Page 70 of The Way I Used to Be
“You remember that day?” he whispered, smiling through the words like it was something to him, like that day meant something to him the way it meant something to her. “In the emergency room,” he reminded her. “Your bike accident?”
“Uh-huh,” she breathed. It was as if he knew that she thought about that day all the time. How she thought it was probably the most romantic thing that would ever happen to her in her entire life.
“So, do you want a boyfriend?” He narrowed his eyes at the girl. “You finally like boys now, don’t you?”
“I—yeah, I do, but I—” She was confused, though. Because what was he really asking her? It sounded, in a way, like he was asking if she wanted him to be her boyfriend, but no. No, of course not, she told herself silently. She looked down at her flat chest and thought, definitely no, that couldn’t be it. Besides, he had a girlfriend—he’d just told her that. Plus, he was too old, too mature for her, the girl thought. But, still, she couldn’t make sense of that smile.
The girl’s brother emerged from his bedroom, standing at the head of the table, looking at their game. “Kev, you don’t have to babysit her. She can amuse herself, man.” He grinned. The girl didn’t even know that she was supposed to be offended. She was supposed to get mad at her brother when he said stuff like that about her. But she didn’t. Her brother disappeared into the kitchen and returned seconds later with a bag of chips under his arm and two beers in each hand. “Let’s go,” her brother whispered to Kevin, making sure his father wouldn’t see them stealing his beer.
But the girl wanted to keep playing whatever game this was. She wanted to finish. Because this, she thought, could be the biggest night of her life.
“Edy.” Caelin grabbed the girl’s attention. He pointed a finger at her and then placed it against his lips, the universal sign of silence. “Got it?”
She nodded, thinking they were just so cool, feeling so special to be in on their delinquency.
Kevin pushed his chair out and stood up. “Good game, Eeds.”
Then the boys left the room with their bootleg beer and chips. The girl tried to breathe normally, and then she slid her glasses back on her face where they belonged. She cleared away the colored money and the plastic houses, the dog and the shoe. She folded the board up inside of the falling-apart box and set it back on the game shelf in the hall closet where it belonged. But something still felt out of place.
She tiptoed into the living room, kissed her mother and her father good night, and sent herself to bed promptly at eleven. She knew because as she shut her bedroom door, she heard the news say: “It’s eleven o’clock, do you know where your children are?” She tucked herself in tight and pushed all her stuffed animals away, up against the wall—stuffed animals were for kids, and, God, how the girl was so sick of being a kid, that stupid, stupid girl.
As the girl closed her eyes, she was thinking of him. Thinking that maybe he was thinking of her, too. But he wasn’t thinking of her in that way. He was holding her in the palm of his hand, wrapping her around his fingers, one at a time, twisting and molding and bending her brain. I try to whisper in the girl’s ear: “Edy, get up. Just lock your door. That’s all you need to do. Lock your door, Edy, please!” I shout, but the girl doesn’t hear me. It’s too late.
I open my eyes. I’m breathing heavy. My forehead is beaded with sweat. My hands are wrapped tight around the edges of the cup holders. I look around quickly. Mara touches my arm and whispers, “What are you doing? Are you okay?”
I’m okay. I’m safe. It was a dream. Only a dream. And now I’m awake.
I nod my head and breathe the words, “Yeah. I’m okay.”
FOR THE SECOND MARKINGperiod, Mara and I are placed in the same study hall. Which is the only way I am going to be able to spend any time with her at all. Of course, Cameron and Steve come with the package, a bonus feature I could do without.
Me, Mara, Cameron, and Steve all sit at one table. And as luck would have it, Amanda sits at the table next to ours, giving me evil looks anytime I so much as glance in her direction. On the first day I waved and tried to smile at her, tried to silently tell her that I really don’t care if her lies turned me into the school slut. No big deal. I’m fine with it. In fact, I owe her one. She’s given me someone to be, after all, someone interesting and reckless, someone who doesn’t have to care so damn much. About anything. But her coal eyes just stare right through me, unchanging.
She even trains her tablemates to shoot eye daggers at me as well. One of them, I know; that snarky girl who added “totally slutty disgusting” to my epithet on the bathroom wall. I try to be cool, ignore it, let it roll off me. Plenty of girls at school hate me, think I’m trashy, worry about their boyfriends. I’m not blind, I’m not deaf, either. I see the way they watch me like I’m dangerous, hear the way they talk about me, their smirks behind cupped hands and their whispers. I’m used to it. The other girls, they don’t matter. But Amanda’s different. Because what right does she have? I should be the one hating her. If I cared enough, that is. Which I don’t.
Mara places her fingers against her lips and kisses them, and then lays her hand flat in front of her mouth, palm side up, and blows. The kiss is sent across the room. Cameron stops sharpening his pencil, catches her kiss in his fist, and then smacks his hand against his mouth.
“So, you really haven’t—you know—yet?” I whisper to Mara.
“Not yet, but soon. I think,” she says sedately, gazing dreamily at Cameron, who continues sharpening Mara’s drawing pencils like nothing in the world could make him happier.
She’s been so busy with Cameron and dreaming about their future, she hasn’t even asked about my birthday. Every year we’re supposed to go out to eat, just the two of us. It’s tradition. This year’s pick, I’ve decided, is going to be the Cheesecake Factory, but she doesn’t know that yet because I haven’t had a chance to tell her, mainly because she hasn’t asked.
“Mara, you do remember that tomorrow—”
“Shhh.” Mr. Mosner, our study hall teacher, places a finger against his mouth. “Ladies, please... this is called study hall for a reason—it’s for studying, not talking.”
“What were you saying?” Mara whispers to me.
“Nothing.”
That night I wait for my annual midnight happy birthday phone call from Mara. I wait and wait and wait. Maybe she just fell asleep. Or maybe we’re getting too old for midnight birthday calls.
The next morning when I get to my locker there are no birthday decorations. That’s fine, maybe we’re also getting too old for birthday locker decorations. But then when I see her in math and lunch and study hall and four times in between classes, she never says anything that gives me any indication she knows it’s my birthday. And when she drops me off at home after school, she doesn’t ask where we’re going for dinner, she doesn’t say when she’ll be back to pick me up.
“Edy? I thought you’d be out with Mara,” Vanessa says, walking in the house to find me lying on the couch. She sets down her purse and keys and the mail that was tucked under her arm, and then looks at me, almost too concerned. “We haven’t seen too much of Mara around here lately. You two haven’t had some kind of falling-out, have you?” she asks in that pseudocasual, too-high tone, which lets me know she’s trying really hard to do the whole worried-parent bit.
“No, she just has this boyfriend she’s been spending everywakingminute with.”
