by Bryan Bliss
As soon as he said it, Leg looked at Derrick like he might call the principal. As if he wasn’t complicit.
“I mean, school’s cool and everything,” Leg stammered. “But sometimes you need a mental health day. You know?”
“Your whole life is a mental health day, Leg,” God said.
They all laughed again, and it made Claire smile.
“Leg’s, like, the opposite of perfect attendance. What do you call that?”
“Community college,” Mark-O said.
The boys offered up a collective “Oh shit!” and immediately began riffing on potential merchandise. T-shirts. Stickers. The Lair would make a killing, they all agreed.
As they were talking to Mark-O, Derrick leaned close to her and said, “Up to you.”
Every single muscle in her body, every single cell, played a constant message: run, hide, go. At first, this response had been necessary for survival—for healing, they assumed. But she could no longer tell the difference between the constant panic that steered her away from everyone and everything and three seemingly nice guys who just wanted to skate.
So instead of talking she picked up her board (breathing, breathing), strapped on her helmet, and walked back into the ramp.
Leg and God didn’t stop talking to her, even as they traded tricks, trying to one-up each other—to impress Derrick, all of which made Claire smile. Dark sat on a couch just off the lip of one of the smaller ramps, writing or drawing in a black-and-white composition notebook. Every so often, he’d look up, catch Claire’s eye, and then go immediately back to the notebook.
It was as if the skate gods noticed her distraction and reached down to nudge her, just enough to lose balance. She hit the ground hard.
God got to her first, followed by Leg. After the initial check-in, the perfunctory “Damn, you really ate shit” acknowledgment, God yelled out, “She’s fine!” before Derrick could even get to them.
After that, they took turns rolling up next to Claire, encouraging her, giving her pointers, and once, God grabbed her hands and took her flying across the skate park. When God saw she was stable, he let go and she rode all the way to the ramp where Dark was sitting.
She tried to get off her board without falling, fell anyway, and then sat there watching Derrick and the other boys before Dark said, “You can come up here if you want.”
Claire tried to climb to the top of the ramp, but her entire body was torched. Dark reached down to help her up and, once she was on the couch, they sat there silent and awkward, watching the others.
Eventually, he gave her a long look before he exhaled and said, “So . . . why do you skate? You’re really, you know, bad.”
It made her laugh, the sound ringing across the nearly-empty park. Derrick shot her a glance, a smile, at the surprise of her voice. And it had surprised her, too. When was the last time she’d laughed? Actually laughed.
“Shit.” The pained look he seemed to always wear deepened. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, I don’t skate but I still come. I guess I wanted to let you know you don’t have to skate.”
Before she knew what was happening, Claire started talking.
“I just keep thinking some of Derrick’s genes might show themselves. Maybe? Hopefully?”
They both watched as Derrick rode his board high above the top of a ramp, turning an effortless 360, before dropping back down onto the ramp with barely a sound. The boys slapped their boards against the ground in appreciation.
“He’s pretty amazing,” Dark said. “I think God and Leg are in love.”
“He was pro. Before.”
Claire almost laughed again at the way Dark’s jaw dropped. Leg must’ve seen it, must’ve thought something important was happening, because he flew toward them, taking the ramp too fast and nearly falling when he tried to stick the landing right next to Claire.
He jumped up, snapping his fingers and then fixing his hair in one fluid motion.
“Meant to do that, anyway. Dark, you trying to get me a prom date over here?”
“Jesus, please don’t start.”
Claire gave Dark a look, but he was already staring at the cover of his journal and shaking his head. She couldn’t tell if he was nervous, embarrassed, or something else.
“Her brother is a pro,” Dark said, obviously changing the subject.
“What? With who?”
Leg dropped next to Claire and stared at her like the question was a test—one Claire wasn’t sure how to pass.
Her anxiety spiked but she pushed through it and, trying to sound casual, said, “Dirty Version.”
Leg jerked back, like she’d just asked him if he wanted to know Jesus as his personal savior.
“Dirty Version? Holy shit.”
Claire nodded, but Leg was already standing, yelling for God. Even Dark looked impressed. Derrick rolled up, kicking his board into his hand as he tried to figure out what was going on. She smiled quickly and shook her head—it’s nothing—but before Claire could say anything, Leg yelled out, “Shit, bro. Dirty! Version! They make the best videos. Respect.”
Derrick smiled at Claire, as if she’d been trading secrets to score points with Dark and Leg. It embarrassed her, because it was true and because now Dark and Leg were staring at her, too, probably thinking the same thing.
“For a bit. Then I got old.”
“You still look pretty solid to me,” God said.
“You sound like Mark-O,” Derrick said, pulling off his helmet and pushing the hair back from his eyes. “But shit. Who knows what will happen?”
“Do they, like, have an old man division?” Leg asked, completely serious.
“Bro,” God said, shaking his head. “He’s, like, twenty-eight.”
Claire laughed with the rest of them, but she couldn’t help but notice how tired Derrick sounded. How uncertain he looked, as if he didn’t believe things would ever change. Both of them stumbling and feeling their way through a dense cloud with no end in sight.
Chapter Four
CLAIRE WOKE UP SORE THE NEXT MORNING, A FACT THAT announced itself suddenly when she first stood up. She had a flash, a memory, of basketball practice—long summer runs through the hills of North Carolina that made her legs rubbery. A time she could barely remember.
And for a split second, her brain turned itself off and functioned normally. She was sore, end of story. There were no other messages, no low-grade terror.
For a single moment, she felt fine.
Derrick was dressed and sitting at the kitchen table when she came into the room. As she was pouring cereal into a bowl, he casually suggested that he could drive her to school, no big deal.
Claire stopped pouring and swallowed once. The bus yesterday. The train a few weeks ago. He was trying to protect her. He didn’t think she was fine.
“That sounds good,” she managed, keeping her back to him as she ate her cereal—so he couldn’t see how hard she was working to fight off the tears of frustration.
They drove slowly through the snow-covered streets.
Derrick turned up a song on the radio, nodding his head thoughtfully with the beat as they waited for the cars in front of them to pull forward in the drop-off lane, every other kid getting out of their car and rushing through the cold without a second thought.
“Well, shit. Look at this.”
At first she thought Derrick was pointing to the school resource officer huddled in the concrete crook of the main building, slowly bringing a steaming cup of coffee to his lips. But just above him were three boys mimicking and mocking every movement the man made.
“Maybe the community college comment got to them,” Derrick said, just as the resource officer looked up and Dark, God, and Leg pushed away from the railing, laughing.
Claire didn’t understand the urge to get out of the car. And maybe it was because she hadn’t moved that fast in months, but when she reached for the door, she couldn’t get it open. Derrick took in the whole sad struggle with the handle.
“What?” Derrick said, still smiling. “Go to school already.”
Once she was out of the car, she tried to walk normally. Not fast, not slow. Just normal. She was so focused, she nearly jumped when she reached the top of the stairs and Leg called out her name.
He held his arms out like he wanted to give her a hug. At first Claire mistook God and Dark’s obvious shock for coldness, the distant way people seemed to treat everybody who hadn’t lived in Minnesota for generations. But then God smiled and, finally, so did Dark.
“So. You go here.” Dark looked even more uncomfortable than he had at the skate park.
“Nah,” Leg said, “she’s stalking you.”
“No . . . I go here,” Claire confirmed, just as the first warning bell rang above them. None of them moved, even though Claire instinctively took a half step toward the door.
“Did you bring your board?” God asked. Claire shook her head. “We’re taking the bus to the Lair after school. You should come.”
Claire was about to say something when the school resource officer came huffing up the stairs.
“The—bell—rang,” he managed.
Leg looked at his wrist, where there was no watch. “Is it that time already?”
Dark smiled and mumbled something to God, who laughed.
“You guys think this is a joke?”
“Not this,” Dark said, nodding at the security guard. “More like, you.”
The cop must’ve thought Claire was an easier target, because even though the three of them were nearly doubled over with laughter, he took Claire by the arm (breathing, breathing) and started pulling her toward the door.
“Bro, let go of her,” God said.
“You need to get to class,” the cop said, ignoring God, Leg, all of them.
Claire was dive-bombing to the bottom of the ocean, unable to speak or do anything other than be dragged to the front door.
“Don’t you see what you’re doing?” Dark asked, wrenching her arm away from the cop.
As soon as he did, Claire shot up to the top of the water, gasping. She ran to class and didn’t look back, didn’t acknowledge the teacher (breathing, breathing) who told her to slow down.
She could barely see when she sat in the too-small desk, trying to pretend that everything was fine.
She was fine.
Dr. Palmer, her language arts teacher, was up at the front of the room trying to keep a large stack of books from falling from her hands, which they did almost immediately.
“Okay, okay . . .” She gave the class a shrug and then swept her hands across the books that now littered her desk, the floor. “Behold the tools for your summative project!”
There were a couple of stereotypical groans, which Dr. Palmer ignored with such completeness they died immediately. She picked up one of the novels and showed the cover to the group.
“Lord of the Flies. Who wants it?”
Nobody raised their hand. And for good reason, Claire thought. She’d read the book as a freshman, writing a paper about Piggie and how he was essentially the only female character, as he was always quoting his aunt.
Dr. Palmer tossed the book toward a kid in the front row. “Okay, Argus. You probably need to read that one.” Claire didn’t know Argus or whether he knew the plot of the novel, but the look of shock on his face was enough for Dr. Palmer to crack a smile. Before he had a chance to respond, complain—anything—Palmer picked up another book.
“The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison. Never heard of it? Well, now your life is about to be changed.” She threw the book to a girl in the corner, who gave a legitimate shriek when it landed on her desk. “I know. Wait until you read it.”
Dr. Palmer continued throwing books across the room, one by one, until it was just Claire and a kid who was somewhat sleeping in the back of the classroom, despite all the flying literature.
Dr. Palmer held up two more books—Frankenstein and Leaves of Grass. Claire didn’t hesitate when Palmer tossed both books between her and the sleepy boy. She grabbed Frankenstein and quickly went back to her seat.
The boy looked up at Dr. Palmer dreamily.
“Andrew, your life just got a lot more complicated.”
The assignment sounded simple enough. Read the book. Find a personal connection. Write, draw, construct a demonic temple in its honor—it didn’t matter what—but respond in some way. It was the oldest of teacher tricks and, normally, Claire would be thankful, if not downright jubilant, for this sort of slam-dunk project.
Instead, she stared at the back of the book and read the synopsis for the thousandth time.
She’d first read Frankenstein her sophomore year for a similar, equally forgettable assignment. But unlike so many things in high school, the book had stuck to her in a way she hadn’t expected—in a way that had brought some ribbing from her friends when she kept reading it again and again, carrying the tattered paperback everywhere.
And now it lit up parts of her life that she’d forgotten, like a pinball shooting through her. Had she almost gotten into a fight with Chris Thompson because he’d made fun of the cover’s dramatic illustration? Did Coach Harris tell her to “close that book and get your mind right” on the bus before the Maiden game? For months, the book—the sheer audacity of it—lived inside of her.
But eventually she just stopped carrying it around. Eventually she moved on, chasing whatever new thing had traipsed into her brain. Back when she didn’t feel like the one being chased.
She was still staring at the description when the bell rang. And when Dr. Palmer asked if she was okay, she jumped up—feeling the weight of the book in her hand as she walked through the hallways. The weight in her backpack when she got to her next class and the teacher told them to clear their desks for a test. It was something like nostalgia, but not quite, hovering over her and begging her to . . . what? Open the book? Remember that time in her life? Whatever it was, she spent the next three periods trying to shake the hold it had on her brain.
At lunch she saw God waving at her across the cafeteria—no, waving her toward a table that was already packed. Claire shook her head out of habit, even smiled, but God didn’t hesitate. He stood up and jogged over to her.
“Hey, I didn’t realize you had C lunch. Come sit with us.”
Claire opened her mouth to say something, come up with some excuse that would make it clear how much she didn’t want to join a table of people she didn’t know, thank you very much. But God was too quick again.
“What else are you going to do? Sit alone?”
“Well, yeah,” she finally said. “Exactly.”
God started laughing hard and loud.
“C’mon.”
And then he started walking back to the table.
Claire knew she could easily just walk to her normal spot in the corner, a sparse table of garden-variety introverts. People who barely made eye contact, let alone risked starting up an actual conversation. She’d have to force herself toward God’s table, and it would take every ounce of strength and determination she had. But the first step didn’t. And neither did the second. And soon she was following God. Just a girl walking across a cafeteria.
“This is Claire,” God said to the table, which greeted her collectively. Leg gave her a nod but went back to the animated discussion he was having with a girl sporting hair dyed such a deep blue it was almost black.
“You’re in my language arts class,” another girl said, pushing up her chunky glasses as she spoke. “Dr. Palmer. First period?”
Claire nodded, realizing that she was still standing, and suddenly her body wouldn’t work in that same effortless way it had only moments ago. She was so concerned with trying to make her body sit down, she completely forgot the girl talking, who was looking at her friends like, Does it speak?
“Yes,” Claire forced out. “Dr. Palmer.”
“Have you seen her Yo
uTube channel?” Leg said, suddenly interested in the conversation. It drew the girl away enough that Claire could breathe for a second and when she did, something loosened inside her.
One more breath. A second. By the third, she could sit.
“Yeah, it’s all about, like, how she and her husband make ancient weaponry.”
“She’s so fucking cool,” the girl with the glasses said.
“Like, they’re building an actual trebuchet in their backyard,” Leg said, absolutely giddy to share this information. “I keep asking for an invite to her house, but you know . . . teacher-student boundaries and all that.”
They were still talking about Dr. Palmer when God reached over and got Claire’s attention.
“So, after school. You in?”
Before, in North Carolina, Derrick liked to give her hell about her social schedule—he annoyingly called it her calendar—but she’d had the same friends since kindergarten.
She went out all the time. Driving through the warm North Carolina summer nights with the windows down. Shouting lyrics to their favorite songs. It wasn’t every single night, the way Derrick would claim, but it was pretty close.
Sometimes it rose up and presented itself to her in the middle of the night. Everything she was missing. How she wouldn’t walk across the graduation stage between the two people she’d been stuck between for nearly seventeen years—Lona Cooper and Chad Dell. It used to annoy her whenever seating charts came out at the beginning of the year, but now it made her ache for home.
“And besides, you kind of owe Dark,” God said.
“What?”
Her voice shot up unexpectedly. God laughed again. She looked up and down the table, expecting to see Dark smiling sheepishly, in on whatever gag they were trying to pull. But he wasn’t at the table—had he been?
“The rent-a-cop got him. I don’t know if he’s suspended, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“That dude’s not even a rent-a-cop,” Leg said, momentarily looking up from his phone. “More like a layaway cop.”