Geek Magnet

by Kieran Scott

  “I have to go,” I heard myself say.

  And just like that, I was gone.

  ACT TWO, SCENE TWENTY

  In which:

  A CHOICE IS MADE

  TAMA FOLLOWED ME OUT, SLAMMING THE DOOR BEHIND US.

  “That was so classic!” she cheered, following me across the front yard to the street.

  Tears spilled over onto my cheeks. I felt anything but triumphant. “What is the matter with them? Why were they all over me?”

  “I have no idea. But at least you just put your dad-related anger to good use,” Tama said.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Well, that’s what my therapist would say!” Tama said, raising her hands.

  The door closed and I saw Steph coming toward us out of the corner of my eye. “KJ! What was that?” Stephanie demanded.

  “Don’t even get all high-and-mighty on me right now, Steph,” I replied, storming down the street toward my house. Tama fell into step with me, and Steph took my other side.

  “I’m not!” she replied. “I’ve just never seen you like that. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, she is,” Tama said. “For the first time in her life, probably.”

  “Excuse me, but you don’t even know her,” Stephanie shot back.

  “Don’t talk to her like that,” I shouted.

  Stephanie stopped walking. “What is the matter with you?”

  “I freaked out, all right? I can’t take it anymore!” I replied. “You know I’ve been wanting to say that to Fred and those guys forever. Well, now I did.”

  “I know, but . . . did you have to be so mean about it?” Stephanie said. “You’re acting like—” She glanced over at Tama and bit her tongue.

  “What? Me? Is that what you were going to say?” Tama asked. “That she’s acting like me?”

  “Yeah,” Stephanie said, lifting her chin. “That’s exactly what I was going to say.”

  Tama laughed. “Well, good for her!”

  “Could you have a bigger ego?” Stephanie said. “No one besides you thinks it’s a good thing.”

  Wait a minute. What did that mean? Did that mean that people had been discussing me? “Oh my God! You are talking about me behind my back!” I blurted. “I thought you were my best friend!”

  “KJ, I am your best friend,” Stephanie said.

  “No, you’re not. All you do is judge me and tell me how everything I do is wrong!” I cried. “You think me and Cameron are a joke. All you want to do is keep me down! Stay friends with Fred and Andy and be nice to Glenn. You just want me to be a loser all my life!”

  I was rambling. I knew I was rambling. But even so, it all felt very true.

  “No. I just want my friend back,” Stephanie said calmly. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

  “Well, here’s news. I’m still me,” I told her, my heart breaking down the middle. “I’m just realizing all my friends suck.”

  Stephanie looked at me, utterly and completely betrayed. “What?”

  “Come on, Tama,” I said coolly. “Let’s go.”

  Tama smiled triumphantly. “Yeah. Let’s.”

  I turned my back on Stephanie and walked down the street with Tama. I felt myself starting to come down from my ire high and my legs were shaky beneath me, but I kept right on walking. I was done with Stephanie. Done with Fred and Glenn. Done with all those people. I knew who had my back. I knew who I wanted to be with. And it was not them.

  END ACT TWO

  ACT THREE, SCENE ONE

  In which:

  THE WALLS CRUMBLE

  I PULLED INTO MY DRIVEWAY AFTER DRIVING TAMA HOME, AND THE lights were still on. As I got out of the car, I could already hear the yelling. My heart moved up my throat and I had to swallow it back, but it wouldn’t go. As I walked toward the door, my stomach started to twist and my hands trembled. I didn’t want to go inside, but I had nowhere else to go. I shoved the key into the lock and walked in.

  “What the hell is the matter with you!” my father screamed, his face as red as a hot poker as he glared down at my bawling brother. “Things cost money! Glasses cost money! You have no respect for anything!”

  “Greg, it’s just a glass,” my mother said.

  “You stay out of this, Jill! This has nothing to do with you!” my father screamed.

  He slammed his own glass down on the counter so hard I was amazed it didn’t shatter. Christopher jumped. The look of sheer terror on his face broke something inside of me. I slammed the front door and everyone whirled around.

  “Leave him alone!” I shouted at my father.

  Every single inch of my body shook as I moved forward and hugged Christopher out of the way. He turned his face into my side and cried.

  “Where the hell have you been?” His eyes were so watery, his breath so rank, I was shocked he had been able to drive himself home.

  “It’s just a glass, Dad!” I shouted, ignoring the question. “Look at him. He’s scared out of his mind and bawling his eyes out because he broke one little glass! He’s just a kid! What’s the matter with you!”

  “KJ,” my mother begged.

  “How dare you talk to me like that!?” my father roared. “It’s about time you and your brother learn a little respect!”

  “For what? For you?” I spat, every ounce of my disgust toward him seeping into that one word.

  “Yes, for me! I work my ass off every single day so that I can buy all the things you need and want, and all you do is take!” he shouted. “I work late every night for you kids and no one appreciates it!”

  “Please! You do not work late!” I cried, tears springing to my eyes. “You work till five every day and then drink till eight and then come home and scream at everybody!”

  I was so strangled by the end of the sentence, it came out like a wail. My father stared at me for a moment, shocked. Guess he was still getting used to the idea of me standing up to him. Actually, so was I.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about, young lady,” he said finally.

  “Oh, so that wasn’t you I bumped into outside of O’Reilly’s Pool Hall tonight?” I asked, somewhat more in control.

  “What? KJ, what were you doing at O’Reilly’s?” my mother asked.

  “Nothing,” I told her. “And I know I’m probably grounded anyway, but I wasn’t drinking. I know better,” I said, turning judging eyes on my father.

  “Katie Jean, go to your room,” my father said through his teeth.

  He was trying to avoid me saying more. Trying to avoid a discussion of where he’d been tonight.

  “Do you really think we don’t know, Dad?” I said. “Do you even realize how bad you smell at night? How it’s so awful no one wants to go near you? You’re always mad and you’re always mean and we’re all scared of you! We’re scared to be in our own house half the time! I mean, break one glass and you react like we’ve just driven your car through the front of the house! You’re the one who has no respect for us!”

  I was just rambling now, spitting out all the things I’d thought all those nights while I’d listened to him and my mother fight. When I was finished, my father was silent. I couldn’t even believe it. My mother sank into a chair in the corner and I grabbed my brother’s hand and got the hell out of there. Christopher and I ran up to my room and closed the door behind us. My heart was pumping so fast I had to gasp for breath to calm it down. Christopher dried his eyes and heaved in a breath, watching me pace back and forth in front of him until I finally, finally quieted myself. I ran my hands through my hair and looked at him.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He gazed back at me in awe. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

  I felt an odd burst of joy in my chest. “Neither can I.”

  ACT THREE, SCENE TWO

  In which:

  ROBBIE SAVES ME, AGAIN

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON I WAS WORKING ON MY THIRD PAINTING OF the day—each one darker than the last—while my father bang
ed around his home office. As if slamming things at random would get all his anger out of his system. When he was in this kind of mood, there was no telling what might set him off again. So when the doorbell rang, I dropped my paintbrush and ran for it, knowing my mom and brother were out. I was shocked to see Robbie standing on my front step.

  “Hey,” he said, hands in the pockets of his blue puffer vest.

  It was actually semi-warm out. One of those random early-March days that popped up to remind you spring was coming.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Just thought I’d stop by to see how you were doing,” Robbie said.

  “How I’m doing?” I asked. “You mean you don’t hate me?”

  His brow creased. “Why would I hate you?”

  “Everyone else does,” I replied.

  Well, Stephanie did, at least. She hadn’t called me once. On a Saturday. That was unheard of. Not that I wanted to talk to her either, but the silence felt like a lead apron on my chest.

  “So you freaked out,” Robbie said with a shrug. “From what I could tell you were already upset about something the second you walked through the door, so I figured I’d come over and see if you wanted to, like, talk or whatever.”

  “So this is a house call,” I said.

  “Just call me Doctor Phil,” he said.

  “The doctor and the farmer,” I joked.

  Behind me, a door slammed, there were a few heavy footsteps and another door slammed. I glanced warily over my shoulder. When I looked back at Robbie again, his face was all concern.

  “KJ, is something wrong?” he asked.

  “Uh, can I plead the Fifth?” I asked.

  “You’re not gonna let me in, are you?”

  I looked down at my feet. He knew. He knew that my family was dysfunctional and my father was scary and I was totally pathetic.

  “Then do you want to come out?” he asked. “We could go for a walk. It’s really nice out.”

  I took a deep breath and realized there was absolutely nothing in the world I wanted more than to get the heck out of my house.

  “Definitely,” I said. “Wait here.”

  I scribbled a quick note to my mom to let her know where I was going, then grabbed my coat and walked out. Within ten seconds of the sun on my face, I was smiling. I know I could have gone out for a walk by myself, but I never would have. Robbie was my knight in shining armor. Again.

  “So, stopping by. Good decision?” Robbie asked.

  I grinned at him and skipped a step to illustrate my glee. “Great decision.”

  ACT THREE, SCENE THREE

  In which:

  I BLAB

  INSTEAD OF WALKING DOWN MY DRIVEWAY TO THE STREET, ROBBIE hooked a left, around the side of my house and into the backyard. He cut right by my brother’s swing set and into the woods at the back. No one knew who owned the woods between my house and the houses on the next street, but they were thick and wide and ran all the way from Gerber Hill to the high school, like, a mile away. It was basically the only stretch of trees in town that hadn’t yet been cut down to build McMansions.

  “Where are we going?” I asked Robbie as he held a branch aside for me. The ground was muddy and covered with slick leaves left over from last fall. I was glad I was wearing my crappiest sneakers.

  “To the bridge,” he said. Like I obviously knew what bridge he was talking about.

  Which made me feel stupid when I said, “What bridge?”

  Robbie glanced over his shoulder at me. “What, you’ve never been back here before?”

  “Not this far,” I grumbled. My tentative good mood was close to evaporating. I hated feeling stupid. Almost as much as I hated feeling trapped. Or embarrassed.

  “I cut through here to get to your house. If you go this way, we don’t live that far from each other.”

  I wondered when he had figured this out. Why he cared how close we lived to each other. Why he felt he needed a shortcut to get to me. But I didn’t ask.

  “Here. See? The bridge.”

  We’d come upon a tiny stream with a steep embankment. A sturdy wooden bridge with no handrails connected one side to the other over the widest stretch.

  “What’s this stream?” I asked as Robbie sat down and dangled his legs toward the water. The bottoms of his sneakers almost touched the rocks. He took the drumsticks out of his back pocket and laid them aside.

  “It turns into Meadow Brook farther down. By the park.”

  He was looking at me like I was clueless. Like everyone knew this but me.

  “Guess I’m not much of an explorer,” I said, sitting down next to him. My feet came nowhere near the water. I picked up a pebble from the bridge and tossed it in.

  “So, is everything okay?” he asked me.

  I took a deep breath. Already my body heat was skyrocketing. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” I tossed another pebble into the water.

  “But not really.”

  I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. He was looking at me with those eyes of his. Those completely unteasing, interested, kind eyes. I felt the words bubbling up in my throat. Tried to hold them back. No one needed to know how much my life sucked, least of all Robbie Delano, whom I hardly even knew. But somehow, I knew I was going to say it anyway. Being out here in the middle of the woods with nothing but the sound of the babbling water and the birds flitting from tree to tree overhead made me feel safe.

  “I had a fight with my dad last night,” I said finally.

  “About what?” he asked.

  God, this was going to sound stupid. “Well, first he caught me and Tama at O’Reilly’s Pool Hall.”

  Robbie winced. “Ouch.”

  “And then, when I got home last night, he was freaking out on my brother for breaking a glass. So I yelled at him.”

  “Really?” Robbie said.

  “Yeah.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, stuffing his hands under his elbows. “How bad was he freaking out?”

  “Bad. Like, really bad,” I said, my insides twisting at the memory. Another pebble plopped into the water.

  “Over a glass?” Robbie sounded incredulous.

  “He was kind of . . .” I looked at Robbie.

  “What?”

  My cheeks prickled with heat. “Drunk.”

  There. I’d said it. It was out there.

  “Oh.”

  “He’s always drunk. Every night. And he’s always in a bad mood. Like, really bad. Like if you leave the light on in the basement or something, he just loses it. He goes ballistic. Like you burned the house down or something. And that’s what he was doing to my brother last night, so I kind of freaked. I was all upset already after the party and I just . . . snapped.”

  “Wow,” Robbie said. “He seemed so normal when I met him.”

  “Yeah, well, that was a good night.”

  “Oh.” Robbie pondered this for a second. “KJ, he doesn’t, like, hit you or anything, does he?”

  “No! Oh no. Nothing like that,” I said, rushing to my father’s defense. “He would never do that. He just yells. A lot. And he gets all red and he throws things sometimes.”

  “He throws things?”

  I felt like I was drawing this picture that was a lot worse than it was. “Well, yeah, but not at people.”

  “But still—”

  “I know. It’s bad. But it’s, whatever. It’s fine,” I said with a shrug. I wished I had never opened my mouth. Now Robbie was going to think I was a freak with a crazy family. He wasn’t going to want to be friends anymore and he was never going to stop by like this ever again. Nice one, KJ.

  “That must suck,” he said finally.

  “Yeah, well.”

  I didn’t know what else to say. I threw another pebble into the water. Flung it, actually.

  “I can’t imagine being afraid of my dad,” Robbie said, which made my heart twinge painfully.

  “I can’t imagine not being afraid of my dad.” I took a
deep breath. “I’m scared all the time when I’m home. All the time.”

  I sounded pathetic. Why couldn’t I make myself stop talking?