16 Things I Thought Were True

by Janet Gurtler

  Removing something from online is like trying to take pee out of a pool.

  “At first I thought you must be an attention freak,” Amy is saying. “But since we’ve become friends…” She glances over and then back to the road, as if she’s waiting for me to say something. Which I should. But I don’t. Her words burrow into my skin like a tick crawling in to suck at my blood, steal from my life source.

  “Well, that’s not who you seem to be at all.” She stares at the road. “Or are you one of those closet exhibitionists?”

  “That thing ruined my life!” The shame in me flares and I fight to extinguish it.

  “Ruined your life?” She clucks her tongue. “I’ll give you humiliating, but ruining your life? No way. There are worse things.”

  I’m kind of shocked she can act like it’s not one of the worst things ever.

  “Do you have any idea how many people saw that video?” I demand.

  “Over three million, I think,” Amy says as she takes out a Cheezie and bites the end off it. “Last time I looked. Completely viral. But it slowed down, right? Those things don’t last.”

  “Like you’re the expert on humiliation?”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have posted it,” she says and nibbles on her Cheezie.

  “She didn’t,” Adam says. I glance at him and then down at my hands.

  “It was my friend,” I say and turn my head to stare out the window. “Lexi. She slept over that night.”

  “Your friend?” Amy says. She smacks the steering wheel with her hand. “That’s mean. Really, really mean.”

  “She posted it online. And for whatever reason, it caught on. It went out of control.” I bite my lip, lower my eyes, forget the other part. “She doesn’t even talk to me anymore. Lexi.”

  “She won’t talk to you?” Amy yells, straightening her back and sitting up high on her cushion. “That sounds like a good thing,” she says. “That’s a horrible thing to do to your friend. To anyone.”

  “See?” I say. “I told you it was horrible.”

  “Embarrassing. Horrible is men who walk into schools and shoot innocent children and the teachers trying to protect them,” Amy says.

  “Horrible is the number of homeless people on the streets and mental illness as something we turn away from instead of trying to treat,” Adam adds.

  “Cancer is horrible,” Amy says.

  “Okay. Fine. I get it. My embarrassment wasn’t life threatening. But it was…embarrassing.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Amy says.

  “Thank you,” I respond with as much sarcasm as possible and ignore a niggle that these two deserve the total truth.

  A semitruck races up on Amy’s side and passes us.

  “Hey,” Adam calls out. “You didn’t arm pump the trucker.”

  I ignore him, staring out at the green hills that look like they stretch out for miles in front of us, wishing I could go back to that night and change it, knowing it will never go away.

  “I hope you never talk to her again,” Amy says. Another truck whips past and throws some stones; they sprinkle up on the car.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “They’re going to hurt Honey Mustard.”

  “Honey Mustard?”

  “Your car. Obviously.” I don’t admit that that deep down, I still miss Lexi. And don’t blame her. Not entirely. I want to forgive her, be her best friend again. Go back to the way it was. “Okay. Enough of me. We examined that in enough excruciating detail.”

  “Want to hear my embarrassing moment?” Adam pipes up.

  “Please,” I say and turn around to face him.

  He leans forward in the seat, his elbows resting on his knees. “So last year in biology class, we were studying the human body. We had a dummy with all the parts, all the body parts. Mr. Jackson, my teacher, was at the front of the class, pointing out things. And then, without warning, I sneezed and my gum shot out of my mouth and landed on the dummy’s penis.”

  I cover my mouth. Amy and I look at each other and then I clap my hands. “Okay. That is awesome. Awesome.”

  “For weeks, everyone called me penis breath,” he adds.

  I swallow my laughter, trying to think how it must have felt for him. “Okay. It was embarrassing,” I say. “But still, not viral…Okay, so what did you learn?”

  “Not to chew gum in class?” he says.

  “Maybe to aim your sneezes?” I turn to Amy. “Okay. Your turn.”

  “Hmm. Embarrassing? I don’t know. I don’t get embarrassed that easily. How about that people make fun of me for being small?” she says. “But I actually think it’s worse to be ignored.”

  I study her profile, her cute, perky nose. “I don’t know. I don’t think being ignored would be so bad,” I tell her. “Actually, I’d kind of welcome it since the video went viral.”

  “Not me. I hate when people act like I’m invisible,” she says.

  I sit up taller. “Toward the end of the year in my homeroom, I would have given anything to be invisible.”

  Amy frowns. “Why?”

  “Right after the video went wild, my homeroom teacher was taking attendance, calling out names, and waiting for everyone to yell ‘here.’ He went down the class list and everyone yelled back, but when he got to me, I couldn’t make myself yell. I said, ‘here’ quietly, but he kept calling my name louder and louder. Everyone in the whole class turned and stared at me. Finally a guy I’ve known since grade school says, ‘Why doesn’t she just yell it?’ Mr. Todd stopped for a second and then got this really pissed off look on his face and started walking toward my desk yelling, ‘Scream! I want to hear you scream.’”

  I pause and swallow, and the horrible feeling returns to my stomach as I remember. “But I couldn’t. I sat there staring at my desk, hating myself and everyone around me.”

  There’s silence. A big uncomfortable silence hangs in the car. I wonder if I’ve gone too far. Sweat forms on my upper lip. I might as well be sitting in my seat naked. Picking my nose. I try to think of a joke or something to say to lighten the moment.

  “What a jerk,” Adam finally says, and anger drips from his voice.

  “Totally,” Amy says. “A big fat jerkolia on a jerk stick.”

  I laugh out loud and fall a little more in love with her.

  “Me?” Amy says. “I can’t remember one time in my life when I couldn’t talk. I wish my brain didn’t spit out everything, but sometimes it’s like I have no control over my mouth. And I’m like blah, blah, blah.” She reaches for a Cheezie and points it at me. “But remember, if the world didn’t suck, we’d all fall off it.”

  Adam starts to laugh. The knot in my stomach loosens and I laugh too. Amy grins, and some of the shame I’ve been holding in for so long fades along with her stupid joke. It’s a relief to share it. It takes away a little of its power.

  “I have to pee,” Amy announces, and without warning, she signals and pulls over to the side of the road. She leaves the car running, opens her door, runs to the passenger side, and squats right on the road’s shoulder. I glance back at Adam, but he’s laughing so hard he’s holding his stomach.

  When she hops back in the car, Adam says, “Apparently you don’t get embarrassed.”

  “Maybe I have a clear conscience.” She shrugs as she pulls on her seat belt, puts the car back into drive, checks over her shoulder, and pulls back out.

  “Maybe you’re missing the embarrassment gene,” Adam says.

  “New topic,” Amy calls. “Adam. Your turn.”

  I pass the cube back to him and he picks a card. “Describe a situation where you did something you’re sorry for,” he reads.

  “Is this game supposed to make us feel like losers?” I ask Amy.

  “No. Not all the topics are sad. Go, Adam,” she commands.

  He clears his throat. “Real
ly?”

  “Really,” she growls.

  He’s quiet for a minute. “Okay. Um. When I was twelve, my best friend, Dillon, had a birthday party. He decided to invite all the guys in our entire class, including the fricking asshole bully, James. He hated my guts. Dillon told me not to worry, so I pretended to believe him. The night of the party, we were in the basement waiting for pizza. We were playing video games and listening to music. James came over and started ripping into me and another guy sitting by the TV, Cameron. Cameron was a nice kid, just kind of overweight and quiet.

  “We both sat there taking his shit, pretending not to mind, until James started punching Cameron in the stomach. Over and over and over. For no reason. And everyone just laughed along with him or looked away and said nothing.

  “I tried to say something, but he turned and lifted his fist, so I shut my mouth. And then he grinned, knowing he was getting away with being a dick and I wasn’t going to stop him. He loved that I didn’t do anything. His expression was so happy. A few days later, I told my parents and they called Cameron and James’s parents.”

  Adam presses the window down as if the story fouled up the air in the back of the car and he needs fresh air.

  “So what happened?” Amy asks.

  “James beat the shit out of me. He punched me and I bled. I’d never been beat up before. Or since,” Adam says and sighs. “It wasn’t very fun.”

  “That’s terrible.” My heart stings for twelve-year-old Adam. I watch him, trying to imagine what he looked like at that age.

  “Yeah. No one, not Dillon, not even Cameron, wanted to hang out with me after that. I became the narc.” He lifts his shoulder. “Whatever. I got over it. The next year we went to junior high and I made new friends. But the thing I was sorry for was that I never did anything while he was punching Cameron. I was just so glad it wasn’t me at the time. But I ended up getting beat up anyway. I wish I would have stood up to him.”

  “Did you know that lots of famous people were bullied when they were young?” Amy says. “Tom Cruise was bullied for being dyslexic.”

  “Bullies smell out sensitive kids like spammers sense unfiltered blogs,” I say.

  Amy and Adam stare at me. “I thought of a time when I did get embarrassed. Want to hear it?” Amy says.

  “Yes!” Adam and I say at the same time.

  “My mom caught me masturbating,” Amy blurts out. “She walked in on me in my room.”

  My mouth drops open. “Amy!” My hands fly up to cover my eyes. My whole face is on fire.

  “What? It’s not like you’ve never done it before.”

  I peek at her through my fingers, and she glances in the rearview mirror at Adam. “And especially you.”

  “What,” he asks, “is that supposed to imply?”

  I look back and he has his hand over his mouth, trying to conceal his laughter.

  “You’re a guy,” Amy says.

  “Why thank you,” he tosses back.

  “I heard four out of ten women prefer it to actually having sex,” she adds.

  “Well, thank God for the other six,” Adam quips.

  “Amy,” I say, “is there any topic off limits to you?”

  She’s quiet for a minute, as if she’s really pondering it. “Yeah. Maybe one or two,” she says.

  I can’t even imagine. A giggle starts building in my belly. I try to suppress it, but the more I do that, the harder it is to stop. Amy looks sideways at me and frowns, but the urge travels up and bursts out of my nose and mouth. I laugh and laugh, as if I’ve been holding it in for days. I laugh until my stomach hurts and my cheeks are sore and I’m too weak to go on.

  Amy and Adam laugh with me. And when it finally dies down, I close my eyes, smile, lean my head against the side window, and breathe; it feels like I’ve lost a few pounds of weight in my stomach.

  “Holy fudgsicle sticks!” Amy screams.

  My eyes open. I stare ahead and groan.

  chapter twelve

  7. The only thing crying the blues gets you is good lyrics for a country song.

  #thingsithoughtweretrue

  The line of cars waiting for the ferry crossing is long and deep. Amy pulls up and sighs. “I hope we can get on.”

  “What do you mean hope? We might not get on? Are you serious? I thought you made a reservation with your dad’s MasterCard?”

  “I did. But we’re late. Sometimes you miss the boat. Like, literally.”

  “No! We can’t miss this ferry!” My leg bounces up and down. We have to get on. I can’t be late. I hate bad omens.

  Amy and Adam trade whale facts, oblivious to the freaking out inside my head. “Humpbacks sing to attract mates,” Adam says.

  “Good thing you’re not a whale,” Amy answers. “Your singing voice kind of sucks.”

  Adam throws a potato chip at her head. The space in the car shrinks, and I roll down the window, watching parents playing with a toddler outside the car, swinging her up in the air, each holding a hand. The dad is laughing and the mom’s head is thrown back, soaking up sun. I hope they drop the baby on her butt.

  We have to make this ferry. I can’t deal with a blip in my plans. I can’t handle it. I can’t.

  “You can see lots of humpbacks near Whidbey Island,” Amy is saying. “My dad took me to Whidbey a couple of years ago. We took a day off work and school and went on a whale tour.” She smiles for a moment, remembering. The image of her and a dad who would do something like that makes my eyes water.

  “Have you seen the video of the humpback whale breaching in front of a fishing boat by Whidbey?” Amy asks me.

  I glare at her, but she reaches for a Cheezie, takes one out, and then turns to Adam.

  “A pod of orcas was spotted near Whidbey Island a while ago. I’d love to see that.” She keeps gnawing on her Cheezie and I’m tempted to rip it from her fingers and throw it out the window.

  “Do you know why they’re called killer whales?”

  “Is there someone we can talk to about the ferry?” I mumble.

  “I think there’s a guy over there talking to people,” Adam says, and I look to where he’s pointing.

  “They’re carnivores and great hunters, the best in the ocean. They’ll eat almost anything in the water, even other whales. And they can weigh up to six tons.” Amy’s oblivious to the explosion gaining force in my head.

  “Lots of seafood to keep up that figure,” Adam says.

  “They can live to be eighty years old.”

  I reach for the door. “I have to go and find out what’s happening.” I’m not excited about making waves but dread not getting on the ferry even more.

  I hurry toward a youngish, uniformed BC Ferries attendant with an unfortunate hairline. He doesn’t even look at me when I ask about getting on the ferry and point at Amy’s bright yellow Mazda in line. “Sorry, you’re not making this one,” he says, glancing toward her car. “You won’t be able to board until morning. If you had a reservation, you won’t lose your ticket. You can use it tomorrow, but the last car going on ends right there.”

  We’re parked several behind the one he points at.

  I stare at the car.

  No.

  “But I’m going to find my dad, and I’ve never met him and I don’t have much time…”

  “I’m sorry, miss,” he says.

  And then I lose it.

  In seconds, I’m a big, snotty, wet mess. “We c-cccc-cccan’t….mmmm-mmmmisss.” My bottom lip quavers. I can’t breathe properly. The attendant looks around as if he hopes someone will save him and pats me on the arm, but the storm won’t easily pass. Tears I’ve been holding in for years pour out.

  “I don’t know what I can do given it’s past boarding time,” he tells me but his voice breaks.

  “My ddd-ddad…”

  “Come on, mis
s.” The attendant takes my arm and walks me back to Amy’s car, holding me like I’m a little old lady he’s helping across the street. He walks me to the passenger side, opens the door, and sticks his head down.

  “I’ll wave you through,” he says to her. “Drive over to the left and I’ll show you where to pull on.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” I’m blubbering, but he pats my arm and runs, hurries off as if he can’t get away from me fast enough.

  Amy and Adam don’t say anything, but Amy starts the car and follows his directions. As she pulls ahead, another attendant, an older and more important-looking one, steps in our path. The arm patter walks over to him and they chat, and then they both turn and look at me, and I awkwardly wipe under my nose and then wave. The arm patter walks back to the car.

  Amy rolls down her window. He bends down.

  “My supervisor doesn’t want to allow you on.”

  I whimper, but he holds up his hand. “He’s going to let you on this time because I said you had an emergency and I told you I’d let you proceed. Never again.”

  “Thank you, sir. You are very kind,” Amy says and drives slowly around the other cars in line. When we reach the bridge to the boat and pull on, she toots her horn. I shrink down in the seat.

  “Never underestimate the power of a girl in tears,” she says.

  I mop my face up with the bottom of my shirt as Amy parks the car in the last row onboard the ship.

  “I’m going to see a humpback. This is on my list,” she says as she puts the car in park.

  I wonder how long her list is. I bet she writes things like that down and that she has awesome notebooks filled with her thoughts. I had a blog for a while but deleted all my posts after the video when viral. I climb out of the car and go to the trunk to get the windbreaker I tossed in. I wait while Adam and Amy grab clothes. Amy pulls on a bright yellow raincoat over her clothes. Her raincoat reminds me of a picture book that Jake used to read to me when I was younger. Jake used to read to me all the time. Josh and Mom prefer the television.