Whatever It Takes

by Ritchie, Krista

  “Then I don’t want to talk.” It hurts to breathe, and my fingers itch for a cigarette. Which makes no sense—I can barely breathe but I want to smoke. Sounds like me.

  I reach for a pack in my jacket. I started smoking again a couple weeks ago. Just to stay awake during the later hours at work. Now, I light a cigarette because it calms my nerves.

  My fingers shake while I put the cigarette between my lips. I stop in the stairwell, my shoulder bracing my phone to my ear.

  Willow stops talking, but I hear the familiar pounding of a keypad like she’s typing on a computer. She’s back in her dorm room in London. She flew out there a couple days ago so that she could celebrate New Years with her friends from school. She invited me.

  But I declined because I feel like that’s her world.

  Not mine.

  Mine is here.

  Apparently getting ragged on by my brothers. Oh, and I got this special text from my dad five minutes ago.

  Dad: your brothers are just trying to make a man out of you. You’re lucky to have them. I only had a sister. If you’d just stop and listen maybe you’d learn a thing or two.

  Thanks, Dad.

  I suck on my cigarette, and one more level up the stairs, I reach my floor. Slowly pushing through the heavy door and into the hallway.

  “Do you have your passport ready?” Willow suddenly asks.

  I cough on the smoke. “What?”

  “Your passport,” Willow says.

  “I heard you—”

  “Garrison!” Jared yells at me, just as the heavy door clanks shut behind me. He’s leaning against the wall next to my door. He’s been waiting for me?

  “Shit,” I curse. My hand hangs, cigarette burning between my fingers.

  “Jared?” Willow guesses.

  “Can I call you back?”

  “No,” she says. “I’ll stay on the line. Don’t hang up on me.”

  I clutch the phone, almost about to break down because that gets me for a second. Someone cares. She cares. Okay. Okay.

  I take a deeper breath and walk forward to confront my asshole of a neighbor. “Jared,” I say. “I don’t have time.” I put the cigarette back between my lips, and with my free hand, I fish out my keys from my pocket. Trying not to shake.

  “Hey, man, yeah.” Jared nods and scratches his neck. “I just wanted to invite you to—”

  “Just fuck off,” I growl out, my words mumbled through my cigarette.

  “Look, this party is going to be lit. Maybe you can invite some of your friends, too. Promise, they won’t want to miss this.”

  My anger surges like a geyser. My door clicks, unlocked. I pluck my cigarette from lips and turn on Jared. “How do you not understand this? I don’t want to go to your party. I don’t want you standing beside my fucking door.”

  “Come on.” Jared reaches out to put a hand on my shoulder.

  I jerk back. “Don’t touch me.”

  He raises his hands in surrender. “Dude, I’m just trying to be a friend.”

  My nose flares. “We’re not friends. Read my lips when I say we’ll never be fucking friends. Ever. You know why I disconnected my smoke detector? So you couldn’t offer your stupid broom again. You want to get down on your knees and suck me off, as your girlfriend propositioned?”

  He turns red. “I…” He scratches his head. “She was joking.” Jared reads my features. “You’re really that pissed? Come on, man. You’re famous. I’d kill to have what you have.” He lets out a short laugh. “You know how easy you’ve got it?”

  I glare, unblinking.

  Rage and resentment infiltrates his eyes. He thinks he knows me, and I wonder if that jealous bitterness towards me has been there all along, hidden somehow.

  “Stay the fuck away from me.” I unlock my door and slam it closed.

  That felt good.

  That shouldn’t have felt that good. I take a larger drag and blow smoke upwards. My hand trembles.

  “Garrison.” Willow’s voice comes from the cell in my other fist. I press it back to my ear.

  “Sorry,” I mutter, involuntary tears squeeze out of my eyes. Fuck. I wipe my wet face with the heel of my palm.

  “How soon can you make it to the airport?” she asks. “Because I can get you on the next flight to London.”

  I’m already heading to my closet. Grabbing a duffel bag. “Book it.”

  24 BACK THEN – October

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  WILLOW MOORE

  Age 17

  “You’re not dressing up?” I ask Garrison.

  Seated on my fuzzy blue rug, he plays Street Fighter II on an old Sega Genesis that he brought over in September. My dorm-sized room has more personality than just the bare built-in desk, wooden dresser, and short single bed from when I first moved in.

  Daisy Calloway helped me decorate. She said she’d be my labor force, and I could direct her where to go, but I liked hearing what she thought. We both agreed to string lights over the ceiling, nail a yellow poster that says Mutant & Proud in the wall, and arrange my collection of comic books on my desk.

  When I tucked in my white bedding, she tossed pale blue pillows on the mattress. The last one was a blue cupcake. It wasn’t something we picked out in the store together. She said that she stitched it in her spare time—with Rose’s assistance who’s “the better sewer”—but it’s my favorite pillow. Because Daisy made it just for me.

  Sitting on my bed, I watch as Ryu (Garrison’s character) attacks Blanka.

  Ryu lands a punch, pushing Blanka back a couple inches.

  “I don’t know yet,” Garrison says. His fingers nimbly fly over buttons, and as Blanka lies flat on his back, he pauses the game and rotates to face me.

  A blonde wig is already tight on my head. I twist the hair in a single braid, the strands so long the braid reaches my thighs. This Halloween, I’m going with my staple costume, Vega from Street Fighter.

  Garrison scrutinizes my hair and then his eyes fall to mine. “Are you sure you want me to come?”

  My brother (it’s actually starting to feel normal calling Loren Hale that) is hosting a Halloween party for the neighborhood. Garrison is technically already invited since he lives in the same neighborhood, but I asked him to come with me anyway.

  This past month has been…difficult at Dalton Academy.

  No one harasses me or stuffs my locker with things anymore, but I haven’t made any friends either. Lots of behind-the-back whispers.

  If someone even tries to talk to me, they only ever ask about Loren Hale. I always shut down at the start of those questions. If I discuss my time with Lo and Lily or any of her sisters, I feel like I’m betraying them.

  But I finally have a nickname.

  Wordless Willow.

  Apparently not responding to someone paints a target on you. Though, my whole body was practically painted red before I even arrived at Dalton.

  I haven’t exactly told Lo any of this. I also don’t plan to tell him today or tomorrow. Some things, I have to deal with on my own.

  My current plan: focus on my classwork and not the people in my classes. I only have one semester after this one ends. I can make it.

  “I want you there,” I tell Garrison. I’m not going to know many people besides Lo, Lily, her sisters, and their significant others. “But if you don’t want to go—”

  “I do.” He twirls a cigarette in his fingers. He won’t smoke in my room. I’ve never told him, but he’s the only reason school isn’t unbearable. He’s the reason there aren’t more tampons in my locker—or worse. He made sure his old friends left me alone.

  I’ve needed him.

  If he wasn’t here, I’m not sure I’d have the strength to stay.

  Maybe I’d find it somewhere else, but he’s kept me looking forward. At a better future. At a better place.

  In our quiet, I hear the front door to the apartment opening, audible from my cracked bedroom door. Voices emanate from the hallway, and I’m
sure my roommate (the only other person with a key) has stepped inside the living room.

  Seconds later, my door swings further open, until Maya sticks her head inside. She wears a pink wig and plastic body armor. Her costume: Lightning from Final Fantasy.

  “Hey,” she says. “I’m heading out. You sure you don’t want to come?” A smile creeps on her lips. “Your first college party could be a cosplay Halloween.”

  At seventeen, I might be living in an off-campus apartment near the University of Pennsylvania, but I’ve successfully avoided the college parties so far. Thinking about them brings on this whole new wave of anxiety that I didn’t even know existed.

  “It’s tempting, but I have to go to Loren’s neighborhood thing.” It’s Lo, Willow. Right. Lo. Lo. Lo.

  “Yeah, I heard about that on Yik-Yak.”

  Garrison snorts from my rug. “Someone yakked about it?” He returns to the video game, eyes glued to the screen as he plays.

  Maya squeezes a little further into my room but stays in the doorway. “I think the yak was something like ‘my dream is to party with Loren Hale on his birthday’—not at all detailed.” She casts sly glances from Garrison to me, back and forth, but she’s not as worried as when I first brought him over.

  As the Superheroes & Scones manager, she finds his attitude troubling. She was worried he’d steal the comics and sell them online.

  The fact that I brought him to our apartment—that he’s grown closer to me—made her a bit more protective and apprehensive too. I think she thought maybe this all might be a trick. Get close to the geek for other reasons.

  Burn her. Make fun of her. Humiliate her.

  Like classic teen movies. He’d try to change me, so that I’d become popular like him. Or he’d pull some cruel prank in the very end.

  Neither has happened.

  Outside of lacrosse, he spends nearly all his free time with me. He’ll message me on Tumblr first. (We still haven’t exchanged phone numbers.) Sometimes, he’s already in the parking lot before he asks if he can come up. Sometimes I wonder if a tree was outside my apartment complex, if he’d climb it and knock on the window.

  I think he would.

  Garrison might not be up-to-date on comics like the other Superhero & Scones employees, but he has a geeky side that he’s repressed and hidden from his friends.

  He loves computers.

  He loves video games. Retro things like Lion King on Sega and Pokémon. We spent three whole days playing Mario Party on N64, and if he asked, I’d waste another three weeks doing the same thing with him.

  That doesn’t feel like someone tricking me.

  And so far, he’s proven trustworthy at the store. No theft. No vandalism.

  “Garrison,” Maya says, catching his attention from the video game. “Just a heads up, I’ll be quizzing you about Cable’s history on your next shift. Two wrong answers”—she holds up two fingers—“and you have toilet duty.”

  “Shit,” he mutters and mouths to me, who’s Cable?

  I try to restrain a smile. “I’ll help you.” Cable is in X-Men and has a complex history, tangled with Scott Summers, so it might go over his head at first, but he’s caught on with other superheroes before.

  Garrison swings his head back to Maya. “Should I take this heads up as you partially liking me?”

  Maya wears a great poker face and then says something in Korean, knowing he can’t understand. She grips the door, about to leave.

  “One day I’m going to learn Korean!” Garrison calls after her. “And then what are you going to do about it?”

  She pops her head back in. “That’ll be the day.” She slips out, just as quickly. Then she pops her head in one more time. “Friendly reminder: I’m to report back to Loren if anything R-rated is happening in Willow’s room. I don’t like being a spy, so don’t make me be one.”

  I go rigid. “We’re just friends,” I emphasize for probably the millionth time to Maya, to Lily, to even Lo.

  I haven’t even hugged Garrison. I don’t want to ruin what we have by turning it into something more. I can’t imagine…I can’t imagine losing his friendship.

  Garrison nods in agreement. “She’s just my girl.”

  I pale and then begin to smile impulsively. I hide it by busying myself with my hair.

  Maya’s eyes dart between us again, but they land on me. “Be sure to lock up after you leave. A lot of bodies will be roaming the halls tonight.”

  “I will.”

  She gives me the Vulcan Salute, and I return it before she disappears for good this time.

  Garrison sets down his controller, pausing the game one more time. He rises from the rug, and I situate a mirror on my mattress. When it’s settled, I remove my glasses, grab my eyeliner and mascara and tuck my legs under my butt.

  I don’t wear much makeup, except for costumes.

  Garrison paces in front of my bed, running his fingers through his brown hair. At least that’s what I think he’s doing. Without my glasses, he appears mostly blurry. I can’t see him all that well, and I’m debating about wearing contacts tonight. I don’t like them, but my character for Halloween doesn’t wear glasses like me.

  “So…” Garrison draws the word out. “I have a question, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

  I freeze, the mascara wand only halfway out of its tube. “What is it?”

  “You know that questionnaire you made me take a month ago? I mean, you didn’t make me take it. But you know…that one?”

  How could I forget? It’s what kind of started our friendship. When he told me that he read mine, he only mentioned how he was surprised that I hadn’t traveled. He never explained his other feelings on it or if he had any.

  And I didn’t ask.

  Maybe because I never probed him about his own questionnaire.

  About why his relationship status was hiatus.

  About what his tattoo looks like, the mysterious one over his right shoulder blade. He never takes off his shirt in front of me, so I’ve never spotted it.

  Or what it meant when he answered fallen for a friend as “sort of”—a two-word combination that he’s pointed out I use more than him.

  We’ve both been sitting on these things. It’s been easier to live without the full meanings; though I realize we’re both curious about them. I’m just as interested in the reasoning behind the answer as much as Garrison.

  It doesn’t mean I’m not scared to find out.

  “Yeah?” I say, unsure of the direction he’s about to take us.

  “In your questionnaire, you said that you didn’t like any of the guys at your school and that people wouldn’t either if they knew them.” He faces me. “Why?”

  I frown. “Have you been thinking about this for that long?” I drop my mascara on my bed.

  He shrugs. “On and off, I guess.” He turns his head like he’s staring at the wall. I squint, but I can’t make out anything else. “I didn’t want to ask back then. I didn’t want to pry or whatever. We were just getting to know one another. It’s different…now.”

  We’re better friends.

  I pat my bed for my glasses. I can apply mascara if I put my face really close up to the mirror, if you’re wondering. Garrison suddenly nudges my hand, my glasses in his clutch.

  “Thanks.” I put them on, the world ten thousand times clearer.

  I also notice his downturned lips and worry creases in the corners of his eyes.

  “They’re just not the guys you would want to date,” I try to explain. “Nothing terrible. Just…not my type.”

  He contemplates this and then rests his back against my dresser. “What’s your type?”

  “Not douchebags or guys who’d make fun of me…that’s for sure.”

  His brows jump. “Did someone make fun of you?”

  I stare at my hands. “I was mostly invisible. I don’t even think they noticed that I left.”

  “I’d notice,” he says, full of conviction, e
nough that I believe him.

  “It’s okay. I didn’t want them to notice me anyway.”

  “Because they’re not your type?”

  “Exactly.” It makes sense in my head. I’ve explained it to Maggie before, and she understood. Maybe you have to be there. In that school. Around those people. In my shoes. To truly feel what I feel. I let out a tense breath and ask, “What’s your type?”

  He shakes his head once. “I’m not sure.” His eyes flit all over my room. Every time he’s in here, he skims every item, every thing. Like the stuff propped on the back of my dresser: a copy of Understanding Comics, a Loki bobble head, ticket stubs to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2.

  I wonder what his room looks like, but he says that he’d rather be here, away from home. I once asked him why and he said, “My brothers are dicks. And they sometimes stop by the house so our maid can do their laundry.”

  I didn’t pry further, and I never beg to see his place, even if it’s tempting to ask. He learns a little more about me when he steps foot in here. I don’t see more of him.

  Garrison plucks one of my old photographs off the dresser. It’s of my thirteenth birthday at the mall, the photo taken right after I got my ears pierced for the first time. My mom is there, holding a tiny Ellie.

  My dad couldn’t make it.

  Work stuff, he said.

  “You also wrote about your little sister’s birthday party.” Garrison rests the frame back. “Why couldn’t you go downstairs?” He sets his grave expression on me.

  “It’s not what you think,” I say quickly, though I’m not sure exactly what he’s thinking. “It’s actually kind of funny.”

  “I hope so.” He walks to my desk and sinks down in the chair. In all the times he’s been in my room, he won’t ever sit on my bed. Not once.

  I’ve offered a couple times. Just to be nice. There’s not a lot of comfortable seating in this cramped space. But he always chooses either the desk chair or the floor.

  “It was a princess party,” I start to explain. His brows knot the more I talk. “And Ellie wanted a real princess downstairs. She sees me as her kind of geeky older sister, so she asked if I could stay upstairs, and my mom hired another girl to be the elder princess.”