Kicked Out (4 page)

He didn’t, of course. And he didn’t explain his ex and the rumors, either. So when he dropped me off at Darren’s apartment, I asked about it.

“You don’t still like her, do you?” I said between kisses.

“No, no, no — it’s all over with her,” he mumbled.

“Does she know that?” I asked.

“Haven’t I made it obvious?” sighed Gabe.

“So why does she want to fight me, then?” I asked.

“She’s just jealous. She won’t go through with it,” he said.

“She looks like Madonna on too many steroids,” I said.

He seemed to like this idea.

“I’ve got to go,” I snapped, getting off the bike.

“Hey, Dime — c’mon,” he called.

I turned around. There was that forever hope again, like a quick song in my chest. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was jumping to too many conclusions.

“Come here. Please?” He had on his take-you-out-of-deep-freeze smile. I hesitated, then walked back, pretending to be reluctant. Truth was, my heart was slam-dancing against my chest. I wanted him to like me so bad.

“Hey,” he said softly and touched my face. Then he kissed me. Well, that was that — he took me up to cloud nine and we stayed there for a while. Finally, he put on his helmet and roared off. I stood and stared after him. I didn’t know if I was coming or going with him. He just twisted and turned me all over the place.

When I got into the apartment, the phone was ringing. It was Mom, wanting to know about
every detail of my love life. So I hung up on her. Then I made hamburgers again for supper, but Darren didn’t complain. We watched
Old Yeller
on TV while we ate. It made me cry. I sat there sniffing into my T-shirt sleeve as the dog died. Then I looked over at Darren and saw that his eyes were red too.

“Why are you crying?” I asked.

“Why are you?” he shrugged. He headed off to the bathroom and I followed. Darren never cries.

“I’m weeping buckets because the dog died,” I said.

“Sure,” said Darren. He was taking his laxative. He takes it three times a week so he can take a dump the next morning. It’s part of being a quad, just like using a leg bag to pee. Darren can change his own leg bag, but I still hate thinking about it.

“You’re feeling sorry for me,” Darren said.

“No, I’m not,” I said.

Darren looked right at me and said, “Yes, you are. Listen, Dime — my life is
going a hundred times better than yours. I’m halfway through my engineering degree. You’re close to flunking Grade 10.”

I get mad fast. When I do, my brain flies into a hundred pieces. I turned to leave the room.

“No one will ever hire you,” I said.

Behind me, Darren’s voice just got louder. He said, “They’d hire me before they’d hire you. And when they do, I’ll be making sixty grand a year. You’ll be flipping hamburgers for the rest of your life.”

That was when I really lost it. The last person I could take coming down on me was Darren.

I yelled, “At least I can do that. You need help to go to the can.”

“So I have to park my butt on that toilet two hours tomorrow morning and wait. At least I’m getting rid of the crap in my life. You’re keeping yours bottled up inside, Dime. You don’t even know what’s bugging you,” Darren yelled.

Darren’s apartment was too small.
There was nowhere to go to get away from him. I walked quickly to the kitchen, but he zipped after me. He was actually chasing me in his chair! I leaned my face against the cool fridge door and closed my eyes.

“Sure I do. I don’t go on about it, but I do,” I said.

“So talk about it. Tell me what it is. Don’t just bawl at old movies,” Darren said softly.

But I couldn’t. I turned away, ending the conversation. For the rest of the evening, Darren studied in his room. I watched TV.

Chapter Six

Tuesday morning when I got up, Darren’s aide was just coming in. I rushed through my bathroom routine, then headed for the kitchen. As Darren wheeled into the bathroom, I pretended to be watching the toast in the toaster.

“Good morning, Dime,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

Everywhere I looked, trouble was
building. I didn’t want to think about Gabe’s ex waiting for me at school. I didn’t want to think about the way Gabe grinned when he saw her. And I knew I couldn’t stand one more raging phone call from Mom or Dad. So I pretended to water the plant on the counter and soaked the phone instead. It would dry out in a week or so. In the meantime, there would be no more nagging phone calls.

Gabe had promised to give me a driving lesson before school. I smeared honey onto my toast and shoved it into my mouth. Then I headed out the door. I was early, so I sat on the curb. But even though I wanted to, I couldn’t stop my head from working. I kept seeing the stack of
Reader’s Digest
magazines that Darren keeps by the toilet. He reads them while he waits for his laxative to work. How could he keep everything going in his life when I couldn’t? I might as well have FAILURE tattooed across my forehead.

Gabe roared up with his usual grin. Instead of getting on behind him, I got on in front and faced him.

“Take off your helmet,” I said. We made out for a bit. Gabe could be really good at helping me take my mind off things.

“You’re in a good mood,” he mumbled.

“Yeah,” I said.

Gabe let me drive once we were outside Winnipeg. I was doing fine — I even remembered the brakes when I needed them. Gabe’s hands were resting around my waist instead of hanging on as if I was about to crash. So I relaxed, and that was when the problem kicked in. Suddenly, I started to hear my parents’ voices inside my head.

You’re such a disappointment to us, Dime
, said Mom.

Why can’t you grow up and act your age?
yelled Dad. Then he sighed.
You know, we really love you. If you could only see how much we love you
.

I blinked, trying to concentrate. The road had disappeared. I felt a sharp drop, and then we were driving over something bumpy. Gabe was yelling and banging his helmet against the back of mine again. That
was when I saw I’d driven off the road and was headed across a field. But I remembered the brake and got us stopped.

Gabe was off the bike in a second and grabbing at the handles. Maybe he was afraid I wanted to do wheelies in the field.

“You’re crazy! You’re nuts! Get off my bike!” he howled.

I got off. Then I decided to pretend I’d been trying to miss a rabbit hopping across the road.

“Did you see that rabbit? Did you see that rabbit?” I asked, pointing at a thick bush.

“What rabbit?” Gabe asked slowly.

“I saw this rabbit going across the road and it scared me. It was a white rabbit,” I lied.

“There was no rabbit! Give me my helmet!” Gabe yelled.

I gave it to him. Then he was gone, roaring across the field and down the road. This time I didn’t wait for him to come back — I figured the helmet was pretty final. It took me forty minutes to get back into the
city. Then it was a twenty-five-minute bus ride to school. All the way, my parents’ voices kept going inside my head.

I came out of the school office with a late slip and a detention. I was pretty upset about the detention. My late slips had been adding up, but it was Gabe’s fault I was late. I figured he should be the one getting the detention. But at least the hallways were empty, and I could walk without looking over my shoulder. And with classes on, the ex wouldn’t be camped out at my locker.

Halfway through science class, the fire alarm went off. Usually a fire alarm break is fun, but we were in the middle of an experiment. We turned off the Bunsen burners and headed out. Up and down the hall, guys were jumping up and popping out ceiling tiles. Tiff came up beside me.

“Did you hear?” she asked.

“About what?” I asked.

“Your big showdown with the ex.”

“Tell me where to be. And when.” I didn’t want to fight, but I couldn’t seem to
make myself care anymore. When I get that way, my mouth becomes a problem.

“The ex has invited another school to watch,” Tiff warned.

“Is she selling tickets? Is it winner take all?” I asked. We were coming out into the back parking lot. I could see Gabe sitting on his bike, his fans all around him. The fire alarm was still going.

“Dime, this is serious,” said Tiff.

“Life is serious, but you can turn it into one big joke if you have to,” I said.

Gabe waved and called, “Dime!”

For a second I thought about going over and slashing his tires. But it passed. I
had
driven his bike onto a farmer’s field, after all. I should consider myself lucky, really, that he’d gotten over it. So I walked over to him, smiling. He put an arm around me.

“You made it back. I was worried,” he said. He looked concerned about me.

“I’m okay. Sorry I drove you off the road,” I said.

“I went back looking for you,” he said.

Part of me wanted to believe him. But the road back to Winnipeg had been pretty straight. How could I have missed a guy on a motorcycle? That was when I noticed the ex nearby, looking straight at us. Gabe glanced at her and grinned. At the same time, he tightened his arm around my shoulder. It felt like a trap.

“Too bad you didn’t bring the ex with you this morning. She could have knocked me off and buried me in one of those fields,” I said, pulling back.

“Hey, Dime, you’re the love of my life. Don’t be mad at me,” Gabe said softly. Then he pulled me in against him. I buried my face in his neck and tried to forget about the ex. Maybe Gabe wasn’t Mr. Perfect, but he sure looked like him. And he could hand out pretty good hugs. This one would be enough to keep me going until lunch, when I could find him again. I hung onto him tightly until the alarm went off, and everyone headed back into the school.

Chapter Seven

At lunch break, I stuck close to Gabe. I figured the ex wasn’t going to try and pull me off his body, and she didn’t. Maybe the whole thing was nothing more than rumors. At any rate, I was still in one piece when I got home that afternoon. I decided to try something more complicated than hamburgers for supper — fish and chips. I knew Darren liked them.

“Got a lot of homework tonight?”
Darren asked after supper.

This was a parent-type question. My smile faded. “No,” I shrugged.

“There’s a good band playing near here. Get it done and we’ll go,” he said.

“Serious?” I asked.

“My thank-you for a superb supper,” he grinned.

Darren hadn’t noticed that the phone had died. With no one calling to interrupt me, I actually finished my homework. Well, maybe not exactly
finished
, but as much as I could handle in one sitting. If I was going to catch up on all the homework I’d missed, I’d be there for weeks.

At 9 p.m., Darren and I headed out to his favorite bar. Some of his friends were there and we joined them at a table. Another guy at the table was also in a wheelchair.

“He got arrested for drunk driving. He was going down the middle of the road in his chair,” Darren whispered.

“Are any of you quads normal people?” I joked.

Darren shrugged. “What’s normal?”

As usual, some of the crowd couldn’t seem to stop watching the wheelchairs. People are always surprised to see someone in a wheelchair having a good time. It’s as if they think life in a wheelchair is only good for watching TV. One woman came by and patted Darren’s arm.

“I wanted to tell you I think you’re so brave. I’m sure you’ll get well some day,” she said, her voice wobbling.

“But I am well,” Darren said.

As she walked away, he made a face at me. “No one can believe I might actually enjoy life these days,” he said.

“So, she’s stupid,” I said.

“A lot of people are like that,” he said.

“I’d trade places with you any day. I want to be you more than anything,” I said. Then I sat staring at my pop. I couldn’t believe I’d finally said it to him.

Darren pushed his beer bottle around the table in small circles. Then he said softly, “I’m not always crazy about my life, Dime.
I don’t talk about it much. You’re right — I cry at sad movies instead. Sometimes I read the entire
TV Guide
to find a movie that will let me cry the longest.”

He tried to smile, but it didn’t quite work. I hate it when my brother gets sad. I get scared for him, and this huge hurt shoots right through me. My next thoughts burst out of my mouth.

“It should have happened to me. I’m the loser. If I’d broken my neck, it wouldn’t have been such a waste. I used to wish it happened to me. After the accident, I even prayed about it. ‘Dear God, please put me in a wheelchair, so Darren can be alive again.’”

The words pulled themselves out of somewhere deep inside me. I guess I’d been hiding them down there for a long time. When I finished speaking, I felt really tired, as if I’d been working hard all day.

“Dime, you’re worse than that woman. I’m not dead!” said Darren.

“Might as well be,” I said softly.

“Is that why you want to be me — so
you can be half-dead?” asked Darren.

“No, because you can handle things. You don’t mess up all the time. Mom and Dad love you,” I pointed out.

“Do you really want to get along with them?” asked Darren.

Suddenly, it hit me so hard — an old wish that my parents and I could sit in the same room and be happy together. Sometimes I had dreams of sitting at the kitchen table just talking to them. We were laughing, telling jokes. Mom patted my arm. Dad said, “You’re such a fine girl, Dime.”

But I couldn’t tell Darren this, so I shrugged and said, “Maybe. Yeah. If they’d stop yelling.”

“D’you think if you stopped trying to put yourself in a wheelchair, they’d stop yelling? One quad per family is enough,” said Darren.

“They were like this before your accident. They’ve always liked you better,” I said.

Darren didn’t argue. He frowned and said, “I’ve always hated that. I wish I knew
how to change it, but I don’t. Maybe you’re right about them being afraid of you. Even way back when you were seven or eight.”

“Yeah, but why?” I asked.