Amber Augusta Bennington’s absence from school doesn’t give me a free ticket out of mentoring. Her progress proved to Mrs. M. that I could do the job—and that I was better at it than some of the other mentors. So her Plan B.
Like during a square dance where you’re perpetually changing partners, I am given someone new to lock arms with: David Craig.
I’m not sure what happened with his mentor and actually don’t want to know. What I know for sure is that he is not coming to my house. If I went to the bathroom, he’d probably steal a look through my underwear drawer and shoot pictures of my thongs.
I’m not sure why David feels the need to perpetually carry his camera. Maybe the real world isn’t weighty enough for him. As for the eyeliner thing, by now most of us ignore it because we know how desperate he is to get attention.
So déjà vu all over again. I tell him to meet me in the library.
“Got something against Starbucks?”
“It’s just easier to stay here,” I say. He mutters something under his breath and walks off.
While I wait for him after school—textbook out, pens lined up, notebook open—I can’t help flashing back to the first time I was supposed to meet Amber. Suddenly I feel sad all over again about what she’s going through. I don’t know where she is now. What I do know is that she disappeared from school more than halfway through the year so she’ll miss classes and her grades will go down again.
Her mom tried to kill herself, and Amber came face to face with that.
How can she live with that? Can she keep all that grief and helplessness inside herself without imploding?
I think of how she looked lying on my bed, so still she didn’t seem alive while tears dripped from her eyes like from the dolls you fill with water so real tears seem to spill out of the little holes in the corners of their eyes.
A heavy textbook drops on the desk in front of me and I jump.
“Wake up,” David says.
Is startling someone lost in thought an amusing thing to do? David must think so.
“I’m up.” I say, glaring at him.
He sits down at the table, sliding his camera out of his pocket and strategically placing it next to his notebook as if it’s as indispensable as a pen.
“This is English, not photography.” My low and controlled voice.
“You have to be ready,” he says. “You never know when the perfect picture will appear in front of you.”
I give him a long, bored look. “Oh … I get it.”
“What is it with you?” he says, as if he tasted something sour. “That attitude.”
“Excuse me?”
He screws up his face. “Why are you so uptight?”
“Being your mentor isn’t number one on my list of fun things to do, okay?”
He works on looking bored. “I’m a fast learner.”
I don’t mention his grades. I open up our grammar and usage book. He gave me his old tests so I can tell what kind of mistakes he makes. I come up with sentences, right and wrong.
He isn’t all that impressed with the need to know it.
“I’m not gonna write books,” David says, as if that explains it all.
“And your point is?”
“Why is this important?”
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and lean toward him. “It’s important because these are the rules of the English language, which you should know whether you choose to follow them or not.”
I think of the high I get when I’ve aced a test I’ve killed myself for. The validation, as if the universe is saying that if you work hard enough, you can get what you want.
He glares at me like I’m a freak. A second later he narrows his eyes.
“Don’t move.”
He lifts his camera and studies me through the lens. It feels like bullets are flying.
“Do you mind?” I turn away, the legs of the chair scraping the floor like a scream.
“What?”
“We’re supposed to be doing grammar, not taking pictures.”
“You don’t like yourself,” he says matter-of-factly.
I close my eyes and shake my head slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I can always tell.” He puts the camera down.
“Thank you, Sigmund Freud.”
“The camera doesn’t lie.”
I close the book and start packing up. I can’t deal with him. I just can’t. I tear off a slip of paper and jot down the pages we were supposed to go over.
“See you next week. Make sure you study.”
He shakes his head. He’s pissed off? Maybe in the future, I should be a tad nicer to him. Otherwise, he may snap my picture and who knows where it will end up.