Standing Sideways

by J. Lynn Bailey

  My face grows hot. Extremely hot. Temperatures that surely a teen could die from.

  Death by hot. And cheese fries. Maybe it’s the cheese fries. Maybe this is my death by cheese fries. Not Daniel’s.

  Oh, God.

  “Hey.” I try not to sound too breathless, too desperate.

  Hot.

  Hot.

  Hot.

  The sound of a submarine in Mayday mode pulsates in my ears.

  “Hey,” he says. I can hear his British accent, even with one word. “Cao, how are the wedding plans moving along?” he asks.

  She smiles, as if her wit isn’t matched. Like she’s the wit queen. “Ed wants red napkins. I want maroon. Whatever will be, be it, be it.”

  Daniel stops. Smirks. “Isn’t it, Whatever will be, will be?” Daniel sits down.

  Next.

  To.

  Me.

  Our.

  Legs.

  Are.

  Touching.

  Cao pulls her shoulders up. “Whatever. I’ll give him the earth.”

  “When do we get to meet him?” he asks.

  I watch his face as his eyes fall to me only quickly, and maybe he’s unsure if this is all right with me. Yet an even bigger part of him doesn’t care. When he sits, he brings his freshly showered scent, like Irish Spring or something. And there’s something about this scent, or him, that makes my stomach twist.

  Poppy: “The British are bold, aren’t they? And handsome.”

  I stare at his side profile. His freshly shaven skin makes me wonder what it feels like to the touch. As if the world has given us consent—two living, breathing humans, one with a penis and one with a vagina—to sit next to each other.

  Penis.

  Vagina.

  Penis.

  Vagina.

  Oh, God. Shut up, Liv. Just shut up.

  But he does the unthinkable. Something I’m not ready for.

  He turns to me and says, “I’d like to come over after school, so your mum can take a look at my hand. Would that be all right with you?” He looks down at the cheese fries and back to me.

  “Yeah,” comes out without a play-by-play future trip of what might happen if he came over. I’ve never brought a boy home. No, wait, once. I take that back. Once. Maybe twice.

  Benton Greggs.

  Michael Martinez.

  Oh, and Lance Renner. Two were for projects when I was the studious Livia, the good decision-maker Liv. And the other was a date. Sophomore year. Semiformal. I hated wearing dresses, but Jasper wanted to go with Lance’s sister, Brittany, so he paid me one hundred dollars to go. It wasn’t that Lance wasn’t cute; he was, but he was kind of short and awkward.

  Oh my God. My dad’s at the house. Shit. I can’t back out now.

  Yes, I can.

  No, I can’t.

  Yes. Yes, I can.

  Penis.

  Vagina.

  Face hot.

  Poppy: “No, you can’t.”

  Daniel boldly takes a cheese fry, not breaking eye contact with me. “Meet you after school in the library?”

  Now, sex is the only thing I can think about. And Daniel.

  All I can manage is a, “Yes.”

  Wait. Why in the library?

  But I don’t question it because I’m afraid of what will come out of my mouth.

  “It’s decided then.” Daniel stands.

  Please don’t go. I’ve grown accustomed to your body next to mine, I want to say. An appendage of sorts.

  I’m sure my face registers relief though. And I think I’m somewhat relieved because the bad thoughts I was having mere seconds ago have disappeared. Thoughts like, sliding across his lap right here in the middle of Bob’s at lunchtime and putting my lips to his clean-shaven face.

  “Livia, I’ll see you later,” he says and turns and walks out of Bob’s just the way he stepped in, quietly and confidently.

  “He’s hot. Taller.” Cao grabs another cheese fry and drops it into her mouth.

  “My dad came home,” spills across the table.

  Cao is mid-chew. “What? I mean, I heard you, but what? Why?” She takes a sip of Coke.

  “I think my mom called him,” I sigh and sit back on the bench, glancing down at the spot where Daniel sat.

  If I slide over a few inches, our butts will have touched.

  That’s a weird thought, Livia, even for you, I think to myself.

  But I slide over anyway, so his invisible butt is touching mine but not touching because his is gone.

  I’m so weird.

  It’s a hard transition from butts and thoughts on intercourse to my dad. Yuck. But I make the transition because I’ve started the conversation.

  “Is he sober?” Cao’s lips are pulled tight. She does this when she’s thinking.

  “Seems to be. This morning, I was in Jasper’s closet, and I watched him cry on the side of Jasper’s bed with his football jersey in his hands.”

  Cao’s shoulders drop. Her concern for my welfare comes through in her eyes. “Liv,” she whispers, “you were in Jasper’s closet?”

  For the first time, I’m smacked with the realization that sitting among my brother’s stuff, in his closet, is odd. I toy with my fingers just below the table, staring at them, praying she’ll give me some words to meet relief I have stored somewhere in my body.

  “Are you still sleeping in Jas’s shirt?”

  Now, I’m hesitant. I don’t want Cao to worry, but now, I know that sitting in his closet is weird because she’s worried.

  “No, I washed it,” I lie.

  She reaches across the table for my hand.

  “I told my dad he needed to leave,” I say.

  Cao’s methodical with her words. “He’s grieving, too. He lost a child”—she pauses—“in a way that most people will never be able to grapple with. Did you stop to think that maybe he’s got demons, too? And that maybe, for the first time in a long time, he’s trying to do what’s right by his daughter? His family?”

  I stare ahead and let her words resonate in my head. “You’re taking his side?”

  Cao shakes her head. “I’m not on sides, Liv.” She stalls. “Maybe the focus needs not be on the relationship between you, Tracy, and Ned, but more on healing together. You guys need each other, Liv. Let him be there. And stop calling Tracy, Tracy in your head because I know you do that. Let her be your mom. Get over what was done in the past.”

  Fifth period. Chemistry.

  Mr. Lowery doesn’t know we have the Chemistry exam up online, so nobody is really paying any attention to his lecture on converting moles to liters because everyone knows Lucinda Brandt will fill in all the test answers for paying customers.

  But I can’t even focus on that right now because there’s an incessant ringing in my ears. For the life of me, I can’t drag my eyes to the open seat two rows over, fifth seat from the front. Jasper and I had Chemistry together. I’d convinced Jasper he needed to do the minimum requirements for the state university system, just in case he wanted to go to a four-year out of high school. Now, I wish I had never told him that because staring at his empty seat is only further confirmation that he isn’t coming back. The hole in my chest expands, stretches, and rears its ugly head. It laughs at my feeble heart.

  Mandy DeClan sits in the front row. Jasper went to prom with her our junior year. Did he feel he had to go with a girl? Jasper had a way about him that made every person comfortable in a room. Did he feel if he took a boy that it would make others uncomfortable? Maybe he wasn’t comfortable with who he was?

  We had a conversation just weeks before he died. We talked about college. As weird as it sounds, I couldn’t imagine leaving Jasper behind and going to college somewhere else without him. Our plan was that we’d go together.

  Truth be told, I think he just told me he’d go to shine me on. So that I’d make the right decisions for me and commit, and then he’d bail.

  A few weeks before he died, he said, “Do you ever feel like
your future feels fuzzy and hard to see?” He looked at me dead in the eyes. “I can’t imagine myself growing up, going to college.”

  I told him it was because he didn’t have a plan, and that was why it looked fuzzy.

  Sadness eats away at my stomach. And the hole only grows bigger. Maybe he knew he was going to die.

  I come to the present moment. My foot is shaking up and down, and the inside of my cheek is chewed raw. My stomach is in knots. I just want to leave my body.

  I need my pills.

  Finally, Mr. Lowery closes down his lecture—thank God—and I’m the first one to pack up my things and head for the door.

  Belle’s Hollow Library is at the center of our high school. It’s circular and surrounded by classrooms on the outside. Each classroom is accessible via the library. From Dickens to Plath, the classics and then some are all here. The smell of old books and musk surrounds me.

  My phone vibrates. And I look down to an unknown number.

  Unknown number: I’m up here.

  Daniel is sitting on the second level at a small table with a green lamp, looking down through the center of the library.

  Me: How’d you get my number?

  Daniel: The soon-to-be Mrs. Sheeran.

  I smile because he takes Cao in stride, just like I do. And I save his number in my Contacts.

  Making my way up the wide staircase to the second floor, I take a breath.

  Don’t think of sex or invisible butts touching, Liv. It’s just plain wrong.

  “Hey.” I slide into the chair across the tiny table. What if our knees bump? I ask myself. Do I pull back? Do I apologize? Do I purposely bump his knee to get a reaction?

  “Hi.”

  “How’s the hand?” I ask, trying to focus on the conversation and not awkward topics that keep randomly popping into my head.

  I cross my arms and lean forward but not too forward, like I’m trying to kiss him or something. This table is small enough for us to exchange oxygen; the air around us is either taken by him or me. The kissing space.

  “I need to tell you something,” he says.

  I lean back in the hard wooden chair and throw my shoulders back for good measure, my best attempt at reflecting confidence. I bet if they gave us more comfortable chairs in the library, students would stay longer. Kick up their feet. Take a break.

  But it’s what Daniel says to me that forces me back to October 1 all over again.

  When my dad called with his six words—“I need to tell you something”—they weren’t paced or well spoken. They were rushed. Broken with fear. All one word it seemed. Those words were followed with, “I can’t reach Jasper, and there’s been an incident.” His lawyer jargon for emergency.

  Dad, are you there? Tell me what happened to Jasper, I wanted to say.

  That was when we turned on the news.

  Daniel says, “Why we’re here.”

  And I can’t remember what he said before this. Or why he’s saying this now. Oh, yes, I do.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  Daniel scratches his head and pushes his glasses further up on his nose. I think his glasses are a distraction and also misleading. I think they’re a cover-up for the rebel he might really be. The body that he has underneath the clothes that he wears. Clearly, he’s not a nerd. I wonder if he has the same color hair on his chest that he does on his head.

  Topic at hand, Liv. Not Daniel’s chest hair.

  Penis.

  “I must tell you something.” He leans forward in the kissing space.

  Penis.

  Vagina.

  Just coping.

  Maybe it’s the pills that do this to my brain—push my thoughts out to random planets.

  But, now, unfortunately, all I can focus on is his chest, and the thought of touching it swims in my head like a school of fish. Sardines specifically. Maybe. Or guppies. Forage fish.

  It’s as if each is a sardine, glistening and shiny with pretty colors. One fish makes me look at another and another.

  STOP.

  I inhale.

  Reconstruct your focus. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.

  “What is it?” My voice attempts its best to stay calm.

  I don’t dare lean forward in the kissing space out of fear that my lips will fly off my face—my tongue, too—and kiss him right on the mouth.

  “I don’t like Chinese food,” he sighs, leaning back from the kissing space.

  Thank God.

  He intertwines his fingers and places them behind his head. “Writing songs is my outlet. I’ve come to love scented dryer sheets.” His voice is low and deep, and it creeps through my chest like cracked glass. “I walk to school because I won’t give my father the satisfaction of driving the car he bought me.”

  Daniel says bought like boat.

  Vagina.

  Vagina.

  Vagina.

  Help me, God, please.

  I put my hand to my mouth, pretending to clear my throat that doesn’t need clearing, only to give my hormones a rest.

  Quiet, please, I tell them.

  “Well, first of all, if you haven’t had the Chinese chicken salad at Hunan Village in Belle’s, you don’t know Chinese food.”

  I used to like to write, too, before Jasper died. Underneath the table, I trace an X on the palm of my hand for walked away from.

  “Second, I read that scented dryer sheets cause cancer. But everything causes cancer these days.” Please, Liv, don’t go off on another tangent. “Like cell phones, genetically modified foods, the sun, genes—with a G, not with a J—smoking. Mexican food.”

  “No.” He mocks.

  “Yes.”

  “Shit,” Daniel says, skeptical but funny. “How does Mexican food cause cancer?”

  “The amount of aflatoxins in corn tortillas, rice, processed sauces. There’s been links to liver cancer and breast cancer.”

  Daniel leans forward in the kissing space.

  But, this time, I loosen up just a little bit. Maybe it’s because he’s looking everywhere but my eyes, and it makes me feel like I might have the upper hand. More confidence. “I’d like to read something you’ve written,” comes out too quickly. I’d rather discuss cancer and Mexican food, things lighter on the heart.

  “All right.” He pauses and extends his good hand across the kissing space.

  Damn you, kissing space.

  “I’ll give you something I’ve written if you give me something you’ve written.” Daniel pronounces written like wree-tun.

  I immediately make up a rule because I don’t want him to feel the sweat bags I have for hands right now. “I don’t shake on anything.”

  Daniel jerks his head back. “Why not?”

  Be honest. For once since Jasper’s death, be honest, and let someone in.

  I chew on this statement for a few seconds.

  “You make my hands sweat.” Nice.

  Now, I feel like some underweight sweaty boxer looking for a time-out. A truce.

  My best idea is to divulge the truth and embarrass whatever dignity I held just seconds before? Wonderful.

  His face turns a soft shade of pink, even the tips of his ears. “I make your hands sweat?”

  He pronounces your like yor,

  “Yes,” I whisper, my eyes staring down at the table.

  We just met. This is weird. He’s probably freaked out, and he’ll get up and leave any moment. I would, but I can’t remember how to walk, and if I did, I’m sure my vagina would go splat against the hardwood floor beneath us.

  I roll my eyes. “You’re gloating.”

  “Not gloating.”

  Our eyes connect.

  I wipe my hands on my jeans. I muster courage from deep within me and reach across the kissing space. “Deal.”

  With long, lean fingers, his hand slides in mine.

  Why do your hands have to be so manly?

  Daniel doesn’t let go. Doesn’t move.

  My phone vibrates, and it breaks up t
he moment.

  Daniel doesn’t let go. “Are you going to get that?”

  Absolutely not. “No.”

  “You should. It might be your mum.” He releases my hand with reluctance.

  It isn’t my mom, but instead, it’s Cao, telling me that she doesn’t need a ride home. That Beth is coming to get her for a doctor’s appointment.

  The bell rings.

  “We should probably get to my house, so my mom can take a look at your hand.”

  “Right.”

  “Mom?” I push the door open, Daniel behind me, close.

  Shit.

  Dad.

  I look through the kitchen.

  Daniel comes from behind me as my dad approaches. “Daniel Pearson, Mr. Stone. I’m a friend of Livia’s.”

  My dad is caught off guard in a good way. Maybe it’s Daniel’s forwardness.

  “Please, call me Ned.”

  Their handshake reminds me of two grown men meeting for business.

  My dad doesn’t say, Livia didn’t tell me she was bringing home a boy. Because he doesn’t have any right to these words. He doesn’t know what I’ve been doing for the past three years.

  There’s awkwardness between my dad and me; Daniel must sense it.

  “Mom?” I call out, walking back toward the staircase.

  She’s coming down, putting on an earring.

  “Hey. Can you take a look at my friend’s hand?”

  “Cao?”

  “No, actually.”

  She stops at the last step. “Who?”

  A boy, I mime the words, my fingers growing fidgety.

  “A what?”

  I feel the redness in my face.

  Tracy comes around the corner. “Daniel? What are you doing here?”

  Clearly embarrassed, Daniel pushes his shoulders back. “Tracy, I was…I was wondering if you could take a look at my hand.”

  “Wait, you guys know each other?”

  Confusion streaming from my face, I look between the two of them.

  Daniel speaks first, “Um, our parents work together, I guess. I mean, I didn’t know Tracy was your mother. I mean, I guess I should have known, being a small town.” He pronounces small like smoll.