You are not good enough, Mark.
You will never be good enough.
How could you ever expect him to see you that way?
He was using you, and now he’s done.
You were just a substitute until he found someone better.
And now he’s found someone better.
Ryan stands up. Goes to his bookcase. Straightens something on the shelf.
“I’m sorry for dragging you back here. And for thinking it was a good idea to invite you to Taylor’s party. I’m going to leave it up to you whether you want me to tell you about it or not. I’ll understand if you don’t want me to. I don’t have to talk about him at all to you. Whatever it takes for us to get through this.”
It would help if he were acting like more of an asshole. It would help if he would say the absolute wrong thing. That way I could storm out. It’s too hard to just leave.
But he has a party to get to, and I have nothing left to say out loud. So I stand up. I find my breath. I force myself to meet his eye.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell him. And then, because I know I will hate myself for it, I add, “Have a good night.”
“You too,” he replies.
We’re just so helpless.
I open the door. I decide not to look back.
“And, Mark?”
I look back.
“I would fight for you, too,” he says. “I hope you know that.”
I can’t. I just can’t.
I run away before I lose myself completely.
TUESDAY
12
Kate
I wake suddenly—warm summer light through my window—and check my phone.
Nothing.
Which is so strange, because Mark said he would text no matter what. Whether it was good news or bad news, I love you or I love you not.
So?? I write now, and then I carry the phone with me down the hall, set it on the edge of the sink. As I shower, I keep waiting for it to buzz. Maybe the water is too loud, or maybe, while I’m standing under it and thinking of kissing Violet, I am too swept up in the memory to listen closely. But when I draw the curtain and check again, he still hasn’t answered.
I worry while drying my hair. I worry while applying mascara. I worry as I raise the tube of lipstick to my lips, but then I rethink the lipstick altogether. Violet and I are going to see each other again tonight, and I don’t want to have to think about red smearing on my face or getting on her perfect mouth.
I don’t want to think about anything.
When she kisses me, I will lose myself in it.
I keep my phone on my lap as I drive to school, a rare violation of the no-phones-in-the-front-seat rule that my parents set for themselves and for me. The three of us are prone to distraction and lost causes when it comes to patience. It’s better not to tempt us. But the drive is textless, and as I park I decide that the night must have gone well for Mark.
Because if he is anything like Lehna or June or Uma, he wouldn’t necessarily text me if he was deliriously happy, but he would absolutely text me if he was crushed. He would send me novels via text. Multivolume collections of sad poetry. I would be up all night typing Oh no! and So tragic! and Want me to come over?
The more I think about it I realize that not only did Mark’s night go well, it must have gone really well. Like, stayed-up-all-night-together well. Passionate, how-could-I-not-have-realized-before well. Maybe they forgot to set their alarms and Ryan’s parents discovered them this morning in a state of undressed togetherness and they are both being lectured to at this very moment. Or maybe that already happened late last night and now they are grounded and their phones have been confiscated, which explains why Mark hasn’t texted me.
On the way to my locker I take a detour through the C hall where Mark’s locker is, but there’s no sign of him. No sign of Ryan, either. I’m on my way to my hall when two junior girls stop me.
“We can’t wait for your show tonight,” one of them says.
“Yeah,” says the other. “I heard all your paintings already sold. That’s so impressive. Congratulations!”
“Wow,” I say. “Thanks.”
With everything happening with Violet and Lehna and Mark, I haven’t quite processed my new status in the spotlight. It is bewildering. And I can’t exactly revel in it now, because if these girls I barely know are already privy to the information that someone bought all my paintings, Lehna must know, too.
But Lehna is actually nice to me when I get to our lockers.
“Big night,” she says.
“And to think it all started as a lie,” I say. “I keep waiting for something to go wrong. I don’t think lies are meant to come true.”
“It wasn’t a lie. It was wishful thinking. Or magical thinking? Something like that.”
I shrug. I don’t know what it was to her, but to me it just felt like deception. Like trying to make myself into something greater than myself. And now I guess it’s all come true, but I still feel less than worthy of this.
“So, I’m driving June and Uma tonight. I’d be happy to drive you, too. Like, in case you might want to have champagne? I heard there’s usually champagne at these things.…”
“Oh,” I say. “I haven’t even thought about how I’ll get there yet.”
She nods, like it’s casual, like this isn’t a peace offering. Or a test.
“You can just let me know if you want me to pick you up.” She clicks shut her lock and adds, “Even at the last minute.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
She smiles, about to walk away, but I don’t want her to go. She’s being so nice and I am so undeserving. There’s so much I haven’t told her about yesterday.
“Hey,” I ask her. “Is Candace going?”
She nods and smiles.
“That’s great. I really want to get to know her better.”
“Violet’s going to be there, too, you know,” she says. “Are you going to be okay with that? It’s a lot of pressure for one night. And we both know how you are under pressure.”
I need to tell her, but the hall is almost empty. We’re going to be late for class.
“Maybe we can talk at lunch,” I say.
“Yeah, of course. See you then.”
And then she strides past me toward her class, and I should be headed to mine, too. But instead I keep standing until the bell has rung and the doors along the corridor have shut and silence has descended. Until I am alone with myself.
* * *
Each period brings me closer to lunch and further from the certainty that Mark’s day is being spent in post-hookup bliss. It didn’t help that when I saw Ryan in the hall he told me he’d see me later at my show.
“AntlerThorn, right?” he said. “Ha.”
“You know it.”
“No, but, come on. AntlerThorn?”
“I don’t get it. But wait, where’s Mark?”
He didn’t answer, just looked embarrassed and muttered something about getting back to the lit mag, even though we both know the last issue is finished and distributed and all that’s left to do in that class is hang out.
I check my phone as soon as I’m back in the gym locker room after volleyball. Still nothing from Mark, but there’s a message from a 415 number.
“Kate! Doll. I have good news and I have more good news disguised as bad news. First, your paintings are hung and they look just, how should I say it? Quaint. They are positively quaint. Now, the other piece of news might send you into a bit of a tizzy, but I promise you, there is nothing you can’t pull off in two hours. You are a remarkable little girl. Here it goes: It slipped my mind yesterday that all of the members of this show donated a piece to be auctioned off for programming at the Angel Project. I figured you would donate a piece that didn’t sell—because really, we never would have imagined that they would all sell—but then that collector girl surprised us! I had to pick my jaw up off the floor! And in the process I f
orgot all about the auction. We need a new piece from you and we need it before the show so it can be photographed for the online bidding. I have a courier scheduled to be in front of your school at two p.m. sharp. I know you can do this. Don’t you dare let me down.”
It’s a nearly impossible undertaking, but it’s also the perfect excuse to avoid Lehna. Instead of heading to the senior deck, I go to the art studio, thankful to find my teacher eating lunch in her classroom while browsing the Internet.
Have to spend lunch in the studio, I text Lehna. Just found out I have to give another painting.
Whaaat? she writes back. Because she knows better than anyone that my paintings take days. All the layers of paint that need to dry. All the details I like to add. All the colors I devote hours to mixing as I search for the perfect shade or hue. But as I set a blank canvas onto my easel and open the lid to my box of paints, I think about what Violet said. Art is about creation.
So I create.
I’m making good progress, working faster and looser than usual, not worried about getting anything right. But the lunch period is still too short. I call across the room to Ms. Gao. I tell her that it’s an emergency. “Any chance you could get me out of Ms. Rivera’s class?” Everyone knows that Ms. Gao and Ms. Rivera are friends. We’ve even seen pictures of them on Facebook in normal clothes, drinking cocktails on the weekends.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She disappears and then comes back with her cell phone extended.
“Kate, I am so proud of you!” Ms. Rivera says. “Carrie—I mean Ms. Gao and I are totally going to your show tonight. Of course you can take this time to work on your painting! I’ll announce your event to the class. Just review the last unit of the book before the final if you can. But you’re already getting an A, so don’t worry too much. But just review it in case. Okay, back to work for you!”
I dip my brush in red paint and put my headphones on as Art 2 kids fill the room. I try not to feel their stares.
It might be my best work, and it might be my worst. At two o’clock, I barely look at it. I find a cardboard box and set it inside and walk it out to the courier. I have felt the strange sensation of being the focus of the collective student body’s gaze today already, and the fact that there is a black town car with a man standing in a suit outside of it holding a sign that reads KATE CLEARY doesn’t exactly normalize things.
“Hey,” I say.
“Good afternoon.”
“So, um, the paint is still wet. So if you could just, you know…”
He takes the box from my hands. He looks inside.
“I can assure you that the utmost care will be taken,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you at this time?” he asks.
Teach me how to talk to my best friend again, I want to say. Keep me from fucking things up with the girl I’ve been waiting for. Tell me what to say to someone whose heart has been broken. Because by now, I know that Mark is not being punished for having great sex last night. It was a nice theory, but the harsher truth has been seeping in and soon I’m going to have to face him and do my best to be the friend he needs me to be.
I may not know how to help myself, but I hope I’ll know how to help him.
The courier waits in patient expectancy for my answer.
“Nothing,” I say.
He nods. When he drives away, he takes the speed bumps in slow motion.
* * *
After a period spent feeling the emptiness of Mark’s desk next to me, I look up directions to his house and then head over. He lives on the other side of town from me, in a modest ranch house similar to my own. Instead of the generic green lawn, it’s expertly landscaped with succulents and flowers and vines. As I walk up to the door, I pass a few Adirondack chairs around a tiled outdoor table with a cut-flower centerpiece.
I knock on the door. Wait. Ring the bell. Wait.
Desperate, I try the knob, and it opens.
So now I’ve let myself in, which I never would do under normal circumstances, and I make my way through the tastefully decorated living room and down the hall, in search of Mark’s room. It isn’t difficult to tell which is his: Only one of the doors is decorated with a baseball jersey.
I knock lightly.
“I’m trying to sleep!” he calls from the other side.
“It’s Kate,” I say.
He’s quiet at first. Then, “Kate?”
I open the door. It’s dark inside, so it takes me a moment to focus on him, curled on his bed.
“You found me,” he says.
“Well, yeah, I was desperate. I’ve been trying to reach you all day.” I sit next to him on the edge of the bed. “Way to keep a girl guessing.”
He turns his face toward mine, and my breath catches.
I expected real sadness, but I did not expect this: His face is puffy with crying; his eyes are pink and swollen. I see none of his easy charm, or even his hurt or his worry.
I see no resemblance to the boy who has become my friend.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t text.”
“No,” I say. “Please don’t say you’re sorry.”
“I hid my phone in my hamper. I didn’t want to know if he called me. Or if he didn’t.”
“That makes sense.”
“Katie,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“It was terrible.”
I lift my hand from the bed. We haven’t touched many times, but once I lower my hand onto his arm it feels right.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “It was our fault.”
“It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It was only the truth.”
“I didn’t think it would go that way.”
He’s quiet for a long time.
“Neither did I,” he says.
There’s a window over his bed and I want to let the light in. He’s still in his clothes from last night and he’s all sweaty from crying.
“Have you eaten anything?”
“My mom made me breakfast.”
“It almost four. You need something.”
I head to the kitchen to make him a PB&J. On the way I pass the television and a case of his parents’ DVDs, arranged in alphabetical order. I choose one at random. Before entering his room again, I check my phone. Brad texted me a picture of a flier with my name listed directly below Lin Chin’s. Post to Insta ASAP, he’s instructed. I think of her beautiful cranes, so delicate. I once read an interview with her where she described learning how to fold origami from her friend’s mother. She said that they didn’t speak the same language, so they spoke through the paper and the folds and the figures they created.
Then I think of my paintings next to her pieces, and my stomach drops.
I knock on Mark’s doorframe and step into his room again. “I thought we could watch something,” I say, handing him his sandwich.
He’s sitting up now, running his hand through his bedhead.
“Your show,” he says. “I can’t believe I spaced. I need to get ready.”
“The reception doesn’t start until six thirty. We have time.”
“But we should leave by five, then.”
“I can be fashionably late.”
“So we should leave at six.”
“Or a little later.”
Then I start to say something.
I stop myself.
And then I say it anyway:
“Or we can skip it.”
As soon as I say it, relief washes over me. The relief is on Mark’s tear-wrecked face, too, plain as anything.
“Are you serious?”
“Completely.”
“I can’t believe you would do that for me.”
His gratitude is too much to accept, so I tell him, “I’m not only doing this for you.” I have no business being in this show. How could I look Lin Chin in the eye and not die of embarrassment? How could I listen to Audra and Brad call my paintings quaint? How could I endu
re Lehna’s glares from across the room? It would be so much easier not to go, but now is not the time to list all the reasons, so I say, “Holy fuck that place is hideous. Those walls!”
“It’s a lot of pink.”
“Way too much pink. So it’s settled then. We can watch this movie.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Of course I’m sure. This movie stars Johnny Depp. You need to watch it to remind yourself that there are plenty of hot guys roaming the streets.”
He looks pained.
“Only when you’re ready for them,” I add. “For now, they are in hibernation.”
He smiles. I wasn’t sure he’d ever smile again.
I head to his computer.
“Oh no,” he says. “If we’re going to watch this movie, we are going to watch it. Not squint at some dinky laptop screen.”
So we go into the living room and watch on the giant flat screen as Johnny Depp’s character falls in love with a strange girl from a bigger place. The whole movie is about how he wants to be somewhere else. Part of a different family. Part of a different town. Part of a different life. It seems like the girl might save him.
Violet.
I need to tell her I’m not coming.
But I don’t even have her number. I could write her an email explaining, but I don’t know how I’d begin.
It’s past five now. Lehna is probably picking up June and Uma, checking her phone for my text accepting her ride or giving her a good reason why I’m passing it up. Instead she’s getting silence.
And then it’s six, and the movie is ending, and Mark and I are crying because it’s a beautiful thing, how people can come together. There are so many ways to let people down, not nearly as many to get it right.
“Kate,” he says, as the credits roll. “Explain this all to me. I mean, is this what you’re usually like? Or is something going on?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, but it’s just to buy time. I know what he means. The running away from every good thing. First from Violet and now from tonight.
“And I just realized,” he adds. “All the other seniors I know talk about college constantly. I know you’re going to UCLA, but only because you told my mother. You never talk about it, and you graduate in nine days.”