Even if I did have a boyfriend, I don’t think I’d have sex with him. Or if I did, it wouldn’t happen for a very long time. Everything else in my life is complicated enough without adding sex into the mix.
Dad doesn’t say anything, and it makes me feel worse. I didn’t mean to be bitchy. Or maybe I did. I can’t tell, because most of what comes out of my mouth lately seems to bother him. I don’t even know if I’m doing it on purpose or if it’s a side effect of my existence.
He’s quiet for a long time, and I wonder if I pushed him too far. I almost take it all back.
“Now you know the rules,” he says finally. “I’ll let you get back to your magic game.”
When he starts to leave, I get the urge to grab him by the legs like I used to do when I was a little girl. I sort of hate him, but I want him to stay. Even if it means more awkward sex rules.
“Multiplayer online role-playing game,” I mumble instead, but he’s already out the door.
There were telltale signs that Dad had a girlfriend, things that were obvious to me only in retrospect. The first sign was the frequent gym visits. Besides the occasional morning jog, Dad had never been much for fitness when Mom was alive. His exercise consisted of walking to and from his car to go to work. At home he lived on the couch, before the big move to his bed at nine p.m.
Mom used to love that he was soft in the middle. The three of us had that belly pouch in common—our pancitas, as Mom would call them. She liked to give his a good pinch.
But then she died, and he didn’t eat very much, and then he joined the gym. Gradually the pouch disappeared, until one day, without my realizing, it had vanished completely.
The other signs happened quickly. Dad got rid of his ripped, twenty-year-old jeans. His T-shirts became pressed button-downs that he tucked into his pants. He wore boat shoes even though he didn’t own a boat.
A couple of times a week, there would be some late nights at work. He never spent the night anywhere, but sometimes he would get home at two in the morning. I would wait up for him at first. I was terrified that I would go to sleep and he would get into a car accident or suffer a sudden heart attack. Sometimes I would drift off and have vivid dreams about losing Mom all over again. I saw her the way she looked in the end, the way I don’t want to remember her but the image I can’t erase. And then, in my dream, something would happen to Dad, too. I was terrified of waking up as an orphan.
I guess in the back of my mind, I somehow knew that Dad would move on, but I thought I would be an adult at that point. Off in college at least, living my own life, far enough away that it wouldn’t affect me as much.
We were eating takeout in front of the TV when Dad first mentioned his yoga teacher.
“I didn’t know you took yoga,” I said. “I thought you would be one of those old men on the stationary bike.”
“Excuse you,” he said, swiping one of my dumplings with his chopsticks. “I’m only forty-seven.”
“Your hair’s gone gray.”
“I’m what they call a silver fox.”
“Ew, Dad. Who in the world has ever called you that?” I asked. The memory grosses me out now that I can picture it being Harlow.
“No one,” he said. “And I was doing the stationary bike at first. But I kept seeing the yoga class through the window, and it looked so . . . peaceful.”
“Isn’t it boring? A bunch of breathing and posing?”
“This class isn’t,” Dad said. “We have a great teacher. You should try it.”
But I never did. I had no desire to struggle through warrior pose in a room full of strangers.
That was the first conversation about yoga. As the weeks went on, Dad quoted his “yoga teacher” more and more, while I spent more and more time in an imaginary online world. Maybe that’s why I missed the obvious correlation. Increasing number of late nights equaled increasing references to the mysterious yoga teacher.
Somehow Dad and I started eating dinner separately. He was being pulled into Harlow’s orbit, and I escaped to my room every chance I got so that I could spend time with Harris and live in Kiri’s skin.
I couldn’t know at the time that we were turning into different people. It seemed like every day dragged by so slowly. But now, when I look back, everything happened at once, like a giant cataclysmic shift.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I’D FORGOTTEN HOW LOUD THE cafeteria is. Large amounts of people, in general, are loud. Everyone thinks that what they have to say is so important that they talk over whoever else is speaking, in order to make their inane point, right freaking now, because God forbid you take the time to listen to anyone else in the world. It’s like what my third-grade teacher used to say, that people have two ears and one mouth for a reason, but no one seems to remember that.
“Jesus, Analee, would it kill you to smile?”
Seb and I took a small table in the back of the room. As soon as we sat down together, the volume grew ten times as loud. Lily, Chloe, and the rest are sitting a few tables away, at approximately a forty-five-degree angle. They have a perfect view of us.
I spread my lips wide, showing top and bottom teeth. “How’s this?”
“Like a scary clown.” Seb sighs in disappointment, then takes a bite of his burger. One of his bites equals half the burger, which is probably why he ordered two.
I take a bite of my own bacon cheeseburger. I get a sick pleasure out of imagining Harlow’s face if she were to watch me. Dairy and pork? Shame.
“Are you going to eat that whole thing?” Seb asks.
“Yes.” I take another bite, then hesitate before chewing. “Why?”
“I’m just not used to girls who eat. I always had to finish Chloe’s food for her.”
I resume chewing. “I’m not Chloe.”
“I see that.”
“Harlow tends to deprive our family when it comes to food. She’s a vegan.”
“Nothing wrong with that. It’s working for her,” Seb says. “Your stepmom is super-hot.”
“She’s not my stepmom yet,” I say. “And you’re foul.” It doesn’t surprise me that Seb would find someone like Harlow attractive, but it bothers me all the same. It’s so uninspired.
“She seems nice, too.”
“She’s okay.”
“It could be worse, you know. She could be a huge bitch like my stepmom.”
“Can you not use that word? It’s so incredibly sexist.”
“It’s not sexist if it’s true.”
“I just think you should be better than some macho butthead who throws the word ‘bitch’ around,” I reply. “Be less stereotypical, please.”
“Butthead?” he asks, stifling a laugh.
I knew he was going to pick up on that as soon as the word left my mouth. Why am I four years old? “That’s right.”
“Fine. My stepmom’s a dick. Better?”
I sigh. “Now you’re trying to be an asshole.”
“Jesus Christ. You’re impossible.” He frowns, then catches himself. The smile falls back into place.
“So, what’s wrong with your stepmom?” I ask.
“She’s a lying piece of garbage.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“She basically brainwashed my dad into marrying her. Then she turned him against me and my brother. He’s just, like . . . all about her, all the time.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. I complain about Harlow all the time, but at least she’s never done anything truly evil. “That sucks. What about your mom?”
“My mom isn’t around.”
On this he doesn’t elaborate. He leaves it at that, so I do too. Across the cafeteria Lily looks over at us, and my heart lifts in my chest.
“Do you think everyone’s buying this?” I ask. “Our relationship?”
Seb nods. “It’s driving Chloe crazy. I can tell.”
“How?”
“Look at her.”
She’s talking to Lily, gesturing with her fork before sticking a bite of
salad into her mouth. She doesn’t look terribly affected by any of this, but most things in life don’t seem to affect her.
“She seems pretty zen,” I maintain.
“You have to know her. There are definite cracks in the foundation.”
If Chloe’s metaphorical house has cracks in the foundation, mine is a termite-infested crap heap.
“I have a soccer game on Thursday,” Seb says. “You’re coming, right?”
“Ugh. Do I have to?”
“Well, you’re kind of my girlfriend? And Chloe used to go to every single game.”
In other words I have no choice in the matter. I cannot imagine a worse way to spend an afternoon than sitting in the sweltering heat, suffering from lower back pain because of the bleacher seats, and surrounded by the people I most want to escape.
“Chloe is a saint,” I mutter. I finish the remains of my cheeseburger, using my finger to collect the bits of stray meat from my plate.
Seb laughs. “Hungry?”
“Not really.” I wipe the rest of my plate clean.
“Do you want some of my fries?”
“Yes.” I have no room to be demure. Burgers and fries are freaking delicious, a rarity in my life these days.
“Here.” He takes a fry and moves it toward my mouth.
“What are you doing?” I ask, pulling away.
He pauses, fry in hand. “I was going to feed you a fry.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes? Girls think that’s cute.”
“Isn’t that a little . . . infantilizing?”
“Analee. Eat the fry.” And then he practically shoves it into my mouth. “See? Aren’t we adorable?”
I glare at him as I chew.
“Smile,” he reminds me.
The strangest thing to come from fake dating Seb is that random people will now say hi to me in the hallways. People whom I’ve never spoken to in my life, and they all say my name correctly. Go figure.
Guys are also starting to look at me. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Lily used to scold me for assuming that all attention was bad attention, but I can’t help myself. When someone’s staring at me, I want to run to the nearest mirror and make sure something in my appearance didn’t go horribly wrong. Like, maybe I just got my period and it looks like I’m hemorrhaging blood. Or maybe a giant glob of food is stuck between my front teeth. If people are looking at me, it’s for a reason, and it’s probably a bad reason.
Physically I guess I’m not totally repulsive. Kids don’t see me and run away screaming. But there are a million little things that I would fix about myself if I could, and when people look at me for too long, I think they’re figuring out what all those little things are. They might be noticing that my nose is slightly too wide for my face or that my pancita makes me look eternally five months pregnant. So, I do everything in my power to become Invisible Girl—using my massive hair cape as a shield, shrinking from people’s sight, and maintaining a force field of personal space around me at all times.
Fake dating Seb makes me feel like my Invisible Girl disguise is slipping. Even the teachers are treating me differently. They smile at me when I walk into the room, like they know who I am. By my proximity to Seb, I am suddenly someone worth seeing.
I wonder if this is how Lily felt when she started dating Colton. I never did ask her what it was like.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HARLOW HEARS ME WHEN I get home, before I have time to run upstairs and avoid her.
“Analee?” she asks in her apple-pie way.
“It’s me,” I call back.
“Can you come here for a second?”
No. Leave me alone, woman.
“Okay,” I say out loud. I try to sound as pleasant as possible.
When I walk into the living room, I shit you not, Harlow is standing on her head. Sometimes I think she saves her most ridiculous yoga poses for my viewing.
“Hi,” she says to me, upside down, like this is a totally normal way to speak to someone. I would be a sweaty, red-faced mess if I were her, but she looks angelic. The blood rushing to her cheeks gives her face a delicate blush.
“Hi,” I say.
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure. . . . Like this?”
She lowers her legs and descends into child pose. Then she sits back on her heels and faces me.
“Come,” she says, patting her mat. “Sit.”
So this is going to be a long talk. I’ve never had one of these with her, not even when she started dating Dad. Dad kept acting like this was nothing new, completely business-as-usual for this skinny blond woman to pop up in our everyday lives.
I kick off my shoes and toss my backpack onto the floor, then sit across from her on the mat. Even sitting on a yoga mat feels unnatural to me. It feels like my jeans are going to split open.
“Your dad mentioned that he talked to you last night.”
“ ‘Talk’ is a stretch,” I reply. “It was more a declaration of rules.”
I don’t tell Harlow that talking to her about this would be a violation of rule number three.
“Go easy on the guy,” Harlow says, smiling. “He’s feeling out of his element here.”
I’m not sure what bothers me more: when Harlow talks to me as if she knows my dad better than I do, or the fact that maybe now she does.
“And what about you?” Harlow asks.
“What about me?”
“How are you feeling? About Seb?”
I start to feel uncomfortable—the two of us, sitting face-to-face, Harlow in stretchy lotus pose, me an awkward mess, my jeans pinching my stomach. There is nothing to distract me from this conversation. I itch to get upstairs and in front of my laptop.
“I’m feeling okay,” I say carefully.
“I’m glad. Look, I just want you to know . . .” Harlow untangles her legs and fidgets with her tank top. “I’m here if you want to talk about things. Things that might be weird for you and your dad.”
“Um. Thanks.”
“Have you been to a gynecologist?”
Oh. We’re actually doing this. Like, right now.
“No,” I say.
“I can bring you to mine. Her name is Jessica, and she’s fantastic. Very gentle. We can look at some birth control options.”
“Thanks, Harlow, but I don’t think—”
“I’m not saying that you and Seb are going to have sex. I just want you to be informed, okay? Sometimes your dad—”
She stops. I’m curious to know what her criticism of Dad will be, but she finishes by repeating, “I just want you to be informed.”
“Thanks,” I say again. “I’ll, um, think about it.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” I’m never sure when a conversation with Harlow is finished. When it comes to its natural end, she just . . . stares. Like she’s waiting for you to remember something.
“I’m gonna go upstairs,” I say. It sounds too sudden, and I almost trip on my own feet when I lift myself off the mat. The epitome of grace, I am.
“Good talking to you,” Harlow calls after me. I wonder if she truly believes that, if we were both part of the same conversation.
I get to Seb’s soccer game early so that I can sit in the top corner of the bleachers. Soccer games at East Bay are usually packed because our school makes it to state every year, making the scene of screaming, cheering fans sitting ass-to-ass on the bleachers an introvert’s nightmare. To say that soccer is a big deal at this school would be a severe understatement. The players are treated like gods, and funds are funneled from our arts and academic programs into the sports budget. Last year they cut the school band to give the soccer players new uniforms.
It’s all kinds of gross.
In order to combat any potential boredom and avoid talking to anyone who sits around me, I bring my journal, homework, and a copy of the third Harry Potter. Most people who get here early take the first couple of rows of seats anyw
ay. No one wants to be up here, closer to the hellish Florida sun.
Seb and the rest of the team are already jogging around the field to warm up. Twenty boys in slate-blue uniforms, knee socks, and cleats bounce soccer balls on every available body part. There’s something ridiculous yet graceful about the way Seb moves. He juggles the ball from foot to foot, then swings and kicks his legs around like a demented Rockette. When he moves to the side to stretch, I see him look up, his eyes searching the stands. I look around me. The bleacher seats are filling up quickly. I think he’s looking for Chloe, who used to be a fixture at these things, but she’s nowhere to be found. There’s that annoying flicker of pity I feel again. It must suck, knowing that you once had a real girlfriend to root for you at every soccer game, and now you have to settle for a fake one.
But when Seb spots me, I can see his face light up, even from my nosebleed seat. He waves. I wave back, then smile and look down at my knees. Minutes later my phone buzzes inside my backpack. It’s a text from Seb, now off the field.
Tell me you didn’t bring a book to a soccer game.
I write back, Not just a book. I also brought a journal and some homework.
Girlfriends don’t bring books to their boyfriends’ soccer games.
This one does.
Nerd.
Jock.
I sigh and put the book away. I should probably keep up the pretense of this relationship by paying attention to the first few minutes of the game.
A chubby freshman squeezes into the limited space beside me, almost knocking me over. He doesn’t even apologize.
“COME ON, TIGERS!” he hollers dangerously close to my eardrum. For the love of God. None of these people have any concept of self-control. The game hasn’t even started yet.
The relief is that no one here particularly cares what I’m doing. People are chatting with friends, eating junk food, and, for the most part, keeping their eyes on the field. It makes me think I can handle this part of being a girlfriend. I can still be Invisible Girl here, hidden among the mob.
As the start of the game gets closer, the fans get louder. People start hooting and clapping and chanting songs in unison. The guy next to me participates in each and every chant with gusto. His volume increases too, more than I ever thought possible.
Analee, in Real Life Page 10
