Chapter Six
I know you like Lowry and all, but we really gotta talk about the way she dresses.
You don’t have enough ink.
Written on a handout of Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Why are you erasing everything?” Mom asks, leaning against the kitchen counter. She’s gazing down at me with that mom eyebrow, the overly slanted one that suggests I’m doing something wrong. “At some point, shouldn’t you just start over?”
I look so much like her. Round face, tiny nose, eyes that are arguably too big. Brown hair that’s usually kept in a ponytail because it’s otherwise unmanageable. Sometimes it feels like I’m staring into my future.
She does this. Talks to me even when I have my earbuds in. There’s, like, one rule when people have earbuds in. Don’t talk to them.
And yet.
With a deep, weary sigh worthy of a Victorian girl approaching eighteen without a marriage proposal, I peer down at my planner page, which has been decimated by angry eraser lines. The shavings form a sad pile in the corner.
“This is a planner. One can’t start over in a planner.
” I shove it away from me like I hate it, even though I would sleep with it clutched to my chest at night if possible.
Planning prevents chaos, which, ideally, prevents suffering.
My September spread should be exciting, but I have nothing exciting to fill it with.
Well, I have homework and projects from my other classes to fill it with, but nothing from the class I actually give a shit about.
Mom nods, not because she understands my neuroses, but because she doesn’t have the time to listen to me elaborate on them, and I don’t really have the words to explain them anyway. We tried both when I was growing up, and the nodding just seems to work best.
“So what’s the problem, then?” She leans back, settles in. Her hair’s darker than mine; that’s the only noticeable difference. Her bangs are getting too long, the only part of her near-black hair turning gray. She’s constantly sweeping them off the tops of her glasses.
I sigh again, because this is another thing I don’t have the words for. I try anyway.
“Have you ever wanted something really bad, and when you get it, it’s … not great?” That’s so not even what I’m trying to say, but it’s all I’ve got.
“Like how when you’re a kid, all you want is to grow up, but then when you grow up, life is just a lot of work and bills and taxes?”
My body sort of deflates, my crisscrossed legs sliding out from under me on the dining room chair and slipping toward the floor. Once more than half of me is under the dining room table, mom sits down across from me.
“What do you do?” I ask. “When life is all work and bills and taxes and not what you wanted when you were a kid?”
Mom smiles—or maybe it’s more of a grimace.
“You live anyway.” She extends a hand and pulls me back toward the light. “I wasn’t even being that serious, Nova. Why are you in such a down mood?”
“This class,” I mutter, flipping through my planner again. “I’ve been looking forward to it, and to learning from this professor, and …”
“It’s harder than you thought it would be?” She assumes, probably because of how often I cry. But no.
“No,” I say, firmly, because that’s definitely not it. “Actually, it’s just bad? Like … the professor is barely teaching it? Like she quiet quit, or something?”
“Oh.” Mom leans back a bit, softens some. Her glasses fall just the slightest bit down her tiny nose. That’s why I wear contacts. Our noses aren’t sturdy enough for glasses. “Well, there will be other classes. Other professors. Not everyone is good at their job, I’m afraid.”
“That’s true, I guess.” It’s just so hard to accept this. I’ve been thinking about college applications and scholarships and majors and student loans since I was twelve.
“You know, honey …” Mom smiles in a way that’s almost a wince. I recognize that as the breaking-bad-news smile. It’s supposed to be gentle, but the sight of it sets my teeth on edge. “You scare me.”
I chuckle, taken aback. She covers my hands with hers over my planner.
“No, I mean it.” She squeezes my wrist. “So many people think your brothers were difficult to raise. And they were, they are, but I could handle the cuts and bruises from football and falling off of skateboards. I can handle the fights and the pranks. But it’s always been harder to help you, because everything you have going on is in that brain of yours, and it’s way beyond my expertise. ”
I get what she’s saying. That no one can help me because I make up all of my own problems. I internalize them so much that I end up being all of my own problems.
“You know how your brothers always talk about how their teachers would compare them to you? How they were always Nova’s little brothers?”
I nod. That’s what I wanted for them. That’s half of why I’m working so hard, so they have footsteps to follow in if they want to. So they have some of the head start I didn’t.
“And they hate it, I know,” I mumble.
“They do, but that’s not the point.” Mom reaches up to squeeze my shoulder. “I want you to be more like them, for once.”
“What?” I scoff, because I can literally hear them slamming shit around in their room right now. It sounds like one of them is going to fly through the wall behind me at any moment.
“You work so hard, and you push yourself so far. I know that you’re worried about how we’re going to pay for college, and I know that’s why you keep reaching for every win you can get. But let us worry about that, okay? Just keep being a kid for as long as you can. We’ll handle the rest.”
She smiles hopefully, and I nod. I won’t promise anything, because I don’t think I can. I didn’t know she realized how worried I was about the money. I didn’t know they knew that’s why I am the way I am.
Parents, huh. I guess they see more than I thought.
Mom stands up, takes one step away. She opens a tin of cat food, and Raven comes running.
Her tiny jet-black body is a blur as she speeds to her little corner by the fridge.
She was in my closet sitting on top of a pile of dirty laundry half an hour ago, but her hearing is HIGHLY attuned to these pop tops.
“Oh,” Mom says, once Raven’s slurping up her gross chunks. “Can you help Gage with his homework? I have to take Dash to football practice, and you know getting him to do anything is like pulling teeth. He’s not like you …”
He’s not as smart as you, she means. She won’t say it, but that’s what she means. It’s not the truth. He just doesn’t care as much as I do. No one cares as much as I do.
“Sure, Mom,” I say, even though I do this every night.
“Thanks.” She smiles, and then both boys crash into the kitchen with such force, it’s a wonder the walls don’t shake.
Not for the first time, I consider why my parents didn’t try to space us out further in age.
We should not all be allowed to be in high school at the same time.
They should not be allowed to be in high school at the same time. It’s just not safe.
Dash and Mom leave, which lowers the volume significantly. Gage throws his backpack down on the dining room table on top of my spread of school supplies, and my blood pressure ratchets up.
“Mom says you have to help me with my homework.” He sits and crosses his arms.
“I’m aware,” I say, because again, we do this almost every night.
“We could just tell her we did it, and I could go take a nap.” He leans in, steepling his fingers on the table. This is the bargaining stage. Brown hair falls over his face, and he makes no effort to push it back.
“No,” I say, crossing my own arms now. It’s like he doesn’t even know who he’s talking to.
“It was worth a try.” He shrugs. “Should’ve known Principal Supernova wouldn’t lie to Mom.”
His blue eyes roll, just like Dad’s. My green ones do the same, just like Mom’s.
“That’s Professor Supernova to you, and I would too lie to Mom, just not about homework. Now what do you need help with?”
He rolls his eyes yet again and unzips his backpack.
As he starts to unpack, some of his crumpled papers get mixed with my pristine ones. Trying to sort them out, he picks up Lowry’s syllabus by accident.
“College seems like it sucks,” he mutters. “This looks so … boring.”
My instinct is to fight that comment. But he’s actually right, and I hate it. My class does indeed suck.
But it doesn’t have to, I realize, suddenly.
Maybe I can make it better. They don’t call me Professor Supernova for nothing.
“Um. Hello?”
I hear Hayes’s voice through the white noise playing on my AirPods. The world feels so much better with the sound dampened a little. I take them out and put them primly in their case.
“What’s with all this?” he asks, continuing to talk. To me.
I really can’t believe the audacity. Except this is Hayes, and he’s made entirely of audacity.
“Oh, very sorry,” I mumble, not sorry at all. I have papers strewn all over my desk and half of his, and I guess that’s sort of rude.
He sits down next to me, pulling his arms close to his chest to avoid touching any of my stuff. Probably because he thinks I’ll go feral if a single sheet of paper hits the floor. That’s not completely inaccurate.
“You don’t have to apologize, I’m just … surprised.” His face wrinkles up as his eyes sift through the pages in front of him. “I didn’t think you were going to be like this.”
“Like what?” I press, annoyed.
“This. It’s all very you—the papers everywhere, the highlighting, the intense prep literally no one asked for—but I didn’t think you’d do it for a class you hated.”
I’m about to interrupt and tell him I don’t hate this class, and I never will because I’m hell-bent on loving it. It doesn’t matter if Lowry is bad at her job. This is a class for English majors, and it is my first step toward becoming one. I LOVE IT.
“But I’m glad actually.” He speaks before I can say anything. “It’s nice to see you putting your usual amount of terrifying, amazing, single-minded effort in. I was getting kind of sad watching you phone it in.”
Suddenly, I need more space.
He notices all the work I do at school? I can’t let him … perceive me like that. How could he notice? He’s never given any indication he knows a thing about me, like, as a person. How could he …?
“Even though Lowry is completely awful, you keep working. And I respect that.”
The rest of the class, which loiters right outside the door until a minute before class starts, begins heading to their seats. I don’t know why they bother. She hasn’t started class on time once yet. Might as well loiter until ten past, guys.
“Come on.” I laugh, a bitter, broken chuckle that sounds very fake, even to my own ears. “She’s … fine. The class is … fine.”
Ten minutes later, Dr. Lowry steps into the room and closes the door behind her. Without a word in greeting, she pulls down the projector screen and pulls up yet another movie that will probably take a week’s worth of class time to watch.
As she stomps on her heels toward the other side of the room to turn off the lights, I realize that the prep I spent all weekend on—designed to support seminar work—is not going to get used.
I sadly gather it all up. Without being asked, Hayes helps, delicately stacking papers and handing them over to me.
In the windowless room, the only light comes from the projector.
I know it’s an exercise in futility, but I pull out my notebook and begin taking notes anyway, because I have to do something.
Around me, everyone else is relaxing: settling back in their seats, folding hoodies into pillows, sneaking phones under tables.
“Are you sure this class isn’t a huge disappointment?” Hayes whispers, speaking too low and too close.
“No,” I respond, under my breath.
I’m not sure if I meant, No, this isn’t a problem, or No, I’m not sure.