I wake up wired, and I go to school wired, popping antacids like they’re candy. It’s been one day and I feel sick, excited, nervous.
It was almost easier when he hated me. I’m used to that.
Hallowell High: Everyone’s dressed for the weather.
Michael is waiting for me at my locker. The red door hangs open, a useless empty mouth, waiting to be filled with all I could salvage last night. He straightens when he sees me, and I try to ignore the funny feeling in my stomach, but when he smiles, it gets worse in a good way, and it goes straight to my head in a good way.
“Hi,” he says, holding out his hand. His fingers are closed around something I can’t see. “I have something for you. Open your hand.”
I do. He presses something heavy into it. I look down. A new combination lock.
“Thanks,” I say.
“The combination is four, fifteen, thirty, and three.”
“Thank you,” I repeat.
He moves forward, and then he hesitates and moves back. Whatever’s between us is that kind of new. He runs a hand through his hair.
“So I’ll see you at lunch,” he says. I nod.
He studies me for a good minute and then—he kisses me. Like, right here in the hall. In front of everyone. I feel people milling around us, their voices getting louder the closer they get. Breaking news: My mouth is on Michael Hayden’s mouth, and he means it.
I glimpse blond hair. Liz. She turns a corner going to the girls’ room. Which means she saw this. Michael pulls away and says, “Okay, good.”
“Lunch,” I repeat. He nods this time and passes me. I watch him go, and then I turn and head for the washroom because I want to see what she makes of it. When I push through the door, she’s coming out of the stall. She glances at me and then runs the water, keeping her eyes on her reflection, and I just stand there keeping my eyes on her.
“What do you want me to say, Regina?” she finally asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“I’m not giving you my blessing,” she says.
“I didn’t ask for it.”
“Then why are you here?” I don’t know. She turns off the water and I turn back to the door, and she says, “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“But when he hates me, he knows what he’s doing?”
“You really fucked him up, so if—” She shakes her head, like this whole turn of events has been pissing her off since the dawn of time. “You probably don’t get it, but if he’s giving you a chance, that’s a big deal.”
I grit my teeth. “I get it.”
I wish I’d never come in here at all.
“I don’t think you do,” she says, looking me up and down. I bite the inside of my cheek but I don’t say anything. “But whatever, Regina; use him up.”
Some people will never give up on their lack of belief in you. I’m used to that feeling, but for the first time ever, it hurts. Maybe because Michael got past it, and now I’m standing here wondering why she can’t and if she ever will.
“Thanks,” I say.
“I couldn’t talk him out of you.”
I couldn’t talk him out of you. Her voice echoes in my head from class to class, and my stomach aches. When the lunch bell rings, I’m eager to see Michael. I pass Josh in the hall on my way to the cafeteria and keep my eyes straight ahead.
“Are you and Hayden a thing now?” he asks.
I roll my eyes and stop. “What?”
He stops. “Bruce said he caught you two fucking around in a storage room, and now everyone’s talking about how you two were making out in the hall earlier. Is it true? Are you with Hayden?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“If you’re making out with him in hallways, it’s everyone’s business.” He looks me over and laughs. “You’re not with Hayden. He hates you. Everyone knows he hates you. He feel sorry for you or something? Desperate to get some?”
“Fuck off.”
“He must be really desperate,” he says. “Or maybe you’re the desperate one.”
“Michael’s the best thing that’s happened to me.”
My cheeks warm instantly. It’s one of those insanely stupid-sounding declarations that people laugh at you for, no matter how true it is. But it’s true.
Josh laughs at me. “I’ve noticed a whole lot has changed for you since you decided to hang around with Mr. Mysterious—” I punch him in the shoulder before he can finish, because I can’t think of a better or more satisfying way to shut him up. “—Jesus Christ, Regina! What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with you? You just stand there and watch every day while Anna makes my life a living hell. Who just sits there and watches something like that?”
“You did,” Josh snaps. “You always did. Her name was Liz, remember? Don’t act like you’re better than me, Regina. You’re not.”
“But Michael is,” I tell him.
Josh turns red. I know somehow I’ve hurt him. “Well, maybe your new boyfriend should watch his back.”
My stomach lurches and he smirks, satisfied. The threat goes deep. I turn and head for the cafeteria, digging into my pockets for an antacid, trying to understand how I can be this close to fucking everything up already. When I see Michael at the Garbage Table, I’m flooded with relief. He’s in one piece.
And he’s waiting for me.
I weave around tables and sit across from him. His lunch today—fries and Coke. His Moleskine rests beside him. I just watch him for a minute and I feel like Liz is right. He’s really lonely and I fuck things up. Just because he gets to this point where he wants to kiss me doesn’t mean I instantly wake up tomorrow brave. I’m afraid of what Josh said.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing.” Everything.
He doesn’t look like he believes me, but then, thankfully, embarrassingly, my stomach makes this awful hungry gurgle and he hears it. He raises an eyebrow.
“Hungry?” he asks.
I wave a hand. “I’ll eat when I get home.”
“Let me get you something,” he says, nodding at the lunch line, and I start telling him how I can’t eat in this place, and he interrupts. “I’ll get you something small.”
Like that would make a difference. But he gets up and goes. I watch him go. My gaze drifts over to the center table, where Josh is leaning over and whispering something in Anna’s ear. His mouth moves from her ear, grazing her cheek, and meets her lips; I don’t want Michael on their radar.
I turn back to the table. Michael’s trusty Moleskine is resting next to his tray.
I want to read it.
He’s standing in line and he’s not looking my way. I know I shouldn’t do this, but I have to do this, and I don’t have a lot of time to have an ethical debate about it right now. I grab it and flip it open, flip past page after page, searching for my name. I glimpse words like Mom, Dad, hate, yesterday, I, stupid school, and all of them mean something, but they’re not what I want.
I skip to the end, and then—
Might not last.
I know it’s about me. It’s dated yesterday. It says I’m not a sure thing—like I could really fuck this up. I press my index fingers against the words, as if I could feel what he was feeling when he wrote it, but it’s just ink on paper. I flip ahead, but there’s nothing. I set the Moleskine back where it was and wait for him to come back, and I guess there’s some truth in it. I don’t think I can divide myself so completely between him and Anna.
Someone will get hurt.
Maybe your new boyfriend should watch his back.
I look up at the center table. Anna is watching me, interested in a way that makes me sick. I spot Michael winding his way back to the table, a small container of yogurt in his hand, and I am overwhelmed with how much more I like him than I hate my ex-friends.
But I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t think I’m that brave.
Do something.
After school, I end up at the park.
Small-town entertainment. Kid explosion in the summer. Everyone vies for a shot at the swings and the monkey bars and the playhouse and the slides and the metal merry-go-round thing that some little girl supposedly severed a limb on years ago. Today the place is empty, save for the snack wagon, which doesn’t pack up until the first snow flies. I buy some greasy fries from the guy holding the place down, drown them in ketchup, and eat them on top of the monkey bars.
A light breeze pushes the swings back and forth. I finish off the fries and try to enjoy the quiet. It’s easy to be out here: I’m not surrounded.
After a long time, two separate cars pull into the parking lot. No one I recognize. Two soccer moms step out of each car, dragging two little girls with them, respectively. Must be a play date.
They stay to the far side of the park, away from the big toys. I watch them and feel a sense of relief when I see the girls don’t have much interest in each other. They pick separate spaces of grass and focus on the dolls they’ve brought with them while their moms talk. I hope they stay away from each other, because odds are good one of them has the making of a total bitch and the other will become that bitch’s total bitch.
Because that’s how it works. Mostly.
I lean back, hooking my legs over the bars and snaking through the spaces between them until I’m hanging upside down.
“Mommy, look at that!” One of the girls shrieks. “I want to do that!”
“That’s dangerous honey,” her mom says. “Why don’t you go play with Casey? You two can play dolls with each other. . . .”
That’s dangerous.
I stay upside down until I feel like my head is going to burst and I ease back up. I lie across the bars and bundle my coat under my head like a pillow. After an hour or so, the women leave with their daughters. The temperature drops and the light shifts.
I stare at the sky and wait for it to come to me.