True Love Way

by Mary Elizabeth

  Mrs. Alabaster notices, but doesn’t disrupt sleeping beauty.

  Another thirty minutes pass before the bell sounds and we’re free for a ten-minute break. Pen doesn’t move with the exception of her lungs inhaling and exhaling even breaths. I wait to get up from my seat until every other desk in room twelve is empty.

  “Pen,” I whisper, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

  “Leave her, Mr. Decker,” our teacher says. She lifts a piece of chalk and begins jotting down what must be our next task on the board. “Go enjoy your break, young man.”

  With feet that feel like they’re trapped in concrete blocks, I take one slow step at a time away from Penelope. After purposely letting the door slam closed, and before I head down the hallway toward the quad where Herb and Kyle are, I look through the small square window to see if Pen’s woken up.

  She hasn’t, but Mrs. Alabaster put the chalk down and is now rubbing my friend’s back. I watch her lips move, but I can’t hear or make out what she’s saying.

  “You coming or what?” Herbert’s loud voice echoes from the end of the hallway. “I got candy from the food cart!”

  I take a step back from the door, and even though every muscle in my body tightens and struggles to stay right where I am, I turn away and force my legs to move.

  Penelope’s gone when I get back to class.

  “Where is she?” I go cold in the doorway.

  Mrs. Alabaster resumes scratching our history assignment on the green chalkboard. The bracelets on her skinny wrist jingle as her hand curves and dips with her scribble-like penmanship.

  She doesn’t bother to look in my direction and says, “Mrs. Finnel is gone for the day.”

  My classmates pile in behind me, sugar-rushed and full of energy I don’t have. Pepper shoulder checks me on her way to her seat, and Kyle smacks the back of my head. But it’s Hebert who stops to mention, “Mathilda saw Pen in the office.”

  Without thinking, I head out the door to find my girl.

  “Dillon, return to your seat,” my teacher insists.

  I don’t turn around, but I don’t keep going either. Even with my back toward the classroom, I know every set of eyes is on me. Their silence is awkward, and the hairs on my arms stick straight up as I contemplate my next move.

  There’s something going on with Penelope, and I know she needs me.

  So I run to her.

  Only to collide right into her dad.

  “Boy,” he huffs, gruffs, and puffs. He also has to hold me up straight because his pec muscles almost knocked me out.

  I’m a bit woozy.

  Shaking my head clear, in the arms of the hairiest man I know, I ask, “Where’s Penelope?”

  Coach Finnel’s dark eyes stare down at me, and I swear he’s grinding his teeth behind his tight, mostly-mustache-covered lips.

  “You better watch after my girl, boy.” His iron-like grip on my arms tightens, and I swear my eyes are going to pop out of my head. “I need to know she’s being taken care of when I’m not around.”

  I nod. “I am, sir.”

  “Good,” he says. “I trust you.”

  “You can trust me.”

  He releases me, and as the blood returns to my lower extremities, Mr. Finnel gives me the stink eye I’ve come to know well.

  “Get back to class, boy,” he grunts with a slight smile. “Mind your own business. Pen will be there when you get home.”

  I don’t wait for Herb and Kyle after school. With a letter from my teacher to my parents about today’s misconduct in my backpack, I jump on my bicycle and ride as fast as I can home.

  Unable to breathe and sweating like a cold cup on a scorching summer’s day, I leave my bike on the front lawn and sprint into the house and up the stairs to my room.

  I run to my window.

  Penelope’s already at hers.

  Hi, her note reads.

  She’s changed her sunglasses from blue stars to teal triangles.

  Hey, I write back.

  Yeah, I got it bad. Like Herbert for Mathilda, I’ve got it very, very bad.

  Penelope has scabs on her elbows, a sunburned nose, and she stops every few minutes to pull splinters from her fingers. Her skinny knees are scraped and bloody, and the girl my friends can’t stand has pine needles in her morning-messy hair. I want to stop to help her, but…

  “She follows us everywhere,” Kyle complains. He chops away flimsy, low-lying tree branches with a rusty ax he stole from his dad’s garage.

  “Yeah, because lover boy over here is sprung,” Herb jokes. He slaps the back of my sweaty head and runs past me, kicking a small rock like a soccer ball.

  As we explore the wooded area behind our houses, the sun beats down on us from the sky above spruce trees and Douglas firs. Tree trunks and boulders are covered in moss, and the ground is more mud-like than dirt-like. I invited Pen to hang with us because she hasn’t been out here yet, but it’s obvious I’m the only one who wants her around.

  “All I’m saying is she’s like a shadow,” Kyle says, swinging the dull, discolored steel. “Doesn’t she have her own friends?”

  “My mom said I can’t go out this far,” the girl in question yells from fifty feet back. Penelope runs through the scarce, flat ground to close some of the distance between us, but our tail doesn’t get far before she stops and grabs her side.

  Barefoot, she speed walks through the pain of a side ache but stubs her toe on a half-buried stone on our just-made trail. She cries out, and this time I stop and glance back to make sure she’s okay. The moment I do, Kyle and Herb laugh at me.

  Squinting through the sunshine, I look up at my friends. They’re climbing the side of a small hill I know Penelope won’t be able to get up alone. It’s covered in overgrown shrubs and weeds; even my boys are having a hard time navigating through it.

  Maybe they’ll get ticks.

  “I’m going to head back with her,” I say, pointing over my shoulder with my thumb. “She can’t go any farther.”

  Herb swats some kind of flying insect out of his face, going cross-eyed in the process.

  “Quit being a sissy,” he says.

  I shrug my shoulders and look back at Pen one more time. She has her hand over her eyes, casting a shadow on her face. Red-framed shades cover her eyes, and there’s a bead of blood dripping from her knee, down her shin.

  “You never hang out with us anymore, Dillon. You’re always with the new girl,” Kyle points out.

  The hill isn’t that bad, and I invited her to come explore with us, but I didn’t tell her to come without shoes. She shouldn’t have tagged along if she can’t keep up, and it’s not my problem if her mom doesn’t want her too far from the house. My parents don’t care. Kyle’s right; I am always with Penelope. Exploring is boy stuff.

  “I’m going home!” our follower screams. The sound of annoyance echoes off moss-topped rocks and surrounding trees.

  Herb and Kyle laugh again. My stomach starts to ache.

  “Good,” one of them says loud enough for her to hear.

  There’s no point in looking back to see if Penelope really goes; I know she does. She’s not the kind of girl who throws around empty threats. So when my douche bag pals start back up the hill, I bend down and tuck my jeans into my socks and follow behind them.

  I hope they get ticks on their balls.

  Over the peak, Herb wants to hunt bears, Kyle wants to hike down to the beach to catch starfish at the base of Castle Cliffs, and I want to go home. But we spend the afternoon among the trees we climb, chase rabbits with the ax, and dig up earthworms to throw at each other like it’s summertime again. Our laughter scares birds off branches, and we run, scared out of our minds when we think we hear a snake hiss.

  We tell dirty jokes, tease Herb when he admits to accidently touching Mathilda’s boob at school the other day, and dare each other to eat mystery berries from a mystery bush. Our faces get dirty, and our hands blister. By the time we head home, we smell like mud and s
weat, and Kyle finds a tick on his body.

  Unfortunately, it’s on his stomach.

  “I can’t wait until we’re in high school,” Kyle mentions on our walk back. “Older chicks rock.”

  “Yeah, because high school girls dig blood-sucking, disease-carrying ticks. Or at least that’s what I heard,” I tease him.

  He scratches the area around his stomach where the body invader burrowed itself into his skin. None of us brought a lighter to burn it off, so he has to wait until he gets home.

  “All the babes are going to want me next year,” Herb says. Sweat drips his temple. There’s a hole in his white T-shirt. “Because I’m buff.”

  “Too bad you’re obsessed with the redhead,” Kyle says, talking about Mathilda.

  They go back and forth, arguing over who has better muscles and, “What did her boob feel like exactly?”

  Meanwhile, my thoughts are spent on the girl who ran out of here screaming. Letting her walk home alone was stupid, and I shouldn’t have let these idiots make me feel bad about inviting her. Penelope is the coolest girl I know, and our friendship is … awesome. She’s never screamed at me like she did today. I hope I didn’t ruin what we have.

  Herb tells us he thinks Mathilda stuffs her bra with socks when we clear the woods and step into my backyard. Wayne’s outside with his shirt off—probably letting his chest hair breathe—mowing his lawn. When he spots us, he cuts the mower’s engine and stares at me.

  I walk around the other side of the house to avoid him.

  And his hairy body.

  The mower starts back up.

  “I gotta go home before I get Lyme disease. You coming?” Kyle asks. He’s already walking down the sidewalk toward the end of the street where his house is.

  “I’m in,” Herb says, following behind him.

  As awesome as watching ticks burn is, there’s someone I owe an apology to.

  “Your pants look really special stuffed in your socks like that, D,” Risa says. Her witty tone punches me right in the gut.

  Pinching my lips together, I exhale slowly and turn around. My sister and Penelope are on the porch, sitting on the top step side-by-side. The setting sun paints their skin as well as the sky in pinks, oranges, and purples, and casts shadows at their shoeless feet. Their skin looks tacky, and each of them has messy buns on top of their heads.

  Risa has Pen’s sunglasses on.

  Penelope digs at me with bare eyes, and it makes the guilt burn so much hotter.

  “I’m sorry,” I say with a smile I should smack off my own face.

  “You’re a real jerk for letting her walk home alone,” Risa replies. She has a sucker at the corner of her mouth and a mole drawn on her face to look like Madonna. “She could have got lost, genius.”

  Slowly stepping closer to the house, I hold my hands up in surrender. Pen looks away from me, setting her elbows on her knees and leaning the side of her face in her palm. A piece of hair falls in her eyes.

  “Pen,” I say, approaching the steps. The crisp scent of sprinkler water swirls in the air around us, and overspray from our other neighbor’s irrigation system lightly mists my hot skin.

  There’s space beside her to sit, but the pang in the pit of my stomach warns me not to.

  “Don’t worry. I kept your girlfriend company today.” My sister smiles. The gap between her two front teeth seems smaller with the oversized sunglasses on her face.

  Penelope elbows like a virgin in the side, and the tips of her ears turn pink with embarrassment. Her embarrassment becomes my awkwardness, because is it that bad to be called my girlfriend?

  Not that she is.

  Not that she will ever be.

  I take a step back and puff my chest out like I’m tough or something and say, “I don’t know why you’re mad. You’re the one who couldn’t keep up.”

  Her brown eyes snap in my direction, and her pink-tipped ears turn red. Penelope opens her mouth to say something, but bites her teeth together and balls her little hands into fists. Eyebrows that are much thinner than her father’s scowl just the same.

  Risa shakes her head with a slight curve at the corner of her lips.

  “Boys are so stupid!” she says loudly, smacking her knee. “Mom and Dad think you’re all gifted, with your awesome grades and ambitious goals. But you’re nothing but a typical, stupid boy.”

  I probably look like a goldfish as my mouth opens and closes, missing a response. The beat in my chest skyrockets, and nervousness crawls up my spine with its skeleton-like fingers.

  Benedict Arnold slides her traitorous arm over Penelope’s sunburned shoulders and glows with pride.

  “Swear off boys, Penelope. Do yourself a favor and stay away from evil, soul-sucking penises.” Her smile slowly disappears, and she lowers Pen’s red sunglasses and hands them back over to their owner.

  There’s no mistaking the crazy brewing behind my older sister’s eyes. The whites get whiter, the greens greener, and the pupils pupiler. Her grunge rocker boyfriend must have dumped her again.

  “Especially if they’re in a band,” she practically yells.

  Penelope stands. I back off some more.

  “Because you’re all the same, you insensitive pricks!” Risa points her finger at me.

  Laughter bubbles from my lungs. I can’t help it. This girl surely has a future in theater.

  “I like tour buses,” she says, now pointing to herself. “I know all the lyrics to the songs!”

  “Run,” I mouth to Pen.

  She listens.

  Following right behind her, as I cross the Finnels’ front lawn, the familiar sound of oncoming water rushes into my ears and stops me cold. Penelope’s smart enough to keep going and clears her porch when eight sprinkler heads pop out of the ground. I’m trapped in the middle of the yard when ice cold water explodes into the air, shooting in my direction.

  I hear his evil laughter before I spot Wayne beside the water valve with his arms crossed over his chest.

  No doubt there’s a smile beneath his mustache.

  A skunk smell oozes from Risa’s room and plugs the slender hallway with its scent, and music blasts from her stereo speakers with such heavy bass the house vibrates. My mom’s at Risa’s door, alternating between turning the locked handle and smacking the door with her palm. Dad’s behind her, pushing his glasses up his nose and sighing heavily.

  “Let me in, sunshine. We can talk about it,” Mom says in a tone as calm as the summer’s sea.

  “Do us a favor, sweetheart. Put the incense out before the neighbors smell it,” my father adds.

  With wet hair and soap-scented skin, I walk past my family toward my bedroom at the end of the hall.

  “There’s other fish in the sea, Risa!” Mom yells over a drum solo. “Jeremy smelled like gasoline and patchouli oil.”

  Strong rifts and dirty guitar playing stop, replaced by my sister’s hysterical voice.

  “He smelled like love!”

  “You’re only seventeen. What do you know about love?” the dentist slightly raises his voice. His glasses slide down the bridge of his pointy nose.

  “I know what Jeremy and I had was love,” Risa cries out. “Sick, sick love.”

  Dad purses his lips and scratches the side of his head. “I thought his name was Elvis?”

  Mom’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head. “That was the last boyfriend, Tim.”

  My father shrugs his shoulder.

  “You don’t even know me!” Risa shrieks before the music rattles the house again.

  Locked safely behind four walls, I drop my dirty clothes beside my dresser and head over to the window. The sun is down, leaving the sky smeared in shades of purples and blues and the sidewalks lit silver by moonlight. As I lift a single pane of glass, cool air pushes through my holey screen into my room, stinging skin that’s been burned by the day.

  Penelope’s purple drapes are closed, but orange light glows between and around the two halves. The darkened shape of her body pas
ses by a few times, getting my hopes up, but after thirty minutes, I’m nothing more than the weird kid next door staring at the side of her house.

  Grabbing my notebook and marker from my nightstand, I slip on some shoes and leave my room. My parents are still negotiating with Risa, so I’m able to sneak past them and out of the house without issue. Guided by flickering streetlights, I scribble out the message Penelope wouldn’t open the curtains to read and climb the steps to my best friend’s front door. I hold the message over my rocking heart and knock.

  “Do you have no respect for bedtimes, boy?” Wayne answers.

  The urge to scribble all over his face with black Sharpie for turning the sprinklers on earlier is strong. My drawing hand twitches, but I stick to the plan and ask for Pen.

  Heavy-footed and grumbling under his breath about bad intentions and reefer smoking sisters, the water Nazi climbs the stairs to his daughter’s room.

  “That freak boy is here,” he says. “I don’t want you hanging out with him unless an adult is around, and I don’t mean the Deckers’ either.”

  “Dad,” Pen whines. “Knock it off.”

  “He doesn’t even know how to spell. You’re better than him,” he continues.

  I turn my sign around and realize in the hurry I was in to save my friendship, I misspelled a word. I’m quick to scratch it out and squeeze the correct spelling on the side just as Penelope appears at the top of the stairs.

  I’M SORRY 4 EGNORING IGNORING YOU.

  A smile that fights the moon for brilliance spreads across her sun-kissed face, and she takes the stairs two at a time until we’re face-to-face.

  Penelope pushes my shoulder playfully and says, “Boys are so stupid.”

  “Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t freak out,” I whisper to myself. My ankles are spread apart, my underwear is around my calves, and my knees are pressed together.

  With only a week before my thirteenth birthday, my mom warned me this might happen soon.

  “You’re a late bloomer, Pen. But it happens to every single girl in the world,” she said. “It’s natural. It means you’re a woman.”