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It is after sixth period, in The Harp’s office. I’ve stayed away from creative writing for more than two weeks now, and can’t imagine how I’ll ever go back.
“This is not an independent studies class you know, Lauren. We need your participation.”
“But I’ve been doing my work. The ‘Habitat for Humanity’ article is ready to go, and my ‘You Don’t Know Me Unless You Know . . .’ piece is finished.”
Mr. Harper shakes his head sadly. “There’s a lot more to writing than writing,” he says.
I think that’s a dumb thing to say, but I wait for what’s next.
“Especially in journalism. If you’re going to be a journalist you’ll be involved in editorial meetings and decisions, and in collaboration with editors for revision. It’s not just you.”
“Can’t you give me a little more time? Let me work on my own for another week or so?”
“Look, I know a little bit about what happened. Not the details, but the general idea. And I don’t think I’m betraying any confidence when I say that Tyler has told me you won’t even talk to him.”
Harper turns his attention back to a tall stack of papers on his desk and picks up his red pen.
“I need you to level with me, Lauren. I can’t give you another week out of class unless there’s a compelling reason to do that. You may have a compelling reason, but I sure as hell don’t know what it is.”
We’re on the second floor. From where I’m sitting I can see kids milling around, waiting for the late bus. Some are weighed down with backpacks so heavy they’ll likely end up with back trouble for life. The burly security guy is out there, joking around with some gang wannabees. The huge oak tree is only bare branches now, leafless and exposed. That’s how I feel, bare, skeletal, unmasked.
Harp reads through a paper, jotting comments in the margin. Then he sets it on top of a shorter stack of papers. He watches me for a moment. I don’t know how to explain to Harper that walking into the classroom, seeing Tyler in his front row desk, seeing Blake, and all the rest, would be like walking in without my skin, all of my precious, fragile organs exposed to harsh elements.
“I’ve got time,” Harper says, picking up another paper from the taller stack and working through it with his red remarks.
When he finishes that paper he tells me, “I know this sounds trite, and like some old guy who doesn’t understand, but everyone loses a love. It doesn’t mean you have to lose yourself in the process.”
I fight back tears. How can anyone possibly understand how I feel? And what good would it do if they did?
“Come to class tomorrow,” Harper says as he picks up the next paper.
“Can’t I wait until Monday?”
“Not unless you want your grade lowered by one letter. We need you on the editorial board. We need you on the ads committee. You’re not the only one who’s hurting, you know? Alcoholic parents, a dad with terminal cancer, poverty, pregnancy, you can find it all in creative writing. Take a lesson from your classmates. Gather your courage and get on with your life.”
I grab my backpack and charge out the door, slamming it hard behind me. I never knew Harper could be so cold, like he doesn’t even care! I rush to the gym where I find Amber by her locker, already dressed for practice. I spew out my anger with Harper, how he won’t even let me wait until Monday to start back to class, how he doesn’t even try to understand, how I know he likes Tyler better, anyway. I expect Amber to be on my side, to agree that Harper is being totally unfair with me.
She gives me a long look.
“I’ll see you on the court,” is all she says, then sprints off to practice.
––––––––
I jerk my locker open and strip down, grab my volleyball shirt and shorts, change shoes and jam my clothes into the locker. I slam the door hard enough to hear the rattle, then go out to the courts. I’m the last one there. Coach Terry says, “See me after practice, please, Lauren.”
God! I wish people would get off my back. Like I don’t have enough trouble as it is!
I serve the ball, open handed, sending a satisfying sting through my hand, up my arm and straight into my head. I think of Marcia, the Marcia mash, but when the ball comes to me I’m gentle with it, using only my fingertips to get it over to Amber, setting her up for a spike. The ball is back to me again. “Marcia,” I think, and fail to return it.
“Time out,” Coach Terry calls, then runs over to me. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I tell her, which is way far from the truth, but I don’t think she’s asking for my life story.
“Sit out a bit,” she says, calling one of the sophomore girls in to take my place.
On the bench I think “Marcia, Marcia,” trying to get the old fire back, trying to feel the heat of anger. Instead I feel the heat of fire, of her pushing me toward Jack, demanding that he save me and leave her behind. All of these years of anger—I can’t quite get a grip on that anymore.
I’m more angry with Harp than I’ve ever been, but it’s not a kind of slam-the-volleyball anger, picturing his face shattering. Too much. I watch the play, wondering where Amber gets her power.
Coach calls me back in for the last five minutes of play, but something is lost from my game. I can’t slam Marcia. I can’t slam Shawna because it was too awful the time I did it for real.
When I go to Coach’s office, she has me sit in the standard place, on the “visitor” side of her desk. She sits in one of those big easy-on-your-back kind of reclining chairs.
“What’s up with you, Lauren?”
I shrug my shoulders.
“You sick?”
“Not really,” I say.
“Well?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
“Love problems I suppose. I haven’t noticed Tyler sniffing around lately.”
Why can’t teachers mind their own business?
Coach Terry waits for me to talk, but, same as with Harper—what can I say? I’m lost? I’m betrayed? My soul has shrunk to the size of a raisin, and I can’t even find it anymore? Life has lost all meaning? And if I said any of these things would I be whisked off to some school counselor who’d never ever been in love but would know it all anyway? Better to stay silent.
“Well, whatever your problem, let’s hope you get your game back,” Coach Terry says.
I take this for my cue to leave. Amber is waiting for me by my locker. I change and we walk out together.
“Wanna go to Barb ’n Edie’s?” she asks.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“Well, I do,” she says. “I think I’ll go back and see if Candy wants to go with me. Talk to you later.”
Before I even know what’s happening, Amber’s disappeared back inside the gym building. Well, all right. Let her find Candy. Why should I care?
––––––––
I told Grams I’d take the bus today, since she had to work this morning and then had a bunch of errands to do. But when I get near the bus stop and see the crowd of kids, I decide to walk. I’ve only gone a few blocks when Jack pulls up beside me and rolls down the window.
“Rennie. 1 was hoping I’d see you. Want a ride?”
“Sure,” I say, and get into the once fearsome red Honda.
“My three o’clock appointment didn’t show, so I’ve got about an hour to bum around. Do you want coffee?”
“Well . . .”
“I called Frances to see if she’d mind if I took you to Stark’s. She didn’t have a problem with it.”
“Okay then,” I say.
We order the exact same thing we had that first day. This time we sit at a table outside, though.
“Those people in the east where the snow is so high they can’t even go to work don’t know what they’re missing,” Jack laughs.
He turns his face upward, eyes closed, and basks in the warmth of the sun like some kind of lizard, or maybe a cat.
“Thank you, Lord,” he whispers, then turns to me, smiling his gentle, contented smile.
“Are you religious?” I ask him.
“Not exactly,” he says. “But a higher power helped me get clean and helps me stay clean. I can’t do it by myself.”
“Like God?” I ask.
“Well, I guess so. I usually just think higher power, or HP for short. Lots of people think God, though.”
“How did God, or whatever, help you get clean?”
“I don’t know. It’s a mystery. But since I’ve been working this program, and paying attention to HP, I like to express my thanks for life. Like for this sunny day, and for you. For the trees and the mountains . . .”
“I don’t believe in God,” I tell him.
“What do you believe in?”
“I don’t know,” I say, taking a gulp of cappuccino, trying to swallow my tears. “I used to believe in me and Tyler, but not anymore.”
“Tyler. The guy who was trying to save you? The guy who keeps wanting to talk to you?”
I nod.
“If you don’t believe in this Tyler guy anymore, then what?”
“I guess Grams is the only one left who I know will be there for me.”
“Too soon to tell for me, huh?”
“Way too soon,” I say.
“How about space aliens?”
“Nah . . . Maybe . . . I don’t know.”
“How about the overall goodness of humankind?”
“Right,” I say, all sarcastic. “Did you watch the news last night? Those three guys who killed a homeless guy because he asked them for a dollar?”
Jack takes a bite out of the bagel and chews carefully, watching me all the while.
“Sorry if I sound cynical,” I say. “I’ve been having sort of a hard time lately.”
“I gathered. Have you decided to hear his side of things yet?”
“No,” I say, feeling my muscles tense in resistance. What business is it of Jack’s anyway?
A big bluejay lands on the sidewalk near our table and starts pecking at crumbs. Jack tosses a bite of bagel down to it. It eats fast and starts squawking. Jack laughs.
“I like jays,” Jack says. “They know exactly what they want. . . . Do you, Lauren? Do you know what you want?”
I shake my head.
Between questions from Harp and Coach Terry this afternoon, and now Jack, it seems like I’m on some kind of witness stand. I’m tired of it.
As if he’s sensed my mood, Jack says, “I don’t mean to be nosy. It’s just that I’ve missed out on so many years with you, I’m in a hurry to get caught up. Just tell me to jump back if I’m asking too much.”
Jack throws another handful of crumbs down near the jay. Another one comes swooping in to get in on the feast, but the first jay is not big on sharing. We sit watching the birds for a while, then Jack looks at his watch.
“Come on, I’ll take you home. I’ve got an appointment to show a couple of newlyweds a condominium. Can’t keep ’em waiting.”
On the way home Jack asks me about the blonde he always was seeing me with.
“She’s with another friend today,” I say.
He takes his eyes off the road long enough to check out my expression.
“Isn’t that okay?” he says.
“Whatever,” I say. “She acted sort of mad.”
“So, who all’s mad at you right now—or the other way around. Who all are you mad at?”
“Well, Tyler. And Shawna. Mr. Harper, my creative writing teacher, and Coach Terry, my volleyball coach.”
“You mad at your gramma?”
“No.”
“Me?”
“Not right now.”
“Oh, but you’re going to get mad at me any minute now?”
“No. It’s just . . . I used to be mad at you for a long time.”
“But no more?”
“Maybe not. I’m not sure.”
“But you’re giving me a chance, right?”
I nod.
“That’s all I ask,” he tells me, “just a chance.”
––––––––
He pulls into the driveway at Grams’ and lets me out, then leaves for his appointment. No sooner have I put my backpack down when I hear another car. It is Amber. I open the back door for her and she stomps past me into the kitchen. I follow her. She abruptly turns and faces me.
“I thought I could trust you!”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t act all innocent! You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone and I believed you!”
She is crying now, red in the face, fists clenched.
“Probably the whole school knows I’ve got herpes because of your big fat mouth!”
“What . . . ?”
And then I get it. Tyler must have told . . . Oh, God. It feels as if someone has slammed me over the head with a baseball bat. I step backward, barely breathing.
“Amber . . .”
“Blake took me home from Barb ’n Edie’s. We’re laughing and talking and then he gets all serious. ‘I love you so much, herpes couldn’t turn me off,’ he says. I can’t believe you’d tell Blake that I had herpes. I trusted you!”
“I didn’t tell Blake,” I say.
“Well, someone did and you’re the only other person who knows! Who knew!”
Amber sinks down into a chair and puts her head down on the kitchen table—the same table where we worked on Brownie projects together, and struggled over algebra, and where Grams told us both about menstruation when Amber asked, after her mother had refused to talk about the subject—the table we sat at when we made tiny pin pricks of blood and held our wrists together, vowing we’d be sister-friends for life.
She is shaking with sobs.
“Oh, God, Amber. I’m so sorry. Damn Tyler!”
“It’s not Tyler! It’s YOU! You broke your promise to me. You took my most private secret and spread it around!”
“I didn’t spread it around! Tyler promised he wouldn’t tell! I didn’t plan to tell him, it’s just, we were arguing, you know, about my virginity plan, and it sort of slipped out.”
“And then it slipped out to Blake and who knows where it’s slipping right now! I’m so embarrassed . . . and if my mom finds out . . .”
I thought I already felt as bad as I possibly could, what with the loss of Tyler and all we had been to one another. But I feel even worse now. Why had I told Tyler about Amber? I’d give anything if I could take it back. But watching Amber, seeing the hurt in her eyes, I know there’s no taking it back now. I’m filled with guilt.
“Could we just decide we’re not blood sisters anymore?” Amber says.
It’s like someone has kicked me in the stomach—knocked the breath right out of me. I sit across the table from her, wishing I could make things better.
“I made a terrible mistake,” I tell her. “I’m so sorry.”
I reach for Amber’s hand. She draws it away from me, like I’m fire.
“You’re not my blood sister,” she says. “Blood sisters don’t tell each others’ secrets.”
She stands and walks out the door. I follow.
“But we are blood sisters,” I say. “We can’t change that.”
“You changed it when you broke your promise to me.”
Amber walks away, faster. I catch up with her.
“I’m sorry! I’ll never do anything like that again. Give me a chance! Think about how I’ve always been there for you!”
She turns and gives me such a look . . .
“I have always been there for you.”
“In your dreams,” she says.
I can tell by the way she’s breathing, slow and deliberate, that she’s trying hard not to cry again.
“Your blabbing my secret is only the final blow,” she says.
“I don’t even know what you mean,” I tell her.
“My point exactly! It’s like you’re the only person in the world with a problem. Half the time when I call you, you can’t be bothered to call back. And then when I see you at school, you just shrug it off—‘I was feeling too down to call,’ you say.”
Her face is red again, and her voice is up about an octave.
“What if I’m feeling down? Who do I talk to? My mom doesn’t want me going out with Blake—she’s decided he’s the Antichrist or something and it turns out you were right, I like him, and who can I tell any of that stuff to? No one knows me as well as you do, but you’re out there on Pluto or a mile underground, or somewhere that you can’t be reached.”
Her lower lip is quivering.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”
“How could you know when you don’t listen and you don’t ask?”
Her deep blue eyes are all watery again, and tears are sliding down her cheeks. She is so pretty, and so nice, how could I have forgotten how lucky I was to have her for my best, best friend. How could I have told her secret?
She turns and starts walking again.
“No! Don’t leave. Please. I’m sorry. Give me a chance,” I beg. “I want us always to be sister-friends. I want always to be there for you. Tell me about your mom.”
“Why, so you can go blab my business to someone else?”
I am so ashamed, there is nothing more to say. Amber gets in her car and drives away. I wander out to the deck and sit thinking of all Amber and I have been through together, our years of being best friends, and I can’t believe I’ve ruined it. When the phone rings I go to the door to hear if there’s a message. It’s Tyler. This time I pick up.
“How could you have told Blake about Amber having herpes?”
“I didn’t tell Blake,” Tyler says.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t then, but I didn’t tell Blake. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Who did you tell then?”
“I didn’t tell anyone. I promised you I wouldn’t tell and I swear I didn’t. But Lauren, I want to talk about . . .”
“Why should 1 believe you?”
“Well, for starters, because I’ve never lied to you.”
“Well then, how did Blake know?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got to see you. We’ve got to talk, and not about Blake and Amber, either. We’ve got to talk about you and me.”
“No,” I say, but I’m not sure I mean it anymore.
I’m so confused about everything. My whole world is upside down—the loss of Tyler. Jack’s re-entry into my life. The new knowledge that both my parents, not just Jack, saved me from a fiery death. The loss of Amber’s friendship. It’s all too much to deal with, and I don’t know what to do or where to turn.
“I’ve got to go now,” I tell Tyler.
“I didn’t tell Blake, or anyone, about Amber, and I did what I did with Shawna partly for you.”
I hang up, then dial Amber’s number.
“Tyler swears he didn’t tell a soul,” I say.
Amber sounds hysterical, half laughing, half crying.
“What is it? Talk to me, Amber!”
She gasps out that it was all a misunderstanding.
“Blake called about fifteen minutes ago, wanting to know why I got out of the car right when he was telling me how much he loved me. ‘All I could think of was the herpes business,’ I told him. He goes ‘you didn’t even give me a chance to finish—herpes wouldn’t turn me off, or AIDS, or syphilis, or pimples all over your pretty face, or rotting teeth . . .”
“What?”
“He was trying to tell me how much he loved me, that nothing would turn him off,” Amber says. “I totally jumped to conclusions.”
“So Tyler really didn’t tell him?”
“No. I just thought . . . I’m so relieved . . .”
I want to turn cartwheels and dance under the stars.
“I’m so relieved,” I tell her.
“It doesn’t change the fact that you broke your promise to me, though.”
“But . . . could you give me another chance? Can’t we still be blood sisters?”
“I don’t know,” she says, and hangs up.