The Astonishing Adventures of Fan Boy and Goth Girl (19 page)

"So, uh, why do you, uh—"

"Cover up the goodies?" She's sarcastic, caustic as she turns to me, all buttoned up again. "Maybe I don't
like
guys who are drooling idiots. Maybe I don't
like
guys acting like I'm in heat or something."

"That's not fair. Not all guys are like that."

"Really? You're a pretty smart guy, right? And your IQ dropped about fifty points a minute ago."

"You surprised me." Lame excuse.

"How? Were you surprised that I have tits? I'm a
girl,
genius. They come with the ovaries and the monthly visits from Aunt Dot."

"No, I knew you had—" Oh, jeez, I almost said it! And "Aunt Dot"? Oh, man!

"Well, then what surprised you? That they're
biiiiiig?
" She draws it out like we're talking about King Kong or something. She strikes a pose and a part of me can't help noticing that nothing jiggles or moves, and I offer silent admiration to the bra designer who figured that out. "Oh my God!" she screams in a falsetto, pointing to an imaginary horizon. "Look! It's Kyra's tits! They're blocking out the
sun!
"

"Stop it."

"Now, I know they're not as big as Dina's, though, so I can just imagine what would happen if you saw
them.
You'd go into cardiac arrest right there."

"Why are you doing this?"

She ignores me, pacing, angry. "All the same. All the same. It's so stupid. They're
tits.
Don't tell me you've never seen them before. You've been to a goddamn rated R movie. They're all the same. Why is everyone so
obsessed?
"

"
You're
the one who's obsessed. God, you're the one who's all, 'Tits this! Tits that!'"

"You looked!"

"You took off your bra!" Jesus, what was I
supposed
to do! "I didn't ask you to. I don't care."

"Yeah?" She grabs a page of
Schemata.
"You sure got
Courteney
looking nice and healthy here."

"So what? It's just a drawing."

"It's not just a drawing!" She stops and comes closer.
Too
close. A few minutes ago I wanted to be this close, but now it's like I'm being stalked as prey. She leans in. "It's
Dina,
isn't it?" She's almost whispering now. "Dina, Dina, Dina."

"Shut up." My cheeks flame, burning up. So what? So what if I like Dina? So what?

"I don't take gym, but I still have to go into the locker room, you know." Whispering. Whispering, but
loud.
"I've
seen
them."

"Shut up."

"I've seen them, you know. I could
describe
them to you. Do you want that? Is that what you want?"

No. Yes. No.

"It's not the real thing, but you've got a good imagination, and then you could draw her, or maybe that's in a later scene, maybe that's on a page you haven't shown me yet?"

"No."

"Are you sure? Are you sure there isn't a shower scene in your little love letter to Dina?"

"It's not a love letter. It's a graphic novel. It's
literature.
"

"I have my camera phone. I can do
better
than describe them. I can take pictures."

Why? Why is she doing this to me? "Stop it, OK? Just stop it."

"Does it hurt? Does it hurt to be the big bad artist up here"—she taps my head—"and just another one of Dina's lust-puppies down here?" She reaches for it, but I grab her wrist, grab it too hard. I'm a skinny little nothing, but I'm still a guy, and I have more strength than her. She yelps with pain, and I can't let go. My hand won't work. She tugs, grimacing, but I'm like a lobster or something.

"Let go of me!"

"Fine!" My hand springs open and she falls back, arms pin-wheeling. She crashes into my bookcase.

"You're a goddamn freak!" she yells.

"
I'm
a freak?
I'm
a freak? You're the one who flashed me! You're the one who offered to take pictures in the locker room!"

"Oh, please! Don't be such a prude! You've been checking me out every chance you get. You like to pretend you're different, but you're just like the rest of them."

"I am
not!
I am not like those guys! I'm—"

"What, an
artist?
"

I'm stumbling over my own words. I'm incoherent with anger and confusion. I don't know how I got here. I don't think she knows, either. "At least I know what I am! At least I'm
doing
something!"

"Oh, yeah, you're doing something. Comic book wannabe."

"Ha! Wannabe? You want to talk about that? You're a freakin' Goth wannabe. You're a Neil Gaiman wannabe. You're a
suicide
wannabe."

She freezes. Freezes like death. But I can't stop. I just can't. It's like she stabbed me in the heart and instead of gushing blood, I'm gushing every awful thing I can imagine.

"You and your scars. Please! You don't kill yourself like this!" I gesture, holding a wrist turned up to the ceiling, then pretending to cut across it with my other hand. "That's just a cry for help. That's just attention.
Everybody
knows that.

Cutting across just gets you to the hospital. That's just from movies and TV shows and stuff like that. You didn't really try to kill yourself. You just wanted attention, but you screwed up. Try harder next time."

The room goes loud with silence. Neither of us talking. Our chests both heaving, but no sound of breath. Did I really just say that? Did I?

"Go to hell," she says. She doesn't say it loud. Or with anger. Or with venom. She says it with exhaustion. And she walks out of the room and up the stairs and out the front door.

A minute later, Mom's standing in my bedroom door, her hair wet. She must have been in the shower.

"What happened?" she asks. "I heard voices. Did you guys have a fight?"

I look around the room. Nothing's really changed, but somehow nothing's the same.

"What happened?" she asks again.

"I don't know," I tell her. And I don't. I really don't. "She got pi—uh, angry about something and left."

Mom fixes me with her tell-me-the-truth look, the one that hasn't worked since fifth grade. "Did you say something? Did you
do
something?"

"No, Mom! Jeez!" I drop onto the bed and stare at my feet. "Everything was going fine." Kyra's naked torso has burned itself into my brain—I think I can still see it, like an afterimage of a camera flash. "Everything was fine. I think she hates me now."

She joins me on the bed,
whuff!
-ing as the springs groan at the preggo-weight. She puts an arm around me and makes me lean my head on her shoulder, even though I don't really want to. Her boobs are too big because she's pregnant and it's
really
weird being close to them.

"I don't know what to tell you," she says, taking on that tone that proclaims her adulthood and her superior wisdom. "But, you know, someone told me once that the opposite of love isn't hate. It's indifference."

"I don't get it." Never mind that love isn't an issue here.

"It just means that if someone hates you, they still have feelings for you. If they really didn't care about you, they'd just forget about you. They wouldn't even waste the time hating you."

Sort of like Mom hating Dad? I think about that for a second—is there a chance? Does she even realize what she's saying?

"I don't know, Mom. Doesn't make much sense to me."

"Well, what can I tell you. Women are complicated."

"Yeah. Hormones." Heard it on a sitcom once.

It doesn't get me a laugh. She just sighs, hugs me tighter, and says, "No. Men."

O
NCE THE STEP-FASCIST COMES HOME
, Mom disappears upstairs, leaving me in my room, where I indulge in some shocked crying for a little while. Crying is fine, as long as you're alone. It's not a big deal. I do it all the time. poor me.

I shake it off after a little while.

"
Other people are just ... there.
" That's what Kyra said before. "
If they aren't helping, they're just in the way. Weave around them, knock them over, do whatever you have to, but get past them.
"

Good advice. Best advice I've ever heard. I figure it applies to her, too.

I work into what I once heard described as "the small hours," fixing pages, photoshopping, counting away the moments of my life on computer progress bars that go way too slow. I don't even bother with the Internet, except for a quick log on to check that Bendis is still appearing in a couple of days. All's well on that front. I don't even know the guy, but he hasn't let me down yet.

After midnight, I remember my homework and spend a couple of hours on genotypes and phenotypes, the Middle East, and Poe. I occasionally tap my fingers on the hard drive case for good luck and comfort, but I don't open it. No need. It's right there.

Before my eyes blur to complete uselessness, just before I shut down, I make myself send an e-mail to Kyra. I barely type "I'm sorry" before I have to crawl into bed. I'm not even sure what I'm sorry about. I'm not even sure if I
am
sorry. But I send the e-mail anyway.

Just to make things perfect, I get an e-mail from eBay, telling me I was outbid on the
Giant-Size X-Men
#1.

I
'M ALONE
. N
OT LITERALLY
, in that there are people around me, but for all intents and purposes, I'm alone. Cal's nowhere to be found and when I see Kyra in the hall, she looks away.

Wednesday. The word comes from "Woden's day." A day to honor the Norse god of wisdom and battle and stuff like that. The Norse always managed to mix violence up with their wisdom. Gaiman's book
American Gods
is actually all about Woden, which makes me start thinking about Kyra, which just pisses me off all over again.

I thought life at South Brook High was hell before. I was wrong.
This
is hell. No one to talk to. No one to look at. No one at all. I don't even have my bullet with me. I was up so late that I only woke up when Mom pounded on the door with just minutes to spare until the bus arrived. I never had a chance to grab it from the hard drive case.

I sure could use it, though. In English, Lisa Carter is wearing a skirt, but she keeps her legs primly crossed, as if she knows. And maybe she does. My eyes dart to Cal, who's ignoring me, staring instead at his book. Maybe Lisa knows. Maybe
everyone
knows. Maybe they've known all along and the conspiracy of silence is just to make me complacent until they decide the time is ripe to really bust me open.

I find my Panty Algorithm notes. It's a code I invented; no one knows what it means. But looking at it now, it seems suddenly, hugely obvious. As if anyone looking at it could tell instantly that I've spent the better part of my sophomore year English class exploring Lisa Carter's inviting crotch with my eyes. I tear the sheet out and fold it up, then quietly tear it into strips.

"Why would he do that?" Mrs. Hanscomb asks as I come back to earth. "Does anyone know? Does anyone have any idea why he would destroy himself with drugs and alcohol?" No one says anything. "Come on, everyone. He was enormously talented, a brilliant, innovative writer and poet. Why would he—oh, good, yes?" This last because I've raised my hand before I even know what I'm going to say.

"The question isn't why he did it," I say. "The question is why
not
do it?" Every eye is focused on me. I look down at my desk and the pile of scraps on it, all that remains of the Panty Algorithm experiment. "He didn't really have any friends. He never had money. His own family couldn't stand him. He washed out of West Point, and he was a great writer, but in his own time no one appreciated it. No one would publish him. So it's a miracle he didn't die sooner. Face it: No one cared about him or his work until he was dead."

When class ends, Mrs. Hanscomb calls me over to her desk. "I just wanted to thank you for your comments," she says, smiling. "You always have something interesting to say. I love the way you play devil's advocate. You really get your classmates thinking."

This has got to be a joke.

I am truly, completely alone, a fact driven home to me in gym. Mitchell Frampton's lip has healed, but otherwise nothing else has changed, including the precise spot he's chosen to hit me. When I lift my eyes to the bleachers, there's no one there. Kyra's gone, and I know what hell really is. I guess I always knew.

Hell is being alone.

T
ERRORISTS HAVE TAKEN OVER
South Brook High School. They—

No. Screw it. Who am I kidding? Terrorists are
never
going to take over friggin' South Brook High School. More's the pity.

So it's me. It's just me.

And I walk through the front doors like Keanu, long black trench concealing a pistol and a shotgun that I filched from the step-fascist's collection. The List is rolling through my head like a credit reel, and I'm taking them all down, all of them, precise and perfect in my aim. I wheel around, exploding jocks and tormentors and I—