Teachers had a hard time figuring that out. They kept saying what a shame it was that Darius was wrecking his life and being this badass poser they didn’t recognize anymore. They never thought about what it was like to be Darius. They only cared about the image of what they wanted him to be.
Of course, his chances of getting into Harvard are slimmer now. Slacking for three months will place him below all the straight-A kids who never even take one night off from homework. But he’s still hoping to get that magic letter senior year. Even when Darius was slacking, he was still doing better than most of us.
Kelvin scrunches his desk closer into the group cluster. He’s new this year. All I know about him so far is that he moved here from New York and he transferred into this class from fourth-period global when his schedule got all switched around this semester.
“Put that Malcolm X was about to announce his changed attitude toward violence when he was assassinated,” Kelvin tells Darius. We’re doing a unit on leaders who’ve had a significant impact on society, both positive and negative.
“Already got it,” Darius mumbles over the frantic scratching of his pencil.
“Okay, everybody!” Ms. Maynard eventually yells. “Let’s go around and see what we came up with.”
Kelvin’s hand shoots up like a flame. Ms. Maynard calls on him.
“I think it’s absurd that some dimwit who didn’t even win the election was president,” Kelvin starts. “How was that even allowed? I’m just in shock that it actually happened in a democratic society.”
He looks around at the other kids, most of whom are gaping at him. We’re not used to this much action around here.
“It actually happened!” Kelvin yells.
Everyone stares at him.
“Thank you, Kelvin,” Ms. Maynard segues. “Let’s hear from the other teams. Linda, what did—”
“Isn’t anyone else upset about this?” Kelvin interrupts. “Doesn’t anyone else care?”
“Yeah, we care,” Darius says, trying to calm Kelvin down before he bolts out of his seat and tips Darius’s notebook onto the floor, “but there’s not much we could do about it. It’s history.”
“That,” Kelvin says, “is so not true. The point of learning about history is so we can improve the future. Don’t you guys know about grassroots efforts? Or national political initiatives? We can be the change, people!”
I feel bad for Kelvin. He’s obviously used to a lot more excitement and kids who actually care about these things back in New York. The ennui is so thick around here it’s like a permanent fog. It would take something major for that to change.
Derek picks me up after class. Everyone sees him waiting for me in the hall when they leave. Which is why I take a long time to get my stuff together. I want everyone to know that we’re this solid couple and nothing can destroy us. And I love the anticipation of knowing he’s waiting for me.
Except things are different this time. Because when I go out to the hall, there’s no adoring look from Derek. There’s no sarcastic comment about how much global blows. There’s no planning to go out this weekend.
There’s Derek talking to Sierra.
I wait for him to notice me near the door. Derek is turned away from me, but Sierra sees me watching. She moves closer to Derek and says something. He laughs at what she says.
I hate this. I want to make it stop.
But I can’t. I have no power over it.
Or maybe I do.
I go over and stand next to Derek. He says, “Oh, hey, Marisa!”
“Oh,” I say. “Hey.”
Sierra gives me an icy stare.
“Let’s go,” Derek tells me.
We walk down the hall. I wait for him to tell me what that was about.
He doesn’t.
I avoid talking for as long as I possibly can, giving him a chance to speak up.
He doesn’t.
Then I go, “So. What were you guys talking about?”
“Yearbook.”
“Oh.”
I wait for more explanation. There is none.
“So are you guys . . . like . . . friends now?” I say.
“Something like that.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’re not—we don’t hang out or anything, but we’re friendly.” I wonder how friendly he means by friendly.
How can Derek be friends with her? Didn’t she break up with him? So then why would he still want to associate with her? And why would she still want to talk to him?
I’m so confused.
But of course, I can’t ask him this stuff. He’ll find out how paranoid I am or think that I don’t trust him. I should just relax. What’s the big deal, anyway? He can talk to whomever he wants. They’re just friends.
Except I don’t want them to be friends.
Here’s what I want: For Derek and Sierra to never talk again. For him to hate her now. It would make my life so much easier. Not because of Derek. He said they’re just friends. But I saw Sierra’s face when she was talking to him and the way she leaned in closer to him. I recognize that look. I recognize that lean.
She still likes him.
“Do you think Sierra still likes you?” I ask.
Derek laughs. “After what she did? I don’t think so.”
“What did she do?”
“Um, she dumped me?”
“Oh, I thought you meant something else.”
“I think that makes enough of a statement that someone doesn’t like you anymore, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I say. Because I do. Which is why I don’t get why she still likes him. The only thing I know for sure is that she does.
My heart hurts. I always assumed that heartache meant loving someone who didn’t love you back or missing someone you love when they’re far away. I never knew it was an actual ache in your heart.
Time for some All Talk, No Action therapy.
Tonight Dirk’s making me laugh so hard I’m on the floor. Sometimes he does this segment called “Strange Human Behavior: Field Observations,” where he talks about how ridiculous people can be. He makes the everyday stuff we all do so hilarious. Like how elevator rides are way more uncomfortable than they should be.
“Ever notice how no one looks at anyone else in elevators?” Dirk goes. “People will look anywhere but at each other. They get all fixated on the floor numbers like they’re the most fascinating stuff in the world. Would it be so wrong to make eye contact? Why are people so scared of other people in confined spaces?
“And why do restaurants always have that sign in the bathroom saying ‘employees must wash hands’? Shouldn’t it say ‘employ ees must wash hands, and so should you’? Who looks at that sign and goes, ‘Hey, great, I don’t work here, so I can take my gross, bacteria-infested hands back to the table without washing them and dig right in. Sweet!’ I mean, do we really need a sign for that? Really?”
When I go to sleep, I’m still laughing. I’m not even thinking about Derek.
30
We just had this huge blizzard. Twenty-three inches of snow are covering the whole town. If we weren’t on winter break, this would be the first snow day of the year. But of course, we are.
I’m so over winter. And I can’t stop thinking about the whole Derek and Sierra thing. So I just want to hide out in my room and write on my wall.
My wall manifesto started with just a corner I hid under some sheet music I put up. But now half my wall is covered with writing. It has my own work, the best lines from books, quotes from movies, that sort of thing. I use charcoal sticks, so everything can come off. Mom went ballistic when she first saw how I was writing all over my wall. She didn’t chill until I showed her how the charcoal washes right off without hurting the paint. She still hates that I write on my wall, but Dad convinced her to encourage my “creative expression.”
To me, it’s more like venting. When I get so bothered by something that it’s all I can think about, it can take over my entire life.
And even when I tell myself to stop thinking about it and try to force myself to think about something else, the something else never sticks and the original thought always finds its way back in. This can go on for days.
Like the thing with Derek and Sierra.
There’s a knock on my door. I go, “Come in.”
Dad’s all wrapped up in his heavy winter gear. He called a while ago to say he’s coming over. He still wants to do the things we normally do together. Every year on the first snow day (or, in this case, what would have been the first snow day), everyone goes to the hill for sledding. It’s like the whole town shuts down and everyone comes out for the party, acting like they’re ten years old again.
He’s like, “Ready for the hill?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Hot date?”
“Dad.”
“Is that a no?”
“I want to write.”
“Well, we’re leaving now, so we’ll see you out there if you change your mind.”
“Who’s going?”
“Just me and Sandra. See you there!”
“Maybe . . .” I just want to write. It’s like once I get those obsessive thoughts out of my head, once they’re written down, they’re somehow set free and I can move on.
I take down a photo of me and Sterling at the beach two summers ago and move it to my bulletin board. I move a poster of Jared Leto from My So-Called Life that Sterling found in an old Sassy magazine. Then I take down diagrams with these fun psychology tests. I inspect my new space. I should have enough room for what I want to do.
My most recent wall rant was all about anticipation. How something you’re looking forward to seems awesome when you imagine the way you want it to be. But then once that thing happens for real, it sucks so freaking bad. What’s the point of imagining how your life should be when the reality is always such a disappointment?
I select a fat charcoal stick. In the new space, I write:
Time does weird things when I’m writing. It speeds up so that an hour feels like a minute. I just get into this zone of laser focus and the whole day slips away. Which is a good thing if writing’s making me feel better. But all I’ve been doing today is hiding in my room, feeling bad. When I get into a rut like this, I’m supposed to try out new ways of behaving and reacting. Which is why I need to leave.
Sterling already IMed and Nash called to see if I’m going. So I put on my snow pants, my thickest sweater over two shirts, my big boots, and head downstairs. Dad’s going to be relieved to see me on the hill.
Mom’s sitting on the couch, drinking tea and reading. I’ve pretty much been ignoring her, and she’s pretty much been letting me have my space. Of course, that can’t last forever.
I sit down next to her. My snow pants crinkle.
“So you’ve decided to go?” Mom says.
“Yeah. Why aren’t you going?” I think Mom only went to the snow day sledding event one time. She likes when no one’s home and she has the house to herself. Even though all she does is read and drink tea, which she could totally do while we’re here.
“This book is so good I literally cannot put it down.”
“What is it?” I bend over to look at the cover.
“Nineteen Minutes. It’s about a school shooting.”
“I love Jodi Picoult!” It’s kind of weird to think about my mom reading books by the same author I like.
I have a feeling that Mom wants to start up a heavy conversation that I really don’t want to have, so I say bye and get out of there.
The first thing that happens when I get to the hill is a little kid almost knocks me over, racing by on his sled. It’s way crowded out here. I can’t find Sterling anywhere, but Nash is over by the big tree.
“Hey,” Nash says. “You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
“Welcome to the festivities. It’s all very exciting. We’re sitting on slabs of plastic and sliding down this big hill.”
“Sounds creative.”
“We’re original around these parts.”
“Where’s Rachel?”
“She has the flu. Where’s Derek?”
“He hates sledding.”
“How can anyone hate sledding?”
“I know. He thinks these town events are hokey.”
“Well, excuse us.”
“Have you seen Sterling?”
“You just missed her. She invited some people over for hot chocolate.”
“Which people?”
“Some of those French Club girls, I think.”
Sterling makes the best hot chocolate. She uses three types of chocolate and always gives you extra marshmallows.
I bounce up and down in the freezing cold.
“Cold?” Nash says.
“Are you seriously asking me if I’m cold?”
“Nah, that was rhetorical.”
I’m completely frozen. Even with all of my layers, the cold always finds a way to get in. I don’t do winter. I simply do not care to participate. But everyone’s having so much fun and I love sledding and Nash looks really happy that I showed up, so I let myself get into it.
We only have two sleds at home, and Dad took both of them for him and Sandra. So Nash is letting me use his. We trudge up to the top of the hill, which takes forever since the snow is so high. I wrap my scarf around my face so that only my eyes are exposed. Now all I need is an eyeball warmer.
When we get to the top, Nash goes, “Do you want the front or the back?”
“Um . . . the whole thing?”
“Then where am I gonna sit?”
“Oh! I thought we were taking turns.”
“Why would we do that? We can take twice as many rides if we both go.”
All the other times I was out here when Nash was, he was just my neighbor who I saw at school and town events and out on the dock, this boy I used to play with a million years ago. I remember watching him pull some kids in his sled a few years ago, letting them take a bunch of rides. Now he’s my friend and we’re sharing his sled.
“I’ll take the back,” I tell him. “Less scary that way.”
“Don’t worry,” Nash says. “I’ll protect you.”
We get on. I don’t know where to put my legs.
“Here,” Nash goes. He wraps my legs around him so my boots are pressing against the front of the sled. His legs are bent over mine with his knees pointing up near his chin.
He’s like, “Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Hang on!”
And we’re off. This is the best hill for sledding because the slope starts out really steep, but then it becomes more gradual, so you can build up scary speed and glide for as long as you want.
The icy air whips by. It feels like we’re about to tip over, so I hold on to Nash. And I don’t let go until he stops the sled.
“Dude!” he says. “That was wild!”
“Totally.”
“Did you want to go farther? I just thought . . . you know, since we have to walk all the way back up—”
“No, I do the same thing. The steep part is the funnest.”
“Exactly.”
We climb back up and sled down again so many times that my fingers are numb and my nose is running. But I don’t care. I can’t remember the last time I felt this alive.
31
Dirty Dirk is everywhere. I don’t know how he does it. He just seems to know everything that’s going on with everybody.
Maybe he has spies. He’s probably one of the rich kids, so he can pay people to spy for him and report back with everyone’s secrets. No one seems paranoid about being spied on, though. Everyone’s loving how you can listen to Dirk almost every night and he always says just what you want to hear.
I never really thought about the way I talk before I started listening to Dirk. But now I’ll be saying something in class, and I’ll stop myself and think how Dirk would say it. Like how I could say it better, the way he always seems to do with th
e most basic things you think couldn’t be said any other way.
And he knows stuff. A lot of stuff. Stuff you definitely want to hear. He’s so freaking smart about human nature and the way people are. He makes these observations that answer all of the questions you have about why people act the way they do. I swear, it’s like a major revelation every time you listen to his show. Or he’ll talk about the exact same things that have been bothering you recently, like he’s in your head somehow.
Take the other night, for example. Dad was picking me up the next morning to spend the day with me and I’d just had a huge fight with my mom. She keeps pressuring me to talk to her and meet Jack and there’s just no way any of that is happening. So I was thinking about how crazy it was that I went from hating Dad and loving Mom to the other way around, and I already knew I’d be getting zero sleep. I couldn’t stop fixating on how unfair it all was. But then Dirk came on and said how when the parental unit is going crazy, the best way to deal is to remove yourself from the situation immediately.
“The trick is to not get overly involved,” Dirk explained. “Yeah, they’re your parents and yeah, you probably have to live with at least one of them, but that doesn’t mean they have to take over your life. You already have a life. Live it. Let them work out their craziness on their own.”
It made so much sense, hearing it from Dirk. Just because my mom had an affair and my dad moved out doesn’t mean my life is over.
Since it’s almost time for All Talk, No Action to come on, I get ready. I have my Jones Fufu Berry soda and my furry lavender backrest pillow thing. I set everything up on my bed.
Some nights Dirk doesn’t come on. By now, there are so many kids listening to the show that when he doesn’t come on, kids are actually bummed out the next day. But most nights he’s on and you can hear everyone talking about the show the whole next day. That’s because he usually exposes something or someone that deserves to be outed. He totally protects everyone else, especially the kids who are getting a raw deal.
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