Bruised
Page 9
A few miles equals long distance? But this is good news. It’s great news.
“Cool,” I say, but we still don’t look at each other.
“Nice weights,” Ricky says, pointing to the corner. “Brand-new?”
“They’re my Dad’s.” Six months old. Never used.
“Oh, okay. I won’t touch them.”
“I could ask him.”
“No worries. Can you do this again tomorrow?” he says.
I look over and see him watching me. His eyes are warm copper medallions.
I smile and he smiles back.
OKAY, SO WE DIDN’T KISS, BUT BY THE TIME WE SAY GOOD night, there’s an aching, split-orange lump on my arm I enjoy even more. And we have plans for tomorrow, which means there’s no one he’d rather spend his Friday evening with. Date night.
I’m feeling so good after dinner that I ask if I can go over to Shelly’s.
“Is her banishment lifted?” says Hunter dryly.
“What do you care?”
“Tell her congratulations from me.”
“I’ll be sure not to do that,” I snap.
“Tone it down,” Dad says.
“I think it’s nice you’re seeing her. Say hi for us,” Mom says.
I call first, like I’m making an appointment. I never used to do that—I’d just walk or bike over—but after not speaking for over a month, the least I can do is make sure she’s okay with me being there. When I dial her phone, I feel like I’m tapping in the numbers to a code that will open a door to my old life.
Shelly says to come over in ten minutes because she and her mom are still eating.
When I ring the doorbell, Mrs. Eppes answers, and the first thing she does is wrap me in a warm quilt of a hug. It reminds me of the nights I spent living here the week Dad was in the hospital. I stayed in the guest room (although as soon as Mrs. Eppes went to sleep, Shelly waved me into her room and we sat up all night and talked). We were sort of mean to her mom, in retrospect. Like, when we made tacos for lunch, we served Mrs. Eppes one with tons of hot sauce without warning her. We also rigged the top of her bedroom door with a crapload of stuffed animals so every time she walked in they’d fall on her in clumps. I don’t know why. It seemed hilarious at the time.
The weird thing is, I rarely hug my own mom, but with Shelly’s mom it’s normal and comforting. I’m glad she’s there to play third-party moderator during my transition back into Shelly’s life, if indeed that’s what tonight is going to be. With her there, Shelly and I are not likely to start yelling at each other.
Mrs. Eppes asks if I want some tea, which I do, and after giving her an update on my family, I rinse out my mug and follow Shelly up to her room, where I take my usual beanbag seat on the floor. Her room seems different. The Green Day posters are gone and I’m pretty sure the walls have been painted. The collage of photos of her, me, Hannah, and DJ is also gone. Hanging above her bed, with ribbons falling down, is a pair of silky-looking ballet shoes. There’s a beautiful, intricate card standing on the bedside table, one of those expensive cards from Papyrus. The décor seems grown-up somehow.
“So how are you really doing?” she asks. She knows I’ve fed her mom a platter of BS, so now she wants the gritty director’s cut of the diner scene or the suspension subplot. But instead I tell her I almost kissed Ricky.
I realize as soon as it’s out of my mouth what a pathetic non-event it is. All my good feelings from before seem stupid and childish.
“But I guess once you’ve slept with someone, kissing’s not a big deal anyway,” I add. I can’t push aside her betrayal just because some time has passed or because way worse things have happened to me since then. I can’t pretend she didn’t ruin our friendship.
“That’s not what I’m thinking!” she says.
“Congratulations on achieving your goal, I guess. Third on the list, was it?” My face burns and my sore arm vibrates and my fingers itch. The feeling spreads to my throat and makes it difficult to speak. I have the urge to tear open her beanbag chair with my teeth and watch all the beads pour out.
She doesn’t respond.
“Will you just tell me one thing?” I ask.
She nods.
“Was it always going to be Hunter?” I whisper. “Was he the goal all along?”
“No,” she says emphatically. “I swear. You know he wasn’t. It just happened. I didn’t plan it—where are you going?” Shelly moves to block the door. As if I couldn’t steamroll over her. “Are you leaving already?”
“You knew it would wreck everything between us.”
“You probably won’t believe me, but I didn’t. I really didn’t. It wasn’t about you.”
“But you chose him over me.”
“I didn’t think it was a choice. I didn’t think it was either/or. Look, it was selfish of me, and I’m sorry. But what you did was worse.”
“Me?!”
“A couple days, I get. A week, I get. You had every right to be pissed. But you guys ignored me for over a month. I spent every single lunch in my car—”
Crying. DJ saw her once. Good, I thought at the time. Now I feel ashamed.
“Five weeks, five days a week, a ghost in the hall, invisible,” she whispers. “You’d look right through me, like I wasn’t there, like I’d never been there, like we’d never been friends. It was so cold.”
She sighs and sits down on her bed. Most of us would slump in this situation, but she maintains excellent posture. She’s a dancer every second of every day.
“You said there was something you wanted to tell me,” I remind her. “In the cafeteria.”
“I only auditioned because my aunt in New York said I could live with her. I didn’t think I would get in,” she says wildly. “But then I did!”
Her sudden excitement makes me nervous. I need to slow this down. “What audition?”
“Manhattan Dance Company, Juniors Program.”
I remember us driving to Indiana in August, the last day of Grandmaster Huan’s camp, the night we looked at the stars and talked about all the things we were going to do.
“I found out the morning of your birthday,” Shelly says, “but I didn’t want to steal your thunder. I was going to tell you the next day. But when I went upstairs—I don’t even remember why—”
“To get my camera,” I grumble.
“—Hunter was there and I just had to tell someone. He was so happy for me. It was just a kiss.” Pause. “It was just supposed to be a kiss.” Another pause. “I know you don’t think he’s nice, but he’s always been nice to me.”
“Yeah, he’s extra-special nice to all of my friends,” I say. “Because he wants to rob the cradle.”
“But Imogen, he and I are the same age.”
I always forget I’m the youngest person in our grade; my birthday’s in August, but my parents got me into first grade a year early. Shelly’s birthday is in October; she’s turning seventeen, same as Hunter is now. I should probably be a sophomore instead of a junior. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why school is so difficult for me—but it probably shouldn’t matter.
“So you and Hunter celebrated?” I mutter sarcastically. Shelly stares at me, and I can’t keep her gaze for long. “He used you.”
“I used him!” she says, slapping her hand against her bed. “I wanted to have sex before I left. So I wouldn’t feel pressure to have it in New York. So when people talked about boyfriends and stuff, I’d have something to say that wouldn’t be pretend, that wouldn’t be a lie.”
“It’s not like Gossip Girl. Just ’cause they live in New York City doesn’t mean they’re all sex fiends.”
“Having sex doesn’t make you a sex fiend,” she says.
“I never said it did.”
“You act like it.”
“What are you talking about?” I’m seriously at a loss.
“When I told you it was my goal, you made me feel like I was a freak for even thinking about it. It was mostly a joke; I was just throwing
it out there, but you shut down so fast I couldn’t even explain how I felt: like the whole world was passing me by while all I did was go to dance practice, do my homework, study for tests, write for the Spectator. No dates, no boyfriends—I’ve never had that.”
“Neither have I—”
“You went on that group date with Hannah and DJ.”
“That was nothing—”
“I knew Hunter wouldn’t brag to his friends afterward and that he’d still be nice to me. Which he has been. He always says hi to me in the hallway, and he gave me a card on my birthday.”
I’m about to say something like, “He gives cards to all his fuh-buddies on their birthdays,” but then I think, crap. October birthday. What’s today’s date? The seventh? Her birthday’s the fifth.
I missed it.
I get up for a closer look at the card on her bedside table (Was it the only one she got? Oh God.), and I open it. Hunter signed my name as well, pretending it was from both of us. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It’s more than I deserve. Obviously.
I sit next to Shelly on her bed. We’re silent for a long time, because what do you say after that?
“So are you gonna go?” My voice trembles. “To New York?”
“I wasn’t sure at first if I should accept. I had to get a few more credits completed before I could enroll, and I didn’t want to leave my mom by herself or leave you guys, but then you started ignoring me, and so did Hannah and DJ—”
“It’s not like I told them to stop calling you,” I say. “I don’t control them. We were all just pissed.”
She doesn’t argue. “I leave November first, so …”
“Aw, jeez,” I say, my eyes filling with tears. I wipe frantically at my face, because it feels manipulative, like I’m crying in front of her to make her feel sorry for me. I swear I’m not.
“In a way I should be thanking you,” Shelly says with a shrug. “If we hadn’t had our fight, I might have stayed here, which probably would’ve been the wrong decision.”
She shrugs again, but her face looks pinched and small, like maybe she’s holding back tears as well. She has a point, though. This is an amazing opportunity for her, and she should take it. She should get to pursue her dream.
And if I’m jealous at all, it’s only because she still has a dream.
I CANCEL MY “DATE” WITH RICKY THE NEXT DAY BECAUSE who am I fooling? We’re not dating. I’m just teaching him martial arts. I’m sure he has better things to do on a Friday night, like hook up with his old girlfriend.
He sounds disappointed, so I quickly mention I’m free Monday.
We resume our lessons all week but keep things strictly professional.
Every night when he leaves, I replay our time together in my head. I can’t help it. I like how we are with each other, how quick and funny he makes me feel. I wish we could record our conversations so I could prove it to the rest of the world, show them a side of me that’s always been there but had no reason to reveal itself until I met Ricky.
I convince myself that kissing him would’ve destroyed everything.
When I got my first period a few years ago, Mom made us go out to Fuddruckers to celebrate. It was absolutely horrifying. Hunter took me aside later and told me girls are so brave; he couldn’t handle bleeding and not being able to stop it.
Saturday night, one month since the diner, I dream I’m in a bathtub full of blood. The mixture is a foul, pungent, coppery stew. Bits of skin and teeth and brain matter float to the top, rising toward my mouth to gag me. Black fluff from the gunman’s ski mask drifts onto my tongue, and for some reason that disturbs me most of all.
“What the hell are you doing, Daryl?”
“Just empty the register! Shut up.”
The problem with sleeping on the second floor when your parents are on the first floor is that if you wake up screaming, no one will help you.
Hunter’s there in a flash, though, kneeling by my bed.
“You okay?” he whispers, squeezing my hand once, a pacemaker delivering a volt to my imposter heart. “I’m right here.”
I can feel matted hair and teeth and chunks of skin in my mouth, as though they’ve crossed into our world from the other realm, the place where dreams are, and I grab the plastic wastebasket next to my bed and hurl.
To his credit, Hunter doesn’t jump back or run out of the room. He’ll make a good dad someday, I guess, since babies are so gross and everything. When I’m finished, he gets a box of tissues and a glass of water from the bathroom and brings them to me.
I’m sweating like a beast.
He perches carefully on the edge of my bed and pats my hair back down. It makes me think of Dad getting the tangles out when I was a kid.
“Thanks. Remember when Dad used to sing us to sleep with his guitar?” I ask.
“Yeah. He was really good,” Hunter says, sounding wistful. Or maybe he just sounds that way because I want him to feel the same way I do.
The minute I jolt awake from a nightmare the next night, I ditch my pajamas; pull on a hoodie, sneakers, and jeans; and sneak out of the house.
Our neighborhood’s silent and dark, the occasional car with a broken headlight floating by like a shark, slowing down to take a look at me. I’ve never been out so late by myself, just walking around, past the graffiti-coated bus stops and all-night liquor stores and construction sites—giant pits in the ground where grocery stores used to be.
Someone could attack me.
I have no fear, because I don’t care what happens. There’s something incredibly freeing in this realization. I want someone to attack.
My absence doesn’t go unnoticed, however.
“I go out walking after midnight,” Hunter sings at breakfast the next morning, tapping his hands against the kitchen table.
I slam my fork down and say with clenched teeth, “You better not tell them.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere.”
“I followed you in the car,” he crows. “You went to the diner.”
“Then why’d you ask, dumbass?” It pisses me off that I had backup. Last night’s trek was supposed to be about me doing something potentially dangerous, on my own, and dealing with the consequences, preferably by kicking someone’s ass if they jumped me.
Hunter staked out in Mom’s freakin’ grocery getter, watching me from afar, was not part of that plan.
The diner was a letdown, anyway. Rain pelted the dark windows, and a single streetlamp illuminated the fact that one of the windows was broken. Damp, crumpled leaves had blown inside and scattered along the floor, covering what were probably chalk outlines and bloodstains.
Mostly, though, it was a shuttered building in a quiet, empty lot.
“If you tell them, I’ll tell Mom and Dad about you and Shelly Eppes on my birthday,” I say, and he looks upset for a second.
“Go ahead,” he says with a shrug.
“If you tell them,” I say, “I will never forgive you.”
That shuts him up.
Momentarily.
“What’s up with you and Ricky?” he asks.
“None of your business.”
“He’s been here every day after school for two weeks.”
“I’m teaching him martial arts.”
“Grappling, on the floor?” Hunter waggles his eyebrows.
“No.”
“Do you like him?”
“Not the way you like people. We’re deeper than that,” I insist. “We actually talk to each other, when we’re not practicing forms.”
He looks at me, scanning my face for hints and clues. “Try the shallow end sometime. You might like it.”
On Wednesday, Mrs. Richardson asks me to stay late after Current Events because she’s noticed I never participate in class anymore. I want to tell her I barely participate in life so it’s nothing personal, but then she takes out my homework assignment like it’s exhibit A and she’s a judge on Law & Order: Little Shits Unit.
My notebook’s filled with international disasters. Summary: “Shit happened.” How it affects the United States: “Not much.” Personal response: “Remind self never to leave the United States.”
Apparently this doesn’t amuse Mrs. Richardson.
“Besides the off-color language, which the girl I remember from ninth-grade History would never use, your responses are identical for each news story,” she points out.
I cross my arms. “Well, that’s how I feel.”
“You can’t just write, ‘Japanese people are messed up.’ Or ‘Italian people are messed up.’”
“But that’s how I feel. I mean, look at this article. It says Japanese salarymen get so drunk every night after work there are people whose sole job it is to clean up their puke on the subway trains. That’s messed up,” I say.
“Your personal responses are fueled by xenophobia.”
“No, they’re not. I’d say, ‘Americans are messed up’ if we had to read articles about the U.S. Look, you can’t tell me my personal response is wrong. It’s a personal response. It can’t be right or wrong; it’s just my response. I can’t help how I feel; it’s how I feel—”
I haven’t cried about the diner I have no feelings I’m not human Mom keeps telling me to have a good cry but something in me got turned off like a switch and now other people can tell I’m not normal, I’m heartless.
I confess my fears to Mrs. Hamilton. Not because I want to—Mrs. Richardson blabbed about my psycho reaction to her assignment (so teachers do talk to each other when it’s juicy gossip).
The weird thing is, when I show up for counseling, Ricky’s just leaving. He gives me a tight smile as he walks by.