What is Real (10 page)

They giggled. I looked at T-dot. He grinned and shrugged. I raised my eyebrows. Nothing.

It made me miss Feral. It made me miss him like someone physically reached into me and tore out my stomach through my skin and squeezed it. It made me text him even though I knew he wouldn't answer because he wasn't the kind of guy, anymore, who shared either. Couldn't. I don't know. Maybe he changed his number. People do.

I did.

For some reason I flashed back to the first day of school last year. We wore uniforms, white shirts, blue striped ties, gray pants. Fucking uniforms. But that morning, I wandered into Feral's room and he was shirtless, sitting backward on his desk chair, staring at his bed. There were these two white shirts laid out, like a maid would do, but we didn't have a maid. Perfectly laid out. They looked like the same goddamn shirt. Feral was twitching his leg up and down, jittering.

“Are you gonna get dressed or go to school naked?” I said.

“I can't decide,” he said. “I can't decide.” He kept saying it, staring at those shirts.

“It's the same shirt, F,” I said. “Who cares?”

“They aren't the same,” he said. He spun around on his chair and his face was furious, like I didn't understand anything. “They aren't the same.” He tapped his foot. His hair flopped into his face. “They aren't the same,” he repeated.

“Whatever,” I said. I picked one up and threw it at him. “Try this one, and hurry up, asshole, or we 'll be late.”

He tensed; I thought he was going to hit me. There was something about the way he was looking at me, at the shirt, that I didn't understand. Feral was so…Feral. He was the one everyone followed, the one everyone wanted to be. Something was wrong and I didn't know what to do. The shirts were the same. The fucking
same
.

I walked out of the room. That's how I helped him. I turned my back, walked away. Aren't I a champ?

Tanis tapped me on the shoulder and I jumped about a mile. “What?” I said.

“You were sleeping,” she said. “Or daydreaming.”

“No, I wasn't,” I said. Right away, flash point. I was angry at her for no reason. At least, no reason that was her fault. “Fuck off,” I said. The cafeteria was too loud and bright. It was hurting my ears, my eyes, my brain.

I could see the hurt flash across her face, and then she shrugged. That's Tanis. It's like you can penetrate her wall, but just as quickly, she puts up her shields.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Whatever,” she said. “Be an asshole.” She stuck out her tongue.

“I said sorry,” I said.

“Yeah, well, wish you didn't have to,” she said. She turned back to Kate and whispered something in her ear. Girls whispering. I hate that shit. Kate looked at me and smirked, and I wanted to throw my tray in her face, but I didn't.

I didn't.

I made myself smile. Teeth. Eyes. Look at me, I'm smiling, I thought. I'm not a bad guy. It's just me, Dex.

I'm okay.

“Hey,” I said to Tanis. “Want to come over later?”

She shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “I hate that place. Maybe we could go somewhere else.”

“Can't,” I said. “Gotta be there for Dad.”

“I guess,” she sighed. “Let's go, Kate.” They pushed back their chairs and left without a backward glance.

“Yo,” I said to T-dot. “There they go.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It's
time
to go, Dex. Bell went.”

“Oh,” I said. I didn't hear it. I'm underwater and my ears are full.

Something is wrong with me. My nerve endings are all exposed to the air and breezes hurt and my eyes want to close and I want there to be water closing in over me.

I texted Tanis,
What's up with Kate and T?

She didn't answer. I kept staring at my phone, waiting. Wasn't she supposed to tell me everything? Isn't that what girls do? T-dot drummed the table with his hands. Crumbs flew around on it like hopping fleas. I watched the crumbs.
Drum, drum
. “Gotta fly, dude,” he said, darting away. The crumbs settled. I still couldn't move.

I should have known about T-dot and Kate. It should have been obvious. The way she looked at him. The way he never looked back at her unless it was late and he was sort of wasted. I'd watched it all summer and missed it. All summer.

Summer was a blur. It got hotter and then it got cooler again. Sometimes it rained and there were mosquitoes. We drove to the lake in Dad's Volkswagen and sat there for days at a time, it felt like. We must have gone home at night. We did go home at night. Except for that once.

When Tanis told me what she told me.

Didn't she know she wasn't supposed to
need
me?

Mosquitoes in the air between us, one settling on her cheek. I slapped it. Her. I slapped her. She told me this awful thing and I slapped her and I cried, and now I can't remember what it was. How fucked up is that?

I remember the mosquitoes and the way it felt like they were in our ears, the buzzing was so loud. We ate them when we talked. There were so many. My skin was red and itchy. I scratched and bled. And then we slept there, in the shack, and we woke up, naked, covered with those fucking bites like you wouldn't believe.

The thing she told me was about Our Joe. It was like a handful of shocks. Here's one and here's another. Our Joe is Tanis's grandfather.

Zap
.

And there was this time. This one time. No, all the time. She stayed at the house. She lived in the house. She didn't.

I can't get it straight. What happened? I am mixing it up with something else, a movie that I saw.

Did she say what I think she said?

She showed me a scar, fat and angry. In a place where there shouldn't be a scar.

And she said he…

And he took pictures and then…

When her grandmother found out…

And then he…

And her grandmother died.

But I can't remember. I can't remember. I can remember, but it's too much because it's worse than my goddamn story, worse than any story. It's a movie I didn't want to see. I hate those fucking movies and did she say that he…?

We slept in the shack.

The next morning we were covered with bites, and Kate and T-dot were still there. Where did they sleep? There was a tent. They weren't bitten. They were happy. They were laughing. Tanis and I weren't laughing. She probably wished she hadn't said. I didn't know what to do. It was like someone threw me a ball and I didn't know what sport it was supposed to be, so I just put it down and…

We had a fire. We made a fire to cook on. No, it wasn't a fire; it was a little cookstove and there was bacon and eggs spitting in a pan. They were goddamn good eggs. And it was hot already even though we 'd just got up. It was really hot, so we had beer and pot instead of coffee, and Tanis was giggling a lot, nervous.
Giggle, giggle
.

It wasn't funny. I was so mad. Why was I mad?

I can remember, but I don't want to remember. I remember that we were all there. The four of us. There was a plan.

What was the plan?

I don't know what I'm talking about. I didn't know then. I remember crying. Tanis was crying. The sex was hot. We didn't have sex. I don't actually remember. I was high as a fucking kite.

She shouldn't tell me shit when I'm high.

I should have listened.

I did listen.

Stop.

I think about the summer and it tastes like Doritos and warm beer that, in turn, tasted like failure. I got a sunburn that turned into a tan that peeled off in sheets, and Tanis and I did it again and again and again. And she said, “I love you.” And I dove into the lake and my ears filled with water, and just for a few seconds I sank and couldn't remember how to swim, and then I swam.

The truth is that the only time I loved Tanis, really loved her, was when we were in that old fisherman's shack with the thick fog of cobwebs filling in all the sharp angles and the stink of old urine and dead mice. And we 'd fucked up against the wall and she 'd stared at me with her squinty eye and her regular eye. It was like diving into the lake.

I was always better at the dive than the swim. My swimming was always shitty, too much arm splashing and flailing, like a dog.

Tanis could swim pretty well, like a girl should. She dove into the water in her underwear, never naked. She 'd put it back on before she swam, every time, coming up with her hair slicked back. Then she did look beautiful and like the models she wanted to be. But I never said and who cared? I smoked and smoked, in the water and out.

You can't smoke in the water.

Yes, you can. I did. A baggie tucked into my shorts, swimming to the raft and lying there, smoking, the sound of the water all around me and Tanis, and the whole time, of course, T-dot and Kate alone on the other side.

I thought they were eating chips.

I am a selfish dick and actually I didn't think about it at all. What they were doing. And it's none of my business.

Usually we took a Frisbee and a football and we played and the girls watched and the sun was hot and our skin burned and peeled more than once. And that's really all that happened this summer, except when it rained and we stayed home. Except when Gary was off duty and I was on.

Then it was different.

I hate T-dot because if Kate was skinny and hot, he would have told. And I hate him more because if I was fucking her, I wouldn't tell either. See?

Obviously.

But I thought
he
was a good guy. I guess I was wrong.

Anyway.

Summer. Last week. Last month. It was already a long time ago. I've already taken all my memories of it and edited them all together into one long scene, blurred by sunscreen on the lens and hidden behind a protective screen of smoke.

Yeah, like that.

I shoot the basketball. There is the nubby skin of it and there are my hands, my fingers finding the black grooves and the smell of the rubber is in my nose. It leaves my grip and soars into the sun, and I shield my eyes and watch it roll around the rim, once, twice, before falling, bouncing crookedly toward the girls,
slap slap
on the pavement.

“Hey,” shouts the new guy, Phil Stars. “I was open.”

“Sorry, man,” I tell him. I'm not sorry. He's better than me, and I didn't throw it to him because he's better than me and I'm a jerk.

Tanis stands up. Throws it to me. I throw it to Stars. I am not a jerk, I'm just a guy. Just some kid. I pretend to not be me. I look at Tanis, cock my head. Sweat drips from my ear.

“I gotta get to work,” she says. “Kiss me?”

And I am not me. I am playing the part of a guy with a girl who wants to be kissed. And I kiss her like people kiss on tv, bending her backward, my sweaty shirt making marks on her clean, white, dry clothes.

The first time I went to Tanis's house, I was pretty surprised. From outside, it looked like a normal crappy house. There used to be a mine just outside of town and there were a lot of mining houses left. Shitty little houses the company had built to house the employees. Hers was just another in a row all the same. But inside, inside it was different.