Kim

by T Cooper

  “I’m already drunk, dummy,” Chloe shoots back, rattling a plastic cup with only ice left, then tossing it on the table in front of her, the ice skittering across the white tablecloth like dice.

  “No. I mean let’s really . . . Uh, I need to talk to you. In private.”

  I can tell Audrey is nervous, even more nervous than I am. She must have seen her brother dose the drink too. Or maybe she just knows her brother well enough to sense tonight can’t end well, not for Chloe anyway, who remains clueless about her sociopathic crush.

  “Oooooh, baby! Just what I needed, I’m soooo thirsty,” Chloe swoons as Jason swoops in and shamelessly hands her the drink. “What a thoughtful big brother you have, Auddie.”

  Auddie?

  “Let’s blow this lame party,” Jason says, only just then noticing me. “Who invited Chingy Chong?”

  Audrey steps in and yanks the drink from Chloe’s hands, then immediately drops it on the floor, splashing it all over. “Sorry, my bad,” she tries, her face red and hot. “I was thirsty too.”

  “And spastic, you retard,” Chloe says, leaning back and laughing.

  Audrey doesn’t laugh. She seems terrified of catching Jason’s eye. But I do look him in the eye, and I see a sinister flicker. It quickly dissipates as he says, “No prob. More where that came from. Let’s go, ladies.”

  “We should stay,” Audrey says.

  “What the eff for?” Chloe asks, standing up and clutching Jason’s arm for support. “I’m good to go. Let’s party. Woooo!”

  Of course she “woooos.” How have I never heard her “woooo” before?

  “Chlo, I think you should go home,” Audrey tries again. “It’s been a big night.”

  “Speaking of big,” Chloe cuts her eyes my way. “Seriously, why are you still here? This isn’t the zoo.”

  “Sea World maybe,” Jason chimes in, cracking Chloe up.

  “Because I’m a whale?” I blurt then, stunning them both into momentary silence. “I just want to make sure I understand the joke. Because I am as big as a whale?”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” Jason says after a beat, the pilot light of his rage lit anew. He leans toward me, scrunches his nose like a weasel. I notice Audrey flinch, bracing herself.

  I stand stock-still. I do not flinch.

  “Who am I? I’m the girl who knows all about you, Jason. I know who you are. I know what you are. And someday, someday soon, so will everyone else. A reckoning is coming, King Jason. And I am the girl bringing it. That’s who the hell I am.”

  For a second, nobody says or does anything. It’s just a mutual hate-off, and only then do I realize I’m not scared. I feel solid, strong. My body an ally, a physical manifestation of the power I sense welling up inside me. I am not some fragile twig. I am a fracking tree trunk, and it’s going to take more than one demented wannabe Abider and his would-be girlfriend to knock me down.

  “She’s cray,” Chloe, addled, whispers to Jason, breaking the silence. “I think I want to go home.”

  “Yes!” Audrey chimes in, sensing an opening. “Let’s all go home.”

  Jason doesn’t move. He keeps staring me down. Eyes locked on mine. Waiting for me to break. “Do whatever you want,” he says, finally looking away. “I’m going to find Baron and get hammered.” Then he spits tobacco juice on the floor, and waltzes away as if nothing has happened.

  “I need to get my purse,” Chloe says to Audrey. “Meet you out front?”

  Audrey nods, but I notice she is sizing me up, her expression gentler, in fact, almost familiar. “Sooooo, that happened,” she says with an awkward shrug.

  “Yep.”

  “Dances, man.”

  “Always drama at the dance,” I say, wondering whether she’s thinking of kissing Drew—kissing me—two years ago.

  Audrey gives up a little laugh. “Well, I should go. Need to shovel the Polar Ice Queen into her carriage.”

  “Sounds like a smart plan. I should go too. My friends are waiting.”

  But neither of us leave. We just stand there enjoying each other. And then, I have the strange urge to kiss her again.

  I lean in slightly, and—I swear on a stack of Changer Bibles—Audrey does too.

  Change 3–Day 144

  “Man, I was THIS close,” I say, and recline on the couch, kicking my boots up on the coffee table with an emphatic double-thud.

  “Better luck next time,” Benedict replies, sparking up a joint.

  “If there is a next time. Damn, I could kill Kris.”

  If he hadn’t pogoed over and yanked me onto the dance floor with him after somehow manipulating the deejay into cueing up “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen, I really think Audrey and I might’ve kissed in that moment last night. As in, girl-on-girl, in the middle of the high school dance, lip-locked, just like that first dance freshman year, when we were both balls of want and confusion.

  Benedict takes a deep hit, blows it out after a few seconds. He appraises the joint then lazily passes it my way, suspecting I’m not interested since I never have been before.

  “You know what?” I announce, thinking, Why not? “It was a major night.”

  Benedict looks a little surprised that I’m reaching over and taking the smoke from him, pinching it between my thumb and forefinger.

  “What? I’m safe and staying in for the night,” I argue. “It’s legal in a bunch of states, not to mention some other countries. And the shizz hasn’t hit the fan in any of those places. The stoned masses aren’t roaming the streets overthrowing the establishment. Why the hell not?”

  Benedict just rolls his eyes and waves his hand in front of his face. “I’m not your mother, dude,” he says, smirking.

  I slowly bring the joint to my lips, feel immediately that it’s damp with his saliva—gross—but I forge ahead. I look down my nose, cross-eyed, at the little white thing, as I take a puff . . . and immediately start coughing.

  Benedict giggles.

  Which prompts me to try again, this time really concentrating on getting some to stay down in my lungs. It burns my throat, but once it’s in feels better, as I stifle an intense impulse to cough. I hold the smoke (this is way harder than Destiny’s vaping contraption), and wait to see if I feel something, before exhaling it all in a spate of spastic hacking.

  I pass the joint back to Benedict, and look around the room, blink a few times to see if I feel any differently. And . . . waiting . . . still waiting . . .

  “I don’t think I did it right,” I say.

  He takes another hit himself and hands it back to me. I go for it again, this time managing to get more into my lungs before the urge to cough forces me to expel it.

  I look around the room again, and wait . . . Whoa. Is that it?

  Something is definitely creeping over me. Feels like when I got my tonsils removed, just before I fell asleep, and the doctor was telling me to imagine I was on a tropical beach with the ocean gently lapping beside me. A pleasant sort of dizzy nothingness, but it also feels kind of hysterically funny.

  Which makes me laugh.

  And then Benedict laughs.

  And I laugh even more.

  “So what the hell?” he says after we wind down. “This is Jason’s sister we’re talking about, right?”

  I nod yes.

  “You are messing with fire, boss.”

  “She’s totally different from him,” I declare, my tongue seeming to loosen from its usual taut connection with my brain.

  “Is she?” Benedict asks, but it’s more of a statement than a question.

  “Yeah,” I say, suddenly feeling kind of philosophical. “Not on the surface, maybe. But what’s the surface anyway?”

  “Kimbo, there is no way that girl was going to lean over and kiss you right there in front of her whole world order.”

  “You weren’t there,” I say. “She was stirred inside, she sensed something inside of me. Like she knew.”

  “What it was, was, you were standing th
ere finally claiming your space and not backing down from those ass-hats. Confidence and inner strength are universally attractive to people. It’s primitive. Triggers our instincts to follow the leader.”

  “Maybe,” I mutter, leaning back on the couch again and gazing up at the immense, dusty, rusty, rattling industrial heater mounted on the ceiling above us. I envision the centuries-old metal brackets suddenly snapping, sending the whole thing violently crashing down on our heads and snuffing us out. But, unlike every other time I’ve anticipated some random tragic event, I’m not worried. I feel all Zen, like, Whatever happens happens.

  “You recognized you,” Benedict adds then, busting me out of my tumbling-heater vision. “So Audrey recognized you. The you inside you.”

  This stuff is strong.

  We fall silent. Me thinking about Audrey, how maybe she had just been hurt one too many times in her short life—by Drew’s abandonment, Oryon’s disappearance, by her brother’s terrifying aggression, her family suffocating and judging her all the time. By average, hateful, cruel high school life. Maybe Audrey just couldn’t deal, so she gave in and took the popular route, something no one would question.

  OMG! I just realized the whole scenario is exactly like what happens in one of Audrey’s and my (well Audrey and Drew’s) favorite eighties movies, Some Kind of Wonderful. When Amanda Jones starts out saying, “I’d rather be with someone for the wrong reasons than alone for the right,” but then figures out that life’s actually better when you do the opposite, and she tells Keith to run off and give Watts the diamond-stud earrings he had bought with his entire college savings. God, I love that movie.

  Audrey’s Amanda Jones! Oryon is Keith! Jason is awful rich, spoiled, loathsome, rapey Hardy Jenns. And I’m Watts! The tough tomboy rock-and-roll drummer with the cute short haircut and red leather–fringed fingerless gloves, who wins love in the end. Wait, that means I win love from myself as another V. Maybe the analogy is breaking down a bit. I blame the weed. I mean, I don’t feel, like, really high, whatever that is. I have nothing to compare it to. I don’t know. Am I high? HAHAHAHAHA.

  [Note to self: Look up whether eighties visionary film director and writer John Hughes was a Changer. Wait, before that, another note to self: find out if it’s even true that there’s a guide to famous Changers to look things up in.]

  Where was I?

  “So,” I say to my left, but realize Benedict isn’t sitting beside me anymore. I have no idea how much time has passed since he was.

  I spot my laptop, the corner sticking out of my backpack. I flip it open, start a new e-mail, and without really thinking, begin typing:

  Dear Audrey,

  I know this is going to sound crazy. Wow, how long have I wanted to say that to you? Anyway, so, this is Kim. Kim Cruz, from school. I hope you got home okay last night. That dance kind of went off the rails, huh?

  Anyway, I don’t know how else to say this, but it felt like we had a connection last night. Like we’ve known each other for lifetimes. (Do you believe in that stuff?) I’ve never felt that about anybody before, which I figure is really rare, so why not just nut up and tell you?

  The thing is, we kind of have known each other for lifetimes. Maybe not lifetimes. Well, for me they are.

  If you’re still reading this, which I would understand if you’re not, but bear with me, because here’s the thing: I’ve been at Central longer than just this year. In fact, I have been in your life over the last two and a half years. I’ve seen you through a lot of ups and downs, a close friendship with a girl who moved away, and then a relationship with a guy who also left school, suddenly, last spring. I know all about Romeo & Juliet. (Boy do I.) Cheerleading. Your brother. Your mother’s cooking.

  For two years I feel sort of like I’ve been your invisible protector. (From this guy named Kyle, which is a whole other story.) Anyway, I’ve loved you every step of the way.

  I know you didn’t ask for this. It’s just, there are things in the universe we can’t explain. Actual magic that brings people into each other’s lives for a reason. Like I’ve been brought into yours.

  Again, I understand if you want nothing to do with me after reading this. It is admittedly cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. But what do I have to lose at this point? I can’t help but feel that you felt this THING last night between us. You sensed that history too.

  So if you did, can you let me know? Maybe we could spend some time together. Trust me, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing that ever happened.

  &(^^%%!%$#*(&**&#$^$%#&)*)*(&)*^&^ >???!?!?!!!!?

  What am I doing why am I writing this I must be freaking insane in the membrane. She is going to think I’m bonkers and never want to talk to me again don’t press send don’t press send don’t press sendddddddd.

  I tilt my head from the glow of the screen back up at the heater. My eyelids droop as if ten-pound weights are glued to the lashes. All I want to do is curl up and sleep for seventy-two hours on this crusty couch beneath the noisy heater, suddenly the coziest place ever. I push my computer off my lap and onto the cushion beside me, flop my neck on the pillowed armrest, and close my eyes. I feel all glowy-orange inside, some kind of wonderful indeed.

  * * *

  I open my eyes. It’s dark. Calm. For a flash, I think I’m in my bedroom at home. But then I hear the heater rattling above me, and the reality of where I am hits me anew. I lay there blinking into the blackness for a few minutes, listen for movement or voices. Everybody must be asleep, or out for the night. I don’t even know what time it is.

  My head is pounding. Pounding worse than the time Jason plowed me over at football practice last year. I put my hands on either side of my head and press hard, but it doesn’t alleviate the pain even a little.

  Now I remember: Benedict’s weed.

  I sit up, realizing my stomach muscles are a little sore too, like I’d been doing sit-ups in my sleep. My eye catches a glint of light off my laptop, which is sitting closed on the coffee table in front of me. It’s then I remember the crazy-rambling confessional I vomited out to Audrey last night. Thank G I didn’t push Send on that madness.

  I open the screen and my laptop wakes up. I see that it’s 3:42 a.m. Also: the e-mail’s not there. I click through all the open windows. Nope. Not in any of them. I scan the dock: it’s not collapsed there either. I check the Drafts folder. The Trash.

  Did I dream I wrote the letter? (Jesus, why do people smoke that stuff?)

  Confident that’s the case, I click the Sent folder. And . . .

  Oh

  My

  Freaking

  At the top, there it is: Sent to Audrey’s e-mail address at 9:43 p.m. last night.

  Whoa. Wait.

  There’s no Internet here. I have no clue how this could’ve happened. I check the Sent folder again, just to be sure.

  Yep, still there, off into the wild blue yonder at 9:43 p.m. I click and quickly reread the letter. It’s worse than I remember.

  There’s no way that in my stupor I figured out how to use my phone as a hotspot and connected my laptop to send the message out via cell service. The only person here who could’ve done all that is . . .

  Benedict. (Arnold.)

  Change 3–Day 163

  Day 13 (not including weekends) of Audrey avoiding me. It seems like it’d be a really challenging feat, given we have the same homeroom and Honors English together, but you’d be surprised how slippery Audrey is when she wants to be, and worse, how ever-present Chloe is, stuck to Audrey’s side like a pair of Spanx. Not that I mind. I still haven’t figured out how I’d explain the e-mail beyond the obvious, I was totally high when I wrote that.

  Today, though, in the cafeteria, I thought Audrey might’ve glanced in my direction over Kris’s tiny head as we sat at our usual misfits, gays, and awkwards table, which is one over from the Asian table, where I do sometimes sit, especially when Kris has lunch detention.

  “He begged me to take him back,” Kris was saying with no small amount of relish a
bout Rooster, as he cheekily stuffed the last bit of his cheese stick into his puckered pie hole and wiped his lips with a paper napkin.

  “What’d you say?”

  “I’ve moved on, I learned how to get along,” he sang, wadding up the napkin and tossing it onto his tray, then searching the front of his halter top for crumbs to brush off.

  “It seemed like you really loved him. Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?”

  “One of us needs to have pride, girl.” He jabbed a thumb toward Audrey, Chloe, and the smattering of Chloettes who were touching up their makeup in cell phone cameras before heading to class. “And it clearly isn’t you.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I scoffed, as Jason and Baron sidled over to the bitch-squad table, Jason planting a shoe on the bench with his crotch on full display and uttering something SO hilarious that they couldn’t keep from LOL-ing enough for the whole cafeteria to hear and stroke his wretched little ego. “I am so OVER that mess,” I added, imitating Chloe’s voice and tone so perfectly that Kris high-fived me across the table, even though it was a sports gesture, which Kris usually avoids like full-fat milk.

  I decided to change the topic: “So, how’s it going at Lady Chardonnay’s?”

  “It’s okay. I mean, I’m really lucky she’s letting me crash in her cloud, but if you can believe it, I miss home.”

  “I actually can believe it.”

  “Well, at least you’re welcome back whenever you want,” he said, seeming glum (for him). “My parents haven’t even tried to find out whether I’m safe. I mean, I’m sure they’re checking my school attendance, but besides that? Not so much.”

  “That can’t feel good. I’m sorry.”

  He glanced over at Chloe again. “Those slags have no idea what it’s like to be on their own. Speaking of, how’s it going in your dirty little queer collective? And by dirty I mean, seriously, get some Febreze or something, because you smell vintage. And by vintage I mean not gently used.”

  “It’s good. I guess. Kind of the same thing you’re saying. I mean, I used to have hours to sit around and disappear into one of the many screens at my disposal. Now with chores and homework and commuting, I’m lucky if I can return a text, much less get my chat on—”