“—distracted.”
I blink back to the bedroom. “What?”
She studies me for an uncomfortable moment. Finally she gives me a fake smile. “Is it a girl?” She ruffles my hair.
I slump in relief. If she thinks it’s that, she’ll tease me instead of hassling me for being emotional. “Sort of.”
“Tell me about her.”
“Well. She’s . . .” I lean against the headboard. “She’s smart, and funny, and . . . you know, all those good things people say.” Heat rises in my chest when I think of Ash hugging me. “She listens to me. Like she sees me. She doesn’t just wait for me to stop talking so it’s her turn.”
Mom’s smile shifts from fake to warm. “Anyone who does that is a keeper. Friends, girls, parents . . .” She looks out my window and her smile fades. “I know it’s been rough since—Cole.”
She was going to say Dad. I shift, not knowing where to look. Where to put my hands. I wish I had Chewbarka to hold.
“Has he talked to you at school at all? Or texted or called?”
“No.”
“Have you tried to talk to him?”
“No.”
“Nothing will change if you don’t make an effort.” She’s back to project-manager Mom, solving my problems for me.
“I know.”
She gives me The Mom Look, then sighs. “Mitch is kicking himself about something. But of course he won’t tell me.”
I fake a smile. “It’s definitely a girl.”
“Ah.” Her face clears like at least one mystery is solved. “Fiona again?”
“I’m . . . uh, not at liberty to answer.” I crack my knuckles. “As you like to say, ‘Puberty is upon us.’”
“So it is.” She sighs. “Well. It’s good to talk with you. Or to talk around things again.” She gives me a last look like she’s thinking of bringing up something neither of us wants to discuss, but then she squeezes my shoulder. “Sleep tight.”
“You too.” I get under the blankets as she leaves. She starts to pull the door shut. “Leave it open?” I need to hear when she goes to sleep.
“Sure.” She leaves.
When she’s done putting her lunch together and setting out her clothes for tomorrow, I listen to her watching Brave on her tablet for the hundredth time. She calls it her “comfort movie.” She’s been watching it a lot since Dad left.
She watches the whole freaking movie.
I pace so I won’t fall asleep. I watch YouTube on mute. I google Tina Martin for the tenth useless time. I nod off looking through the results I’ve looked at ten times already.
I snap awake at 11:52. It’s pouring outside. Mom’s light is finally out.
The hall closet door squeaks like the devil, so I don’t risk getting my raincoat. I’m soaked by the time I make it to the tent on Vlad. Chewy is huddled in a ball, shivering. “Oh no. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” I pull her into my arms and wrap the smelly, awful blanket around us, curl up on the cold tent floor, and hold her close. My soggy clothes make her pee stink even worse. It must be so awful for her. Dogs have a way stronger sense of smell than humans do.
When she finally stops shaking, I text Ash: Thank you for coming today. I’m sorry it didn’t work. I’m going to try to find a way to reach Tina. Maybe I can . . . I don’t know, tell one of the receptionists I want to call her and see how her daughter is doing. Would that be weird?
Yeah. But I’m gonna have to suck it up and be weird. I’m running out of options.
Ash surprises me by answering, even though it’s nearly one a.m.: I think you should tell Bella. I bet she can help.
I tighten my arms around Chewbarka. I can’t take that chance. Is this a girl-solidarity thing? As soon as I send it, I realize it was a crappy thing to say.
No. I’m trying to help you.
I’m sorry, I answer. This mess has me all messed up.
If you were in her shoes, you’d want to know your dog was still alive. Wouldn’t you?
I don’t answer. I curl up with Chewy and gently try to tug apart some of the mats forming in her long, thick fur.
Did you put extra blankets in the tent? Ash writes. It got so cold out. I have a bunch of quarters. I can help with washing stuff tomorrow if you want.
Sort of, I say. If you consider me a blanket.
You’re there now??? Dude it’s wicked cold.
I noticed. I pull the blanket tighter around us. I like when Ash says dude. I don’t know why. It’s . . . familiar. Like we’re really good friends.
She’s quiet for a while, then: Do you want me to bring Darth Vader to you?
Of course I want her to bring her sleeping bag. I want her to bring her. But she’s already done so much, and it’s so late. We’re fine. Thanks though.
Okay. There’s a long pause, and I think that’s it. Then she writes, Isn’t it funny that to dogs, we’re basically magical giants who live for hundreds of dog years?
I send back a smiley. Never thought of it that way.
I had a good time this weekend, she writes. Not like a happy fun sunshine time, but I enjoyed it. Parts of it. The parts with you. I mean it was nice to spend time with you. Another pause, followed by I’m gonna shut up now.
I liked those parts too, I write. I can’t help smiling.
It takes the ache out of the cold.
19
Sneet Snart
Ash
Monday morning, I wake up snuggling the wrong end of Booper. I’m so wiped out from texting Daniel at one a.m. and working on the T-Rocks song that I move like molasses and barely make it to the bus. Once I’m on, I open my bag to check if I have all my stuff. My pencil case and homework folder are missing. We have a quiz in algebra first period. Of course Mr. Simmons makes us trade one of our shoes to borrow a pencil. And of course I’m wearing the socks Mom cross-stitched corgi butts and cuss words on, because as she says, Sometimes you gotta stick it to the Man even if the Man can’t see it. Which is how I felt when I put them on last night thinking of Daniel’s dad doing that jerk thing and my dad being a jerk and how I don’t want to be a dude like that, I want to be a dude like me, a new breed of dude who doesn’t suck.
I take off my right shoe and turn my sock inside out as the bus is pulling up to school. I finish tying my shoe just in time to be the last one off the bus.
As I push through the crowded lobby, trying to get up to the 700 hallway so I can dig through my locker for a pencil, I see the back of a familiar head. “Daniel!” I call. But it’s so loud and crowded he doesn’t hear me. He works his way toward the eighth-grade wing and I follow. I finally grab his shoulder as he breaks free of the herd. “Hey!” I say.
He turns around, and whoa, it’s not Daniel. It’s someone who looks exactly like him. Or not exactly like him. Just . . . almost. “You’re not Daniel,” I say intelligently.
He looks at my Chainsmokers shirt and wrinkles his nose like he finds me gross. He turns and goes down the hallway while I stand there like an idiot. He moves nothing like Daniel. How on earth could I have mistaken him?
“Hi,” a familiar voice says next to me.
I whirl to face Daniel. “You didn’t say you guys were identical!” It sounds like an accusation. “I mean—uh. That’s Mitch?”
He nods. He looks again like he did on Friday, like he’s barely staying upright. A faint pee smell comes off him.
“You stayed with her all night again. Didn’t you.”
“Shh.” He looks around like someone’s going to bust him. “She was cold. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, dude. You look like death on toast. I’m legit worried.”
“I need to go to my locker.” He turns away.
“Daniel . . .”
He looks back at me, his face made of hope and wariness. I want to hug him like I did on the sidewalk, when I imagined squeezing the sad out of him. “I love how much you love her. You’re a big softie.”
He flinches like I just hit him.
“I�
�m sorry,” I say quickly. “I didn’t mean it like . . . I don’t know. It’s just something I really like about you. That you care so hard.”
“You’re the only person who likes that about me.” He looks away like he wants to leave.
“You should tell Bella. So you can sleep again.”
He doesn’t meet my eyes. “I have to go. See you in photo class.” He walks away before I can ask if he has a pencil I can borrow.
My locker turns out to be pencil-less. When I ask Mr. Simmons for a pencil, I can’t remember which foot has the inside-out sock, and I take off the wrong shoe. He gets one look at the corgi butts and cuss words and gives me a lunch detention. Which is a case I could totally argue, because it’s not like anyone could see my socks before I had to take off my shoe and who the flaming poop wants a shoe for a pencil anyway?
He tells me to turn my sock inside out. Right there in front of everyone.
I try to ignore the snickers. At least I’ll match now. Even if all the cuss words are aimed at me instead of at the Man. Who is definitely Mr. Simmons.
Maybe for my rule-of-thirds assignment, I could use two inside-out socks covered in cuss words. That sure feels “personally significant” right now.
In English class when Mrs. Ellis breaks us into groups to discuss The House of Dies Drear, Zoey beelines for me with Jordan in tow. “Here.” She thrusts a paper at me. It’s full of songs by girl punk bands. “Now that we have a good musician—that’s you, duh—we can up our game. You think you can teach us how to play these songs before Girls Who Rock?”
I look over her list. I know about half the songs, but I only like two or three of them. “Probably. Which do you wanna start with?”
“I’ll number them.” She starts scribbling numbers next to the songs.
Mrs. Ellis taps her desk. “Zoey, it’s time to work, not arrange a playlist.”
“Sure thing.” Zoey keeps numbering while Mrs. Ellis glares. I tense, thinking I’m gonna get in extra trouble since I already have a lunch detention. Zoey finally gives me the paper. “We’ll talk after class.”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Ellis says. “Because now you’re in class. Where you do work.” She gives me, Zoey, and Jordan a stern look and goes off to harass another group.
Zoey rolls her eyes. “She’s totally uptight. She def needs to rock out.”
Jordan grins. “Can you imagine her screaming into a mic?”
“She wouldn’t be able to stop.” I doodle a stick figure of her screaming out the jagged shape of punk chords. “All her pent-up rage would come flying out. Her hair would frizz and sweat would fly and she’d be so spent after that she’d fall over.”
“That’s a punk show I’d pay to see,” Zoey says.
I stop at the cafeteria to get my lunch to take to detention. Griffey’s not at our usual seat when I come out of the line. I scan the crowded cafeteria and spot him sitting near the condiment station. I take my tray to him. “What are you doing over here?”
He shrugs and bites his sandwich. I follow his eyes to our usual spot, where a cute guy is eating a wrap and looking around like he’s trying to find someone. “Don’t look at him,” Griffey says. He shifts so his back is to the kid. “If he comes over, I’m gonna have a massive attack of awkward.”
“Is that bumper-bowling dude?”
“Ugh, yes.”
“You left out the part about him being cute.”
“Cute doesn’t mean squat when it’s attached to a guy with the personality of a toenail clipping!” He shudders. “Are you coming to Rainbow Alliance today? Because I do actually need moral support.”
I don’t want to go because, ugh, gender. And I’d rather help Daniel. But I really do owe Griffey for covering for me this weekend. Twice. Plus he was there for me when my parents were splitting, even though he had his own chaos going on with moving to Oakmont. “Yeah,” I say, trying not to sound reluctant. “I’ll go with you.”
“You’re the best.” He flashes a grin. But then his face falls. “He’s coming over here. Save me!”
“Sorry, dude. I gotta go to detention.”
“What I wouldn’t give for a DT. Ugh, I don’t know how to handle this!” His face goes from dread to fake smile. “Heeeeyyyy,” he says as the guy sits next to him.
I duck out. I feel bad abandoning him, but I don’t want to get in even more trouble.
Detention turns out to be a nice change of pace. It’s quiet, just six or seven of us delinquents sitting at desks, no talking, no phones. We’re allowed to do homework or read.
I never realized how tense I am in the cafeteria. I guess it’s ’cause of the massive number of people in there. This is a million times better.
I wonder if I could get lunch DT every day. And if Griffey could too. That’d be sweet.
I spend most of the time drawing a silly picture of Chewbarka. When the bell rings and I get my phone back, I text it to Daniel as I’m hurrying to history. In the flow of kids, right before I reach my classroom, I get a response. It’s an adorable photo of Chewbarka in the tent. She’s looking at the camera with her head tilted as if she’s hearing a high-pitched noise. I zoom in and look at her cute tongue-blep.
“Hey,” a girl says right behind me. “You. With the purple hair.”
I turn and see a face I know only from Instagram. “Bella?”
“Why is my dog on your phone? And how do you know my name?”
Oh crap. “Um, what? This is my friend’s dog.”
“Bull. It was Chewy. I know that white splotch on her head. And her tongue was sticking out.” She reaches for my phone.
I pocket it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then why are you hiding your phone? If that’s really your friend’s dog, prove it. Let me see the photo.”
Panic mode. Zero words come out of my mouth.
Bella’s eyes go wide. “No way.” She half shakes her head like she can’t believe it. Then her face darkens like she’s about to haul off and deck me. “Explain. Now.”
“Um—”
“Is she alive?”
I bite my lip and hug my ribs.
“Do you have her? Is she hurt? My dad said she got hit by a car. Did you find her?” Her blue eyes fill with angry tears. “Answer me! Is she okay?”
“She’s fine.” I press my back into the wall next to the history room door. I suddenly feel how I felt at Bailey Middle. Small, vulnerable. Afraid.
“Then how do you have her photo on your phone?”
The only action between my ears is fear. “Um—your dad, um, brought her to the vet to be put to sleep. But it sort of didn’t go as planned?”
Bella’s face goes through a million emotions before landing on a mix of rage and hope. “What the actual—” Her eyes dig into me like she’s going after all my secrets. “Where is she?”
“Um—someone I know is taking care of her.”
She steps close. Like really close. “Who? Where?”
“A friend.” No way am I telling her.
“What friend?” She leans even closer, her face almost touching mine. “What friend?!”
The bell rings. I edge away and duck into my history classroom.
She follows me in. “What friend!” she yells.
Ms. Jenkins looks at us. “Ash, you’re cutting it a little close to the bell,” she says. “And Miss McBrenner, this is seventh period, not third. Or did you not get enough of the Civil War this morning?”
“Ash what?” Bella demands. “What’s your last name?”
Someone in the front row says “Haley” just as someone else makes a fart sound. Bella blinks like she’s coming out of a trance. She gives me a narrow-eyed look like I’m gonna get what I want. She turns and leaves.
I sink into my desk, glad to be off my shaking legs.
Daniel’s a mess in photography. We’re supposed to write a plan for what we’re going to photograph with our pinhole cameras and why and how long the exposure will be, but he keeps glancin
g at Fiona, who seems mad at him, and then staring off into space. He barely meets my eyes. Which is good, because I’m having a hard time looking at him, thinking of how betrayed he’s going to feel when he finds out I accidentally told Bella her dog’s alive.
When our writing time is up, Ms. Bernstein tells us to share our plans with our table while she walks around and listens in.
Fiona reads hers out with her voice and shoulders all stiff. Daniel tries to compliment her, but she gives him a frosty stare. I have no idea what’s going on. Braden tells us about the shop-room band saw he’s gonna photograph, making it sound like it’s stupid to photograph anything that’s not a power tool. Ms. Bernstein comes over as it’s Daniel’s turn to share. He tries to read what he wrote, but struggles to read his own messy handwriting.
Ms. Bernstein tells him his plan needs work. He slumps.
When class is over, he’s out the door before I can ask if he wants help today.
The Rainbow Alliance room is just as rowdy as the first meeting I went to with Griff. As soon as we go in, Sam, who’s eating an apple, waves us over to a desk. “Hey, Griff. Ash, right?”
I blush like a doofus. “Um, yeah. Hi.”
Sam takes a bite of apple, makes eye contact with Griffey, and nods. “I caught you staring at me here last week.”
Oh god, Griffey’s staged an intervention. “Sorry,” I mumble with my face down. “I’m new here, I just, I’m trying to, like . . . get my footing, I guess.”
“It’s okay.”
I glance up. Sam and Griffey are both smiling. “People stare at me all the time,” Sam says. “I always ask why. They usually say they’re trying to figure out what I am.”
“Um.” I glance at Griffey. “People do that to me too. Sometimes. I’m . . . like you. I think.” I chip at a scratch on the desk. “I don’t always dress like my birth gender.”
“Yes!” Griffey practically shouts. “Jeebus, I thought it would never happen.”
“Shut up!” I hiss at him.
Sam is laughing. “People don’t have a birth gender. We’re assigned a birth sex.”
Both Can Be True Page 13
