I wait. It takes forever for Fanboy to pop up online.
I notice Simone and Jecca are on, too. I block them real fast, hopefully before they notice I'm on. I don't want to be interrupted.
Online
Promethea387: Hey.
XianWalker76: Hi.
Promethea387: What's up?
XianWalker76: Not much. Did you look at that comic book?
Promethea387: Not yet.
Promethea387: You're not doing chat-speak anymore.
XianWalker76: Out of deference to you. ☺
XianWalker76: (Hope you don't mind the smiley, though.)
Promethea387: No, smileys are OK.
XianWalker76: You should read the comic. It's really cool.
Promethea387: Right.
XianWalker76: Seriously.
Promethea387: I will.
XianWalker76: u better
XianWalker76: I mean "You better."
XianWalker76: ☹
Promethea387: I've been reading Schemata and I have to be honest with you...
XianWalker76: brb
Promethea387: I think it's totally amazing.
Promethea387: Oops.
Promethea387: OK.
XianWalker76: I'm back. Sorry.
XianWalker76: And thanks!
Promethea387: Where did you go?
XianWalker76: I'm gonna have to get off soon. Mom wants the phone. And she's pissed.
Promethea387: Why?
XianWalker76: She thinks I have an STD or something.
XianWalker76: You still there?
Promethea387: Yeah.
Promethea387: Why does she think that?
XianWalker76: Someone called her today and said they were from the hospital and that I had test results or something.
XianWalker76: She was all freaked out when I got home.
XianWalker76: I've been spending all night trying to calm her down.
XianWalker76: But she's still not sure and she's pissed.
XianWalker76: She's like, "Why would someone call and say that if it's not true?"
XianWalker76: And I don't know what to tell her except that it's not true.
XianWalker76: You know?
Promethea387: Yeah. That really sucks.
Promethea387: I guess you should go.
XianWalker76: c-ya 2morrow
Fifty-eight
I STARE AT THE EMPTY IM SCREEN for a little while. I feel proud. I feel like shit.
I feel like proud shit.
It worked. Simone's mean prank worked. Fanboy's mom is pissed at him. He's getting shit at home.
And now I should be on to the next step—sorting through the Schemata pages, plotting the world's most perfect, most embarrassing, most devastating revenge.
But when I look at the pages, I don't feel anger or that little thrilling tickle I get when I do something mean to someone who deserves it. I just feel sad.
Just remember, Kyra: A little revenge and this, too, shall pass.
My cell phone beeps. i jst 8 half a pizza
Jecca.
What the hell is it with her? What the hell is it with me? It's not like we're in love. What are we? What are we doing?
I stack up all the pages and crawl into bed. It's early and I'm not tired, but I am tired of thinking.
The Dreaming
IT'S ALL A DREAM.
I know it's all a dream.
But I keep forgetting.
And then remembering.
It's called "lucid dreaming." I looked it up once. It's when you're dreaming and you know you're dreaming, so sometimes you can actually control the dream, if you really want to. And other times you just let it unfold, but even that is controlling the dream because you're deciding not to interfere. Which means you're telling the dream, "You keep doing what you're doing." Which is still some kind of control, right?
Right?
Dreams are confusing. Like, there's a scene in Sandman—I think it's in Brief Lives, but it might have been in Season of Mists— where Dream goes and meets up with Bast, who's this cat goddess. And she says to him, "Are we meeting or am I just dreaming that we're meeting?"
And Dream says, "We're meeting."
And Bast says, "Well, sure, but maybe I'm just dreaming that you said that."
The cool thing is that Dream doesn't deny it. He's just like, "Maybe."
So, you never know with dreams. Like, even in lucid dreaming. Are you really controlling it? Or are you just dreaming that you're controlling it? And is life like that? When we're awake? Are we really doing and thinking things, or are we just imagining that we're doing them? Maybe we're always asleep and that's why life doesn't make sense sometimes, why weird or bad things just happen out of nowhere. Maybe that's why we can't remember everything that's ever happened to us.
I don't know.
But I know I'm dreaming. And I'm at Jecca's house and she says
my rents rnt hme
And even though she's talking out loud, I hear her speaking in chat, somehow.
She's wearing all black again, like she used to, but she's wearing that white lipstick. She leads me out of the family room.
com w me
I let her take my hand and lead me away. For some reason, when we leave the family room we don't go into the little hallway that connects to the kitchen and the rest of the house. Instead, we're in the social studies hallway at school. There are kids all around and I pull my hand from Jecca's.
wut r u doing?
"I thought ... We don't want people to know ... right?"
But no one is paying attention to us. Jecca comes up to me and leans in and kisses me, and since it's a lucid dream, does that mean I made her kiss me? Or is that what would have happened anyway? Is this what I want? To kiss her in the middle of school and have no one notice? And is this what the dream means—that I could kiss her at school and no one would care?
u thnk 2 much, she says.
Now we're on the beach, which should be weird, but it's a dream. Jecca's still wearing the same black outfit. I think to look down at myself. I'm wearing black, too. Was I always wearing black, or did it just appear on me now because I decided to look?
"Where are we going, Jecca?"
2 my room
Right.
She grabs my hand again and we walk along the beach. We're the only ones here. The sun is bright, but I'm not worried about burning because it's just a dream.
"Are we like the chocolate raspberry lovers?" I ask her.
She looks at me like she doesn't know what I'm talking about, which she probably doesn't, even in real life. The sad thing is that it's not just dream-speak. I could explain what I meant, but I suddenly get one of those dream-moments, when your voice doesn't work. I should be able to get past that, right? Because I'm in control. But I can't. So, am I making myself not control my voice? Or is the dream out of my control now?
We're in a forest. Jecca dances, kicking up pine needles and leaves.
almost there
And then it's like I see an aerial map of the whole thing, and it makes perfect sense: I see Jecca's family room and then the school hallway and then the beach and then the forest and then Jecca's room, off to one side.
She opens a door and we're in her bedroom. She throws herself down on the bed.
do u luv me?
"No." I say it so fast that I don't even realize it's out of my mouth until a second later.
She doesn't even flinch. will u have sex w me?
I don't know what to say. I go over to the bed and sit down and then we're kissing, my eyes closed in ecstasy and her hands on me. I can't breathe. My body's on fire. I put a hand on her shoulder, then—I can't help it—I drag it down slowly, over her breast, down her side, down her hip and thigh, then over the thigh, between her legs and...
Something that shouldn't be there.
Hard.
I've never, ever touched a penis in my life. How can I be sure this is what one feels like? How can I know?
&
nbsp; But somehow, I do know. My hand freezes there. Jecca keeps kissing and touching, but is it Jecca? Is it?
I don't want to open my eyes.
I don't want to open my eyes.
I don't want to open my eyes.
I don't want to open my eyes.
Fifty-nine
I OPEN MY EYES.
The clock next to the bed tells me it's not even five in the morning. How long have I been asleep?
What the hell did that dream mean? Did it mean anything? Was it just my mind messing with me? Does it have some kind of significance?
I imagine a comic book panel: I'm standing with Dream, just like Bast did, and he says: Maybe.
Thanks a lot, Lord of Dreams.
I'm wide awake; no sense trying to get back to sleep when I just have to be up for school in another hour.
I ignore the Schemata pages because I'm just not ready for that yet. I don't feel like thinking at all, so I do something Simone does—I look in my closet and just stare at my clothes. Simone calls it "sartorial meditation." Whatever.
It's all black stuff, with the new white stuff all in one corner. I move things around and more colors appear. I do own stuff that's not black or white. My grandmother is always buying me outfits, hoping that maybe I'll change my mind someday. I can't bring myself to throw them away because my grandma is actually sort of OK. So I stick it all in the back of my closet and I tell myself that when she visits I'll wear one of her outfits, but I never manage to do that.
Sartorial meditation does nothing for me. I keep thinking about the dream. About the way it ended.
I bet if I told someone about that dream, they'd be all like, It's so obvious, Kyra. You think you want to make out with Jecca, but in reality, you totally want to be with a guy. Your dream is saying, "You're not gay, Kyra!"
But that's not it. I know it.
Because even though I didn't open my eyes ... It was a lucid dream, see? Lucid. I was in control.
And I know...
It's not just that Jecca had a dick. Or that she somehow magically turned into a guy. That's not it.
She turned into a specific guy.
I know that. Even though I never opened my eyes in the dream.
I know that she became Fanboy.
Christ.
And since I was lucid dreaming ...
Does that mean I made her turn into Fanboy?
Either way, it doesn't matter, I guess. One way or the other, Jecca became Fanboy and I have to deal with that.
I don't want to deal with it.
I don't want to think about it.
But sometimes, the more you try not to think about something, the more you can't help thinking about it. So I'm standing here at my closet and I'm thinking, What would it be like? To kiss him? To be with him? To have him as my boyfriend?
Would we hang out all the time? Would I have dinner at his house? Would I have to hold his baby sister and pretend I thought babies were cute?
Would I help him with Schemata? Would it get even better because of me? Would we sneak down into his room and kiss and fool around a little bit (with the door open, of course, listening carefully for his mom's footsteps on the stairs)? Would we go places and hang out and talk about Schemata and his dad and my mom?
Would I...
I wonder.
I wonder what it would be like.
What would his friends think? What would Cal think? Would it be Hey, check it out—Fanboy's slumming with the psycho goth chick?
Or Hey, dawg Fanboy's gettin'some?
Probably the first one. They all think I'm nuts. And ugly. And a freak with no hair and piercings who wears all one color all the time.
But...
But I don't have to be.
I could ...
Stop it, Kyra.
But I could!
I look in my closet again. I could totally...
I could totally go a different way. I could wear a different bra, one that doesn't compress my boobs so much. And then if I wore a button-down shirt with some of the buttons undone ... and a skirt with the waistband rolled up so that more of my legs show...
I don't even think about it; I just do it. I put on the outfit—white top with my least restrictive bra. I usually button it up to the last button, but this time I undo the top two. Then I undo a third one. Black skirt that usually comes almost to my knees, but I roll it and it's above the knees and when I put on my boots, you get this sexy six inches of leg between the top of the boots and the bottom of the skirt.
I take a step back and look at myself in the mirror.
Another new Kyra. We've had Goth Girl Kyra, White-Out Kyra, ElecTrick Sex Kyra, and now...
Sex Bomb Kyra?
I can't even describe how it makes me feel. This weird, delicious combination of horny, embarrassed, proud, and excited.
What would Fanboy do if he saw me like this?
Would he be like Billy Odenkirk with Simone? Would he expect things and then walk away if I gave them to him?
What would the world do?
Everyone would look. I know that. I have to deal with that. Everyone would look.
OK.
Fine.
Let them look. Whatever. Looking doesn't hurt, right?
So, we would go places. And people would look. At me. With him.
And they would be like ...
I don't know.
I look really...
I turn in front of the mirror. Holy shit. My ass, in this skirt, like this...
Damn. I have a nice ass! Who knew?
People would look and think...
We would go to the comic book store together, maybe. And I would buy some cool Vertigo shit and some cool Top Shelf shit and he would buy, like, The Delectable DildoMan and I would tease him about it, but not in a mean way, and all of the fat, sweaty, pathetic virgins in their forties who work there and shop there would be staring at me and drooling, and they would all be so jealous of Fanboy, and I would be like, Look all you want, you sad, sad effers. I'm not for you. I'll never be for you. I'm for—
Shit. Shit!
What the hell is happening to me?
I don't know. But I know what it would be like. I know.
I stare in the mirror. I thought I'd gotten it down yesterday. When I looked at myself with the ElecTrick Sex lips, when Roger said I looked nice. I thought I'd hit the right combination: Ultimate Kyra.
But now I look pretty effing awesome.
Maybe there's more than one Ultimate Kyra? Is that possible?
My cell goes off. It's Simone: want me 2 pick u up?
God, yes. Better than riding the bus.
Back to the mirror. No way I'm ready for this yet. I get undressed and get a shower and all that. I feel like I'm washing away the night, the dream, all of it. And that's good because I need to get rid of it all. I need it all to go away because it's too much.
Sixty
ONCE I'M OUT OF THE SHOWER, I feel a little bit better. Some of the confusion is gone and some of the anger is coming back, which is nice because anger is easier.
And I have a lot to be angry about, after all. I don't care what I dreamed—Fanboy still betrayed me. He just totally forgot about me while I was DCHH and then when I came back he acted all happy to see me and put that dedication in Schemata just because he felt guilty. So eff him.
And Simone wore all white, even though that was totally my thing.
And Jecca followed Simone and keeps acting all weird and won't even talk to me about what the hell we're doing and then talks about how she's got this big crush on Brad, so what the hell?
Oh, yeah! That feels good! A little righteous anger after your morning shower is good for the soul.
I start pulling stuff out of my closet—old stuff. Black stuff. We'll title this chapter "The Return of Goth Girl" or some shit like that.
Soon, I'm all in black again, except for one thing: a bright blue scarf that I tie over my head. It goes with the ElecTrick Sex. I look friggin'awesome
. My reverse smiley face is pinned on the scarf, right above my ear, and it's perfect.
When I get into Simone's car, she stares at me. She's doing Slut in Virginal White again.
"I thought we were doing white now."
We weren't doing anything. I did something and you copied it. "I feel like mixing things up." I shrug.
She frowns, but then pulls out of the driveway and we're off. We both light up.
"You gotta go to the party tonight," she says.
Christ, not this again. "Whatev, Sim."
"Seriously. Jecca's going, I'm going, a whole mess of cool people are going. You gotta go."
"I hate that shit. God, Sim! You know that."
"You went to the party at Jecca's the other night."
"That was different. That was agoth party. A quiet party. That was all people I know. I hate being around all those douchebags I don't know, all those dumb-ass popular people."
"Fine, fine." She blows smoke.
I look at my cigarette. I've barely smoked it at all. I suck it deep, deep into my lungs. My head goes fuzzy and my lungs go orgasmic. Go ahead, lung cancer. Kill me. I dare you. Guess what? You can't. I'm stronger than my mom.
The Last Time I Saw Her
the room the room the room is rosevomit because
roger left roses and
mom threw up before i came in
perfect timing
("Honey?" she said
In that clouded, confused way.)
cancer had eaten a path to her brain
yum-yum cancer loves brains
like zombies
eat her memory
she has trouble remembering me
remembering the year
(When I was eight years old, I
Had the stomach flu
And threw up in the kitchen
And then in the hallway
And then twice in the bathroom
—Only hitting the sink once)
i should understand
but I can't
fluvomit does not equal rosevomit