What’s really wrong is that I’m looking at Brendon’s sexy arms and all I can think about is snow.
“Brendon?”
A heavyset kid with glasses approaches, his hands twisting nervously around the straps of his backpack. He looks from me to Brendon…like he’s afraid he’s intruding.
“Sorry,” he says, “I just wanted to ask you about something about next week’s meeting.”
“Sure, Garrett,” Brendon says with a smile. He turns that smile to me with an apologetic shrug. “See you around, Chelsea.”
He squeezes my arm and walks off with Garrett, and I watch him as he goes, but something’s off. A few weeks ago I was dying to jump his bones. What is the matter with me?
day twenty
“I can’t tell if you’re giving me the silent treatment, or if you’re just being…you.”
I ignore Sam and scrub the pot in my hands. The Friday night special is lasagna. It crusts on the bottom of the dishes so I have to hand wash them.
It’s taken Sam two days to catch on to the fact that I’m giving him the cold shoulder. He is right, though; it’s hard to let someone know you’re pissed off when you’re already not speaking. My method has mostly involved avoidance of eye contact and a lot of scowling. Passive aggressive, I’ll admit, but it’s all I’ve got unless I want to tell him off via whiteboard.
He steps in front of me when I go to set the pot in the dishwasher. “Look,” he says, “about the other day… I wasn’t trying to—you know. Overstep. I just really can’t stand that guy.” That guy being Lowell, I assume.
I roll the rack in and fold my arms over my chest, waiting to see if he has more to say. He does.
“I know, you don’t want me fighting your battles, and I won’t anymore. I promise.” He tucks his chin to his chest, wiping his hands on his apron, and then looks up at me. “I just want you to know, I’m on your side. Okay?”
I nod a little so he knows I understand. I appreciate what he’s trying to do. But he’s right. I don’t want him fighting my battles. There doesn’t need to be another person getting caught in the crosshairs.
Usually the diner closes at ten, but on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, Dex keeps it open until two in the morning. It’s a haven for the burnouts—clusters of kids filter in after midnight, coming down from their highs and seeking to fulfill their munchie cravings. They all order the twenty-four-hour breakfasts and black coffee.
Things calm down around one or so. Dex and Lou work the counter while the rest of us take a break. Technically, as far as the state of Michigan’s child labor laws are concerned, Asha’s shift ended at nine, and Sam’s and mine ended at ten-thirty, but we’ve been hanging around helping out anyway. Dex repays us with free food. We sit in the long wall booth, Asha drinking chamomile tea while Sam devours leftover home fries. I squish in next to him and steal a few from his plate. They’re mushy and a little cold but still good.
“I need to buy a dress,” Asha says.
Sam taps the bottom of a mostly empty ketchup bottle against the table’s edge. “What for?”
“Winter Formal.”
I groan, and everyone stops to look at me. I can’t help it. Is Asha really still stuck on this?
“You want to go to Winter Formal?” asks Sam. He sounds incredulous. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks the idea is ridiculous. And bad. Bad bad bad, all around.
She shrugs and licks her spoon. “Why not?”
“Uh, because dances are lame?”
“How would you know? Have you ever even been to one?”
“Well, I’ve never been attacked by a scorpion, either, but I know I wouldn’t want to be.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asks.
He dips a fry in ketchup and points it at her. “Exactly.”
Asha huffs like she’s given up on the argument. I pull my feet into the booth with a yawn. I’m so tired. I really should go home soon. I check my cell to see if either of my parents have noticed my absence, but I have exactly zero missed calls and no new texts. I’d bet anything that Dad fell asleep in front of the television again, and Mom probably went straight to bed as soon as she came home from work. She’s been running herself ragged to clock in as many hours as she can.
I lie down and stretch out my legs, resting my head on Sam’s lap. He looks down at me, surprised, but doesn’t say anything. A few seconds later he sets one of his hands on top of my hair. He starts stroking it, very lightly, like I’m a cat. It feels good. I rub my cheek against his leg and close my eyes. I could fall asleep right here....
Right as I’m drifting off, someone shoves my legs off the booth seat and snaps, “Move it.”
I open my eyes to see Andy scowling at me. He has a rag in one hand and a spray bottle in the other.
“Don’t be a dick,” Asha says to him.
Sam clenches his jaw but keeps his mouth shut. I guess he’s afraid I’ll get annoyed if he says something. He’s right. I would be annoyed.
I am annoyed, anyway. But not with him. With Andy. I set both feet on the floor and sit up so fast I get a little dizzy.
Andy makes an irritated sound in the back of his throat as he wipes down the table next to ours. “Oh, grow up, Asha.”
She goes quiet and stirs her tea slowly, the spoon clanking against the ceramic mug. Okay, that is not cool. No one should be mean to Asha. She’s nice to everyone, all the time.
“Leave her alone,” Sam says, and Andy whirls on him.
“Oh, right, let’s not hurt the princess’s feelings.”
“Dude, what is your problem?”
“My problem? What’s your problem?” He slams the spray bottle down on the table and glares at me. “I see Mute Girl here is making herself right at home, isn’t she? Putting her goddamn feet on the furniture.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how she’s Single White Female-ing Noah’s ass!” he bursts. “Taking his job when she’s the reason he can’t even work. And none of you even care.”
“Don’t tell me I don’t care about Noah.” Sam’s voice shakes, and it makes my heart feel like it’s splintering into tiny pieces.
“Oh, really? How many times have you visited him in the hospital, Sam?” he asks. Sam lowers his eyes to his plate, silent, and Andy scoffs. “Yeah. I’m sure you’ll be awarded your Best Friend of the Year trophy any day now.”
He stalks off toward the back, and we all watch him go. Dex grabs his arm, says something to him, but Andy brushes him off and storms out of sight. We all sit in silence for a long time. Sam won’t even look at me.
I push my way out of the booth. As I pass, Asha tugs my sleeve and says, “Chelsea, maybe you should leave him alone. Let him cool off a little.”
No. I think it’s time we had this out. It’s been a long time coming.
I snag my whiteboard from my bag and follow him out the back door. He’s sitting outside on an overturned crate, hunched forward, smoking a cigarette. When the door closes behind me, he looks over his shoulder and frowns.
“Fuck off,” he says.
I stand in front of him. At the party, when he left with Noah, I remember he was smiling, this wide grin that was too big for his face. He’d had no idea what would happen that night. Neither of us did.
I’m sorry.
I hold the board up so he can see it. He stares at it, and then at me, unimpressed.
“What for?” he asks flatly.
r />
Everything.
“Wow. Thank you. I feel all better now,” he says. “I don’t care if you’re sorry. I don’t care what you feel. I don’t care.”
I don’t expect you to forgive me. Ever.
He blows out a thin stream of smoke. “Good.”
I’m still sorry.
He doesn’t respond. I start to write more, but then he stands and says, “Stop it, okay, just stop! You can’t be sorry. You don’t even know what to be sorry for. You have no idea. Noah isn’t some stand-in to teach you a moral life lesson. He’s a fucking person. Do you even know anything about him?”
I swallow and slowly shake my head.
“Well, let me tell you,” he says, not at all nicely. “His favorite color is blue. His middle name is Christopher. He’d eat nothing but macaroni and cheese if he could get away with it. He judges anyone who lists J. D. Salinger as their favorite author. One time he spent an hour explaining to me in specific detail why he thinks Catcher in the Rye is a piece of crap. He has a scar on his left knee from wiping out on his skateboard when he was twelve. Sam was there when it happened, and puked because of all the blood. It took five stitches to close it. Noah went as Draco Malfoy for Halloween, and he tried to get me to go as Harry Potter, but I thought it was a dumb idea, so we had a big fight about it. The first time he kissed me, we were standing right over there.” He points to the Dumpster. “It was raining, and I was smoking a cigarette as he dumped the last of the trash, and I made a stupid joke about the weather, and Noah laughed, because that’s what Noah does—he laughs at any joke, no matter how stupid. Sometimes he just laughs for no reason. He tossed the trash, and then he came over to me, and he flicked my cigarette out of my hand and he kissed me, out of the blue. Just like that. Like it was nothing.”
Andy throws out each fact like he’s drilling nails into my heart. His stare doesn’t waver from mine, rooting me to the spot. I feel like crying, but I think if I did, it’d just make him angrier.
“He’s never been out of the country, so we’ve planned this road trip to Toronto for the summer, just so he can say he’s been,” he continues. “He wants to become a doctor and volunteer in Haiti, because he saw this documentary about it last year, and it’s stuck with him ever since. He’s excited about senior year because he makes good grades, and if he gets into any of the schools he applies to, he’ll be the first one in his family to go to college.” He stops to let that sink in. “Someone almost stole all of that from him. For no reason. And you helped it happen.”
I didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse than I have, but it is, because in all the thinking I’ve done, I haven’t thought about it like this.
“So forgive me if I don’t feel like extending you the hand of friendship,” he says. “Everyone else may buy your little act, but I don’t. It’s pathetic. You’re not helping anyone.”
I cap the marker and stare at my feet. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I should give it up already. And if I’m going to say anything to anyone, I should be apologizing to Andy, out loud.
The problem is that now it’s all hyped up in my mind. My first words should be important—and apologizing to Andy is important, but not enough for me to break my silence. Not yet. That moment has to mean something, it has to, but I don’t know what.
“Sam says you’re getting a lot of shit at school,” Andy says.
I look up and nod. I wonder how much Sam’s told him.
“They’re all fucking scum. I hate them so much.”
I don’t disagree with his assessment. Even if he’s including me in that category.
He sits back down with a sigh, ashing his cigarette, and after a minute I sit on the crate next to his. I write, How is Noah? and inch the board toward him.
“Why should I tell you?” he says, but then, after a pause, “He’s…better. Getting there. He sleeps a lot. Has some trouble figuring out what he wants to say, sometimes. But that could be the painkillers. He’s got some broken ribs, so.”
It hurts to hear, but it’s good that I do. That I don’t just ignore the Noah component in this fucked-up equation that is my life.
“He didn’t even want me there,” Andy says. He’s staring down at the cigarette pinched between his fingers. “I had to beg him to let me come to that stupid party. I was mad because—I always knew, what I was, you know? It was never a big…thing, with my parents or at school. I was mad at him, for not being comfortable with it. Like I thought he wanted to hide us. Me. So I made him take me to that party. I was the one who…started things. In the bedroom. And I didn’t lock the door, because part of me wanted someone to walk in, and when you did—” He laughs, but the sound is like shattered glass. “I was glad. I thought, ‘Good. Now people will know.’”
I sit there, the cold air heavy in my lungs, absorbing this. Andy wanted me—well, not me specifically, but someone—to find out, all along.
It sounds like he blames himself as much as he blames me. I want to write It’s not your fault, underline the words until he believes them, but I know by now it’s never that easy.
“You have to stop punishing yourself,” he says, so quietly I almost don’t catch it.
I don’t know if he’s talking to himself or to me. I guess it doesn’t really matter.
day twenty-one
I wake up the next morning when my phone beeps on the nightstand. It’s not a ring, more of a bloop. The sound it makes when I receive a text message. I roll over and fumble for it, squint through bleary eyes at the front display. It’s already past noon. I flip it open and scroll through screens to my in-box. It’s from Asha.
lets go shopping 2day
God, I could just pull the covers over my head and float back into the warm, dreamless sleep I was so rudely interrupted from. Instead I tuck my Nelly under my arm and respond.
im not going 2 wntr frml
I rub my eyes, trying to wake up, and stretch my arms over my head, thinking. Saturday Saturday Saturday. Dad will probably be hanging around the house all day in his pajamas. Mom will be slaving at the shop until later this afternoon. I didn’t really have any plans today; Asha and I technically have the night off, but I figured we’d go hang out at Rosie’s anyway, just to have something to do.
My phone bloops again.
w/e. i need yarn. plz?
Sigh. Might as well. I’m too awake to fall back asleep now.
give me 1 hour.
When I pick her up, her brother Karthik is out in the front yard with some other neighborhood kids, in the midst of a heated snowball fight. I know he must be her brother because he has the same black hair and light brown skin and big dark eyes. Asha squeezes out the front door. I wave to her, and a snowball sails through the air and splats against my windshield. Karthik points and laughs.
Kids these days.
Asha yells something at him I can’t hear and ducks into the car. She has this thick blue-and-white scarf wound around her neck. I bet she made it herself. It’s gorgeous.
“There’s a craft store in the mall,” she tells me as I back out of her driveway and onto the street. “I usually go there.”
I know where the craft store is; I’ve been there plenty of times to pick up fabric for my various ill-fated sewing projects. It’s funny to realize Asha and I have something in common outside of the diner.
The mall is crazy busy, of course, since it’s Saturday, and there’s nothing else to do in this town. It takes ten minutes just to find an open park
ing spot. Blah. Crowds. They never bothered me before, but when we walk through the sliding doors and are met with the swarm of shoppers, my stomach crawls.
We wind our way past the moms with their strollers and packs of preteen girls in their way too slutty outfits. Looking at these girls makes me sad, even though they don’t seem to be—they giggle in high-pitched voices, their faces stretched with glossy-lipped smiles. All of them are the same type; girls with overprocessed hair and too much makeup and way too much access to Daddy’s credit cards. Girls who, if you took away the designer labels, hair dye and cover-up, wouldn’t be more than average-looking, but with all that stuff look too plastic to be pretty.
I know because I used to look just like one of them. I’m wearing next to no makeup now, just a touch of mascara and some clear lip gloss. Compared to them, I’m practically naked. I haven’t set foot inside the mall in weeks. Saturday mall trips used to be a weekly tradition. But that’s over. Like so many things.
No. No angsting today. Time to cheer up, emo girl.
The crafts store is full of old ladies with too much perfume, and Asha and I are the youngest customers by at least thirty years. She goes straight to the yarn aisle, starts sifting through the shelves. I randomly pick up a roll of scratchy black wool.
“You should get some,” Asha says. “I said I’d teach you, right? I have some extra needles you can borrow.”
I do have some leftover Christmas money I haven’t spent. My grandparents on Dad’s side are crippling agoraphobics who live in Maine, and as compensation for seeing me only once every few years, they always send a hefty check. I was saving it for—irony of all ironies—a new Winter Formal dress. Ha ha ha.
Asha ends up with an armful of different-colored yarns, and I pick out the black wool for myself, since Asha says it’s good material to learn on. I try to imagine myself knitting like she does. Maybe I’ll fare better with knitting needles than I do with sewing machines.