Chapter 4
The only thing worse than feeling bad would be allowing anyone else to notice, so when school starts a few days later I swallow Sad Sean to the bottom of my belly and put on my public-facing self.
“Good morning, Paumanok East!” I call over the loudspeaker. “Welcome back to another year. I hope you enjoyed the beach and the sun. I very much enjoyed staying indoors.”
Mrs.?Farmer, the main office lady with dyed-brown-bordering-on-purple hair, gives a silent belly laugh.
I pretend her appreciation is representative of the two thousand students almost certainly not listening right now.
I announce the details for the year’s first football game and do the pledge of allegiance, my voice echoing off the lockers.
I finish with the quote the announcements have ended with forever: “Make it a great day, or not. The choice is yours.”
Mrs.?Farmer applauds. “Encore!”
“Should I pop back on and give the weather?”
She points at me. “Just don’t forget us little guys when you’re famous!”
I do a smile.
When Mom and I moved back to this district two years ago, nobody knew who I’d been at my other schools. Doing stand-up at the talent show, I was the most palatable version of myself, the Sean I’d learned that people like. It’s a much preferable existence to public breakdowns and zero friends.
Homeroom isn’t over yet, so I lean against the PA system and check to see if I missed a message from Christy. I didn’t. We’ve talked a little since the other night, but she was leading a camping trip with her church, so we haven’t seen each other.
I’d like her to text to say what happened was okay. Really I’d like her to say it never happened at all. I don’t know why I even feel the need to say it never happened , she would write, since it didn’t and I have no memory of it.
That would be fine.
She doesn’t appear to be writing, so I tell myself to play it cool and send a casual hello.
HEYO, I text. FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!
She doesn’t write back.
I whisper to the phone, “Skip back ten seconds please.”
There’s a quiet laugh beside me.
A kid I’ve never seen before sits in the office waiting area.
He’s Black, with dark brown skin, and his hair is buzzed very short.
His pants—I think they’re pleated dress pants—are wide at the bottom but high and tight around his waist. He wears a loose white T-shirt tucked in, the sleeves rolled up to show side-muscles on his arms.
“Sorry,” I say. “I was talking to myself.”
“Did it work?”
“Rewinding my life?” I look at the phone. “I don’t believe so.”
“Dang. I was hoping I could try it for a few things.”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. The skin on his face is so clear it makes me think I don’t know how to wash mine.
Mrs.?Farmer pokes her head over her computer and says to him, “Let’s figure out your schedule.”
His pants swish as he walks past me and says, “Hope your future’s okay anyway.”
“Thanks. Yours too.”
The bell rings and I join the herd of students entering the hallway. I look back through the office window as the kid looks up from what Mrs.?Farmer is showing him.
He smiles and I see the gap between his front teeth.
Everyone in this three-story cement block is dressed in their first-day outfits. I don’t really have new clothes, but last week I took an old T-shirt and drew on it a robot sounding a barbaric yawp, so I’m looking fresh. I greet everyone with a flawless imitation of myself.
“Ahoy!” I shout at a passing debate team kid.
She throws two fists in the air. “Seniors!”
I give a firm nod before turning to see a slacker girl I met in Leadership opening her locker. I offer her a shimmy dance like here we go-o-o , and she laughs. “Good to see you too.”
Pivoting left, I make eye contact with Jay Romero.
He’s been my possible-nemesis since an ecology center trip last year when he kept asking if I wanted to fight.
Today he’s extra-tanned with combed-back hair on top of his buzzed sides and a collared shirt that’s skintight.
The top twenty-five students get to put a quote on a bulletin board at the end of the year, and last year Jay argued all the way up to the principal to use one from a “men’s rights activist” who’s under house arrest for sexual assault allegations .
Jay said it was his freedom of speech. The principal eventually agreed, but after a few students pushed back, he asked Jay to find a different quote, which allowed Jay to make an even bigger deal about being “silenced.” This was around the time the principal blocked the creation of a civil rights club because it was “too controversial.” Our school district is mostly Irish and Italian, with a lot of police officers who drive to the city for work and complain about the city after work.
Everyone’s great-great-grandparents moved to this country “the right way” and “worked hard,” so now everyone covers their cars in angry stickers.
Jay and I pretend we don’t see each other, and I turn down the arts wing. I hold open a double door for a ninth grader with purple-and-blue hair, and motion them through like I’m a butler wearing white gloves.
In the center of the art room is a still-life of pears, a truly thrilling first-day project. I sit at the corner table and take out my sketchbook and pencil.
My phone buzzes. It’s Christy.
Slept through 3 alarms and we’re out of coffee
UGH
I’m relieved she replied and terrified about how to respond. I tell myself to write something, but that only makes me more incapable of writing anything.
The counselor at one of my old schools told me panic attacks are physical experiences. They don’t only make your brain panic. Your body panics. Your organs panic. She didn’t say how to calm them, though, or if she did I was too panicked to hear it.
Oh no, I type. I’m so sorry!
Can I get you a coffee??
She doesn’t reply.
Andi drops their backpack beside me.
“You grow your unibrow even longer since the other night? It’s time to give that thing a tweeze.”
Their teasing is like a salve on the wound that is my brain.
“We prefer the term monobrow,” I say, slipping right into friendly-BS mode.
They sit and open their sketchbook. “We?”
“Those of us in the movement. The Monobrow Movement. Unibrows are classless, they’re a sign of poor grooming. A monobrow is a choice. A lifestyle.”
Andi tosses me their skeptical glare.
The bell rings but Ms.?Esposito doesn’t look up from her sketchbook. I had her for 3-D Art last year. She occasionally remembers she’s the teacher.
I put on my dopey voice. “Maybe I should make my new set for McGuinn’s all about monobrows.”
Andi sketches a pear, and it immediately looks real. “Yeah?”
“Their proper grooming. Their political connotations. Their function as a source of personal power.”
They add a speckle to the pear.
“What?” I say.
They don’t look up. “I already said you shouldn’t care what anyone in that club thinks.”
“I agree, but it’s the only club around here.”
“And everything around here is awful.”
“So where am I supposed to go?”
“Literally anywhere else.” They still don’t look up. “I don’t understand why you don’t just post online instead of—”
“The art of stand-up requires a live audience in order to—”
“Never mind.” They hold up a hand. “I would drive ten hours to see you talk about your unibrow rather than look at that retired Klansman Bobby Bingo again.”
Before I can respond, they take a scuffed Discman out of their backpack.
Andi is the one person who could find anything nostalgic about compact discs.
I have records of folksy Bob Dylan albums that Mom got me into because there’s something magical about a tiny needle reverberating a physical sound from vinyl grooves.
Even cassette tapes have a certain messy romanticism.
But a tiny disc read by a laser? Nobody should be hoarding those.
They pop in a mix CD and hand me one of their earbuds. Andi plays stuff from the early 2000s, like their glory days happened before they were born. Being with Andi is the way I wish every moment felt, like everything is not actually wrong.
When the bell rings, Andi takes the earbud back and we enter the main hallway without breaking our silence.
Christy’s face bobs in the oncoming traffic.
I must not look excited about this, because Andi turns to me and says, “What is it?”
Christy doesn’t see me yet. She leans over to her friend Kaye and talks very quickly.
I’ve barely ever spoken to Kaye but have always gotten the impression she does not agree with Christy’s decision to date me.
Christy’s hair is parted down the middle and pulled back in a wet-looking bun.
She has on one of those tight hoodies she’d wear before we met. She’s carrying a 7-Eleven coffee.
I smile and give a three-fingered wave, like, Hey, I recognize you.
She smiles as she nears. “You free after eighth period?”
“Oh yeah!” I show all my teeth. “Dream life.”
I lean in for a kiss as we pass each other and by some miracle we pull it off.
I message, That was genuinely impressive
She replies, Ahhhhh
You are:
The best
My thumbs freeze. I’ve gotten the interaction right so far and I’m terrified I’ll ruin it now.
“You spend this much time writing your texts to me ?” Andi asks.
“Why?”
“I’m not making fun of you. You’re taking it seriously, that’s all. It’s cute.”
“I’m cute!”
Andi winces and covers their ears. They point to the hallway they’re turning down. “Later, man.”
I look back at the conversation with Christy and reply, !!!
I get in some good jokes during calculus and physics, so by lunchtime I’m feeling good. I pick up a grilled cheese from the kitchen and sit across from Tony. He opens his deli sandwich and passes me a bag of chips.
His eyes are open wide, like he’s trying to watch everything in the room at once. Historically, Tony has not enjoyed being in school. It gives him stomachaches.
I lean in and whisper, “Would you like a happy dance?”