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Authors: Corey Ann Haydu

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BOOK: Life by Committee
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“I don't know what that means,” I say, but the second it's out of my mouth I obviously do know what he means.
He heard Cate and Paul and the screaming.

“I sort of stayed. You seemed . . . off. And I was worried. Apparently I'm worrying about you a lot.” Devon shrugs. “If I'm being weird, tell me, okay?”

“Okay,” I say. I can't decipher what the hell I feel. I went to a therapist once, with Cate and Paul when they were in a phase when they thought everyone should be in therapy. There was a chart of cartoon people making different faces. They were labeled with emotions.
This is what angry looks like; this is what surprised looks like; this is what happy looks like
.

I try to think through the faces and see if any of them match.

There is no corresponding face for the way I'm feeling. It is unrecognizable and jumbled. It is maybe all the faces combined.

“It's nice. To have you . . . thinking about me,” I say at last. Because I can't figure out how I feel.

I can feel drops of sweat prickling to the surface, one bead for each vertebra on my spine. It's a slow build at first, but then just a wash of humiliating
wet
all up and down my back. I ignore it so that I can stay sexy.

This is what scared looks like
.

“Want tea?” I say. I touch my phone in my pocket. They're all here with me, pushing me along, helping me.
Star, @sshole, Roxie, Zed, Agnes.

“I love tea,” Devon says. It's a lie. No teenage boys love tea. “You know, I really am sorry,” he says when I'm walking away from him to get started on the tea. People always say the big things when your back is turned to them. It's easier to say stuff when you can't see the other person's reaction.

“I hate your sister,” I say, which isn't in any way an acceptance of the apology, but it's the truth, and I'm getting really, really good at telling the truth.

“That's cool,” he says.

“Green tea okay?” I say from the back.

“Sounds disgusting.”

“It kind of is.” I smile, putting the tea bag in, letting it steep before I go back to Devon.

“You're gonna hate this,” I say, and hand the steaming mug to him. It smells like hot seaweed and cut grass, and his nose wrinkles but he chokes down a sip anyway.

“So, what are we reading?” he says.

I make a gesture like he should look through the bag of books from my bookstore outing earlier, but he goes right for
The Secret Garden
, which I've left on the table. Not one of the new-old copies I bought today, but
the
copy. The red pen one.

“I like your thoughts on this,” he says, tapping the
page. He's going to do great at college—he's a natural at academic-looking frowns. I'm eyeing my laptop, wondering if I can log in, type out some updates about Devon and Joe, and log back out before he sees anything.

“Oh, those aren't my thoughts,” I say. I don't say more and he doesn't ask more, but I don't pull the book away from him either. It makes me nervous—it's very much
mine
—but I like that he likes it. I watch him read for a moment, then turn my focus to my computer. Pull up LBC.

I know I shouldn't, in front of him, but I can't help myself. I feel too untethered to be here alone with Devon.

“You're a mystery, Lady Tabitha,” Devon says. He moves his hand, like it might touch my face or my back or close my computer so that I focus more wholly on him. His hand lingers in the air, undecided. I watch it until it drops to his side, and he takes a step back, as if to give me and my computer some space.

There's only one new comment for me.

ZED:
What's next?

Next.

Because I only have a week in which to post another secret, complete another Assignment.

Next time. Something bigger, badder, scarier.

Next. Time.

“What's that?” Devon's voice interrupts the loop of
next next next
spiraling in my head. He has snuck around behind me. His elbows are on the back of the armchair, and he is bent over so far that I can feel his breath as it hits the top of my head. It's warm and blows around the little stray hairs that have escaped from my ponytail.

“Hey!” I say, the noise popping out, the sound version of a jack-in-the-box. I close the computer and hug it to my chest, but when I turn around, the look on his face says he's seen too much.

“Who are those people?” he says, drawing his words out slowly. I don't say anything, because I don't really
know
. “Assignment completed?” he keeps going.

“Could I get a ride home?” I say.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure no one is reporting my parents to the police for, like, a domestic disturbance,” I try to joke. He doesn't laugh.

“No, what was that site?”

“Is this what having a sibling is like? Spying and butting in and stuff?” There's a shake in my voice that I have to hope he misses.

Devon clears his throat, puts his hands up to surrender, doesn't say anything else.

Outside the window, it starts to snow.

Seventeen.

Devon holds my hand to walk me to his car. Because of the ice, he says. We both have mittens on, so the grasp is soft and clumsy and reminds me mostly of being a little kid. Devon in general reminds me of when I was a little kid. So does snow.

We don't speak on the ride to my house, except when Devon asks me if I'm sure I don't want to grab a pizza, and I shake my head really fast back and forth. Zed will be disappointed when I share this part. I should say yes. To everything, I think.

As I'm getting out of the car, Devon tilts his head. He can't see my mouth or my forehead—I'm all wrapped up in a scarf and an oversize winter hat. Safe from scrutiny.

“Call me if you need another ride,” he says.

“It was nice of you to come,” I say. He has to ask me
to repeat myself, the sound is so muffled by my thick fleece scarf. “Or stay. It was nice of you to stay and make sure I didn't, like, implode or whatever.”

It looks like there's more he wants to say, but the snow's coming down harder now, so I pretend it's urgent that I get out of the car this instant.

“I like hanging out with you,” I say after a big breath.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he says. It's a funny response. I expected him to say he liked hanging out with me too, or even that he is into me or wants to take me out next weekend or something. But he sounds certain, when he says it will all work out, and for a moment I don't feel the snow somehow finding its way under my scarf or blurring my vision when it sticks to my lashes. I feel only his sureness and the flipping in my stomach that is different from the pounding that comes when I am near Joe. But it's something.

I nod and wave and kick snow up, walking to my front door, and Devon doesn't drive away until I am all the way inside the (very quiet) house.

“Hello?” I call out.

There aren't calls back or feet scuffling or showers running. There is no one waiting for me by the kitchen counter with pamphlets on teen drug use or stern talkings-to. “Hello?” I try again, louder and faker, a sound
that doesn't expect a response. I wander from room to room, some part of me thinking maybe Paul is passed out, but he snores and I would have heard the buzzing breath of his sleep if he were conked out on a sofa somewhere.

I don't mind the house all emptied out like this, except that I think it's intended as a punishment in this circumstance. I am supposed to think about what I have done. They didn't need to leave the house empty for me to do that. It's all I can think of anyway.

I get online and look for Joe. He pops up immediately, and I think maybe I can distract myself with him.

Long day
, I type in. I've only turned on one weak lamp in Cate's office, and it's mostly lit by winter moonlight reflecting off the thin layer of snow gathering outside the window. It's cozy and warm and pretty as fuck.

What happened?
he asks.

Pregnancy made Cate crazy
, I say. Smiley face. LOL. Anything to lighten the mood. If Sasha Cotton is the troubled, fragile sex kitten, the least I can be is bubbly and peppy and fun.

Sounds like it
. Joe isn't talkative tonight. It happens from time to time, but I hate that it's happening now, when I need to give my heart something sweet to spin around.
I'm busy, talk later?

Busy means Sasha is there. Or on the phone. Or on
his mind. I hover my fingers over the keys, trying to think of something to type that will keep him chatting for even another second. But before I can get any words out, he logs off, his name vanishing from the computer screen and leaving me alone. I listen to the nothingness for all of three seconds before it's too much to handle. Where the hell are my parents? I choose Indie Dance on Pandora and turn the speakers all the way up. Keyboards, echoing percussion, and feminine male singers fill the room with sound, and I sing along at the top of my lungs. Dance a little in my chair. Tell my heart to stop leaping in every direction: love, fear, nostalgia, boredom, interest, thrill, loneliness.

I fall asleep before either of my parents makes it home. My new life is wearing me out so much that I can't even make it to my bedroom, so I curl up on the couch fully clothed with late-night television and a worn green quilt and probably drool all over the pillow, and when I wake up the next morning, it's only Paul who has returned.

Elise,

I am the worst. THE. WORST. I'm so sorry.

I'll make sure we have chocolate chip scones every day for the next YEAR if you don't stop talking to me. I'll tell Devon . . . something. I'll make it go away.

I'm the worst, the worst, the worst.

I can't even.

I love you. You're amazing. You're better than me. I will fix it.

Me

She doesn't respond.

I did not know it was possible to have even fewer people like me than I did twenty-four hours ago, but there you go.

Eighteen.

Ethics is my least favorite class. Not only because Jemma is in it with me, but also because I never agree with anything the teacher says. Or anything the writers and
philosophers we read about say.

And this morning I hate it even more because I am sleepy-headed and strange, coming off everything that happened over the weekend. Yesterday, Paul and I stayed in separate corners of the house, not speaking. I didn't do homework or watch TV or go online. I slept and felt sorry for myself and listened for Cate to walk in the door. She didn't. This morning, I couldn't get it together to shower or do my hair or put on makeup, so I'm messy and feel my own grossness under my red cashmere sweater and too-tight black pants. I feel Luke and his cohorts looking at my ass like it's a freaking hamburger when I'm getting into my chair.

I haven't had coffee, either. No stopping by Tea Cozy this morning. No Cate making me a home-latte. Instead, it was me and Paul frowning and pretending to eat cereal and avoiding eye contact.

Ethics class and the overheating of Circle Community in general are making everything worse.

“Hey,” Jemma says before Ms. Gilbert has gotten to class. I can't imagine she's talking to me. No one is talking to me. I have LBC and that's it and whatever, that's all I need, anyway. I make my mouth a steely line so they all know I do not care what they think about me.


Tabitha
,” Jemma says, already full of exasperation.

I barely recognize her voice. Or the classroom. The
whole world is unfamiliar. Conquerable. Mine.

I'm wearing red shoes today. Shoes like Star's. With a little heel and a strap over the ankle and a vintage, awkward patent-leather sheen. I am now a girl who wears red shoes and doesn't care.

“Oh,” I say, turning to Jemma. “Hey. What's up?” I look her dead in the eyes. She must not be expecting that, because she blinks, like, a thousand times.

“What are you doing with my brother?”

“Huh?”

“My
brother
,” Jemma says. Did she always talk to me like I didn't speak the language, or is this a new mode of communication she's adopted?

“You know,” I say, and take a deep breath, “we're not friends now. So you don't really get an opinion anymore. On my life. You know? I mean, hate me from afar or whatever. But don't talk to me about it.”

Other people are listening now. Not a few. All. All the other people are listening. I cross my legs, my stretchy black pants rubbing against themselves, and my red shoes glinting under fluorescent lights.

I hate them all. I straighten my back and smile, knowing that they all live their stupid Vermont lives, and I'm doing something Important and Real.

“That's awesome, except you are throwing yourself at
my brother. You should have heard what he said to his friends on the phone yesterday. I mean, it's disgusting.”

Luke snorts out some obnoxious jock laughter. I cannot for the life of me picture Devon talking trash about me on the phone after the hour of time we spent together Saturday. I raise my eyebrows at Jemma, who obviously wanted me to blush and look away.

I have a shimmer of pride, or a whole flame of it, at being better than that now. At how much I'm growing.

“Huh. What'd he say, exactly?” I say. I flip some hair behind my shoulders. If she's going to hate me, she might as well really hate me.

“That, like, that you, whatever.” Now it's Jemma who is blushing and looking away. Alison elbows her, like she's supposed to be doing a better job at making me feel awful about myself. “Don't make me say this stuff,” Jemma continues after clearing her throat. “Please stay away. Please? You don't need to go after him, you know? You can get someone else.” She looks around the room at Luke and his cohorts, who are all laughing and chewing gum and drawing pictures of boobs on their notebooks.

BOOK: Life by Committee
4.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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