Bullies like Me

by Lindy Zart

  “Why can’t we?” Old anger surfaces, anger that never truly goes away. She left me, but he’s still here, and he might as well not be. Appetite snuffed out, I shove my plate away and glare at my dad.

  “It doesn’t change what is.”

  “Right.” I cross my arms, my facial muscles stiff. “We probably shouldn’t talk about the fact that you’ve barely spoken to me in the three years since she left. That doesn’t change anything either.”

  He flinches, as if I’ve stolen all his food and told him he doesn’t get another scrap.

  Getting to my feet, I pick up my plate, fork, and glass, being sure to clang them together in a choir of dishware injustice for my father’s ears to enjoy. Something hot and red sweeps through me, something I don’t want to push back.

  “We probably shouldn’t talk about the fact that when I tried to talk to you about how mean the kids are here, about how…” I set down the dishes near the sink and grip the counter ledge between my fingers. I watch a raindrop slither down the windowpane, and turn my eyes to the grayness beyond. “…how hopeless I felt here, you told me to try harder. Like it was my fault the school is full of malicious pricks.”

  “Lexie—”

  “You haven’t even asked me how things are going. Two weeks I’ve been back in that hellhole, and you haven’t asked me a single question about it.”

  “Hellhole? I assumed—”

  “Assumed.” I laugh darkly. People assume things so that they feel better about not asking.

  “I thought you wanted to go back.”

  Oh, I did.

  “I know things were bad, but it seems like they’re better now.”

  Assume.

  Seem.

  Stupid words that shouldn’t be allowed in existence.

  I whirl around, something in my face halting whatever words he is about to say. “Do you even know how I felt, what I went through? I was bullied for months. That doesn’t just get better.”

  He looks at me like he doesn’t recognize me. “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe I was too sensitive, maybe I should have been stronger, maybe I should have fought back, but you—” Tears trail down my face, much like the ones on the other side of the window. I’m crying, and the world is too. “—you should have been there for me.”

  Like a punishing gift from a time I wish didn’t exist, I remember how I used to think, what thoughts steered me through each day.

  There’s a voice in my head, and it says: Why don’t you give up?

  It’s cruel, and dominant, and forceful.

  And I want to listen to it.

  Every day I hear that voice, and I hear those words.

  I wonder why I don’t give up.

  “I wanted to give up. I did give up. And you didn’t even know.”

  Fresh crevices line his face, making him appear older.

  I choke on my next words. They’re shameful, the kind of words no one wants to speak. “I almost died—yes, by my own hand, but you act like it never happened.”

  He stands, looking shrunken. Looking like he can’t bear what I have said. Well, he has to. I do. I live every day with the choices I made. I live every day knowing I gave up on myself.

  It happened.

  It was real.

  I almost died.

  I tried to kill myself.

  I say the words out loud, his skin turning grayer as I do.

  “I almost died.”

  I swipe tears from my face.

  “I tried to kill myself.”

  My dad swallows. “Stop.”

  I shake my head. No. I can’t stop. Not this time. “I feel like I’ve been dead to you for a long time now, Dad. I even wondered if it’d really make all that much of a difference if I was dead. Maybe you’d be happier even. You haven’t been there for me since Mom walked out on us. Didn’t you think I might need you more with her gone? How could you shut me out?”

  Pain lances his blue eyes; broken pieces of anguish fill them and recede. It’s gone as quickly as it appeared, but I saw it. I won’t forget that I did.

  “Is it because I remind you of her?” My voice is a fragmented whisper, thick with the agony of my heart. “Is that why you stopped talking to me, stopped caring? Because I look like her?”

  I’m standing alone in the center of the kitchen, and all the emptiness in the air gathers around me, suffocating and treacherous. Talking about my suicide attempt earlier with Nick opened up something inside me, and I don’t know how to close it. I don’t want to. I’m tired of feeling invisible, of games. I’m tired of shoving emotions back that aren’t acceptable, that aren’t supposed to be felt. I think of the kids at school, and I just want that over with. I think of the mystery surrounding Nick. I’m tired of his secrets.

  I think of my own.

  I’m even tired of me.

  Thunder rumbles across the outside sky, but inside, it’s quiet.

  I stare into a pair of blue eyes similar to mine, but colder, darker.

  “Say something,” I demand hollowly.

  He looks at me.

  “Tell me why you don’t want me!” I sound volatile. I sound like I feel. I impulsively grab a plate, my fingers gripping it hard enough to hurt. I want to fling it at my dad, at the chalkboard, at the memory of my mom—and I want to destroy it all. The wall, the world, but especially, her. I want to forget her.

  Most pathetically of all, I want her to remember me.

  I think of the rock, and how I threw it, and I hurl the plate at the wall. It shatters, resembling my life, and my dad flinches. I stare at him, chest heaving, hands knotted tightly enough to make my knuckles hurt, and I will him to say something. Yell at me, kick the wall. Show emotion of some kind. I belong locked up. God, I’m a mess. Still…such a mess. My mouth quivers, and I fight back another round of tears.

  “Tell me I matter to you at all.”

  He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.

  As suddenly as the rage enters me, it leaves. With slumped shoulders, I clear off the table, careful to keep my distance from my spineless, wordless, uncaring father. I even take his plate with food still on it, immaturely glad that he isn’t able to eat either. Dishes clatter as they collide, and I reach to turn on the hot water.

  “I—” he begins, and falters.

  I stiffen, and slowly turn.

  The ceiling light glints off the baldness of his head, like a twisted halo on an undeserving man. Some inner struggle abounds within him. I see hints of it in the muscle spasm under his right eye, and his lips become a thin slash of pink across his face. I wonder if his heart pounds as strongly as mine, if he fights to say words, or fights to not say them. The rest of our relationship rides on what my dad says, or doesn’t. I know it. I think he does too.

  He sounds frail when he finally speaks, a partial man where usually there is a whole. Cracked into halves. It’s disconcerting. “The truth is…it’s because it’s my fault, Lexie. It’s my fault that she left.”

  I don’t say anything. My eyebrows lower, my mouth shifts, but I don’t say anything.

  “How can I look at you, talk to you, knowing that I am responsible for the hole in your life?” He lifts his hands, his features stiff in denial of his words, even as his eyes burn with truth. He’s good at hiding what he feels. What this must cost his pride to voice his thoughts.

  I want to cry. I want to run to my dad and hug him, even if he doesn’t hug me back. But I stay where I am. I harden myself to him, like he has to me.

  “I don’t know, Dad, I guess you just try, right?” His excuses don’t cut it. I brush hair from my temple. Looking at him in this vulnerable state, it’s easy to imagine I am the parent and he is the child. “Why do you think it’s your fault? You didn’t make her walk out on us. She did that.”

  “I wasn’t there for her.” His eyes shift around the room, touching on the shards of porcelain littering the floor. They pause on the chalkboard before returning to me. “I worked too much. I focused on provi
ding for us. To me, that was how I showed that I cared, by making sure we all had things.”

  I narrow my eyes. “If what you’re saying is true, and that is what pushed Mom away, why would doing the same thing with me somehow be okay? You don’t make sense.”

  His blue eyes turn pleading. He, who carefully guards what he doesn’t want those around him, to know he feels. “I don’t know anything else. It guts me. Every time I look at you, it guts me. I’m failing as a father, and I know it. I don’t—I’m not good with showing my emotions. You’re right—I wasn’t there for you. I haven’t been there for you in a really long time, and I’m sorry. I thought it was better, if I kept my distance. I didn’t know how to help you.”

  My lips tremble. “I just want you to be my dad. That’s it. I just want one parent to care.”

  “I do care.” He hesitantly walks toward me, his shoes colliding with broken plate pieces as he moves. “I do care, Lexie.” He wraps me in his arms, and I’m cocooned by warmth and his peppery cologne. “I don’t blame you for anything. I blame myself. I’ll do better, I promise.” His calloused hand smooths my hair. “I love you, Lexie.”

  I choke, my ears stinging at the wanted, and needed, words. I don’t remember the last time my dad told me he loves me. “You didn’t make her leave. You didn’t make her decide to forget we exist. That’s on her.”

  My dad holds me tighter, and he presses a rough kiss to my temple, the scruff on his face scraping my skin.

  “I’m not going back to that school next year,” I tell him in a voice that doesn’t shake. The rest of me, though, is shaking. He can make me go, if he decides. I don’t know if I can continue the façade for another year. Even the thought of the next two weeks at Enid High School wears on me.

  He drops his arms and steps back, peering down at me. His expression is back to its neutrality, and I’m kind of relieved to see it. “Why did you go back now?”

  “I wanted to finish the school year. I wanted them to know they didn’t break me.” True enough. I can’t exactly tell him about my nefarious plans of revenge. He might send me back to Live.

  His eyebrows lower. “And next year?”

  I shrug and look at my pink socks. “I can be homeschooled. I’ll do all the work on my own. You don’t have to worry about me slacking off.”

  “I’m not worried about that.”

  I look up. His tone implied he’s worried about something else. I guess that’s smart. It’s smart to be worried about me.

  “Don’t you want to graduate with your class?”

  I do, but not this one. I want to graduate with my old classmates, in my old school. That was my school; that was my class. I shrug, knowing it’s futile to want that. The only way I’d be able to do that is if my dad let us move back to Iowa. And he won’t. His work is here.

  “We have time to discuss it,” my dad finishes.

  It’s better than an outright no. I’ll take it.

  “I’m going to work on the dishes,” I say into the quiet.

  “I can help.”

  “No, that’s okay.” I want to be alone right now. I need to think. I need to let go of a mother who is no longer mine, and I can’t do that with my father nearby.

  “I have some paperwork to go over for work,” he supplies.

  We stand before one another, the atmosphere awkward in the wake of the revelation. I am drained, but also lighter. Our eyes briefly meet, and in his, I see something I haven’t before. Regret. Understanding. Love. It makes my chest squeeze. I exhale carefully. We turn at the same time to go about our chores.

  “Lexie.”

  I face him.

  My dad lingers near the doorway, and the chalkboard. “I’ve never been disappointed in you, or the person you are. I want you to know that. And—I should have shown you…told you.”

  Eyes stinging, I swallow and nod.

  His gaze drops to the floor. “You owe us a new plate.”

  I laugh shakily.

  He leaves the room, and I start to wash the dishes, but the whole time, I’m plagued by my thoughts. I think of my mother, remembering her laughter and her dancing eyes, and I push the memories of her into a box in the darkness, locking it. I can’t hurt for her anymore. I think of Nick, and how I can’t put a name to what I feel for him, but that it’s strong, and terrifying. I think of my dad, and realize that it’s never too late.

  But then I think of school, and the kids within it, and everything good I feel, is snuffed out. I have to do this, I remind myself. I have to keep at it. They deserve this. I’m not proud of my actions, but it doesn’t matter. Sometimes, you do things that you don’t like, but feel are necessary. And sometimes you like them, a voice whispers. I shake it away, and focus on cleaning up the kitchen.

  I write on the chalkboard before I go to bed.

  Fourteen

  Melanie

  I CRY BEFORE SCHOOL ON Monday. I don’t understand why I’m crying. I just know that it feels like there’s crushing weight on my chest, and everything around me is duller. I’m not happy; I want to be happy. I want it to be two weeks in the past, before Lexie appeared in my life, and everything went wrong. Instead, I am in my bedroom with its mauve-colored walls and matching bedding, quietly sobbing.

  School will start soon, and for the first time that I can recall, going there is something I want to avoid.

  What has happened to me? I sit in the middle of my bed and clutch a pillow to my chest, feeling like my life might as well be over. The sounds are pitiful, and I know my makeup is ruined. My throat hurts, and my eyes burn, and I hate feeling this way. I haven’t cried since I was thirteen and got a bad haircut. As devastating as that was, this is worse.

  I think of Lexie waiting for me at school with her unfair animosity. I think of Jocelyn with her predator eyes on Jeff. My blood heats; my fingers dig into the soft pillow. And Jeff—after our disastrous date, I might as well kiss goodbye any hope of him being my boyfriend. After my encounter with crazy Lexie, I was so spooked for the rest of the movie Friday night, that whenever he tried to touch me, I recoiled. After the movie, he left me on my doorstep without a goodbye.

  My life is coming undone, and I can’t seem to stop it.

  “Melanie! You’re going to be late for school,” my mom calls up the stairs.

  “Coming,” I call back in a voice that cracks.

  Irritation clings to my mom’s words as she starts, “If you don’t leave in—”

  I throw a pillow at the door and scream, “I said I’m coming!”

  “Be late then,” are her parting words.

  Glaring at the door, I jump down from the high bed and stomp to the full-length mirror. A sound of disgust leaves me at the sight of my runny eyes and red face. I tell myself I still look better than ninety-five percent of the girls in the school, but it doesn’t boost my spirits like it normally would. I push a wayward lock of chestnut hair from my eyes and examine my ripped skinny jeans and flowy black tunic top with black calf-high boots. At least my hair and clothes look good, I think as I turn from the mirror.

  I take my backpack from the carpet near the door and make my way down the stairs. It smells like coffee and syrup in the hallway leading to the kitchen, and I make a face. The thought of drinking or eating anything this early in the day makes me queasy. Plus, I don’t want to get fat. I shoot a grimace in my overweight mom’s direction where she stands before the stove. Her grossly large frame barely fits in the gray dress pants and pink top, and there are bulges everywhere. Her face is twice the size of mine, and her fingers remind me of sausages. When she moves, her fat moves with her.

  She’s embarrassing. Like, take some pride in the way you look and go on a diet.

  After the divorce, my mom had the entire house redecorated, using the best quality wood and tiles and carpet to create a home that shouts her monetary worth. Other than in my room where she let me pick the paint and accent colors, the color theme of the house is gray, white, emerald green, and turquoise. She went all out in the
kitchen. It looks like the sea vomited in here.

  “You won’t have time to eat now.” She faces me, exasperation clear in Veronica Mathews’ gray eyes. She used to be slim and pretty. She even won pageants, but after having two kids, she completely let herself go. She doesn’t dye her hair anymore, and there are gray hairs streaked through the unflattering brown bob. It’s no wonder Dad divorced her and married the receptionist from his veterinary clinic.

  “That’s really sad. I’d hate to not be able to eat.” Unlike you. I swear she’s trying to make me fat. She’s always pushing food on me. I look at the plate of pancakes on the counter near her elbow. “And pancakes? Could you have picked anything unhealthier to make?”

  “I wanted to try a new recipe. They’re gluten free.”

  “Are they fat free?” I mutter beneath my breath. I grab an apple from the bowl on the table, catching the flash of hurt in her eyes before turning in the direction of the front door.

  “Your bad attitude is getting old,” she says sharply, and I turn back. She takes the plate of pancakes from the counter and drops it on the table. The porcelain clatters on the wood. Hands on her ample hips, she looks at me with a flushed face and glittering gaze.

  I meet her angry eyes with my own, ready for a fight. A fight is better than feeling like bawling and hiding away. “Maybe you should have let me live with Dad then, like I wanted.”

  Her index finger stabs the air that leads to the door. “No one’s stopping you.”

  We both know that isn’t true. My dad doesn’t want me in his new life, and neither does Pam, his wife who is only eight years older than me. I’m stuck here. I don’t think my mom really wants me with her either, but what choice does she have? I press my lips together, for once not having a comeback.

  My mom sighs, the ire melting away as she takes in my silence. “I won’t be home from the office until after seven. We have a mandatory meeting—”

  Blah, blah, blah, don’t care. “Whatever. I’m going to be late for school.”

  I wave dismissively and leave the house, forcefully shutting the front door behind me. I peer at the houses around us, none of them as grand as ours, but they try. Ours is multi-colored brick in pale browns and grays with a pebbled walkway and flowering shrubs. Mom got a lot of money out of the divorce, and I can forgive some of her faults because of that, but not the fact that she let Pam win. She let her steal her husband, and my father, and left us with what? My brother Jamie is away at college, studying to become an architect. It’s just me and my mom.