In the eternal meantime, you’re on your own, and you are not getting it on.
It’s senior year after a big game. You’re eating pizza at DeGregory’s Restaurant with your football buddies. Someone comes in and says in an excited whisper: “Linda S. is in a car out back. She’s drunk and willing to make out with anybody.”
Linda S. is a pretty blonde girl two years younger than you, a shy country kid who lives only a mile from you. You don’t remember getting up or going through the door, but the next thing you know you’re in the alley beside that car. You push past two other guys, grab skinny Sammy Carson by his belt and toss him to the side. But then, instead of climbing into the back of that wide-seated ‘58 Buick, you take Linda S. by the arm and lead her, her on unsteady legs, to your car. Other guys step aside when they see that look in your eye.
She’s crying now. You give her your handkerchief. As she leans against the car door you remember what she looked like five years ago when she was playing hopscotch, all skinny-legged and gangly, on the sidewalk outside School Two. You drive her home. The light outside the old farmhouse reveals the fact that her mother’s been waiting up for her. You walk her to her door, and she kisses your cheek and whispers, “Thank you,” before she goes in. It’s your first kiss—although you won’t realize that or even value what it means until a lot later.
What I like about you in that memory is not just what you did, but the way you did it. You didn’t think of yourself as a hero. You didn’t do it to prove anything. In fact, for many years afterward you wonder what was really going on in your head back then: Did you have the urge to climb in that car with Louise yourself? (You didn’t.) Did you do the right thing? (You did.)
If you had to define what you were feeling at that moment, it was probably sadness, more than anything else. Until this letter you’ve never mentioned what happened that night to anyone—not to the guys who avoided you as you walked down the hall on Monday morning, not to Linda S., not even to your grandmother (even though you know she’d have been proud of the way you followed the path she put you on). But you didn’t do it for her approval. You did it for the person you wanted to become.
Joseph Bruchac lives in the same house in the Adirondack foothills town of Greenfield Center, New York, where he was raised by his grandparents. He’s the author of more than 120 books, ranging from picture books to plays, nonfiction, poetry, and novels for middle school, high school, and adult readers. His writing often reflects his Abenaki Indian heritage. That is even true of his new YA novel Wolf Mark (2011), a paranormal thriller with an American Indian take on shape-shifting.
TRUST IS AS IMPORTANT AS LOVE
Jessica Burkhart
Dear Teen Me,
You’re eighteen, and you don’t trust anyone. Your father—an abusive con man—taught you that lesson. His fraudulent investment schemes, in which he used you and your family as bait, made you profoundly suspicious of other people’s motives. But hold on: An opportunity to escape is coming. The thing is, it depends on something you don’t really have—trust.
The next year, your life gets both better and worse simultaneously. You get a book deal. Your editor, Kate, becomes your best friend—she becomes the big sister you never had. The connection is immediate—one you’ve never had with anyone before. Soon, you love each other. You never question this. Even though Dad swore no one would ever love you, someone does.
Every day he talks about how your only responsibility is to “the family.” He says that nothing is more important; nothing should make you want to leave. And frankly, it seems impossible to you that you could ever manage to get away from him.
But Kate’s going to tell you something unbelievable: She wants to help you escape.
You have one opening. You say yes to Kate’s offer. You’re supposed to go from Florida to New York with just a single suitcase. No Mutzie (the stuffed puppy you slept with every night); no dog-eared copies of your precious Black Stallion books; no photos of your brother.
I know that this decision will seem to be the hardest part, but I’m afraid it’s not. You wobble—and the fear almost destroys you. You won’t be able to eat or sleep for weeks.
You try to act like nothing’s up. You write around the clock, watch General Hospital, and play video games with your brother. Dad continues to snatch your paychecks from the mailbox before you even see the envelopes.
When you call Kate, you tell Dad it’s for business. From your closet, you whisper into the phone, hoping she won’t detect the doubt that’s in your voice. But of course she does. Kate knows that you want to leave with all your heart, but she also senses that you may still back out at the last second.
Days before your scheduled departure, Kate calls, and her voice—which is usually so warm and gentle—is chilly now, and the words she speaks are even colder. If you don’t follow through, she says that she will still be your friend, but she won’t listen to complaints about your father anymore. She won’t subject herself to accounts of how a person she loves has credit cards in her name that she’s not allowed to use, how she can’t drive anywhere alone, and isn’t allowed to speak to the neighbors—not after she gave you a chance and you didn’t take it. She will love you, be your editor, and support you, but it won’t be like it was before. You swear you’re going to leave. Promise profusely. Kate says that she’ll believe you when you get on the plane.
You cry. Hard. Hot tears. You hate her for saying those things. Support was what you needed. Or at least, that’s what you thought then. Now you know that she gave you exactly what you needed. Kate terrified you in a way that no one else ever had—not even Dad. Losing her wasn’t an option.
That phone call gets you on the plane. Months later, Kate tells you how she agonized over that awful call, cried when she hung up, and hated every second of speaking to you that way. But threatening your friendship was the only way to ensure your safety.
One terrible phone call saved your life. And now, you’ve gotten away. You are no longer kept.
Twenty-four year old Jessica Burkhart (Jess Ashley) lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of the twenty-book Canterwood Crest series. Jess is also working on Kept, a YA verse novel based on this essay and her post on DearTeenMe.com. With her Canterwood editor and BFF, Kate Angelella, Jess co-owns Violet & Ruby—a two-person book packager. Visit Jess online at JessicaBurkhart.com.
THANK YOU, OILY PIZZA
Josh A. Cagan
Dear Teen Me,
The cafeteria pizza at BU is disgusting, but you and the kids you’re hanging out with eat it because it’s Friday night and hey, you’re freshmen. You’re wearing a plastic Dick Tracy movie-tie-in hat. (You’re trying to make that your “thing.”)
I’m sure you’ve noticed that I said “the kids you’re hanging out with,” and not “your friends.” Your friends are a distant, candy-coated memory.
Why you’re even hanging out with these kids is a mystery, because as far as you’re concerned, nobody likes you. You’re not doing great in class, and nobody else wants to talk about cartoons and Muppets—instead, they want to talk about Shakespeare and Chekhov. Everyone else came from fascinating places, they’ve had amazing lives, and they seem like they were born into a life in the theater.
You’re some boring guy from a boring suburb.
So for the first part of your freshman year, you try to communicate to everyone at all times that YOU ARE DIFFERENT AND SPECIAL. If you could wear a gold dookie chain around your neck that said that, you would. (Although you probably would have spray-painted it black first. You wear a lot of black, hoping you can make that your “thing.”)
You wear a different pair of crazy sunglasses every day of the week, hoping you can make that your “thing.”
You never work with other students unless it’s absolutely demanded of you, and instead you present bombastic monologues about murder and loneliness, hoping you can make that your “thing.”
You work your ass off to prove to people that you are a
wesome, smart, edgy, and talented. You work harder at that than you do at any actual schoolwork, harder than you even work on your own art. Whether you know it or not, this is what has actually become your “thing.”
Still, thank God you live in a dorm. Because regardless of your social status (real or imagined), if you have two dollars to throw toward pizza, you can sit in some other kids’ room and eat some of that pizza. So yeah, the cafeteria pizza at BU is disgusting, but you and the kids you’re hanging out with eat it, because it’s Friday night and you’re freshmen. And despite my earlier warning, you’re still wearing that plastic “Dick Tracy” hat. (Don’t get me started.)
You take a wad of napkins and begin to blot the orange grease off of your slice. Then you look at the wad of napkins and say out loud (but mostly to yourself), “I should just rub this on my face and cut out the middleman.”
Everyone looks at you like the dog just talked.
And then they laugh. It’s your first real laugh at college. You probably don’t think much about it, but trust me, this is HUGE.
Because for the first time in your college career, you didn’t open your yap to complain about how nobody understands you, or how everyone is so phony, or to brag about how many pairs of sunglasses you own.
You observed something that was funny to you, and you said it. Not because you thought it would be the coolest thing to say, not because you thought it would make people think you were brilliant, but just because you were being yourself.
And as it turned out, you being yourself made people like you. It still does.
In other words, you finally found your “thing.”
Thank heavens. That hat was ridiculous.
Josh A. Cagan @joshacagan co-wrote 2009’s Bandslam, which received a 90% Fresh rating from Top Critics on RottenTomatoes.com. He also developed and co-wrote the 2001 animated series Undergrads. Recently, CBS Films optioned his adaptation of Kody Keplinger’s The Duff, with McG producing. He is paid to write jokes and stories with his friends, so in other words, he lived happily ever after. He lives in Hollywood with his wife, Kayla, and their stuffed animals.
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