How to Be Brave(40)

I’m running.

Liss screams behind me.


And then, I’m outside,

And the snow burns my bare feet.

I can’t find the concrete,

If only I could find the concrete,

I know it could be warmer.

I crawl on my hands and knees and dig for the concrete.

I know it will be warmer.

I think I know this to be true.


And then,

Liss screams at me,

but I can’t hear her.


And then,

my mother is there, standing

in front of me.


She’s a Picasso.

Her breasts hang heavy.

Her thighs thick and round.

She’s a leaf,

a pendant,

a chandelier.


She’s a Mondrian,

all black and red,

rectangle and line.

She’s a blue square.

A back alley tag.


She’s a Mullican,

radiating spheres of needles

her face brown with dried blood.

And I am inside,

pierced with the promise of the sun.


She is right there,

her hand on my cheek.

It’s warm and it’s real.

I know this to be true.

*

I don’t know how I made it back home last night, but I’m in my bed and I don’t want to get out. I don’t want to open my eyes, I don’t want to move my body, but my body has to pee, and I need coffee and water and something in my stomach, something to help this feeling of death under my skin.

I roll myself out of the covers and force myself to look in the mirror.

What have I done?

Oh, Mom, what have I done?

This wasn’t on the list.

*

I eat lunch alone, and I walk home alone, and I spend nights alone. I write to her, and I call her, and I text her, and I try to stop her in the hallway, but it’s no use. Liss won’t let me say what I want to say.

Evelyn texts that she’s sorry—first about telling everyone about the list (she didn’t know it was a secret) and then about the pot. It was laced with something, she thinks, and she’s sorry. She says she wants to hang out, but she’s the last person on earth I want to spend time with.

I’m over it. All of it. The drugs and the drinking and the just f*cking up in general.

I skip Marquez’s class all week just to avoid seeing Daniel. No need to share any more crazy with him. I consider it my last, well-deserved sin.

As for Gregg, thankfully I don’t see him all week, but the Friday before winter break he walks up to my locker just as I’m packing the last of my stuff before heading home for the two weeks.

The halls are mostly empty except for a few stragglers who are exchanging presents and cleaning out their lockers. No one got me a present, but then again, no one’s really talking to me, either.

Gregg hovers over my shoulder. “Happy holidays,” he says all smug and smarmy, a Santa hat hanging over his brow.

Ugh. What a creep.

I ignore him. I focus instead on my locker. There’s not much in it, a few books and some extra clothes, but I’m stuffing it all in my bag, just to keep busy, just to avoid looking Gregg in the eye.

Daniel walks up to his locker. Fuuuuuck. Worst timing.

“Hey, bro,” Gregg says to Daniel. Ugh. He would use a word like “bro.”

But Daniel ignores him. He just opens his locker and starts packing up his stuff, too. Oh, how I wish I could tell him how it was just all a terrible, awful consequence of a series of terrible, awful mistakes and stupid, stupid hallucinogens. How I wish I could start all over again.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I can see Liss down the hallway. Holy shit. Really? I’ve managed to avoid these people all week, and now the universe conspires against me to put me in the most awkward position ever?

And Gregg is standing there, his back against the neighboring locker, staring at me, smirking. “I haven’t seen you all week. Where you been?”

“What do you want from me?” I finally snap at Gregg.

“I enjoyed what happened that night at Avery’s.…” He says this low, with a crooked, creepy smile on his crooked, creepy face.

“What? How—” I murmur low. “How can you say that? Liss is my best friend.…”

“Yes,” Gregg says. “I know that. And I feel awful. Really, I do.”

I can’t see what Liss ever saw in him or especially why I kissed him, but I can see why she believed everything he ever said to her. He says this like he believes it. He’s good at pretending to be sincere. I think he even convinces himself that what he says is the truth.

“But you’re so different,” he continues. “You’re so … pure or something. Innocent. I like it. Not like Liss.”

Ugh.

What a f*ckhead.

That’s just disgusting.

I can see that he believes this, too.

I want to hit him.

So I do.

I hit him on the face. My palm whacks his cheek—twice, actually—and he jumps back, and I jump back, and I can feel all eyes on me—Daniel’s and Liss’s and those of random strangers in the hallway. Crinkled Christmas paper falls from their hands.

“What the hell?” He holds his red cheek in his hand.