Who I Kissed

by Janet Gurtler

  chapter seven

  It gets worse.

  Zee’s so tall he’s impossible to miss over the crowd of students roaming the hallways. It seems that the world slows down. His face changes when he spots me, and then every person around us stiffens, as if they sense a faceoff. Heads turn toward me and then back to Zee. The crowd parts slightly and my stomach pricks with another sharp shock of pain. Walking beside Zee is Alex’s sister, Chloe.

  The blood in my veins freezes. I grab for Taylor and lean against her for strength.

  “It’s okay,” she whispers into my ear. “You can do this, Sam.” I’m so happy she’s with me I’d give her my kidneys. Both of them.

  Zee glances sideways at Chloe. He leans down and whispers something in her ear, and she lowers her eyes and nods.

  I hold my breath. Waiting for her to look up. Yell something at me. Thrust black horrible words into the air and make me suffer. I wait for her vicious accusation. My heart thumps, and I feel like a boxer waiting for the first punch to be thrown. When our eyes finally meet, she blinks. The blink is slow and exaggerated. And then her gaze purposely moves past me as if she did not even see me standing there. Staring at her. She dismisses me.

  Zee grabs Chloe’s hand and pulls her along. They pick up their pace. Zee drags her through the hall as if they’re pushing through water.

  “Zee!” Taylor calls, but he ignores her.

  In a few hurried steps, they’re gone. Nothing is said. No words are exchanged. They don’t even look at me again.

  I am nothing.

  As if a hole has been jabbed in me, my body deflates. Taylor’s cheeks redden, and she stares after them and grabs my arm, her fingernails digging into my flesh hard enough to leave half-moon imprints.

  “They need time is all. Alex was like a brother to Zee. And Chloe, well, of course she’s messed up. But they know it wasn’t your fault, Sam. Deep down. They’ll come around.” She removes her fingers from my arm, and I press my lips tighter and nod as if I believe her.

  Taylor clears her throat and glances down at her phone. “The bell is going to ring any second. You have advanced English, right?”

  I nod. The class I’ve been dreading. Apparently for good reason.

  “Shit. With Zee.” She glances down the hallway. “Screw it, I’m going the other way, but I’ll walk you to class.” She puts her arm around me and pulls me down the hallway, fending off onlookers with fierce stares. It feels like someone else is wearing my body, and my head is foggy and confused. I’ve never felt so grateful to someone for their support and so incapable of expressing my appreciation at the same time.

  She walks me to the door of my class and gives my back a gentle push. “It’s okay,” she says quietly. “You’ve got to face it sometime, and it’s going to be okay.”

  But it’s pretty apparent how his jury voted, and we both saw it. I’m as guilty as can be. With Taylor whispering support, I attempt a smile, mouth her a thanks, and take a deep breath as she jogs off.

  I step inside the room. Kids are slumped in chairs, some texting, or sitting on top of desks. Almost everyone is chatting, but no one says a thing to me. They duck their heads if I accidentally catch their eye. A quick glance to the corner, and I see the teacher isn’t at his seat yet.

  I slide into the first empty desk without looking around, thankful this teacher isn’t obsessed with assigned seating. There’s noise as someone takes the chair behind me.

  The bell rings, and groans float up in the air.

  “Hey, Sam,” a voice says.

  Casper. I try to fake a smile but fail, so I just lift my hand and turn around, wondering why he’s being nice to me. The English teacher rushes into the classroom, his face still buried in his BlackBerry.

  “Turn off your phones,” Mr. Duffield calls.

  “Turn off yours,” someone calls back.

  “Psst, Sam.”

  My eyebrows push together, and I pretend not to hear over Mr. Duffield chewing out the smartass.

  “Sam,” Casper calls again.

  I ignore him, hoping he’ll take the hint.

  “I do not like green eggs and ham,” Casper whispers, but this time it’s noisier. “I do not like them, Sam I am.

  “I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I am.” He says it louder, so I finally turn to him and he grins. “If you will let me be, I will try them. you will see.”

  “Seriously? Dr. Seuss?” I say.

  He laughs a squeaky, high-pitched laugh loud enough to attract attention. I scrunch up my shoulders and bury my chin into my chest as eyes turn toward us.

  Mr. Duffield glances our way. Great. I don’t want any more attention, but fortunately he’s decided it might be more valuable to spend class time teaching. I say a silent prayer of thanks to the teacher gods.

  “Be my partner,” Casper says.

  “For what?” I whisper.

  “We have to do a joint study on 1984. I was thinking that we could do a paper on double thinking as it applies to our world versus the world in the novel.”

  “Casper?” the teacher calls. “Is there something you need to share with the class?”

  “Not so much, Mr. Duffield. Catching Samantha up on what she missed,” he tells him. Every eye in the room turns to me, and my face boils to hot tub temperature. “We’ve decided to work together on the team assignment.”

  We have?

  The teacher eyes us both and then nods. “Fine,” he says and reaches toward his desk. He types something on his laptop keypad and then looks up. “All right, who else is pairing up?”

  Other kids raise their hands, and Mr. Duffield one-finger types names into his laptop.

  With my hands folded, I stare down at my desk, but my skin tingles with the feeling that someone is staring at me. I look up and glance over a couple of rows. Zee’s eyes are narrowed and shooting virtual bullets into my brain. He lifts his chin slowly and, with a purposeful look straight at me, raises his hand.

  “I’ll partner with Kaitlin, Mr. Duffield,” Zee calls out and looks away.

  Kaitlin practically purrs with approval, and a few boys around them whoop like overgrown monkeys.

  Zee grins, but the edges of anger don’t leave his face. Behind him, Kaitlin flashes me an evil sideways smile.

  “Typical Zee. More interested in scoring than grades,” Casper says quietly, and then he laughs.

  My heart flops. Of course Zee is interested in Kaitlin. I blow out a big breath. As if it matters. Zee already made his choice pretty clear. And I killed any chance I ever had with him. The thought chokes me and I squeeze my eyes tight. No pun intended, indeed.

  Casper taps me on the shoulder. When I turn around, he passes me a piece of paper. “My phone number,” he says. His voice isn’t deep, and it has more cracks it in than an old sidewalk, but it’s a pitch that carries. I know every person in the room can hear us.

  “I’d like to get started right away. I want an A-plus on this.” He glances purposefully around the room. “And who knows what else we might get…”

  My spidey sense tingles. Is he actually flirting with me?

  “Can I get your number?” he says, as if to promote the idea.

  The creepy sensation on my skin returns, and I glance over. Zee looks like he just got disqualified in a swim race. I lift my chin.

  “Sure.” I jot my number down in my notebook, rip the page out, and hand it over to him.

  “Better not get too close,” someone behind him mumbles. “She’ll take you down the way black widows eat their prey.”

  “Hey, dickhead,” Casper says. “Did you listen to what they said at the assembly? You’re supposed to be compassionate.”

  As much as I’m mortified to have it confirmed that I was discussed at school, it doesn’t surprise me. U
nlike on the news reports, my name is on everyone’s lips here. My heart warms to Casper. I’m almost inclined to hug him.

  “She didn’t know, and obviously she feels bad, so back off,” he says.

  I turn and focus on my desk top again.

  “Sam can get as close to me as she wants,” Casper continues, and I wish he would have stopped a sentence ago. His voice carries across the room.

  Kaitlin coughs once into her hand. It sounds very much like she coughed out the word “killer.” There’s a few low laughs but also a couple of dirty looks thrown her way.

  A girl beside me smiles at me with sadness in her eyes. It’s supportive and makes me want to cry. Fortunately, Mr. Duffield finally moves away from his desk and starts a lecture about George Orwell.

  ***

  After school, I make an emergency phone call to Bob, feeling overwhelmed and not sure I can face another day with everyone staring at me and making such nasty comments. He talks me down and goes over the good things I accomplished. I don’t really believe him when he tells me I’m brave and resilient, but I like when he tells me he’s proud of me. I hang up feeling somewhat stronger.

  That night Dad and I sit down to eat a roast he made in the crockpot. “Your aunt is coming for a visit. Hopefully a short one,” he says between bites. It’s tough and chewy, but at least he’s actually made an effort to cook something that didn’t come frozen in a box. Since the accident I haven’t been in the mood to cook. Or eat. My clothes are baggy. When I do eat, all I can manage is canned soup or scrambled eggs with plain toast. I threw out the peanut butter jar.

  I stop gnawing on the meat and put down my fork. “Really?”

  “I can’t stop her from coming. God knows I’ve tried.”

  I grab a snap pea and bite off the end of it, and then I pick up my glass of milk. I’m overwhelmed by the emptiness in my middle that food won’t fill. I wish she were already here. “It’ll be nice,” I say, pretending nonchalance, and sip my milk, watching the expression on Dad’s face over the top of the glass.

  His eyes shoot fireworks, and he makes a face. “Nice if you like to have all the oxygen in the room sucked out before you can take a breath,” he mumbles. He sounds like a belligerent little boy, and in spite of myself, I smile.

  “She’s dragging along that little mutt she carries with her all the time too.”

  He pretends to hate dogs, but Aunt Allie told me he’s been deathly afraid of them since he was a little boy. The thought of him being frightened by a tiny black Chihuahua makes me cough into my hand to hide a smile. It feels odd and out of place on my face. My cheeks crackle with the effort.

  “She doesn’t go anywhere without Fredrick,” I remind him. “He’s traveled all over the country with her.”

  “Who names a dog Fredrick? Especially one the size of a rat.” He shapes his hands into claws and lifts them into the air. “Her and that little dog too,” he says, imitating the witch on The Wizard of Oz. We probably watched that movie a hundred times when I was a kid.

  Aunt Allie brings out sides of Dad that usually lay dormant. He drops his hands and scrunches up his face. “I’m hoping she won’t stay too long, but who the hell knows?”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  He sticks his fork into the pile of lumpy potatoes on his plate. “Don’t I? If that dog pees on our floor, I’ll scalp him.” He puts his fork down, lifts his wine glass, and takes a long sip.

  “Fredrick uses a litter box, Dad,” I remind him.

  “And that’s not weird? He’s a dog, not a cat.”

  “I like Fredrick.”

  “Yeah. Well, you also like your aunt.”

  “So do you, Dad. You just hide it better.”

  He snorts. “You didn’t grow up with her running your life the way I did.”

  The twelve-year difference suggests he was kind of an “oops” baby, and it sounds like she ran his life because his parents were busy living theirs. Like most unpleasant things in his life, he deals but chooses not to talk about it. “Anyhow, she’s been calling and calling, and I couldn’t put her off any longer. She’s arriving tomorrow. Of course, now I have to take time off work to get her from the airport. “

  “I could go pick her up,” I offer immediately.

  “You’ve missed enough school already.” He pours himself another glass of wine. “How was today?” he asks to change the subject.

  I shrug and use my finger to pick up a piece of roast and shove it in my mouth. “You think she’ll give me a reading?”

  “God, I hope not.” He takes another long sip of wine and pushes his plate away. “You think I can stop her? It’s embarrassing the way she believes in that stuff.”

  “I don’t think it’s embarrassing. It’s cool.” I don’t tell him I’m hoping she’ll read my cards and maybe a death card or something will show up to claim me. Or at least the disaster card, dooming me to a horrible fate.

  “I don’t know why you’re interested in that stuff. Don’t even think you’ll ever be allowed to follow in her footsteps.”

  “I’m not the psychic type, Dad. It’s not exactly in my cards.” I make air quotes at “cards,” but instead of laughing he makes a face like he smells something rotten.

  “Anyhow, Aunt Allie has three degrees and is fluent in three languages. I’d say that makes her kind of a genius.” Smarter than him, even, but I know better than to say that out loud. “She does it because she loves it.” I pick up my plate, walk over to the garbage, and empty my leftovers into it.

  “She’s wasted her brains doing that wacko stuff.” Dad sips at his wine again, and I frown, worried he’s going to pound back the whole bottle the way he’s going.

  “She hated working in an office,” I remind him, opening the dishwasher to push my dish inside. “She’s happier doing what she loves.”

  Dad gives me a funny look. I usually keep my opinions about Aunt Allie to myself, and he’s taken my silence as an implication that I’m on his side. But with my guts hanging out for everyone to see, the truths about most things are closer to the surface than usual.

  “Well, apparently corporate America hated her back.” He sighs. “Besides, being responsible isn’t the same as being happy.”

  “Being responsible doesn’t mean you have to be an accountant,” I say softly.

  Where Aunt Allie is about spirituality, growth, and healing, he’s all about balancing ledgers and controlling spreadsheets. His world is black and white, hers is filled with blended colors. But she makes lots of money. I know that. It’s not what motivates her, though. She travels with an international psychic fair and helps people deal with their lives.

  I think she forces him to look beyond his tightly controlled world at the messy things that can’t be added or subtracted in the correct column. And he doesn’t like it. Aunt Allie drives him crazy, but even though he never admits it, I know he loves her. Me, I love Aunt Allie more than anyone else in the world. Besides him. And I kind of have to love him.

  Auntie Allie whirls in and out of our lives like a living cyclone. Dad is her moon. I am her sun. That’s what she tells me. She travels around, but she always orbits back to us. They drive each other crazy fighting, and she’s not around as much as she’d like to be, but she always has my back. Like in first grade, when I’d been upset about a Mother’s Day tea. I couldn’t stop crying and stuttering about being the only girl without a mother to take. Dad had planned to take me, but one of the girls in my class lifted her bitchy little chin to declare that dads shouldn’t be allowed because it was girls only. As my tears flowed, he’d held me, and when the hiccups started, he got up and went to the phone and made a call. The next day, Aunt Allie showed up. She’d flown halfway across the country to have tea.

  “Well, I’m glad she’s coming.” I look forward to being diverted by her crazy tales of other
places and other people’s lives. Or past lives.

  The landline rings. “Get that, would you, Sam?” Frowning, I walk over and stare at it. A private number. I pick it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Samantha?” I recognize the voice right away.

  “Casper?”

  Dad looks over, his eyebrows rising. I catch his eye and he looks away, but I can tell by his straight back and unblinking gaze that his full attention is on me and the caller on the other end of the phone. Boys call me, like, never.

  “You recognize my voice? I’m flattered. So. How’s things?”

  With my dad watching, making small talk with Casper is just about the last thing I want to be doing. “Fine. Um. It’s not really a good time for me to talk.” Nothing like me getting right to the point, then.

  Dad clears his throat and picks up his wine. I turn my back to him.

  “Okay. Straight to it. I’ll have to tell you how beautiful your eyes are another time.”

  My cheeks burn, and I’m glad my face is hidden from Dad.

  “So? My place or yours?” he says.

  “What?”

  “We need to start working on our English project. Remember. An A-plus-plus.”

  “Yeah. Um. Yours.” I don’t want to invite anyone into my house. It’s too embarrassing to think of anyone seeing what I used to be.

  “Good choice, Sam. You’re off to great places! You’re off and away!”

  I wish he could see me rolling my eyes. “Dr. Seuss again?”

  He laughs. “See, that’s what I love about you. You totally got that. So how about Friday night?”

  “Friday night?”

  “You got a date?” he asks. There’s a bit of a nasty edge to his voice.

  “Friday’s fine.”

  “Great. Give me your cell number, and I’ll text you my address.” The friendliness is back. Casper the friendly ghost.

  He says good-bye, and the phone clicks in my ear before I say the same. I hold the dead air to my ear, thinking about how much it bothers Dad when people hang up without waiting for him to say good-bye first.