Wing Jones(25)

My mama doesn’t stink and she isn’t rotting, but I think something inside her has broken and might never get fixed again.

As soon as we step outside the hospital, the pumpkin grimace falls off, leaving her face bare and raw, but that’s better than the rotting smile.

I don’t know if Monica has been to see him. Would they let her in? She still hasn’t been by the house. I see her at school and she looks like a different person. Her hair hangs lank and greasy and her eyes are always red. She wears one of Marcus’s old sweatshirts over a ratty pair of jeans every day. She doesn’t sit with the football players anymore. She sits with Tash in a far corner. She hasn’t said a thing to me since I came back to school. Not hello, not how are you, not a thing.

Maybe she’s waiting for me. I’m thinking about this while I’m in a stall in the school bathrooms one day, grateful for the privacy and solitude the flimsy walls provide. Then the toilet flushes next to me and I recognize Dionne’s voice. She’s talking about Monica. My world goes from fuzzy to clear, reality rushing back in. Bright and loud and painful.

“You seen Monica? Girl looks like shit,” she says. I freeze in my stall, actually stop peeing so I can hear her better.

“At least she’s not sniffin’ around Aaron now that Marcus is gone.” I don’t recognize the other girl’s voice.

“Please. What are you trying to say? That the two of them are the same person? Anyway. Aaron ain’t the same anymore. Haven’t you seen him? Moping around and shit. Can’t even catch a ball these days. Told the coach that he wanted to drop football, and this is his senior year! He’s got colleges looking at him. Fool boy.”

“Aw, come on, Dionne. He’s got colleges looking at him for track. Not for football. He probably just played football because Marcus did. Always did follow him around.”

“Yeah, well, he can’t follow him where he is now. He’s wandering around like a lost puppy.”

“Maybe he needs some lovin’ … some comforting…”

The girls giggle in a way that makes me uncomfortable, then Dionne says, “Nah. I’m over that. For real this time.”

Her voice fades away as they walk out. I’d forgotten that Aaron runs.

I wait another minute just to be sure the bathroom is empty before going to wash my hands.

My timing isn’t great, because just as I’m drying them, the door flings open and almost into me.

It’s Eliza Thompson. She gives me a quick nod of acknowledgment. I nod back, unsure what else to do. She passes me and is about to go into a stall, when she stops.

“Hey…” she says, and her voice is softer than I expected. I realize for all the times I’ve seen her run, we’ve never spoken. “I’m real sorry about what happened with Marcus.”

No one has said they’re sorry. Not one of my teachers, not a single person on the football team. I feel my eyes prickling and I blink rapidly so Eliza can’t tell how much it means to me.

“How are you?” she says, tilting her head to the side like some sort of exotic bird.

I shrug. “I’ve been better,” I say.

She presses her lips together and shrugs. “Yeah, I bet. Sucks.”

I nod. I want to ask her if when she runs she feels like she’s flying and like it’s the only thing that matters and if it makes all her problems float away like wispy clouds, but now she’s looking at me with a slightly different expression, less pity and sympathy and more an “I’ve got to pee … are you just going to stand here staring at me?” look. It’s a subtle difference, but I get it.

“Thanks,” I mumble, and go out the door. I can run! I want to yell. You wouldn’t believe it but you should see me!

As I’m walking down the hall, I wonder if anyone has asked Monica how she’s doing. Is she waiting for me to reach out to her, the way I’ve been waiting for her? She did say I was her best friend. I wonder if that still stands. And how do her and Marcus stand? It isn’t like she can break up with him … but it isn’t like he’s … around either. Maybe it’s kind of like being in a long-distance relationship, one where you can’t call or even write letters. And you don’t know how long the other person will be gone. So pretty much like being in a long-distance relationship with an astronaut. Except that you didn’t know they were an astronaut.

But if Eliza Thompson, someone who barely knows me, can ask how I’m doing … I can ask how Monica is doing.

It’s the end of the day, so she should be in the back parking lot. I know where she parks. Or I could wait until tomorrow. But the thought of going up to Monica in the cafeteria is even more daunting than going into the back parking lot.

Where all the seniors park.

Where Heather Parker parks, even though she is only a sophomore and shouldn’t even have a school parking permit but somehow wangled one from someone.

It isn’t like I’m not familiar with the parking lot. After all, until last month, this is where Marcus parked and I got out of his car every morning.

I pull up my hood, as if that can protect me from anything, but it makes me feel better.

Monica’s car is in the same spot. Next to Marcus’s spot. His empty parking spot.

I never saw the damage to his car. It was totaled and hauled straight to the junkyard.