“It’s theater stuff,” she said, finally.
“He’s in the theater?”
“He owns the theater,” she said, matter-of-factly. “We were practicing for a scene.”
“Stefia, from what I saw, that guy is old enough to be your dad. Shit, I bet he’s older than your dad.”
“We were just practicing a scene,” she repeated calmly.
“Why do you need to practice anything?” I asked. “You should have everything down pat by now seeing as how tonight was your final dress rehearsal.”
“How would you even know that? You don’t give a shit about the theater.”
“I asked around. I found out where you were.”
“Are you stalking me?” She adjusted her bag on her shoulder and turned away from me, pawing her hand through her hair.
“I’m not stalking you. I’m just worried about you.”
“It’s two in the morning!” she said. “Why are you out wondering what I’m doing?”
“Why are you out so I have to wonder?”
“Great, just great!” she said, and she spun her body around to spit more words at me. “I totally did not expect this from you, Elliot…”
“Expect what?”
“You’re jealous. Jesus Christ, Elliot, you’re just like every other person in this town with a dick.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re mad if you’re not the one who gets to be with me.”
“Be with you?” I yelled. “Stefia, get over yourself! Not everyone in this town wants to sleep with you…”
“Oh yeah? Name one.”
“Me.”
“Bullshit.”
“Stefia, it is possible to care about what happens to you and not want to see you naked.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Me? Elliot? Who has known you since forever?” I yelled. “How can you even think I would want to…I mean, Christ. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“How about you not waste your time wondering…”
“Listen, I don’t know if you’ve punched up the drama because you’re part of the theater or what, but it’s annoying. It’s stupid. And it’s not you, Stefia. I know you. I’ve always known you.”
“Shut up, Elliot,” she said. “I don’t want to hear it. How about you go find something else to do? Go get drunk. Go find a girlfriend. I don’t care what you do, but stop worrying about me.”
She turned from me.
“Don’t walk away…”I said, and grabbed her arm to spin her back around.
“Let me go.”
“No, Stefia. Don’t walk away from me.” I grabbed her other wrist and held her in front of me.
“I said let me go!”
She tried to pull away but I held tight.
“God damn it, let me go!” she screamed, pulling at her arms to free them. She raised her boot to kick me but I twisted my body and her boot stuck hard, right in my thigh. I let go of her and squeezed at my leg, trying to rub out the sharp ache her boot had planted where it landed.
“Stay away from me!” she hissed. “I mean it.”
Her porch light snapped on suddenly and I could see Naomi peek her head out from behind the curtain in the front window. Stefia picked up her bag and spun herself to head to the house.
“Stefia…” I started.
“I mean it, Elliot,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Leave me alone. I have nothing to say to you.”
She walked in the house and turned off the porch light. I stood on the sidewalk, still rubbing at my leg. I stared at her front door. God, I wanted to bust down that door and follow her in, shake her until she made sense. But I was taken over by my dad’s cautionary recommendation to not get caught up in the mess.
And Stefia was definitely a mess.
**
Three days later, I heard it.
“Bro! You are a total dog!”
We were in the locker room after running the track and Ben smacked me way too hard on the shoulder.
“Um, what?” I said, sitting on a bench between the rows of lockers and pulling my shirt off over my head.
“Totally tried to score with Stefia?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Um…no, I didn’t.”
“That’s the talk all over school,” Ben said.
“It is? What are they saying?”
He looked at me, not buying my disbelief.
“El-Man, give it up. You tried to score with her and…”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, I didn’t…”
“She pushed you off and you followed her to her house and then had a big fight with her right on the sidewalk.”
“Oh, my god. That’s totally not what happened,” I said, thinking back on how our conversation three nights earlier might have sounded to anyone within earshot. “Not even close. I mean, we did argue about some stuff but someone must have heard it and assumed…”
“So what really happened,” Ben said. “You did score with her?”
“Shut-up! Nothing like that even happened. I wouldn’t want anything like that to happen. It would be like…screwing my sister.”
“So…it’s a rumor?”
“Why is it so hard to believe it’s a rumor?” I said. “Shit, Ben, why would I want to sleep with someone I’ve known since she was like…born?”
“Um, because that girl is fucking hot.”
The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up and something told me Ben was going to take it too far.
“Don’t talk about her like that,” I said.
“What…are you like, her protector or something?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Come on,” he said and laughed. “Admit it. She’s like a piece of candy you’d like to play with in your mouth.”
“I said don’t talk about her like that…”
I stood up, still in my running shorts. I was a whole head taller than him, but he didn’t back down. He adjusted his posture to look bigger but still didn’t even come close to being my size.
“Like what? Is there something wrong with pointing out she’s a sweet piece of ass and there isn’t one guy in this school who wouldn’t like two minutes alone with her?”
“Wow, two minutes. That’s impressive, you fucking prick.”
“Two minutes is all it would take…”
And that’s when I fixed my wild and stupid eyes on him, and barreled my fists into his chest. His stomach. His head. He held his arms up to block me but I couldn’t stop punching him. I couldn’t stop until he shut up. My fists connected over and over again with his skin, the flesh on his face splitting as I pounded it open. He collapsed in a rigid heap to the floor, arms wrapped around his head in a shell of protection.
Two guys jumped in to pull me off of him. They held me back, both of them restraining an arm. That’s when I saw blood all over the white tile floor—Ben’s, not mine.
Ben removed his arms from covering his head and grabbed at the front of his face, blood gushing from his nose and lip. His ear was cut, his cheek was sliced.
“You broke my fucking nose!”
“Who did you hear the rumor from!” I screamed. The two guys on either side of me pulled back harder, one’s fingers gouging into my bicep.
“It’s not a fucking rumor,” he said, spitting blood on the floor.
“How the hell would you know?”
He wiped blood across his chin with the back of his hand and looked up to meet my eyes.
“Because,” he said, “I heard it from Stefia.”
**
I waited in the back lot of the Crystal Plains Theater, knowing at any minute the stage door would open and Stefia would bounce out. The show had been done for forty-five minutes. She had to be coming out soon. My hands were sweating. I paced like a caged animal. I was almost done with my third cigarette, and I didn’t even smoke.
“Hey!” I called to her when the door finally opened. She walked out with a fellow
actress, both of them laughing and smiling and jingling their keys. I stood only fifteen feet from the stage door, but she acted like she didn’t know where the voice had come from. So I walked right up to her.
“I’m going to cut right to the point,” I said, serious and biting. I sucked my last drag off the cigarette and looked at her. “You need to explain something to me.”
Her cast mate shot a worried look, like I was some psycho there to rip her apart, but Stefia waved her off with a roll of her eyes. The girl hit the button on her key fob to unlock her door. She gave one more look at Stefia, then got in her car.
We didn’t talk until the car was gone.
“Classy,” she started, “showing up here at the theater to chew me out.”
“Far classier than you,” I said, tossing my cigarette butt on the ground and smashing it with the toe of my boot. “Telling people I tried to…”
“Stop being so dramatic,” she interrupted. “People start rumors all the time.”
“You’re not even going to deny it?” I practically choked.
“Would it be easier for you if I did?”
I kicked at the ground and spattered rocks ahead of me.
“Could we maybe not talk like this is an unsolved mystery where I need to decode all your answers into an actual dialogue?”
“I’m not trying to be difficult,” she said, with a strange calmness. “Sometimes the fatal flaw in a conversation is that the two people talking view the world in different ways.”
“You’re not that different from me,” I said. “Stop trying to drive a wedge between us that doesn’t belong there.”
“How do you know what belongs there? Who do you think you are? God, himself? Christ, Elliot, just…”
“Stefia, don’t fuck this up. You’re going to screw up your life and push away everyone who cares about you…”
“You act like I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I don’t think you do.”
She smirked.
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“Trying to push me away? Trying to make me hate you?”
“This is not about that,” she answered. “This is about protection.”
“Who the fuck are you trying to protect?”
“I can tell you who it isn’t.”
I waited for it, knowing she was finally going to reveal me as the person she could care less about. The person who wasn’t worth her time. The person she could just forget even existed.
“Okay, then. Who?” I taunted. “Tell me what pathetic soul creeps around this earth and doesn’t deserve to be protected from whatever chaos it is that you’ve tripped upon.”
She looked straight into my eyes.
“Me.”
My mouth was dry and I tried to speak but nothing came out.
“Don’t you get it, Elliot?” she said. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“That makes no fucking sense!” I yelled.
“Why not? Elliot, please. You’re like a brother to me. I don’t want you to get hurt…”
“Jesus Christ, Stefia,” I said, kicking at the ground. “I saw you with Niles. I saw what happened! And you say you're protecting me from you?”
“I can’t explain it to you,” she said, her voice starting to shake. “Just please believe me that I know what I’m doing…
“I can’t believe I got sucked into this mess,” I said, raking my hands through my hair. “I mean, do you think he’s in love with you? For fuck’s sake, Stefia, don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
“He’s using you!” I screamed, my voice cracking with anger.
A tear spilled from the corner of her eye and her lip quivered.
“Yeah. Well, maybe I’m using him, too.”
My stare of incredulity morphed into one of repulsion.
“My god,” I said. “You know what you are?”
“What? I’m dying to know,” she said, sniffling. “Please tell me what you think, oh great and mighty Elliot.”
“You’re a whore, Stefia. Plain and simple. You’re a fucking whore.”
She exploded, lighting up like a firecracker and attacking with everything she had. Her clenched fist cracked at my jaw with such force that after the connection, the leftover momentum propelled her right to the ground. I immediately grabbed my jaw, kneading the bone with my thumb, and stared in disbelief.
She had hit me. She had actually fucking hit me.
She lay on the ground, holding herself up on her side with one arm. She looked up and nervously studied my face, bracing herself for whatever I would bring next.
“You know what, Stefia?” I said, my voice calm and calculated. “Fuck you. Fuck Niles. Fuck this theater. I have always been there for you.”
“Elliot…”
“No. Shut up, Stefia. Now if you want my help, you come find me.”
I turned and walked to my car, not waiting to hear anymore of her excuses or explanations. I yanked open the car door, threw myself inside, and slammed it so hard it threatened to fall off its hinges. Twisting the key into the ignition, I shoved the car in gear before I even heard the engine rev. I gunned it and sent a spray of gravel behind me, dust settling on Stefia who did nothing but lie on the ground and watch me speed away.
I didn’t know it then, but that night was the end of the end.
**
My father parked the car in the church lot. I had opted to ride with my parents. Why, I’m not sure. Power in numbers, or something like that.
My mom, ever fearful of the media, ditched the car immediately and ducked into the church. I could have cared less who was watching and decided I would sit in the car until I was good and ready to do otherwise.
My dad stayed in the front seat.
“We can sit in here as long as you’d like,” he said. “No rush.”
We stayed in the car with the engine idling. I thought about telling him to turn the car off; that even though we were parked in a lot bordered by snow and it was only twenty degrees, there was no way I was going to get cold. But I didn’t. Whether the car was on or off made no difference to anything.
“Dad?”
“Yes, son?”
Our eyes met momentarily in the rearview mirror. I looked away.
“You told me something once,” I said. “Something I never forgot.”
I could tell he was still looking at me in the mirror but I couldn’t meet his eyes. I stared out the window at the pathetic reporters and their equipment. I hoped they all froze.
“What is it, son?”
“Well, you told me that Stefia knew where I lived, and that if she needed me, she knew where to find me. You said she’d come around. ”
I saw my father shift uncomfortably in his seat.
“Dad, she never came and found me.”
I waited a minute for him to respond but the air inside the car had grown eerily thick, like a bubble, pressing at the windows, that wouldn’t break.
“Am I supposed to assume now that she really didn’t need me?”
I looked down at my jet black suit pants. I picked at an imaginary stray thread to keep from completely losing the flood of tears I was holding back.
“Son,” he finally spoke, blowing out a heavy sigh. He curled his fingers slowly around the steering wheel like he was imagining he could drive himself right out of the conversation.
“I mean, I waited, dad. Just like you said. I waited for her to come find me. Because I really thought she was going to.”
I looked up to the rearview mirror again, but dad wasn’t looking this time. His eyes were pointed out the window in the direction of the cameras and press, but I knew he didn’t see any of it.
“I believed that she was going to come. Know why, dad? Because I believed you.”
A gray Kia pulled up next to us and parked. Two men and a woman got out. I had no idea who they were. The woman pulled her black full length dress coat around her tighter, and one of the men put his arm around
her shoulder. The three of them walked stoically into the church together. I wondered who they were. I wondered how they knew Stefia. I wondered…well, I wondered a lot of stuff.
I guess that had always been my problem.
“Son, I’m sorry,” he finally said.
“You want to know the worst part? The worst part is that now I’m never going to know if she needed me or not.”
“I know this hurts, Elliot.”
“Why her, dad?”
And suddenly there was something so real about her being dead. Something so hard to swallow about the not knowing if where we’d stood was real or if her stone-faced carelessness was all an act. I tried to breathe in and choked on a whole glut of tears I’d held back. And then they wouldn’t stop, a huge ugly sobbing flood slopping down my face.
“Fuck!” I screamed, slamming my fists down into the back of the seat. “I fucking hate this!”
I bawled, almost suffocating on everything that was coming up and out of me.
“Why her, dad? Answer me!”
I looked into the rearview mirror and met dad’s eyes again.
“Elliot,” he said. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean that sometimes we just don’t know. Sometimes we can’t know.”
Dad looked away from the mirror, his voice constricting, and I knew he was going to cry.
“Sometimes, Elliot….sometimes we’re not supposed to know.”
I stared straight ahead at the flat brick wall of the church. I couldn’t look at him. Because as much as I hated to admit it, I knew he was right.
-Pastor Walter-
I placed my hand on the top of the black matte frame that hung on my wall, remembering how Stefia was so excited to be in that first show four years ago. I remembered how she seemed to come alive on opening night, uncovering a side of herself that no one knew she hid beneath her skin. She was electric; a perfect sphere of sparks, blazing a streak as far into her future as one dared to imagine.
I pulled the frame off the wall and laid it face down on my desk.
I couldn’t look at that picture anymore.
Outside my window, the media perched like blood-thirsty cannibals across the road, ready to devour anyone willing to speak on camera. They hungered for the next quote. The next clip.
The Me You See Page 15
