So Much Closer

by Susane Colasanti

As I pass Leslie on my way out I go, “You must have me confused with someone else.”

  Whatever. So I’m angry. You would be, too, if your dad left your mom for another woman.

  It was worse than horrible.

  I heard all the fights. I knew some of the reasons for them. Reasons I wish I could forget.

  Things had been bad for a while. I can’t remember when it started and I never knew why. All I know is that there was something wrong with my parents.

  When Dad came home from his poker nights, Mom would drill him with questions. She’d ask him who was there and did he go out for a drink after and if so where did he go and who did he talk to? It sounded more like an interrogation than a conversation. Whenever they went out to a party or something together, there would usually be a fight when they got home. They’d hold out long enough to pay the babysitter. Then Mom would start in on Dad. I guess they assumed I was sleeping. But I was usually awake. And when they got to their room, I could hear everything.

  A typical fight went like this:

  Mom: So ... Marie looked nice tonight.

  Dad: Hmm.

  Mom: Don’t you think she looked nice?

  Dad: I really didn’t notice.

  Mom: Her dress must have cost a fortune. Wasn’t it fantastic?

  Dad: It was all right.

  Mom: I thought you said you didn’t notice.

  Dad: I’m going for a run.

  Or this:

  Mom: Who was Richard talking to?

  Dad: Kelsey.

  Mom: Who’s she?

  Dad: She’s working with Dan on the Stevens account.

  Mom: You know her?

  Dad: We’ve talked.

  Mom: At work?

  Dad: Yes, Laura, we’ve talked at work. I work with her. We talk.

  Mom: You never told me about her.

  Dad: I’m telling you now.

  Mom: Only because I asked.

  Dad: [angry silence]

  Mom: Does she work on your floor?

  Dad: I’m going for a run.

  Even though I was young, I was old enough to understand that Mom’s jealousy issues drove Dad away. But after Dad moved out, Mom started telling me different reasons for why he left.

  “Your father never knew what it took to be a decent parent,” she ranted. “He was always looking for a way out, right from the start. I should have known things would end up this way.”

  Mom told me the kind of stuff you should never tell your kid. Even if it’s true. I didn’t believe her at first. But after hearing too many times how Dad left us because he’d rather have his freedom than be part of a family or how if he loved us more he’d still live here, I started thinking that maybe she was right. Maybe it wasn’t entirely her fault.

  Actually, I know it wasn’t. Because before he left us for some woman he’s not even with anymore, there was that thing with my babysitter.

  Justine was my friend. When she came over, it was never like she was just there to watch me. It was like she really wanted to be there. We told each other secrets. She’d tell me things about her life, things that mattered, like about college choices and boys she went out with and how it felt to be so close to the new life that was waiting for her after high school. I knew she would be leaving for college soon, but I hoped she’d go somewhere close so she could still come over.

  Justine was like the older sister I’d always wanted.

  This one time when I was ten, Justine was downstairs waiting for my parents to come home. I was in bed, but I wasn’t sleeping. Then I heard my parents come home. I was always nervous when they got back from social events because I was never sure if they’d start fighting as soon as Justine left. I decided to sneak downstairs and see if Mom looked mad.

  Except I didn’t find Mom when I went downstairs. I found Dad.

  And Justine.

  Kissing.

  I don’t know if Mom knew about it. She never said anything to me. Of course I never said anything to her. She had enough pain in her life without me adding to it. But after that night, Justine never came back. She never even said good-bye.

  People destroy your trust. Then they leave.

  You can never completely know anyone, no matter how well you think you do. There will always be parts of their lives they leave out. There will always be some truth about them you don’t ever get to know.

  Or maybe one day you’ll find out their truth. And you’ll wish you never had.

  Seven

  Being inconspicuous was a lot easier at my old school. Here, there’s nowhere to hide.

  First off, classes are smaller. Even if I sit in the back row, I’m still way exposed. Teachers care more here. If you zone out, they call on you. If you don’t do your homework, they make this huge production out of it. They even call home if you mess up enough times. Seriously, you can’t get a break for one second. Like with calculus. Ms. Jacobs is insane. She expects us to be ready to take notes right when class starts. She acts like we’re supposed to pay attention to every little thing.

  None of this is helpful when the boy you moved here for has a girlfriend.

  I wish I could think about something else. Just focus on anything but the fact that Scott has a girlfriend who isn’t me. This being calc, the only available distraction is a set of parametric equations.

  I tackle them.

  Avoiding classwork was simple at my old school. I know that everyone always says their school is the worst, but trust me, mine was the worst. You could totally get away with doing nothing, because the teachers never said anything. They would just give you a bad grade, which didn’t faze most of the kids anyway. They hardly ever collected work. If they were going to, you could always just copy the answers from someone else. Lots of teachers didn’t even read what we handed in. For most classes, your grade only depended on the quantity of work you did, not the quality. And people were actually surprised that I wasn’t into school?

  When I finish solving the last equation, I sneak a look at the girl next to me. She’s still working on hers along with everyone else. Her name is Sadie, and she’s wearing the same earrings as me—same silver hoops, same thin black stripes. Her look is actually kind of cool. She’s got this whole Smart Sexy Girl thing going on, all shoulder-length copper hair with gold highlights, brown eyes that are more interesting than mine, and cat’s-eye glasses. She’s like two inches shorter than me and looks cute in everything she wears. She might want to rethink the headbands, though.

  Sadie glances at my paper.

  “How did you get that?” she whispers.

  “What?”

  “Number five. It’s impossible.”

  “No it’s not.” I hand her my paper so she can see.

  “You may ask your neighbor questions,” Ms. Jacobs reminds us, “but we’re working individually.” She looks right at me.

  I am so not used to that. Teachers who make eye contact freak me out. I used to be able to completely disappear in class whenever I wanted to. I could be invisible.

  Not anymore.

  Sadie passes my paper back. She’s like, “How did you get that?”

  Playing their game is repulsive. Here we have one student helping another so she can solve some meaningless problem she’ll never have to deal with in real life. I don’t want to explain how I got it. I don’t want to talk to Sadie at all. But it’s better than thinking about Scott, which is what I’d be doing if I was just waiting for everyone else to finish. So I explain how I solved the problem.

  “That’s ...” Sadie examines my paper again. “Where did you learn that thing you did in step three?”

  “At my old school.”

  “Wow,” she marvels. “You must have had an amazing math teacher.”

  “Not really.”

  As I’m packing up my bag after class, Sadie goes, “Have you ever thought about peer tutoring? We’re starting this week and I think you’d be great.”

  “Oh, that’s okay.”

  “No, seriously. How fast did you
finish those problems? People were still working on them like fifteen minutes later.”

  “I just wanted to get them over with.”

  “Yeah, but you got them all right. That’s unbelievable.”

  It’s official. Floating under the radar is definitely a thing of the past.

  “We’re meeting after school today,” Sadie says. “Can you come?”

  “No offense, but that’s not my thing.”

  “What’s not your thing? Helping people?”

  Okay, see, there’s no need to get harsh. The girl doesn’t even know me and she’s being all insulting. I don’t have time to explain myself to her. Of course I like helping people. I’m not a bad person. I just don’t see the point of explaining stuff to a bunch of people who don’t even want to be there. If I’m going to help people, I’d rather do it in a way that matters.

  “Nice earrings, by the way,” I tell her. Then I pick up my bag and head out, leaving Sadie behind.

  “I have to work late tomorrow,” Dad says. “I’ll leave money so you can order in.”

  “Okay,” I go. But of course it’s not okay. I shouldn’t be ordering in by myself again. Dad should say that he can’t work late anymore because I’m here now.

  Dad crunches into his egg roll. In the week that I’ve been here, we’ve had Chinese food, pizza, and burgers from this place called Kool Bloo for dinner. It’s fun to get takeout all the time. It’s like I’m on a trial separation from real food. We both know that Dad can’t cook and cooking isn’t something I enjoy, so homemade meals will soon become a distant memory.

  “How was school?” he asks.

  “Okay.”

  “Are the kids nice?”

  “They’re okay.” I haven’t really noticed anyone besides Scott. Which is weird since I’m the new girl. I should be freaked out about fitting in and making new friends and who I’m going to sit with at lunch. But I’m not. Because none of that stuff matters. I’m only going to be here for a year. What do I care what anyone thinks? Plus, I’m sure April and Candice will visit soon. Not that Candice has returned any of my messages. She has to talk to me eventually, though. I can’t figure out why she’s not calling me back.

  That’s not entirely true. I have a bad feeling that she’s mad because of Scott. She told me she wasn’t and I believed her. But now I’m starting to think she wasn’t being honest with me.

  I squash the bad feeling down. There’s no way I could deal with Candice being mad at me for liking Scott. That would mean I’m a bad friend and I just couldn’t live with that. Maybe she’s mad at me for ditching senior year. Or something else entirely. I just hope the bad feeling is wrong.

  If I were going to be honest with Dad, I’d tell him that my day totally sucked. Scott didn’t even talk to me in class. Usually, he says hey and we joke around a little. But today, nothing. It’s like he totally shut down. Leslie obviously said something to him. Probably about how she ran into me at Joe and I was such a bitch, walking out on her when she wasn’t done humiliating me. He probably thinks I’m some deranged stalker who likes to disrupt outdoor movies by clanging a bunch of chairs together. I can’t believe Scott told her I’m angry. I didn’t know it showed.

  It’s not like I want to be this angry. It just happened. If I knew how to not be angry anymore, I would. The stupid thing about anger is how people hurt you and then you let them keep hurting you by being angry about how they originally hurt you. It’s a vicious cycle.

  Scott just met Leslie two months ago. How serious could it be? Maybe he’s not technically her boyfriend. Maybe she thinks it’s more serious than it is. Girls are often delusional that way.

  Or maybe I’m the delusional one.

  I just have to find a way to be in Scott’s life more. It would be much easier for him to see that we belong together if he knew more about me. I should write a new note for my wish box later. Most of the notes in it are about Scott. I’m not sure where I’ll be stashing my wish box yet. For now, it’s pushed to the way back of a shelf in my closet.

  Dad glances at the news, which is on in the living room. He can see the TV from his seat at the kitchen counter. It’s like he’s here without really being here.

  I stab my chopsticks at some noodles.

  He goes, “You have everything you need for school?”

  “Yeah.”

  Then the questions stop. We just keep eating, with Dad watching the news and me stabbing at my noodles. This is how we’ve been avoiding each other. When we talk, it’s never about the things we really want to say. It’s all just superficial how-was-yourday chitchat. The kind of words people say when the silence gets too loud.

  The phone rings. Dad gets up to answer it. I assume he’ll tell whoever it is that we’re having dinner and hang up. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he takes the phone into the living room, gets on his laptop, and stays there. I can’t really hear what he’s saying. Just some angry tapping of keys and tense tones. It’s obvious that he’s not coming back anytime soon.

  I watch his food get cold.

  Eight

  A small piece of pink paper lands on my desk right before calc starts. It’s folded once, with a smiley face in glittery purple ink.

  I’m not surprised that it came from the direction of Sadie.

  “What’s this?” I ask her. Something tells me it’s not just a regular note.

  “Open it and see,” Sadie says, all excited.

  So I do. In loopy, round writing, is this:

  Brooke—

  We need your big brain! Please reconsider. xo—Sadie

  “It’s a warm fuzzy,” Sadie informs me.

  “A what?”

  “You’ve never heard of warm fuzzies?”

  “No, but I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.”

  “The purpose of a warm fuzzy is to spread the love. If someone needs cheering up or you just want to wish them a happy day, a warm fuzzy is perfect. And there are rules. Like how they have to be cute. They can’t be written with a boring pen on some standard piece of paper.”

  Warm fuzzies sound sort of pretentious, with their rules and aspirations.

  “And they count as random acts of kindness,” she continues.

  “Random acts of kindness?”

  “Yeah. You know, doing things for other people for the purpose of helping them? Because you want to make their lives better?”

  That sounds highly suspect to me. I don’t believe that people do anything for purely selfless reasons. People’s actions are motivated by their own desires. Every person who’s disappointed me has been further proof that no one can be trusted.

  I refold the warm fuzzy.

  “Will you at least think about tutoring?” Sadie pleads.

  Then the bell rings and, with her usual militant punctuality, Ms. Jacobs starts class.

  When Scott gets to the Box, he says hi. He even smiles at me. I could not be more relieved that the weirdness between us is over. Maybe he’s one of those people who’s automatically excited because it’s Friday. I definitely like Fridays as much as the next person who doesn’t want to be here, I just don’t get whipped up in a frenzy about it.

  Scott sits down next to me and pulls out a notebook. It’s not his usual notebook for the Box, which is what everyone’s calling this class. He’s been using this ratty spiral with like ten pages left in it. This is a brand-new notebook. It has a black cover that says DUNDER MIFFLIN, INC.

  “Office fan?” I ask. I know it’s somehow related to the show because I just saw an ad for The Office on the side of a bus. The characters were standing under a big Dunder Mifflin sign.

  Scott’s like, “What?”

  I point to his notebook.

  “Oh, yeah. You?”

  “Totally.” Why am I being such a liar? I’ve only seen two episodes of The Office. And not even two whole episodes. Only a few random parts.

  His face lights up. “That’s so cool. I don’t know anyone else who’s into it.”

  It’s amazing how
quickly a day can improve. Even our classwork is fun. We’re doing logic problems that feel more like a break than work that will actually be graded.

  Someone calls out, “Can I get a drink?”

  “The water fountain’s broken,” Mr. Peterson says.

  “Can I use the other one?”

  “That would take too long. We have fifteen minutes left and I need you here for all of them.”

  Thirsty Boy glances at the sink in the corner, left over from when this room used to be the nurse’s office. Apparently, he’s not thirsty enough to bend down under the faucet.

  “I can make you a cup,” I say. I take a piece of paper out of my notebook and fold it into an origami cup. “Here.” I hold it out to Thirsty Boy.

  “It works?”

  “Yeah. Just don’t take too long to drink.”

  He fills the cup at the sink. He gulps his water.

  “Nice!” he says.

  “That’s awesome,” a girl in the back declares. It’s taking me forever to memorize everyone’s name. I don’t know how teachers do it every year.

  I grin at my notebook.

  Mr. Peterson is all over it. “What an excellent example of thinking outside the box!” he announces. “This was a terrific way to reach a creative solution. Many thanks to the always brilliant Brooke.”

  “Teacher’s pet much?” Scott whispers.

  “Not,” I whisper back.

  It’s been an eventful day in the Box. Earlier, we found out what noodle cleaning was when we were working on a logic problem about astronomy. This one girl went, “I thought our solar system had, like, millions of stars,” and Mr. Peterson was all, “Our solar system contains only one star! Noodle cleaning in action!” He says there’s all this erroneous information stuck in our brains (or, as he likes to call them, noodles) because we either learned things that were incorrect or we’re remembering things the wrong way. He anticipates much more noodle cleaning this year.

  “Listen up, gang,” Mr. Peterson says now. “I have a fun Friday treat for you. Logic pop quiz!”