Anything But: The Musings of an Outcast, Me, Razberry Sweet

by Megan Linski

  The words are physically painful to say.

  “He raped me.”

  She begins to cry. They’re not broken tears. They’re furious, terrible tears, tears that stream from a fountain of rage. I lean closer and say, “No, no, Puppy, please don’t cry…”

  Puppy’s face is scrunched up as she puts her head in her hands. “This is so unfair to you… this is so unfair. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone. This is the first time I’ve actually admitted it out loud to myself. I was too afraid to tell on him,” I confess.

  She wipes the tears from her face quickly. “That’s absolutely terrible. I’m so sorry that happened to you, Raz.”

  “That’s why I sank so far into Razberry Sweet,” I say. “He was a tool I used to avoid facing what happened to me. But now it’s just gotten me into trouble. Again.”

  “Your uncle’s heart attack wasn’t your fault. It was probably coming for a long time,” she says.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t help, that’s for sure,” I mumble.

  “Your uncle’s going to be fine,” she says. “And even though you lied to me, to all of us, I’m not mad about it. I can see why you did it.”

  “Really?” I say, surprised.

  “Yeah. I just want you to promise that you won’t act fake again. That from now on, you’ll be who you really are.” She smiles at me before extending her hand. “That’s what real friends do. You promise?”

  “I promise.” I shake her hand… but when we’re done, I don’t let go.

  “Okay,” she says. She pulls her hand out of mine, slowly. “The first thing we have to do is to get some food into you. You look famished.”

  “You’ll never get anything into me. Not after this,” I say weakly.

  “I will if I have to sit on you and force it down your throat.” She smiles. “Move it, Razberry.”

  “Yes, madam.” I pretend to give her a bow and she elbows me in the gut.

  We start toward the cafeteria. Now that Puppy’s beside me, the hospital doesn’t seem creepy and absent anymore. It seems fresh, and full of life.

  “We’ve only got one more scene on the movie to do,” she states randomly. “Wizard is putting it all together. We were going to finish up the movie and surprise you, until we looked at the last scene and realized you were in it. We couldn’t do it without you.”

  “Of course not,” I say. I ruffle my hair for the first time in days. “After all, what would you do without your handsome, dashing Razberry Sweet to make everyone else look good?”

  “More like blow up the screen with your egotistical hot air,” Puppy teases.

  I laugh. Even in the worst of circumstances, Puppy always knows what to say to me.

  * * *

  Puppy miraculously managed to get some food into my stomach before the end of the night. Her phone vibrates once and she answers it after I’m done nibbling on my meal. It’s her mom.

  “I have to go,” she says. She stands up and gives me a hug. “My parents are waiting for me outside.”

  “Tell them thanks, you know,” I say. “For letting you come.”

  She smiles and waves a farewell. I notice she takes her time going out the door. Once she leaves, it’s like this cold, iciness fills my heart again… but this time, it’s different. Puppy has given me a small spurt of hope, and if I can hold onto it until I know what’s going to happen to my uncle, then that’s all the better.

  I don’t feel like going back to the waiting room yet. It’s only been a few hours, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to face whatever’s waiting for me. I begin heading that way though, wandering my way past isles and doors in a slow pace. My eyes travel from a painting of the sea next to a desk, a nurse drinking water from a bottle, a longhaired blonde in a bed…

  A longhaired blonde? No. It can’t be. I poke my head around the wall, feeling rude for disturbing somebody’s privacy, especially someone that I don’t know, but my stomach drops as I realize this is someone I know.

  She’s hooked up to an IV, is lying under a thin blanket and is half asleep, looking pale as death. I’d recognize her anywhere.

  Bethany.

  Chapter 9 - Shocked

  My head tells me to run away from her as fast as possible, but something inside of me causes my body to gravitate toward her.

  I don’t know if she wants me in here. Is she going to be mad at me, still? Why do I even want to see her?

  Her veined eyelids open slowly as she hears my footsteps. She looks at me for a long time before the corners of her mouth turn upward. She whispers, “Razberry Sweet.”

  “That’s me,” I say dryly. I look at all the tubes stuck in her hand and ask, “Why are you in here? I thought you went to juvie.”

  “I overdosed.” She coughs. “Somebody snuck in heroin and I wanted to try it.”

  I want to feel disgusted with her, but I can’t. I just feel… sorry for her.

  She looks up at the ceiling and says, “So, what brings you here?”

  “My uncle had a heart attack.”

  “That sucks,” she says quietly. She takes a shallow breath and says, “Sit down, Raz.”

  I almost don’t. I nearly walk out right then. But I take the chair by her bedside and lean closer. I’m shocked to see how papery her skin looks.

  “Enjoying your stay?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “I’ll be out in a few days. But I’m planning on getting more drugs before I go back to juvie.” She smiles past her exhaustion.

  “Do you really want to know what I think?” I say abruptly.

  Bethany’s smile is gone. “I already do, Raz. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Well, you’re going to hear it anyway.” I take a deep breath. “I really wish that you’d have done better, Bethany. You could have. You were one of my best friends.”

  Fear’s setting in as I look at her. I see her broken body and imagine myself in her place, falling apart inch by inch and not even caring.

  I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to end up like her. But I see how easily I could.

  She says, simply as a statement, “You’re pretty selfish, Raz. After I got arrested you didn’t call or write me or anything, not even once.”

  “You’re pretty selfish too. You didn’t try to contact me, either,” I shoot back.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” she scoffs. “I know I’m selfish. I didn’t think you were.”

  I lean back in surprise. Bethany had never criticized her own faults before. If anything, she had exalted them.

  Something slams into me. For as much as Bethany brags about not caring what anyone thinks of her… she really, really cares about what I think.

  It’s a testament to how good of friends we were. How much she loved me, and I her.

  The truth is, back then, Bethany wasn’t a bad person. I wasn’t either. We were just two broken kids who didn’t have anyone who looked out for them, so we had to look out for each other.

  “I’ll tell you something,” I say slowly. “In fact, I’ll ask it. Why don’t you ever plan anything out, how about that? You always act on impulse.”

  “Maybe if I had a crystal ball and could look into the future I’d know what to do with myself. I’m bad at making good choices,” she replies helplessly. “I’m not magic, Raz.”

  I looked at the floor. “Funny. There was a time that I thought you were.”

  They say forgive and forget. I forgive Bethany, who’s wasting away in front of me. She has desire to do anything but try to get an escape from the pain.

  It’s harder to forgive myself.

  She shifts on the bed and says, “You know, Raz, I look at you and I look at me, and all I see is the bad stuff people have done to us. Why does there have to be so much bad in the world, Raz?”

  She’s tearing up. “You believe in God. I don’t. There are facts all around us about God not being real, and the first one is about my dad divorcing my mom and leaving me. If there’s a
God, where is He? If he cares so much about me, why didn’t he make my dad stay?”

  A tear slips out of her eye. “All I ever wanted was for him to love me.”

  I don’t have an answer for her. Instead, I take her hand and say, “I don’t know where God is, or why he doesn’t stop some of the terrible things in this world. All I know is that I still care about you, even though you really messed things up between us. And I gotta say, so did I.”

  She grinned. “You always were a softy, Razberry Sweet.”

  I look at her and she looks at me. Neither of us have much more to say.

  I let go of her hand, and stand up.“You can set this right if you want. If you don’t, nobody is going to be able to help you. Maybe you’ll fix yourself, Bethany. I hope so. I want to be friends again.”

  “Hopefully, we can,” she laughs. A sigh escapes from her lips. She’s slipping off to sleep.

  I hate the feeling I get when I close the door. When I leave the room, something in me knows that I won’t see Bethany ever again.

  The surgery has to be over by now. With a tightness in my chest, I travel back to the waiting room.

  I open the door and I feel a huge force ram into me. Aunt Sara. She’s crying, enveloping both Mitzy and I in a big hug.

  So. This is how it ends. He’s dead. Tears leak out of my eyelids. I smash into her coat, trying to block out the outside world.

  “Razzie, why are you crying so much?” Mitzy asks.

  I bite my lip. Aunt Sara glimpses my face and says, “Raz, what’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” I hoarsely ask. “Uncle Logan’s dead. He’s gone.”

  “No, he’s not,” Aunt Sara grins happily. “He just got out of surgery. The doctor came to tell us he was fine. The operation was a success.”

  “But… you were crying and upset!” I protest.

  “Those were tears of relief, you dope.” Aunt Sara laughs. She puts her arm around my shoulder and says, “We can go see him tomorrow when he wakes up. He barely made it, but you know Logan. He’s a determined man.”

  “I hardly think that when he was on the operating table he sat up and told them not to mess it up,” I say sarcastically, but laugh.

  My grief is fading to panic now. What will Uncle Logan say to me when he finally sees me? Is he going to be mad at me?

  “I think we’ll wait until the afternoon to visit,” Sara adds. “The doctor said to let him recover a bit before we try to visit.”

  “What are we supposed to do until then?” I ask.

  Mitzy smiles and grabs my hand. “I think I have an idea.”

  * * *

  The sunlight’s streaming in through the cracks of the old barn. Despite staying up all night, I feel fine, and am ready to get this show on the road.

  School’s been canceled today. Nobody knows why and nobody really cares enough to find out. I still have bags under my eyes and my hair is messy, but for the most part, I’m awake.

  My tired appearance simply helps the fact that my character is dying in this scene. After sacrificing himself to a horde of zombies, my character John is forced to give one last goodbye to Theophania before he dies in her arms. Classic Ola and Perry.

  I rip up some old clothes a bit to make me look more grusome. Maymee smears on the fake blood as Ola comes up to me and says, “Here. We changed the script at the last minute. Read it over and report to Pepper ASAP.”

  I take it from her with thanks and look through it quickly. Nothing appears any different from the last time I looked at it. Except… there. In nice italic letters it’s been added that John and Theophania, AKA, me and Puppy, kiss before my death.

  Kiss. Not on the cheek, on the lips. For a full minute.

  My legs feel weak. I’ve got to grab onto the side of Buddy’s stall to keep from falling to the floor. He neighs in amusement, as if he knows what’s going on.

  I throw the script at Pepper and ask, “What’s this?”

  “My point exactly,” Puppy asks. She’s already finished putting on her costume. She looks pretty mad, pointing right to the place in the script where we’re supposed to lock lips.

  “You’re kissing. So what?” Pepper asks.

  “So what? Razberry and I aren’t together!” Puppy shouts.

  “You aren’t, but your characters are. Get with the program.” Pepper motions for Don to fix a prop hanging on the loft.

  “I refuse,” Puppy says, and she crosses her arms.

  “We’re not asking you to have sex, it’s only a little kiss,” Pepper protests. “You’ve got to give the audience what they want, and what they want is a romance. This movie can either be great or it can be sucky.”

  “One little kiss isn’t going to make much of a difference,” Puppy argues.

  “On the contrary, it makes all the difference. What are you so worried about if it’s only one little kiss?” Pepper asks. She leaves, to check in with Brody.

  Puppy and I glance at each other, then quickly look away. I say, “If I didn’t know any better I would think Perry and Ola did this on purpose.”

  “So would I,” Puppy snarls. She’s pretty irritated, but at least it’s not with me. I really hope she doesn’t blow a fuse and stomp out of here, seeing as she’s the star.

  I lean close to her and say, “We’ve worked really hard on this. We’re best friends. It’s not like it means anything. Let’s just go for it.”

  Her expression softens, and she grabs my hand softly. “Only for you, Raz.”

  We nod at each other. I go for my last costume check but she says, “Wait!”

  I turn. She lowers her voice even more and asks, “Will it be your first time?”

  “Yeah,” I admit. “I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

  She looks down at the floor and says, “Me too.”

  “Rolling in five, people!” Pepper shouts. Ola dusts off my jacket and says I’m going to do great.

  By now, everybody knows about our kiss. Soldier walks by carrying a beam with Zoar. He winks, saying, “Don’t mess it up, Raz.”

  Zoar smiles knowingly at me. With limbs made of water, I take my place. Any second now I’m going to jump out of my skin. I can’t concentrate. I’m so nervous. My first kiss, and in front of everyone, too. On camera. I just want to get it over with…

  I can tell Puppy’s freaking out, too. Neither of us have any idea how to do this. I can’t believe I’m acting like this when kids younger than we are have a go at it every day. I see people making out in the halls all the time, and I’ve watched it in movies. What makes this so different?

  “Action!” Brody shouts. I push my thoughts aside and decide that this isn’t the time or place for Razberry Sweet. John’s kissing Theophania, I’m not kissing Puppy…

  I spring into action and toss around my fellow students dressed as zombies, though they’re overpowering me. For the first time, I can’t concentrate on my acting. Every thought is dedicated to the task ahead. God, I hope I don’t mess up. What if I slobber too much? What if… oh no… what if I suck at kissing and I don’t know it?

  Puppy comes in. It’s now or never. A thought comes to my mind. What if we have to do this scene again? What if we mess it up, and we have to keep re-filming, and kissing, over and over?

  I can’t do that to her. It would completely humiliate her.

  This take has to be absolutely perfect.

  All the zombies attack me all at once. I shout and fake my horror exquisitely while Puppy screams hysterically in the background. Would she really react that way if I was dying in real life?

  Puppy brings out her fake gun and starts batting people around. She screams again as she sees me lying there, bleeding and gasping… she falls to her knees and grabs my hand.

  She raises my head up off the ground. She mutters a few lines of strained dialogue. “Why are you leaving me?” she whispers. “Why do you have to go?”

  I clear my throat. “That’s just how life is, Theophania. People die.”

  “Not you,” she c
hokes. “Not now.”

  “Yes,” I wheeze. “I just want you to know… I’ve always loved you. Always.”

  It’s the moment. We pause for about two seconds, then take the plunge.

  As our lips touch, I realize that the movies are completely wrong. There’s absolutely no way to portray this, no way to convey how wonderful this kiss feels. You could film a million movies, shoot a million kiss scenes a million times, and it would never compare to the real thing.

  Puppy’s lips are plump, and raw. She tastes incredible. I could make out with her for days and not get tired, not get bored. Her mouth is like a live wire against mine, and something new that I haven’t experienced burns within me.

  I want more. I want all of her. In the moment, I feel like I can’t live without her.

  Puppy breaks away first. Her expression is confused, distant. She won’t look me in the eye.

  I remember I’m supposed to be dead. I slump in her arms and she lets out a wild scream. Just like that, the movie we’ve been working on for weeks is over.

  The room breaks into wild cheers and applause. I get up, take Puppy’s hand and bow to the crowd.

  I smile at her. A natural friend response. She smiles back, though I can tell behind her smile she’s calculating, figuring something out.

  “That was great acting, Raz! Real professional!” Maymee congratulates as I come off screen.

  I smile. Little does she know my acting was only so good only because it wasn’t acting. The feelings were real.

  I don’t say anything, though. It’s best to stay quiet, for now. In all reality, I’m not sure how quiet this is going to stay. I hope nobody noticed how much I was enjoying it. With a jolt, I realize that my very first kiss just happened.

  “Okay, people,” I shout. “I’ve got an uncle in the hospital to visit. Quit loitering around my house, and somebody get the tape to Wizard so we can edit this thing!”

  “Right away Raz!” Brody calls. As people begin to file out I notice someone’s missing. Puppy’s already left.

  “She’ll be back,” Pepper says, patting me on the shoulder when she notices my fallen expression. “She always comes back to you.”