I try to avoid Justin at lunch, but I fail.
I’m in a hallway nowhere near either of our lockers or the lunchroom, and he ends up being there, too. He’s not happy to see me or unhappy to see me; he regards my presence as a fact, no different than the bell between periods.
“Wanna take it outside?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say, not really knowing what I’m agreeing to.
In this case, “outside” means a pizza place two blocks from the school. We get slices and Cokes. He pays for himself, but makes no offer to pay for me. Which is fine.
He’s in a talkative mood, focusing on what I imagine is his favorite theme: the injustices perpetrated against him by everyone else, all the time. It’s a pretty wide conspiracy, involving everything from his car’s faulty ignition to his father’s nagging about college to his English teacher’s “gay way of talking.” I’m barely following his conversation, and following very much feels like the right word, because this conversation is designed for me to be at least five steps behind. He doesn’t want my opinion. Anytime I offer something, he just lets it sit there on the table between us, doesn’t pick it up.
As he goes on about what a bitch Stephanie is being to Steve, and keeps shoving pizza into his face, and looks at the table much more than he looks at me, I must struggle against the palpable temptation to do something drastic. Although he doesn’t realize it, the power is all mine. All it would take is a minute—less—to break up with him. All it would take are a few well-chosen words to cut the tether. He could counterattack with tears or rage or promises, and I could withstand every single one.
It is so much what I want, but I don’t open my mouth. I don’t use this power. Because I know that this kind of ending would never lead to the beginning I want. If I end things like this, Rhiannon will never forgive me. Not only might she undo it all tomorrow, she would also define me by my betrayal for as long as I remained in her life, which wouldn’t be long.
I hope she realizes: The whole time, Justin never notices. She can see me in whatever body I’m in, but he can’t see she’s missing. He’s not looking that closely.
Then he calls her Silver. Just a simple, “Let’s go, Silver,” when we’re done. I think maybe I’ve heard him wrong. So I access, and there it is. A moment between them. They’ve been reading The Outsiders for English class, lying on his bed side by side with the same book open, she a little farther along. She thinks the book’s a relic from when weepy gang boys bonded over Gone with the Wind, but she quiets herself when she sees how much it’s affecting him. She stays there after she’s finished, starts reading the beginning again until he’s done. Then he closes the book and says, “Wow. I mean, nothing gold can stay. How true is that?” She doesn’t want to break the moment, doesn’t want to question what it means. And she’s rewarded when he smiles and says, “I guess that means we’ll have to be silver.” When she leaves that night, he calls out, “So long, Silver!” And it stays.
When we head back to school, we don’t hold hands, or even talk. When we part, he doesn’t wish me a good afternoon or thank me for the time we just had together. He doesn’t even say he’ll see me soon. He just assumes it.
I am hyperaware—as he leaves me, as I am surrounded by other people—of the perilous nature of what I am attempting, of the butterfly effect that threatens to flutter its wings with every interaction. If you think about it hard enough, if you trace potential reverberations long enough, every step can be a false step, any move can lead to an unintended consequence.
Who am I ignoring that I shouldn’t be ignoring? What am I not saying that I should be saying? What won’t I notice that she would absolutely notice? While I’m out in the public hallways, what private languages am I not hearing?
When we look at a crowd, our eyes naturally go to certain people, whether we know them or not. But my glance right now is blank. I know what I see, but not what she’d see.
The world is still glass.
This is how it feels to read words through her eyes.
This is how it feels to turn a page with her hand.
This is how it feels when her ankles cross.
This is how it feels to lower her head so her hair hides her eyes from view.
This is what her handwriting looks like. This is how it is made. This is how she signs her name.
There’s a quiz in English class. It’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which I’ve read. I think Rhiannon does okay.
I access enough to know she doesn’t have any plans after school. Justin finds her before last period and asks her if she wants to do something. It’s clear to me what this something will be, and I can’t see much benefit to it.
“What do you want to do?” I ask.
He looks at me like I’m an imbecile puppy.
“What do you think?”
“Homework?”
He snorts. “Yeah, we can call it that, if you want.”
I need a lie. Really, what I want to do is say yes and then blow him off. But there could be repercussions for that tomorrow. So instead I tell him I have to take my mom to some doctor for her sleep problems. It’s a real drag, but they’ll be drugging her up and she probably won’t be able to drive herself home.
“Well, as long as they give her plenty of pills,” he says. “I love your mom’s pills.”
He leans in for a kiss and I have to do it. Amazing how it’s the same two bodies as three weeks ago, but the kiss couldn’t be more different. Before, when our tongues touched, when I was on the other side of it, it felt like another form of intimate conversation. Now it feels like he’s shoving something alien and gross into my mouth.
I’m in a hallway nowhere near either of our lockers or the lunchroom, and he ends up being there, too. He’s not happy to see me or unhappy to see me; he regards my presence as a fact, no different than the bell between periods.
“Wanna take it outside?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say, not really knowing what I’m agreeing to.
In this case, “outside” means a pizza place two blocks from the school. We get slices and Cokes. He pays for himself, but makes no offer to pay for me. Which is fine.
He’s in a talkative mood, focusing on what I imagine is his favorite theme: the injustices perpetrated against him by everyone else, all the time. It’s a pretty wide conspiracy, involving everything from his car’s faulty ignition to his father’s nagging about college to his English teacher’s “gay way of talking.” I’m barely following his conversation, and following very much feels like the right word, because this conversation is designed for me to be at least five steps behind. He doesn’t want my opinion. Anytime I offer something, he just lets it sit there on the table between us, doesn’t pick it up.
As he goes on about what a bitch Stephanie is being to Steve, and keeps shoving pizza into his face, and looks at the table much more than he looks at me, I must struggle against the palpable temptation to do something drastic. Although he doesn’t realize it, the power is all mine. All it would take is a minute—less—to break up with him. All it would take are a few well-chosen words to cut the tether. He could counterattack with tears or rage or promises, and I could withstand every single one.
It is so much what I want, but I don’t open my mouth. I don’t use this power. Because I know that this kind of ending would never lead to the beginning I want. If I end things like this, Rhiannon will never forgive me. Not only might she undo it all tomorrow, she would also define me by my betrayal for as long as I remained in her life, which wouldn’t be long.
I hope she realizes: The whole time, Justin never notices. She can see me in whatever body I’m in, but he can’t see she’s missing. He’s not looking that closely.
Then he calls her Silver. Just a simple, “Let’s go, Silver,” when we’re done. I think maybe I’ve heard him wrong. So I access, and there it is. A moment between them. They’ve been reading The Outsiders for English class, lying on his bed side by side with the same book open, she a little farther along. She thinks the book’s a relic from when weepy gang boys bonded over Gone with the Wind, but she quiets herself when she sees how much it’s affecting him. She stays there after she’s finished, starts reading the beginning again until he’s done. Then he closes the book and says, “Wow. I mean, nothing gold can stay. How true is that?” She doesn’t want to break the moment, doesn’t want to question what it means. And she’s rewarded when he smiles and says, “I guess that means we’ll have to be silver.” When she leaves that night, he calls out, “So long, Silver!” And it stays.
When we head back to school, we don’t hold hands, or even talk. When we part, he doesn’t wish me a good afternoon or thank me for the time we just had together. He doesn’t even say he’ll see me soon. He just assumes it.
I am hyperaware—as he leaves me, as I am surrounded by other people—of the perilous nature of what I am attempting, of the butterfly effect that threatens to flutter its wings with every interaction. If you think about it hard enough, if you trace potential reverberations long enough, every step can be a false step, any move can lead to an unintended consequence.
Who am I ignoring that I shouldn’t be ignoring? What am I not saying that I should be saying? What won’t I notice that she would absolutely notice? While I’m out in the public hallways, what private languages am I not hearing?
When we look at a crowd, our eyes naturally go to certain people, whether we know them or not. But my glance right now is blank. I know what I see, but not what she’d see.
The world is still glass.
This is how it feels to read words through her eyes.
This is how it feels to turn a page with her hand.
This is how it feels when her ankles cross.
This is how it feels to lower her head so her hair hides her eyes from view.
This is what her handwriting looks like. This is how it is made. This is how she signs her name.
There’s a quiz in English class. It’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which I’ve read. I think Rhiannon does okay.
I access enough to know she doesn’t have any plans after school. Justin finds her before last period and asks her if she wants to do something. It’s clear to me what this something will be, and I can’t see much benefit to it.
“What do you want to do?” I ask.
He looks at me like I’m an imbecile puppy.
“What do you think?”
“Homework?”
He snorts. “Yeah, we can call it that, if you want.”
I need a lie. Really, what I want to do is say yes and then blow him off. But there could be repercussions for that tomorrow. So instead I tell him I have to take my mom to some doctor for her sleep problems. It’s a real drag, but they’ll be drugging her up and she probably won’t be able to drive herself home.
“Well, as long as they give her plenty of pills,” he says. “I love your mom’s pills.”
He leans in for a kiss and I have to do it. Amazing how it’s the same two bodies as three weeks ago, but the kiss couldn’t be more different. Before, when our tongues touched, when I was on the other side of it, it felt like another form of intimate conversation. Now it feels like he’s shoving something alien and gross into my mouth.
