Geek Girl (12 page)

She and I are kindred spirits. She recognized it right away and has told me numerous stories of her wild teenage days. Funny because I just always imagined that when someone her age would’ve been my age, all teens would have been prim and proper. I don’t tell her much about me because I don’t want to dim our unlikely friendship even if she forgets things easily. She always remembers Trevor and me though, calling him my “young man.”

I’m sitting with her,
crocheting
of all things
.
She had told me once that she wants to teach her granddaughter, but her granddaughter never comes to see her. No one ever comes to see her. I don’t have a grandma, and since she seems to have been abandoned by her granddaughter, we have adopted one another. That’s why I sit and crochet.

“Are you being nice to your foster family?” She always asks me this question, every week.

“It was easier before their daughter came home, you know? She really doesn’t like me, and I don’t like her, so I’m having a hard time being nice.”

“She’s jealous.”

“What?” My hands still, and I look over at her.

“Well,” she pauses, turning the afghan over on her lap as she begins a new row, “you’ve taken her place as the youngest daughter.”

I shake my head. “I’m not a daughter. I’m just a foster kid.”

“They don’t treat you as part of the family?” She looks upset.

“Yeah, they do. I even have stupid chores. Doesn’t make me a daughter.”

“Ah, yes, chores. I complained about them to no end, resented having to do them, and resented my mother for giving them to me. That is, until I had my own home where every chore was mine. Then I wished I could go back to simply having the few chores my mother gave me. Did I ever tell you I was adopted?”

I look at her, surprised.

“No, you didn’t.” I look down at the lopsided mess that I’d imagined presenting to Trevor as a scarf when finished. I think I’ll present it to the trash can instead.

“My own parents were killed in a car accident when I was only thirteen, such a critical age for a young girl.” Her eyes never leave her gnarled hands, which keep gracefully twisting the yarn into an afghan.

“I was angry,” she continues. “That’s why I acted out so much. My adoptive mother and father had never had children, and I was not easy for them. But they always loved me, no matter what I did.” Her faded blue eyes come up to mine. “My biggest regret in life is that I treated them so poorly when they were only trying to do right by me. Thank heavens they lived long enough for me to straighten up and thank them, to give them back some of the love they had so profusely given me.”

She looks back down at the work she is performing.

“My other regret is that I didn’t have a sister.”

“She’s not my sister.” I know I sound petulant, but I can’t imagine ever being grateful to have the cheerleader in my life.

“She’s the closest thing you have,” she says as she leans down to pull a new skein of yarn from her bag.

I’m silent, thinking about her words. I think of all the families I’ve been through and wonder how many of them had had sincerely good intentions that I’ve thrown away.

“Tell me about your parents,” she says, and I know instinctively that she’s speaking of my biological parents and not my foster parents. I have never told anyone the whole truth, only partial truths and only to serve my own purposes. I know that I can tell Mrs. Green and that she’ll never breathe a word I say to anyone else, that there’s a chance she won’t remember most of what I say.

She patiently waits, and whether I tell her or not, she won’t judge me. I set my crocheting down, look around to make sure no one is near and lean closer to her.

“I wish
my
parents had died in a car accident. That would have been so much better than the reality of them.” She looks up at me, brows raised curiously. I shrug. “My dad had custody of me when he and my mother divorced because she didn’t want me. I was really young, probably only two or three.

“Until I was six, my dad used me as his personal punching bag. He didn’t ever enroll me in school, and so no one knew. When I was six, he got his gun out and commanded me to stand in the corner so that he could shoot me. I was afraid of him, and young enough to not know I could refuse, so I did it. It was a game to him. He was shooting all around me, wanting to scare me, which it did like you can’t imagine. Someone heard and called the police. He died when the police came and shot him because he wouldn’t put his gun down.” I take a deep breath. Even after all these years, the memory terrifies me.

“So I went to live with my mom, who couldn’t much be bothered with me since she was trying to survive her violently abusive new husband. I think she would have put up with him forever, because he mostly left me alone, only sometimes beating me. Until the day he came to visit me in the night.” I stop, shuddering at the remembrance. I have to remind myself that he’s gone now, that he’ll never hurt me again.

“It was only once, but she heard my crying even though he had my mouth covered. She walked in, stopping him. The next day, she stabbed him until he died while he was passed out drunk.” I shrug. “Now she’s in prison.”

I glance up, and Mrs. Green’s eyes are on me, full of empathy.

“You’ve had a rough go of it, haven’t you?”

I smile at her simple description of the hell that is my history.

“Could be worse, I guess.”

“It always can, can’t it? Though that seems to be bad enough,” she says, clucking and patting me on the arm, as if she can sense that any more would undo me. That’s why I like her so much, because she just
knows
.

I’m feeling a little watery inside, a little self-pity party going on, which wouldn’t be the end of the world, except I hear a noise behind me and turn around to see Trevor standing there, watching me intently.

He heard—I can see it in his face. I read blatant sympathy there, which I know is genuine because it’s how the geek works.

I run away from his sympathy, pushing past him and out the front doors of the Senior Center, looking for somewhere to hide. Then he is there. He pulls me into his arms and holds me, just holds me, nothing else, no false words of comfort, no groping, not asking anything of me, just giving me his strength.

And I’m undone.

Trevor doesn’t try to talk to me about what he overheard, and I’m grateful. There are a few social workers who know the whole story, but I don’t think they’ve told any of my foster families. If they have, none of them have cared to mention it to me.

When I return home after we have a mostly silent dinner at the local diner—a happy medium between the Italian place and the pizza place, which is becoming a regular hangout for the two of us—it’s to find the cheerleader sitting in my room. She’s at the vanity looking at the picture of Trevor and I from the camping trip that’s hanging on my mirror, right above the one snapped by Beth at Morp. I let out an unwelcoming grunt.

“What do you want? I’m not in the mood,” I say, walking in and throwing my jacket across the bed. She doesn’t say anything for a minute, just looks at the picture. Then she turns around and takes in the rest of the room slowly, eyes finally coming to rest on me where I’m sitting on the bed.

“Why don’t you have any other pictures hanging in here, or anything at all that’s yours?”

“What do you care?” I shoot back.

“Just seems odd to me,” she murmurs.

“Well, if you have to know, I don’t exactly have a lot of personal things.”

She looks at me, a bit surprised that I’m so candid. I’m a bit stunned myself. I didn’t mean to be, not with her.

“I don’t think Mom or Dad would care if you wanted to get some things to put up. This room feels so . . . I don’t know, like a showcase or something.”

I shrug. “Doesn’t matter; I’m not planning to be here all that long anyway.”

She looks at me questioningly, but amazingly enough doesn’t pursue that line of questioning. She has something else on her mind.

“Did you do it just to make a fool of me?” she asks, and I struggle to understand. What does moving out or hanging up a picture have to do with her? I guess I look confused because she clarifies.

“With Trevor, when we were camping? Did you steal him away just to make me look stupid? Or was it some kind of thing where you wanted to prove you were . . . I don’t know, better, or sexier, or more appealing, or whatever, than I am?”

I think about telling her yes and letting her live with that. She doesn’t seem angry or upset, though, just curious, and after the emotions of tonight, I find I don’t care if she knows the truth. I’m not in the mood for games just now.

“No, I didn’t.
We
didn’t. Honestly. Trevor and I were already kinda . . . together, I guess. We were just trying to keep it on the down-low, you know? And when you asked me . . . I guess I just wanted to see what you could do, see if his head could be turned.” I think about my words, what they are implying, and shy away from the thought.

“I’m sorry, it was a rotten thing to do to you,” I say. Oddly enough, the words are the truth.

She nods, believing me.

“I guess he must really like you, huh?” Then she laughs. “I guess that sounds really conceited, like I’m so desirable that he must
really
like you to resist me. I didn’t mean it like that.”

I look at her, trying to figure out this weird absence of tension between us. “It’s okay. You wouldn’t be far wrong. If I’m being truthful, Trevor definitely belongs with someone like you and not me.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?” She seems truly interested.

“Come on,” I say sarcastically. “I’m all dark and hard—trouble. You’re light and bubbly, the . . . well, the cheerleader-type.” I mentally cringe at the nickname I always call her.

“I’ve heard you call me that,” she says. I look at the floor, not wanting to meet her eyes. “It’s okay though.”

I lift my brows at that, and she shrugs.

“I was a cheerleader in high school. I’d probably be one still at college if I had time.”

“Why are you in here being nice to me?” I ask abruptly. “I haven’t exactly done much to endear myself to you.”

She shrugs and gets up, walking to the door.

“You should get some personal stuff in here,” she says at the doorway. “I think my parents would really like it if you stayed.”

She walks out the door but turns and sticks her head back into the room for a parting comment.

“I don’t think you’re as bad as you like to pretend you are. I wouldn’t mind if you stayed either.”

I flop back on the bed, feeling washed out. I roll onto my side, curling up in a ball, pressing my fists against my heart—too many roller-coaster emotions in one day for me.

“I’m
not
going soft, I’m
not
going soft,” I repeat quietly, over and over, a litany. I reach behind me and pull the comforter over myself, too tired to get up and get ready for bed.

“
I am not going soft
,” I say again. Somehow, the words seem empty.

⊕⊗⊕

I wake up in the morning, weary. I look at myself in the mirror, surprised at the face looking back. I am lost somewhere under this face that shows an unfamiliar complacency.

This whole deal with Trevor is supposed to be me turning him, not the other way around. No real feelings involved. I strengthen my resolve, take a deep breath, and stiffen my spine. I’m not here to be friends with a cheerleader or to become anything resembling a real daughter, and I’m definitely not here to fall in love with some geek.

“Trev,” I say later when we’re in my room, me pacing the floor and Trevor sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s a little disappointed in me today, I can tell. I’m back, the real me, the same one who first approached him so many months ago—a lifetime ago, it seems. He saw it right away by the full-force return of my look with severe makeup, wearing the tightest sweater and shortest skirt I own. I am dressed for success.

“Yeah?” he asks, clearly uncomfortable with my harsh tone.

“Look, we spend a lot of time doing what you want. I’ve watched more sci-fi movies than I even knew were available, spent time with your friends who are
definitely
not my type, gone with you to do charity, camped in a tent for you, went to your family reunion—”

“What is with you today?” he interrupts my tirade. “You’ve been on edge all day.”

“What, you mean I’m not my usual cheery, sweet self?” I ask sardonically.

“Something like that,” he murmurs. Then louder, “If this is because of what happened yesterday . . .” He trails off, and I know he’s thinking about my unguarded confession to Mrs. Green. But I don’t want to talk about that.

“Actually,
Trev
,” he cringes at the way I spit his name, “this whole thing is feeling a little one-sided.”