ve got the lines in my head. I’ve been seeing them in my sleep. And now I have something to scare the kids with.
I park my w
itchy ass on the steps, flanked by my eerie jack-o’-lanterns. Señor Huesos’s (might as well practice Spanish too) knobbly hand is latched onto the side of the smoking cauldron, spiders hanging from his eyes. I’d offer him a Kit Kat, but I doubt he’d want it.
My English textbook is disguised as a spell book. Or, rather, it’s bound in coffee-dyed canvas with some random Latin words inked into the cover.
I love the Internet.
The first few trickle into the streets. Before long, the trick-or-treaters are creeping up the steps, quivering in their spandex costumes.
They’re whispering to each other, pointing at the cauldron billowing red smoke down its sides, and at Señor Huesos, bathed in the crimson brew. I’m trying not to giggle.
They ease toward the cauldron. One hand touches its edge.
I cackle.
They stagger back, jaws slack.
The mother, in her cat costume, watches from a distance. Concerned, she starts up the steps.
I pull my lips over pointed teeth and into a smile, dip my head to the book, and slowly turn a page. The whispers fall silent.
My voice is a crooning lilt. I chant the words that have haunted my dreams these past few nights.
“Round about the cauldron go; in the poison’d entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone days and nights hast thirty-one swelter’d venom sleeping got, boil thou first i’ the charmed pot!”
I point a shaking hand at the group.
Their eyes nearly rupture in their heads.
Mommy has had enough. She stomps the remainder of the way and stands behind them, arms crossed.
I flash my fangs.
Her eyes narrow. “Say ‘trick or treat,’ children.”
“Trick or treat,” they say in unison, confidence restored.
I sweep an arm toward the cauldron and slowly and gracefully descend into my wooden chair.
They jostle each other, poking around in the candy cauldron.
I take this time to politely leer at Mrs. Puss.
She leers back, unfazed. “What do you say, children?”
“Thank you,” they reply, a unit of little trick-or-treaters.
I smile wickedly in return.
They squeal and charge down the steps.
When I’m sure they’re gone, I laugh until my sides ache.
My week is off to a great start. I aced my extra credit, and I am happy to report I will be passing high school. Tuesday is average. It’s Wednesday that makes the remainder of the week fanfriggintastic. In a more bitter than sweet kind of way.
“Pearce, would you like to explain why you’re not participating today?” Mrs. Johannes is chomping on her gum, the pink of her tongue flashing when she swishes it back and forth in her mouth. The tight shorts chewing at her crotch are out of sight, blessedly, from my spot on the fifth set of bleachers.
“On my period,” I say, flipping through my textbook.
The other forty girls are doing stretches. Even without Coach watching, they know better than to slack.
“You know the rules. You have to participate.”
I yawn.
“I’m trying to be patient.”
“Is that what your therapist suggested?” I say.
“Pearce,” she growls.
“Johannes,” I growl back.
She snatches up her whistle and shrills it over and over, sending some of the girls to their knees, hands over their ears.
I pick my teeth.
“Get over here,” one shrieks over Coach’s whistle.
I wonder whether or not Coach’s tactic is prohibited or at least punishable by federal law. It’s a new one but so immature and ineffective.
The whistle drops from the maw of the creature, slimy and shiny. “If you don’t get over here, I’m keeping everyone after class.”
The wailing and threats start from the back corner. Some are bleating at one another, but most are bawling in my direction, curses aimed like spears at my head.
“I bet you wouldn’t be talking shit if I was over there,” I holler back, dropping into the valley of the bleacher spot, cracking my neck with a head roll.
“Language, Pearce.”
“Tell them, then.”
“Are you getting down here or not?”
I hum to myself.
The girls have quieted, the sort of thing that happens when the gladiator corners the lion. She can’t back down now. She gave a threat. If she doesn’t stick by it, she’s nothing. So she does what any respectable coach would do.
She looks up at me and yells loud enough for everyone behind her to hear. “Because of Ms. Pearce, you all just lost the next two Fridays off. And”—groans fill the air, a few yells leaking in—“we’re doing the hill for the rest of the week.”
The hate has never felt better.
With a smirk, she turns, spraying directly at the hornets’ nest. “In the meantime, maybe you can convince your classmate to think about how her behavior affects us all.”
They all walk outside to run the hill, and I head back to my locker, the words still visible after all the rubbing alcohol the janitor used on it. I sit on the bench, hands stretching wide and snapping shut.
Today when I walked in, they were all giggling. Which is no surprise because the dumb whores are always bumping their gums about something or someone who’s doing something with someone they know no one should be doing anything with.
BITCH is written in lipstick, outlined by what looks like permanent marker. And right in the middle, pale innocence suspended from the grooves in the locker, hangs a tampon from its string.
I’m going to be mature about it. Really, I am.
But when Coach comes in and sees it, she doesn’t hide it too well—her small smile.
And now I’m on the bench, nails sawing my palms.
That wench hated me from day one. She read the file. All teachers with problem kids do. First day, she pulls me aside and says, “We’re not going to have problems, right, Pearce?”
Right, bitch.
I rub my face with my sore hand and look at the locker again. It’s kinda pretty, actually. The handwriting is all loopy and curly, like how you’d sign a Christmas card.
Earlier, when they all left for the gym, I stayed behind to consider my options. I could’ve thrown a fit, smashed stuff, called my mom, sicced my counselor on them. All these choices were shit, but they were the only feasible ones.
And then I realized something. Something simple. Something brilliant.
And so I took myself and my bag outside. To the fifth bleacher.
And sat.
And when they come in, exhausted, freezing, silent because they don’t have the energy to speak, I start laughing.
And laughing.
And laughing.
And I do that until Tanya knocks me off the bench. I jump up, grasp her face, and slam it into a locker. Her friends grab me, and when they get me down, they don’t stop. The whole time they’re beating me, even while I’m pissing myself, I never stop laughing.
“And that’s how and why I am officially suspended from school,” I tell Nathaniel. “They say I can go back in three days. I just wish it had been closer to Thanksgiving so I could’ve had an extended vacation.” I prod at my swollen eye, swipe the yucky stuff on my jeans. “Speaking of, I meant to ask if you wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving together. We can cook stuff here and go celebrate with your grandma if you want.”
He gets me ice from the freezer, rolling it in a napkin before holding it to my cheek.
I wince.
He sits, ice trembling beneath his hand.
I want the worry to disappear. “You haven’t lived until you’ve had my store-bought apple pie.”
He wipes at the oozy stuff and puts the ice pack back in place.
My fingers curl around his, crossways. “It doesn’t hurt, really. And it was fun getting them suspended, especially since Tanya’s on the cheer squad.” I smirk. “Someone’s not going to state this year.”
> Mom’s on the phone in the other room. She’s hysterical, voice trilling down the hall when she passes the open bathroom door. “No, Nora, she’s never done this. I don’t understand why—”
“Do you think I ruined dinner?” I ask, shifting to a less painful position.
He shakes his head, gaze on my blackened arm.
I touch his face. “I’m okay, okay?”
“Okay,” comes the whisper.
I lean forward and rest the good side of my face on his shoulder.
He lowers the ice to my hip and wraps an arm around my back.
I don’t let myself think too deeply into this. I just enjoy the closeness while I can.
Mom comes in. “Well, I spoke to Nora and”—she gets all teary—“she said we’re all going to talk Monday.”
“I don’t need to talk. I fought. I lost. Let it go.”
She has no idea what I’ve been dealing with. Not to say I’m a crybaby who took their abuse. Oh, no, they always paid for what they did. Like sophomore year, when Allyson put glue on my seat to make it look like some guy had . . . you know. It took a while to figure out what I was going to do to her, and let me say, time isn’t important. As long as you pay back, it’ll be rewarding. Let me also say revenge is like wine. If you wait, it’s delicious. If you don’t, well, it’s still pretty good. My revenge came when I filled the gas tank of her vintage Mustang with a mix of diesel and sugar water. A month later, she was still driving her grandma’s old Buick.
“But I don’t understand why they did this,” Mom says. “Did you offend them or something?”
“Drop it, all right? We have company over,” I grumble, Nathaniel now holding the ice to the other side of my face.
“I will not drop it, Michelle! What did you do to them?”
To her, I’m already guilty.
He obviously knows what she said hurt me, and he says my name so low that I think my banged-up brain hallucinated it.
She doesn’t get it. Kids don’t need a reason to torture you: your breathing is as good as any other. She’s asking the wrong questions, wanting to know about the whys when her better option would be the whos and whats. Thirty-four years has taught my egg donor nothing, it seems.