The Handsome Girl & Her Beautiful Boy

by B. T. Gottfred

  ZEE

  —the kind of drunk when they’re two seconds from passing out or two seconds from killing someone.

  Cam takes a step toward Abigail. “Abigail, you haven’t been hanging out with Will again, have you, babe?”

  Babe? I don’t love hearing him call her “babe,” but she likes it even less.

  Abigail runs full-raging-bull at Cam, throws two fists into his chest, and yells, “DON’T CALL ME ‘BABE’ WHEN YOU’VE BEEN HAVING SEX WITH ZEE!”

  I flinch because I know my whole careless summer is about to land on my head. I can’t even look back at—

  art

  Zee can’t look at me. It’s okay. It’s not okay at all because I can’t believe she had sex with someone else and, yes, I know I kissed Jayden but it was just kissing, sort of, and my brain can’t do anything right now but—

  ZEE

  Cam says, “We didn’t have sex!”

  Which is true, but it feels weird that Cam’s saying it. Abigail keeps hitting him, hard, a few to the side of the head, and Cam’s just taking it. And I don’t know what’s supposed to happen between all of us but no one should be hitting anyone. So I step forward and try to pull Cam away and Abigail grabs back at him with one hand, slapping at me with the other, spit flying from her blitzed face as she screams, “Let him go! He was mine for two years! I get to have him for three more days and then you can have him forever because I’m moving! YEAH, I’M MOVING AWAY FROM ALL YOU FUCKING LOSERS! GOING TO OHIO, WHERE I DON’T HAVE TO SEE ANY OF YOU LOSERS AGAIN!”

  Cam says, soft to her hard, “You really moving?”

  And I turn back to Art, who can’t look—

  art

  I can’t look at Zee, but when I turn away from her, I see Bryan and I can’t look at him either and so I look away from both of them and I see:

  Jayden.

  OH-MY-GOD.

  And he’s standing in the grass, far behind Abigail, but he’s wearing a hoodie and cargo pants. He even did his hair like Zee! Oh-my-god, he really is stalking me and Abigail’s still yelling and Zee and Bryan and Jayden know I’m moving to Ohio and Zee has let go of Cam, is grabbing me, looking at me and saying—

  ZEE

  “You’re moving?” I ask, and as I’m waiting for Art to respond, I feel like I’m waiting for him to tear me in half.

  art

  “Surprise,” I say, because I always try to be funny even when the world is ending.

  Abigail has officially won the award for “craziest-meanest-drunk Adams” and that’s impressive because there have been a lot of crazy-mean-drunk Adamses. She shoves Cam toward Zee and me, slapping at his face so he’ll look at us. She yells, “And see those two? You want to know why she cares more about Art than you? Because they had sex! Yeah, so you got my gay brother’s sloppy seconds! How’s that make you feel?”

  * * *

  Guess who forgot to throw Abigail off the Zee-Art secret-love scent?

  ZEE

  Now Cam shrinks to half his size as he looks at Art and me. He can barely say, “Is that true?”

  And no more bullshit. “Yeah.”

  “How could you have sex with Art?” Cam’s fighting tears, and he’s about as good at fighting them as Art.

  I look back at the kid, and I don’t even need to think twice about saying what I want to say.

  art

  “Because I fell in love with him,” Zee says. And oh-my-god, my girl just declared to the whole school and Cam and the whole world that she loves me.

  “HE’S GAY!” Cam yells.

  “I DON’T CARE WHAT HE IS!” Zee yells back. And her words, plus Abigail’s fists to his head, are too much for him, so he just collapses to the ground. On his hands and knees.

  “GET UP!” Abigail’s now crying too. Her punches dissolve into the exhausted slaps of a toddler. “Be a man, Cam … be a man, yell at me…”

  Zee looks back at me, and I know before she says it. “You pull Abigail away and I’ll get Cam.” I nod and—

  ZEE

  As I’m trying to lift Cam up off the ground, Art moves around to try and contain Abigail, but that Will Safire dude and his equally gross friends—tired of just watching the spectacle—are suddenly beside us. They start kicking and punching Art. He’s fine, managing … until Will swings a vodka bottle down onto his head. Boom, my beautiful boy falls fast and limp to the ground.

  Abigail’s rage ricochets into horror. “Art! That’s my brother! Get away from my brother!” And now she’s attacking Will, who starts hitting her back.

  I let Cam go so he can save Abigail from the blitzed older kids and I can rescue Art. Someone’s pawing at me, and I’m preparing for a bottle across my head as I try to pick up Art when I see—out of the corner of my eye—Bryan barrel out of the crowd, arms wide, and he tackles Will Safire and two of his lackeys into the pool along with himself.

  The rest of the drunk punks leap in after Bryan, and Bryan’s fucking strong but I don’t know if he’s twelve-on-one strong. Abigail pulls away from Cam toward Art, crying hysterically, repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” until she starts puking uncontrollably. With Art and Abigail by me, I yell, “CAM! HELP BRYAN!” and he leaps into the pool like the hero I kind of always knew he was. He and Bryan are fighting side by side. It’s twelve on two, but they’re holding their own as I lift Art up off the patio floor. He’s bleeding. It’s over my hands, on my pants, on his forehead, seeping into his eyes.

  “Let me help,” another kid says. A boy. He’s dressed in a hoodie. I don’t recognize him and I’m not leaving Art with someone I don’t know. Then this soccer girl Carolina steps in, says,

  “We got him.”

  “Can you sit with him?”

  “Yes. Go help your friends.”

  And I turn and leap into the pool, picking off one of Bryan’s attackers. Trevor, Benedict, Gator, and a couple of the other football players are in the pool now, each trying to pull away the party crashers, but these dudes are drunk and they’re fucking insane, kicking and yelling and punching like rabid animals.

  Bryan yells, “Get them in headlocks and yank them out one by one,” which Cam does, and more football players have jumped in, some of Trevor’s track buddies, and even Benedict’s friend Robert. And suddenly we outnumber them three to one. Will Safire and the drunk dudes, once they’re in headlocks, go limp and let us pull them to the shallow end, where almost every other kid at Riverbend is waiting to help pin these idiots down.

  * * *

  When Bryan drags the last drunk stranger out of the pool, every kid from Riverbend—and there must be almost two hundred of us now—does this huge cheer for Bryan and Cam. Not just for them, but also for all of us who jumped in, and maybe for all of us period. For like one second, it feels like I go to the greatest high school in the fucking country.

  Then I remember Art and, sopping wet, I sprint over to where Carolina and the boy in the hoodie are sitting with Art. Hoodie boy is crying, which is weird, and hyperventilating, which is weirder.

  “He’s not breathing,” the boy says. “Art’s not breathing.”

  art

  Oh-my-god, I died!

  This is even worse than Zee having sex with Cam. Mmmh. I don’t know. I think I’d rather be dead than for Zee to have sex with Cam again. I’m hilarious when I’m dead.

  Did you know when you’re dead you can see and hear the living? You can. Because I can see and hear Zee and Jayden right now. Oh-my-god, Jayden’s going to tell Zee that we kissed and I won’t be able to be mad at Zee for having sex with Cam if she knows about Jayden. This is definitely worse than me being dead.

  * * *

  Zee’s holding my hand, and leaning next to my face, then away, then back. She should kiss me! Yes! Jayden might kill her, but then we would be dead together, which is better than just one of us being dead. That’s so selfish of me. Okay, she can stay living, but I get to haunt her.

  “He’s breathing,” Zee says.

  “He is?” Jayden’s bare
ly functioning. Wait—did they say I’m breathing? Does that mean I’m not dead? Well, I guess that’s good news. I mean, it would have been rather memorable if I died young. But, clearly, I’ll be even more memorable if I live forever.

  “Art? You okay?” she asks.

  I tell her yes, I’ll be okay as long as she never leaves me again.

  But Jayden says, “He’s not answering.”

  ZEE

  The ambulance arrives pretty fast after the cops get there. Me and the hoodie kid stay with the stretcher as the paramedics roll it from the backyard to the driveway. Bryan and a few others are just behind.

  One of the paramedics says to us, “Only one of you can get in the ambulance with him. The rest of you will have to meet us at the hospital.”

  I look at the new kid and Bryan, and they know before I even employ my evil eye. I give them a nod of thanks, then climb into the ambulance with Art.

  * * *

  The kid’s breathing okay. But his eyes are closed, and I always thought I kept my mom alive by making her look at me. Except I didn’t keep my mom alive. She died. And Art’s going to die, isn’t he? He’s going to leave me like my mom left me.

  Kid, if you die, I’ll hunt you down in the ghost world and kick your ass.

  And then, I swear, I can hear him say—yeah, I’m nuts! I know!—but I hear him say, And my queen, if I don’t die, do you promise to love me until the end of the universe?

  “I promise,” I say, and yeah, I fucking say it out loud because I want to make sure Art hears me.

  * * *

  When we get to the hospital, they wheel him off into an examination room—just like they did my mom—and I have to wait. Wait in the waiting room. By myself. My phone’s busted from the dive in the pool, so I can’t call anyone and I don’t know who the hell I’d call anyway.

  Except two minutes later, Bryan and the new kid arrive and we’re all hugging even though I hate hugging people. Then I have to say, “Who are you?” to the kid who’s dressed like me.

  “I’m Jayden.”

  “He’s—” Bryan starts.

  “I know who he is.” The pictures. Jayden. And yeah, he’s prettier than Art and a hundred times prettier than me and I’m sure they did stuff and I want to punch him but I hug him again just because who the fuck cares about that now.

  * * *

  Not too long after that, Pen, Iris, Benedict, and Gator Green show up. They all hug me and I’m a hugger now, so I hug them back. Me and the girls do this chick group cry and it feels good even though I want it to feel wrong. I guess this means I have friends. It feels so fucking good that it hurts.

  Then that soccer girl Carolina arrives holding hands with Trevor Santos, which I don’t understand but also don’t judge because who knows what their story is. I pull them both into our giant embrace because right now I’d hug everyone on planet Earth if it helped Art be okay.

  * * *

  Pen and Iris tell me the cops put Will Safire and the rest of the drunk kids in cuffs and into the police cars. Since they weren’t invited, and they were the only ones drinking (at least the only ones caught), Benedict’s mom didn’t get in trouble.

  Cops arrested Abigail along with them. And before I even have to ask,

  Pen says, “Cam followed the cops to the station.”

  Iris adds, “But he did tell us to tell you that everything’s cool.”

  “Everything’s cool?” I don’t even know what he means by that. In fact, I don’t know if I should be mad at him or he should be mad at me. But you know, “Fuck it. If he’s cool with me, I’m cool with him.”

  * * *

  Pen has pizzas delivered to the waiting room (not just for us, for everyone there), but I can’t eat food right now and neither can Jayden. Jayden. So he sits next to me while everyone else dives into the pizza.

  “I can see it,” he says. The boy has this flair. Like he’s an actress from the nineteen-fifties.

  “See what?”

  “How you could turn a gay boy straight.” He laughs. It is funny.

  “Yeah, well … I might say, seeing how fucking pretty you are, how you could turn a straight boy gay.”

  “Oh, you’re smart and interesting too. I never had a chance.”

  “I have to ask,” I start, “do you always dress like that?”

  “No, this was a one-time event and I’ll demand any photographic evidence be destroyed.”

  “I think you look good.” I smile at him. Just because.

  Jayden says, “I promised I’d stalk him, and I always keep my promises. Okay, and maybe I also dreamed he’d see you and me in the same place and choose me. But after witnessing the two of you together, well, maybe I’m meant to be your guest star. A very important, very famous guest star, of course. And yes, I mean that in every way possible.” He tries to smile, but he starts crying instead. So I pull Jayden down against my chest. He closes his eyes. I close mine. And since I know we’re both thinking of Art, it feels like we are on the same side.

  * * *

  At midnight, a doctor comes out and the first thing she asks is,

  “Are Art’s parents here?”

  The admitting nurse behind the doctor says, “I left voice mails on multiple numbers we had on file, but there’s been no response.”

  “Is anyone family?”

  I raise my hand before I think not to. I’m his not-so-platonic wife.

  But Bryan rescues us again, says, “She’s his sister.”

  I’ll be whatever I need to be so that I can be with Art.

  “Where are your mom and dad?” the doctor asks.

  “They’re shitty parents,” I say, and the doctor nods, like she knows there are parents out there that just suck, so she directs me back through the doors, tells everyone else, “The rest of you will have to wait out here.”

  Once we’re into the guts of the hospital, the doctor says, “He’s stable. The CAT scan of his head didn’t reveal anything. We’ll keep him under tight observation. It’s probably just a concussion…”

  I feel a big fucking “but” coming.

  “… but he has yet to regain consciousness. This does happen. It’s not ideal, but it does happen. Will you be able to sit with him? Talk to him? It might help.”

  “Anything.”

  And that’s when I realize the doctor is leading me into the same fucking room my mom died in and I almost say I can’t but I don’t because I can’t not be there for him. The tears start before I even see him. The doctor says, “A nurse will be back here in a few minutes. And we will update you as more test results come in. Please try to get ahold of your mom or dad.”

  “Okay,” I say, and she leaves me alone with Art.

  * * *

  He looks terrible. His hair is a mess, dried blood caked in deep. Drool running down his chin. Eyes look lopsided. But … Jesus … he still looks gorgeous. Even this way. Even when he’s a disaster, he’s beautiful.

  I sit down on the chair, same chair I slept in that last night with my mom, and pull it up alongside him. “Hey, kid…” I say, and I feel like an idiot. I stare down at the floor and wish I could just talk like he talks, with that joy and freedom. Talk like my mom used to talk.

  A voice. “I love him.…”

  I look up.

  Mom.

  She’s there. Lying next to Art on the bed. Alive. Glowing. She’s crying, but the tears only make her more radiant.

  She keeps talking. “I love him.… I’ve been watching you, Zee, watching the two of you, and I know you two are different and it doesn’t make sense like the world wants things to make sense, but you were never going to settle for something less than extraordinary. The ordinary makes sense because making sense is what makes it ordinary. But the extraordinary is exceptional because it’s the exception. You and Art, you’re the exceptions. You’re the extraordinary.”

  “Your mom’s brilliant,” Art says—ART SAYS?

  “Thank you, Art,” my mom says back to him.

  �
�I really wish I got to meet you when you were alive,” he says.

  “Yes, well, I was pretty great.”

  “Wait…” Art looks around. “Is this a dream or an out-of-body experience or all part of Zee’s imagination?”

  “Let’s not put labels on things,” my mom says, then laughs at her own joke. So Art laughs and I think I’m laughing too but not sure exactly. Then my mom kisses Art on the cheek, says, “I love you,” and then she leans over him and I lean into her. Our faces are so close, everything is so real, or beyond real, like it feels more true than what everyone else says is real.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you, Zhila,” she says, and kisses my cheek. I close my eyes to feel it, and when I open them, she’s gone and Art’s still unconscious.

  * * *

  But.

  Then.

  He’s not.

  Art’s eyes flutter open with such grace it’s almost as if he thinks he’s in a movie. “We’re in a hospital,” he says, his voice raspy.

  “We are,” I say, smiling and crying as I ring for the nurse.

  “I had a dream…”

  If he says he had a dream about my mom, I’m going to check myself into a mental institution.

  “… that I was pregnant.”

  “That makes sense,” I say.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says.

  “Or it makes perfect sense. Either way, it’s all okay.”

  art

  The doctor says I died, but because I’m so vital to the universe’s plans, I came back from the afterlife. And when I say the doctor says this, I mean she says that with her mind but has to use actual words to say boring stuff like I had a minor concussion and some blood loss, which caused temporary loss of consciousness. But that explanation is so boring! So I’m only retelling this story how I want to tell it from now on.