Page 12 of Eye of the Beholder

But on the other hand…Cohen’s right. He does know Jack well. And if anyone would be able to help, it would be him. And even if Jack didn’t ask me out, other guys might take notice. And regardless of guys, I do want to become more of a people person…

The school day passes in a sort of fog. I try to slow my mind down, but it keeps racing. The enticement of whatever secret knowledge Cohen has is pulling at me to say yes. Would it really be such a big deal? It’s just tutoring my neighbor. I have a book on ACT prep; it would be as easy as going over everything in the book with him.

But if I’m honest with myself—something I attempt but sometimes fail at—it’s not just the tutoring part that makes me nervous. It’s the Jack part.

Then just tutor him and forget about the Jack thing if you’re so scared of putting yourself out there, my brain argues.

And my brain has a good point. But it’s just…it’s Jack Freeman.

Jack. Freeman. I would be crazy not to seize that chance.

And it could work! Couldn’t it?

The thought almost makes me laugh out loud as I sit down with my lunch in the corner of the cafeteria. No. No, it could not. That’s the other part I don’t like; if Cohen helped me and Jack still wasn’t interested, how mortifying would that be?

I try to read my book during lunch as usual, but I barely make it two pages because I keep reading the same sentence over and over again. I finally shut the book with a huff and look around the cafeteria.

There’s Jack, sitting with Cohen and a host of other people who are inhumanly attractive—Grant, Marie, and Virginia, to name a few. How does that happen? How do that many pretty people find each other and become friends who have enough in common to actually form genuine friendships? It seems like a statistical anomaly. Are they just pretend friends who are bound together by their attractiveness? Cohen has the scar and the crooked nose, but it only takes a second of watching him to see that he’s clearly a welcome part of that world. And I can see why; he’s a football player too, and he’s just as fit as the rest of them. He has a confidence about him that’s appealing.

Jack smiles at something Cohen says, and my insides do some kind of upbeat fluttering, leaving me sort of breathless. Somehow Jack always looks both put together and at ease, like being handsome and classy comes naturally to him. His dark hair is always parted on the side, something I never thought I liked until I saw it on him.

I remember the first time I noticed him. I’d seen him before, of course, and I thought he was cute, but I hadn’t really paid much more attention. But during freshman year, he sat behind me in math class. One day I shifted in my seat and accidentally knocked his ruler off his desk. I leaned over, picked it up, and handed it back to him—and he smiled at me and thanked me.

Hesmiledat me. We talked. And yet he didn’t even know I went to his school? After he thanked me, he winked at Virginia, who sat next to me, and we all know he remembers her just fine.

But I know why: because I am utterly unremarkable—because I’ve gone out of my way to be unremarkable.

I look back to Cohen. As though he feels my eyes on him, Cohen’s gaze snaps up and meets mine, surprising me so much that I jump and spill a bit of my water. Cohen looks at me, shifts his gaze discreetly to Jack, and then looks back at me, raising his eyebrows—dangling the bait in front of me.

I narrow my eyes at him and then stare back down at my lunch. I don’t see him smirk, but I have no doubt it happens.

***

When I get home from school, I still haven’t made up my mind. My list of pros and cons is short, but both sides are convincing. Pros: get Jack to like me. Or notice me, even. But also get better at making friends. Help Cohen do better on his ACT. Cons: venture completely outside of every aspect of my comfort zone.

I wince as I think of the list I made the other day. Venturing outside of my comfort zone was number three; I probably shouldn’t note it as a downside now.

I grab my apple from the counter and take a bite while I pick up the grocery list my mom has left on the refrigerator. I’ve got a few other errands to run, too; normally I do all my homework when I get home on Friday afternoons, but I can wait today. I don’t like driving in the dark. It makes me nervous, even though with my glasses, my sight is fine. I’m always worried I’m going to hit a deer or a squirrel. Or a person.

I eat quickly, watching absently out the front window. There are lots of trees in my neighborhood, and they’re colored with the usual autumn cascade of red, orange, and yellow. It’s beautiful, but I miss the green. I like fall, but after fall comes winter, and I really don’t like winter. I don’t like cold, and I don’t like cloudy.

Finishing my apple and throwing the core into the trash, I head back out to my car. There’s a black car I don’t recognize in Cohen’s driveway, although maybe it looks vaguely familiar? I am not a car person. I just don’t get it. I definitely recognize ugly cars—the boxy ones that look like hearses, for example, or the tiny little ones that would not last one second in a crash—but I really have no eye for what constitutes a pretty car.

Car people probably don’t use the word “pretty” as a description.

I’m just getting the key in the ignition when a different white car pulls up in front of Cohen’s house—looks like his car’s still down, I guess. Cohen gets out and says something to whoever’s driving, and then he waves as the car pulls away. I watch as he looks at his house and notices the black car in the driveway.

His face goes through a rapid and frankly impressive range of emotions in under a second, but what ends up there is anger. He swings around, looking lost for a minute, and then he sees me. I watch his expression change from anger to relief, and I know what’s going to happen before it does: he’s going to try to get in this car.

I say “try” because I am not ready to have the tutoring conversation with him yet.

“Willy,” he says. I read the word on his lips.

I can’t very well pretend I don’t see him, so I roll down the window. He jogs over to my car and leans down to talk to me.

“Willy,” he says again, sounding slightly out of breath.

“Try again,” I say.

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