Swimming Sideways (Cantos Chronicles Book 1)

by CL Walters

  “Abby?” Nate asks in the dark.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are we going to be okay?”

  I wish I knew, but I feel like as the older sister I’m supposed to offer something profound and wise. All I can say is, “I don’t know,” and then because I can’t leave it there, I add, “I’m sure they’ll work it out.”

  “Are you two done gabbing?” Matt asks, his voice expresses his boredom with our topic of conversation, but I know that he’s as affected as Nate and I otherwise why would he be in my room? “Some of us are tired.”

  “A good night sleep,” I start.

  “Will make everything better,” Nate finishes the saying our mom has always used to calm us for bedtime.

  The quiet of the night descends on us and I hear my brothers breathing even out into its deep rhythm of sleep. I wish I could join them there in the bliss of unconsciousness, but I lay there staring at the ceiling confused, scared and broken. I’m stuck in skin that feels too tight and stretched over bones and muscle that don’t fit anymore. How am I supposed to figure out my own shit if everything else is on shaky ground? Nothing feels normal or maybe this is the new normal. I’m not sure how to reorient. Good Abby doesn’t have rules for this.

  13

  FORGIVENESS

  Hannah, walking next to me, is yammering on about some drama that played out with her family over the weekend. It reminds her of my story and she says, “I’m shocked your parents let you off with just a warning." Hannah side steps someone passing the hallway. "My parents would have grounded me for life."

  “They said that because I told them everything they were lenient, not that I’m complaining. Maybe they still feel a little guilty for the move here?” Hannah stops short and I keep walking toward the classroom door. “What, Hannah?" I ask, turning to see why she’s disappeared from my side. The moment I look up I see Seth is there, waiting.

  My heart races and then crashes into a wall crunching like twisted metal as it falls into my belly. He is leaning against the brick wall, his hands shoved into his pockets and my purse tucked into the crook between his elbow and his torso. Contrition paints his handsome face and I see the ten-year old boy I once knew.

  I reach for Good Abby guidance, but in the moment, the Abbies are quiet and I inventory my possible responses. What to do? What’s the rule for this one? I think about my parents fight, about waking up the next morning to my father folding a blanket and collecting his pillow from the couch. He’d joined me on the front porch with his coffee cup and said words that I’m not sure I could believe because I’m not sure he’s living them. The words had been wise, however, because they’d come from Poppa. They echo in my mind again: “Grandpa used to tell me that my anger was like the waves in the ocean and that I was the ʻaina, the land. Those waves crash and crash against the shoreline seeking anything to punish, but in the end, it is the ʻaina that is eroded and changed, not the nalu. I guess what he meant was that our anger only hurts us.”

  I just feel hollow.

  “I’ll talk to you later.” Hannah glances back at me, raises her eyebrows and walks away. She’d already heard the story including Gabe saving the day. That had been the most shocking part of it. “Gabe?” she’d proceeded to repeat as I continued to tell the tale.

  I pass Seth ignoring him, and walk into my math class.

  “Abby?" He follows me into the room. “May I talk to you?”

  “So now I’m someone you feel like talking to?” Sarcasm announces my words like a spotlight on a stage; I sit down at my desk.

  “Please?”

  I sit and stare at the front of the room.

  “I’m sorry." He holds out my purse to me, and then leans forward so no one else will hear. "I couldn't call. I wanted to. My dad. He flipped out."

  I look up at him and search his face. I know what his dad flipping out means, at least I used to. I don’t see the remnants of his dad’s idea of discipline, but he’s covered every inch of skin aside from his face. I take my purse out of his hands and put it in my lap. Seth doesn’t look like himself but it isn’t his physical appearance that’s different. Instead, it’s in the underlying confidence that usually precedes him, an arrogance that makes everyone around him know he owns the world. Something is different.

  “I can’t do this now. I have math,” I say staring straight ahead.

  “Lunch?”

  I nod.

  During lunch, he sits with me in my usual place of the lunchroom, the long table with the windows to my back. Hannah and friends give us space, situated at the opposite end of the table and no one else sits between us. I’m unable to see Hannah without turning my head, but I have a feeling that she’s keeping an eye on the proceedings with fervor and completely biased interest. I realize, it isn’t just Hannah watching, the entire population of the cafeteria seems to be interested in what is happening in our little corner of that universe. I can see Sara a few tables away with her she-bot minions, all staring at us with those manō eyes, cold and lifeless.

  Again, I reach for Good Abby and Bad Abby and feel the flutter of emptiness in my chest. The bad thing is that the emptiness doesn’t startle me. From the moment I walked into the living room and my father looked at me, it was as though my hard drive crashed. After he’d tried to impart poppa’s wisdom, receiving my cold shoulder, he’d disappeared into the house. I could hear the hushed voice of my parents, and then he’d left for work, business as usual. But nothing feels business as usual.

  “I don’t have a good excuse,” Seth says. He’s looking down at the table and then glances up. His eyes are weighted with regret, sadness and something else. It’s a heaviness that I know I can’t fathom, but there is a depth there that I haven’t ever seen in him before.

  “You shouldn’t have one,” I say. “What happened was inexcusable.”

  He bows his head, runs a hand through his hair and sighs. He looks up again and says, “I’m really sorry, Ab. So sorry.”

  “You didn’t even call to see if I made it home alright. What if I’d been killed trying to walk back to town, my body rotting in a ditch along the highway? But maybe you were too busy nursing a killer hangover.”

  His face reddens. "Fuck." He runs both hands through his hair and over his head again. He leans back, hands still in his hair, and looks up at the vaulted ceiling of the cafeteria. It irritates me that I notice how handsome he is, his white shirt stretching over his fit form. When he looks back at me, I notice the shine of unshed tears in his eyes. “I wanted to call. But my dad-" He stops, swallows down what he isn’t saying, and then asks, “How did you get home?”

  “Well, here’s the irony: After realizing I had no way to get home and no one to call because here’s the truth - I snuck out to go to Portland with you - I started walking. Lucky for me, Gabe Daniels happened to be driving back to town after a delivery for his dad. He stopped and picked me up.”

  “Daniels?" He looks down at the table, unseeing.

  I have the sense that there is war raging within him. I say, “It doesn’t matter. Look. I’m not your girlfriend.” His jaw tenses. “You can do whatever you want, whoever you want, Seth. Just don’t use me. I can’t accept being treated like that - by anyone.” I stand to leave feeling emboldened, but nervous. Seth might have been my friend, but I’m very aware that I’m verbally slamming popular-boy Seth in a very public way.

  He grabs my wrist. It isn’t threatening, just a plea for me to stay and hear him out, but from the outside it could be misinterpreted. He glances around, let’s go and then looks at me again. “Please stay?” He asks. His gaze is pleading.

  I see the remorse, but a fleeting thought gallops through me that wonders if Seth cares about me and our friendship or his reputation? It isn't fair to think. I know it. I’ve done the very same thing to him. My pride is smarting from being ditched. It hurt to be disregarded for a party. It hurt to be forgotten for another girl, a girl who at the very moment is killing me with her cold stare. I think: How would I want
to be treated in the role were reversed? How would I have wanted things to be different for me? How would I want things to be different for my parents?

  I sink back to my seat. It is only fair for me to give him his chance to explain. As a friend, it is the right thing to do recalling what it was when my friends wouldn’t give me the time of day. Besides, my anger only really hurts me, right?

  “I treated you badly, Ab. Really badly. I wouldn’t have done the same thing to one of my guy friends.”

  “So why did you? To me?"

  He’s quiet a moment and while I know he’s formulating his response, I wonder if he might be trying to avoid it. Then he says, “I was only thinking about myself.”

  I melt at his honesty; the unease disperses like the energy of a storm broken up by the wind. I know what he’s admitted was difficult. The truth of his words echo across the cavern of my own paradigm. “We all are,” I say.

  He studies a stain on the tabletop and attempts to rub it away with his thumb.

  I reach out and put my hand over his.

  He looks at me and then back down at our hands. “Everybody wants something, Ab. I’m supposed to be something to everyone,” he says this quietly almost to himself. “I just lost control because I was trying to keep hold of it. Trying to be everything. It sounds stupid, I know.”

  His words break my heart. To think he’s struggling with his place in the world too, when it seems like he has it all figured out. “It doesn’t,” I say.

  He looks up at me, encouraged, but the pain there is unmistakable and I suddenly wish we were somewhere else, somewhere where all of the eyes and ears around us weren’t present. He continues, “It’s like that day after the movie, when I lied to you - I default to stuff like that to protect -” He pauses and then looks up at me again, “my secrets. I hate it.”

  I squeeze his hand wishing he could feel my complete comprehension. How much I identify with what he’s saying but can’t bring myself to tell him. All of the ways he’s trying to protect himself from the secret of his dad, from the social realm of school, from the fear of not measuring up to expectations. “I get it,” I say and smile at him.

  "I'm so sorry, Ab. Can you forgive me?”

  “I can,” I say. Of course, this was never a question. He’s Seth. I wonder if my parents can forgive each other?

  "I’m a jerk."

  "Well, that's redundant.” I laugh. “We've already established that fact. We all can be.”

  He glances at my hand resting over his and then looks up at me. A slight smile touches his mouth, sans the dimple, though his beautiful amber eyes are still sad. “Does this mean we’re okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “We’re okay.”

  The bell rings.

  I continue, “but it doesn’t mean that I forget, which might be worse. You also owe me a trip to Portland, not that my parents will ever let me go because I’m in the strike zone at home.” I stand up. “Walk me to English?”

  We walk side-by-side down the hallway, the predatory gossip line takes in everything happening between us. It’s a bit unnerving, but I try to ignore it to focus on the inane conversation Seth and I are having as we attempt to reestablish the trust that’s been lost.

  We part ways with an awkward “See you in art,” before I enter the classroom. Hannah is waiting. “He apologized. We’re friends. I forgive him,” I say not sure I can say more anyway. Thankfully, the second bell rings and I’m saved by Mr. Bilson and another of his activities to avoid any more details. I need to process what Seth said, so shaken by the vulnerability he shared and how much I identified with it.

  “Settle in, Peeps,” Mr. B says. “We are supposed to be through the fourth chapter today, yes?”

  A chorus of assents echo around the room.

  “Good. Okay, first things first: Journal topic is “what is truth?" Ten minutes, freewrite. Go. If you’re behind in the reading, get there.”

  I’m not exactly sure how Bilson does it, but the entire class quiets and most of us write. I wonder about the topic of truth, writing about what just happened between Seth and I. I suppose that’s one of the ways Mr. B tricks us into writing: He says he’ll never read the journal so we can write what we want. Considering Seth’s story, a question surfaces in the meanderings of my thoughts and I wonder if he’s telling the truth. Then again, am I? Am I completely honest? Did I tell him about Hawaii? About the video? No. Doesn’t that make me a liar? And if so, what does that mean about the friendship I’m building with anyone, Hannah? Seth? Wouldn’t those relationships be built on a lie? A foundation in shifting sand? Suddenly, I’m irritated and swearing at Mr. B in my journal for even making me write it.

  “Ten minutes up. Bring it to a close,” Mr. B says and waits another few beats before saying: “Experiment time! At this end of the room,” Mr. B waves his arms with large movements getting our attention, “you agree with the statement I’m about to make regarding Nick Carroway." Mr. B trots across the room to the other side. “And if you disagree with the statement, you’ll find yourself on this side of the room.” He takes large steps between the two extreme points of the classroom. “Any variable of agreement or disagreement falls on this line between the two points. The center is-” he waves his arms back and forth.

  “Neutral,” a student says.

  “Exactly. Ground rules,” Mr. Bilson states when the noise level of our discussion rises. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion but you have to back it up with evidence from the text. Ready?" He glances around. “Okay. Here’s the statement: Nick Carroway is a liar. Agree or disagree?”

  The room bursts into movement and noise as we get up from our desks. I consider the statement, and decide that I’m neutral about the narrator, Carroway and place myself in the middle of the line that stretches across the room.

  “Aw. This is a really magnificent line,” Mr. B says. “Are we ready to discuss our reasons? Grab your book to provide evidence, people.”

  Rachel, always willing to share, raises her hand. She’s between the liar and neutral area of the line.

  “Rachel. Go. Why there?” Bilson asks. Those who went to grab their books get back into the line.

  “Well, I figured that Nick is a product of the society, and the society is made up of liars. Tom lies, Daisy lies, Jordan lies. Even Gatsby lies. It stands to reason then, that Nick lies too,” Rachel says.

  “But he’s not a bad guy,” a classmate named Willa states. She’s standing on the other side of the line closer to the “not a liar” point.

  “Are you saying being good or bad depends on motives?” Mr. B asks her.

  My mind moves away from The Great Gatsby and I think about what’s on my mind: the conversation I had with Seth. I understood what he said: I default to stuff like this to protect my secrets. Protecting himself. I recognize Good Abby and Bad Abby in that statement. I see them in this story suddenly. Am I a liar or a product of my circumstances?

  Willa answers, “Kind of, I guess. I mean, if he’s a product of a lying society, then isn’t that the norm? Wouldn’t that make him normal, and so if he is lying, he’s telling his own version of a truth?”

  “Interesting. So, what I think you’re asking is if the truth depends on perspective? Or who’s telling the story? Someone else?" Mr. Bilson asks.

  “I think Nick is the only one telling the truth,” Darnell states. He’s the first student at his end of the line.

  “Okay, Darnell. Can you elaborate?”

  “Nick’s keeping it real, you know. He doesn’t hold back when he gives us the information. Like Tom and Daisy and Gatsby - he gives us reasons not to like them. And, even though he likes that chick named Jordan, he tells us straight up she’s a liar.”

  Another person from the other end of the line says, “But maybe Nick is just trying to make us think he’s a good guy among all of these bad people. He tells us his version rather than the true version so we like him. Doesn’t that still make him a liar?”

  Mr. Bilson crosses his a
rms and nods. “Thoughts?”

  Patrick is standing opposite Darnell. “Nick’s character is questionable from the start. He supports Tom’s affair, going so far as to party with him and his mistress, parties at Gatsby’s like every other leach in the society, hangs out with the nefarious Mr. Wolfsheim, and like a few others observed, loves Jordan who he admits lies. What kind of guy is that? And why should we believe him?”

  “This is an excellent observation, Patrick. When it comes to analysis of literature, one of our jobs is to ask ourselves if the narrator is reliable? Considering that, next statement then: Nick Carroway is a reliable narrator. Agree or disagree?” We move ourselves on the line again mostly just swapping one end for the other.

  I stay where I am. “Isn’t it possible that it isn’t an either-or proposition?” I ask. I’m not sure if I’m asking about Nick Carroway or for myself.

  “Can you explain what you are thinking, Abby?” Mr. B asks.

  “Well, I was thinking that it’s easy for a bystander, I guess in this case, the audience, to offer judgement that sees Carroway as good or bad, but what if he’s neither. What if he’s just trying to live the best life he can with what he knows?”

  “The logical fallacy of either-or thinking broken open,” Mr. B laughs. “What do the rest of you think? Does Abby have a point that maybe we’re looking at Mr. Carroway to narrowly?”

  Class continues and I don’t offer any additional demystifying comments, but I’m hung up on the first idea returning to my experience the previous year. Had I gotten drunk? Yes. Had I given Kanoa a lap dance? Yes. Did those things make me a bad person? I don’t think so. Did someone else take an unsolicited video of me? Yes. Did that make me bad? Just like when I look at Seth. He made stupid decisions at the party, but those decisions didn’t make him a bad person. I think about my mom and my dad and their choices. Our choices make us flawed, but not necessarily bad.