7.
You can’t be like me
But be happy that you can’t
I see pain but I don’t feel it I am like the old Tin Man.
—THE AVETT BROTHERS, “TIN MAN”
ACCORDING TO ELISABETH KÜBLER-ROSS, THERE ARE FIVE stages of grief a person passes through after the death of a loved one: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
I took a psychology class during the last semester of my junior year when we lived in Texas. We were discussing stage four when the principal walked into the room, pale as a ghost.
“Layken, can I see you in the hallway please?”
Principal Bass was a pleasant man. Plump in the belly, plump in the hands, plump in places you didn’t know could be plump. It was an unusually cold spring day in Texas, but you wouldn’t know it from the rings of sweat underneath his arms. He was the type of principal who hung out in his office rather than the halls. He never went looking for trouble, just waited for it to come to him. So why was he here?
I had a sinking feeling deep in the pit of my stomach as I stood up and walked as slowly as I could to the classroom door. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me. I remember I looked right at him, and his eyes darted to the floor. He felt sorry for me. But why?
When I walked out into the hallway my mother was standing there, mascara streaked down her cheeks. The look in her eyes told me why she was there. Why she was there, and my father wasn’t.
I shook my head, refusing to believe what I knew to be true. “No,” I cried repeatedly. She threw her arms around me and started to collapse to the floor. Rather than hold her up, I simply melted with her. That day I
experienced my first stage of grief in the hallway floor of my high school: denial.
* * *
GAVIN IS PREPARING to perform his poetry. He’s standing in front of the class, his paper shaking between his fingers as he clears his throat and prepares to read from it.
I wonder, as I ignore Gavin’s presence and focus on Will, do the five stages of grief only apply to the death of a loved one? Could it not also apply to the death of an aspect of your life? If it does, then I’m definitely smack-dab in the center of stage two: anger.
“What’s it called, Gavin?” Will asks. He’s sitting at his desk, writing notes into his pad as students perform. It pisses me off—the way he’s being so attentive, focused on everything except me. His ability to make me feel like this huge invisible void pisses me off. The way he pauses to chew on the tip of his pen pisses me off. Just last night, those same lips that are wrapped around the tip of his ugly red pen were making their way up my neck.
I push the thought of his kiss out of my mind as quickly as it crept in. I don’t know how long it will take, but I’m determined to break from this hold he has on me.
“Um, I didn’t really give it a title,” Gavin responds. He’s standing at the front of the classroom, second to last person to perform. “I guess you can call it ‘Preproposal’?”
“ ‘Preproposal’—go ahead then,” Will states in a teacherish voice that also pisses me off.
“Ahem.” Gavin clears his throat. His hands start trembling even more as he begins to read.
One million fifty-one thousand and
two hundred minutes.
That’s approximately how many minutes I’ve loved you, It’s how many minutes I’ve thought about you, How many minutes I’ve worried about you, How many minutes I’ve thanked God for you,
How many minutes I’ve thanked every deity in the
Universe for you.
One million
Fifty-one thousand
And
Two
Hundred
Minutes. . .
One million fifty-one thousand and two hundred times.
It’s how many times you’ve made me smile,
How many times you’ve made me dream,
How many times you’ve made me believe,
How many times you’ve made me discover,
How many times you’ve made me adore,
How many times you’ve made me cherish, My life.
(Gavin walks toward the back of the room, where Eddie is sitting. He
bends down on one knee in front of her as he reads the last line of his
poem.)
And exactly one million fifty-one thousand and two hundred minutes from now, I’m going to propose to you, and ask that you share all the rest of the minutes of your life with me.
Eddie is beaming as she leans down and hugs him. The classroom is
divided as the boys groan and the girls swoon. I simply squirm in my seat,
anticipating the last poet of the day: me.
“Thanks, Gavin, you can take your seat. Good job.” Will doesn’t look
up from his notes when he calls me to read my poem. His voice is soft,
full of trepidation when he says my name. “Layken, it’s your turn.”
I’m ready. I feel good about my piece. It’s short but to the point. I
already have it memorized so I leave the poem on my desk and walk to
the front of the classroom.
“I have a question.” My heart races when I realize this is the first time
I’ve spoken out loud to Will in his classroom since I entered it a month
ago. He hesitates as though he can’t decide if he should acknowledge that
I even have a question. He gives me a slight nod.
“Is there a time minimum?” I say.
I’m not sure what he thought I was about to ask, but he looks relieved that this was my question.
“No, it’s fine as long as you get your point across. Remember, there are no rules.” His voice cracks slightly when he replies. I can see on his face that what happened between us last night is fresh on his mind. All the better.
“Good. Okay then,” I stammer. “My poem is called ‘Mean.’ ” I face the front of the classroom and proudly recite my poem by heart.
According to the thesaurus . . . and according to me. . . there are over thirty different meanings and
substitutions for the word mean.
(I quickly yell the following words; the entire class flinches—including Will.)
Jackass, jerk, cruel, dickhead, unkind, harsh, wicked, hateful, heartless, vicious, virulent, unrelenting, tyrannical, malevolent, atrocious, bastard, barbarous, bitter, brutal, callous, degenerate, brutish, depraved, evil, fierce, hard, implacable, rancorous, pernicious, inhumane, monstrous,
merciless, inexorable.
And my personal favorite—asshole.
I glance at Will as I return to my seat and his face is red, his teeth clenched. Eddie is the first to clap, followed by the rest of the girls in the class. I fold my arms across my chest and focus my eyes solely on my
desk.
“Man,” Javi says. “Who pissed you off?”
The bell rings and the students begin to file out. Will never utters a word. I begin to pack my things into my bag, when Eddie runs up to me.
“Have you talked to your mom yet?” she asks.
“My mom? About what?” I have no clue what she’s referring to.
“The date. Nick asked you out yesterday? You said you’d have to ask
your mom?”
“Oh, that,” I respond.
That was yesterday? It seems like a lifetime ago. I shoot a quick glance in Will’s direction and see that he’s watching me, waiting for my response to Eddie. His expression is stone cold. I wish at this moment he were easier to read. I assume his internal expression is jealousy, so I go with it.
“Yeah, sure. Tell Nick I’d love to,” I lie as I keep my eyes locked on Will. He grabs his pen and paper and opens one of the desk drawers and drops them in, slamming it shut. The action startles Eddie and she jumps, spinning around to look at him. He’s aware of the attention he brought upon himself, so he stands up and acts oblivious to us as he erases chalk off the board. Eddie turns back toward me.
“Great! Oh, and we decided on Thursday, so after Getty’s we can go to the slam. We’ve only got a few weeks—might as well get it out of the
way. You want us to pick you up?”
“Uh, sure.”
Eddie claps excitedly and bounces out of the room. Will continues to erase away nothing as I start toward the exit.
“Layken,” he says with a hardness to his voice.
I pause at the door but don’t turn toward him.
“Your mom works Thursday nights. I always get a sitter for Thursdays since I go to the slams. Just send Kel over before you leave. You know,
before your date.”
I don’t respond. I simply walk out.
Lunch is awkward. Eddie has already informed Nick that I’ve agreed to go out with them, so everyone is extremely chatty about our new plans.
Everyone except me. Other than the occasional nod and mutters of agreement, I don’t speak. I have no appetite, so Nick eats the majority of my food. I stir the rice pudding around on my tray with my spoon, dribbling in traces of ketchup here and there. It reminds me of the remnants of the murdered snowman in my driveway. For days, every time I backed out, my tire would glide over his ice-hard body. I wonder if that’s how quiet my Jeep would be if I were to run over Will? Just accidentally back up over him, then put my car in drive and continue on.
“Layken, are you just going to ignore him?” Eddie says.
I look up to see Will standing behind Nick, staring down at the mess
I’ve made of my tray.
“What?” I say to Eddie.
“Mr. Cooper needs to see you,” she says, nudging her head in Will’s direction.
“I bet you’re in trouble for saying ‘asshole,’ ” Nick says.
I put my hand against my throat, afraid it’s about to explode. What is he doing? Why is he asking me to go with him in front of everyone? Has he lost his mind?
I slide my chair back and leave my tray on the table as I eye him cautiously. He walks out of the cafeteria toward his classroom and I follow him. It’s a long walk. A long, awkward, tension-filled, quiet walk.
“We need to talk,” he says as he shuts his door behind us. “Now.”
I don’t know if he’s being “Will” right now. I don’t understand the angle he’s coming at me from. I don’t know whether to obey him—or punch him. I don’t walk very far into his room. I fold my arms across my
chest and attempt to look annoyed.
“Then talk!” I say.
“Dammit, Lake! I’m not your enemy. Stop hating me.”
He’s being Will.
I rush toward him and throw my hands up in the air in frustration.
“Stop hating you? Make up your freaking mind, Will! Last night you told me to stop loving you, now you’re telling me to stop hating you? You tell me you don’t want me to wait for you, yet you act like an immature little boy when I agree to go out with Nick! You want me to act like I don’t know you, but then you pull me out of the lunchroom in front of everyone! We’ve got this whole facade between us, like we’re different people all the time, and it’s exhausting! I never know when you’re Will or Mr. Cooper and I really don’t know when I’m supposed to be Layken or Lake.”
I’m tired of playing his head games. I’m so tired. I throw myself into the seat I occupy during his class. He’s hard to read as he stands motionless. Expressionless. He slowly walks around me and takes a seat in
the desk behind me. I continue facing forward when he leans forward over the desk, close enough to whisper. My body tenses and my chest tightens when he speaks.
“I didn’t think it would be this hard,” he says.
I don’t want to give him the gratification of seeing the tears that are making their way down my cheeks.
“I’m sorry I said that to you earlier, about Thursday,” he says. “I was being sincere for the most part. I know you’ll need someone to watch Kel, and I did make the slam a required assignment. But I shouldn’t have reacted like that. That’s why I asked you to come here: I just needed to apologize. It won’t happen again, I swear.”
The door to the classroom swings open, and Will hops up out of the seat. His sudden movement startles Eddie, and she eyes us curiously from the doorway. She’s holding the backpack that I left in the cafeteria. I can’t conceal the tears that are still flowing from my eyes, so I turn away from her. There’s nothing Will or I could do at this point to mask the tension between us.
Eddie holds her palms up and gently lays my backpack on the desk closest to the door. She backs out of the room and whispers, “My bad . . . continue.” She closes the door behind her.
Will runs his hands through his hair and paces the floor. “That’s just great,” he mutters.
“Let it go, Will,” I say as I stand up and walk to my backpack. “If she asks me about it, I’ll just tell her you were upset because I said ‘asshole.’
And jackass. And dickhead. And bastar—”
“I get your point!”
My hand is on the doorknob when he calls my name again so I pause.
“I also want to say I’m sorry . . . about last night,” he says.
I turn toward him when I speak. “Are you sorry it happened? Or sorry about the way you stopped it?”
He cocks his head and shrugs his shoulders as if he doesn’t understand my question. “All of it. It never should have happened.”
“Bastard,” I finish.
* * *
THE ENGINE OF my Jeep purrs its familiar sound when I crank it, and that pisses me off, too. I slam my fist against the steering wheel, wishing so many things. I wish I hadn’t met Will the first week I was here. It would have been so much easier if I’d met him in class first. Or better yet, I wish we had never even moved to Ypsilanti. I wish my dad were alive. I wish my mother weren’t being so vague about her errands. I wish Caulder weren’t at our house every day. Seeing him just makes me think of Will. I wish Will had never fixed my Jeep. I hate that he does considerate things like that. It would make it so much easier to hate him if he really were all those things I called him. Oh my god, I can’t believe I called him all those names. Wait, no regrets.
* * *
I PICK THE boys up from school and drive home. I beat Will home today, but I won’t be waiting at the window. I’m done waiting at the window.
“We’ll be at Caulder’s,” Kel yells as they slam the Jeep door.
Good.
When I walk down the hallway, I hear my mother talking to someone in her bedroom, so I pause outside her door. It’s a one-sided conversation, so she must be on the phone. Normally, I would never eavesdrop on one of her conversations. However, her behavior lately warrants a little nosiness. Or maybe my behavior warrants a little rebellion. Either way, I cup my ear to the door.
“I know. I know. I’ll tell them soon,” she says.
“No, I think it will go over better if I tell them alone . . .”
“Of course I will. I love you too, babe.”
She’s signing off. I quietly tiptoe to my bedroom and slip inside. I shut the door behind me and slide to the floor.
Seven months. It took her all of seven months to move on. She can’t be seeing someone else already, but her words on the phone couldn’t have been more clear. I’m in stage one again: denial.
How could she? And whoever he is, he already wants her to introduce
us to him? I already don’t like him. And her nerve! How could she accost Will like she did, when what she’s doing is just as deplorable, if not worse? Stage one is extremely brief. I’m back in stage two again: anger.
I decide not to bring it up right away. I want to find out more before I confront her about it. I want the upper hand in this situation, and it’s going to take some thought.
“Lake? Are you back?” She’s knocking on my door. I have to roll forward and hop up to get out of the way when she opens it. She sees me
jump up and she eyes me curiously.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Stretching. My back hurts.”
She doesn’t buy it, so I clasp my hands behind me and stretch my arms
upward, bending forward.
“Take some aspirin,” she says.
“Okay.”
“I’m off tonight, but I have a lot of sleep to catch up on. I didn’t get any at all today so I’m going to lie down. Can you make sure Kel gets a
bath before he goes to bed?”
“Sure.”
We both start down the hallway. “Wait—Mom?”
She turns back to me, her lids dragging over her bloodshot eyes.
“I’m going out Thursday night. Is that okay?”
She eyes me suspiciously. “With who?”
“Eddie, Gavin, and Nick.”
“Three guys? You aren’t going anywhere with three guys.”
“No. Eddie’s a girl. She’s my friend. Her boyfriend is Gavin, and we’re double-dating. I’m going with Nick.”
Her eyes brighten a little. “Oh. Well, good.” She smiles and opens the door to her bedroom. “Wait,” she says. “I work Thursday. What about Kel?”
“Will has a sitter on Thursdays. He already said Kel could stay there.”
She looks pleased, but only for a second. “Will agreed to pay a sitter?
To watch Kel? So you could go on a date?”
Crap. I didn’t realize how this would look. “Mom, it’s been weeks. We
went on one date; we’re over it.”
She stares at me for several seconds. “Hmm.” She returns to her room, still unappeased.
Her suspicion brings me a small sense of gratification. She thinks I’m lying about something. Now we’re even.
* * *
“I’M NOT GOING to third period,” I say to Eddie as we exit history.
“Why not?”
“I just don’t feel like it. Headache. I think I’ll go sit in the courtyard and get some fresh air.”
I turn and start to head to the courtyard when she grabs my arm.
“Layken? Does this have anything to do with what happened at lunch yesterday with Mr. Cooper? Is everything okay?”
I smile at her reassuringly. “No, it’s fine. He just wants me to refrain from my colorful choice of words in his class.”
She purses her lips together and walks away with the same unappeased look my mother had last night.
The courtyard is empty. I guess none of the other students needs a breather from the teacher they’re secretly in love with. I sit at a bench and pull my phone out of my pocket. Nothing. I’ve only spoken to Kerris once since I moved. She was the friend in Texas I was closest to, but she was actually best friends with another girl. It’s odd when your best friend has an even better best friend. I chalked it up to the fact that I was too busy for best friends, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe I’m not a good listener. Maybe I’m not a good sharer.
“Mind if I join you?”
I look up and Eddie is taking a seat on the bench across from me.
“Misery loves company,” I say.
“Misery? And why are we miserable? You have a date to look forward to tomorrow night. And your best friend is me,” she says.
Best friend. Maybe. Hopefully.
“You don’t think Will is going to come looking for us?” I say.
She cocks her head at me. “Will? You mean Mr. Cooper?”
Oh god, I just called him Will. She’s already suspicious. I smile and come up with the first excuse that pops into my head.
“Yeah, Mr. Cooper. We called teachers by their first names at my last school.”
She doesn’t respond. She’s picking at the paint on the bench with her blue fingernail. Nine of her fingernails are green; just the one is blue.
“I’m just going to say something here,” she says. Her voice is calm.
“Maybe I’m way off base, maybe I’m not. But whatever I say, I don’t want
you to interject.”
I nod.
“I think what was happening at lunch yesterday was more than just a slap on the wrist for inappropriate verbal usage. I don’t know how much more, and honestly it’s none of my business. I just want you to know you can talk to me. If you need to. I’d never repeat anything; I don’t have anyone besides Gavin to repeat stuff to.”
“No one? Best friends? Siblings?” I hope this changes the subject.
“Nope. He’s all I have,” she says. “Well, technically, if you want to know the truth, I’ve had seventeen sisters, twelve brothers, six moms, and seven dads.”
I can’t tell if she’s making a joke, so I don’t laugh in case she isn’t.
“Foster care,” she says. “I’m on my seventh home in nine years.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.
“Don’t be. I’ve been with Joel for four of those nine years. He’s my foster dad. It works. I’m content. He gets his check.”
“Were any of your twenty-nine siblings blood related?”
She laughs. “Man, you pay attention. And no, I’m an only child. Born to a mother with a yen for cheap crack and pricey babies.”
She can see I’m not following.
“She tried to sell me. Don’t worry, nobody wanted me. Or she was just asking too much. When I was nine she offered me to a lady in a Walmart parking lot. She gave her a sob story about how she couldn’t take care of me, yada yada, offered the lady a deal. A hundred bucks was my going rate. It wasn’t the first time she tried this right in front of me. I was getting bored with it, so I looked right at the lady and said, ‘You got a
husband? I bet he’s hot!’ My mother backhanded me for ruining the sale.
Left me in the parking lot. The lady took me to the police station and dropped me off. That’s the last time I ever saw my mom.”
“God, Eddie. That’s unreal.”
“Yeah, it is. But it’s my real.”
I lie down on the bench and look up at the sky. She does the same.
“You said Eddie was a family name,” I say. “Which family?”
“Don’t laugh.”
“But what if I think it’s funny?”
She rolls her eyes. “There was a comedy DVD my first foster family owned. Eddie Izzard. I thought I had his nose. I watched that DVD a million times, pretending he was my dad. I had people refer to me as Eddie after that. I tried Izzard for a while, but it never stuck.”
We both laugh. I pull my jacket off and pull it on top of me, sliding my arms through it backward so that it warms the parts of me that have been exposed to the cold for too long. I close my eyes.
“I had amazing parents,” I sigh.
“Had?”
“My dad died seven months ago. My mother moved us up here, claimed it was for financial reasons, but now I’m not so sure she was being honest. She’s seeing someone else already. So yes, amazing is past
tense at the moment.”
“Suck.”
We both lie there pondering the hands we were dealt. Mine pales in comparison to hers. The things she must have seen. Kel is the same age now that Eddie was when she was put into foster care. I don’t know how she walks around so happy, so full of life. We’re quiet. Everything is comfortably quiet. I silently wonder if this is what it feels like to have a best friend.
She sits up on her bench after a while, hands stretched out in front of her as she yawns. “Earlier, the thing I said about Joel—and me being a check to him? It’s not like that. He’s really been a great guy. Sometimes when things get too real, my sarcasm takes over.”
I smile at her in understanding. “Thanks for skipping with me, I really
needed it.”
“Thanks for needing it. Apparently I did, too. And about Nick—he’s a good guy, just not for you. I’ll drop it. But you still have to go with us tomorrow.”
“I know I do. If I don’t, Chuck Norris will hunt me down and kick my ass.” I flip my jacket around and ease my arms in as we walk through the door and back into the hallway.
“So if Eddie is something you made up, what’s your real name?” I ask her before we part ways. She smiles and shrugs her shoulders.
“Right now, it’s Eddie.”
