by Katie Henry
Someone’s breathing is getting quicker, heavier, and I can’t tell if it’s mine or Mo’s, because I can’t look at her. I know how this sounds. I know she’s watching me, pitying me, realizing just what kind of person I am. I shouldn’t be telling her, I don’t understand why I’m doing this, except that if I don’t tell someone, I might break into a thousand brittle, tiny pieces.
“I’m standing in the middle of the platform, and Alex is standing closer to the tracks,” I tell her. “Ignoring me. And I don’t want to make him mad, so I let him ignore me. We’re going home way earlier than I told my mom, so I pull out my phone. Of course, that’s the exact second he turns around, and he’s furious all over again. “‘Who are you texting? Is it that guy?’ And I try to tell him it’s not, but he’s got it in his head now, so he walks over with his hand out, like he wants the phone. Like he’s going to take it. He backs me all the way up against the railing.” I gulp in air. “One of the bars is digging into my back and my legs and I’m curling my hands around two of the others so hard I feel like they’ll break—”
Without meaning to, my hands are curling around empty air, like I’m still there, which I’m not, I’m not.
“My heart is beating so fast, I’m trying to breathe but my lungs won’t work, I’m so scared, I’m so scared, and he doesn’t notice at all.”
My heart is pounding, and I can’t tell if it’s because I’m telling a story I’ve never told before or—it’s strange. I know I’m here, in Mo’s cozy, comfortable dorm room. I know I’m safe. But it’s like I can feel the October wind in my hair, the cold metal bar in my hands, the vibrations from cars passing below me. I’m safe. It’s over. I’m not there.
But it feels like I am.
“He knows I’m scared of heights. That’s my single big fear.” I dig my hands into the covers, just one more piece of evidence this is today, not That Night. “I’m not going to fall over, but it feels like I am. He’s not going to push me, of course he’d never push me, he’d never hurt me.”
But he knew it scared me.
He wouldn’t hurt me. But he would scare me.
He wanted to scare me.
“All of sudden, whoosh.” I slide my hand through the air, trying to capture the sound of the train, the sound of my own relief. “The train flies into the station and it’s . . . over. We went back home on the train. He kissed me good night in the lobby of my building. And I didn’t tell anyone.”
That’s the end, so I close my mouth, fold my hands, and wait for Mo to say something. But Mo just sits in horrified silence. Is she in shock? Or is she waiting for me to keep going?
“Thank you, you’re too kind!” I say, as if basking in the nonexistent applause. “I’ll be here all week. Tip your waitress, but don’t try the veal, because veal is just a shorter word for ‘tortured baby cow’!”
She’s got to say something. I’ve said so much, too much, and my throat aches. My body feels tight and raw, like I’ve been sitting under a blazing sun with no shade. She’s got to say something, or the silence is going to burn me from the inside out.
She loosens her hands, which I only just now see have curled into fists. She shuts her eyes tight, then opens them. She clears her throat.
“I can’t make you break up with him,” she says softly. “I won’t give you an ultimatum, because I know that doesn’t work. I know it’ll only make you dig in harder.”
She’s so sure she understands everything about me, but she doesn’t. She can’t understand how this feels. “How would you know?”
Mo shakes her head at me. “Do you think you’re the only person in the world who’s been in a relationship like this?”
“Like what?”
“Controlling. Toxic. Abusive.”
“That’s so dramatic. It’s not abusive.”
“Yes, it is.”
“He wasn’t actually going to hurt me. I was just afraid—”
“That’s dangerous!” she says. “Even if he never hits you once, him making you hate yourself, making you scared of him is dangerous. To you. To your soul.”
Sometimes, I feel like I don’t actually have a soul. If “soul” just means “self.” Sometimes, I feel like a terrible Frankenstein monster of a doll, all my parts assembled by other people, glued together into a horror show of things I never chose for myself.
“But whatever he’s telling you about yourself, it isn’t true,” Mo says, and I wonder if that applies to what I tell myself, too. “Whatever he’s made you believe you deserve . . .” She sighs. “God, Izzy. You deserve so much more.”
Alex always told me no one could ever love me more than he did. And sometimes, that seemed so romantic. Like he loved me beyond anyone else’s capabilities. But sometimes, it felt crushing. Like whatever he gave me, however bad it was—this was the best I could expect.
“I can’t make you break up with him,” Mo says again. “But I really, really hope you do.”
Chapter 21
ANOTHER AFTERNOON IN the cafeteria, another plate of salad in front of me, another lunchtime conversation I can’t quite hear buzzing around me. Not that I’d be listening anyway. All I can think about is the All-College Showcase auditions tonight. I wish I could lock myself in an empty classroom to practice, or even go over my note cards, but Alex would notice. So all I can do is sit here. On the outside, I’m sitting here perfectly still, a blank smile on my face. Inside my own brain, my mind is going eighty miles an hour, reciting and considering and tweaking my set.
That is, until Margot catches my eye across the table. “Do—have—for—?”
Eight words, or maybe seven. Definitely about me. Definitely a question. But I can never understand people in places this loud.
“Sorry,” I say, leaning closer. “What?”
She repeats it.
“I, um.” I smile. “One more time.”
Her forehead wrinkles. Margot looks over at Chloe, but she’s texting, oblivious. Beside me, Alex is digging into his pants pocket, and I know why. He starts to type on his phone, to tell me what Margot said, but I put my hand on top of his. This whole time I thought he was helping me, but all it did was keep me more tethered to him.
“It’s okay,” I say to him. “I’ve got this.”
He opens his mouth, but I turn back to Margot.
“I can’t hear you,” I tell her, pointing to my ear. “I have this auditory processing disorder that makes it hard for me to understand people in really loud places like this.” I take out my own phone, swipe to the Notes app, and hold it out to her across the table. “It’ll be easier for both of us if you type it.”
Her eyebrows have just about disappeared under her carefully flat-ironed blond bangs, but she accepts the phone without question and types.
“You’re making it weird,” Alex whispers in my ear.
“I’m being honest,” I say without looking at him. “Sometimes that’s weird.”
Margot hands me back the phone.
Do you have Mr. Sparr for Trig, yes/no?
If yes, did you get the answer for the problem with the flagpole?
“Oh.” I nod. “Yeah. I think I got that one—I’m not sure if it’s right, but I tried to work it out.”
I haul my bag from underneath the table, pull out my math notebook, and flip through, searching for the page.
Movement in the corner of the cafeteria catches my eye. When I turn, I see my old table, and Naomi, and—Jack. He’s leaning over her, grinning, getting all in her space as he flicks the end of the ribbon she’s woven into her braid. She’s staring down at her food like she can’t see him, but her knuckles are as white as the plastic fork she’s gripping. He says something to her, and she stiffens even more. The closer I look, the more I see it—Naomi looks different today, with her hair, and she might even be wearing makeup, which she never does. I can’t hear him, but I don’t need to. I don’t have to know what he’s saying to know exactly what he’s doing.
He raises his voice for the benefit of hi
s friends, sitting at the table behind him. So loud even I can hear him.
“Aw,” he says, faux hurt in his voice. “Don’t be like that, Naomi. Come on, tell us.”
I read on her face, rather than hear, Naomi ask: Tell you what?
And even louder this time: “What half-blind half dude did you get all dressed up for?”
There are some people you’re wrong about. There are some people who are a wonderful surprise. And there are some people that the very first time you see them, they’re playing keep-away with a shorter kid’s backpack, then putting it on top of the lockers, out of reach, and laughing like it’s the funniest thing in the world.
One moment, and you know exactly who they are.
“Here.” I push the notebook across the table to Margot. “My handwriting sucks but—here.”
I’m already standing before I can think better of it, climbing over the bench before Alex can stop me, and crossing the distance between my table and Naomi’s before I know what I’ll do when I reach her.
“Where are you going?” Alex calls after me.
I think: I’m going to help my friend.
I think: I’m going to do my job.
I say: Nothing. Not to him.
“Who is it?” Jack’s still pressing her. “Is it that guy who got a nosebleed all over you at homecoming last year?” Naomi goes even redder, and I can feel heads turning to look at Jacob, the cause of the aforementioned nosebleed. “I saw you coming out of the tech lab last week. Maybe it’s Mr. Sinclair. I bet his mustache could do some things for you.”
Jack is nothing but a heckler. Maybe he’s worse than a heckler, actually, because Naomi wasn’t asking him to listen to her or pay a cover charge for the privilege. All she was doing was eating lunch, and Jack thought that entitled him to her attention and her humiliation. That’s all hecklers want in the end. The attention. And the humiliation.
“No no no,” Jack says. “I changed my mind. I bet he’s like ninety, falls asleep halfway through your blow job, and his internet ad said: ‘desperate, seeking same.’”
He’s nothing but a heckler, and I bet he can be cut down exactly like they can. Naomi’s just never learned how. It’s a skill, like baking or archery or murder for hire.
I step up to the table, placing myself right against the short edge, directly in between them. I stare at Jack, unblinking. Ready. Just waiting for my opening.
“What are you looking at?” Jack asks me, already turning away by the last word. Naomi is looking away from both of us, her face almost a darker red than her hair. She hunches forward, as if someone’s driving Jack’s lacrosse stick into her spine.
I turn so my back is facing Naomi. So it’s crystal clear just who I’m talking to. “I don’t know, but I guess it can talk.”
Jack’s mouth drops open.
“See, the reason that works is the element of surprise,” I say. “Right? Because you asked me a rhetorical question designed to shut me up, and I responded with an unexpected answer that implies you’re not really a human being.” I pause. “Which isn’t fair. You are a human being. You’re a bad human being, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t one.”
“Whoa,” I hear one of Jack’s friends say. Jack himself just stares at me.
“But let’s try it another way and see if it works better. Ask me again.”
Jack narrows his eyes, maybe sensing the trap.
“Go ahead,” I encourage him. “Ask me what I’m looking at again.”
He turns to one of his friends. “What the fuck—”
I’m impatient now. “Fine, I’ll just—” I point at him. “You’d say: ‘What are you looking at?’ but you’d do it in your ‘don’t you know who my daddy is?’ kind of voice and I can’t really pull that off.”
Behind me, I hear Naomi make a noise, somewhere between a snort and a cough.
“So anyway, you’d say, ‘What are you looking at?’ and then I’d say”—I put my hand on my chest and ice water in my voice—“‘Oh, nothing special.’”
Jack’s face has gone from bright white to bright red. I wait a beat.
“The reason that works is the double meaning, right? Like I’m answering the question but I’m also implying you aren’t special, which is true. And the truest things are the funniest ones. That’s why you saying Naomi’s hooking up with old guys on the internet isn’t funny, because it’s obviously not true. It’s just the thing you thought would humiliate her the most.”
Jack looks back to Naomi, as if suddenly remembering this all started with her. He starts to open his mouth, so I jump in before he can start in on her again.
“Maybe that’s wasted on you,” I say. “The double meaning and all. Maybe that’s a little over your head.”
“Over my—” He gapes at me. “Screw you, bitch, I got into Cornell!”
“Oh, Jack,” I say, the way you’d talk to a twelve-year-old who still believes in Santa. “You didn’t get into Cornell. Your dad bought you Cornell.”
Jack’s face goes from bright red to nearly purple.
“Do you think anyone’s going to be impressed when you show up in Ithaca next fall? Do you think they won’t be able to see exactly who you are?”
“Who I am?” he asks, looking to his friends for support. “Who the fuck are you, Isabel? I get it, you let Alex Akavian finger you in exchange for some secondhand popularity, and thought it made you something, but you’re nobody.”
He turns away, already deciding he’s won, and I know why. He only knows the girl I was, the one who would have burst into tears at what he said, would have let his words worm their way inside her soul and wilt her, from the inside out. But that girl was not nobody, and neither am I.
“Everyone is somebody,” I tell Jack. “Even you.”
He smirks. “Yeah? Who am I?”
Oh, Jack, I think. Don’t give me that big of an opening.
“You’re a jerk,” I say. “You’re a bully. You think tearing people down makes you funny, but it only makes you an asshole. You think you tell it like it is, but you only hurt people you don’t think will fight back, and all that makes you is a coward.”
The words are flooding my brain faster than my mouth can spit them out. “This isn’t going to last, you know? Sometimes, I wonder if that’s why you treat people like this, because you do know. You know it’s all about to be over.” I take one last breath. “You peaked before you were legal to drive, and from here on out, it’s just a slow descent into mediocrity and male-pattern baldness.”
“I—” He gapes at me. “Fuck you!”
“Oh, no thank you,” I say. “I would rather fuck a cactus. But thank you.”
Alex appears at my side just in time to hear that line. Which is not ideal.
“What?” he gasps at me, as if I’ve reached over and casually crushed his windpipe. The second he notices Alex, Jack’s focus instantly switches.
“Hey,” he snaps at Alex, but points at me, “you need to get her out of here.”
“He’s not in charge of me,” I say.
“I’m really sorry, man,” Alex says.
I whirl on him. “Why are you apologizing to him?”
“Because you’re acting insane,” Alex says.
“So you’ll apologize for this, but not for pushing me to the edge of a train platform?”
Behind me, Naomi gasps, short and sharp.
Alex’s face darkens. “That’s not what happened.”
“It is,” I say. “Some things aren’t debatable. The sky is blue, you terrorized me, and Jack has never had a single original thought pass through his tiny walnut brain.”
“Would you shut her up?” Jack says to Alex.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Alex whispers to me through gritted teeth.
“Nothing,” I say. “Not a single thing.”
He pulls on my shoulder. “Come on.”
I shrug him off. “I’m almost finished.”
I put Jack Brawer, red-faced and murder-minded, back
in my crosshairs. All his friends have materialized around him. I’d say they look stunned, but they always look vaguely dazed.
“I know you think you’re funny because they laugh at your jokes.” I gesture at his friends. “But trust me, it only means you’ve managed to find six people as thoughtless and unkind as you are. And come on, man, this is prep school. It’s not like they were hard to find.”
I still remember my first day of high school, with a campus map clutched between my clammy hands, staring across the cafeteria with my ears ringing from the noise. One day, I thought, one day this is all going to feel like home. Three years later, and it still doesn’t. Three years later, and I still don’t feel like I belong here. But it does feel different. Now, when I look around at the cafeteria, at all the faces watching me with wide eyes, it all seems so small. And if I never feel at home here, if that never happens, then—well. That’s okay. All the windows are open, and I can see the trees and the grass outside them, the gravel path to the gate unrolled before me.
“This place is tiny, and you think it’s the whole universe,” I say to Jack, a little softer now. “I mean, we all do. I’m not trying to single you out. But if you think you’re a king here, I just feel like someone should tell you . . . you’re the king of a sandbox. There’s a way bigger world out there, and in that world”—I take a breath—“you’re a total fucking hack.”
I sigh then, in the silence, watching them watch me. Jack, Alex, and Naomi, three pairs of eyes pinpointed on me. And probably more, in the sea of faces at the tables around us, but they’re blurry and out of focus. All eyes on me. Just like onstage. Mo said I get onstage because I want to be loved, but maybe all I really wanted was to be heard. And now I have been.
“Jesus Christ,” Alex says, finally breaking the quiet. “Is it over now, Isabel? Are you done?”
“Yeah. I’m done.” I shake my head. “I am . . . so done.”
Done with lunch. Done with school for today. Done with him, too.
I’m the first one to turn around and leave, but it doesn’t mean I blinked first, even if that’s what Jack says later, to make himself feel better. It doesn’t feel a thing like defeat, not when I cross the cafeteria, my eyes pinpointed on the bright green Exit sign. I don’t need the hallway to be filled with applauding classmates for this to feel like a victory. If Jack tries to get me suspended for bullying, if Alex breaks up with me over text, if Naomi never talks to me again, it’ll still feel that way.
