Everything That Makes You

by Moriah McStay

  “I leave the house all the time. I’ve got class.”

  “To do something social?”

  Fi didn’t answer. Did the funeral count as a social event?

  After another round of bangs and shouts, he said, “Right. Really gotta go now.”

  “Have fun.”

  “Seriously, think about it.” And then he hung up.

  Fi tossed her phone on the bedside table. She slouched down, bringing Panda with her, and swallowed back the need to cry.

  Before he left for school, Trent felt almost like a place to her—the only place she could just be. They watched TV or played Wii or sat around eating popcorn. If she happened to crack a joke or act like an otherwise-normal person, he didn’t fake-smile at her and say, “See, it’s all going to be okay.”

  He just let the moment be the moment. Then, when she remembered that everything was terrible and her heart was broken and her life wasn’t anywhere near where it was supposed to be, he went along with that, too.

  Now, he had a new life—without her. And she had what? A school she didn’t really want? Helicopter parents? Wallowing?

  What the hell was she doing?

  Fi was an Otherlands regular now. She’d spend her free afternoons there, drinking black coffee—and hiding from her parents—while apathetically studying. Today wasn’t so bad, though. Another creative writing assignment.

  At first, the assignments seemed bizarre: Write five hundred words from the perspective of an old lady who’s lost her cat, but don’t mention the cat. Describe the color blue. Write a conversation where one person talks, and the other only thinks. But they were fun—and she was sort of good at it.

  She pulled the latest topic from her bag. Write five hundred words around the following statement: I should have known better than to let you go alone. Use the second person and present tense.

  Well, this one might be depressing.

  “Hey.”

  She looked up. Jackson stood awkwardly on the other side of her table. He pointed to the chair in front of him. “Can I sit?”

  Fi hesitated a moment. Looking up at him, she saw just the littlest bit of Marcus floating around in that doubtful expression and hunch of broad shoulders.

  She nodded, and Jackson screeched the chair backward and sat, putting his mug and a bowl of fruit in front of him. He pointed to the papers in front of Fi, one eyebrow up.

  She answered the question he didn’t ask. “Creative writing assignment.”

  He nodded. “How’s school?”

  “All right, I guess.” She shrugged. “I’ve never been much of a school person, really.”

  “I like it,” Jackson said between bites. “Liked it. Well, the math and science parts. Probably wouldn’t have been great with creative writing.”

  What was happening here? Were she and Jackson small-talking?

  Fi was even on the verge of confessing her failure with calculus before she stopped herself. She didn’t want him to think she wanted tutoring or anything. As much as she hated getting help from Ryan, getting it from Jackson would be twenty times worse.

  “Liked it?” she asked instead.

  He shrugged. “Homeschool didn’t really cut it—kind of a waste. I mean, Ellen King as high school teacher? I don’t know which is her bigger weakness—teaching or cooking.”

  Despite herself Fi smiled, picturing Mrs. King elbow-deep in that battered enamel pot, boiling up some monstrous concoction. Marcus called it the Voodoo Pot. “But you got into Northwestern.”

  “Good SATs,” he said. “The my-brother-is-dying essay probably didn’t hurt either.”

  They looked each other in the eyes then—a steady gaze, with none of the awkward spaces that came when people didn’t understand.

  “Why aren’t you there now?” she asked.

  “I deferred.”

  “Right, but . . . well, there’s no reason to anymore.”

  “I don’t know,” he said with a frown. “You tell me. You’re here, too.”

  Fi’s eyes narrowed. “I go to school here, Jackson. I never applied to Northwestern.”

  Jackson—surprisingly—didn’t seem inclined to argue. “I figured I wouldn’t be good for much. Maybe next year.”

  “You think it’ll feel better by then?”

  “I hope so.” She could tell by the way his lower lip dipped in that he was chewing the inside of his cheek. Marcus did that, too. “I don’t think I’ll have much choice, though. Mom already threatened to rent out my room if I don’t go.”

  “She wants you to leave?”

  “Yes and no. She and Dad, they’re both a mess. When I leave—Jesus, I can’t imagine, how quiet everything will be. The two of them alone in that big house? But they say I need to get on with it.”

  “With what?”

  “Life.”

  “Sounds familiar,” she said, feeling the scratch in the back of her throat, the sting in her eyes. She supposed this was an improvement, since a month ago, she’d have burst into tears the second Jackson walked up to her table.

  He spun his mug where it rested, absently staring into it. “It’s surreal to think about. Like I might wake up one day and not think about him till lunch or something. Because right now, he’s everywhere.” He looked up, gesturing vaguely to the tables behind Fi. “I can’t even look at people without making some kind of Marcus observation. That guy’s about as fair as he was. The girl’s reading a book I checked out of the library for him last year. That fat guy with the cane, would Marcus have been able to beat him up the stairs?”

  Fi wiped a tear from her cheek, looked over her shoulder, and studied the people Jackson listed.

  “And it gets grimmer,” he went on. “Like, who got his organs—or the ones that worked, at least? Who’s wearing his clothes that Mom donated to Goodwill?”

  Envisioning all these people carrying around bits and pieces of Marcus, Fi lost it.

  Jackson’s mouth had been open, like he was preparing to say something else. He closed it slowly. “Sorry.”

  She shook her head, wiping away the tears. She had become nothing but a pathetic lump of wallowing sorrow. “Is this ever going to end?”

  She wasn’t expecting a response. And Jackson didn’t give one.

  NOVEMBER

  FIONA

  “I heard it snowed in May last year,” Jackson said. He leaned across the cafeteria table and stabbed her fruit onto his fork.

  “Mom has a friend who used to live up here,” Fiona said. “She told me a Memphis winter might be gray, but at least it wouldn’t kill you. I thought she was joking.”

  They’d been here nearly an hour, prolonging breakfast and hiding from the weather. Ever since the eavesdropping, they’d done this a few times a week. Because of different class schedules, their paths didn’t cross often—but when they did run into each other, they’d wind up grabbing lunch or some coffee. She’d started scanning the first floor common room, hoping to run into him accidentally-on-purpose.

  They could talk for hours, about everything. Yet somehow, they’d avoided crossing that invisible border into the land of personal information. Just how she liked it.

  “Man, I miss greasy southern food,” Jackson said, going for her banana muffin. “When I get back for Christmas, I’m eating my weight in Gus’s Fried Chicken.”

  Dark, wavy hair dipped over one eye. Fiona wanted so, so badly to reach out and touch it.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m in barbecue withdrawal. Dad’s taking me to Corky’s on the way from the airport.”

  “Central’s better.”

  Then followed the “best barbecue” argument, which happened all the time in Memphis—and never ended in agreement. “Okay, best record store then,” Fiona said.

  “That vinyl place on Madison. Shangri-La.”

  Her heart might melt. She loved that place. “Best tourist spot,” she said.

  “Best? Like as a joke?”

  “No. Really the best.”

  “I’ve got no idea.
I’ve only been to Graceland ironically.” He frowned at his empty fork before pointing it at her. “My brother got me this horrible sequined cape there—a replica of the Vegas concert one. I think it’s still in my room somewhere.”

  “How do you not know if there’s a sequined—wait, I didn’t know you have a brother.”

  “Had,” he said. “He died this past summer.”

  And just like that, they crossed into the land of personal information. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”

  “He’d been sick a long time.”

  She nodded like she understood, which she didn’t. The conversation lagged, their first awkward silence.

  “What about you?” Jackson leaned forward, and she let him pick through what remained of her breakfast. “Any brothers or sisters?”

  “A brother. He’s a freshman, too—at Clemson.” She felt guilty suddenly, like having a living brother was showing off.

  “You’re twins?”

  She shook her head. “He’s ten months older. It just worked out, how our birthdays fell. He was one of the oldest in our class. I was one of the youngest.” She pulled out her phone and held it out to him. “That’s him. Ryan.”

  Jackson took it, eyes squinted. “That girl he’s with—she looks familiar.”

  “Gwen. His girlfriend.”

  His eyes widened as he studied the phone’s small screen. “Otherlands, right? She works there?”

  “You go there?”

  He wiggled his hand back and forth. So-so. “You?”

  “All the time.”

  “Liar. I never saw you there.” He speared a chunk of cantaloupe, pointed it at her, and winked. “I’d have remembered.”

  Oh, what her body did when Jackson flirted.

  With Trent McKinnon, Fiona’s fantasies were gauzy and girlish, all smiles and chaste kisses and happily ever after. Not so with Jackson. The specificity of her imagination regarding this green-eyed boy was alarming.

  Which then led to guilt. Because, uh, what about David?

  Since she couldn’t handle flirting, she avoided it. Like right now, by getting them back on track with the original conversation. “They’ve been dating since eleventh grade.”

  “She goes to Clemson?”

  “No, Furman. Nearby, but I’m not sure they see each other much. He’s on the soccer team and never has a free second, apparently.”

  Jackson laughed. “Not that it bothers you.”

  “It’s that obvious?”

  “You look like a tractor ran over your toe.”

  “We were just—are just—really close. But I never talk to him anymore.” She looked at Jackson’s drawn face and was horrified. “Oh, Jackson. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

  He held up a hand to stop her. “You’re allowed to miss your brother.”

  “You miss yours.”

  “He’s why I deferred, at first,” he said, while idly picking through her fruit. “I didn’t want to leave, you know, with him still around. Even after he died I waffled about it, but Mom got sick of me moping. She said stalling didn’t change anything. He died and not moving wouldn’t keep it from being true.”

  “How did he die?” she asked quietly.

  “Heart failure.”

  “Oh my God. That’s terrible.”

  He nodded. “Four years ago, he got food poisoning, which gave him this fluke infection. Everything just went perfectly wrong after that. By the time the doctors figured it out, his heart was shot.”

  “It sounds awful.”

  “Since his immune system was messed up, my parents pulled him out of regular school, to teach him at home. He was so pissed. He wanted a normal life.” He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Selfish bastard that I am, I pushed him to stay home, too. I did it with him.”

  “You were homeschooled?” Fiona imagined sitting with Ryan in those little kindergarten desks that used to be in their playroom, while her mom wrote lessons on an old-fashioned chalkboard. The brief daydream was very unappealing.

  “In theory,” Jackson said, with a little laugh. “Teaching is not my mother’s calling. We pretty much just followed the city school curriculum. I took some classes at U of M,” he said. “Marcus kept telling me to go back to school. He said I was missing everything.”

  “Like what?”

  “Football games, clubs, prom. Stuff I didn’t care about—but he did,” he said. “He always said that even if his life was screwed up, mine didn’t have to be. Which is ridiculous. I mean, just because it’s not happening to me doesn’t mean it’s not happening to me.”

  “And you aren’t sad?” she asked. “That you missed high school?”

  He shook his head. “I got my brother. I was kind of a jealous girlfriend about it, too. Trying to get all the time with him I could.”

  Fiona felt that way about Ryan—though she wasn’t a jealous girlfriend so much as jealous of his girlfriend. “Sounds nice. I mean, not nice. But—”

  “Don’t worry,” he said with a cute smile. “I know what you mean. And yeah, it was great actually, having him to myself like that. Although it’s come around to bite me, since I really know what I’m missing.”

  Fiona wanted to know more but felt like she’d been nosy enough already. However, after a few sips of coffee, Jackson offered more up on his own. “This past year, he couldn’t even walk up the stairs without getting out of breath. Still, every day he wanted something new.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, well, like food. But he couldn’t stomach much, so I had to eat everything and then describe it. And books. He sent me to the library so often, the librarian, Linda, and I were on a first name basis.” He shook his head. “We didn’t let him out much, but whenever his blood work came back strong—or if he’d had some good days—he’d get a reprieve. And man, he grabbed it.”

  “What would he do?”

  “Anything, really. Sometimes just regular stuff, like bowling. Fishing. Sometimes he got a little goofy. Like—have you ever been to that open mic night at Otherlands?”

  Fiona’s heart practically stopped beating. She nodded.

  Jackson wagged his eyebrows. “All the ways our paths have crossed.” For a moment, he just looked at her, all smirky and adorable, before continuing. “He even did that once. Read Sartre, of all things. He got booed off the stage, which was probably a first for that place. Still, he was so pumped. Alive.” He stared at the table. Suddenly, it looked like all happiness and sarcasm left him. “God, it sucks.”

  The lump in her throat made her forget her stalled heart. “How did he handle it? Knowing he was dying?”

  “He never admitted he was dying.” He shook his head, like this still baffled him. “He was the world’s biggest optimist. The doctors told him a new heart was a long shot. Like, long. Still he thought he’d pull through it.”

  “You didn’t?”

  He shook his head. “No. Which felt like crap.”

  Fiona watched him, this lovely, heartbroken boy. The wavy hair and olive skin and lopsided smile and broad shoulders just the package for all the invisible, real stuff hidden inside.

  Gradually, a crooked smile appeared on Jackson’s face. “Your turn.”

  “My turn to what?”

  “Share.”

  Fiona narrowed her eyes at this suspicious question. Just because they were in Jackson’s land of personal information didn’t mean they had to cross into hers. “I’ve got nothing.”

  He pointed to her cheek. “What’s the story with that scar?”

  Automatically, Fiona dragged her bangs forward. “Nothing.”

  She hadn’t told anyone here about Old Fiona and her life-changing surgery. She hadn’t planned it that way, but whenever anyone asked, she remembered her mother’s comment in the hotel elevator. No one would ever know. And she just kept vaguely deflecting the questions.

  “You don’t have to do that.” Jackson leaned across the table and tucked her bangs behind her ear. His fingertips glanced the skin on her neck, and all the origi
nal bits of her erupted in goose bumps. “It’s not bad—cool, really. Like there’s a little badass lurking under all that cute.”

  Oh my. “Next question.”

  Jackson smirked. “You realize I just want to know more now.”

  Jackson had told her about his dead brother, who’d gotten booed off a stage. Who’d fit all the living he could into the life he got handed.

  Jackson had told her something true.

  “I had some scars growing up,” she said. “But surgery this summer fixed them.”

  “Fixed them?” he asked, eyes widening.

  She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “What happened?”

  She wanted a sip of coffee, but her hands shook in her lap. Acting as relaxed as she could, Fiona gave a two-minute recap of the day when she was five that, theoretically, no longer mattered.

  “How big were they?”

  She gestured vaguely to the right side of her face.

  Jackson whistled. “So you had the scars from five until—”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Wow,” he said. “That sounds pretty bad.”

  Not knowing what to say, Fiona did what she did best—just like with covering other people’s songs, she substituted someone else’s idea for her own. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Or so they say.”

  “Spare me the throw pillow mentality,” he said, suddenly annoyed. “You’re just as likely to end up dead.”

  Horrified at her gaffe, Fiona said, “Jackson—”

  Jackson held up his hand, cutting her off. “All that bumper sticker philosophy. You can’t imagine how many old ladies have told me, ‘God doesn’t give you what you can’t handle.’”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Sometimes life just sucks,” he said, riled up now. “And maybe I want to wallow! Maybe I don’t want to look for the silver lining!”

  She knew it was dumb to argue with him, but he was just so wrong. “Nothing’s worse than feeling sorry for yourself. Trust me.”

  Jackson looked at her a long moment, straight in the eyes. Then his eyes tracked the path of her new scar, from the inside edge of her right eyebrow straight up to where it tucked into her hairline. Like he’d lost the track and couldn’t find his way back, his eyes trailed vaguely around her forehead before finding the last leg of the scar’s route, below the ear right up to the outside corner of her right eye. Fiona’s heart pounded during the slow inspection.