“Upset at Lucy for being flirty?”
I shook my head in amazement. Isaiah was a cool guy. He reminded me of an old man; everything about him was mellow and deep at the same time, down to the way he spoke. His voice was usually quiet but profound things seemed to come out all the time.
“Rachel kissed me,” I started, ignoring the fact (for the moment) that he could see right through me. He chuckled deeply but it sounded like two very loud wheezy coughs. Old man.
“Why so upset?” He played the game I’d started, asking like he didn’t already know. I stared at him with an “are you serious?” face. He nodded his head and looked away.
“She was just trying to get me to kiss her so she could go tattle to Lucy.” I realized the realness of what just happened.
“Ooh, classy,” Isaiah answered with a sneer.
“Yeah, she’s a peach.” I threw the end of my cigarette at him. He patted the ash off of his shoulder. He looked like a giant black sloth, moving in slow motion.
“Well, Davie boy, at least it wasn’t your first kiss where the memory of it is going to haunt you for life.” I just looked at him miserably.
“Really, first kiss?” His voice broke the normally mellow tone just a little bit. We’d never talked about it, but I guess he just assumed. He shook his head while I pulled out another cigarette for myself before he spoke again. “Dude, that sucks.”
“What am I supposed to do now? Lucy is going to hate me.” It wasn’t so much a question as it was a cry for help. I just wasted my first kiss on someone who wasn’t Lucy. Genius. All-star weekend, really. First I puke on her, then I find some random girl to make out with practically in front of her. How could she not adore me?
“Why did you do it?” Isaiah handed me a lighter as he spoke. I took it. Easier than matches in the cold.
“I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to. I wasn’t thinking, I just--“
Isaiah cut me off.
“Knock it off. You were mad at Lucy and now you’re kind of glad that Rachel told her because this is your weird way of communicating to Lucy that you are mad at her.”
“You’re a jerk.” I answered, knowing he was right.
“Let go of me!” I heard Lucy’s voice from around the corner. I scooted closer to the wall so she couldn’t see me if she walked around this side of the building.
“No, Lucy stop.” Mike’s voice trailed behind her. Oh good. Chalk another victory up for me tonight – I caused a reunion between Mike and Lucy.
“What do you want, Mike? I’m trying to find David.” She had so much hurt in her voice that it was hard for me not to go to her. Luckily, I was a complete coward and incredibly ashamed of myself. So I was able to stay put without too much effort.
“Why are you trying to find him? He probably left.”
“No, Mike, David wouldn’t leave without me. He is here.” She spoke stubbornly.
“How do you know that? You’ve known him for two weeks.” Mike sounded genuinely frustrated. I didn’t blame him. It seemed that since I had come on the scene Mike’s perfect life had fallen apart.
“I just know he’s here; I need to hear it from him. Sorry, but I don’t trust your little girlfriend.” Lucy’s voice dripped disgust in every syllable.
“If she was lying, why can’t we find him?” Mike spit back.
Isaiah’s voice startled me, although he spoke under his breath, “He has a point.” I glared at him to shut up.
“I don’t know.” Lucy answered Mike, sounding tired.
“Come on Lucy.” Mike was jumping on her moment of weakness, “What are you doing with those freaks, anyway?”
“They aren’t freaks,” she said wearily.
“Come on, they look like a bunch of Goths. Except for that freckle faced one. He just looks like a freak ginger.”
“They aren’t Goths.” She didn’t even bother explaining.
“I am,” Isaiah murmured, quietly.
"I don't care what David looks like. He's like no one I’ve ever known." Lucy‘s voice was infused with pride that I didn't deserve.
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” Mike replied like he was quoting something.
"First of all, don't scripture fight with me, I will destroy you at that game and you know it. Second, that has nothing to do with how David looks. The things that come out of his mouth are amazing!"
I peeked my head out a little and I could see Lucy’s arms across her chest.
"Aww. She’d scripture fight for you." Isaiah wasn’t looking at me.
"I will kill you," I hissed.
"Ah man, don't be like that. You know whatever-eth is in your heart-eth comes out-eth your mouth-eth."
I sighed and closed my eyes, exhaustion setting in.
"Tell me Lucy: why him and not me?” Mike sounded very sad. "We were together for over a year. Now, all of a sudden you can't stop talking about this freak." I saw Lucy cringe at the word freak.
"Because of that attitude!" She stomped her foot on the last word, frustration ringing in her voice. "I want to know him more. I want to understand how someone who has barely even heard of God can be like him."
"So he's your little project? Are you going to ditch him too?" Mike put his hands through his hair, pulling it a little. It was obvious the guy was truly in pain.
"Mike, I didn't ditch you. I just didn't want to go out with you anymore."
"That makes me feel better." Mike answered, head hanging low. Lucy walked over to him and hugged him. He fell apart and started crying.
"Dude, this girl makes big boys cry. You should get out while you can.” Isaiah was looking over my shoulder like the greatest play ever was playing out in front of us. He spoke like people do in the movie theaters.
"Mike, I can't explain the way I feel. You deserve more than a girl who is with you just because you want them.”
Mike didn't answer, he just hugged her more.
"I really like David." Lucy’s voice was almost a whisper. She wasn’t fighting with an ex-boyfriend now; she was talking to an old friend.
"Yeah. I know." Misery consumed Mike’s words. That’s when Isaiah started laughing. He laughed so hard that he coughed.
I cringed. With Isaiah’s laughter ringing throughout the snow-covered parking lot came the sound of footsteps running in our direction. I put the cigarette on the ground and waited for Lucy to find me. It only took about three seconds for her red, beaming face to lock onto my hiding spot.
"Have you been here this whole time?" She didn’t sound delighted.
"Yes,” I admitted.
"Yo,” Isaiah said, doing a Jedi wave in her direction to get her attention, "These are not the two morons you are looking for.” Lucy smiled at him then returned to me.
"What's going on, David?" I shrugged my shoulders and kept looking down at my shoes. There was nothing for me to say to her. I spent a few seconds wishing, very hard, for a teleportation device.
I was an idiot. I had been stupid and acted irrationally but I couldn’t say this to her. All that seemed like feeble words, that didn’t come near what I was feeling. I couldn't even bring myself to look at her and recognize the sadness on her face that I heard in her voice.
“Isaiah, can I please talk to David alone?”
“Yep.” I heard Isaiah get up. He patted my shoulder as he passed. “Remember Lucy, what would JAY-sus do?” He took another long drag then threw the half-finished cigarette on the ground near my feet as he slunk off to the alley.
“Don’t listen to him. He’s just messing with you.” I watched Isaiah’s figure disappear in the dark. I didn’t want to look at Lucy.
“Did you really kiss Rachel?” Her voice was direct, no nonsense. I still hadn’t looked up at her and I wasn’t planning on meeting her eyes anytime soon. I picked my words carefully.
“She kissed me.”
“Did you kiss her back?” Lucy was going to get this answer out of me, whether I wanted to discuss it or not. I realized that I had
already made it painfully obvious what the answer was. I should just get it over with.
“Yes,” I said after a few seconds of staring at my snow-covered shoes. My shoulders sunk lower. I was trying to curl up into a ball waiting for my punishment. I felt Lucy’s hand under my chin but I refused to raise my head. Then Lucy got on her knees in front of my face, carefully avoiding the still-burning cigarette, forcing herself into my line of sight.
“Look at me.” I lifted my head to her face. It was just as pained as I imagined. “Why did you kiss her, David?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because she’s prettier than me.” Lucy said the words as a statement, not a question.
“No!” I said fiercely. I hadn’t even considered that she would think that way. How could she question her own beauty?
“David!” She yelled, frustration in her voice, “Talk to me!”
“What do you want me to say, Lucy!?” I yelled back. “She kissed me, I tried to get away, then I kissed her back because I’m an idiot and now I’m going to lose the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Could you back off?!”
I picked up the cigarette that was still burning on the ground, took a long drag off it, and blew it right in front of me. Directly into Lucy Peterson’s face.
“They were right about you.” She had tears in her eyes. I shrugged my shoulders. Now I was just waiting for her to leave so I could live the rest of my miserable life in peace. Without drama, and church, and Rachel, and Mike, and ice water rescues, and hospital visits, and being moved out of my home to live with my grandma.
“It was nice knowing you, David.” Lucy stood up and walked away with brisk steps, not looking back.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed my grandma’s cell phone number.
“David?” I heard her say as she picked up.
“Grandma, can you come to Kalispell and get me? Laurel Lanes bowling alley.”
“Where’s Lucy?” Grandma’s voice went up several pitches in concern.
“Please, just come and get me.”
I clicked the phone, put my head in my hands, and tried not to think.
11. GRANDMA’S LAW
Life went back to normal. Of course, my “normal” means lonely, pointless, long days…the list goes on.
I thought about Lucy all the time. I thought about calling Lucy but every time I got up the nerve to pick up that stupid phone to call that stupid girl, the thought of the look on her face as she walked away from me stopped me. I’d blown smoke at her. I went over that moment a million times in my mind. I don’t know why I did it; I didn’t even want her to know I smoked. I had never disrespected someone like that before, especially someone who meant so much to me. And she had spat out “nice knowing you” so easily, like she’d been saying it every day of her life. That sweet, happy, gorgeous girl had dropped me without a thought. And I’d earned it. And even with all that, none of the stuff that had led up to it was solved.
So now I got to add “heartbroken” to the list of my normal day.
I wanted to apologize but I didn’t know how. To be fair, I gave it a lot of thought. I thought about apologizing about every five minutes. But no matter how much time I spent on it, I had no way of getting it right. “Hey, remember when I kissed that girl Rachel and then you came to find me and you were defending me against your ex-boyfriend, even after you’d found out what I’d done, then I blew cigarette smoke in your face? Yeah, sorry ‘bout that. We cool?”
The more and more I went over it, I decided that the most honest apology would sound something like, “I am a complete idiot. I am scum that grows on scum and I hope to die a slow, painful death.” But that sounded a little too dramatic, even for me.
As I wallowed in my giant pool of self-pity, Isaiah called me a few times. I never picked up. I wasn’t in the mood for Isaiah to tell me what I was thinking and what was actually going on. The exact, painful, central truth of the whole situation wasn’t really something I was ready for. I was having a hard enough time dealing with the one event at Laurel Lanes.
What was nice, though, was that Isaiah’s messages all sounded the same. “Hey, David, just calling to make sure the Christians didn’t kill you for your lack of faith and bury you in the woods or anything. Call me back so I don’t have to avenge your death.”
Johnny called too. Prompted by pure loneliness, I did pick his call up. He told me that Lucy was walking around school looking like her dog got run over by a truck.
It had been a month since I’d gone to Kalispell or talked to anyone besides my grandma. Although not much had really changed from the previous month to this one, it felt lonelier than usual. I had always lived my life like this: waking up, going to school, try to stay under everyone’s radar, come home, do homework, eat dinner, and go to bed. Rinse, repeat. At school a nice looking girl with a sweet smile and perfect teeth approached me in math class and asked me to help her with something. I normally would have been painfully embarrassed and would have totally ruined any shot at helpfulness by stammering my way through ums and hums, but I didn’t feel intimidated at all. That girl wasn’t Lucy. She didn’t smell like her, look like her, talk like her; nothing about her made me feel anything, not even intimidated. It was like I had shut down to the idea of anyone else.
After having had a taste of life with Lucy, a life that was filled with joy and a hint of love, my old “norm” seemed empty to a whole new degree. I missed Lucy’s laugh, her contagious smile, and her positive attitude toward life. I missed her confidence and her natural beauty that showed through her unkempt way of presenting herself. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it was that made her and Rachel so different. Rachel had an outward beauty, like Lucy, but Rachel’s was like sugar-free candy.
It seemed great but as soon as I tasted it I could tell it was artificial. I couldn’t help but think that spending too much time with Rachel might even cause cancer.
The thing that bugged me the most was that Rachel, someone I didn’t know, didn’t care about, and didn’t ever want to ever see again, had been the cause of such a great chasm in my life. It would have been so easy to avoid if I had just paid attention to all the nagging warnings my brain was sending me about that beautiful ice princess. How had I let it happen? My jealousy. My frustration. My inability to communicate with Lucy. I’d let my hormones control my better judgment. Now me (and my hormones) were paying for it.
My grandma was becoming increasingly irritated with my mood. She had started off being understanding, and then tried giving me some off-hand advice. Then she acted concerned. Now she was just frustrated.
Her latest phrase was, “you better look up and answer me when I talk to you, boy.” I would raise my head long enough to answer whatever question she had for me, then go back to feeling sorry for myself. I knew it was bugging her, but I couldn’t shake it. It wasn’t like the feeling of being low was unknown to me; I had always been a bit of a downer. But I’d never felt this depressed. Normally, I could blame problems on other people, like my dad or someone like Mike, and that would eventually lift my mood. But this time it was all on me.
I think it would have been a lot easier to get through all that if Lucy had just decided that we weren’t the right fit. But I’d blown it by doing something stupid, royally stupid. In a momentary fit of jealousy I made what was shaping up to be one of the worst mistakes of my life.
By February, I hated Fridays because they meant the beginning of the weekend and that meant that there was nothing to take my mind of off being miserable. One rainy Friday I went home right after school, like I always did, closing the door quickly as I entered Grandma’s toasty house, careful to retain as much warm air as possible. I started peeling my heavy, hooded jacket off as I walked through the kitchen. I was trying to keep my face from getting wet; I didn’t want my eyeliner to smear. As I made my way into the living room, I saw my grandma sitting primly on the couch, hands folded, waiting for me. She wore a fierce look of determination.
“Yes ma’am,” I answered her, even though I was already sitting down. Her eyes softened.
“David, honey, I want to talk with you about the direction your life is taking.” She ignored me as I threw my body back against the couch in a fit of angst.
“It seems to me that something must have happened with Lucy.” I crossed my arms tightly over my chest and looked down at my shoes, splayed across her tiny living room.
“I’m assuming that you’re the one who did something to end it,” she answered my look of rebellion quickly, “because she seems like a sweet girl.”
That made me angry.
“Really, you think it’s automatically my fault, just because Lucy seems sweet? Why is it that Lucy couldn’t have done something to cause this? Just because I don’t sprout sunshine and dewdrops when I speak, I’m the one that’s responsible?”
“I know because of the way you’re acting, David.”
“Well, maybe something Lucy did made me act this way,” I said bitterly.
“That’s complete nonsense.” Her voice was angry and her grey curls shook a bit as she moved her head in emphasis. I found myself glancing toward the door, wishing I could escape. This was the first time I’d ever fought with Grandma. Since there seemed to be no avoiding her, I kept going.
“How is that nonsense? You think perfect Lucy is incapable of doing anything wrong?” As the words came out I realized how bitter I sounded. Hadn’t I thought the same thing?
“I’m sure she’s capable of wrongdoing, but that’s not the issue here, my boy. You are blaming someone else for the situation. That is what is nonsense. Take responsibility for the part you played; let other people worry about their part. Stop behaving as if someone other than yourself should answer for how your life turns out.”
My Stupid Girl Page 14