“I know. It’s because of your mom. Same thing. You, like, promise your mom stuff. Who does that?”
I’m getting ready to say, “No, it’s because . . .” even though I don’t know what comes after that because Hayden steps up on the running board and slides my knees apart with his hips.
“Someone like you could make me a better guy,” he says as Kayla’s black dress skims up my thighs. I pull it down. “You are hard to get,” he says.
This can’t happen. Not here. Not again.
“You’re not just nice, Alexi.” His hand is on my skin; skin that had a dress covering it a moment ago. “You’re beautiful.”
Then his coat is off and behind the seat. I see the look—it’s not evil or forceful, but I know what he wants as he lays me down. Not sex, but something worth bragging about to the football guys. His wide shoulders seem a mile across as they descend toward my chest. “Uh,” I say, and wiggle beneath him. Only two layers of fabric separate our skin. And one zipper and some nylon between Hayden’s excitement and my terror.
“Um,” he says. Or yum or some other word that means he’s very, very happy. Then his mouth is on mine so hard his lips could be made of concrete.
I owe Heather ten dollars.
I kiss him and the whiskey back because I don’t know how to stop him. My hands find his at my thighs and lace us together. He can’t touch me if his hands are occupied with mine. “Uh,” I try again, hoping it sounds remotely like stop or wait.
“Alexi,” he says back, as if I moaned with pleasure.
Please, stop. Please, stop. Please. But thoughts are not words. He doesn’t stop.
Hayden’s eyes are closed. His hip bones dig into mine as all of his weight smashes my chest against his. My eyes are wide as peach-colored skin and dirty-blond hair blur into a claylike blob. It’s not crazy that I hate him and that stupid smile, but it might be insane that I hate myself more. Why can’t I rescue myself? Another girl would either do it and like it or tell him to keep his dick in his pants. I’m not either girl; I’m nothing.
Then, he catapults backward, yelling as he goes.
I shove my knees together and sit up as Bodee, who has a handful of Hayden’s shirt, swings his fist into Hayden’s jaw.
The pop sounds like a firecracker in a jug. Contained, hollow, and forceful.
The guys are at war before I can shut the door and beg them to stop. Hayden’s fist is in Bodee’s stomach and then both guys are on the ground.
“Don’t you ever touch her again,” Bodee says. There must be muscles in his arms where before I thought there was only T-shirt. But it’s not those muscles that pin Hayden against the ground: it’s white-hot fury that’s as visible as Hayden’s grimace.
“I wasn’t hurting her,” Hayden says, and twists against Bodee’s hold. “I was kissing her.”
Bodee sniffs the air and cracks Hayden against the pavement. “You’re wasted. You don’t know what you were doing with her.”
“Hey!” an all-too-familiar voice yells as he pounds the pavement toward us. Craig pulls the guys apart as quickly as Bodee pulled Hayden off me.
Sweat breaks out on my forehead. This is a terrible mess. Craig is the first and last person I want out here.
“What’s going on?” Craig asks. And he is much more Mr. Tanner than he is my soon-to-be brother-in-law.
“Kool-Aid’s gone crazy. He jumped me,” Hayden says.
Bodee has a look I know his father must have worn while he chased his wife around the kitchen, but for a very different reason. “He was hurting Alexi.” He licks some blood off his lips.
“I was not,” Hayden says. But he doesn’t say what we were doing.
Craig collars both guys and turns his concern to me. There’s no Coach Tanner now; there’s only Craig, who has known me since I was six. Craig, who sat next to Kayla on my bed and read to me by flashlight to make the stories scarier. “Lex, is that true? Did Hayden try to hurt you?”
One pair of puppy-dog gray eyes and one pair of angry muddy browns await my answer. “This is all a huge misunderstanding,” I say.
“Is it?” Craig presses. This puts him nose to nose with Hayden, or rather breath to breath. Disgust is easy to see on Craig’s face; the whole stadium saw it in the first quarter of tonight’s game before we scored. Hayden can’t hide the whiskey now.
“You’ve been drinking again,” Craig says.
“Hayden didn’t hurt me, but I can see why Bodee thought he did,” I say, trying to keep both guys safe from penalty. Because as much as I dislike Hayden for pushing my boundaries, I didn’t say stop, and I don’t want everyone to know about this incident. Tamping it down into a nonevent seems safer.
“I guess you planned on her driving, eh?” Craig says, and releases Bodee, who smooths his borrowed shirt and cracks his knuckles without making eye contact.
“I, uh . . . ,” I try to explain.
“Lex, stop. You should have come and found me.”
Yeah, right. Like I would do that. Craig’s anger with Hayden is understandable, but when we left the dance I didn’t know this would happen. Now Craig’s on a different planet of mad than I’ve ever seen him with Kayla. Than I’ve ever seen him with anyone.
“You guys always have to celebrate. Don’t you?” Craig says to Hayden. “You should thank Bodee here for misunderstanding, because if you’d had Alexi drive you out of this parking lot because you’re drunk, I wouldn’t just run you at five a.m. tomorrow, I’d turn your butt in to the principal, and he’d suspend you in a heartbeat. Bodee, get Alexi out of here. I’ll handle the two of you later at the house. I have a few more words to say to Mr. Harper.”
Bodee and I don’t move.
“Go,” Craig says.
And we do. Quickly.
Bodee and his cracking knuckles. Me and my shaking body.
“Was it?” Bodee asks.
“Was it what?”
Bodee puts a hand under my elbow and faces me. “A misunderstanding,” he asks tenderly.
All the tension ricochets through my body as I answer, “I guess it all depends on who you asks. Lots of things are misunderstandings.”
“Well, just so you know, I’m not sorry I hit him.”
My shoulders pop as the shaking twists my upper body into a pretzel knot. “Just so you know, I’m not either.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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chapter 12
ONE. Two. Oh God, keep breathing. Three. Keep counting. Is something screwed up in my head? Why am I so weak? Four. Five. Will I always hate this part of me? Six. Seven. Eight. If Bodee hadn’t hit Hayden, how far would I have let Hayden go?
Damn you, stupid air vent. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Don’t stop counting.
Bodee hit Hayden because of me. Did that really happen?
Twelve. Thirteen. What did Craig do to Hayden after we left? And Kayla? Could I keep her from telling our parents? My friends. What will happen Monday at school? Fourteen. Fifteen. Does Hayden hate me now? Sixteen. Will the football team retaliate against Bodee? Seventeen. Is Bodee safe?
Will I ever be safe from myself?
How far would I let Hayden go?
Eighteen. How far would I let Hayden go?
I blink and I don’t care that I lose count.
How far would I let Hayden go?
Of all the questions, this is the only one that matters. It cycles automatically as I stare at the familiar dark slits in my ceiling. I know it cycles because I don’t have the answer.
Or maybe because I do.
All the way. I would have let Hayden go all the way.
Because I didn’t stop him, either.
I tumble neck-first off the scratch-and-tear wagon. My weeklong self-discipline ends as my nails claw at my neck and rip into skin. The pain is comfortable and the counting subsides, but not the reality.
Stopping Hayden felt like trying to halt
Earth’s orbit.
But why?
I don’t understand this about myself. This invisible enemy, this inability to say no. I need answers. Isn’t there a reason why I’m so afraid to assert myself?
My life has been nothing like Bodee’s. I mean, I’ve never had to live in a tent, and my parents love Kayla and me. They’d never hurt each other or one of us. My mom even listens to my side when we’re arguing, so I’m not one of those kids with no voice at home. And as far as I know, no one abused me as a baby. There’s never been a traumatic event that would cause . . .
But . . . is that true?
Images, out of sync, from my earliest memories. They’re blurring in and out of focus, like cable TV during a thunderstorm, and I struggle to make sense of them.
Something is hiding in my childhood. Something off.
My fingernails bite into the palm of my hands, where they leave little U-shaped dents.
Because there is something.
I’m scared and I’m wet. And naked. There’s a damp, musty smell that clogs my nostrils and closes my throat. I’m maybe three or four years old, a chubby little girl with two dark pigtails.
And I remember.
Swimming lessons at the local Y.
“Don’t wanna go in there,” I say.
“I’m sorry, honey, but Mommy’s late and you’re missing your lesson. I can’t take you into the little girls’ bathroom, but you can go in the boys’ side. It’ll be okay this once.”
My dad pushes open the blue metal door and calls out, “Anybody in here?”
Silence.
“See, sweetie, there’s no one inside. It’s okay.”
I shake my pigtails. “Don’t want to.”
But I really have to go, so I wait while Dad checks the boys’ bathroom.
“See, Lexi?” He kneels down and smiles, squeezing my hand. “It’s fine.”
“But what if someone comes? A boy?” I ask.
“I’ll stand out here by the door and make sure no one comes in. And if you need me, you can yell. Okay?”
“Promise?” I say, and my voice is a frightened squeak.
“Promise.”
I hurry into the boys’ bathroom, past the low sink-looking thing, and enter the first stall because that door is wide open and the other two are closed and scary.
Struggling out of my one-piece swimsuit, I climb on the toilet. Before I can grab it, my suit falls past my knees to the concrete floor. Dripping wet and shivering, I pee.
I’m feeling relieved when there’s a rustling and stirring in the next stall.
I’m not alone.
My body locks up, and I’m frozen to the toilet as a bare butt wiggles backward into my stall.
“Wanna play swords?” a boy says as he turns and scrambles upright.
Then his eyes widen until they almost pop out of his head. He’s staring at me, and I’m staring at him. His hoo-hoo is right in front of me; hot tears fill my eyes.
“You’re not a boy,” he says like an accusation. But he doesn’t crawl back to his stall, and I’m trapped between his hoo-hoo and the potty.
“I’m Ray,” he says. “Who’re you?”
My tongue is sticking to my mouth, but I slide off the toilet and I’m all thumbs in my panic as I struggle to pull up my wet swimsuit.
“You okay in there?” Daddy calls from outside the bathroom. “Need some help, Lex?”
I shove past naked Ray and run out to my dad. But I don’t say a word about what happened. Not then and not ever.
I push it far back in my mind until it’s as if it never happened.
But now the memory is so vivid that I know it’s real.
The thing is, why am I remembering it now? Especially since . . . I know naked Ray.
He’s Ray Johnson.
Liz’s Ray.
I roll out of my bed and pad down to the den. The streetlight casts enough light through the half-curtained windows that the couch is visible. Sinking into the cushions, I run my hands over the woven upholstery and cover my lap with the throw pillow. And wish I’d closed my eyes when Ray crawled under my bathroom stall.
Ray Johnson’s seen me wet and naked. And I’ve seen him. We were three, and it shouldn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. My brain processes the innocence of this memory. Kids don’t mind being naked. I’ve done enough babysitting to know Mrs. Hampton’s kids down the street wouldn’t wear clothes if she didn’t insist. So, this particular memory isn’t important. There’s a hammer pounding on my brain that says I’m missing something. Have I forgotten other things? Other things that keep me silent?
“Whatcha doing?”
Bodee’s whisper causes me to jerk with surprise. He’s shirtless, so I look past him into the hallway toward my parents’ bedroom door, where snorts and snores assure me they’re asleep. Bodee and I could be a herd of elephants, and they wouldn’t hear us.
“Trying to figure some things out,” I whisper.
“You should sleep,” he says.
There’s a shadow of a bruise under his rib cage, courtesy of Hayden. Tomorrow it will look black and angry, but I doubt I’ll see him without a shirt tomorrow.
“I know. You all right?” I ask.
“If you are.” He sits on one side of the couch and puts the other throw pillow in his lap.
“Well, you’re not asleep either,” I say.
“Weird getting used to a bed.”
Whether it’s the hard ground and a sleeping bag or a closet and clawing fingernails, the familiar soothes us like a milk shake sliding down a sore throat.
“But are you making it okay?” I ask. It’s been only two weeks since his mom died. When my granddad died, I cried for weeks. Bodee’s tearless, but I see the pain oozing out of him.
“What’s okay?” Bodee’s question is rhetorical and not meant for me to answer.
He slides his right leg under him, and I notice the hair on his legs is blond and soft and nearly invisible. I always notice the guys at school who swim or bike because they shave their legs and arms. Very sexy. Body hair usually grosses me out.
But I don’t mind Bodee’s almost invisible, blond leg hair.
Funny, the things I know about Bodee Lennox that I never thought I’d know. Or care about.
“You can talk about her if you want,” I tell him.
“I will sometime.” He twists the pillow by the corner and then lets it spin. “You can talk about it,” he says.
My heart thumps like a rock inside a coffee can as I ask, “What’s it?”
“I don’t know, but you do. And I know you should tell someone. Even if it’s not me.”
Whenever I’m with Bodee, it feels as if I’m made of glass. Mascara, blush, and fake smiles never fool him. Maybe it comes from years of seeing his mother hide her fears from the world. But I’m not ready to share.
“There’s a place I want to show you tomorrow,” I say, hoping the topic will fade away.
“Okay.” Bodee stands and holds his hand out to me.
My pastor held his hand out to me during an altar call at a morning service. I didn’t hesitate that day, and I don’t tonight. Putting my hand in his is for me and has nothing to do with us. This is an offer of comfort. An invitation. He traces the lines in my palm and pats me the way my granddad used to.
“You’re going to be okay,” he says, and squeezes my hand. I watch as he leaves the den and climbs the steps to the bonus room. Maybe Bodee’s not really a teenager. Maybe he’s an old man trapped in a sixteen-year-old body. Then again, he did knock the shit out of Hayden.
For tonight, at least, I’ll trust his words. Instead of going back to bed, I unfold the throw on the back of the couch and curl up beneath it.
It is the smell of bacon tickling my nose that finally wakes me.
“Lex, it’s ten thirty. You going to sleep the day away?” Mom plops down beside me and pulls my toes into her lap.
Yawning, I say, “No-oh-o.”
“Why’d you sleep in here?” she asks.
I sit up and cover my lie with a big yawn. “I didn’t mean to. Just keyed up after the dance, I guess.”
Mom removes her reading glasses from the top of her head and tosses them on the table. There’s nothing between me and her blue eyes. “Craig told me this morning that Hayden got sick and had to go home early. I’m sorry, sweetie. That’s a real bummer.”
Out-of-date word alert. Bummer. Out-of-touch mom alert. Thank goodness. “Yeah.” I go with Craig’s lie.
“I thought you got home a little early last night, but I didn’t want to pry.”
“Hayden was probably just exhausted from the game. No big deal,” I say, praying there are no more questions. Bodee and I had waited at Kayla’s car until she showed up about eleven forty-five. Besides walking home, which had been impossible in my high heels, my sister had been our only transportation option: something Craig should have remembered when he ordered us to get lost. It wasn’t like we could go back to the dance. Everyone would have asked about Hayden, and there was nothing I could say.
Mom’s eyes dart toward the stairs leading to Bodee’s room. “What do you think about Bodee, Lex? Is he all right? Did girls dance with him last night?”
“I did,” I admit. “I’m sure other girls did too.”
“Oh, that was sweet of you. I worry about him. Dad’s tried to get him to talk, you know, but Bodee says he’s ‘fine.’ But I don’t see how.” She puts her reading glasses back on and then pushes them onto her head. I’ve seen her do that a million times when she’s thinking. “We checked with the guidance counselor, and Mr. James says Bodee’s keeping it together at school. But I don’t know. Considering what he’s been through and what he’s had to do just to survive, he’s probably good at faking it with adults.”
This makes me giggle with amusement and shudder with regret. Because the very thing she worries about in Bodee, his ability to fake normal, she has dismissed in me. Thank the good Lord. I am glad I haven’t given her cause to worry over me. “Well, we’re gonna hang out today. I’ll check on him,” I assure her like a good spy.
“Perfect. Dad and I are going to that flea market on Old 48. Kayla and Craig have plans too; I forget now what she said. There’s food in the kitchen. Junk food, anyway. I have to keep your dad out of the grocery store. The man’s addicted to sugar and starch. Oh well.” She pats my toes, and then kisses her hand and smacks it to my forehead. “Love you, Boo-Boo.”
Faking Normal Page 10
