How to Make Out

by Brianna Shrum

  Miss Eisler? What is this? Cooking? I feel a sharp stab of dread at that thought and pray throughout all of calculus and English that Seth won’t be there either. He is.

  I avoid looking at him, and when I near him, his jaw clenches and he blinks slowly, looking straight ahead.

  “You’re not gonna move seats?” I say.

  He looks down at me. “You want to move, move.”

  And that’s it. No helping me mix my ingredients, no laughing at my horrible attempts at flirting, no biting comments, even. Just sharp, quiet nothing.

  By the time the last bell rings, I kind of want to throw up. I want to throw up in the bathroom alone and leave when the halls are empty and no one is snickering and whispering and knowing what I do with my tongue when I kiss a guy and where all the hickeys are that I’ve covered up.

  I just keep my head down, though, and force my way through the line of people, and shut my door when I get home.

  The next morning, someone has filled my locker with Sprite and disgusting day-old menudo and condoms.

  The morning after that, I am a special report on the closed circuit school news. The lamest of the lame kids go out of their way to laugh at me. April still isn’t in school, but that doesn’t really register. Not right now.

  Thursday, I fake sick so I can stay home, but Dad, newly decided to be an actual parent, makes me go, and Taylor and Sam and Ash and Sophie make it their goal to ignore me completely, and everyone in the school follows suit, except for Gary Harding, who asks me to go out behind the junky annex and show him what I know about everything I wrote. I decline.

  The week before Christmas break, sophomore year, is the first week since middle school that I’ve spent eating lunch completely alone.

  The next six days are awful. Like, horrendously so. It’s Christmas, which means sleeping in and presents and cocoa, so it could be worse? But I’m mostly cut off from communication, so I’ve been left to wallow in the terrible situation all on my own. Surrounded by family, but really, when it comes down to it, alone. Dad has relaxed the texting ban, but I’ve discovered that even if someone does try to get a hold of me, I don’t want to talk. And very few people are trying to get a hold of me anyway.

  April, though, has called probably twelve times in the last several days, no exaggeration. And Drew puts that number to shame. The thing is, I don’t know what to say to them. I’ve gone over it in my head so many times, and every time, I come up empty.

  What do you say to the girl you basically screwed over so you could make out with a guy all night at a dance? I could have done that anywhere. What I really wanted, and I know this after 144 hours in solitary confinement, was for everyone to see me, looking like a sparkly Barbie on the arm of the hottest guy in school.

  And, speaking of, Seth hasn’t said a word to me, which is painful. I’m dying to talk to him, but I don’t know how to. He feels completely betrayed, and he should. I aired all our deepest secrets to people I don’t even know. For money.

  The one who leaves me completely speechless and devastated, though, is Drew. What do I say? I’m still kind of angry that he ratted me out. And seriously? Some of those posts, he should have kept from my dad. But in all honesty, he was right. He was right and I was wrong and that sucks. I don’t even know how to face him after some of the things I said to him a couple weeks ago.

  So I just sit there, paralyzed. And turn on my computer.

  Dear Readers,

  As some of you (or maybe all of you) may know, my identity was outed recently. And I’m basically here to fess up and admit that yes, it was me. My name is Renley Eisler, and I started all of this to make some extra money, but over the course of blogging, I’ve given up a lot. Friends. Boyfriends. People I can’t even classify. And not just other people … me. Everything I am, really.

  So I’ve decided to give up blogging. I won’t be answering any more questions from anyone. I’m not taking this down—I don’t believe in erasing every mistake I’ve made. But consider this my farewell from the blogosphere.

  Thank you all for reading,

  SweetLifeCoach -aka- Renley

  After I post, it feels like a giant cement brick is lifted off my chest. It’s over. That last week at school, isolation over break … It will probably suck when school starts back again—that awful invisibility, broken up with moments of extremely unwanted notoriety. But for now, I’m done. And so, when April calls for the thirteenth time, I feel like I can answer.

  “Hello?”

  “You’re alive.”

  “Barely,” I say. There’s a long pause.

  “Can you come over?” she finally says.

  “I’ll be there in just a few minutes.”

  I put on a new coat I asked for and received for Christmas and head out the door, now that I’m released from my grounding. When I get to April’s house, that familiar nervous feeling is back. I knock, and her mother answers the door. The smile she gives me is not her usual smile, huge and genuine—it’s small and forced.

  “Renley. How nice to see you.”

  “Yeah,” I say, hands in my pockets, looking anywhere but at her face. “Is, um, is April here?”

  “Go on up,” she says, moving out of my way, eyes holding little warmth. I walk slowly up the stairs and crack open her door. April doesn’t look up when I walk in, and when I get really close to her face, I can see why. Her face is red and blotchy and her eyes are bloodshot. April never cries.

  “Why haven’t you been answering your phone?” she asks, still not looking at me.

  “I was grounded up until a couple days ago. And I just … with everything going on with the blog and everyone hating my guts, I didn’t really want to talk to anyone.”

  “Yeah,” she says.

  “But I’m here now. So, you know, yell at me about whatever you want to yell about.”

  She looks up at me. “About your blog?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t care about your stupid blog.”

  I frown. “You don’t? Then why have you been calling me and—”

  “Ugh, Renley, not everything is about you. It’s Christmas break.”

  I look at her blankly.

  “Which means it’s December.”

  Still nothing.

  Her mouth falls open, and only then do I realize country music is playing softly on her iPod. April hates country music.

  I gasp. “Oh no. Keith. That’s why you were gone for that week of school and … I’m so sorry. I just completely—”

  “Forgot? Yeah, I know. Well, he’s gone now, so.”

  I fly over to her bed, knocking several pillows out of the way. “I am so sorry. I can’t believe I forgot he was leaving.”

  “I can. You’ve been unable to think about anyone but yourself for the past two months. What does my brother matter? He’s not making out with you.”

  “That’s not fair,” I say weakly.

  She gives me a look.

  “Okay. Okay, it kind of is … so he’s gone? When does he get back?”

  “Beginning of March.” She looks halfway dead, hair scraggly, eyes dry and red. “But then we don’t know where he’s going. He could be stationed in the US or he could be sent to, like, Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or anywhere. I just …” She draws her knees up to her chest and buries her head in them, then her shoulders start to shake.

  I reach out toward her, then hesitate. Can I hug her or will she stab me? I’ve been the world’s most awful friend since all this started, didn’t even bother to call when she was out of school for a week, missed her brother leaving. But this is not about me. Screw it. I’m hugging her. I put my arms around her, hesitantly at first, then tighter, and she grabs me, too, and cries.

  This doesn’t feel normal, exactly. I don’t think I’ve ever held crying April before. But it feels good.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” I say.

  “Me too,” she says.

  “When did he leave?”

  “Four days ago. I sho
uldn’t even be crying like this. But I mean, I miss my brother.”

  I nod. “Is that why your mom was being weird when I came in the door today?”

  “Partly, but also because my parents don’t totally love you right now.”

  That is painful to hear. Justified, but painful.

  “I’ve been kind of a crappy friend, huh?”

  “The worst.”

  I narrow my eyes at her, wishing she’d confirmed it with just a little less enthusiasm.

  “So, are you still going to New York?” I ask, and her eyes cloud over slightly.

  “Yeah. You better believe I am. I’m not giving up the trip of a lifetime just because my friend decided to crap out on me. I’ve been hanging out with Amy and Rory a lot anyway, and they’re going. So it’ll still be fun.”

  I try not to react viscerally when I note that she didn’t say best friend.

  “How about Cash?” I say past the lump in my throat.

  Her eyes sparkle mischievously when I mention him. “Oh yeah. He’s going. And that will be even more fun.”

  “I wish I could go.”

  “It’s your fault.”

  “I know,” I sigh. “Now I’m realizing how stupid it was, though. Like, what was I thinking? Giving up NEW YORK CITY to go to a dance everyone’s excited about and then makes fun of later?”

  “Super dumb.”

  We’re both kind of quiet for a while.

  “Are you and Seth still …” she asks, and I shake my head before she can finish her sentence.

  “Nope. I mean, did you read the stuff I wrote? You wouldn’t want to date me either, after that.”

  “He called me, you know,” April says.

  That shocks me. “He did?”

  “Yeah. Yesterday. He wanted to know what I thought about everything. About you.”

  I swallow hard. “And what did you say?” I look away and clench my hands on my jeans, knowing the answer, not wanting to hear it.

  “I told him that you were being completely horrible. Awful.”

  I deserve that.

  “And I told him I couldn’t even stand to think about you.”

  That, too.

  “But then I said that you used to be my best friend for a reason, and that this was not you. And that you’d come around, if he gave you time.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much. But I think … I think you guys aren’t completely over, if you don’t want to be.”

  My heart flutters, something it hasn’t done in a while. I stare at her, eyes wet.

  “Thank you.”

  “I do love you, Renley.” Her eyes are serious, not smiling. She doesn’t qualify it, but I know that things are different between us now. Maybe not always. I hope not always. But they’re cracked, fractured. And that’s … okay.

  “I totally love you,” I say, on the raw edge of crying. And, for the second time today (which makes a first ever), I give her a hug.

  Then I pull back and see that her eyes are still dull.

  “You know,” I say, “the blue in your hair is starting to go kind of green.”

  “Well, your highlights are black at your scalp.”

  “I brought some dye. I have it in my car.”

  She smiles then, genuinely. “Go get it then.”

  I don’t even mind venturing out into the snow to get the dye. I’m just … happy. I have no clue if we’re ever going to get back to normal, or if we do, how long it’s going to take. But for now, we’re alright. And I’m okay.

  JANUARY

  29. How to Figure Out Some Very Important Things

  There is only one thing I can do tonight. One thing that I’m dreading doing. It has my stomach in knots and my throat all swollen and crazy and my pulse is through the roof. But it’s something that, if I don’t fix, I will regret forever.

  So I procrastinate for several hours, like I’ve been doing for the past two days. I can’t believe that after how mostly-well everything went with April, I’ve still waited two days to go talk to him. But it’s, well, it’s terrifying. It’s more terrifying, though, to just sit here and do nothing. There’s got to be some sort of statute of limitations on these kinds of things, and since he stopped texting yesterday, I fear I’m rapidly reaching that point.

  So I throw on some clothes and crunch across the snow to his window. I pause for a split second, then take a deep breath, and knock. Drew slides the curtain back. Doesn’t smile, doesn’t frown, just slides it and looks at me. It’s fair.

  “Can I come in?” I over-enunciate, hoping he can hear me through the glass.

  He shoves the thing open and I climb in. Only then do I realize he is not wearing a shirt. Of course he isn’t.

  “I’m surprised you don’t have a girl in here. Late at night on break and all alone? What’s come over you?”

  His serious face breaks into a smile, and I can feel every muscle in me relax, even if I know that relaxation might be short-lived.

  “No, no girls. Haven’t had any over in a while. Trying to deal with one of my many issues.”

  And there it is. Strings of muscle in my back all knot together again. He’s not going to let me just blow past that night without some sort of explanation. And he shouldn’t.

  “We have something in common then,” I say, sitting on his bed.

  “Oh yeah? You finally giving up your love of screwing random girls every night, too? Good for you.”

  “You wish that was one of my issues.”

  “I kind of do.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’ve just been … working on things, too.”

  He sits down beside me, bed creaking. “Do tell.”

  “April and I got things figured out.”

  He smiles. “Good.”

  “And I stopped blogging.”

  “I saw.”

  “Cyber stalker.”

  He grins. “Yeah, maybe.”

  I’m so dehydrated at this point, I’m surprised I can tear up. But I totally do.

  “I’m—” I choke on the words and have to steady myself. So I breathe, and Drew just sits there quietly, waiting. Then finally, I can speak again. “I’m so sorry, Drew.”

  He’s still quiet.

  “For that night. I can’t even believe some of the things I said to you. Like, I replay it in my head and it’s like it’s someone else saying it. Did I really tell you you couldn’t see past a giant hard-on you had for me?”

  He shrugs, but then nods. “Yeah. I have to hand it to you, though. It was poetic.”

  I shake my head and sigh heavily. “I was totally horrible to you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you even want me here?” I steel myself, preparing for the worst. Sometimes, there’s only so much awfulness a person can love you through.

  He laughs then, and I knit my brows together. It just seems so odd.

  “You think I want you to leave?”

  “Well, I was hoping not.”

  “You were awful. I mean, really awful. And I only halfway believe some of the crap you said to me that night, some of the stuff you wrote on that terrible blog. But that’s not you now. That’s not the you who’s here, right?”

  “No. No way.”

  “Then screw it. Now, if evil doppelgänger Renley shows up again, let me know, ’cause I’m kicking her out. Immediately. But you? I’d never ask you to leave.”

  I lean up against him then, head on his shoulder, and he takes my hand. It doesn’t feel sexual, just comforting. He rubs his thumb over every crevice, lets his fingers slide between mine, then says, “You doing okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I leaked some pretty vital information to some pretty vital people. Are you doing okay?”

  “Yeah. I am now. I mean, the morning I found out, I was about homicidal. And my dad might never recover. EVER.” I sit up. “Seriously, couldn’t you have left the hand job post out when you gave him ever
ything? I mean, come on.”

  He laughs. “That was a little harsh, I admit. I doubt he ever wanted to picture you doing that with anyone. Though, to be fair, I’m pretty sure he thinks we’re doing a whole lot more than that. Or thought we were. Before, you know, everything.”

  “He did. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to correct that perception. With everyone.”

  “In a strange turn of events, I think he might actually like me now.”

  “Yeah. Apparently handing a parent sexual propaganda about their child does that for a guy. Who knew?”

  “Maybe you should blog about it.”

  I smile into his chest and roll my eyes. “I think I’m good.” Then, after a brief pause, “You know, it’s ironic that my dad finally decides to like you after you’re through being in love with me.”

  His thumb stops on my hand. “After what?”

  “It’s okay. I haven’t exactly been lovable. I don’t want to make things awkward; I’m just saying it’s ironic.” Something about actually saying it aloud makes it hurt worse than I thought it would. But the pain in my chest isn’t going to change anything; I know that.

  He turns my face toward his. “R, I have never stopped loving you.”

  My mouth falls open and I hesitate. “What?”

  “I don’t know how much plainer I can actually be here. I’ve been in love with you for … longer than I care to admit. And a couple months of you going crazy isn’t going to change that.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then don’t.”

  I can feel his pulse, hear his heartbeat, his chest warm against my ear, solid. And after what seems like forever, he says, “Do you … does any part of you feel the same way? In all honesty. I can take it. It’s just, after our whole making out in my basement and what happened in the woods and, well, you know, my fragile man-heart is confused.” He laughs.

  I think for a little while. Here it is, laid out in front of me. Do I? Could I?

  “If I’m being honest, maybe a small part of me does. But I can’t.”

  He turns to face me. “Why?”

  “You’d get tired of me after a while.”

  He sighs, irritated, and his nostrils flare lightly.