I’ve only been practicing for a minute when Sandra pounds on the door.
“Can you ot?” she yells. “I’m trying to read!”
“So read downstairs,” I yell back.
“No! I want to read in here!”
“Well, I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
“Quit playing!”
“I can’t! I have to practice!”
“Mom!” Sandra screeches. I hear her door fling open. Then she pounds down the stairs, thumping like an elephant. She always walks like that. It drives me crazy.
This piece I’m practicing feels really delicate. Like how a kiss would sound. Not that I’d know about kissing. I went to one dance in seventh grade and kissed one boy for one second. That’s it. And even when I was in the middle of kissing him, I wasn’t counting it as my first real kiss. It was more like a practice kiss. And the fact that I knew it was a practice kiss while we were kissing basically means that I shouldn’t have been kissing him.
I focus on the music. I have laser-sharp focus.
Bang bang bang!
“Get ut!” Sandra yells.
“No!”
“I can’t hear myself think!”
I unlock the door and whip it open. “Both of us have to live here, you know,” I inform Sandra.
“It’s been the joy of my life.”
“So you’d better get used to it. I’ll never be first violin if I don’t practice.”
“Fine, but why do you have to practice in here?”
“It sounds better.”
“That’s such a lame reason!”
“It’s still my reason!”
“This sucks!” Sandra flings herself across her bed. “I have to read!”
“What’s going on in here?” Dad says. He’s standing in Sandra’s doorway, doing the Dad Grimace he always gets when we fight.
We both start yelling at the same time. I’m like, “I have to practice and this is the only good place—” and Sandra’s like, “She won’t let me read!” and Dad’s like, “Hold on! One at a time. Marisa.”
“You always take her side!” Sandra wails.
“I’m not taking sides,” Dad clarifies. “I asked her to explain first. Then you can go. See how that works?”
Sandra scowls.
“Like I was saying,” I go, “I have to practice and it sounds better in the bathroom.”
“There’s a reading quiz tomorrow!” Sandra yells.
“Okay,” Dad says. “Is this the only place you can read?”
“Unbelievable! Why don’t you ask her to move?”
“Marisa.” Dad turns toward me. “Is this the only place you can practice?”
“No, but it’s the best place.”
“And this is the best place for me to read,” Sandra interjects.
“It seems we have a conflict here,” Dad concludes. “How do you girls think we should resolve it?”
He does this sometimes. Instead of being Harsh Dad, he likes to be Friendly Dad. Which is cool when you know you’re wrong, because then he takes it easy on you and you don’t really get in trouble. But this time I know I’m right. I just want him to tell Sandra to shut up and stop being such a baby about everything.
Sandra and I glare at each other.
“Tell you what,” Dad says. “Why don’t we compromise?”
I groan. The translation of compromise is no one gets what they want. It’s all about trying to make someone else happy instead of yourself. But they’re not happy either because it’s a compromise instead of what they really want.
“Marisa, you can practice for half an hour here, but then you have to move downstairs. Is that fair?”
No. “Yeah.”
“And Sandra, why don’t you either read downstairs for now or do something else?”
“Fine,” she huffs. “But it’s your fault if I fail my quiz.”
“No one’s telling you you can’t read,” Dad tries to reason with her. “I’m just saying—”
“Yeah, Dad,” she interrupts. “I get what you’re saying.”
Sandra always thinks Dad takes my side. She’s convinced that he loves me more and always has. Which is ridiculous. But when Sandra has an opinion, that’s it. It’s carved in stone. You can’t convince her anything else is the truth, even if it obviously is.
13
Nash and Jordan organized our school’s First Annual Wii Championship. Sterling and I decided to go watch. So far, all that’s happened is a lot of hyper boys are swinging themselves around and looking like fools.
It’s in the gym. Everyone’s sitting on the bleachers. Some kids from student council are setting up another big projector screen next to the one already there. Apparently, playing on one screen isn’t exciting enough.
Derek’s here. He’s sitting in the next section, one row down. The corner of my eye is like glued to his face, waiting for him to look at me. It tingles with anticipation.
I saw him right when we came in. That’s why we’re sitting where we are. We came in and there he was and I was like, “I so know where we’re sitting.” But I didn’t go right up to his section or anything. That would have been too obvious. Over here is much more subtle.
Suddenly, Derek turns to look in my direction. I do that thing where the boy you like is watching from over there so you pretend to have a riveting conversation with your friend, all exaggerated hand motions and animated expressions.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sterling says.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“He looked over!”
“Who? Derek?”
“Of course Derek!”
“Oh. I didn’t really notice.”
“How could you not have noticed?”
“Maybe because I’m not obsessed with him like some people?”
“I’m not obsessed.”
“Really? How many times have you told me about him flirting with you in art?”
“Well excuse me for noticing.” I don’t know why she’s acting like it’s such a crime to be excited that a boy might like me. I mean, really.
“You do know he’s going out with Sierra, right?” Sterling goes.
“Of course I know that. Everyone knows that.”
“So then why are you so interested?”
“I’m not that interested.”
Sterling looks at me.
“I’m not!”
“Okay,” she says. “Whatever.”
Nash gets up to play. He’s playing against Julia. She’s the first girl who’s gone up.
The gym door bangs open and a group of four girls comes in, squealing all loud. Most of the people watching the tournament don’t even notice, they’re so glued to the screens. But I notice. Because Sierra is in that group of girls.
I was so relieved when I saw Derek here without her. I was hoping that his flirting with me plus being here without her would equal him liking me. And maybe not liking her so much anymore. But Sierra runs across the floor and clatters onto the bleachers right over to Derek.
She kisses him. I look away.
“Do you feel like getting out of here?” Sterling says. “It’s kind of lame.”
“Yeah.” I can’t be here another second.
Sterling leads me out to the vending machine area and buys a pack of Chuckles. We sit on the floor. Sterling takes out a yellow Chuckle and chews it.
My brain won’t shut up. It’s doing that noisy brain thing where the horrific scene with Derek kissing Sierra is playing over and over, making it impossible for me to focus on anything else.
Focus on something else. Do not let obsessive thoughts take over your life.
“Why don’t boys like me?” I go.
“Boys like you.”
“Not the ones I like.”
Sterling eats a red Chuckle.
“Look,” she says. “You’ll find who you’re supposed to be with. Just because all the boys here are buttwipes doesn’t mean your boyfriend doesn’t exis
t. He’s probably just somewhere else, is all. He’ll find you.”
“But when?” I can’t take it anymore. The waiting. The wanting.
Something inside me snaps. I hate myself. I hate that I have to deal with this. I hate my life. And I hate how I can’t count on anyone to be completely there when I need them, exactly the way I need them to be.
I feel horrible in my room all night until Dirk’s show comes on.
“Did anyone else watch America’s Slackers tonight?” Dirk goes. “What’s up with these inane reality shows taking over the airwaves? And now we’re celebrating stupid people who sit around all day doing nothing? While awesome shows like Freaks and Geeks get canceled? What’s wrong with this picture?”
Dirk rules. I’ve been wondering the same exact thing. Especially ever since Sterling and I watched My So-Called Life. It just doesn’t make sense that so many quality shows get taken off to make room for more of the same crap.
“It’s like that old Sesame Street segment. What was it? ‘Which of These Things Does Not Belong?’” He tries to sing the song that goes with it, but he can’t remember the words. “Nice—just got an e-mail that’s saying the song is called ‘One of These Things Is Not Like the Others.’ Oooh . . . and a link to Cookie Monster singing it! Sweet! Let’s have a listen, shall we?”
Then Dirk plays the song. You’d think it would be dorky with Dirk playing some old Sesame Street song and all of us in our rooms, listening. But it’s not. Sometimes when I feel stressed, I revert back to my old Judy Blume books from middle school or reruns of shows I used to watch in fifth grade. These things are comforting. They remind me of who I was before life got so complicated. And they give me hope that maybe one day I can get back to that peaceful place again.
14
Do you think it matters whether you drink warm water or cold water?” Nash wants to know. I’m used to his non sequiturs by now. It’s amazing how we’ve become such good friends since school started, after years of hardly talking. Things like this make me think that anything can happen.
I say, “Yeah, it matters. Who wants to drink warm water?”
“No, I meant room temperature. Like if you leave a bottle of water out instead of putting it in the refrigerator.”
“Oh. Is that what room temperature means? Thanks for clearing that up, Dr. Obvious.” Nash feels the need to explain the most obvious concepts to you. Sometimes in great detail. Which is so annoying.
He was the same way in chem today.
We were doing this lab and the partners at the next table didn’t get how to do part of the procedure. So they asked Nash for help and he explained some stuff. But then later, for this really simple question about ratios, Nash started telling them all this super basic stuff that even a fifth grader knows.
The girl was like, “Yeah. We know.”
“Just trying to help,” Nash said.
“Do you think we’re stupid or something?” she shot back.
“No, I was—”
“Then why are you talking to us like that?” her partner accused.
I know Nash didn’t mean anything by it. But if you didn’t know him, I could see how it would be easy to take him the wrong way.
“Well?” Nash is asking me.
“What?”
“Do you think it matters to your body?”
“Why would your body care what temperature water you drink?”
“Here’s what we know: Your body’s standard temperature is ninety-eight point six degrees. So, if you drink some really cold water that’s like fifty degrees below your normal body temperature, wouldn’t that be a huge shock to your system?”
I flip a few pages ahead in the project we’re working on. “What page is that on?”
“It’s not part of the project. I’m just wondering.”
That’s another thing about Nash. He wonders about the most random things.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve never thought about it before.”
“Let me know if you come up with a theory.”
“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll definitely be the first.”
Three hours and two breaks later, the project is done. The middle of October is stressful enough with the first marking period ending and report cards coming out, without having this huge chem project on top of everything. At least things are sort of getting better. I actually feel like I can contribute when we work together now. When we first started doing lab reports, Nash was so smart and I didn’t know anything. I felt like such an idiot.
I hate it when other people feel like they have to do all the work or answer questions for me because they know I’ll never get it. That happened a lot back in my dark days. When I got really depressed, I’d tune out in school. Or sometimes not even go. And my mom would let me stay home because she didn’t know what else to do. Dad would come home early and play Uno with me and try to get me to talk about what was wrong, but I usually didn’t feel like talking much. Mainly because I didn’t know how to explain it. So I was absent a lot and I’d miss what was going on in class. Whenever I had to do group work, everyone would be looking at me like, You’re supposed to know this. Why are you being so dense? It was really embarrassing.
But now I feel like I’m actually getting some of this stuff. And I think we did a really good job on the project. I smile at Nash, all proud of us.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
“Nothing. It’s just . . . I think we’re a good team.”
Nash stops stapling pages together. “I do, too.”
I smile some more. Nash looks terrified.
“Are you okay?” I ask him.
“Um . . . yeah . . .” He gets up from the coffee table where we were working. “I got some new bells.”
“Oh, cool. Let’s see.” He shows me a string of tiny bells hanging from the window frame. I shake them. They sound light and tinkly. “They’re cute.”
Then Nash launches into this long, complicated description of where they’re from and how he found them and why they’re significant to a certain culture halfway around the world and—
“Hey, Nash?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re cute.”
“Thanks.”
And then we’re just standing there, with no one saying or doing anything. He’s just looking at me.
It’s weird. For the first time with Nash, I feel like I need something to say. I’m all, “So . . . whatever happened with . . . the letter?” I was going to say, Whatever happened with Birgitte? But Nash never told me it was for her and I don’t want him to know that I saw her laughing at Jordan.
“What letter?”
“You know . . . the one you wrote for . . . um . . .”
“Oh! That. Nothing. She didn’t feel the same way.”
“That sucks.”
“Not really. It’s actually a good thing. I was more interested in someone else anyway, so . . . ”
“Who?”
“Just someone.”
“So why didn’t you give it to her?”
“Practice,” Nash says. “You think I’m going to bust out my best material in the preliminary round?”
I’m not buying this whole thing where Nash is trying to blow it off like it’s no big deal. Liking someone and having them reject you is a major deal. I’m learning how to read Nash and he’s not very convincing. But this is what he wants me to believe and the truth is humiliating, so I let it go.
“So, um . . . I guess we’re done,” I say.
“Done?”
I point to the coffee table. “With the project.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah, we’re done.”
“I think it’s really good.”
Nash says, “Marisa . . .” And then he moves closer to me. As if he’s going to kiss me or something.
Oh my god.
Nash is going to kiss me.
I knew he liked me!
I turn away from him.
&n
bsp; “What’s wrong?” he says.
“I’m not . . . I don’t . . . Were you trying to kiss me?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On why you didn’t let me.”
This is really hard. How do you tell someone who likes you that you don’t feel the same way about them? No one wants to hear that. It’s devastating.
But I have to tell him.
“Nash, I don’t . . . you know . . . like you that way.”
“You don’t?”
“No. Did you think I did?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed like you did.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Yeah, I’m picking up on that.”
“Sorry.”
Nash skulks to the other side of the room.
I have to know exactly why he thought I liked him. It’s so strange because I totally don’t. “Did I . . . do something? To make you think I liked you?”
“You could say there were some clues.”
“Like what?”
“You always like to come over, for one.”
“To get our work done. And because we’re friends.”
Nash picks up the big cowbell from his desk. He clanks it a few times.
“So that’s it?” I say. “I like coming over, so you thought I liked you?”
“No, there’s more than that. You just seem . . . forget it.”
I still have no idea what he’s talking about. But he already feels bad enough, so I decide to let it go.
Nash is like, “I can’t believe this is happening again.”
“What?”
“This. Rejection.”
“I’m sorry. But I didn’t—”
“Yeah. You can’t force yourself to feel something you don’t, right?”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“If it’s worse than that, I really don’t want to hear it.”
“I was going to say that I didn’t mean to hurt you. You just . . . surprised me, is all.”
“You surprised me more.”
We both stand there, looking anywhere but at each other. “Okay,” he says, “this is awkward.”
“It doesn’t have to be. I still want to be friends.”