Mr. Ortiz clears his throat again. I’ve never seen him so uncomfortable. “As some of you may have heard, one of East Bay’s most beloved teachers, William Hubbard, passed away yesterday.”
I stop listening. The microphone feedback happens in my brain—this loud, screeching sound that makes me clamp my hands over my ears like I can drown it out.
For most of my high school life, Mr. Hubbard looked close to death. I imagined him permanently old, living another twenty years as his frail, hunched self. You see people a certain way, and they become fixed like that. I didn’t imagine Mr. Hubbard as William Hubbard, as someone who had been young once, vibrant and full of color before deteriorating into what we saw in the classroom.
Mr. Ortiz goes on, his voice clear but shaky. He talks in clichés. Everyone talks in clichés after a death. I heard all the clichés after Mom’s. Time heals all wounds. She’s in a better place. At least she’s not in pain anymore. All those words, just a group of sounds rearranged to give all this horrible crap some kind of deeper meaning.
“I’d like to invite anyone who wants to share something about Mr. Hubbard to the stage,” Mr. Ortiz says, even though there is no stage, just a hardwood floor with a picture of our school’s mascot, a poorly drawn cartoon tiger. “A funny story, a nice memory . . .”
I have none of those things about Mr. Hubbard. His death can’t take away the fact that he was a tired old grump and a boring teacher and now he’s lying on a cold metal table like one of his frogs.
Dalia raises her hand, and Mr. Ortiz looks relieved. “Yes, Dalia. Come on up.”
She makes her way down the bleachers, wiping an invisible tear from the corner of her eye. Dalia placed her bet on Mr. Hubbard dying in May.
She lifts the microphone to her glossy lips. “Mr. Hubbard was the best teacher I ever had—”
The feedback loop begins in my head again, louder this time, drowning out her empty words, drowning out my own thoughts. I feel my breakfast creeping its way back up my esophagus. I know with certainty that if I don’t leave right this second, I am going to vomit all over the bleacher section.
“I have to go,” I mumble, standing up and scooting by Seb’s knees, catching a stranger’s shoulder here and there so that I don’t tumble over.
“Are you okay?” I hear him whisper behind me. I think it’s him, at least. It might be Elliott, but I’m too far now, making my way down the rows. My feet hit the gym floor, and I speed-walk through a few students standing near the doorway.
Nobody stops me. My legs carry me down the long corridor, past classrooms, lockers, the cafeteria, and finally, outside. The sun whites out my vision, and I have to close my eyes for a few seconds to adjust. The sun is always brightest on the saddest days. On the day of my mom’s funeral, it was a sticky ninety-six degrees. A bright, cloudless day, like a massive Fuck you from nature itself.
I sit down on the grass with my knees up and lodge my head between them. I start to cry. And even though there’s no one out here, I’m so freaking embarrassed with myself. I barely knew Mr. Hubbard. I wasn’t even all that fond of him. Yet here I am, snot-faced and shaking over the fact that he’s not here anymore. Someone who hobbled around and wrote with chalk and ate tuna sandwiches at his desk just . . . stopped existing. Who is he leaving behind? Did he have friends? A family? Or did he have only us, a bunch of students who placed bets on when he would finally kick the bucket?
A pair of cyan sneakers enters my line of vision. I know who it is, but I look up anyway, acutely aware that I’m a sniveling mess, into Seb’s concerned face. He followed me here. For some reason, it makes me cry even harder.
He sits down next to me on the grass without saying anything. I wish I could shut my tears off like a faucet, but they’re still coming, rolling down my cheeks and dangling past my jawline. I know what I look like when I cry. It’s not cute. But I’m too sad to worry about what I look like, and in some messed up way, that’s almost a relief.
Seb lets me cry it out for a few minutes. He doesn’t fidget or try to make me feel better. Instead he says, “I didn’t take the bet.”
Between sniffles I say, “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry you didn’t take the bet?” I reach into my jeans pocket, hoping that some tissues will magically appear, but I come up with nothing. I have no choice but to let the snot flow freely. I bet when Chloe cries, her nose leaks liquid diamonds.
“No,” Seb says, flexing his feet inside his sneakers. “I’m sorry you’re upset. I didn’t know you and Hubbard were close.”
I shake my head, blubbering, “We weren’t.”
“Oh. Then . . . ?”
“I just feel like I’m surrounded by it,” I say. “Death and darkness and sadness. All the time.”
Seb doesn’t say anything. What can he say? He hasn’t experienced loss like I have. The closest he’s come to it is getting dumped by Chloe. Otherwise Seb is living in a world of unicorns and rainbows, beloved by everyone, unafraid of whatever life throws at him.
“What can I do?” he finally asks. He scrunches the bottom of his shirt in his hand and uses it to wipe away my tears and snot. It’s so unexpectedly sweet (and disgusting) that it has the opposite effect of what he intended. A new current of tears rushes out of me.
“I’m sorry,” I cry, covering my face with my hands. He takes them both in his and gives me a face that clearly says, Don’t be stupid. But I am sorry. I feel like I’m infecting him with my sadness.
“Analee,” he says softly. He rubs a thumb over my cheek and then slowly, carefully kisses the corner of my eye, right where a new tear is forming.
I look up at him with blurred, tear-coated vision. I want him to kiss me again. I want more of it, because kissing him is one of the ways I can forget about all of this. Kissing him is like stepping into a beam of light.
As if he’s reading my mind, Seb kisses me again, this time on the other side of my eye. I don’t use words. I circle my arms around his waist and pull him toward me, and there’s no resistance on his part. I feel my urgency mirrored in his movements—the way his hands run across my back, the way his hips press into mine. We kiss. We kiss so hard that it drowns out my thoughts, and Seb lowers me onto the grass, and I know I’m a mixture of tears and sweat but it all feels so . . . good. And I can’t remember the last time I felt good. I don’t want to stop feeling it. We roll around in the grass, kissing and baking in the sun. I don’t care that after this I’ll look like hot garbage. Or that I’ll get grass stains on my favorite pair of jeans.
I think I understand Lily now. Is this how it felt with Colton in the parking lot? Kissing so long that you almost stop breathing? Not caring who might see you? If Seb and I were real, I would do this for hours and hours every single day. I see it now. The way being with someone is a drug that makes you forget about everyone else in your life.
Seb’s fingers dip under the edges of my shirt, brushing against my skin, and I shiver. It scares me, how easily I could see myself giving in. How I’m thinking about the condoms stashed in my closet and how, yeah, maybe Seb and I are a ruse, but if kissing him feels like this, what would sex feel like?
All of a sudden a stampede of footsteps seems to shake the foundation of the school. I unwrap myself from Seb, and we sit up. His hair is sticking up in a hundred different directions, and I don’t want to know what mine looks like. The assembly has ended, and whatever went on out here with me and Seb is effectively over. I’m not sure what to say to him now. Thank you? That was fun? A few students start to make their way outside, talking in that excessively loud way that people talk, laughing like Mr. Hubbard’s memorial assembly didn’t just happen.
Seb is the one to break the silence.
“So, what level was that?” he asks, flicking a blade of grass off my shirtsleeve.
“I think we beat the game,” I reply.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Analee’s Top School Make-Out Spots
1. Inside Seb’
s car
2. Baseball dugout
3. Behind the music building
4. Projection room
5. Upstairs utility closet
IN A STRANGE TWIST OF fate, school has now become my release. Ever since we kissed after assembly, Seb and I make out any possible moment we can. In empty classrooms before school starts, between classes, after school before his soccer practices. I still don’t feel comfortable making out in the hallway where everyone is bound to see. I know that’s kind of the point of our relationship, but I’m not there yet. Maybe not ever.
So what are the two of us doing, exactly? If this isn’t all for show, why bother to keep it up at all? These are the questions I want to ask when Seb slides on top of me in the backseat of his car. But then he’ll kiss the spot right where my earlobe meets my neck, and I’m rendered useless. I never thought of myself as the type to get like this with a boy. I remember rolling my eyes when Lily and Colton dove face-first into each other’s throats. But now, more than questing with Harris, or stressing over where to eat during lunch, or wondering whether Lily hates me or not, all my energies are poured into making out with Seb.
I think he’s enjoying it too. I mean, he has to be, right? Why else would he be doing it? But then really, is it such a badge of honor when a boy enjoys making out with you? Teenage boys are supposed to be testosterone-driven sex maniacs, so I assume they would make out with anyone. Sometimes, though, in those moments when we pause to catch our breath, he’ll look at me like he’s deep in thought, or he’ll tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. I used to see him do that stuff with Chloe in the early days of their relationship. I rolled my eyes then too. Now it all makes me turn goofy.
“I don’t remember the first time we met,” Seb says after a particularly sweaty session in the utility closet. I adjust my shirt to cover my stomach pouch. The shirt is riding higher and higher with each consecutive make-out, along with Seb’s hands inching up past my waist and toward my chest. We haven’t moved past kissing, but even as that has gotten more intense, it has seemed like less than enough.
“I do,” I reply. I’m breathing hard as Seb curls his fingers around my belt loop.
“And?” he asks.
“First day of sixth grade.”
“Right.” He kisses me from my neck to my collarbone. “Did I talk to you?”
“No.” I think back on that day, and how strange life is, that the cute boy in the back row is now kissing me in a closet.
“Did you . . . like me?”
“I thought you were cute,” I admit. “For, like, five minutes.”
“You don’t think I’m cute now?”
“I mean . . . you’re good-looking enough, I guess.”
“Good-looking enough,” he repeats. “Wow. I’m overwhelmed by your praise.” We’re back to making out now. His hands roam down my waist, slide into my back pockets.
Yes, I decide. I might, at some point in the foreseeable future, have sex with Sebastian Matias. I don’t care if this isn’t real. Life is short, and whatever this is feels amazing, and I want to experience more amazingness.
“So what changed?” he asks between kisses.
“Hmm?” I can’t focus on this conversation right now. His hands are moving everywhere, up my shirt now and underneath my bra strap. My heart jitters at the thought of what might happen next.
“You said I was cute for, like, five minutes,” he murmurs. “What happened in those five minutes?”
His fingers fiddle with my bra hooks. I want to reach around and do it for him, then strip him naked and have sex with him right on top of this mop bucket.
I am so gross. I need to get a grip.
“What?” I ask.
“What happened in those five minutes?” he repeats.
“You opened your mouth,” I end up saying, and his hands stop moving.
It so doesn’t come out the way I meant it to. It’s the truth, but I wanted to relay a joking, unaffected tone. Instead it comes out the way I really felt that day. Bitter. Pissed.
Seb pulls away. A hurt expression crosses his face. “Ouch?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. You just . . . you weren’t very nice to me.”
“What did I do?” he asks, and he looks so horrified that I regret bringing it up in the first place.
“Just forget it.” I stand on the tips of my toes to kiss him again, but he shakes his head.
“I don’t want to forget it.”
And just like that, our happy make-out bubble is popped. I groan and sit down on the mop bucket. This definitely wasn’t part of my sex-fueled fantasy scenario. And the longer I spend in this closet without kissing Seb, the more it sinks into my head, how unhygienic this spot is. Seb leans against a shelf of dusty cleaning products, waiting for my answer.
I tell him everything. With my head down and my hands in my lap, I explain how he laughed when Matt McKinley made me feel like dirt.
“But I didn’t say anything,” he protests.
“No, you didn’t. That’s almost worse.”
I give him other examples. It’s not just about me and a stupid nickname. It goes beyond that. Seb holds an infinite amount of power at our school, but he chooses to stand idly by while the powerless are bullied and mocked.
He takes it all in without speaking. Once in a while he paces the short length of the closet, but then he resumes his post by the cleaning supplies. When I finish talking, I look up at him.
“This is what you think of me?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know,” I say. But the answer is yes. Seb doesn’t go out of his way to make other people miserable like Matt does, but he doesn’t exactly put others above himself either.
He squats down beside me. His fingers, steepled together, rest on his chin. There’s muffled commotion out in the hallway as students start getting ready for class. I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t think my opinion would have such an impact on Seb. My mind inadvertently flashes back to the conversation between him and Chloe that day in the library. What was it she said? Something about Seb not caring about anyone but himself.
“I hate that I made you feel like that,” he says finally.
I will forever regret bringing this up. It’s so embarrassing to reveal that I’ve been holding on to a four-year-old slight, one that is now throwing Seb into a crisis.
“It’s not just you,” I reply. “It’s everyone, really.”
“Do other people see me like that? Like some spineless asshole?”
“Come on,” I say. “You know most people worship the ground you walk on.”
“Right,” he says dully.
I wonder if that’s part of the problem. Seb is so used to the constant adoration that he’s terrified something will one day take it all away. I can’t exactly relate. The good thing about not having anything is that you don’t worry about losing anything.
I stand up and wipe off my jeans. Seb stays low to the ground, staring intently at the concrete floor.
“Seb?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s okay. It was years ago.” I figure this is something a rational human being would say. Someone not like me. I extend my hand, and he takes it, hoists himself up. Before I can open the closet door, just a crack to see if the coast is clear, Seb pulls me toward him to kiss me again. This kiss is different. This one feels new. It’s weird to have spent a number of hours kissing Seb and get one that surprises me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and I can barely remember why I was angry with him for so long.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THIS IS WHAT I HAVE written for harlow and my dad’s wedding toast:
Good evening, everyone.
I already hate it. Does any sixteen-year-old actually say “good evening”? It reminds me of an old butler or a restaurant hostess. Besides, I haven’t exactly been feeling the love between Dad and Harlow lately. As the wedding prep heightens, the tension between them thickens. Our house is festooned with fabric sam
ples, candles, and, inexplicably, ivory-colored metal birdcages. The birdcages are empty, and I have to wonder, will birds inhabit them at any point? Is Harlow planning to release white doves at the ceremony? I don’t ask these types of questions.
Meanwhile Harlow posts chirpy online videos about DIY weddings and then quietly sulks at Dad during dinner. Since the controversy about Carrie and the beach ceremony, my grandparents refuse to attend the wedding because they consider it a slap in the face of Jesus or something. So then Dad suggested to Harlow that they make a quick trip to the rectory, to which Harlow bristled and said, “Absolutely not!” Part of me thinks my grandparents aren’t resistant to a nontraditional wedding. They’re resistant to my dad marrying a nontraditional woman.
Mom didn’t care about the things Harlow cares about. She and Dad had a totally average church wedding followed by an uneventful reception at her parents’ house. She didn’t cultivate boho chic looks or meditate or follow a raw, plant-based diet. She did wear her comfiest pair of jeans almost every day and salsa dance while she vacuumed the house and eat fried sweet plantains with her dinner. She always said that as long as she had her family, nothing else mattered. I miss the way she didn’t care. I wonder if her easygoing attitude, now gone from my life, is the reason I suddenly care way too much about everything.
It feels good to be Kiri again. I run along Azeron Lake, my silky lavender hair flying out behind me, my crossbow strapped against my back. Azeron is a gorgeous pool of sparkling silver water. A light mist hangs over its surface, and mossy rocks line its shore. I wait by the north side of the lake, where I instructed him to meet me. Moments later I hear the sound of footsteps squishing against the grass, and he bursts through the forest and bounds over to me.
Bernard? I ask the squat gnome when he appears beside me. That’s the name you go by?
Bernard is a wise name, he says.
What happened to you? I ask. You’ve only been doing this for five minutes, and your health is already low.
Analee, in Real Life Page 20