Chapter 25
I always used to think that the universe handed out the bad stuff sort of evenly, so if nothing bad had happened to you for a while you should probably prepare for disaster.
This meant that when I was happy, it was hard to not brace for the other shoe to drop.
And vice versa. If life dealt you a couple of catastrophes, then in my mind it should take a break for a while, give you some recovery time, focus on passing out crises to a bunch of other people.
But that was before my friend died, I found out I was going blind, I almost froze to death, and I got caught doing something illegal.
And I almost killed somebody, or it felt that way at least. So no, life doesn’t give you a break.
But could that also mean that sometimes you get to be happy without it triggering a universal alarm that you need a takedown? That would be refreshing.
Okay, so go then. I swing the door open with such force it flies out of my hands and bangs against the wall inside. I flinch. The group gathered looks at me. The only adult speaks.
“Nothing like making an entrance.” It’s Ms. Clark, the Global Studies teacher, which is weird because I thought a program like this would be taught by the nurse or the school counselor or something. I guess they didn’t want to be here, either. Maybe Ms. Clark violated the school behavior code, too.
“Hi, sorry about that,” I say, closing the door as quietly as I can.
“Not at all. I forgot you were joining us, Hattie. Go ahead and grab two placards.”
I grab the signs from the table next to her and sit in the closest chair.
Everyone else has their placards in their lap, so I do the same.
There are four boys in the group and one girl, and none of them are from the play or the ski trip.
I guess there must be quite a few sections of delinquent class.
I’m relieved. Misery might love company, but humiliation loves anonymity.
That being said, I vaguely recognize these boys as seniors, and they make me feel immature right away because they all have some sort of facial hair: two with goatees, one a full beard, and the other a mustache that I’m guessing is meant to be ironic because he looks like he’s spent his entire life perfecting being bored.
He’s also so tall that even though he’s sitting opposite me in the circle, one of his feet is hooked around the leg of my chair.
I have to keep my feet tucked way to the right to avoid resting my foot on his, which I’m going to be absolutely sure not to do.
The girl next to me is Ellory Fiske, her long brown curtain bangs completely hiding her eyes as usual. Ellory has been in various classes of mine since seventh grade, but I have no memory of ever hearing her speak, and I doubt today will be any different.
“Okay, you find a fifty-dollar bill lying on the sidewalk. You pick it up and put it in your pocket. Then you see a woman searching for something on the sidewalk. You avoid her and hurry away.” Ms. Clark looks up from her paper, her lips pressed together, eyebrows raised in a sort of prejudgment look.
I flip my placards over. They say “okay” and “not okay.” Wow, they’ve really put us in morality preschool.
No wonder Mustache is bored. We all hold up our “not okay” signs, and Ms. Clark moves on with about a hundred more of these unrealistic scenarios.
I use a tiny sliver of my brain to hold up the correct card every time she pauses, and the rest trying to figure out what the other kids in the group did to get stuck in here. They’re probably doing the same to me.
I’m marveling at how a clock can tick so loudly while at the same time seem to not advance at all when I hear the door open behind me. The Better Bets class perks up in their chairs. Even Mustache pulls his foot back and lets his eyes focus. I turn.
It’s Asha.
“Line at the ladies’,” she says by way of explanation. “What’d I miss? Wheel of Addiction? Responsibility charades?” She strolls around the circle and sits next to Mustache. Now she notices me for the first time. “Hey, Hattie,” she says, sounding formal but not unkind.
“Hey,” I say back. What is she doing here?
What could my super-perfectly-put-together friend possibly have done wrong?
And how could any mere mortal grown-up have caught her at it?
I hate how many secrets seem to exist between us.
I cock my head at her, question marks filling the air around me, but the answers will have to wait.
There’s no denying that the class is a lot more interesting now that Asha is here. She cracks jokes about each hypothetical situation in such a charming way that even Ms. Clark is chuckling. But Mustache is the most charmed of all. He hasn’t stopped smiling since she sat down next to him.
The bell rings, signaling both the end of class and the end of the school day.
This is it. I can’t take it anymore. I need to fix this thing with Asha, and I don’t even care if it’s humiliating.
I wait for her in the hallway. When she emerges, Mustache is right behind her with his hand on the small of her back.
“Lincoln, Hattie, Hattie, Lincoln,” she says by way of introduction, and I notice a hint of a flush on her face. It dawns on me that this must be the first-date guy from the other night.
“Hey,” we say to each other.
“Meet you in a few? By the vending machine?” she says to him.
“You got it,” he says, enclosing a few stray hairs of hers between his fingers and placing them gently back behind her shoulder. “Hattie.” He nods to me then and ambles down the hall.
As she turns to me, my words start tumbling out.
“Let me start before you say anything. I know I’ve been pretty MIA lately and I know I’ve been weird—well, more weird than usual.
I suck. And I know I said I was fine when I really wasn’t fine.
But I promise I’m all done running away, and I’m done attacking. I miss you. And I’m really sorry.”
She looks at me for a second, unsure.
This is killing me. Mason’s assertion that I pit myself against the world is ringing in my ears.
I can feel the cold draft between Asha and me, our intimate friendship frayed with estrangement at the edges, and I know that I am the perpetrator.
That my fear of being judged and rejected has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, so I’ve been pushing away before I get pushed.
“Please, Asha. Accept my apology. I promise I’ll make it worth it, ’cause I’m going to spill all my guts out about every stupid thing I’ve thought or done in the last month.
I’ll overshare so hard you’ll wish I’d shut up already. ”
She smiles a little then and holds her hands up. “All right, all right, you’re forgiven. Jeez.”
“Okay, good, because I want to hear all about you, too. Let’s start with this new boy—”
“Hold on. You’re not the only one who needs to apologize.”
“Nope. Not necessary.”
“Yes it the fuck is.” Asha takes a deep breath. “I was way harsh the other night, and I’m really sorry. And I shouldn’t have said that shit about you and Mason. That was beyond rude. It’s just—well, you know how you two were.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I knew that there was something between you. A bond. Separate from the rest of us. And I swear, it never really bothered me. Like, at all. I wasn’t envious of it until after he died.
Now that he’s gone, though, everything feels like a missed opportunity.
And you … you always got him. Knew him better. ”
I did? I never for a nanosecond thought Asha would be envious of me for any reason, much less for something that I didn’t even realize I had.
But if I did in fact have some sort of special status with Mason, maybe that’s the source of the pain porridge I’m currently stewing in.
But what’s hitting me most right now is how uncertain she looks, how vulnerable and human and like me, and I just want to bear-hug her until it hurts. So I do.
“I love you, lady,” I say into her hair. “I’m here for you, too, okay? I don’t want you to just be there for me. It should go both ways.”
“Okay,” she says, hugging me back. Then she untangles herself from my grip. “Now let me go before you make me cry. Jesus, you’re a harder hugger than Lincoln.”
“Ah yes, the boy who looks like he wrestles bears in his free time. Spill. I’m assuming he’s the practice date.” We begin walking toward the stairs. She smiles, her eyes lighting up.
“We’re doing a bit more than practice dates now.
And he’s helplessly in love with me,” she says as she pushes open the fire door to the stairwell.
We let it close behind us and then sit on the wide windowsill that borders the landing, pulling our knees up to our chests so there’s room for both of us.
“Of course he is. How did this start? Why does he look like he’s about thirty-five? And what the hell got you thrown into Better Bets class?”
“I might ask you the same question.”
“I asked you first.”
She untucks the lock of hair he straightened and rolls it gently between her fingers like she’s trying to pick up any hint of him that was left there. “About three weeks ago up at the college, most likely testosterone levels, destruction of property.”
Whoa, too much information. Or not enough. Or in the wrong order. “Wait, at the college? I thought he went here. Exactly how old is this hairy man?”
“Relax, he’s a senior here. You remember when we had that pupil-free day? I think you were on the ski trip.”
“Yes, of course.” The ski trip I didn’t tell you about. Where a lot of other shit happened that I didn’t tell you about. Because I’m a big old shame bunny.
“Yeah, so my paranoid parents didn’t want me home alone all day—I swear my mom is afraid some pedophile is going to jump right out of my computer monitor if she’s not in the next room.”
“Ugh.”