by Barry Lyga
"From the nurses." The more honest answer would have been Where didn'tI hear it? Because I'd heard the orderlies murmur it, too, but it was mostly the goddamn nurses. Mumbling it at night when they came in to check my vitals and to make sure I hadn't killed myself by leaping off my bed or something. Snickering it to each other in the hall outside my room, when they thought I couldn't hear it, or maybe they didn't know or care if I could hear it. I don't know.
Kennedy leaned back in his chair. He was a tall, rangy guy. That's the word: rangy. I looked it up to be sure.
"I'm sorry you heard that," he said, and then—before I could snark something at him—he leaned forward real quick and said, "No, no, strike that. I'm not sorry you heard it. I'm sorry they said it. I'm sorry they thought it."
I just sat there and gave him nothing. I liked Kennedy, but I wasn't going to help him with this.
He fidgeted some more and then took a deep breath. "I told you from the beginning that I would never lie to you, Kyra. I'm not going to lie now. DCHH is an acronym that some of the staff here uses. I don't like it. It's mean-spirited. They do it as a way of blowing off steam, but that doesn't excuse it.
"It means 'Daddy Couldn't Handle Her.'"
Thirty-six
AND HERE'S THE THING: IT WAS TRUE.
I couldn't even get mad. Because it was true. Roger couldn't handle me. So he sent me away. And now I totally understood the contempt that the people working here had for me. They were seeing burnouts and drug addicts and abused women and then along comes this girl with a rich daddy and they probably figured I should just take my Wellbutrin and my Effexor like a good little girl and let myself be drugged so hard that I can't think anymore and maybe stop dyeing my hair and powdering my face white and take out the piercings and wear some colors and just be normal because that's all it is, right, I'm just acting out, I'm just being a little bitch, I'm just trying to get attention from Daddy and eff all of you anyway because none of you knows, none of you understands.
Whew.
I started to giggle.
Kennedy just watched me. Not what he was expecting, I guess. It felt good, though. I understood them now. I knew where I stood.
And that's the problem with Fanboy: I'm still getting a handle on where I stand with him. (Other than, you know, between two rows of lockers.)
A bell rings and saves me. "I have to go to homeroom," he says.
"Sure you do. Can't be late. Gotta follow the rules."
He laughs, which is not cool! He's supposed to feel all wussy and ashamed because I basically just called him a goody-two-shoes.
"Yeah," he says. "I guess so. Hey, what period do you have lunch?"
"Fourth."
"Me, too! Cool. Can we eat together? You know, and, like, catch up?"
I hear myself saying "Sure" before my brain has finished processing all of this. Then he runs off to homeroom and I'm left standing there like an idiot, trying to figure out what just happened.
Thirty-seven
SEE, IT USED TO BE SIMPLE: I was in charge. Fanboy was my friend, but it wasn't an equal relationship. He was clueless; I clued him in. Simple.
And now...
I don't know what the hell to think now.
I make it to homeroom just as the second bell rings. Look at me: respectable and everything today!
Mrs. Reed acts like the other day never happened—she just looks at me brightly during roll call and says, "A new look, Kyra?" which is, like, the stupidest thing in the world to say. Because, duh.
So I look at her with my best, most innocent look, and I say, "What do you mean?"
She keeps smiling. "Well. You look." Just like that. Stops dead in the middle of a thought.
I tilt my head and look at her like I'm wondering what she's getting at, when what I'm really wondering is how she hears anything at all with the wind and echoes in her head.
She shakes her head and moves on without another word. I roll my eyes and get some chuckles from people around me.
I go to my first class, which is algebra, which I hate. On the way, I get lots of looks, but people also stay away, totally in keeping with my Theory of the Freak Look.
My phone buzzes when I sit down in algebra. I'm not supposed to have it on in class. I look at it real quick:
r u pissd @ me?
It's from Jecca. Because I didn't text her back last night and then sort of blew her off this morning.
How do you text back It's complicated. I don't know how I feel. I like guys and I think about guys and sex, but I also like you and when I kiss you, I feel like nothing can hurt me in this world. But then I learned that something can hurt me—you can. You did. You do. When you talk about Brad. You fall for some guy over the summer while I'm gone and you don't have the guts to tell me until I come back. And then you throw some bull my way about how you told me all of this in e-mails over the summer, but I read your e-mails (the few you bothered to send) and you never mentioned Brad. Not once. So you lied about that and then you spring it on me in a chat of all places. And I don't know if maybe the Brad stuff is just so that Simone won't think you're gay. And I don't know if you are gay. And I don't know if I'm gay, because like I said: I like boys. If you didn't kiss me, I don't know if I would ever kiss another girl again. So it's like I'm jealous of Brad, but I don't get it. I don't get any of it and I don't want to get it. I just want to kiss you and not worry about it, and maybe someday kiss ... a boy. And maybe then I can compare and see which one I like more. But in the meantime, please shut the ever-loving eff up about Brad, because every time you mention his name I want to rip your eyes out.
But I don't know how to text that, so I just turn off my phone.
The Third Thing
I'M SUPPOSED TO BE PAYING ATTENTION, but when in my life will I ever need to know how to add x—y2 and x+2y? (Who adds letters, anyway?)
So, here are the possibilities for Fanboy's third thing:
Sex. (Duh.)
For his parents to get back together. (He doesn't seem that clueless, though. Especially since his mom is having this other guy's baby.)
To be Dina's boyfriend.
To have his graphic novel published. (Which I guess he's sort of achieved now, but Literary Paws is a lame way to go.)
To be popular.
To be some big, muscled, buff-looking idiot because he thinks that's all girls care about.
To live with his dad.
To fall in love.
Seriously, sex. Maybe something really kinky or gross.
Me.
Ha. Just kidding about that last one. LOL and all that...
Thirty-eight
NO ONE CALLS ON ME in any of my classes. Which is par for the course because a) I never raise my hand, and b) they're terrified of what I might say.
I have English with Jecca right before lunch. She comes into the room, scans it. She sees me sitting on the opposite side of the room and she waves her cell phone to get my attention and stares at me like she's trying to push a thought into my brain.
Translation: Why didn't you answer my text?
I give her the Innocent Look. Translation: I have no idea what you're talking about.
She waves the phone again. My text, you dummy!
I widen my eyes like I'm just getting it and shake my head. My phone isn't on.
"Put the phone away, Jessica," says Miss Powell.
Jecca slides into her seat and I pretend I'm really busy with my book, even though I haven't read it, so I have no idea what Miss Powell is talking about when she starts yammering about metaphor and analogy and shit like that.
Again: Am I ever going to need any of this?
I tune out. I really, really hate Miss Powell. She's a hypocrite, and I've known that since I had her for freshman English.
She always talks about Feminism and Female Empowerment and the Marginalization of Women in Our Society, but she's also hot (for an adult) and she always wears these tight shirts with the top button unbuttoned and skirts with slits so tha
t when she sits sideways on her desk to read something to us, you can see halfway up to her ass.
At first, I didn't hate her for this. At first, I totally didn't make any kind of connection, OK? I just noticed that all of the guys in class kind of got this stoned look and some of them would make those quick crotch adjustments that guys—for some reason—think no one ever notices. (How can we not notice? You're adjusting your dick. How can anyone miss that?)
I thought it was sort of funny that she had all the guys yoked by their hormones and drooling on themselves, and that's always entertaining, even though it's sad. (If there are going to be sad things in the world, it helps if you can also laugh at them.)
Then one day I was in the bathroom with Simone. We were sneaking a smoke between classes because we were cool, even as freshmen.
"Do you think I should get breast implants?" Simone asked.
I was pretty sure I hadn't heard her right. "What?"
"Implants. come on."
"We're fourteen."
She shrugged. "Yeah, not now. But, like, when I'm sixteen. I saw on TV where this girl got them for her sixteenth birthday."
Simone's boobs are smaller than mine. (Most are.) But she actually shows them off, with thin, skimpy tops and push-up bras and all that crap.
"You're fine the way you are."
She grabbed them and pushed them up and together, creating a chasm of cleavage. She stared down into it. "I can't pull off the look I want."
"What do you mean?" Simone's "look" was endless variations on slutty goth, and she pulled it off just fine.
"Miss Powell was wearing this outfit yesterday with a blue shirt, but I could make it work in black, but my boobs aren't big enough."
"What?"
Simone dropped her handfuls of boob and leaned forward, all excited. "I went to the mall yesterday and found the same shirt, in black. Same material. Same everything. I tried it on, but it just didn't look the same, you know?"
That's when the bell rang and we had to flush our smokes and haul ass to class.
Even though that happened two years ago, I never forgot it. I watched Miss Powell the rest of freshman year, watched as she posed herself on the desk, tossing back her hair, pushing her tits out for everyone to see ... like we could avoid the damn things.
Gross.
Just...
Gross!
I had already starting hiding my own boobs by then, but I had been thinking just about me and my body. But then I started paying attention to the bodies around me, and how the girls all dressed up and the boys just didn't give a shit how they dressed, in baggy pants and gigantic-ass shirts ten sizes too big. And the girls spent a million years and a million dollars on just the right outfit.
And then it got even worse. Because I realized that girls were being told one thing with words but something else entirely with pictures and actions.
It's like, Miss Powell loved to say shit like, "Be strong, girls!" Any time we were reading something and the female character would do or say something stupid or old, she would shake her head and say, "That's the old way. Be strong, girls!"
And any time the female character would do or say something awesome, she would clap her hands and say, "That's what we like to see, right? Be strong, girls!"
But then she would drift over to the desk and clear her throat to make sure everyone was looking and then effing drape herself over the desk like she was a supermodel or something.
And when a male teacher or the principal or someone would come in, she would totally do all the slutty, flirty shit they talk about in magazines—touching her hair, toying with her necklace, touching them on the arm. Shit like that.
Simone thought it was awesome. She saw the same things I saw, but she didn't see the problem.
"It's power," she told me. "Guys are stronger, but we have sex appeal. It's our biceps and our lats and stuff. We use sex as our strength."
By that time—midway through freshman year—Simone had already slept with three guys and blown like half a dozen, and I don't even know how many handjobs she'd given.
"How is it power to let a guy come in your mouth?" I asked her.
She pulled a face. (I guess it could have been from my ques tion, but I like to think it was from the memory of the last time she'd swallowed some guy.)
"You just don't get it, Kyra."
"Yeah, I don't get how doing something gross makes you powerful."
"Jeez, Kyra! It's all about ... It's all about control, OK? When you're, y'know, going down on a guy, you're in control, OK? Like, if he's close, you can pull back and make him wait, you know? Or you can speed up and get him there. And it's totally up to you. You're in control of him."
"If you're so in control, then how come Billy Odenkirk doesn't talk to you?" Billy was a junior that Simone hooked up with at a party two weeks earlier. She went out back of the house and under the deck with him and gave him a blowjob. He didn't return the favor, but he was "really nice" according to Simone, "and even said thanks" when she was done.
Yeah. "Really nice." He hadn't even looked at her since then.
I knew I was hitting her where it hurt—she really liked Billy—but she deserved it.
"You're a bitch, you know that, Kyra?"
"You're a slut."
"Virgin" That was the worst curse in Simone's vocabulary.
But even though we argued about shit like that all the time, I was still glad she was my friend. For one thing, we had a lot of fun together. We'd known each other forever, and that means something.
For another thing, though, she was this great example of what not to be and what not to do. Because I've been watching Simone fall for the same shit over and over.
Holding her hand four separate times while she cried in a bathroom somewhere, waiting to see if the pregnancy test would turn blue or not. (It never did, proof positive that there are people in this world who are just immune to consequences.)
Cheering her up when yet another guy didn't call her back after promising he would.
Riding a bus into the city with her so that she could go to a clinic to get an STD test without her parents finding out because the guy lied and didn't put on a condom.
All of these things made me realize that while I liked Simone there was no way in hell I was going to be anything like her. I wasn't going to turn my life into an endless pursuit of A Guy.
And it went further than actually doing shit with a guy. Because I realized that every time we bat our eyelashes or let a guy bump our boob accidently-on-purpose or bend or twist just right so that a guy gets a glimpse of something special ... Every time we do these things, we are—metaphorically (how do you like that, Miss Powell?)—sucking a dick. Because we're doing what they want. We might think we're "empowered" or "using our sexuality," but the fact of the matter is this: Just like Billy Odenkirk coming in Simone's mouth (in her mouth!)and then saying "Thanks" and nothing more—ever, ever—once a guy gets (or sees) what he wants, he's done. It's over. He walks away, and if you think he's thinking about you at all after that, you're nuts.
It's a weakness. It's a weakness we have as girls. We've convinced ourselves that it's a strength...
No, wait. No. That's not right. We've been convinced that it's a strength. By women who've been there before us, who've used their bodies and now call it "strong" so that they don't feel weak or slutty. By men who, let's face it, have everything to gain from it.
I won't let myself be used or manipulated like Simone. I won't let myself be a hypocrite like Miss Powell.
I am for me.
I am not weak.
For anyone.
Thirty-nine
AFTER ALL THAT THINKING, I have no idea what Miss Powell talked about during English. But I did learn that she's wearing bright orange underwear today, so that's nice.
Jecca grabs me on the way out the door. "I sent you a text."
"My phone's off."
"Are you pissed at me?"
Jecca's a little bit taller t
han I am. You don't notice it when you're lying down together, but it's just enough that I would have to stretch a tiny bit to kiss her right now. What would she do if I did that? If I just leaned over and up and kissed her right on the lips? Not even with tongue or anything, but just a kiss? What would she do?
It hits me—the momentary weakness. It's no good. I won't be weak.
"Kyra?"
"I have to get to lunch," I tell her. She has a later lunch period, so I've dodged this yet again.
Simone's at the goth table when I get to the lunchroom. I don't see Fanboy anywhere, so I go stand by her for a minute. Everyone reaches out to grab my head, like it's covered in diamonds, and I smack them all away.
So they appraise me from a safe distance, with lots of "What the hell?" I think it's the all-white as opposed to the lack of hair, but regardless: When the goths are saying "What the hell?" you can be pretty sure you've struck a nerve somewhere, which is cool.
"Why aren't you sitting down?" Simone asks.
That's when I see Fanboy heading to an empty table with his tray. "I promised him I'd eat with him." I point.
Lauri, this girl I barely know, whistles. "Score. He's cute."
Simone, bless her, jumps in with authority: "He's gay."
Lauri snorts. "Figures."
I go to Fanboy's table and sit down. He goes all grinny. "This is cool, Kyra."
"You use that word way too much."
"What? Kyra?"
"No, asswipe: cool."
He laughs. "I know. I was just messing with you."
"Hey, look, Fanboy. There's a serious division of labor here: I am the messer. You are the messee."
"Still with the 'Fanboy stuff?" But he says it like it doesn't really bother him.
"Yeah. Not only that, but I've decided something. I've decided you're now Fanboy with a capital F."
"Um, OK. I thought that's what I was before."