by Blake Nelson
“Name one.”
“You could get raped,” I say.
“So?”
“You could get killed.”
“I don’t care if I die.”
“You could get pregnant.”
“I’ll get an abortion.”
I find her in the rearview mirror. “People stop thinking you’re cool,” I say. “And they start thinking you’re a pathetic loser.”
“So? They already think that now.”
I’m surprised by that. “Do they?”
“They’re starting to.”
“Okay, well, that’s what happens. I’ve done my duty. The lecture is over.”
I lean forward and turn on the radio.
“I do have one queshion, though,” she says, slurring her words slightly. “What’s it like in rehab? Like, what do you do all day?”
I wasn’t expecting any questions. I look back into the mirror. “You sit around. And talk.”
“That sounds boring,” she says.
“It is.”
I go back to the radio.
“Were there other high school people?” she interrupts.
“There were a few.”
“Were there boys?”
“There were, but you can’t hook up with them.”
“Why not?”
“Because boys tend to be part of the problem.”
She laughs. “They got that right.”
I tune the radio.
“Whaddaya do at night?” she says. “In re-hab?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Watch TV. Play cards. They had a thing called movie night. That was your big chance to hit the town.”
“Movie night,” she says. “God, it sounds awful.”
“Actually, movie night was sort of fun. I used to go with this other girl, Trish. We used to dress up.”
“How old was Trish?”
“Eighteen.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s dead.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“People die,” I say, finding Ashley’s face in the mirror. “That part’s true. It really happens.”
“I know,” she says, letting her head rest back on the seat. “You don’t have to tell me.”
I say nothing more. I tune the radio and then I see Emily sneaking back down the driveway. She opens Ashley’s door. “You lucked out this time. Mom and Dad are asleep.”
“Yeah, yeah,” says Ashley, kicking her way out of the car. “Lucky me.”
7
Stewart invites me to come to his AA meeting in Centralia on Saturday. He’s getting his sixty-day coin. He wants me to be there, to help celebrate.
I drive the fifty-seven miles to Centralia and follow his directions to the meeting. It’s in a modest wooden church with a muddy, potholed parking lot. I park and step around the puddles and go inside.
The group is small, about twenty people sitting around in folding chairs. They are mostly older people: farmers, housewives, people who work at the local lumber mill. It’s cozy, friendly. They have coffee in one of those big silver pots.
I take a seat in one of the metal chairs. The first thing I notice is how much the local people love Stewart. His sixty days is all anyone talks about. It’s an accomplishment they all share. He’s their mascot, their pet project. He belongs to them now. He’s their Lost Prince.
Stewart is embarrassed by all the attention. But he likes it, you can tell. And he loves these people back in his simple way. You can see it in his eyes.
After the meeting, the group takes him out to dinner at the one Chinese restaurant in downtown Centralia. I go along, the one stranger in the group. Stewart walks with me, introduces me to people, keeps me at his side.
At the restaurant, people toast him with their Diet Cokes and water glasses. Stewart stands up and thanks everyone. It’s a fun little party. Even knowing no one, I have a great time.
Later, when everyone is gone, Stewart and I walk through silent Centralia, back to the church parking lot to my car. It’s a little weird being alone with him. I feel jealous of the Centralia people. I wish I had Stewart in my life.
“Thanks for coming down,” he says when we reach my car.
“I was glad to come,” I say, looking at my car keys. “I’m glad you’re doing well.”
“You know,” he says, “I’ve been thinking about moving up to Portland.”
I look up with surprise.
“I can’t live in a basement forever,” he says, grinning.
I grin too. He’s watching me, staring down at me like he does. His eyes are blazing.
He wants me.
I swallow and process this knowledge as best I can. “What would you do in Portland?” I ask.
“I dunno. Get a job.”
“It would be nice to have you around,” I say. I reach out and tug at the pocket of his coat.
“It would be nice to be around,” he says, moving closer.
I can’t help myself, and in seconds we are all over each other. Making out, tearing at each other’s clothes, breathing each other in in wild gasps. My brain starts to reel: tumbling forward into blissful blankness.
We end up inside my car. Stewart is mad with lust. So am I. I keep thinking we’re going to stop. But I should know better.
And then it’s happening. He’s on top of me, crushing me in the backseat. I grab his hair, clutch at his shirt. I touch his face as it hovers over me.
And then as fast as it began, it’s over and I’m blinking my eyes and he lifts himself off of me and we’re sitting there, spent and half naked in the cold of my mom’s Volvo.
Moments later, our clothes mostly back on, we sit together in a deep silence. “We probably shouldn’t have done that,” he says to me, a new seriousness in his voice.
“Don’t say that,” I murmur in the dark.
“But it isn’t right.”
“It’s not perfect,” I say. “Which is different than not right.”
I take his hand. I kiss it. I hold it against my face.
“I love you, Stewart. And I always will.”
“I love you too, Maddie. More than you’ll ever know.”
8
Two weeks later I have an anniversary of my own. On November 21, I have one year clean and sober.
I remember Cynthia telling me once: “There will be a point in your life when that day will be more sacred to you than your own birthday.”
I don’t know about that. But I am surprised I made it this long. I feel like I have to mark the occasion in some way.
So I go to the Young People’s AA meeting that Trish and I went to. I don’t know anyone, so I sit by myself waiting for the announcer person to ask if anyone is celebrating an anniversary. When he does, I raise my hand and say I am, I have one year. People burst into applause and I walk to the front to get my coin.
The people kinda go crazy. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m young and a girl. They whoop and clap and the street-kid skater boys, the ones Trish had crushes on, all high-five me as I make my way back to my chair.
Once I’m seated, I sit and hold the coin in my hand. The coins they give you for thirty and sixty days are plastic, like poker chips. The one-year coin is brass. It’s heavy in your hand. On one side it says: TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE. On the other side: ONE YEAR.
I grip it in my hand. One whole year.
9
For Thanksgiving my family drives up to Seattle to be with my mom’s relatives, who are Irish and always get hammered during any holiday. This is apparently the gene pool I take after. I always liked the Reillys, but this year I am bored and I have to study and obviously I don’t feel like playing football in the backyard with my drunk uncle Rob, who broke his wrist doing the exact same thing two years ago. As Christmas approaches, whatever free time I have I spend with Martin and Grace and Doug Gerrard. The four of us go Christmas shopping one Saturday and Martin and I end up having a great talk at Starbucks about college and life and “what it all means” while Gra
ce blows two hundred dollars on organic yoga mats for her sisters.
I also go shopping with Emily. With her I find a Christmas card for Stewart that shows these two teenagers in the 1950s making out in the back of a car. I also find him some cool motorcycle gloves and some thick wool socks that he’ll need because it’s cold in the basement where he’s living. Then I find some flannel pajamas in a thrift store that have little elk heads on them. He’ll like those.…
Emily notices the number of Stewart-related gifts and I’m forced to admit I’m kind of crushing on him again. I joke that as soon as Christmas is over, I am going to Centralia to claim what is rightfully mine.
At school, there’s the usual holiday high jinks. Somebody puts mistletoe over the Senior Lounge doorway. Doug Gerrard and I actually walk right under it, to the wild giggling of several girls, but Doug is too scared to kiss me — even though I’m perfectly willing — and the whole thing becomes embarrassing.
Then there’s the big holiday assembly in the gym. And the traditional singing of holiday carols in the hall. All of which is cheesy but I don’t mind. I enjoy this stuff during my first sober holiday season. Last year at this time I was scrubbing toilets in a halfway house.
So it’s all good to me.
The day before Christmas, I hang around the house getting ready for the Midnight Mass thing my parents go to on Christmas Eve. That’s when Stewart calls. I think he’s calling to wish me a Merry Christmas, but in fact, he has news: He is moving to Portland. For real. He’s actually found a place for January. He’s got enough money saved up to pay the deposit.
I’m stunned by this news. But I’m also happy. I have a huge smile on my face as he tells me. But I also don’t know what this will mean. Is he doing this for me? Is this his attempt for us to finally be together? And if it is, could I do that? Would I want to?
Then I get my answer.
“There’s another thing I wanted to tell you,” he says, a strange quiet in his voice.
“What?” I ask him.
It takes him a minute to say it. “I’ve sorta been hanging out with someone.”
“You have?” I say.
“Her name is Kirsten. You’ll really like her. I met her down here. She wants to come to Portland too.”
“Wait, so you’re moving…with someone else?”
“No. Not right away. But just…it’s something she’s thinking about.”
I’m sitting on our living room couch when he tells me this. I was heading upstairs to my room but now I am not going anywhere.
“So she’s like…a girl…like a…girlfriend…?”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it that.”
“Does she think she is?”
“I don’t know.…”
“So you guys are going out?”
“Kinda.”
“Jeez, Stewart. I…I don’t know what to say.”
“I know. It’s kinda weird.”
“I mean, it’s good,” I say, my voice straining. “You need something…like that.…”
“I sorta thought you might be glad. Or actually, I wasn’t sure what you would think. I never really know what you think.”
“I am glad,” I say, closing my eyes.
“Because you didn’t seem like you wanted that…for us.…”
“What? What didn’t I want?”
“You seemed like you wanted to focus on school and stuff. And not get tied down in a relationship.”
He’s right. That’s what I wanted. School and stuff. What an idiotic thing to want.
“I’ve known her for a while,” he says. “I was afraid to tell you. Because I didn’t know if you’d be jealous or whatever.”
“I…I guess I am jealous, a little. How can I not be? But I’m still…I’m still, you know…happy for you.…”
“I’m sorry if you’re jealous.”
“I’m not, though,” I say, my voice starting to break. “I think it’s great.”
“You don’t sound like it.”
“I’ll have to get used to it, Stewart. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry, Maddie. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Don’t be sorry. God. Don’t be sorry at all. I think it’s great. I do. I think…it’s great.”
After I hang up, I look at my watch. I have to get ready for the Midnight Mass.
I walk up the stairs, and go to my room. I do my routine for when I have to get dressed up for things. I change my underwear and put on tights, and dig through my closet, considering my options.
My mom yells something to me from down the hall. I yell back, not saying anything, just like: “Yeah, okay!”
I find the gray wool skirt and red sweater-vest I wore sophomore year. I’m a little old for this outfit, but whatever. I slide the wool skirt on. My hands are shaking, I notice. I find the white blouse.
My mother yells again and this time I can’t answer. I suddenly choke up. I can’t speak. My eyes blur. And then there’s no stopping the tears. They pour out of me. I drop the blouse and collapse, falling sideways into my closet, pulling coats and dresses down on top of myself.
I sit on the floor of my closet, half dressed, clothes and dresses hanging off my shoulders. And I cry and wail and sob.
Because it’s finally happened. Completely. All the way.
I’ve lost Stewart. Just like I always knew I would.
10
At church, there are millions of people, millions of families. There are boys everywhere: nice boys, clean boys, polite boys. Boys from nice families. Boys with blazers and ties. Boys who smile at me and maybe would want to talk to me if we met somewhere else, at college, say, or at a nice party, or at somebody’s nice house. I look at them with dead eyes. They are not my people. This is not my world.
Stewart is my person. Stewart is my world. He’s been where I’ve been. He understands me in a way none of these people ever could, or ever will.
My parents and I kneel and stand and do the church things. We sing. And while other people sing, I start to cry again. My mom gives me Kleenex. Lots of boys stare at me then. They stare and look away.
11
I spend New Year’s Eve at Martin’s house. We have a lame party in his basement. It’s me and Martin and Grace and Doug Gerrard and Martin’s little sister and two of her eighth-grade friends. We watch the ball drop in Times Square on TV and count down the seconds to the New Year. When we reach exact midnight, Doug Gerrard, who has been waiting for this moment his whole life it seems, lamely attempts to kiss me as Martin’s little sister and her friends flash the lights on and off with the light switch. I am willing to give Doug a real kiss — poor guy — but he unexpectedly chickens out at the last minute, so that our kiss becomes a peck, and we end up standing two feet apart while Martin and Grace go for the full-on New Year’s Eve make-out session, dipping each other and falling on the couch and giggling and having a great time.
When I get home an hour later, I flip on the TV in the living room and take off my coat.
A news reporter is on, one of the local guys. He’s surrounded by flashing police cars and ambulances, on a floodlit section of Highway 211, not far from us.
“A terrible scene to have to report, Bill,” says the reporter.
I glance up at the screen. Behind the reporter I see what’s left of a green Toyota Highlander that looks vaguely familiar.
12
Ashley Brantley had been fighting with her friend Jayna Rosenfeld all day. (This is Bryce Handler’s version of the story.) The problem was Jayna’s favorite hoodie, which Ashley had borrowed and kept for over a month and which Jayna made her swear she’d give back in time for the big New Year’s party at Courtney Robbins’s house. Naturally Ashley forgot. So that afternoon, Jayna drove over to Ashley’s and actually walked into her house and into her room and into her closet and took it back. She did this while Ashley was standing right there, talking to Bryce on the phone.
Ashley followed Jayna out of the house (while still on the phone with
Bryce) and accused Jayna of stealing Jayna’s own hoodie. Jayna accused Ashley of being a stupid bitch. Other, similar insults were exchanged. The battle was on.
Later, when they were both at Courtney Robbins’s New Year’s party, Rachel, who was Ashley’s newest friend, was sent by Ashley to tell Jayna she was still a stupid bitch, and also a liar, a thief, and a skank, and that their friendship was over. Rachel was probably thrilled to deliver this news. Rachel had been scheming all along to replace Jayna as Ashley’s best friend.
Ashley and Jayna avoided each other until after midnight. They finally met in the driveway, where they yelled, screamed, and called each other stupid bitches for over an hour as a fairly large group of partygoers looked on.
Then Jayna tried to leave. She got in her forest green Toyota Highlander and started the engine, but Ashley opened the door and pulled her out by her hair. Jayna then punched Ashley in the head and Ashley kicked Jayna in the knee.
After more kicking, punching, and hair-pulling, Ashley outmaneuvered Jayna and ended up in the idling Highlander, in the driver’s seat. Rachel, not wanting to be separated from her new best friend, jumped into the passenger side. Ashley slammed her door shut, and threatened to drive away. Jayna jerked open the back door (it was her car, after all), jumped in, and tried to lunge through the seats and grab the car keys out of the ignition. Rachel, who was closer, also had a chance to grab the keys but was afraid to enter into this epic battle of the two most popular girls in her class.
Ashley fought off Jayna and, to further establish her own dominance over the situation, shifted the car into drive and slammed down the accelerator. The car shot onto the street, shutting all the open doors and violently throwing all three girls back in their seats. Ashley, who had almost no experience driving, then regained control of the car and took off down the road. Within seconds, they were going forty miles an hour. Jayna, who was used to Ashley’s reckless theatrics, screamed at the top of her lungs for Ashley to stop the car now!
She didn’t.