Because You'll Never Meet Me

by Leah Thomas

  Which brings me to Liz. She seems … charming. In a way. But you cannot decide that without her there is no future. I am trying to withhold judgment until I hear more. Is she entirely composed of confidence?

  I don’t speak in school. Yes, perhaps a brooding smog of unhappiness permeates the air around me. In my defense, no one ever reached out to me like Liz did to you, with berries or a hand or anything else. Hearing how you met—how she supported you while you fought to overcome that power line, armed only with resentment and a fishbowl—

  I longed to be half so heroic as the pair of you.

  Let me tell you why I blamed you. Let me tell you about the miraculous moment that inspired this apology.

  Let me counter your story with a nosebleed fable of my own.

  I went to school a week ago with your letter at the forefront of my thoughts. I tried to emit your invisible “dolphin-waves” of happiness as I crossed the concrete courtyard of Bernholdt-Regen. I held my head straight. Tucked my hair behind my ears. For once, my goggles and forehead were exposed.

  No one took notice. The students around me carried on chewing their cheeks in the oily halls and cramped classrooms. Idiotic as usual. I saw Lenz Monk leaning against a toilet door. Doubtless trapping some unfortunate soul inside. I waved to him. He blinked at me but let me pass without a whimper.

  During athletics hour, I was eliminated early from a game of dodgeball and took a seat along the sweat-stenched bleachers beside my fallen comrades. I could easily win at dodgeball if I chose to. MBV allows me to see the trajectory of a ball the moment it leaves someone’s fingertips. Especially in a noisy Hauptschule gymnasium. I could win.

  I dislike drawing that sort of attention. I am no longer anyone’s experiment.

  Small steps. I nodded to the person sitting beside me—a notoriously quiet boy: Owen Abend. I notice him for the sake of his silence. When I sit alone in the cafeteria, I can pick him out of a crowd. He appears as a dip in my sight. Not a hole, but the slightest dent of a body perpetually quieter.

  Owen blinked at me. Quietly, of course. But he didn’t flinch.

  Lenz got eliminated with the smack of a ball to his chest. My teammates patted him on the shoulder.

  I raised my voice alongside the rest. “Perhaps next time.”

  His eyes narrowed. Soon he loomed over me.

  Allow me to describe Lenz Monk. He smells of cigarettes and sweet pumpernickel bread. He is large. Far larger than me. (I am short for my age, and about as thick as the combined flimsy pages of the letter you urged me to hit myself with.) His shoulders are rounded. One of his eyes moves more slowly than the other. He is ugly. But who am I to say so?

  I forced a smile. “A valiant effort.”

  He tried to shove me in the chest. Likely just to push past me. He does not usually act when many people are present. He torments in private. I should have been safe.

  Had I not reacted.

  Understand that I have the quickest reflexes, Ollie. When every minuscule movement made by another person is apparent to your brain the very instant it occurs and sometimes the moment before it occurs, your natural impulse is simply to respond. Without conscious thought.

  The moment he raised his hand, I was bending my torso out of his way. He hit only empty air. Tripped forward a step or two. One boy laughed. Owen Abend put his hand over his mouth.

  It was, to quote your Liz, “no biggie.”

  Lenz Monk disagreed. He punched me in the face.

  MBV meant I could have ducked under his fist. I could have countered him with one of my own punches before he realized he had swung past me into the wide-eyed bunches of students watching from the bleachers behind me. I might have slipped from the meaty fingers that clutched at my collarbone. Darted in, quick and close. Left a demeaning kiss on his nose tip.

  So why did I take the punch right under my right lens? Why did I let his heavy fist dislodge my goggles? Set my nose to spitting blood, my cheekbones to creaking?

  Because. In that precise moment, I remembered you. You ran straight at that power line.

  And no demeaning peck could do the damage to him that my sudden unveiling could. The punch landed me on the polished floor. I peeled my goggles away. Pushed them over my forehead until they pulled my long bangs up and away. Held my bloody nose to my sleeve and lifted my head high enough for Lenz to see the nothingness.

  Because you told me to, Ollie. Because that could be my superpower, yes?

  Under my breath I was click, clicking. But I did not replace my goggles.

  MBV revealed Lenz’s expression in excruciating detail. His face nearly curdled. His disgust crept down from his brow and coagulated around his nose before slipping down to pull the corners of his mouth away from his teeth. Teeth fell open so that he could let sound slip out between them. Sound that made his horror so clear to me.

  Behind us the crowd craned forward in a synchronized motion not unlike the wave audiences form during sports matches—but everyone recoiled twice as quickly. I saw one girl actually trip over the bleachers backward, but while she caught the heel of her foot on the step, I was also seeing Lenz’s horrified face, twisted in high-definition, and I was also seeing my gym teacher, Herr Gebor, stomping toward us from the locker room with one of his shoelaces untied, and I was also seeing a moth flitter about high, high above us, and I was also seeing a million dust motes collect on the rafters, and seeing how Owen Abend’s eyes widened, and seeing how the stream of warm blood caught and pooled in the pocket between my bottom lip and my gums, and seeing the aimless patterns in the polished wood grain beneath my feet and tailbone, and very nearly almost seeing straight through Lenz’s pores to his gaping skull underneath—

  The scientists were not completely wrong about my brain. When I am upset, I cannot focus my MBV on any single thing. The sound and fury of everything simply pours into my head from all directions while I click, click my confounded tongue. Seeing everything at once makes my head hurt and my heart flutter. This is the worst possible thing. My simpleminded heart. My struggling pacemaker.

  For an instant, Lenz was motionless.

  Then he smashed my face into the floor. It hurt so much I could hardly feel it. As if my body turned my pain receptors to ice. My goggles broke against my forehead; the right lens popped free from the frames. They slipped from my head, scratching and tearing my face in stinging lines as they peeled away.

  People shouted. Cheering Lenz on? It was so noisy with their words. I could see the drool in the backs of their throats when they hollered. They rooted to see my face caved in. Watching a live freak/fag/retard’s face avalanche is quality entertainment. Regardless of whether you’ve got MBV or 20/20 vision, or you have to squint through glasses.

  “Freak,” Lenz spat.

  A great yanking at my upper arm: Herr Gebor pulled us apart. He glanced at my face and swore beneath his breath before releasing me, Ollie.

  Deprived of my goggles, I scratched my hair down over my eyes. Scratched and clicked and scratched and clicked.

  One person kept her head. One of the few people I somehow lost sight of in my frantic, haphazard MBV. She grabbed me beneath the arms. Hoisted me to my feet. Frau Pruwitt looked me dead in the face as if I had eyes she could meet.

  I know that there’s a customary cliché about librarians being what crass people might call “hard-asses.” Frau Pruwitt is granite. Had I tentacles underneath my goggles, she would not have batted one eyelash. She must have heard the fuss from the hallway. She unceremoniously shoved a wad of tissues right under my gory nose. Pursed her lips.

  “A tussle, Mr. Farber?” She sighed. “Come along, then.”

  I was still seeing too much while I was dragged to the headmaster’s office through throngs of pupils who parted like Moses’s sea before us. Seeing so much, I felt as if my head would divide itself just as the crowd did. My jerking heart might do the same. Imbecilic thing.

  At some point I was deposited in the headmaster’s office. I understood, through the ha
ze, that I had been suspended. I was left to wait and catch my breath and brain and heart rate on an uncomfortable sofa in the hallway outside the main office. Left to hear the sound of mites in the brown carpet clicking away in time with my own clicking, click-clicking. On the opposite side of a glass wall behind me, I could see/hear men and women in the office whispering. One man, my history instructor, clutched his rumbling stomach. As if the sight of me made him downright unwell.

  “But he must be blind.”

  “He’s still making that sound. What is that? A tic?”

  “Why don’t we have more information about this? He should have accommodations in place.”

  “His guardian only told us he was photosensitive. When he was enrolled. That was all.”

  My physics teacher: “I thought the goggles were a harmless affectation. He doesn’t have many friends; if he wanted to use ‘photosensitivity’ as an excuse, I couldn’t blame him. I had no inkling that he was actually …”

  “We’ll be held accountable. A plan should have been in place. Aside from all the rest, he has a pacemaker! Of course he’ll be at a disadvantage among normal students.”

  Oh. Normal students, Ollie.

  I finally despised you then, Ollie. My head was tearing itself asunder. I could not filter a single whispering thing out. The thing about having no eyes is that you can never close them.

  I clamped my hands over my ears. Tried to hear only my irregular heartbeat. The gentle buzzing of my pacemaker. The air whooshing through my lungs. The blood pulsing through my veins and arteries. The sounds of my skeleton. The sounds that I am never rid of.

  In my lap were my battered goggles. Frau Pruwitt waited beside me, arms folded.

  “Cheer up, son,” she said gruffly, without looking at me. “Soon be Christmas.”

  It is February.

  It was only after I sent you the enraged letter that I remembered something vital.

  There were too many stimuli in that gym that day, Ollie. Too much noise. It took me until late that night to think clearly about all that I’d witnessed and experienced.

  But the goggles.

  I couldn’t remember picking up the goggles. They were torn from me. How did I end up clutching them again?

  After Herr Gebor pulled Lenz off me, something miraculous occurred. Something wondrous. My appreciation for language rarely has need of the word wondrous.

  Before I was dragged to the office with the fearsome librarian, someone stopped me in the doorway.

  Owen Abend. A poke on the shoulder. He shoved my goggles into my hand. He had taken the time to pop the dislodged lens back into place.

  Perhaps school will not be so unbearable when I return. When my suspension ends. Or is this only your optimism tainting me again?

  In any case, it is not the worst thing I have felt.

  Please do write me soon.

  Sincerely,

  Moritz

  Chapter Nine

  The Woods

  Please don’t apologize to me. It makes me downright squeamish. Yuck, man. Yuck. I agree with you that I don’t deserve it, really, so enough of that nonsense. And I already told you to call me Ollie!

  I got your very angry letter on a Wednesday. I may have mentioned that Wednesdays used to be the days that Liz came over after she was done with school. I’m always a bit cantankerous on Wednesday evenings when she doesn’t show, so when Mom came in dripping with snow with the mail dangling from her mittens, and I saw your letter on top of her hospital bills, I was really hoping for a Super Pen Pal Self-Esteem Boost … which I’m not sure being screamed at in German is, exactly. (I can guess what fick dich means. I read that line aloud and Mom nearly stabbed herself with her sewing needle.)

  I can tell that you’re not telling me everything about yourself, but that’s not the same as lying to me. I don’t know why I expect everyone to be like me. If that were reality, there’d be an awful lot of noise pollution clogging the air. Probably wouldn’t even need MBV to see it!

  Maybe I do Fake the Happy. I sort of assumed a pen pal was some imaginary person who wanted to hear all about skipping and joyful times and eating bacon, especially if that pen pal seemed to be a manically depressed German kid. (No offense, Captain Mopesa-Lot.) You’re going to be sorry for calling me on this one, though!

  Gird your loins! Prepare for an influx of honest ANGST in your mailbox!

  Your showdown with Ugly-Face Monk (I don’t have to be nice) read like the panels of a pretty decent action comic, even though you got your ass whooped. I imagined “POW!” sounds. I really don’t regret telling you to take off your goggles, because in my head you did it in slow motion, pausing for dramatic effect. You said some girl tripped when she saw your true identity, right? In my version, she screamed and fainted, and her hair turned white, too.

  I’m sorry you were in pain, though. It sounds like when you can’t filter your MBV—that’s like when I’m surrounded by electricity and wishing I could stop a seizure that doesn’t give two tiny craps about my wishes.

  Also, I think you’ve revealed your love interest at last: Frau Pruwitt and her figurative titanium bum! I look forward to hearing about your awesome attempts to woo your librarian. (But not really. Because that would be gross, man. What are you even thinking, Moritz?)

  As for those teachers you overheard in the office—are you sure that a portal to hell hasn’t opened in a boiler room in your school? They sound slightly evil. Exorcise them, or ignore them. They’re just Tyrannen of a different kind.

  Have you seen Owen? You should thank him. Then you can magically begin hanging out!

  Wait, how do most people make friends? I’ve only done it once. There has to be an easier way of going about it than getting thrown around and bleeding all over the place. But both of us went through that. So maybe …

  Nosebleeds = Friendship. Maybe friends are drawn to bloodshed. You know. Like sharks.

  And hey! Speaking of scary friends, it’s really funny that you called Liz intimidating, because she’s way shorter than me and has, like, baby hands. But I get what you mean. Maybe if I talk more about one of my wonderful and totally terrifying acquaintances, you won’t have to think about yours for a while?

  I stood up and tried not to glare too hard at the power line. Berry juice stained my palm and blood dribbled down to my T-shirt, and Liz stared at me with bulging eyes, like she was going to grab me and shake me just to see if I jingled.

  “You look like an extra in a horror movie.” The berries had vanished, probably shoved into her pockets again. “And maybe you are! That looked almost like an invisible hand shoved you away. Wicked.”

  “Wicked …?”

  “That’s what English kids say. In Harry Potter. I think it’s cool.”

  “You think it’s wicked.”

  “Yep.” Liz frowned. “So you’re the Amish cabin kid. I thought you’d be grosser. Have crooked teeth and a hunchback. You know, like your mom’s married to your uncle or something. Not that I’m judging you, if that’s the case. You can’t control who your parents were.”

  She was giving me whiplash. “Wha …?”

  “Hey!” She stood close, too close. “You’re injured, right? So how about we go back to your place to clean you up.” Her eyes sparkled. “No one will believe me when I say I went to your house! Mikayla will tell me I’m bullshitting her again.”

  Although Auburn-Stache had the strange habit of hissing “Pissing Nora!” whenever he dropped something, Mom never cussed. I made a conscious effort to close my mouth.

  (Oh, man. Mom had to be wondering where I was. I’d run out on her while she was drawing water for a bath. She must be raiding the nearby woods by now, or in the long grass of the backyard, standing on tiptoe and shielding her eyes from the sun and calling my name.)

  “Well?”

  I blinked. “Maybe … maybe not. No. Don’t.”

  She snorted. “Did I get it right? Is your uncle your daddy?”

  “That’s not it.” I stared at
my feet. Things like this weren’t allowed to happen to me. I couldn’t just have conversations with normal kids in the woods.

  Liz was crouched over my fishbowl, sniffing it. Poking it, for whatever reason. She may have licked the glass.

  Well, abnormal kids in the woods, even.

  “You’re the first kid I’ve ever talked to,” I said.

  “No way.” She rubbed her chin, smearing juice along it. “Wanna come back to my uncle’s place? He’s got gauze. Or toilet paper, at least. And he definitely isn’t my daddy, so don’t worry about that.”

  I looked back at the driveway, at my bike lying on its side. I could probably make it to the bike before she could grab me. Then again, she looked pretty spry and she’d already caught me off guard once. She seemed just as likely to tackle me to the ground as the power line was. I looked back at her. Behind her the tassels on the silver cable wriggled in my direction, teasing me.

  You haven’t won this one yet.

  Finally I nodded.

  Liz hefted my bike upright and began to push it into the woods for me. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “We can follow the deer trails.”

  I followed her, Mo.

  Dream-walking.

  It was a short hike through the forest to Junkyard Joe’s, and the afternoon sky was visible above the pines. Even so, the path was mottled with shadows, and it wasn’t a path I was used to taking, so I should have been watching my beaten Timberlands and trying hard not to trip in front of her again or drop the fishbowl. But I kept watching the way she moved.

  People all have different ways of moving around. This is something you definitely notice when you’ve only ever seen a few people. Auburn-Stache is twitchy, Mom is careful and deliberate, and Liz … well, she moved like she had springs on the bottom of her feet. I kept waiting for her to jump into the sky and just keep going, like an astronaut in zero gravity.

  Liz clambered noisily over logs I chose to walk around. She was dragging the bike along the leafy ground as if she didn’t even remember she was holding it, stopping every now and then to pick berries from bushes or acorns from the ground and shove them down into her apparently ocean-deep pockets. Other times she would stop and point out random plants or rocks or marks in the forest, with exclamations like “No way! A pudding stone!” and “There’s probably salamanders under that log.” She hefted the log up and, sure enough, there amid little writhing centipedes sat a yellow-spotted salamander, trying to bury itself and hide from her.