True Love Way

by Mary Elizabeth

  Mom handed me a box of Kotex and told me to carry them around in my backpack.

  “Better safe than bloody,” she said.

  I kicked them under my bed instead. There was no way I was bringing pads to school. Pepper Hill already gives me this you’re-nothing-but-a-weirdo look, and I didn’t want my looming womanhood to scare Dillon off. He hasn’t ignored me since the day he ignored me, and I’d like to keep it that way.

  Dad went all, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit on me when he walked in on Mom and me having the talk. I can only imagine what my only friend would do.

  I also expected there to be some kind of warning sign that this was coming. It never dawned on me that my flow would show up in the middle of class, in the middle of day, in the middle of the sentence I was writing for our English work.

  There’s blood on my jeans, and now I don’t know what to do.

  My eyes burn as they fill with tears, and my jaw aches. Heaviness in my chest that’s been mostly tolerable lately flares up and slowly splinters outward. I feel its weight on my shoulders and its stiffness in the bend of my elbows. My fingers curl into a fist, and my too-long nails dig into my thin skin.

  Anxiety that won’t be swallowed scratches at my throat, and darkness that’s troubled me my entire life presses down on my head.

  “Why can’t I be normal?” I ask myself as hot sorrow spills down my heated cheeks.

  There’s no hiding behind my sunglasses this time.

  Licking salty tears from my lips, I yank itchy toilet paper from the roll and wrap it around my bloodied underwear. After cleaning myself as much as I possibly can, I pull up my jeans and unlock the door.

  There’s no telling how long it’s been since I ran out of class, and Mrs. Alabaster hasn’t sent anyone after me, but I can’t stay in here for the rest of the day. My book bag is at my desk, and I don’t have a sweater to tie around my waist.

  Lacing my fingers together under my bottom, I tiptoe down the empty hallway toward my classroom. I don’t know how long I have until the next bell rings for break, but I hope it’s not anytime soon. There will be no surviving this humiliation.

  Approaching room twelve, I stand on my tiptoes and look through the small window in the door instead of walking inside. I’m able to take a normal breath when I see Dillon in his seat beside my empty one. His pencil is down, and his head is turned toward the row of windows along the wall. Sunshine brightens his almost blonde hair.

  “Look at me,” I say quietly. “Look this way, Dillon.”

  Best friend telepathy doesn’t work no matter how badly I wish it would. I carefully tap the tip of my finger against the thick glass, but the only person who looks up is Herbert.

  My heart’s beat stops.

  Instead of pointing and announcing to the class, “Penelope started her period,” like I think he will, my best boy’s best pal quietly gets up from his seat and walks over to Dillon. He then whispers into his ear and nods his head in my direction.

  My heart beats, beats, beats.

  My hands tremble as I think, Please, come save me.

  Dillon isn’t so quiet about getting up. He scoots his chair back, slamming it into the desk behind his. Thoughtfulness grabs his backpack and mine, and without another word, and with his eyes only on mine, he walks past the teacher’s desk toward the door.

  I take a few steps back so I don’t get hit, and when he’s standing in front of me, I fall completely into him.

  No mud and puppy breath today.

  “Where were you?” he asks, rubbing his hand up and down my back.

  My cheeks burn, and beneath my orange lenses, my tears free-fall. It kills me to admit what’s going on, but I spill lessons learned about womanhood and Kotex and maturity. I tell him about ruined blue jeans and scratchy toilet paper.

  “It happens to every girl in the world,” I say like my mom did.

  My lip quivers.

  Dillon laughs.

  “I have an older sister, Pen,” he says. The boy next door opens his backpack and pulls out a gray hoodie. “I know what a period is.”

  “I need to go home,” I say, lowering my head.

  He tilts my chin up and hands me his sweatshirt. “Then let’s go.”

  The good thing about living in a small town is that everybody knows everyone. Dillon and I stop by the office, repeat the tale of my sudden development, and ask for permission to leave early. The principal is able to get ahold of my dad at the high school, who gives him a message to pass to Dillon.

  “Boy!” our principal does his best, deep-voiced impersonation of my father.

  We wait for the rest of the message, but Principal Snider doesn’t say more.

  “That’s it,” he confirms and waves us away. “Get on home.”

  The one word memo is enough to keep Dillon on his toes. On the walk home, he doesn’t let me get too close to the curb, steps onto the street first after looking both ways three times, and asks me every few feet how I feel.

  It’s an overprotectiveness that reminds me so much of the man who scared this kid into submission with one syllable. It’s a thought that calms the splintering inside me.

  “You don’t have to stay,” I say, opening the front door to my house. It’s never locked.

  At the bottom of the porch, Dillon stands with his hands in his pockets. The entire world is orange because of the sunglasses I have covering my eyes, but even I can see how pink the flush on his cheeks is.

  “Is your mom here?” he asks, taking one step up.

  “Probably not. She volunteers at the senior center until I get out of school.”

  “I’ll stay then,” he says right away. “I promised your dad I’d watch over you.”

  Not sure when “boy” translated into “watch over her,” but there’s no fighting the smile that spreads across my face.

  He follows me upstairs to my room and waits outside my door for a heartbeat before stepping inside. Dillon can see inside my space from his window, but he’s never actually been here. I’ve never had a boy in my room before.

  “I should probably…” I start, too shy to continue.

  His hand goes right into his blondish hair, pushing the longer stands away from his perfect forehead. With his face shown completely, the nervousness in his sharp eyes and straight lips is on full effect. Edginess blows air out of his lungs, and green eyes that keep me awake some nights roam around my room.

  “Do you, like, need help?” he asks, clearing his throat.

  “Umm … no,” I say, wishing a hole would open beneath my feet and swallow me.

  The tips of his ears are cherry red.

  “When Risa … had her—” He stops and stares at the band poster above my bed. “My mom had to help her, you know.”

  I shake my head.

  Dillon takes a breath so big his shoulders heave up and then fall down. “She read the directions to her or something. I can read.”

  Swallow. Me. Now.

  My reader squeezes his eyes shut and takes another deep breath. “I mean, I can read the directions to you. Or I can run home to see if my sister’s there.”

  I’m using this boy’s hoodie to hide a period bloodstain on my jeans, and now he’s in my room offering to read the Kotex directions to me. This can’t possibly get any more embarrassing, and I’ve never done this before. So instead of jumping out the window to end this crazy life, I reach under my bed for the box I refused to take to school and toss it to him.

  We don’t look each other in the eye for the rest of the week, but it’s not because I don’t want to.

  It’s because I should be careful what I wish for.

  I step onto the Finnels’ porch and stand on their welcome mat before knocking on the yellow door.

  “Pen’s not feeling well, sweetie,” has been Sonya’s lie to me every morning since Monday. She’ll force a smile on her round face. “Girl stuff.”

  There’s a lot I’m unsure about, but I have a teenage sister who, for one week a mont
h, eats ice cream by the gallon and snaps at me with her teeth if I try to get a spoonful. A lot more smoke than usual also seeps out from beneath her door. Sometimes I wonder if she’s possessed with all the crying, and whining, and “You don’t know how it feels to be me!” But not even Risa’s missed four days of school because of girl stuff.

  Today Wayne greets me. There’s no doubt he’s hairier than the last time I saw him.

  “What do you want, boy?” His overgrown mustache moves as he speaks. The scent of brewing coffee from their kitchen kicks me in the stomach, causing it to growl.

  I straighten my posture and talk clearly, forgetting about hunger pains and enormous arm muscles.

  “I’m here to walk Penelope to school,” I say.

  Mr. Finnel tries to close the door in my face, but Mrs. Finnel shouts from inside the house, “Wayne, be nice to the Decker kid!”

  Bigfoot leans against the doorframe and crosses his huge arms over his bigger chest. Thick fur is packed tightly under his thin cotton Castle Rain Varsity Football T-shirt and sticks out around his neck. Dark eyes stare down at me below shaggy eyebrows, and I swear I hear his knuckles crack under his hairy fingers.

  “No,” he says.

  Rubbing the back of my neck, I consider taking my chances against Gigantor to get to his daughter. I’m probably faster than he is, and it’ll be worth it, if I can actually find her. Not only has she not been at school, she hasn’t popped up at her window either. At this point, there’s not anything I wouldn’t run through for her.

  Mr. Finnel laughs as if he can read my mind.

  “She’s going to school today, boy. I’m driving her.”

  My heartbeat picks up, my palms warm, and a tingling pressure builds behind my ribs.

  I’ll see Pen today, but not as soon as I had hoped.

  “I can wait for her if she’s not ready,” I say, lifting to the top of my feet to get a better look into the house. I’ve grown a couple of inches since the beginning of the school year, but I need to grow a few more to be as tall as the razor Nazi.

  Bushy eyebrows come together, and Wayne takes a step toward me. I take three back.

  “Are you trying to get between me and my daughter, boy? Is that what you’re doing?”

  Afraid to look like a coward in front of the largest human being I know, I square up, but fall short when my words get stuck in my throat.

  When I do answer, my voice squeaks.

  “No!” I say like a thirteen-year-old boy going through puberty. As of today, that is exactly what I am.

  Sasquatch’s laugh rocks the entire block, and it sucks because it’s at my expense. I’m afraid to say another word in case my voice rattles again, so I stand still and take it.

  “She’ll meet you there, kid,” he says before shutting the door.

  I can still hear him laughing.

  Roger Morris talks without breathing.

  “You’re best friends with Penelope, right? She’s kind of strange, right? A little different. A little peculiar. Does she talk to you? She doesn’t talk to me. I offered her a cookie once. She still didn’t talk to me. Took the cookie, though.”

  I hardly know the kid, but I’ll punch him in his stupid mouth if he says one more bad thing about Pen.

  “What’s up with the glasses?” he asks, kicking a rock off the curb into the school parking lot. “Why does she get to wear sunglasses in class when the rest of us can’t?”

  Cars line up inside the U-shaped student drop-off zone in front of the school. As one car drives out, another drives in. The silver Chrysler I’m waiting for hasn’t appeared yet, and there are only a few minutes left before we have to be in our seats.

  “Her glasses are cool,” I say, stretching my neck to see which car arrives next.

  It’s Penelope.

  “They’re kind of cool,” Roger says. He picks up his backpack from the ground and throws it over his shoulder. “But she’s still weird.”

  I turn around to knock this kid off his block when I hear Wayne Finnel’s voice call my name. There’s still a touch of laughter in his tone.

  “Get over here, boy,” he orders. I swear his mustache winks at me.

  I walk around the front of his car, looking at Pen through the windshield as I close the distance between her father and me. The girl with the red heart-shaped glasses on is small, sitting in the front seat with her book bag held against her chest.

  Yeti is posted halfway out of his car, with one arm on the roof and the other on door.

  “Listen here, boy, and you better listen good,” he says, drawing me in close with the magic of his talking, winking mustache. “I want you to make sure my daughter smiles today, got it? Are you listening, boy? Am I making myself clear?”

  I nod.

  “I want a number at the end of the day, and for every smile, I’ll give you one of these.” Coach Finnel holds up a snack-sized pack of peanut M&M’s. “Have you ever had one of these, boy? They’re phenomenal. They’re my favorite.”

  I duck down low enough to see inside the car. “Why is she sad?”

  The driver behind the Chrysler honks his horn. Wayne turns the power of his facial hair on them, and the honker slowly maneuvers his vehicle around us without as much as a glance in our direction.

  “It’s your birthday today, too?” the horn Nazi asks.

  “Yes, sir,” I answer.

  He nods in acceptance, and we each look over when the passenger door finally opens, and the girl we’d both run through anything to get to exits the car. I’m shocked by her thinner, less-cared-for appearance. Penelope is no try-hard like Pepper, but the shine is gone from her hair, and the color has disappeared from her face. It’s only been four days since I saw her last.

  She doesn’t move as quickly, breathe as surely—her mood is less than birthday great.

  My feet carry me right to her.

  “Hey, Pen,” I say, bending at my knees to get a better look at her hollow-looking face.

  “Hey, Dillon,” she answers. It’s the first time I’ve heard her voice since she thanked me for reading the directions to her through the bathroom door.

  Birthday sadness presses her lips together and reaches up to wipe her eyes from under her sunglasses, but the tear slides down her cheek first.

  “Why are you crying?” I ask. “Did someone forget your birthday?”

  She shakes her head.

  “I got you a present,” I say, digging into my front pocket.

  They’re a little linty, a little sticky, a little warm, but their colors reminded me of her glasses.

  “Marbles,” she says as they roll from my hand to hers. The right side of her mouth curls up. “I love them.”

  There’s one more marble stuck to a piece of butterscotch I was sucking on earlier. I spit on it, rub it on the front of my shirt, and roll it over.

  It’s bright red like the color of her shades.

  “I didn’t get you anything,” Pen mentions sadly.

  “That’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not,” she says, lifting her hand to her face. “Have these.”

  Unhappiness passes me her sunglasses, and I get to look into her cheerless eyes all day.

  One cake. Two families. Thirteen candles.

  The lights are off, and the air is end-of-the-summer-season still. While our families gather around Pen and me in her kitchen, we’re posed in front of the chocolate frosted cake with both of our names written across the top in red icing. There’s one melting stick of wax for each year of our lives, casting everyone’s shadows against the white walls. Penelope’s pink lenses reflect the yellow-orange flame.

  She blushes under the tune of our birthday song, holding her fingers in her ears to pretend she can’t hear.

  “La, la, la, la,” she says with a smile I should get two snack packs for.

  Herbert, who’s standing right behind Sonya, mouths “Pussy” when I make the mistake of looking away from the birthday girl and in his direction.

  “Suck my
—” I start to mouth back when Coach Finnel steps in my line of sight, shutting me up. My mouth snaps closed, and I sink into my wooden chair.

  As our loved ones belt out the end of the jingle, and Kyle adds, “And many more, on channel four,” the birthday Nazi points the middle and pointer fingers from his right hand toward his eyes before aiming the same fingers at me.

  “I’m watching you,” he lips.

  My eyes widen, and I scoot closer to the girl who’s only five hours older than me.

  “Make a wish,” Penelope’s mother says. She licks chocolate from the spatula she used to frost the cake.

  There’s some stuck to the corner of her mouth.

  “You can have this wish,” I say, carefully pushing the cake closer to Penelope.

  She shakes her head, smiling a smile that spreads from cheek to cheek. “I’ll take next year’s wish.”

  Before the white-and-blue striped candles melt completely, I inhale a deep breath and make my request.

  I wish that Pen would take her sunglasses off around me—always.

  The candles don’t stand a chance against the will of my wish. When all thirteen flames are out and we’re left in the dark room turned smoky, Mr. Finnel is the first to speak.

  “I can’t believe you took the wish, boy.”

  September and October thankfully fall into November, and December merrily arrives. One year drops into another, and come January, Castle Rain lives up to its name. It feels like the downpour will never end. Washington’s covered by a thick layer of gray clouds, our streets flood, and the ocean overflows onto the beach.

  Nothing stands a chance against the constant rainstorm. My shoes and socks are always wet. My hair never dries. My fingers prune. Water leaks from the roof and sometimes seeps through cracks around the windows. Dad’s placed pots on top of the refrigerator and in the hallways to capture the drip, drip, drops. He’s patched a few holes in the house, but another replaces it just as fast.

  “Can you find your way to school today, D?” Risa walks into my room without knocking and asks.