Anatomy of a Misfit (20 page)

Jared stops the Jeep in no particular place. Like, he literally stops the Jeep in the middle of the hill. Now, there's not a car around for miles, I get it. But still. He doesn't even pull off the side of the road or anything. So, why are we stopped here? None of this bodes well.

“Um. Maybe we shouldn't stop in the middle of the road or something.”

I hear my voice and it sounds like it's made of tin. Not my voice at all. Someone else's voice. Someone small.

“Oh, c'mon. There's no one around.”

“But . . . I mean . . . I thought you were gonna show me someplace special?”

Jared nods. He gestures out the window, at the rolling hills and panoramic postcard view.

“You don't think this is special?”

“I guess.”

“Oh, c'mon, what's the matter? Is something the matter . . . ?”

There are about a hundred things the matter.

“I dunno. There's this girl at work. She got fired.”

Why I chose that one is beyond me. It just came flying out and now I guess that's the topic of conversation here in the middle of nowhere.

“Yeah?”

He feigns interest.

“Yeah, I guess I'm bummed 'cause it wasn't fair. Like it was really mean, actually.”

Silence.

“You know what I mean? Like I just felt guilty.”

Jared shrugs. “What's the point of feeling guilty?”

“What?”

“I mean, it doesn't seem like it's helping, does it?”

“I dunno.”

“Listen, it's not your fault, right? So, forget it.”

He shrugs again. God, this guy can really shrug.

But he's quiet and bored and seems like a stranger all of a sudden. Like, what happened to that grandiose-type gesture he just made in front of everybody at school? This makes no sense.
He
makes no sense. It's like he switched gears in like two seconds. Without warning. Like he turned from Prince Charming into a wet noodle.

“You know, I probably should get going home. My mom'll be worried about me.”

“C'mon. You can stay out a little while. . . .”

And now he's getting closer. He's giving me this smolder-y look like we're in some kind of soap opera.

Aha! This is the Jared everybody told me about! The make-out bandit. The scam artist that I knew I shouldn't trust. Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, in all his scam artist glory.

“Wait—” I start. But Jared Kline practically jumps me and smothers me with his mouth on my mouth. And his hands are someplace, too, and they seem to be trying to go someplace else, fast.

I shove him away. “What the fuck?!”

Now he backs off. Now he's back in his seat.

“Anika?” He blinks a couple of times. “What is the problem?”

“What is the problem? I'm trying to talk to you and it's like you don't care and all you're trying to do is kiss me!”

“Okay, I do care. But also—yes, sue me, I know it's horrible—but I also, yes, do wanna kiss you. 'Cause, guess what? You're fucking hot.”

“Great.”

He leans back and folds his arms. “Oh, I know. What an insult.”

“Look, to be honest. I'm not interested.”

He looks at me like no one in his life has ever talked to him like this before. Ever.

“I'm sorry,” I mutter. “I just. I think maybe I'm an idiot or something.”

He looks at me for about a thousand years and I'm plotting how I'm gonna get home after he kicks me out of the Jeep and the sun is starting to set, early, autumn time, and none of this is exactly how I had planned it. Not at all.

“Wow. You're really . . . hm. You're really kind of . . . hard on yourself. You know that?”

“What?”

“And you're not an idiot, Anika. Not by far.”

I'm pretty sure this means he's gonna start the car and drive me home and game over, right? But that's not what happens. Instead, Jared Kline says,

“Are you a virgin?”

“What?! Shut up! Why are you asking me that?!”

Silence.

“I just thought . . . like, by now . . . just wondering, I guess.”

“Well, even if I was it's not like I'm gonna tell
you.
Jesus.”

“Okay, listen. I'm sorry. Seriously. I'm sorry about that. I'm just kind of thrown off by you or something. Like, I don't know how to act around you.”

“Well, join the club. I don't know how to act around anybody.”

He nods. “Clearly.”

“So listen, here's the deal. There's a million girls who are in love with you and who if you say jump they'll say how high. But like, I'm not one of those girls.

“So, if that's what you're looking for, I mean . . . go get 'em. Be my guest. Seriously. Have at it.”

Now he's quiet. Now he looks me right in the eyes. God, it's like Mick Jagger in the car looking at you or something. Mostly you could just faint from those eyes. Just swoon over and let someone find you in the ditch.

“I know you're not like all those girls. That's why I like you.”

He sits there for a second, squinting down at the steering wheel. I have no idea if he's gonna kick me out, attack me again, or turn into a taco at this point. I mean, this guy seems seriously conflicted.

He smiles over. Not a convincing smile. A fake smile, like when you're a little kid at Christmas and someone gives you socks.

“Let's get you home, okay?”

 

It's a quiet ride back to Lincoln. Thank God he turns on the radio.

“You like U2?”

“What?”

“Here . . .” He turns up the volume.

All the way home we're listening to “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and the sun is going down fast and Jared is singing along like he just happens to be a rock star.

Who is this guy? What does he want from me? I wonder.

And why, in the passenger seat of Jared's car, can I not stop thinking about Logan? Brooding, brilliant Logan, who always tells the truth. And whose heart I have shattered into a million pieces.

forty-eight

W
hen I get home my mom is acting weird. We're making meat loaf tonight and I'm helping her, but my sisters are helping, too, so my mom can't have the heart-to-heart with me I can tell she wants to have. I can tell my mom has something she wants to say because she's acting real formal. She's acting like a person who's trying to act natural so, basically, totally unnatural.

After my sisters go downstairs, she turns to me.

“Have you heard from Tiffany?”

“What? No. Why?”

She looks into the other room, nervous. You would think she was a member of the French Resistance acting like that.

“What, Mom?”

“Well, honey, I got a phone call today . . . from Tiffany's mom and . . .”

“And what?”

“And she's, well, she's . . . missing.”

“What?!”

“She says she hasn't seen her now for over two days—”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, honey. I am.”

“What the . . . ?”

“I know. It's just . . . she thought maybe you might know something.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she said that Tiffany had been acting strangely. And that when she asked her what was going on . . . she just smiled and said something about you and the Bunza Hut.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. This is what she said. . . . She said Tiffany said, ‘Why don't you ask Anika?'”

“But what about the Bunza Hut?”

“I don't know. She just said something about the Bunza Hut and you. You don't have any idea where she is?”

“What?! No! Mom, no. I'm like freaked out.”

“I know, honey, me too.”

Now the ogre walks by and we both pretend to dress the salad but we're definitely not dressing the salad because who cares about tomatoes and iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing when Tiffany is missing in action and somehow it's my fault.

forty-nine

P
edaling fast fast fast. Keep going, keep going, never mind your legs numb from pedaling, never mind your lungs hollowed out from breathing. And maybe it is all just a dream. And you can wish and you can pray but the cold on your cheeks and your heart pounding fast say it's not true, that this is real, and praying won't help not now, not now.

fifty

T
he next morning there's a giant red bouquet on our doorstep. It's so enormous it's almost embarrassing. Mom brings it up to the dining room table, taking a look at the card.

“Oh, my, look at this. . . .”

My sisters and brothers all glance up from their eggs and bacon. You have to give it up for my mom. Eggs and bacon, or eggs and French toast, or sausage and waffles. I mean, she's not fooling around when it comes to breakfast. She means business. I wonder if Becky's mom pulls out all the stops for breakfast every day of the week, Monday through Sunday, three hundred and sixty-five days a year? I know Shelli's doesn't. And if she did, she'd probably just make pancakes in the shape of Jesus.

“They're for you, Anika.”

And there they are, set on the table in front of everybody. God, this is mortifying.

And then, Lizzie leans in. Just to make sure my cheeks sting and my face turns the shade of a lobster.

“That musta been some blow job.”

“Shut up! God! You would know!”

Oh, I could kill my sisters sometimes. It's like they live to torture me.

Henry is the only decent one among them. And Robby. But he's always at football practice.

“Well, aren't you gonna read the card, dear?”

My mom didn't hear Lizzie's smart remark, or Lizzie'd be sent to her room.

It's a little pink envelope with a little pink card. Inside, it says:

 

Anika
,

I'm really sorry I kind of attacked you like a rabid dog
.

I'm an idiot
.

Jared

 

Well, it's kinda hard to be mad at him, now, isn't it? Henry's curious. Kind of like Spock.

“Well, what does it say?”

Lizzie chimes in again. “It says, thanks for the hot se—”

“Lizzie, that's enough.”

Thank God for my mom. If she weren't around, Lizzie would right now be shoving those roses right up my nose and out my earlobes. I'm not kidding. The thing about Lizzie is . . . she may have this waif look going but she's actually kind of strong. Like she can whip my ass every time. It's annoying. She knows I live in fear. She's banking on it.

Henry's still looking, intrigued.

Now it's my turn. “It says, ‘Dear Anika, I'm so sorry your older sisters are such sluts. Maybe if they had boobs they would feel better.'”

Now Lizzie is on me and Neener is egging her on.

“You little—”

“Girls! Girls!”

Robby is just looking on over his Froot Loops and laughing. “Girl fight!”

Now, Lizzie has me pinned to the floor and is about to spit in my mouth.

“Lizzie, if you don't get off your sister right now you are grounded for three months. That's the holidays, too. Just you go ahead and try me.”

Mom saves the day again. Praise Jesus. Lizzie really had a ton of spit going there. I wish she'd just run off with a punk band already.

Henry is still fixated on the flowers. Henry tends to fixate.

“Anika, does that even work? Do you like the flowers? Or is it dumb?”

I dust myself off and take a seat between Henry and my mom.

“It works if you like the guy.”

“And you do, right? You like the guy?” Henry tends to obsess.

“What?”

“You like the guy?”

“Which guy?”

“Uh, the guy who sent you flowers. Duh.”

But I'm not here now. These flowers are here. And Henry is here. And Mom is here. And this note from Jared is here. But I'm not anywhere near here. I'm in a magical land of make-believe.

There's no reason for it, and it makes no sense, but all I can do is stare out the back window and wish that somehow Logan would appear. I wish he would appear and tell me how to take all the bad things out of him. But I can't. I can't erase all those slaps and bruises and God knows what else that his father gave him.

No one can. And the worst part is . . . none of that is Logan's fault. That bad piece of him. That bad piece got given to him like dirt-colored hair and alabaster skin.

So, you see, that makes me a horrible person—maybe even the worst person ever—for answering Henry's question, “Yeah. Of course I like him.”

fifty-one

S
chool is a completely different place now. Before it was something to endure. Something to not screw up. Not anymore. Now that I'm Jared Kline's girlfriend and everybody knows it, school has become like this place for me to go and be worshipped. It's kind of freaky.

It's still me over here. I'm still the same. But now everyone is acting like they better be nice to me or I'll have their heads chopped off. Seriously. Like one false move and I'll send them to walk the plank.

Jenny Schnittgrund invited me to go tanning with her. She has a free pass and was wondering if I could go, like, if I was into it.

Charlie Russell wants to know if I want to come out to his family's ranch and go riding. They have a couple of horses and it's really fun, because the horses are really easy to ride. Maybe I could bring Jared . . . ?

And the pep squad girls are, basically, following me around like I have my own personal pep squad.

Give me an A! Give me an N! Give me an I-K-A!

What's that spell?!

ANIKA! ANIKA! GOOOOOO ANIKA!!

Not literally, of course. But seriously.

The only one normal is Shelli.

Shelli is the only person at this school who is acting exactly the same as she was before. Thank God. I couldn't take it if she started acting different. I think I'd have to give up on humanity entirely then—throw my hands in the air and ask God to hurry up with the Apocalypse already.