If I Was Your Girl(5)

“I don’t,” I said. I started to put my things away and realized my hands were shaking. I believed he was earnest, or at least I wanted to, but my fear had been carved into me over years and years, and it wasn’t going to be reasoned with or ignored. “It would have gone the same way if he’d come himself. I—I just can’t.”

A look crossed Grant’s face I couldn’t quite read. He slipped his hands in his pockets and stood. “Well, it was very nice meeting you, Amanda.”

“You too,” I said. My cheeks felt warm.

Grant gave me a small wave and walked away. He stopped after a few steps and turned.

“What book is that?” he said, nodding to the table.

“Sandman,” I said, putting a hand over it protectively. “It’s a comic book.”

“Is it good?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Cool,” Grant said, waving again and turning to leave. My hands stopped shaking and my breathing slowed, but for some reason I was afraid to consider, my heart wouldn’t stop racing.





3

Art class came last on Mondays and Tuesdays, and met in the music building at the edge of the school grounds. Outside, the withering heat hit me swiftly, my skin like shrink-wrap under a blow dryer.

“Around back,” a female voice called as I reached the shed-sized wooden building. I followed it, finding a girl alone in the grass. Oval sunglasses shielded her eyes and bright-red lipstick contrasted with her pale skin. Dark bristles grew on a third of her head while the other two-thirds sported a thick, wavy halo of hair.

“Art class?” she said. I nodded and looked around uneasily. She propped herself up on her elbows. “Teacher’s in Nashville. Her son f*cked up his hand in a car accident.”

“Oh God.”

“Right? He’s a musician too. Was a musician. Hey, it’s hot as shit out here and you look like you’re about to have a heart attack. Why don’t you sit? Name’s Bee, by the way.”

“Shouldn’t we go to the office?”

“Jesus, no,” she said quickly. “They won’t hire a sub. They won’t hire a new teacher. They’ll put my fat ass in PE and move all the art funding to the athletic department like they do with everything. I’m gonna milk this shit for everything it’s worth.”

I nodded weakly and sat. The girl flopped back down with her arms spread wide.

“So you’re the new girl?”

“That obvious?” I said, pulling my knees close.

“Word gets around.” Sweat glistened on her arms and legs, her face pointed up at the sky.

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said, still barely moving.

“Sorry,” I said reflexively, then winced.

“You know you never told me your name, right?”

“Amanda,” I said quickly. “Nice to meet you.”

“Sure.” She fished in her battered old Silver Age X-Men lunch box and pulled out a joint. “Mind if I smoke?” She didn’t wait for an answer.

“So,” she said, blowing out a smoky speech bubble. The smell was like mulch after a heavy rainstorm, earthy and a little sour. “Where you from?”

“Smyrna,” I told her. “Dad moved here after the divorce.”

“Dads,” she observed. I didn’t have a response, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “You’re pretty cool, Amanda. I think we’re gonna be friends.”

“I don’t know how cool I am,” I said.

“We’ll see,” Bee said, nodding as she put the half-smoked joint back in the lunch box. “Oh, we will see.” She giggled and lay back in the grass, closing her eyes.

I fell back beside her and started to read Sandman, holding the book up above me to shield my eyes from the sun. I was quickly caught up in the story. As people all around the world fell asleep and never awakened again, I lost track of time. The Lord of Dreams managed to escape after decades of imprisonment to try to rebuild his life. The sleepers woke up to find themselves in bodies they didn’t recognize, subject to the consequences of abuse while they were helpless. Finally, as the Lord of Dreams descended into hell, I put the book away.

Sitting up, the afternoon heat seemed to pulse and throb. I glanced over at Bee, who was in a sort of trance, half-asleep, half-awake. “What’s the time, anyway?”

“Four,” she said as she yawned and flopped back onto the grass.

“Shit,” I said, scrambling to jam my notebook in my bag. I heard the buses hiss into motion as I stood up and ran around the corner to find a mostly empty parking lot.

“Miss your ride? Shitty,” Bee said. “Anybody you can call?”

“Dad doesn’t get off until six.”

“I’d give you a ride,” she said, “but I don’t drive stoned, which is super, super what I am right now. Stoned like a medieval witch…” She snickered dreamily at her joke.

“I have to walk then,” I said.

“I wouldn’t,” Bee said in a singsong voice. “High’s 113 today. Heat-stroke territory.”

“Teenagers don’t get heat stroke though, right? I mean, logically, people lived in the South for a long time before air-conditioning.”