Noggin

by John Corey Whaley

  I stepped closer to her, and she lowered the collar of my shirt a bit. She stared down at the scar and nodded her head with this sinister, fascinated grin on her face.

  “Wicked,” she said finally. “Go in and don’t you dare make a scene.”

  “Oh my God, I love you. Do you wanna make out? I know you won’t believe this, but I’m very available.” Hatton leaned in and kissed her on the cheek before throwing himself back far enough not to be punched.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Good luck,” she said, winking. “Don’t lose your head in there.”

  I wasn’t afraid of losing my head. I was afraid my entire body would shut down before getting to see Cate. I was shaking all over, like I was lying on one of those creepy coin-operated vibrating beds you see in old motels. Seriously, I had to stop for a second when we walked inside and lean against the wall. Hatton walked ahead of me, and it was so crowded and smoky that I lost him in seconds. I stumbled my way through the noisy crowd and eventually saw him standing by a little stage in the back. He was waving me over with this big smile on his face. I wished I could be more like Hatton sometimes. He always seemed completely unfazed by everything around him. Me? I felt like I’d just walked into hell—only it had worse music and a lot more cigarette smoke than I’d ever imagined.

  I didn’t see her anywhere either. She’d probably gone home. This didn’t seem like her kind of thing anyway. I could just see us making fun of a dumb place like that, of all the people drunkenly singing songs with a beer in one hand. I was still wondering about “Girls’ Night,” too. My Cate would never say something like that. Is that what growing older had done to her? Had it made her completely cheesy and ordinary like the rest of these people? If I saw her smoking, I’d probably fall to the ground and start weeping. My girlfriend was better than a place like Carrie’s OK Bar. None of this felt right.

  “You see her anywhere?” Hatton asked when I got over to him.

  “No,” I said loudly. “This place is so gross.”

  “It’s awesome!” Hatton yelled. “I feel like shotgunning a Budweiser and punching someone.”

  “Maybe she left already, man. God, this sucks.”

  “Travis,” he said into my ear. “If it were up to me, we wouldn’t have even come here tonight. You want your girlfriend back, right? You want her to see you? Well, make her see you.” He pointed up to the stage.

  “What do you want me to do, Hatton? Just go up there and start singing her a love song?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SINGING HER A LOVE SONG

  “Yes!” Hatton yelled into my ear.

  “What?”

  “You have to go up there! There’s a microphone and everything. Just go for it! Tell her how you feel!”

  “I can’t do that! I’ll just find her and maybe we can talk outside!”

  “No! Dude, this is zero hour!”

  “I don’t even see her! Let’s just go!”

  “Weak! You’re weak! Get your ass on that stage and go for it! You are Travis Coates! You kick death in the ass like it happens every Tuesday!”

  He was right. I could do this. I could get up there and tell her exactly what I’d wanted to tell her every second since I’d opened my eyes in that hospital in Denver. What was there to lose? It would either work or not work. It would change everything for the better or change nothing at all. That’s not quite a win/win, but it was at least a win/give in to reality and move on with my stupid life. Before I had much more time to think about it, Hatton grabbed my arm and led me to the stairs on the side of the stage. I still hadn’t spotted her in the crowd. Between the smoke and the noise it was pretty impossible. So I gave Hatton a look that told him I was going for it, and I climbed the stairs.

  I stood in front of the microphone and looked out over the crowd. No Cate. I scanned the entire room, hoping I’d see her and that she’d either run out of there as fast as she could and spare me the humiliation I was about to endure, or head over toward me. There were tall, round tables with barstools scattered throughout the place. And people stood around them, mostly drinking and shouting at one another over music being played through the speakers hanging to the left and right of the stage. No one seemed to be anxiously waiting a turn to sing karaoke. But as Hatton had said, the night was relatively young. Maybe people needed a few more drinks in them before they started making asses of themselves in front of a hundred or more strangers. Not me, though.

  I looked over to Hatton, and he was mouthing “Do it” and pointing toward the microphone. I was sweating profusely, and I suddenly became super paranoid that everyone could see my scar, that they were all about to stop what they were doing and focus right in on it. But I’d worn a button-down, collared shirt that I knew was doing its job of mostly covering the thing. It didn’t matter—I felt like an exposed nerve up in front of them like that. I was frozen in one spot when Hatton jumped up onto the stage beside me and whispered into my ear.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Not really,” I whispered back.

  “Please. This will work. I know it.”

  Then he ran back across the stage, hopped down onto the floor, and started flipping through a black binder sitting next to the lyrics monitor. His face lit up and he looked up at me, raising his eyebrows and nodding his head. He made it seem like he was almost asking me if I were ready, but he wasn’t. He’d already typed in the code for the song, and a blue spotlight burst onto the stage and found me where I stood.

  “Zero hour!” he shouted.

  “I hate you!” I shouted back.

  Then the music started—loud piano keys with an electric guitar riffing right behind it and an abrupt thump of drums. And then I started singing because that’s what you do when you’ve got nothing to lose. You start singing with your eyes closed because you know the song and you know why your friend just forced you into singing it.

  I managed to get the first few lines out with a sort of half-sing-half-whisper, my mouth touching the cold metal of the microphone.

  I wanted to be with you alone. And talk about the weather.

  Then I sort of mumbled for a while, a nervous, indistinguishable jumble of words to the general beat of the song. But when I looked up, there were people singing along. And a few were raising their drinks into the air and moving their heads back and forth. And then I saw her. She was sitting at one of the tables and looking right at me with her mouth slightly open, this look in her eyes that was both amazed and terrified.

  So I grabbed the microphone, yanked it off the stand, and yelled the chorus out while looking right at her.

  Something happens and I’m head over heels

  I never find out till I’m head over heels

  Something happens and I’m head over heels

  Ah, don’t take my heart

  Don’t break my heart

  Don’t . . . don’t . . . don’t throw it away!

  I didn’t finish the song because I saw her turn around and head for the door. I dropped the mic (not in the cool way, believe me) and jumped down from the stage, running through the crowd after her. When I got outside, I looked all around in both directions and didn’t see her. I backed up to the brick wall behind me and slid down it, covering my face with my hands. Seeing her had done something I hadn’t quite expected. It had nearly killed me all over again.

  “Hey.” Someone poked my arm.

  “What?” I looked up. It was the tattooed girl from the door.

  “She went into that diner,” she said, pointing to the dive joint across the street.

  “She did?” I stood up.

  “Yeah. If she doesn’t come around, I’m all yours, Tears for Fears.” She smiled.

  I ran across the street, didn’t even watch for traffic, and looked into the window. There she was, sitting in a booth in the back corner. She looked right at me. She’d been crying. Of course she’d been crying—her dead boyfriend was stalking her. I gestured, pointing to my chest and then to her, asking i
f I could come in. She nodded her head, and I could actually see her breathing as I walked across the room toward her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  TOWARD HER

  “Hi.”

  “You look exactly the same,” she said quietly.

  “So do you.” I sat down across from her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She buried her head in her arms on the table, almost the same position a school kid uses to take a nap in class. I wanted to just get up and squeeze in beside her, put my arm around her and tell her it was okay, that I wasn’t mad. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t me anymore. Well, I wasn’t to her yet, anyway. To her, I was only part me, and as much as that hurt, as unnatural as it felt not to touch her, I knew I couldn’t go wrapping some other guy’s arms around her and thinking that would make things better. I was Travis, sure, but I was Jeremy Pratt, too. It was an easy thing for me to forget, but I wasn’t so sure it would be that easy for her.

  “The song was a bit much. My friend made me do it.” I reached across the table, almost took her hand, then stopped myself.

  “It was perfect,” she said, her voice muffled by her arms.

  She raised her head up, and she had half of her top lip between her teeth. She did this, my Cate. When she was sad, she would chew on her lips so much they’d be chapped for days. She was still beautiful like before, maybe even more so. Her hair was shorter than I’d ever seen it, cut just above her shoulders, and she was definitely wearing less makeup than she used to, maybe none at all. But she’d never needed it anyway. Her cheeks were flushed a bit, maybe from the crying or from her quick exit from the bar, maybe still from embarrassment or the cold. She had on a dark green sweater and light gray jeans. There was a necklace, a tiny gold sailboat, dancing up and down on her chest, never quite resting there because of the way she sat, slumped over a little with her shoulders jutted forward.

  “Hi,” I said again.

  “When they told me you were coming back, I couldn’t stop crying.”

  “We don’t have to talk about it,” I said. “Really. It’s okay.”

  “No. I want to. They told me, your mom and dad, and both of them sounded so . . . shocked. I just couldn’t believe it. I mean, I remember thinking that this was the absolute last thing I expected to hear when I picked up the phone. And then they had to go. They told me you were coming back, that it worked, and then they had more calls to make. Simple as that.”

  “It was weird. Waking up, I mean. And you not being there.” I looked into her eyes, couldn’t stop looking into them.

  “I just . . . I wasn’t sure what to do or where to start, really. I wanted someone to tell me what I was supposed to do. Was I supposed to go to Denver? What if I got there and you didn’t wake up? What if it didn’t work? And then I thought . . .”

  She paused for a little more crying. This time I reached over and took a napkin out of the red plastic dispenser at the end of the table and handed it to her. It was a quick, almost instinctive gesture, but she looked up at me like I’d just handed her the Hope Diamond and then she started crying again.

  “Cate, if you need me to go . . . if this is too much, I can go and we can—”

  “No, stop. We have to. So I waited to hear news about the surgery, to make sure you were okay, and when I did, when I knew it had worked, I just sort of felt flooded by everything all over again. I couldn’t stop thinking about that last time I saw you, in the hospital.”

  “You never turned around,” I said.

  “I wanted to. I wanted to so badly. I almost did. I almost ran back in, but I knew you were right. It couldn’t feel like a real good-bye.”

  “You knew I was lying,” I said.

  “I knew you wanted me to think you’d come back.”

  “It seemed so impossible.”

  “Then I heard you made it home okay, and I got in my car, drove across town, and sat at the end of your street for a while thinking about what I’d say to you. I didn’t have a clue. I’m not sixteen anymore and you are, and I have no idea how to deal with that.”

  “Me neither. I blinked and the world got older.”

  “It’s so messed up,” she said, sighing. “But amazing, too, you know?”

  “I know. I can’t believe I’m sitting here, let alone anywhere.”

  “You saw Kyle?” she asked.

  “Yeah. A couple times. He’s sort of not talking to me right now.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “’Cause I’m a jerk. Your parents tell you I went to see them?” I tried to change the subject as quickly as possible.

  “Yeah. They were thrilled. Mom’s been begging me to at least call you.”

  “I understand, Cate.”

  “It’s not right, though. I just . . . I still wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Welcome back’ seemed too simple.”

  “I just need you to say we’re still the same. Everything else can be different, but I need this to be the same.”

  “Travis.” She flashed her sad eyes.

  “I know the body thing is weird. I know. But it’s actually better. This one is better. Embarrassingly better, actually.”

  She smiled, looking down at my shoulders and chest, and my arms, too.

  “You look incredible,” she said. “Healthy. I’ve seen you on TV, but it’s different like this. You’re not hunched over or pale. It’s nice seeing you like this.”

  “Seeing me not dying? It feels pretty damn good too. On a scale from one to ten, I give dying a solid screw-that.”

  “Can I see it?”

  She reached her hand over and peeled down the collar of my shirt. Then she touched just above the scar first, then just under it. It was a soft touch. She whispered something, but I couldn’t make it out.

  “What?”

  “Impossible,” she repeated.

  Then I grabbed her hand with both of mine, sort of enveloped it safely between them, and I was breathing really heavy and could hear her breathing too, like we’d both suddenly forgotten how to take in air properly.

  “I love you. You know that. And I know maybe love doesn’t stay there after someone dies and this many years pass, but I don’t care. I needed to see you and I knew you needed to see me. So here I am.”

  “Travis, I’m engaged.”

  “I know. And if you can forgive me for leaving, then I can forgive you for that.”

  “I have to go,” she said. “Thank you, though. Thank you for finding me like this. If I ever stop crying, I promise I’ll call you.”

  She stood up and leaned down, kissed my cheek as she slid her hand from my grasp, and walked out. I knew it wasn’t fair to go after her, to make her talk anymore or feel any worse for not talking. I watched her cross the street, her arms folded over her chest, protecting her from the cold air, and soon enough she was back inside the bar. I called Hatton and told him where I was.

  “You hungry?” he said, sitting down a few minutes later.

  “Starving.”

  “Anything you want, dude. On me.” He waved over to a waiter across the room.

  “This was a disaster,” I said. “But I’m glad we did it.”

  “I’m assuming she isn’t coming home with you, then?”

  “No, but at least I got to see her,” I said. “And now she’s seen me. In person, I mean.”

  “Still think you can get her back?”

  “Of course I can.”

  “And you’re sure about this? You don’t want to give it a little more thought maybe?”

  “I’m sure, Hatton. Never been so sure about anything in my life.”

  I’ve got to say, serious Hatton wasn’t my favorite, but it was hard not to appreciate how he could go from being completely ridiculous and carefree to being this supportive, logical friend. It’s just that he didn’t understand my logic. My girlfriend was engaged to another guy. That had to be stopped. He had to go, and it was only a matter of time before Cate saw it my way too. There was no doubt in my mind.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN
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br />   DOUBT IN MY MIND

  We made it home just under curfew, and I was surprised to see that Dad still wasn’t there. Because it was so late, Mom insisted that Hatton stay the night, and after we dragged the inflatable air mattress up the stairs, he and I took turns airing it up with a flimsy manual pump.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said. “There has to be a better way.”

  “You’re kind of lazy, huh?” Hatton asked, grinning.

  “I’m not lazy. I’m just . . . disappointed, I guess. The future’s kind of a letdown.”

  “Wow, thanks,” he said.

  “You know what I mean. It’s not this,” I said, gesturing toward the half-inflated mattress. “It’s everything else. I thought if this weird shit ever actually worked, then things would be—”

  “Easier?” he asked. “Yeah. You’re lazy, man.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “But hey, you’re not a terrible singer, you know?” Hatton pressed his hand against the air mattress to test it out.

  “Middle school choir.”

  “For real?”

  “Yep. I used to fake it, though. Most of the time I just moved my mouth and never really sang.”

  “Was it convincing, you think?”

  “I think so. I never got caught.”

  “I once threw up auditioning for a play in middle school. Stage fright, I guess. Puked right on my script.”

  “Cate has stage fright,” I said. “Or she used to anyway.”

  “You really miss her, huh?”

  “It’s weird. I know I should miss my body, but that’s not all that important to me. But Cate . . . that’s what I miss. Her. Us. Like the surgery didn’t have anything to do with my body or my head. It feels like they cut her off, and now she’s dangling there and I can’t have her anymore.”

  “That’s maybe the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.” He stared up at the ceiling.

  “Yeah, well. It’s been a long night. I’m gonna try to sleep.”

  • • •

  School was harder that next Monday. Everything, actually, was harder after I’d finally seen her up close. And she’d seen me, right? So she was supposed to be back. That was the plan. She was supposed to be just like the old Cate—calling me all day and showing up at my locker to say hello in between classes. She was supposed to be waiting for me by her car when school was out, her book bag slung over one shoulder and her foot propped up against the door.