Harmonic Feedback

by Tara Kelly

  “Whatever. I told you he was an ass,” he said.

  “Yeah, but I’m still not going out with you.”

  “I never asked.”

  “Uh-huh.” She glanced at me and wrinkled her nose.

  My stomach tensed when I saw the sign for Lake Padden. The odds of Justin being here were slim, but I had to know he wasn’t some dream in my head. That the nice guy I knew actually existed.

  “What do ya know, Drea’s a psychic,” Naomi said. “Isn’t that his car?” She pointed out her window.

  I followed the scattered cars until I spotted a black one in the far corner. Roger drove past it, and my heart sped up when I saw the silver M3 on the back.

  “Doesn’t look like he’s in there. Maybe he went for a jog,” Naomi said.

  “You guys can drop me off. I can have my mom pick me up.”

  “Uh, you sure?” Roger asked. “What if the guy is a psycho killer?”

  “You sound like my grandma,” I said.

  “I can go with you,” Naomi offered.

  “I need to do this alone.”

  She opened the door and let me out of the back seat. “Good luck. And call me if you need us to come back.”

  I took a deep breath as the squeak of Roger’s fan belt faded into the distance. The screams and giggles of children rang out from the small park, and the jingle of leashes could be heard from dogs walking the trail. The sun had graced Bellingham with its presence today, lighting snippets of water and making me squint. My eyes paused on the baseball dugout. A figure with dark hair was hunched over, reading something.

  I headed across the damp grass, my shoes growing heavier with each step. Just as I reached the dugout, my foot slipped, and icy mud bled through my sock.

  Justin’s head jerked up. The skin under one eye was the color of a plum. He closed his book and set it on the bench. “You really should try wearing jeans. They’re more dirt friendly.”

  Brown sludge covered the hem of my white underskirt. “They’re too scratchy and confining,” I said, clutching the metal fence and stepping inside the dugout.

  He glanced at my feet and smirked. “I hope you don’t expect me to give you a ride home.”

  “I don’t expect anything other than an explanation. You can’t just be there for someone and then disappear.” I sat down but kept my distance from him.

  “I missed one day of school. Why are you talking like I left town?”

  “Because that’s what guys do—they disappear. And most of the time, I don’t care. But when they’re really nice…” This wasn’t where I wanted to go.

  “Don’t hold me up too high, Drea. There’s a lot I haven’t told you.” He rested his head against the wall, keeping his eyes downcast.

  I stared at my muddy shoes. “Why?”

  His face turned in my direction. “Because I like you.”

  I forced myself to look at him. “I like you too.”

  We stared at each other with parted lips and nothing to say. Did his like mean the same as mine? I wondered if his stomach fluttered when I was around. Or if he thought about me before he went to sleep. Either way, we needed to stop hiding from each other.

  “You know what I love about music?” I asked. “It doesn’t lie, even if the lyrics do.”

  “Are you a Hendrix fan?” he asked.

  “Yeah. His solos just say, This is who I am. You can take me or leave me.”

  “Me too. My mom had a record player in our living room. I’d go in there and play air guitar to ‘All Along the Watch Tower’ over and over.” He looked down, smiling.

  A laugh escaped my throat. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  “Don’t be. I have two left feet, and my sister said I looked constipated. Guitar playing just wasn’t in the cards for me.” He glanced at me and smoothed his ruffled hair back. The sleeve of his T-shirt rode up, revealing a hint of black ink on his arm. A tattoo—not something I expected.

  I looked at his jagged fingernails and the bruised knuckles of his right hand. “I want to know you, Justin. Even the parts you don’t think I’ll understand.”

  He exhaled sharply and drummed his feet against the ground. “Bellingham is my clean slate—my second chance. I can’t screw it up.”

  I waited to see if he’d offer more. He didn’t. “Is that all you’re going to tell me?”

  He followed my gaze to his knuckles and covered them with his other hand. “I didn’t use to be much different than Scott, okay?”

  “You sold drugs and hit girls?”

  “No, but I got wasted a lot. And I used to race. Only we were a bunch of rich private-school guys—we didn’t even care about the cash.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  “I needed the rush and the distraction. After my mom died, I didn’t want to feel anything. I wanted to hit the fast-forward button and skip to the part where my stomach stopped hurting. When the dreams stopped. When everything I looked at didn’t remind me of her. I wanted to pretend she never existed.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No.”

  Justin told me about his freshman year. He wore a lot of black and smoked pot behind the library with his friends Kermit and Jake. They’d write lyrics about robots and global warming for their industrial band. But Kermit got kicked out later that year for selling his mom’s painkillers. And the band went to hell.

  He joined a metal band sophomore year. They met a chick from the all-girls’ school down the street who could roar like the guy from Mayhem. He fell in love with her and with speed that year, but she used him to make the lead guitarist jealous. The rest of the year was a blur—moving walls and trails in his eyes. Sometimes he couldn’t even tell what was real anymore. He got suspended for coming to class high and then expelled for breaking some guy’s nose. But he couldn’t even remember the guy’s name, much less why they fought.

  He went to public school his junior year, and his dad tried to keep him housebound when he wasn’t in class. So he ran away—lived out of his car until he met up with his old buddy Kermit. He joined Kermit’s band, and they played gigs around town. But mostly they sat around Kermit’s mom’s apartment and got wasted.

  “I was with Kermit the night he got busted,” he said. “He was selling weed to some girls behind the mall and these unmarked cars came racing up. Doors flew open, and I just ran. I heard them grab Kermit, but I was too high at the time to even realize they were cops. I got away and flagged down a cab. Went back home, asked my dad for help. He called the cops. I can’t get the look in his eyes out of my head. He was fucking terrified of me.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “They found speed on me. Charged me with possession and obstruction, all that fun stuff. They tried to pin an intent-to-sell charge on me, but it didn’t stick. My dad told the judge he didn’t want me back home. So I got to spend more time in juvie, then rehab. My sister took custody when I got out—made me promise I wouldn’t let her down. And here I am, repeating my junior year like a dumbass.”

  I couldn’t imagine my mom calling it quits on me like that. Despite my issues and our fights, she never walked away from me. “Are you angry with your dad?”

  He looked over at me and shook his head. “I was at first, but not anymore. It wasn’t like he didn’t try. He put his job at risk so he could be home with me last year. We were never close, though.”

  I moved nearer to him and put my hand over his. “You’re nothing like Scott.”

  “I was waiting for you to get up and run.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He weaved his fingers with mine, brushing his thumb along the back of my hand. “Good.”

  The warmth of his touch traveled up my arm. I looked away, trying to hide a smile. “What was your mom like?”

  “She was always cooking something atrocious.” He shook his head and chuckled. “I mean, really bad. But she loved it. Never gave up. And she never let us give up, either.”

  He talked about how she required him and his older sister
to practice their passion for an hour every day—piano for him and everything from martial arts to hairstyling for his sister. “When she got sick, it happened so fast,” he continued. “One day she was humming in the kitchen, full of energy, and then she wasn’t.”

  I laid my head on his shoulder and squeezed his hand. There wasn’t anything I could say—words wouldn’t take away his pain. His heart beat slowly against my ear, and he rested his head against mine. We stayed like that for a while, taking in the sounds around us. The lake whispered in the distance, calming my racing thoughts. There was cheering from a nearby soccer game and laughter from people eating charred burgers at picnic tables. Things I normally hated because I didn’t feel part of them. Sometimes it was like watching aliens in their habitat from behind a glass wall. But Justin’s warmth against my cheek made it okay.

  I sat up, closing my eyes. “I have…” My lips tried to form the word, but I couldn’t quite do it. “I don’t know how to say this.”

  “Sometimes the only way is to stop thinking of how you’ll say it, and just say it. It’s kind of like ripping off a Band-Aid.”

  I opened my eyes and faced him. “I have ADHD and something called Asperger’s syndrome. At least that’s what they tell me. It’s kind of like—”

  “I know what it is. My niece is autistic.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s milder than autism. Like, in my case, the doctor said I didn’t need special classes or anything, because my grades are pretty good.”

  His arm pressed into mine. “You’re just a geek. Like me.”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “I’m sorry.” He smiled. “Was I supposed to do a cheer for you?”

  “My mom told you, didn’t she?” Somehow I felt that—no matter how well he was trying to hide it.

  “Yeah, when we took her car out.” He put his hand on my knee. “She was just looking out for you, I think. She didn’t know what my intentions were.”

  “And that’s my whole problem. She treats me like I’m retarded, like I can’t do things for myself.”

  “Drea, she’s a mom. You know mine didn’t let me cross the street by myself until I was, like, ten?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” I looked away, folding my arms across my stomach.

  “Because I know it’s a lot bigger deal to you than it is to me. And I wanted to hear it from you.”

  “How can it not be? It’s not like I’m confessing to needing eyeglasses here.”

  “It’s just a word, Drea. A definition for a certain way of thinking. There’s nothing wrong with it. My niece does some pretty brilliant things.”

  I glanced up at him. “Most people don’t see it that way.”

  Justin ran the back of his hand down my cheek. “I know. But I’m not most people, so stop trying to put me in a box.”

  “I’m working on it.” I let a grin escape, but it quickly faded when I reminded myself I had to tell him everything. “You and Naomi are the first friends I’ve had in a really long time. And I made that skydiving thing up. I’ve never actually had a boyfriend.”

  “Why did you think your dating history mattered to us?”

  “Because you guys were the first people to treat me like nothing was wrong with me. I’ve had labels thrown at me my whole life. Teachers calling me socially immature, kids calling me a freak, doctors checking off symptoms so they could plop a diagnosis in my lap. All because I don’t understand some invisible set of social rules. Lie about this, but don’t lie about that. Smile—even when you aren’t happy—but don’t smile too much. Too much is weird. Look people in the eye but, again, not too much. That might freak them out. It’s like acting in a play. I’ve tried to learn my lines, but I’m not very good at it. And with you guys, I wanted to be good. I didn’t want you to start looking at me like everyone else.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’ve never been in a relationship, and I don’t have many people I’d consider real friends.”

  “What about that girl you fell in love with?”

  He squinted at the lake. “We messed around, but we were never together. And after that, I didn’t want to get close to anyone. Committing to anything or anyone scared me. It still kind of does.”

  I thought about asking what messing around entailed, but I decided to drop it. It bothered me—made me feel more alone. Like I was the only person my age who hadn’t experienced a real kiss. The kind that made people see stars.

  “Naomi doesn’t know about me yet. I wanted to tell her today, but I couldn’t,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “She said I was the only person she trusted.”

  “All the more reason to tell her.”

  “Don’t say anything to her until I do. Please.”

  He leaned closer to me, brushing a strand of hair out of my face. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  I turned away from his stare. “What does your sister think of you missing school?”

  “She allowed it for today only. This weekend brought back a lot for me. I needed some time to think. But then you went and found me.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be.” He put his arm around me, giving me a quick hug. “Let’s get you home so you can wash that skirt.”

  We took the long, no-muddy-grass-involved way to his car. When he opened the door for me, I stopped and looked at him for a second. I wanted him to lean in and kiss me, like they did in an eighties movie Mr. Diaz showed. They kissed in the pouring rain—I thought that was cool.

  Justin raised his eyebrows. “You getting in?”

  “Yeah, guess so.” I collapsed into the seat, feeling frustrated and relieved at the same time.

  Justin didn’t say much on the way home, but I was okay with that. I never got why people had issues with silence, especially with good music playing. He gave me a hug and said he’d see me tomorrow. And that I’d better be prepared to jam.

  I was more than ready.

  Mom shuffled away from the living room window when I walked in. “I thought you said you were out with Naomi.”

  A lump formed in my throat. I wanted to tell her everything—what happened over the weekend, the things Justin said. How lost I felt. I wasn’t used to keeping things from her. “She had stuff to do with Roger.”

  A smile flickered across her lips. “I see.”

  “Why did you have to tell Justin about me?”

  She sighed. “I’m happy that you’re making friends here, baby. But new friends bring new experiences, and I want them to understand you, why you may not always react how they expect.”

  There she went again. Talking to me like I couldn’t handle anything on my own. “How can anyone really understand anyone? We aren’t in each other’s heads,” I said.

  “Well, that’s true, but—”

  “Why do I need a disclaimer? It’s not like I’m hurting people… or myself. And it’s not like I don’t try. I try really hard.”

  Her dark eyes softened. “I know you do. And I am proud of you. I hope you know that.”

  “Then why do you have to tell everyone that I have Asperger’s?”

  “It’s not a dirty word, Drea. It just means that you have a unique mind, which is something you should embrace. The world needs more people like you.”

  “Then why are you always trying to change me?”

  Mom moved closer to me, shaking her head. “I’m not. I’m trying to teach you ways to cope—how to communicate with people who don’t think like you do. It’s a good skill for anyone to have, a necessary one.”

  I looked away, clasping and unclasping my hands. She’d told me this before. It seemed rehearsed, like lines she’d memorized out of a book. “I wish you’d give me a real answer for once.”

  She rubbed her temple, her mouth turning down at the corners. “Okay, Drea. What is it you’d like me to say or do? I’m only trying to—”

  “Help. I know. But you aren’t helping by treating me like a baby, by telling people that som
ething is wrong with me before they even get to know me. Let me decide if I want them to know or not.”

  “I don’t use the term wrong. I just explain your diagnosis and how it affects you. But”—Mom held her hand up, giving me her stop sign before I could interrupt—“I won’t tell anyone else without your permission.”

  “That’s all I wanted.”

  She wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me tight. “I know you want to work a lot of this stuff out for yourself, but it’s hard for me to let go. Be patient with me, okay?”

  I nodded and swallowed hard, thinking about Justin, wondering if his mom had said the same stuff to him. I couldn’t imagine Mom not always being around. “I love you,” I said.

  Her chest shook. I couldn’t tell if it was from tears or laughter. Maybe it was both.

  ON THURSDAY, Mr. Diaz showed his favorite example of a long shot—Godard’s Week End. This included a horrendous traffic jam and a continuous barrage of horns. Apparently, they thought honking made traffic move faster in 1960s France. This little black car managed to weave its way through, while the other cars sat in line.

  Justin turned in his seat and whispered, “This has to be the most boring and interesting clip I’ve ever seen.”

  I glanced at Mr. Diaz and leaned forward. “That made no sense.”

  “It’s getting really repetitive, but I keep expecting Godzilla to show up.”

  The last bit showed mangled bodies in the grass and some guy walking around them like they weren’t even there. I used to see people do that to the homeless in the city. Half the time they looked dead, but Mom said they were probably passed out drunk.

  “Okay.” Mr. Diaz flipped the TV off. “What did you guys think?”

  At least half the classroom was asleep, drawing, or otherwise preoccupied with something on their desks.

  The dark-haired emo boy raised his hand. “I don’t get the point. If people were so pissed about the black car cutting through, why didn’t they slug the driver? They just stood there waving their arms like idiots.”

  “Yeah,” another guy chimed in. “They kept getting out of their cars like they were gonna give him a beat-down and then nothing happened.”