I shook my head. “I suck at reading.”
She took some books in her hands and hopped up to where I was. She sat on the bed next to me. “I heard you were having trouble,” she said. “So I thought I’d come practice with you.”
I shook my head. I crossed my arms. I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t some sad guy she needed to help.
Then, two seconds later, I burped in her face. I smiled real silly. “Okay,” I said. “You can be my friend.”
We read all night. Every book in the bag. We read about a principal of a school who gets turned into a superhero, and he’s fat and bald like me, and he wears tighty-whities like me, and he’s pretty slow like me. We read about this family of bears who live in a tree, and they have the dumbest names ever, and in one book Brother and Sister learn how strangers are like apples, and in another one Papa hates Asians. We read a thing where a pigeon says he should drive a bus and you have to tell it to eff off. We read a book where a dude wears hella hats on his head and these monkeys screw with his mind. And we read this one where Frog and Toad have sex with each other. Well, it doesn’t say they have sex with each other, but deep down you know they have sex with each other. Allie says that’s called subtext.
I love Allie. I love doing stories with her. I love spending time by her side. I don’t care that my other friends don’t come anymore. Even if they never see me again, I don’t mind. Allie is the friend I’m supposed to have. She’s the one.
7. COLE MARTIN-HAMMER
All right, gang,” Mr. Bayer called from the director’s chair. “Let’s take places for the top of the show. Cat in the Hat, you’re stage left.”
I perked up. I hopped out of my seat and onto the stage. I made my way to the spot, and as I did so, I got inspired for a move the Cat could do. So I acted out the combo—pivot away from the audience, bend one knee, touch the brim of the hat Bob Fosse–style, booty tooch for two pulses, then spin around and hiss. It was a slinky, sultry piece of choreo. I must have been a burlesque dancer in a former life, or a legendarily fierce concubine.
“Cole, what are you doing?”
“Oh, I just had a vision, this sublime bit of feline choreography—”
“Okay, but you’re not the choreographer, are you?”
“Well . . . no.”
“And you’re not the director, are you?”
“No.”
“And you’re not the Cat in the Hat, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“Then wait offstage, with the rest of the cast. Your entrance isn’t for another three pages. That’s when Thing 1 comes in.”
• • •
Yup. That’s what happens when you audition for a show literally no seconds after receiving the most soul-destroying e-mail in human history. For my senior musical, my ultimate high school showcase, the definitive performance of my life to this point, I was cast as the most inconsequential part in the entire ensemble: that silent, servile, castrated left testicle known as Thing 1.
And honestly, that wasn’t the worst part.
“Neil, nice key change.
“Love it, Neil. Great ad-libbing during the auction sequence.
“Neil, can you run back to the dressing room? The costumers need to measure your head size.”
Seriously. That’s who beat me out for the lead role. That’s who stole the red-and-white dong-shaped hat that should have been mine. My underling. My changeling. My one-time baby slave.
Every afternoon, I have to sit there and watch as freaking Neil collects kudos after kudos from Bayer, as he asks understudies to run and grab him an Aquafina and they actually do it, as he stands there onstage with that subtle, smug smirk that never once makes its way toward me.
I want to give that kid a history lesson. I want to remind him how things used to be. I want to shove him up against a locker and scream, “You’re the reason this happened, orphan boy. I never should have trusted you. It’s your fault I’m like this. I’m the one who should be on top of the food chain. You should be back on the bottom of the ocean, like you used to be, bowing before me, begging for plankton, bitch.”
But that’s all gone. My diva days are done. My director shafted me. College rejected me. I’m not what I used to be. I’m just a Thing, and nothing can change that.
And honestly, that’s not the worst-worst part.
• • •
“Guys,” Bayer said, gathering us around midway through today’s rehearsal. “I have an exciting announcement. We have a new addition to our cast. This actor will be taking over the role of Thing 2. And since this is his first day back at school in quite some time, let’s give him, ahem, a whopper of a welcome. Introducing . . .”
He came trundling into the room, a golden retriever’s smile on his face. When they saw him, every person in the room lost their damn minds. It was like bat mitzvah girls at a boy-band concert, or Scientologists at one of their secret pep rallies. It was insane.
“BIG MACK! BIG MACK! BIG MACK! BIG MACK!”
Brian clambered onto the stage, where he busted out a couple dance moves—surprisingly competently, might I add—and threw his fists in the air. The masses roared for their mascot.
But I’m the one who had to spend the next ninety minutes dealing with him.
“Brian, stop zoning out,” I had to say before the first entrance of Things 1 and 2.
“Brian, stop reaching under your shirt,” I had to say during a down moment onstage.
“Brian, stop picking at your ass,” I had to say when I was made to escort him to the bathroom.
It was indescribably irritating. Everyone kept treating him like a cross between a decorated war veteran and the class guinea pig. And look, I know I’m headed straight to Hades for saying this, but, like, Brian used to be considered something of an unredeemable ass. I mean, that’s the main reason I became friends with him freshman year, because we totally bonded over being funny jerk people. But then, one October night, this unspeakably horrible thing happened to him, and now suddenly, miraculously, he’s the toast of the town.
But, like, I’m an unredeemable ass, and a horrible thing happened to me—I mean this Stanford thing has categorically ruined me, not just with the casting, but, like, for my future, for goddamn decades—and it’s not as if anyone cares about me. And yeah, it’s wrong to compare maybe-permanent brain trauma to getting rejected early admission or whatever. But I mean, Brian’s happy now. The universe did him a solid. Ignorance is effing bliss for him. He doesn’t even need the extra love from peeps. But I do, you know? I for reals do.
And honestly, that wasn’t even the worst-worst-worst part.
• • •
Big Bri wasn’t alone.
As is common on theater and film sets, the large animal had a handler to watch over it.
And she wouldn’t, for the life of her, shut up.
“Brian, great job on that jazz square.
“Brian, if you stay on your feet the rest of rehearsal, I’ll tell your mom you’ve earned Polish sausage tonight.
“Brian, if you pay attention to Mr. Bayer for five more minutes, I’ll read you an extra Berenstain Bears when we get home.
“No, Brian,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “I can’t give you a cheek kiss, but let’s celebrate a phenomenal first day by going out for some ice cream, shall we? Would you like to join us, Cole?”
I closed my mouth into a frigid smile. “Dear Ms. Rey, Cole University regrets to inform you that it cannot accept your offer. But best of luck in all your future endeavors.”
Allegra put her arm around Brian’s waist. “I apologize,” she said. “It wasn’t my intention to—”
“Cram it,” I said. “Take your dowdy jacket and gag yourself with it, and take your boy toy and cast him aside, and run along to Stanny and leave the rest of us behind, and go ahead and have your perfect little frumpy-dump life, because rest assured, none of us want you in ours.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. To be a college reject, that was one thi
ng. To deal with Neil stealing my spot in the high school caste system, that was two things. To have to watch Brian Mack pull his pants down at the urinal and reveal his notorious alabaster ass, that was three—really four if we account for each blubbery cheek. But the prospect of spending several hours each day in the proximity of gerdforsaken Allegra Rey—that cloying, fraudulent, egomaniacal, bizarrely-and-creepily-close-to-Brian-at-all-times, shit-eating-grinning, Stanford-degree-hogging, life-stealing succubus—I mean, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I refused to live like this.
I twirled away from Allegra. I cheated out, facing the audience. I placed one hand on my diaphragm. I put the other to my mouth. I whistled. Everyone looked at me for the first time in eons.
“Mr. Bayer,” I announced. “Fellow cast members. Techies. It is with a heavy heart and with deepest disappointment, that I hereby announce my departure from the company. It is time to take my talents far, far away. I positively cannot work under these conditions any longer. You all have obliterated my love of the theater forever.
“Quoth my spirit bitch, Elphaba, ‘I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re happy now.’ ”
And with that, I did it. I raised my head high and I sashayed through the emergency exit door and out of the theater, straight out of the only real home I’ve had these past four years. No one rushed after me to say, We need you, Cole. No one came to say, Please don’t leave us. You’re an essential part of this community. We need you to save the show. Even if they had, I would have pimp-slapped them right in the jaw.
And so I bustled on out of there. I hurled off the yoke of my past, and I flung that mask hard to the ground. I lifted my eyes to tomorrow. I gazed upward, yonder, to the great sky above—
Whereupon I saw it, the image that immediately jolted me like a lightning bolt to the chest.
The thing. The shadow. The person.
The tiny silhouette, perched atop the theater roof, about to do God knows what.
8. NIKKI FOXWORTH
Channing faced me. She took my hands in hers. “You know you did the right thing, lady.”
Brooklyn sat on the bench behind me. She was braiding my hair. “You do not need that pussy hound in your life.”
Chan gave me a little shoulder squeeze. “Let him go impregnate some other slut.”
“I mean, D was actually pretty decent about it,” I said. “But yeah, I just don’t think I’m ready.”
“And that’s okay,” Brooklyn said. “Sex isn’t for everybody.”
“Sex isn’t for everybody,” Channing repeated.
“Sex isn’t for everybody,” they both said again.
I nodded. “Thanks.”
The girls and I were in the locker room, changing out of our dance clothes. Our practices usually end the same time as the cheer squad’s, so some of those girls were in there too. They were on the other end of the room, away from us, far removed from the whole Nikki-Foxworth-is-a-worthwhile-girl pep talk.
Brooklyn and Channing have given me some version of that same speech pretty much every day since DeSean and I broke up, but what with Valentine’s coming up, and what with me being single, this time they were going extra hard on the sisterly love. I don’t know if they necessarily made me feel any better about how things ended between DeSean and me, but I felt valued by my friends, which I guess is the next best thing.
Of course, it being Brook and Chan, they couldn’t quite stick with being one hundred percent supportive. There had to be some nastiness too.
“Well, sex may not be for everybody,” Channing said, leaning in close to me. “But it looks like sex with everybody is for somebody.”
She not-so-subtly pointed across the room, where Mona Omidi was stepping out of the shower and drying her hair off with a towel.
“I heard she’s nailing Liam Garner again,” Brooklyn whispered.
“Nah, pretty sure she’s nailing Cody Shotwell again,” Channing whispered.
“Who are we kidding?” Brooklyn said, leaning in closer. “She’s probably getting it from both of them.”
“Not to mention,” Brooklyn said. “Those rumors about her and Dusty.”
“My Dusty,” Channing said with a sad panda face.
“And that’s not all,” Brooklyn said. “Because I even think there’s someone new.”
“Do you know who it is, Nik?”
They both smiled at me, vicious smiles.
Scrotes, they mouthed at the same time.
Their faces were so close to mine. They were inches away from me. I felt all crowded. I couldn’t breathe.
“Hey . . . maybe let’s go home?”
Channing shook her head no. She raised an eyebrow at me.
Brooklyn shook her head no. She winked at me. “Hey, Moaner!” she shouted across the locker room.
“Yeah, Moaner! We’re talking to you!”
“Get your head out of that towel!”
“Towel Head!”
“Harem Slut!”
“TERRORIST!”
Mona looked up, bug-eyed. She’d been chatting with a few girls, laughing and gossiping, but in a split second her entire group went silent. Without speaking, the cheer freshmen and sophomores who made up her circle backed away, leaving Mona by herself, defenseless.
“What were you doing with my Dusty?” Channing said, stalking across the room.
“What were you doing with everyone’s everyone?” Brooklyn said, trailing right behind her predator-in-crime.
Within an eight count, they’d reached the other side. When they got to the lockers, Mona glanced away, down at the ground. She’s a darker girl, but her skin looked fully pale. Her body was shivering. I don’t think it was from the shower.
The one thing Mona didn’t seem, though, was shocked. I mean, she’d had this nightmare before. Every girl has.
“Why are you so shitty at cheer?” Channing said.
“Why haven’t they cut your ass like we did from dance?” Brooklyn said. “You can’t even do the splits, for God’s sake.”
“How can you not do the splits?”
“How come you can only get your legs open when there’s a dick involved?”
I watched this all happen. I felt my forehead get flushed. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I still couldn’t breathe.
I flashed back to that day in the car, at the spot, to D asking why I had to be such a prude, to him suggesting that if he couldn’t do me, he wouldn’t date me. Now here I was, watching this poor girl, seeing her get fed the exact opposite message. I just sat there on my hands as she received the Texas treatment. The mean girls were calling her the same names they used to call me. No matter what she did, Mona was stuck, a prisoner of her own reputation. Just like me. Just like all of us. Damned if we don’t, damned if we do.
I couldn’t take it. No more. I couldn’t.
I flew across the room. Before they knew what was happening, I grabbed Channing from behind. I flung her at the lockers. Her body hit hard and her head whipped back. The ringing noise was loud and long, like a gong. It was so satisfying. Brooklyn turned to face me. As Mona dove for cover, I took Brook’s platinum hair in my hands and I yanked as hard as I know how. She let out a holler like I haven’t heard since I used to visit my cousin’s ranch back in the day. I mean she wailed like a pig whose throat is being sliced open. I jerked her head back and forth, from one side to another, until she apologized, until she begged. Just as I was about to let go, Channing sprang off the ground. She took my face from behind. She dug her nails into my skin, scratching my forehead and drawing blood, but I didn’t give a shit. I kicked back, right where she wasn’t expecting. Down below, right in the only place those girls seem to care about. That was when the teachers barged in. They grabbed me. They separated us. But not before I did some serious damage. Not before I taught those hateful creatures a lesson about picking on a lady.
• • •
Since that little episode, some would say I’ve gotten what I deserved.
I’m obviously off dance. N
ot exactly a shock. Brook and Chan texted me I wasn’t welcome at any more practices or basketball games, and their parents did everything short of take a restraining order out on me. I’ve got to admit, though, that I don’t exactly care. I couldn’t stand being around those types of people any longer.
What’s more concerning is how the school gave me a whole mess of detentions. Now, again, the detentions themselves I don’t mind. It’s just me sitting by myself for an hour, which honestly, I’ve been doing pretty much the whole past year anyway.
No, what really and truly rankles is something that happened a couple days ago while I was in the library. Someone I talked to. Something that someone said. Something that put me right back in that locker room head space all over again, that horrible place. That dark empty room with the two large doors, one marked TEASE and the other marked SLUT. And you’ve got to pick one; there’s absolutely no other escape. And whichever door you choose, there’s a mob waiting on the other side. There’s a witch trial, torches and pitchforks and all. And they call you names, and they chant your past, and they smash your spirit, all the way till you panic and run away to another town, where the grass is greener, where the smiles are sweeter, where life seems peachy keen until the second you walk into a new room and realize it’s locked. You realize you’re stuck. You know you’re trapped all over again, in the pitch-black place with the same two doors.
• • •
But I want to talk about something else.
I want to talk about how something good can come from something bad.
After all, even the fugliest dress can have a silver lining.
I’ve made a new best friend.
“Hey,” Mona said, randomly coming up to me after school last Friday, shortly after the incident.
“Um,” I said. “Hi.”
“I have something for you.”
“What? Why?”
I mean, if history has shown anything, it’s that I’m not exactly the biggest fan of surprises.
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