My Stupid Girl (36 page)

“Lucy, I…”

“Get out!” She screamed, pushing me against
the counter. Her voice was so loud it prompted a rumbling from upstairs. Her
parents were coming down to make sure their precious girl was safe and happy
and getting what she wanted.

“Fine,” I hissed at her. I flung open the
bathroom door and stormed past her parents without acknowledging them. Both
looked shocked when they saw my completely exposed face and barely contained
rage. I didn’t even care. I just fumbled with the front door until it opened,
slamming it behind me. The cold air was a relief, like walking out of an
inferno.

I left the lights of Lucy’s house behind me
and started walking. As I got further away from her house, my lungs filled with
breath after deep breath of cold air and I started to think clearly. This was,
literally, officially, the worst night ever. I could feel my life come
crumbling down around me. Lucy’s words: ”you should feel lucky someone wants
you,” were the only thing playing in my head, over and over. It was like a
broken record machine that I couldn’t turn off, that hit every bad, sad, angry
thought I’d ever had and made all of it real. I finally unclenched my hands and
realized I was still holding Lucy’s ring. It had made an angry red indent in my
tightly closed fist.

The fiasco of the last twenty-four hours
washed over me. All of the emotions I’d felt, all of the fear, guilt, and
frustration came over me and I couldn’t do anything but yell. I stood in front
of some random person’s house, early on a dark morning, and screamed at the top
of my lungs at anything, everything. Dogs started howling along, but no lights
came on. No one even noticed me. I broke off and started running.

I hated that house, I hated the people that
lived in it and I really hated this gaping hole in my chest that felt like
someone had punched my heart out.

20. ISAIAH

I didn’t get the deposit back on the zoot suit. They
wanted the jacket with the suit pants and, as far as I knew, Rachel was still
sucking on it somewhere.

My grandma hit the roof when she finally saw
me. When she’d arrived at Lucy's house they told her I’d driven myself home.
When she investigated, she’d discovered that I’d known she was coming and I’d
still left the house alone. I was in for it; she was the most furious I’d even
seen her.

I couldn’t even apologize. I would have
done it again in a heartbeat.

“What’s wrong with you, David?! Don’t you
think of anyone but yourself?” My grandma spat, storming around her little
living room. I had no energy to calm her down. I just shrugged and looked at
the floor. A shower and bed were all I wanted right now. For the rest of my
life, actually. I guess she finally noticed how out of it I was because she put
her hand on my face and made me look at her. 

“What happened, David? You look like you’ve
seen a ghost or something.”

I slipped out of my grandmother’s hands and
sat down on the reclining chair. I put my hands through my hair and hung on to
the roots, like those crazy people do in movies. 

“I’m still trying to figure out what just
happened.” Looking up at her, I saw that she had calmed herself enough to sit
down and try to not talk while I got my thoughts together. She adopted a
worried look instead of her furious one, but I was pretty sure that would only
last a moment before I told her what happened tonight. My grandma was so
uncomfortable. She didn’t know what was going on and wanted so badly to help
me.

I decided to just tell her.

“I got mad at Lucy tonight.” I felt like I
was going to throw up. “I told her that I wished she just drowned.” My face
fell into my hands as the realization of what I had actually said to my
girlfriend washed over me. It was the worst thing I could have ever said to
her, and the most untrue words my lips ever uttered. 

I looked up slowly to see my grandma’s reaction.
I’d expected her to get upset but instead she just looked questioningly at me.

“What did she say to you?” 

“After I said that to her?” I asked,
confused by what she meant.

“No, to make you say that.” For a second, I
had to pause in surprise that that was the first question she had. It was so
unlike any reaction I was used to, but was the most insightful question that
could have been asked. Grandma was the closest thing I’d ever had to a mother
and mothers knew those kinds of things, I guess. 

I patted my hair down on my face, realizing
for the first time since my grandma had been home that my face was completely
clean and free of hair. I instantly felt even more depressed. That had been
such an amazing moment, letting go like I had. Remembering that moment and the
ugliness that had followed, I re-realized how betrayed I felt.

“She told me that I was lucky someone
wanted me.” My insides became fire as I said it, a new hole starting next to
the old one in my heart. No words were big enough to express how much that
phrase, coming from Lucy Peterson’s mouth, had hurt me.

Grandma looked at me with those old eyes
that knew me too well and smiled, not a happy smile, but one that old people
get when they realize how young you are. 

“You know she didn’t mean that.”

“Whether she did or didn’t, she still said
it.” I looked sternly at my grandmother because I could tell she was going to
start defending Lucy. “You don’t do something because you know it will hurt
someone just to get your way.” I crossed my arms defiantly.

“Like how you told her you wished she
drowned?” Grandma still looked very kindly at me but I didn’t want to hear it,
no matter how right she was. It was a strange feeling, going from being willing
to do anything for Lucy to not wanting to talk to her at all. I had no desire
to be around her; even thinking about her made me feel sick. I couldn't have
cared less if I never saw her or talked to her again. Half of that feeling came
from the fact that I was upset with her, but I think the biggest part was that
I had affirmed that I was becoming a person who reacted exactly the way my
father did.

“I don’t want to hear it, Grandma.” 

“Don’t you look at me like that.” She
glared. I relaxed my shoulders and stopped glaring, not wanting to fight anymore,
least of all with my grandma.

I felt miserable and didn’t want to talk
with her anymore. She always made me see my fault in situations so I had to go
and change it.

Right now I just wanted to be mad. She knew
it, too.

“I understand why you’re upset, David; what
she said was mean. But how you choose to react is what you’re going to have to
own. Let Lucy worry about her part in this; you worry about yours.” 

She walked over to me and stood me up. “If
you live in a world where you justify your own cruelty then you’re doing
something wrong.” She patted my check then gave me a strong hug. I felt her
love seep through her skin. What an amazing thing, to have this woman in my
life. I wished it had always been like this; I’d be a different
person.         

I knew I had to deal with the Dad thing.
Everything my grandma was saying about becoming like him was happening. She was
right about figuring out how to forgive him. But there was the million-dollar
question. How do you forgive someone who didn’t deserve forgiving? How do you
forgive someone who, as far as I knew, didn’t even want to be forgiven? Maybe I
should just go up to him and say, “Hey, jerk, I forgive you for being a jerk.”
Plus, I wasn’t sure it was useful. Would I just live the rest of my life pretending
that my history with my dad never existed? 

I thought about the time I climbed up that
ridiculous ladder to Lucy’s room and overheard her mother telling her the
importance of forgiveness. She said that it was a choice that you sometimes had
to make daily. All I really knew was that I hated my dad and I didn’t want to
be like him and, according to my grandma, those two things went hand in hand.
So I had to figure out a way to not hate him. I thought about a wife I might
have someday, and the children we would have together. I would rather burn a
million times over than mistreat them. 

I had always felt that way, but tonight I
had found myself in a situation where I could have proved that and I failed
dismally. The look in Lucy’s eyes replayed in my mind and it made me want to
shrivel up and disappear. She’d been terrified; all trust had left her.

“Grandma, I’m going to bed.” I walked to my
room, not even bothering to ask if I could leave. My room was filled with
things that reminded me of Lucy. Her brown jacket with the bright pink fur
around the hood lay crumpled on my chair. There were hair ties scattered around
my room, and I knew I would find a few of her socks in my laundry the next time
I folded it. I looked down at my pinky finger, where her little purity ring
still resided. It only reached my knuckle. It was so small. It was beautiful
and sparkled when I moved it, just the way Lucy had. I closed my eyes and put
my hand down, out of my view. I was going to have to stop thinking about her
charms. I didn’t want a girlfriend who said one thing and wanted another. 

Dragging me to church then trying to take
my virginity had been bizarre. I knew I wasn’t ready for the sex chapter in my
life to be opened yet. An even bigger worry for me, though, was that I didn’t
think Lucy was ready for it. She was trying to do something wild, and wasn’t
really thinking about what it meant in the grand scheme of things. Knowing that
and going along with all of it would have been wrong. Besides, after the way
I’d acted tonight, I wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility. 

Besides, I had this weird commitment I
couldn’t explain with Mr. Peterson. I respected and appreciated him too much to
just flip-flop like that.

* * *

Over the next seven weeks I didn’t have much
time to think about Lucy. Johnny and I spent that time taking turns helping
Isaiah as he was healing. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I would spend my whole
lunch period doing my homework so I wouldn’t have to do it that evening. Then I
would drive to Kalispell directly after school to be with Isaiah.

I’d also spend Saturday and Sundays with
him, usually just sleeping in his house in one of the many vacant rooms. Johnny
did Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Isaiah lived a crazy life. We’d always
known it but it became very obvious after The Barn. The boy nearly burned to
death; he spent a week in the hospital recovering. Then he was sent to a burn
unit were they did intensive surgery that included skin grafting. His parents
were never so much as five minutes late for work. Isaiah was taken care of,
financially anyways, but his father was just as negligent as mine. It was in a
different way, though. Mine was physically abusive while his was physically
non-existent. 

Isaiah’s dad was a successful lawyer who
had it all: a beautiful home, a beautiful wife, and a son to take on the family
fortune. The tricky part was that he was a closet alcoholic who hid himself in
his office all night and never came out. Isaiah’s mom found other things to do,
outside of the house, to distract herself from her husband not being there.

So Johnny and I were left to take care of
our friend. I think he preferred it that way. Even with all the hospital time,
he was still Isaiah, which was an amazing relief. Set the guy on fire and he
can still pull out the funny in every situation and treat it like a joke.
Granted, his sarcasm was lessened when he was on his pain medicine, which he
had to take often. But he still brought out a few zingers when the occasion
called for it. 

The funniest was when Evelyn would show up
at his house to help us. She usually came over unannounced, which would leave
Isaiah completely frazzled. Johnny and I would pop up a bag of popcorn, sit
back in chairs and watch. The first time, we did it as a joke, but it was such
a legitimately good show that we kept it up. Evelyn would wobble into the room,
leg in cast, crutch under her arm, looking grumpy as ever but determined to
help. She fussed over Isaiah, making sure his pillow was perfect, his water was
filled, and his medicine was near him. I couldn’t tell if Isaiah enjoyed her
company or not. Sometimes, when he didn’t think we were looking, he was super
nice to her, responding to her talkativeness with a smile or thanking her when
she would give him something. But most of the time he just clicked his tongue
at her and sneered when she spoke. There was an awful lot of huffing involved
as well. 

I asked him one day, after she had left,
why he was so mean to her. 

“I don’t know, man, she’s like seriously
pretty, and all up in my business.” Isaiah seemed irritated by the fact that I
hadn’t missed the gorgeous female in his room.

“She is pretty, Isaiah. I’m surprised
though, about how non-evil she is.” I was thinking of what she and Rachel had
done when we’d been out bowling.

“It’s a shame,” he responded.

“So, you don’t like her?”

“I don’t know; I guess she’s cool.”  Isaiah
hid his long face from me by putting his pillow on top of his head. We were in
his freshly cleaned room, courtesy of Evelyn. He lay on his bed with his
bandaged leg up on a few fluffed pillows.

“She seems to like you.” I spoke carefully,
trying to hide my shock at this display of nervousness from the normally
stone-cold Isaiah.

“You think?” He looked out his bedroom
window and chewed on his lip.  “She practically gave me a sponge bath the other
day.” He started to laugh, but stopped short and sucked in deeply. He did that
whenever he hurt himself, by either rubbing his leg the wrong way or moving too
fast. He continued, pointing to his leg. “I think she might just feel guilty.
Whenever she gives me my pain medication she tells me how dumb it was to go in
after her.” 

“She’s right.” I smiled at him.

“I was trying to help her get her out from
under all those people, not get a new pet.”  His voice was grumpy but his eyes
were soft. And then he made direct eye contact with me, which was bad news. He
grinned and said, “Speaking of pets...” I groaned instantly, regretted bringing
anything about Evelyn up. “She told me that you haven’t talked to Lucy in a
while?”

“Oh really? I didn’t realize Lucy and
Evelyn talked.” I tried to redirect. 

“Well, genius, they must. Unless Evelyn is
following Lucy around doing covert surveillance.” By the way he stared at me, I
knew it wasn’t over. I sighed deeply and just told him.

“That night, after we came back from the
hospital, she told me that she wanted to be with me, like intimately.” Isaiah’s
eyebrows shot up to his forehead. 

“She took off that stupid purity ring of
hers and just handed it to me, like it was payment and time to do whatever she
wanted.” I felt stupid as I said it. 

“So wait, was she saying that she wanted to
do it that second? Like, ‘you’re MINE, Davie boy!’”

“Umm.” I shrugged my shoulders, and tried
to answer honestly: “I don’t know.” 

“So, you didn’t want to be with her?” His
voice was gleeful.

“You know that wasn’t the problem, jerk.
Stop loving this so much.”

His face instantly took on a repentant
look. It was so good it was fake.

“So what happened, David?”

I looked into his eyes, waiting for the
reprimand, but it didn’t come. Lucy must not have told anyone what I had said
to her. I knew that if Isaiah knew, he wouldn’t be joking around like this.
He’d be ripping into me. Not because I’d said something that cruel, but because
he knew that I wouldn’t mean something like that. Not to Lucy, anyways. I just
shrugged. 

“Okay, you don’t want to talk about it.” Isaiah
shifted into a different position before he continued. “That’s cool, but since
you’re here and I’m guessing you’re not going away, let's not talk about girls.
Like, ever again.” I nodded in agreement. He reached for the controller to the
brand new gaming system he’d gotten from his parents, who, no lie, left it in
his room while he was sleeping. I joined in, happy to be doing something
distracting. 

* * *

Another two months went by. I spent my time
learning to dress Isaiah’s burns (a useful skill for anyone to know) and
playing video games to help him pass the evenings. The one thing I tried very
hard not to do was think of Lucy.  I hadn’t heard from her, which was one of
those good-things/bad-things. I hated not hearing from her but I hated that about
as much as the thought of talking to her again.

It was a nice change in our routine when
Isaiah got to the point where he was ready for physical therapy. The doctor
said it wouldn’t take long for him to train his leg muscles again, but it would
be painful. Johnny and I spent one week taking him to the therapist every
afternoon. That was, until Evelyn learned what we were doing. She took over
completely.

She was like one of those crazy mother
bears who smacked her baby cubs around but if someone else looked at them funny
she would eat that person alive. The first day of her reign, I got to Isaiah’s
house to pick him up and “Evil” was already there. She was helping him out of
his bed, putting him in his wheelchair, and pushing him out to her car. She wheeled
past me so quickly I didn’t even have a chance to blink. She was so little and
fragile-looking that it amazed me how strong she was. When she had helped us
move those big boxes in front of the blocked entrance at the barn I thought it
must of been some kind of adrenaline rush or something.

But she was actually buff. I wouldn’t want
to get into a fistfight with her. She was especially quick now, after getting
out of the leg cast, which really hadn’t hindered her anyway. The girl was
determined, I had to give her that. It really cracked me up when she wrapped
her tiny arms around Isaiah, plopped him into the passenger’s seat of her car,
and fold the wheelchair up like it was a little plastic folding chair. Isaiah’s
face pleaded for help as he sat in the car, waiting for her to get in and drive
off with him.

“Hey, can I come?” I asked, running to the
car, and jumping in the back, not waiting for her to answer.

“Yeah, whatever," she said grumpily.
Isaiah looked back at me a few times then looked at Evelyn, a mixture of shock
and awe on his face. He looked like he was trying to figure out some kind of
jigsaw puzzle. I knew how the guy felt; it wasn’t that long ago that I had been
sitting in the passenger’s seat of a girl’s car, wondering what on earth she
was doing with a guy like me. Evelyn was prettier than the average girl. She
looked like she had some Portuguese in her and she spoke with a southern
accent, definitely not from Montana. 

Her eyes were round and popped from her
heart-shaped face. She had olive-colored skin and black curly hair that hung
just past her shoulders. It was really funny to me, though, that her beautiful
face was usually scowling. If she was talking her green eyes were squinting
like you were the stupidest person alive. 

Isaiah’s physical therapy was on the same
side of town where my father lived. It was an older part of Kalispell, about
thirty miles away from were Lucy lived. Since I’d moved in with my grandma,
over a year ago, I had no reason to come over this far. The streets all felt
cold. Even being inside of a warm car, I could feel all of my lonely memories
following us down the street, trying to catch up with me. I was the master of
brushing things off and convincing myself that they weren’t a big deal, but
being here and feeling those familiar emotions rushing back on me, it was hard
to pretend. 

Evelyn parked her car and jumped to go get
the wheelchair out of the back. As soon as she was out, Isaiah spun around and
started flapping his arms.

“Dude, get me out of here before she comes
back. That girl is freaking me out.” I laughed and hopped out, cutting in front
of her to help him stand up. He grabbed onto the side of the car with one hand
and let me lift him carefully and place him into the waiting wheelchair. Evelyn
looked thunderously at me. I thought about bumping her aside and pushing him
all the way up to the office, but I figured I’d probably get a fat lip before
she let that happen. 

The physical therapist was nice and let
both of us stay with Isaiah while he did his exercises. The first ten minutes
they pushed down on his kneecap, stretching the top part of his calves. That
looked painful, especially because the burns weren’t completely healed yet. 

“Do you have to do that?” Evelyn snapped,
after Isaiah had closed his eyes and dropped his head from the pain. The
physical therapist looked up and smiled apologetically.

“I do. It's important to begin the process
before his skin has completely healed to avoid too much scar tissue.” He
slapped Isaiah’s back then picked him up so he was lying back on a mat. Next
exercise the therapist would bend the leg back as far as it could go, until
Isaiah said it was too much. There were tons of others, but no matter what
Evelyn was by his side, ready to lend a hand if needed. At the end, the
therapist told us to wait a few minutes as he printed out a set of at-home
stretches.

Evelyn hurried to help Isaiah sit back
down. He slapped at her hand.

“I can do it,” he growled. 

“Sorry,” she said miserably, looking down
at the ground as he wheeled away from us to the bathroom. She plopped into the
chair next to me and put her face in her hands. 

“Why does he hate me?” She said through her
long fingers.

“He doesn’t hate you,” I answered,
surprised at her openness. 

“He acts like he hates me. He looks like he
is going throw up every time I touch him.”  She looked up at me with sad eyes.
What is it with beautiful females and sad eyes?

“He probably does feel like he is going to
throw up when you touch him.” I laughed but continued quickly when I saw her
face drop even more. “He’s a grump and he’s just not used to you. Give him
time, he will come around." To my amazement, I saw a big fat tear fall out
of her left eye and slide down her cheek.

“He should hate me.” 

“Ah, Evelyn, the barn was his choice to
make. He didn’t have to go running in after you. Don’t do that to yourself.”
Although the tears were making me panicky, I was starting to like her even
more. The more I got to know her, the less she was like anything I thought.

“What’s wrong with you guys? Y’all have
like, superhero complexes or something? You gotta’ save everyone you see?” Her
voice was laced with disgust. I started to laugh when she said that. Maybe it
was true. I patted her back a little. Awkwardly.

“I guess we’re just suckers for pretty
girls.” I shook my head, thinking about Lucy and that ridiculous black snow
suit she had on that first day. Evelyn smiled at me for the first time ever and
leaned back in her chair, finally looking a little bit comfortable. 

“Why did you and Lucy break up?” The
question wasn’t as much of a surprise as it should have been. If I wasn’t
mistaken, her big eyes looked worried. 

“It’s complicated.” Going over it for the
thousandth time wasn’t appealing.

“I’m sorry, for what we did at the bowling
alley. I told Lucy that.”

“That’s not why we broke up, but thanks.” I
thought about it for a moment. I had the opportunity here in front of me and I
couldn’t let it pass.

“Why did you do that?” I looked her
straight in the eyes, something I never would have done before I met Lucy. She
just shrugged, matter-of-factly.

“Jealous I guess.” 

“Of what?” 

“Lucy.” Evelyn laughed. “She is so…” she
paused and bit her lip in thought. “Confident, like she doesn’t even think
about how magnetic she is. Everyone just follows her around like stray puppies.
That’s hard to deal with.” I nodded, understanding a little. Evelyn looked
apologetic but kept going. “Rachel would never admit it but she has serious
Lucy-envy.”

“I guessed that much for myself, actually.”
My life had become a game of jealousy amongst beautiful teenage girls. How
great. 

“How is she?” I asked quietly.

“Lucy? She’s okay.” I could tell that there
was an edgy note in Evelyn’s voice. “She is different, David.” She looked up at
me and her usually harsh face was compassionate. “She is sad. She wouldn’t tell
anyone that. She’s walking around like nothing has happened but she is
definitely not the same. She’s trying to forget you, I think.”

I stopped for a moment to appreciate how
observant Evelyn was. All those times I took her silence as judgment on
everyone around her. I was beginning to realize she was always observing her
surroundings and seeing them clearly for what they were. 

I didn’t like hearing that Lucy was
miserable, and I was sure Evelyn was right. As sad as I felt, that night in her
bathroom checked me from getting too sorry for the situation. I was still angry
with her and it was blocking me from feeling any real compassion. I knew I
hadn’t lost my feelings for Lucy, but they were misplaced. I didn’t know what
shelf to put them on.