Chapter 1
Auggie
THE FRONT DOOR SLAMS AND I STAND FROZEN IN FRONT OF IT BEFORE I turn back around. Kate and my parents are standing in the kitchen, staring at me.
“What just happened?” Dad asks. “Is she okay?”
Kate starts to shake her head and turns around, walking to the living room. “I told you that you were going to fuck everything up,” she says.
“Kate!” Mom yells. “Language.”
“I’m going to my room,” I say, starting upstairs.
“Augustine,” Mom calls. “Augustine, come back down here and talk to us.”
“Please, just give me some space,” I call back and close my bedroom door behind me.
I climb onto my bed, open my laptop, and type in my password. Sure enough, the document takes up the screen, the scene at Aida’s funeral pulled up. I click Save and close out of the window and come face-to-face with a giant naked mole rat.
Mayte wasn’t supposed to find out about the story like that. I push my hair back, rubbing my temples, and begin to pace around the room. It wasn’t supposed to be this crash and burn moment. It was supposed to be… something else.
She was supposed to be…
I was supposed to…
Every time I’ve pictured… every time…
Who am I kidding? I don’t think I’ve ever pictured myself giving her the story. I wrote it for her. It was to help her. But all I’ve ever imagined is myself getting into college and becoming a bestselling author.
I wrote it for her. I just never imagined this.
I lie on my bed and pull out my phone.
ME: Mayte, I’m so sorry. Will you at least let me know when you get home safely?
If I’m not driving her home, that means she has to catch a city bus. I don’t think I even know where the nearest bus stop to here is, and I hope that she has some idea and isn’t just wandering out there in the dark.
I open a text to Leo, then to Janko, then close out of them both. I was going to ask them to check on her, to make sure she gets home safely, but that would mean telling them we had a fight. And then they’d want to know what happened. And then I’d have to tell them what I did.
Which wasn’t ever meant to be malicious or unkind or exploitative. It was about helping her cope. It was about helping her find a way to express her emotions. It was about giving her catharsis. It was about…
Me getting into college.
I pull out my phone and text Kate.
ME: Can you text and make sure she gets home okay?
She responds in seconds with a thumbs-up emoji. I turn up my phone’s ringer, set the phone on my pillow, and stare at the ceiling. Minutes later I’m on my side, knees curled into my chest, staring into space.
My phone chimes and I uncurl and sit up. Turn on the screen. An email. I unlock my phone and open it.
SUBJECT: RE: SUBMISSION TO BIRD CHURCH JOURNAL
Dear Writer,
Thank you for your submission. We regret to inform you—
I launch my phone. It hits the carpet with a hollow thud and slides beneath my desk. I re-fetal-position myself on the bed.
About an hour later my phone rings from across the room, and I’m hoping it’s her—or more like terrified it’s her but thinking maybe there’s a chance to fix this tonight. I get up, grab my phone, and glance at the screen.
Janko.
Shit.
I take a deep breath and answer. “Hello?”
“You didn’t,” he says.
“I didn’t what?” I say, but I know what he means. Of course I know what he means.
“Auggie, did you really do that? Did you write her story for your college apps?”
I’m silent.
“What the fuck, man? Like seriously, what the fuck?”
“Okay, I know it’s not cool,” I say. “But I really don’t understand why you’re both making such a big deal of it.”
Which is the wrong thing to say.
“Because that’s not your story to tell, Auggie. That’s her story. And she doesn’t need your help writing it. Can you imagine someone taking the worst moments in your life and trying to make them into this pretty thing?”
“Isn’t that what artists do all the time?” I ask.
“Is it?” Janko asks. “Or are you just telling yourself that so you don’t have to take full responsibility for this?
You don’t know what it’s like to lose a sister.
You don’t know what it’s like for your grandmother to have cancer.
You don’t know what it’s like to be Colombian or Mexican or a girl or Mayte! ”
“But I was spending so much time with her! Editing her school essays. It wasn’t just like I was pulling everything about her out of my ass. I wanted to make it realistic. I wanted to get it right. For her.”
“For her, or for your fictional version of her?” Janko asks. “Or for yourself?”
I’m silent again.
“And that’s why you were spending time with her? That’s why you were helping her with homework? What about thinking she’s this incredible, strong person? What about everything you told me the other night?”
“That’s… that’s not what I meant,” I say. “That’s not the only reason I spent time with her. Obviously I like her. And, like, I chose to write her as a character because she’s incredible and strong and—”
“Do you hear yourself, man? She’s a real-life human being. She doesn’t need you to write her as a character. She doesn’t need you to create this fictional version of her—”
“I wanted to write her out of this! I wanted to help her. Words have saved me. Stories have saved me. I wanted to save her.”
“She doesn’t need you to save her. She doesn’t need you to write her out of anything. She needs a friend. She needs someone to care about her.”
“I do care about her,” I say.
Janko doesn’t say anything.
“Janko?”
“Man, I know you love your writing. And I know you want to make it big or whatever, and I’ve always supported it because you have so much potential and you want it so badly.
Because you know how to use words to create these emotions in readers, like, you’re so in touch with them.
You know how to pull people in.” He sighs.
“But this isn’t that. You are so out of touch.
You are pushing people away. And I just think that really sucks, Auggie. ”
“Janko, you don’t get it,” I say.
“What don’t I get?”
“It’s all I have,” I say, and even I notice the hollowness in my voice. “Writing. It’s all I have.”
There’s silence on the other end. Then, “Well, that’s a really shitty thing to hear from your best friend.”
The line goes dead.
There’s a knock on the door.
“What?” I ask, without moving from my place on the bed.
Kate peeks into the room. “Mayte’s home safely,” she says, and then closes the door.
None of them will talk to me the next day at school. Obviously not Mayte, not Leo, not Claire. Not even Janko. None of them show up at our usual lunch table, and during my free period, I don’t see Mayte walk by the library like she typically does.
The library is silent, still nobody but me spending their free period there, and I keep sighing aloud until the librarian looks at me.
“Do you need something?” she asks.
“No, sorry,” I say. “I’ll, uh… sigh quieter.”
She gives me a strange look but goes back to whatever she’s doing on her computer.
I pull out my laptop and open a Google search. Names with the same meaning as Mayte.
Did you mean: Names with the same meaning as matte.
“I still don’t,” I whisper, not checking to see if the librarian is staring again.
It takes some very intentional typing and clicking, but I eventually find a list and end up “find and replacing” every “Mayte” with “Lyra,” a name that also means beloved. I do the same for “Aida,” who becomes “Alaia,” another name that means happy.
I sigh again, very loudly, and rest my head on the table. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know if what I did is morally wrong or if it’s straight-up illegal or if it’s just kind of insensitive.
I pack my laptop into my backpack, sling it over my shoulder, and make my way through the halls.
“Knock, knock.” I feel the need to announce, even though I’m already physically knocking on Mr. Ashwood’s open door. “Are you by any chance free?”
“No classes right now,” he says. “Come on in.”
I sit in the chair near his desk again. “So, I thought about what you said. The questions you asked about writing and who I was and all of that. And they did lead me to a story.”
“That’s great, Mr. Peterson,” he says.
“Yeah, I guess,” I say. “But I’ve been having these, sort of, second thoughts about it.”
“And why’s that?”
“Well, it’s based on a true story that happened to someone I know. And she found out about it and isn’t very happy.”
Mr. Ashwood smiles. “It’s a difficult part of the creative’s experience. Letting those close to you in on your work. You know not everyone is going to enjoy your work, Mr. Peterson. My ex-wife was not a huge fan of a story I once wrote about the complexities of divorce. But you know who was?”
The New Yorker?
“The New Yorker.”
“I mean she didn’t just not enjoy it. She was really upset that I wrote about her.”
“Did you change her name?”
“Now I have,” I say.
“And how are you portraying this person? In a negative light, a positive light, neutrally?”
“I’d say positively. I think she’s an amazing person. But it’s definitely not a positive situation she’s in. It’s a really hard one, but the character based on her ends up in a good place by the end of it. I didn’t say anything bad about her.”
Mr. Ashwood nods and considers this for a moment.
“Then I think it’s fine. Especially since it’s for a college application and not publication.
I think if you were going to have it published you would want to make certain you either receive her permission or change her enough to be unrecognizable in the story. ”
“So you don’t think I’ve done a bad thing?” I ask.
Mr. Ashwood chuckles. “What really is a bad thing?”
I scratch my neck. “I mean, like, just generally bad. Is it generally bad?”
“Legally, I think you’re fine,” he says. “Morally, I think writers should always tell the truth, whether fictionally or not.”
“I told the truth,” I say.
“Then I’d say both legally and morally you’re fine.”
I sigh. “Okay.”
“Socially, though…” He shrugs. “There could very well be a strain on the relationship, a certain amount of trust broken. But seeing the way you work, Mr. Peterson, seeing your work ethic, your passion for the written word, I’m assuming that’s not much of a barrier to you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean, if you wrote a good story, you wrote a good story,” he says, and looks me in the eye. “It depends, then, what means more to you: true, beautiful, humanity-capturing work as an artist, or the relationship you feel you’re betraying.”