by Avery Sawyer
“I was. I fell. But I’m okay. I haven’t really been checking my e-mail. I’m sorry.” I was recovering so fast, even my memory, but Emily wasn’t recovering at all. My lack of headaches made me feel guilty all over again. How could two girls fall thirty feet, one of them walking away with barely a bump while the other sleeps an endless sleep? I thought about the people who say, “Good things happen to good people,” and wanted to punch them in the neck. Because aren’t they basically saying the opposite also? I figured on a scale of goodness, I was medium. Maybe.
“What happened? Your mother was pretty fuzzy on the details.”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
We chatted for a few more minutes, but I kind of hated talking on the phone. I told her to write when she got her flight and that I didn’t care if Mom flipped out. Susan said she did care, that she didn’t want any flipping out to happen because of her, but that she’d risk it.
“It’s so nice to hear your voice, honey. All these years, I knew you existed, but I didn’t know know. You know?”
“Same here. I’ll see you soon?”
“Definitely.”
CHAPTER 28
CROSSWORD PUZZLES AND LONGING
After I hung up with Aunt Susan, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and made faces at my reflection for a while. My eyes looked different than they had the day I’d cut my hair: my irises were all one shade of gray and darker than before. I frowned. How could that change? Was I losing it? I forgotten why I’d gone in there. I brushed my teeth, double-checked that the door to our apartment was triple-locked, and went to bed in my closet. Since it was only Tuesday, and Tuesdays were slow at the restaurant, Mom would be home soon. I felt lonely and freaked out.
Mom got her job at the Happy Bean a little more then a year ago, when her third-to-last semester started at UCF. I invented the world’s best chip dip there one time by combining pesto sauce with sour cream and adding grated cheese and a little salsa. All the waitresses loved it.
Max always told me to smile. He was the manager and my mom’s friend. They aren’t dating or anything, but you can tell he loves her in a totally sad, pathetic way. She gets the best shifts and the best sections and gets to go home early a lot and use his car, et cetera. When I’m there, sitting at the bar, Max always tells the bartender to make me a stiff kiddie cocktail—um, what the hell does that even mean? I’ll have water, thanks—and he always asks to see my “pretty smile.” Even though he’s a perfectly decent person, I loathe him.
The last time I went in, it was really slow so my mom had only one table. Max was working on a crossword puzzle and needed help figuring out a four letter word for a woodwind instrument. “Oboe,” Mom and I both said at the same time. He smiled at us and wrote it in very carefully. I leaned over and saw that his handwriting was sloppy. I also noticed the way he looked at my mom when he said, “smart ladies all around me!” I spilled my “stiff” soda on his crossword. Not by accident.
Shut up. I know I’m a baby.
CHAPTER 29
CLEAN SLATE
“I’m not going to school,” I mumbled. It was nine a.m. I’d missed the first bell by an hour and ten minutes. Mom said she thought sleep was more important than school for me, so she hadn’t opened up my closet door at 7:15.
“Fine. You want to go to the hospital to see Emily instead?”
“Yeah.” I paused. “Mom? I, um, called Aunt Susan. She’s coming for a visit next week.”
“You what?” she dropped her glasses.
“Called Aunt Susan. I want to meet her.” I hugged my pillow defensively.
“I can’t believe you…my God, this place is a disaster!” she left my room. I could hear her digging under the kitchen sink for Windex. I groaned, crawled out of the closet, and opened my laptop. No matter how stressed out I got, I never dealt with it by cleaning.
“Moooommm,” I yelled. “She can stay in a hotel.”
“We’ll talk about this later. Get dressed.”
CHAPTER 30
PLEASE
Emily looked the same, but maybe the tiniest bit paler. Her hands were different, though. They were curled up into tiny fists and it made me want to hold them, to comfort her. I asked a nurse if it was okay to touch her, and she said it was, so I did. I didn’t try to unclench Em’s hand, I just put mine on top and hoped that she could feel it.
“Hi, E. How are you? Not so good, I guess. But maybe you’re dreaming something really amazing and I’m interrupting. You look good. Like, I mean, your skin is really clear. But I guess it always was, wasn’t it? Remember how I was always trying to steal that skin stuff from Sephora you used? With the bamboo extract? Oh my God, what am I even talking about? Sorry.
“I called my Aunt Susan. Remember those whacked letters she was always writing me? I decided they were actually kind of decent yesterday, so I decided to call her. I can’t figure out if my mom is pissed or not. She said we’ll talk about it later, so she probably is. Or maybe she’s happy. She’s cleaning like a maniac.
“I wish you’d wake up, Em. I mean, obviously, but for all these other tiny reasons too. I want to ask you if you think my hair is okay. I cut it really short, and I like it, but it’s weird. My head is lighter, but I feel so out there… especially the back of my neck. My mom says it looks nice, but I doubt she’d tell me if it didn’t because the least little thing makes me cry.
“I don’t really mind that much when I cry. I just cry. And then I stop. It seems like before, before the accident, I mean, any time I cried I got all super embarrassed about it. That’s why I stopped doing it. I guess I wanted to be tough, but now that doesn’t feel so important any more. All that feels important is you getting better. That’s it. That’s the only effing thing I really care about.
“Please wake up, Em. You probably don’t, like, get a vote or anything, but if you do I hope you’ll hear what I’m saying and come back. I mean, I can maybe, maybe survive the rest of sophomore year without you if I absolutely have to and if you need a few months to get better. But there is no way I can handle the rest high school without you. No way.
“But I mean, it doesn’t matter about me or what I can handle. You shouldn’t just come back for me. Everyone misses you.”
I stopped talking and took a deep breath.
“Here’s the thing, Emily. I’m, um, writing these notes to myself to try to, you know, sort of figure out who I am. Does that sound weird? I wish we could work on it together. I just added, ‘I’m shy, not sweet.’ I’m pretty sure that’s, you know, accurate.”
I paused, trying to figure out how to explain what I was trying to say.
“I know you understand what I mean, E. I miss having someone around who gets that. Even Reno doesn’t. He thinks that the times when I’m not being nice, it’s just a front. But it’s not. I don’t want to make other friends. I hate making friends. Remember when I told you that? And you laughed, because for you it’s the easiest thing in the whole world. You can make a friend, like, in two minutes in line for the bathroom. I can’t. And I don’t want to. I just remember how whenever I told you anything, you always took my side. Even when I wrong. It’s nice to have someone who always takes your side. I guess that’s what best friends do. You know, if they are real best friends.”
I dabbed my eyes with some tissues from Emily’s box, hoping that was okay. “I really wasn’t even kidding about the bawling, Em. One minute I’m laughing, the next I’m crying like a freaking first grader.”
I touched Emily’s hand again. It was cool, but not freezing. Her fingernails were short. Did one of the nurses trim them? I guess it had only been about twenty days since the accident. Was that all? Twenty days? It felt like twenty years. I watched her closed eyes for several minutes, praying that I’d see them open. Once in a while I thought I saw something, a flicker, some motion of the eyeball behind the lid, but I couldn’t be sure. I waited and waited but I was so tired, I wasn’t even sure what was real anymore. My memories of Emily
were so vivid—more vivid than real life, it seemed—that it didn’t seem possible she could be this still.
My mom came in with a fresh pot of flowers and a soda. She saw that I’d been crying and gave me a squeeze. Together, we sat with Emily for a long time. I guess we were praying. I just kept saying the word please in my head, over and over.
CHAPTER 31
WHY DO I EVEN TRY?
“I skipped school today and went to see Emily,” I told Reno.
“Did you get in trouble?” he asked. We sat by my apartment complex’s pool on junky lounge chairs. It was actually kind of chilly outside. I wore my granny sunglasses even though the sun was low in the sky. He wore a baseball cap. The pool had some leaves and other crap in it; I don’t think it got cleaned, ever. I never went in it, but today I didn’t feel like sitting in my room. We were trying to decide if we were ambitious enough to walk to Sonic.
“Nope. I don’t think it’s possible for me to get into trouble, really. If I did something scandalous, I could just blame it on my effed-up brain.”
“You wanna go knock off a Target?”
“Very funny. Anyway, my mom took me. I think Dr. K. called her and said he was worried I wasn’t sleeping enough, so now I get to sleep as late as I want to in the morning. I woke up at nine today, so she let me skip.”
“How’s Em?” Reno lay down on his stomach to get a closer look at the pool water. “There’s a dead gecko in here. Wait. Two.”
“Gross. The same, I guess. I babble on and on like an idiot and she just lies there.”
“I’m sorry.”
Reno used a stick to fish the dead lizards out of the pool, even though no one cared if they were in there or not. I took off my shoes and put my feet over the side. I wiggled my toes and made sure there weren’t any bugs—dead or alive—near my legs. The water was cold.
“Do you think I should try out for the basketball team?” Reno stood up and shot an imaginary ball into an imaginary basket.
“Huh? Why?” I swirled my legs around, trying to create a mini whirlpool in the water. It wasn’t working.
“I don’t know. Exercise? Also, Kyle’s on the team and he likes it.” Kyle was Reno’s twin. They weren’t identical: you could hardly even tell they were brothers.
“I s’pose you could. You know how I feel about sports, though.” I wasn’t a huge fan. Why would you want to chase some ball around when you could be reading the Internet? Also, how was it possible that people could talk about one single game for, like, a whole hour? I didn’t get it.
“Yeah. But you’re a girl. No one cares that much if you aren’t athletic. I’m not sure I want to go through my entire high school career as a geek. It’s hard to impress, you know, the ladies.” He grinned, sheepish. It was fairly adorable.
People care, I thought. “The ladies? You want a girlfriend?” I tried to use my foot to splash him, but all I did was get my shorts kind of wet.
“Maybe. Well, one anyway.”
“Which one?” This was serious. Reno had never liked anyone but me. Had he?
“Theresa Lindsey.” He said the name quietly.
“I don’t trust girls with two first names.” I frowned. I wasn’t sure I approved of this new development at all. If Reno started going out with Theresa Lindsey, who was going to keep me company?
“You’d like her. She’s really nice.” His eyes lit up and I knew for sure. I didn’t like it.
“Who says I like nice people? I can barely stand you.” I tried to splash him again; again, I got myself wet. That was enough pool time. I climbed away from the edge and walked around to dry my feet.
He ignored my snarkiness. “Can we practice layups?”
“I guess. Can I just stand there and make fun of you?” This Theresa Lindsey business had officially put me in a bad mood.
“Yeah, okay.”
While Reno practiced his dribbling and shooting, I thought about Josh Burns. At the beginning of eighth grade, our class got a bunch of new kids and Josh was one of them. There were actually two new boys and they were both named Josh. Josh Burns and Josh Ramirez. Within four seconds flat, practically every girl in the school—even the sixth graders, those horny little bitches—got a crush on Josh Ramirez. He had black curly hair and he was a monster on the soccer field. He was also really funny and you could just tell he was cool. Josh Burns was quieter. He carried a sketchbook around with him all day and drew these awesome cartoons in class. I sat behind him in World Cultures and in Math and watched him draw. Once in a while, the tip of his tongue would stick out while he was working and I fixated on it, on that little piece of flesh that I thought contained multitudes of information about its owner. It had often bothered me that the only way you could make other people understand what was in your mind was through words, so I prided myself on noticing, in other people, expressions of themselves that didn’t involve aggressively witty comments. I thought the tip of his tongue had soul in it.
I thought I was so clever, getting a crush on Josh Burns instead of Josh R. Josh Ramirez was the obvious choice. Josh Burns was the subtle one. I started paying even closer attention to JB (my secret, oh-so-clever nickname for him), trying to figure out a way to get to know him without being awkward. I knew it wouldn’t do to keep being my old, quiet self, because quiet girls did not get asked out by boys. I tried to have conversations with Emily in his vicinity so he’d overhear me say something clever, but it never really worked. He never paid attention to us and I didn’t say clever things all that often.
Josh Burns didn’t try out for any of the fall sports teams, but he liked to run. I saw him out on the school track doing laps. He didn’t even use an iPod when he ran; he just ran with no music. I liked that about him. It seemed very mature or old-fashioned or something.
In the bathroom at lunchtime Emily said, “OMG. Just talk to him. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Tell him you lost your math book and ask if you can share with him in class.” She fixed her mascara like an expert. Em was always bemoaning her reddish-golden eyelashes and covering them up.
“But he never brings his math book to class. He just sketches cartoons.” I checked my teeth to make sure they were free of avocado. I would have to transfer schools if I accidentally smiled at someone with a green chunk stuck in my mouth.
“You’re being too logical. Flirting doesn’t have anything to do with actually learning math, Ro Ro.” Emily threw her makeup into her backpack and wrinkled her nose at me.
“I know. I just don’t want to sound dumb.” I compared our outfits. She wore a really cute green jacket over a shirt dress with ankle boots. I wore jeans and two tank tops, layered. I needed to try harder, but shopping was so boring when you had no money.
“You won’t! Okay, how about telling him we’re going to City Walk on Friday night and asking him if he wants to come?” She headed for the door and I followed her.
“Just the three of us? That’s weird. Also, you have to walk forever to get in there once someone drops you off, and he might get confused. And the traffic is so bad on Friday, there is no way your brother would take us.”
“Robin. Stop being logical! You’re a total pussy. I mean scrotum.” Scrotums were fragile and weak, she explained. I never said that word. It sounded too clinical or something. Not that anyone else had a problem saying it.
“I know. I can’t help it. Oh crap, I just remembered the mile run is this afternoon. The fitness test.” The last time I had run the mile I’d nearly thrown up. I clutched my stomach and started moaning.
“Just tell Mr. P. you have your period. That’s what I did.” She nodded at my moaning, like, very convincing.
“I said that last week. And the week before.”
“Damn. So did I. I guess I’m running too. Oh well, it’s just a mile.” She linked her arm with mine and we headed to the locker rooms to get changed. “That’s, what, like from here to the caf?” I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. From here to the cafeteria was about fifty yards.
&nbs
p; Twenty minutes later as the sun beat down on all of us, Mr. P. explained the course (basically two loops around the soccer and football fields). He said we would start in groups of four. I heard Mr. P. call my name, followed directly by the name Josh Burns. Oh. My. God. It was my chance to talk to him! I quickly did some stretches and tried not to think about the avocado wrap rumbling around in my stomach.
Josh stretched near me and smiled. “Ready?” he asked.
I swallowed a huge lump in my throat and tried to breathe normally. “Totally,” I said. “Um, I love running.”
“I do, too! Maybe we’ll set a new record.”
“Definitely.” I hoped he didn’t notice the thin sheen of sweat that had already appeared on my forehead.
My stomach was flipping around like I’d recently swallowed a living toad, and Emily was giving me the thumbs-up with wiggling eyebrows, like a demented person. Her group was supposed to start two behind mine. I tried to think of something else to say to Josh—preferably something fascinating—when Mr. P. called our group to start.
I managed to keep up with Josh for approximately forty seconds. In that time, he found out two things about me: one, I get really, really red in the face when I run; and two, I’m a big liar. Anyone who sounds like a ninety-year-old asthmatic smoker when she jogs clearly doesn’t love running. The last thing I said before he pulled ahead with an apologetic grin and joined Tarie Calderon from the tennis team? “No fair, your legs are longer than mine!”
Brilliant.
I jogged alone at a snail’s pace after that for a little while, but then, with a full two thirds of a mile left to go, I gave up and sat on the bleachers on the far side of the field where Mr. P. couldn’t see me. I concentrated on not puking and not crying.