Untethered (19 page)

I run to class completely freaked about Nelson. My mind’s going at top speed, all my thoughts piling up on top of each other, like in that Virginia Woolf novel Mrs. Huggan tried to get us to read last year.

This is crazy. This changes everything. No it doesn’t. This changes nothing.

I don’t know why Nelson did it. Hell, I don’t know why I did it. I think crying screws up your whole system, makes you a little nuts. Something about endorphins. And seeing someone cry does the same thing. I mean, I bet if I saw Tori Thompson cry, I would feel bad and want to hug her.

Or not.

Point is, Nelson wanted to make me feel better. And I wanted to feel better. Period. We just went about it all wrong. Because we’re great friends, and kissing ruins friendships. I don’t want to ruin my friendship with Nelson.

Besides for me it’s always been Kevin.

Always, always.

“Whoa, Psycho. You’re really looking the part. You just need to file your teeth and you’d pass for the living dead,” Tori says as I walk into Morality. That gets a laugh out of most of the class. Even Cassie smirks.

It’s true I’m looking a little pasty. And I feel vaguely like a zombie after the ... kiss ... with Nelson.

“Hey, feel like reminiscing about old times?” She holds up her iPhone and the YouTube video of me that she recorded is playing. I watch my body droop while she laughs, “It’s classic!” How many people in the world have watched me wilt?

I’m so sick of Tori twisting the knife.

Time to get even.

About ten minutes into class, Tori asks to go to the bathroom.
This is it.
It’s Tori’s usual trick. She smokes a whole cigarette during Mr. Walker’s class. Because his B.O. is so bad, he doesn’t seem to notice when she comes back reeking.

A minute after Tori leaves, I get up. “Mr. Walker?” I whisper when I reach his desk, trying not to breathe in the stench of his sweat. “Can I use the bathroom?”

“Wait until Miss Thompson gets back.” The class is quietly reading chapter four in
Morality Today
. He’s reading
Slaughterhouse Five
, Kurt Vonnegut’s name in bold on the spine. I wonder if something with that title is really appropriate for the Morality teacher to be reading in school.

“Please?” He has to let me go or my plan is a no-go. I hop from one foot to the other for effect.

“Oh, fine,” he says, sighing and pulling an orange bathroom pass from his desk drawer. “But only because you never usually ask.” I take the pass from him and suppress a desire to cheer.

I pass the girls’ toilets and head straight for the back doors instead.

Tori’s purse is there, holding the door ajar. If I take it and let the door swing closed, she’ll be stuck outside. It’s impossible to get back in without ringing the bell, and being caught outside during school hours is automatic Saturday detention. As long as her cell phone is in her purse and not on her, she can’t text a friend and will have no way to sneak back in.

I look down the hall. No one.

I get close enough to smell the cigarette smoke, then I bend down and tug at her purse.

The door shuts with a satisfying click.

Right away, her panicked face appears in the window. Then she spots me. Her voice is muffled behind the pane of glass. “You little bitch!” She yanks on the handle, and when it doesn’t give she swears some more. “Open that door right now or I’ll rip you to pieces, you mother —” There’s a THUD as she kicks the door. In the window, her face is red with effort.

I look in her purse, see her cell phone, then leave it there in front of the closed door. I smile my best smile at her and walk nonchalantly back to Morality class, her muffled screaming getting fainter the further I go down the hall.

When I hand Mr. Walker the pass back, he looks surprised to see me before Tori. “Where’s Miss Thompson?”

“No idea,” I say, slipping back into my chair. I know Tori will make me pay, but for the next few minutes it doesn’t matter. I smile to myself.

For once I feel like I’ve won.

Nelson and I are overly-polite and stiff with each other in Art. The conversation is strained until I finally tell him what I did to Tori.

He laughs so loud Melissa Scott asks what’s going on. And he tells her. And she laughs and tells Cherie Borges. And so on.

I guess not too many people like Tori Thompson.

After school, I quick gather my things, worried Tori will flatten me but she’s nowhere to be seen. Kevin, however, comes right up to me.

“Hey,” he says. “I heard. Actually the whole Geography class heard. Tori was yelling so loud she drowned out the
Violent Femmes
.”

I hold tight to my locker door.

“She had it coming.” He grins. “Way to go.” Relief rushes over me and I smile at him in gratitude. He musses my hair and punches me in the shoulder like I’m one of the guys. I briefly remember the warm feeling of Nelson’s hands on my hips, and wonder if I’m not stupid to be so caught up with Kevin.

But then Kevin shakes his head at me like he’s impressed.  “I knew you were okay.  More than okay.”

Cassie’s further down the hallway, watching us.  Kevin glances at her then says, “See ya!” to me.

I watch him stroll up to Cassie. They kiss right there in the hallway, a long, drawn out thing. I can even see their tongues come together. My boots are cemented to the floor, fire roaring in my cheeks. When they pull their lips apart, Cassie looks directly at me. I turn away.

Sam and I walk home. When we get to our block, I see Cassie sitting on her porch steps waiting for me, hugging herself in the cold, her car still ticking in the driveway.

Sam scuttles home. But I hold my head high, and refuse to look Cassie’s way as I pass.

Then she says something that gets me: “Hey, Psycho!”

If I was thinking about being friends again, all my warm fuzzy thoughts are sucked away with that one word. I stop just before my own house and turn around.

She stands up, but still has her arms around herself. Her hair blows in the wind, a shiny copper flag. I expect her green eyes to be a kryptonite-like shade, wild with anger. But instead she looks confused and even a little sad. “Stop trying for Kevin!”

“Oh get off it. I only talked to him for a minute,” I say with as much loathing as possible. “But that was a nice display in the hallway after school. You make Keri Nielsen look like an angelic little virgin.”

The kryptonite shows up after all. “I hate you,” she says.

“Not as much as I hate you,” I say, and stride to my back door.

Once in my room, I hear a car pull up next door. I look out the window: Kevin’s Camaro. Cassie is down her front steps and pulling open the passenger-side door before Kevin even fully stops. I watch as they take off. A rotten feeling rocks my stomach.

I swear and kick at my beanbag chair, splitting the seam and sending hundreds of little Styrofoam balls rolling onto the floor. I kick it again and again, beating the dumb thing flat until Mom bangs on the door and calls me to supper: three bean soup, vegetable loaf, and tofu cottage cheese. Ugh.

If there ever was a moment to be someone else, it’s right now.

October 28
^th

I watch as my parents wrap their hands around warm drinks. As Sam bites his thumb bloody. As Cassie and Mr. Sanders try cooing reassuring words to them. I watch and I wish I could go back one day. Two days. Two weeks. Hell, when did my whole idea really start? I wish I could go back to then and blot it all out.

I move quietly out of the waiting area and turn down a couple hallways into the emergency section. Half the doors to rooms are wide open. There’s a little blonde girl screaming in one, and an elderly man covered in blood in another.
The doors that are closed, I open. But I don’t get far before a woman in pink scrubs comes up to me. “Hey, you can’t be back here,” she says.

“I’m looking for ... for Sylvie Sydell?”

Her voice softens a bit. “Look, you can’t be back here until we call you. Go back out and wait with the rest of the family. Don’t worry. We’ll let you know what’s going on.”

But I don’t even want to know anymore. I just want to change it.

What was I thinking? What the hell was I thinking?

“Young man,” the woman says. I realize she’s talking to me. To him. To me. “At this point, there’s nothing for you to do but wait.”

Wait. No.

At this point, waiting is the only thing I won’t do.

Twenty-Three

October: The Plan To Change Everything

“Pity party’s over. I’m officially finished. And tonight we are going to celebrate and have an evening together,” Mom says as she’s cleaning off the table after dinner.

“What, did you meditate while we were doing our homework?” I’m surprised at how solid she sounds.

“I’ve realized I’m not so good at meditating when things are going poorly. But I ate some more Ben and Jerry’s. And ice cream always brings clarity.” She puts her hands on her abdomen. “I’ll just have to pay for it later.”

“Okaaayy.” I share a look with Sam. “TMI.”

Mom’s still attempting joviality. “Let’s watch a movie tonight. There’s always something on TV. I’ll even make some popcorn!” It should sound good, but instead of butter and salt, Mom sprinkles flaxseed on the popcorn. The movie treat in our house tastes vaguely like Styrofoam topped with powdered cardboard.

But Sam and I know when to humor her. And now’s a good time.

Ten minutes later, we take our bowls with us and sit down in the living room — Sam and Mom on either end of the couch and me in the big brown armchair.

Sam has the remote and flips through the channels, which doesn’t take long since we don’t have cable. Mom opens the TV Guide and scans through it. “Hmmm. Looks like there’s
Harry Potter
or
The Exorcist
.

Both Sam and I say, “Exorcist.”

Mom’s appalled. “You’re kidding me?”

The film is an old one, really old. “I remember watching this when I was a kid,” Mom says, pointing to the description in the TV Guide. “You’re sure you want this? I was terrified when I saw it.”

“We want it,” Sam says as the film starts. “Even though it’s so ancient the special effects will be lame.”

I go from watching the movie to thinking again about how Cassie and Kevin kissed. Here I am, watching some horror film with my brother and mother, while Cassie is out with Kevin. She’s probably watching a romantic comedy with him right now, eating Sugar Babies instead of flaxseed flavored popcorn.

I think of her at the lunch table, pursing her lips and looking at me like I’m a leper. I think of her sneaking to meet Kevin behind my back. And I think of her on her porch, screaming, “Psycho!”

Hatred, sticky as tar, bubbles inside me. She has the beauty. She has the boy. It’s not fair.

Make it fair
, says the voice in the back of my head.

But how?

I hear my mom gasp and focus my attention once more on the film. On the screen, a priest is holding up a crucifix over the writhing body of a girl and chanting, “I cast you out!”

My breathing quickens. I feel dizzy. My head starts to buzz.

“Be gone! From this creature of God!”

I stand up, staring at the screen but no longer seeing it. My bowl of powdered popcorn slides to the floor.

That’s it.

“Sylvie? Are you okay?” Mom asks.

“Be gone!” says the priest on the screen.

That’s it. That’s it
. My head is reeling.

“Sylvie!”

I sit down again. Both Mom and Sam gape at me.

“I’m fine,” I choke out. But I’m not. I’m hyper-ventilating, my heart pounding and pounding inside my chest. No matter how much I try, I can’t seem to suck in enough air.

“Oh my Lord!” Mom yells.  She runs into the kitchen and comes back with a paper lunch bag, shoving it over my mouth. I try to slow my breathing.

But Cassie,
The Exorcist
, and astral projection are rolling furiously through my brain.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The bag crackles as it deflates and inflates. Once I catch my breath, Mom hugs me, her eyes rimmed with tears. Sam’s stopped watching the movie and is watching me instead. I try giving him a smile but my brain’s going ballistic and I seem to have forgotten how.

Mom gets up and turns off the TV. “No more scary movies for you.”

It takes a moment, but I pin down my thoughts.

Cassie.
The Exorcist
. Astral Projection.

Make it fair.

That night the shadows stroke my face until I fall asleep. I dream about Kevin.

We’re sitting together on the large expanse of lawn in front of the lighthouse, the crash of Lake Michigan background noise for our conversation. It’s foggy and damp, but Kevin’s thigh is warm against my own, even through our jeans.

“I hate the whole divorce thing. It’s like I’ve got two strangers for parents,” I say.

“Hey.” Kevin tries a little smile. “I understand. I really do.”

His fingers stroll quietly up the inside of my forearm. His coffee eyes catch my gaze and he pulls my left hand into his right one. My skin goes wild. Like every nerve in my body startles to attention and sighs with longing each time the pad of his thumb draws a circle on my palm.

I lean into his shoulder. He smells like Polo cologne and clean sweat. I breathe in the scent of him and close my eyes. His arm goes around me in an embrace. I feel his lips on my forehead and a hand in my hair.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says.

“What? What did you say?” It’s like a balloon inflates underneath my ribs. A happy balloon.

I want it. So badly. For him to think I’m beautiful. For him to see me as someone other than Psycho Sylvie Sydell. Psycho Pathetic Skinny Sylvie Sydell.