One Lonely Degree

by C. K. Kelly Martin

  “You didn’t think she was going to make it easy, did you?” His blue-green eyes stare accusingly into mine. “It was never going to be easy.”

  “I don’t know what I thought.” I grab my sides as I hunch over. “She doesn’t even want to talk to me.”

  “Then we don’t have anything to lose,” Jersy declares, his finger tracing the outline of his scar.

  “Maybe.” My teeth scrape across my lips. “She’s still my best friend. I have to do something.” I raise my head and look him straight in the face. “I’m really sorry.”

  Jersy stares back at me, all lips and eyes and Beautiful Boy, and shrugs heavily. “What about me?” he asks. “Am I still your friend?”

  I can’t do this. Any other time I’d dissolve. But I can’t. I’ve already hit bottom.

  I stand on my front step watching Jersy watch me. He’s waiting for something that won’t happen, and at some point he’ll figure that out and disappear and I’ll feel so sad that I’ll wish I could call him back and do it right.

  “You were a really good friend,” I tell him. “I wish everything could be different.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Jersy’s hands slide slowly out of his sweatshirt. I watch his chest rise and fall as he stares at me. It’s like we’re trapped. Like the moment will never end. Then he tilts his head and takes a step back.

  It’s over. We never even say goodbye.

  THaT’S HOW Summer changed everything, not in a single moment that neatly divided before and after, but in a series of little ones that altered life incrementally until I couldn’t deny the differences. I went back upstairs and sat with my mom for a long time after Jersy left, until the Anti-Me trudged into my bedroom with his face dragging along the carpet and asked what we were doing. I think he was afraid something else was going wrong—or about to. He’d had enough family drama lately, and so had I. Enough drama all round. So I went to the cottage with my dad after all, and we did boring things like canoeing, throwing a Frisbee around, making homemade barbecue sauce, and listening to the radio, but it was a good kind of boring, the kind I really needed.

  When I got home, I tried to call Audrey again. She wouldn’t come near the phone, and I ended up e-mailing her a long apology instead. No excuses—I was wrong, I’m sorry, and it’s all over with Jersy.

  I knew I wouldn’t hear anything back. I wouldn’t have forgiven me either, not right away. Before summer the thought of not having Audrey as a friend would’ve torn me to pieces. A big part of me still didn’t want to do anything other than hang out with Samsam and wait for her to change her mind, but I forced myself to call Nishani and tell her about Audrey, Jersy, and me. Nishani said it sounded sad and messed up and like something we really needed to talk about in person. We arranged to meet at that same coffee place Jersy and I’d gone to, and she bought me an iced cappuccino and listened while I blabbed most of my summer secrets. The weirdest thing was that it wasn’t hard to tell her. I could’ve kept going all night, and when Mom picked us up at eleven, I felt like I was just getting started.

  A few days later Nishani and I tagged along when Aneeka and her friends went clothes shopping in Toronto. Another time I ran into Maggie by the mall food court with her mom and humored her by comparing notes on the Aidan Lamb flick. I even invited her over to watch a movie, and we had a pretty good time.

  I was busier those last weeks of summer than I was all year. At heart I’m as much of a social outcast as ever, but something had to change. I couldn’t wait until I hit New York or London to talk to people, especially now that I didn’t have Audrey or Jersy.

  Losing them both at the same time is beyond hard, and Aneeka’s asked me more than once if I’ve been tempted to call Jersy or even see him. Of course I want to talk to him, but what I want more than anything is for Audrey to be my friend again.

  Two days before school started I walked over to her house and apologized in person with a scratchy throat and my eyes burning. She said I wasn’t being fair, asked how I’d expected her to react, and told me to go home. When I didn’t budge, her top lip started twitching and she yelled at me to go cry on Jersy’s shoulder.

  Some girls would’ve done that, but how I’d acted with Jersy seemed even worse once I saw the damage I’d done to Audrey up close. Getting in touch with him would’ve felt like sticking a second knife into her back. I couldn’t do it.

  When school started up again, I saw him in the hall at St. Mark’s and he nodded at me as he passed, but he didn’t look happy. Audrey was in my biology class and sat in the front row with Teresa. For the first couple of days, the force of her injured vibes flowing in my direction overshadowed everything else. Then, on the third day of class, Billy Young showed up in a pair of severely creased uniform pants, skimmed my sleeve, and motioned that we should sit in the back. He wasn’t mad at me because of Jersy or Audrey; he wasn’t taking sides. He’d just spent a day and a half stuck in a car with his dad while driving back from Florida and said he still felt claustrophobic, like he wanted to find the world’s biggest open space and run until he collapsed.

  “But what would happen after that?” I asked him. “Wouldn’t your dad show up to give you a ride home?”

  Billy laughed and stretched his arms out above his head. “That’s exactly what would happen. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t follow through with that plan.”

  We sat together in bio every day after that. At lunch I mostly stuck with Nishani’s friends, but I still hung out with Jasper and Maggie during the classes we shared too. A couple of times Maggie and I went to the mall together, and I had to make a conscious effort not to roll my eyes when she squealed about how cute some reality-show chef guy named Michael was.

  I missed Audrey. I missed Jersy. I missed places I’d never been.

  But there I was in Glenashton, helping my dad pick out wallpaper and place mats for his new bachelor pad. Okay, he says he’s not interested in dating anyone, and I hope that’s true, but he could change his mind at any minute. Anything is possible.

  Anything is possible is still something I’d rather not think about, and one morning in late September I’m rushing through the upstairs hallway at St. Mark’s when I think I spot Adam Porter’s athletic frame leaning against a locker in the distance. My fingers turn instantly to ice. The flavor of rust crawls into my mouth like it had never left and will never leave.

  When he turns to walk away, I see that it’s actually some sophomore guy who shot up half a foot over the summer and doesn’t even look that much like Adam from the front. I’m so relieved that the relief makes me dizzy. Why can he still do this to me when he’s gone?

  Why?

  Maybe Jersy was right about talking to someone. I’ve been wrong about other things. I could be wrong about that too. I don’t think I could do it in person, but maybe over the phone, anonymous, so no one will have to know. It’s not like I’ll call the cops or anything. It’s not like I’ll tell my parents or see a shrink, but maybe I’ll do something just for me.

  At the time, it felt like telling Jersy helped, but the thing itself is still there, like a microscopic flaw inside me that functions like a domino. Sometimes I don’t think about it for days at a time … and then I do. Like with the fake Adam spotting that flashes me back to last year’s panic. I don’t want to feel that way anymore— I want to forget for real—so later that day I make up a test for myself, the way I used to force myself to think of Adam just to prove to myself I could.

  After school I head for HMV with some of my hard-earned Play Country cash in my knapsack. About forty seconds after I walk into the store, a girl with streaked blue hair lopes over to me and wants to know if she can help me find anything. A guy with a Celtic tattoo and impeccable taste in music, I think anxiously, and just then Record Store Guy strolls in with a bag of Japanese food. He stands next to me and flashes me the most amazing full-on smile.

  “Hey, you,” Ryan says. “I thought you’d given up on us.” By “us” he means the store, of course.

/>   “I’ve been around,” I lie. “I guess you just haven’t been here at the time.”

  Ryan nods, his eyes twinkling. His fingers are nail polish free, and his eyeliner is so smudged that you can barely see it. Audrey would almost approve of him like this. “You know, we had a job going here in the summer,” he says. “I was going to mention it in case you were interested.”

  But I never came in. Ryan is taller than me, and I have to look up at him a little. I’m not sure if it’s because of some of the things that happened between me and Jersy during the summer, but somehow being around him seems easier than before. I mean, he’s as Belgian-chocolate edible as ever, but that doesn’t seem quite as scary as it did for most of last year.

  “That would’ve been cool,” I say. “I wish I’d known.” We’ve talked lots in the past, Ryan and me, but always inside these walls, and suddenly I feel like this test needs to be bigger. My heart’s jogging a little faster now, but I tell myself I can handle this. “Are you on break?” I point at his Japanese food. “I was just thinking about grabbing a wrap or something.”

  I can’t believe I just asked Record Store Guy if he wants to spend his break with me. Audrey would be impressed. I want to share this with her so much; it’s impossible for me to imagine that she wouldn’t want to know.

  “I’m not really a fan of the food court,” Ryan says. “It’s a warm day. How about we hit the park in front of the civic center?”

  I buy a vegetarian wrap, and we head out across the parking lot together. The civic center’s on the west side and has a public library, day care, art gallery, and a bunch of other offices in it. At first I’m nervous, wondering if we’ll have anything to say to each other now that we’re outside HMV, but then Ryan starts talking about a folk-punk Norwegian band I’ve never heard of and a New Zealand singer/songwriter that I’ve been listening to a lot lately.

  The park’s more of a parkette, and we sit there eating our food. Ryan has chopsticks and knows how to use them. I stare at his lips as he eats, and I can’t help but want him the way I used to, but the feelings around the want are more complicated. I feel guilty about Jersy for even thinking about Ryan, and then the Jersy guilt makes the Audrey guilt flare too. My brain short-circuits as I try to follow the thoughts through to some satisfactory conclusion, and I end up just watching Ryan slide pieces of shrimp into his mouth.

  I wonder what it would be like to kiss him, to go home with him and maybe lie on his couch with his weight on me. Would I get scared? I don’t think so, but that’s probably only because I know it would never happen.

  Ryan stops chewing and holds his chopsticks aloft. “Are you okay?”

  I swallow the bit of zucchini in my mouth. “I think I’m coming down with something. I’ve had this start-of-a-headache feeling all day.” That’s pretty close to the truth, except that my headache’s not what was making me stare.

  Ryan sets his chopsticks down in the cardboard container on his lap and lays his right palm against my forehead. I’m sure that it’s the kind of thing tons of people would do when someone says they’re not feeling well, but now instead of jogging my heart is outright racing.

  “You feel warm,” he confirms, withdrawing his hand. “We have some Tylenol back at the store if you want.” Ryan smiles to himself. “Now I sound like my girlfriend—she’s always trying to feed people drugs.”

  Once upon a time hearing that he had a girlfriend would’ve put a lump the size of a quarter in my throat, but now it only fazes me for two seconds. Then I start to tease him, my heart beginning to slow back down to normal. “Your girlfriend is a drug pusher?”

  Ryan laughs. “She’s a nursing student, a big believer in modern medicine.”

  I nod like that makes much better sense.

  “C’mon,” Ryan tells me. “You really look like you need that Tylenol.” He reaches out to touch my arm before getting to his feet, and it’s at that exact moment that I see Jersy striding towards the civic center in a plain white T-shirt, his navy uniform sweater tied around his waist. He stares at us for two long seconds before wrenching his gaze away. His jaw has dropped, and I instantly sense that he thinks there’s something more than Tylenol going on between Ryan and me.

  I see Jersy round the corner at school or walk into the cafeteria all the time, so I should be used to it, but the sight always feels like a shock of longing chased with a lingering, aching sadness.

  This time it’s even worse, because of the way his eyes zero in on mine and then jolt away, like I’ve hurt him all over again.

  In a flash Jersy disappears inside the front doors. Meanwhile my guilt alarm is beeping loud enough to wake the entire state of Alaska. It’s not true, Jersy. Don’t believe it. I send him urgent telepathic messages while Record Store Guy and I trek back to HMV. Ryan gives me two Tylenol tablets, and the girl with the blue-streaked hair offers me her water bottle to chase the pills down. “Grab an application now,” Ryan advises, handing one over. “That way we’ll have it on file when we’re hiring again.”

  I take the application, still thinking about the look on Jersy’s face. I know I’d look that way if I saw him with some other girl. Audrey probably looked that way when I told her about us.

  Whatever they had is over; I’ve heard it through the grapevine, but I can see it for myself too. They don’t let their eyes land on each other. The three of us are like a natural disaster, a hurricane or avalanche that can’t be undone. I don’t know how to fix it, and then there’s the invisible domino … the thing that never happened but that I haven’t entirely left behind. Later that evening I lie on top of my bedspread, thinking and thinking and thinking, with my almost headache burrowing into the right side of my skull and Samsam curled up beside my bed.

  There’s no escaping the fact that there are three conversations I need to have as soon as possible. Maybe none of them will really change anything, but I have to try.

  First I call Audrey. That she even picks up is good news, I guess, but my nerves make me frantic. “Don’t hang up,” I plead. “I have to talk to you.”

  “I think we’ve already had this conversation,” Audrey says. “Please don’t keep doing this.”

  Once I hear her voice, the thought of telling her about my conversation with Ryan seems ridiculous. From her point of view, there’s nothing new with me that matters.

  “I’m not going to bug you anymore after this,” I tell her. “I’m sorry, Audrey. I’m so, so sorry. Tell me what I can do.”

  Audrey sighs, and she sounds nearly as sad about it as I feel. Maybe sometimes there’s nothing anyone can do to change things—the bad feelings catch and stick. “Do whatever you want,” she says finally. “It has nothing to do with me.”

  “Audr—” I begin, but she’s already hung up. If I want to tell someone about Record Store Guy or anything else, from now on it will have to be Nishani, or maybe even Maggie or Billy. Somehow I still can’t believe this is where we stand, but I can’t let it stop me in my tracks. I give myself a few minutes to detox from my depressing call to Audrey, and then I sit hunched over on my bed with my stomach fluttering and dial the very number I’d sworn weeks ago that I wouldn’t.

  On the third ring, I start debating with myself about whether I should leave a message. After the fourth, Jersy says hello. We haven’t said anything directly to each other since summer, and the sound of his voice makes me flinch. I can’t say who I miss more, the Jersy who was my friend or the one who pulled the covers over us and hugged me tight. Maybe the reason I miss him so much is that I’ve never been able to separate the two.

  “It’s me,” I tell him, sucking back my nerves. Can I still be a me after all these weeks? “It’s Finn.”

  Jersy’s voice deepens. “Yeah … hey.”

  “Hey,” I say back. “I know this is … probably weird.” Jersy leaves me hanging and forces me to continue. I can’t blame him, but it’s hard. “I just … you know … I saw you outside the civic center earlier, and I didn’t want you to get the wron
g idea.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

  The emptiness between us sounds like regular old silence, and maybe that’s all it is. Maybe I read him wrong earlier and he doesn’t care about me anymore. “I know. I just … I didn’t want you to think I was with Ryan.”

  “Is Ryan the guy from HMV?” Jersy asks.

  “Yeah.”

  We both go quiet again.

  I get scared that he won’t say anything else, and I mumble, “I think you were right about talking to someone about what happened to me last year. I think I—”

  Jersy interrupts me. “Finn, are you okay?”

  Considering the mess the three of us have been through, I think I’m actually pretty good, but I could be better—and I want to be. “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m fine. I just want to get some things straightened out in my head.” There are details I’m still scared to say out loud, but I’ve already looked up a number for a twenty-four-hour help line. I’m not positive that I’ll make that third phone call tonight, but I’ll do it soon; that’s a silent promise I make to myself while I’m on the phone with Jersy.

  “Okay.” I hear him exhale into the phone. “That sounds good.”

  “And what about you?” I chew my lip and dig my fingers into my front pocket. “How’re you doing?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “And Christina?” I ask. It’s impossible to get him to say more than two words at a time, but even hearing those few words makes me ache. I don’t know how to switch the feeling off.

  “Yeah, she’s good too. She asked about you.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “What could I say?” Jersy asks. “I told her the truth about us.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Me neither,” Jersy says quietly.

  He’s wishing he wasn’t on the phone with me, I bet. It seems I didn’t need to call him and let him know about Ryan after all. I’m just making things weirder. “Do you want to go?” I ask. I ache all over, even though I’m the one doing the talking.