I recoil. “I can’t believe what a total dick you’re being. You’re going to feel so stupid when I tell you what really happened—”
“Then hurry up and tell me, because I haven’t got all night—” A car goes by, interrupting him. He lets it interrupt him. That’s how little this means to him. And then his cell goes off again and he checks it. “It’s Anna.”
“Don’t answer,” I say. “Josh, don’t answer—”
“Just wait a second. I have to take this and then we’ll—” I storm down the driveway. He calls after me once, and that’s it. By the time I’ve hit the street, I can hear the faint strains of his conversation with Anna.
I jog down the street, trying to outrun the feeling building inside my stomach, until I can’t, and then I pick up antacids at Ford’s Convenience Store. They’re in the fourth aisle down and seventeen steps in. I make the switch from Generic Brand J to Generic Brand K, super-strength, because I don’t think the old ones are really working anymore.
They all stop working after a while.
“Come on, Anna-just talk to me, please”
I stretch, touching my toes. It’s gym. It’s too hot out to instruct, so Nelson tells us to do what we want. All the boys are playing basketball on one side of the room, and the girls are on gym mats, occasionally offering the illusion of movement, because we’re smarter than the boys. I’m trying to block out the voice behind me. It’s uncomfortably close and it belongs to Donnie. He’s squatting next to Anna’s mat and begging for her time, to get her to hear him out. She’s enjoying it, but she’s not about to give him anything. It’s all in her voice when she says, “Go to hell, Donnie.”
Kara giggles beside her. Before he made his way over, they spent the period whispering the words slut, whore, and bitch in my direction. Anna has also decided to torment me with fashion sameness. Today they’re all wearing blue. I’m wearing green.
I felt stupid passing them in the hall.
Donnie lowers his voice. “We need to talk—”
“Don’t touch me.”
She says it loud enough that it carries across the gym, and I can’t help it. I turn and look. Donnie has his arm on her shoulder, a tight grip. I can see his fingers digging into her shirt. If it hurts, it’s not on Anna’s face. She’s cool, disinterested. All eyes are on the two of them. She doesn’t waver, but he’s already shrinking. His face turns red, and his gaze shifts to me, and I edge away. I always waver. I spot Kara smirking out of the corner of my eye.
“Problem?” Nelson calls across the gym.
Anna won’t speak for him. Donnie lets go of her shoulder and stands, trying to recover the moment. He straightens and walks past, pausing almost imperceptibly when he gets near me. I’m the last person in this school he can intimidate. And I hate that I’m the last person in this school he can intimidate. As soon as he’s across the room, I get up and head over to the corner, stretching my hands over my head, trying to look casual, but my fingers are tingling and I can’t breathe. Kara and Anna laugh. I can hear them laughing.
I inhale slowly.
When I face the gym, I spot Michael. He’s sitting on the bench, hunched over, hands dangling between his legs, fresh off the court and taking a breather. His hair clings to his sweaty forehead, and he pulls the collar of his shirt up and wipes his face. Then he pauses and our eyes meet.
Josh jogs between us, momentarily obscuring our view, and when it’s clear again, Michael’s watching the game. I’m about to head back to my mat, but I stay back when I see Josh talking to Anna. Their heads are ducked together. Anna glances across the gym and tells him something. He nods and goes back to the game, beckoning to Michael to take center and sending Jack Olson to the side. I head to my mat and try to find the will to pretend like I’m doing something and none of this bothers me.
It takes, like, ten minutes.
“GODDAMMIT, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE”
The shout cuts through the hustle and bustle, and everyone stops what they’re doing and turns their attention halfway across the gym, to where a few guys are huddled around Donnie. Ms. Nelson blows her whistle and hurries over.
Even from here, I can see the blood.
“Wow,” Kara says behind me. “Nicely done.”
“Thank you,” Anna says. She makes her way over to the scene, Kara trailing behind her. Donnie’s still screaming, clutching his nose. I wait a second and I go, too.
“Calm down, Henderson,” Nelson says over Donnie’s shouts. She tries pulling his hand away from his face, but he won’t budge. “Tell me what happened.”
Donnie wrenches away from her, and his hand comes down, revealing a bloody mess. His nose and the area under his right eye is swollen and angry, painful.
“You fucking elbowed me in the fucking face on fucking purpose, Josh!” Droplets of blood go flying everywhere. “Fuck you!”
“Mouth, Henderson!”
Donnie’s hand goes back to his nose. His shoulders heave, and the parts of his face not covered in blood are a matching, apoplectic red. Everyone turns to Josh, who stands outside of it all, looking vaguely annoyed.
“Yes, Donnie, I elbowed you in the face. On purpose.” He says it like it’s a completely preposterous idea, like people don’t elbow people in the face on purpose, in the history of mankind. Ever. A few people chuckle, and he goes in for the kill: “It was an accident, man. You got in the way.”
I try to let the blood that’s still gushing from Donnie’s nose fill me up, but then Nelson blows her whistle again and the moment is over and it’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough.
And it just means I’m next.
“Brooks, escort Henderson to the nurse’s office. The rest of you, back to what you were doing. There’s still twenty minutes of this period left!”
We scatter back to where we’re supposed to be. Josh winks at Anna.
I want to punch him in the face.
Getting to the Garbage Table is easier this time .
Anna, Kara, Marta, and Jeanette aren’t around. Off-campus lunch. We liked to break out at least once a week, so they’ll all be clustered around a McTable in matching outfits without me. I sit across from Michael; I’ve brought a drink to wash my antacid down, and he’s got juice and a salad. The cafeteria noises are all around us, but they don’t seem to touch the quiet settling here. I know he hates me, but I can’t believe he doesn’t have anything to say about what happened in gym. It’s a big deal.
I watch him eat while he looks everywhere but at me. I used to be able to eat here. Ninth grade. Did it without a thought. Food, lunch. It didn’t mean anything.
And then Liz happened.
“I don’t know how you can stand sitting back here,” I say. He doesn’t respond. Still doesn’t look at me. “Every day. Who wants to sit alone at lunch?”
He takes a long swig of his orange juice.
“It’s not like I had a choice,” he says.
“It’s not like you didn’t want it.”
“I’m not afraid to be alone like you are.”
He thinks he insulted me, like I should be above codependence in this wilderness, but here’s how it is: Lunch with Michael is the new thing I’ll cling to, the only thing keeping me from getting totally eaten alive. Before that, Anna kept me safe from people like him. My life has become the art of putting things between me and the people who hate me. Yes, I’m afraid to be alone.
Who would hold that against you in high school.
He stabs a few leafy greens onto his fork and shoves them into his mouth. I take the opportunity to study him further. His hair is a little damp, and any sweaty vestiges of gym are off him. He hit the shower and he looks good. He glances up and catches me staring at him. For a second, I swear he knows what I’m thinking. I blush and look away.
This is dumb.
“So you knew my mom, huh?” he asks, and it’s a relief to have him ask because it means we have to talk to each other, and that’s better than him staring at me or not staring at me and chewing food and not saying anything.
I nod. “We were friends.”
“You know, I have a really hard time believing that,” he says, “so tell me something a friend of hers would know.”
“Why is it so hard to believe?”
“Because you’re so afraid to be alone. I think you’ll say anything to sit with me at lunch.”
I think of his mother. I try to think of something that would make him believe we were friends. I trace circles on the table with my finger and picture her face. She had light brown hair—not like him—and light blue eye—like him—and she was my doctor, but she was a person, too, and she liked…
“She loved Gary Larson’s comic, The Far Side. She thought he was—” I try to remember how she put it. “—Twisted. That’s how I found out about Gary Larson. Your mom. Because she really liked him.”
His face darkens. He hates and loves what I just said. He loves that I said it, but he hates that I’m the one who said it. He picks at the label of his orange juice.
“Yeah, she did,” he says.
Chunks of broken concrete. A hint of a car underneath. The person inside is crushed to death. The person inside is Michael’s mom. Overpass collapse.
It was all over the news.
“It’s not fair,” I tell him. “That she died…”
“You wouldn’t know.”
He’s right. I wonder what it’s like having a dead parent—how he can walk around under the weight of that kind of grief. My parents are useless, but I can’t imagine either of them not being here, being useless.
“She did like The Far Side, though, you’re right.” The skepticism in his voice remains. “How did you two meet?”
She liked reading. I take my cue from that: “Library.”
He nods slowly, a million miles away, absorbing this. I guess I pass, because he doesn’t press it or demand any more specifics. Another tense, awkward silence falls between us. Awkward for me. I wonder how many more times I’ll have to sit here before the tension dissipates.