Sometimes it’s hard to get the right exposure on a print I’m doing. I like taking what’s on the film and then manipulating it so the image looks lighter or darker than it actually was. And then other times, I want to print the photo to reflect exactly how things were when I took it. Capturing the Now so I’ll never forget these parts of my life.
It’s so cool that I have my own darkroom. I love it in here. I’m trying to develop a photo of my dad I took when he was working out back. I shot about half a roll of him making this bookcase for my room last week. He’s still not done, but I’m totally psyched. It’s going to be an amazing bookcase.
The print peers up at me through its clear stop bath. I can already tell that it’s not coming out right. I lightly poke the edges of the photo paper with my plastic tongs. Then I carefully clamp the edge and pick it up, moving it to the fixer.
There’s this one photo I saw when I dug that box out of my parents’ closet. It was another one of my dad from a few years ago, making a bookcase for a client. It would be cool to put these together somehow, then and now, transcending time.
I move the print to the wash and hang it up to dry. Then I run upstairs to their closet. I look for the box where I found it before, but it’s not there. Then I find it on my dad’s side of the closet.
Which is almost empty.
Okay. This is weird. Something was off before. It definitely felt emptier in here, but it wasn’t like anything was exactly missing. That I noticed, anyway.
Now things are definitely missing.
Like most of his clothes. And shoes. And when I inspect the top shelf where the luggage usually is, his big suitcase is gone.
I run over to his dresser and pull open the top drawer. Empty. The second drawer only has a few pairs of socks left. Then I go into my parents’ bathroom and yank open the medicine cabinet. One whole shelf is empty. I try to think what should still be here that Dad would need every day. Like his toothbrush and razor and shaving cream. I can’t find any of those things.
What the hell is going on?
It’s not like he’s traveling anywhere. If he was, he would have told me about it. Why would he just leave while I was at school without saying anything?
I run downstairs and find Mom at her desk, doing bills.
“Where’s Dad’s stuff?” I say.
She glances at me. Then she goes back to the bills. “What stuff ?”
“His side of the closet’s almost empty. And his suitcase is gone.”
Mom puts her pen down. She doesn’t say anything.
“Did he go somewhere?” I ask.
“Sort of,” Mom says.
“What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you sit—”
“I don’t want to sit.” My heart’s hammering really hard and I feel dizzy. I can already tell that I don’t want to know what she’s going to say.
Mom looks at me. “Your dad’s been staying at a friend’s house.”
“Since when?”
“For about a month.”
“A month?”
“About, yes.”
“But that’s impossible. He’s here every day. And we always have dinner together—he made us pancakes last night!”
“I know. But he sleeps at his friend’s.”
“Why?”
“We’re not getting along.”
“What?” That can’t be right. It doesn’t make any sense. My parents get along better than any other parents I know. I’ve never even seen them fight. I mean, they might have little disagreements here and there, but they’ve never had one of those scary fights with lots of screaming and throwing stuff. “Since when?”
“For a while now.”
“How long’s a while?”
“Marisa,” Mom says as she gets up. “Things haven’t been right between us since last year.”
I shake my head. “No,” I say. “There’s no way.”
“We didn’t want to tell you and Sandra until we were sure.”
“About what?”
“About the separation.”
There’s something weird going on with my hearing. The whole time Mom’s explaining about how Dad is going to move out, it sounds like I’m underwater. All of her words are making this sloshing sound and I can’t really grasp what she’s saying.
“Why are you guys doing this?” I go.
“We have to take some time apart.”
“Why?”
“To figure out what we want.”
What they want? Don’t they want to be together? Isn’t that the point of getting married? “What does that mean?”
“We’re not happy anymore.”
“But you look happy,” I say. Then I remember my birthday dinner. And how Mom pulled her hand away when Dad tried to touch her. How they didn’t laugh once all night. And how tense Thanksgiving was.
“We didn’t want to upset you.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not getting this. Two people who’ve looked happy my whole life aren’t actually happy and I had no idea? I live here. You’d think I would have a clue by now. And what’s up with the whole “We’re not happy anymore” line? Something like that doesn’t just happen for no reason.
“But why aren’t you happy?”
“These things happen sometimes.”
“But what’s the reason?”
Then Mom says something she’s never said before. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s private.”
Private? Private? Since when is anything ever private around here? Mom’s always told me everything. Well. Apparently, not everything.
“Why?” I go. There’s no way I’m letting her get away with such a BS reason.
“Some things in a relationship are . . . they need to stay between the people involved. And I’m sorry you had to find out this way. Your dad wanted to tell you right away, but—”
“Tell me what?”
“About the separation,” Mom says. But I don’t think that’s what she meant. I think she was going to say that Dad wanted to tell me the reason they’re breaking up.
Because he’s the reason.
And then it hits me. My dad is having an affair.
I remember when I was bringing in the mail a few weeks ago. There was a blue envelope addressed to my dad. It didn’t have a return address, but the handwriting was definitely a woman’s.
Oh my god. I can’t believe my life is such a cliché now. I’m just like all those other kids with miserable parents.
This wasn’t supposed to happen to me.
It’s obvious who this “friend” Dad’s staying with really is. That’s why Mom doesn’t want to tell me. She must be really embarrassed. Imagine being married to someone who cheated on you. Imagine that you had kids with him.
I hate my dad for doing this.
“Just tell me this one thing,” I try. “There’s someone else involved, right? That’s part of the reason you’re . . . separating?”
Mom looks scared. She obviously doesn’t want to admit it. But if she gives me this piece of information, I’ll stop asking about it. Which is exactly what she wants.
She nods.
So I’m right.
I hate my dad.
I’m going crazy. I am in desperate need of a distraction. All I can do is go to my room and try not to scream. I don’t even know how I can wait for Dirk to come on. But somehow the hours pass and when he finally does, it’s like I can vent all of my pain and anger through him somehow. He’s the only person who can make me feel better no matter what. I’m instantly calmer the second his show starts.
He reads a few e-mails. I lose myself in other people’s problems.
“‘Dear Dirty Dirk. My parents suck. They never let me do anything and if I get below a B on a test, they totally freak. I feel like I’m going to snap and have a nervous breakdown or something and end up in a mental hospital. I can’t take it anymore, but I can’t talk to them. Please help. Signed, Mad Angry.’
“Oh, hey, I hear you on the lacking parental unit. I think we all do. Seriously, does anyone have parents who know what they’re talking about? Or even know how to talk to us like we’re real people? It’s pretty obvious that our friend Mad Angry has been let down by the people who are supposed to be her role models. I’m sad to say I’m a member of that club. It never ceases to amaze me how screwed up our parents are, but then they expect us to know how to act. Last time I checked, they were the people who were supposed to be setting an example.”
This is so weird. It’s like everything Dirk is saying and the e-mails he’s picking to read are all about my life. And the sad thing? Is that he’s the only person who completely gets me right now and I don’t even know who he is.
22
I get almost zero sleep that night. Sometime around five in the morning I must have fallen asleep, because when my alarm goes off I jerk awake. It takes me forever to get out of bed and I don’t have time for breakfast, so I grab a yogurt to eat at the bus stop. Which is not exactly the most brilliant idea, because then I’m standing out in the cold with the brutal wind whipping my face, trying to keep the yogurt on my spoon from either freezing or flying off.
All I want to do is get to art and lose myself in making something pretty. But of course today is the one day I can’t do that.
The second I get there, Mr. Goode starts yelling about how some junior lost this really important project for a state contest that’s due over Christmas break. And he’s panicking that we’re never going to find it because this room is a disaster area and tomorrow’s the last day before break. So we all have to look for it, which means cleaning up a massive mess. Mr. Goode isn’t exactly known for his neatness factor. We all have these big envelopes we use to store our projects, so we’re going through everything in them in case the project got shoved into one of them by mistake. Everyone’s checking the drying racks and digging behind random piles of stuff and searching behind old paint containers and it’s a total frenzy. The last thing I’m expecting is for Derek to talk to me.
But then he comes up to me and he’s like, “So. Are you around over break?”
“Um—”
“Or are you leaving town?”
“No. I’ll be here.”
And then he goes, “Me, too. Maybe we should hang out.”
I drop a jar of rubber cement. It doesn’t break.
Derek laughs. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes!” I burst out. “I mean, yeah, sure, that sounds good.”
So it’s official. We finally have a date.
It’s amazing how much your life can improve in only a few minutes.
I can’t wait to tell Sterling. I catch her at her locker after art and I’m all, “Derek just asked me out!”
“Shut up!”
“He just came right up to me in art and asked me out!”
“That’s awesome. See, I knew he liked you!”
“I was starting to wonder.”
“When’s the hot date?”
“Over break.” I just want to be happy about Derek and get excited about our date. But can I just do that like a normal person? No. I have to be all worried about my parents, and I’m so angry at my dad. I want to tell Sterling about the separation, but I can’t. If I say it, then it’s real. And there’s no way I’m talking to Sandra about it. She doesn’t know yet and Dad should be the one to tell her.
When I keep the bad stuff in, it only leads to worse stuff happening later. But I’m just not ready to talk about it.
“Someone’s going to ask me out, too,” Sterling says.
“Seriously? Who?”
“Ken.”
There’s no Ken in our grade.
“Ken who?” I go.
“He doesn’t go here. We’ve been talking.”
“Wait, is he Ricky’s friend?”
“No. We met online.”
Here’s the thing. Meeting someone online? Isn’t actually meeting. I never get why some girls are all carried away with “meeting” guys online when those people could be anyone.
I’m like, “Since when are you talking to guys online?”
“Since now. You have no idea how cute Ken is. I’ll e-mail you his pic.”
“So . . . he might ask you out?”
“Totally. He already said that he wants to meet me in person.”
“Wow.”
“He’s so cute.”
“That’s . . . that’s great.” I think the whole thing is a big pile of really bad idea, but she’s so happy and there’s no way I’m ruining it for her. She’s happy the way I wish I could be right now.
23
I hate that Dad found an apartment and he’s moving all his stuff into it. I hate that I don’t know how to fix this. And I especially hate that I can’t be happy about Derek, after all this time waiting for him to ask me out.
I don’t even care that Christmas is in two days. Merry freaking hoo-ha.
Even though I hate my dad right now, I’m secretly hoping that my parents will get back together. Because the thing is, I used to love him. Like, really love him, as much as you can love a dad. He was a great dad. I totally want to throw up every time I think about how he betrayed us, but under that, buried down deep in a place I don’t want to admit is real, there’s a tiny glimmer of hope.
Except for art and Derek, school is a total nightmare. If our break wasn’t starting tomorrow, I don’t think I’d be able to survive. I shuffle to global, where there’s a disturbing revelation. Darius didn’t do his homework.
That can’t be right.
Ms. Maynard agrees. She’s like, “Okay, Darius, very funny.”
But Darius is like, “No. I’m serious. I didn’t do it.”
You could hear a cricket chirp. I mean, you know, if it were nighttime. And we were outside and all.
Ms. Maynard decides to leave that one alone.
“Okay!” She claps her hands in what’s supposed to be an efficient gesture, but instead comes off as nervous. “Let’s move on.”
I watch Darius. He’s definitely changed. I mean, other than what he’s wearing. When he raises his hand to answer questions, he’s not as hyper about it. He’s severely toned down.
All day this anger builds up inside of me. And I’m seeing all of these things I never noticed before. It’s like I have this razor-sharp awareness of how people really are. What they’re really thinking when they’re supposed to be paying attention in class. The things they’re not saying but wish they were.
Or maybe I’m just projecting.
I don’t talk to anyone for the rest of the day. Sterling keeps asking what’s wrong every time she sees me, but I just say I’m PMSing. I can tell she’s worried because she knows that one little thing can send me into a depression for days. And I should be psyched that I’m finally going out with Derek.
When I see Nash in the hall, I get this overwhelming urge to talk to him. But then Rachel appears and he’s totally gone.
It’s not unbearably cold out so I walk home from school. Exercise is supposed to help keep me stable. My therapist said how exercise releases endorphins, which make you feel good. But I’m clearly grasping at straws.
The first thing I do when I get home is take my violin into the bathroom and slam the door. We had the winter concert right before I found out about Dad and there’s already stuff to practice for the spring concert. I wish I could go back to when I didn’t have to know the truth about my parents. I liked my role model version of them better.
I lock myself in with a resounding click. I tighten my bow too tightly. I grind my bow with rosin so hard there’s this huge cloud of dust. I sneeze. Some bow hairs snap off and peel away slowly, like they’re afraid of what I’ll do next. Which makes me even angrier. This is a new bow.
Why does every little thing have to be this huge challenge?
I whale on the violin. I don’t even care that the notes are coming out too sharp. I’m dangerously close to tearing off the D string just
from my angry vibes.
There’s banging on the bathroom door. I ignore it.
Sandra won’t be ignored.
“Can you please chill?” she yells. She rattles the doorknob. “Let me in!”
I grind harder. The notes don’t even sound like notes anymore.
“Can you shut up?” Sandra yells.
There’s no way she’s leaving me alone, so I unlock the door. I open it a crack and say, “May I help you?”
“You can stop beasting on your violin. Some people are trying to read.”
“And would any of those people be an annoying little nugget?” Sandra just put up this PETA poster in her room of fluffy chicks that says WE ARE NOT NUGGETS! PLEASE DON’T EATUS. I’ve been teasing her about it. She hates it when I call her a nugget.
She’s all, “Well, at least I’m not a corroded snothead.”
“It’s a lot better than being a crispy little nugget.”
“Mom!” Sandra yells. “Marisa won’t get out of the bathroom!”
“Yell all you want. She’s not home.” What am I doing? Alienating people I have to live with? Picking some stupid fight with my little sister like I’m twelve? Destroying my expensive violin? “Sandy—”
“My name. Is Sandra.”
“Really? I thought it was Nugget.”
“You’re a reject, you know that?” Sandra slams the door.
Yeah. I’m beginning to realize that I still am. But thanks for the confirmation.
24
I set my alarm for extra early this morning, even though I totally didn’t need to. I couldn’t sleep all night. I’m so excited that my stomach is a permanent jiggle-jaggle of nerves.
There they go again.
Jiggle.
Jaggle.
I’m a mess.
And the craziest thing? Is that I woke up super early and I’m still not ready yet. Everything I try on looks stupid and wrong. What do you wear for a day of hanging out at the Notch and seeing a movie after? I finally decide on my fave jeans and this sheer top that’s both flowy and fitted that I got for Christmas. I wonder if Derek will think it’s sexy. Or do boys even notice these things?