The Tomboy & the Rebel

by Leeann M. Shane

  My bare feet dug into the carpet as I stopped outside of their door and watched Mom packing a suitcase.

  Dad was pacing, his hands in his hair. He stopped, his back to me, and held his hands out in front of him. It was then, watching my father crumble, where I did, too. One deep pained breath and all the pieces I’d struggled to keep from falling apart came crashing down to the floor.

  “What am I going to do without you? Not to mention, Mel. We need you, Erin.” A sob stuck in his throat. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ll change. We’ll get better together.”

  She hung her head and sobbed, her face in her hand, her suitcase wide open as she crammed my pieces into it. “This isn’t about you anymore. It’s about… me.”

  My heart swelled with pride at the same time my mother broke it once and for all.

  I must’ve made a noise, because they both turned to me, mirrored expression of heartache on their faces.

  “What’s happening?” I asked, unaware I was crying until I heard it in my voice.

  Mom sniffed and gave me a barely intact smile. “I’m going to put us back together by putting myself back together first.”

  I shook my head, dispelling her mom talk. It had been so long since I’d heard her talking like that I didn’t immediately know how to handle it. “What do you mean? You’re… what? Leaving me?” Again. She never left me physically before, but she had emotionally. Which wasn’t nearly as worse, it seemed, as her leaving me physically.

  At least she was there. Sometimes. At least she didn’t move into a new house with a new woman and yell at me when I wasn’t the perfect daughter anymore. She was leaving me with Dad. I knew it before she even said it.

  “I’m going to an emotional wellness center for three months. I need this, baby. I am not being a good mother right now. I am failing, at everything.” She broke. Sobbing over her pain, over her failures, and not my father for once, who was looking at her like she was killing him.

  Because in his own messed up way, he did love her.

  I knew it was selfish before it came out of my mouth, but I couldn’t stop it from leaving my heart. “What about me?”

  She took my face in her hands. “I am doing this for me and for you. I’m going to get better and we’re going to put us back together and we’re going to do it together, just as soon as I come back. Daddy will take care of you until I can. Things will be like they used to be.”

  “But why now?” I cried.

  She smiled even sadder. “Because you looked at that boy downstairs like he was your entire grounding force, and it broke my heart to think you needed one.”

  Is that why Dare’s gone? Because my Mom’s coming back? I needed a grounding force. But Dare was gone, and Mom was leaving. Which meant I had to be my own grounding force until I could breathe without breaking.

  It terrified me. I was so alone, it hurt every single time I breathed, and it only got worse. I said goodbye to Mom the next morning, the cab’s tailpipe spitting exhaust into the air, with Dad sobbing on the curb, begging her with everything inside of him not to do this to him.

  Dad had some serious issues.

  I didn’t want her to leave, but she was doing it to get better. For herself. For me. And even for him.

  He’d rather her hurt and be his, than to get better and be her own.

  I cried for him.

  I cried for her.

  I cried for me.

  “You can stay home today if you want,” he mumbled, heading upstairs. “I’ll write you a note.”

  I wrung my hands together watching him go up alone. I was also weirdly happy. Mom was dangling hope in front of my face and I was the starving soul who yearned for less dust motes and more love. Of course, that weird happiness lasted approximately one second before it crashed down around me, but it was worth it for a few seconds.

  I made some frozen waffles for breakfast and ate them in my room, hollow and numb. I floated on a plain of emptiness from the moment I woke up the next day, picking at the pictures I’d spent the night before crying over.

  My new collage was on my ceiling, a constellation I created solely for my heart. Dare and I stared back at each other like two idiots who knew better but broke the other anyway. Like Romeo and Juliet, we’d drank the poison, only it hadn’t been romantic, and it hurt way worse than swallowing poison any day.

  My hurt turned to fire. I ate it for breakfast, too sick and lonely to eat actual food. The weather had taken a turn for fall. I took advantage of the chill in the air and put on a black hoodie and skinny jeans, using the thick black cotton shield to hide in.

  Dad was at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee. It smelled astringent and spicy, like the whiskey he kept in the cupboard. When I came in, he looked up, groaned, and put his head back.

  I wrote my own excuse and jabbed the pen into his shoulder. He signed it with sluggish, hungover script. “I’m so sorry, Melly,” he moaned, speaking to the table.

  “Are you?” I even sounded empty to my own ears. I made more coffee and then cracked some eggs into a pan for him and me.

  “Yes,” he responded, hoarse. “I’m so damn sorry I don’t even know where to start.”

  Truthfully, neither did I. I wasn’t sure there was a do-over button. Some magic reset option that erased my pain and absolved him of his choices. There was only acceptance and moving forward. Unfortunately, that sucked. It was like hey, I broke your heart, but it’s time to forgive me and ignore those new breaks, kid.

  I set down a plate in front of him with scrambled eggs and toast, and sat across from him, eating silently as we made eye contact.

  “Dare broke up with me,” I revealed, hating how hard that was to get out, and wondering why I even had. Dad was probably going to gloat.

  He put his head into his hand and leaned his elbow on the table, eating and staring down. “I’m not upset by that,” he admitted.

  I expected that. “I am.” I stabbed at my food. Numbness made it so I didn’t mind spilling the contents of my heart all over the place. There wasn’t much to salvage anyway. “He wasn’t a bad guy. He wasn’t.”

  “You’re my daughter. I’m not going to clasp hands with him and be his friend. And as far as I’m concerned, he was a bad influence on you. So good riddance.”

  I gritted my teeth. “He was good for me.”

  “You ran away with him.”

  “Because you weren’t there!” I growled, slamming my fork down.

  He blinked at me. “I’m here now.”

  I sat back, exasperated. “But he was there then. When I needed him. And now he’s gone.” I was surprised as much as he was when I broke down, sobbing into my eggs like a heartbroken girl. But I was.

  Heartbroken.

  Missing something.

  Empty in the span of hours.

  Dare was so much more than a partner for an assignment. He was a friend, a support, someone to free fall in, someone to breathe around.

  Someone to trust.

  “Mel, don’t cry.” He got up to sit beside me. He rubbed my back. “Why did he break up with you?”

  I was so frustrated, so angry. When did I get to become the boss of my own emotions? Or was that even possible? Did love take that option away? Loving someone gave them the power to crush you. To take everything you had. To give you so much you were so full you burst.

  Love.

  Did I love Dare?

  “Because he didn’t want me to break his heart.”

  Dad frowned, trying to work through my love life when his own was in shambles. “So he broke yours?”

  “Sound familiar?” I hissed meanly.

  “Okay, I deserve that.” He rubbed my back harder, resting his forehead against my temple. “What happened to simple problems? When you couldn’t decide which piece to be in Monopoly. Or when all you wanted to do was go to the softball diamond and hit balls all day?” He laughed fondly, forlornly.

  I did too. “Sean broke up with me.”

  He froze. “You’re dat
ing two boys? Mel.”

  I rolled my eyes and told him about Maisy and Sean, which meant I had to tell him about Dare and I. And in-between fits of suppressed giggles—Dad looked like he was going to puke and run away—I admitted it felt good to talk to someone about things. Having only myself for advice had started to make me feel like everything I did and felt was somehow wrong.

  But it wasn’t wrong. I still felt the same way after telling him those things, only I had another ear.

  “Darren sounds mental,” he surmised, leaning back in his seat and reaching for his coffee mug. “But he also sounds like he’s got some issues at home going on as well. You know I had a crap relationship with my dad. Didn’t meet him until I was ten. Messes with your head, missing a piece like that.”

  I bit my lip, not knowing what to say to that. I didn’t know my grandparents on his side because of that reason. And I wanted to keep the next thing inside, but maybe now was the only chance I had for him to understand. “I know.”

  His shoulders slouched.

  He dropped me off at school with one minute to spare. I was glad for the rush. It gave me no time to stop and panic about the approaching school day. About seeing Dare. Losing Sean. Or even facing down the Maisy Gang without Dare backing me up.

  Miranda and Maisy were back to back in front of my locker, on their phones, head bent close, gum smacking in their mouths.

  I stopped in front of them. “Excuse me.”

  Maisy looked up, her eyes narrowing. She looked around and then her lips curled into an evil smirk. “Where’s your lovesick puppy?”

  I didn’t react. “I need to get in my locker.”

  Neither of them moved.

  She studied me the way I would a smashed piece of dog poo under my Converse. Then she looked at Miranda. “Give me five?”

  Her jaw fell. “What?”

  “Give. Me. Five.” She said it with a deliberate slowness.

  Miranda bristled. “You want to talk to the boyish loser without me?”

  Maisy sighed meanly. “Just go, would you? I’ll see you in English.”

  “Don’t bother.” She turned on her heel and curled her lip at me. “Freak,” she hissed under her breath.

  I quirked a brow at Maisy once we were alone. She still hadn’t moved from my locker. “Can you move?”

  She stared down at me. We weren’t that different in height, but she still made a point of aiming her gaze down at me. Sean had never done that.

  “Where’s Dare?”

  I would never confide in the enemy. “Move, Maisy.” I stepped for my locker, my elbow shoving her aside.

  She stayed put, planting her heels. “Where is he?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know!” I hissed, sending my hip into hers. “Move, or I’ll make you.”

  She held my gaze intently before stepping aside. “Did you two break up?”

  I ignored her, moving and switching my books.

  “Oh,” she puffed out.

  I glared at my books. “Where’s Sean?” I asked, my hands shaking.

  “I don’t know,” she hissed, the same way I had.

  Uh-oh. I peeked at her. She looked away, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder. Was Sean mad at her? And if so, why did that seem to bother her the way her Dare question bothered me> I studied her. “Is that what you wanted to know? If I’d spoken to Sean? If so, don’t waste your breath. He won’t talk to me.” I slammed my locker and rose on my tiptoe to get in her face. “So, thank you. For taking Dare from me and my best friend.” My voice broke, but I made it out of there without breaking down.

  My teacher was pleasantly surprised when I actively participated in class. I needed the distraction and I’d managed to catch up. I didn’t see Dare until lunch time. We were both caught in the crowd and our eyes locked. His eyes widened and the storm in his eyes raged, unhindered today. Everyone around him seemed to give him a wide berth.

  Myself included.

  I walked past him without acknowledging him. I thought I heard him swear under his breath, but he didn’t say anything more, and that hurt. It shouldn’t have. But it did. It hurt so badly, I bypassed the cafeteria and the amphitheater in exchange for the baseball dugout.

  I didn’t have an appetite anyway, and no way was I going to sit by myself at the top of LoserVille while Genna flaked and Sean ate on the stage.

  I brought my knees to my chest and rested my chin on them, staring out over the dugout, thankful for the numbness spreading through me. Halfway through, I took out one of my notebooks and began sketching my own comic.

  The Tomboy & the Rebel by Melanie Barton.

  She didn’t fight crime. She only fought herself. My war had never been against the world. My war was against me. I chose when I won or lost. But I didn’t choose what I lost. And I didn’t know what I won, not when everything inside of me felt displaced and achy. And he didn’t stick around. This rebel wasn’t a superhero, like he’d been to me. He was a heartbreaker, leaving the pieces behind him like some malevolent fairytale trap I was doomed to follow.

  When I got to photography class, Dare was already in his seat. I sat down beside him and did what I had been doing before he became my grounding force; I ignored him.

  On the outside.

  Inside, I soaked him up like a sponge. His scent was thick that afternoon. Mint so strong I could taste it. He was chewing gum. His clothes smelled like soap and his cologne was spicier today than crisp and clean. Was it new? Did he buy it in the hopes that he’d catch a new tomboy?

  I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the painful grip squeezing my heart. I couldn’t handle that. Him, with another girl. His lips on hers. His hands on her. His deep voice talking her down when she was having a bad day. I trusted him! He promised me.

  And in an effort to save his heart, he’d smashed mine to smithereens.

  He just sat there, writing, writing, and writing. I ached to peer over his shoulder, but he was bent over his work, and I no longer cared. Or at least, I pretended not to.

  When the bell rang, I shot up eagerly. Beside me, I heard a strangled rush of air leave his lips, like he’d been holding his breath that entire time. Barely breathing.

  Breaking.

  Just like his tomboy.

  Dad was waiting in the parking lot when I made it out. He looked rumbled and his hair was messy.

  “I talked to your mom today,” he announced as soon as I got into the car. I looked at him curiously. He gave the road a bitter smile. “She’s all settled in, says she thinks this place is going to be good for her. What if it is, Mel?”

  “Then she’ll get better.”

  “But she’s not the one who broke us. I am.” He patted his chest, his expression screwed up as he drove out of the school. “I broke her, and she’s the one who needs to get better. Where does that leave me?”

  I brought my knees to my chest. Since when was I a pincushion for his inner torment? I had enough of my own. “She needs this. And so do you. You thought so even a little to go to therapy.”

  “I wanted to fix us. She wants to fix her. Don’t you hear the hidden message in there? There’s no more us to fix.”

  I saw Dare’s truck speed out of the student parking lot, his hand in his hair. Even from that far away, I saw his expression. Exhausted, tortured; he looked how I felt inside.

  The next morning, I seriously contemplated getting my driver’s license. Dad dropped me off fifteen minutes early since he had to meet a client at his office downtown, and I was roaming the halls, when Principal Darwin spotted me, and pulled me into his office.

  “How are things?” he asked, pinning me to my seat. “Attendance improved. Grades improved. Have things at home?”

  “Define improved?” I hugged myself.

  He sighed. “Have you thought of college anymore? I think it’s a great idea, Melanie. You’re almost eighteen. Go to college. Away from home. Free yourself from them. I know you want to stay. It’s safe. You know it. But it’s not good for you.”


  So, suffice it to say, I could have timed my arrival to school perfectly and missed my meeting with Principal Darwin, if I had a driver’s license.

  “College freaks me out,” I admitted.

  “It freaks everyone out. But you need to go. I’m not going to stop mentioning it until you’ve applied to at least ten colleges. Here, I handpicked them. Going off your extracurricular activities and classes.” He slid a folder over to me on his desk. “We can go over your application essays together if you want?”

  I picked up the folder and brought it to my chest. I felt sick. “Thank you.”

  He gave me an encouraging smile. “I believe in you, Melanie. You’re smart, you’re strong. You’re so much better than your circumstances. Rise above, sweetheart, and everything will be okay.”

  I blushed and wanted to cry at the same time. I wished my Dad did that. Said the right thing in the right way and didn’t make my heart hurt so much. “Thank you,” I whispered again.

  He nodded, clearing his throat. He schooled his features to a glare. “Now get to class, and no making out with the Morre boy anymore in the hall.”

  My heart dropped but I gave him what he wanted. A smile. “Sure, Principal Darwin.”

  The Morre boy, as it turned out, was waiting for me at my locker today instead of Maisy and her crew of mutant Barbie dolls. Seeing him made me skid to a halt, the folder of college applications pressed against my chest a barrier now rather than an oppressive weight.

  “What do you want?” I asked, my voice weirdly stable.

  It was my insides that were shaking.

  His face crumpled, and what made it so hard to see was that he didn’t try to hide it. He let me see his insides. Because they were mine. Even when he hid them, even when he pushed them away, those insides belonged to me. I just didn’t understand why.

  “I thought we weren’t going to run away from each other anymore,” he exhaled, his deep voice heavy with regret. “You just let me, Mel, every single time. It’s like you don’t even care if I ever come back.”