The Way I Used to Be

by Amber Smith

  “You know, I did a project once on the life cycle of dandelions,” he tells me, nodding toward the now empty stem in my hand. “Second grade or something like that.”

  I don’t think this is in the script. I rack my brain. No, I don’t have anything to say to that. He reaches somewhere behind us and picks something out of the ground; I hear the flimsy stem snap. I just silently tap my shoe against the yellow weed at my foot.

  “Well, you know how they’re yellow at first? And then after the petals fall off you get that white, fluffy stuff so the seeds can float away?” he asks, examining the one he just plucked from the ground.

  I nod.

  “See, this one . . . is sort of in between.” He holds it close to my face so I can get a better look. “The yellow petals are gone, and the white’s starting to come through, but they’re not really light enough to start flying away yet.” He blows at it, but nothing happens.

  We are so close, I can feel his breath on my skin, feel the warmth radiating from his body. He looks directly into my eyes as he waits for some kind of response on my part. But his breath and warmth and eyes undermine my ability to think or speak or understand anything other than his breath and warmth and eyes. I finally force myself to just look away.

  “Well,” he continues, after I don’t respond. “They’re pretty hard to find—I had to track down a dandelion at every stage of growth for that project. And you’d be surprised how rare these ones are.”

  I dare myself to look him in the eye again, but I can’t hold it for long, so I refocus on the dandelion.

  “I guess that’s not very interesting, is it?” He rests his elbows on his knees and lets the weed dangle between his fingers.

  I smile. I did actually think it was a little interesting, but I’m not about to tell him that.

  “Nice out,” he says, looking up at the sky.

  “Yeah,” I agree.

  “Yeah.” He sighs.

  I feel bad for him; he is probably really good at making small talk with girls. This isn’t his fault.

  “So, what are you still doing here?” he asks, the silence rapidly becoming unbearable.

  “Just waiting for my friend. You?”

  “I’m waiting for my ride—I just got out of practice.”

  “Did you, like, get hurt or something?” I gesture to the bandage around his knee.

  “No, it just acts up sometimes. It’s fine, though.” He smiles slowly as he stares at me.

  “Oh.” I nod, looking away, careful not to appear too concerned about him—or anything for that matter.

  “So,” he says, nervously twirling the dandelion between his thumb and index finger. “You have me in suspense, you know that, right?”

  “Oh,” I say again. “Sorry.”

  “So, should I just take that as a no?” he asks, still smiling. “It’s okay. I just don’t wanna keep feeling like such an idiot.” He laughs.

  And I want to laugh at the fact that he’s the one feeling like an idiot here. I wish I could somehow make him understand that I want to say no as much as I want to say yes. “No, that’s not it. I just—” But I can’t finish because I don’t even fully understand it myself.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “I don’t know,” I mumble.

  The shape of his mouth looks a little confused, uncertain if it should smile or frown. “Are you doing this on purpose? I really can’t tell.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Screwing with me—not giving me a straight answer.”

  “No, I’m really not. I swear.”

  His eyebrows pull together, a vertical line forming in the center of his forehead. He looks at me appraisingly. “Forget it,” he finally says. “I just can’t seem to get you right, I guess.” With this sad, awkward smile and a wave of his hand. “Forget it, really.”

  “Yes,” I hear myself say. Because maybe this is my chance—a second chance—to be initiated into all this boy-girl stuff.

  “Wait, yes?” He looks at me closely, his eyes lighting up. “So you’re actually saying yes?”

  I take a deep breath and repeat it: “Yes.”

  “Finally!” he yells, raising his arms to the sky, laughing. “Tomorrow night, are you free?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Just as he’s about to say something else, a car pulls in at the far end of the lot—a navy blue hearse-looking vehicle, most definitely a parent’s car.

  “Shit, that’s my ride. Here.” He takes my hand.

  “Wait.” I pull away. “What are you doing?”

  “Hold on,” he says with a laugh. “It’s okay, it won’t kill you. Just relax,” he says in this soothing, dreamy way that probably makes other girls melt. He unclenches my fingers and puts something there in my palm.

  I look down. It’s the dandelion, the in-between one.

  He stands and shoulders his bag. “So, let’s just meet here after school tomorrow?”

  I nod.

  “Cool.” He smiles. “Okay.”

  He gets into the hearse car with a woman who I assume must be his mother in the driver’s seat. She waves her hand in my direction. I turn around to look behind me. But she’s waving at me, I realize, as he sits in the passenger seat looking embarrassed. I raise my arm and wave back. “Does she need a ride?” I hear her ask through the unrolled window. He says either “No” or “Go.” I can’t tell which.

  After the car drives off, I pull out my planner and open it to this week. Then I carefully set the soft white weed in the binding and close it gently between the pages.

  I hear shuffling on the tennis courts. I glance behind me and do a double take. It’s Amanda. Standing there with her fingers wrapped through the chain-link fence, staring at me.

  “Hey!” I call over to her. But she turns and starts walking. “Hey!” I stand up and run over to the gate that leads inside the court. “What are you doing just standing there?” I yell, catching up with her quickly. “Spying on me?”

  “No. And I can stand wherever I want.” She crosses her arms and looks me up and down, her face changing slowly, her upper lip curling into this snarl of disgust.

  “Why don’t you just mind your own business, Mandy!” I start to shove past her, but I swing back around, my heart tugging on my courage. “Wait, what is your problem exactly?”

  “I don’t have a problem,” she answers.

  “Seems like it to me.” I cross my arms as well, trying to calm down, trying to look as formidable as she somehow does. She steps in close to me, like that day on the front steps. And if I didn’t know her better, I would think she was actually about to hit me.

  “My name is not Mandy,” she growls.

  She stalks off the tennis courts without another word.

  I BARELY SLEEP AT all that night. So I wake up early and get ready. Before Mom and Dad even. Nobody’s at school yet by the time I get there. The burnt stench of cheap coffee wafts out from the teacher’s lounge, but there’s not a person in sight. I go into the girls’ bathroom on the first floor and open the window to sneak a cigarette while no one’s around.

  I try to get my head together in here. I’m so terrified about seeing him later today, I can hardly think straight. I consider going home sick. That would be a good excuse. If only I didn’t actually want to see him later.

  I hear someone coming. I toss my cigarette and slam the window shut. This time of the morning, it has to be a teacher. I race into one of the stalls and lock it behind me. Stepping up onto the toilet seat, I hold my breath and wait.

  The door screeches open and two voices whisper frantically to each other.

  “Hurry up, hurry up. Lock it, lock it now.”

  “Okay, I got it. Here, here.”

  “Hurry! Hurry,” they whisper breathlessly.

  Their sheer excitement makes me need to know more. I cautiously position myself to look through the crack between the door and the wall of the stall, careful not to make a sound. That’s when I see her: Amanda. I can’t seem to
get away from her lately.

  “Okay, here,” she says to this other girl—another freshman I’ve seen around, always with this snarky look on her face—handing her a marker.

  “All right, and what are we writing again?” Snarky Girl asks, staring at the wall.

  “You know—slut, whore, skank, bitch, whatever. All true, so just take your pick,” Amanda tells her.

  Armed with two wide-tipped permanent markers, they approach the bathroom wall. Amanda goes first. She presses the spongy tip of the marker against the grimy, pale pink tiles and it squeaks as I watch her carefully write the words:

  EDEN MCCROREY IS A WHORE

  I can barely believe it. I can barely breathe.

  Then Snarky steps up and draws a little arrow between the words “A” and “WHORE,” and writes in this sickeningly self-assured scrawl:

  Totally Slutty Disgusting

  “How’s that?” she asks Amanda with a smile.

  “Perfect!”

  “And why is she a totally slutty disgusting whore, again?” She laughs.

  “Trust me, she just is,” Amanda says as they stand back and admire their work. “Besides, she practically screwed some guy out by the tennis courts after school yesterday!” she lies.

  I cover my mouth with my hand. I would have killed her, would have pushed her out the window. I would have screamed at the top of my lungs at her. Except I’m paralyzed.

  “Oh, gross!” Snarky shouts.

  “Yeah, completely,” Amanda agrees. “Okay, come on, we don’t have much time.”

  Then they leave. I let them leave. But I still can’t move. I’m frozen, crouched on top of the toilet, my mouth hanging open, my hand still covering it.

  I don’t know how much time goes by before I snap out of it. I push open the stall door and walk up to the wall in absolute disbelief. I touch the black, inky, hateful words with my fingers. I hear a voice in the hall. And a locker slams shut. People are getting here. I quickly pull a whole armful of paper towels out of the dispenser and soak them in soap and water. Then I go to the wall and scrub, scrub, scrub against those words, using the strength of my whole body, until I can’t even catch my breath, until I’m crying. I look at the wall. The words still stare back at me. Unchanged. I let the sopping wad of paper towels fall to the floor. I clench my fists, digging my fingernails into my palms, wanting to punch the wall, wanting to punch anything.

  Just then these three pretty, popular senior girls push through the door, midconversation. They assemble in front of the mirror. I turn my back to them as I wipe my eyes dry. Then I walk to the sink to wash the wet paper towel crumbs off my hands.

  “Oh, ouch!” one of them shouts. My head snaps up to look at her. She points to the wall with her mascara wand, and says, “Someone’s been a bad girl.”

  They all laugh. My heart feels like a bird trapped in a cage in my chest. Its wings flapping violently against the bars of bone. I want to smash this girl’s pretty face into the mirror so hard. Then another one of them asks, “Who the hell is Eden McCrorey, anyway?”

  “A whore, apparently,” the third girl answers, laughing.

  “No,” the first girl corrects, “a totally slutty disgusting whore, you mean.”

  And they cackle like little witches, following one after the other back out into the hallway. I just stand there and let them get away with talking about me like that.

  I race out into the hall, my head in a fog, determined to find those girls and tell them they can’t treat me like that. To tell them it’s all lies. To go find Amanda and pound her into the ground. But I stop after only a few steps. The halls are beginning to fill with people and noise. And those girls have dispersed already.

  I go to my locker instead. I try to act like nothing’s different. Try to just get through the day as if I don’t know, as if there’s nothing to know. I manage to avoid every single person who knows me. But Mara finds me in the library during lunch.

  “Hey,” she whispers, coming up behind me as I’m shelving books. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

  It was inevitable. I let her pull me by the arm deeper into the aisle.

  “So, Edy,” she begins, “I have to tell you something. It’s bad. But before I do, remember, it will be okay. I just—I think you should know.”

  “I know,” I tell her.

  “You do?” she asks, her face in a grimace.

  I nod—try to smile, shrug like I don’t even care.

  “It’s insane! I don’t know who would start rumors like that. About you of all people!”

  “I don’t know,” I lie.

  “Well, Cameron and I went through all the bathrooms and tried to scribble them out. We’ve been doing that all morning, so it’s okay. I hoped you wouldn’t have to see it, though,” she admits.

  “Cameron went into the girls’ bathroom?”

  “No, the boys’ bathrooms.”

  I hadn’t even considered they would have gone into the boys’ bathrooms too. “Thank you for doing that, Mara. I mean it. I think everyone’s seen it already, though,” I tell her. “Can’t undo that.” I laugh bitterly.

  “Well, fuck everyone!” she says too loudly, and a bunch of heads turn toward us. “I’m really sorry, Edy,” she whispers. “I don’t understand this at all.” She’s so sad it’s almost like it’s happening to her and not me. “Want to come over tonight? We can eat all kinds of junk food and just veg out?” she tries.

  “I can’t. I actually have plans.”

  “You do? With who?” she asks, shocked.

  I look around to make sure no one can hear, and lower my voice so that I’m barely speaking. “Josh. Joshua Miller.”

  “Oh my God! Are you serious?” she whispers, her smile stretching wide. “How did this happen?”

  “I don’t know, it just . . . happened. He asked me out.”

  “Edy?” Mara’s smile suddenly contracts. “You don’t think it was him, do you? Because if it was, then you definitely don’t want to go out with him, right?”

  “It wasn’t him.”

  “Yeah, but how can you be sure?” she asks, rightfully suspicious.

  “I’m positive,” I assure her, but she doesn’t look convinced.

  “Edy, I’m worried now. You’re gonna be really careful, right?” she asks, her voice trembling faintly. “Because he’s kind of from this whole different world. He’s older. I mean, what if he’s expecting something, you know?”

  “So what if he is?” I answer immediately. “I don’t know, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

  “Really?” she asks in disbelief. “But—but aren’t you afraid?”

  “No,” I lie. I am afraid. But in this other way, I’m also more afraid of being afraid. Afraid of not doing it too. Afraid that maybe I would be too afraid to ever do it. That Kevin would continue to control me in these ways I had never even dreamed of. And suddenly the thought of having someone else there in place of him is something I required-wanted-needed, in the most severe of ways. And I don’t really care who, anyone else at all will do. This guy, Josh, he’s good enough. He did, after all, pick me a weed.

  “Maybe the rumors aren’t such a lie after all,” I muse.

  “Shut up, Edy,” Mara says, her face completely straight. “Don’t you ever say that again. That’s not true and you know it!”

  “Sorry,” I tell her. She stares at me for a second too long, like she wants to keep arguing the point, but she doesn’t. “I’m sorry,” I repeat.

  “Edy, you have to be sure,” she says firmly. “If you’re going to do it—like really, really sure. It’s not like you get to take it back if you—”

  But I have to stop her. “Don’t worry, okay? Who knows if anything will even happen?” I lie, trying to make her feel better.

  “Oh God,” she moans, both horrified and delighted at even the possibility. “Joshua Miller—that’s big. Like. Huge.”

  I grin in spite of my fear, at the thought of things being different—the thought of me b
eing different. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  I STAND ON THE sidewalk near the tennis courts after school. It feels like I’ve been waiting for hours, but it’s only been seven minutes. I’ll give him three more, and then I walk. I adjusted my hair and makeup in the bathroom before I left. I brushed my teeth. I even wore my new silky floral dress that I got before school started. I run my hands through my hair one more time. Just as I’m considering making a break for it, I see him walking toward me.

  “Hey! You’re really here?” he says, greeting me with that smile.

  “I said I would be.” I smile back.

  “I know, exactly. That’s why I wasn’t sure,” he says with a laugh. “Come on.” He reaches for my hand. My heart stops. He doesn’t seem to notice, as he leads us through the parking lot, that everyone is staring at us. He stops at the blue station wagon that picked him up yesterday and lets me in first. When he gets in the driver’s side, he starts the car and looks at me sweetly. “You look really nice, Eden.”

  I mumble “Thanks,” and look out the window so he doesn’t catch me blushing. But that’s when I see these guys—guys I’m sure he’s friends with—staring and pointing and laughing.

  “So, where you wanna go?” he asks me, clearly not seeing what I’m seeing. Not living in the world I’m living in.

  “Anywhere but here.”

  “Okay,” he says with a laugh. “Are you hungry?”

  I shrug. I don’t feel like eating after the day I’ve had.

  “Okay, movie?”

  “Is there anywhere to go where there won’t be other people around?” I try to laugh, even though I’m entirely serious.

  “Mostly everywhere has people around these days.” He grins, still expecting an answer. “My parents were doing something tonight so I borrowed my mom’s car just so I could take you somewhere. So come on . . . just name a place, any place, and we’ll go.”

  “What are your parents doing?” I ask, an idea forming in my mind.

  He looks at me like I might be crazy. “I promise they aren’t doing anything we’d want to do, if you’re looking for ideas.”