Cornerstone

by Misty Provencher

  The rest of the class finally filters in and just as Ms. Nichols asks us to open our books, a girl shows up at the door with a note from the office. Ms. Nichols announces that she has some business to attend to and that we should use the period as a study hall. As soon as she’s gone, a couple stoners just get up and skulk out, the jocks pull their chairs together in the center of the room, and the volume starts to rise. Ms. Vanderbleath, who is teaching French next door, ducks her head in once, just to tell us to shut up, and then never comes back. Thankfully, Gerald cracks open a notebook and settles in. I relax in the seat behind him.

  Everything’s going great until Regina Cole, the skank of the cheerleading squad, twists around in her seat, one row over, beside Gerald’s desk.

  “Waste.” she calls to me. Actually, it’s a summons. I don’t look up though. She says it again. When I don’t look up the third time, the girl beside me taps her fingertip on my desk. I look over at her and she points to Regina. I adjust my gaze on Regina, focusing on the strawberry splotch on her cheek, as if I didn’t hear a thing. Regina’s rosacea flares up and burns a blistering red when she’s angry. As I stare at her, the patch turns a dark crimson.

  Regina’s mouth pulls at the edges with an irritated frown. “I’ve been talking to you.”

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “I called you.” she insists. She sings again, “Waaaa...aaaste.”

  “That’s not my name, Vagina.” I say. The girl beside me giggles and Regina kicks the girl’s desk to shut her up. The girl goes quiet and hunches over her books. Regina turns back to me, her lip pinched as if she smells bad meat.

  “Why is Garrett Reece asking about you?” she asks.

  “I have no idea.” Which is true. I don’t have a clue why he was at the library or why he’s asking enough people about me that even I know about it. I have no idea how he didn’t know that I’m the girl with the house in the first place. While I’ve been wondering about it all day, the only thing I can figure is that maybe he hasn’t heard about me simply because of who he is. I’m a Junior and a nobody and he’s in the upper echelon of the Senior hierarchy. Maybe the only things he hears about is the stuff that directly concerns him, like cheerleader breeding rituals or soccer stats.

  “Do you even know who he is?” Regina persists.

  “I know.”

  “Then you know who he goes out with?”

  “No.”

  Regina snorts.

  “Jen Ballard.” she says. “You remember who she is, don’t you?”

  Oh God. Of course I do. Jen was the friend. The friend who started the whole Waste thing. Jen was the first person to introduce herself to me at Simon Valley and, since she is a Senior and I am only a Junior, I was shocked she wanted anything to do with me anyway. She acted like I was her little sister, showing me around the school and introducing me to the other cheerleaders. Jen said she wanted to get me on the cheerleading squad and dance team with her. And she’d totally ditched her old bff, Regina, for me, for all of two weeks. Then she dropped by my house unexpectedly on a Sunday afternoon, to ask if I wanted to go to the mall for a make-over.

  One look around was all it took. Cheerleaders and Dance Team Captains can’t be friends with people who live in apartments like mine.

  I’d watched her thumb dial her cell phone on the way down my sidewalk, throwing her head back and shaking it as she reported everything she’d seen to the first in a domino line of popular girls.

  “Sucks, doesn’t it, Waste?” Regina examines her nails.

  “I didn’t ask him to talk to me.”

  Regina giggles.

  “It’s funny how being pretty made you so popular and now it’s just going to make you dead. I’d hire a bodyguard if I was you, because Jen is going to murder you.” She leans across the aisle and sticks her cherry bomb face in mine and whispers, “She’ll get you. For real.”

  Regina’s threats on their own couldn’t scare me in a thousand years, but something happens as I listen to her voice, growling through her teeth. My fingers start quaking against the desk. Hard. Like I need a candy bar or like I’m going to be really sick, but I feel okay inside. Then Regina goes into a blur of slow motion.

  I squint, but instead of making Regina clearer, something else comes into focus. I blink again. I don’t know where they came from, but I’m inside a stack of spinning rings. Silver rings, almost too bright to look at.

  I’m still squinting as the bottom ring near my feet suddenly freezes and drops like it’s made of iron. Then the one around my knees does the same thing, dropping on top of the one at my feet. I’m paralyzed. I should be screaming for help. I’m going to be trapped inside these things and I can’t even tell if anyone else sees them. The rings go translucent. My lungs are stretched tight, like the last breath I’m ever going to have is being squished right out of me.

  Regina doesn’t seem to notice these things stacking up like swirling tires around me. The ring that is circling my thighs suddenly kerklunks into place on top of the other two. I watch as Regina draws her head away, oblivious, although her snarl is still snagged on her lips.

  She plops back into her seat, but when she shoots me a you-better-keep-your-mouth-shut glare, my eyes lock on her. Another ring, around my waist, clanks into alignment. It’s not like I want to look at her, but more like my neck and head and eyelids are forcing me to do it. Regina’s eyes narrow to slits, challenging me to keep it up. My armpits break out in a panic that dribbles down my ribs, but I can’t make myself look away, no matter how hard I want to. No matter how much she snarls. This could get me killed.

  I can see the hatred rolling off Regina, sparking in hot orange clouds. Her angry cloud bounces off the exterior of my spinning tube. The ring around my chest bangs down against the others.

  I am freaking out. I can see Regina’s anger. I must be dead or dying or stroking out because I can’t pull my eyes off hers, no matter how hard I try. The last ring slams down around my head, so loud I want to wince with my eyes shut, but I can’t even blink.

  I can’t blink. Instead, I explode.

  The rings blow off and a glistening, blue bubble blasts out all around me. It comes right off my skin, like pulling off a layer. And I’m not inside my own skin anymore. I’m standing beside my body, watching my own face, as I keep on staring Regina down like nothing else is going on.

  And just like the rings, Regina doesn’t seem to notice the reflective bubble swirling up between us, a half inch from her nose. But she sure notices that I’m not looking away and I can’t help but be fascinated that I’m standing beside myself, watching my own face harden like a gargoyle. My jaw is set and my eyes are drilling holes in her. I look…tough.

  I can tell that Regina sees it too. She blinks. I know not to let up when she shuffles her feet.

  I must be going insane. This thing around me feels real. The energy of it whispers on my skin and raises up the hair on my arms, but I feel perfectly at ease. It’s like watching a hurricane chew up an entire town, all from the safety of a recliner parked in front of a TV.

  Regina’s calm cracks wide open the second that her gaze darts away. She wiggles behind her desk and then she shoots straight up, right out of her seat. Her chair skids back away from her legs and the room goes silent as everyone turns to see what the noise is all about.

  Regina bends down and yanks her purse out from under the desk.

  “I got better things to do.” she barks. Her voice is wavy, but no one else seems to notice. They all go back to talking. I watch Regina scoop up her books and folders and the bubble around me bursts, disappearing into thin air. At the same time, I’m smashed back into my body- shot in so fast that I rock back and my head feels spinny when I look up again. Regina ducks down near my temple, her gaze hovering carefully out of my range as she hisses in my ear, “Jen’s gonna kill you...and I can’t wait.”

  The bubble is gone, but something down in the pit of me stirs and two words vibrate up through my soul, until my head
rings with them. Bring it.

  Chapter 4

  No one kills me on the way home. In fact, I make it home in record time because it’s not paper day. My mom is on the front steps, with paper on her lap, like usual, and a pen in her hand.

  “Hi.” I say when I am close enough. Her lips are moving, speaking the names and reciting the plots before she puts them down. She says it is to make sure she has them right. I’m not sure who would think she got it wrong. She looks up at me and her quiet recitation stops.

  “It’s beautiful out today.” she says.

  I look around, noticing the sun and the breeze for the first time. The only thing I’ve thought about has been making it home without running into Jen. Or whoever would be coming to deliver the consequence of my being noticed by Garrett Reese.

  “Yeah, it’s nice.” I tell my mom. She studies me.

  “Lot on your mind?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Would it have anything to do with a boy?” she asks with a grin. She scoots over and pats the cement beside her. I take my backpack off my shoulder to sit.

  “It’s not good.” I say. My mom’s grin flat lines. “Something happened. Something really, really weird.”

  “Okay.” My mom puts down her pen and her face lifts with a confusing look of hope.

  “A boy at school was asking about me.” I decide to skip the part about Garrett being at the library.

  “Oh.” she says. Her body relaxes like a spreading puddle and she giggles. “Well, that doesn’t seem bad, does it?”

  I frown at her because she should know better. She knows what happens. “This time it’s really bad because the guy that was asking about me is dating Jen Ballard.”

  “The cheerleader girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh.”

  “I guess Jen wants to kill me.”

  “How do you know that? Did she say that to you?”

  “No. Regina...a girl in my English class told me.” I say, wondering if I should even tell her the next part. She might freak out and drag me to the doctor. Maybe she should. When I look at her, she’s got her mom-face on again, all serious and interested. Right now, it is exactly what I need. Someone on my side that will help me sort this out. “And something else happened today too. Something weird.”

  “Weird how?” My mom’s back goes straight again, a soldier at attention. As if something weird is such a bizarre happening for me.

  “Regina was saying how Jen is going to kill me and something happened.” I glance at my mom to see if she’s going to question this, but she’s sitting like a statue, so I continue. “I got really...calm. I think I might’ve had a heart attack or something. My fingers got all flinchy and then I felt really creepy...like I was outside of myself or something.”

  My mother’s brow knits in the middle of her forehead and I stop talking.

  “Did everything go black? Could you hear people talking to you?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “No. Nothing went black. We were in study hall and the room was full of kids, but I don’t remember anyone talking to me besides Regina. The girl sitting next to me might’ve said something. I don’t remember.”

  My mom sighs, almost as if she’s disappointed that I didn’t stroke out. She slides an open hand to my forehead and rests it there.

  “Are you feeling okay now?”

  “Yeah. What do you think it was?”

  “I don’t know. Probably nothing.” she says. “You feel normal. It was probably just hormones.”

  We sit a minute, connected by her touch. I close my eyes. The warmth of her skin makes me feel like no matter what is wrong with me, I will be okay.

  “Probably.” I agree when she drops her hand. I don’t tell her anything else. Whatever happened to me, I am fine now. And I’m even starting to wonder if I just imagined it all anyway.

  ~ * * * ~

  “More studying?” My mom asks when I pick up my backpack off the couch.

  “I’ve got a lot to do. I need to spread out.” I say on my way out the door.

  “Be careful out there and don’t forget to take your flashlight, okay? Don’t talk with anyone you don’t know.”

  “I never do.” I say as I close the door behind me.

  The whole way to the library, I stick to the shadows, busy with listing off all the reasons why I need to go there and study. Most of them are real, but every part of me knows I’m really going because I’d like to see Garrett Reese come down the aisle again with that smile that says he wants to listen to me. I want to know if he really does. Even if, or maybe especially if, his girlfriend wants to nail me to a tree and leave me to rot.

  I get to the old house and walk beside the place on the worn, dirt path. It’s only eight o’ clock and although the street is bathed in a faint glow from the other house lights, once I reach the tree line, it is pitch black. The moon isn’t out tonight, so I can’t see my own hand in front of my face. I pull out the flashlight and flick it on, following the beam along the ground. With all the fluttery chaos in my stomach, the darkness isn’t scary at all.

  Inside the library, a half dozen people look up from their books when I come in. With finals coming, most are students that appear either desperate for, or terrified by, the distraction. Only one is an older guy whose mouth is open over his book. He glances up and yawns, covering his mouth with long fingers before he goes back to reading. Ms. Fisk nods to me from the circulation desk as I pass. Julienne doesn’t look up from the open atlas in front of her.

  Everything I feel about running into Garrett Reese again is a mix of gasoline and lighter fluid in my stomach. I weave through the shelves and reach the aisle. I turn toward my table and follow the carpet like Braille, keeping my eyes on the floor the whole time, as if I’m not expecting anyone to be there. My legs are tingling and rubbery.

  He’s there.

  Garrett Reese is at my table, leaning back in the same chair he was in last night. He is holding up the same novel in front of him and he’s resting the index finger of his opposite hand over his lip.

  I want a longer minute, so I can memorize the way his hair touches his face, the color of his jeans, the way one of his ankles latches over the top of the other. I wonder if he ever gives any of it any thought at all. I want to remember the creases in his shirt, the heavy black watch on his wrist and the ridges of veins in his arms...everything...before he tells me what he’s heard about who I am.

  I am five steps from the table when he lifts his eyes from his book and turns them to me. My legs buckle and surge at the same time. I’m going to crumple in a heap, then explode like a flare and hit the ceiling. It doesn’t make sense that he is here after having been at school all day. He must’ve heard everything about me by now.

  I expect shock or dull recognition or maybe even a thinly veiled disgust on his face, although I’m hoping he’ll give me that smile he did before. What I get instead is a distant expression, like he’s concentrating on something another world away.

  “Hi.” he says.

  “Hi.” I reply, trying to make my voice sound as distant as his expression. If he thinks that blasting me with rumors will scare me off my library real estate, he’s going to find out something else about me too. I motion to my usual seat. “Is someone going to be sitting here?”

  “Just you.” he says. My heart pirouettes against my will.

  I drop onto the seat with a thud. I’m glad to get off my feet before I fall off them, but I make a point of not looking at him even once. I pull my books out of my backpack and get right down to trying to convince Garrett that I don’t care if he’s sitting across from me.

  It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever tried to do. My fingers are stiff and my handwriting looks like it belongs to someone else. My back starts aching and my eyes go dry as if I’m not blinking enough. I make useless notes to distract myself from the insanely handsome boy sitting across from me.

  “Can I talk to you?” he whispers. Oh God. Here we go. I pause
my pen over the top of my notebook.

  “Sure. What do you need?” I sound like a lawyer. He chuckles, laying down his book. “I don’t want to disrupt you or anything.”

  “You know we’re in a library, right?”

  His laugh is a cradle that bundles up my nerves and tries to rock them to sleep. I lay my pen down and push back my shoulders, knowing what is coming next. We might as well just get this over with.

  “What do you want to know?” I ask.

  “Know?” he asks, amused. “You mean I get to ask anything I want?”

  My face, my voice, my heart, goes flat. “Sure.” I say.

  “Ok.” He runs his hand through his hair. “What’s your favorite food?”

  He must be dense. Or he thinks I am. I’m under his spotlight and he’s going to make me squirm. Got it. There’s a million twists on how this usually goes, but it always ends the same way. He’ll confirm all the rumors he heard at school and he’ll want me to say they’re not true. When I tell him it’s all true, he’ll ask the questions. They never change. Why does your mom do that? Why don’t you ask her to stop? Is your couch really the only place to sit? Why doesn’t your dad do something? When the inquisition is done, if he’s really into gory details, he might even ask to see the inside of my house. Of course, I’ll say no. And then, tomorrow or the day after, I’ll get the punishment, written across my locker or shouted at me in the hallways.

  “I’ve got a thing for Mexican.” he says when I don’t answer him.

  “Look,” I give him a bitter laugh. “Just ask me what you really want to know, okay? I’ll tell you everything, it’s fine. Whatever you heard today...what everyone says? It’s mostly true. My mom’s a hoarder. Our house is stuffed to the ceiling with paper. Paper, not rats. Not old garbage. Just enormous stacks, all the way up to the ceiling, of paper. I’m not overjoyed with it either, but that’s where I live. And my mom’s not insane. But she is my mom and I love her, so you better watch it if you’re going to say something about her.”