CHANGE 2–DAY 4

Skating home after football this afternoon, I headed to the ReRunz parking lot to reacquaint myself with a few tricks I used to know, back when I was Ethan, and before I’d become Drew—worst skater since Ryan Sheckler. I had just landed a perfectly executed hippie jump over a low rail and was really digging on my reinvigorated skating skills, when I darted past Michelle Hu, the Stephen Hawking of Central, nearly rolling my board over her Chacos.

“Sorry!” I shouted, jumping off and landing on the pavement.

She just smiled and gave me a peace sign. I quickly retrieved my board and skated back toward her to (re)introduce myself.

“Oryon,” I say, extending a hand. “Apologies about the near guillotining of your toes.”

“Michelle,” she says, taking my hand and giving it a hearty shake. “No worries. Sweet trick.”

“Thanks. It’s nothing, really.”

“Actually, it’s the physics of projectile motion—where the vertical component of velocity is the only one that changes, since gravity only works in a vertical direction. You know, your basic parabolic arc.”

“Wow, I’m more awesome than I thought,” I say, not even trying to decipher her deGrasse Tyson–speak. “Do you skate, or—”

“Die?” she interrupts with a cute grin. “Nah. I just like knowing how the universe works. I find it comforting.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Science will set you free, man,” she says, completely sincere. “You should join our physics club—The Fun-damental Particles. We meet every Thursday at seven thirty before school.”

“You meet at the crack of Christmas to talk about science?”

“Yes! It’s super stimulating. Better than coffee. I bet you’d dig knowing the how behind the action,” she says, gesturing toward my board. “Science is the reason for every season.”

It occurs to me that in my entire last year of school, Michelle Hu spoke probably twenty words to me when I was Drew. Or perhaps it was I who spoke just twenty words to her.

“The how behind the action?” I ask, rolling my board back and forth under my shoe.

“Yes,” she says, not quite sure whether I’m serious or mocking her. “Take a front-side 180,” she starts, at first hesitantly, before allowing her excitement to bleed through. “You can only land one by rotating your upper and lower body in opposite directions. It keeps your angular momentum at zero. Basically, you’re controlling the way you interact with the laws of nature.”

I keep nodding with absolutely no understanding of what she’s talking about.

“Which is to say,” she continues, “sometimes to move ahead, you have to split yourself into two entirely separate people.”

Now that I understand.

“Anyway, I gotta bounce,” Michelle says. “My moms are waiting at the climbing wall. But it was most awesome meeting you, Oryon.”

“Same,” I say. “See you around school.”

“Not if I see you first,” she jokes, sounding like an old-time, take-my-wife comic. My immediate thought is that I want to call Audrey and tell her how great and goofy Michelle Hu is, and how we should totally start hanging out with her (not necessarily in the physics club or anything—let’s be real). But before I even finish this interior monologue, I realize again that I can’t call Audrey, because Audrey and I aren’t friends anymore, and I feel the hopeful air whoosh from my body as I drop my backpack and sink onto the curb, deflated all over again.

In a fit of desperation, I start rooting around my bag for my CB, feeling it at the very bottom. I pull it out, look around to make sure nobody’s nearby, and then flip it open to a section I remembered spotting in the index called: Change Two: Adjustments.

I laugh a bitter “Ha!” at the word Adjustments, like being breathed into a whole new person is some tiny lifestyle tweak, like buying a push-up bra or cutting out dairy, but I read on nonetheless:

 

Be aware of the colliding systems of motivation and emotion. As your unique biology intersects with the chemical changes of ripening adolescence, you may feel restless, exuberant, intense, desperate. Resist the urge to be reckless, both physically and emotionally. Year Two Changers tend to underestimate risks and overestimate rewards. Especially social rewards.

 

Tell me something I don’t know, CB.

 

Life in our community is a long and varied one. Bear in mind the consequences your actions will bring to others. Becoming an adult means becoming accountable. Delayed gratification is the hallmark of the mature. Your Touchstone will model this maturity for you.

 

It is precisely then that I glance up and across the largely empty parking lot and spot none other than my very own model Touchstone Tracy blowing a giant, bright pink bubble of chewing gum. She is giggling, her be-ribboned head bobbling when none other than my favorite homeroom teacher Mr. Crowell pops the bubble with the tip of his index finger. Ah yes, the pinnacle of maturity.

I finish the section:

 

Remember, your journey is not about you. Your journey is not singular. No Changer walks alone. In the many, we are one.

 

I am just shutting my as-ever-useless CB when Tracy practically skips over sans Mr. Crowell, the spring in her step rivaling a kangaroo’s.

“Most excellent,” she beams, straightening the giant plaid bow in her hair with a flourish. Her head looks like a holiday gift basket. “Now that’s what I like to see.”

“What? Abject despair? Paralyzing confusion?” I snot back.

She waves her hand in front of her face. “Noooo, silly. You reading your CB, digging into the mission.”

“I’m just looking for answers,” I say flatly.

“Exactly,” she replies with a smug nod. “Any luck?”

“Nope.”

“How do you know?” she presses, chirpy, even for her.

“What do you mean, how do I know?” Even as I ask, I regret taking the bait.

“Sometimes an answer doesn’t reveal itself until you ask the right question.” Tracy is practically erupting with self-satisfaction.

“Really, Iyanla: Fix My Life?” I look for Mr. Crowell, who seems to have disappeared into the sub shop. “Here’s the right question: what is going on between you and my homeroom teacher?”

Tracy’s face fills with light, her smile nearly cracking her jaw in half. “Nothing.”

“Never play poker, Trace,” I say.

She tilts her head, as though a distant alarm has started sounding. “Dinnertime!” she declares, glancing back at the sub shop. “You should get home too. I bet your folks can’t wait to hear how day four went.”

I look up at her skeptically, but she doesn’t notice, just swivels on her little flats and merrily click-clacks away.