MEG
“WE HAVE A DOORBELL, YOU KNOW,” GRAYSON SAYS WHEN HE ANSWERS MY tap tap tap tap on his front door.
I take off my coat and hang it in the ridiculously orderly front closet. “You’ve used that joke before,” I tell him as I throw my mitts and scarf onto the bench in the entryway.
He scowls. “It’s not a joke.”
I reach down and pluck a pair of pink knit mittens out of their mitten bin. “Are these mine?”
He just shrugs.
“Someone got up on the wrong side of the manure farm today,” I say. “Did your competition thing not go well or something? No, don’t tell me. Your mom recorded it, right? I want to watch.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. What was your big emergency, anyway?”
“Dude! Kat’s granddad had a stroke. We were at the hospital until like midnight.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” The scowl relaxes out of his face. “That’s awful. Is he okay?”
That’s closer to the reception I expected. “Yeah, I think so. Kat went over there again this morning with her parents. She said there doesn’t seem to be too much brain damage or whatever, and he can talk and stuff. But he hurt his hip again when he fell.”
Grayson nods, all traces of bad-day grump gone from his face. “I hope he didn’t hurt it too badly,” he says. Then, after a pause, “So, you wanted to watch the video from last night?”
“You bet! I’m sure you were the archeriest of all the archers. Even that big Hell’s Angel guy.”
“Well, he wasn’t in my division. Hang on, I’ll have to find my mom’s camera. My parents aren’t home.”
I make myself some hot chocolate while he searches for the camera. By the time I settle myself on the wide navy-blue couch downstairs, mug heaped with mini marshmallows in hand, he has the camera connected to the big screen and ready to go.
“Okay,” he says, “this video is of the first guy in my division, Kyle. He’s from Beaumont. I thought he was a dick at first, but once you get his sense of humor, he’s not so bad.”
The video starts and a short, scrawny Asian guy steps up to the line and rolls his neck back and forth as if he’s about to duke it out with someone.
My phone beeps with a new email, and I pull it out and unlock it, glancing at my in-box as Kyle raises his bow.
“Oh my God. OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!”
Grayson jabs pause. “What? Is it Kat’s grampa? Is he okay?”
“LumberLegs!”
“What?”
“LumberLegs! He emailed me back. OhmyGod. Oh my God. Oh my God. I never dreamed he’d actually email me back. Look!” I hold the phone out to Grayson, but before he can even look, I pull it back to study it again. I tap on the email, fill my screen with LumberLegs’s words. “Listen to this!” I stand and read it aloud:
Meg—
“Did you hear that? He called me Meg. He knows my name.”
Meg—
Thanks for the kind words. I’m glad you enjoy my Let’s Play.
Box turtles can go completely inside their shell, fully protected. Your local pet store or zoo can probably help you figure out if your turtle is a box turtle, and how best to care for him if he is. Please don’t just release him in the wild. Your climate might not be right for box turtles.
I hope you keep watching and enjoying.
Be awesome.
Chow for now,
LumberLegs
“He wrote me back!” I do a little hopping dance as I scroll back up to read it again. Kat is going to lose her mind when I tell her! I can’t wait to tell her! I’m never not talking to her again.
“Yeah,” Grayson says. “To tell you that you shouldn’t release your turtle in the snow. Real Einstein, that one. I could’ve told you that.”
I glance up. Grayson’s scowl is back. Combined with the darkness of his eyebrows, he looks almost—but not quite—ugly. I’ve never noticed that about him before.
“Well, he doesn’t know it’s snowy here, genius. I could be anywhere. Borneo or Libya or Hawaii.”
“Borneo? Really?”
I kick lightly at his shin. “Stop being such a downer. This is a big deal!”
“To you. I know. He’s all you ever talk about.”
“He’s not—”
“He is. All you could talk about after every practice was whatever email you wrote to him and whether he’d read it. You’d think you were dating him, not me.”
I drop my hands—and my phone—to my sides. I thought he liked hearing about LumberLegs. And it’s not like I wasn’t paying attention, but his practices were so boring. Even someone without ADHD would need a distraction, wouldn’t they? Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe this is another way my ADHD scares people away. Another way I scare people away.
I slide my phone into my pocket. “I’m not dating him,” I say uselessly.
“Look, all I know is this random gamer who has no idea who you are and who doesn’t care about you at all is way more exciting to you than your effing boyfriend’s archery competition!” He huffs out a breath and sags back against the couch.
I want to snap back that he’ll have other archery competitions, whereas LumberLegs emailing me back is probably a once-in-a-lifetime event, but somehow I manage to bite my tongue. “You’re right,” I say instead. “I’m sorry. Your competition is more important. Let’s watch that first.” I settle on the couch beside him, slide my hand along his thigh. I’m getting good at this—this girlfriend thing.
“Meg,” he says, lifting my hand off his leg and sliding away to create a cavern of space between us, “I don’t think this is working.”
It’s not the answer I expected—the answer I expected being more like, “What a good idea, Meg. You’re so caring and understanding. You earn three hundred and two girlfriend points.” But that’s okay. I haven’t lost, not yet. I can still fix this.
“Of course it’s working,” I say. “This is just a fight. Couples fight. And now we make up.” I grab my shirt, pull it upward and over my head. I glance down. Ugly gray bra. I thought I threw this one away. No matter; it can come off.
I pull at the snaps at my back and let the ugly grayness fall away into my lap. I slide closer to Grayson and reach for his belt buckle.
“Meg,” he says, laying his hand on mine. “I don’t think we should.”
I lean into him, press my lips against his ear. “We should. I know we should.” I can save this. I know I can save this. I kiss his ear—once, twice—and then he turns his head and presses his mouth firmly against mine.
LEGENDS OF THE STONE
KittyKat has logged on.
[]Sythlight: Hi
KittyKat: sorry about the other night
[]Sythlight: What happened? Everything ok?
KittyKat: my granddad had a stroke
[]Sythlight: Oh no!
[]Sythlight: :( That’s awful. I’m sorry.
KittyKat: he’s ok
KittyKat: I mean, considering
[]Sythlight: Do you want to talk about it?
KittyKat: on here or on VoiceChat?
[]Sythlight: Either
[]Sythlight: What do you think?
KittyKat: ok. I’ll call you
MEG
IT HURTS.
That’s something they don’t show in the movies—how condoms can tug and grab at areas that are way more sensitive than I expected, amid all the banging of knees and elbows and noses.
Afterward, we don’t curl together as one on the couch, blanket pulled up to the dimples in our chins. Instead, Grayson stands, runs his fingers through his hair, and starts tugging on his clothes.
This part I do know from the movies. This is the point where the guy pulls on his clothes and leaves. Except this is Grayson’s house, so there’s nowhere for him to go. He buckles his belt and sits down on the couch beside me, shirt clutched in one hand.
I lean down and snatch up my own shirt, pulling it over my head, skipping the bra, which still lies abandoned on the rug. I lift my hips, tug my underwear on. I ease up beside him so my bare leg presses against his denim-covered one.
“Do you want to watch your archery thing?” I ask, and Grayson nods, not looking at me. He reaches forward, taps some buttons on the camera.
On the screen, the short kid finishes pulling back the string and lets go. Grayson puts his arm over my shoulder. The weight of it is like that enormous snake that tiny girl on Britain’s Got Talent wore while she recited a poem about saving the animals—as the thing basically tried to strangle her to death.
I have done it. I have saved us. We are right back where we’re supposed to be, watching his oh-so-important video, not fighting.
Except that I don’t care about his stupid archery. I actually could not care less if he wins or loses or gets clobbered over the head by that hairy biker who—yes, I do remember—is not in his division. I just want him to kiss me, and wrap his arms around me, and breathe his warmth into my ear, and tell me that it’s okay that I feel wet with what I think must be blood. It hurts enough to be blood.
The video clip ends. Grayson leans forward to start the next. His hair flops forward toward his eyes, and he flicks it back before putting his arm once again around my shoulder.
On the screen, a mousy, freckled guy prepares his bow. Are all archers as thin as Pixy Stix?
Grayson’s not breaking up with me. Grayson’s not breaking up with me, because we just had sex. And I think that’s the only reason.
I get to my feet, swoop down and snare my pants, pulling them on one leg after another. My legs feel like cacti. I should’ve shaved them this morning. But I didn’t know this morning that this was going to happen.
“I’m going to go,” I tell Grayson. He doesn’t protest, just hands me my bra, which I stuff into my pocket.
“Meg, I’m sorry,” he says, which I’m pretty sure means Good-bye.
KAT
SYTH’S VOICE HOVERS ABOUT MY HEAD, DARTING FROM MY HEADPHONES TO my ears like a tiny hummingbird.
I talk about Granddad, and about how the flesh seems to have melted off him basically overnight, and how awful it is to see him as brittle bone again, when he’d been getting so much stronger. I tell him about my doll and the dresses for her that Granddad gave me, and about the carnival, even though it’s embarrassing to admit that lights and music can make me cry.
He tells me about his oma and how she speaks only German, and how when he was little that made him scared of her, but now he’s thankful for it because he can actually speak a little German.
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like Fahrtwind. It means airstream.”
That makes me laugh. “You didn’t really learn that from your oma, did you?”
“Okay, maybe not that one,” he admits.
I tell him about how Meg and I stopped talking over our silly science project, but she came anyway when I texted and now we’re talking again and that’s at least one good thing that came out of Granddad’s stroke. And then I feel horrible for saying that, but he says he understands.
He tells me about his friends and how one wants to be an engineer and another has no idea, and I recognize their names because their questionnaires are printed out and sitting on my desk.
At some point, we stop playing LotS, and I lean back in the computer chair with my feet up on the desk.
By the time the doorbell rings, more than two hours have passed.
“That’ll be Meg,” I say. “We have plans.”
“Okay,” he says. “Talk to you later then?”
I nod, even though I know he can’t see me.
The doorbell rings again. Typical impatient Meg. I’ve missed her.
“Syth—I mean, Dan?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime.”
“How’s Granddad?” Meg asks when I open the front door and usher her in. I like the way she does that—calls him just “Granddad” as if he’s hers, too, because he’s mine.
“No further strokes,” I say, “which is good. Mom and Dad are there now. They say it’s a miracle how well he’s doing.” It both does and doesn’t feel like a miracle. Seeing him so fragile in that tiny bed—not a miracle. The fact that he’s still alive—well, he’s supposed to live forever anyway, right?
Right?
Meg nods, as if in answer to my unspoken question, and hands me her coat.
Something is wrong.
She smiles at me, pats me on the head in her strange, caring way, but there’s a deadness in her eyes that wasn’t there yesterday. That I’ve never seen there, ever.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Of course,” she says, though she shakes her head almost imperceptibly, as if shaking away an unwelcome fly. “How are you doing?”
“Okay.” I study her carefully as she picks up my mom’s latest textbook draft off the front table and leafs through it absentmindedly. Her voluminous curls look normal—a bit lopsided from her toque, but that’s normal, too. Makeup, bright-colored nail polish, all normal. But she’s slouching, I think. Something is making her look even shorter than usual. “Do you want to maybe watch Legs or something?” Maybe that’ll cheer her up.
She drops the stack of paper with a thud. “Oh! Guess what! LumberLegs emailed me!”
“Did you sign up for that fan club? I got that, too.”
“No, not that. I mean, that too. But I sent him a couple of emails and he actually responded.”
“He did not! You’re joking.” Legs gets thousands of comments on every video, hundreds of daily posts on Reddit, and who knows how many emails.
She shakes her head, pulls out her phone, unlocks it, and hands it to me.
“Holy crap! He really did! He emailed you. This is amazing.”
She grins, stands up straight, and starts to recite the words on the screen in my hand in her best LumberLegs impression: “‘Meg—’”
“He wrote your name,” I can’t help but interject. “He wrote out all three letters of your name!”
“Exactly!” she says, pounding her fist on the table, as if she’s just won some argument. Whatever deadness loomed in her eyes is gone. Maybe I imagined it.
I let her recite the entire thing from memory, even though I’ve got it right there on the screen in front of me.
“You were going to release your turtle into the wild?”
“Of course not. I’m not stupid.”
“Okay, just checking.” I study her face as I hand back her phone. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she responds.
Granddad is not dead. That’s the important thing.
I nod. “So . . . marathon watching sesh of your new buddy, Legs?”
She hugs her phone to her chest like it’s Legs himself. “Yes!”
Later, when we’re sprawled on the couch with our chips and chocolate, and there’s a brief pause as we switch from one video to the next, I turn to Meg. “By the way, thanks for last night. For being there.”
“Of course,” she says. “Anytime.”
Which makes twice in one day that someone has said that to me.
MEG
“MEG SAYS WHAT’S ON HER MIND.”
“Meg has no filter.”
“Meg is so outspoken.”
I’ve heard it a hundred thousand times—from teachers, friends, my mom, everyone.
The Meg they’re talking about would walk into Kat’s house and report, immediately, that she’d had sex. “I’m wearing a pad,” she would say, “because there was blood and it’s not my period. Also, Grayson and I broke up, I think, but it’s good riddance, really, because he was boring and a jerk.” That Meg would give a complete play-by-play of how and where and what it looked like.
And then once that weight was gone, that Meg could move on to talking about exciting things, like LotSCON and how she bought tickets and how we can go together and it will be epic and great and it won’t matter that I had sex because who cares about Grayson because I don’t even like him as much as Legs anyways.
That Meg would say all the things.
I know this because the words are hopping around in my head like an angry wasp buzzing about under a glass, like a horde of winglings stuck in a lava trap, screaming to get out.
So why aren’t they coming out?