With a frown, I shrugged. “I’m really not sure. We were playing video games. I was…well…I wasn’t paying attention. He got mad. Said I was using him to get close to you.”
“Are you?”
I was about to retort when I saw the teasing glint in her eyes. “Julie, I don’t know what’s going on with him. I mean, the mood swings—I never know which way he’s gonna go.” I blew out a loud breath.
“I warned you. He’s got a lot of problems.”
“No, you said Jeff has problems.” I smiled and then shrugged. “Besides, I just…I thought I could help.”
She leaned over and kissed me, a soft, barely there touch to the corner of my mouth. “It’s pretty great that you tried. I just would have minded my own business.”
Heh. She’s smarter than you.
I mentally cursed Kenny and curled my arm around Julie, pulling her closer. “I think it’s pretty great that you tried too. You know…lunch. And the haircut.”
“I…well, I don’t want Brandon to do what my brother did. If I can help, I will.” Her shoulders lifted in a brief shrug and then she wrinkled her nose. “Um, Dan? No offense, but you’re gross.” She puffed out her cheeks, pretending to hold her breath.
I pulled away with a groan while Kenny nearly wet himself laughing. “I just ran like three miles.”
“I know,” she said and held up both hands. “I’m just sayin’.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a stick of deodorant in there, would you?” I tugged at the bag. “Moist wipes?”
“No.” She frowned. “But that’s a really good idea.” She took out a pad and pen and actually made a note.
Laughing, I opened her door. “It’s cold, and like you said, I need a shower. I’ll follow you home.”
She got out of the car, slung the bag over her shoulder, and headed back to her car. Just before she slid behind the wheel, she grinned at me. In that moment, something happened to me.
Admit it, bro. We love her.
“Kenny.” I swallowed. “What the hell am I gonna do?”
————
The next few weeks passed in a blur. Lisa, Paul, Julie, and I spent all our afternoons practicing for the big speech at the end of the semester.
Which was Friday, just two days from now.
Julie and I had no more cold-shoulder moments, and even though I knew they’d had nothing to do with me, I hated that she didn’t trust me enough to let me help.
And that was usually when Kenny would butt in with some snarky reminder that I still didn’t trust her much either. I tried explaining the difference between didn’t and couldn’t, but Kenny was a stubborn ass. That was usually when the door to his room would slam deep inside my brain and the rap music would rattle my teeth.
Kenny and I kept fighting about telling Julie the truth—the whole story, my real name, and why I’d changed it. So, I had a long talk with my dad about it one night after dinner.
“Something on your mind, bud?” Dad took a brick of ice cream out of the freezer, grabbed a few bowls. “You’re quieter than usual.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Let me guess. Julie.” He dug out a pair of spoons, nudged the drawer shut with a hip.
“Dad…I think…well.” I chickened out. “I like her. A lot.”
Come on, dude. Just spill it, Kenny groaned in my mind.
Dad filled a bowl, slid it over the kitchen counter to me, then hit the cupboards for toppings. “So…did you tell her…everything?”
I shrugged and poured some fudge topping over my bowl. “I want to, Dad. But I’m—”
“Still scared?” He added a spoonful of sprinkles to his dish and one to mine.
Disgusted. Ashamed. Embarrassed. But scared worked too. I blew out a frustrated breath. “Yeah.”
He carved out a spoonful of ice cream, stared at me over the top of it. “Well, it’s not real if you’re not a little bit scared.” He shoved the spoon in his mouth and groaned. “Cookie dough. Good stuff.”
Real. Oh, crap.
Kenny’s gasp deep inside my brain halted the spoon halfway to my mouth. I let out a long, slow sigh. Real?
“Uh-oh. You look the way you did when you found out Pop was Santa Claus.”
“Dad.” I dropped the spoon in the bowl and waved my hand in the air, trying to find the right words. “I don’t…I mean…how do I—”
Dad grinned around another spoonful of ice cream. “How do you know if it’s real?”
I swallowed. Shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Okay.” He leaned over the counter. “You like her, right? Can you imagine living with her?”
My eyes popped. Me and Julie? Living together?
Whoa, Kenny whispered.
I thought of the bag and her eyeglasses collection. I thought of reading Harry Potter books and walking Hagrid. I imagined us working together at side-by-side desks, the way we did on our speech project, except we were older and had real jobs. No, wait—we’d have careers. We’d discuss each other’s days. I would help her when her dad upset her, and she’d trust me.
Fingers snapped under my nose, and I jerked.
“Okay then. The goofy grin on your face tells me you can imagine living with Julie very well.”
I nodded enthusiastically.
“Now imagine living without her.”
My goofy grin disappeared.
“When you’re sure…when you feel it deep down in your gut…when you’d rather suffer in hell sitting through back-to-back chick flicks or enduring endless hours of shopping, holding her bags just so you wouldn’t have to live a day without her, that’s how you know it’s real.”
I considered that for a minute. Could I live without her?
I can’t. Neither can you.
“Give it some more time before you decide to tell her. See if she feels the same way, you know?” Dad polished off another spoonful.
That was what Mom said. I bit back a smile.
“So, what’s happening with your friend Brandon?”
I shoveled in more ice cream. “He’s mad at me. Thinks I’m using him just to get to Julie.”
“Are you?”
“No!”
Bull.
I dropped my spoon. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Okay, see this from his point of view. School started how many months ago, and you’ve never invited Brandon over here.”
I stared at the ice cream melting in my bowl and sighed. Crap.
“He lives next door to Julie, so—” Dad rolled his hands.
“Okay. I get it. I’ll fix it.”
“Good man.” He clapped my back. “I’m going upstairs to bother your mom.” He headed for the door. “Oh, one more thing. If this thing with you and Julie does get…you know, real…you be safe, okay?”
I shut my eyes. “Oh God. Dad.” I let my head fall to the counter.
“Okay, okay. Just checking.” He held up his hands. “Good talk.”
Awkward, Kenny sang.
Toughen Up, Buttercup
Friday morning arrived, gloomy and freakin’ cold. Snow was in the forecast. It was our last day before a week-long Christmas break.
And it was “speech day.”
I had practiced for so many hours. I’d dreamed about the damn speech. I had index cards of notes tucked in my back pocket. Wait—I patted my pocket just to make sure—yep.
You faced a judge sentencing you to juvenile detention, and this has you nervous?
My mouth went dry. I’d passed nervous and was now heading into panic attack territory. On the way to the lockers, I saw Paul and Lisa. They waved, asked me if I was ready for the speech. I shrugged, but I didn’t stop to chat. I was a man on a mission. I strode with single-minde
d purpose directly to Julie’s locker, where she stood in front of the open door.
I skidded to a halt, abruptly blank and sweaty and embarrassed and totally drained of confidence. “Um. Hey.” I smiled wide. She wore jeans, boots, and a soft sweater nearly the same shade as her eyes, plain wire frames around them.
Julie jolted, whirled. Gave me a tight smile, the kind that showed no teeth, and then turned away. “Hey.”
The smile fell from my face. Julie kept her head in the locker, flipping through books, hanging up her jacket. I finished my inventory, and she still hadn’t said anything else. She still wouldn’t look at me.
I gave her the benefit of the doubt. “Nervous?”
“I’m fine,” she said over her shoulder and removed every last shred.
After all that talking. And the kissing. And we were back to this? Cold seeped into my pores. I wanted to take her in my arms, shove her against her locker, and force her to look at me. When my hands twitched, I whipped around and walked away, my shoes squeaking from the speed.
What the hell are you doing? Go back. Kenny poked me.
“No,” I said out loud, not giving a crap that half the damn corridor heard me. I was done with this. Done, period, full stop. I was done with the whole does-she-or-doesn’t-she-like-me issue. We had a speech to make, so I strode to the auditorium by myself.
“Dan!”
I spun and saw Brandon behind me. I waited, not patiently, for him to catch up.
“So. Speech day. You, uh, okay?” He grinned.
“Uh.” I’d caught sight of Julie coming down the corridor. “Yeah. Speech day.”
The smile waned a bit. “You still up for watching a movie tonight?”
“Yeah, sure.”
The smile disappeared. “Hey, look, if you have better things to do, I get it.”
“Brandon, it’s fine. I wouldn’t have invited you over if I had better things to do.”
Shut up, idiot.
As the words fell out of my mouth, I wished I could suck them back in. Brandon’s face reddened, and his eyes drifted down.
“Shit, Brandon. I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah, no problem. I…um…have something else going on tonight anyway.”
And he was gone.
The sound of slow clapping filled my head. Nice job, moron.
I gritted my teeth on my way inside the auditorium. I would fix things as soon as the speech was over.
Dozens of kids filled the seats. Panic descended on me like sharks on chum. Classes had been suspended this morning for the big event.
Terrific.
I breathed and tried to remind myself that we’d practiced until we were hoarse. We were ready.
We hoped.
By the strength of sheer willpower alone, I stopped obsessing over Julie and Brandon and went over the speech plan one more time before we took the stage. We’d agreed that the girls would argue against the proposal while Paul and I would argue in favor. Paul and Lisa didn’t care that much one way or the other, but Julie and I had strong opinions. No matter what I said, how much evidence I showed her, she remained stubbornly convinced that a “duty to respond” clause was a bad idea. I was just as strongly convinced it was good. According to the assignment, each of us would take turns presenting an argument. Paul would go first as a proponent of the law, with Julie next as an opponent. Then I would talk, and we’d end with Lisa.
The hard part was what came after the speech—the rebuttal. We’re supposed to take notes during each other’s talks and then ask a question that could be twisted around to prove your own point. I hadn’t been very good at this in our practice sessions. So we’d tried to plan this part by preparing questions ahead of time. My questions and responses were printed on the cards I’d tucked into my pocket.
Holy crap.
My knees were already knocking. I was sweating and suddenly needed to pee.
So let’s sign up for another speech class next term.
Not helping, Kenny.
But Kenny, traitor that he was, chuckled deep in my mind and left me to twist.
It was two minutes. Just two minutes. I could talk for two minutes without choking, right? I wasn’t going to puke. Nobody was going to laugh. It was all going to be just fine.
Toughen up, buttercup.
I couldn’t stop the irrational giggle that left my lips. Julie walked through the auditorium’s side door, her eyes looking everywhere but at me, Paul and Lisa following behind. I stopped laughing after that.
We waited anxiously behind the drawn curtain, the first group up, probably the only good thing about the whole ordeal. Mr. Williams agreed to let us sit two to a table. When we addressed the audience, we would have to stand but, thankfully, not at the podium. We would also be wearing lapel mics, which, I was willing to bet, would broadcast the pounding of all four hearts across the auditorium.
Mr. Williams stood on the other side of the curtain, explaining the format to the assembly. I took another look at Julie, who immediately turned her head.
As soon as the speech is over, take care of this, bro.
Oh, I intended to.
I shrugged when Paul looked at Julie and then at me, his eyebrows raised. I knew as much as he did about her moods. We sat on the stage, and I tried not to swallow my tongue when the curtains parted with a soft swish. I didn’t look at the faces I could make out under the bright lights. Some of them would be bored. Others would be thrilled at not having regular classes today. I would have paid good money to exchange places with any of them, even if I had to steal the good money first. Wish I’d thought of that sooner.
Mr. Williams introduced our topic. “Resolved. Existing Good Samaritan laws should be expanded to include a ‘duty to respond’ provision.”
A few seconds after the bored applause faded, I elbowed Paul in the ribs, and he climbed to his feet, leaving his notes on the table in front of us. I suddenly remembered mine, fished the cards out of the rear pocket of my jeans, and fanned them out on the table.
“Paul Oliva, arguing in support of the resolution.” Paul’s voice shook. I heard him suck in air and start the speech, leading off with a list of crimes in which people were killed while witnesses did nothing, like the 1964 Kitty Genovese case, Princess Diana’s death in 1997, and the rape and murder of a little girl in a casino bathroom while the killer’s friend watched. He ended with the major ethical philosophies that supported our law.
But my eyes stayed glued to Julie. Each time Paul nailed one of his points, Julie moved a note card to the pile on the table in front of her. My hands went damp.
“Time,” Mr. Williams said, and I jerked in my seat.
Paul sat beside me, sighing heavily. I gave him a nod.
Julie stood and pushed her glasses up.
“I’m Julie Murphy, arguing against the resolution.”
Julie’s voice didn’t tremble at all, which both impressed and upset me.
“In 2004, a woman pulled her coworker from the wreckage of a car, leaving the victim a paraplegic. Crash investigators later said the victim could have walked away from the accident if someone who knew what he was doing had rescued her instead.”
Paul elbowed me. Right. We’d practiced this one. I knew what to say. I grabbed one of my cards from the table, moved it to the front of my deck, and waited for Julie to finish her argument.
“This law is trying to legislate morality. That violates our rights and fails Kant’s categorical imperative test because there’s no way you can predict the right response in all situations,” she argued.
I wiped damp palms on my pants and added another card to my response deck.
“That 1964 example? What if the widowed mother of several children tried to stop it and got herself killed? That would have left her children o
rphaned, so doing nothing was the right thing for this mother to do,” Julie finished with a sigh of relief.
“Time.”
Crap. I was sweating in rivers now. Where the hell had Julie pulled all that from? I barely had time to make a note of her point when Mr. Williams called time. I was up next.
I stood, drew in a deep breath and began. “Daniel Ellison, arguing in favor of the resolution.” My voice shook. No surprise there. I sucked in another breath to calm myself and locked eyes with Julie. Suddenly, there was nobody else in the room but her. I didn’t need to convince Mr. Williams or the assembly or the faculty. I only needed to convince her that this law had merit.
“Mr. Ellison, ninety seconds left.”
I jerked and cursed myself for wasting time.
“Um. Sorry,” I mumbled, drawing another deep breath. “The Constitution protects our rights with a system of government that passes laws. For example, there is a law that says parents have to rescue children. There is a law that says married people have to rescue spouses. And there are laws that say doctors, police, and firefighters have to rescue people when off duty. It’s pretty clear the law already does legislate morality. But this law isn’t about rescuing people. It’s about responding. Just open a cell phone, call 911, and you’ve complied.” I looked down at one of my cards. Right, I nearly forgot about the categorical imperative. “And because today’s technology addresses special needs, like people with physical handicaps, anyone can make that call. Therefore, the categorical imperative is satisfied as well as the different variations of the Golden Rule preached by all the Abrahamic religions.” I never stopped looking at Julie.
“Time.”
Thank you, God. I blew out a gust of air. I did it. Lisa was up last. I held my breath. So did Kenny.
“Lisa McKenna, arguing against the resolution.” Lisa faced the audience and returned to the major ethical philosophies and said something about how forcing a duty to respond on everybody violates utilitarianism’s maximum happiness principle. I was still watching Julie and hardly heard a word Lisa said.
“Time.”
I jerked back to attention. Julie gave me a mean little smile I didn’t understand. I smiled back, but she would not acknowledge me again.