Standing Sideways

by J. Lynn Bailey

He stifles another cry as he buries his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry, Mi—Liv,” he corrects himself.

  For some reason, I cannot seem to articulate the words in my head and put them through my mouth. Anger and fear maybe serve as the barrier between us.

  “Get out,” I say and point toward the door. “You don’t get to be in here.”

  “Hey.” Cao throws her backpack in the backseat.

  I pull away from the curb but not quick enough to move out of earshot of Beth.

  “The Monkey King 2 tonight!” Beth is beaming, holding the DVD in her hand.

  “My mom has gone effing crazy.” Cao shakes her head as she waves out the window. “She’s a loon, Liv! And she’s driving me nuts!” she yells out the window, loud enough for Beth to hear.

  “But! In other news”—she punches my arm and shoves her phone in my face—“Ed Sheeran tweeted me back. Heart eyes!” she squeaks. “I’m pretty sure he tweeted he wants to marry me.”

  I side-eye her, questioning the truth to her statement, wondering if she’s reading more into the situation.

  “Well, he said, @caobelle: Married to it!”

  I smirk. “What did you tweet?”

  “Love the new album. Married to it. So, if I read between the lines, I’m pretty sure he said, Let’s get married. And don’t worry; you’re so going to be my MOH.”

  “Your MOH?”

  “Maid of honor.” Her fingers are flying across her phone screen.

  “Are you replying to his offer?” I pull toward the left and start to ascend the Gulch.

  But the red jacket catches my eye. Why the hell would he walk the Gulch and drive to Bob’s? Clearly, he’s got a license—or maybe not. But why walk? Why would his parents let him walk? It’s dangerous.

  I speed up to Daniel, who’s at the top, and pull off on the side of the road.

  I roll down Cao’s window, and she’s clearly taken aback by my brashness.

  “What are you doing?” I lean toward Cao, looking out the passenger window. My words are direct, almost mom-like. No, almost Jasper-like. “You can’t walk this road; it’s dangerous. Get in.”

  He’s standing. I can’t see his face, so I’m essentially talking to his penis. I try to shake off the thought because I’m sure my face has turned ten shades of red.

  Daniel leans down. Smirks. “Oh, I missed the lights and sirens. Are you pulling me over, officer, for walking on a public road?”

  “What? No. Just…just get in, Daniel.” I roll my eyes, still trying to shake off the penis thought.

  He sees I’m concerned, and where my concern came from, I have no idea.

  Daniel pulls back from the window and stands, lifting his arms. Taking off his backpack maybe. The bottom of his jacket rises, and I see it—his long, lean washboard abdominal muscles that scream at me to stop staring. Defined, like God knew what he was doing when he matched Daniel’s deep red hair with his work ethic to hit the gym every morning or something.

  Cao’s face is red as she slowly moves her head to mine and mimes the words, The V!

  She’s referring to the V that guys have just above the big, ugly snakes that no one likes to look at per se. I though remain opinionless because what I’m staring at right now could work all day long.

  Cao fans her face.

  I realize he’s pulling his bag off his shoulder. Daniel is far too modest in a confident sort of way. That he doesn’t have to show you or tell you just how good he is or looks with his shirt on or off. Or—

  Shut up, Liv.

  Without another word, he climbs in the backseat and sits directly in the middle seat, so when I look in the rearview mirror, he’s all I see.

  I pull onto the highway again.

  Don’t use your rearview mirror; you don’t need it, I tell myself.

  But I do. I look in the mirror, but he’s staring out the window.

  Cao turns around. “So, Daniel, you’re totally coming to my wedding, right? You can be Liv’s plus-one.”

  Her words don’t catch Daniel off guard. “Who’s the lucky mate?”

  Cao’s lip curls, and then she gushes—I swear, her eyes have turned into hearts as she looks at me—“Mate?”

  “Um, yeah. Lad? Dude? Man? Dude-man? Friend? Not quite sure what term you use.”

  “No, mate works just fine.” Cao turns to me. “Ed Sheeran.”

  He slowly moves his eyes to mine. “Ah, Ed.” Daniel is still staring in my rearview mirror. “When’s the wedding?”

  I realize I haven’t told Cao about last night at Bob’s when Daniel came in because she’s a bit confused by Daniel and my newfound forwardness with him. Christ, and I haven’t told her about Daniel in the janitor’s closet.

  “What happened to your hand?” Cao asks.

  Daniel looks down. The bandage is gone, but the marks remain—half-scabbed, some wounds still open. “Janitor’s closet. Got lost.”

  “Liv’s mom is a nurse. I’m sure you can pop over to her house after school, and she’ll take a look at it.”

  I feel Cao’s stare in the side of my face.

  I shake my head and stare out the window. I know what she’s doing. Our phones chime in unison as we pull into the parking lot at school. Daniel’s doesn’t.

  “What is that?” He leans forward and looks to the front seat.

  “Blog Heiress,” Cao says, opening up the notification.

  BLOG HEIRESS

  Belle’s Bitches! Well, it’s official. Daniel Pearson has eaten the cheese fries at Bob’s. He’s officially a Belle’s Hollow resident now, served by the one and only sad girl, Livia Stone, who returned to work yesterday.

  So, get comfortable with the hot new ginger with a nice set of abdominal, pectoral, everything. What I wouldn’t give for two minutes alone with him. Perhaps in the janitor’s closet?

  Daniel leans in closer, over my shoulder, so close that I smell cinnamon from his mouth and feel the warmth of his breath on my thumb that hovers over my home screen.

  “Me?” He looks at the name of the blog. “Blog Heiress is blogging about me?” He’s completely taken aback. “Why does she care what I do?”

  Cao cackles. Her cymbal earrings chime when she leans her head back. “Oh, you’re the latest piece of meat, and BH has it bad for you.”

  Daniel is clearly still trying to wrap his head around the idea that a blogger is blogging about him. “Is she a bit mental?” He reads on. “Nice set of abdominal muscles? How the hell does she know?”

  My face turns red.

  We shrug because nobody knows who writes Blog Heiress. It started about two years ago, and the stuff she digs up, nobody knows about. Or it comes to fruition weeks later, proving what she said—or he said—was in fact true.

  We keep reading. Daniel hasn’t moved an inch, and neither have I.

  From a source I cannot divulge, for those taking Chemistry, the test is up. The questions and answers are below. Make sure you copy this shit down, as I’m sure some AP kid will rat me out. (Hey, Anthony Cartwright, I see you, douche.) Then, I’ll have to change the IP address to the blog again. Seriously, you didn’t think I’d find out? Oh, and you’d better stop beating off in the boys’ restroom at lunch in the third stall, or I’ll tell everyone.

  Oops ;)

  Rumor has it that Principal Lundberg is on the prowl for the Ritalin pills that were taken from Gabriel Struvio’s backpack. Word is, he actually needs them. So, please make sure you hide yo stashes before they bring in the county drug dogs.

  Let’s do a riddle, shall we?

  One plus one is two, right?

  What’s one plus one plus one? A threesome? A threesome is defined as three people consummating together.

  But what if there are two consummating relations without the third? And what if that third person doesn’t know?

  I’d call that a bit of a stab in the back. Maybe some things are better left alone. Or not. ;) This twosome will surprise you.

  Best!

  BeLHo

  �
��Liv, you’re blotchy. You have red blotches on your neck. Are you all right?” Cao asks as we get out of the car.

  Daniel leans back. I feel his eyes staring at the back of my head.

  I touch my neck, but the fire is burning in my chest.

  Shit.

  BeLHo knows.

  “Just hot,” I lie again. I lie to cover another lie. Soon, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up.

  I can’t make eye contact with Daniel because I’m scared he’ll see the whore inside me. The bad decisions I’ve made.

  I don’t think Daniel is buying my I’m-hot excuse.

  Why would I feel guilty toward him anyway? We aren’t a thing. I mean, we’ve discussed cheese fries. And my misgivings on Hawthorne Hill. And my brother.

  Oh my God. What if he puts one plus one plus one together?

  “I’ve got to run. Thank you for the ride, Livia. For saving my life again.” He looks down at the ground as he walks past, brushing my shoulder.

  “Liv,” Cao whispers, pulling on my arm, “if BeLHo is talking about you and Simon, you need to end this. Now.”

  I don’t answer.

  We make it to first period with Mr. Joe.

  As if BeLHo’s latest blog post, which reminds me of Anthony Cartwright—ew by the way—isn’t enough and the fact that my dad is back, I forgot the paper Mr. Joe asked me to get done by today. The one that I agreed to get done so that he could send it off to Dr. Livingston.

  He eyes me as I walk in and pulls his left eyebrow up—his signal for me, saying, Is it done?

  I break eye contact and feel as though I’m being buried alive. The metaphorical stack of bricks on my chest gains more weight.

  Mr. Joe doesn’t approach me. He knows.

  He lectures on the colonial American poet, Anne Bradstreet, and never once looks at me. As if I’ve let him down. I have. I made a commitment, and I fell through.

  Running is easier than seeing my mistakes come to life. I take the hall pass to use the restroom, but instead, I head to the janitor’s closet.

  It’s dark, and all I want is to be swallowed into darkness, so I step inside and wait for the darkness to hold me down. Life was so much easier, more conquerable, and more moving in the right direction just a month ago.

  Lies have created the basis for my current life. The Livia Stone Life. Not The Life of Livia and Jasper Stone. Two different lifetimes and two different concepts.

  Disappointment spreads itself thickly on top of the layer of lies. The multiple lies.

  Selfishness drips into the layer of disappointment, casts itself into the lies layer.

  And fear. Fear wraps up the layers, ties a bow around it, and says, Fuck you, Liv.

  “I’m glad to see you don’t punch things when you get upset.”

  I jump off the bucket and grab my chest as a thousand needles of scared shitless attach to me all at once.

  “It’s a bad habit, I’d say. Don’t start it anytime soon,” Daniel says.

  I grab for the light string, and click it, and Daniel is leaning against a large box, his feet crossed at his ankles.

  He holds up his hand and shields the light from his face. “Want to talk about it?”

  Slowly, I ease back down on my bucket, turning my body in his direction. And here I go. I can’t seem to shut up when he asks me things. “I failed to get a paper to Mr. Joe. For a special project we’re working on.” I pause. “I can’t seem to make good decisions that don’t destroy my life.”

  There’s a long silence that looms in the air, like a thick layer of cigarette smoke.

  Daniel does this thing where he slightly opens his mouth and then closes it, only to open it once more to say something. “It’s my experience that bad decisions are easier to make when forgiveness seems to work in our favor.” He pauses. “Confession?”

  I hear him swallow.

  “Yeah.”

  “My mum is sick.”

  “That’s why we came to the United States. She wants to die among the redwood forest. I got a map, and she pointed to this tiny little blip called Belle’s Hollow,” Daniel says.

  I want to hear more about Daniel’s mom. But I don’t want to push him, just like he hasn’t intruded on Jasper. Treading lightly. “Death is shitty.” I bite the corner of my mouth.

  “Confession?” Daniel says again. He pronounces it like cone-fession.

  But I try not to let on that I like the way he pronounces: seriously, laugh, United States, and ask.

  “This is your closet. You overrode my dibs,” I say. “And, by the way, there’s no constitution of Belle’s Hollow High in the trophy case. I lie. A lot. It’s one of the bad decisions I’ve managed to make since Jasper died.”

  Daniel moves his tongue round in his mouth, as if allowing an idea, a statement, to bounce around inside his mouth before he lets it come tumbling out—like, liar. I wonder what his tongue would feel like against mine. Would it be soft or needy like Simon’s? What would it feel like against my neck? My jawline? My breasts?

  Oh, God. I think my face has gone red because Daniel is cocking his head. Maybe the red splotches have come back.

  “What?” I push the thought of tongues and breasts from my head.

  “Don’t laugh, all right?” Laugh is pronounces with an O instead of an A. He rubs his face with his hands and quiets his tongue. “I lied to the police.”

  I stare at his shoes.

  “I wanted to keep a dog. I was about ten at the time. Found the dog roaming the street near where we lived in Hull. It didn’t have a collar on it, so I asked Mum if we could keep it. She said no, as my father was allergic to dogs, and told me to hang Found Dog signs around our area.” He pauses. “So, I made up this story. It’s silly in hindsight. I told my mum that a man had tried to kidnap me, and the newly acquired dog had saved my life.”

  “Did they let you keep the dog?”

  “They were adamant that I could not keep the dog. And then they got on the house phone and called the police.”

  “They didn’t.”

  “Indeed, they did. And what happened next was quite a blur. But I must say, the police officer who showed up at our home was tall and quite intimidating to a ten-year-old lad. But, when he asked me to give a description of the man who’d tried to take me, I fed him a line of bollocks.”

  “Bollocks?”

  Daniel shrugs. “Shit.”

  “You didn’t.” I feel more human. “You lied to the police?”

  “I did. As eloquent and as believable as a ten-year-old chap could, I told him about the man’s brown hair, his facial hair. His blue eyes.”

  “You made it up?”

  “No, I described my uncle. So, half-lie.”

  I half-laugh but more smile because, for the first time, I see a piece of the honest truth through his smile.

  I’m not sure if he’s smiling because of the story he’s telling or if he’s smiling because I’m laughing now.

  I cover my mouth. “You lied to the police.”

  “Yes. And there’s probably a warrant out for my arrest right now. That’s really why we came to the United States, Livia. I’m running from the police. That’s why I hide out here.” Daniel looks around the janitor’s closet.

  He laughs, a deep, throaty laugh that reminds me of his tongue. That reminds me of my breasts. I want to tell him I like his laugh, but I don’t.

  “That’s not the worst part of the story. The extra-tall police officer came back to our flat to tell my mum and father that he’d found a man who fit my description.”

  “No way.”

  Daniel nods. “Thank God he had an alibi.”

  “Did you get to keep the dog after all that?” I lean forward, intrigued by his ability to tell a story aloud so easily. My stories exist in my head and in journals I keep hidden.

  “I did not.” He shakes his head. “I guess the moral of the story is, perhaps lying won’t get us what we want. I think, too, God might have had his hand in it.”

  I freeze. �
�Do you believe in God?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Same.

  It’s getting warm in here, and I’m not sure if it’s my hormones because my face is extremely warm or the temperature of the small closet. I trace the word hot in my hand and stand to leave.

  “Thanks.” For making me feel almost human again today, I want to say but don’t.

  “For what?”

  “For calling dibs.” I don’t look back at his face to see if he’s smiling. I grab the knob of the door, but something beckons me to turn back to Daniel, who’s staring at me. “Do you ever feel like the world is too small?”

  “No.” Daniel looks impatient. As if he wants to do something about my leaving, but he doesn’t. His hands fidget at his sides.

  “I’d like to meet your mom. And I like your smile. It’s big. With lots of teeth.” Without giving Daniel a second look, I allow the door to close behind me, wanting Daniel to follow me out, wanting to feel his calming presence again. Wanting him to tell me stories that make my life seem less chaotic. More right. Less wrong.

  But he doesn’t follow me out and save my life.

  I make my way back to Mr. Joe’s classroom. My phone chimes before I go in, and I look down.

  It’s a text.

  Simon: Hey. Caaaaaannnn u com ge me? Drunkkkkkk.

  Me: What? Where are you?

  Simon: Idk.

  Me: What do you mean, IDK? SIMON, WHERE ARE YOU?

  Simon: n ur car.

  Me: WTF?

  He doesn’t respond as I march over to my car.

  I’m more worried about Whitney. I can deal with whatever comes my way.

  You should have thought of that before you let Simon touch you in places that only a boyfriend or girlfriend should touch, I tell myself.

  And there is no us. We’re two people just trying to get by.

  Me: What was your plan after you got drunk?

  Simon: IDK. Stuck n seat belt. Need help.

  Stupid seat belt. I should’ve fixed it a long time ago. It works so well that, sometimes, you can’t get out of it.

  I walk/run to my car, and I think about texting Cao to ask her for her help, but I second-guess that idea. I don’t want to draw her into this or out of class because of the lack of my better judgment.