Expelled(28)

“What’s your problem now?” Sasha asks.

And I don’t know why this question bothers me so much. Maybe it’s the condescending tone in her voice—like I’m a guy who’s always got a bunch of inconsequential problems to whine about, when in fact I’m a guy who has only one, very consequential problem to deal with.

“What’s your problem?” I practically yell. “Would it kill you to be friendly for more than ten seconds at a time?”

We stare each other, and I immediately want to take my words back. But I don’t, because the look on her face is so scornful that it feels like a knife is being driven into my ribs.

“This gum is actually really good,” Jude says, trying to break the icy tension. “I think I’ll buy another pack.” He puts it down and digs out another dollar from his pants.

Sasha practically hisses like a cat. “Just take it, and get the hell out of here.”





26


The moon’s barely a sliver when I slip out the back door. I can’t sleep, and so I just start walking. It’s a habit that started in the insomniac months after my dad died; when pacing my room got old, I’d go walk around the dark neighborhoods. It didn’t make me feel better, but it gave me something to do.

It’s ironic, or depressing, or both, that if my dad were still alive, walking around might’ve been impossible for him by now. Maybe he’d have been in a wheelchair. Maybe he’d even have had a catheter and a feeding tube.

There’s no way of knowing how the disease would have progressed. A lot of people die within a year of being diagnosed. Some—not many—make it to five years. The point is, there was no good ending to that story. There was only a quick one or a slow one.

It’s hard to say which would’ve been worse.

The night air smells like flowers. I swear there’s an ordinance in Pinewood that says every yard has to have at least one rosebush, and preferably more like eight. Sasha would claim these roses are yet another example of Pinewood’s lack of imagination, but I think they’re pretty.

Why on earth did I think I practically loved her when actually I barely know her? Sasha was always surprising me, and probably only half of the surprises were good ones.

I pass by the 7-Eleven, which at this hour of the night is Pinewood’s only hint of life. Its windows are cluttered with posters advertising sales on beef jerky, Big Gulps, and Little Debbie snacks. But then I see a smaller sign that makes me stop in my tracks.

Maybe obsessing over who got me expelled is just too crazy. Maybe I should just accept my fate. Wasn’t that a lesson to take from my dad: if you can’t win, quit?

If I stopped trying to make this idiotic movie, then I’d have a lot more time on my hands. Time I could use to be actually helpful to someone. Like my mom.

I have this fleeting hope that maybe I can make everything better, just not in the way I wanted.

I take a deep breath, enter the cold, bright store, and walk up to the register.

“Help you?” the woman asks flatly.

“I’d like to fill out an application,” I say.

She raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t know we were hiring,” she says.

“There’s a sign in the window,” I say. “Right beneath the one that says you’re having a sale on Skoal.”

Wordlessly she shoves a piece of paper across the counter to me.

“Do you have a pen?” I ask.

She points to a cup of them, and I reach for one.

“That’s ninety-nine cents,” she says.

“You mean I need to buy it to use it?” I ask.

“You need to buy a bag of Lay’s if you want a potato chip, don’t you?”

“But I just want to borrow—”

“Ninety-nine cents,” she says again.

I slap a dollar on the counter and pick out a pen, and I fill out the application as quickly as I can. I can feel the woman’s eyes on me, and I don’t like it. She lifts her Big Gulp and takes a noisy sip.

“Here you go,” I say when I’m done. “I’m available anytime for an interview.”

She takes the paper, folds it neatly, and while I’m still watching, she drops it into the trash can. “I know who you are,” she says. “We don’t need your help.”

I’m so stunned by her cruelty that I don’t know what to say.

As soon as I hit the parking lot, I start to run. I have no idea where I’m going; I just know that I can’t be here.

I thought the worst thing that could happen now was that I’d be stuck in Pinewood, getting my GED and working at the 7-Eleven—that was going to be my rock bottom. But then the 7-Eleven doesn’t even want me. If it weren’t so awful, it’d be funny.

I run for at least a mile before I stop. And when I look up, I see I’m on Sasha’s street.

Slowly now, panting a little, I walk toward her house. All the lights are on inside, and they throw golden squares onto the dark lawn. Her dad walks into the frame of the dining room window and stops, his back to me. His shoulders are moving, like he’s talking. Maybe he’s drunk. Maybe he’s reciting poetry again.

Sasha might be in the room, too, rolling her eyes at him the way she did that first night I went to her house. Or maybe she secretly likes his recitations and likes having a professor for a dad, even if he acts like a pretentious dick. I’ll probably never know the truth.