Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
We resurface in Jason’s house.
I can tell, because he’s the only person I know who has a cinema room. Also, Other Zadie and Jason are making out in the second row.
“Ah, fuck.” Marcus reacts like there’s hot sauce in his eyes.
“We’re horny teenagers. What do you expect from us?” I say, with no real bite in my voice. It’s because Marcus has turned his full attention on me—the real me—and looks like he’s trying to see through me. I tuck a falling braid back behind my ear and look at anything but him.
“How are you?” he asks, voice gentle.
“Never better!” I say. Somehow it comes out…sarcastic?
I try again. “I’m great!” I say, but it sounds too chirpy, insincere. Finally, I drop the facade. “My migraine’s gone. Thank you.”
I get a Marcus Riddick smirk for my efforts. “No, thank you. Now I know your laundry pile is even bigger than mine.”
I frown, even though he’s kidding. “That’s not normally how it is,” I say. “It’s because I’ve been sick so often. I do laundry twice a week—once for sheets, once for clothes.”
“Sure, Cartwright.”
His grin tells me he’s toying with me, but I find myself unable to stop defending myself. It’s like a disease.
“No, seriously. I’m so good at laundry, sometimes I go over and do Mo’s,” I say. “But lately the only times I don’t have a headache are when we’re dreaming. The pain always ends as soon as a dream starts.”
Marcus frowns. “What do you mean always? Your headaches are bringing on the memories?”
“Well, I’ve noticed some…I’ll tell you later,” I say, as in front of us, Holden, Bennett, Amber, and Mo suddenly burst into the cinema room. Jason and Zadie pull apart. Mo and Bennett are carrying backpacks, and Amber and Holden have both come bearing trays of food.
I notice Zadie is wearing her favorite green belted wool coat, a sign that it’s cold enough for snow outside, that it’s officially winter in Sterlingwood.
“Bro, where’s everyone else? I thought you said you were having a party,” Holden says, going forward and back-thumping Jason.
Jay sighs. “I had strict orders that we were going to have a Not-Party,” he says, shooting Other Me an exaggerated sideways glance.
He and Bennett greet each other as Other Zadie says, “Well, don’t make me sound like your mother.” She’s handing out golden headbands with Happy New Year on them.
“Not my mother. Just the old ball and chain,” Jason says.
“Jason!” Zadie cries, as Mo says, “Yeah, that’s super gross.”
Jason holds up his hands, but he’s laughing. “I kid. I kid.”
In real time, I feel compelled to tell Marcus. “That’s the kind of joke Mr. R would make.” As a defense of Jason, it falls flat.
“Oh, I know,” Marcus says, and I can’t tell what he thinks. Whether he’s judging his cousin (and uncle) for being sexist or me for tolerating it.
“He really never talks like this,” I say, right as Holden turns to Mo and nods at her. “How’s life on the robotics team? That’s where you’re from, right?” Then he cracks up at his own joke.
Mo gives Zadie a wordless “Is this for real?” look, and Other Zadie pretends to kick Holden. “We’re not taking dickish behavior into the New Year,” she announces.
Beside me, Marcus snorts.
I look at him, but he’s carefully watching my friends.
Ambs, who has been quiet so far, blows a paper horn. “I actually think New Year’s is more romantic than Valentine’s Day.”
“That’s a weird take,” Jason says.
“I’m a weird gal,” Amber says brightly.
“I like any holiday where there’s no school,” Bennett says.
“I like any holiday where there’s food,” Holden says.
“I like any holiday where lists are involved,” Other Zadie pitches in, and everyone laughs, the atmosphere getting a little warmer.
“It’s New Year’s Eve,” I tell Marcus, stating the obvious.
“No way,” he says, sarcastic.
This is…not one of my favorite memories. I’m a little surprised that Marcus and I landed here, that the dream gods would send us to this night rather than, say, the night Jason and I exchanged I love yous.
“So what’s on the agenda for this Not-Party?” Holden asks.
“Scary movies? We are in a freaking cinema,” Mo points out.
Jason, never one to let a compliment on his state-of-the-art home theater system slide, says, “Yeah, everything in here is the best on the market right now. The speakers, the seats. The screen is the big thing, though—here, let me show you the picture quality.”
Other than soccer, the only thing Jason will geek out over is technology.
In answer to no one’s question, he picks up the remote control and points it at the television, and the screensaver image, a ring of blue poppies, disappears from the giant television screen.
“Did you see that?” I ask Marcus. “It was those flowers again.”
“Uh, no,” Marcus says.
“Some of these movies aren’t even officially out yet, but you can see them in insane quality. Whatever you want to watch,” Jason is saying. He flicks through a list, calling out some titles.
“I’ve seen all those,” Amber says. Coming from a similar wealth bracket, she’s the least impressed by extravagance.
“Does anyone want to just talk?” Zadie offers, her voice pitched high like she’s surprising herself just as much as everyone else.
“God, really?” Jason doesn’t just seem uninterested; he seems annoyed. But Bennett is on Zadie’s side.
“I’m down.”
Amber nods. “Yeah, let’s do that!”
Holden groans. “I’m feeling the emptiness of the amounts of booze I am not currently drinking.”
“Holden, grow up,” Mo says. “Let’s take a vote.”
By a vote of four to two, sitting and chatting wins. A resigned Jason turns off the television and slumps into a theater seat.
When the six of them eventually lower themselves to the ground, passing snacks between them, Marcus gives me an incredulous look. “Cartwright, tell me we’re not here to watch these people talk,” Marcus says. “On New Year’s Eve. In a dream world where we can probably fly.”
I focus on Other Zadie and Jason and our friends. “Shhh, I’m listening. Maybe there’s something Jason or Zadie says that is significant.”
Marcus sighs. “Holden’s a dumbass, but he might be right just this once.”
“Shhh,” I say again.
“The rules of the game,” Amber says, “are that you can pick one person to direct a question to, and they have to answer with total honesty. Then, after they answer, they ask someone else a question.”
Other Zadie claps. “I love this. Our little truth circle.”
That night, I remember feeling like everyone could see straight through my attempts to be light and jokey, the attempts I’d been making for the last week.
The last few months, actually. Fall, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then the prospect of a new year, the first without my father.
But from the perspective of the real me, months older, I realize that nobody else can see what Other Zadie is feeling.
“Jason, you start,” Zadie says, squeezing his knee next to hers. She sits up straighter, waiting for the game to begin.
Jason sighs. “Okay, my question is for my moronic midfielder. What happened in the Freeland game?’
“What the hell? That’s your question?” Holden laughs. The question is a reference to something that happened on the pitch at some point, a reference that only Holden and Jason understand.
The game devolves from there. A series of inane questions about bad hair choices and embarrassing moments and the whole time I watch, I feel the same way I felt the night it was happening: just the tiniest bit devastated.
The six of them could have really talked, told each other the truth.
It’s not that they don’t tell each other the truth usually, but Zadie has the sense that there are always pieces missing when she and her friends talk.
Hidden meanings and half-serious jokes, and then there are the things they just don’t tell each other.
“What’s Zadie thinking?” Marcus asks me.
I hesitate a second, because a question like that would have changed this night for Other Zadie. It’s only Marcus, but I take the opportunity to tell him, anyway.
“She feels lonely,” I say. “And she misses her dad. She hates that she wants to talk about it so much because bad things happen all the time and it’s been half a year, and shouldn’t she be back to normal by now?
At the start of junior year, I loved talking to Jason because he made me laugh and he was sweet.
He cared about all the things I cared about when my dad was alive: school and movies and friends and homework.
In the weeks after Dad died, being with Jason made me feel like myself, the version of me from before.
We never actually talked about my dad, which was fine.
We started hanging out just a few weeks after his death, and I didn’t want to talk about it.
But as time went on, I’d see things that reminded me of Dad, remember things he said and want to share them with Jason or even just with my friends, but for some reason I always felt like I couldn’t. ”
I don’t know at what point I switched from talking about Other Zadie—her—to talking about me.
“And it’s not Jason’s fault,” I tell Marcus hurriedly.
“I know if I brought up my dad, he would listen. My friends would listen. But part of being Zadie, part of being me, is that I don’t just fall in a heap and, like, cry.
I get shit done. I ran for student council at the worst point in my life.
I take care of my mom and never let her down. I’m good, you know?”
“Yeah,” Marcus says. He’s looking at me, but I refuse to turn and meet his gaze.
“I just wish someone—anyone—had been like, ‘It’s okay to fall apart.’ Even if it was a lie. Even if it was just for a few moments.”
I feel utterly stupid, blathering on like this.
And this is why I don’t like the memory.
The Zadie in front of me is clearly hurting.
She needs something, but I don’t know what.
Still, it tells me about Zadie, about me. It doesn’t tell me anything about me and Jason.
“Zadie,” Marcus says in a soft voice. “It is okay to do whatever you need to when you lose someone you love.”
I sniff. “No, it’s not, but it’s nice when people say it.”