Fix

by J. Albert Mann

  rerouting it right before

  it sailed past me.

  She returned it,

  again.

  But this time

  low and short. And

  what seemed like suspiciously

  on purpose.

  I rushed forward,

  scooping it up from where I’d

  slid to my knees.

  Almost missing it.

  But not!

  Up it flew

  in a beautiful arc

  where I felt every shade of

  red,

  orange,

  yellow,

  green,

  blue,

  indigo,

  violet.

  Until…

  She broke off the game

  with a catch.

  “You’re tired,”

  she said.

  Was I?

  I glanced toward

  the window, where I

  saw a flash of gold glasses

  disappear.

  No.

  No, I wasn’t.

  Dry

  SHE TAKES OFF. I IMMEDIATELY GO AFTER HER. PRETENDING I don’t hear him. Calling me. Over and over. Instead, I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other while avoiding the threat of random bodies as I struggle after her.

  Once I’m through the doors, she’s gone.

  Lidia. Always the athlete.

  I move around the corner and lean on the wall to catch my breath while I search the crowded hall outside the front office. But then I remember Thomas and head to the nurse’s office.

  “Hey, missy,” says Ms. Kisner. “Day two not starting out well?” She’s sitting at her desk stapling papers.

  “The ride in was rough,” I tell her, like I’d ridden to school on a boat or something.

  The homeroom warning bell rings.

  “I’ve got some admin errands to run. Take a load off for a bit.” She picks up her papers and heads out the door. “I’ll check in on you in thirty.”

  I fill a paper cone with water and go into the bathroom. Again, the goddamn bathroom. I shut the door, put down the toilet seat, sit, and then reach for my Roxy.

  Oh… my backpack. Where’s my backpack?

  Shit. Shit Shit.

  My head swivels… searching the floor, my arms, my brace. Standing up, I turn and, holding on to the sink, look all around me, my heart pounding. It’s not here. It’s not in here.

  Swinging open the bathroom door, I check the cot, the floor, the chair. Empty. Empty. Empty. They’re all empty.

  My panic growing, I reach out and violently swish back the curtain between the cot and Ms. Kisner’s desk, knowing full well that my backpack is not out there, but I’m filled with the swirling energy of despair and have to do something.

  I know where my backpack is. I know exactly where it is. I fucking left it in the van.

  Jamming my hands into my coat pockets, just in case I somehow stuck one in there… wishing I had. Just one. Why didn’t I think to stick one in here? I’d do anything to feel a plastic baggie. Anything. But the emptiness is so complete my fingers ram one another inside the pockets by the zipper.

  Again, I search the chair, the cot, yanking the crinkling paper from it because it has given me nothing. Nothing. There is no Roxy here.

  None.

  I move toward the door. Should I go out to the van? Where is the van? What class has Thomas got first?

  I feel his lips on mine but can’t relive it without seeing her. Seeing the anger. The hate.

  The late homeroom bell rings.

  My head feels light. I lean heavily on the cot for a second, exhausted, but then my energy returns, and again, it hurts to stay still.

  I walk out into the quiet hall and then back in again. The pacing isn’t helping, so I roll onto the cot and lie blinking up at the white-and-gray drop ceiling. My lips feel dry. I lick them. Two seconds later I need to lick them again. Oh my god, I don’t even have my ChapStick—but even thinking about ChapStick I’m picturing Roxy. I take a couple of breaths. Try to calm down.

  Why did I have to leave that bag in his van?

  The first-period bell rings, pouring everyone back into the hallway.

  Shit. Thomas.

  I roll off the cot and stand up.

  I cup my hands together like I’m holding my Roxy. It doesn’t help. I need my bottle. And what’s wrong with that? My spine hurts, and I’ve had a major surgery.

  I wrap my arms around my brace. I’m cold. I just want my bottle. Why did I leave it in the van? I took a half this morning, didn’t I? I’m sure I did. It’s in there. I’m sure it’s in there. But my fear—it’s eating it right out of my bloodstream, sucking the beautiful drug from my body. I close my eyes and tilt my face to the ceiling like it’s the sun and try to breathe, try to slow down my heart from cranking out the Roxy into my blood where it can be slowly drained away. It’s no use. I can’t remember how to breathe. I can’t slow my heart. And my nose is running.

  The first-period late bell rings.

  Thomas!

  I just want my Roxy. I don’t care about anything else. I just want it. I have to find the van.

  I turn to leave and walk right into Lidia.

  The Real One

  You were glowing.

  Your eyes,

  your lips, even your

  hair shone so brightly that

  it nearly crackled with electricity.

  When it was your turn

  to use the bathroom,

  you waved me ahead—

  a drop of familiarity,

  and I lapped it up.

  Everything was going so well.

  So well.

  Why, then, did I feel

  such a rush of relief

  when I closed the stall door?

  Peeing in a public restroom has

  always been a process for me,

  which you knew.

  I hurried as fast as I could.

  I didn’t want to keep Jayden and Nick waiting.

  I didn’t want to keep you waiting.

  When I came out

  to wash my hands, you were

  fixing your hair.

  “Hey,” I said,

  trying to look as upbeat

  as you so obviously felt.

  “Let’s go,” you said,

  talking to me but

  looking at yourself.

  How many minutes

  were we in there?

  Four?

  Six?

  Enough to change

  everything.

  We stepped

  from the bathroom to find

  two cardboard aliens,

  one of them wearing

  a black fedora.

  Shame

  Shame is

  like being caught

  naked

  under fluorescent

  lighting. Nothing

  hidden. Not a pimple,

  a goose bump,

  a hair follicle.

  Her eyes sparkled,

  her jaw slack,

  her mouth hung open though

  no air moved in or out.

  And then the shame,

  rolling in like a tidal wave,

  shoving itself against

  her forehead,

  her cheeks,

  those sparkling eyes, until

  her face and neck

  bulged with it.

  In the very moment when she’d

  opened up her smile, her arms,

  her heart, her beautiful self,

  she’d been slapped down, and I

  watched her

  under those fluorescent lights,

  rearranging before my eyes.

  She loathed me

  for seeing it.

  Loathed me

  for knowing

  that she loathed herself even more

  for feeling it.

  “You took for-

  fucking-ever, Eve.”

&nb
sp; “Lid?”

  “You sat your twisted

  ass in that stall

  all fucking day

  because you couldn’t

  stand to see it work out for me.

  You just

  couldn’t

  fucking

  stand it.”

  I watched her

  struggling under the weight of

  every single moment in her life

  when she’d felt

  different and

  awkward and

  ugly and

  deformed and

  wrong,

  just fucking wrong.

  Yet I couldn’t stop

  myself.

  Twisted.

  I couldn’t.

  Twisted.

  … And I didn’t.

  “The hand came

  yesterday.”

  She froze as my words

  made their way

  through her body,

  searching—I guess—for

  some spot where they made sense. But

  none of this made sense, so she turned and

  walked away.

  “Lidia!” I called.

  She didn’t

  answer. Then, or

  ever.

  Lidia Banks Never Needed Two Hands

  SHE HAS MY BACKPACK.

  “Your boyfriend dropped this at PD. I guess he didn’t realize you’d be too chickenshit to show up.”

  Her first words to me in exactly two months. All those Roxy moments… imagined. But I knew this. I always knew.

  “That class was your idea,” I say, not taking my eyes off my backpack. “Everything was always your idea.”

  I know the comment will piss her off… but my brain is spinning, my body is spinning. And I have no control. I can’t look at her. I can’t see her. All I see is my Roxy.

  I snatch for the bag.

  She takes an easy step back. Out of my reach. Physically graceful, as always. Unlike me. Even now. Fixed. Ha. I am so far from fixed… especially because I don’t even know what was broken. Just that something was. And it was never my spine.

  She is looking at me now. Really looking at me. “What is wrong with you?” she asks, seething with disgust.

  “Give me my fucking backpack.”

  “Why did you do it?” she accuses.

  The box. Her hand. I shut down. Totally shut down.

  “Tell me!” she demands.

  I stumble backward, my thighs hitting the cot. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  Her mouth writhes in anger and she stares daggers through me. I feel them, every single one of them. And I deserve them. I deserve them.

  “Lid… I didn’t know. He’d… they’d… you know.” The sound of my voice seems only to feed her anger. “I thought we would stay home. If it didn’t come. You know. We wouldn’t go. And it would be like always.”

  “That was my hand!”

  “I know.”

  “My fucking hand!”

  I drop my head. “I know.”

  I want her to hate me like this. I want it to hurt. Hurt like someone is severing me in half.

  “Lidia.” It’s all I can say. So I say it again and again. “Lidia. Lidia. Lidia.”

  “God, Eve,” she snaps, whipping my backpack onto the cot and turning toward the door. She is leaving. Again.

  “I should have texted you when it came,” I shout.

  She stops.

  “No, I should have called you… screaming at the top of my lungs that it had arrived. It was here. And then I should have met you at the curb out front holding the box. Ready to be there for you, for anything that happened next.”

  She turns around. Her eyes stare into mine. “Why didn’t you?”

  “You know why.”

  “Why.”

  “Lid—Lid,” I stammer.

  “Why!” she demands.

  “You didn’t need two hands,” I whisper.

  She takes a step toward me, throbbing with so much anger that her voice is thick and heavy. “Who the fuck are you to tell me what I need.”

  “I know, I know that, Lid. I was wrong.”

  “You know what I know, Eve? They can shove a thousand steel rods up your ass and you’ll still be a spineless piece of shit.”

  I step back in shock… not at her words, but by how long I feel she has been waiting to say them. And worse, knowing what she wanted to hear.

  “Oh, I have a spine,” I spit. “A straight one, now.”

  We are tearing our world into little pieces. Tiny, tiny pieces. Pieces we both know we’ll never be able to glue back together.

  “Too bad you’ll always be twisted on the inside, Eve,” she says, turning and leaving.

  This time, I let her go.

  Ms. Kisner breezes into the office. “Well, Ms. Banks was sure in a hurry,” she says.

  “I don’t feel well. I’m going to call paratransit.”

  “Okay, missy,” she says. “Let me do it.”

  I let her do it.

  Food Fight

  MY PHONE IS RINGING. THE WORLD IS DARK. THE HOUSE IS QUIET. I have no idea what time it is.

  It’s Mary Fay. And it’s six.

  I don’t pick up. Instead, I slide back into the silence, protected by the thickly collaged walls of my bedroom.

  It rings again.

  Again, it’s Mary Fay. And I see it’s the fourth time she’s called me. She leaves a message. I’m sure it’s something about food. It’s always about food. Before I can slip away again, I hear the front door close with a thud.

  “Hello!”

  It’s Thomas.

  I pull the covers tighter around me. If I just keep quiet, he’ll leave.

  “Eve?”

  I can hear him clomping through the house. I pull the covers all the way up over my ears and smoosh my face into my pillow to become one with my bed. While

  three Roxy

  pulsate,

  pulsate,

  pulsate through my body.

  “I know you’re here,” he calls. “Since you left the front door wide open.”

  Oh, for god’s fucking sake. Did I have to fall in love with the most annoying person ever?

  Love? Shit.

  “Mary Fay called me.” He’s basically shouting now. “She asked me to pick up a pizza. Because she won’t be home until late.”

  Does he remember that he kissed me under the portico? Did he kiss me under the portico? Or did I dream it? I hope I’m dreaming this.

  “I have pizza, Eve!”

  I whip back my covers, wipe the drool from my mouth, and Nancy myself out of bed.

  A pizza sits on the dining room table… next to a stack of homework. Great. It’s not a dream, it’s a nightmare.

  Thomas walks out of the kitchen holding plates and napkins. The sight of him erases my anger. Mostly because… god, he’s cute, and I think this even though I know I should be thinking, god, he’s kind, because he is setting the dining room table for two. Napkins, plates. Both Mary Fay and Thomas are better at parenting than my own mother. Strangely, this makes me miss her even more.

  The smell of pizza is strong. My stomach growls. Maybe I am hungry?

  “So,” he says, setting down the plates. “School killing your vibe, Eve?”

  He’s exactly the Thomas I know so well. And I roll my eyes while I stumble into the seat across the table from him.

  He starts eating. Or inhaling. I watch him finish off his first slice and reach for a second. At least Mary Fay won’t be suspicious about me not eating tonight when she comes home to an empty pizza box.

  Noticing I don’t have any pizza on my plate, he plucks a slice from the box and plops it in front of me. He returns to eating but doesn’t take his eyes off me.

  “Nice hair,” he says.

  I can feel it standing on end.… In fact, I can see it tangling about in the corners of my eyes. And I’m still in my skinny jeans because I’m trapped in them until someone else peels them
off me. Otherwise, I’m only in my brace and body sock. I know I look like shit. I certainly feel like shit.

  He stops eating. “Eve, why did you walk away today?”

  My heart stings. I guess he did kiss me under the portico. Although instead of remembering his kiss, I remember her eyes.

  “I had to get to class.”

  “Well,” he says, “I guess we both know that is some genuine bullshit.”

  “You don’t know anything,” I snap. Because… I don’t know why. Because he’s right? But why does this make me angry? And I am angry. Really angry.

  He sucks in his lips against his teeth. “Seriously, Eve. I’m just worried about you. And since we’re”—he hesitates, but then finishes—“friends…”

  “We’re not friends. I don’t have any friends.”

  “Eve—”

  I cut him off. “Stop saying my name.”

  He looks right into my eyes. And I see he sees it. Everything that’s wrong. That’s been wrong.

  “Eve.”

  I hate the way he says my name. I shove my plate across the table. “Get out,” I snap.

  “You aren’t eating.”

  “I said, get out.”

  “And you seem to be on a lot of drugs for someone so far out from surgery.”

  “What are you, a fucking doctor now?”

  My face is burning. My chest is burning. My entire being is burning. And I want it to. All of it. To burn, burn, burn.

  “Eve.”

  Now I just might kill him.

  “GET OUT.”

  He starts to clean up our plates and napkins.

  “I said, GET THE FUCK OUT!”

  He sighs and puts everything down. Picking up his car keys, he heads to the door.

  “And don’t pick me up in the morning,” I say, sounding like I’m five years old, “because I’m not going to school.”

  He opens the door, and then turns back. “I’ll be out front at 7:10 a.m., Eve.”

  I meet his exasperating compassion with fury, picking up his half-eaten piece of pizza and whipping it at the closing door. But I’m so weak, and drugged, that it flies about five feet and hits the rug.