And only later, when I got to my actual homeroom and had to stand up and do the whole summer vacation thing all over again in front of another twenty-five kids—and utter the words “Smoothie King” for the second time to an equally appalled audience—did I realize I had a large clump of grass stuck to my ass.
On reflection, the number of people who may have sensed my desperation? At least fifty, and I’m estimating on the low side just to make myself feel better.
Spelled out in black-and-white: Reason #4,657 why I don’t fit in here. My dad’s not a film marketing mogul, whatever the hell that is; he’s a pharmacist. Back home we were far from poor. We were what I knew as normal. But no one had their own credit cards. I shopped at Target or Goodwill with saved-up cash, and we wouldn’t just buy a five-dollar coffee without first doing the unfortunate math and realizing that the drink cost almost an hour’s worth of after-school pay.
The problem was that Mom wasn’t here. That she would never be anywhere again. When I thought about that for too long, which I didn’t, when I could help it, I realized it didn’t matter much where I slept.
Certain facts tend to render everything else irrelevant.
“My dad died of lung cancer,” Theo says, apropos of nothing, and takes another long hit. “That’s why I smoke. Figure if you can run twelve miles a day and get cancer anyway, I might as well live it up.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I know, right?” Theo puts out the joint, carefully saves what’s left for later. He stands up and looks me straight in the eye. No trace of his temper tantrum left. “Hey, for what it’s worth, I’m really sorry about your mom.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Sorry about your dad.”
This is intimate, and not in the way it was at dinner, when Rachel put her hand on my dad’s, a gesture that on reflection seemed more for Theo’s and my benefit. Now, they are bent together, forehead to forehead, and there’s a photo album I’ve never seen before open on their laps. Must be Rachel’s. Is she showing my dad her before pictures? Her dead husband?
“You know how it is. Mean girls get mean in seventh grade and they stay that way until your ten-year reunion, when they want to be best friends again. At least, that’s what my mom says.”
“It’s funny how high school is high school everywhere,” I say, and smile at Dri. Try not to feel uncomfortable at the mention of moms, like it didn’t set off an invisible flare in my chest. “I mean, this place is completely different than where I come from, but in some ways it’s exactly the same.”
She looks to me to back her up, and I wonder if my existence is a problem for her friendship with Agnes. Scar and I always sat alone at lunch. We weren’t really interested in talking to anyone else. To be honest, I’m not sure how I’d feel if she had invited some new girl to sit with us. Dri not only invited me, but did so excitedly.
Will I, one day, be able to sleep with a guy and not feel horribly awkward and tortured and not wonder what it all means? I assume so. But right now, the thought of that sort of exposure seems unimaginable, and mostly, if I’m totally honest, nothing short of terrifying.
SN: how long ago?
Me: 765 days, five hours, twenty-two minutes. You?
SN: 196 days, one hour, three minutes.
Me: You count too?
SN: I count too.
“So that’s how I lost my virginity. It counts, right?” Agnes asks me, and I decide that maybe I’ve been too quick to judge her. She’s funny and super honest and willing to laugh at herself. I get now why she and Dri are best friends.
“I vote yes,” I say, because it’s a hell of a lot closer than I’ve ever come to having a penis inserted into me.
“But Dri’s right too. I totally got half peened. How about you?” Agnes asks so casually it’s like she’s asking what my favorite subject is.
For a moment, I think it would be preferable to listen to them have sex. This is somehow more intimate, more raw. Even worse than witnessing her midnight tears.
“You think they’re going to get a divorce?” Theo asks, and it surprises me that my heart sinks at the thought. Not because I particularly like living here, but because we have nothing to go back to. Our house is gone. Our Chicago lives. [...] When Rachel told my dad to not come back, did she expect me to leave too? Are we kicked out?
“They’re both idiots.”
“Stop it.”
“They are. They thought they could just insert replacement here and forget that someone they loved actually died. Even I’m more emotionally mature than that.”
No, I don’t want to leave, but I don’t want to feel like this either. Like an interloper in someone else’s home. If I do throw up today, which is more likely than not at this point, I don’t want to have to worry about soiling Rachel’s bathroom. I don’t want to feel in constant danger of eviction.
We are sitting outside during our free period, our faces tilted up toward the sun like hungry cartoon flowers. I now have sunglasses—Dri and Agnes helped me pick out a knockoff pair—and I love them. They feel transformative, like I’m somehow a different person with large squares of plastic covering my face.
And at least one mystery has been solved: Gem can do or say whatever she wants because her dad pays off the administration. I guess that’s what a little tax fraud buys you.
There aren’t pictures of him around, which would be weird, but then I realize there aren’t very many pictures at all. [...]
The walls of my old house were covered with pictures of my family. Each of my school photos were framed and mounted in chronological order, even the ones where I was caught with my eyes closed [...]
When I come home to find Rachel in my room, I remember that this is not my room at all. This is Rachel’s guest room, and my sleeping here confirms what I already know: I am merely an interloper.
I will tell her about the mess I’ve made of things, how my new life feels on the verge of unraveling, and she will tell me how to fix it. [...]
And she’ll remind me that everything that is new always feels tenuous, that a lot of this, maybe even most of this, is in my head.
In T minus four hours, I will be home again. Even though my mom won’t be there, at least, finally, I will be someplace I recognize.
For a moment, I switch things around: think about what it would have been like if Scar had been the one who took off and I’d been the one left behind. What it would have been like to start all over with the people we have known forever. All of those people we had already chosen, for one reason or another, not to be friends with. Until now, it has never once occurred to me that my leaving happened to anyone but me.
I turn off my phone. Run up the stairs to the small bathroom. Throw up my DeLucci’s pizza and six cans of beer and don’t even feel the tiniest bit of nostalgic relief when I see Scar’s map of the world shower curtain or even the Cat in the Hat soap dispenser that has been there for as long as I can remember.
And as stupid as it is, I admit I think about SN that way too. Not Caleb, not the real-life version of SN, but the one on my screen. The one who is always there for me.
He’s not real, of course. We’re all better versions of ourselves when we get that extra time to craft the perfect message. The SN I know and obsess about can’t translate into real life. He’s a virtual soul mate, not a real one. I do realize that.
“I think he’s Liam.”
“No way,” I say.
“It explains why he would dump Gem for you.”
I smile at Scar but not because any part of me hopes SN is Liam. [...]
“You’ve been listening,” I say, and feel so grateful she’s still my friend, that she will be, hopefully forever.
I think about the life I’ve built here. SN and Ethan, or maybe SN/Ethan, Dri and Agnes, even Theo. Liam too, I guess. How my new English teacher said I’m one of her brightest students, which is a huge compliment, considering I go to a school that sends five kids to Harvard each year. How Wood Valley may be filled with rich brats, but it also has a beautiful library, and I get to work in a bookstore, and I’m reading college-level poetry with a boy who can recite it back to me. In a strange way, thanks to Rachel, LA has turned out to be nerd heaven.
This is a house full of pain, of bad juju, as Theo said, but it’s also a house of starting over. Maybe we need to light a few candles. Better yet, start putting things on all of the white walls. “You know, I mean, this place is beautiful, but maybe you should put out some pictures too. Of your husband—I mean your, uh, other husband, Theo’s dad, and of Theo as a kid. So he can remember.”
