If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say

by Leila Sales

  “I guess not.” I hadn’t really been thinking about it before he said it, but I was bending over him, my upper back stooped.

  “This might be easier if our mouths were at the same height,” he pointed out.

  “Okay.” I stood up straight. “What do you suggest?”

  “You could sit on my lap again,” he said bashfully.

  “Like when you rescued me?”

  “I hardly rescued you,” he protested.

  “You helped.” I sat down on his lap. He wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me tightly against him, so I could feel the pounding of his heart. I snuggled my head into his shoulder and kissed his neck, and he smelled so good, so unlike anything else, that it was intoxicating. I could have stayed there for hours, or forever.

  And we did stay there for a long time, before I suggested—and I thought about it for a number of minutes before I finally willed myself to open my mouth and say it—“We could move to your bed.”

  I felt his arms stiffen around me.

  “Or not,” I added hastily.

  He pulled back, and I looked at him. I couldn’t parse the expression on his face.

  “What’s wrong? What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking a lot of different things,” he said, his voice an octave lower than I was accustomed to. “I’m thinking how much I like you.” He reached out and played with a strand of my hair that had come loose from my ponytail. “And I’m thinking that I don’t want to screw this up.”

  “You’re not screwing it up,” I said.

  “Winter, I’m a paraplegic.”

  “I know that.”

  “So there are some things in bed that … I can’t exactly do. Or I can, but they’re more complicated for me. Even just the process of transferring from my chair into my bed is complicated. It makes me look pathetic and helpless and weak. I don’t want you to see that.”

  “Look,” I said, “we can stay here. We don’t have to go to your bed. And even if we do, I don’t have to watch you get into it. There’s no right or wrong way to do this; we can do whatever we want. But if the only thing holding you back right now is that you’re scared I’m going to think you’re pathetic and weak and I’m not going to like you anymore, then that’s not a good reason.” I paused. “Can I ask you to just trust that I’m not going to make fun of you or criticize you?”

  He gave me a half smile. “I can’t trust anyone.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “So I guess that evens the playing field.”

  “All right.” He gave me a little nudge. “On your feet.” I stood up, and he wheeled himself over to his bed. “So here’s what I do,” he said, “and I could be better at it, but whatever. I get my chair right next to my bed. And then I put one hand on my chair and one on the bed. And then I use my arms to push myself on here.” Now he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked at me, waiting for my reaction. I didn’t give him one. “Okay,” he went on, “here’s the even more embarrassing part. Now I have to use my hands to, like, scoop up my legs and place them on the bed.” He did so. “And now I have to scooch myself backward with my arms … And now I can lie down.” He sank against the pillows at the head of his bed and looked at me again, his face red.

  “Okay,” I said. “So can I join you?”

  He gave me a beautiful smile.

  I lay down on the bed beside him, and he pulled me close against him. “You are crazy not to think that there’s something wrong with me,” he whispered into my ear.

  “You are crazy not to think that there’s something wrong with me,” I pointed out. “Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you how much is wrong with me.”

  “Like I said, I don’t trust anyone.” He kissed my forehead and commented, as much to himself as to me, “I can’t believe I’m here right now.”

  “Neither can I,” I agreed. This was not the behavior of the girl who once locked herself in her hotel room, lest she unwittingly sneak out and kiss Janak Bassi.

  “I want you to know, you’re the first girl I’ve done anything with since I got my chair,” he said. “I mean, there’s been no one I asked out. No one I kissed. It all just seemed so complicated and impossible. And now it seems … possible again.”

  It was funny, I thought. I wasn’t glad for anything that had happened to either of us. I wasn’t glad that Abe’s father was a thief, or that Abe had tried to end his life, and I wasn’t glad that I’d lost my spelling bee title and my chance at going to a top-tier college, or that people all over the world would go on believing I was a racist for as long as they remembered my name.

  But if none of that had happened, then we would never have been here together tonight.

  So while I wasn’t glad for the things that had happened to us, I was glad that they had brought us to this place where I’d never even known I’d wanted to be.

  30

  I slipped out of Abe’s bed and back to my own room shortly before sunrise. I hadn’t slept more than an hour or two the whole night, and I felt like hell when I had to go to yoga. But then I caught Abe’s eye as I went into Warrior One pose, and he gave me a little smile and I gave him a much bigger smile back, and I thought about how just a couple of hours ago his hands had been on my hips, and his lips had been on my skin, and I just couldn’t bring myself to care how tired I felt. Tired wasn’t even the right word for what I was feeling. I felt buzzy.

  Abe and I sat next to each other at breakfast, which probably wasn’t a good idea, since all of us sat at the big table and ate together, so there was nothing he and I could say or do that wouldn’t be observed by the entire group. After breakfast, he very slowly accompanied me back to my room, and we loitered in front of my door until everyone else had disappeared into their own rooms to make their beds, brush their teeth, and get ready to head out for the day. When we were sure that nobody else was out in the hallway, he stroked my hand with his fingertips and whispered, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to pretend that I’m not crazy about you.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. To me it was so obvious. How could any of the others possibly be fooled?

  “Hey,” I said, “can I ask you for a favor?” In an even quieter voice, I went on, “I wrote something for The Pacific after all.”

  “You did?” His eyebrows rose.

  “Yeah. I mean, maybe. I wrote something. I don’t know if it’s for The Pacific or if I should throw it in the garbage. Would you … read it?”

  “Yes,” he said immediately.

  I went into my room, got the papers, and handed them to him. Abe was the first person I’d trusted with my words since The Incident, and I think he understood that, because he just said thank you and wheeled away.

  I wondered what in my essay would offend him enough to make him realize that he actually wanted nothing to do with me, because surely there would be something. And then I let myself hope that maybe there wasn’t. After all, he knew this much about me, and he didn’t hate me yet.

  I thought about going after him to let him know, before he had the chance to start reading, that I didn’t really mean anything I wrote in there. But I held my tongue and I let him go. Because actually, I meant all of it.

  Be cool, Halperin, I ordered myself, and I went to brush my teeth.

  Shortly thereafter, we all met at the van for Redemption. I thought I was successfully being cool, but apparently I wasn’t, because as soon as he saw my face, Abe said, “I haven’t even looked at it yet. It’s been literally fifteen minutes.”

  I wrinkled my nose at him.

  “Looked at what?” Richard asked as he climbed into the van.

  “Winter asked me to weigh in on an apology she’s working on,” Abe answered smoothly.

  “Winter’s writing an apology?” Kevin repeated. “That’s terrific. You see, I knew apologizing to that reporter would grease the wheels for you. The first apology is the hardest. I remember that so clearly. You have to get over the hump, and then with each one you get into more of a rhythm. Like I s
aid, you just needed a little push.”

  “Hmm,” I said, slouching in my seat.

  “Do you still do Repentance?” Marco asked Kevin.

  “For sure,” Kevin acknowledged. “The Three Res are part of my daily routine. They got me out of a dark place, and I’m not ever going back there. Anyway, I believe that you’ve got to practice what you preach. I can’t very well ask you to do the Three Res if I’m not doing them myself.”

  I was still angry with Kevin for sending that apology to Lisa on my behalf, and for acting so smug about it now. But if I was being charitable about it, he only wanted the things that had worked for him to work for us, too. He’d found a way out, and he wanted to lead us all through it. It just hadn’t occurred to him that maybe we didn’t all belong on the same path.

  * * *

  Abe returned my essay to me that evening. “I don’t know much about writing or journalism or whatever,” he said. “I know what I like, but I couldn’t tell you why I like it. And I don’t read The Pacific much. So take my opinion with a grain of salt. But … I feel like you took everything I don’t know how to say and said it for me.”

  “That seems good,” I said cautiously.

  “It’s probably good,” he agreed.

  “So you don’t think I should burn it,” I asked, just to make sure.

  “I’d advise against that.”

  Okay, then.

  “So, this Jason guy you wrote about,” Abe went on. “He seems pretty special.”

  “He is,” I agreed.

  “What’s his deal?” Abe asked.

  I thought about how to describe Jason. As I said, my friends and I liked one another, but we didn’t often talk about it. I said, “He’s the perfect straight man in our group of friends. He’s funny, but not in a star-of-the-show way. He’s, like, quietly droll. We all make movies together, but Jason’s the only one who actually bothers to upload the footage and edit it and turn it into something usable. Without him we don’t get anything done. He’s stupidly vain, but gets embarrassed when he has to speak in front of anyone, even if it’s for a little class project. He’s good-looking and athletic, so he could be a total jerk if he wanted to, but I don’t think the idea’s ever occurred to him. He’s just a big nerd. I guess what I’m saying is … he’s complex. He’s so many things all at once. And that’s what makes him special. He’s not someone you can just, like, replace.”

  “You miss him,” Abe said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you, like, into him?” he asked. I gave an involuntary laugh, and Abe blushed. “What?”

  “No, there’s no reason you’d know this, but Jason is a great friend and a nightmare boyfriend. Yeah, I thought he was cute when I first met him—he is cute—but that’s also kind of his downfall. He never commits to anyone, and it never comes back to bite him because he’s good-looking enough to always attract someone else.”

  “Sounds like an interesting guy,” Abe observed.

  “He is. All my friends are. But I’m not into any of them. Actually…” I lowered my voice. “I can’t imagine being into anyone but you.”

  Abe’s cheeks turned pink, and he grinned. “I think it’s nice that you’re fighting for Jason, actually. When my shaming happened, I never tried to win back anyone. Everyone who left me was just gone. I figured if they couldn’t see that I was innocent, couldn’t give me the benefit of the doubt and stand by me, then they weren’t really my friends in the first place. I wasn’t going to beg.”

  “Do you think I’m begging?” I asked, looking doubtfully down at my essay.

  “No,” Abe said. “I think you’re apologizing.”

  * * *

  I spent every free minute over the next couple of days typing up my essay. Then I sent it to Lisa Rushall. I don’t know if you were kidding about my writing about Revibe for The Pacific, I e-mailed her. But I wrote something. Here it is.

  I was able to read her response during Repentance the next night—though waiting those twenty-four hours was not easy. She wrote, My edits on your essay are attached. The order of your argument is nonsensical, and you use the words “just” and “really” in almost every sentence. Also, you repeat every idea ten times, in ten different ways. Work on that.

  I opened the attachment to her e-mail and saw my essay covered in margin notes. I almost couldn’t see my own words, they were so hidden under Lisa’s red marks.

  She hated it. It was stupid. It was all wrong.

  She hated me. I was stupid. I was all wrong.

  I felt sick to my stomach as I e-mailed her back. You could have just said you hated it. You didn’t have to go into so much detail. And I closed out of my e-mail.

  It was okay, I told myself. I didn’t need my work to get published in The Pacific. It was safer this way, anyway. I’d written it, and Abe had read it, and that would be enough. Lisa’s rejection was protecting me from a much worse response.

  But the next time the signal jammer was lifted, I saw that Lisa had replied. I didn’t say I hated it. I said you should revise it.

  That was it.

  Fine. I was capable of revising it. It had been a nightmare writing it in the first place, but whatever, sure thing, I could write it again. I gritted my teeth and rolled my neck and started going through Lisa’s comments. I deleted the justs and the reallys, except where I really needed them. (See what I did there?) I reordered the paragraphs, then deleted the last two lines of almost every one. And gradually, surprisingly, it got better.

  My teachers had always told me that I was a good writer. The commenters online had told me that I was a bad writer. And both of these seemed to be immutable truths, something I was or was not. It had never occurred to me that this was an option, too: that I might be an okay writer who could, with help, get better.

  I revised and went back through the essay and revised again. Lisa’s comments were abrupt and compassionless, just like her. But they weren’t wrong.

  I worked on my essay for days. To anyone watching me, I must have looked really, really involved in my Repentance. And, in my own way, I was. It was a weird experience, writing something for so long without getting any response to it. Usually I’d write an essay for school in a night, maybe two, and then I’d hand it in. Anything I’d written on my own time, even the longer stories, I’d posted in chunks to critique sites so people could tell me that they liked it as I went. And of course I’d posted a lot of stuff online just as soon as I’d thought it. I could have two likes on something I’d written before I even fully figured out what I meant by it.

  So this was different, and difficult. To write and revise, and revise again, without really knowing how anyone would respond to it—except for Lisa, and she didn’t have any compliments for me. I sent her multiple drafts, and each time she sent them back with comments all along the margins.

  Finally, Lisa asked me to call her. It’s going to have to be between six thirty and nine p.m., I replied. That’s the only time I get cell service.

  So she sent me her home number. And during Repentance the next night, I closed myself into my room and gave her a call.

  “It’s done,” she told me.

  “What do you mean, ‘it’s done’?” I asked.

  “I mean your essay doesn’t have any obvious problems left in it.”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Do you ever say anything nice? To anyone? It’s okay if you don’t want to say nice stuff to me; I’m just wondering if you even have positive words in your vocabulary.”

  “This is the problem with your generation,” Lisa told me.

  “This is?”

  “Well, it’s one of the problems with your generation. You’re all so reliant upon A-pluses and smiley faces and gold stars and instant thumbs-ups. If someone doesn’t hit ‘like’ right away, you assume that means ‘hate.’”

  “I don’t think my generation invented the idea of positive reinforcement,” I said. “I’m pretty sure everyone enjoys hearing that people like their work.”

&nbs
p; Lisa made a noise of vague disapproval, or disagreement. “We’re going to run this online first thing on Friday,” she said, “and then in next week’s print edition. All right?”

  Panic bubbled up inside my chest. Of course, I had wanted and intended for her to publish my essay. I wanted to come clean, and I wanted people to understand what happened when they attacked a stranger online. None of that would happen if Lisa didn’t publish it.

  But how could I really go through all of this again? Could I knowingly open myself up to the world’s criticism and mockery?

  “Is my story any good?”

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I don’t know! That’s why I’m asking you. Is it good? Is it terrible? Scale of one to ten?”

  She paused. When she replied, her voice was low and direct. “You have to know the answer to that question yourself. Do you believe that you’re saying something here that matters? Do you believe that you’re saying something true? Do you believe that you’re saying something that could, in some way, bring about a positive change?”

  I thought maybe those were rhetorical questions, but when she didn’t answer them, I realized they were for me. So I thought about it. “Yes,” I said at last. “I believe that.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “Wait. What if I’m wrong? What if it doesn’t matter and it isn’t true, and everybody else thinks it’s terrible?”

  “If you believe in what you’re saying, then some people will, too. And no matter what you believe, or how good it is, some other people will certainly think it’s terrible.”

  “And then what do I do?” I asked.

  Lisa laughed at me. “Nothing.”

  31

  I woke up on Friday morning knowing that, if all had gone as it was supposed to, my essay was now out there in the world. I felt like my bloodstream was full of soda bubbles. There were my words, and my thoughts, and my experiences, in a real publication that people anywhere could read and judge. It was both everything I’d dreamed of and everything I feared.