The Life of Glass

by Jillian Cantor

  “You realize that we’re standing in the middle of a river,” I said. “That if we lived in some different place other than the desert there’d be water rushing through this.”

  He shrugged. “Well, when it rains a lot in the summer, it is like a river sometimes,” he said.

  “But doesn’t it make you feel small, make you feel like there’s this whole big world and you’re just one tiny person?”

  “Well, no.” He laughed. “Not really. It’s just lots of dust and sagebrush and trash.” He kicked an old beer can as if to emphasize his point.

  I thought about the water, the power of the river, the way every other summer or so someone tried to swim in it and ended up drowning. What made me feel small was the knowledge that people could just disappear. In an instant. They could be here one night telling you some random fact about glass. And then the next morning they could be gone. Forever. But I just sort of nodded and murmured in agreement anyway.

  Max reached down and grabbed my hand, and he started walking. We didn’t say anything else for a while, which was okay with me.

  It was nice to hold his hand at first, but then my hand started to feel sweaty and a little sticky, and I wanted to pull away. I didn’t want to offend him though, so I kept holding on. Finally, Max stopped walking, and he let go of my hand. He turned and faced me, and he put his thumb on my cheek. “You’re so interesting, Melissa. You’re not like all the other girls.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I thought about all the other times that I’d wished I could’ve been like Ashley or the Nose or Courtney just because it would’ve made my life infinitely easier to be beautiful and girly and popular. For the first time, standing right there with Max, I almost felt glad that I wasn’t them.

  He leaned in to kiss me, and his lips were soft and warm and nice, so I kissed him back.

  When he stopped kissing me, he kept his face close, and I could see every inch of it. These beautiful brown eyes and this charming smile, and I felt a little starstruck.

  I couldn’t believe it. This guy actually liked me.

  After dinner I sat at my desk, and tried to do my homework. But it was hard to concentrate. I was thinking about Max and the fact that he liked that I was different. So maybe I wasn’t the most beautiful girl, but that was okay.

  Ashley hobbled in without even knocking and went and flopped on my bed.

  “Don’t lean on my pillow,” I said, pretending to be deep into my homework. “You might get mono germs.”

  She ignored me. “Did Austin go to the dance?” she asked.

  I looked up. Her face still looked horrible, even though some of the swelling had gone down. I felt just a little guilty that I hadn’t mentioned it to her before. “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Dammit.” She flopped back against my pillow. I thought that maybe she was going to cry, but it was hard to tell with her face being so banged up.

  “You can do better,” I said.

  She sat up. “What, like Max?” She laughed. “Don’t be so stupid, Melissa. He’s not really in love with you or anything.”

  I thought about the way he’d kissed me in the wash, and I was sure she was wrong. “You don’t know everything,” I said. “You’re not always right.”

  “And you are?” She laughed again. “You don’t know the first thing about a guy like him.”

  I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

  She stood up from the bed and limped toward the door. “You’re smart—you figure it out.”

  I was still sitting there trying to figure out what Ashley was talking about when I heard a tapping at the window. I remembered that I’d forgotten to call Ryan when I got home.

  I stood up and opened the window, and he climbed in and lay down on my bed. I thought about warning him against mono germs, but then I didn’t. I didn’t want to tell him about kissing Max, and besides, I didn’t think he could really get mono just from sitting in my bed.

  “Get on your computer,” he said. “I’ll tell you this website, and we’ll find her.”

  I stared at him, waiting for something, for an apology. I wanted him to say he was sorry for being a jerk, an idiot, a complete and total ass. Mel, I should’ve listened to you. You were right. I’ll never let a pretty girl come between us again.

  Finally, he said, “You can’t stay mad at me forever.”

  I shrugged. Well, I could if I wanted to. But then I looked at him. His eyes were sort of lost and sad, and he looked really tired. And his breathing was heavy and ragged. Still, I didn’t know if we could go back to the way things were before, if I could really, truly forgive and forget.

  We were both quiet for a few minutes, and then he said, “Why don’t we at least look her up, and find her number and where she lives?”

  “Okay,” I said, because I knew he wasn’t going to leave until I did it, and even though I was still mad, I also still wanted to find Sally.

  Ryan gave me the name of the site, and I typed her name in. All her information came up on the screen, a phone number and an address that wasn’t too far from here. I was amazed at the way it was all there instantaneously, at my fingertips, but I tried not to let Ryan see how impressed I was.

  “Let’s call her,” Ryan said. His voice was thick and asthmatic and excited.

  I thought about the way he’d looked at me in his bathroom that day when I’d told him about Courtney, his hair dripping wet and his eyes dark and angry. I had the sudden urge to kick him the way Ashley always did to me, to tell him to drop the excitement, because he’d lost the right to have it. But all I said was, “It’s late.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged. “I get it. I’ll go.” He stared at me for a minute, as if he wanted to say something else but wasn’t sure how to say it, and then he climbed out the window. I heard him drop to the ground, a quick crunchy thud in the rocks.

  I picked up the phone and cradled it in my hand for a minute. I started to dial the number, then hung up. It was already after nine, I reasoned, my heart beating like a drum in my chest. One more day wouldn’t hurt.

  Chapter 22

  The next day at school, I spent the majority of the day alternating between pondering what I might say to Sally Bedford on the phone and what Ashley had meant when she said that I didn’t really know anything about Max.

  I thought mostly of Max, except in biology when Ryan prodded me about Sally.

  Ryan elbowed me with his left arm as he cut into the pig brain with his right. The ease with which he could now dissect amazed me just a little bit. “Well?” he asked. “What did she say?” He sounded like a little kid on Christmas morning, as if he was just about to burst, waiting to find out the details.

  “I didn’t call her,” I said. “It was too late.”

  “It wasn’t that late,” he said. I glared at him, so he said, “Yeah, you were probably smart to wait.”

  “I’m going to call her later,” I said.

  He tilted his head to the side, and I could tell, even behind the goggles, that he was shooting me a quizzical look, as if he didn’t quite believe me.

  In English Mrs. Connor droned on and on about Keats. And I thought about how Courtney had quoted him in the dressing room. Could something really be beautiful and true at the same time? Was it possible that Max was good-looking and also the real thing?

  “Miss McAllister?” Mrs. Conner said. “Miss McAllister.”

  “Uhh.” I looked up, but I had no idea what she’d asked me or what poem she’d been discussing. I shrugged and she frowned at me. She had this way of looking oddly disappointed the way my father might have, as if she were telling me that she’d been expecting more of me.

  When I went out to meet Max in the parking lot after school, I nearly ran straight into Courtney. She was rushing down the steps, like she was in an awful big hurry to get somewhere, and I was kind of going slowly, deep in thought, still thinking about the difference between truth and beauty and whether they were actually linked or two separate
things. “Oh sorry,” she said. She looked up, saw it was me, and smiled. “Oh hey, Meliss.”

  Just like that. No hard feelings. No mean looks.

  She stared at me, and I felt like I had to say something, so I said, “Sorry about you and Ryan.” Lie. Lie. Lie. But I smiled anyway. I was about to say that I’d just been thinking about her, but then I decided against it. I didn’t feel like explaining.

  She shrugged. “Yeah. It happens, I guess.” She sounded all nonchalant, like she didn’t even care that much, and like she didn’t blame me, which surprised me in a way. “So you and Max, huh?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  She laughed. “Well, don’t knock yourself out with the excitement or anything.”

  “I am excited,” I said, forcing a smile.

  She sighed. “You don’t have to pretend with me.” She paused. “Everyone knows that you and Ryan want each other anyway.”

  I felt my face turning bright red. “No way. We’re just friends.” And right now we were barely that.

  “Oh come on, Meliss. I’m not mad, okay? I saw the way he was looking at you at the dance. It’s just the way it is. I get it.” She leaned in and gave me a quick and forceful hug, which I didn’t return. But she didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve gotta run. Paco has obedience school in thirty minutes.” She started running through the parking lot, but she stopped after a few steps and turned and yelled out behind her, “Call me.”

  I was positive that I was never going to call her again.

  Max told me all about some baseball thing the whole way home, but I wasn’t really listening. I kept thinking about what Courtney had said, that everyone thought that Ryan and I liked each other, and I wondered if that was true. I didn’t think anyone else at our school would’ve even noticed us aside from her, and I knew deep down that she was just jealous. Still, there was something about what she said that made me feel a little uneasy and itchy all over. Or maybe it was just that I was starting to develop a mono rash that I’d read about online.

  I turned my brain off for a minute and caught something Max was saying about some action movie he wanted to see on Friday night. “Oh yeah, sure. Whatever,” I said, though I honestly hated action movies. I was more of a romantic-comedy girl myself.

  Max shook his head. “You’re so laid-back, Melissa. Most girls are so high-strung and prissy.”

  Laid-back was not the term I would’ve used to describe myself. Most of the time I felt tight and twisted in knots like a contortionist, worrying about all the terrible things that might happen to me and I wondered who this girl was that Max could see and no one else could.

  When he got to my house, he leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “I’ve gotta run,” he said. “I’m meeting the guys.”

  I nodded, and I slid out of the car, feeling oddly free.

  Ashley was lying on her bed talking on the phone, probably to the Nose because she was complaining about what a jerk Austin was and how he wasn’t even a good kisser.

  I flopped down on the bed next to her, and I put my head on her pillow. She kicked at my ankles with her good foot, but I didn’t budge. I’d resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t leaving her room until she told me what she meant about Max. I couldn’t waste another entire day of my life worrying about it, because if I did, I might not even be able to pass ninth grade. Then I’d have a heck of a lot more to worry about.

  Finally, she sighed really loud, an exaggerated sigh for the Nose’s benefit. “I have to call you back,” she said. “The freakin’ imp will not leave me alone.”

  I hadn’t heard her call me that in a while, but it still stung, every time.

  She hung up the phone. “What do you want?”

  “Tell me what you meant about Max,” I said. “Or I’m telling everyone about the horse.”

  She gasped. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  She was right, I probably wouldn’t. I still felt really bad for her about her face and the dance and the pageant and everything. But I nodded. “I would.”

  She sat up and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and I saw her face was looking a little better. The bruises were yellower than yesterday, and I figured, once she got her teeth fixed up, that eventually you wouldn’t even be able to tell. “The senior guys on the team always go after the freshmen,” she said. “They even keep a count of who can get the most freshmen to sleep with them before the end of the year. Austin isn’t like that.”

  “So what?” I tried to brush her off. “Max isn’t either.”

  “Isn’t he?” She smirked a little, and I knew she took satisfaction in the fact that I was such an out-of-it little imp that I’d never even thought that Max might be using me. “Anyway,” she said. “What other reason could he possibly have for ditching Lexie for you? You don’t actually think he likes you, do you?”

  “Shut up.” I kicked her, hard, and I had to fight back tears that were welling up and stinging my eyes.

  I got off her bed and ran into my room and slammed the door behind me.

  There were no answers in my dad’s journal, no stories that could make me feel better about this. His stories were about amazing people, people in love, things you would never believe or even dream. But they did not tell you what to do when your heart felt like it was being crushed, when your head felt like it was going to explode, when the most popular boy at school either sincerely liked you or just wanted to sleep with you so he could brag to his friends. They did not tell you what it meant for your best friend to look at you in a way that his girlfriend, well, ex-girlfriend, noticed.

  I picked up the journal and threw it against the wall. “Useless,” I muttered. Utterly and completely useless.

  But then I wondered, even if my dad were here, if this would be the kind of stuff I would’ve asked him about, because it didn’t seem like the kind of thing a girl could tell her father. Not that my father was just any father, so who knows, maybe he would’ve had all the answers.

  I got into bed and lay there for a while, and I must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew my mom was knocking on my door and it was already dark outside. “Melissa,” she called through the door. “Everything okay? Can I come in?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Come in.” My voice was thick and my throat felt scratchy, and in the back of my head this little mono alarm went off.

  She opened the door. “You didn’t come out for dinner. I was worried.” That was me. Always the eater. My dad used to joke that I would have to be dead to miss a meal. Ha ha. Hysterical now.

  “I’m not that hungry,” I said.

  She came in and put her hand to my forehead. “You don’t feel hot, sweetie.”

  “Just a bad day,” I said.

  She sat on the edge of my bed. “You want to talk about it?” I did. But I didn’t. My mother and I didn’t talk. When I told her things, she offered me generic words of consolation or told me to stop worrying, and I never ever felt better. “How are things with you and this Max guy?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “I think he likes me.” But the little voice in my head said, Or does he?

  “And what about you?” my mother asked. “Do you like him?”

  “Everybody likes him,” I said.

  She nodded. “Sweetie, you should trust yourself more.” There she was with her generic nonhelpful advice.

  “I know,” I said, but who knew what that meant anyway. “It’s just, how do you know if you love someone?” I asked her.

  She stood up and pulled her hair back into a ponytail with her hand the same way Ashley always did. She walked over to the window, and it seemed like she was looking for something outside. “You just know,” she said. “You just feel it. Everywhere. All over.”

  “What does it feel like?”

  “Well”—she thought for a minute—“with your father, it was like wind. Like this strong gust came and swirled me up around into the air until I was so dizzy that I couldn’t even breathe.”


  “What about with Kevin?”

  “Oh, sweetie.” She sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if I love that man.”

  I thought about the way she’d looked at the purple roses that he’d sent, the way she’d closed her eyes and held them up to her nose as if searching for a piece of him in there, and I knew that she did. I wanted to tell her that it was just an accident, that it wasn’t his fault. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to actually defend him, even if deep down I knew that he was a really nice guy and he, cowboy boots and all, genuinely cared about my mother.

  I was also positive that, despite what she said, she really did love him, which felt like another reason to keep my mouth shut.

  Chapter 23

  Here’s something I learned from my father’s journal: When glass breaks, the cracks move at a speed greater than three thousand miles per hour. All you had to do was drop it on a hard floor, and it set off this reaction that came so quickly that you couldn’t take it back, even if you wanted to.

  I wondered how fast bones splinter, how long it took for Ashley’s nose to break, for her teeth to crack in half. What I do know, is that from the moment it had happened, it took less than a week for the rest of her life to crumble, break, and shatter recklessly.

  On Thursday afternoon my mother took Ashley to get her transition bunny teeth put in at Dr. Langley’s office. And Friday morning was her first day back at school. My mother didn’t want her driving, even though it was her left ankle she’d sprained, because her face injuries were still so bad, and Ashley didn’t want to take the car yet because she was lying and telling everyone it was still being fixed. So my mother asked if Max would give us both a ride.

  “No way.” I glared at Ashley.

  “Melissa.” My mother sounded sterner than usual. “If it weren’t for Ashley, you wouldn’t even be getting a ride from Max. She asked him to take you to the dance, remember?”

  Ashley smirked, and I was backed into a corner. So Max ended up taking both of us.