Chapter 25 Bird
BIRD
After Jessa drops me at home on Saturday afternoon, I invite myself to Kayla’s house. My body is still humming, vibrating. I feel high again, but I’m not. I start laughing to myself as I walk to Kayla’s, taking my shortcut through the fields behind the school—another liminal space.
I have to tell her about Jessa, I decide on the walk over. I was afraid she wouldn’t understand about Silas or Kat, but I’ll make her understand about Jessa because I cannot keep this locked inside. She’ll be happy for me, I know it.
When I get there, my face is so cold and my fingers and toes are numb because I’m not wearing the right jacket for this weather. I don’t even care. Let the smile freeze on my face.
Kayla opens the door before I even have a chance to ring the bell.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hiii,” I say back, and I pull her in for a hug, spinning her around in the foyer of her house.
She laughs and says, “What the hell’s gotten into you?”
I laugh too because, oh, she has no idea what’s gotten into me. “I’m just happy to see you,” I singsong to her, and she goes along with a couple more spins before she lets go of me.
She backs up a few steps, stumbling a bit like I made her dizzy.
“You okay?” I ask through a laugh.
She’s nodding, but suddenly tears are streaming down her face.
“Oh my god, Kay. What? Are you all right?”
“No,” she breathes, shaking her head. “I’m not. I did something, Birdie,” she says, gasping through her tears, covering her face with her hands. “Something really bad.”
I get her out of the foyer and up the stairs to her room.
She’s crying the whole time. I wait to say anything or ask any questions until her door is closed behind us and we’re sitting on her bed.
This is what I’ve been waiting for. The breakdown.
And I’m going to be here for her. She’s going to tell me exactly what the hell has been going on with her.
She’s going to admit that she’s not okay and she’ll confide in me about whatever she’s doing to hurt herself, so I can help her finally get better.
“What is it, Kayla? You can tell me.”
“I cheated on Dade,” she wails. I touch her arm and she reaches for my hand. “I’m shit! I’m garbage, Bird. I can’t even believe I did this to him. I—I—” But she can’t finish because her voice breaks off into sobs.
“Well, hold on. What—what do you mean by ‘cheated’?”
“I had sex with Emmanuel at that stupid after-party, and I don’t even know why. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She lets herself fall down against her mountain of pillows, looking so small, smaller than even the tiniest little-kid version of herself I used to know a lot better than this one.
“Oh. Oh, Kayla.” I reach out and rub her back as she cries. “Kayla, you’re not garbage, okay?”
“I hate myself,” she whispers.
“Don’t say that.”
She turns her head to look at me, and I feel as if she’s just drifting away. Miles away.
“Kayla, was it, I mean w-were you…”
“Spit it out, Bird.” The comment is nasty but I let it slide.
“Was it consensual? Were you, um, sober?”
“I was sober enough. I don’t know why I did it, I just did!”
I breathe a deep breath of relief, glad she wasn’t hurt in that way. When she sits up, it looks like she is going to pass out. But she’s stopped crying.
“Are you okay?”
“No. I’m not okay. I wasted my first time on someone I don’t even care about.”
“Well, maybe you like him more than you thought?” I try. “I mean, you used to like him a lot.”
“I liked his attention. But after, ugh.” She shudders. “I felt so sick. God, during I felt sick. I didn’t even like it. Is it supposed to feel like that?”
“Like—like what?”
“Like… it really hurt. I mean, did it hurt when you…?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “The first time, it did.” But what I don’t tell her is that when the person is someone you do care about, all the ways it doesn’t hurt just matter more.
And when it’s someone you love—and when they love you back—there are no words for any of it because it’s more than any pain or pleasure or fear or joy all combined together.
“Okay, well, at least it’s not just me.” She sniffles and tries to laugh for a second before looking like she might cry again. “I thought maybe I was being punished or something.”
“Of course not,” I tell her.
“I felt horrible the whole time. I haven’t stopped feeling horrible for weeks now. Or sick. I just wish I could erase it.”
“I know. But it’ll be okay.”
“Do you think I’m bad?” she asks, and she looks into my eyes like my answer is a matter of life and death.
“No, I don’t think you’re bad.” I pause because I want to make sure what I say next is separate. “I think you didn’t mean to hurt Dade.”
“I didn’t! I swear I didn’t,” she says like she’s pleading with herself.
“But I think you meant to hurt yourself.”
“What?”
“You’ve been hurting yourself for a while now, Kayla, and I’m worried. I’m really worried.”
She shakes her head like she’s coming out of a dream and says, “Dade can never find out, Bird.” She takes both of my hands now and holds them so tightly. “I’d die if he found out. I’d die,” she repeats.
“I’d never say anything.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
We don’t talk about my worry and we don’t talk about Jessa.
Because Kayla has barely finished crying before Dade shows up unannounced with a movie he rented at Blockbuster that we’re supposed to simply drop everything to watch.
He doesn’t even notice that she’s obviously been crying.
The second the tape goes in, they act like I’m not even there.
So I go up to Kayla’s room, bringing the cordless phone with me.
I call Charlie. The hallway phone at his dorm just rings and rings.
I hang up and call back, and this time it only rings twice before someone answers.
The guy tells me to hang on, and I hear him set the receiver down and yell Charlie’s name in the distance.
It’s 6:23 by Kayla’s alarm clock. I wait until 6:32 before someone hangs up without even checking to see if anyone was waiting.
I go to Kayla’s computer and sign on with my AOL account. The yellow figure, the dialing, waiting, the connecting; it’s all much faster at her house.
Nothing new from Charlie. I’ve been trying to pin him down about a visit, but as usual, we keep missing each other.
Charlie,
I tried to call you again tonight. Just letting you know that you kinda have to say yes about me coming there because I already told Mom and Daniel you said it was okay. :-P
Guess that’s all for now. I miss you. See you soonish. Talk to you sooner (I hope).
Love, Bird
P.S. Any news on the father front?
I find the last email from Silas. I never did send him the poem like I said I would.
So I pull out my notebook—our picture still there in the front cover, along with the photocopy about the restaurant—and I find the poem from the open mic night.
I prop the notebook up against the monitor and transcribe my handwriting into a new email.
No message. Just the poem. In the subject line, I type: Thank you for last summer.
Then I pull up Kat’s email address. Except in her subject line I type: I’m sorry for last summer. I almost hit send, but stop. In the message, before the poem, I give her the words I couldn’t until now.
You were right, Kat. I did have feelings for you. I’m sorry I couldn’t be honest with you—or myself. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I hope you can forgive me one day.
—Bird
I send them both, and look at our picture once more. This time I stick it in the back of my notebook. I need to keep it—for now, anyway—but I don’t need to look at it every day anymore. Because I don’t need to wonder if they were as close to love as I could get. Now I know for sure, they weren’t.
When I go back downstairs, Kayla and Dade don’t even notice me leaving.