The Way I Used to Be (6 page)

I could see it happening before it happened.

And then it does. Crassshhh: him into me, my shoulder into the wall, clarinet case into my stomach so hard my body keels over involuntarily. It jolts me back into reality. Time rushes ahead, my brain and body overloaded in only an instant. Hunched forward, my abdomen aching like I'd just been stabbed, I stare at my dirty no-name Kmart sneakers. Number 12 grabs my forearm. It feels like his fingers are burning holes through my shirt. I hear his voice, muffled, in the background of my mind, saying “Oh shit—shit, I'm sorry—are you okay?”

But I can't listen all the way because I seem to have only one thought. Just this:
Fucking die fucking asshole fucking kill you fucking die, die, die.

I don't quite know what to do with this thought. Surely it can't be mine. But how can I explain those words? They're on my tongue, about to spill right out into the open air. And I've never said such words out loud, to or about another human being, yet there they are. In fact, I can't think of any other words in the entire English language; my complete vocabulary is suddenly composed of nothing more than an endless string of obscenities punctuated with expletives.

As he stands there in front of me and I stand in front of him clutching my stomach, he looks at my outfit and my glasses and my stupid hair, but not at me. “Sorry,” he repeats, and when I still don't respond, he adds, “I didn't see you.” He enunciates his words precisely, as if he truly believes I might be deaf.

He repeats them, those four words: “I. Didn't. See. You.” Each word like a match striking against that thin, sandpapery strip on the back of a matchbook, failing one, two, three, four times.

Let him say just one more word.

“Ohh-kaay?” he says slowly.

Lit. On fire. My God, I burn.

It's something new, this feeling. Not anger, not sadness, not embarrassment. It burns up everything inside of me, every thought, every memory, every feeling I ever had, and fills itself in the space left vacant.

Rage. In this moment, I am nothing but pure rage.

I watch him pick my clarinet case up off the floor. He holds it out to me. My hands shake as I take it from him. Carefully, I hug it against my torso again, this time for a very different reason. Because everything in my brain and body is telling me to beat him with it, to hit him repeatedly with the hard black plastic case.

I hear Mara saying, “I think she's hurt. You should watch where you're going!” And then to me, “Are you all right, Edy?”

Only, I can't answer her, either, because the gory scene of this basketball player's death is reeling through my mind, and it is truly terrifying. Because I'm not supposed to be capable of thoughts like that, I'm not built that way. But I feel it tingling in my bones and skin and blood—something barbaric, something animal.

I force my feet to start walking. If I don't move, I'm afraid I might do something crazy, something really bad, and if I open my mouth, I'll say those horrible words. After a second I hear his feet running again, away from me. He should be running; in fact, they should all be running. I'm dangerous, criminally dangerous.

Mara catches up with me and speaks the one word that says it all: “Asshole.” Then she looks over her shoulder and adds, “Although, I wouldn't mind if he crashed into me a little. Just sayin'. ”

I look at her and feel the corners of my mouth pull upward, and it almost hurts, but in a different way than my stomach. It hurts like it's the first time I've smiled in my whole life. She laughs, and then touches my shoulder gently. “Are you really okay?” I nod, even though I'm not sure if I am—if I ever will be.

“IT'S TIME,” MARA DECLARES
as we sit in the middle of her bedroom floor. I just finished cutting a big wad of pink bubble gum out of her hair that someone had stuck in at some point during the day. It had hardened beyond the point of peanut butter and careful untangling.

The debate has been going on for months now.

“So, red,” I confirm, as we stare at the box of hair color standing upright in the space between us. I didn't say anything when she stopped showing up to band practice, or when she started sneaking cigarettes from her mom's purse, but I have to say something now, before it's too late. “Mara, you realize that's really, really red?” I ask, looking at the girl on the box.

“Cranberry,” she corrects, picking the box up gently with both hands, studying the picture. “Do you think you could cut it short like this girl's?” she asks me. “I'm so sick of having long hair—it's like I'm inviting them to throw things in it.”

It's true; she's had the same long brown hair falling to the middle of her back ever since I can remember. “Are you sure it has to be right now?” I double-check. “'Cause if you wait just three more weeks, it'll be summer, and then if it doesn't turn out, you'll have time to—”

“No,” she interrupts. “That's all the more reason it has to be tonight—I can't go through this for another year. I can't go through this for three more weeks. I can't go through this shit for another day!” she almost shouts.

“But what if—”

“Edy, stop. You're supposed to be helping me.”

“I am, I just—do you really think coloring your hair is going to change anything?”

“Yes—it's going to change
me
.” She rips open the lid on the box and starts pulling out the contents one by one.

“Why right now, though—did something else happen besides the gum?” It was the question I had been waiting for her to ask me for months.

“Like anything else needs to happen? It's been years of this—every single day—stupid names, gum in the hair, ‘loser' signs stuck on my back. Can only be expected to take so much,” she says, her voice getting chopped up by the tears she tries to hold in.

“I know.” And I do know. I get it. She gets it. It has to happen, and I understand why.

“Well, let's do it then,” she says, holding the scissors out to me.

I take the scissors from her like a good friend.

“You realize I have no idea what I'm doing, right?” I ask her as strands of hair begin to fall to the floor.

“It's okay, I trust you,” she says, closing her eyes.

“No, don't,” I say with a laugh.

She smiles.

“Can I ask you something and you'll promise not to get mad?” I begin cautiously.

She opens her eyes and looks at me.

“This isn't about Cameron, is it? Because he should like you the way you are. I mean, if you're doing this so he'll be interested, or so he'll think you're cooler, that's not—”

But she stops me. “Edy, no.” She's calm, not mad at all. She talks quietly, explaining, “Yes, I like him, but I'm not trying to be like him. I'm just trying to be like me. Like the real me. If that makes any sense at all,” she says, laughing.

I don't even need to think about it—I know exactly how she feels. “It makes sense, Mara.”

“Good.” And then she closes her eyes again, like me cutting and coloring her hair is the most relaxing thing in the world. It's quiet for a while.

“Can I ask you something else?” I finally say, breaking the silence.

“Yeah.”

“You're not coming back to band, are you?”

“No.”

“Thought so.”

She turns around to look at me. “Sorry, Edy. It's just not me anymore; I'm interested in other things now.”

“It's okay, I was just missing my stand partner is all.” I try to make light of it, but it really does make me sad. “You know they're gonna stick me with that smelly girl who's always messing up, right?” I tell her as I start mixing the hair color.

She laughs. “I'm sorry. Just hold your breath!”

“I kind of need to breathe in order to play!”

“True,” she admits, still smiling.

I start brushing the mixture into her hair in sections, trying to be as neat as possible. “So, what other interests?”

“I don't know. I think I'll start taking art classes next year. And I know what you're gonna say, but it's not about Cameron. But becoming friends with him, it's just made me realize I want to try new things.”

I've never known Mara to be interested in art. “Well, that's cool.” I kind of mean it too. Because I can't think of anything in the world that I'm interested in anymore.

“Do I look tough?” she asks once we've finished, giving herself dirty looks in the mirror.

I study her reflection too. “You look . . . like a completely different person,” I tell her, consumed equally with admiration and jealousy. She walks past me over to the window and cracks it open. Then she pulls out a cigarette and a lighter from the rhinestone-studded jewelry box in her desk drawer, watching herself closely in the mirror as she brings it up to her demetallized mouth. “I look mean, don't I?” she asks. “I look like a bitch,” she says slowly, her smile perfectly straight.

“So you want to look like a bitch now?” I laugh.

“I don't know, maybe. Why not?” She shrugs. “I'm reinventing myself. Everyone else gets to change.” I know that what she really means by “everyone” is her parents—they get to change their minds, change their lives, and hers.

“I guess.” I can't exactly protest too much, because honestly, the idea of reinventing myself sounds pretty appealing. I'm not sure who I'd want to be, though.

“I really don't care what anyone thinks about me, as long as they don't think I'm just going to sit back and take it anymore!” She exhales a cloud of smoke with the words. “I'm just sick of getting pushed around, treated like shit. I mean, aren't you?”

She shifts her gaze from the mirror to me. I can't lie. Can't admit the truth, either. So I say nothing. Instead, I walk over to her and take a cigarette out of the pack. I place it between my lips. Mara doesn't say a word. She just smiles cautiously and brings the lighter up to light it for me. I breathe in. And then choke on the horrible chemicals. We laugh as I cough and gasp.

“That's so gross!” I tell her, choking on my words. But then I bring it to my lips again anyway.

“Don't breathe in so deep this time,” she says with a laugh.

I don't. And I don't choke this time. I watch Mara watching me, and I think maybe I can change too. Maybe I can become someone I can actually stand. I take my glasses off, take another drag, and look at Mara. “Seriously, what do you think? Should I get contacts?”

“Absolutely!” She keeps the cigarette dangling from her mouth as she reaches over and swoops my hair back from my face. “You could do this,” she tells me, her words muffled through the smoke.

“I could?” I ask her, not sure exactly what she means by “this.” Just my hair. The contacts. Or everything.

“You could be so hot—so beautiful, I mean—if you would quit hiding.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes, Edy. I know so.”

I smile again, letting the chemicals go to my head, and imagine what I could be, all the things I could do.

THE SUMMER TOOK
FOREVER
to get here and now it's here and it's just flying. Mostly, I've spent the days thinking a lot about what Mara said to me. About how I was hiding. How I could be beautiful if I would just stop. Mostly, I've spent the whole summer trying to figure how you go about not hiding when that's all you've ever done your entire life. Caelin wasn't around. He was taking some kind of special summer sessions. It was actually better that way anyway. Because it meant Kevin would stay away too.

“Mom?” I use my I-want-something-and-I'm-such-a-good-girl-so-please-hear-me-out voice. “I was wondering . . .”

“Mm-hmm?” she murmurs, barely caffeinated, not lifting her eyes from the sales ads.

“What do you want and how much does it cost?” Dad interferes, trying to hijack the conversation.

“What, what do you need?” she asks, finally looking across the kitchen table at me.

I slowly remove my glasses.

“Don't you think I look better without my glasses, Mom?”

“You look pretty no matter what.” She'd already gone back to the paper. Obviously that approach was not going to work.

“Okay, so school's starting in what, like, three weeks or something, and I was thinking—I mean, well—Mara got contacts and she thinks—I mean, I think—I think that—”

“All right, Minnie, come on, just spit it out.” Dad makes this rolling, speed-it-up gesture with his un-coffee-cupped hand.

“Okay. So, um, I was wondering if I could get contacts too?”

Mom and Dad share a look, like,
Oh God, why can't she just leave us alone?

“They're really not that much more expensive,” I try.

“I don't know, Edy,” Mom says, nose scrunched, not wanting to disappoint me, because after all, I really am a very good girl. Except for the small detail about me smoking every single day with Mara, and blowing all the back-to-school money they gave me to buy too many clothes at the mall and makeup and hair products, but not school supplies, like they wanted. Other than that, I really am good.

“But, please. Please, please, please. I look like such a dork. I look like a loser. I look like I'm in band!”

“You are in band,” Dad says, grinning, missing the point, of course.

“But I don't want to look like I'm in band.”

“Oh, well, now I see.” Dad rolls his eyes. Mom smirks. He shakes his head in that condescending way he always does whenever he thinks someone is an idiot.

“Mom?”

Her stock response to any and everything: “We'll see.”

“So no?” I clarify.

“No, I said we'll see,” she repeats sternly.

“Yeah, but that means no, right? This is so unfair! Caelin can get all kinds of new stuff and I ask for one thing, one thing, and you say no!”