Two Roads from Here

by Teddy Steinkellner

  She pulled something out from behind her back.

  “What are you doing?”

  They came at me fast, her hands. Right at my face. It’s not that I thought she was being violent or whatever, not after what I’d done for her, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but be on edge, just a tiny bit freaked. It’s hard to trust anyone these days. I have my reasons.

  But Mona didn’t punch me. She didn’t scratch me. She pressed something firm on my forehead, just above my left eye. Something sticky.

  “Is that . . . a Band-Aid?”

  She burst out laughing. “Of course it’s a Band-Aid. Haven’t you looked in the mirror lately? Your cut’s pretty gnarly.”

  “Oh my Lord,” I said, whipping out my phone, checking my scar in selfie mode. “I look hideous. I’m a monster.”

  Mona shook her head. “You’re not a monster,” she said. She licked her hand and smoothed out my bandage. “You’re my knight in shining armor.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Hey,” Mona added. “After you finish your detention . . .” She hesitated, like she was nervous about asking. “You wanna come over to my house?”

  I thought about it for a good second. I considered how it might be fun to get to know Mona, because she certainly seemed like an improvement over my old friends. At the same time, though, I also thought about the message it would send if I did hang out with “the Moaner,” what it would say to girls like Brooklyn and Channing about what kind of values I have, what sort of impression it would leave on boys if I was seen spending time with the so-called biggest slut at school.

  As soon as I had the thought, I hated myself immediately.

  “I’d love to,” I told Mona. I touched the spot above my eye. “Let’s nurse me back to health.”

  9. WILEY OTIS

  I got so messed up last week, I did something I never do.

  “Hey,” I said into the phone.

  “Hey,” my dad said, grunting like he’d just woken up from a nap. “What do you need?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “How’s New Mexico?”

  “Great. Better than Utah. How’s your mother?”

  “She’s fine.”

  There was a long pause. There’s always a long pause.

  “If you’re calling about the check,” he said. “You can tell your mom I’ll send it over, but for now—”

  “No. Wait. Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Actually I do need something.”

  “What?”

  I closed my eyes. I just said it. “I got my heart broken by my best friend. What do I do?”

  There was another silence, for the better part of a minute.

  “Welp,” he said. “Been down that road before. Like the last time your mother let me live with you guys and I followed all the rules. I never came back late, and I stuck to the separate beds, and I threw the ball with you and all that. But then, wouldn’t you know it, she still had the gall to send me packing, all because she had a ‘change of heart,’ all because of some bullshit about ‘living out the consequences of a mistake,’ whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. I mean the nerve to say something like that to your own husband, you know what I mean, to speak like that to the father of your child, the nerve on that bitch—”

  “You know what?” I said. “Never mind.”

  I ended the call. I put my phone away. I reached for a bottle of orange soda and chugged it all the way down.

  Life goes on.

  • • •

  All the usual things happened to me this week.

  Ms. Fawcett pink slipped me into her office to tell me I’m not going to graduate on time, not unless I make “major lifestyle changes.”

  The band dudes wouldn’t talk to me during passing periods, which is how they’ve been ever since I quit, probably on direct orders from Allegra.

  I tried to hang out with the stoner guys in the parking lot at lunch, but they looked at me suspiciously, made crosses with their fingers, and called me an “emotional narc.”

  And this afternoon in math, Ms. Valdez caught me doing what I always do, doodling a scene from a movie. In this case I was drawing the final shot of Boogie Nights, that part where Dirk Diggler is all depressed and stuff, and—spoiler alert—he looks in the mirror and just whips out his dick—

  “Wiley!”

  “What?”

  “That’s . . . not an asymptote.”

  “Um,” I said. “Well, it does curve. . . .”

  “That’s a detention and you know it.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. Whatever.”

  Detention. More of the same. I got to the library and there they all were, the same lost souls as always, going through the motions of their same old existence. The three stoners saw me, mouthed the word “emotionarc,” and did a high fifteen. The freshman cheer girls slaved away at a bunch of #PRAYERS4BRIAN posters that won’t ever save the Big Mack but that definitely just killed a few trees. The Bear snarled at me when I walked in, but I bet she growled because she’s just as lonely and looking for love as any of us.

  And hey, look.

  Look who it was, sitting by herself in the corner.

  Maybe she could help me.

  • • •

  “Hey, stranger.”

  Nikki’s eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Hey, Wiley.”

  “You in detention?”

  “I am.”

  “Mind if I sit here?”

  “Go ahead.”

  I took the chair next to her. And for a moment there, I couldn’t really talk, because I was suddenly so struck by her—that long, lean body, that sun-goddess glow, that endless river of hair, those sky-at-sunrise eyes, those calves—

  Then I realized I was being weird. So I said something, anything.

  “What’s with your eye?”

  Nikki shook her head. Some hair fell over her forehead, hiding her cut. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Oh. Sorry I asked.” I paused for a second. “Why are you in detention?”

  Nikki glanced up at her scar, then at me. “Why do you think?”

  “Whoops. Sorry again.”

  She looked away.

  I paused for one second, two seconds, three seconds, four.

  “Well, I think it looks sexy.”

  “Ew,” Nikki said, pulling her head back. “Don’t be gross.”

  “Just joking.”

  Several minutes went by. Nikki played with her phone. I tried not to stare at her body. I tried to pretend like I wasn’t imagining the two of us somewhere else, doing other stuff, far away from here. I just wanted to be her friend. That was all.

  “So I took your advice.”

  She looked back up. “Hmm?”

  “Remember when we last spoke? Before homecoming? Remember, I told you about Allegra, and—”

  Nikki nodded. She put her phone down. “Right. Of course. I remember, at the game. When you played your song. So amazing. I . . . can’t believe it didn’t work out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I am so sorry, Wiley.”

  “Thanks.” I attempted to smile. It didn’t really take.

  Then something surprising happened. Nikki put her hand on my knee. Like, on my jeans. She ran her nails gently over the denim. It felt good.

  “Sorry for the bad advice.”

  “No, no. You pointed me in the right direction. I was just the wrong guy.”

  Nikki pressed her fingers in the littlest bit. It was under the table, so no else could see it. Only I could feel it.

  “Anyway,” I said. “I just wanted to thank you. For talking to me about girl stuff, way back when. You were looking out for me. If I had more people helping me like that now, I’d be in way better shape.”

  “Gosh. What a sweet thing to say. You’re welcome.”

  I rested my head all the way on the table. I closed my eyes. Nikki kept her hand on my knee.

  “All I wanted was to help Allie. Be there for her, you kn
ow? But she dropped me from her life, just like that. She didn’t want my help. I wasn’t good enough.”

  “Don’t say that,” Nikki said.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “It’s whatever. I’m failing school, and I don’t have friends, and I’m not attractive, and I’m kind of an asshole, and I’m probably just my dad 2.0, and I totally get it. I know why she—why no one wants me.”

  “Don’t say that,” Nikki whispered again. “Don’t listen to yourself. You’re a great guy. Really, you are. Any girl would be lucky to have a guy like you.”

  I opened my eyes. “Really?”

  “There’s no doubt in my mind,” she said, lifting her finger and pointing it at me. “Wiley, you are a total catch.”

  “So . . . ,” I said. “Would you . . . ?”

  I don’t know what possessed me to say it.

  “Would a girl like you . . . ?”

  I guess I just needed to know.

  “Ever sleep with a guy like me?”

  Nikki’s hand shot to her mouth. “Oh my Lord,” she said in a muffled voice. “Ew.”

  “I was joking!” I said, holding my hands up. “Just joking!”

  “Get away from me.”

  “What? You can’t handle one dumb joke from a screwed-up guy?”

  “Leave.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Now.”

  I reached out to touch her arm, to calm her down. Nikki flinched backward, throwing her hands up. She nearly whacked me in the face.

  “Ms. Behrman!” Nikki whisper-shouted to the front of the library. “Ms. Behrman, please make him leave!”

  “All detention-serving students must remain at their own table!”

  “Jeez, Nikki, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Come on, I’m damaged!”

  “Go away.”

  “Just be a friend.”

  “Stop harassing me!!!”

  I walked through campus. Past the Greek. Around the football field. Through the hallways. Past the principal’s office. Past the gym. Past everything.

  I walked by all those buildings, and I thought, Damn, people actually made those. And not just those buildings, but every building. People made every structure that exists in this world—the mansions, the museums, the skyscrapers, the pyramids. And people made everything else: every movie, every piece of art, every bit of technology, every story. I mean, you think about it and it really blows your mind. Actual human beings actually made all that stuff.

  But not me. I’m a film nerd who’s never made a film. I’m a high school student who won’t even graduate. I’m a horndog who’s never had sex. I haven’t built anything. I haven’t done shit. I probably never will.

  I felt my feet take me all the way across campus and back around the edge, past the library, up to the big theater. I felt my hands and feet begin to climb up the costume storage shed that attaches to the theater. I managed to get up that, and I climbed again. I shimmied up this pole to the top of the building, and I crawled up the roof to a higher part of the roof. My hands and knees started hurting because the roof was covered with these sharp little rocks, but I didn’t care. I kept on climbing. After a few feet, the surface flattened out. I realized I was crouched at the highest point of the roof, the highest point of the whole campus in fact. I could look out and see all the places I’d just walked past—the Greek, the classrooms, the library—and I could see off-campus too, a little into the neighborhoods, and I just managed to see all the way to my house, to Allegra’s—

  I stood up to get a better look. I walked to the very edge of the roof, to see how far I could see. I looked down, and it was a surprisingly long drop, I mean you don’t think about it every day, just how many high-up things there are in this world, just how fragile our bodies are. I mean one simple mistake, one little tumble off the Grease Pole, it can change your whole life. And here I was now, way higher up than that, and I saw the ground below me, and my head went clear for a second, and I felt this funny calm, and—

  “DON’T DO IT!”

  What?

  “WILEY!”

  What the—?

  “WILEY OTIS!

  “HELLO, I’M TALKING TO YOU!

  “DO!

  “NOT!

  “JUMP!!!”

  10. ALLEGRA REY

  Brian,” I said. “I have to go home. I need to say good night to my mom.”

  “No.”

  “What will it take for you to let me leave?”

  Brian glanced up at the ceiling, lost in thought. “Um . . . ten more books.”

  “One more book.”

  “Five more books.”

  “One more book.”

  “Two more books.”

  “One more book.”

  “One more book.”

  “Deal.”

  I put my hand out for a shake. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “After this, you’ll definitely let me go home?”

  Brian spat in his hand. He shook mine. “A promise is a promise is a promise.”

  I grinned despite myself. I patted him on the back of the head. “Okay, okay. One more book.”

  I reached for my bag of stories and hoisted it onto Brian’s bed.

  “Let’s see, we’ve got some of your old favorites: your Eric Carle, your Mercer Mayer, your Robert Munsch. Actually, do you think we might finally be ready to graduate to a chapter book?”

  Brian reached in the bottom of the bag and pulled out a large green hardcover. “I want this one.”

  “Huh . . . are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s kind of a peculiar note to end on. . . .”

  Brian pointed at the author photo on the back cover. “I want the scary troll man.”

  “All right,” I said. “As you wish. The final book of the night is . . . The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein.”

  I read the whole thing aloud to him, the story that I’m sure he encountered as a child, much like everyone else, but that he must have since forgotten. The classic-yet-vaguely-disturbing tale of the little boy and the maternal tree that cares for him, and who over the course of the boy’s life gives more and more of herself to him: apples for selling, branches with which to build a house, and a trunk with which to construct a boat, and at the end of each vignette the narrator states that “the tree was happy.” Each and every time we reached that line, I let Brian read it out loud: “and the tree was happy.”

  Of course, there is also the book’s unforgettable and highly ambiguous ending, which, personally, I find too depressing for words.

  “I liked that book,” Brian said after sounding the final line out loud. “That’s my favorite book.”

  “Really?” I said. “You don’t find it to be a tad . . . reductive?”

  “I don’t know what that means,” he said. “But I wish my mom was a tree. Then I could be a bush.”

  I contemplated, then nodded. “That’s a valid point.”

  Brian scooted toward me on the bed. He wrapped me in a mighty embrace. “Thank you for reading to me. Even though you help your mom and also your brothers. Thank you for taking time to be my friend.”

  I may have blushed at that. “Oh. Well, wow. I really appreciate that. My goodness, what a kind thing to say.”

  He scratched his thigh. “And you’ll still be my friend tomorrow?”

  I nodded quickly.

  “You promise?”

  “Of course, Brian. I will always be your friend.”

  “Okay. You can go home now.”

  • • •

  When I walked into my mother’s room, she was right on the verge of nodding off.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “Glad I caught you. I wanted to say a quick good night.”

  Mama lifted her head two inches. She cracked open an eyelid. “Where were you all night?” she said. “Wiley’s?”

  “No,” I said. “Brian’s.”

  My mom didn’t react. She just lay there
, eyes maybe ten percent open, chest moving up and down in a proto-sleeping pattern.

  “Okay,” I said. “Love you. I’m going to my room, so—”

  “Wait.”

  “What is it?” I said, reaching for the door handle. “I have a ton of chem homework, not to mention my poetry anthology for AP Lit, and you should really be prioritizing your sleep, so—”

  My mom said it softly and simply. “We need to talk about your college.”

  I’d been dreading this moment. Ever since Mama let me get away with not visiting Stanford over winter break, the two of us have barely discussed my future. I’ve known, however, that she’s never stopped thinking about it. Every night when I see her, when I stop in to say hi after my time at Brian’s, I can feel her wanting to ask me when I’ll accept my offer. But she always keeps quiet, because she doesn’t want to jinx anything, because I’ve been telling her for months that I have everything under control.

  I sat at the foot of her bed.

  “What about college?” I said.

  “Well, mija . . . what are you thinking?”

  I looked at where her feet were, tucked snugly underneath the blankets and sheets.

  “Um, so what I know for sure is this: The moment I chose not to visit campus, over winter break, I felt this overwhelming sense of relief. So yeah, I’ve been trying to listen to that feeling.”

  “Okay,” Mama said.

  “And everyone at home needs me so much, and with how you’ve been doing lately, I mean . . . Well, I’m not sure I want to talk about it, to be honest.”

  “Tell me,” Mama said.

  I looked from her feet to her face. She was staring back at me. Her body was slumped and frail, but her eyes were sharp.

  “Well . . . ,” I tried to say. “Um, you see, to me, it feels like things with you can go one of two ways. Either you’ll improve, gradually but steadily, in which case you’ll need me to continue taking care of you . . . or, and I mean, I’m certain this won’t happen, but you could, you know, it could get worse, like, much worse . . . and the family would need me to . . .”

  I dropped my head. I blinked back any possible tears. I couldn’t look weak in front of my mother, not right then. I had to stop acknowledging her for just that second.

  I looked up and finished.