What to Say Next(47)

“I doubt you actually humiliated yourself,” I say.

“I sort of did.” I don’t ask how, because I know from personal experience that it’s not fun to talk about the ways we’ve embarrassed ourselves. Then you have to feel it all over again in the retelling. And if Miney wanted me to know more, she would have told me.

“How long till you leave?” I ask.

“A week, maybe? But I’ll be back for spring break. And there’s FaceTime.” I nod. “So I saw some of those texts you got. I wish I could kick all those kids’ asses.”

“I actually could,” I say, and for a moment I let myself picture it. A series of palm-heel strikes and the entire football team would be on their backs. “I could kill them if I wanted to.”

“Please don’t.” I laugh, because we both know I never would. When I was little, I used to get upset if I accidentally stepped on a bug. I may have mastered the art of self-defense, but I don’t like to hurt things. And anyhow, despite how they all feel about me, I don’t wish anyone dead. Not even Justin or Gabriel. Even if I believe the quantum theory that consciousness survives death, I don’t want their bodies to go still forever.

I wouldn’t mind if they moved away, though. That would be nice.

“What are you going to do at school tomorrow?” Miney asks.

“Same as always. Put on my headphones. Ignore them all.”

“And Kit?”

I think about Kit’s eyelashes, how the snow gathered and nestled between them, like it was a good place to rest. I think about her fingers linked with mine.

I see her back as she ran away from me as fast as her legs would take her.

I think about the contours of the word disgust, its guttural g.

“I don’t know,” I say.





After three days, David is back. He’s sitting at our table, headphones on, eyes trained downward. When he was gone, I rejoined Annie and Violet at lunch. I listened to them brainstorm a new short list of guys who would be acceptable prom dates. I told Violet I liked her high-waisted jeans. I went to all my classes and to the newspaper meeting and then went home afterward and watched Netflix with a bowl of popcorn bigger than my head. I’ve eaten turkey and hummus on rye two times a day. I should win an Academy Award for Best Actress in a movie called Normal. No doubt I’d be the first half-Indian girl to win.

In the evenings, when my mom gets home from work, I’ve blasted my music in my room, the acoustic equivalent of a DO NOT ENTER sign.

I realize how much I’ve missed talking to David.

I approach him slowly. I feel awkward, like we’re strangers again. Like this is no longer our table. Could be I don’t know how to act around the only person in the whole wide world who would describe me as the prettiest girl in school. Not even my own mother would be so charitable. Pretty doesn’t just happen, Kit, my mother likes to say. You have to try.

“Hey,” I say, and sit down across from David. “How’re you holding up?”

He looks up, pops off his headphones. How did I forget about his great haircut and cool clothes? I may not be the prettiest girl in school, but there is no doubt he’s a really cute guy. Of course, he’s also the weirdest, which can make for some cognitive dissonance.

“Not great,” he says.

“I have something for you.” I slip the notebook out of my bag and slide it over. He makes no move to take it.

“Did you read it?” I notice that his eyes are on my clavicle, which is a part of my body I’ve never had occasion to think about until I met David. I resist the temptation to put my fingers on the freckles he drew. I considered ripping that page out—keeping it as a reminder that there was once someone who thought I was beautiful—but I realized it wasn’t mine to take.

“Some. Not all. I know I shouldn’t have, but I got curious and so I sort of flipped through. I’m sorry.” I have caught David’s honesty disease. I didn’t need to tell him the truth. I should have just said not really. That would have been close enough.

Turns out, though definitely strange and random, there was nothing too disturbing. He didn’t expose me. Instead, on a fresh sheet toward the back, there was a short list under the title Kit and D’s Accident Project:


Never talk about the AP at school.

Library?

Research car specs.

Calc.

Bad idea to help? Definition of friend zone?



This last one made me laugh out loud.

“I figured.” I wish he’d put the notebook away so we could pretend it never happened. I want us to go back to the way we used to be together. Comfortable. “I didn’t know if you’d sit with me today. After everything.”

“Well, you said only nice things about me.” I mean it to sound like a joke, but it falls flat. There are, of course, a lot of people in this room he didn’t say nice things about. I can’t imagine what that must be like—knowing everyone in school has read exactly what you think of them. It’s all very Harriet the Spy, except without the guaranteed children’s book happy ending. Of course I’ve had a million mean thoughts about my classmates, but they’ve mostly stayed safely locked inside my head. I excel at keeping things to myself. Another post-accident-acquired skill. “So where have you been?”