Even small excursions to the Rite Aid—or on one daring night, pizza with his family—left him completely drained. Christmas came and went in the same fashion. The only difference was that Shannan was home and humored him by playing a lot of Risk and Stratego. Tyler was away, but they texted back and forth about the ski conditions and whatever else was going on where he was, since Ben didn’t have much to report. They said nothing about Megan, and Ben even began to wonder if he had imagined most of their last strange conversation. Finally, a week into the new semester, he started getting some energy back.
He still had finals to make up and two new second semester electives that he hadn’t even been to yet. One was Tennis, a gym class reserved for juniors and seniors. No big deal there; he already knew how to play. The other was Popular Culture Since the 1960s, a history elective known as a blow-off. The class was supposed to cover the time period from the 1960s to the present, but each year the students reported that they never seemed to get much past the Vietnam War. The teacher, Mr. Kapstein, routinely brought his guitar to class to play folk songs reminiscent of the period. He liked to punctuate his lectures with little bits of The Beatles or Bob Dylan.
The class was famous for the television assignment: a twenty-four hour period in which the students were required to watch TV on one of the major networks without changing the channel or turning it off. They were required to log every show and every commercial. It was legend around Easton. But it was another week before he could make it to that class, since it was eighth period, the very end of his day. He was exhausted and had contemplated calling home for a ride, but he decided to tough it out to at least make an appearance and see what he had missed.
Kapstein’s room was in a weird location, at the end of the foreign language hallway. Ben eyed the posters of the Spanish countryside and French cheese as he dragged himself along, dreaming about a siesta in a sun-warmed hammock. Darcy came out of a classroom on the left, a pile of books pressed against her chest. He felt somewhat safer seeing that her hands were full. She smiled and gave him a little finger-wave without shifting her books around too much. They were moving in opposite directions, which made things less awkward, but he wondered if she was blowing him off and if he even cared.
Exhausted by the day, he collapsed into a seat at the back of Kapstein’s class. He thought for a minute that he was early, because everyone was out of their seat and milling around. Slowly he realized they were partnering up and then sitting down together. And when everyone was in place, there was only one person standing in the room without a partner. And she had blue hair. It was awkward as hell, but the girl didn’t seem to look uncomfortable. She stood with one knee bent, her weight back on her hips and her hands at her sides. Hips was really a misnomer. She was built like a skinny boy—and were those actually boys’ jeans she was wearing? The rest of her clothes—the red-and-black checked shirt and the black suede vest, the dark blue combat boots, and that backwards trucker hat—made her look like the lead singer of an indie band—either that or someone in line at a soup kitchen.
“Okay,” Kapstein called out. “Who doesn’t have a partner?”
The girl lifted her hand halfway; her elbow still locked in at her waist. She didn’t even turn around. “Well,” Kapstein said hesitantly. Teachers had to hate this part—pairing up the losers with each other. “Hey!” he said excitedly, his eyes lighting on Ben. “You must be Ben.” Ben nodded. “Welcome to the way-back machine!” Ben just stared at him. His bushy eyebrows were speckled with gray hair and seemed to be dancing up and down on his forehead. “So, this is great,” he said, clapping his hands too loudly. “You two can work together, and then everyone has someone.”
Then Kapstein shot back to his desk and began to type furiously on his computer, leaving the two of them to sort out the pairing of the less-than-desirables. The girl took two steps toward Ben and flung herself down into the desk in front of him. She sat facing sideways and said, “What’s up, freak?”
Ben was stunned. So he hadn’t imagined it. She wasn’t even trying to hide it. She had just said it to his face. His cheeks burned with embarrassment, or maybe it was the fever kicking back up. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said.
“Ah, a lot of things. Too many to list, probably.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” he hissed.
“I dunno,” she said. She turned and looked him straight on. She had a light spattering of brown freckles on her forehead and cheeks. Her eyes were a dark green or hazel color and almond-shaped. “Why? You don’t think you’re a freak?” Before he could answer, she added, “I think we’re all freaks.”
Ben shook his head and got up from his chair. He walked purposefully to the front of the room and stood in front of Kapstein’s L-shaped desk until the teacher swiveled to face him. “Is there anyone else I can be partners with?” Ben asked.
Kapstein sighed. “It’s really a two-person project. I used to have kids do it in groups, but there was too much cheating. People seemed to miss out on the point of the project that way. What’s wrong with . . . ?” He paused, searching the class roster for a name. “Her?”
Ben set his jaw. “I just don’t think it’s going to work out.”
“Well, you haven’t really given it a try.” Kapstein looked at him. Ben stared back. They both knew what was what. Kapstein turned back to his computer, and Ben stalked back to his desk. It seemed he was stuck with her.
“Tough luck, huh?” the girl said when he sat back down.
“Whatever.” He was still trying to think of a way out of this situation. The idea of bringing this girl to his house for an entire day—or worse, spending a whole day at whatever weird hipster world she inhabited—was so beyond him at that point.
He sighed. “I guess I should get your number or something.” He pulled out his phone. “What’s your name?”
“Ilona.”
“Ilana?”
“Nope, wrong again, jockstrap.”
He put the phone down. “Have I done something to piss you off?” he asked. “Like in a previous life? Did I run over your cat?”
“I hate cats,” Ilona said. “So if you ran over one of the six or seven that live in my house, I would probably make you a cake. But ‘Thanks for running over my cat’ is hard to write with frosting, so it would probably just say ‘Thanks.’ ”
“If you hate cats, why do you have six or seven of them?”
“Because Judy likes cats.”
“Who’s Judy?”
“She is the witch-in-residence, a Satan-worshipping, utter nutcase. Also, though not definitively proven with DNA evidence, known as my mother.”
Ben shook his head. He had no response. “How do you spell it?”
“No, your name. Whatever it is.”
“Ah-lone-ah,” she sounded out and then fed him the letters. “Yup, get it out. Say it. Ilona—a loner.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Ben said, although he had thought it.
“Coward.”
He shook his head and tapped her number into his phone. “Do you want mine?”
“Nah, I don’t have a phone.”
“Seriously? So what’s this number?”
“Home phone. But I make an effort to be home as infrequently as possible, so we should probably just agree on a date now.”
“Anytime in the next two weeks, right?”
Ilona nodded.
“How about next Friday, then?” Ben said, figuring that would give him enough time to find a way out of the project, or the whole class if necessary.
“Whatever, fine with me.” She seemed annoyed, like she knew what his game was.
Ben made it through about ten more minutes of class before signing himself out to the nurse’s office to call his dad and go home. Once home, he barely kicked his shoes off before falling asleep facedown in his bed.
When he woke up, the sky was dark and his phone was buzzing. It was Tyler. He felt a surge of annoyance; he’d hardly heard from him, and now, when he was completely depleted, now Tyler wanted to talk?
“Hey,” Tyler said.
“Hey,” Ben said back.
“I was asleep.”
“You want to see the Hobbit movie with me?”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.”
Ben tried to gauge his own level of exhaustion and annoyance. Being sick, Tyler’s weirdness—it all seemed to blend together in a way that made it difficult for him to know how he felt. He wondered whether he’d even be able to make it past the front door without his mom giving him the full-scale inquisition about his health. But wait, it was her chorus night, and she wouldn’t be back until nine.
“Yeah, all right. I already saw it with Darcy.”
“Oh,” Tyler said.
“But I’ll see it again, I guess.” He wanted his voice to sound cool and indifferent, though it was not at all how he felt. The less time he spent with Tyler, the more he felt the known parts of the friendship slipping away from him.
“Cool. Pick you up in twenty.”
His dad seemed nervous about letting him go out, but Ben convinced him that he wasn’t even sick anymore, just tired, and he let him go without too much hassle.
As soon as Ben slid into the leather seat of the Saab, things felt right and good again. He was back. The seat heaters were just starting to kick on, so only the very center of his seat, right below his butt, was warm. Tyler, as usual, was fiddling with the radio. “Hey,” he said without looking up. “You’re better, huh?” He held out his hand at an angle. Ben grabbed it in an odd sort of handshake hug.
“Mostly,” he said.
Tyler pulled away from the curb, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel without connection to any particular song. At the end of the street, he turned right instead of left toward the movie theater.
“Gas?” Ben asked.
“What? No.” There was a pause. “Megan’s coming. I gotta pick her up.”
Was Tyler actually going to pretend this was normal? They never hung out with girls, even the ones Tyler was sort of or not really dating. Suddenly the fatigue of the day seemed to have him by the shoulders, rocking him gently, asking him what the hell he was thinking, leaving the house at this hour. Was he overreacting? “So you guys are still hanging out a lot?” he tried to ask casually.
Why the hell couldn’t he ask what he wanted to ask? Why couldn’t he just say, why the hell is she coming? Ben remembered that Danny Fisher, in sixth grade, before he’d reworked himself into a well-liked weed supplier, had been a dirty kid—the kind that even the other kids could tell was being neglected. He always wore the same gray sweatpants and SpongeBob T-shirt to school. Danny was assigned to work with Roz Peterson on a pairs project—a moon-faced girl who chewed the ends of her hair into wet, pointy spikes. After receiving the assignment, he stood up in front of the whole class and said, “Why the fuck do I have to work with her?” It was the one stand-out memory of sixth grade. Ben remembered being shocked by Danny’s complete disregard for all norms and expectations, but mostly he was just in awe of Danny for standing up and saying exactly what he thought. He wished he could do that now.
“I guess so,” Tyler said. He seemed nervous, agitated.
“I’ve barely seen you since soccer ended.” Immediately Ben regretted the way he sounded, whiny and needy.
“I’m glad it’s over,” Tyler said. “And I’m sick of everyone asking me about it. It’s so freakin’ gay. Life goes on, you know. Soccer’s over. Find something else to care about.”
“Whoa,” Ben said, “aren’t you still going to play club in the spring?”
Tyler looked at him oddly. “Of course,” he said, and Ben thought perhaps he’d missed the point entirely.
They stopped in front of a large brick colonial house with a winding pathway up to a large front door, framed by columns and decorated with tasteful white lights and pine garlands. Megan came out the front door as soon as they pulled up. Ben considered moving to the backseat but didn’t. Megan was on her phone. She looked up briefly when she got in the backseat and then immediately went back to it. Tyler barely even greeted her. Ben didn’t understand. This girl seemed so indifferent. Or maybe she didn’t say anything and that was the whole point? Maybe that was exactly why Tyler had chosen her.
The car was silent all the way to the movies except for the light tapping of Megan’s texting. Finally Tyler adjusted the radio to one of his favorite hip-hop stations. Ben kept expecting her to explain what was so important, some girl crisis or something. When they pulled into a parking spot at the Cinemagic, Megan put her phone away and they walked in together. Tyler sat in the middle, and if Ben didn’t lean too far forward, he could easily pretend it was just the two of them. But before the movie started, he deliberately leaned forward and asked Megan how her Christmas break had been. So at least Tyler couldn’t say later that he had been the one being rude.
“Oh,” she said as if this were a difficult or surprising question. “It was okay. Kind of boring though, you know.” Ben nodded. But there was something weird about her response. It seemed like she was talking a bit too loudly.
“Did you go away or anything?” he asked, not because he cared but because he wanted to test his hypothesis.
“No,” she said. Yup, definitely too loud. “No, I didn’t,” she reiterated, and this time he noticed that she was over-mouthing her words. Did Tyler notice? He was staring at the screen where a stupid trivia question about Steve Carell was flashing while dancing bags of popcorn wiggled in the background. Megan pulled out her phone again, and Ben leaned back. Maybe he was being paranoid. But he was paranoid for good reason. This girl had barely spoken to him, and she’d already hit two of his top three most annoying habits:
At least he didn’t have to worry about number three. The only thing Megan seemed interested in making eye contact with was her phone.
After the movie, he ducked into the bathroom to take a piss. When he came out, Megan and Tyler were having an animated discussion about something. Tyler even pushed her playfully, but when he approached the conversation dropped.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“I don’t like Orcs,” Megan said and rolled her eyes.
Ben shrugged. “No one likes Orcs.”
“See?” Megan said. “They’re so nasty and their teeth are, like, all black and disgusting.”
“Yeah,” Tyler interrupted. “Dental care in Middle-earth was really subpar.”
Megan whacked him with, of course, her phone. “Shut up! I’m serious. And why does he have to make the battle scenes so bloody and loud? All the gushing and chopping.” She looked at Ben. “You’re lucky that—” And then she stopped. “I mean, maybe . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Ben stared at her. He braced himself, waiting for the explosion from Tyler in his defense. This girl was history. But Tyler’s face gave nothing away, no emotion at all.
“Let’s get out of here,” Tyler said.
Ben waited for Tyler to say something on the ride home, something that would clear the sour burning feeling from the back of his throat, but Tyler was quiet. And then Tyler took Ben home first. That was the final humiliation. The fact that his house was, in fact, slightly closer to the movie theater meant nothing. He got out of the car and shut the door maybe a hair too close to a slam.
He went straight to his room and sat down in the darkness. He tried to put together what was making him feel so crappy. It wasn’t just Megan. It was all the Megans and Ilonas and Darcys of the world: the people who seemed so determined to call him out when all he wanted to do was quietly blend in. Was it so wrong not to want to be an individual all the time? And the one person who always made him feel part of things, who put him at ease and made him feel perfectly accepted—that person seemed lost to him and, truthfully, had been for some time.