My Stupid Girl (34 page)

“I think so.”

The bouncer nurse spoke to me in a low
voice, “A lot of times,” she explained, “when someone is in a traumatic
situation the only thing their mind can focus on is what they were doing before
the event happened.” The needle nurse nodded agreement. I locked eyes with my best
friend.

“Oh you got a crush on a church chick now?
You joining the club?” I teased, wanting so badly to touch him. He sighed and
closed his eyes, the affects of the medicine already showing.

“She’s too pretty. Honestly, I don’t even
think she’s real,” he said slowly.

Needle nurse looked up from one of the
machines next to his bed. “He’s going to get very drowsy. You should stay, if
you can. This is the calmest he has been since he got here.” I looked around
the room and saw bouncer nurse and a third one looking grateful but tired. They
got busy with different things in the room, preparing to clean and wrap
Isaiah’s burns. I couldn’t even begin to think about how much pain he was in
right now. My face was constantly throbbing, like a sunburn, but his skin was
actually gone. He still had patches left, but he must have been on fire for a
while.

“Isaiah, NOT the best decision-making
today, man.” I bent down and gently put my forehead against his. He put his
good arm up and patted the top of my head clumsily. Needle nurse grabbed his
hand and put it back down, probably afraid of trying to stick him with a needle
again.

“I saw her getting run over by those
people; she couldn’t get up and everyone was just running around her…” His
words were beginning to slur, which I was grateful for. He seemed like he was
in a lot less pain.

“Besides, you’re one to talk, ice
princess.” He smirked. Only one side of his face went up, the other side was
numb.

“Excuse me.” Bouncer nurse came up behind
me and gently moved me to the side so she could start cleaning his mangled arm.
She smiled ruefully at me; I was part of the caretaking team now, it seemed. I
had never had people so grateful for my presence before.

“Is he going to be ok?” I asked the third
nurse. She was pouring liquid on Isaiah’s skin.

“He should be okay. This side of his body
is going to need grafts and will still be seriously scarred. But he is lucky.”
She stopped and shook her head. “The fire didn’t even touch his face. I can’t
believe it.”

“He is tall,” I said stupidly. She huffed
amusedly and continued cleaning.

Isaiah was completely out now, and once I
saw his burns cleaned I was relieved even more. It still looked bad, and the
smell hadn’t gotten any less terrible, but Isaiah still seemed much better than
I originally thought, with his blood on everyone in the room and him screaming.
I knew this was only temporary, that when he woke up he would be in pain again,
but I was glad that he was resting peacefully for now. As the nurses finished
up they spent a few minutes talking about who would prep Isaiah for surgery and
then started to trickle out. Bouncer nurse was the last one left in the room.
She gave me a pat on the shoulder and told me to go home and get some sleep. I
thought of Grandma again; I kind of hoped she was sleeping through all this.

I left the room feeling like I could have
done so much more. Why didn’t I go in there the moment I heard him screaming?
What kind of a friend was I? I felt very disappointed in myself, almost like I
somehow had caused all this. I had been pretending to be a cool kid with a
beautiful girlfriend who went to the prom. But Isaiah wouldn’t even have been
at the prom if it wasn’t for me. And at the hospital I just sat around with
everyone else, listening to him scream. I knew I didn’t cause the fire or any
injuries but I couldn’t help feeling like me being a big phony was the real
reason behind all this.

Then I saw Lucy standing in the middle of
the hall, both her parents running at her and holding her tight in their arms.
I slowly walked over to them and, to my surprise, her dad scooped me up without
warning and included me in their group hug. The faint scent of his cologne and
Lucy’s mom’s perfume was a welcome change from the dark smell in Isaiah’s room.
I buried my face in her dad’s shoulder and hugged him back, not wanting him to
let me go. I felt more comfortable with Lucy’s father than I ever had with my
own.

“David, you’re coming home with us. We
talked to your grandma.” He started laughing as he wiped tears away from his
eyes, “she is an ornery one.” I laughed too. I could only imagine what that
phone conversation had been like.

Lucy piped up, “She is going to come and
get you from our house later.” I nodded, following them through the crowded
hallways to the parking lot. The night air was crisp and cold and it made me
tired. More than anything, I wanted to go to bed and forget this day ever
happened. But I was happy to be spending some time with Lucy. Her home had
become a kind of sanctuary for me. I imagined curling up in a warm bed next to
my girlfriend and drifting off into sleep with my arms around her. The thought
made me so instantly happy that I shook my head and forced myself to think of
something else, anything else. We’d both been doing really well with the whole
“good” thing, and I wasn’t going to give either of us any more of a reason to
regret this evening. I was kind of proud of us, actually, for sticking with it.

“The prom was definitely worse than I
thought it was going to be,” I whispered in Lucy’s ear. She groaned, and put
her head against my shoulder.

It was two in the morning when we got to
Lucy’s house. Every light was on as we pulled into the driveway. As we walked
through the huge front door, we heard the news station blaring from TVs in two
different rooms. I imagine that Lucy’s parents had been trying to get
information from the news but once they got the call from the hospital they
went flying out the door, not bothering to even lock it behind them. At any
rate, they were worn out. They went to bed almost as soon as we got in, hugging
us both before they trudged upstairs.

“I’m going to take a quick shower and I’ll
come down and wait for your grandma with you,” Lucy said quickly, running up
the stairs before I could tell her to just go to sleep. I felt bad for keeping
her up but I did want to spend some time with her. I went into the downstairs
bathroom that I was so fond of and looked, for the first time that whole
evening, in a mirror. I was a mess. My hair was sticking up in every direction;
my face was red with black smudges all over it. The foot-shaped mark on the
left side of my face looked a lot better than it felt. But it was sore and I
could see a bruise starting to form under my cheek bone.

“Stupid people,” I murmured under my
breath. There wasn’t much I could do about it now. I needed to take a shower
and just sit under hot water for a year. I looked in the mirror again,
surprised to see myself. It was like looking at an old friend I hadn’t really
missed. There was a time when I used to look in the mirror and think to myself,
”this is as good as it gets.” Those had actually been good days. Most days I
scrutinized the way I looked, going over how every feature needed improvement.
I used to recognize my face in mirrors and pictures by its flaws. Those kinds
of days were long days that never seemed to end. After meeting Lucy though, I
mean really getting to know her, I would go through a whole day without
noticing flaws. Most days, I realized now, I hadn’t even looked. I smiled and
shook my head.

“What are you smiling at?” Lucy asked,
walking into the little bathroom in her blue plaid pajamas and matching tank
top. Her hair was soaking wet, but straight, like she had washed it and ran a
brush quickly through it. The tank top had wet marks where the ends of her hair
dripped onto it.

“That was quick,” I said, turning around to
face her.

“I’m the queen of three minute showers,”
she said, handing me her toothbrush. We were officially a nerdy couple, sharing
a toothbrush. I grinned again as the image of us brushing teeth together in
front of a mirror flashed through my head. I wanted matching sweatshirts.

“Thanks.” I opened two bathroom drawers
before I saw cinnamon toothpaste sitting at the bottom of one. I picked it up
and brushed my teeth, then re-brushed them. I hadn’t realized how dirty they
actually were. When I was done, I put the toothpaste back where I found it,
carefully rinsed the brush and splashed some water on the sink. I didn’t want
Lucy or her mom to have to clean up after me tomorrow.

The whole time I could see, in the mirror,
Lucy leaning against the wall, watching me with a little smile tugging at one
corner of her mouth.

I finally turned around and leaned against
the bathroom counter, grabbing her hips and pulling her towards me, alone for
the first time that entire evening. I knew my clothes were still disgustingly
grimy from the fire, but I didn’t care.

“Look at you.” She grabbed my face in her
hands and looked closely at it.

“You don’t look so hot yourself,” I laughed
at her, gently pulling a strand of hair out of her eyes and tucking it behind
her ear.

“Well, you do look hot, you always look
hot.” She smiled at me then put her hand up to my hair, brushing it straight
with her fingernails. It felt amazing. I closed my eyes, and without realizing
it at first, pushed my head against the pressure her nails were making, so my
head was going back and forth wherever she was touching.

“You’re so handsome,” she whispered. I held
my head still and peeked one eye open to look at her.

“Don’t patronize me,” I said, teasing her,
but her face stopped smiling. She looked me square in the eyes, with what I
knew was her serious face. Her hands stopped moving and I opened both eyes.

“Do you really not know what other people
think of you?” She cocked her head slightly to one side and her nose crinkled
up a little as she asked. Adorable. Then I realized she was waiting for an
answer.

“Other people?” I laughed, “what other
people?”

“Like, everyone at our high school. Most of
them didn’t even recognize you tonight.” She lifted her hands up a little when
she told me this, as if she couldn’t believe how clueless I had been for not
noticing everyone else. Like I’d been interested in looking at anyone except
her.

“Well, I didn’t look like myself tonight.”
I tucked another one of her long strands back behind her ear, sneaking a little
kiss on her cheekbone as I did. Her face stayed serious.

“That’s my point! You didn’t look like
David, you looked like someone else. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but people
didn’t recognize you, is all.” Her nose crinkled again but I tried to focus on
what she was saying and give her a real reply.

“Honestly, I didn’t realize people would
know it was me to begin with, even if I’d looked like me.” I stopped and
thought about that sentence. “Did that make sense?”

“Yes, I know what you mean. But David, you
have to realize that every single girl in school thinks you’re gorgeous.” She
tilted her chin down looking, for just a split second, like a librarian looking
over her glasses. That made me laugh.

“Shut up.” I gave her another little kiss,
accompanied by a tug to pull her closer. She was so into what she’d been saying
that she’d moved away a little while she’d been talking. 

“No, you.” Lucy squinted her eyes, and her
eyebrows went down into a mini-frown. She was thinking hard about something.
“I’ve talked to many girls over the last few years, and you are definitely well
known.” Then she scowled, which made me laugh again.

“You look jealous,” I teased. She shrugged
her shoulders, dismissing my joke. I kept going. “That can’t be right, Luce.
You didn’t even know my name when we first met, remember? You apologized then
told me you didn’t know my name.”

“Yeah… I lied,” she looked embarrassed, “I
didn’t want you to think I was creepy. You didn’t know my name, so I…” But there
I interrupted her.

“I knew your name. You introduced yourself
to me, but I already knew it.” She laughed when I said this and shook her head
again, breaking a few more of those beautiful hairs loose. As I tucked them
behind her ear I asked, “So, what do these so-called ‘other people’ think of
me? What’s the verdict?” I readjusted my seat against the counter. This was
turning into a real conversation. I didn’t mind, though. None of this was stuff
I had realized. For a second I wondered how much else I had missed from
focusing so much on my flaws, but let it go. Something to worry about another
day.

“Honestly, you were just known as that
pretty Goth boy whose makeup looked better than all of ours.” I snorted and she
stuck her tongue out at me which, obviously, deserved a kiss. She humored me
then kept going, “No one believed me when I told them I was dating you because
you were like this unapproachable silent grumpy boy who wouldn’t look at
anyone. Plus, you didn’t go to school with us anymore, so they all thought I
was making it up.”

“I looked at people!” I said in protest.

“David, did you know your face
automatically goes into a scowl when you make eye contact with most people?”
She grinned at me.

“It does not…” I thought back. I couldn’t
remember ever trying to scowl at anyone. She laughed at the look on my face.

“You’re doing it right now! It’s like
whenever you’re uncomfortable you go into grumpy mode.” I made my face go
blank. Her eyes met mine again. “David, the reason people don’t approach you
isn’t because of your appearance, it’s because you have a wall up. Most other
people think you’re really gorgeous.”

“Wow,” I said. The simple thought that
people noticed me and thought I was attractive was actually shocking news.
Again, I wondered how much I’d missed because I’d been so wrapped up in how I
thought things worked. I wasn’t sure how I felt about being a “pretty Goth boy”
but it was better than “total loser” by a long shot.