by Avery Sawyer
“What is the term for a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land masses?”
I glanced at Reno, who frowned. He knew I knew the answer, and instead of giving me some sign he was happy about it, his face was pale and expressionless. “An isthmus,” I finally said.
“We have a winner.” Principal Rogers announced. “Nice job, Robin.” I jumped up, my arms in the air. I wanted to hug Reno, because to me it felt like we had both won, somehow, but his arms were crossed and he turned away.
I got my picture in the Kissimmee paper. My smile was a little off; I couldn’t believe Reno hadn’t congratulated me. He left the stage in a big hurry and didn’t even look at me. When I checked the chat program we used later, he wasn’t on it. Had I done something wrong? Wasn’t the whole plan all along for one of us to win? My parents celebrated by taking me to the Olive Garden that night, a rare fancy dinner out. I still remember what I ordered: the Tour of Italy. It was so much food I couldn’t sleep afterward. Instead, I stayed awake, thinking about whether or not Reno had really wanted me to throw the bee for him. And if he did, what that meant.
The next day, before homeroom even, Reen apologized to me for acting sour. He promised to help me study for the state competition. I forgave him for being a pill and that was that, except in the end I wished he’d won instead of me.
My dad took me to the state bee, which was conveniently held in Sanford that year. I was terrified. By the time things were supposed to start, I felt sick with a stomachache. My dress, the same one I’d worn during the school bee, felt uncomfortable and wrong in the sea of kids in smart khakis and polo shirts. When I stood up to answer my first question in the first round, I couldn’t see Dad anywhere in the crowd. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out that he was so confident I’d be up on stage for hours that he’d gone out for a smoke right after making sure I knew where I was supposed to be. My name was called third, before I’d even had the chance to study the other kids to figure out how close I should stand to the microphone.
“The International Date Line is a line of longitude that bisects which ocean?”
My mind went blank. It was the easiest question ever, but I couldn’t picture a map with the answer in my head like I usually could. I scanned the crowd again, wishing I had asked Reno come with us. The moderator cleared her throat and I knew I had to say something. I felt ridiculous, out of place, tiny. “Atlantic?” I squeaked. The buzzer sounded and I was out.
I immediately started thinking up a harder question I could tell everyone I had choked on. Something about Canada’s provinces, the ones in the middle no one ever bothered to learn.
“You can try again next year, sweetie,” Mom said when Dad and I got home. I hadn’t spoken to him in the car, even though he’d said he was sorry ten times. I was definitely mad at him for disappearing on me, but I also felt bad for disappointing him. He was so sure I had a giant computer for a brain and it turned out that I didn’t. I was no more gifted than the next kid. Probably less.
“I don’t think so,” I said. Reno didn’t compete again either, but that was my fault. When we talked the next day, he shocked me by admitting he’d let me win the school bee.
“I don’t believe you,” I’d said. “You were just as surprised as I was when I won.”
“Forget I said anything,” Reno said.
“No, I won’t forget. Are you serious? Why would you do that, anyway?”
He sighed. “I thought you deserved to win.”
“Why? We both studied a ton,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, but you…” Reno looked very uncomfortable.
“I what?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Can we talk about something else?”
“No.”
“Okay, but you’re just going to get mad.”
“I’m already mad,” I said.
“Great. Look, there’s no way for me to say this that’s going to sound good, but I thought winning would make you happy. I thought you deserved that because your parents have been, you know, fighting. I’m sorry it didn’t.”
So there it was. The truth. Reno pitied me.
That was the first time we went weeks without speaking. Right after it happened, I developed this theory that only people who had equal amounts of problems could be friends. You couldn’t be friends with someone who had an awesome, perfect life unless you also had an awesome, perfect life.
In the library, I took out a blank sheet of paper and listed as many states as I could. Next to the list, I tried writing down their capital cities. I only got twelve. Unfortunately, Maria chose that moment to notice my presence and saw what I was writing before I had the chance to cover it up. Josh was long gone.
“Reviewing fifth grade, Short Bus?”
“Yes,” I said, considering the very real possibility that I’d been smarter in fourth grade than I was now. Maria dug around in her backpack, searching for something and not really paying attention to me. “How do you think it feels?” I asked her in a quiet voice. It was a dumbass move, trying to get her to have a little sympathy for me now that I was everyone’s least favorite person. But maybe alone, separated from the rest of her glittery, eyebrow-pierced group, Maria would act like a human being.
“How do I think what feels?” she replied. I saw that her eyes were ever-so-slightly red. I wished I hadn’t said anything.
“To be me? In school, when my brain doesn’t work and my best friend is gone?” I shut my notebook and looked at her.
“I don’t give a shit how it feels to be you,” she answered. She found the library book she’d been looking for and pulled it out. It had a pink cover. “Being me is hard enough.” Her voice wasn’t as harsh. I decided to settle for that.
CHAPTER 41
NOTHING’S UNDER CONTROL
When my cell phone vibrated in Current Events the next day, I jumped. No one called me. Especially not during school. We weren’t supposed to even have our phones on in class, but of course everyone did. Girls were geniuses at texting without looking, using one hand slipped into the purse or backpack containing their phone. Boys had it tougher, but they usually just put their phones into the pocket of their cargo pants and used the bagginess of their clothes for texting cover. Sometimes, depending on the teacher, people even risked putting in one ear bud to listen to music. Especially girls with long hair.
I was as bad as everyone else while Emily was around, but now I was out of practice. When I looked at my phone, Ms. Graham totally caught me. She didn’t say anything, though; she just gave me a look. I raised my hand.
“Ms. Graham, I have to answer this. It’s my mother.” Since I’d never asked before and hadn’t been milking my injuries too much, she nodded. In the hall, I called Mom back. She said Emily had taken a turn for the worse and that she’d pick me up right after school so we could see her. Her blood pressure was lowering. “Why can’t we go right now?” I practically screamed, forgetting where I was.
“Honey, try to breathe. An hour from now is the soonest I can get a car and the people at the hospital said they’re only allowing immediately family in the room right now. Emily’s mother is doing you a huge kindness by letting us know what’s going on.” She sounded calm, but I could tell she wasn’t. Her words were too even, too measured. “If you’re too upset to go back to class, go right to the nurse’s office and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. I’m still at work, but I only have two tables left.”
I gulped in air and sobbed. Mom kept making comforting noises and gave me a minute to get it together. Finally, I breathed steady enough to choke out, “Okay. Hurry.”
I closed my phone and stood there in the empty hallway. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back to class and sit there without going hysterical, but the nurse’s office would feel like a prison. Reno could drive, but his school was very far away. I walked to the courtyard outside and sat by one of the squat little palm trees, counting the seconds. Two minutes later, Josie flew out of the doors and swiveled her
head around, searching for me.
“What’s going on?” she demanded. “I saw you leave class and yell at your phone.”
“None of your business,” I mumbled, and wiped tears off my face. I wouldn’t look at her. All I could think about was Emily’s tiny, pale body lying in that hospital bed, slipping further and further away from life, further away from me.
Josie leaned over and got right in my face. “If it’s anything to do with Emily, it is my business. Tell me.”
“She’s…it’s….she’s getting worse!” I sputtered. I scrambled away from Josie and stood up. “I’m going right to the hospital as soon as my mom picks me up.” I wiped the last bit of mascara from my eyes, but I wasn’t crying, not exactly. My heart was pumping out adrenaline. I knew that if I put my fist through one of the glass doors, I wouldn’t even feel it. It was like the days right after the fall. I didn’t know which way was up or down. I was a wild animal.
Josie dropped her bag and stared at me. Her eyes were frightening; the pupils were bigger than they were supposed to be. Or were they always that dark? I backed away from her as she moved closer to me in slow motion. I heard the bell ring and students flooded into the hallways and all around us through the courtyard, swerving out of our way, held back by some dangerous energy.
“You did this!” She screamed. She shoved me and I stumbled back and almost into a freshman carrying a black instrument case, who pivoted away. Other people surrounded us, waiting to see what would happen next. The crowd got bigger in seconds, as if the entire student population was a school of fish, attuned to the slightest disturbance in the water. They moved as one toward a fight.
“You’re crazy,” I said, and shoved her back. The next thing I knew, we were both on the ground. She clawed at my face and I kept shoving my elbow into her side and at her head, trying to get away. I felt her knee hit my thigh and I heard her scream as my elbow connected with her face when someone hissed, “Carns.”
We both stopped. Carns was one of the assistant principals who had a reputation for showing no mercy when it came to fights. Josie got up first, glared at me, and disappeared into the crowd. I stood up too, slowly, and slipped into an empty classroom before Mr. C. could clock me. In the last row of desks, I took gulping breaths and decided I had to get out of there.
CHAPTER 42
THE GODS OF STEEL
I started running. I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but the only thing that could stop me from going completely hysterical was the pounding of my feet on the pavement: left right left right left right left right, until my lungs burned and my side ached. I hadn’t eaten yet that day and I knew I should stop, but I didn’t. I just kept running, away from school, away from Josie, away from the news my mom had given me.
I didn’t even know where I was going until I was there. It had become cloudy very quickly even though it was far too late in the year for short, midday tropical storms. The gods of weather didn’t seem to know that Thanksgiving was next week, because giant drops started falling from the sky. They weren’t normal rain drops; it was like someone was dumping their drink out over and over again in a million different places. I ran for what felt like an hour, but was probably closer to twenty minutes. I was soaked.
Palm trees swayed and bent a little as people poured out of Fun Towne and into their waiting cars. I jogged the opposite direction, into the rapidly emptying park. My heather gray hoodie meant no one noticed me, which was perfectly fine. I couldn’t deal with happy tourists complaining about their vacations being ruined by a monsoon. As much as everyone liked to pretend that Florida was covered by a giant weather-controlled dome, perfectly heated or cooled for your enjoyment, our weather was often erratic and scary. Though the rain drops were warm, I put the hood up over my head as if it could protect me, and I went straight to the Sling Shot. A gate closed off the queue and the whole area was deserted. I was glad. I wanted to be alone with the monster.
I stood and stared up at it, like a little kid whose big brother had dared him to conquer the high dive at some crappy community pool. I wanted to punch the girders, tear apart the soaring towers, deface the perfect, terrifying beast that had hurt my friend and taken away my mind, my very best feature.
I looked around, saw no one, and began to yell. I damned the acres of steel rising above me in a primal shriek and then sank to my knees, weeping. I curled myself up into a little gray ball at the base of the ride, hugging my knees and crying, praying as I rocked silently back and forth, a tiny heather gray knot of pain in the very center of a place designed to make people feel happy and alive.
It was over. I’d failed. Emily was slipping away from us and I’d done nothing but worry and wait and fight while she did.
I hated myself.
CHAPTER 43
STORMS
The rain stopped, but I stayed where I was. I wondered if the people would come back, if the ride would reopen, if I’d be discovered, sitting there like a little kid who’d lost her blankie. It wasn’t the only time I’d been alone in a storm.
I’m terrified of storms. Especially hurricanes.
They let us leave school early the day Hurricane Frances hit, when I was in fifth grade. I was supposed to take the bus home and stay in our apartment’s innermost room, the bathroom, with Dad. Mom would be home from work as soon as it was safe to leave. But when I got home, Daddy wasn’t there. He got Mom’s message confused somehow. So I took my fishbowl (pre-Zelda I had a goldfish named Charlie) with me into the bathroom and sat there alone for two hours, waiting. When Mom found me, by myself, she flipped out. Dad didn’t have a chance when he finally got home. She was angrier with him than she’d ever been, too angry to even try to hide it from me. The next week he moved out, even after she said she’d overreacted.
I started noticing lights turning back on in the Fun Towne midway and heard strains of some song playing far away. I had to get back to school to find my mom and go to Emily.
I heard a cough. It sounded familiar, which was impossible. I turned.
Josie Palomino, looking even more the drowned rat than I did.
I almost stood up and started running again, but she said, “Wait,” in a small voice.
“Why?”
“Just…what were you doing?” She didn’t sound threatening. She sounded like I felt, drained and sorry.
“I was, um, I was praying I guess. I couldn’t think of anything else to try. Did you follow me? All the way from school?”
She ignored the question, but I saw that she still clutched her car keys in her hands. She drove the world’s oldest Ford Escort. “Yeah. What are you, Catholic?”
“I’m not anything. Are you?” I thought about how sometimes, when I was freaking out about something, it seemed like the most perfect song in the world got played on the car’s radio, and how when I was younger, I thought God lived in there and gave me messages in song lyrics. Probably better to not try to explain that to Josie. Or to anyone. It made me sound like one of those raving lunatics who begged for money at the major intersections.
“Baptist.” She put her hands in her pockets, left the keys in one of them, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She opened it, pulled one out with a tiny lighter, and shoved the pack back in her pocket.
“Oh.” I had no idea how I could possibly be talking religion with Josie Palomino under the Sling Shot at Fun Towne, but that’s exactly what I was doing.
“I miss her so much,” she whispered as she exhaled a plume of smoke, just loud enough for me to hear. She came over to sit by me, not exactly facing me, but not not facing me, either. I didn’t get up. I noticed she sat in a spot on the concrete that was still wet, but we were both pretty soaked so I guess it didn’t matter. Her black eye, courtesy of me, looked pretty bad. It was time to go, time for me to meet my mom, but something made me wait.
“I miss her too,” I said. “I wish it were me in the hospital. I wish I had broken her fall that night.” Emily had saved me by being my friend, and in return, I had done exactly
nothing for her.
“I’m sorry.” Josie bit her fingernails. I risked a glance in her direction. Her skin looked paler than usual. She looked a lot younger than she did just a half-hour ago in school. I guess it was because all of her makeup was gone, rubbed off in the fight or in the rain.
“Um. Why…” Since she was acting human, I wanted to ask her why she’d been so mean to me since the accident, but it didn’t make any sense to ask.
“Why am I such an asshole to you?” she mumbled, arching her pierced eyebrow. I wondered if I should run before she decided to get revenge for the black eye.
“Um, yeah.” I wanted to shrink. I wanted to shrink down into the sand and disappear.
“You stole my best friend.”
“I what?” That was not what I was expecting at all.
“You stole her. Emily. She was mine, and now she’s not.” She said it matter-of-factly, almost like she accepted it or like it made sense. I wondered if she sounded that way because Emily might never be anyone’s best friend, ever again. I shivered and dug my fingernails into my palm to stop myself from sobbing.
“I’m sorry. I’m sure I…I’m sure I didn’t mean to.” I knew Emily and Josie had hung out a lot more before that day when Emily and I made the donut run in the middle of Color Week. But I had no idea they were that tight.
“She thought that if we all three hung out together that you wouldn’t stick around. That you’d get freaked out and ditch her and she’d lose her chance to be different.”
“What do you mean?” I was baffled at what Josie was saying, but I would’ve given anything to keep her talking. I held my breath to stop myself from asking a million questions. Let her talk, a little voice in my head instructed.