Faking Normal

by Courtney C. Stevens

  And this time, Bodee believes the lie and leaves me standing on the dotted line.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  chapter 25

  HEATHER drives me home in time for curfew. Twelve thirty a.m.

  She says nothing about Bodee’s quick appearance and disappearance at the party. He’s only a garnish to Collie’s caviar, anyway. And Collie, who came with Maggie, ditched Maggie and hung with Heather. And Heather let him.

  Things between Bodee and me are still messy like pumpkin guts, but things between Heather and Collie don’t have to end up gutted and scattered to hell on yesterday’s newspaper.

  “Do you want to know what really happened with Collie?” I ask her.

  “He told you about . . . the girl.”

  “Yes.” That boy’s told me everything since kindergarten. Up until the alumni game. But this time, when our lives are falling apart at the same time and mine with a misery I could not share, I avoid him. Because his tale comes too close for comfort to mine. Sex. Mistakes. Apologies. “And I said I wouldn’t tell,” I explain. “But I couldn’t look at him for what he did to you.”

  “So why are you telling me now?” she asks.

  “Because I’m tired.” Too tired. “And because of the other night, Heather. The mess at the fort. You need to know there’s nothing between Collie and me.”

  “I do. I do. Just sucks to know he told you and not me.”

  “That’s different. I’m just his friend.” I don’t remind her that Collie did tell her. But with such incredibly poor, guystupid timing that it canceled out his honesty. “It happened the night of the alumni game. At my house,” I say.

  Heather works the steering wheel with her fist. “Oh God, we were into it that night,” she remembers. “We got into a huge fight about his drinking so much with the guys. I told him if he was going to act like my father, he could get lost. That I had plenty of losers in my life, and I didn’t need another.”

  “And after you left he was distraught.”

  “Who was it? Julie Raimer? She’s always had a thing for him.”

  I shake my head.

  “Tanya?”

  “Heather, it was Maggie,” I say, before she can guess every girl who’s ever sat with us at lunch.

  “Maggie. But she . . . why would he do that?”

  I give her a look. “Maggie, Heather. She was there,” I say.

  Sort of like Hayden.

  Now Heather pounds the steering wheel, and I don’t stop her. “We waited. We waited all that time, and then he slept with her.”

  “He was drunk. You know he doesn’t care about Maggie.”

  “But that just makes it worse. Why do guys sleep with girls they don’t love?”

  “’Cause . . .” I don’t have an answer.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say.

  “Lex, I doubt you lied to me because you promised him. So why?”

  I take a deep breath, because she’s gone right to the heart of it. “Because Collie is one of the few constants in your life. With your family and all.” As I pause and look at her, she nods. “And if you didn’t need to experience this pain, I wasn’t going to give it to you.” I lay my hand on hers, and she doesn’t jerk away. “I’m really sorry.”

  She nods her understanding. “If I knew something like this about you, I wouldn’t tell you, either. And Lex . . . whatever you’ve got going on, I hope . . . I hope it gets better soon. I miss your smile.”

  I smile.

  “Your real one,” she says.

  “See you Monday,” I say.

  There are snores coming from the den. I lock the kitchen door behind me and tiptoe to the couch and nudge Mom awake.

  “I’m home,” I say. “You can go on to bed.”

  She rubs her eyes and closes the book tented on her chest. “You have fun?”

  “Yeah.” Maybe someday I’ll stop lying to her, too.

  “That’s good, honey.” She pecks me on the cheek and cinches her robe for the walk to the bedroom. “See you in the morning.”

  My heart is doughy, as if it’s being pummeled and kneaded as I head upstairs and open the door to my room.

  It’s empty.

  I try the closet, thinking I should polish off this crappy day on the floor, but the closet door is closed. There’s a Post-it Note over the knob that says, Locked.

  Bodee. Always a step ahead of my pain.

  So I crawl into the bed, not bothering with pajamas or darkness, and make a cave of my covers. I bury myself in them, and the words that tumble out are muffled by my pillow: all pleas and prayers.

  “Why am I so stupid—things are always wrong—no matter what I do—how hard I try—what am I supposed to do—oh Bodee—will you ever forgive me for this—please—Bodee—please—Bodee—please—you have to.”

  “I forgive you, Lex,” says a voice from under the bed.

  It’s embarrassing to know you’ve said things you never intended anyone to hear. I wipe my face on the pillow and flop over to hang my head off the bed and peer underneath.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “You look funny upside down,” he says.

  “I look funny right side up. Why are you under my bed?”

  “’Cause someone put the boxes back under mine.” It’s too dark to see him smile, but it’s not too hard to hear him.

  I smile too, because for once I was ahead of his pain.

  “You wanna come out?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer, but stuff crinkles and rattles and slides, and he emerges.

  Sneakers and all, he lies down on my bed.

  “Who am I, Lex?” he asks.

  “Bodee,” I say.

  “Remember that,” he says, and puts a careful arm around me as I snuggle against his chest.

  Even when I choose Hayden, Bodee’s still here. Constant. And we fall asleep in our clothes. It’s more accurate to say we fall awake in our clothes, because neither of us closes our eyes for a long time.

  Bodee doesn’t bring up Craig again until Tuesday morning. It’s early. Maybe four thirty. The pressure has been building for this conversation ever since Craig showed up at church Sunday and sat in our pew and proceeded to eat pot roast and potatoes at our table. He and Kayla were tense, but civil. Mom and Dad were oddly reticent. And Bodee and I . . . well, we got through it.

  And now Bodee and I are horn-locked and stubborn.

  “Lex, you have to tell her before they work things out,” he says. “Don’t let him back in.”

  “I can’t.” I roll away from the cave of his arms.

  “Well, I can’t keep doing this.”

  I prop up on one elbow and say, “Doing what?”

  “Staying in your room.”

  “Sorry it’s such a burden.”

  “Shhh. Someone will hear us.”

  He’s right, but shushing gets on my nerves. “So,” I say sarcastically. “You can’t keep doing this anymore.”

  “Don’t be that way. You know I only—”

  “What if I said the same thing to you? What if I said, ‘You’re broken, and I don’t want you in my life unless you testify against your dad’?” He has no defense except to roll away from me.

  “See, Bodee. It’s not that easy.”

  “Nothing’s easy. And I am broken. The difference between us isn’t the brokenness; it’s what we’re going to do about it.”

  “Bodee, this is bullshit. We can’t keep having this same conversation. You already know my mind is made up; I don’t want anyone to know. I have to deal with Craig in private.”

  He faces me again, and the nightlight puts the planes of his face in sharp relief. Lock-jawed and unyielding, he says, “I can’t let you do that.”

  “You’re going to tell.”

  “Yes. I’ve made up my mind. If you don’t, I will.”

  “Then whatever this is, whate
ver we are, is over,” I say.

  “I didn’t know it ever started.”

  “You kissed me.” The words bring the memory of the two of us in his sleeping bag.

  “You kissed Hayden,” he says back. “You chose him.”

  “And I’ll do it again. I’ll lie my face off if you tell Kayla or my parents about Craig.”

  Bodee rolls off the bed; his sneakers make a soft thud against the carpet. “No, Lex. You’ll tear your neck apart and then look back ten years from now and realize you’re still stuck in the same closet tearing up football cards.”

  While I’m still gasping, he opens the door to leave and then stops short with a little yelp.

  I am shushing him as Bodee backs into my room.

  Followed by Kayla.

  “Well, well. Isn’t this interesting?” Kayla says snidely, and shuts the bedroom door behind her.

  “Oh, don’t start. We were only talking,” I say.

  “Craig and I used to talk.”

  Bodee turns his face toward me and mumbles, “I don’t doubt it.”

  “Move on, Kayla, we weren’t doing anything.”

  “At five a.m.? In your bedroom? Right. Nothing about you is as innocent as Mom and Dad think.”

  “Believe what you want. We were just talking.”

  All I see of Bodee is his back, but he’s cracking his knuckles like walnuts.

  Kayla advances farther into the room, and our whispers rise in volume. “Here’s what I think. You are going to tell me exactly what you said to Craig the other day that made him leave me. Or I’ll make sure your little bedroom buddy here is thrown out of our house.”

  I don’t react to her kidney punch. “Do they teach you to make threats at the bank or something? I didn’t tell Craig anything.”

  “You told him to leave me,” she says.

  “I did not. Why would I do that?” Besides the obvious.

  “Because you hate me and you’re jealous and can’t stand for me to be happy.”

  “Kayla, I don’t hate you. You’re my sister.”

  “Craig’s always been your little hero, and I’ve always been the witch,” she says.

  “He is not her hero.”

  Kayla must have forgotten that Bodee was in the room, because she whips around at the sound of his voice.

  “What would you know? You’ve been here a month.”

  “Thirty-four days, and I know more than you,” he says, and leaves his perch on the edge of my bed.

  I know that tone. He’s going to make good on his threat to tell her right now. “No, Bodee,” I say, trying to calm the storm.

  “Yes, Alexi,” he says back.

  “I’m not stupid. You’re both hiding something, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

  “You won’t.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Craig.”

  Bodee is between Kayla and me. “No, you won’t.”

  She smacks his chest. Thwack. Thwack. “You don’t get a say in this.”

  He catches her wrist, and though he’s gentle with her, she tries to jerk away as if he wants to beat her.

  “Too bad, because I’m going to have my say,” he says.

  Oh shit. Oh shit. “Bodee.”

  “I know all about you and Craig talking while you were supposed to babysit Alexi,” he says in her face. Crack. Crack. Crack. He’s winding up. “You know what I mean, Kayla,” he says in disgust. “What kind of person threatens a six-year-old? And you’ve been making these threats all her life. Well, you’re done. You’ve threatened Alexi for the last time. And I swear, you try me, you’ll find this is no bluff. I’m the one who will make sure Craig never comes back.”

  I take a breath when he’s finished. Partly because he hasn’t told, and partly because I’ve never heard him talk this firmly.

  “You’ll regret this,” Kayla hisses, her face ugly with fury. “You’re going to be so sorry.”

  “Oh, trust me, I already am,” Bodee says. “Lex, just tell her.”

  “Nothing to tell,” I insist.

  “Fine,” he says, and goes to the door. “You’re on your own. I’m through.”

  “He’s as crazy as his father,” Kayla says when Bodee has gone.

  “Don’t. You. Ever. Say. That.”

  “Now who’s making threats? What did all that mean anyway?”

  “Nothing. Nothing.” Everything.

  Kayla is half in my room, half in the hall; her knuckles wrap the door facing. “I want him gone, Lex. I want him out of this family. And I’m going to make sure of it.”

  She leaves before I can say, “He already is.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  chapter 26

  THE towels in the bathroom aren’t wet when I drag myself to the shower. There’s no half-torn Kool-Aid package in the trash. And no wet toothbrush at the sink.

  Remnants of Bodee.

  Gone.

  And there’s no Bodee, sitting, legs crossed at the kitchen bar, waiting to see what boxed breakfast food we will split today.

  Mom’s head is in the fridge. “You hungry?”

  “Not this morning.”

  “Bodee left you half of his granola bar.”

  “Left me?”

  “Yeah.” She slides a box of apple juice across the bar toward me like she’s working downtown at a honky-tonk. “Ben picked him up today. He didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  I drift out of the kitchen and up to the bonus room. Ben picked him up, I hear my mother say. Is he moving out? Going away? Not coming back?

  He can’t keep doing this, he said.

  Proof. I want proof that he’s staying. Proof I didn’t see in the bathroom.

  But the first thing I see is Cinderella. Faceup in her yellow dress. Smiling across the bed like she has no idea I’d rather never see her again. The little stack of whites, the underwear that made him blush in front of me the first time, is gone. Three plaid shirts that usually hang on plastic suit hangers instead of the old wire ones: gone. And Mrs. Lennox’s diamond earring is gone too.

  I lift the bed skirt, wondering how I can face the final nail in this coffin.

  The boxes are stacked under the bed.

  My whole world rocks and sways, as if I’m standing up on a raft in the pool. My knees sag and I sit, and then stretch out facedown on his bed.

  I can’t keep doing this.

  I push the decorative pillows to the floor and . . . my hand touches what I was afraid I wouldn’t find.

  Hatchet. The worn cover is back on.

  I open the book with its Scotch-taped spine and read:

  To Bodee

  My brave little Brian. I love you.

  Mom

  He took everything else and left this behind.

  For me.

  “Lex,” Mom calls from the kitchen. I let her yell. Even when I hear her on the steps, and the landing. I lie on the bed, running over those words from his mother with my thumb.

  “Heather’s here,” Mom says.

  “Did he say when he’d be back?” I ask.

  “No. He said he needed some time with his brother.” She pats my leg. “You worried about him?”

  I nod and sit up, letting Mom see my tears, but not the book and the note from his mother. She assumes these tears are for Bodee, instead of for her daughter.

  “It’ll be good for him to be with Ben. They need some time too. Maybe he’ll talk to his brother.” She looks away and gives me space to wipe my face. “Heather’s waiting,” she reminds me.

  I love this about her. That she is like me. Emotional, and embarrassed about being emotional.

  I tuck Hatchet into my bag and walk like a zombie to Heather’s car. Liz is back in the front seat.

  “You had one more minute,” Heather says. “Where’s Bodee?”

  “With his brother.”

 
“He’s not moving out, is he?” Liz asks. “’Cause he doesn’t normally go see his brother, right?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Our threesome, turned foursome, turned threesome again, is quiet. Thinking of Bodee.

  Heather says, “Well, huh,” and Liz sighs, eye-checking me in the mirror. I shift and turn my face to the window where she can’t see me. And cry slow, silent tears.

  Hayden takes my hand at the front door and leads me, like a limp doll, to homeroom. He kisses my cheek, as if his reveal of Captain Lyric allows him this new license to touch on school grounds.

  Bodee is not in homeroom.

  And not at his locker afterward.

  When Hayden realizes I have spun the dial on my combination lock twice without opening the locker, he asks for the combination and takes over. For the first time, he notices my glazed-over state.

  “You okay, Lex?”

  “Not really,” I say as my locker swings open.

  “Can I do anything?”

  “Not really.”

  Hayden hands me the two books I point to and says, “I’d ask you what’s wrong, but you probably won’t tell me.”

  He’s right. So I say, “Thanks,” and walk away, with my locker still open and the lock still in Hayden’s hand.

  I don’t take my book to third period, and we have an open-book test. My name is the only thing I write.

  I realize something as I walk through the hall.

  Any ability I have to move forward—even stupid moves like choosing Hayden because he doesn’t know, or thinking I could have a normal relationship and forget all about Craig—is all because of Bodee’s strength. I don’t know how to do it without him.

  I lay my head on the desk in fourth period, the blank desk, and close my eyes.

  “You aren’t going to write?” Heather asks.

  “I’m out of words,” I tell her.

  When the bell finally rings, I check myself out of school under the guise of a migraine, and walk home and straight to the fort.

  When I reach the top I see a bird, no bigger than a minute, land on my window—the one where Bodee and I brush shoulders as we look out over the woods.