Soulstruck

by Natasha Sinel

“I thought we had some fruit, but we’re all out,” Mom says to me. “I made you a peanut butter sandwich.”

  “Thanks.” I half-wave at Ron and Sue. “See you later.”

  I grab the sandwich and a glass of water and take them to my room. My weekly American Lit paper is due tomorrow, and I haven’t started. It sucks for the obvious reasons but also because my laptop froze the other night and is refusing to unfreeze.

  I start outlining in a spiral notebook. I can write the paper longhand and get to school early to type it up in the computer lab. I’ll have to ask Mom for a ride to school even though I hate depending on anyone for rides. And now, if I have to use the money I made last summer working at PJ’s to fix up the garage, there’s no way I’ll be able to buy Mr. Lash’s truck. He hasn’t sold it to anyone else yet—it’s still parked in his driveway next door—but I know he can’t hold it for me forever. I start to feel panicky. What if Reed shows up for the meeting? If the garage isn’t ready by the time everyone comes, and I don’t have the truck, then I will be trapped at home, no way to avoid him.

  FIVE

  Some people are attracted to vulnerability.

  —Jay-Z (musician)

  The morning after Reed showed up at our door for the first time, I slept until ten. When I got up and went out to the hallway, my bathroom door was closed and I heard water running in the sink. Members were always staying over, especially if they’d had too much to drink. But they never used my bathroom. We had a perfectly good powder room down the hall, and Mom had a shower in her bathroom that they used when they needed to. This was my bathroom. I leaned against the wall, pissed. I was trying to talk myself out of screaming at whoever was in there when I heard the sink turn off. Then the door opened a second later.

  It was Reed, with one of my towels wrapped around his waist, and nothing else. His pale chest was thin, but his arms were defined.

  “Sorry,” he said. His dark hair was slicked back, his face smooth and symmetrical. His eyes were still that same fiery blue, even in the bright morning light. He looked completely different from the night before, though. He was clean, he was shaven, he was really cute. I avoided looking at his eyes and his practically naked body by staring at a chip in the paint on the doorframe.

  “It’s okay,” I said and pushed past him into my bathroom and closed the door. He must have taken an hour-long shower in there; I’d never seen it so steamy. He used my shampoo too. I was about to freak out that he may have used my razor, but then I saw a disposable men’s razor in the trash can.

  I wiped the steam from my mirror and looked at my eyes. I pictured Reed looking at his eyes in the same mirror only moments ago.

  After I showered and got dressed, I headed down to uncharacteristic quiet. Usually the day after a big meeting, Mom or someone would be there chatting, laughing, maybe crying. But today the house was empty. There was a note from Mom on the kitchen counter.

  We’ve gone out to The Crock for brunch. If you want to join, text me. I’ll come back and pick you up.

  It was signed with just a heart.

  I wouldn’t be joining them at The Crock, the twenty-four-hour diner in Eastham. I’d be enjoying my few moments of peace and quiet while I figured out what to do with the Saturday that stretched ahead of me. Serena had cheerleading practice and then a game, so she was out. I thought about texting Jay, but lately when we were together without Serena, it felt different. I didn’t know if that was just me. And since Serena was normally the plan-maker, the one who got us together, bought movie tickets ahead of time, that kind of thing, I didn’t know what to suggest we do that wouldn’t seem like a date.

  I poured a bowl of Cheerios and drowned it in milk. I ate my cereal staring into space, my mind wandering from pre-calc to images of Reed in my shower.

  A crash and then the sound of breaking glass in the back room pulled me from my thoughts. I figured maybe a window was open and a breeze had knocked a vodka glass over, so I went to check it out. When I opened the door to the back room, I saw Reed crouched on the floor, picking up shards of glass.

  “I didn’t know anyone was still here,” I said.

  He looked up, startled.

  “Hold on, I’ll help,” I said.

  I went to the kitchen for a bag and a broom, and we cleaned up the mess.

  When we were done, we both sat on the couch.

  “So how come you didn’t go out for brunch?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Not quite up for that.”

  Mom must have washed his clothes, because he was wearing the same jeans and shirt but they were clean. He looked good. Probably almost the way he was supposed to look. Clean-cut, kind of pretty-boy-ish. But I could still see that he’d been through a lot. In his eyes and in the way he moved—slowly, like the air was thicker for him or something.

  “Why aren’t you there?” he asked.

  “Not really my thing. I don’t fit in.”

  He smiled and his teeth were straight and white. If he’d been living in his van, it hadn’t been for that long. He’d definitely been to the dentist in the last few months, I was sure of it. He probably even used that whitening toothpaste that everyone says strips your teeth of its enamel.

  “I think that’s a good thing,” he said. “Why would you want to fit in with a bunch of people who’ve been struck by lightning?”

  “I used to want that,” I said quietly. “More than anything.”

  “You wanted to get struck by lightning?” He asked this like I was out of my mind, insane. He wasn’t totally wrong.

  “I used to try to get struck.” I still did, but he didn’t need to know that. It was fine to talk about it like a strange little thing I did as a kid, but now? Not so cute. “I was obsessed with the Weather Channel. I followed storms and tried to pinpoint where they’d hit. Then I’d run out to the highest, barest spot I could find, like basically covered in metal.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said, but he didn’t mean it. He believed me.

  “Every time, I’d have to go back home soaking wet and make up some excuse for my mom about why I was out in the rain covered with aluminum foil, holding a shovel or a crow bar.”

  “Jesus,” he said. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Like I said, to fit in.”

  “So all your friends growing up were struck by lightning? You were the only one?”

  I rolled my eyes at him.

  “My mom,” I said, but he knew that, too. He was just making a point. “The support group is kind of her life, you know? It was weird not being one of them.”

  “I could see that,” he said. “As a nine-year-old. But what about now? As a—”

  “Seventeen,” I said.

  “As a seventeen-year-old. You still trying to fit in?”

  “I gave up,” I lied. He didn’t need to know that I was still chasing lightning, but for a different reason.

  “That’s kind of sad in a messed-up way,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “Seems like your mom has enough energy and love for everybody, from the few hours I’ve known her.”

  “Yeah,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I agreed with him. “She’s a really amazing person.”

  He nodded. “You grow up thinking your parents are your world and you’re their world, and that they’re infallible, and then you sort of realize they’re just people and they totally fail you, even though they don’t want to. I guess they try, you know?”

  “How have your parents failed you?” I asked. Clearly they had because he showed up here looking homeless. For all I knew, they were dead, but I decided that it was okay to ask the question since he’d brought them up.

  “I failed them,” Reed said quietly. “But then they failed me worse.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. And I really was. He looked away. I felt bad that I made him think about sad stuff, so I put my hand on his knee. He immediately grabbed my hand and squeezed hard, squishing my fingers together, but it felt good because it was so
real. It was the most real thing I’d felt in ages—the tight, suffocating grasp of someone who was in pain. So much of everything in school and in life was so fake and by the book, but this—Reed squeezing my hand, trying not to cry—was just so real.

  He sniffed, then pulled his hand away and swiped at his eyes with his fists.

  “If you ever want to talk about it,” I said. “I’m not a survivor, obviously, but I can still listen.”

  He looked at me now, his eyes clear.

  “Thanks, yeah,” he said. “Can I just … never mind.”

  “What?”

  He took my hand and squeezed again, gently this time.

  “Can I just do this for a minute? I know it’s so stupid, but it made me feel better. Is that okay?”

  I blushed—I totally did. I knew he wasn’t coming on to me or anything—it was almost like he was asking me to scratch an itch on his back. But holding hands was usually so intimate, and with him it felt even more than that—like I was special, and he needed me, and only me, to do it. It felt good to me, too.

  I leaned my head against the back of the couch. We sat there, both looking straight ahead, our hands together, resting on my knee. We stayed quiet, just breathing.

  I was so relaxed, I didn’t even hear when Mom came in the door.

  “Oh!” she said. Reed let go of my hand, and suddenly I felt like we’d been doing something wrong even though we hadn’t been.

  “I ran back to see if I could convince you to come,” Mom said to Reed, eyeing me a little. “We haven’t even ordered yet. Come on, both of you. You’ve got to be hungry.”

  “I ate,” I said.

  “Well, come on, Reed. It’s good to get out for a bit.”

  Reed looked at me.

  “You should go,” I said.

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  He followed Mom out.

  And I was back to where I’d been before, trying to figure out what to do with my day. But I felt different.

  SIX

  I don’t want to be too cool. You get so caught up with whether you’re doing it right.

  —John Hughes (filmmaker)

  My hand is sore from writing my American Lit paper, so I massage the muscle, remembering the warmth of Jay’s hand on mine as he took out the splinter only a few hours ago.

  Then Serena bursts into my room.

  “Hey,” she says, sitting on my bed. She picks up my notebook. “Since when do you write papers longhand?”

  “Laptop’s frozen. Any chance you want to get to school early tomorrow so I can type it up in the computer lab?”

  “Sure,” she says.

  I stand and I must wince when my sweats touch my skinned knee, because Serena’s eyes go all soft and she says, “Your legs okay?”

  “They’re fine. I tripped and scraped my knee earlier,” I say. “Is Jay meeting us?”

  “He’s in the car. We were debating whether it would be too wet, but I think we’re good.”

  Mom’s in the back room with Sue and Ron, and the door is closed, so I text her that I’m leaving. I grab the blanket and get in the back seat behind Jay.

  “Whose idea was this again?” I ask, zipping up my fleece, my eyes closed to the setting sun, which provides no actual warmth. The sand is damp, but otherwise, it’s as though the storm never happened. Comma Beach is ours alone and we’re here ready to watch the shooting stars the meteorologists promised.

  “Mine,” Serena says, bumping her head against mine. “Obviously.”

  “Oh right. As most outrageous ideas are.”

  Jay is stretched out on the American flag blanket that I brought, his knees up—one crossed over the other, arms behind his head. Serena and I lie perpendicular to him, our heads cushioned on his stomach and chest.

  “Your chest is too hard to be a pillow,” Serena says to Jay. “But other than that, I wish we could stay like this forever. Right here in this moment.”

  My eyes are closed, but I murmur in agreement.

  It’s true. If we could stay right here forever, I would be happy. And that’s how I know I’m starting to get over Reed. A few weeks ago, I couldn’t have imagined ever being okay without him. But now, I feel like there’s hope. Even if Reed were standing right here in front of me reaching out his hand, I’m sure I wouldn’t take it. I’d stay in this exact spot. With Serena and Jay.

  After the orange ball of sun finally disappears behind the water and the sky begins to turn pink and gray and white, Jay shakes his body a little, a signal that he wants us to get off him now. Serena and I lift our heads and the three of us sit up, staring at the water.

  Serena hops up. “Let’s put our feet in.”

  “You’re crazy,” Jay says.

  “Come on.” She grabs my hand, and I stand, taking Jay’s on my other side.

  I feel his hand tighten around mine as we put our bare feet in the freezing bay water. I glance up at him, but his profile is unreadable.

  “Holy shit that’s cold!” Serena says, letting go of my hand and backing away from the water’s edge a few feet.

  But Jay and I keep our feet in, our hands firmly clasped together. When I look back at Serena, I see her see us—Jay and me—together, as if it’s something more than it is. I release Jay’s hand, and he crosses his arms in front of his chest, his face unchanging.

  Serena stalks back to the blanket. She starts rummaging through the cooler she brought, her back to us. Nothing is actually going on with Jay and me, but our threesome feels different now. It feels like we’re grasping on to the three of us—of what we used to be—too tight.

  My feet are numb from the freezing bay water, so I walk back to the blanket, Jay right behind me. Serena doles out the food she brought—turkey sandwiches, Doritos, and Pepsi. We eat and watch the sky as it transforms to dusk. After we finish, we lie back on the blanket, all in a row, and wait for the dark and the stars.

  Serena is my best friend. That will always be true. We’ve slept at each other’s houses pretty much every single Friday or Saturday since the beginning of freshman year. I know what every single expression on her face means—even when she tries to hide her feelings—and she knows mine.

  But even before Reed, things were changing. In September, she reluctantly joined the cheerleading team. She’d always been a gymnast, but last year, she grew like seven inches in two months. Her body ached all the time and she had to miss most of the gymnastics season. Once she started to feel better, she knew her height and compromised flexibility would hold her back, so she quit. Selfishly, I thought it meant we would spend more time together. But when the cheerleaders found out that she was available, they recruited her hard. Then she was even busier because her new teammates like to hang out a lot with the guys on the teams they cheer for. Some of them are like a cliché of themselves. The jock pretty boys with broad shoulders, thick calves, and gelled hair, and the cute perky ponytailed cheerleaders that go along with them. A bunch of matched sets of Barbie and Ken look-alikes.

  But not Serena—she’s black. Wellfleet, our small town all the way out toward the tip of Cape Cod is ninety-seven percent white (we looked it up on Wikipedia). So, when you’re one of the thirty or so black people in a town, you stand out. Whenever Serena and I walk into the movie theater, ice cream shop, or Dunkin’ Donuts, she starts singing that Sesame Street song quietly so only I can hear: “One of these things is not like the other.” We crack up, calling attention to ourselves, and we get what she calls the stare.

  One time I told Jay about the stare, and Serena corrected me.

  “Uh-uh, no,” she said. “I got the stare, not you. Don’t try to take credit for my stares. They’re mine, all mine.”

  And Jay said, “You’re weird.”

  And Serena said, “Look who’s calling the kettle black.”

  And then she and I looked at each other and said “Doh!” We cracked up, and Jay just rolled his eyes.

  Serena told me that in eighth grade, before I moved here, she looked like she was ten wi
th braces and crooked cornrows with little colored beads at the ends. And back then, those people she’s hanging out with now—the jocks and their cheerleaders—had taunted and tormented her, pulling on her braids and calling her nasty names. Maybe they’ve matured, changed their ways, but I don’t buy it, even if she does. Maybe it’s because she’s hot now—tall and curvy and gorgeous. But I know there’s no way she can be herself hanging out with them. Not like she is with us.

  I’ve tried to adjust to her new life. I go to parties with her sometimes, but Jay won’t. And on the nights I don’t go with her, sometimes I hang out with Jay when we can figure out what we want to do. And sometimes during football season, when Serena had late practices and games every weekend, I felt the air shift between Jay and me when we were alone, a mix of comfort and anticipation. It’s weird how that happens sometimes, like you go the longest time without seeing something that’s right in front of you, but then once you see it, you can’t un-see it. It was easier to ignore it when Reed was here, but now that he’s gone, the thing with Jay is just staring me in the face again.

  SEVEN

  Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.

  —Charles M. Schulz (cartoonist)

  Reed had nowhere to go. Mom didn’t want him sleeping in his van anymore, so he stayed on the pullout couch in the back room. It wasn’t unusual for someone from the group to stay for a few days, or even for a week, but this was the first time I’d ever had a crush on one of them. I was in a perpetual state of distraction—I couldn’t wait to get home from school, knowing that he’d be there. I sensed his presence in the house even when I was alone in my room. I looked in the mirror more frequently than I normally did.

  But after about ten days, Reed said he didn’t want to overstay his welcome, so he’d found a room to rent in a house near town.

  The next afternoon, I opened my bedroom door and Reed was standing in front of me, his hand up like he was about to knock.

  Reed hadn’t been in my room before and I always kept the door closed. He looked over my shoulder a little. Maybe he was curious.