Definitions of Indefinable Things Page 4
(Side note: In certain Western European countries, he’d probably be considered skilled. I hear they like weird tongue things there.)
When he pulled away, he looked at me and said, “Tell me that wasn’t the best kiss you’ve ever had.”
“Eh.” I side-eyed him. “If kissing were an Olympic sport, you’d get, like . . . the silver.”
Honestly, it was closer to the gold, but he was too arrogant to properly process the compliment. Plus, my stomach was doing this weird flippy thing, making me sick in the good way. In the I-just-ate-the-world’s-sweetest-dessert-and-my-insides-are-going-to-explode way. If I didn’t force it down, I might have said something I didn’t mean.
“Well, I think it was sheer uselessness.” He grinned as the sun finally fell behind the hill. “We should do it again.”
Chapter Five
IF I NEEDED ANOTHER BULLET POINT to add to my extensive list of reasons to hate Flashburn, it manifested itself in Mondays at Hawkesbury. I sat in my advanced creative writing class with Polka, who was as generous with note sharing as he was with packed lunches. Every time we had a homework assignment, we critiqued each other’s work the next morning. For a guy whose native tongue was Taiwanese, he sure knew how to harness the English language. Which made no sense, considering he couldn’t speak it. He even helped students with their projects after school sometimes, one of them being Carla Banks, whose giant dinosaur baby made it impossible for her to sit upright in the slim desk in front of me. She was facing the aisle, her swollen cankles resting on a metal chair across the row. One of her on-again-off-again besties, Olivia, was making it clear that their friendship was certainly off again, twisting to the side so her back was to Carla and her face was to the blank wall. I might have pitied my former co-worker had her on-again conversations consisted of more than beauty advice and dietary regimes. I might have even sat next to her just for kicks. But the Carla-less silence was too peaceful to wish away with surface pity.
At the front of the classroom, the whiteboard spelled out the same assignment it had since the week before. It was a definition paper due at the time of our final. A definition paper defining anything we wanted. Our own take. Our own words. It sounded easy enough in theory, until I started writing and realized I wasn’t as smart as I thought. During one brainstorming session, I tried to define exercise. Literally, exercise. I was hitting new lows.
“I think I write about freedom.” Polka was thinking out loud, adding ideas to his anime-stickered monstrosity (see: laptop).
“Freedom? That’s a good one.”
“You write paper yet?”
“Not yet.”
“What you write about?”
I rubbed my hand along the desktop. “I don’t know.”
“I can help you,” he said. “I tutor in cafeteria on Wednesday.”
“No thanks.”
Polka had been offering to help me with the paper for weeks, but I always shrugged him off. If there was one thing I didn’t need, it was anyone’s help.
“Keep it in mind,” he said.
I nodded, but I’d already stopped listening. I couldn’t concentrate that day, for some reason. Every idea and thought and click of Polka’s keyboard made me think of uselessness. Uselessness and the guy who’d taught me about it. Uselessness and kisses and dumpsites and cold pizza.
The events of the day got sort of jumbled after that. The three o’clock bell rang through the hall and everyone rushed to afterschool activities. Most were embarrassing exploits, save for a few interesting hobbies that I might have participated in if I hadn’t been so determined to do nothing. No one talked to me on my way to the student lot. Shocking. Even more shocking was the sight of Carla Banks waddling across the asphalt, her sonogram clutched between her fingers.
I wondered who she’d been showing it to, what lucky bastard hadn’t had the blurry photo shoved up his nose twenty-seven-hundred bazillion times. I mean, she had practically blown it up to size and posted it on the hallway bulletin board. That’s not to say that she didn’t feel shame in her own Carla way. It’s only that she was so incorrigibly vain she would have worshiped a parasite if it grew in her stomach and called itself Banks.
She made her way across the lot to a car parked under the oak tree near the road. I ducked down by my mother’s minivan, crouching with my eyes peeking over the hood in obvious stalker fashion. But I didn’t care how creepy I looked when I caught a solid glimpse of the car. A gold Prius. (I don’t think it’s necessary to note the Hindi word written on the license plate.)
And then I saw him. He was leaning against the driver’s door, red licorice dangling from his lips.
Snake.
They were close enough for me to eavesdrop. The conversation went something like:
“The doctor said he’s about the size of a squash.”
“I hope he’s better-looking than one.”
“I bet he’ll have my red hair.”
“A ginger? Let’s hope not.”
“How was Oinky’s? Dad keeps bugging me to ask you.”
“Tell him I fixed the machine like a boss.”
“Who did you work with?”
“Peyton and some other girl. When’s your next appointment? Will your dad let me come next time?”
“April eighteenth. And I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“I wish he’d let me around more. I want to be there.”
“I know. I’ll work on him. In the meantime, I’ll keep you updated when anything happens. I promise.”
“You better. I want to be in the loop. Especially since we’re going to have, like, the coolest kid ever.”
“Because I’m so awesome?”
“No, because I am.”
They were hugging by the tree when I sped away, fighting back tears and hating myself for it. Next thing I knew, I was sitting on a green couch in my second home (see: therapy) because it was Monday and Dr. Rachelle was convinced I needed to prepare my mindset at the start of the week before life hit me unprepared.
That day I was angry. Furious. My hair stuck to my face, and I had mascara on my shirt, and I wanted to grab the vase of yellow flowers on the table and chuck it against the wall. I was in Stage 1, which I decided upon evaluation was the second worst stage of the cycle. Emotions were cage fighting with their shoes tied together, tumbling and crashing and making my mind spin out of control as if there was ever any control to spin out of. Everything just wanted to be noticed. Everything hurt like hell.
Stage 1: Mania.
“You seem upset today, Reggie,” Dr. Rachelle said. She wore a gray pantsuit that hung from her thin frame, bulging in all the places a woman doesn’t want to bulge. “What happened?”
“People.”
“Will you be specific?”
“I want to be alone. I want to be alone and crawl inside a dark little hole and live inside my dark little hole and die there. Because people are jerks and liars, and I hate it. I hate it.” I was crying sort of hysterically. A tissue (see: therapy clichés) ended up in my hand.
“Take a breath,” she suggested. “Walk me through the day.”
I recapped the events, starting with Tuesday when I met Snake at the pharmacy and ending with the sight of him hugging a pregnant Carla in my rearview mirror. She nodded as I choked through the stories, adding “mmm” or “uh-huh” every few minutes to assure me that she cared. She probably didn’t. But she was paid to listen, and as long as we both had to be there, I might as well talk.
When I finished, she propped both elbows on her thighs and leaned forward, her breath close enough to give me a whiff of cinnamon gum. I couldn’t get too annoyed at her, considering proximity was something all therapists practiced to convey a sense of intimacy or confidence or whatever. Either way, it was a total invasion of space.
“I want you to close your eyes, Reggie,” she whispered. I obeyed, despite the fact that I loathed exercises. My eyelids stung from tears and wet mascara. “I want you to forget for a moment. Forget the a
nger. Forget the hurt. Forget how betrayed you feel. I want you to think about this boy. Tell me one word that comes to mind when you hear the name Snake.”
“Vermin,” I spat.
“I don’t think you mean that. I know you barely know him, and you feel embarrassed and shamed and maybe even unjustified in having any sort of feelings toward him at all, but think about the boy you went out with on Friday night, and tell me one thing that stood out to you. What was one thing he impressed upon you?”
“He was . . .” I didn’t want to think about him, because all I saw was Carla and that damn sonogram. I could hear him calling me just “some other girl.” I hated him. “He was . . . presumptuous.”
“Presumptuous?”
“Yes,” I continued. “He was arrogant. He based everything on assumption. He took me to a waste site because he assumed that I would want the worst date imaginable. He brought cold pizza because he assumed that warm pizza would be too pleasant for my taste. He kissed me because he assumed it would change my mind about him.”
“And did you like this about him?”
“It was bearable.”
“It’s rare for you to feel that way. The last time you felt that way was with—”
“Can we not talk about him please?”
I didn’t even want to say my ex’s stupid name, because I was over it. I was over reliving how dumb I’d been to believe in him and to think he wouldn’t just leave like she had. No one who mattered stuck around, and that was just life. Every man for himself.
“Keeping friends has been a long journey for you. I understand that,” Dr. Rachelle said. “But like we’ve talked about before, you’ll never get to the places you want to be without opening up. This seems like a great place to start.”
“I don’t want to start.” No longer in service turned to ice in my bloodstream. “I want to be alone.”
“I don’t think you mean that. Have you considered talking to him?”
“No.”
“Talk to him. Tell him how you feel. And, I know this is hard for you, but tell him how it hurts.”
“I’ll pass,” I mumbled.
“Reggie.” She rolled her chair in front of my knees. Her raspberry perfume settled in the slim space between us. “Our time is almost up, but I can’t let you walk out of here without saying this.” She always said that. “Don’t be afraid to feel emotions. That’s human nature. You feel hurt by what he did to you, but you shouldn’t fear hurt. Fear is the greatest betrayal we commit against ourselves. Be genuine. And once you’ve let yourself feel it all, let it go. Don’t let every bearable thing in life become unbearable.”
I stared at the creases between my fingers, a stupid, unwarranted tear falling to my wrist. “Why don’t you tell me what you really think?”
“And what do I really think?”
“That I’m crazy.”
She cocked her head and frowned with both sides of her mouth instead of just one like she usually did. Then she glanced at the clipboard that was resting on the table beside her. “I want to assign you homework, if that’s all right.”
“Sure,” I mumbled.
“I want you to write,” she said, not at all to my surprise. She tossed up her hand like she knew I’d object. I always did. “And before you say no, I want you to remember that this is for your benefit. I want you to write one page. That’s it. Tell me what crazy means to you.”
I wiped my eyes, smearing tears on the back of my hand. “Is this what you make all your wackjobs do?”
“No. This is what I make people do when I believe in them.” She glanced at the clock. Our time was up. “Will you do this for you?”
It felt like I was doing it more for her, but I nodded anyway because I was shifting from Stage 1 to Stage 2 and wanted to get home before the storm hit.
When I got home, Karen was in the kitchen cooking something that I could only equate to cow dung. I ran upstairs into my ugly yellow room and toppled onto my bed, my ceiling patterned in stripes where the sun filtered through the blinds. I counted the spaces between them. One light. One shadow. Two lights. Two shadows. One mouse. One snake. One dies. One survives.
Stage 2: Emptiness.
I reached to my bedside table, grabbing the bottle of Zoloft. I popped the cap and swallowed a capsule with a swig of water. Laying my head back on the pillow, I mentally chanted crazy crazy crazy as I drifted off.
Vibrations were what finally jolted me awake. I opened my eyes to the darkness, the striped narrative of sun and shadow swapped with dimness and beams of moonlight. A single light interrupted the display. My phone glowed on the nightstand.
With pulsating temples, I grabbed the phone and read the screen.
It was only five words. Five presumptuous words.
I want to see you.
I replied in five words. Five presumptuous words.
You can kiss my ass.
Chapter Six
HE LIVED BY THE POND. SERIOUSLY. That fool lived in a three-story brick house with a rose garden trellis overlooking the enchanted swamp of fish piss. Not only was he a lying sack of crap, he was a rich lying sack of crap. Which made him at least twenty times more unappealing and, frankly, gross. I hadn’t seen him since Monday. He called in sick for work on Wednesday on account of food poisoning, a classic excuse that every depressed person knows is code for “I am not a functioning human today.”
It came to this. My combat boots squishing the welcome mat beneath my feet. It came to me calling Peyton on Wednesday night with a ridiculous cover story, asking for Snake’s address so I could “return his phone.” It came to me reaching for the doorbell and making contact with the button before I had time to change my mind.
Footsteps approached, sounding like someone jumping down a flight of stairs. They were weighty and gawky, and I knew who they belonged to. The door swung open and there Snake (see: big, fat, ugly liar) stood, his unkempt brown hair hiding his uninteresting eyes. A white T-shirt doused in mustard stains stuck to his arms. He pushed his hair back and gave me a good once-over. His eyes widened, and I wanted to punch him in his infuriatingly pretty lips.
“Reggie,” he said, his voice softer than usual. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to sell you Girl Scout cookies, what do you think?”
He grinned with his mouth closed, his infamous I’m-too-cool-to-even-smile-like-a-normal-person grin.
“Do you want to come in?”
“No, Snake. I thought I’d stay out here and water your moms’ flowers.”
“You’ve gotten meaner since the last time I saw you.”
“Side effect of Zoloft, I guess.”
“It’s not supposed to make you mean.”
“The label doesn’t account for dealing with pathological liars.”
He dropped his eyes to the ground with an empty expression, then stepped aside to let me in. His living room was more pristine than a doctor’s office, and just about as miserable as a waiting room. There was even a brown leather couch beside the fireplace just like the ones at therapy. I was tempted to search the magazine table for an evaluation clipboard.
He pointed at the staircase. “You want to go to my room?”
“No.”
“Okay . . .” He motioned to the other couch, also brown leather. “Does this meet your standards?”
I brushed past him and sat down, hugging my arms and legs against my body. He sat too close to me, and I shifted down. When I saw him flinch, I felt vindicated.
“I got your text,” he said, playing with his long fingers. His gray sweats weren’t bulging with Twizzlers. He must have been having withdrawals. “I thought you were just hating me in the good way, but then you ignored me for three days, so I’m guessing you hate me in the bad way.” I didn’t respond. “How did you find out where I live?”
I made him wait an agonizing amount of time for an answer. “I called Peyton. I was going to call Carla Banks, our boss’s daughter, but I wasn’t sure if you’d met her.”
“Perhaps I can jog your memory,” I interrupted. He reeled because I said it in the bad way. “She’s this preppy, center-of-her-own-imagined-universe daddy’s girl with bright red hair and a baby the size of a squash under her dress.” I knew I had him at squash. He looked at his feet. “Sound familiar?”
He made this weird noise, like an inhale and a groan. “Now I get why you hate me in the bad way.”
“I saw you, idiot!” I yelled. I glanced around to see if either of his mothers was home, but my voice echoed as if the house was empty. “After school in the parking lot.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? I find out that you’re dating Carla Banks—I’m sorry, no. Scratch that. Procreating with Carla Banks, after you relentlessly tried to impress me for God knows what reason, and all you say is ‘Oh’?”
“What am I supposed to say?” He tossed both of his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, I’m dating Carla. Yeah, I got her pregnant. Yeah, that makes me incredibly dumb and careless. And yeah, I really, really, really wanted to impress you. I still do.”
“You’re doing a bang-up job.” I pushed my sweaty hair back. “Why do you want to impress me, anyway? If you’re having a ginger squash with Carla, you shouldn’t even care what I think.”
“I do care, Reggie,” he said. I could feel him staring at me. “I don’t know why. When I met you, something just . . . I don’t know. It sounds ridiculous now.”
“Yeah, it does. When did you and Carla start dating?”
“About seven months ago.”