What to Say Next(23)

Just once I’d like the answer to be: nothing.

Just once I’d like the answer to be: You are just fine as is.

Just once I’d like the question not to be asked in the first place.

“Get your notebook,” Miney demands, and I pull it out of my bag. I smooth the familiar blue cover, a tic left over from when I needed to look through it hourly. Lately, though, the notebook stays in my bag for longer periods. I can almost imagine a time I won’t need it at all. “An opportunity like Kit comes around once in a lifetime, if that.”

“Kit is a girl. Though statistically speaking, it is unlikely that she is actually the best girl in the world, it feels that way. No doubt she’s the best girl in Mapleview. What Kit is not is an opportunity,” I say.

“I’m just saying we have some serious work to do. I’m not letting you blow this.”

“That’s what she said,” I joke. I’ve been waiting weeks for the chance to use a variation of the “that’s what he/she said” thing since I’ve learned how it’s done, and so I can’t help but grin when Miney cracks up. Her face looks lighter and softer when she laughs. Her purple hair feels quieter too. The sum of her parts now equals the familiar.

I just wish Miney’s eyes weren’t bloodshot.

“I was wrong. Maybe some things do change,” she says, and ruffles my hair, like I’m a small boy. And though I don’t quite understand the reason behind her gesture, I find myself leaning into her hands.

—

Today, the fourth time Kit sits at my lunch table, she eats a sandwich and an apple. On close inspection, it appears to be hummus and turkey on whole wheat. Her black nail polish is chipped, and her shirt hangs off of her right shoulder, just like one of Miney’s, which makes me think this must be a sartorial choice and not a mistake of sizing. She has a bunch of freckles near the center of her clavicle that form a small circle. It’s a soft detail, like how her bottom lip pushes out just a millimeter from her top lip, or how when she pushes her hands through her hair, the commas fall forward, as if taking a bow.

Usually people are too bright, too loud, too overpowering. Jessica’s blond hair hurts my eyes. Willow’s elbows and knees look sharp; when she passes me in the hall, I imagine them cutting me like tiny knives. And Abby, the third girl in their triumvirate and the one who called me a freak the other day, wears so much sickly sweet perfume, I can smell her even before she enters a classroom. But Kit is entirely quiet. She never offends my senses.

“I always thought it was strange that your dad gave out lollipops to his patients,” I say, and once the words are out I realize I would prefer not to have to talk about Dentist in the past tense. And yet that’s what happens with the dead. They get to take no part in the present or the future.

“He only gave them to kids,” she says.

“I’ve never left his office without one,” I say, which sounds like a cool line, I think. I don’t add that his hygienist, Barbara, always slipped me an extra. That would be bragging. She liked me. Adults generally do. It’s fellow teenagers I have a problem with.

“They were sugar-free.” Of course, I think. I’m embarrassed that this—a dentist giving out lollipops—has confused me for years. What a silly thing to fixate on. And yet I do that. Find a tiny nugget—an inaccuracy or a contradiction—and it niggles at the back of my brain. I don’t like open loops. “So you drive yourself to school every day? I saw you in the parking lot this morning.”

I don’t tell her that we’ve been in the parking lot at the same time almost every morning since the beginning of the school year. I always arrive at 7:57, which is exactly the amount of time one needs to stop at one’s locker, pick up a book or two, and be on time to a first-period class in the north wing. I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s never noticed me out there before. I seem to fall into one of two extremes for people. To the Justin Chos of the world, I stick out. I’m the equivalent of one of Willow’s elbows. Unpleasant and somehow disruptive, even when I don’t say a word. For everyone else, I’m mostly invisible. When Kit first sat down at my lunch table, I assumed she didn’t notice me there. I’m terrified of the inevitable day when someone accidentally sits on my lap.

“Yeah. Why?” I ask.

“Well, I drove you home yesterday.” My cheeks warm, and my palms sweat. Damn. It didn’t even occur to me that she’d find out I didn’t need a ride.

“Right.” I scramble for a reasonable explanation. In other words, my nemesis: a good lie. I come up empty. I opt for uncomfortable silence. I look at her clavicle freckle cluster. It is suitably distracting. I think about the ratio of the circumference to its diameter, which of course leads me to pi. Who doesn’t love the endless, rhythmic beauty of pi?

“So you left your car here last night? You know they tow, right?” she asks.

I nod. I know this.

“My mom brought me back just after you dropped me off.” I hear the words I have just said out loud and realize I am a ridiculous person. I will always be a ridiculous person. How could I have been worried yesterday that Kit would think I was a dork? Of course she already does. I am fooling no one.

What are we going to do with you?

I decide to stick with what I do best. The truth.

“I just like talking to you. So though I didn’t technically need a ride, I wanted one.”