Authors: Marcy Beller Paul

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #Dating & Sex, #Friendship, #Homosexuality

Underneath Everything (32 page)

BOOK: Underneath Everything

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I always thought the Sanborn style was transparent, that it didn’t have an agenda or a point of view.

But looking between these two maps, it’s obvious now that it’s just a matter of style. Plain vs. ornate.

Informative vs illustrative. Detailed vs. decorative. It all depends on the mapmaker, and what kind of story she wants to tell.

I hang the map back on my wall and step up onto my bed. From this height I can see the entire contents of the box spread out on my floor—a whole year of someone’s life, laid out in scraps of paper. It gives me an idea.

After dinner that night I pack up all the pieces, laying each delicate page on top of another and slowly guiding the tall stack back into the bowed box. When I’m finished I close the cardboard flaps and push the box into the corner of my closet. Then I gather the discarded balls of tape, some pieces still fuzzy with the film of cardboard skin that ripped away with it, and toss them in the trash. The room feels open and spacious.

I grab my cell from my nightstand and send Kris a text:

Talk at the reservation this weekend? Promise to be your Worst Friend.

It’s the first real communication we’ve had since New Year’s Eve. She doesn’t respond right away. I don’t blame her, though. I’ve blamed her long enough.

After all, Kris didn’t force me to leave the night of the manhunt game. She didn’t ask me to walk away.

I could have taken Jolene’s hand. I could have gone back to find Hudson on those steps. I could have said no when Jolene showed me those ropes.

I had a choice. I chose this.

And I don’t regret it. Despite the scars—the ones you can see and the ones you can’t—I wouldn’t change anything. Without Jolene, I wouldn’t know how to run without looking down, how to laugh into the night, how to make my heart beat so loud it drowns out the rest of the world. I wouldn’t know how to take control. I wouldn’t know how to let go.

Of course, I wouldn’t know the pain, loss, loneliness, or confusion, either; but as hard as all those things were to live through, they were worth it. Because I survived them, and now I know that I can do that too.

I can survive.

About an hour later my phone buzzes. It’s Kris: Fine, but I’m driving.

I tap the letters on my screen. Deal.

Then I lean back on my bed and stare up at the ceiling. I finally took down that cartoonish map my parents got me in second grade. Now when I look up I see pure white. A blank canvas. And when I close my eyes, I don’t find intersecting lines. I’m not strung up in a familiar web of streets and houses.

I’m at school the next day.

Kris isn’t waiting for me. It’s not going to be that easy. Things between us might not ever be the way they used to be, but that’s okay. I don’t want to go back anymore. I want to go forward.

Jolene is at her locker. She’s still with Bella. Still in front of an audience. Still lowering her lashes, tossing her hair, becoming whoever they want her to be.

Tomorrow’s story.

But I know what’s underneath. I know who she really is.

Not beautiful. Not even pretty.

Sad. Lonely. Desperate.

But most of all, separate.

I thought Jolene and I were the same thing: two hearts wrapped in the same skin. I thought she understood me. That she chose me. And in a way, she did. She wanted attention, and she knew I’d give it to her—that I’d scoop myself out to make room for her. She knew I’d give her everything, because I was desperate, too.

That’s the thing I figured out about me and Jolene, after everything.

I wanted to be loved. She loved to be wanted.

It’s not the same thing. And it definitely isn’t love with a capital
L
. I’m not even sure I know what Love is.

Jolene said she loved me. I think she tried her best. It’s the only explanation I can come up with. Why else would she have fought so fiercely for me? Why else would she have disappeared on purpose after break? That was her gift to me. It was the only thing she knew how to give.

Hudson said he loved me, too.

I never said it back to either of them.

Maybe because I couldn’t separate the strands of love from need. Maybe because I was too intent on what could have been. Maybe because one was a boy, and one was a girl, and I wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe because we were all looking for something that didn’t exist. Or maybe it’s because love isn’t what I was looking for in the first place.

What do
you
want to be?
Jolene asked me. But that was the wrong question. It was Kris who got it right:
Who
are
you?

I shut my eyes tighter.

I am ducking into the journalism room sixth period, not to find Kris, but to collect samples of my layouts for a college portfolio. I am going to apply to some design programs, after Jake vets my essay. I am getting the issues I need. I’m locking up. I’m leaving.

Hudson is coming in from the bike racks with his headphones up and his head down. We don’t speak, but I remember what he said—that
I
walked away from
Jolene
, not because she forced me but because I wanted to. I know now that he was right. The same way I know that this time I won’t go back, no matter how many times she calls.

I will flip up the hood of my sweatshirt and listen to my thoughts, which I’ve discovered have a flow and rhythm all their own. I will walk the route I want in the halls, not to avoid someone or run toward them, but so I can get where I need to go. I will choose a college miles from Westfield, not because I want to be far away from old friends, but because I want to hold myself closer.

I will test the jagged border of the space where Jolene used to be and feel a steady beat: warm, pulsing, blue—my own blood in my veins.

The threads of a tale only I can tell.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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About the Author

MARCY BELLER PAUL
is bad at reading maps but good at folding notes. She graduated from Harvard University in Massachusetts and worked as an editor in New York before moving back to New Jersey, where she now lives with her husband and two children.
Underneath Everything
is her first novel. You can visit Marcy online at www.marcybellerpaul.com.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Copyright

Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING. Copyright © 2015 by Marcy Beller Paul. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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ISBN 978-0-06-232721-5 (trade bdg.)

EPub Edition April 2015 ISBN 9780062408457

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FIRST EDITION

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