“I bet you’re sure of a lot of things.” I eye the Moleskine resting on the dash. “All you do is watch us and write.”
“Yeah.”
“So what do you see?”
“Everyone’s afraid.” He looks at me. “But no one more than you.” I point. “That’s my house.”
He eases the car to a halt and lets it idle while I sit there and try to think of something to say, but I can’t. I get out of the car and step back into the heat, stand on the curb, and watch him pull out. As soon as the Saturn is a speck in the distance, I roll up the leg of my jeans and inspect the damage. Superficial wound.
It still really stings, though.
I’m in the girls’ washroom when Kara comes in. She’s in red.
Today they’re wearing red.
She takes her place beside me, and our eyes meet in the mirrors. I rinse the lather from my hands and watch the suds swirl down the drain. I turn the water off and reach for the paper towels resting in a nearby puddle of water. Kara pushes the soap dispenser and lets the electric green liquid gush onto the cheap plastic counter below.
I just want to kill her. I’ve never felt a more honest urge in my
life.
“You look like shit,” she says. “It suits you.”
“You’ll pay for this,” I tell her. It’s an empty threat. Empty threats and the strong urge to bash her head against the pavement—the only two things I seem to have these days. They’re better than nothing.
“No, I won’t,” Kara says. Her eyes light up. “Hey, I never said thank you, did I?”
“That’s so fucked up. Do you even get what Donnie—”
“Yeah, and I should thank him, too. It’s like winning the lottery. I couldn’t believe you actually thought I’d want to help you after everything you’ve done to me—”
“I was a lot nicer to you than I could’ve been—”
“No,” she interrupts. “You weren’t.”
We stare at each other. There’s always this one girl. She’s desperate and she’s weird and she’s jealous, and you’re stuck with her, no matter how hard you try to get her off your back. Just throw some really fucked-up self-esteem issues into the mix and you have Kara. She could never keep up with us, and she knew it. And we knew it. And she was fat. Our relationship is as simple as it is complicated. I played messenger for Anna one too many times.
And I guess I enjoyed it more than I should have.
“The best part about all of this—” she stops for a second, unable to contain herself. “Is how awesomely Anna sold you out. I thought she’d hold back a little, but she told me everything. I never had anything on you before—nothing she’d let me get away with using— but now…it’s going to be a great year, Regina.”
“Just wait until she finds out you lied to her.”
“It’s not going to happen. And what are you going to do about it, anyway? It’s not like you can rally the troops. You have no one. Well, except Donnie. Maybe he’ll have you.”
She leaves. I’m a volcano. Something inside me snaps, and next thing I know, I’m in the hall and Kara’s there, meandering, and all I can think about is how much I want her to hurt.
She doesn’t see me coming until it’s too late. I shove her and she yelps, and I shove her again, into a row of lockers. The sound she makes as she hits them is nice—it’s so nice—that I shove her again. She tries to shove back, but I’m too quick. Another bang against the locker. Her head. A crowd assembles behind us and I know they’re thinking Fight! even if they never say it. I can feel it coming off them and me; I’m adrenaline.
I’ll give them a fight.
But before I can make another move, I’m pulled back.
There are hands on me and they’re pulling me back.
“Get off her, Regina! Jesus, what the fuck are you doing?!”
The comedown is fast, intense. It’s over. I’m suddenly aware of how noisy the halls are, that people are talking loudly, and they’re pointing at me.
They all look surprised.
“Crazy bitch,” one of them mutters.
The hands that are on me belong to Josh. Kara’s pressed up against the locker looking like I’ve done exactly what I just did. Her face is red and her hair is everywhere. I shove Josh away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Kara—oh, my God, Kara, are you okay?”
Anna pushes through the crowd and starts fussing over Kara, who points at me, panting. Anna doesn’t miss a beat and marches over, livid. Josh moves, positioning himself beside her.
“What is your problem, Regina?”
I glare past the edges of Anna’s red hair, to Kara, because I’m too afraid to look at her, and then she grabs me by the chin and makes me do it. I grab her wrist, get her hand off me. Big mistake. She raises her other hand like she’s going to slap me. She doesn’t, but the threat is enough to make me flinch, and the whole, hall goes quiet.
We stare at each other. I jerk away.
My problem, my problem, what’s my problem?
I walk away from all of them, turning corner after corner until I end up in a deserted hallway with doors that offshoot into nowhere rooms. The fight that almost was feels like a memory already, like it didn’t even happen, and I’m numb all over except for my stomach, which is just acid, so I take an antacid, even though what I really want to do is scream until I can’t scream anymore.
“Regina?”
Michael. He startles me. He must have seen the whole thing.
“What?” I have to fight every part of myself to let that simple word come out of my mouth, because I really, really want to scream. “What do you want, Michael?”
He blinks, taken aback. “Jesus, just forget it.”
I watch him stalk back down the hall. I stand there alone until the urge to scream disappears, and then I decide to follow after him, because he can’t just tell me to forget it and walk away.
He has to know I’m trailing him, but he doesn’t look back. He keeps walking until he finally forces his way through the front doors and steps outside. Leaving. He’s left. That’s a really good idea. I glance over my shoulder for teachers. None.
I step through the door, and the heat is instantly on me.
Michael’s already halfway across the parking lot.
“Michael! Michael, wait!” He stops. By the time I reach him, I’m already sticky with sweat. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” he says.
Home. I could go home, to my place. No one’s there. I glance back at the school. I can actually see the heat coming off of it. And I hate the people inside.
“Can I come with you?” I beg. He looks like he’s about to tell me to fuck off, but I cut him off. “Please?”
He turns and heads for his car. I follow him.
He lets me.
Michael lives near the outskirts of town .
It’s an old house. The painted exterior is flaking away, and the front porch looks tired. The wooden fences that separate it from nicer homes on either side are in desperate need of repair. He didn’t always live here. He used to live in a bungalow a few streets over, and then his mom died. I always figured it was one of those situations where he and his dad couldn’t stand being where she’d been, but I don’t know if that’s true.
I thought it once and I’ve tried not to think about it since.
Michael gets out of the car. I do the same. Now that school is behind us, the whole situation feels less dire and kind of stupid, like I shouldn’t have come here. I wipe my palms on my shorts, and Michael gestures for me to follow him. We bypass the front door and edge down a narrow path of dried-out yellow grass between the fence and the house that leads into the backyard.
Where there’s a pool.
It’s in-ground. A quietly neglected piece of paradise. A few leaves float across the surface of the water. There are two chaise lounges at the side and worn-out wicker furniture taking up space on the patio. A sliding door leads inside.
Michael pushes open the back door. “I’ll be right back.”
I wonder if he will be. While he’s inside, I meander around the pool. I get it. It’s like neutral ground. It’s as close to inside as I’m getting, and that suits me fine. I entertain a visual of us in his house, on a couch, side by side or something, and it’s parental-inspection-on-prom-night shades of weird. Not that this isn’t weird.
I spot a fly floating on the surface of the water, its little legs pumping madly as it fights to keep itself afloat: I know that feeling. I roll up my sleeves, cup it into my hands, and seek out the least-dead patch of grass I can find. I set it down and it stays there, stunned. It’s still not moving when Michael returns with three bottles and two glasses. He sets them on the table. Coke, Jack, vodka. He faces me, and I try to ignore how much I understand what he just did. At Josh’s parties, I was usually the first to start drinking and the last to stop, and it wasn’t because I enjoyed the taste.
It was because I hated the people I was around.
He half turns to me. “So why’d you do it?”
“She deserved it,” I say.
Michael mixes two Jack and Cokes and hands me the first. I halve the glass quickly and then I polish it off. I can’t tell if he’s impressed or not. He takes a generous drink from his own glass, and his expression never changes.
It makes me feel even more awkward than I already do.
“My dad keeps his liquor cabinet locked,” I tell him.
He sets his glass on the table and wanders over to the edge of the pool. He rolls up his jeans and sits down, dangling his bare legs in the chlorinated water. He doesn’t invite me to join him, and I feel dumb about that, too, so I pour myself a shot of vodka, knock it back, and then I just go for it. I sit next to him, cross-legged, and try not to look as tense as I feel.
“What happened to your arms?” Michael asks.