Fact: Every morning, without fail, I do two things. I check on Lord Voldemort. And I weigh myself.
The first thing involves peeking into the terrarium on top of my bookcase as I rub the sleep from my eyes. Lord Voldemort (aka the coolest tarantula in the Western Hemisphere) burrows further into the tunnel of silk he’s been building next to his flowerpot. I put my hand on the tank.
“Hey, Voldy. How’s it going? I gotta go to school, but I’ll see you later, okay?” He doesn’t really respond, but I think at least one of his eight eyes winks at me. I just fed The Dark Lord a cricket yesterday, so he should be good.
Now it’s time for the moment of truth. I walk down the hallway to the bathroom I share with Dean, hop on the scale, and wait for my fate to blink at me from the little rectangular screen.
146.
Water splashes against the shower curtain next to me, intermixed with the sound of Dean growling. He always sounds like a zombie when he’s trying to wake up in the morning. I step off the scale and then back on just to be sure, but the display says the same thing: 146. So when you factor in eight to ten pounds for water weight, cutting to 138 should be no problem. The 145 weight class is way too close to my actual weight—those guys will probably be cutting from 160. They’ll be giant. And there’s no way I can cut all the way to 132 unless I want to remove a couple internal organs, so 138 it is.
Which would be fine. Better than fine. I could be killer at 138. But you know who else wrestles 138? Ethan Wells. The guy still hates me, and now I’m giving him the chance to kick my ass as part of a legit, school-sanctioned activity. We’ll be paired off, every day after school, gunning for the same spot and each other’s weaknesses. Starting today.
I step off the scale and debate weighing myself one more time, maybe trying to pee again first, when Dean drags open the shower curtain.
“Can you hand me a towel?” He shakes the water from his head like a dog.
“Sure.” I pass him one without leaving my spot in front of the scale.
“It’s not going to change,” he says.
“I know.”
“Not unless you want to spit in a cup or run a few miles wearing trash bags.”
“I know that.” We go to our separate rooms to throw on some clothes, which for me means going down the hall, but for him means going down to the basement. But when we pop into the kitchen at the same time, we pick right back up like conversations have pause buttons. “It doesn’t even matter. It’s not like I have an official weigh-in or something.”
Dean smirks. “Then why are you freaking out?” he asks, just as Pam says, “Well, then, there’s nothing to keep you from eating a good breakfast.”
She sets a bowl of oatmeal and an egg-white omelet on my place mat, which has a real cloth napkin because we are real southerners, and pushes me toward the table. “Eat.”
“First wrestling practice is today,” I say around bites of oatmeal. “And since I grew four inches and gained about twenty-five pounds since the end of last season, I won’t be wrestling at 113 anymore. I’ll be in 138 hell with your buddy Ethan.” I tic-shrug. “Kill me. No, wait. You won’t have to because Ethan will.”
“Do you even know if Ethan’s still at 138?” Dean shovels in eggs and muffins like they’ll evaporate if he waits too long. Pam clucks her tongue at him as she slips my Tourette’s meds onto my napkin.
“No. But I’m pretty sure. It’s what he wrestled the last two years.”
Dean used to wrestle, too, but he quit last year so he could focus on football and baseball. He hated the wrestler diet. Sacrificing to make weight. The complete and total abstention from alcohol during the season. Come to think of it, he hated pretty much all of it. Except the part where you get to knock people around, he liked that part. But he still gets to do that when he plays football.
My dad comes in carrying an unassuming black case. “Hey, Dean, check it out. We got some new fixed blades in.”
“Oh, yeah?” Few things can tear Dean away from Pam’s homemade blueberry muffins, but shiny new weapons are an exception.
Dad pops open the case of glittering knives. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was a serial killer. These are the knives from every scary movie you’ve ever seen—serrations across their spines, lethal blades, points that hook back like shark fins. Dad and Dean are throwing out phrases like “flat grind” and “through hardened,” and I’m thinking the six inches between me and the edge of my dad’s knife case feels like a canyon.
I lean over the table to get a better look at the knives. “That Camillus looks pretty cool.”
Dean snorts. “That’s a Gerber.”
“Oh.” I shrug like it’s no big deal even though I suddenly want very badly to say something cool about that knife. “Well, it’s got a mean gut hook,” I try.
Dad studies the knife and smiles. “Yeah, it kind of reminds me of my old Bubba Blade.”
“Hey. Hey, Dad.” Dean’s eyes are glowing at the mention of my dad’s old knife. I think I know where this is going. “Remember the time Spencer tried to dress his first buck, and he puked all over your Bubba Blade?”
I roll my eyes. It’s not my fault deer insides smell the way warm feels. “Hey, Dad. Remember the time Dean told the same annoying story every day for the past seven years?”
My dad laughs, but I can’t tell which one of us he’s doing it with. Probably Dean. He’s still got the case turned in that direction and everything.
“Don’t forget your medicine,” Pam calls from the kitchen.
I swallow the pill with a big gulp of water. Even though they make me sleepy as all hell for a couple hours after, my new meds are totally worth it. No full-body tics. No twitches keeping me up all night (well, most nights). And, best of all, no mood swings.
I hurry to finish my breakfast and get ready in time to meet Dean at the truck. Rule Number One of sharing a vehicle with my brother: Dean always drives. No exceptions. Even though the license I got last month is burning a hole in my wallet, and it is technically our truck, which you would think means I get to drive it half the time. And my parents won’t let me drive solo because they’re worried that the meds drowsiness and my tics will get me in a wreck. The idea of me suppressing my tics until I get to a stop sign or red light completely freaks them out. Which, okay, they’re parents, and it’s their job to worry, but plenty of people with TS drive, and it’s not like any of my tics impair my vision or make me jerk the steering wheel or anything.
The horn blares from outside while I’m in my room shoving stuff into my backpack. Rule Number Two of sharing a vehicle with my brother: The correct time to leave for school (or anywhere) is as soon as Dean is ready. He lays on the horn again, a good two seconds this time. I swing from the top of the stairs and land at the bottom with a thud.
When I slide into the cab beside Dean, he has a book cracked open on the steering wheel.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“I got a book report due third period,” he says, flipping a page.
“And you’re just finishing the book now?”
“Yeah. I’ll write it during first and second.” He tosses the book beside him with a toothpaste-commercial grin. “And Monroe will give me an A, because it’ll still be better than anything anyone else turns in.” He faux-sighs. “We can’t all be me.”
“I kind of want to punch you in the face right now. Do you know I was up until freaking two am trying to figure out The Scarlet Letter?” (Side note: I’m pretty sure you’d fall asleep reading that book even if you weren’t on my meds.)
“Didn’t you already get an extension on that?”
My shoulders hunch up like they’re trying to protect my ears. “Some people need more time on stuff.” Plus, tenth-grade English is kicking my ass.
Dean shakes his head. “Must be nice. Getting special treatment and shit.”
“Dude—” I want to say a lot of things, but he waves me off.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That wasn’t cool. I’m just . . . I bombed my chem test last week. Whatever. I’m dropping my APs next semester. Senior year was supposed to be easier than this.”
Dean, bombing a test? These things just don’t happen. The idea of him not being able to hack it gives me this sick, happy feeling, but it’s followed pretty closely by an I’m-a-total-dick feeling. “You sure you don’t want me to drive so you can work on that?”
“Ha. Nice try.” He cranks the engine and guns it to school so we can get a decent parking spot.
Dean parks the truck beside Ethan’s. My phone says I still have five minutes before I have to go inside. At home, I am the lone blue fish sharing a little backyard pond with three orange fish. At school, there is an ocean of orange fish, and they’re all swimming in a different direction from me.
Jayla skips over and knocks on my window with a huge grin. Having a girlfriend is awesome. Sometimes she asks me really complicated questions like, “Do you think I’m prettier than Hope Birdsong?” and if I don’t answer fast enough, she gets really mad. But other times, she lets me take off her bra when we’re in her den watching movies, so, like I was saying, awesome. I’ve barely gotten my door open when she laces her fingers through mine. She squeezes my hand, and my scales flicker to orange until she lets me go. I put my lips to hers, trying to drink up all her normal. She throws her arms around me and shoves her tongue in my mouth. I tic once, a small shoulder shrug, and she ignores it like usual.
When she pulls away, I see a flash of white hair over her shoulder. My eyes go from make-out-haze-halfway-shut to wide-freaking-open. I don’t mean to do it, but I watch Hope cross the parking lot.
“Hey, so, guess what!” a part of me hears Jayla saying. “Oklahoma! auditions are today.”
The good parts of my brain try to concentrate on my girlfriend. Her eyes lit up with excitement, mile-long eyelashes curling up at the ends. But the bad parts are multiplying like a virus, and before I know it, I’m staring again.
Hope is one of the cool girls now. Not the girls who sparkle through the hallways leading their jock boyfriends behind on leashes. The other cool girls. The ones who wear torn tights and think attendance is optional.
Most people think she’s bad news. Angry. I can see the truth. She’s so sad it hurts to breathe.
She leans against the wall of the school, one leg bent, high-heeled boot tapping against the brick. Her thumb pushes down on her index finger, and then each of the others in turn. Four little pops that her mom tells her will give her man knuckles.
“. . . thinking about singing ‘Many a New Day,’ but I really feel like ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’’ showcases my voice better.” Jayla cocks her head to the side like she’s weighing her options again.
Now that Jayla’s moved, Hope is directly in my line of sight. The wind blows her hair across her eyes, and when she pushes the strands away, we’re staring right at each other, and there’s a beam of light holding us together, and I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. I gasp, but it’s more like the air is being forcibly sucked out of me. And part of my mind can hear Jayla saying, “Are you okay?” but her voice seems so far away.
She touches my shoulder, and the light between Hope and me shatters. Wow. Was I really just doing that? First of all, Jayla could have noticed, like, ANYTIME. Second of all, I swear I’m not that big of a dick. This is something the old Spencer—the one who was stupidly in love with Hope—would have done. I look at my girlfriend—my beautiful, standing-in-front-of-me girl-friend—and cup her chin in my hand.
“Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi.” I kiss her, just for a second. “You are going to nail this audition. You’re the best singer in this entire school.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t last. “The best girl singer,” she says. “Justin Irby is the best boy singer. Maybe even best overall.”
“Well, then, you’ll be Laurey, and he’ll be the main singer cowboy guy.”
“Curly.”
“Yeah, him.”
“I don’t know.” She twists her fingers together, and the smile she gives me isn’t even a half smile. More like a quarter or an eighth. “I guess I just worry because Justin has blond hair and blue eyes, and what if Ms. Pickett doesn’t want—” She stops and shakes her head. “No. You know what? I’m a freshman now. Maybe things will be different than they were in middle school.”
“What do you—”
“Forget it.” She smiles and kisses me.
I kiss her back until Dean flicks me in the back of the head.
“Get a room.” He snickers like a third-grader. “Hey, Spencer, you’re turning red. What, are you embarrassed?”
He flicks me again, and I yank the strap on his backpack, cinching it from its artfully low-slung position to somewhere up around his armpit. And before you know it, we’re chasing each other around the car.
Jayla makes a big show of rolling her eyes at us before planting one last kiss on my lips. “See you at lunch, okay?”
She struts off toward the trailers behind A Building, her straight black hair bouncing against her shoulders, but I have to go to C, which means Dean and I will be walking directly past Hope. She’s just ten yards away. And then three. Our eyes meet again, but this time it’s a tiny beam of light. Like a strand of uncooked spaghetti. It would be really easy to break it. If I wanted to. Instead, I wave at her. My hand just shoots up and does it out of habit, before I can think about whether or not it’s okay.
It’s been so long since I’ve waved, or said anything at all. At first I think she’s going to pretend she didn’t see, but then her fingers lift just a few inches away from her leg. Just for a second. Maybe the mini-wave was one of those involuntary things. Maybe it was because she didn’t want her friends to see. Dean sees.
“Why is that psycho bitch waving at you?” he says. Loudly. His voice carries across the sidewalk and bashes itself against Hope’s boots.
She narrows her eyes, and the fingers fluttering by her side ball into a fist. She flips her wrist upward as we walk past. Gives him the finger.
Maybe she’s angrier than I thought.