“Or maybe you could just wear your favorite sweatshirt.” It’s a dig. Not a volleyball dig. A mean, sarcastic dig and it takes my breath away.
My favorite?
I look down at my sweatshirt, pilling under the sleeves, starting to fray at the cuffs. He’s right. It is my favorite. It’s my favorite because it’s the most boxy one, way too big, but the sleeves still aren’t too long. It’s my favorite because it’s so heavy, the fleece doesn’t cling or lie close to my body at all. It’s my favorite because the elastic at the bottom isn’t too tight, which makes a top balloon. It’s my favorite because it’s the most plain, nondescript gray, so I can pull it on day after day and people hardly notice. It’s my favorite because I can dig my hands deep in the pocket if I need to feel smaller inside it. He’s right: It’s my favorite.
And I hate the fucking thing.
I want to say something back, to growl, to fight, to defend myself, to plead, but Jackson’s cheeks are pinker than usual. And he’s blinking a lot. And there is a tiny line of water threatening to spill over his beautiful lashes. He’s not mad. He’s hurt. The sun is still blinding bright, but he’s not. He feels, I think, like I feel.
“Why didn’t you just say you didn’t want to go in the first place?” he asks the window.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to him. I did, I say, only in my head, I do.
And I leave.
This time when I get home and close my door, I don’t take off my bra and lie flat on my back. This time I curl up in a ball. And I cry.
CHAPTER 58
The good news is that when Tyler got hit in the mouth with a hockey stick, his braces cut up his mouth so badly that he got some freaky infection.
Let me start again.
It’s not good news that my brother is suffering. I am not a monster. It’s pretty bad. And gross. You’re not supposed to be able to get infections in your mouth unless they do oral surgery, but apparently Tyler is a human petri dish. The bacteria were happy to colonize inside his lip. It swelled up to his forehead and he spiked a fever. Urgent care sent him to the emergency room, which put him on an IV drip for a few hours. Now he’s home on a massive dose of antibiotics that is also killing all the good bacteria in his intestines, so he’s got diarrhea and Mom’s making him eat yogurt.
I realize that doesn’t sound like good news. It’s just that it’s had this unintended silver lining, which is that my mother has been so consumed by Tyler’s maxillofacial/gastrointestinal emergency, she has left me alone. When I originally told her I was going to the formal, I told her it was as a favor to Jackson because he didn’t know a lot of people. She gave me a smug “Huh, Greer, that’s so generous of you” that I chose to ignore. Then this weekend I told her I had good news: He found someone else and I was off the hook.
It was possibly the least convincing lie I’ve ever told (and one time I told her that I had just found baby Ty inside her rolling suitcase with all his clothes packed and a pacifier to keep him quiet). It’s the kind of thing she might have hounded me about, if it weren’t for Tyler coming down all red faced and puffy and saying, “Can yoo yoock at my yip a sec?”
Monday, I dawdle outside of math, trying to strike a look that says I’m waiting for Jackson if he wants to stop and talk, and that I’m standing out here for some other reason if he does not. It turns out not to matter. When the bell rings I haven’t seen him at all.
Tuesday, I wait almost as long, then creep down the hall to peek into the German room. He’s in the class already, sprechen with a group of Studenten (including you-know-who).
By Wednesday I just head straight into math to judge Kurtis and Omar’s daily homework argument like I used to.
Now I understand that we are officially avoiding each other.
* * *
σ
Maggie’s current crusade is against the “anti-feminist behaviors, wealth-biased culture, and implied measures of self-worth embedded in the outdated, unaffordable, but still prevalent practice of high school formals.” She complains about it to anyone who will listen, which is mostly just me and Rafa. You would think she would protest by not going, but Maggie likes to make her objections more visible. She and Rafa are going to the dance, but she is spending lunch searching the web for a medieval dress to demonstrate how old-fashioned the whole thing is.
I had told her that it had been obvious that Jackson felt obligated to ask about the dance, and that I didn’t really want to go except that I felt obligated, and that once we both realized that everyone was off the hook. I didn’t have to go and he could ask whoever he wanted.
“That was the conversation you had?” she had said.
“It wasn’t like a whole conversation or anything.”
“But did he ever actually say he didn’t want to go? Or that there was someone else he wanted to go with?”
“I mean, not exactly word for word, but it was obvious.”
“It was ‘obvious’? So, it wasn’t about the dr—”
Before she could finish, I shut down FaceTime on my computer, then texted that there was something wrong with my Wi-Fi. That was three days ago and she hasn’t tried to bring it up since.
I lean over to look at the site she’s got pulled up. There is a whole page of beautiful, flowing gowns in deep burgundy and emerald, with long, drapey sleeves and gold embroidery. Most of the models are wearing crowns of flowers around their heads and one has a pair of wings that, I’d like to point out, is not historically accurate. Prices range from eight hundred fifty dollars to more than a thousand.
“So, basically you’re trying to dress like you’re working at the Renaissance Faire.”
She chews on the side of her pinky. “Yeah, I see that now.”
“Makes sense, since you’re both in theater.”
“Ha-ha.”
“What’s Rafa going to wear? Chain mail? Is he going as a knight?”
“I get it, Greer.”
“Plus it’s like a thousand dollars. Oh, sorry—it’s a thousand Coin of the Realm.” I use a Ren Faire turkey-leg-seller voice.
“All right! I know! Not the right era. What should I look for? Maybe Victorian? Women were oppressed in Victorian times, right?”
“Sure.”
She does an image search for “Victorian dress” and we get a page full of poofy, ruffly hoopskirts with high-necked tops.
“They definitely say ‘old-fashioned.’”
“Right,” she says. She scrolls through the pages, looking like she’s eaten a booger-flavored jelly bean. She clicks on a purple one that buttons up to the chin, with long sleeves and layers and layers of fabric. The only skin showing is the woman’s face. Black lace edging gives the whole thing a Walmart/Bride of Frankenstein feel. “That’s, uh—”