Because You'll Never Meet Me (11 page)

I am used to whispers, but there were none. People went silent when I passed. And the quieter they were, the less I could see. The hazier their faces. The blinder I became.

My pacemaker was straining as my heart rate increased. My chest ached. Sweat beaded on my brow. I bit my tongue harder. Picked up my pace. It was the strangest sensation, being the focal point of so much attention. I had to restrain myself from thwapping the spectators with my cane in an effort to see them properly. It was as though I were walking through a layer of static. Trying to catch movements obscured by cuts of nothing. Soon all I could hear was my own heart straining.

I became self-conscious about the cane. Surely none of them were buying the charade. Is there a certain tempo at which the visually impaired tap their canes? I kept falling into musical patterns. Tapping the beat of Grandmaster Flash's “The Message” against the sidewalk. At least in the cane's resonance I could see.

When I reached the stone steps at the front of the building, a girl was sitting on the top of the banister. Smoking a cigarette. There are smoking areas on some German
Hauptschule
campuses. Our school is pathetic enough that it seems to be the entire campus.

Her hair was an unruly, stringy nest on top of sides shaved down. Perhaps not so different from your enforced rooster cut. Her boots looked heavy enough to leave dents in concrete. She had more piercings than I could count, cluttered together in her lips and nose and ears; when she wrapped her lips around her cigarette, they clinked together.
The sound of them illuminated her face: a sharp nose and eyes set in deep, dramatic hollows. I could hear the wheezing in her chest even from the bottom of the stairs.

She was so vivid after the silence, Ollie.

What she was wearing was against dress code. She had a skirt hiked up very high, her socks yanked past her knees. Her sleeveless shirt untucked and spiked chains hanging across her chest. But I wouldn't begrudge any teacher for choosing not to confront that awful glare.

She shared it with me the entire time I clacked up the stairs. I wanted to retreat, even into the static behind me. Doubtless she was plotting to twist her cigarette into my ear. When I was level with her, I fought the urge to sprint beyond her reach.

I stepped inside the school. Unharmed.

And then my heart all but stopped:

“Hey,” she said, turning as I passed. “You.”

She tossed a paper airplane at me. I clicked my tongue and caught it at face level.

“Read it.”

I tucked the plane into my satchel. I did not tell her I could not read.

“Fffrt.” She narrowed her eyes. Leapt off the banister and stomped away in her boots. The echoes around her feet made waves of clarity wherever she laid her heels down, Ollie. I could see the dust in the air wherever she stepped. Could see the fibers of her tights and the way they hardly seemed to contain the strength of the legs beneath them.

Herr Haydn had suggested I drop out of the athletics course to avoid further entanglements with Lenz and the others. I was tempted. I am not brave.

But Athletics is the only course I share with Owen Abend, who is one year my junior. I could have sought him out at other times. Perhaps in the cafeteria or in the courtyard in the morning. But that would require a lot more gall. In the past, whenever I wandered away from the eyes of teachers I was inevitably taunted. I could not recall the last time I spoke to any of my peers outside a classroom.

When I entered the sour-smelling locker room, another hush fell. There was enough noise from the water running down from showerheads, from lockers slamming, for me to see everyone avert their gazes. I pulled my gym clothes from my bag. Changed as quickly as possible. Waited for Lenz Monk to appear behind me and shove my head against the tiles.

But neither Owen nor Lenz appeared.

I traipsed into the gymnasium with my head down. I could hear the smack of basketballs lessen for a beat as I entered. Herr Gebor, standing on the sidelines, spared a moment to bench me before telling the others to get back to their dribbling drills.

I had barely settled into the bench when Gebor approached me.

“I hope you appreciate all we're doing for you,” he told me. “All the allowances we're making. If you'd told us sooner, this might have been sorted sooner. You need to
talk
to us, Farber. So that we can help you.”

“Beg pardon,” I said. “What allowances?”

“We had an assembly while you were … recovering. Every student here has been told about your circumstances, lectured about bullying. So don't you worry, Farber.”

I clenched my fists. This explained the silence. The non-looking. “Tell me—have all my classmates been told that I am disabled?”

“That's … just know that you're safe. You're safe and you can talk to us. Understood?”

“Of course. Thank you.”

In my absence, there'd been an assembly about bullying “disabled” students. In my absence, I'd become a label. Less than wondrous, Ollie.

I watched my peers bounce basketballs back and forth to one another. Watched how their faces creased when they laughed or grimaced in the echoes of the smacking. I experienced a dark moment there on the bench. A dark moment where I realized that I never leave the sidelines. Perhaps I never would.

The door at the back of the gymnasium creaked open. The volume of the room's activity revealed the face that peered through the doorway.

Owen Abend, all but tiptoeing into the gymnasium. Willing himself invisible. He was so quiet. He nearly succeeded. Something was slightly different about the shape of his face.

I was irrationally pleased to see him, Ollie.

I raised a hand. He caught sight of it. His eyes bulged. Spinning on his heel, he left the way he'd come.

What did I expect? That moment had been nothing to him. Nosebleeds may not always be enough to create friendship.
Doubtless he hardly remembered handing me my goggles. Hardly remembered that he didn't recoil as though soullessness was infectious.

Basketballs slammed around me and my breath was loud in my ears, and once again I was seeing more than I wished to, seeing wood grain and the tension in my own face.

Was that all? Was this it?

We have talked about standing up. I hadn't come back not to speak to him.

I got up and ran the length of the gym. A ball bounced toward me. I thrust it away without pausing. Followed him into the hallway. I saw him pushing his way outside into the courtyard. I sprinted after him, using MBV to dart around obstacles before me. Doors opened; I skidded sideways. A boy put his foot out and I leapt over it. I did not have time to feel foolish.

“Owen!” I shoved the door open and burst out onto the steps. “Um, hallo!”

I often experience disorientation when I move from indoors to outdoors, because of the sudden shifting of echoes. This time it cost me dearly. I ran directly into someone standing outside the door. This someone shoved me back against the wall.

It was the piercing girl. Baring her teeth at me.

(Ollie, this girl is fond of profanity. To spare your retinas repeated scarring by the notorious F-word, I have substituted it with a less vulgar word. You're very welcome.)

“Hey, didn't you read the fluffing note I gave you this morning, freak show?”

“I can't read,” I gasped.

“Don't try the blind card. You forgot your fluffin' cane. And you caught the paper airplane.”

“Even so. I can't read.”

“Look, stay the hell away from Owen. He's been through enough. Or are you going to pretend you didn't see the bruises?”

“I did not,” I said, which was true. I cannot see blotches or bruises, although I can see swelling. Which explained why his face had appeared misshapen. “What happened?”

She took four steps back. Aimed a kick at my face.

She tried to kick me
in the face
.

It happened very quickly. There was simply no thread in my body that did not tell me to avoid those heavy feet. I had no say. I could not take that boot to the face.

I ducked.

“Pissing Nora!” I cried. “Are you psychopathic?”

“I knew it,” she said, and she looked likely to try it again. “You complete ass. You could have beaten the shit out of him. And you didn't.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Fluff off,” she said. “I don't want to see you.
You could have stopped him
, but you haven't. You didn't! Fluffin' unbelievable. Coward.”

“I know what I am. Why do you think I'm here?”

She stomped away. There I stood on the steps for the second time that day. I considered collapsing atop them.

To think I had looked forward to returning to school.

I am so unsettled by the piercing girl's rage. Will she be a second Lenz in my life? My hands are unsteady as I type
this. My father is waiting for me to walk to school again. I do not want to.

She has been watching me for the past few days. I dodge into closets or around corners whenever I hear her boot steps. She sits atop the stairs and glares me into school. I haven't approached Owen, but I have seen him in the cafeteria. Sitting alone, silent and half-vanished. Always looking away from me.

Rumor has it that Lenz will return from his extended suspension at the start of the new term.

Hoping you and yours are well.

Best,

Moritz

P.S. I needs must tell you that
glock
is not the shorthand version of
glockenspiel
, but of a rather nefarious pistol, weapon of choice for many inner-city gangsters.

Did you really just type “needs must tell you,” Mo?
Really?
New pompous low, man. I know you like using
wondrous language
to sound ULTRAFANCY. But we've got to draw a line somewhere before your nose gets perma-stuck in the air.

And holy crap! You, with your bangs in your face, going for the scary Goth girl? It's like
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
! Well, not really (you don't nail stuffed animals to your wall, right?). I can't wait to hear more. You know it's love when a girl throws a plane at your face and says she'd like to beat you to a pulp.
Tch
.

If she
isn't
your love interest, tell me who actually is. If you're also lovesick, I won't feel like such a loser for telling you about my romantic pining. In most stories, love is kind of a big deal. Even freakin'
Charles Dickens
wrote a romantic alternate ending to
Great Expectations
! He was even more cynical than you are. And Pip was a complete dork. If he deserved love, so do you.

Which reminds me—again with the whole “I'm not worthy”
shtick, Moritz? Why don't you deserve a nice school? You're still singing that song and it sounds like Grade A bullpucky.

You deserve as much as any “normal kid.” We've been through this. Do you still have your homemade letter-bat handy?

Don't let the anti-rubberneckers get you down. Let them notstare. Like you said, you can totally thwap them with your cane. You're Dolphin-Man! Anything is possible! You leap feet in hallways! You duck Goth kicks! Kapow!

As for wondering why Liz ditched me, why I'm plagued by antiappetite for tuna sandwiches, why Mom basically drags me to the bath after she fills it, and why she actually locks me
outside
now to make sure I get “daylight”—well, we're getting there. It's sort of inevitable. Like the driveway being empty is inevitable.

I got to have a few awesome years with Liz before I ruined our friendship. Let's keep this mask on for a little while, all right? It's not about faking optimism, I swear. It's just … I still can't really think about the camping trip without freaking out. Mom's not the only one who tears things off shelves around here.

She wanted me to write so that I could work through what happened, but it's a
lot
of work.

Let me write a little longer about happy things, okay?

The day after I met Liz at the power line, the sky spat giant dollops of rainwater down onto the trees and rooftop. Mom was pale when she brought me toast and marmalade, and she had this sort of fake grin on her face. She came into my room, set down the tray, and started picking up all the things she'd thrown on the floor.

I couldn't meet her eyes.

“So Greg told me you went out and met a girlfriend.”

My stomach felt so tangled up that I wondered if she had stashed a battery in my toast. “Not a girlfriend. And his name's Auburn-Stache. Don't be weird.”

“Was it Joe's niece? I heard she was visiting for the holiday. She's about your age, you know.”

“Mm.”

“Whatever happened to my loquacious brat?” Mom forced a chuckle. She was holding the broken wing of a model Boeing 747, squeezing it too tightly. “Don't you want to talk to me?”

I choked down my toast.

Ugh. That morning, Mo.