Faking Normal (3 page)

I should want to rip off his balls and serve them to him on a silver platter. “Your manhood, you bastard,” my imaginary self says.

But I don’t say this. Or dream up any more evil castration fantasies. In fact, I’m usually nice to him when we talk. He probably thinks I don’t care that it happened. Given that later on, the one time we discussed it, I dismissed the whole thing. I said all sorts of crap like “It’s okay,” and “I understand,” and “It could have happened to anyone,” so he probably thinks he’s
given me the gift of experience.

The problem is, I’m not angry at
him
. I’m not angry with my parents. Or Kayla. Or my friends. And it’s not the school’s fault.

It’s mine.

“You’re the stupid idiot. You let him. You let him.” Now my nails come out. Tearing the vulnerable skin on the back of my neck.

“You let him.” The scabs that needed a night to heal are under my nails again.

It doesn’t matter how hard I dig, the words keep going and going in my head.

Blood smears into the collar of my shirt. It’ll never go into the hamper for Mom to wash. “You let him. You let him.” God, I wish I could bleed him out of my life.

If only I could make the outside hurt more than the inside.

To keep myself from scratching deeper, I push open the door a sliver and stare at my bedroom ceiling. My breath leaves me, and the numbers start automatically. The compulsion is overwhelming. I have to count.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

Don’t blink. My eyes start to burn.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. I can’t blink. I’m almost there.

Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.

Blink.

Dammit.

No matter. I’ll start over and try again to reach twenty-three.

Sometimes I stand on my bed and run my hand over the metal air-vent slits as if they’re a weird form of Braille. Those openings breathe cold air on me. Twenty-two holes of darkness. Twenty-three spaces of light. It’s hard to count them at night after they blur into a flat black hole.

Now I understand all the girls in my school who cut. I used to think of them as idiots who didn’t know how to cope. Now, I realize they
are
coping. Just not as well as I do.

No one knows about my counting, and no one has noticed my neck. Not even my mom, and she’s pretty observant. I hope my pain is invisible. I don’t want anyone calling in the “crazy” squad. Teachers, parents, doctors, therapists. When the squad arrives, the friends disappear. I’ve seen it before.

And I already hang on to Heather and Liz by a thin cord.

My parents would understand my pain, but oh God, the complications. There’d be crying and rants and more crying. Pity. Then when we’re all dried out and prayed up, the lessons on forgiveness would start.

Which I already know by heart.

I hear their voices in my head. “Alexi, understand the place of pain he was in to lash out at you like that. It will eat away at you if you don’t forgive him.” Then they’d watch me like a hawk. Further ruining my life.

I don’t need anything, and I’ve already forgiven him—well, moved on—so I use my fingernails. I stare at the vent and
count. And I keep my mouth shut.

Heather will be here any minute, and I’m not ready for school. I still can’t count higher than twenty on the vent without blinking, but I give myself one more minute of peace in the closet.

Sixty seconds later, I use baby wipes to blot away the blood. My neck is angry and red, but a polo shirt covers most of the damage.

“Lex, Heather’s here. Toast is out,” Mom yells.

My Dane-date shirt, though not the red one Heather suggested, is already in my backpack. I close my closet door and grab my bags on the way out of my room.

“Sleep okay?” Mom asks as I arrive in the kitchen.

“Counted all my sheep,” I say. The air vent has a new name. I shove a bite of toast into my mouth. “Don’t forget I’ve got the soccer game. Should be home by eight o’clock.”

“You’ve got a ride?” She fishes through the bowl on the counter, and I know she’s lost her reading glasses again.

“They’re by your chair,” I say. “Yeah, I’ve got a ride.”

Mom kisses my forehead like she does every morning. “Have fun at the game. Hey, family meeting tonight when you get home.”

I pop the rest of the toast in my mouth so I don’t have to speak.

“Stop scrunching your nose at me.”

Her tone’s playful enough that I know I can talk back. “I’ll stop scrunching when we stop having family meetings.”

Mom tosses the plastic glass I left on the island last night into the sink. “Would you rather we never asked your opinion?”

“It doesn’t count if you never take it,” I say.

“We will this time.” There are tears in her eyes. Which isn’t all that unusual, but this has the makings of something bad. Kayla and I have a list of things that make Mom cry. It’s seven pages, front and back, and we bring it out occasionally to tease her.

Heather’s horn blares.

“Go. You’ll be late. And neither of us is dying. I know how you think.”

I open the back door and hide behind it. “Promise it’s not bad.”

She stares past me but says, “It’s not bad.”

Liz lets me into the backseat of Heather’s Malibu.

“Another day in Littrell-topia?” Heather asks.

I snap my seat belt into place. “Family meeting tonight.”

Heather raises her sunglasses to glare at me through the rearview. “You are not using that as an excuse to get out of the game.”

“I wish,” I tease. “No, it’s after. She says it’s not bad.”

“Then I’m sure it’s not,” Liz says sympathetically. “Your mom wouldn’t lie to you. So what do you think about this Dane thing? Heather told me all about it on the phone.”

“So y’all talked boys last night?” I ask.

Heather’s not glaring now. She’s giving me the
We didn’t talk about sex
look.

“Yeah,” Liz says. “Well, mostly we talked about you and Dane.”

“Great. Did you tell her I don’t need a boyfriend?” I say.

“Yep.” Liz pops Heather on the thigh and says, “You know we can feel you bitch-staring at us, right?”

Heather laughs like a hyena in heat. I bounce against the seat belt as we jerk between the white dotted line and the rumble strip. Heather’s got a great laugh.

“Bitch-staring. I can’t believe you said that. Alexi, call your Brother guy and tell him about our friend, the potty mouth.”

“I’m sure Brother Jacob wouldn’t be all that shocked,” Liz says, but her face is red.

“Whatevs,” Heather says.

“Whatevs,” Liz and I say together.

I feel guilty about cussing too. But I only do it when I’m really upset. And even then I wish there were other words for
fuck
or
damn
or
shit
, but if those other words existed, I’d feel just as guilty about using them, too.

“Bitch-staring,” Heather says to herself again. “I am the queen of bitch-staring.”

She is, and we all know it, so we laugh again.

The Malibu is faithful. We’re at school with enough time to go to our lockers before homeroom.

Our laughter walks down the hallway with me. There’s a smile on my face, and I share it with Bodee.

He’s still got the blue hair, but I think it’s left over from yesterday. In fact, he looks like he’s left over from yesterday.
But how can you tell with a guy who wears the exact same clothes every day? I wonder if they really are the same ones or just a look-alike set.

He smiles back.

It’s an audible smile, almost a happy sigh.

“Hey,” he says.

Oh boy, we’re back to the heys. I bend down to open my locker. “Hey,” I say. “Hair’s still blue.”

“Yeah.” His locker door, which is just above mine, doesn’t make a sound as he shuts it. But he actually looks at me. “Neck’s still red,” he says.

My mouth falls open, and my hands go to work smoothing and patting my already straight hair against my neck so no one else sees the little wounds. “It happens in my sleep,” I say.

“Mine too,” he says. “I wake up and it’s a different color.”

Bodee tosses his hair in a way that is neither mean nor a joke. His voice is soft, sort of like my dad’s. It keeps my own voice calm as I say, “Don’t tell anyone.”

Those are zombie words. I immediately wish I hadn’t said to Bodee what was said to me.

He smiles again. But this time, thanks to the hair toss, I can see his eyes. They’re brown.

“No one to tell,” he says.

We walk to homeroom beside each other but with enough distance to drive Craig’s golf cart between us. While I’ve logged one fact about Bodee, brown eyes, he’s collected a piece of information I haven’t shared with my closest friends yet.

That’s a game changer. Because what do I have on him?

Day-old blue hair.

There’s absolutely no reason to assume he won’t tell someone. Maybe he’ll tell his new football friend, and that friend will tell Ray at practice, and Ray will tell Liz on the phone, and Liz will tell Heather, and the two of them will go to my parents. Would they do that?

Or maybe Bodee has already told someone. Told his mom before she died, and she told my mom at prayer group.

Oh God, my parents know.

That’s what the family meeting is about. It’s not
bad
like cancer; it’s good like
We’ll get you the help you need
.

I can hear it now.

Shit. Shit.

Homeroom is full already. Bodee takes his assigned desk to the left of mine and is back to his old mute self. His cheek lies against the desk with two handfuls of blue locks to hide behind. There’s no hope of trying to guess what he’s thinking.

My heart’s racing on its own track now, putting roller coasters to shame. And black diamond ski slopes. And airplanes falling out of the sky.

There’s a tap at my shoulder. “Alexi.”

My head is spinning. If I twist around to see Maggie, I’ll throw up.

“Lex?”

Maggie Lister sits in the chair directly behind mine. But she must be in the wrong seat today, because she sounds a long, long way away.

“Are you going out with Dane?” she persists.

She taps again, but I’m frozen.

“Hey,” Bodee says.

His voice snaps me out of my stupor. “Hey,” I say.

There’s nothing audible, but I can read his lips. “Even if I had someone to tell, I promise I wouldn’t.”

I breathe. And nod. Either he’s as good at lying as I am or this is the truth. Since I’ve only basically exchanged one-word sentences with him, I’m not sure I can judge. But he has color in his cheeks, and I must look as white as snow. And one step up from a coma.

Maggie’s spazzing. My cookies don’t feel as tossed as they were a minute ago, so I risk swiveling in my seat to face her.

“Sorry.” I think fast for an excuse to explain my dazed and confused state. “I just realized we have a test in psych today. That I forgot.”

“Oh, crap. Do we? I thought that was next Tuesday.” She sifts frantically through her purse until she finds a memo pad. “Yeah, I have it right here. October second. Next Tuesday.”

“Whew. Thank goodness. I almost totally flipped.”

“Me too,” she says as she tosses the memo pad back into the abyss she calls a purse. “You gotta tell me about Dane.”

I shrug.

“Girl, you can’t be going out with Dane Winters and have nothing to tell.”

Bodee lies on the other cheek. He’s facing me, but he looks asleep and uninterested. “Heather set it up,” I say to Maggie. “We’re going to the soccer game, and we’re not dating.”

“So there’s nothing between . . .” Her eyes dart between Bodee and me.

I give her my best
Do I know what 4,678 times 7,543 is?
look.

“Good. O-kay. Awkward,” she says, drawing her own conclusion.

Maybe there is something between Bodee and me. I just don’t know what it is.

And it totally freaks me out.

School happens for the next three hours without my noticing. That psych test I invented in homeroom was prophetic: pop quiz on post-traumatic stress disorder. But I pass with flying colors. Finally, my personal knowledge of stress is useful.

The desk is my saving grace.

There, below my neat handwriting from yesterday, is the tight script of his I’ve been waiting twenty-four hours to see.

HOLD ON TIGHT

AS I LOSE MYSELF AGAIN

Then, a couple of spaces down, I see he’s printed today’s new lyrical challenge.

CAN YOU SEE ME ON THIS WALL?

A FAIRY TALE ABOUT TO FALL

I feel warm all over as I grip my pencil. He got mine right, and this new one is easy. No research required.

“I guess he’s on it,” Heather says, seeing my smile.

“Oh, yeah.”

“What did he leave you? Sinatra?”

“That was last week.” I take out my phone and show her last Friday’s picture of the desk before the custodian cleaned it, pointing to a section on Old Blue Eyes. “He’s gone more folk this time.”

Nice genre switch. I’m humming as I write.

Won’t be horses

Won’t be men

Put my soul back again

“Maybe you two do deserve each other,” Heather says. “’Cause that’s crazy. I’ve never even heard that song.”

“Do you think Dane can do this?” I ask.

“Nobody can do that. At least not without the internet.”

I’m between a lyric high and a Bodee low for the rest of the day. Dane barely registers on my radar. He doesn’t even bleep the screen until I’m in the bathroom of our local pizza place and I realize I’m not wearing the right bra for my date shirt.

“What’s taking you so long? The boys are already at the field,” Heather says.

Forgoing the bra is not an option. Kayla will be at the game, since Craig helps the soccer coach on nights there is no football. She’ll pitch a fit if I show up in a “Heather” outfit when I could have shopped in her closet.

And I might need her on my side tonight at the family meeting.