The strangest thing about the last six months is how it seems to have just faded away. The trauma and intensity just flattened out like it would after a near-miss car crash, except that it got stretched out over a longer period of time. Of course it’s left its marks on all of us. A lot of important things are different from what they would have been if Kristen had just obeyed her curfew that night and stayed home and done whatever Sterling and Bonnie wanted her to do, pretending to be happy, going to school and doing her homework, living in that room full of stuffed animals. They’re gone now, the stuffed animals. We took them to the Salvation Army store instead of the dump, so maybe some kid will give them a chance at another life.
Christmas has come and gone. Brad and I are a real couple now. I did some family stuff with him at Christmas. His mom is still pretty icy, but as far as I know she hasn’t disowned him yet. I got accepted at Wazoo—you know, Washington State University in Pullman—which is where Brad is going. I would rather have gone to the University of Washington in Seattle, but Brad’s family has a Cougar tradition, and for him, Seattle is too close to home anyway. Wazoo is a party school. It’s so far out in the sticks, there’s nothing else to do, but just going to a real university instead of a community college is a huge step for me, so I’m not too particular which one. I got a good financial aid package, but the main thing is that Brad will be there.
When school started this fall, I didn’t know what to expect. I assumed there would be a lot of drama about Kristen running away, that some people would be really mad at her. Some of the teachers are chilly toward her. Some people are big on accountability and punishment, and seem to think they have to create consequences above and beyond the natural ones. Like the reward they get for being good isn’t worth much unless bad people suffer. As if life doesn’t create its own version of hell. I think being good brings its own rewards; they’re just not always immediate. I think if she tried hard enough, Kristen could have gotten the school to force those teachers to let her make up the work. They do it all the time, but she decided she wants to do Running Start.
She takes classes at Skagit Valley Community College, and the high school has to pay the tuition. The high school is pretty anal about graduation requirements. They think they’re pretty special. They have the highest credit requirement in the valley and won’t accept substitutions for certain classes like English and history, even if you took those classes at the college. Kristen has plenty of credits to get her diploma through the college, and the only drawback is she wouldn’t get to suit up and walk with her class at graduation. Her grade point average is good and she got accepted at some good colleges.
But she might not be able to go because of money, which is really tragic. Because she ran away, Sterling won’t pay for her college. But because he makes as much money as he does, she doesn’t qualify for financial aid. She says she’s moving to Seattle after graduation, no matter what, even if it means she can only go to school part time. Their house is pretty crazy now. Sometimes it’s like a war zone and sometimes Sterling is all nice. Bonnie quit working in Sterling’s office and now works at a bank. She doesn’t make as much, but for now it doesn’t matter because Sterling has plenty. But Kristen says she and Bonnie might move out, which would solve her school problems. Since Sterling didn’t adopt her, they would be poor enough for financial aid. It’s a weird world.
So she’s taking classes both at the high school and at the community college. She got to play soccer with us, and she’s at school enough that I see her nearly every day. We’re even better friends than before she went to Victoria. Only now we’re not like opposites. Sometimes I miss being the strong one, but we have a lot more in common. We even look alike. People joke about it.
To some, she’s kind of a hero now. I mean, what kid hasn’t thought about running away, but she pulled it off, like Huck Finn. She didn’t come back all beat either, or full of rebellion and bravado. She’s playing it straight. When kids ask her, she just says parts of it were fun and parts of it were hard. No bullshit from her. She’s worked hard in her classes, and though she’s nice about it, she gets really impatient when immature kids waste class time.
In spite of what people think about kids and of the way we act sometimes, we really do know we have to grow up. A lot of kids just haven’t been jolted much by reality. Adults protect them, and so much of what we get from adults is laced with bullshit. It makes it easy to pretend the important stuff doesn’t apply to us. What’s true is that most adults haven’t figured out good answers to the important stuff either.
But they pretend they know, pretend there are simple answers, like if you obey your parents, get good grades, and go to college, you’ll have a happy, successful life. What they really mean is that if you listen to them, you might improve your odds a little, and then their lives will be easier. We’re not idiots; we listen to and watch them, and we try to manipulate them the same way they try to manipulate their circumstances. The world is a messy place. Life is risky, full of uncertainties, disappointments, disasters, and just plain noise.
The best we can do is weed out the bull and try not to add any. My parents are losers, but I have something a lot of kids don’t have. Trish plays it straight with me, and she loves me. That’s huge. Brad and I are still playing it straight. I don’t know about that kind of love yet. What we have might last and it might not, but for now I’m going with it in spite of his mother. Brad may eventually have to choose, or his mother may have to soften. Or we might just drift apart.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about Kristen and Corey. I have to admit I still have a hard time with Corey, but I don’t hate him anymore. It’s hard to forgive. Even though she hasn’t said it, I know that’s what Kristen wants me to do. Corey seems to have forgiven her, which I don’t completely understand. If it wasn’t for already having a date with Brad, I would have helped egg Corey’s house. I probably would have helped lynch him if the circumstances had been right. I know he was screwed because of what she did, really screwed, but within a week or two after she got back, they were like good friends. It made me jealous. They’re not a couple exactly, but they have some understanding, almost like they’re co-conspirators. It’s an odd relationship. I haven’t tried to get her to explain it to me, but eventually I will.
He wrote me this letter. It was a card actually, and pretty short. He brought it to my house with a flower, a white rose. He just handed it to me and left. He apologized for the camera thing. He said he was a dumb kid, but it was still an asshole thing to do, and he wishes he could take it back, but he can’t, so he’s sorry. I’m sure Kristen put him up to it, and at first I was mad. But after I thought about it, I decided that maybe it’s okay. She’s my friend and they’re good friends. It’s not like I can just forgive and forget all at once, but my attitude is changing.
He’s going to this alternative school in Mount Vernon and will graduate at the same time we do. He came to some of Kristen’s and my soccer games, and some football and basketball games too. People seem to accept him now. He and Kristen talk on the phone a lot. Even I can tell he’s changed. He has a job now, washing dishes at a restaurant near his dad’s house, so he doesn’t have much free time. She says he’s saving money so he can get out of the Valley.
Oh yeah. I got my car. It’s a blue Mazda Protégé, not even close to new, but no big dents or torn seats. These old people had it before me and they took good care of it. Sometimes, when Sterling is on a rampage and won’t let her have the Taurus because he paid for it even if it is in Bonnie’s name, I let Kristen drive my car. She bought a bike and sometimes last fall, she had to ride it clear to the college, which is ten miles away. The SKAT bus runs only three times a day, so if she rode it, she would have had to skip her high school classes.
She’s determined to be independent and responsible. I could get through my day without a car, so I started loaning her the Mazda. It was easier than seeing her trying so hard. At first Trish was worried about insurance, but Kristen asked Bonnie, and she’s covered on their policy whether Sterling likes it or not. She has this card in her wallet to prove it in case she gets stopped. Because she has a license and lives in his house, his company makes him cover her.
It’s never as simple as some adults want it to be.
Or me either.