by Karole Cozzo
And before I fold the paper in half, I catch a glimpse of this year’s topic.
“The Power of Speech.”
Silly thing for me to try to write about. As someone who stays silent about so many things she’s thinking, feeling, and enduring, I really have no business commenting on the topic.
Chapter Five
It’s a quiet day at school on Friday. (Forty-two days to go.)
I have a successful afternoon. We play a home game against Great Valley, and we win. In my position as midfielder, I don’t have a lot of opportunities to shine in terms of goals scored or blocked, but my performance is steady and strong. I set Leighton up for most of her goals, at any rate.
The mood in the locker room is exuberant and silly as Leighton and Dana flit through the room, spinning the rest of us in impromptu dance moves and handing out bunches of victory Blow Pops. Sometimes, I’m as susceptible as everyone else, and the positive attention from Leighton feels like a gift.
My family isn’t at home—maybe Phillip has a med check with one of his various doctors—and I blare the radio loud enough for the Black Keys to be heard over the running shower. I’m in and out in fifteen minutes, in a pretty darn good mood despite the week’s chaotic beginning and excited for the night.
I head toward Bravo Pizza to meet Erin and Tanu for a brick-oven pie before the football game. By the time we arrive forty-five minutes later, the sun has set and the air is crisp and chilled. Fallen leaves crunch under our feet and I’m glad I dug out my colorful striped gloves to pair with my jeans and long-sleeved field hockey tee. We always wear them after a home win. We make our way to the far end of the home stands, our conversation attempts drowned out by the tinny din of the marching band, the static play-by-play from the announcers’ booth, and the rhythmic calls from the cheerleaders.
I spot Alex’s mom in the crowd, pom-poms in hand, her wheelchair positioned near the bottom of the bleachers. She sees me walk past and raises her good arm to wave to me. I’ve only spoken with her a handful of times, but she swore she never forgets a face and she makes good on that promise.
Our group isn’t hard to spot, with its members clad in identical maroon T-shirts. We have to sit as a team—Leighton’s orders—but at least other friends aren’t excluded, so we don’t have to ditch Tanu, who would absolutely hate that.
Leighton sits on a fleece blanket in the middle of the group, dressed in Under Armour leggings, gray Uggs, and coordinating maroon headband.
I wonder how it’s possible to look so casual and so perfect at the same time.
She turns toward us when we arrive. I notice Alex’s number painted on her left cheek and I sort of hope it gets smudged sooner rather than later. “Hey, did you guys get the heads-up?” She jiggles her knees to generate body heat. “Bonfire tonight at the Parish farm?”
We nod in unison, because it would have been impossible to miss the invite spreading like fire itself throughout the hallways over the past few days.
“Are his parents away this weekend?” one of the other senior girls asks.
Leighton waves her hand carelessly. “No, but it doesn’t matter. The fire pit is almost a mile away from the house. There are all those trees. It’s not like anyone bothers us back there.”
Beside her, Dana smiles and lowers her voice conspiringly. “Good. My sister picked us up a case when she was home last weekend.”
Leighton pushes her ear warmers out of the way and actually inserts her index fingers into both ears. “La-la-la-la-la. I can’t hear you,” she says loudly. “No drinking during season! La-la-la-la-la . . .”
Dana frowns. “But I have a bottle of Goldschläger, too. Your favorite.”
Leighton huffs and tries again. “No talking about drinking during season. No talking about drinking during season when we are on school grounds. Come on, how stupid are you? Coach Marks is probably here.”
Erin fiddles with her ponytail before working up the courage to interject. “Umm . . . I picked up the stuff for s’mores, too, like we talked about.”
Leighton leans down to high-five her. “You’re my girl then.”
Erin beams like she just aced her precalc final or something.
Then the referee blows the whistle, a frantic jumble pours from the announcers’ booth, and Leighton’s eyes fly back toward the field. She is on her feet at once, jumping and whooping. “Yeah, Colby! That’s you, superstar! Go, Alex!”
As he trots from the end zone to the sideline, he removes his helmet, revealing traces of mud on his face. He doesn’t turn his head toward the sound of her voice. It was a decent attempt on his part, but he didn’t get the first down so the ball is turned over. Alex collapses onto the bench and squirts water into his mouth, which he spits angrily into the grass.
Leighton can’t make him a superstar just by calling him one. To me, her enthusiasm is patronizing. And given her display, she’s attracted more attention to herself than the person she claims to be celebrating anyway.
We win, capping off a night of Valley Forge victories, from the guys’ soccer team to varsity field hockey to the football team. After the adults head out, the school parking lot remains a rampant madhouse. Friends plan to drop off cars and make sleepover arrangements—real and pretend—to appease their parents. Finally, a caravan starts moving toward the Parish farm.
We follow a long, winding path back to the fire pit, where a huge bonfire is already reaching seven or eight feet into the air, licks of flame crackling and escaping higher into the black sky. People are stashing bottles in trunks or arranging themselves on wool blankets or low logs.
It’s not long before the smell of pot is wafting out from the grove of trees, and couples, hand in hand, start disappearing into the same hidden area.
Alex and Leighton are not among them. You could almost forget they’re a couple at all, the way Leighton is busy holding court among the girls and Alex rehashes the game with his teammates. Occasionally, he makes an effort to catch her eye, and I see him direct his smallest, most intimate half smile in her direction. She looks up and waves hurriedly, barely noticing, as busy socializing as she is.
It’s a smile I used to have memorized, one I try not to think about.
I stay with the pack of junior girls, sipping from a Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate that has been spiked with a liberal dose of peppermint schnapps. Erin is managing the s’mores supplies and dunks some extra marshmallows into my cup.
I giggle as I watch them melt, a warm, sweet buzz making a slow path through my bloodstream.
But the groups have started to converge as everyone moves in closer to soak up the warmth of the fire. I pick up pieces of conversation from the members of the football team. Alex’s friends.
“The day of the fire drill, you mean?”
“Yeah. Dude, it was fucking nuts.”
I know at once what they’re talking about and the cocoa warmth in my belly turns ice cold.
“It was kind of hilarious, though,” Jason, the quarterback, continues. “It’s this skinny, bony kid I’ve never seen before, chucking his shoes at this big guy who looked like he wanted to run and hide. I’m standing there, like, where the hell am I? Who are these people anyway? I thought it was a hidden camera show or something.”
“Ha-ha, it’s like in Austin Powers,” Mitch, a junior player, jokes stupidly. “You know that part? ‘Who throws a shoe? Honestly! You fight like a woman!’ ”
His British accent is atrocious, yet they all seem to find him hilarious.
Even Alex laughs.
I feel blood beneath my cold cheeks. It feels like there is a spotlight directly over my head. It’s impossible to stand there and act natural and I feel my mouth twitching as I try to keep my face neutral. But as hard as it is to stand there, it’s even more impossible to move.
“No, but seriously,” Jason says, “I heard some school for crazy kids closed and they all had to come back to our school.”
“For good?” Mitch asks.
Jason shrugs
. “Don’t know.”
Now the girls are starting to involve themselves. “Are they seriously crazy?” Dana questions. “Like, dangerous?”
A hot ball of fury emerges from the cold numbness in my stomach. What a stupid thing to say. Phillip’s hardly crazy or dangerous.
“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this much: That kid was out of control,” Jason answers. “He didn’t think twice about attacking the person who was trying to work with him.”
Attacking?
Phillip didn’t attack him. Phillip was trying to get away from him, if anything. Phillip was trying to get away from all of it.
“Don’t we have a right to know or something?” Leighton questions innocently. “Like, did anyone bother to tell our parents about this? ‘Oh, by the by, we’re bringing a busful of crazy people into your kids’ school.’ ”
“Course not,” says Dana, taking a sip directly from the bottle of Goldschläger. She teeters on her feet. “It’s just like all the school shootings. Nobody says anything until after the fact. Then it’s all coulda, woulda, shoulda.” She giggles, a complete, drunken imbecile.
They don’t know him at all. Yet they assume he is crazy, violent. Likening him to a possible criminal, a possible murderer.
Why is everyone always so damn stupid?
Hot tears coat my throat and blur my eyes. I need to go. I need to go now, or else they might fall, right in front of everyone.
I turn away from the crowd. “I need a minute,” I mumble in Tanu’s direction.
But she doesn’t hear me, and grabs at my sleeve, forcing me to turn around. “What?”
I feel the pressure of unshed tears against my eyes, creating urgency in my escape. “I just need a minute!” I practically shout it, my voice unexpectedly loud and shrill.
Alex’s eyes leap up from the ground, finding mine. The laughter drains from them at once, and they are dark and serious, intense with concern, through the fire. I hold them with mine for just a second, begging for the help I can’t ask for out loud.
But I have to go, so I turn and stalk off into the grove of pine trees, the ones behind the fire pit, away from the people hooking up or smoking up. I collapse onto the ground on a bed of soft needles that are cold through my jeans. I stretch my shirt’s collar over my chin and curl my hands inside the cuffs.
I feel like Phillip, suddenly understanding the desire to escape every single sensation around me.
I glower into the darkness. I mean, truly, I don’t really get why, when Phillip is so damn distant from me, it feels like any of this is about me. Phillip barely exists on the same planet as I do. Besides sharing an address and a kitchen table, our lives rarely overlap.
So why do their comments feel so personal? Why do I feel insulted?
Why do they make me so angry?
It’s Phillip. Phillip who sometimes doesn’t even recognize me outside of our house. They might as well be talking about a stranger.
But . . . they just don’t get it. They don’t get how much this is not a joke.
He’s still a person. He’s not a joke to share around a bonfire.
My life is not a laughing matter.
Tears finally slip down my cheeks. I draw my knees into my chest and cry into the denim of my jeans. I am silent about it, but I feel the material slowly grow damp against my skin.
When I manage to straighten up, wiping my tears with the back of my hand, I find gray New Balances and a pair of loose jeans in front of me. Looking up, I see the rest of Alex. I didn’t hear him approach, and I have no idea how long he’s been watching me.
He doesn’t wait for an invitation before easing himself onto the ground beside me, Miller Lite bottle in his hand. There is a still-damp quality to him from his postgame shower and he smells like winter, with the smell of fire smoke on his favorite sweatshirt with the Sherpa-lined hood. A particularly rough tackle during the third quarter left a nasty-looking gash above his left cheekbone. The skin around it looks swollen, and for one moment I allow myself to wish I could reach out and touch him.
The moment ends, my fingers dig into my knees, and I stare straight ahead.
He does the same, waiting a minute before asking, “What’s eating you, Michaelson?” He takes a swig from his beer.
I clear my throat of residual tears. “It’s nothing.” I shake my head. “Stupid.”
Alex purses his full lips, and then exhales a sigh of frustration through them. “You feel like cutting the bullshit, just for once?”
I turn toward him in surprise. The game has left him really surly.
His eyes are so dark and full; I’m not used to seeing Alex like this. He raises his eyebrows, his expression still serious. “You jumped down my throat the other day, in independent study. You never do that. You’re staring into space all the time. So . . . why don’t you just cut the bullshit and tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s not really the time or place,” I stall, chewing on a ragged thumbnail.
Alex glances at our surroundings. “Well, I’m here, so it seems to be an okay place. And I can decide how I want to use my time.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be out there having fun with Leighton?”
He merely repeats himself. “I can decide how I want to use my time.” His voice has an uncharacteristic edge that I attribute to the alcohol. I don’t see Alex drink much. “She doesn’t dictate everything, ya know, and her little entourage is plenty big at the moment.”
Before I can further consider the meaning of his words, Alex nudges my knee with the back of his hand, refocusing my attention. “So whatever it is . . . spill.”
I think about how to tell him what’s going on while still telling him nothing at all. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to relent. I poke at the dirt with the toe of my shoe, considering.
“It’s just hard,” I begin slowly, “hearing people make a joke out of your life. Some things really aren’t that funny and sometimes people just have no idea.”
Alex’s brows are drawn in confusion, but he manages a little chuckle. “Umm, count me as one of those people right now. I don’t follow.”
I focus on the pressure inside my gut, which has been present since my parents first told me about Phillip starting at Valley Forge. It has been building and building, with the incident in the hallway, with my friends talking about it, with Alex sitting here, demanding an explanation. Sooner or later, I am going to pop. My roiling emotions are reaching a containment limit.
I close my eyes. “So you heard about what happened the other day? What they were just talking about? During the fire drill?”
“Bits and pieces.” He shrugs.
“Yeah, well, some kid, one of the kids who had to come back to Valley Forge when a special school closed, he completely lost it and caused a big scene.” I bury my chin in the neck of my sweatshirt and tighten my grasp on my knees. My words are barely audible. I can’t believe I’m doing this—saying the words out loud—and my heart pounds against my chest in protest. “Some kid being my brother, Phillip.”
Alex doesn’t even blink. He seems entirely unfazed, but it could just be an act, for my sake. He takes another drink from his bottle. “Why didn’t you just say so?” he asks evenly.
“I never say so.” I sift through the pine needles with my fingers, letting them fall back to the ground. “Never.”
He studies me for a minute, trying to understand something before continuing. “For the record, our friends out there, they’re not bad people, right? If they knew he was your brother, they wouldn’t be talking like that in front of you.”
“Like that’s any better?” I ask bitterly. “They might not say it out loud, but they’d still be thinking it. I’d almost rather hear them say it, hear what they really think, than have to wonder what they’re saying when I’m not listening.”
Alex doesn’t argue with me but he sits quietly for a few minutes before asking something of me. “How come you never told me? I can’t believe you never said anything . . . a
t some point.”
He glances toward me and our eyes connect like magnets. I think of the other bonfire we spent together and remember everything. I choke out a weak explanation.
“It’s just complicated; everything with my brother is.”
“I can’t believe it’s too complicated to talk about,” he argues back.
I swallow back my frustration. What’s so hard to understand?
“At my house? Phillip defines everything. It’s about Phillip, all the time. I get why, sure, but that doesn’t mean I don’t ever get sick and tired of it being that way.” I take a deep breath, which suddenly sounds shaky again. I wait until the trace of tears disappears. “I just get tired. Of being the bigger person, of being expected to deal with it all the time, every single day.” I shake my head. “Most of the time, I just don’t feel like talking about Phillip.”
“I understand. A lot of shit’s not fair. People take their lives for granted, how easy they can be. You know I get that,” he finishes, alluding to life with his mother, I’m sure. “What I don’t get is why you kept that a secret for over a year. At least from me, all things considered. Like, a whole person, you just never mentioned.”
“There are lots of reasons why I didn’t broadcast the news,” I tell him. “Before Phillip was placed in a school that was right for him, he went to school with me, elementary school.” My teeth grind together in anger. “You know how in kindergarten, we all knew how to be nice to each other?” I roll my eyes, thinking of the corny analogies teachers used to share, likening different kids to the rainbow of crayons in the box, reminding us we were all different but still all beautiful and special. Then I shake my head. “Well, kids lose that ability really quickly. By about third grade, kids get mean. And they were.”
I inhale a deep breath before getting into it. Remembering the story in full, actually feeling it . . . I’m nine years old all over again, confused, and sad, and lonely, and a little bit scared. Scared that something I have no control over can alter my life in a second.