by Shay Savage
I did that two more times before I settled on something that I didn’t think was too bad.
Dear Mayra,
Thank you for giving me a ride home and cutting my hair.
I’m sorry I forgot to say that before.
Sincerely,
Matthew Rohan
I took a deep breath and slid the little card into an envelope and sealed it. Then I flipped it over and wrote Mayra on the front. I looked at it for a bit and decided to add her last name—Trevino. I smiled as I drove back to her house and pulled up near the mailbox.
I realized I hadn’t put her address on the front of the card, so I added that as well. Of course, since I hadn’t planned to write that much on the card, it didn’t all fit with the same-sized letters. At least I had the extra envelopes from the other cards I had messed up, so I ripped the card out of the first one and put it into a blank envelope. I wrote her name and address again.
Just before I put it in the mailbox, it occurred to me that the mail carrier just might think they were mailing a letter out, not receiving one, and could collect it and take it back to the post office. It didn’t have a stamp or anything on it, so it could end up being lost completely. She would think I was insanely rude and might never speak to my again.
How would we get our project done?
I pulled the card back to my chest. Maybe if I wrote my return address on it, it would at least come back to me due to a lack of postage. How long would that take, though? Oxford mail wasn’t known for being overly fast even when there is the correct postage on a letter.
I considered taking it up to her front door, but the thought immediately started my heart pounding. Just looking at the little, covered porch and thinking of myself walking up there and ringing the bell made my stomach clench and threaten to expel dinner.
Bethany would be really pissed if I threw up in her car.
That idea started a whole other attack. I dropped the card onto the passenger seat and got out of the car altogether. The air outside the car smelled fresh and clean, which helped calm me a bit. I leaned against the driver’s side door and put my face back in my hands.
“Matthew?”
Shit, shit, shit.
I lowered my hands and saw Mayra Trevino standing at the curb near her mailbox.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked down to the street under my shoes and kicked at a tiny little rock there. There was another one a few feet away, so I kicked it, too. Then a third. I kept kicking rocks until there weren’t any left in my reach and then started looking for more.
“Matthew? Are you okay?”
I didn’t know how to respond. I wasn’t okay, but focusing on the rocks had made the attack go away at least. I could breathe normally, and my heart wasn’t pounding too much. I wasn’t okay, though. I needed to give her that card, and I wasn’t sure how to do that.
“Sometime you just have to do, son. Don’t think. Just do.”
Dad’s voice in my head came at a pretty good time. I turned and opened the car door, leaned inside, and grabbed the card. If I gave it directly to her, at least it wouldn’t get lost in the mail. I grasped the envelope in my hand, backed out of the car, and walked slowly over to where Mayra was standing. She was still calling my name as I raised my hand and gave her the card. I ran my hand through my shorter hair and cringed a bit as she reached out and took the card from me.
I couldn’t stand to watch her read it, so I got back in the car and drove away.
It might not have seemed like much to anyone else, but I was reasonably pleased with myself.
Win.
~oOo~
School was particularly noisy the next day.
I tended to ignore most of the sounds around me as I walked through the halls, but I could tell people’s voices were either just a little bit louder or maybe just more people were talking at once. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.
In ecology, the new kid was in my seat again even though I entered the classroom a good thirty seconds before the bell rang. I stopped at the front of the aisle, not walking the rest of the way to the seat. I knew if I said something to Mr. Jones, he would likely react the same way as before, and Travis would end up calling him. I really didn’t want that to happen.
I wanted to take care of myself.
I stood there, looking at my feet.
“Hey, Matthew!” Mayra’s voice sang out from the other side of the room.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mayra stand up and walk over to me even though I didn’t raise my head.
“Come on over and sit by me,” she said. “We can talk about our project.”
I jumped a little when she took my hand and started pulling me behind her. My feet didn’t move—I think they were as confused as my head. I focused intensely on the feeling of her hand touching mine, and everything else in the room disappeared.
Mayra stopped and turned around.
“Will you sit behind me, Matthew?”
“Okay,” I said softly, and my feet decided to go along.
I saw Justin Lords roll his eyes as Mayra led me to the seat behind her. She smacked him in the shoulder as she walked by.
“Hi, Matthew,” Justin said in a weird, sing-song voice. “Are you having a wonderful day?”
I stiffened for a second, trying to figure out how I was supposed to respond. Justin never said anything remotely nice to me and usually ignored me altogether. Sometimes he’d shove me in the hall, but he never said anything polite.
I didn’t believe he was being polite now.
“I had pancakes for breakfast,” I said, then cringed. I wasn’t sure if that was right, but I usually microwaved frozen pancakes in the morning when I was in a good mood.
Justin laughed.
“Fucking freak,” he muttered.
“Shut up!” Mayra said through clenched teeth. “Go on and sit down. Jones is about to start class.”
Mayra let go of my hand, and I sat in the seat behind her, just where I had the day before, and stared at the places on my skin that had been touching her. The seat was still way too far from the door, but every once in a while, Mayra would look back and smile at me, and I’d remember what it felt like to have her holding my hand.
“Did you hear about the lotto ticket?” Justin asked Mayra while Mr. Jones’s back was turned.
“No, what lotto ticket?”
“The winning Powerball ticket—it was sold at the gas station in Millville. One hundred and twelve million.”
“No shit!”
“That’s what I said!” Justin beamed like cursing was something for which he should get an award.
“Who bought it?” Aimee asked as she leaned over her desk to listen closely.
“Whoever it was hasn’t come forward yet,” Justin replied.
“Wow!” Mayra whistled low.
“Watch for new Ferraris!” Justin laughed out loud.
“Justin, would you please pay attention?” Mr. Jones’s comment snapped Justin out of his fantasy.
“Sorry.”
After class, Mayra reminded me I was supposed to go to her house after school.
“See you about four o’clock, right? Do you need a ride?”
“No,” I replied. “I have Bethany’s car.”
“Who’s Bethany?” Mayra asked.
“My aunt.”
“Oh, gotcha. Okay, I’ll see you at four!” Mayra smiled and waved as she headed down the hallway. I just stood off to the side and watched her go. The bell rang, and I realized I was going to be late for my next class if I didn’t move quickly.
After school, I drove to the Trevino house, sat in the driveway until three fifty-nine and then totally failed to get out of the car. Once the clock flipped to four o’clock, I knew there was no way I could go up to her door. I took a long, deep breath and drove back home.
Once I was back in my own house, I sat on the couch with my head in my hands.
I couldn’t do this.
I couldn’t work on a group project with Mayra Trevino.
There was just no way.
The doorbell rang, and I knew it was her long before she started pounding on the door and yelling at me to let her in. Remembering her tenacity from the day before, I relented and opened up.
“Matthew! Why didn’t you come over?”
Taken aback by the abruptness of her question, I just stood there and stared down at her shoes—black Converse with bright yellow laces. I wondered why she picked laces that color since they obviously didn’t come with the shoes.
“Matthew?” Mayra said. Her voice had gone soft. “Did you forget to come over?”
“No,” I replied. “I was there.”
“You were there?” she repeated. “Matthew, I waited for you, but you never came to the door.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
I glanced up at her face and then quickly looked away. I didn’t know what to say to her, so I instinctively embraced the repetitive action of kicking the toe of my foot with my other heel.
“It’s okay,” Mayra said, “you can tell me.”
She reached out and took my hand in hers. Her fingers coiled around mine. Her hands were really soft, and I wondered if she put lotion on them a lot. My mom’s hands always got really dry in the winter, and she would put lotion on them every time she washed her hands.
“Matthew?”
“I just…couldn’t,” I whispered.
“Do you want to work on it here?”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t say no to her, so we set up the project stuff on the table in the dining room.
It was surprisingly easy to work with Mayra on the honey bees project.
In the past, I had only worked on projects with Joe. He was fine with other people for the most part though he tended to look down on them because they weren’t as smart as he was. Everyone thought he was a snob. He was a snob. He didn’t have a ton of friends either, but we had always worked well together.
Mayra was completely different from Joe. She was really passionate about everything we researched and often got excited when we would find some article on the internet that supported what she believed to be right. She also got really mad about some of it.
“I don’t understand how something like this could just be overlooked!” she exclaimed again. “Doesn’t everyone know all life is dependent on each other? People obviously just don’t play enough dominoes anymore!”
She took a deep breath and let it out in a big whoosh. She looked over at me and smiled.
“Sorry,” she said, “I get a little carried away.”
I just shrugged.
“Should we think about the PowerPoint?” Mayra asked.
We hadn’t talked about the actual presentation. I always focused on the written portion, which was almost done. I would just need to take my clunky old laptop into school to get the information printed. I could put it on a thumb drive, but I was afraid something would happen to the data if I walked too close to something magnetic.
We hadn’t started the PowerPoint or even talked about it.
What if she wanted me to give the presentation? Joe knew better, but I hadn’t worked with Mayra before. Maybe she would want to do every other slide, passing it back and forth between us. I’d seen some kids do it that way. My heart started pounding, and I squeezed my hands into fists beside the keyboard.
“Matthew,” Mayra said. “You never stand up in front of the class. I know that. I’ll give the oral part of the presentation.”
I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath, but it rushed out of me suddenly and forcefully. I was torn between wanting to thank her and wanting to be able to say that I could do it. I couldn’t—I knew that—but I wished I could.
“Want to take a break?” Mayra asked.
“Okay.”
“Got anything to drink?” Mayra asked with a smile.
“I have filtered water in a pitcher, Coke, and Sprite,” I said, offering her a choice.
“I’d love a Coke!”
I smiled a little, too, and got up to get two cans of soda from the pantry and two glasses from the cabinet. I pulled out the ice cube tray from the freezer and carefully selected four cubes for each glass. I tilted the glass sideways to pour the soda. With four cubes, the twelve-ounce drinks fit into the glasses perfectly.
Carrying a Coke in each hand, I brought the glasses back into the dining room, which was attached to the living room and the kitchen. The whole floor made a circle you could walk around. Mayra had moved over to the couch, so I took our drinks and placed them neatly in the center of the coasters on the coffee table.
“Thanks!” Mayra said as she took a sip. “Mmm…it’s so much better in a cup with ice. Justin always just has the cans in the fridge.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied. I sat down on the other end of the couch. The comment about Justin had my head spinning a bit. I wondered if she usually worked on ecology projects with him and if she went to his house often. I tensed up again though I wasn’t sure exactly why.
“Hey, Matthew?” Mayra said as she turned toward me. She moved closer to the center cushion and pulled one of her legs up underneath her. “Can I ask you something?”
“Okay.”
“Something kind of personal?”
My fingers gripped my thighs. I tried to keep my breathing in check, but the number of possibilities of things she might ask me was too overwhelming. What did girls ask guys when they were together? I hoped she wouldn’t ask me questions about soccer because I didn’t know much about it at all. My dad had only been into the Cincinnati Reds, and the closest competitive sport Mom had gotten into was Iron Chef.
I jumped as her fingers moved slowly over mine. I dropped my gaze to her hand as she reached around and pulled my fingers away from my leg. She wrapped her hand around mine and then turned my hand over and laced our fingers together.
“Can I ask you?” she repeated.
“Okay.” I kept staring at our fingers. They fit together really well. Thumb, thumb, finger, finger…
She took a deep breath, and her fingers moved up and down my fingers, stroking slowly. It was calming, and I pressed my shoulders against the couch cushions.
“What’s wrong with you, Matthew?”
“Huh?” I sputtered. I was glad I didn’t have a mouthful of Coke at the moment because it would have gone everywhere.
“I mean, I know you are…different. I heard people say you were…you know…retarded or something, but you’re not. You’re very smart—I can tell that. But you also aren’t…aren’t…”
“Normal,” I whispered as I pulled my hand away. My heart was beating too fast. The couch seemed really, really small all of a sudden.
“Yeah, I guess.”
I swallowed hard. I was frantically trying not to panic, but trying to frantically defeat panic really didn’t work well. I closed my eyes, counted backwards, and tried to think of some way to respond to her that wouldn't make her immediately run for the hills.
“I'm sorry,” Mayra said softly. “I shouldn't have asked.”
I glanced at her eyes and quickly looked away again. The strange thing was I wanted to tell her. I wanted her to know, but I didn't want her to run away. I also needed to get the fuck out of that room immediately.
“I have to go.” I pushed off the couch and tugged at my hair as I walked out of the family room and down the short flight of stairs to the lower level.
“Matthew—don’t go! I’m sorry—really! I shouldn’t have said anything. I just…just—”
I paused and glanced over my shoulder to see her standing at the top of the stairs.
“Give me a few minutes.” I sounded like I was begging, but I didn’t want her to leave—not yet. She nodded, and I ran off, flinging open the door to the basement and running down the stairs.
Once I got down into the cool, unfinished room, my breathing came easier. I closed my eyes and waited for my heart
to calm down a bit, then reached down and pulled my shirt off over my head. I bent down and pulled off my shoes and my socks.
I walked slowly to the far side of the large, open room, picked up a pair of training gloves, and pulled them over my hands. I tightened the straps and lined up the Velcro perfectly around one wrist and then the other. I took one more deep breath and turned to the large heavy bag that took up most of that side of the basement.
I stepped onto the mat surrounding the bag and pulled my arms in front of myself to stretch out a bit. I clenched my hands into fists, stared straight at the center of the bag, and began to punch.
Right, left, right, left.
Left, left, right. Left, left, right.
Right, right, left. Right, right, left.
Equal number, each fist.
It didn’t take more than the first few hits in the center of the bag before I was lost to the moment—no anxiety, no panic—nothing but me, the bag, and my fists.
Left, right, left, right.
Right, left, right, left.
My breathing was steady and each hit perfectly accurate. My feet carried me easily on the mat and around the bag.
Left, left, right. Left, left, right.
Right, right, left. Right, right, left.
Each impact traveled from my fists up through my arms and into my shoulders. My hips and chest tilted to receive each blow. My mind became empty and clear. I barely registered the slight movement near the door when Mayra entered. It didn’t matter.
Right, left, right, left.
Left, right, left, right.
Kick left.
Kick right.
Roundhouse left.
Roundhouse right.
Butterfly.
I took a step back to the corner of the mat and tried to catch my breath. I knew she was still there, watching me silently, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t mind her being there. I leaned over and braced my gloves against my knees, exhaustion engulfing my limbs.
“I'll tell you,” I finally replied when I found my voice again.
