You Wish

by Mandy Hubbard

  But the point is, he never got to be part of anything, and he doesn’t even care.

  I guess I knew I must have wished for this at some point. Must have closed my eyes as tight as I could and wished he would come back, then blew out the candles, hoping it would really happen. I must have believed that if I wanted it bad enough, he’d appear, just like in all my dreams and fantasies.

  And here he is and yet it means nothing. Because I didn’t want him here physically, I wanted him here emotionally, and that’s one thing I’ll never have. He’s never going to be that kind of dad.

  And I don’t need to be that kind of daughter.

  Not anymore.

  “Did you want something?” I pull on the pony’s lead rope, and she steps forward.

  “Um, no.” He pauses, chews on his lips. “I love you,” he says, the words sounding like a question.

  The moment is awkward. I breathe slowly, listening to the silence as the words die around me.

  And then I look up at him and shake my head. “No.”

  I pull harder on the rope and start across the yard, the pony following me. I stop at the edge and give him another look. It might resemble pity. Maybe disgust. I don’t know what I look like, because I can’t put a finger on what I feel. But it’s not regret, and it’s not pain, and I can’t ask for anything other than that. “No, you don’t. If you love me—if you loved any of us, you would’ve showed it by now.” He just stands there on the porch, staring at me. “And you know what? It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t need you.”

  “Kayla—”

  “No. You don’t deserve my time, and I won’t let you buy it with a car.”

  I step onto the sidewalk and head down the street, the pony happily trotting after me.

  It starts to sprinkle as the house disappears from my view. Maybe I didn’t wish for him to show up and say “I love you.” Maybe I wished for me to not need him, to not care about him anymore. I can’t be sure, I can’t go back and listen to myself make that wish, but the truth is, it doesn’t matter.

  Because not needing him is the best thing that’s come of this, the best realization of all. It doesn’t matter if Ann and the pony and Ken and everything else disappears on Monday, after I receive the last wish.

  Because this feeling of independence, of total freedom, won’t vanish. That much I’m sure of.

  My happiness doesn’t rely on other people. It doesn’t depend on them needing me, wanting me, approving of me.

  It’s inside me, just where it was when I was little and My Little Pony reigned supreme, before life got twisted and turned upside down, before everyone else moved on and left me behind. Somehow I lost the power to be happy, but I’m taking it back.

  Starting today. Today, I choose me.

  33

  IN PHOTOGRAPHY later that day, I spend the hour trying to get my photo flurry to become a self-portrait. I set the enlarger up and expose one of the negatives to the photo paper for just a few seconds. Not long enough for a clear picture . . . that would take several seconds longer. Then I swap out the negative for a new one and expose that one for a few seconds. I find one of the better photos of my Converse and I expose that one too.

  After I’ve run what must be a dozen negatives through the enlarger, I move over to the table and put the paper through the development chemicals, a series of pans that will turn the paper into a picture.

  I’ve overexposed the photo, so I try again, this time running each negative for half as long.

  And that’s when I get the desired effect: The photo looks a bit like a blob at first glance. But on closer inspection, the details start to pop out—the laces of the Converse shoes form the squiggly border along the bottom of the photo. The frayed ends of a friendship bracelet peek out on the two sides. Directly in the middle of the photo is the face of a Barbie doll, partially obscured by the bow on a shirt I’ve never worn.

  But in between all that, it’s a mass of overexposed black. It looks a little like a mess, which is what I expected. By exposing so many pictures on top of each other, the photo paper has had too much light on it, turning it dark.

  I stare at the photo for a while. I wonder if Mr. Edwards will like this or think it’s just a big disaster.

  Because the fact of the matter is, it does represent me. I let everyone else’s opinions of me turn me into something else entirely. I became dark, negative, cynical. The big blob on the paper staring back at me, no identity at all.

  This photo is me, in all of its ugly, messy glory. If Mr. Edwards doesn’t like it, well, there’s not much I can do about that.

  I take out a sheet of photo paper, but I don’t expose anything on it. I want it to be a plain, glossy white sheet of paper.

  My clean slate. Because I’m starting over.

  I rip out a sheet of notebook paper and scribble down a quick explanation and then paper clip it to my photo and the blank white page and drop it in his box.

  And now, my clean slate begins.

  34

  AFTER PHOTOGRAPHY, I trudge up the polished wooden bleachers in the gym. There’s a mandatory pre-homecoming pep rally. I really hate these things and everything they represent, but I’m forcing myself to remain neutral.

  Clean slate, clean slate, clean slate.

  Kayla McHenry is not going to sit in the stands and bleat at the cheerleaders. Not today. Today, I’m going to sit up here like every other student at EHS, happy that I’m not stuck in class, enjoying a nice Friday afternoon. No matter how many “go team!” cheers I have to shout, I’m going to be just like everyone else.

  Maybe I should have saved my clean slate for Monday, done the whole baby-steps thing. This is more than one giant leap for mankind. This is epic.

  Plus, on Monday, all the wishes will be over.

  No, no, I refuse to put this off.

  Clean slate starts now. I swear.

  I’m just glad the last two wishes will happen over the weekend. With a little luck they’ll be discreet and I can just hide out in my room, waiting for it all to end. Once they’re gone, I’m going to have to seriously figure out how to get my life back on track and undo the damage they’ve done to everyone around me.

  The wooden bleachers creak beneath my feet. Some of my classmates are very clearly avoiding meeting my eyes, because they don’t want me to sit near them. They’re probably hoping I don’t bleat at them. I guess they’re not aware of my clean slate.

  I’ve never been so aware of how people see me. Of the fact that I created this image. It’s like a clown painting on their face.

  Except a clown can wipe it right off, and people can see the difference. For me, well, I’m going to have to prove it.

  If I don’t want to be a spectator in my own life, then I’ve got to change things. And as soon as school is over, I’ll have to find Nicole and maybe we’ll patch up what we have left of a friendship. Or maybe we’ll discover we’re going different ways. But I can’t just not talk to her. I have to know what’s going on with her, why she’s become someone else in such a short time. And if in the end, we’re not able to see eye to eye, then fine. But at least I have to clear the air.

  I find a seat in the middle somewhere, far enough up that I have a decent view of the shiny wooden gym floor, of the championship-sports banners that flutter along the tall, cinder block walls. Most of the school is here now, the sounds of their laughter and conversations building and swelling, filling the room. Teachers flit about, maintaining order, smiling politely at the students.

  My mouth goes dry when I see Ben walking up the bleachers. He’s so busy picking his way around the crowded stands that he doesn’t see me, so I hunch over and kind of lean on my elbow, one hand over the side of my face, my hair sweeping forward and masking me. My breathing gets a little shallow as he gets closer.

  I don’t know what to say anymore, and I can’t handle another conversation that resolves nothing.

  Unfortunately, I’m only quasi-lucky. He sits down behind me. I don’t think
he has realized it’s me in front of him so I stay still, praying that this is the sort of assembly conducted with the lights turned down low, although that seems pretty out of the question given that this is a pre-homecoming pep rally.

  Across the gym, the athletes are assembling onto a smaller set of bleachers. The maroon-and-gold jerseys on the broad-shouldered football players quickly fill one end of the stands. The less-obtrusive swim team and girls’ basketball teams make up the other half.

  Finally, the principal, a tall gray-haired man who looks completely overdressed in a slate-gray pair of slacks, white button-up, and somber tie, walks to the center of the gym, holding a cordless microphone.

  He asks the gym to quiet down, his monotonous voice amplified by the speakers mounted in the corners of the gym, and then moves to stand off to the side of the bleachers just as a long, low base beat rumbles through the gym. The students around me recognize their cue and begin stomping on the wooden bleachers, until the entire room is one echo of rumbling, grumbling bass.

  Reluctantly, I follow along, stomping my feet, feeling the bass rumble through me. I feel dorky, but I keep it up anyway, determined to step outside my norm.

  The sounds of a synthesized guitar and keyboard—some kind of generic top-forty pop song—blast through the speakers, and the cheerleaders bound through the double doors at the opposite end of the gym. The girls in front throw in a few cartwheels as the rest of the squad fans out around them, waving their metallic gold pom-poms.

  I’m watching, totally overdosing on how saccharine they are and repressing the need to grimace, when a particular face comes into focus.

  And then I can’t see anything else.

  Nicole. She’s grinning so wide that I have to wonder how many Crest Whitestrips she went through to get a smile that sparkly.

  I whirl around to look at Ben. “She’s a cheerleader?”

  But Ben looks just as shocked as I do. He glances down at me for a second—he obviously had no idea how close to me he sat—and then back at Nicole again. His mouth is slack, his entire body is still, motionless. He’s not even blinking.

  I turn to look at her again.

  She really is a freakin’ cheerleader. My best friend, Nicole, the cheerleader. That twilight zone portal I stepped into in the bathroom with Janae has expanded to swallow the whole school. She even looks like them: Her slim waist and long legs look great in the maroon-and-gold uniform.

  “Did you even know she was trying out?” Ben asks, leaning forward and shouting into my ear to be heard over the song.

  I shake my head. My ponytail must brush his cheek.

  “It all makes so much sense now,” he says, his voice a little lower.

  “What makes sense?” I ask, still watching Nicole. I’m mesmerized by the girl on the floor, the one exuding happiness and confidence. It’s like watching someone with Nicole’s body and an entirely different personality.

  “Why she dumped me.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  The music behind us dies down as the cheerleaders start into some kind of yay-team-style shouting match, jumping up and down and waving enthusiastically. Nicole is kicking so high it’s a wonder her whole leg doesn’t dislocate at the hip and go flying into the crowd.

  He kind of snorts. “Well I mean, I’m . . . me,” he gestures to his worn-out jeans, his sneakers, his spiked-out blond hair, “and she’s . . . that.”

  I glance over at the cheerleaders again. Nicole is still jumping up and down, clapping her pom-poms together as her ribbon-clad ponytail bounces. It’s hard to believe it’s her. Last year she was hiding from everyone, embarrassed by her acne. Now she seems to have highlighted her hair, put on makeup . . . . And she’s standing there, the most confident girl in the room.

  Even as it hurts, I feel a little proud of her.

  “I can’t believe she didn’t tell us,” I say.

  Ben nods.

  I turn back to watch Nicole again. It’s hard to look at anything else, the sight of her down there is that unbelievable.

  The cheerleaders pick up a bunch of boards with letters, spelling out Enumclaw, and they step forward one at a time to get the crowd to spell it out with them. Nicole has the M, and when she steps forward, her cute little pleated skirt flutters around her perfectly tanned legs.

  When it’s over, they cheer and bounce over to the front of the athletes’ bleachers, where they line up along the ground, sitting in identical positions, as if they’ve practiced even that.

  I glance back at Ben. “She was always busy after school, wasn’t she? Like that day I ran into you at the mall?”

  He nods.

  “It was practice. And tryouts were the last two weeks of August. She wasn’t ditching me for you; it was cheerleading.”

  He shrugs.

  I laugh, though it’s only half in amusement and half because I want to whack myself with a clue stick.

  This whole time, it wasn’t Ben stealing her away at all, but cheerleading. I can’t believe she did this and didn’t even tell me—or him—about it.

  I don’t know whether to be infuriated or relieved, so instead I just keep laughing, rubbing my face, trying to hide my giggles from the quieting gym. I’m delirious, confused, lost.

  I don’t even know what happens for the rest of the assembly, because all I can see is Nicole, seated among the other cheerleaders, whispering and giggling. From across the gym, I can still see that she’s glowing, happy, more alive than I’ve seen her in months. She leans in to hear something another cheerleader said, nodding.

  I wonder what kind of secrets she’s telling, secrets she obviously won’t ever share with me.

  They’re her friends now.

  And I am not.

  Why didn’t she tell me? Why would she go out for the squad and then join it and not even say a word? It’s not something that’s kept a secret . . . they wear their gear to school on game days. They’re in the yearbook.

  Did she even care at all what I would say? Did it bother her, keeping this secret, or could she care less?

  Because by the looks of her big pearly-white smile, I’m betting on the latter.

  35

  AFTER THE CHEERS from the pep rally have died down and most kids have headed home, I sit on the hood of Nicole’s car for what feels like forever. And I don’t even know why. I don’t know if I want to tell her off or beg forgiveness. All I know is that I want answers.

  The days of October have officially melted into fall, and there’s a brisk feeling in the air. I should have worn a jacket today. Something other than my usual jeans and hoodie. Even my toes inside my red Converse are getting a little tingly and cold. But it’s not like I started this day planning to sit on the cold hood of Nicole’s red Cavalier.

  The cheerleaders must be having some super-secret meeting to discuss the dry cleaning of their spandex underwear or maybe they want to color coordinate the ribbon in their ponytails. I don’t know what cheerleaders talk about any more than I know who my best friend is.

  Nicole finally walks out of the gym doors, a black duffel bag slung over her uniformed shoulder. A big maroon E is emblazoned across the little V-necked, long-sleeved sweater. Her white pleated skirt sort of bobs and flutters as she walks, and her crisp white socks match her white-and-maroon sneakers. Her legs look tan, tan enough that I think she went to the salon with the rest of the squad.

  She’s halfway to her car before she notices me, and her step falters. Then she picks up a brisk walk again and makes it to the car before I’ve figured out what exactly I was going to say. All that time sitting on the hood of her car, and I still don’t know.

  “I have to go to dinner with all the other girls,” she says, walking straight to the driver’s-side door.

  I don’t get off the hood. I just swing my legs around so I face her, and my feet are dangling down by the tire.

  I feel like we’re the poster children for “Popular” and “Unpopular.” We couldn’t look more different if we tried. H
er ponytail is perfect, perky, with long blonde curls. Mine is lower, boring, my straight brown hair just kind of hanging there. I have no makeup on. She looks like hers was professionally applied.

  “How could you not tell me?” I guess I’m going with angry, because my words come out as a cross between furious and bitter. “How could you just ditch me for them and not even tell me? I’ve been walking around school for weeks and I bet everyone knew but me!”

  She looks down at her hands, twists her keys between her fingers. She chews on her bottom lip and glances up at me through her lashes, then back down at her hands.

  She looks nervous and shy, like the Nicole I know. It chips away at my anger.

  “I didn’t think in a million years I’d make it.”

  When she looks up at me, she’s herself again, quiet, pained, my best friend. It melts the ice that was freezing around me, making me hate her, or at least the stranger she’d become.

  I cross my arms, try to grasp at some of the anger. Because anger is easier than hurt. “You still could have told me you were trying out.”

  She laughs, a short, sardonic laugh. “And what would you have said, Kayla?”

  I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t say the words. I know what I would have said.

  “Exactly. Do you even know how hard it can be to talk to you sometimes? You make fun of everything. Of everyone. If I had told you I wanted to be . . . this,” she says, pointing to her uniform, “can you honestly say you would have been supportive?”

  There’s no point in speaking. I won’t be able to convince her otherwise because I can’t deny the truth. I would have laughed. I would have reminded her of how insipid and vapid the cheerleaders are. I would have told her they would never accept her, would never let her on the squad.

  And I would have been wrong.

  “I just thought I’d try out and get cut, and then I could know I’d tried and feel okay about it and you’d never know the difference. But then I made it, and then I realized you’d be mad if I didn’t tell you about trying out . . . and I kept telling myself I’d tell you the next day, and then the next day, and it just snowballed. The longer I waited, the harder it was to tell you.”