If Heaven Had Cheese Fries

by Stephanie Staudinger

  I walked back to the counter, running my hand over the smooth granite countertop. In a split-second decision, I reached out, yanking the picture off the fundraiser jar. I was surprised by how easily it came off, only held on by scotch tape. I felt bad, but I needed that picture more than the scholarship fund needed it. I tucked it in my pocket as I ran back out to join Ethan.

  “What just happened?”

  My face froze. Did he know? Had he seen me grab something from the counter?

  “Um.” I decided to play dumb. “What?”

  “You ran out of there super quickly like the place was on fire.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry. Just wanted to get home quicker.”

  He nodded but made no effort to start the car. “Can I ask you something? You can tell me if it’s none of my business, but I want you to know that this is coming from me as Ethan, not me as an educator.”

  “You can ask me anything.”

  Ethan was quiet as we began the drive home. His cheeks, however, seemed to have flushed a permanent shade of crimson. I could tell that he was trying to process whatever he was about to ask, whatever that was. So many unexplainable things had happened to me around him that I wouldn’t be surprised if he straight-up asked me who the hell I was and what I was doing at Margaret Fielder High.

  “Are you thinking about hurting yourself?” he finally asked, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

  “What?” I nearly yelled, causing him to jump a little bit in his seat.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “Why did you, then?”

  “It’s just--I saw the mark on your wrist, and how just completely beat down you look all the time. I wanted to pull you aside and ask when I first saw the signs, and something tells me I should have.”

  My heart sank.

  “And then after you fainted, you asked if you died again. That’s when I figured I needed to talk to you.”

  “Thank you, but no,” I said, keeping my voice firm but kind in a way that I hoped would somehow magically reassure him that I wasn’t planning on doing anything like that.

  He was shaking slightly, his hands gripping the wheel entirely too tightly. I knew he was nervous before he even asked his question, and now he was processing whether or not he had overstepped his boundaries as an educator.

  I needed to do more to reassure him. “That does mean a lot that you asked, though.”

  I saw his shoulders relax slightly, his knuckles slowly returning back to normal as he loosened his grip on the wheel.

  “Let me explain.” Shit. I realized I had no idea how I could even begin to explain. “Well, actually, no, I can’t. But trust me when I say I’m okay.”

  “Look, if you’re not ready to talk, or at least not ready to talk to me, there are other options. I can get you a list of resources. I have them readily available. Just promise me one thing.”

  “Anything.”

  “That you’re sure you’re not going to harm yourself or others, because there are always options, and there’s always hope that things will get better.” It was strange how oddly robotic his voice seemed, as if he was reciting from a pamphlet in a therapist’s office that he had memorized.

  “I won’t.” My ears suddenly perked up. “Hey, um. Ethan? Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything.” He kept his eyes forward on the road.

  “Have you ever had to ask any other students that question before?”

  His brow furrowed and he didn’t respond. After a few moment of silence, I considered changing the subject.

  But then he began to talk. His hands tightened back up on the wheel. I wanted to reach over, plucking one knuckle off the wheel at a time until I had his hand completely in mine.

  “I have. Naturally I don’t want to get into too much detail,” Ethan said.

  This was it. My first tangible clue, and I’d never thought it would come under these circumstances. I didn’t have high hopes for getting any more information out of him, knowing how trustworthy he was when it came to keeping his student’s secrets.

  “You don’t have to name names.”

  He was struggling with how much information to divulge. Finally, he gave a deep sigh. He was giving in. “There’s a student who started lashing out when she was a freshman at the school. Her home life was riddled with things that I honestly hope no one else ever sees in their life. She didn’t know how to be a normally functioning student when she hadn’t had any sense of normalcy in her life. So we worked with her. We gave her some projects at school, and she’s actually been doing really great.”

  “You really do help us all, don’t you?” I smiled, even though he was checking his side mirrors and would never see it.

  “That’s my job,” he stated simply.

  When Ethan pulled into my driveway, my dad still wasn’t home. Ethan got out of the car, walking around to open my door for me. “Are you okay on your feet? Need me to walk you to the door?”

  I shook my head no. That’s where I drew the line. I had been helped enough that day, and I was starting to feel pathetic.

  Ethan gave me a nod and turned to walk back towards the driver’s side.

  “Wait,” I shouted, stopping him in his tracks. He spun back around, and I had two seconds to make a decision. I walked forward three feet and threw my arms around him for a quick hug. I didn’t let out a single breath until I felt him hug back. And then, as quickly as it had started, he pulled away and studied me.

  “What was that for?” I couldn’t read his expression.

  “I just wanted to say thank you, and that was the only thing that seemed to suffice.”

  He nodded, not saying anything else as he got into his jeep and backed out of the driveway.

  I kept staring out at the street long after Ethan was gone. I had never felt so completely unsure and broken before in my life. But then there was one bright spot in it all: Ethan Nash, who cared enough to help me at least pick back up the broken fragments of my life. Although they were too damaged to ever be whole again, at least there was someone out there collecting them with me. What I did with those fragments, however, was entirely up to me.

  CHAPTER 19

  “How many more of these do we have to hang up?” I asked, kicking my boot into a nearby pile of leaves. October had come, seemingly out of nowhere, and I was tasked with hanging up hundreds of flyers around the city for the fall festival.

  As I tacked another flyer to a tree, a gust of wind blew it into a nearby bush. I crumpled the flyer and stuffed it in a nearby trash can.

  “That’s okay, there’s moooore.” Bailey appeared next to me, waiving a stack of flyers in front of my face. I was half tempted to grab that stack and throw those into the trash as well.

  I was doing everything I could to get back in Bailey’s good graces. After blowing her off for our meeting, I had realized that she was one to forgive but not forget. Who cared if I had fainted? Apparently her time was valuable, and she had slotted some of it for me. So this was my punishment.

  More flyers were being shoved into my hands. I rolled my eyes at her retreating back as she started to decorate a bus shelter with flyers.

  I opted for hijacking the bulletin board of a coffee shop. “There.” The flyer stood out, the bright colors beckoning passerby closer as it sat next to a dull and weathered flyer offering a ‘Couch for Sale.’

  “Hey.” A voice behind me interrupted my thoughts. I spun around and was face-to-face with Matt.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. My first suspicion was that he had been following us.

  He rattled the ice cubes in his coffee drink at me. “First day of pumpkin spice.”

  I laughed as I tacked up another flyer, this time next to a lost cat poster. “I didn’t peg you as a pumpkin spice kind of guy.”

  “Oh, you bet. Only in October, though. I’m basic.” He looked around before whispering the last sentence. “Do you want some help or something?” He was eyeballin
g the stack of flyers in my hands. Matt wasn’t exactly my first choice for help, but there were a lot of flyers left, and my fingers were freezing. The sun was misleading, shining brightly upon us and our endeavors but leaving little warmth in its wake.

  I divvied up the pile and pointed out a few restaurants on the next block of downtown that we hadn’t hit up yet. I figured the more distance I put between him and Bailey, the better.

  “So why are you doing this, anyways?” Matt asked after the third stop. “I didn’t peg you for the charity type.”

  “Hey, I resent that.” Honestly, I didn’t know what type I was, but getting the chance to be a part of something that did some good felt good. “And actually, just for that, you’re getting more flyers.” I added a few more onto his pile.

  A door chimed from somewhere behind us. “There you are.” Bailey locked her eyes on Matt but didn’t say anything. She was empty-handed. “We’re all done now. Shall we?” She grabbed the last flyers from our hands, stuffing them in her tote bag.

  I turned to follow Bailey, but Matt grabbed me for a hug. I tried to squirm away, but to no avail. Bailey raised her eyebrows at me and headed out the door, leaving me to fend for myself.

  “Will you go on a date with me this weekend?”

  I sighed. This wasn’t anything new. Matt had started asking me out again, and those advances were becoming more frequent. I usually shot them down before he even got the full sentence out of his mouth. Maybe it was time to do some reconnaissance work.

  “Sure,” I finally said.

  “Wait, seriously?”

  I gave him a look.

  “I just didn’t think you’d say yes. Pick you up at 7 tonight?”

  “Sure, see you then.”

  I met up with Bailey outside in the crisp fall air. Her car, a very new-looking yellow four-door of some sort, was parked outside. She stopped to rub a smidge of dirt off the passenger side door, one that I didn’t even notice, before she slipped into the driver’s side seat. I got in after her.

  “Nice car.”

  “It’s my grandma’s. She’s very anal about keeping it clean. I ate a fry out of a fast food bag once and I thought she was going to disown me.”

  “Disown you?”

  “Yeah. I live with my grandparents. You’ll like them. They’re sweet.”

  It was my first clue into Bailey’s seemingly private life. We drove to her house in silence.

  “Cute,” I said out loud when we arrived. The home was actually only a few blocks from school, yet Bailey drove every day. It was a small cottage-type home. On the front lawn was a small floral patio set with an umbrella that blew unsteadily in the wind. Bailey gestured for me to sit.

  “My grandparents are weird about unannounced company. I’ll go get us something to drink, and I figured we can chat out here for a bit?”

  I watched as she disappeared inside the home. A moment later, the curtains rustled. I cocked my head, half sure that I had imagined it. I turned to survey the street. It was virtually empty except for a man a few houses down who seemed to be jogging up and down his front steps.

  Tap tap tap.

  I looked around for the source of the strange noise.

  Tap tap tap. The rapping got louder, and I realized it was coming from the house. I looked back towards the window and saw a man’s face peeking out at me. He broke into a wide smile and waved when he saw me. I lifted my hand in response.

  “Grandpa!” I heard Bailey yell from inside, and the face disappeared. A moment later, an older gentleman was barreling full speed ahead towards the table. I couldn’t help but think that he reminded me of a Golden Retriever who had just been let out of a home to go on its first walk of the day. I wondered if he was going to stop or completely take out the table. Luckily he stopped, inches from where I was sitting.

  “Hi, Bailey’s friend,” he said excitedly.

  “Grandpa, this is Abigail. Abigail, this is Grandpa.” I stuck my hand out to shake his, but he was already pulling out the chair next to mine and sitting down.

  Bailey seemed flustered but didn’t say anything. Instead, she poured lemonade for all of us. I couldn’t help but notice she had brought three glasses out to start with.

  “What are you girls up to?” Grandpa asked.

  Bailey was fidgeting with the ends of her braid, as I noticed she did quite frequently when she was called on to contribute in the classes we had together. I thought it was a nervous tic. “Homework,” she finally answered.

  “Splendid.” He clapped his hands together. “Bailey hardly ever brings friends over. By ‘hardly ever,’ I mean she never has.”

  How strange. I almost never saw Bailey without her two shadows. It was weird that friends who appeared to be that close had never been to her house. Maybe I wasn’t the only outsider looking in.

  “Well, I’m happy to be the first.”

  “I’ll let you girls get to your studying. If you want any snacks or anything, you let me or Rheanne know and we’ll whip you up something.”

  “Thanks, Grandpa,” Bailey said very unenthusiastically as he reached over and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

  I watched him as he walked inside. It was then I noticed another face peeking out from behind the curtain. She drew the curtain shut as soon as she saw me looking. I guessed I had seen Rheanne.

  “So what exactly did you want to talk to me about?” Bailey was sipping her lemonade slowly out of a pink straw, all the while giving me a calculating look as if she almost knew what I was up too.

  I looked away as I responded, “I’m new to the school, and I just feel like I’m not sure of who or how to make friends with anyone. Every time I get to know a new group, I either get ostracized or I find out they’re not who they seem to be, if that makes sense.”

  “Ostrich sized?” Bailey looked puzzled for a moment.

  “Ostracized.” I repeated the word slowly. “As in, they don’t want me as part of their group.”

  “Oh, right, right. That’s because you’re hanging out with the wrong crowd.” She sighed and leaned back in her seat. “I saw you with Alyssa, Noah and all them. I mean, they’re okay if you want to have a stigma attached to you. That also puts you right in the middle of their feud with Matt’s group.”

  “Why are they feuding?”

  “Well.” She stopped speaking for a moment. “It’s complicated.” I waited for her to go on. “Fine. It started freshman year. Darrington had a thing for Alyssa. Bet you didn’t know he was a chubby chaser.” She stopped to shudder. “Anywho, he took Alyssa to Winter Formal and got her good and drunk before. Pretty sure it was her first time drinking, because, Lord that girl did not know how to handle it. Long story short, the night ended with her getting so drunk she tried to kiss the principal. When he tried to restrain her, she bit him. Darrington, instead of being a supportive date, videotaped the whole thing and passed it around the school.”

  Apparently it didn’t end there, however. The rift had grown wider over the years. Others were involved too, but since they weren’t in my Creative Writing class, I didn’t care.

  “What about Thorton?” I pictured her home suddenly, the angry voice yelling to be heard over a whirring fan, and the cigarette smoke that seemed to emanate from their broken screen windows. “She’s kind of, err... troubled, no?” I didn’t know how else to phrase it. I had a sinking suspicion that Thorton was the girl who Ethan had referenced in the car.

  “Oh, Abigail.” She sighed deeply. “We can’t all be perfect.” She then raised her eyebrows at me. Was she, of all people, implying that I was perfect? We eyed each other.

  “I’m not perfect by any means, if that’s what you’re saying.”

  “I didn’t say that but if the shoe fits….Look.” She had a hard edge to her voice now. “I watch you in class. Your pretty, perfect clothes. Your dad and Flametech will be a legend once the new arcade is up and running, and teachers love you.” My face flushed at the last part, but Bailey didn’t notice. The cold wind ha
d already caused my cheeks to turn pink.

  “That’s actually not fair. There are thing-”

  She lifted up a hand, dismissing me. “Those aren’t bad things. It’s just, some of us have it a little rougher. Don’t get offended. You asked what it’s like for your fellow classmates, and I’m telling you like it is.”

  Wow, that was twice that the picture I painted in my head of someone hadn’t matched up to who they actually were. I studied Bailey for a moment. Instead of her normal twisting of her braid, she was focused on rubbing the inside of her left thigh that was half hidden under the table. She was doing it absentmindedly as she stared off. I don’t think she even realized she was doing it.

  “Oh my God, Bailey.” I looked at her leg once she had moved her hand away. She snapped out of whatever trance she was momentarily in and followed my gaze right down to her leg.

  “Oh.” She said when she saw what I was referring too.

  Her gym shorts had ridden up, and all along the inside of her right leg were tiny scabs which appeared to be from cuts. They were lined up perfectly in rows, at least four of them. I was mesmerized. It was as if she was keeping a tally of something, but instead of pen and paper, it was ingrained in her flesh. Thankfully, none of those cuts looked fresh.

  When she didn’t say anything more on the subject, I chimed in. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” She finally nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off me. “They’re old. My parents were in and out of jail growing up. This was a coping mechanism.” She laughed bitterly. “A sick one at that. I never picked up on their vices, but this, this felt like the solution. I’m better now, thanks to my new family.”

  I looked back towards the house. Her grandparents were gone from the window, but I knew she was speaking about them.

  “Anyways.” She poured herself another glass of lemonade. “I have no idea why I just told you all of that.” She was quiet again for a moment. “I’ve actually never told anyone.”

  “Not even…” I trailed off, realizing I didn’t know the names of her two friends.