“And more lives is more lives,” Mr. Spavich completes. He says this like it’s my opinion, not his.
“Yes,” Lio whispers, my stomach feels sick.
I say, “I guess so, yeah.” My headache pulls and I realize that that isn’t what I meant at all.
That isn’t what made the Pentagon a bigger deal.
Because the reason I can’t compare this to September 11th is that no one I know has been shot by the sniper. Maybe I only feel stuff if I’m holding hands with someone getting obliterated, or at the very least holding the hand of someone holding the hand of someone getting obliterated, and fuck, what does that say about my life?
Mr. Spavich asks who’s been watching the news, and a few of us raise our hands, including this one boy who says he can’t help watching the news because every time there’s a shooting it interrupts regular programming for hours and hours. He’s become an accidental rubbernecker. One girl says she isn’t sleeping, and normally I’d roll my eyes at this, because I hate when people pull that, but, God, she looks like shit.
Her parents are telling her to run in zigzag patterns.
There’s a boy wearing a camouflage jacket, and I guess it could be fashion statement, but I get the feeling it isn’t, because he’s tall and dark and stunning and I look at him a lot, but I’ve never seen that jacket before.
It’s stupid, that jacket, so stupid. This isn’t a jungle. This isn’t a war zone.
LIO
CRAIG’S MOM ALWAYS PACKS HIM GOURMET LUNCHES. She gives him a place mat for him to spread over his place at the cafeteria. She doesn’t know we eat outside every day, I guess. We sit in the little field by the side of the school. This time of year, it’s more of a mud flat than a field, and it’s a little cold. But it’s away from the noise.
I give him half of my peanut butter and jelly, and he gives me half of his macaroni and cheese. It has peppers and onions and something clear and spicy I don’t recognize.
We always eat lunch together. When he was home sick two weeks ago, I hid in the library and shoveled down my food as fast as I could. I don’t know when I turned into such a freaky little loner.
There’s an elementary school across the street. Craig’s dad is the principal. Usually we watch the kids playing kickball and four-square. We pretend to be team captains and divvy up the eight-year-olds.
Today there’s no one out.
The morning kindergarteners are heading toward the buses, but I can hardly see them. The teachers are forming a human cage.
“I watched Bananas in Pyjamas yesterday,” Craig says.
I look at him.
He says, “Yeah, at like four in the morning. It reruns at weird times like that.” Craig doesn’t sleep. It bothers me.
“It was on some kids station and I got so sucked in,” he says. “There is so much drama with those bananas. It’s the Australians. They’re sick, you know that? Sick and wrong and amazing. I love Australians. Best accents in the whole world. We should figure out how to do them and just do them all the time.”
I smile at him.
He says, “Anyway, so I was reading some of our old IMs last night. Is that way too lame to admit? I mean, I was going through a ton of old emails.”
I shake my head.
“And I was just thinking . . . I never would have guessed you were this quiet. I mean, you told me you were shy, but I never would have really believed you if I hadn’t met you, and actually seen that you’re so . . . unresponsive.”
That’s not fair.
He says, “Online you were . . . you were kind of unreal. Like so big and personable as to be unreal. And I guess that’s kind of the point. The ‘un,’ I mean. You were like so huge and confident and big and—”
“That’s real.”
“Hmm?”
And when I do talk, he doesn’t listen. “This,” I say. “That you noticed. That you’re here regardless. That’s the real part.”
“Yeah, but where’s your real part, okay? Because . . . because, here’s the thing, what I need to know is . . . what part of this is real for me?”
“I don’t like to talk.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m pretty sure I’ve figured that out.”
“But I like you.”
He nods a little, not looking at me. I know. He’s not ready. I’m pushing too hard. I kissed him and he didn’t ask me out. Shouldn’t that be the only signal I need? It’s not like I don’t know he’s still hung up on his ex. Whatever. I can try not to care.
I should apologize for kissing him.
But he’s the one who wants to know what’s in this for him while simultaneously telling me there isn’t a relationship in this for me, so who’s the unresponsive one now?
I chew and watch the cars drive past. Any one of them could point a gun out the window and shoot us on its way by.
For a brief, silent second, fear drops into my stomach as heavy as a cannonball.
Then it’s gone.
Craig nods and says, “We could die right now.”
See? He doesn’t need me to talk. He really does get it.
“I guess.”
He says, “Did you like what I said in class? I thought I captured your cynical attitude pretty well.”
I shrug.
This macaroni and cheese is so weird. What’s wrong with normal macaroni and cheese? I wish I had the other half of my sandwich back. It’s inside Craig now.
I could kiss him and taste it.
I shouldn’t think about stuff like that when I’m pissed at him.
He says, “Can I tell you something about September eleventh? It’s something I figured out the other day, and I guess I thought you might have something interesting to say about it. Or, you know, whatever.”
I squeeze my fingernails into my palms.
He says, “Yeah. So here’s what I’m thinking. I heard so much about how New York really came together as a city after September eleventh. You know, you guys regenerated and rejuvenated and there was this new sense of . . . of humanity? I keep reading that, is that true? You experienced this new togetherness?”
There were a lot of candles and rallies.
I crumple my empty raisin box in my hand.
He says, “I don’t think that ever happened in D.C. We never bonded over September eleventh. We swept up and pretended there was never a mess, y’know, and isn’t that really depressing?”
I shrug.
“We never came together. It was almost like . . . like we didn’t even talk about what happened, because we were so wrapped up in what happened in New York. The Pentagon seemed like such . . . small potatoes.” He plays with his shoe. “So maybe this wouldn’t be so scary if the wound weren’t still raw from nine eleven. Because all this panic is actually like . . . residual? I guess. Like it’s left over from something else entirely, and we’re just redirecting it onto this.”
“None of it really happened in D.C.,” I say.
He looks at me. “What?”
I don’t look at him. “You guys didn’t come together after September eleventh because September eleventh wasn’t yours.”
Now it’s Craig who isn’t saying anything. I hazard a glance, and he looks a lot like I probably did when he was talking, hands clenched, nostrils twitching. The difference is, I notice that he’s upset and he didn’t notice I was. The similarity is, neither one of us gives a shit.
“A hundred and eighty-nine people died,” he says eventually. “A hundred and eighty-nine.”
“Nearly three thousand in New York. The Pentagon wasn’t the towers.”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Lio.”
“Comparing a hundred eighty-nine to twenty-seven hundred is exactly the same as comparing these shootings to nine eleven.”
He makes his eyes smaller. “No, it isn’t.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Because!” he says. “Because nine eleven happened! Because it felt like something! Because . . . it isn’t all about the nu
mbers. It’s not . . . God, dead people isn’t just counting. That isn’t what I meant. That isn’t what I was trying to say at all.”
I pick at my jeans and shake my head.
It is.
How else do you measure this shit?
He takes his apple out of his lunch box and squeezes it. “The whole country cared about New York City. No one gave a shit about us. Half the newspapers outside of the US didn’t even mention us, all they cared about was New York. I went into the city afterward and it was like . . .”
The fact that he has to specify that he went into D.C. makes it all the more clear that he is a fucking Marylander, for God’s sake. Soon the Virginians are going to be encroaching on our grief. Then what, Indiana? Fuck this shit.
I say, “The newspapers cared about us because we got owned. And Washington, D.C., was the only city in the entire fucking country who didn’t give New York any bit of sympathy.” My throat hurts. I don’t want to do this shit anymore.
Craig throws his apple in the dirt. “We had our own problems!”
“You had a fucking inferiority complex.”
He crosses his arms and now neither of us is looking at the other.
But he doesn’t know. He wasn’t there. What does he even know about dying? He’s been so alive his whole life it makes me want to throw up.
And to talk about 9/11 as this inspiring experience, what the fuck is that? 9/11 was numbers and death and fire. It wasn’t a city giving itself a group hug. I’m so sick of people trying to make it something pretty. It’s just so Lifetime movie.
I stand up in time to see that Craig’s crying.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen him cry. The boy broke down during a History Channel segment on the War of 1812 in American Civ a few weeks ago, for God’s sake.
It still makes me pause. I can’t help it. I don’t like crying.
I wish I knew what to say.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.
And suddenly words fall out of my mouth. “I don’t know? What did nine eleven mean to you? What does it mean to anyone who didn’t see the towers fall?”
His eyes are cat-narrowed, and he yells, “My boyfriend’s fucking father didn’t die in the fucking towers!”
I swallow.
Okay, so I didn’t know that. I didn’t know Cody’s father died in the Pentagon. Craig should have told me that a long time ago.
I hate when people do this. I hate when people hide their cards to feel secret and strong. That’s no way of dealing with anything. I don’t pretend shit didn’t happen to me. I don’t stay up all night instead of going to therapy.
And he called Cody his boyfriend. Not ex-boyfriend. Just boyfriend.
So instead of apologizing, I swallow again and say, “A hundred and eighty-nine. It’s not the same.”
But Craig is crying hard now, and he won’t look at me. I reach my hand out a little, but he doesn’t move. I don’t know what to do.
I pack his lunch up and leave it at his feet. I pack my lunch up, and I go.
Then I hit a freshman. I was getting so much better about that, too. I feel awful about it, so I turn myself in.
They don’t suspend me, but they call my dad to pick me up. Because of the sniper, I’m not allowed to wait for him outside. Clearly they don’t know where Craig and I eat.
And I realize, while I’m standing here with the principal by the front door, watching for my father, that I am worried about Craig. Out there, crying, unprotected.
Dad’s pissed when he gets here. He had to leave work to pick me up. They should have let Jasper bring me home.
Dad walks me to the car in a zigzag pattern and says, “Well, I guess you’ll have something to tell Adelle this afternoon, huh?”
Craig and his lunch are both gone.
Dad asks if I need ice for my hand, but I don’t answer him. I really, really don’t feel like talking. Adelle’s going to have a great time with me today.
CRAIG
THINGS I ALWAYS LIKED ABOUT LIO:
The gaps between his canines and the rest of his teeth that make him look like a vampire or a really dangerous puppy.
His stupid multicolored hair that he never lets me see because of those hats he wears even though he isn’t cold.
The fact that the teachers stopped making him take his hats off after the first week, probably because his hair is so fucked up.
The scar from the central line he had, and how he wears tank tops that let it show, and he doesn’t care if people ask, he just says “cancer” and gives them a small smile to know he’s not offended and he’s not upset and he’s not dead, and he plays with it, running his fingers across it and pinching the scar tissue when he’s concentrating and he thinks no one’s looking.
His voice, low and gravelly, like he’s always getting over a cold.
Things I now hate:
His stupid smiles he makes me work for.
His stupid multicolored hair that he never lets me see because of those hats he wears even though he isn’t cold.
The fact that I probably won’t be mad at him in a few hours because he’s so fucking shiny, he’s like this star in my head and I can’t get him out, and he’s shining all bright and he’s keeping me awake and I keep thinking about him but I don’t think he’s any more ready for me than I am for him, even though he probably thinks he is because he probably thinks he’s all fixed up and shit, and he’s not, and I’m not ready, I’m not, because I don’t know how to be ready, but in a few hours I won’t be mad at him anymore, and that sucks. I don’t know what to do with that.
The tank tops that show off his arms.
Cancer boy cancer boy cancer boy cancer boy, I get it.
His silence.
So Cody’s dad’s death pretty much destroyed my boy, and as much as we didn’t want it to destroy us, as hard as we worked, as hard as I worked . . .
God, I held on. I held on so hard, for months.
When he was screaming. When he was crying. When he was telling me he hated me and why hadn’t I died instead. That time he slapped me across the face and shrieked “Bring him back bring him back right now.” The time he shoved me across the room and told me if he ever saw me again he’d kill me himself, and called me two hours later, baby I’m so sorry, baby I’m just so sad and I don’t know what to do and my therapist says I BLAH BLAH BLAH.
When he said he was going to buy a gun and get revenge himself, and I told him no—not because I thought that was wrong, but because I knew he wouldn’t go to Afghanistan and I was worried he would go to school or his mother or his therapist. Or me.
So they eventually shipped him off, not to Afghanistan, but to some hospital and then some boarding school, and I never visited him, not once, and it took so long before he asked me to visit, and it should be simple to say no, I can’t, I won’t do it again, I can’t, but it isn’t, because he fell asleep crying in my arms so many times, and he called me Lollipop, and he told me I was the only thing, the only thing in the entire huge bad scary world, that helped.
So fuck frozen cold hearts, because who are they helping?
Fuck you, frozen cold heart.
The school says those of us who don’t drive can’t stand outside waiting for a ride today, that we have to stay inside and stay safe. They have someone stationed outside with a walkie-talkie, and they call out our names when our parents get here. Except in my case it turns out to be not a parent, but a Todd.
I give him a hug because I’m the one who needs one, today.
“Were there any new—” I start to ask, and he shakes his head. It feels like a million years since someone’s been shot. Maybe it’s over. I say, “Can we stop for ice cream or something?”
“I . . . think we should go home, Craigy.” Todd has this way of darting his eyes back and forth when he drives, like he thinks any minute someone’s going to run out from behind some bushes and throw himself in front of our car. And he’s doing it even more right now.
>
I say, “But I’m hungry, because I didn’t even get to eat half my macaroni and cheese, and school was really boring. Criminally boring. Illegally boring. And I’m hungry.”
“God, you’re like two years old. Try a little perspective? There’s a maniac out there.”
I don’t say, there are like twenty million maniacs out there at any given moment, and none of them have ever shot me before.
I turn away and look out the window. I guess I probably don’t usually see a lot of people standing outside their houses on my drive home from school, but everything still seems eerily empty.
There aren’t any children trekking down the sidewalk with backpacks. That’s what feels so wrong.
I say, “The kids aren’t walking home from school.”
“Not so surprising.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense at all. No one’s shot any kids.”
“And I think they want to keep it that way. The police chief said today, ‘your children are safe in school.’ If I were a parent . . .” Todd messes up his hair. “If I were a parent, I’d want to minimize the time spent between home and school as much as possible.”
And just that minute, the announcer interrupts the international news to tell us there’s been another shooting. It was pretty far away, this one—over an hour by Beltway, all the way in Virginia. Long-range rifle. They’re “not sure” if it’s the same shooter.
Todd curses softly. “Yeah, like it hasn’t been enough time for him to get to Virginia.”
“It could be a her. I don’t think anyone’s even considering it could be a her.” I don’t know. I think girls can do the shitty stuff guys do, now, because the first time Lio told me his mom left, I had the urge to tell him he misspoke. No, your dad left. Moms don’t leave.
Fuck Lio.
Todd says, “I don’t want you out looking for animals today.”
I look up. “Todd, are you kidding?” Did Dad get him to say this? Did he think I wouldn’t argue if it came from Todd? Arguing with Todd is my after-school activity. “So what am I supposed to do, avoid every single time that I could possibly be outside? I can’t just wait until the sniper’s all done to find my animals.”
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