I nod.
“Are they eighteen years old?” she asks.
“Mama,” Ricky groans.
“He’ll be eighteen next year.”
“Tell him to vote,” she says with a grin.
“All right, you’re done here,” Ricky teases.
“Hunter voted twice in our school election,” I offer.
“Tell him not to vote twice.” She flashes her megawatt Anne Hathaway smile again. “Enjoy your night. I’ll be in the den.”
After Mrs. Alvarez leaves, Ricky cracks open his fortune cookie. I miss the feel of his hand in mine.
“What’s it say?” I lean in and bat my eyelashes.
“‘You’ll be sucker punched in the face by a really cute girl.’ Huh. Sometimes they predict the past.”
I blush. No one’s ever called me cute before.
We don’t say much on the drive home. When Ricky parks his car in my parents’ driveway, I’m afraid our earlier awkwardness from the start of the evening has returned. He turns off the car, and we move toward each other. Part of me thinks, “I’m not ready!” and maybe I’m transparent or maybe he’s not ready either because instead of kissing me, he pulls me into a tight hug.
Our hearts punch toward each other in opposite syncopation, trading beats, sharing the burden. Where one pushes, the other pulls—back and forth like saws.
I lay my head against his chest and listen to his heartbeat. I recognize the rhythm, steady and strong. It’s my heart, inside his chest. My heart, my heart! It’s been with him the whole time. I think they got swapped at the diner, and now he’s keeping it safe for me. The closer I stay to him, the closer I am to my true heart. I don’t expect to trade back. I just want visitation rights. His arms feel firm around me.
For the first time since the diner, I am completely calm, like I might be okay someday. Not yet, but someday. Like by being together, we’ve not only survived, we’ve won, and if one of us lets go, the other will drop.
The next day, Sunday, is Halloween. Cosmo would disapprove, since it’s way too soon after our first date, but I text Ricky in the morning and ask if he wants to watch DVDs with me and Hannah. I’m thinking It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown; Paranormal Activity; and a third to be named later. That way it seems casual, like an afterthought; “I already have these plans, care to join?”
He responds right away with a smiley emoticon.
The weird part is that Hunter insists on staying in, too.
“Hi, Hannah, what’s up?” he says, all loud and friendly, bounding down the stairs like a Labrador puppy when she arrives. Ricky’s already in the living room.
“I’m surprised you’re not out bobbing for boobs at some Halloween party,” she says.
Holy fuh! I had no idea Hannah could be so funny. Maybe DJ censors her.
Hunter looks between us for a moment before heaving this put-upon sigh. “You’re still giving me a hard time about Imogen’s birthday? You’re as bad as my sister.”
“I’m worse. I’m your worst nightmare,” she says, making her eyes go wide and crazy looking. I sputter with laughter.
Undeterred, Hunter follows us to the other room and lies down, propped up by his elbows, next to Hannah on the floor (Ricky and I called the couch). Hannah snickers at him and tells him to sit on his hands.
On the couch, Ricky and I sit on separate cushions but close enough that our knees and the sides of our fingers occasionally brush against each other’s. The places we touch are the only parts of me that are warm, but it’s enough. Somehow I can feel it everywhere.
Our movies are interrupted every couple of minutes by trick-or-treaters. We alternate who gets up and deals with them, and when Ricky returns from his round, he tells me there’s a girl outside who wants to say hi to me.
I open the front door and almost don’t recognize Taylor, my favorite student from summer camp, even when she takes off her Lisa Simpson mask; she looks taller and doesn’t duck her face or mumble when she talks. Her posture’s improved, and there’s a core of confidence fused to her spine.
She knows this is my house because I had her over one time after class when her mom was late to pick her up.
I smile and invite her in.
“Is he your boyfriend?” she stage-whispers, nodding her head wildly in the direction of the living room.
“He’s hot, right?” I stage-whisper back.
She nods, then speaks in a normal voice. “I’m testing for my yellow belt this weekend,” she says proudly. “Do you want to come?”
My smile falters. “Oh, uh, I’m not allowed.”
“I talked to Grandmaster Huan. He said it’s okay for you to be there just to watch. So do you want to come? Maybe we could go over the poomse beforehand. There’s this one part I need your help with: when you do the lower block, I always forget which way I’m supposed to turn.”
My shy little Taylor’s become a chatterbox. She demonstrates the problem move, and I gently correct her. “Think of it like the symbols on the Korean flag. You know, the black bars on the lower left? They correspond to the direction you turn. If you’ve already done the first rung, you know it’s time to turn this way.”
“Cool, thanks.”
We look at each other for a second. I fight the urge to ask who else from camp signed up for the fall session. It’s none of my business, not anymore.
“Well, I should probably go,” Taylor says, glancing outside. “My friends are at the next house and they’re gonna wonder where I am.”
“Hey, does Grandmaster Huan still say, ‘Be. More. Natural’ whenever you’re doing the most unnatural move ever?”
She grins. “Yeah. Like the monkey jump.”
“Right, because this is the natural way I would jump, hanging out between classes—barefoot, too, of course—while I wait around to be attacked.”
“Be. More. Natural.” She giggles.
“Be. More. Natural,” I snort. I feel light-headed and have to sit down on the stairs.
“Are you okay?” Taylor says.
I take a few breaths and wave her off. “Too much sugar, I think. Thanks for stopping by,” I say. “Happy Halloween.”
“You, too. If you change your mind about the belt test, we’re going out for pizza after. So you’d get free pizza out of it.”
The thought of going to a belt test I’m not participating in makes my chest feel hollow.
After the door shuts behind her, I steel myself and walk into the kitchen. Hunter’s replenishing the food and drinks, so I corner him and demand to know why he’s hanging around tonight.
“I don’t have any cash,” he says.
“That’s such a lie! You worked four nights at Dairy Dump this week.”
“No cash,” he repeats. “And don’t call it that.”
“Why not? It’s what you have to take after you eat there.”
“Shut up.”
He pulls some bowls out of the cabinet so we can toss pretzels inside and make Chex Mix. It’s so white of us. Ricky will be appalled.
“I think you want to get with Hannah,” I say. “Because she’s a challenge.”
Hunter turns away, but I catch a flash of color on his face.
“Oh my God, I’m right, aren’t I? Never gonna happen.”
“Maybe I want to keep an eye on you and Rico Suave,” he says.
I snort. “How? You’re sitting in front of us.”
Hunter regards me for a minute. “Have you kissed yet?”
I glance wildly toward the other room. “Shut up!”
He grins. “No? Why not?”
“Just ’cause you sleep with everyone the first chance you get …”
“I do not!”
“Doesn’t mean I should.”
“Who said anything about sleeping with him? You can kiss someone even if you’re not soul mates. The world doesn’t split in half.”
Maybe. Maybe not. I think of Ricky and me in the garage gym last week, our endless mirror images surrounding us, and of one
pair of us splitting off from the rest, creating an alternate universe.
Just then, Ricky pokes his head in. “Need any help?”
I immediately point to the pantry, praying he didn’t hear any of my conversation with Hunter. “Sure. Can you grab the box of cereal, top shelf?”
He pulls it down. “Hexa Grains.” He laughs. “What are these?”
“Generic for Chex.”
“It sounds scary.” He makes a spooky voice: “I put a hex on you.”
“Or Penta-grahams: the satanic Teddy Grahams.” We’re laughing and lightly shoving each other, and I don’t even see Hunter leave.
His words about kissing Ricky stay with me, though, like splinters under my skin.
AFTER DINNER ON MONDAY, HUNTER GIVES ME A SHEET OF postcard stamps and says I should give them to Shelly to make sure she keeps in touch. She and her mom are stopping by on their way to the airport. The naive collective known as our parents believes we’ve made up. Mom’s rolling out the welcome mat by preparing popcorn and a vegetable platter. I wish Dad would eat the veggies plain instead of slathering them with ranch dressing.
“What if I don’t want Shelly to keep in touch?” I ask Hunter, just to be contradictory.
He stuffs his face with popcorn. “I thought you guys were friends again.”
“Sort of.” I shrug. “I’m not sure.” She hasn’t been at school because she’s been taking classes online, preparing to matriculate or whatever, and we haven’t really talked since the time I went over to her house a couple of weeks ago.
“She can just e-mail,” I say, flicking the stamps at Hunter. “You’re so weird.”
“Who wants e-mails from New York? It’d be like getting them from around the corner.”
He has a point.
The doorbell rings and Hunter gets up from the table. “Do you want me to leave?”
“It’s okay.”
The last time Shelly was here, for my birthday, she and Hunter were all over each other, and she didn’t even like him that way! They weren’t in love; they weren’t even dating.
He made me doubt my convictions yesterday, telling me kissing isn’t a big deal, but of course that’s what he’d say; he has no self-control. He doesn’t know what it’s like to hold out for something real, something meaningful.
Shelly barely acknowledges Hunter when she walks in, just gives him a quick smile and thanks him for the birthday card.
All of us sit down in the living room, but she only talks with me and my parents. Her mom and my mom get a bit emotional, remembering when we were “this tall”; Shelly and I look at each other and mimic them; my dad tells her about his favorite restaurant in New York, which happens to be near her new school, and she jots it down and promises to check it out.
“Oh, so here are these stamps, for postcards? If you want,” I say. “No pressure, just—if you go somewhere cool and want to send a postcard, I’d love to know what you’re up to.”
She smiles. “Okay.”
After her mom’s car pulls away, Hunter and I head back into the kitchen.
“You’re wigging me out,” I tell him. “Why didn’t you take credit for the stamps? Why are you being so nice?”
He grins. “You think I’m being nice?”
“Yes,” I grumble.
“Cool. Maybe you could, you know, mention it to Hannah or something.”
I’m immediately on guard. “Why?”
“I want Hannah to think I’m a good brother.”
“Why don’t you want me to think you’re a good brother?”
“I want you to experience it and then tell Hannah.”
I knew it. Hunter isn’t nice. Hannah called him the worst brother ever, so he’s out to prove her wrong. It’s not about getting back on my good side at all.
“You can’t stand it if one person doesn’t like you,” I say. “You need everyone to like you. It’s pathological.”
“And you don’t care if no one likes you,” he says.
“That’s not true! And your reasons for being nice are faulty.”
“No they’re not. It’s the same outcome. Look, I want to be a good brother. I know I haven’t been, and she was right about that, but I’m different now. And if Hannah happens to find out about it, what’s so bad about that?”
“She’s the only friend I have left, that’s what!” I yell. “Shelly’s flying to New York; DJ hates me. You can’t have Hannah.”
“Okay, okay,” he says, backing off. “Just … if you—”
“No.”
“But if it should happen to come up—”
“No!”
“Love each other, children,” comes Mom’s dry voice from the living room.
It doesn’t hit me until midnight that Shelly is gone. She hasn’t just “flown to New York.” My best friend is gone, and we never really cleared the air, and now we never will.
She’ll never be at school with me again, and she’ll never be a bike ride away. Even if she comes home next summer, it won’t be the same. I squandered our last weeks together without realizing it, and then the diner happened and I only wanted to spend time with Ricky.
But he’s temporary, too. He graduates next spring, just a few months away. What does it matter if we kiss or don’t kiss? He’ll be gone soon, just like everyone else.
I feel chilled, clammy. I’m alone. I can’t go back to martial arts, I’ve lost my friends, I’m failing school—what’s left? How am I supposed to spend the endless days ahead of me? I have nothing to work toward, nothing to achieve.
A poster hanging up at Shelly’s ballet class said, “Life is short. Live for today,” but what no one will ever tell you, what no adult will ever say, is that life is really very long.
All I want is to rest, but my imitation heart won’t let me. I picture it beating in a worn-out husk of a scarecrow, all straw arms and legs, with buttons for eyes. I picture setting the scarecrow on fire, but even then I’d still exist, my heart thumping and twitching on the ground below.
Low.
Low to the ground is comforting; standing up is bad.
In my dream, I see the gunman’s feet from under the table and I crawl out and sneak up on him from behind. I kick his legs out, and he falls onto his back. He’s wearing a mask, just like in real life.
But then, when I try to punch him, I keep missing. Not a single one of my punches connects. They don’t land anywhere near him. My fist hits the floor beside him, even though he’s only a few centimeters away from me. I get desperate, panicky, but all my movements are slow and totally ineffective. Eventually he rolls to the side and picks up his gun and shoots me in the face.
When I burst awake, I have to bite my arm to keep from screaming.
I remember why I was covered in blood.
My face is damp, from tears or sweat—I’m not sure. I paw at my face, smear the wetness away.
It’s almost pitch-black out, but I get dressed and leave the house. I walk in the direction of the train tracks, where Hunter and I used to play before Mom put a stop to it. I don’t know why I’m going there except that I have to. I have to. I’ll figure it out when I get there.
My feet carry me, but I don’t feel the ground beneath me. It’s like they’re taking orders from someone else and I’m just along for the ride. That’s how I felt when I yelled at DJ at school near my locker, and when I punched Ricky outside the principal’s office. Like it wasn’t me. Like I had no control over my actions.
It’s after two, so the sidewalks are completely dark—almost no streetlights to guide me.
In the distance I hear a train passing through, the tail-end wheels screeching against the tracks. As I get closer, I see the red and white crossing arms flashing and lifting, and I think of school bus drivers having to open their doors and listen for the sounds of a train even when there’s nothing there.
I know what I’m doing is crazy, but I can’t stand the thought of going back to sleep and having more nightmares or, worse, lying there awake as the
seconds tick by, reminding me that’s all I have to look forward to: time passing.
I haven’t gone wandering since the night Hunter followed me, and for a minute I swear I see a glimpse of Mom’s Volvo. I duck into an alley and wait for the car to pass, and then I continue on my way.
The train station parking lot comes into view a few minutes later. It’s tiny, home to a car with a bunch of broken windows, copper-colored rust scratches, and a flat-looking tire. Crushed beer cans, fast-food bags, and other garbage surround the abandoned car, implying there was a little party here recently. I nudge one of the beer cans over with my foot and watch cigarette butts fall out. I look inside the car and see a pipe, warped spoons, ripped-up seats, and burn marks.
I always wondered about abandoned cars. Where do they come from?
Do people plan where they’re going to ditch the car, and, if so, how do they pick the spot? Do they bring a friend along for the ditching so they’ll have a ride home after? Do they ever visit their old car, drive by and see if it’s still there, condemned to an afterlife as a den for crackheads?
Maybe the car wasn’t abandoned. Maybe this is where the car sputtered and died, right at this spot in the parking lot, and abandoned the driver. In which case, the car deserved to be left behind.
I was covered in blood because my arms and legs abandoned me. They betrayed me. They wouldn’t do what I told them to do at the diner. They disobeyed me even though I screamed at them. They ignored me, and I can’t trust them anymore.
I cry out and try to move faster, try to catch up with the train, but it’s already passed the station, and I’m so tired that I end up dragging my legs like they don’t belong to me, like nothing about my body belongs to me, which is true—but it’s okay; it’s better, actually, because if my body doesn’t belong to me, it won’t hurt to leave it behind.
I walk over to the tracks and look down at them. I turn around slowly so my traitorous feet don’t get tangled up, and I take in my surroundings, the station and parking lot. I look in all directions, and then I sit down and let my legs dangle off the platform, right above the tracks. I think about the stories about kids on bicycles getting their wheels stuck on the tracks and not moving in time and what would happen if I sat here until the next train came, my legs dangling over the side—
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