Oryon

by T Cooper

  “Almost forgot. Changers Mixer next weekend. Mandatory.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Dress to impress!” she chirped, and sped away.

  * * *

  At home, I find myself alone again, and feeling it in more ways than one. I try not to think about it, but I’m a little depressed. Or a lot depressed. Nothing like being the reason a thousand people are miserable tonight. Even if it’s over a stupid game where one team just happened to carry a leather ball farther than the other one.

  The Changers Bible says that right about now is the hardest time for being in a new V. That the adrenaline rush from the Change starts to die down, reality settles in, and you can’t help but be like, So I guess this is really happening for another, oh, 330 days . . . A big wad of out-of-control awesome.

  It doesn’t help that everybody I know is on dates tonight—Tracy, my parents, even DJ, who claims he’s out with some hot college girl whom he met at that slam. I don’t know if I buy it though, because ever since the thing with Kenya it seems like he’s more pissed at me than she is.

  I’m too tired to figure it out or sweat it, and just want to curl up in my bed and binge-watch Dr. Who until blood starts dripping from my eyes like vampire tears.

  The phone’s ringing. Probably my parents checking in.

  * * *

  It was Audrey calling! I had no idea she had my, well, Oryon’s number.

  “It’s me,” she says right after I say hello.

  “Me?”

  “Audrey,” she adds. “From school.”

  “I know,” I say. Just breathe, O. Act cool. Simply be. Simply be. “How are you?”

  “Better than you.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Better than you,” she repeats. “Har har.”

  “So what’s, uh—”

  “Why am I calling?”

  “No!” I say. “I mean, I’m happy you did. But I—”

  “You’re wondering how I got your number,” she interrupts, sounding a little self-conscious and like she might be regretting it.

  “Besides the twenty times I wrote it on a piece of paper and secretly stuck it in your locker and backpack?” I say, regaining a little composure.

  “It was on the team directory,” she points out like, duh, which immediately snaps me back to what happened earlier, and why she’s taking pity and reaching out to me, the black Benedict Arnold of Central. “I guess I just wanted to say, I don’t know. I—”

  “It’s okay,” I say, trying to give her an out.

  “No, it’s not,” she starts. “I mean, if even half of what I’m hearing is true . . . it’s just, story of my life, I can’t believe I’m related to that monster, and I guess I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

  “It wasn’t the best forty-eight hours.”

  “I’m sure. Wowzers.”

  “But it wasn’t the worst either,” I add. “Especially now that I’m talking to you.” I totally mean it. But as soon as I say it, I can tell I’ve come on a little too strong.

  “How does your leg feel?” she changes the subject.

  “A little better. My back, however, is still aching from the concession hail storm that rained down on me tonight.”

  She chuckles. I wait. The silence on the line is hard, but it’s okay.

  “How’s Aaron managing?” I ask.

  “I haven’t talked to him yet. He won’t answer my texts.”

  “It’s got to be really brutal for him too.”

  “You’re sweet,” she says. And then, “Oryon?” I love how my name sounds in her voice. “When you feel better,” she continues, cracking on the word feel, “we can go out for that dinner and movie. But just as friends.”

  “Is this a pity date?” I push, wanting to know, sort of.

  “It’s not a date.”

  “Pity,” I say, and she laughs again, a symphony in my ear.

  CHANGE 2–DAY 36

  Shuffling around school today I felt slightly less hated, if only because no chili dogs or Red Bulls were being hurled at me. There were still a few sneers and threatening looks in the hallways between classes and in the cafeteria at lunch, but after Dashawn came up to me and gave me a very visible shoulder bump in the middle of the caf, before helping me carry my tray to the black table where he made it abundantly clear I was welcome to sit, the heat let up some. DJ and Kenya were seated at the far other end of the table, but both nodded my way as I sat down in front of the tray Dashawn had placed on the table.

  You can tell who your friends are, or at least who knows what actually matters in life, when you are the supposed cause of a lost football game. Of course it makes zero sense that I am to blame, when if Jason and Baron had just laid off me (and not been sociopathic hate mongers), Jason would’ve thrown for a million yards and scored a hundred touchdowns as usual, and everybody would be happy today and all week long until it was time to start sweating the next game. But that is not the country we live in yet. Just as I learned when I was Drew, most folks choose not to wrestle with the complicated reality, when blaming the victim is so much easier.

  The black (ahem) balling was so fierce, even Mr. Crowell took me aside at the end of homeroom and inquired as to how I was “holding up.” Initially I assumed that he’d heard about all the hoopla through other faculty members, but then it seemed like there was something deeper in his apprehension, like maybe Tracy was the source of his exacerbated concern. I didn’t have time to suss it out any further, as I had to get to first period—which takes a lot longer on crutches. And there are no elevators in the building, which (yes, Changer gods, I’m getting the message on the empathy front) is the first time I’ve considered how ridiculously hard it is just getting to class if you’re, say, in a wheelchair, or differently abled in some way.

  During English, Michelle Hu slyly passed me a note that read: If you believe Everett’s Many-Worlds theory, then you won the football game in an alternate universe! (Of course, it also means you are dead in an alternate universe.) Yay sports!

  Later by the lockers, I was thinking about how I wished I could carry Michelle Hu around in my backpack to cheer me up and keep me centered, when Audrey came up from behind and asked, sort of with a lilt in her voice, “How are you feeling?”

  I started, which sent one of my crutches clattering to the linoleum floor. Aud picked it up.

  “Much, much better,” I said, giving a theatrical bow.

  Audrey laughed as she carefully leaned my crutch up against the lockers. “Good to hear.”

  “So much better, in fact,” I went on. “How’s Friday night looking?”

  “Can’t do the weekend,” she said.

  “How about Thursday?” I persisted. She seemed to be wavering, so I added, “Just as friends, of course.”

  After a beat she said, “Sure,” with absolutely zero enthusiasm. Whatever. I’ll take it. It’s an opening into her world, the—apologies to Michelle Hu—only universe that matters to me.

  CHANGE 2–DAY 39

  “How’d you find this place?” Audrey asks, as soon as we push through the beaded, glittery curtains and into Pho Sure, my favorite restaurant in Genesis.

  “My folks and I have this thing where we make ourselves try a new restaurant every couple weeks, and this was by far the best,” I say, but then immediately remember “my folks” aren’t really “my folks,” and I need to be on guard about that kind of personal stuff when it comes up.

  I forget because I just want to be “myself” with Audrey, without always stress-balling having to keep my story straight. I guess this is one reason why we Changers are advised in the CB to “diversify our Static relationships.” The sheer, unmanageable calculus of it all.

  “Your family sounds really fun,” Audrey says, snapping me back to the now.

  The look on her face makes it abundantly clear that she probably doesn’t try a lot of new things with her own folks, which I already know from the little time I spent with them. Boundary-pushing is not toppi
ng the list on the Stewart family agenda. Crazy how Aud turned out so different. She sure dodged both the nature and nurture bullets.

  When we get shown to a table, I lean my crutches against the wall and walk around on my cast to hold out Audrey’s chair for her.

  “I thought this wasn’t a date,” she teases.

  “It’s not,” I say, hobbling back around to my chair and flopping down. “It’s called good manners.”

  “You’re getting around pretty well on that,” she says, pointing to my cast.

  “Quick healer.” I flex my biceps, kiss them one at a time. “Strong genes for our future children.”

  “Har har har.” She turns her attention to the menu. “So, what’s good?”

  “Everything,” I say, and then, “Two cafe sua da, iced, please,” to the waiter, who I hope recognizes me from being here last time with my parents, so I can impress Audrey by seeming like a regular. It was uncomfortable when Dad grilled the older woman about where they lived in Vietnam (Hoi An), but now I can use the info to look worldly and connected in front of Audrey.

  “You will love this drink,” I say to her.

  She looks a little taken aback. “Oh I will, will I?” she sasses.

  Of course. As far as Audrey knows, this is the first time we’ve spent any time together outside of school and the Peregrine Review. There is no way Oryon would be aware of her chronic sweet tooth and that she’d love the creamy sugary deliciousness of Vietnamese iced coffee.

  “Everyone does,” I stammer. “It’s kind of impossible not to,” I manage, which seems to put her at ease.

  “Sooooo, what would you suggest?” Aud asks, probably wishing she didn’t need help.

  “Well, since you’re not a meat gal, I think the best thing to start off with is tofu and egg bun—it’s like noodles.”

  “How’d you know I was vegetarian?”

  Doh. “Lucky guess, I guess.”

  “I guess,” she says generously. “What about you?”

  “I used to be, but for some reason when I started playing football, I just felt like eating ten turkey burgers a night. But now that football is no longer on my schedule, I just this very second decided that I’m going to go back to being vegetarian again. Tofu, here I come!”

  “You’re a goof,” she says, looking at me from under her eyelashes.

  I make a goof-face.

  Then the mood shifts, and she mentions she heard that her brother would be back on the field tomorrow. “Honestly, you should’ve pressed charges.”

  I fan my hand like I’m swatting a gnat. “Whatever. What’s done is done. You can’t exactly expect high school to be the model of what’s fair and right, can ya?”

  Aud smiles. “No. No, you cannot.”

  After her rice noodles and my pho come, I raise my glass and say, “To new friends,” and Aud quickly grabs her glass, clinks mine, and echoes, “To new friends.”

  We eat in silence for the first few bites. I can’t tell whether she likes it or not, but then she chews a giant mouthful of noodles and her eyes light up like Vegas. She swallows, washes it down with some coffee, and says, “It smells a little like wet dog, but it tastes like heaven.”

  I laugh, almost spitting my water onto the table.

  “Oh my goodness, did that sound racist?” Aud asks, clearly worried. “I was really talking about the odor, not alluding to some stereotype. Oh, man.”

  I laugh again.

  “Well, I’m glad this isn’t a date, or you’d be asking for the check right about now,” she grimaces.

  I pretend to signal the waiter, making the international sign for Check, please, and we both dissolve into childlike giggles.

  * * *

  “Thank you. I had a really good time tonight,” Audrey says after the server really does bring the bill.

  “Why do you sound so surprised about that?” I ask.

  “I don’t know . . .” she says, trailing off and sitting there silently for a few seconds. “It’s really strange, but you remind me of somebody I used to know really well.”

  I let that sink in. It feels so good to hear, even if it makes me ill at ease to be that person she’s talking about.

  “Well, let’s do it again sometime, with a movie too. Maybe next time as possibly more than friends?” I punctuate this with a nervous smile.

  She doesn’t answer. Which I suppose is better than a flat-out no.

  “I have to get back to school, my mom’s picking me up in fifteen,” she says then.

  “I’ll walk you back.”

  “More like limp me back,” she says with a conciliatory smile.

  “Har har.”

  “Har har.”

  * * *

  Back home, I text Chase: If anyone asks, I was with you tonight.

  He quickly returns: What are you playing at?

  Me: Just trying to find some joy in this crazy world.

  Chase: So, drugs then? JK! Consider your alibi tight.

  Me: Thanks.

  Chase: I’m just glad to see you’re no longer campaigning for sainthood. Call me when you really want to kick up some dirt.

  Me: Don’t hold your breath.

  Chase: The RaChas door is always open.

  Me: I’ve got my hands full here.

  Chase: With Audrey’s breasts, no doubt.

  Me: Dude. Not cool.

  Chase: If any of her pillow talk is about her Abider kinfolk, you be sure to let me know. Deal?

  Me: You’re sick. Also. No.

  Chase: Pussy.

  Me: Sexist.

  Chase: You seem happy.

  Me: I guess I am.

  Chase: But watch yourself. K?

  Me: I thought I had you for that!

  Chase: I’m being straight here. Keep your eyes open. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Like last year. I should have been there. I’m not making the same mistake twice.

  Me: Chase, you owe me nothing. Didn’t then, don’t now.

  The screen goes quiet. I pester him a few more times, but Chase doesn’t respond. I tell him I’m going dark for the night, and try not to worry about the ominous warnings he keeps spitting out. I lean back into my pillows, exhale, and my thoughts cast back to an hour earlier, the glimmer in Audrey’s eye as she sucked up her Vietnamese noodles, delirious with even that small taste of something different.

  CHANGE 2–DAY 40

  Well, so much for what I thought was an awesome date. Audrey was downright frosty in homeroom today. Standoffish, distant. We barely spoke, almost like she was trying to make sure I knew nothing had changed from yesterday to today just because of some flirty conversation over iced coffee.

  Central won the game tonight, Jason performing better than ever, connecting with Aaron for two touchdown passes, both of them tabling their mutual hatred for the benefit of the win. Thus was the universe of Central High righted once again. Whatever. Most people seem to forget everything that happens the minute after it happens, so hopefully the whole hating on me because Jason wanted to snap my limbs fiasco will likewise fade to nothingness when Central still makes State with merely one negative blip on our record.

  After the game, I saw Kenya waiting for a ride home by the field house. She was by herself, so I took the opportunity to talk to her alone, something I hadn’t been able to do since Kiss-gate.

  “Hi,” I say, lurching up beside her on my crutches.

  “Oh, hey,” she says, not bothering to look at me.

  “What’s been happening?”

  “Nothing. How are you?” she asks, pointing an elbow at my ankle.

  “Oh, you know, nothing I can’t deal with.”

  Kenya purses her lips, stays quiet.

  “So . . .” I start, even if I don’t necessarily know where I’m going, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you since, you know . . .”

  She glowers right at me, as if challenging me to spell it out: SINCE WE KISSED! Which would make it real again, even though from the outside it seems like she’s done her b
est to eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind that event from her memory bank.

  I press on: “I guess I just wanted to see what’s up, because, I wanted you to know I didn’t plan that or anything, it just sort of happened, and ever since that night it seems like you’ve been mad at me or something.”

  Kenya’s still staring at me dead-faced, and I’m wishing I’d never said anything in the first place, but that leaky ship has sailed so I may as well keep bailing. “It seems like maybe you thought it was a bigger deal than it was, or maybe you wanted it to be a bigger deal—”

  “Excuse me?” she interrupts. Now she’s pissed.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want anything from you, Oryon,” she snaps.

  “Okay.”

  “Man, you sure do love yourself, don’t you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Could have fooled me.” Beat. “Again.”

  Ouch. I should shut my excuse hole. But I don’t. I want things to feel right again. Right for me.

  “I really like you as a person,” I try.

  “Man. Really?”

  “You’re amazing,” I just stupidly keep going on, “and you’ve got giant things ahead of you, like championships and gold medals, and we both know you don’t need to be distracted by some fool like me.”

  She releases a sigh the length of an opera. Then forces a pained half-smile. “Look, it’s no big deal, okay? I gotta go, my ride is here.”

  I watch as she climbs in her mother’s car. When her mom asks, “Who’s that?” I can hear Kenya answer, “No one,” and they drive away.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later I run into DJ in front of the Quickie Mart, where I walked to meet my dad so he doesn’t have to pick me up at school. DJ is gripping a jug of SunnyD in one hand, a Twix in the other.

  “You going out?” he asks, jutting his chin at me.

  “Nah,” I say.

  “No hot date with Miley Cyrus?” He’s smiling, but not in a happy way.

  “What?”

  “The white hillbilly piece that’s keeping you from seeing what’s right in front of you.”

  “Is this about Kenya?” I ask. “Because we’re cool.”