Beast(18)

“Maybe I changed my mind.”

She eyeballs my chair and walks around the chrome frame and rubber treads in a slow circle, her finger itching to push the button. I concede. “You can take pictures of the wheels,” I tell her.

“Thank you!” She bends to one knee and fires the camera to life. “Your leg too?” she asks, never letting the SLR leave her eye.

“Okay, but that’s it.”

She feasts. What she’s probably been hoping for ever since we met in group. The button clicks a million times. When Jamie comes up for air, she licks her lips. Sated.

“You know, we’re not so different.” She fiddles with the lens cap but doesn’t put it on. The thing is still alive. “I have a confession to make, or maybe it’s more of a warning.” Jamie tucks a loose curl behind her ear. “Those thoughts you think? About how people look? I have them too and they don’t shut up. My last school was full of catty girls and I was one of them. You couldn’t walk two feet without one of us making a snarky comment like, oh my god, she is such a blubber nugget—those jeans are a million sizes too small. I made a lot of girls cry in my old life and I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m trying to be better. At least, I want to be better.” She beams. A frigging Girl Scout.

“Would you have talked to me in your old school?”

Her grin wilts. “Probably not.”

“Ouch.”

“It’s the truth,” she says. “I have…issues. When you surprised me at the bus stop, it brought me back to a bad place. I’m trying to get past it.”

“So, what, hanging out with me is like karmic clean slate for you? Because you used to be mean to ugly people, you get soul credits for a cup of coffee?”

“When you put it that way, it sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it?”

It’s a blow.

I sit back in my wheelchair and stare at the sky. No clouds. No birds. Just glaring gray haze. When I come back down to earth, Jamie sits in her chair next to mine like nothing ever happened. If I had two functioning legs, I’d take a big step away from her. But then…why? Because she’s a reformed mean girl? In a stupid way, I still am one. “Long story short, I guess we’re both horrible people,” I say.

She laughs her great laugh. “If that means trying to be a little less shitty each day, then yeah, I hope we are very horrible people.”

“Let’s go kick a pile of sleeping kittens.”

“Pfft!” she scoffs. “You and what leg? Let’s go punch babies in the face.”

“Topper.”

“And how.” We smile at each other, but she breaks. “I would never punch a baby.”

“So there’s still hope for kicking kittens?”

“You’re terrible.”

“You mean horrible.”

Jamie holds up an invisible goblet. “To us, the most horrible people in the world.”

“Cheers,” I say, as we clink our lost coffee cups together. We drink air.

“But thank you,” she says. “For being cool. With me. That’s pretty awesome.”

“Uh…why wouldn’t I be?”

Her hands raise another toast before she scatters whatever remained of the faux cup to the winds of the square. “And that’s why you’re so cool.” She smiles.

I die. I try not to, but I do anyway. I’d ask her to pinch me, but that’s technically touching and I might die some more. The best I can do is reach up and scrape the scruff on my cheek instead of smiling. “You’re welcome.”

“Dylan!” My head whips around at my name.

Oh my god. Mom.

Beige coat flying, she tears toward me. “There you are! Sweetheart, you scared me half to death! What happened? Where were you? Who was that girl?”

I go to make a flustered introduction, but Jamie’s off and sprinting down the steps. “Jamie!” I call after her. She doesn’t look back, speed walking across the bricks like she’s late for another bus. “She’s gone,” I say.

“Why weren’t you at the hospital?”

“She didn’t say goodbye.”

“Dylan.” Mom claps a hand on my shoulder.

“Sorry,” I say in a daze.

“That’s all you have to say? Sorry?” Mom grabs the handles of my wheelchair and gives me a big shove. Our car is double-parked and blocking traffic. I’m maneuvered toward the backseat; my bag is removed and tossed in through the open door. Her hands grip under my armpits, as if she could lift me, and I come to.

“I can do it,” I tell her, and get into the car by myself.

“Wonderful,” she says, lightly dripping with sarcasm. “I wasn’t sure. I thought you might have brain damage or something terrible.”

“You mean horrible.”

“Fine, horrible. Why weren’t you waiting for me at the hospital?”

The city whizzes by. Somewhere behind me, Jamie’s taking pictures. I want to be there with her as she listens for the cracks and dents to call her camera near.

“Dylan!”

“Sorry.” The inside of my head feels like whipped butter. I scoop out my story. “I thought I’d make it easier on you and take the bus home. It was the wrong bus. We ended up downtown.”