I LOOK OUT THE WINDOW. Fall has swooped in silently, like a fever breaking. And overnight the trees have taken on the appearance of bursting into flames—oranges, reds, yellows—the whole world suddenly combustible.
I reserved a table for Dani and myself in the library. It’s become our ritual over the past couple of weeks. I have exactly fifty-two minutes before the next bus leaves. We’re going to cram in one last study session for our first psych exam of the semester, which, Dr. Robinson warned the class, is going to be a “make or break” kind of exam.
I check my phone for the time and see that Dr. Greenberg has left another voice mail. That’s the third one in two weeks. Each time he calls, I let it go to voice mail. He’s concerned. He wants me to reschedule. I don’t call back, over and over again. You’d think he’d get that I’m not going to return the call. I delete the message.
Dani’s three minutes late.
Waiting is the absolute worst. When I’m waiting, I’m stuck in the present. I can’t lie to myself when I’m in the present. When I think about now, I can’t help but accept how complicated everything has become. I don’t have enough space in my mind to keep track of everything. School, for one thing. I had no idea how much more work these extra AP classes were going to be. Then there’s Aaron, Callie, Mom—always Mom, there in the back of my mind—taking up all my thoughts. Being in the present is like coming up for air, and coming up for air only makes me realize I’ve been suffocating. Easier not to breathe at all, like maybe with enough practice I can learn to live underwater like those aquarium fish, lie myself into believing things are okay, that this is what life is supposed to be like.
“Hey, sorry.” Dani comes in like a whirlwind of energy, talking fast. “Tyler’s having an existential crisis over some boy he met online.” She starts explaining more about whatever it is that’s going on with Tyler and how he thinks he’s being catfished, but I’m having trouble paying attention—the air in the room feels too thin. “What’s wrong?” she asks.
“What?” I clear my throat. “Nothing,” I lie.
“Are you sure?” she asks, squinting like she’s trying to see me better. She pulls out the chair opposite me.
“I just have a lot on my mind, I guess. Sorry.” I quickly try to wall up those soft places inside of me, the ones that want to show themselves too often these days, especially when I’m with Dani. She sits down and lets her arms fall against the table, and the series of silver bangles lining her wrists clang, making so much noise people turn to look.
Whenever she’s around, I feel like people are looking. But then again, whenever she’s around, I’m always looking too. I could try to build up an immunity to Dani, and then I wouldn’t have to feel my insides turn to gelatinous mush every time I saw her, except for the fact that I don’t really want to be immune anymore.
I shrug and tell her, “Family drama,” as if it could ever be that simple. I try to laugh, but it falls apart in my throat, and somehow I think I might actually start crying in front of her. I feel my chin tremble in that way it does. “God—sorry!”
“No, don’t be sorry,” she tells me, her voice gentler and quieter than I’ve ever heard it before. “Seriously, what’s going on?” She reaches across the table to touch my arm.
I dab my eyes with my sleeve before any of those traitorous tears can fall. I try to rearrange my face so that it’s smiling, but my voice sounds all weird and mangled when I speak again. “I’m fine. I’m seriously, totally, completely fine.”
“No you’re not.”
“I think it’s just this damn exam,” I tell her, slamming my book closed too loudly. Her face turns so open and soft as she gazes at me, no hint of a smile on her lips, no joke on deck in her mind. “Stop looking at me like that, I am fine. Robinson has me freaked out! That’s all, okay?” I realize I’m raising my voice only when this boy at the next table swings around in his seat, a crazed look of study stress in his eyes.
“Hey, do you mind having your breakdown a little quieter, please?”
Dani spins around in her chair so she’s face-to-face with this kid. She stands then, shouldering her bag, and starts collecting up my things in her arms before I even know what’s happening. “Come on,” she tells me. As we pass the boy at the next table, she extends her arm all the way and holds up her middle finger inches from his nose.
My pulse quickens, a dull throb echoing its beat in my temples. I’m a little scared this is about to blow up into something dangerous—because that’s what usually happens—but the boy only shakes his head and looks back down into his open textbook. Dani pushes forward, full speed ahead, walking tall, taking long, confident strides out through the doors of the library.
“Dani,” I call after her, trying my best to follow behind her as she leads the way down the hall. “Thanks, but you didn’t have to do that, you know.”
She stops and turns around so abruptly I almost run right into her. “Sure I did. He was being an asshole.”
That’s when I realize something else about Dani. She isn’t just beautiful and cool and smart and funny—she’s tough. Like, the real kind of tough. Not the insecure, defensive, covering-up-fear-and-weakness kind of tough, which is what I’ve always thought of Aaron, and Dad, even. Or maybe that’s what I’ve always secretly thought of myself, too.
She’s the real thing, more real than I could ever hope to be.
“Come on, let’s get some air.” She grabs my hand like she’s been reaching for my hand for years, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I let her lead me through the corridor and down the stairs—I think I might let her lead me anywhere.
It’s only once we’re sitting outside on the bench under this enormous tree that she does let go, gently placing my hand in my own lap, leaving my fingertips electrified. “Okay, you have my undivided attention. Go. Tell me.”
“What, are you being my therapist now?”
Her face remains still, like a frozen pond. “No, I’m being your friend. I know I’m always joking around and everything, and you really don’t know me very well, but I’m serious when it comes to serious stuff. So, what’s going on?”
“Nothing, really. I’m just upset because I think I’m going to have to drop a couple classes.” Not a complete lie, anyway.
She purses her lips as she considers this. “Would it really be so bad to have a little extra time? Especially when you can spend it hanging out with your awesome new friends, like me?”
“Not when you put it like that,” I say, trying not to smile too much.
She somehow manages to wait the perfect amount of time before speaking again. “Is that really all that’s wrong?”
“Not exactly,” I admit.
“Well, I’m here. Happy to listen.”
I open my mouth, no idea what I’m going to say. “My dad,” I hear my voice tell her, seemingly without the permission of my mind. “He died a few months ago. Unexpectedly. And . . .” I swallow hard, somehow convincing myself I’m telling enough of the truth. “It’s been really tough. My little sister isn’t doing well with it, and my older brother moved back home to help out. We’re all still adjusting. And changing schools right now—even though this is what I wanted—it’s just been hard.” Having you sitting next to me like this, looking at me like that, is also hard, I don’t say.
After a moment of silence her voice cuts through; solidly, smoothly, she asks, “What happened to your dad?”
I guess I’ve never thought of what happened as something that happened to him. I’ve been thinking of it as something that happened to our mom, and to me, and to Callie and Aaron. “He was stabbed.” True enough. “He was a cop.” Also true, although I’m fully aware that grouping those two facts together creates an entirely inaccurate picture of what happened. It’s an omission, just on the safe side of a harmless white lie.
She nods, and chews on her lower lip as she watches me. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “One of my uncles was in the military. He died overseas—was killed, I mean. It’s been so hard on my aunt and my little cousins, the whole family. I know it’s not exactly the same. How’s your mom holding up?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure,” I tell her.
Then she wraps her arm around my shoulders and inches me closer.
I think I might go into cardiac arrest.
There are these little whispers in my head telling me I should leave, telling me I’m letting her get too close, telling me how dangerous this is. Those are the voices that guide me in everything I do; they’ve always been dependable and sturdy. But right now I want them to shut the hell up. I lean my head against her shoulder. I let myself stay that way—she lets me stay that way. And we sit here. For once I really don’t give a damn about those voices, and I don’t care what anyone who might be passing by thinks of me.
The afternoon breeze flows around us and up through the leaves, rustling gently, drowning out the noise of people coming and going on the pathway that lines the lawn behind us. I relax. So calm I could almost fall asleep, except for the other part, which is that I also feel wide awake. It’s in this moment that I actually want to tell Dani everything. With that thought there’s a strange sensation in my stomach. Something like a knot being untied in the center of my body that starts radiating outward, untying smaller knots everywhere. In my throat. In my brain. In my hands and fingers, in my arms and legs, and heart.
“You think I’m a total freak?” I finally ask, lifting my head off her shoulder.
“Yeah,” she says softly, not even pretending to think about it. A smile is forming at the corners of her mouth. “But I already thought that.”
I sit up straight and do my best to play along, pretend to be offended. “Oh really?”
“Of course. Considering the first time I saw you, you were storming into Robinson’s class like some kind of rabid animal on a rampage. You had this wild look in your eyes. So. Yeah. My first thought: Freak. Total freak.”
“Wow, thanks. I feel so loved.”
“You should, because my second thought was, Oh fun, I hope she sits next to me. Because, well, I guess I happen to like freaks.”
“Good for me, I guess.”
“And me too.”
As we sit here laughing, the whole rest of the world falls away. But I hear something, a muffled noise that doesn’t even register right away—a ring tone. It’s the alarm on my phone. Which means the crosstown bus is leaving right now, and I had to be on it if I was going to get to work on time.
“Oh shit!” I jump up and grab my bag. “I have to go, sorry. Sorry, sorry, I have to go!” I start running. I turn around once and wave. She’s standing there next to the bench. “Sorry!” I yell one more time.
I cannot miss that bus.
I run as fast as I can across the wide expanse of cool grass and shade trees that make up the campus, past the rows of buildings, finally reaching the corner stop just as my bus is pulling away. I manage to conjure up one last burst of energy and really make a break for it, screaming and waving my arms over my head. “Wait, wait! Wait, don’t leave!” I run up alongside the bus as it’s gaining speed, pounding my fists against its metal body. I look up, on my very last ounce of adrenaline, and right as I’m about to lose hope, I see a woman look down at me through the window. Then I watch as she shouts something to the driver.
The brakes squeal, bringing the bus to a stop. I let myself slow down to a jog, before I mount the three giant steps, gasping as I tell the driver, “Thank you, thank you so much.” I collapse into the closest empty seat and try to catch my breath. And twenty minutes into the ride, even though I’m breathing normally again, my heart is still pounding at this wild pace. All light and fast and skipping beats.
It stays in a frenzy as I walk the two blocks to Jackie’s from the bus stop. It stays like that through each cup of coffee I pour. And it stays like that as I climb the stairs to our apartment hours later. Even as I put my key in the lock and turn. As I lie down in bed that night, I place my hand on my chest and try to will it into calmness. Then I reread the messages on my phone.
Dani: what up, cinderella?
Me: What?
Dani: you just up and ran away. what, fairy godmother waiting?
Me: Oh. No, had to catch my bus.
Dani: ah, i see. it was the pumpkin. hate that. ;)
Me: Had to go to work. Didn’t want to be late.
Dani: ok. just making sure I didn’t scare you off. def wouldn’t want that.