CHAPTER 11
“See, you and me have a better time than most can dream of.” Dave Matthews Band
It had been a week and a day, since Elizabeth had cut herself last. It wasn’t that the tension in her life was suddenly easing up; it was that Elizabeth had found the future to look forward to instead of how bleak the present was. Her mother was still conducting body checks twice a day, once when she woke up and once when she got home from school. She spent every afternoon doing homework.
Family dinners were mostly quiet for Elizabeth. Every dinner started with her father asking the same question. “What did you do today?”
Elizabeth would share her day in three minutes and spend the rest of dinner in silence picking at her food. For the last three nights, after dinner, she would walk over to Jack’s house and they would study Calculus together. He was grounded until the following Friday when Ms. Petrova was giving the second test of the year.
Elizabeth picked at her dry chicken, ate her rice with steamed broccoli and moved her peas around her plate. Peas were the most boring and useless vegetable and every food associated with them she found to be repulsive.
“Beth, why aren’t you eating your peas?” Leighton asked. “Are you developing an eating disorder now?”
“An eating disorder?” Elizabeth was confused. She had eaten half her dinner. “No, I just don’t like peas.”
“And your chicken?”
Elizabeth could feel the muscles in her neck getting tighter. Did she have to scrape the food off her plate every night for her mom to leave her alone? She had no more privacy. She wasn’t allowed to close her bedroom door unless she was sleeping. She wasn’t allowed to lock her door. She wasn’t allowed to talk on the phone in her room or take walks around the neighborhood. She wasn’t allowed to go out with her friends or drive to the store without one of her parents accompanying her. She was a virtual prisoner.
“The chicken sucks,” she said before she could control herself. “It’s dry and impossible to swallow. You think you’re a good cook, but you’re not.”
“Chicken sucks,” repeated Colby throwing pieces of chicken off his plate.
Leighton pursed her lips. “Apologize.”
“No,” snapped Elizabeth. She knew she was rude but she wasn’t about to apologize. Everything she did, Leighton twisted into some colossal problem and Elizabeth was growing tired of defending herself all the time.
“You’re excused,” her mother said sternly. “You’re not going next door tonight.”
Elizabeth looked to her father for support. Per usual, he was eating his food trying to stay out of it. Sometimes, Elizabeth wondered if he actually had an opinion at all.
“Yes, I am. We’re studying for calculus, every night. So get used to it. I’m going and you can’t stop me. I made a promise.”
Leighton looked to Robert for support, but once again he was silent. “Robert,” she snapped. “Say something.”
“I think it’s good they’re studying. Calculus is an awfully hard class, especially for high schoolers to take.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Thank you.”
“Are you sleeping with this boy?” Elizabeth’s jaw dropped. “Oh, God, you are,” her mother started breathing heavily. “What if you get pregnant? What would we do? What would people say? A baby…you’d have to get married.”
“Leighton, stop. You’re worrying over nothing.”
“Mom, we’re just friends,” said Elizabeth wondering why her mother was going on a rant.
“Casual sex. That’s even worse. Oh, the baby would be half black. You couldn’t marry him. My mother would roll over in her grave if you married a black boy. People would talk. Is he even Catholic? What if he’s Buddhist? Or worse, what if he doesn’t believe in God? What if he’s in a gang and you get divorced and he comes over with his posse to kidnap his son? You’d have to have an abortion. You can’t, we’re Catholic. Adoption maybe?”
Leighton was still talking when Elizabeth grabbed her backpack and headed outside. Her mother was absolutely crazy. How did an argument about studying turn into a conversation about sex, marriage, racism, divorce, gangs, and pregnancy? Elizabeth set her backpack against the side of the house and took a seat right next to it. She would be safely inside Jack’s house before her mom even knew she was missing.
Elizabeth lit and slowly inhaled the Parliament cigarette. Over the last week, she almost thought her mind concentrated best when all outside stimuli was excluded. Smoking provided a shield that helped her to shut out distractions. Kate was right. Even though she was trading one bad habit for another, it seemed as though smoking was the better option in terms of hurting her body at this point. And, more than anything, it was temporary. It gave her hands something to do, other than cut herself. A cigarette was consoling. Anxiety was depressing not only psychologically but also physiologically.
Elizabeth saw Jack’s front door open. Latasha Bennett stepped outside and lit a cigarette. Elizabeth had never seen her smoke in all the years they were neighbors. Latasha looked over at her sitting against the side of her house and waived at her.
“Are you and Jack studying tonight?” she called over.
“Yeah,” she answered putting her cigarette out in the grass. She didn’t want Mrs. Bennett to see her or think any less of her.
“Well, come on over. Don’t sit out here by yourself.” Elizabeth smiled, walked across the driveway and up the front steps to the Bennett house. “I saw you with that smoke. You didn’t have to put it out because of me.” Mrs. Bennett sat down on the top step. Elizabeth hesitated for a moment before sitting down next to her. “Do you need one?”
“What?”
“You can have one of mine,” she offered.
“Thanks. I have some.” Elizabeth pulled another cigarette out of her backpack. Mrs. Bennett held up her lighter and lit the cigarette. She smiled at the thought of being rebellious with an adult.
“So, what’s your addiction? Taste? Smell? Habit? Or you just think it’s cool?”
Elizabeth thought about it for a moment. She didn’t like the taste or the smell. It really wasn’t a habit, it was a relaxation technique. “I just started smoking actually. I don’t do it all the time. Just when…it’s complicated.”
“Honey, everything in life is complicated at one time or another. I just enjoy it. Although, I might not enjoy it as much now that Jack and my husband said I have to smoke outside. It is nice out here. The covered porch is nice when it rains. But, it won’t be so kind in the cold of winter.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I know what you mean.”
“Do your parents know you smoke?”
“Absolutely not. They would kill me.” She shuddered to think what her parents would do if they found out about her latest form of rebellion. They tension in the house over her cutting was already high enough. Her mother was now accusing her of being anorexic and pregnant. She wondered if she told her mom she was on drugs, pregnant with an eating disorder and then said she smoked occasionally if the smoking part would get over looked.
“I won’t tell them if you promise me one thing,” said Mrs. Bennett. Elizabeth nodded. “If you see me out her smoking, come over and join me. It’s peaceful alone but sometimes a little company is good.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. Did Latasha know about what happened at school? What if the rumors had spread to the parents and she was just being nice because she thought Elizabeth was crazy?
The front door opened. “I didn’t know you were out here,” Jack said. “You’re smoking together? You both need to quit that shit.”
“You need to toughen up Jack,” Latasha said to her son lighting another cigarette. “I’m outside like you wanted. Now mind your business and start studying. You need a good grade in Calculus.”
Elizabeth
was taken aback by Mrs. Bennett telling her son to toughen up. She wondered what she meant by that. Maybe Jack’s relationship with his mother wasn’t as normal as Elizabeth wanted to believe. Maybe she wasn’t the only one out there who didn’t have the best relationship with her mother. Elizabeth followed Jack down to the basement where they studied every night. They took their respective seats on the red suede couch.
“I hate this derivative stuff,” Jack said. “I get it, but I don’t. The rate of change, the average rate of change, the instantaneous rate of change, and then the derivative. Is this stuff necessary for college anyway?”
“I don’t think it’s necessary for Sociology majors,” laughed Elizabeth.
“Or sports majors. And, what’s with all the graphs now? I’m never going to pass this class.”
“Yes, you are,” encouraged Elizabeth. “Jack, you’re smart. You just give up on yourself too quickly.”
Jack looked at Elizabeth. “You’re right, let’s get at this so I can get some sleep. We have a big game tomorrow night.”
“Okay, so the relationship expressed in the form of a mathematical function defines a situation for a given set of conditions and properties. Since the independent dimension changed, it was no longer a fixed quantity but became a variable. The graph of the function in the middle of the page reflects a horizontal change of the independent variable with a vertical change in the dependent dimension. The graph just allows us to visualize how a situation changes with respect to a change in the conditions. Does that make sense?”
“Are you coming to my game tomorrow?”
“A football game?” Elizabeth was confused. “I never go to football games.”
Jack scratched his head. “Yeah, but it’s senior year. Besides, now you have a reason to come.”
“What’s my reason?”
“Me.”
Elizabeth wasn’t sure how to respond. She hadn’t considered going to football games and participating in events that she hadn’t been part of before their friendship. She pondered his request before realizing that she was still grounded, probably until she left for college. “I’m grounded.”
“So, it’s a school event. Won’t your parents let you go to a football game?”
“Probably not,” she answered honestly. “You don’t know my mom.” Pure disappointment appeared on Jack’s face. She didn’t want to let him down. “Is it really a big game?”
“Every game is big. I’m nervous. If I don’t play well or I get hurt, my future is done. I haven’t told anyone that I’m scared. I just want to play for fun again. There’s so much pressure to be amazing. And, I feel like you’re part of this now, helping me with the whole Calculus thing. You believe in me. I need you at the game.”
Elizabeth’s cell phone rang. “Sorry,” she said reaching for her BlackBerry. It was her sister, Olivia calling. “I just need to take this really quick. It’s my sister and she like never calls me. Jack nodded. “Hello?”
“Liz, it’s Liv.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes. She hated nicknames.
“I know. I’m studying with a friend. What’s up?”
“Mom just called me. She’s really upset.”
“About what?” She wasn’t even fazed to hear that her mother was upset. After all, she had left the house against her mother’s strict orders.
“Don’t take this the wrong way because I don’t care what you do, I just want you to be happy but you need to be smart about it.”
“What now? I don’t have an eating disorder,” she whispered into the phone. She glanced at Jack, who was sitting there trying not to laugh. Elizabeth pointed to the phone and rolled her eyes again.
“Mom says you have a black boyfriend and you’re having sex with him.” Elizabeth sighed and buried her head in her hands still holding the phone. “Hello? Are you there?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend, Liv. And, I’m not having sex. Nor am I pregnant. So you can just tell mom to mind her own business.”
“It’s okay if you do and if you are and it’s not okay if you’re pregnant but just make sure you’re safe, okay?”
“I am so not having this conversation with you,” she said frustrated and ashamed. “I have to go so I’m going to hang up the phone but you know I’d never lie to you so you can believe our paranoid mother or you can believe me. It’s your choice.” She hung up the phone on Olivia. She was beginning to feel nauseous. She swallowed hard. The room was becoming blurry. “Is it suddenly cold in here?”
“No,” answered Jack. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she lied. She looked down at the Calculus book again. The words were unclear. She squinted her eyes, trying to take a deep breath at the same time. “To find out how much the function, changes between two points, we enter in the two values for the independent variable x and then calculate the difference between the dependent variable, f, for those given conditions. A variable is nothing more than a dimension that…” she paused. Beads of sweat were forming on her forehead.
“You’re not okay,” said Jack concerned. He reached out for her shaking hand. “Your hands are freezing but you’re sweating. Elizabeth, what’s happening to you?”
“An…anxiety…”
“Come on,” he moved her Calculus book off her lap, took both her hands and pulled her up from the couch. “Shit, you’re shaking.” He led her upstairs to the first floor and they began to ascend the steps to the second floor.
“Where are you guys going?” called Mrs. Bennett from the kitchen after they were out of view.
“We need to look up something on the computer.” Elizabeth collapsed in Jack’s arms and he carried her to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. “What do you need?”
Her head was bobbing. She could barely sit up straight. She looked at him and started crying. “I’m sorry; you shouldn’t see me like this.”
“It’s fine,” he said scared. He ran over to his desk and started fumbling through his drawers until he found an old pencil sharpener that hadn’t been used in years. He popped the metal blade out with his keys, sterilized it with a lighter and handed it to Elizabeth. “Here,” he said.
She held it between her hands. “My…she…she’ll search me.”
“Well you have to do something! You’re freaking me out!”
Elizabeth fumbled under her shirt for the button on her jeans. Her mom would never check under her underwear line. “I can’t get it. Help me.”
“You’re taking your clothes off?” shouted Jack. “What good is that going to do?”
She reached out her hand at him. “Please,” she mumbled. “I can’t breathe.” Elizabeth could see him grab his hair.
“You can’t go home like this,” he said kneeling in front of her. “Your mom is going to kill you the minute you walk in that door. God forgive me.” He slowly unbuttoned her jeans and pulled down the zipper, revealing a pair of teal and navy polka dot boy shorts. She moved her hand pulling the underwear down an inch. “Ahhh, what are you doing?”
Before she could answer she made a two-centimeter clean cut. The slice didn’t bleed at first. Elizabeth let out a deep breath. Tiny red dots appeared over the wound forming a defined line and then the blood started flowing. She could see Jack’s eyes get wide. It was too late to be ashamed now. For the first time in her life she had cut herself in front of another person. He took off, out of his room, and was back before she knew it. Time didn’t matter in a euphoric state. Everything was slow, perfect, and she was untouchable. Jack wiped her cut with warm water on toilet paper and put two regular sized bandages across the bleeding wound.
“She won’t see the small band aids,” he whispered. Elizabeth sank off the side of the bed onto the floor. “I think we should be done for tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I’ll go now.”
&n
bsp; “Are you feeling any better?”
She nodded. “A little.”
“I’ll get your stuff,” he offered.
Elizabeth sat on the front step of the porch and waited for Jack to come outside with her Calculus book and backpack. It seemed to take forever, but every minute that went by gave her more relief than the last. The porch light turned off. Elizabeth wondered if he was coming back out. She started to stand up when he finally appeared and sat down next to her, reaching in her backpack for her cigarettes. “I turned off the light so your parents can’t see you out here.”
“Thanks,” she smiled.
“I figured you could use a smoke before you go home.”
She smoked the first two cigarettes in silence. Her mind was clearing and she was starting to realize the magnitude of what she had made Jack witness. “How bad was it?”
“You don’t need stitches or anything.”
“No, I mean how freaked out are you right now?”
“You scared the crap out of me, but, it’s not like I understand it or anything but I saw it, you know? I…I saw you change in a matter of minutes and it’s my fault for helping you but I didn’t know what else to do. I saw it…I saw how it made you feel better but it still doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know,” she mumbled. “I don’t always understand it either. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to talk to me anymore.”
“Elizabeth, you’re my friend. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to walk away from you when you are hurting. No judging, remember? I promise I’ll always be here when you need me.” Jack put his arm around Elizabeth and squeezed her tight against his firm body. She rested her head against him. He was so warm.
“I’m coming to your game tomorrow,” she said quietly. “You know the worst possible thing about me and you’re still here. I’m not going to let you down, ever.”