by Rachel Vail
Grind, he texted, and then a few seconds later, a smiley face. He had probably already finished, too. He was at least as big a grind as me.
Since my phone was just sitting there in my hand, not serving any good purpose, I texted Tess. So much for my plan not to. What I texted was:
So weird here.
Then I went upstairs to try to remember some inside jokes between Mom and me, to be sure to use in front of that other family who lives with us, and fell asleep in my bed until 3:32 a.m.
eight
I FOUND MY phone on the floor beside my bed. No text back from Tess. 3:33 a.m. Do you get to make a wish at 3:33? Tess never used to take more than a minute to text back. I decided not to interpret but instead to focus on the fact that I had been sleeping in my clothes and also that I had to pee.
I yanked off my jeans and T-shirt and bra, dropped all that on the floor, and stomped into my flannel boxers. I started pulling on a big T-shirt, but then I remembered enough about my current life to change my mind. I pulled on a tank top with bra support instead, even as I was swearing to myself I was just going to the bathroom and then back to bed. It was my cute pink tank top, the one Tess had once said looked hot.
I tiptoed to the bathroom in the dark and closed the door. When I sat down on the toilet, it was about four perilous inches lower than normal. I may have shrieked. I came disgustingly close to drowning bottom-first in the toilet, with its seat left up.
With my heart pounding and breath raggedy, I washed my hands extra well. Because, gross. I brushed my teeth fast and hard, then opened the door and gasped.
“Hi,” Kevin whispered, his face two inches from mine.
“Jesus,” I said.
“No,” he answered. “Just Kevin.”
I shoved him. His stomach is very flat and firm, I couldn’t help noticing. I made a mental note to do a sit-up someday soon. “Well, Just Kevin, you left the toilet seat up.”
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“Okay.”
“You smell good,” he whispered.
“Oh,” I romantically retorted.
“Come ’ere,” he whispered, and walked away from me, toward his room, the old guest room.
He stopped in the doorway and waited for me. I tiptoed down the hall and stepped inside.
“Didn’t you have to go to the bathroom?”
“No.” He closed the door behind me.
Closed it.
My whole body started shivering.
He sat down on his bed.
Not that it ever came up as a rule, but I was fairly sure that I would not be allowed to be in a bedroom alone with a boy in my house, with the door closed, in the middle of the night.
I sat down on his bed, too, but not exactly next to him. He faced me, his right leg triangled on the bed, the left down on the floor. I kept both my feet on the floor. Unsure whether to face him or stay profile, I alternated, as if a superspeed tennis match were being played in front of me. Not Good. I decided to stare at my hands, which were clutching each other in my lap, and to stay silent and still until he made the first move.
“I used to play in here,” I blurted immediately after that decision. “Playmobil, and I would make forts, with Tess, pretend we were adventurers, scientists. We decided, me and Tess, I mean, we decided to be epidemiologists for about a month, until her sister, Lena, told us what epidemiologists were.” Can somebody please shut me up?
He didn’t respond, and didn’t respond, and still didn’t respond. The randomness of that little anecdote filled up Kevin’s silent room like noxious fumes. We would be found dead in the morning. The paramedics would nod comfortingly to our perplexed parents. Must’ve been that odd epidemiology comment, ma’am, sir. Sorry for your loss.
So jittery I risked levitation, I popped up and looked around. “You all unpacked?”
“No,” he said.
“You choose a science fair project yet?”
“No.”
“Me neither. No ideas, even. Other than Fig Newtony goop, I guess. Haha.” He didn’t laugh. Unable to shut the heck up, I plowed relentlessly on. “Your father suggested … Just kidding. Anyway, so, hey, you’re going to visit your mom over break?”
“Guess so.”
“Is that—you like to visit her?”
“It’s okay.”
Stop interviewing him! “Oh, you’re lucky, then. I hate to visit my dad. His wife is all, like, she thinks she’s on a commercial for cereal, you know? And I have a half brother. His name is Alexander, but they call him ABC. Those are his initials. Is why.”
“Uh-huh.”
I took a deep breath, hoping there was something other than helium in the air, because that’s what I felt like I’d been sucking. “Idaho, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Why did she—I mean, how long have your parents been …”
“Long time.”
“Oh, mine too. Such a long time. I don’t even remember mine together, actually.”
“I do,” he said. “I remember mine.”
“Oh.” Urgh, why am I such a freak? I realized abruptly that I was breathing like I’d just sprinted to the finish line. How to breathe normally? No memory of the technique.
To avoid his intense eyes, I turned away and pretended to look at the stuff on his desk, which was set up where the guest room dresser used to be. I tried to slow myself down—my pulse, my yammering. Just stay quiet for three breaths, Charlie! On his desk I saw his open drawing pad, which my mother had bought him for Christmas, and there, on the exposed page, was the weirdest, most beautiful picture I had ever seen.
“What is this?” Oops, only got through the one breath.
“Nothing.” He stood up quickly and flipped the pad shut.
“You drew that?”
He stood between me and the desk, with his back to me and his hand heavy on the closed pad.
“Kevin, you drew that?”
His head sagged.
“It’s, it’s, well, it’s beautiful. Let me see it. Come on. Let me see it!” Oh, good, badger him. Excellent. How to Win Friends, by Charlie Collins.
“No.”
I stopped grabbing at the pad but let my fingers linger there, near his. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen colors like that,” I whispered. “How did you get those colors?”
“Pastel pencils,” he whispered back, much softer. “You wet them.”
“It, this is going to sound stupid, because I don’t know anything about art, and probably it was supposed to be abstract and I’m too unsophisticated to get it, but it kind of looked like the trees, you know, down by the lake? But not, obviously.”
He squinted at me as if I were written in fine print.
“Next to the ugly bush with the prickers?”
“No, they didn’t.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Only to me. And to you.”
A few jokes tried to break free of my mouth, like, Well, maybe we could do a survey, or, How many people did you actually ask? or, Well, maybe if you used actual tree colors, more people would see that you’d drawn trees, but my teeth held them in. And I wouldn’t want him to change that picture. The trees in it, the trees that I saw just for those few seconds on his pad, looked more like the trees down at the bottom of our hill than the actual trees did. So I just stood there, straight as a parallel line in front of him, not smirking or joking, just there.
“Damn, Charlie,” he whispered. “Who are you?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“I always thought you were just … a funny girl. Hot, but silly.”
Hot? Really? SILLY?
“But the more I get to know you, the more I don’t know....”
I said something vaguely like urghaswdftijkol and backed a step away.
His eyes, so intensely blue, narrowed slightly. He closed the distance I’d opened up between us and kissed me lightly on the lips. “Maybe we can just be,” Kevin whispered. His words touched my mouth as breath, blowing across the spot on my l
ips where his lips had just pressed. “It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just find a cool space together. No rules, no labels, we can keep it undefined even, no complications at all. Just …”
“A cool space.”
His face was nearing mine again, his blue eyes closing as he approached, my eyes closing, too. I could feel my mouth moving to meet his, the warmth of his lips on mine....
I stepped back. “No,” I said.
“No?” He blinked his sleepy eyes open.
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Because of George?”
“Yeah.”
“But you said you and George aren’t even going out.”
“Officially.”
“So …”
“But I like him.”
Kevin stepped back and said, “Oh.”
“But not just George. I also like …”
“Who else?”
“Clarity,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m sorry, but I do. Maybe that’s uncool, but there it is. Things were so much easier before it got all murky.”
“Murky.”
“Yes,” I said. “I like things to be defined. I don’t want to sneak around. It’s not fair to George, or to you or me, either. Also, I mean, we did that, and—look how it turned out.”
“How is what we do any of anybody’s business? Especially if you’re not officially …”
“Kevin.”
“Look, if you don’t like me, that’s fine. Tell me. If you like George better than me, just say so and I will leave you alone, I swear.”
I stood there in front of him, not answering. Not knowing the answer.
His eyes searched mine.
“Keep it undefined,” I said instead of answering. “What does that even mean, undefined?”
He smirked.
“What?”
“You want me to define undefined.”
I smirked back.
“And you didn’t answer.”
My smirk melted away.
“You do like me,” he said.
“I’m trying not to.”
“How’s that going?”
“Not so well, right now,” I admitted.
“Good.”
“Kevin. It’s just—a bad idea,” I whispered. “I mean, complicated doesn’t begin …”
“Absolutely.” He stepped toward me again.
“Gotta go,” I said, bolting from his room. I needed to get out of there. Not need like sometimes I need gum if I’ve eaten a loaf of garlic bread, but need like air, if a pillow is being shoved onto your face.
nine
“CHARLIE!”
“Oh! Hi, George.” He had come up behind me at my locker. I pulled the earbuds he’d bought me out of my ears. “What’s up?”
“Want to go sit on the upper field for lunch?”
“Uh …”
“She can’t,” Tess interrupted, coming around the corner.
“I can’t,” I agreed.
“She promised to hang with me,” Tess explained.
George looked back and forth between us. “Hell froze over? Pigs flew?”
“Haha,” Tess said, and grabbed my arm. “Come on, Charlie.”
We walked down the hall to the back doors, arms linked. Out on the steps, we sat right next to each other, shoulders occasionally bumping, like old times.
“He’s a great guy,” I said in between purposely tiny bites of sandwich. “George.”
“The best,” Tess agreed.
“So why did you—”
“You just looked like you wanted to be rescued.”
I chewed and thought. “I guess.” We watched Jen and the boys shoot hoops.
“You should break up with him.”
“We’re not officially going out.”
“Break up unofficially, then. It’s mean to string him along. He loves you, but you don’t love him.”
I groaned. “How do you know?”
“I know you. I can tell. So, trust me. Like a Band-Aid—fast, ouch, done.”
“You think?” I asked.
She smiled. “Sometimes, but it gives my brain a cramp, so I have to stop.”
“I hate ripping off Band-Aids.”
“Who doesn’t? Still.” She looked me straight in the eye, my mirror image with slightly finer features and longer hair. “You were right, what you said.”
“I was? When?”
“At Darlene’s party.”
That I kissed Kevin? “What—which—why …”
“You said it was always like you came in second place,” Tess explained. “It’s true. I wanted to deny it, but you were right. And that I used you. And maybe I used Kevin, too. I knew how much you both liked me and maybe took advantage of that.”
“Oh.”
“You were right, and I was blind to all that. Or maybe just didn’t want to know. But, whatever. I’m over it. You and Kevin kind of used each other to get back at me. That’s all it ever was between you. I get that now.”
I had no words.
“Also …”
I turned to look at her again. Her eyes were even more sparkly than usual. She blinked twice, swallowed, cleared her throat. Her pretty mouth curved down into a frown as she whispered, “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Tess.”
“So, we rescue each other.” She sniffed once, hard, and forced a brave smile.
“We …”
“I rescue you from lunch with your boyfriend, who loves you, and you rescue me from lunch with the Pop-Tarts, who are so damn boring with all their giggling and backhanded compliments, I want to put a fork through my eye.”
I laughed. Tess laughed. And right then, the sun came out from behind a cloud and shined down hard on us. “Wow,” I said. “No subtlety at all, huh, sun?”
“If you were made of explosions,” Tess said, “you’d be unsubtle, too.”
“You mean I’m not made of explosions?”
“Good point. We’re both made of explosions, too, aren’t we? Explains a lot.”
I tossed my lunch garbage toward the trash can, and for the first time in my life, it went in. Deciding to take it all as a good omen, I leaned my shoulder against Tess’s. She leaned back.
“So it’s weird, living with Kevin?” she asked.
“Weird doesn’t begin to cover it.”
She laughed her wicked laugh, and all felt right with the world. Mostly.
ten
BECAUSE I AM a wimp, I did not launch into my speech until after we got our ice-cream cones. When we sat on the bench together, George put his arm on the bench behind me. My ice cream started to drip onto my fingers.
At least I paid for the cones, was my pathetic self-commiseration.
Though even then, I did say okay, that he could buy next time. Which made starting the conversation that much worse. I stalled by concentrating on my ice cream.
He licked around the bottom of his scoop to keep any of his Cookie Dough Dynamo from dripping, then asked, “How’s life in the new blended family?”
“Um, I, it, what? Good, I guess.”
“What’s wrong, Charlie? You seem … weird.”
“I am weird.”
“True, but usually in a good way. Hey, did Tess say something mean again?”
“No,” I said. “We’re actually, things are better.”
“Good,” he said. “Just be careful.”
“Of what?”
“In general.”
“Of falling in a hole? Stepping in poop? What are you talking about, George? Be careful in general? What the heck kind of thing is that to say to a person?” I was shrieking. It was unsettling us both.
“Of Tess,” he said quietly.
“She’s my BEST FRIEND.”
“Oh … kay,” he said, and we both intensely ate our ice cream for a moment.
“Sorry,” I said without looking at him. We licked our cones in silence for a minute, until I took a deep breath and said, “I don’t even know how to say this and not be more of a jer
k than I already am.”
“Just say it,” he whispered.
“You are the nicest guy in the world.”
“Oh. Really? That’s the—oh.” He stood up and tossed his half-eaten ice-cream cone into the trash can beside the bench. He wiped his hands clean on his napkin and then tossed that into the can, too, before sitting back down. This time, his arm wasn’t around me. “Fine, go ahead.”
I took a deep breath and launched into my prepared comments. My notes, jotted down during social studies, were in my bag, but I decided against pulling them out and went from memory instead. “You said, at my mother’s wedding, that the one I need to forgive, about the whole mess I created with Tess and Kevin and all that, was myself.”
“Uh-huh,” he said without looking up from his clasped hands, which were between his wide-spread knees. “I did. I said that. It’s true, by the way.”
“Well, maybe you’re right. I don’t know.” I watched my ice cream melt down over the cone and drip onto the sidewalk between my sneakers. First really warm spring day, and this is how I was spending it.
“I am right,” he said. “Go on.”
“Yeah. Or maybe, like my father loves to tell me, I am too quick to let myself off the hook. I don’t know.”
“Your father is a tool. Sorry, just saying.”
“That’s okay. Thanks, actually. But anyway, what I need, I think, is to sort some stuff out. For myself.”
“Fine.”
“But, I can’t do it, I can’t figure out why I did what I did and how to make up for it—to Tess, or to Kevin, even to you …”
“You have nothing to make up to me, Charlie. I told you. Leave me out of your self-flagellation. I wasn’t going out with you at the time of the Great Transgression.”
“Stop calling it that, George, seriously,” I said. “Besides. Still.”
“No,” he said, sounding for the first time ever a little angry at me. “Really, leave me out of that part. You don’t owe me any apologies or reparations or whatever you think you owe everybody. And I am pretty sure you don’t owe Kevin an apology, either. No way. So, what? You were a jerk? Okay, fine, maybe you were. Whatever. Everybody’s a jerk at some point. Get over it.”
“I was a very large jerk,” I pointed out.