Goth Girl Rising

by Barry Lyga

  I wanted to dress in all black and be cool and mysterious. Like Death.

  Forty-four

  "I REREAD IT," FANBOY SAYS." SANDMAN. Over the summer. I was, well, I was thinking about you and I decided to read the whole thing."

  What does he want me to say to that? He's looking at me with this weird combination of Eager and Shy. I don't know what the hell to say to that.

  "It was ... I read it, like, a few years ago. In middle school."

  Around the same time I read it. Weird.

  "So I reread it over the summer, and it was ... I mean, I liked it the first time, but it was even better the second time. Probably because I got more of it, you know? That's what I'm hoping for with Schemata. That people will reread it and get more out of it each time."

  There was nudity in Sandman. So why is the nudity in Schemata bothering me? Because it's Courteney, who used to be Dina? Because it's Fanboy? Both?

  "They didn't have the whole series at the library, so I borrowed Cal's. He has the originals, when it first came out in monthly comics, you know? And that's when the two of us started talking about how some really great stuff has been serialized first, and he came up with the idea of doing that with Schemata. So that's how I reread Sandman. It was cool. Because, like, there were the letter columns, you know? They used to have letter columns in comics—"

  "God, I know that, Fanboy! I'm not an idiot!"

  "OK, OK! Jeez!" He holds up his hands like I was about to hit him or something.

  "Look, I'm not like you, OK? I'm into comics, but I don't live for them."

  "OK, whatever. But I read the comics and the letters in them. It was cool, to see how people were reacting when it came out. And I learned stuff, too. Like, for example, did you know that the series was supposed to be like half as long?"

  "What?" God, would he just shut up for half a second and let me think?

  "Oh, yeah," he goes on. "There's a letter early on where someone asks if the series is going to end or just go on forever and Gaiman actually answers the letter himself, instead of having his editor do it. And he says that the story will end around issue fifty. But it actually ended up going on to issue seventy-five."

  What? My head's spinning. I've got too much going on all at once: the artwork, Dina, Fanboy, and he's babbling about issue numbers, when I never even thought about Sandman in issue numbers.

  "So I wonder," he says, "if he added more stories or if he just ended up taking more time with the ones he'd already planned out. Like 'Ramadan,' for example. I mean, if he planned out the whole series in the eighties, he couldn't have planned 'Ramadan,' because the Gulf War hadn't happened yet. You know?"

  He looks at me with these shining eyes. I want to punch him. Or kiss him. Either will do.

  "You know?" he says again. "The ending depends on the Gulf War happening, but that issue came out five years after the start of the series. So how was it supposed to end? Was there a different ending? Or did he insert that story into his plan at some point? How much was planned out and how much of it was flying by the seat of his pants?"

  He stops, and this time it's pretty obvious that he's going to wait until I say something.

  "I have no idea," I manage.

  He laughs like I said something witty. "God, I love thinking about stuff like this."

  Yeah. Yeah, he does.

  He loves it.

  And me?

  What do I love?

  Who do I love?

  Love

  LOVE MAKES YOU WEAK. THIS I know for sure.

  Mom loved Roger. Roger loved Mom. And look what happened there. She died. She thought her love made her strong. She kept telling me—after she was diagnosed—she kept telling me, "I'm going to beat this, Kyra. I'm going to come out of it. I love you and I love your father and that love is my strength. You're my strength."

  And sometimes she would go on and on about it: "I want to see you graduate from high school. And college. I want to see you get married. I want to hold my grandchildren." She would get teary. I would get teary. There's a word for it—I learned it in Miss Powell's class, the only thing worth learning: lachrymose. That's the word. Mom was lachrymose. I was lachrymose.

  "I'm strong thanks to you, Kyra. You're my strength."

  And who the hell was she to put that burden on me? I was her strength? Then what did that mean as the cancer ate her from the inside out? What did that mean as she got weaker and weaker and weaker? When the cancer migrated to her brain and made her forget things and space out randomly?

  You can't rely on other people to be your strength.

  You have to be your own strength.

  You can't rely on love. Love will let you down every time. Every. Single. Time.

  I don't love Jecca. I don't love Fanboy.

  But...

  God, the buts in life will kill you absolutely every time, won't they?

  I don't love. But I need. I can admit that to myself, I guess. When Jecca pretends like nothing happens between us, I get angry. I don't know why; I just do. And then I ignore her. Punish her.

  And the whole time I was gone, the whole time I was DCHH, I missed Fanboy. I missed him, OK? I don't like admitting it; I don't like thinking it. But there it is.

  My first week in the hospital was sheer hell. The doc who did my intake didn't listen to anything I said. He looked at my history and he just went ahead and put me on all kinds of meds. I did a pretty good job of pretending to take them, but the nurses were sly and they caught me a few times, so I had to take the meds sometimes. And those things just totally messed with my head. The first time I saw Dr. Kennedy, he took me off the meds and my brain straightened itself out.

  But that first week, I was a mess. I would lie in bed and dream, only I was still awake while I was dreaming. It's so stupid. It's so dumb. I would ... I would think of him. I would dream of him. Little things. Meaningless things. I would imagine cold.

  Cold.

  Freezing outside.

  And I'm sitting with Fanboy and he's wearing a hoodie and he takes it off and gives it to me and puts his arm around me to keep me warm.

  And then bigger, even stupider things.

  At night, after my psycho roommate whined and rocked herself into something like sleep, I would lie there, my head pushed and pulled and generally turned into taffy by the meds, and I would think, Please, God, get me out of this place. Don't make me stay here forever. Don't leave me here. Don't leave me here, drugged up and left here and gone forever. Get me out of here. Please, God.

  And then I would start to cry—quietly, though, because I didn't want to wake up the psycho and have to put up with her shit—and I would go to my worst place, my most shameful place. Lying there in bed, curled up like a baby in the womb, I would cry, and my tears felt numb. They were numb because of the drugs. I don't know how else to explain it. I cried my numb tears and at my absolute worst, I dreamed of him, dreamed of him saving me, rescuing me from that place, coming to me in a cape and tights and a giant F on his chest, my knight, my love, my hero, my superhero.

  In the light of morning, the tear tracks dried on my cheeks, I would fake taking the morning meds (the morning nurse was an idiot—the night nurse was savvy) and my head would clear a little and I would hate myself for my weakness, for wanting to be rescued.

  And I would hate him for not rescuing me.

  Forty-five

  HIS MOM CALLS HIS NAME from upstairs. "Dinner soon! Is Kyra staying?"

  He looks the question at me. I can't believe it. I must look totally normal. It feels like everything going on in my head should be so obvious. It should be plastered all over me. But it's not.

  I blame/thank the bald dome and the clothes. He doesn't know how to read me anymore.

  "I don't think I can," I hear myself say.

  I've totally botched this. All I have for my troubles is a stack of Literary Paws, naked artwork, and a lecture on Sandman. Nothing useful.

  "OK, well, I guess I better take you back to school, t
hen."

  I've accomplished nothing. I just stare at the naked Courteney.

  "It's all because of you, you know," he says.

  "Huh?" I look up at him.

  "This whole scene." He gestures to the pages in my hands. "The whole 'season finale'thing. It's all thanks to you. Remember how you told me she shouldn't just get all pissed off when she sees her husband's fantasies toward the end of the book? She should, like, realize she has her own, too? That's what I'm setting up here. It's foreshadowing. So, you know, thanks."

  I just stare at him. He listened to me.

  He actually listened to me.

  And changed his book because of me.

  "In fact..." He gets all shy and bumbling all of a sudden. It's like six months ago all over again, when he had no idea how to react or talk to me. Only I'm not doing any talking, so he's on his own. "I was gonna ... I wanted it to be a surprise ... But since you're ... Oh, what the hell, right?"

  He grabs another sheet of paper. This one is larger. He holds it up to me. It's the opening splash page for his "season finale," the exact same image that I'm holding—shrunken to regular paper size—in my hands already. Only this version is lettered, with a title and everything:

  SCHEMATA: SEASON ONE FINALE

  DREAMING WHILE I'M AWAKE

  And then, at the bottom of the page, the credit box, with "Writer/Artist" and his name, followed by:

  Editor/Letterer: Cal Willingham

  Advisor: Craig Tollin

  For Literary Paws: Gina Horowitz

  But then, under that, in bold letters that even a blind person could see...

  Extra-special thanks to Kyra Sellers, who made it possible.

  Forty-six

  I STARE AT IT.

  Why did he have to go and do something nice? Why couldn't he just keep being a dick so I could keep hating him?

  He's grinning at me like he's just given me the world's greatest Christmas present. My brain splits in two.

  The first part snorts and says, "Thanks a lot, Fanboy," hitting just the right tone of voice. He's used to it. He'll think I'm secretly happy.

  The second part...

  I smile at him. "No, seriously, thanks. It's too much."

  He believes me. God, am I good or what?

  "Well, you deserve it. You made this all possible."

  I point to the page. "So I've read."

  "Ha! OK, let's go."

  We go out to the car. I pile up all of the Schemata stuff on my lap and soon we're out of the driveway and heading back to school. It's weird, having him drive. He does the speed limit and he's really, really careful.

  I have to make a decision. He's taking me back to school because he thinks I have a car there. And he thinks this because I always lied to him and told him I had a car, even though I was stealing them.

  So, do I let him take me back to school and then walk home? Or do I tell him the truth?

  It's cold out. My head is vulnerable. I sigh.

  "Hey, Fanboy." I go All Tough with him. My tone will brook no shit. That's a great expression my dad uses sometimes, though he says "crap" instead of"shit."

  "Yeah?"

  "I took the bus today, so I need you to take me home."

  "Oh, yeah?"

  He sounds way too smug.

  "Nothing wrong with taking the bus, Fanboy. Except for the assholes."

  "What happened? Couldn't find a car?"

  I've been watching him the whole time, but as he says this, he turns quickly to look at me and I have to look away. I have to. It's like magnets, when you put two of them together with the wrong ends facing and they force each other apart. I turn away. It's like my neck muscles have locked into place and if my life depended on it, I couldn't turn to the left to look at him. My cheeks flame and burn. Hell, I think my scalp is blushing.

  "I figured it out," he tells me. "Eventually. You really had me going for a while there, with all that crap about your mom's car and your sister's car and your sister's boyfriend's car..."

  My sister. God, that's right. Katherine. I used Katherine and I told him I had a sister. Man, I really laid the lies on thick, didn't I?

  Busted.

  "But then I realized," he goes on, "that none of it made sense. And once your dad told me you didn't have a sister, I figured out that, uh, you know, you must have been, like, stealing those cars."

  "Big effing deal, Sherlock. You think you're Batman or something'cause you figured that out?" Inside, I'm curled up in shame. Outside, I have to be tough. That's how it works.

  "No. No. I guess not. I just..."

  "Just what?" Stop it, Kyra! Stop goading him! Just get home and get the hell out of the car.

  He sighs. "I'm just really glad you're back, is all. I hope ... I hope it helped. Being—you know ... being away. Like that."

  If I weren't all tense and freaked out, it would be funny, listening to him stumble over the words and the phrases and even the goddamn syllables. But I am, so it's not.

  "Whatever, Fanboy."

  "I just ... I was really worried about you, so I hope you got the help you needed and that you're doing better."

  God. What an effing baby.

  Here's the thing. Here's the thing I hate: His concern is like a really warm drink when your body is cold, and you feel it go all the way down your throat and then into your stomach, where it pools and spreads out.

  But the problem is that cold is good. Cold is numb. And when you're numb, you can't feel pain. You can't feel pain until some stupid warm drink makes you not numb anymore and then you can feel again.

  I'm not weak. I'm not. And he can't change that.

  "I'm fine," I tell him, and I've lost the edge in my voice, the "get off my back" edge that keeps people away. Where the hell did it go? What did he do to it? Why is he making me all weak and needy? And how?

  "Well, that's good. I'm glad. Heh. I'm saying 'I'm glad'a lot, aren't I?"

  He pulls into my driveway, so I don't have to answer. I just get out of the car, my messenger bag over one shoulder, my copies of the Schemata stuff under my arm.

  "So, uh, take a look at everything and let me know what you think," he says, all eager. "Some stuff has changed from what you saw before."

  And then it hits me. It hits me so hard and so fast that I don't even think it—I just say it.

  "Sure. Hey, Fanboy, look, since things have changed ... it would be cool if I could see the old pages. You know, the originals. So I can compare the changes and everything."

  I figure there's no way in hell he'll buy it. Why would he? But he's so happy to have me back, so happy to have me involved again, that he just nods like an idiot. "Oh, yeah, sure. I get it. OK. I'll print that stuff out and bring it to school tomorrow."

  And then he backs out, honking the horn as he pulls away. I raise my hand and wave to him before I even realize what I'm doing. It's the same hand I'll use to stab him in the back.

  Forty-seven

  THAT WAS ALL THE FIRST PART of my brain. The part that feels out of sorts. Like, I've won and it was easy because he likes me and he trusts me. I don't know how to feel about that...

  But the second part is off and scheming. I have to do this now. I'll get the original Dina art and with the new art I can do a sort of exposé, showing them side by side. I'll do more than just take it all to Michelle. Hell, I'll make posters and put them up all over school. I'll make a website about it. I'll show the world.

  That will mortally embarrass Fanboy beyond belief. I'll destroy him.

  I should feel triumphant. I'm going to win.

  Instead, I just feel like crap.

  Maybe I shouldn't do this. Maybe I should just...

  Maybe I should just ask him. Hey, Fanboy! What the hell? Why didn't you e-mail me—at least—while I was away?

  Yeah, right. Puh-lease. This is Fanboy. He'll just lie. He'll say he did e-mail and the e-mails must have gotten lost or caught in a spam filter or something. That's what he does—he makes things up for fun. Why the h
ell should I trust him?

  I stand out in the cold until Fanboy's car turns at the main road and disappears, then I go inside. Roger isn't home yet.

  I throw all of my stuff on my bed. My phone goes off—it's a text from Simone: get ready!

  What?

  And then I get like six pictures in a row, all snapped from Simone's cell—it's her and Jecca at the mall, in the Victoria's Secret changing room, dressed up all slutty and shit, pretending to be like the models on TV. They won't actually buy anything—they're just messing around.

  Final text: wish u wr hr.

  Yeah, whatever. I'm done playing those stupid games.

  I look at myself in the mirror. It's still a shock—the blood red lips, the shiny head. I thought my ears might look huge and Obama-y without my hair, but they're actually sort of cute and small. Score one for me.

  All that white ... I see what Roger was talking about. I do sort of look like Mom, toward the end. If I'm gonna pull off this white thing, though, I need more clothes and looser clothes, because my boobs look like they could take over a small third world country right now.

  The garage door rumbles. Roger's home.

  I meet him in the kitchen. He looks tired, but that's nothing new.

  "Hey, Dad?"

  He tosses his keys on the counter. "What do you want, Kyra?"

  "What makes you think I want something?"

  "You only call me Dad when you're about to ask for something."