Tales from Foster High

by John Goode

  “You know a lot about this stuff, don’t you?” he asked, the words barely penetrating the fog that had descended onto my brain as I saw the ridges of what had to be his abs move with each breath. I had a stomach, a flat, skinny-ass stomach, but I had never once had abs. I wondered what it was like.

  And then I wondered what they felt like.

  And then what they tasted like….

  “Kyle?” he said, waving a hand in front of my face.

  I jerked back as if burned, which was when I realized my legs had fallen asleep under me.

  I had been kneeling at the side of his bed for over an hour, and blood had long ceased to flow where it was supposed to and now was flowing where I definitely didn’t want it to be. I went over onto my side as I stifled a sound by sinking my teeth into my bottom lip. The pins and needles that exploded throughout my legs as I rocked on the floor were as excruciating as any torture I had imagined. Seconds later, Brad’s head popped over the side of the bed, his bangs falling down into his face. “You okay?”

  My eyes were clenched shut as I nodded. “Peachy,” I said, half grunting.

  “You know, you could have sat up here with me.” He settled in, resting his hands on his arms as he watched me try not to cry. “It’s a big bed.”

  “I’m good,” I replied, which was the most I could say.

  “Ooookay.” I could just hear that damn grin in his voice. “So what’s your deal, anyways?”

  My heart stopped. “Deal?” I asked, suddenly faced with a far greater agony than anything my body could throw at me.

  “Yeah, deal,” he said casually, like we were long-lost friends just catching up instead of relative strangers on either side of the social strata that made up high school. “I mean, you’re not ugly.”

  This might have been the nicest thing anyone had ever said about the way I looked.

  He was right; I wasn’t ugly, at least not in the traditional sense. All of my damage was carefully concealed by a thin veneer of normalcy that, at times, felt like it failed to cover my entire body. Like a blanket two sizes too small, it could only cover one flaw at a time, leaving something else exposed to the general populace. If I could get past my crippling fear of talking in public, then my inability to avoid staring at people better-looking than me was revealed. If I covered that flaw up by keeping my head down, then the glaring reality that I had absolutely no friends whatsoever flashed like a neon sign. I had learned that the best I could do was to adopt a “duck and weave” strategy. I never stayed in one place long enough for someone to figure out my secret identity as the Hunchback of Foster High School, the discovery of which I just knew would be followed by torches and pitchforks.

  I knew how this movie ended, and it wasn’t with me walking across a football field, one hand raised in victory as Simple Minds played.

  “Um, thanks,” I said as I began to regain the ability to move my lower half.

  “No, I mean, you aren’t ugly, and no one has ever said anything bad about you, to my knowledge, at least.” I could see his legs crossed over his head, white socks just hovering there, somehow making him even more attractive. “So then why the Harpo Marx routine?” His green eyes bore down on me, and I felt my stomach plummet.

  And then my brain caught up with my ears.

  “People talk about me?” I asked, completely ignoring the auburn eyebrow that arched in surprise. “Who?” This was news to me. I mean, as a recipient of the Claude Rains scholarship for the Recognition Impaired, I assumed no one knew who I was. I had imagined myself invisible, wandering the halls unnoticed, a not-so-short-nor-fat Bilbo Baggins without the foot hair, darting from class to class without engaging as much as a sideways glance. Who are these people who not only know who I am but actually discuss me?

  He shrugged and rolled over onto his back. “Lots of people, I guess. I asked around about you,” he added, reaching over to grab the baseball-shaped alarm clock with one hand. “It was all good, I assure you.” He tossed it skyward with a casualness that I know would merit me a busted lip as gravity took hold of it and my own stunted reflexes tried to react. I have no idea why something so minor as tossing a ball could be so erotic, but it was.

  “You asked around about me?” My shock was so great that I found myself quickly descending into a bad Jerry Lewis impression as I simply stammered Brad’s own words back to him.

  Another toss. “Of course I did. You think I just invite anyone over to my house?” Toss.

  If blood had begun to flow back into my legs, it must have been draining from my face, because he glanced over at me, and whatever he saw shocked him enough that he forgot the falling piece of plastic that was hurtling toward his face. The sound of something striking flesh was like a crack of thunder. A loud “Fuck!” followed as his hands covered his face.

  If my legs were still weak, I was unaware of it as I rushed toward him, real fear in my chest. Logically I understood the baseball-shaped alarm clock couldn’t do any real harm to him, but for the overwhelming burst of panic I felt, it might as well have been a gunshot wound. I hovered over him, sitting on the bed next to his shoulders. “Are you okay?” I asked like an idiot. Of course he wasn’t all right; he had just taken a line drive by a piece of plastic to his face. That was pretty far away from okay.

  “Hit my damned nose,” he said, the two huge paws that passed for his hands cupping his nose and mouth protectively.

  “Let me see,” I asked, not quite daring to move his hands aside myself.

  “I’m okay,” he said, his hands not moving one iota.

  “Well then let me see,” I reasoned.

  Pause. “No, I’m fine,” he insisted.

  “Brad.” I sighed. “Move your hands.”

  A weaker and muted “No,” followed by an almost whispered, “It hurts.”

  “Move your hands,” I said, taking hold of his hands and trying to pry them off.

  “Stop it!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide.

  “Let me see,” I said, bearing down on his fingers, which he would not open.

  “Let go!” he tried to demand, but it came out more whine than anything else.

  “Let me see your nose, you big baby.” I could see blood between the cracks of his hands and knew his nose must be swelling. Finally I stopped and looked down at him. “Seriously, Brad, let me see.”

  His hands refused to cooperate at first but then slowly moved aside. I hadn’t noticed at first when he grabbed my wrists. “How’s it look?” he asked as if inquiring about a missing limb.

  It looked bad.

  “It’s okay,” I lied, trying not to react to the sheer amount of blood that was gushing out of his nose and down his face. “Just put your head back here,” I said, pushing his head over the side of the bed so it was upside down.

  “Why?” he said, trying to sit up.

  “Lay back!” I said, pushing him back down with a hard shove to his chest. I’m not sure if it was the shove or the tone, but he seemed shocked into compliance and lay back down slowly. “Just stay there,” I said, as if addressing a willful dog or stubborn child. I got up with the intention of finding a wet cloth in his bathroom when I noticed his hand still grasping my own. I looked down my arm to his and followed it back to his face as if I couldn’t quite grasp where this extra appendage had come from.

  “Is it okay?” he asked, this time with real emotion in his voice.

  “It will be,” I said, smiling. “Let me get a washcloth,” I asked, not willing to let go first.

  With great deliberateness, he released my hand and brought his own back to his side. I didn’t trust myself, so I turned quickly to his bathroom and began to search it for clean towels. Normally being this close to a place where I knew he showered would have made me curious at the very least, but we had wandered out of the places that made me clumsy and awkward and maneuvered into a place where I was very sure of myself.

  I had seen blood before, more than I cared to admit.

  The key to a swollen nose or lip
was applying ice to it within the first few minutes, or it would swell at an alarming rate. If your nose and or mouth swelled past a certain point, then certain people would notice. If those certain people were teachers, then they tended to contact school officials. If school officials found out, they asked a lot of questions. If they asked a lot of questions, other people could end up angry.

  And then you would get hit again.

  I didn’t see any ice, but a cold, wet cloth was a good start. I brought a wet and dry towel back over to him. He had been watching me upside down as he lay there. “You’ve done this before,” he said as a fact and not a question.

  “Hold still,” I said, sitting down and wiping the blood away. Without the gore, it looked better than I had originally thought, no bruise and no cut skin. Most likely he’d hit his nose just the right way. I cleaned his face completely with the wet washcloth and then put the dry one under his nose. “Hold it tight, it’s still bleeding.”

  His hand grabbed mine, and held the towel there by holding my hand still. His eyes seemed to sparkle as he looked up at me. “You saved me,” he said, the wry grin evident even muffled by a towel.

  “It’s a bloody nose,” I said, enjoying the way his hand felt grasping mine. “Hardly think I saved you from anything.”

  “Hey, this is my moneymaker,” he said, his free hand making a circular motion around his face. “You know how much trouble I’d be in if this got hurt?”

  Chuckling, I shook my head. “And how much money have you actually made with your moneymaker?”

  “It’s a work in progress,” he said, his fingers moving down the length of my hand with a stroke.

  I pulled my hand back rapidly, rubbing where he had touched me as if I could dispel the effect his touch had that easily. “Well, you’re okay now,” I said, beginning to stand up.

  He sat up in a burst, scooting over until his face was level with mine. “I asked about you,” he said, moving his hand away from his nose.

  “Why?” I asked in a whisper. He had mesmerized me like a cobra mesmerized its prey.

  “’Cause,” he said in the same whisper, leaning forward. “I wanted to know you.”

  “You’re bleeding again,” my mouth said abruptly, completely against my will, I assure you.

  A trail of blood seeped down his nose and over his lips as he pushed his mouth onto mine.

  My eyes closed, and I tasted lust and blood as my tongue moved between his lips. I was shocked to find his moving back into my mouth. My arm slid around his back, and I could feel the hard muscle just beneath the thin cotton shirt that slid up as he leaned in. “Been wanting to do that all night,” he said, resting his forehead against mine.

  “Why?” my mouth asked, my eyes still closed.

  I heard the chuckle move through his whole body as he pressed his mouth closer and whispered in my ear. “Because maybe I like you?” he said, his breath warm against my skin.

  “Maybe?” I asked, not even aware I was holding my breath.

  “Maybe, with a chance of certainty,” he said, kissing the nape of my neck. “You like me?” he asked stupidly.

  “What do you think?” I asked, smiling like an idiot.

  “I think you need to get a bigger history book if you’re gonna sport wood in the hallway from now on,” he said, his tongue moving against the side of my neck for a moment, making me shiver from head to toe.

  I could feel myself turning red as I took the compliment. “You noticed that,” I said rather than asked.

  “Oh yeah,” he growled more than said as he began to move back up toward my mouth. “You’re not ugly,” he repeated, this time as a solid fact instead of an opinion. We kissed again, the copper taste of his blood reminding me of licking the tip of a battery.

  I wanted to say thank you, but my mouth was already full.

  I THANKED God for automatic transmissions, because he held my hand all the way home.

  We had stopped kissing after hearing his parents’ fighting begin to scale up the stairway with greater and greater intensity. He had scrambled off the bed and fled into the bathroom as I tried to collect my books before his parents made their way to his door like a pair of fairy tale trolls. The voices passed by after a few seconds, but my chest was tight with the same familiar fear I had lived with each night my mother and her boyfriend of the week had fought.

  “You ready to go?” he asked, suddenly kneeling next to me. I was shocked to find him so close to me, his physical presence made my entire body jerk in reaction. His smile was like a force of nature, so all I could do was nod and pack my stuff up.

  He took my hand out of my lap as soon as we cleared his driveway; his palms were callused from baseball and weights. My fingers traced the rough pads absently as he drove in silence. My hands were soft, disgustingly so compared to his, in my mind. I almost pulled my hand back, but his moved around and began to stroke the same pattern on mine.

  “Your hands are so smooth,” he said. I needed a second to realize it was a compliment. His touch felt incredible after what seemed like a lifetime of neglect and solitude. I squeezed his hand back, and his smile widened. He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again as we continued to drive through the night.

  The silence felt like it was forming a wedge between us as he turned the corner to my house. I was so stuck in my own private wave of misery that the need to be ashamed of where I lived didn’t even register for once. We lived in a set of rundown apartments next to the local welfare tenement in a bad neighborhood on the shady side of town—a place where you had a better chance of getting shot than borrowing milk. I wasn’t even aware we were in front of my building until he said, “I never knew anyone who lived over here before.”

  Fuck.

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” I said, grabbing my backpack off the floorboard. “I can’t imagine your car is safe around here.”

  I tried to pull my hand back, but he refused to let it go, stopping me from leaving the car. I looked back and he said, “I’m not worried about my car.”

  And I understood where this was going, had known from the moment we walked out of his house, in fact. “Look, Brad, I don’t expect you to talk to me tomorrow.” He looked over at me, confused, and I amended my words with, “I know this isn’t for real.” I looked down at my feet, knowing there was no way I could get through this if I was looking at him. “I mean, you’re you, and I’m me, and there is no way this is anything but… well, what it is. I don’t want you to think I am going to go nuts on you or bug you at school or whatever. I mean I get it, it’s cool.”

  He said nothing, which I took as silent acceptance, so I continued, “I know how this movie ends. We don’t become fast friends on Monday morning and just forget everything that comes before. I’m not going to be a spaz and come up and try to talk to you in the hallway in front of your friends or anything. I’m not that guy.” I took a deep breath as I forced myself over the emotions that threatened to get caught in my throat. “So don’t worry, you’re safe.”

  He stared at me, unblinking. “Okay.”

  “I mean it.” And I did.

  In my mind I had already thought about liking him, fallen head over heels, been blown off, and then hounded him relentlessly before he finally confronted me, telling me angrily that it had never happened, and he didn’t like me that way. This would be followed by long weeks of me listening to emo music and crying my eyes out while thinking about killing myself. All in the matter of a seven-minute drive back to my house. “I’m not that type of guy.” Even though I was completely that type of guy.

  More not blinking followed by, “Okay.”

  “I’m not stupid, you know,” I said, fighting back tears. “I know you can’t go out with me.” And it was true; even if I woke up tomorrow possessing a vagina and breasts, there was no way we could date in any high school known to man. Besides the fact that I would make a hideous-looking girl, there was no way a guy like him dated a person like me.

  “Okay,”
he said again, confirming everything I already knew.

  “So don’t worry, I’m not going to be standing there wishing you’d walk over to my locker and say hi to me tomorrow.” I slipped my hand out from under his. “But I’ll help you study for the midterm.”

  A good ten seconds now, and then he sighed. The car was too dark for me to see his face completely, but from what I saw, he didn’t look happy. “Thanks.”

  I grabbed the door handle. “And you don’t have to kiss me for me to do it.” Not waiting for a response, I opened and slammed the door and sprinted for my house like I was a blonde cheerleader being chased by the monster of the week. My key felt like it was purposely dodging the keyhole as the door began to blur from the stinging tears in my eyes.

  The flimsy piece of wood flew open, and my mom stood there, her words slurring as she asked, “Where the hell have you….” And then she saw Brad’s car pull off and into the night. “Who do you know that owns a car like that?”

  I pushed past her, knowing that in the middle of her date with Jack Daniels, she would never notice how upset I was. The sound of my door slamming shut was as familiar as an alarm clock was in other houses. I tried not to throw myself on the bed and bury my head in a pillow like a twelve-year-old girl.

  I tried, but I know I failed pretty badly.

  WHEN I arrived at school, I prayed I wouldn’t see him while looking everywhere trying to see him.

  I moved quickly to my locker in hopes that I could get to first period without being seen, simultaneously hoping he could find me before first period.

  This schism continued as I crept further and further down the hall. Part of me wanted so badly never to see him again because it would remind of me the fifteen-minute relationship I seemed to have imagined. The other part of me wanted to see him so much it was all I could think about. Somehow I had discovered a whole new level of hell to be miserable in. If you had asked me the day before whether high school could get any worse, I would have bet you everything I had that I had sunk to the lowest I could get. Yet here I was, at a whole new depth I had never imagined.