Eat Your Heart Out (16 page)

In the past couple of weeks, Mike decided that their being friends is more difficult for Loveday than it is for him. Well, minus the whole mom thing.

“What's up, buddy?”
says Loveday.

“Nothing, can I grab off you?” Mike asks.

“No, man. Sorry, I smoked my last spliff just now.”

“Shit, eh?”

“Yeah, sorry. How's your lip?”

“Iced it. It's fine.”

“So, tomorrow. Same time?”

“Sure.”

Michael notices that Loveday is wearing a Leonard Cohen shirt. He points at it.

“‘You don't really care for music, do you?'”

“Huh?”

“‘You don't really care for music, do you?'” Mike says and almost sings so that Loveday will get the joke.

“Nah, man, I love music. I fucking play the guitar.”

“Oh, no, that's a Cohen line. From ‘Hallelujah'?”

“Oh yeah? That song's sick, eh?”

They stand together. They don't talk.

The sky is grey above them, and it smells like rain. Mike feels all the angles in the negative space of the field just due north.

Obtuse from the goalpost to the bleachers. Green and angry. Ninety degrees from the trees to the diamond. Pink and soft. One hundred and eighty from the basketball net to the ground. Blue and sad.

Then the bell rings.

“Shit, man. We got math,” says Loveday.

“Yeah, I know.”

And Mike and Loveday walk the halls, giving props to all the boys they pass. Mike climbs the stairs, faster than Loveday, counting every step, feeling it, all the way up.

“Sweetheart, you have
this opportunity to go to a better high school because of your math scores. Why won't you take it?”

“Because fuck it, Ma.”

“Fuck it isn't an answer.”

“I hate math.”

“No, you don't.”

“Yes, I do.”

“How?”

“Because I see numbers like you hear jet planes.” Her face looked like glass and it broke his heart to watch it shatter.

When he walks
into math class, Michael notices his old friend Caitlin already sitting at her desk. He smiles at her. She notices and doesn't smile back. Caitlin is blond and thin, delicately beautiful. Or at least Mike thinks so.

They haven't spoken in about eight months. They used to be best friends. Caitlin was one of the only people who was nice to Michael when he was fat. They played video games and listened to music and talked about math. Caitlin thought he was really funny. That made him feel really good.

They stopped speaking a little after he lost the weight. Mike says it was because they grew apart, but it was really because she didn't like his new friends. The boys don't like her either.

“She's a flat, uptight bitch.”

They would probably put up with the uptight bitch part, but it's the flat-chested thing they really can't get past. Mike doesn't laugh when they say it, but he doesn't stop them either.

He's angry with her. He wishes he and Caitlin still talked, that they could be how they were. Sometimes he chats with her on the Internet, but it gets pretty heavy, so he doesn't start up conversations too often.

She doesn't reply most of the time anyway.

The math teacher,
Mr. Trin, an Asian guy who can hardly speak English, walks into the class.

“Okay, kid, we have test back here.”

The kids groan; the test was hard. Mike groans too, but for no reason. He got perfect. He always does.

Mr. Trin moves up and down the aisles of desks. When he hands Mike his test, Mike sees the red 100% with a circle around it. He immediately stuffs it into his bag.

Mike's red-haired friend Travis, who they all call Fire Crotch, turns to him.

“Fuck, man. I failed again! How'd you do?”

“Yeah, me too,” says Mike.

Caitlin looks at him when he says it. He moves his eyes away from her. Fire Crotch keeps talking.

“That test was so gay.”

“So gay.”

Mr. Trin turns to Michael.

“Michael, what you say test was?”

“I said the test was gay, sir.”

The whole class laughs a little.

“What you say?”

“I said the test was gay.” Mike speaks extra slow, just so Mr. Trin can really hear him.

By this point all the guys in the class are laughing and most of the girls too. Fire Crotch has tears in his eyes.

When Michael sees how lost Mr. Trin looks, he thinks he might have gone too far. He tells himself he wouldn't have said that if he'd gotten high enough this morning. Shit just gets so aggravating when he's too sober.

Caitlin looks at her textbook, stone-faced. Mike notices and feels like an idiot for a split second.

“Michael, you go to office. Now!” says Mr. Trin.

“Nah.”

The whole class has erupted by now. Some kids are laughing, others are just taking the opportunity to talk and not do math. Mr. Trin looks even more lost. Then, just loud enough so everyone can hear, Caitlin looks at Michael and says, “Michael, can you fuck off?”

“Bitch,” says Fire Crotch, still laughing.

“Leave her alone,” says Mike. He feels so sick whenever they're mean to her.

“What are you? Fucking her?” asks Fire Crotch, disgusted.

“I said leave her alone,” says Mike. He's not kidding. Fire Crotch is going to get punched.

“Jesus, chill,” says Fire Crotch. He wipes his eyes and stops laughing.

“Caitlin, you go to office too. No swearing,” says Mr. Trin, scrambling to keep order. His voice is much louder than it needs to be.

Caitlin looks at Mr. Trin. She's too dignified to show how upset she is. She gets her books together and heads to the office.

Mike follows her.

Caitlin walks down
the hall very quickly, not wanting Mike to catch up to her. He calls after her.

“Caitlin, I'm sorry about them. They're assholes.”

The few stragglers in the hall look at him like he's crazy, whispering to each other. Caitlin moves fast, and Mike is counting her every step. It gets hard to keep counting with her practically running. He's anxious, he doesn't like being distracted by the counting.

“Just talk to me.”

Suddenly the counting is overpowered by the
clip-clop
sound her shoes make on the floor.

It's a sound that makes Mike hurt. He used to hear that sound on their walk home every day. Now, he can't remember the last time he heard it.

“Caitlin, please. I'm sorry. They're stupid.”

She keeps walking. He starts counting again. He feels fours all over his left arm.

“Caitlin, please. Turn around. I'm sorry.”

She stops. He stops counting. The fours go away.

“What do you want, Mike?”

“Nothing. I'm sorry. I was being a retard. It's all my fault that happened.”

He hasn't seen her face this close in a long time. It's thinner than it used to be. It's more delicate. Her eyes look greener. He counts the freckles on her face. Thirty-three. Thirty-four including the one on her lip. She must have gotten some sun because there are more than usual. Usually there are twenty-one. Twenty-two, including the one on her lip.

He wonders if she can tell that's what he's doing. She used to always be able to tell when he was counting her freckles. She would tell him to stop, that her freckles embarrassed her. But he knew she secretly liked it, that it made her feel special.

“What do you want, Mike?”

“Nothing.”

She turns away from him and continues walking down the hall even faster. His counting gets really speedy and all-consuming.

One step. Two steps. Three steps. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen.

Then she stops for a moment.

He stops counting.

“I hope you're happy,” she says.

She starts walking again, and he keeps counting but doesn't follow her.

He stands in the hall, watching her get smaller and smaller in the distance. He misses her. So much. That's all he was trying to say.

In thirty-six more steps, she's turned a corner to the office. The
clip-clopping
ends. Once everything stops, he can think again.

He decides he's not going to the principal's office. Fuck that, he thinks. He wants to go home. This day is already shitty and it's only going to get shittier.

In the parking lot on his way out, he runs into his friend Dave. Dave smokes him on a joint. Real charitable of him. After a few hits, Mike gives Dave props and leaves.

Then he thinks about something he wishes he hadn't. Dave would have never smoked him if he was the way he used to be. He hates thinking about stuff like that, and usually can push those thoughts away, but today he can't.

Why is it so hard today?

Wu-Tang plays in his ears. He thinks he needs to go home and take a nap.

Then he thinks, Man, nothing is how it used to be.

And before he can stop himself, he remembers how things used to be.

Mike walks into
math class. He walked much slower then, when he was heavier. It would take him sixty-three steps to get from his locker to the class. It takes him thirty-five now, thirty-two on a good day. He looks at the ground and doesn't make eye contact with anyone until he sees Caitlin. He smiles a lot when he sees her, and she smiles a lot back.

There's a spare desk next to her. Thank God, he thinks. He hates having to sit next to most of the guys in his class. They don't like sitting next to him either.

“Hey, buddy,” says Caitlin.

“Hey. How's your day?”

Before she can answer, Loveday walks into the class. Mike feels his heart beat a little faster. About two and a half times in two seconds. He looks down. He doesn't want to catch Loveday's eye.

Mr. Norad starts speaking. He taught math in ninth grade. He was a pretty nice teacher except he asked Mike to write the answers on the board too often. Mike didn't like the attention. Hated it, actually.

“Okay, who did the homework last night?” asks Mr. Norad.

Caitlin raises her hand and looks expectantly at Mike. He doesn't want to raise his hand, but he does for her.

“Of course those two did.”

“That's enough, Brian,” says Mr. Norad. “Now, did anyone have trouble with number six?”

Most of the kids in the class nod.

“Mike, would you like to come up and write it out for us?” asks Mr. Norad, smiling and encouraging.

Mike's stomach falls. He has a bad feeling, wants to avoid drawing attention to himself as much as possible.

“No, that's okay,”

But when Mike says okay, his voice cracks. His voice cracked a lot then.

“Ha! Did you hear that? What's wrong with your voice, faggot?”

“Nothing.” But his voice cracks again.

Loveday laughs even harder. “Ha! You did it again!”

“More than enough, Brian,” says Mr. Norad. “If this continues, you will leave.”

Mike's face turns even redder. They were all talking so quickly, and he couldn't keep up.

“Why is your face red, faggot?” another voice yells.

“Enough!” says Mr. Norad again.

Mike feels exceedingly flustered and alone. He can tell his face is getting really red. He is sweating a lot. He turns around to Loveday.

“I don't, I don't have a . . .” but before he can finish, his voice cracks again. His voice always cracks when he is nervous. He turns and swears at himself silently for saying anything at all.

“Look! His voice cracked again. He's nervous! He likes you, Loveday.”

“Don't even look at me, fat ass.”

“That's it, Brian! Get out!” screams Mr. Norad.

Everyone in the class is laughing.

Mike buries his face in his textbook.

“Why is he putting his face in his book like that?” he hears one girl from the back of his class say.

No one will stop laughing.

“If I hear another word from any of you, I swear the whole lot of you are getting detention. Silence right now,” Mr. Norad says.

Then Mike feels Caitlin's small hand on his knee. She squeezes his knee, harder than usual, because she knows he gets forgetful during times like this. She really wants him to feel it. He turns and looks at her. He can tell his face looks really worried because of her reaction.

“Don't worry about them,” she whispers. “Just don't say anything. They're assholes.”

“What was that, Caitlin?” asks Mr. Norad.

“I said they're assholes.”

Mr. Norad looks at her. He doesn't say anything else.

A silence falls over the class. Mike guesses no one else wants detention.

Mr. Norad turns back to Mike and looks at him, encouraging.

“Now, Michael, if you would please answer question six on the board.”

Getting up in front of the class is the last thing Mike wants to do. But he can't open his mouth and say no again because he knows his voice will crack. Why is he always so emotional?

He gets up out of his desk, looks at the floor, and walks ten measured steps to the board. He picks up the white chalk and starts writing the equations on the board.

He feels the answers all over his left arm. He feels blues, yellows, greens, purples, oranges. The humiliation falls away. All he can feel is the numbers. The anger of the numbers, the joy of the numbers, the sadness of the numbers. They blend, then fall apart, and before he knows it, he isn't thinking anymore. He is just writing and feeling. Writing and feeling. Writing and feeling.

The truth is that he never liked math. It never made him happy, but he needed it then. It made them quiet.

It carried him far, far away.

When Mike gets
home he's beat. On his walk home he did the licence plates again. The weed helped a little, but he couldn't really stop himself. He multiplied them, divided them, added them, subtracted them, without thinking.