“Strike three. Get your things and get out.”
I paw at Vinny’s arm. “No—it’s not his fault—please!”
“Don’t bother,” Bash says to me. “I hate this fucking place.”
He crams his chem book into his backpack while I try to explain. Vinny asks me to drive Brynn home, tells the man not to come back, but Bash, he says nothing else to me or anyone.
In the parking lot, Brynn pulls away from me, runs after gross Jeremy, and jumps into the front seat of his car. Before I can reach her, the wheels claw at the pavement, howling as they peel onto the highway. I throw my hands in the air. I give up. Bash throws his body up against his car door that, apparently, won’t open. He does it two, three, four times before kicking the metal with his boot. The top piece of rubber flies off the tip, exposing the very tip of his sock-covered big toe, and for a second, he’s calm—for a second, he’s okay.
“GOD DAMN ITTTTT!” he screams. With his back pressed to the door, he slides down to the ground as if he’s saying I give up, too. I walk over, slide down next to him. His eyes are closed, hands folded on top of his knees. I scoot closer for warmth. When he doesn’t back away, I scoot more.
“We used to be kind of close,” I say. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s a jerk wad, but we used to laugh about things. Now … we’re strangers.”
He’s still quiet. I count the stars above, find Orion’s Belt, then the Big Dipper.
“I fucking hate that d-bag,” he says after a while. “Such a piece of shit.”
“You know that guy she was with?”
He turns his head away so I can’t read his eyes. “He’s just using her.”
“Who, Brynn?”
He sighs. “Layla.”
“Layla?”
He makes eye contact, seemingly annoyed. “Yeah—Layla.”
I shuffle my feet, not knowing what to say. “Did you … love her?”
His eyes search the sky as if he’ll find an answer between the spiraling balls of gas. The silence grows, until finally, “Couldn’t have been love. She cheated on me. With him. If that’s love, I’d rather be alone forever.”
I want to give him an anecdote, a formula for healing a broken heart, but like solving for infinity, I don’t have those answers. “Well, I’ve only had one real kiss—not like the peck you get at a middle school dance, and actually, I didn’t even get that much. And it was like the worst thing ever. His tongue felt like a soggy fish poking around in my mouth. Nearly choked on all the spit. When we were done, he was all ‘that was awesome’ and I was like ‘did we just have the same experience?’”
He laughs, and the tension releases.
“Now you know something about me pretty much no one else does, so, whatever,” I say, bumping my elbow against his arm.
A few minutes pass, and he still hasn’t said anything.
“I better go home to check on Brynn,” I say, brushing the dirt from my pants. “You okay?”
He doesn’t move, just nods. He’s rubbing his eyes, an obvious struggle inside his head.
“Well, text me,” I say. “If you want.”
He looks up, watered eyes that bounce the light of the moon back into mine, and nods. And we leave it there, whatever it is we have, which feels a lot like a broken heart. Maybe because it’s unfinished or because we’re too different or maybe—and I’m guessing—because neither of us knows how to navigate these feelings through our already broken lives.
* * *
When I get home, Brynn is standing in the bathroom with a washcloth pressed over her face. I hang on the door frame and tilt my head. Under these lights, her clean skin looks the way it did when she was little, with her pink bunny slippers staring up at me like they have for years, and I remember a time I didn’t think she was a complete tool.
“I keep forgetting you’re not a kid anymore,” I say. “Forget what happened tonight. I hope someday … we can be friends.”
She kind of smiles, but doesn’t want me to see it, so I make my way into the kitchen, where three casseroles are sitting on the counter like a food memorial.
“Why so many?” I ask Sarge.
He stops popping his bubbles long enough to see me and mutes the TV. “People have been dropping things off. They think pans of noodles and creamed vegetables will heal us. There’s more in the fridge, freezer, trash can, and homeless shelter on Madison.”
As I’m headed back to my room, Sarge unmutes the TV, and a car commercial catches my eye. I stop to watch. The frame zooms in on something silver, rounded with a trinity in the center.
A hood ornament.
LESSON OF THE DAY: A French chemist named Henry Le Châtelier said if things are in equilibrium, you have a happy life. But, if you do something to mess it up, rip it into ruins—that system called “your life” will do whatever it takes to get that equilibrium back.
So basically, I should brace myself.
BASH
The trailer’s cold, dark. Not where I want to be.
I pace around to keep warm, light the few candles I found in Ma’s room, and pile on everything I have, which is only a few layers. Nurse Kim hasn’t called, and right now, I couldn’t handle it anyway. The wind blows against the frail, aluminum frame. Reminds me of a paper tower about to fall straight over. The forecast calls for snow soon, which means I’d better pay the electric bill somehow, or I might actually freeze to death. I know that’s a thing. People can die from being too cold, I think. I know I’ve definitely come close here.
I pull out my chem homework and do the extra credit Mrs. Pearlman gave me to up my grade with the words “LAST CHANCE” written in red ink. I’m distracted, though. The money Skip gave me is burning a hole in my pocket. Sure, I could pay the electric bill, feel warm until the next bill comes and goes.
Or I could give it to Birdie’s family.
The crisp greens feel good smashed between my palms. Even the smell, like a dirty piece of card stock, gets me. Someday I’ll have enough of this to have heat and help Birdie’s family. I’ll sell my art from a shack outside of the city where rent is less than a small fortune, be a reclusive art genius no one’s ever seen. “Dream on, Bash,” I say, reading the next problem.
To produce water and calcium chloride, calcium hydroxide is treated with hydrochloric acid. Write a balanced chemical reaction that describes this process.
I stare at the formula for five goddamned minutes all while imagining Birdie’s sea green eyes shooting right into mine. With my phone already in my palm, I wrestle with my thoughts. Do I? Nah. I toss the phone aside and refocus. I’m looking at the letters, but they’re not registering, and eventually, my eyes slowly wander to my phone again. Fingers on the buttons, I go for it. Before I can edit, reread, or delete altogether, I press Send and exhale, mostly because I’m stressing about how many minutes this will eat up.
ME: STUCK ON SOMETHING. HELP!
Entire lifetimes—minutes—pass before she responds.
BIRDIE: WHAT ARE YOU STUCK ON?
I hesitate.
ME: YOU. SHIT! WHY DID I HAVE TO TYPE THAT?!
I’m clutching the phone as if it’s air for my lungs.
BIRDIE: YOU’RE TROUBLE.
ME: I KNOW …
Pencil in one hand, phone in the other, and I’m sitting in the worst recliner ever made, in this dark, cold-as-shit metal ice box, with a huge grin on my face. Not because I don’t feel bad for what I’ve done, or for not telling her, but because, for the first time in forever, I feel something more than numb. There’s a long pause, the bright screen lighting the room. The phone vibrates again, and I lose my smile. It’s Kyle.
KYLE: DAD’S HOME. I’M FREAKING OUT.
My finger lingers over the letters; my stomach in knots.
ME: DID HE SAY ANYTHING?
KYLE: NOPE. GOT HOUSE CLEANED OUT BEFORE CREW GOT THERE, SO WE’RE GOOD.
It really would’ve been the easiest way. Just let them find my shit, piece it together, and come after me. So I don
’t have to do it. So they leave me with no choice. I know it isn’t rational, isn’t like the man Ma raised, but now that I know Birdie, I’m torn. The thought of hurting her now … but, it doesn’t matter.
By not telling her, I know I already have.
I don’t respond to Kyle again. I keep my eyes on the light of the phone until it fades. Birdie doesn’t write back, and in a way, it’s best, I know, but I want her to. I finish my homework, most answers blank or sketches of tiny bears. My eyes begin to close as the pencil falls to the side of the bed. My phone vibrates again, forcing me awake.
BIRDIE: FIST OKAY?
ME: BETTER THAN DUDE’S FACE. TOOK A CHUNK OUT OF MY KNUCKLE.
BIRDIE: UGH. GROSS. I HATE THAT WORD!
BASH: CALL ME. TIRED OF TEXTING.
A few minutes pass, and although I know I don’t have enough minutes, her voice is all I want to hear right now. The phone rings.
“What’s to hate about chunk?” I ask. Her voice sounds sexy through the receiver. More than in person. The phone people do this on purpose, to make me want something I shouldn’t have.
“It’s on my Worst Word List,” she says.
“What else is on that list? Let me guess—moist, juicy, gelatinous?”
She’s laughing and screaming at the same time—a beautiful sound. “AHH!!! And don’t forget panties. If you ever call women’s underwear”—she pauses to gag—“panties, I’ll probably drop-kick you.”
“Is that a challenge?”
She’s silent.
“Panties.” Can’t help myself.
“AHHHH!!!!” she screams again, I laugh. “I’m hanging up now.”
I’m clutching the phone tighter as if it’ll make her stay. It’s too quiet here; her voice fills the space. And then it happens—this sentence I can’t stop, a freight train barreling out of my stupid mouth before I can rein it in. “Go out with me.”
There is no hesitation, no long pause, just a slight crack in her voice. “Okay.”
Now I know for sure, it’s no longer a theory or a guess. It’s fact (something Birdie will approve of):
I’m (completely, utterly, and happily) screwed.
birdie
Violet calls to tell me today’s horoscope:
“I hope you’re sitting down,” she says. “Are you sitting? Go sit. It’s a rough one.”
I’m already sitting, but I pretend to do it again. “Okay, go.”
She sighs, her voice aggravated. I can almost hear the worry stone she’s probably vigorously rubbing in her free hand. “Today is about working through transformations that are intently reshaping our lives, thanks to the Capricorn moon pushing at the Uranus/Pluto square. Free yourself from anything in your path, though to do so, there may be dark passages to conquer first. Today is not for sissies.”
I’m nodding, saying, “Mmm-hmm,” like it makes sense to me.
“But don’t worry,” she adds. “I talked to Althea last night,” referring to the 7-Eleven gas station attendant who is also an iridologist—she believes the iris tells a person’s whole story better than a palm or, you know, better than asking said person. “And after looking into my eyes, she concluded there’s an issue with a major organ, so I tell her I’m fine, everything’s fine, but maybe because you and I are so close it’s one of your organs, and she nodded and flashed the light a little deeper and—”
“Vi,” I interrupt, “did you have an energy drink?”
There’s a pause.
“I thought your mom said you can’t have those because of your insomnia?”
Another slight pause. She speaks slower this time. “I only had half a can.”
“No judgment.”
“Fine. I had three.”
“So my organs, huh?”
She smacks her lips into the receiver loud enough for me to hear. “Your heart.”
After listening to another long-winded explanation of how to handle my organs and irises and dark passages, I stop by the children’s hospital, where they’ve moved Benny to a different room—a downgrade from the PICU, which should be celebrated to the nth degree. I’ll take it as a sign from Nan that she heard me. Or, scientifically speaking, his vitals are improving, despite the odds. Maybe this was the heart Althea droned on about, or maybe Vi believes what she needs to, and maybe I should, too.
Mom is slumped over the hospital bed in the same pair of pajamas she’s worn for days while Dad reads a crisp newspaper from the corner of a couch that’s held probably thousands of other worried bodies before him. They barely acknowledge me, the fatigue evident on their faces.
“How is he?” I ask.
With a vague hint of a smile, Mom looks at me. “He’s alive, Birdie. He’s alive.”
Dad tosses the paper aside and rubs the creases on his forehead; the lines are deeper than before. He stretches his limbs and kisses the top of Mom’s frizzed hair that looks more like Violet’s patch of curls right now than any of my waved strands. “I’ve got to get some sleep. You coming, Bess?”
She gazes at Benny. “Not yet. I’ll call.” Mom turns to me, looks me up and down. “You look nice. Plans?”
I dip my head, smooth the wrinkles from my shirt. “Meeting a friend.”
“Sounds fun.” She turns back to Benny. “Brynn should take notes.” She looks at me again. “Dad told me about her latest stunt at the rink—the clothes, the makeup. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”
“She’s thirteen. Doesn’t think.”
“And you think too much.”
“Wish I didn’t. It’s exhausting.”
She smiles. “But I don’t have to worry about you. Your head’s on straight. No boyfriends or shady friends. You know what you’re doing with your life. But Brynn? I’ll always have to worry about her. She’s too free, and too much freedom is dangerous.”
My nail finds its way into my mouth, and I start nervously biting the tip. “You don’t worry about me?”
She turns her body toward me and rests an elbow on the chair’s rest. One hand is used as a prop for her chin while the other holds Benny’s hand. “We’re similar, Birdie, you and I. I worry about you in a completely different way.”
I’m nodding, agreeing, though I’m not sure I understand. Maybe now is finally the time to tell her that all those things she’s so sure of for me might not happen. My mouth opens.
“I—”
“Oh my God!” she squeals. “He squeezed my hand—Nurse! Nurse! Come here!” With an energy I haven’t seen in weeks, she jumps from the chair and runs into the hallway, her shoes squeaking against the tiles, and I’m so glad I didn’t just ruin this moment with news about money or boys or reminders of the past. Moments later, she pulls an attending nurse to Benny’s side. “He squeezed my hand! I felt it—not just a twitch—a real squeeze!”
The nurse checks all the usual vitals, a smile percolating. Her hand tugs at the long, thin paper that has piled onto the floor in a lavalike mound. The readings are scattered—not one linear line like before. “I’ll get the doctor!”
After a thorough check, they tell us it’s working—his lungs are adjusting to the lower doses. Mom and I celebrate by singing “You Are My Sunshine” into his ears. I don’t know if it helps him or us, but the point is, he isn’t just a vegetable anymore. Dr. Stein gave us that thing we needed—hope—and made it something tangible.
A while later, I leave. The sun now peeks out from the gray skies we just sang about and I feel a little more free, lighter even. The air is still cold, though. Little specks of snow flurries are falling through the pillowy clouds. I can’t help but stop and feel the flakes as they land on my cheekbones and the sun melts them away. And I think about the next time Benny will be able to do this, because that moment will be the moment we will have come full circle.
On my gloriously happy drive, vague thoughts of Vi’s horoscope downer still echoing, I stop at the only drugstore in a ten-mile radius. There is this aisle I always loved walking through as a kid that I just have to fi
nd. Most people would say it’s the “junk aisle,” but I like to think there are hidden gems buried, like treasures. This time of year, the “junk aisle” is filled with Christmas items that are only a couple dollars, and sometimes what I find is worth a hundred times that in smiles alone.
I scan each bin, thinking back to all the times Dad would let us pick out gifts for each other with the five-dollar bill he’d give us. Usually, we’d all end up with crap, but this one year, one of my favorite Christmases ever, Nan joined in on this tradition and bought me one of those ceramic rectangular ornaments with a faceless woman, her hair all gray, holding the hand of a small child whose hair, arguably, was just like mine. On the back, the words Love that transcends the years was inscribed. The ornament was lost in the move, but those words are still with me, almost like Nan is.
I dig through the pink bin, the one with the discounted ornaments, and although I know it’s a long shot to find something as perfect as Nan’s gift from all those years ago, I search anyway. My fingers scrape the side of a hard object near the bottom. It’s round, sandy in color, with the image of a mother holding her infant son—almost like the picture on mine—but the words are even more powerful:
If I could give you anything, it wouldn’t only be the world, but the hope to fill it with.
With the ornament firmly cupped in my hand, I rush to the register to pay before anyone else claims this treasure. It is mine, and I know just the person to give it to. Outside, the snow thickens, clinging to my glasses and the hair I’ve delicately pulled up out of my face. Little wisps fall against my skin as I move.
I slide by the front desk of Clifton Nursing and Rehab Center, and when I get to Camilla’s room, I tap on the side of the door, even though it’s wide open. Her eyes are open, fixed on the wall—this blank, desolate kind of stare I’ll never forget. Her CPAP mask blows angry bursts of air into her dying lungs, and I imagine being seven, blowing into a favor at a birthday party.
She doesn’t hear my knock, so I hesitantly step inside, afraid to disturb whatever daydream she might be having. Her left leg is sticking out of the blanket, swollen and puffy from the edema—the same kind of swelling in Benny’s brain. She turns her head, and through the mask, I see that same smile, not so ruby anymore, but plum. She motions for me to sit next to her, removes her mask, and lays her hand on mine. Hand sanitizer is resting on the bedside table, but as I reach for it, she tells me not to.
The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash Page 20
