Chapter 37 Bird
BIRD
All of winter break I’ve been with Kayla, the two of us just existing alongside each other, watching talk shows and bad Christmas movies. Emmanuel has been calling her house every day of vacation, trying to convince her that he had nothing to do with the zine.
The next time the phone rings, I answer for her. “She doesn’t want to talk to you—stop calling!”
“Thanks,” Kayla mutters, and changes the channel from Jerry Springer to MTV.
The phone rings again, and this time Kayla answers.
“What?” she shouts. “Oh. Sorry. Yeah, Mom. She’s here.
I know. I am. I will. I’m doing it right now.
Yeah, I know. I know. Okay. Bye.” Then she hangs up, points the remote, and turns the volume up on the TV.
I look at the time on the VCR. It’s almost noon, so I know what her mom was calling for—to make sure I’m here.
And I’m here to make sure Kayla’s okay. I get up and go to the kitchen, pour her a glass of water, grab a yogurt and spoon, and shake out two pills from their respective bottles.
One is a prescription-strength multivitamin, the other a little blue pill that’s supposed to be helping with her depression, helping her want to eat and stay alive.
But when I come back into the living room and hand her the water, she just rolls her eyes.
It’ll take her the next two hours to finish the stupid yogurt, but she at least takes the pills without arguing.
“Are we good?” I ask her, even though I know we’re not.
She shrugs and mumbles, “Yeah.”
“I know you’re still mad at me for talking to your parents, but you know it was only because I was worried and—”
“I know,” she interrupts.
“Hey, you know, I was thinking maybe we could work on some college applications sometime this week. It’s not too late to put your art portfolio together. I thought I might even try to research some writing programs. A long shot, but—”
“No,” she says flatly. “Can’t think about that right now.”
I reach for the remote and mute the TV.
“Hey,” she starts to protest.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
“We are talking,” she answers.
“But we haven’t been talking the way we used to. Not for a long time.” I take a deep breath and exhale. “I wanted to tell you about what happened over the summer. Finally.” I go to my bag and pull out my notebook. Open to the back, pull out the picture of Silas and Kat, and hand it over to her.
“That’s Silas, really?” She holds the picture closer to her face, squinting.
“He’s not at all what I was picturing. I can’t believe you—I mean, I guess he’s sort of…
cute. Or could be. If he lost the ponytail and glasses.
” I’d be offended, but these are the most consecutive words she’s said to me in a month, so I let it go.
“Yeah, well, looks aren’t everything.”
“Maybe if you’re a guy,” she scoffs, and sadly, she’s not exactly wrong.
I sit down next to her on the couch, squeeze in close so I can see the picture too. I haven’t looked at it in a while. “I don’t know,” I muse. “I thought he was pretty cute even with the glasses and ponytail.”
She gives me a little sideways grin. “He must’ve had a really great personality.”
“He did—or, does,” I answer. “You know how sometimes when you get to know someone, and they’re like really amazing, they start to look amazing to you too? And the opposite. You can think a person is gorgeous and then if it turns out they’re horrible, they start to look… I don’t know, ugly.”
“Not really.” I wonder if she actually means that—the old Kayla would get it. “So what’s G.I. Jane’s story?” she asks, dragging her finger along Kat’s buzz cut.
“That’s Kat,” I answer.
“Kat,” she repeats, popping the T, inspecting the picture even closer, but I speak up before she can say anything else about her appearance—I’m not letting this conversation get derailed.
“She was very cool. Really funny. Great writer,” I tell her. “She was the other person,” I add before I lose my nerve.
“What other person?”
“The other person. In the ‘mysterious love triangle,’ ” I add, using Kayla’s own words in an attempt to lighten the mood. “The one I wrote the steamy kissing poem about.”
The silence that follows is… interminable.
She hands the picture back and finally looks up at me. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I—I thought you wanted to know.”
She inches away from me, or maybe I’m imagining it. “Why would I want to know that?”
“Okay, well, maybe I wanted you to know.”
“Why?” she asks, voice all sharp like she’s talking to one of her parents instead of me. And now I know for sure she’s inching away, moving to the next couch cushion, pulling a throw pillow across her stomach. “It’s true, isn’t it, what people are saying?”
“What are they saying?” I can hear the challenge in my own voice now.
“You know what they’re saying. I’m a goddamn social pariah and even I heard about the fight with Liv and Jessa—over you, kissing at school. In front of people?”
“Yeah, I heard about that too,” I admit, still not sure what to make of the whole ordeal, whether I should be offended or honored in some weird way. “Imagine Liv, trying to defend my reputation or whatever?” I try to joke, not sure I really want to finish this conversation I’ve started.
“So. About you and Jessa. It’s true, isn’t it?” she repeats, and this time her upper lip is curling in disgust with the words.
Don’t do this, Kayla, I think. It doesn’t have to go down like this.
I’m trying to hold back the mounting anger I’m starting to feel course through my veins, but I can’t hide the tremor in my voice.
“If what they’re saying is that I love her, then yes, it’s true.
We’re on a break,” I add, “but I still love her—I’m still in love with her.
” I am, even if I keep letting the days go by without speaking to her, every day that passes making it seem more impossible to bridge this stupid distance I insisted I needed.
“So you’re just gay now, is that it?” she asks, this horrible bite to her words.
“Well, I—I’m bi, but—”
I stop, because Kayla’s shaking her head and smiling, then slowly laughing.
“What?”
“This is just… hilarious.”
“What is?”
“You! Sitting there, passing judgment on me. Acting like I’m so fucked up and I’m sick and I’m making bad choices and I need help and my relationships are unhealthy…
and you’re with Jessa? For fuck’s sake, Jessa of all people!
” she shouts, throwing her hands up and letting them crash down in her lap.
I’m on my feet now. “Let me get this right. You’re comparing your eating disorder to me falling in love?”
She stands too, wobbling from weakness as she walks toward me.
“You told my parents I needed mental help, and they believed you because you’re supposed to be so goddamn stable and such a good fucking influence,” she screams, then laughs again as she turns to walk away from me.
“But look at you. You can’t even decide if you like guys or girls! Un-freaking-believable.”
“Hey!” I shout after her. “That’s not true, and since when do you hate queer people?”
She spins around fast, and she has this look in her eyes—all feral like that day when she flipped out on her parents. “I don’t hate queer people. I just hate you!”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes I do! You’re a hypocrite. You’re a terrible friend, you always have been, and I hate you! I hate you—you’re the one who’s sick! You’re disgusting,” she adds, losing her voice from the strain.
“No, Kayla. You’re sick. And I honestly don’t even think you believe any of the things you’re saying to me right now.”
“I do too,” she tries to yell, but it’s barely a whisper.
I’m shaking my head and can feel my insides cooling, the hottest parts of my anger melting away.
Because I see it. I see what she’s doing.
She’s hurting me because hurting me will hurt her.
And maybe I see what I’ve been doing too—throwing myself into Kayla’s problems to avoid my own.
“All right. I’m not doing this, Kayla. I’m not even mad—I get what this is—but I’m not gonna stand here and take it like your parents do.
” I pause to get this last part right. “Let me know when you’re ready for my help. But for now, I’m leaving.”
“You’re leaving? You’re leaving me?” She’s crying and laughing and I feel like this moment has been coming for a lot longer than even this past summer. “Get out, then!” she snaps.
“Okay,” I tell her. And then I do. I go.
At home that night, I sit in my living room after everyone has gone to bed.
I wish Charlie was here. I told him I didn’t mind him going on some kind of last-minute ski trip with one of his college friends’ rich family.
Can’t blame him for not wanting to be here; I don’t want to be here either.
So I make a packet of hot chocolate in the microwave and wrap myself in a blanket on the couch with my notebook and pen.
I want to write myself out of this, but all I feel is numb as I stare at our stupid Christmas tree.
I fan the pages of my notebook and find the envelope in the back.
I unfold the article about my dad’s restaurant and reread it.
And I suddenly wish I was the kind of person who wouldn’t hold back so much, who would take up space, who would get angry and yell and say things I don’t mean.
Get angry and yell and say things I do mean.
I look at the fuzzy picture of my dad—a stranger now—and fantasize about screaming at my mom the way Kayla screamed at hers.
Make her answer for all this time lost, all these questions I have—the questions Charlie has too.
I wish I could run to Jessa right now and say fuck it—fuck all this dumb shit that’s been coming between us—and take her up on her road-trip-to-Boston offer.
Get some real answers. Demand them. But I guess I’m just not that kind of person.