by Avery Sawyer
I was turning into a softie.
How annoying.
I finally figured out that I was supposed to be in trig, so I found the right classroom and slid into my seat.
“Hey,” Diego Lopez leaned over to me, breathing loudly. “How’s the hole in your head?”
I ignored him and stared straight ahead. Mr. Logan was putting a function on the board and not even looking at us. The classroom was crowded: there had to be at least thirty students in the room. I was lucky to have my own desk. The funny thing was, if you got your own desk at the beginning of the year, you had your own desk until spring. We didn’t take turns. Someone threw something at Mr. Logan, but I don’t think he noticed. No wonder he never wore nice clothes. He didn’t want some sophomore’s germs on a shirt he actually cared about.
“Nice try,” Diego said, this time louder. His breath smelled like a Butterfinger bar. “Your ears broken too? When’s Emily coming back?”
“I don’t know, okay?” I hissed at him and put the hood of my sweatshirt up. The classroom tilted and I grabbed onto my desk so I wouldn’t slide off my seat onto the floor. “Leave me alone.”
“Whatever. I’m just asking.” His voice was disconnected from where he was sitting. The sound seemed like itcame from all around me and I wanted to put my head down on my desk and cover it with both of my arms. I fought it, and he didn’t speak to me again.
He turned to the other side of his desk and whispered to his friends over there. They all started laughing, but when I looked at them, they all looked away. Before the accident I wasn’t popular or anything, but no one hated me. I put one of my elbows on the desk, rested my chin on my palm, and tried to pay attention to Mr. Logan’s quick scribbling through watery eyes and in spite of my quavering chin. None of it made sense. I’d forgotten my math book and my Kleenex in my locker. And I had forgotten to pee before class.
Fantastic.
CHAPTER 25
THE WORLD IS JUST AWESOME...FOR SOMEBODY
“Reen, have you ever listened to the Discovery Channel song from forever ago?” We were both sitting on the floor in my room. He was working on a lab report that was due the next day and I was watching YouTube. I wanted to talk to him about the episode with the Starburst, maybe even apologize and explain why I’d acted like such a B, but I kept chickening out. Just because my past was swirling around in my head like it had all happened yesterday probably didn’t mean everyone wanted to relive it with me.
“The huh?” He pushed up his glasses, which to my surprise, I found cute. I used to always want to take them off his face and personally bend them so they’d fit better.
I showed him what I was looking at. I had started out watching videos of cute baby animals to cheer myself up, and it was kind of working. Was it possible? Was I going to experience a whole day without crying? The beauty. The wonder.
“Lemme watch it. They haven’t played it on TV in a while.”
I disconnected the headphones from my laptop and turned up the volume. Reno smiled at the video—it was a commercial, really, but I loved it—and turned to me when it was over. “It’s cool. I like the tribal dude.”
“Boom de yada!” I watched it a few more times. Then something shifted inside of me and I felt sad. I shut my computer kind of hard, startling Reno. “I don’t like it anymore,” I announced. “At all.”
Reno watched me for a few minutes. I turned away from him and struggled to control my face. I couldn’t explain why the song bugged me so much all of a sudden. I just knew I felt bad.
“The Discovery Channel can kiss my ass,” he finally said.
It wasn’t what I expected him to say at all. I giggled. “Mine too,” I agreed.
“Seriously, it can. When you think about it. Like, the awesome world in the song isn’t really real.” Reno pushed up his glasses again. “Not for us. Not right now.”
“Deep thoughts with R Dubs,” I rubbed at the corner of my eye with my hoodie sleeve and sniffed.
“Because it’s not, you know? Our world is sitting in uncomfortable desks and emptying a dishwasher that doesn’t really get the dishes clean and reading about global warming and seeing politicians act like douche-nozzles while more and more houses are abandoned and boarded up and kids are locked up for selling meth. How many people do you know who get to, like, see the planet from space or study an ancient mummy? How many?”
Reno was getting worked up. He thought about the future a lot, just like my mom. A lot more than I did, anyway. I had given up on worrying about it because the present was a big enough pain in my ass.
“I mean, they tell us we can do anything, we can be astronauts, we can save the planet, we can have our own TV show…”
“No one’s ever told me that,” I said. But not in a mean way.
“…we can race cars, we can…I guess what I’m saying is, we know it’s not true. We know that most of us are going to be insurance agents, or bartenders, or work at Walmart and never…whoa, are you crying?”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I said. I wasn’t really crying yet. My eyes had teared up again and I was fighting it. “I just…even though what you’re saying is right—it’s totally true, we’re not going to get to be astronauts or, you know, monks—I do love the whole world. The whole stupid effing world. I’m glad I survived when we fell. I keep having these weird moments, ever since I woke up from the accident, where I feel like I’m not in my body anymore. When I think about you, or about my mom, I feel like I want to hug you, just to see if I’ll feel anything. It’s not normal. I’m empty and everything else is full.”
Reno didn’t say anything; he just looked very concerned. I bet he was trying to find the number for NurseDirect with his left thumb as we spoke.
“And then I feel even shittier. Because Emily doesn’t have all this. Any of it.” I gestured around the room at my cheap, scratchy comforter and ugly brown carpet, at the scrubby, half-dead grapefruit tree just outside the window with fruit covered in this weird, black tar fungus. “And I do. She doesn’t even get to feel empty.” The last part came out in a jumble. I knew I wasn’t making any sense.
Reno looked at me, not sure what to do. Very, very slowly, like he might startle me or cause me to run away, he put his hand over mine. He didn’t try to squeeze it. He just left his fingers there on mine, letting the warmth of his palm radiate into my skin. I looked at his hand and saw that it was much bigger than mine. His fingernails were cut very short, but you could tell he never bit them. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked, his voice just one notch louder than a whisper.
“I have no idea.” I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. I wanted him to hold me, but I couldn’t ask for that. We turned to our respective computers and said nothing more.
CHAPTER 26
MAKEOVER
The next morning, I started opening drawers in the bathroom, not paying attention to how much noise it made. Mom preferred to sleep in but I didn’t care. I finally found a shoe box of nail polish shoved under the sink. It looked like someone around here was pretty into it, because there had to be about ninety little bottles of every imaginable color. I searched for a bottle of dark purple and put the toilet seat down, sat on it, and painted my nails on the counter. I felt clumsy. Twice I stopped, confused. I had to remind myself what I was doing: You’re painting your fingernails. You have to do all ten. This activity does not require an effing instruction booklet.
They turned out badly—nail fail—but I decided it wasn’t gross enough to take off and ran my fingertips under cold water to set the polish. I stared at my face in the mirror while I waited for my nails to dry. My hair was sticking up funny from drying overnight on my pillow. It was basically two different lengths.
I remembered what the girl in the bathroom had said on my second day back at school: “Just cut it off,” and decided she was right. I found some scissors, took a deep breath, and cut chunk after chunk off until everything was about the same length: very short. I looked tough, like
I’d just joined the army and wasn’t going to take anyone’s bullshit anymore. I liked it.
I pawed through the medicine cabinet, looking for product, and found some mousse. Squirting a dollop in my hand, I watched the tiny white bubbles expand for a moment and worked it through my hair. After a minute or two of trying to smooth out my new ‘do, I saw that it looked a little off. Kind of spiky in some places and flat in other places and like I hadn’t washed it in a week. Oops. Next time, I’d use about half as much foam.
I was just about to stick my whole head under the faucet when Mom appeared at the door.
“What are you doing, Robin?” she gasped. “Your hair! It looks…it looks good, actually. Wow.” There was a textbook in her hand and dark circles under her eyes.
“I don’t know,” I said, suddenly feeling ridiculous. “I think I used too much of this stuff.” I held out the mousse can and started scooping the piles of cut hair into the waste basket.
“Oh, sweetie, I can help you.” She put the forgotten book on the counter. “I’m so sorry I didn’t think of this before. It’s just that you never wanted me touching your hair.” She helped me scoop up the rest of the hair from the counter. “But that doesn’t matter now,” she rushed on. “I can show you a few tricks. I had short hair when you were a toddler. It’s just easier, you know? Oh, I like your nails! You must be feeling better.”
I felt the urge to put my hands in my pockets, but I resisted. Mom put a hairbrush under the sink and used it to get my spiky hair wet. After brushing it a few times and rubbing my head with a towel, the mousse was more or less gone. She messed up my hair with her hands, shaping it back from my face. “There,” she said proudly. “Once it dries a bit, it will be really cute. You’ll see, sweetie. There’s still enough product in there to hold it. The key to hair is to let it be itself, you know.” She winked at me. “Here, let me…” she picked up the scissors and straightened the back.
“Thanks,” I said.
She hugged me, practically squeezing the air out of my lungs. “You’re so, so beautiful, Robin. Don’t you ever forget.”
“I should probably, you know, brush my teeth,” I said, hinting for her to scram so I could get the bathroom to myself again.
“Of course,” she said, still smiling. “I’ll put the coffee on.”
I looked at myself in the mirror again. My eyes were gray with two-toned irises, like Dad’s. A ring of slate surrounded an inner ring of a lighter shade. They were tired eyes, but I knew there was nothing I could do about that right now. My features were small and my eyelashes weren’t noticeable at all. But, on balance, my face was okay. There was only one zit on my forehead. I decided Makeover Day wasn’t over yet, and found some black mascara and rose-colored lip gloss. After I put both on, I continued to search my own eyes. It was like I wanted my reflection to nod at me. Yes, that’s it. That’s me.
I added something to my notes: I had long hair for a long time, but things change.
*
During second period, no one bothered me. During third period, I felt my phone vibrate. I looked around and McKayla Leister caught my eye, a girl I hadn’t talked to since I’d lent her my burned copy of Reno’s Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog DVD (with special features!) last year and she forgot to return it. She nodded at me. I opened my phone under my desk and saw a text. It said, “Your hair looks cool.” I smiled.
Now, what class am I in? Where is my pen? What is the point of all of this?
CHAPTER 27
PEOPLE NEED PEOPLE
I have an aunt who doesn’t work. She lives on a houseboat and writes letters. Mom says she should join the real world, but I hope she never does. I wonder if she’d let me live on the houseboat with her some day.
I wanted to visit Emily every day, to sit by her bed and keep her company, ramble on about school or read a magazine out loud to her. But getting to the hospital was tough. My mom said we could borrow Max’s car as much as we wanted, but she had to leave for work just as I was getting home from school and I couldn’t go by myself.
I tried watching TV, but it was boring. My attention kept wandering. When I actually did remember to focus on what the characters were saying, none of it made sense. My mom was at work, Reno had to stay home and do homework, and there was no one else. I frowned as my eyes filled up for, like, the millionth time in five days. I didn’t have enough people. I needed more people.
I thought of my aunt, my mother’s sister Susan. She was fifteen years older than Mom, or something like that, and I’d never even met her. Out of the blue, when I was ten, she started writing me letters. Real letters, as in, on stationary. Not e-mail. They were filled with the thoughts she had when she was alone, on her houseboat, looking at the sea. My mother said the letters came because her sister had no children of her own and was running out of people to tell how to live. But she bought me pretty papers from the Dollar Store so I could write back. I didn’t take her snippiness very seriously.
I liked getting the letters, and I always wrote back to her. I remembered trying to sound wise, like she did, when I wrote my little messages longhand on pretty paper. I wondered if Aunt Susan would come for a visit. She and my mom had been fighting forever, but since neither one of them could probably even remember how it started, I thought maybe she would come.
I dug through my desk drawers and found the bundle of letters from her. I read bits and pieces of them. The strangest part was that things that had once made no sense to me (or not much, anyway) seemed reasonable now. I sat down on the floor, the letters scattered around me, and I read. My attention didn’t even wander once, but I did get dizzy a few times. The walls of our apartment were alternately concave and convex.
Dearest Robin,
I had the most interesting thought as I watched an old fisherman on his boat this morning. He looked so happy out there. I noticed he only caught three or four fish (and threw them back), but I don’t think the fish were the point. I’m not sure what the point was, exactly, but I’m guessing it was just being out on the water, under the puffy clouds and blue sky. Anyway, here’s the thought. (I’m sure you’re sitting on the edge of your seat.) Each little action we take expresses our mind. This is interesting to notice in your daily life, I think. Just see how much you can tell about a person by the way she walks or how he eats a meal. How do you express your mind, dear niece? Are the people around you sensitive enough to understand the ways in which you do? I hope so.
You probably wonder if we will ever meet. I wish that we will. You see, adults are often not as mature as kids, so it’s not so easy for us to make the things that we wish to happen, happen. But know that you are in my thoughts and there are people in the world who love you very much, even though you might not know us very well. Does that make sense? Do you think of me as your nutty relative? I don’t mind if you do. I’ve never been all that interested in being normal.
I got the poem you sent me. I love it so much that I put it on the mirror in the head (the head is the name we give bathrooms on boats). That way, I see it a few times per day.
I stopped reading. Yeah, she was kinda wacked, but I wanted to meet her. What I needed to find was the letter where she included her phone number.
Dearest Robin,
Today, I decided to start my day with a swim. You’d think that a lady on a houseboat would start *every* day with a swim, but the truth is, I don’t. The water is a bit too cold for my liking, and it’s just easier to sit on the back deck of my little boat and drink tea and read and watch the birds than it is to jump on in. But I’ve got a new neighbor out here in the sound and each day I’ve watched him go swimming. He’s just the smiliest person you’d ever want to see, so I thought maybe he’s on to something. I jumped in.
I only swam for maybe twenty minutes, but let me tell you, it changed my whole day. I felt so alive! So energized. I realized I’d been holding back for some reason. I think we all do that, even those of us who have promised to live on our own terms, off the grid and away from
the rat race. It’s so easy to get stuck in our old ways of doing things, to forget that each day is a new day instead of a repeat of the one before.
You can ask yourself: How wholeheartedly are you participating in your own life? Or are you holding back? Are you being reserved? Are you refusing to invest your whole energy or your whole being into the situation at hand? I’ve learned that it's not holding back and saving your energy that gives you more energy, it’s throwing yourself in the water.
And I have been reserved, Robin. I live alone on a houseboat, for God’s sake. If you’d like a visit, and it is okay with Grace, please give me a call. 253-996-0332.
“Aunt Susan? This is, um, Robin. Your niece. I’d like you to come to Florida.” I stood in the kitchen with the ancient cordless. I couldn’t believe I’d never dared to do this before. I guess now, with my brain all topsy-turvy in my head, the world felt a little topsy-turvy, too. Like I could do anything and get away with it. “I, um, want to meet you. If you’re…available.”
“I’ll be on the next flight, kiddo.” Her voice was louder than I expected it to be, but she didn’t sound crazy. I immediately knew I’d done the right thing. The phone was full of life and I needed life. “I’m literally already packing.” I heard some sort of clatter in the background. Houseboats are probably pretty cramped.
“Ha. You better let me break the news to Mom first.”
“Next week, then. I’m glad you called. So glad. Grace sent an e-mail to the whole family saying you were hurt, but we haven’t gotten any updates and I didn’t have a current phone number for you. I’ve been worried sick. Sick.” I heard another clatter. “Did you get my e-mails?”