Beheld

by Alex Flinn

  “I won’t.” I looked across the canal, trying to find the brown snake, but it was too bright. I couldn’t see.

  “So do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

  I had this weird feeling she already knew, and it was a little embarrassing. But I said, “Nothing. First World problems. Didn’t make varsity, and all my friends did.”

  She looked at me, really concentrating on my face like she was trying to place me.

  “You’re Amanda’s friend, right?”

  I nodded. That was apparently my whole identity.

  She looked me up and down. “What would get you onto varsity?”

  I laughed. “If I grew six inches.”

  “Six would do it?” Her tone was light, but her voice was weirdly serious, like she was a doctor, questioning a patient.

  “Eight would be better,” I joked.

  Kendra nodded. “I need to get going.” She stood and walked away.

  “Sure. Good . . . talking to you. I’m just going to finish feeding these ducks.”

  “Give some to the crows too. I like crows.”

  “Sure.” I threw one to a duck. A moment later, I turned to wave good-bye, but she was already gone. I threw the last crumbs to the ducks and that one crow who showed back up. There was a strange chill in the air even though it was May. I figured I’d better get going.

  I stood, gathered up my shoes, and rolled down my pants.

  When I stood, the pants were the perfect length, as if I’d grown an inch.

  Which I had.

  By the time I left for camp that summer, I was already three inches taller. I grew one inch more each of the four weeks I was there.

  But it wasn’t just height. I maintained my weight, so I got slimmer, but my shoulders were broader. My arms got bulkier. I’d had to borrow Matt’s clothes to take with me. Then, for the second time, I wrote home from camp to get larger shorts.

  When I arrived at practice in late July, I’d gone from five seven to six three, exactly eight inches taller, and twenty pounds heavier, all muscle.

  “You’re looking good, Burke!” Coach Tejada said. “Amazing growth spurt.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Wouldn’t have recognized you.” He was shaking his head.

  “So, you said I could make varsity if I grew.”

  “If your playing’s still on the same level, I’ll see what I can do.”

  But my playing was on a completely different level. I learned that size did matter, at least in this case. I got five sacks in practice that day. Of course, it was easy against JV players. But I had a feeling that would be remedied soon.

  I’d become a swan.

  13

  So everything changed after that, including me and Amanda.

  People at school noticed the difference in me. Of course they did. It’s not like I was ever bullied, not really. This isn’t one of those stories. I know lots of other people who could tell it, but I’ve always been medium popular, as Matt’s dorky brother or Darien’s fat friend. I mean, yeah, when girls talked to me, it was usually because they wanted Brian’s number or because they felt comfortable asking me for the homework assignment. But at least they talked to me. I was never a pariah.

  Now they talked to me because they thought I was hot. Short, fat Chris would have laughed at that. New Chris kind of enjoyed it, though I wouldn’t necessarily admit it.

  I noticed it in the first period on the first day of school. I had AP Biology, a class that was almost completely seniors, so I didn’t know that many people. This girl Sydnie, a tiny blonde, who I knew because she was the cheerleader who did lines of backflips along the sidelines at football games, took the seat beside me.

  “Hey,” she said. “It’s Chris, right?”

  “Yeah.” Baffled that she was talking to me.

  “I’m Sydnie.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  She looked around. “I don’t know anyone taking this class.”

  “Okay.” I found that very difficult to believe.

  “No, really. Most of my friends have serious senioritis. They’re not taking any hard classes. But I want to get into Syracuse, and they look at your schedule.”

  I nodded.

  “Anyway, my mother is sort of involved in my life. Like, she still checks my homework and stuff. Anyway, she promised she’d stay on her helipad if I got a phone number in each class, so I’d have someone to text about assignments and stuff.”

  I nodded again, since I had no idea why she was telling me this. When she didn’t continue, I said, “That’s a good idea.”

  Palpable silence.

  “So can you give it to me?” she said.

  “Huh?” I fiddled with my phone. I’d been sending a text to Amanda. I hadn’t seen her that day because I’d driven myself to school. My dad had bought me a car for my birthday, an Audi, which put me in the top ten percent at my school. A guilt car, Amanda had called it. Truth was, I missed going with her. I was texting her my schedule.

  “Your phone number?” Sydnie said.

  She reached over and took the phone from my hand. The gesture was surprisingly intimate, like she had some right to touch my phone. Then she went one step further. She exited the text I was sending, pressed the phone symbol, then dialed a number. I assumed it was her number because her phone (in a hot-pink case that said Love fades, Cheer friendships are forever) immediately vibrated. She grabbed it, added me to her contacts, and handed my phone back.

  “Add me too,” she said. “It’s Sydnie with y and then an ie.”

  It took me a second to figure that out, but she was the only Sydnie I knew with any spelling. I added her.

  “Text you tonight,” she said after class.

  That happened in all six classes. Well. Some version of it happened. It happened with girls I didn’t know at all. It happened with girls I’d known since kindergarten, who’d never spoken to me except to say, “Excuse me could you please get out of the way” or, “Stop eating all the cupcakes that are for the whole class.” It happened with Jessie Alvarez, who I’d sort of considered a friend, but who now wrote her phone number on my hand in pink Sharpie with a heart around it. And it happened with Megan—“Berkie”—Berkowitz, who had once cried at being assigned as my partner on an eighth grade science project but now wanted to be “study buddies” in American history (I’d politely declined that one).

  By the end of the day, I had six girls’ numbers in my phone, not counting the one on my hand.

  And when I got to practice that day, I found out that not only was I on varsity. I was the starting middle linebacker.

  I never did text Amanda, but walking out to the parking lot after practice, I saw her. I ran up to her to tell her about making varsity. My car was parked next to hers anyway.

  “Hey! Think I’ll be able to get the assigned space next to yours?”

  She laughed. Her hair was a little sweaty. She’d just come from volleyball practice, and her face was flushed pink. “It’s really only fair.”

  “So guess what?” I said.

  “I heard! I’m so happy for you!”

  She was smiling, walking toward me.

  “Chris!” Sydnie was waving blue-and-white pompoms in my face. I didn’t even know how she got there without me seeing her, except that she was so tiny that she sort of just showed up like a cat.

  “Hey, Sydnie,” I said. “Amanda, do you know Sydnie?”

  Amanda smiled. “Sure. Hey.”

  “Hey.” Sydnie turned her attention back to me. “Any way I could get a ride with you? I usually go with Ireland, but she had a doctor’s appointment.”

  “Um, sure.” I looked at Amanda and shrugged. “Can I text you later?”

  “Sure. But I’ll be driving Casey around, so I might not be able to text back. ‘It can wait’ and all.” I saw her eyes flick to Jessie’s number on my hand.

  “Okay.”

  Amanda and I always had a long talk on the first day of school, to compare schedules. T
his year, we had no classes together. That had only happened once before, in seventh grade, and I’d actually switched my elective to chorus so we could be together there. It turned out I was actually good at singing, and I stayed in it for eighth and ninth grades too, even getting a few solos and an invitation to join Matt’s garage band, but I’d dropped it last year to take weight training. Amanda had dropped it too.

  “I’ll text you late? Maybe ten?”

  Sydnie sighed and was pulling on the door handle. I clicked on the lock button so she could get in.

  “Sure.” Amanda waved. “Gotta go. The princess doesn’t like when I’m late.”

  “Hey,” Sydnie said when I got in the car. “Do you want to come over for a while? Our maid, Minnie, makes these incredible conch fritters, and we could organize our notebooks for Perez’s class.”

  “Uh, sure.” I looked back at Amanda, but she’d already gotten into the car.

  “This is such a cool ride.” Sydnie stroked the leather seat, her hand accidentally brushing my shoulder. “You’re so lucky.”

  “Thanks.”

  We ended up going shopping for school supplies. When we got to Office Max, the whole school was there, and I got to tell everyone I made varsity. Then we went back to Sydnie’s house and organized our notebooks. Or, rather, she organized mine for me.

  “Let me write the dividers for you,” she said. “I have super-neat handwriting.”

  “Won’t it look girly?” I said.

  “Yeah, like a girl did it for you.” She giggled.

  Her mom invited me to stay for dinner, but I told her my mom always had a big first-day-of-school dinner. “My brother started at FIU today too.”

  “That’s so cute,” Sydnie said. “Can I text you later?”

  “Sure.”

  She did. So did Jessie. And Berkie. And Emma Jordan. And Ally Garcia. Seven different girls texted me, all wanting information about the nonexistent assignments, all congratulating me on making varsity.

  By the time I realized I’d never texted Amanda, it was eleven.

  I texted her.

  Hey

  She didn’t text back.

  I tried:

  Do you think there are alternative universes?

  Nothing. I figured she must have been asleep.

  In the next few weeks, I found out what life was like for a swan. It seemed that there were tons of parties at my school, parties I’d never heard of, much less attended. The first was an apparently annual back-to-school beach bash on Saturday.

  “Are you going to beach bash?” Sydnie asked me on Thursday. She’d started hanging around after cheerleading practice to grab a ride with me. So we were walking to my car, and she was gushing about how great I’d played.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been invited.”

  “You’re so cute.” She brushed my shoulder with her hand. “It’s not like a wedding with invitations and stuff. You just hear about it from someone who’s going and show up.”

  “Okay.” I nodded like I got it.

  “I’m inviting you, stupid. You can pick me up at eight Saturday.”

  “Okay, then. It’s a date.” I paused. Was it a date? I’d never actually asked a girl out or particularly thought about asking Sydnie out. She seemed nice enough. She just wasn’t the girl I wanted.

  She laughed. “It’s a date.”

  Between that day and the next, three other girls asked me if I was going. I said I was. I still hadn’t talked to Amanda, but Friday, I saw her in the activities office when we were buying our parking passes.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.” She looked up at me. She looked up. It was so weird being taller than her for the first time in, well, ever.

  “Um, how’s everything going?” I asked.

  “Good. Great. Hey, we’ve got a regional game Saturday. Can you come?”

  “You made it to regionals?” This was something I should have known about, would have known about if it had happened a few months earlier.

  “I know, right? We’ve never gotten this far. If you come, you could sit with my dad and make sure he doesn’t, like, explode with pride all over the infield.”

  “I don’t think I’d be able to prevent that. Sorry.”

  “Yeah, probably not. Come anyway.”

  “Sure. When is it?”

  “Saturday at seven.”

  The office aide called the next person, and I handed her the money for the parking pass.

  “Driver’s license?” she said.

  “Oh, sure.” I put my binder on the counter and fumbled for my wallet. When I finally got it out, I noticed Amanda staring at my neatly labeled tabs.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “When did you say the game was?”

  “Seven on Saturday. It’s okay if you can’t—”

  “No, I want to go.” I really did. I wanted to see Tim and be with Amanda like I hadn’t been all summer. But I’d already told Sydnie I was going to the party. And for some reason, I didn’t want to tell Amanda about it. “Oh, wait—did you say seven on Saturday?”

  “Yeah. Maybe a little later if the game before goes long.”

  “Shit, I have . . . there’s a family thing, my uncle’s in town.” Groping for an excuse I didn’t really want to have to make. “Really boring.”

  “Oh. That sucks.”

  “I know.” The office aide handed me my parking pass and asked for Amanda’s forms. “But if you win that game, there’s another one, right?”

  “Yes. When we win, there’ll be another game on Sunday.”

  “Okay. I’ll definitely go to that.”

  “Cool.” Amanda took her pass from the office aide. “It’ll be at noon at Tropical Park, and the finals are on Sunday night.”

  “I’ll see you there.”

  Saturday night, I texted Amanda:

  Good luck, I know you’ll be awesome

  Then added and deleted a heart emoji three times before I went to pick up Sydnie.

  14

  You know those television shows about high school students where all the actors are actually twenty-five, have cool cars, thousand-dollar outfits, and names like Trey and Denali? High school students who bear no resemblance to anyone you actually know? Well, once you filtered out the ninety-five percent of people at my school who didn’t get invited to the cool parties, my school kind of looked like that.

  At least, in the dark.

  “I’ve actually never been to the beach at night,” I told Sydnie as we walked from my car, which was parked like six blocks away at a meter I’d had to pay with my debit card.

  “You are so cute,” Sydnie said. “The way you get all excited about regular things. It’s great. You don’t have to worry about getting a sunburn.” She took my hand. She was wearing a bikini top made out of two scraps of fabric the size of toilet paper squares that barely covered anything. She’d had on a tank top, but she took it off as soon as we left her house.

  I said, “Yeah, I guess that would be a real worry in that bathing suit.”

  “Do you like it? They had an end-of-season sale at Victoria’s Secret.”

  “Cool,” I said, because I didn’t know how to respond to that. I wondered how Amanda’s game was going.

  “I love Victoria’s Secret, don’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  She laughed. “You’re such a guy. You don’t know anything about fashion.”

  “Well, not girls’ fashion. Okay, maybe not any fashion.”

  “Such a guy. People say I look like this one model, Kate Grigorieva. She’s Russian. Do you think I look like her?”

  I was about to say that I had no idea what Kate Grigorieva looked like when Sydnie stuck her phone in my face, showing me a photo. She looked like a generic pretty girl. Her hair was slicked back, so I couldn’t even tell what color it was, presumably the same color as Sydnie’s, but I said, “Yeah. Yeah, you look a lot like her.”

  We passed a pickup truck that had about a dozen bumper stickers on it, but
the funny thing was, they weren’t the usual pickup-truck bumper stickers. Other than the expected My President is Charlton Heston (I was pretty sure Charlton Heston was dead, but it was an old truck), it had two Darwin fish and mostly liberal sentiments like, If you’re against abortion, get a vasectomy and The road to hell is paved with Republicans, along with a neutral I’d rather be flying plate holder.

  I said to Sydnie, “How many bumper stickers do you think you can have before you look crazy?” This was a topic Amanda and I frequently debated. Amanda said no more than two. I said you could have more than that as long as some of them were politically neutral “My child made the honor roll” or “Go Gators” type stickers. This guy would have too many by any standard.

  Sydnie looked at me like I’d spoken a foreign language, but finally, she said, “Don’t they mess up the paint on your car?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  We reached the beach. People were standing around in clusters of shadows, drinking something out of Solo cups. We took some. Coke. Drew Bailey, one of the seniors, offered us something from his flask.

  “Oh, no thanks,” I said. I’d had to beg to be allowed to drive to the party, on account of my brother’s legacy. Part of that begging had included promising not to drink.

  “You’re so cute.” Sydnie accepted a shot into her own soda. “Such a cute nerd.” She peeled off her shorts and left them lying on the sand.

  “You know what’s bad about going to the beach at night?” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “We can’t rub sunscreen on each other.”

  Someone wanted to take a picture, and Sydnie hung on my arm. I thought I was hallucinating. This was my life. This was me. On the beach at a party with people who looked like extras on a CW show, with this girl who sort of looked like some model saying she wanted me to . . . rub her?

  I said, “That’s unfortunate.”

  “Unfortunate.” Sydnie burst out laughing. “God, you’re funny!”

  “Okay.” I didn’t really think I’d said anything funny.

  “I always thought you were really funny and nice.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Everyone always knew how funny and nice you were.” She moved, if possible, even closer. Someone had on music, and she held my shoulders, sort of dancing, but sort of not.