“I’ll pay half,” I offer, leaning over to look at the price tag. My eyes practically bug out. Jack waves the envelope I gave him the money in.
“You already have.”
We drive back to the Red Fern parking lot in silence. I busy myself with my phone, trying not to see the white knuckles Jack has on the steering wheel.
“You must be tired,” I say when he pulls into the parking lot and I get out. “Get some rest, okay? And thanks for the practice date! Not that I’ll ever need to practice, since, you know, it’s never going to happen, but it was a nice thought. I had fun.”
“You’ll have more fun,” Jack says, hands in his pockets and a faintly pained look in his eyes. “You’ll go on more dates, with other guys. And you’ll have fun.”
I shake my head. “I won’t. I told you – that kind of stuff isn’t for me.”
“It is.” Jack insists. “You’ll fall in love someday.”
I laugh. “Nope. Never again. It’s been three years, and it’ll be a hundred more. Drive safe, okay?”
I whirl around and start walking to my car. I swear I feel fingers glance over my hand, but they pull away just as quickly. Or maybe it was the wind. I don’t look back. I drive home. When I check on her room Mom is mercifully asleep, safe and sound. I pull my shirt off as soon as I can and throw it in the closet to rot.
Beautiful.
***
Part of me wanted to grab her. To pull her back. To hold her.
Another part of me knew she’ll hate the first man to do it after so long.
And the third part of me is afraid. Afraid at her conviction. Afraid of how convinced she is that she’ll never love again. Afraid of how pretty she looked in that blouse. Afraid of how sad she sounded when she convinced herself I didn’t mean what I said.
I am afraid of the things I am beginning to feel.
Because I haven’t felt anything new, for anyone new, for so long.
***
I wake up to Kayla’s texts filled with smiley faces and exclamation marks, describing her date – how kind Jack was, how good the food they ate was, and how he kissed her like he loved her. She’s going to ask him out again on Monday, and she thanks me a million times for whatever I did to get him to go out with her.
Mom’s at the table, sipping coffee.
“Sleep well?” I ask.
Mom smiles and nods. “Pretty well. You must’ve gotten in late, I didn’t hear you. Did you have fun?”
I recall the sushi place, and how delicious it was. I remember the tea and puking and Jack’s soft eyes –
Beautiful
“Yeah,” I force a smile. “It was fun.”
“Boys?”
“Just one.”
Mom quirks a brow, smiling. “Oh really? Not a dozen guys, this time? Just one? He must be special. Care to tell me about him?”
“Nothing happened! I just - there was a guy.”
“Booze?”
“Not even a bit of sake.”
“So it was a sushi place? With a boy? Sounds very suspect, young lady. Did you use protection?”
“Mom!” I snap, my face heating. “I’ve told you repeatedly; boys have cooties and bad hygiene. No one likes them except other boys and people with no sense of smell.”
“So I can expect you to bring home a girl one of these days? I’ll try to act shocked.” She smiles.
“I’m not bringing anyone home!” I wail. “I know it’s hard to believe, but some people my age aren’t entirely obsessed with the idiotic game called dating! Some of us have lives! And generally higher goals than messing around in the mud with the opposite sex. I’ve got colleges to apply to! And friends to hang out with! And an entire life to plan!”
“Whatever you say,” Mom singsongs, smiling knowingly. I take out a pan and start the burner, taking out a few eggs and slices of bacon. I can feel Mom’s eyes on my back, watching me, contemplating how much I’ve grown up or something equally annoyingly parental. The smell of sizzling bacon fat fills the kitchen. The birds chirp outside, sun streaming through the curtains. It’s beautiful.
Beautiful.
My skin prickles as his voice reverberates in my head. It makes me fumble with the pan and nearly sends all of breakfast casually crashing to the floor. Goddamn him! Even if he didn’t mean it, it still sticks in my head, like a grass thistle in my clothes.
And to put the shit-cherry on top of a shit-sundae, I can’t even lash out at him over it. The war is over.
I know that from how happy Kayla seemed. With her now satiated, I have no reason to attack him, other than general dislike and boredom. And those are petty. So petty I don’t know if I’ll have the heart to fight him with them.
It’s over.
I’m supposed to be happy. I won, more or less. Or we ended on equal terms, with me slightly winning. Or am I losing? Did him calling me that awfully wrong word mean he won? Does it even matter who won or lost? It’s over, and now I have nothing to look forward to. Nothing to scheme, nothing to plot for. Just emptiness where the war used to be. And somehow it hurts more than it should. I’d gotten so used to it, to exchanging barbed words with Jack whenever we passed in the hall or catcalling him with insults that I’ve forgotten how to be normal. Do I just smile at him? No, that’s repulsively, completely, definitely gross. All the other girls do that.
I spend the rest of the day finishing my college applications. I stare at them all – Seattle, Oregon – and secretly I know I’m only going to be sending off the one to Ohio State. It’s the closest. It’s the only one that’ll let me still look after Mom and get a college career at the same time. I don’t have siblings – I’m the only person she has left. I can’t leave her, hurt her like everyone else has. I dipped into my Europe travelling fund to pay for Kayla’s date last night. I’ve pretty much all but given up on that dream, anyway.
But it’s for the best. It’s the right choice. Not the one I wanna do, but the right one. And that’s all that matters.
-13-
3 Years
19 Weeks
0 Days
If it’s one thing in this world I’m certain of, it’s this: Jack Hunter’s gotta die.
Or he can cry like a huge nerd.
I’m not picky.
He’s stepped over the line one too many times. Now it’s faded and scuffed and I’ll have to draw it back on with paint, carefully, and it’ll probably take hours and my back will get sore and honestly he had no right to kiss me or take me on a date even if they were fake and he certainly, absolutely, positively had zero right to call me beautiful without my express permission. It was uncalled for and mostly a huge fat lie and lying is punishable by death. Or it should be. Uh, except for me. Because I’ve lied a lot. To Mom, to Dad. To myself. I should get exiled instead. To Maui.
I park and give an explosive sigh into my car. The war might be over, and I might be exhausted, but I have to get him back one last time. Just once, for messing with my feelings. Not that he did. Just, uh, he sort of kind of toyed with them, but I knew it was fake all along, so he didn’t really. But still. The fact he even said those lies to me objectively deserves some sort of minor capital punishment.
Also, because Jack is now going out with Kayla.
I get out of the car and make my way to Principal Evans’ office.
The first day Kayla grabbed Jack’s hand and he let her and they walked down the halls together, you could practically hear the hearts of a hundred ladies breaking in two. Poetry girl had burned her notebook. Dramaclub Wailer performed the greatest tragic screaming monologue from Shakespeare the drama teacher had ever seen. The girl who’s making the statue almost smashed it, but the art teacher convinced her to put it aside and finish it later, when she was in a better state of mind. A huge majority of lady teachers took sick leave to go cry into tubs of ice cream and watch Sex and the City.
I see the legendary couple as I walk through the quad before the morning bell. They’re sitting on a bench. Kayla kisses him on the
cheek, and he nods. Just nods, doesn’t smile. Doesn’t say thanks or kisses her back. It’s like he’s just tolerating her. But Kayla can’t see that.
She gets death threats in her locker and nasty glares, so I’ve taken it on myself to be her personal bodyguard. I just never say that out loud. It just sort of is. Homeland security for Kayla. And her fabulous breasts. Kayla’s so wrapped up in love, she’s all but oblivious to everything else, so that means I get to pull hair and wave warning fingers and punch a few harlots. Or five harlots. Evans isn’t happy.
The secretary, now completely used to my venerable presence, waves me through. I throw my backpack on the ground and flop in a chair.
He folds his hands on his desk and sighs.
“The papers are right there.”
I pull the stack of papers towards me, and get out a pen. In exchange for not being expelled like I was at my previous school, I get to help Evans grade math homework. He somehow found out it’s the one thing I’m good at, probably from Mrs. Gregory, the snitch. I knew I should’ve played dumb in her class.
He usually drinks coffee and answers emails, but today he watches me work. I flip through papers, making tiny tick marks and writing the correct answer by each wrong one. The first day he offered the answer sheet to me, but I brushed it off. He later checked my work against it. After that he hasn’t offered the answer sheet again.
“You are very good at this, Isis.”
“Yup.”
“Your SATs were rather miserable, though. Why is that?”
I sneer. “Well golly gee, Mr. E. Maybe it was because I didn’t eat breakfast that morning! Or maybe it was because I had explosive diarrhea! Or maybe it was because I was going through a bit of an emotional crisis! I was eighty-five pounds, with a boy -”
Ugly.
“- with some problems! Wow. A teenager with problems. Imagine that.”
He glowers and takes a sip of coffee. We both know I haven’t forgiven him for the picture incident, and I never will.
“You should take them again,” He insists. “There’s still time, before college applications are due. You could get a very high score.”
“And make your school look even better,” I mumble. Mr. Evans frowns.
“Come now, Isis. It’s not just about our reputation. Any school would be happy to have a female who can do math so well and easily. And according to your report card, your English isn’t bad at all. You could go to some very prestigious schools with those kinds of SATs. You could further your own life; make a great start for yourself.”
“Ohio State is fine with me.”
Mr. Evans laughs, and then when he realizes I’m not joking, his face falls.
“Isis, are you serious? I’m talking MIT, UCLA. State is for people who aren’t smart enough or aren’t rich enough for anywhere else. You could go where you wanted! Wherever you wanted in the country! Possibly out of the country! There are programs in China, Brazil, Europe!”
I flinch at the last word and scribble an answer.
“I-I have no interest in travelling. It’s full of rude people and food poisoning.”
Mr. Evans falls silent, and watches me work for a while longer. I press on, determined to ignore his gaze. Finally, he turns his computer on and starts answering emails.
Wren comes up to me at lunch. Kayla’s stopped sitting with me long ago, instead sitting with Jack at his usual empty table. She tries to feed him soup and he grimaces, but she laughs. She sees me staring and waves, smiling. Jack looks at me, and I quickly turn around and bury myself in my PB and J. Wren stares at the couple with his intense green gaze.
“It’s true then? They’re really going out?”
“You just heard about that now?”
He shrugs. “I’ve been working in the council office most of the last few weeks. Crunch time is coming for the budgets, and I’m training Miranda to succeed my position when I leave next year, and the food bank was broken into last night, and they can’t afford a new lock, so I called in some favors with Arnold’s locksmith father –”
Wren sees my eyes glazing and sighs.
“Sorry. I’m rambling about completely uninteresting things.”
“Duh. But that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry. It sounds rough.”
“It’s just presidential duties,” He smiles wanly. His eyes flick over to where Kayla is laughing at something Jack said. His stare dulls, eyes almost ashamedly looking away.
“You like her,” I say. It isn’t a question. I expect Wren to get flustered, or change the subject, but he just stares at Kayla again, and nods.
“Yes.”
“And Avery was pushing her towards you for a while.”
“To get funds for her club. I know how she works. But I –” Wren looks wistfully at Kayla over my shoulder. “Kayla was paying attention to me on her orders. But I tried to push that out, and just focus on her attention. Kayla, talking to me and listening to me and laughing with me, when she’d never even given me the time of day before. I tried to…selfishly pretend she was doing it because she wanted to, not under Avery’s orders.”
Wren falls quiet. I touch his hand.
“Shit, dude. I’m sorry.”
Wren smiles. “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine. But as long as she’s happy –” He looks to her again. “ – Then I’ll be alright.”
“You’re a good guy.”
“No,” Wren laughs. “I’m a stupid guy. And Jack’s a frightening guy. So I’ll watch from afar, and make sure he won’t hurt her. Even if that’s creepy, and pathetic.”
“It’s not. It’s sensible!”
“Avery’s pissed too,” Wren says, jerking his head to Avery and her tableful of likewise fashionably dressed girls. Avery glowers at Kayla, stabbing her salad with unnecessary enthusiasm.
“Why?”
“Kayla stopped talking to me. Fake-flirting. Avery came to me this morning and tried to flirt instead, but I wouldn’t have it. I guess Kayla refused to take Avery’s orders.”
I smile, pride welling in my chest. “She’s getting stronger.”
“Yeah,” Wren murmurs. “But at what cost? What if Jack – what if he –”
Wren takes a bite of burrito and swallows nervously.
“What did he do, Wren, back in middle school? Give me a hint. Just one tiny dust bunny-sized hint.”
Wren’s silent, glowering.
“Avery told me she hired guys from her parent’s docks. She said she hated Sophia. What did she hire them to do? I know you know. I know you were there when it happened.”
He flinches.
“Avery told me to film it. That’s the only reason I was there. I was head of the film club in middle school. I had access to all the cameras, so she bribed me into coming to the park and hiding in the bushes with her and filming it.”
“Filming what?” I hiss.
The lunch bell rings before he can answer, and he gets up and leaves quickly, shame crippling his face.
I walk alongside Jack and Kayla as they go to their next class. I zap a revenge-suspect with a glare, and she veers off course with her handful of shaving cream. That’s right, keep walking. There’ll be no shaving-cream-on-Kayla-lovely-face today, thank you very much. Or, if there is, I will shave you. Down to the bone.
“You’re making threats aloud,” Jack deadpans.
“It’s good for business,” I chime. Kayla smiles, and links her other arm with mine.
“I’ve got two of my favorite people right here. It’s amazing. You’re amazing!”
I shoot her a sheepish smile and she ruffles my hair. How could I have ever been jealous of such an innocent, lovely girl? I’m ashamed of myself, a hot knot working its way into my throat, chock full of guilt. She deserves a better friend than me. She deserves castles and kingdoms and all the fairytale endings that still exist in this meager world. All of them should be hers.
She kisses Jack on the cheek and goes into the Chem lab. Jack and I stand outside the door, each with different classe
s, but a tense thread rooting us to our place in front of the mottled glass.
Jack speaks without looking at me.
“You’re happy.”
“Generally, yeah.”
“No. Not generally. Generally you’re miserably sad and dour, hiding it behind the jokes and passionate outbursts. You’re like fire. But it’s a sickly fire. Everyone can see that.”
I open my mouth to argue, when he interrupts.
“But when you’re with Kayla, when she’s happy and smiling at you, that fire turns. It goes from sick to full, healthy, lively. She makes you happy.”
“She’s the first friend I’ve ever really had.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Why are you cheating on Sophia with her?”
He doesn’t flinch, but his eyes splinter with a fraction of pain.
“I’m not cheating. I visit Sophia every week – ”
“But why go out with Kayla all of a sudden? I thought…I thought you didn’t really like her? You kept saying she’s annoying. So why go out with her?”
Jack fixes his icy eyes on me, hair falling into them a little. He doesn’t answer, and pivots and strides away, the crowd parting around him. For him.
***
Isis looked up at me with those warm, burning, flame-mahogany eyes and asked me.
“So why go out with her?”
She’s oblivious. I still don’t believe it myself. But I know it’s the right thing to do.
She has no idea how much Kayla’s smile makes her smile. Unconscious, soft grins form on her face when she looks at a happy Kayla, and full-blown joy crackles across her features when she laughs with Kayla. Kayla reminds her of who she used to be, maybe – naïve and innocent.
But as Isis cocks her head and waits for my answer, she doesn’t realize in that moment she’s just as innocent as Kayla. She’s never been loved. She’s only given love. She has no idea why someone like me would go out with her friend, if only to make her friend happy, and her happy in turn. As long as Kayla can kiss my cheek and talk about Vogue and Nicki Minaj with me, Isis smiles. Real, true smiles. Smiles free of pain or jaded bitterness. Isis truly doesn’t believe anyone would like her enough to kiss her, let alone do something to make her smile. There’s no coyness in her question. She simply has no idea what it’s like to be loved.