Beast(34)

“Dylan?”

Her face. The angles. No, wait.

His face. I see it.

His knobby knees in a skirt. His big feet in a pair of girls’ boots. His eyes welling up with tears.

Oh god, this is happening in front of my school. Everyone knows me here. All the teachers that I need to give me A’s, straight A’s and perfect report cards—they work here. They can’t see this. I can’t let anyone know. What if the Rhodes committee finds out about this? They’d never accept such a f*cking idiot.

I get my crutches and go as fast as I can down the sidewalk for home, hanging my head so no one can see that yes, I do know that boy.

“Dylan, wait! You knew; I told you.” She jumps in front of me and takes my arm. We freeze on the spot, light cold rain sprinkling down the back of my shirt and soaking my neck. “You said it was cool. You looked me right in the eyes and smiled and said it was cool.”

If there were something to say, I would say it, but everything inside me feels like bone shards pushing through the surface. Unsorted, wrong. For the first time, looking at Jamie hurts.

She drops her hands and grips her fingers so tight they turn dead white. “Please tell me you were listening to me, please. I need to know you heard me that day.”

Slowly, so slowly, my crutches start to move again. I’m two sidewalk squares away from her, five squares, six….

“Then we’re over, Dylan,” Jamie says from behind me.

Her voice is so cold, I turn around.

“Done,” she says, lips clenched. “I feel like everything we ever had was fake.”

And it’s like a switch flicks and I’m all confused, because what the hell is happening?

“This was a huge mistake,” she says. “I thought I was giving you points for being decent, when I was really giving you idiot points the whole time.” She lays her fist to her head. “Or no, I didn’t give them to you. I gave them to myself for thinking we were real. God, I feel so stupid. Whatever, we’re done.”

“What?”

“Dylan, I’m dumping you!”

I’m back in front of her in no time. “You can’t dump me. We were never going out.”

“Get away from me.” She edges away in fear.

Just like that, I’m the monster again.

“We were never going out,” I say again, louder. Stronger. She can’t do this; she can’t win.

The tears in her eyes spill over. “I got lost in you,” she whispers. “And you were never there.”

She flies to her bike and gets on it, riding away faster and faster. “Jamie!” I shout. Because how f*cking dare that kid think he can dump me when we were never a thing, and oh my god, I kissed a boy.

I’m left on the sidewalk, rainwater collecting on the tips of my ears and my nose and dripping off onto my stupid school jacket that pretends to make it seem like I belong somewhere. I wipe my nose, my face, my eyes, and I curse her out, Jamie and her bike disappearing into the afternoon. She can’t dump me. We were never a thing. We never made it official. Then, oh god, she was a boy this whole time. I squeeze my eyes shut as hard as I can.

When I open them, I see stars.

She was crying, which makes no sense. “Boys don’t cry,” I mutter. The world grows dim and I shove off for home.





FIFTEEN


Safe at home, I stumble toward the basement, no crutches and no cane, hopping and lurching deeper down the stairs until I touch bottom. Walking on my cast is everything Dr. Jensen told me not to do, but screw it. If I could go deeper down forever, I would, but this is as low as my house gets, so I stop once I hit the trains.

I forgot about the trains.

Mom said they were for me, but I never wanted them.

I hate them—I’ve always hated them. Why was he building a train set when he could’ve been playing with me? Why would you waste what few years you have left on earth building a cheap plastic world? I turn away from the empty town. My reflection stares back at me and I hit one of the mirrors with my bare forehead. It’s cold, but I’m so hot, it stings. I want to forget—Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind style. Either that, or find out that this is all a big joke and Jamie is a girl.

My girl.

But no girl is ever going to want me. I see that now. Jamie dumped me, and seriously, what the f*ck? I got dumped. I knock my head against the mirror hard. I got dumped and we weren’t even going out. Then harder. My hand balls up and I punch the mirror. The glass cracks and the reflection of my face is splintered—a crawling spiderweb of broken shards breaks it up into pieces. Jagged chunks of a jigsaw puzzle.

I blow. There’s nothing I don’t destroy. Glass smashes with each punch and my knuckles bleed, leaving smears of red pooling in the gaps. I kick an old steamer trunk with my good leg so it feels just as shitty as my broken one. So big and huge, huh? These arms that mock me in the fractured mirror, is this what people want to see? They want to see me smash and tear the place down? Fine. Watch me. I am reborn. I am the Beast.

The Beast pulls and yanks a train track off the table and another and another, but it’s not enough. The wooden table, it’s bolted to the wall. I dig deep and pull a standing leg off and push the wood in half until it snaps like a twig. Breathing heavy, I smash it into the little town. Trains and plastic trees fly. I take the wooden leg and throw it like a harpoon, knocking over a row of old bikes. The smallest Huffy lies there, all dumb and powder blue with red and white stripes. My old bike from when I was little. I pick it up and wing it into the stairs, where it falls into a dented ball, leaving a crater behind. Is this what you want, world? You motherf*cking got it. I am that monster under the bridge. I will eat your children. The pain from my leg is amazing. I love it. I savor the agony from my back and my chin and my hands like it’s money I’m saving up to buy something great. My leg burns as I tear off the door to the boiler room and I don’t care. I don’t care.