For a couple of minutes, we passed the Quill back and forth, watching Blank watch me and not saying anything, and then all at once, I made sense of everything, or at least thought I had.
“You were trying to protect me,” I said to Stevie. “You waited so long to tell me because you knew it would hurt more, and you thought that, in the long run, the extra hurt would help. You think that, soon, instead of missing you to death, I’ll realize that the last thing you did before you went away was thoughtless, and I’ll realize you’re a jerk, and I’ll see that you always were a jerk, and that’ll make you being gone easier for me, because I won’t have lost a friend, just an acquaintance I’m better off not having because she was a jerk.”
“Belt,” she said, “you have to stop.”
“Let me finish first. I wasn’t finished. Because you’re not a jerk. It’s just your plan didn’t work. You’re trying to give me a gift,” I said. “Like that song on the mix you made me last year. ‘Cruel to be kind.’ But it isn’t a gift, and that song is confusing. It sounds like advice because of the tune, but it’s really a complaint. That guy is sad. You should listen to it closer. But the point is I couldn’t ever think you were a jerk. Especially not because of the lousy gift. The lousy gift proves that you’re not a jerk, since it’s the thought that counts. And the thought wasn’t cruel. The gift was cruel. The thought was kind. You tried to give me a cruel gift out of kindness, and I can’t imagine that could have been easy for you, because you’re not a jerk. You’re the best person I know.”
“Too much, Belt,” she said. “You’re fucking killing me here.”
“But I’m telling you I forgive you, that I understand.”
“Well maybe you should be less understanding, then.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t feel forgiven at all,” she said. “I feel accused. I feel bad for doing things I hadn’t ever even thought about doing, and I feel bad because—and this is the fucked-up part—I feel bad because I didn’t do those things. Or think those things. Whatever the hell you’re talking about. And I feel bad about this. About saying what I’m saying. Your ‘understanding’ is killing me. You’re making me feel bad because I’m not who you believe I am. I’m not that complicated. No one is. I may have made a mistake in waiting so long to tell you I was moving. I may have made a mistake in telling you at all. I don’t know. But that’s what I should feel bad about. That’s what you should or shouldn’t forgive me for. Except you sit there painting this picture of how I’d be if I were good, if the world were good, if we all made sense and had the best intentions and followed through on our best intentions and weren’t all convenience-driven, self-centered zombies, and you believe in that picture, and it’s wrong, Belt, it’s fucked, and all it does is make me feel desperate because you were my only real friend here, and it turns out you’re crazy, and I don’t know what that says about me, and, on top of that, I know that if you keep going this way you’ll never be happy. What you don’t understand is that I’m glad I’m moving, Belt. I’m glad I’m getting out. This is the only rotten part of it—having to say things to you that make you upset. I really hate this place, you know? It’s flat. It’s dead. There’s nothing worth doing. I’m either bored here, or sad. And you should hate this place, too. And I want to convince you of that, and that’s shitty of me, because you’re stuck here. But if you opened your eyes, you would hate this place. The only thing it’s good for is imagining your way out of it.”
Obviously, reader, that wasn’t really Stevie’s response to my “Why?” but I do think it must have been at least something like what she meant when she answered, “You’re impossible. You’re really impossible. Let’s just please say goodbye and wish the best for each other,” and I think it must contain some or all of the reasons for why, in the end, she never wrote me from Houston, or anywhere else.
* * *
—
Stevie may have further clarified her feelings—or I probably would’ve tried to get her to, anyway—had we not been interrupted by blue-eyed Rory Riley’s exclamatory fervor. He and Jonboat had come up behind us. “What the fuck is that?” Rory said. “Guys! Hey guys! Come look at this thing!” He squatted, leaned forward, reached over me for Blank.
I punched him in the ribs, and he fell on his side.
Facedown and panting, Blank flattened itself against the pavement. I couldn’t get at its shoulders to lift it in the manner prescribed by the manual—its hands were clasped, sit-up style, on the back of its neck—and I was too afraid of harming it to pinch at other parts.
“Kablankey, it’s fine. It’s okay,” I said. “Kablankey.” I set my open hand on the ground near its face, but its eyes were closed. It didn’t crawl on. It shivered, kept panting, quietly singing.
In the meantime, Stevie’d started chewing out Jonboat, saying, “What’d you bring this clown along with for?”
“Rory likes Belt,” said Jonboat. “Or at least he used to. I thought that they could become friends, too.”
“I told you come alone.”
“I know, but— Hey! Everybody chill.”
Three, then five, then maybe ten or twelve boys had appeared beside Jonboat in a matter of seconds, and they were all pressing forward and shouting: “What is it?” “Let me see it!” “Let me hold it!” “Let me hold it!”
“Get back,” Jonboat told them, and that’s all it took. They stopped all their shoving and took a step back. “What is it, Belt?” he said.
“It’s my pet.”
“Can we see it?”
“No.”
Someone else said, “Don’t be a dick.”
“It’s his,” said Jonboat. “And he isn’t a dick. He can do what he wants with it.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“No sweat, man,” he said. “But maybe, you know, you should let them see it, though? I mean everyone wants to see it, you know? What can it hurt? Worst it can do is win you some friends.”
“It’s scared,” I said, looking up at Stevie, who’d gotten to her feet, was biting her lip, was walking away, wouldn’t look back, then running away, then gone forever.
“Scared,” Jonboat said. “Yeah, I think you’re right. It does look scared. Back up some more, guys. You’re scaring Belt’s pet.”
“What kind of pet is it, though?”