Fact: There is a poster in my English teacher’s class of salmon swimming upstream with the caption, “Swim against the current.”
It’s supposed to be all inspiring and make you want to resist peer pressure and buck the system and never give up, only there’s a flaw in the metaphor.
Fact: After the salmon trek it all the way upstream and spawn, they die.
This does not bode well for the rest of high school.
My favorite part of the day is this golden twenty minutes that happens after I finish my early-morning lift but before school starts. I sit in the back of my truck—you heard right, MY truck. (Dean is away at college, and freshmen aren’t allowed to have cars. There’s so much about that statement that makes me happy, I don’t even know where to begin.) So, yeah, I’m sitting in my truck, and I’m just waiting for my friends.
It’s weird seeing the school so early in the morning. Teachers trickling in clutching coffee cups. (They must put on their teacher faces post-caffeination, because they look like different people in the early-morning fluorescent light.) Football guys finishing up part one of their two-a-days. Overachievers going to club meetings. Freshmen getting dropped off early because their parents have to get to work. There’s this new kid who I’m pretty sure fits in that last category.
He reminds me of a puppy I took care of that summer Hope and I volunteered at the animal shelter. The little guy was deaf and blind, so the only way it could navigate its surroundings and figure out stuff about the world was by running in a circle, and then a bigger circle, and then an even bigger circle. High school is like that. Running around not understanding and waiting to run into things.
“Hey, cutie.” Jayla hops up into the truck bed next to me. “You watching that new kid again?”
I grin sheepishly. “Yeah. I think that’s probably what I used to look like.”
“Freshman Spencer?”
“Yeah.”
Jayla eyes the kid like she’s making a serious appraisal, but her smile is sly. “I bet you were cuter.”
I close the six inches of space between us and put my arm around her. “You were definitely cuter.”
She glows, absolutely glows under the compliment. “You think?”
“Oh, definitely. I remember the first time I saw you. At that party.”
“Ohmygosh, Justin’s party!” She wrinkles her nose. “With that awful punch.”
“I still maintain the secret ingredient was cough medicine.”
“Or dish soap.”
“And you were standing on a coffee table doing a dramatic reenactment of Ursula singing ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls,’ and every guy in the room was watching you, and no one was underestimating the importance of body language.”
“I don’t know about that,” she says, but she’s grinning as she scoots closer to me.
“They were. They were all thinking, ‘How can I get this amazing girl to pay attention to me?’”
She smiles because this is the part where she picks up the story. “But there was this one guy who was not at all enraptured by my performance. In fact, he looked like he was looking for something.”
“I was one hundred percent enraptured!”
“You were looking for something. I remember because it’s what made you different. I had to jump off the coffee table and follow you, because you were so interesting. And, okay, I might have heard a couple stories about what a good wrestler you are.”
“I remember you came right up to me and asked me what my name was.”
“I grabbed your arm and made you talk to me.”
“I thought you might have been flirting with me.”
“Um, that is like saying, ‘I thought you might have been hungry’ to a guy who just pounded the entire McDonald’s value menu, but sure, okay.” She traces my hand with her fingers, looking suddenly serious. “Hey, what were you looking for that night?”
“Oh, um. I guess I don’t remember.” I’d been looking for Hope so that I could apologize. Someone told me she was going to be there, but then I met Jayla and forgot. “It’s crazy—I mean, funny. It’s funny.” I promised myself I wasn’t going to say stuff like “crazy” and “lame” ever since we learned about ableist language at camp this summer. “How we both remember that night so differently. I guess it was just so hard to believe that someone like you could be flirting with someone like me.”
Jayla pulls my face toward her and kisses me. “It shouldn’t be hard to believe,” she says. She moves to kiss me again, and this time I can tell it’s going to be one of those kisses that makes me wish we could hide in the back of the truck all day, but just as her lips touch mine:
“Okay. Okay. Not all of us have smoking-hot girlfriends, and not all of us appreciate being subjected to PDA this early in the morning.” Paul climbs into the truck with us and makes shooing motions. “C’mon, I just ate eggs over easy. I don’t need to see your spit all over her face.”
Jayla rolls her eyes (lovingly). “We need to get you a girlfriend.”
“I know.” Paul rubs his hands together. “So, who are we thinking?”
He and Jayla dangle their legs over the edge of the truck bed and banter over his prospects as various girls get out of their cars and enter the school building. It is a serious business. It also happens approximately every other day.
They stop for only a second when Hope thrusts a small plastic-wrapped loaf in between them and yells, “Homemade Nutella Banana Bread!”
She climbs up beside them. “You guys have your intense faces on,” she says. “Are we searching for the love of Paul’s life?”
“Are we ever doing anything else?” I ask. I tic-sniff a few times, back to back to back.
“You’re just grumpy because you can’t have any banana bread.” Paul polishes off his first slice and grabs a second. That kid is like an animal or something. If he doesn’t eat his weight in high-calorie food daily, he’ll starve. I, on the other hand, am already being careful to get a jump on wrestling season. I’m planning to wrestle 138 again, but my body seems to want to be bigger than that.
Hope is busy pointing out that Abby Stevens has a whole new confidence about her since she got her braces off.
“Confidence is sexy,” agrees Paul. “I should get some.”
Jayla bumps him with her shoulder. “It is a lot easier to get a girlfriend when you’re actually willing to, you know, talk to a girl.”
And then a Jeep full of sophomore girls pulls in right next to us, and the three of them lose it, and they’re talking over each other so much I can barely make out what they’re saying. I end up watching the new kid again. He’s been writing (drawing?) in a notebook, and then he jumps up like he forgot something and runs toward the north lot doors. And because I’m watching from a distance, I can see what’s going to happen before the new kid runs smack into these two offensive linemen, Hudson and Jace. I don’t actually know the new kid’s name, but I usually call him Brony in my head on account of him being totally obsessed with My Little Pony. (As you might imagine, this doesn’t help him out in the arena of Dealing with Guys Like Hudson and Jace.) The Rainbow Dash notebook. The figurines he keeps in his locker. The T-shirts/socks/backpack/wristbands and the jacket that has, I shit you not, a rainbow tail hanging off the back.
I cock my head to the side, a question forming in my brain as Hudson blocks Brony’s path, and Jace, aka Mini-Ethan, circles him like a panther. “Do you ever feel like you’ll never fit in?” I ask.
Paul bobbles the piece of banana bread he’s holding (his fourth, not that I’m counting), and the girls stare at me. I wish I could click a button and have the words zip back into my mouth, fast as rolling up a tape measure.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean . . .” What am I even saying? Mostly things are pretty good for me now. I have friends. I have a girlfriend. I have wrestling. Junior year is my best year yet. But it’s like I have to tell myself I have those things, because if I don’t, I’ll remember what it was like to have everyone else be one way and me be another. And the truth is I still don’t feel like I fit. I’ve just gotten better at pretending that I do.
“I mean, like, when I’m not in this truck with you guys, you know?”
Paul nods. So does Hope. Jayla appears to have no idea what I’m talking about, but then realizes that she is the only one who hasn’t nodded, so she nods, too.
Hope scratches the back of her hand. “When I used to wish I could fit in, I don’t know. It was almost like I was hoping for it to be this magical thing, like I’d pull a sword out of a stone and beams of light would fall on my head, and tada. I’d fit. Um, but maybe it’s more fluid than that.”
“Yeah, and maybe it isn’t about finding a way to make yourself fit,” says Paul. “Maybe it’s about finding the other people who don’t fit the same way you don’t fit.”
I think about that for a minute. “I like that.”
“Me, too,” says Jayla.
They are all the best for not thinking I’m weird.
My eyes are drawn to Brony again. It’s a train wreck, and neither Hope nor I can look away. Paul and I are both smart enough to keep our dorkitude well hidden, but Brony has no idea. If you let your freak flag fly, they’ll massacre you. But if you’re careful, it’s almost like there’s a secret society of revolutionaries dispersed among the normal kids at school. The trick is finding the others without getting your ass beat.
“Yeah. I like that a lot,” I say.
But I’m snapped out of thoughts of revolutionaries because the Brony situation escalates. Jace takes his backpack, and Brony goes from chill-but-irritated to full-on-pissed.
“Give it back. You could break something,” he says.
Which only makes him a more interesting target. The guys laugh. My legs must realize my plan before my brain does because soon I’m headed in their direction.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Princess Celestia,” says Hudson. Which, okay, for someone ragging a guy about liking ponies, you have to wonder how he knows the name of their fearless leader.
“Yeah, I just want to see what’s inside,” says Jace.
Brony jumps for the backpack, but the guy’s only about five foot four, and Jace easily keeps it out of reach. But he’s laughing so hard he doesn’t realize he’s letting his arm droop. Brony jerks the backpack away with a speed I wasn’t expecting.
“Asshole,” he mutters.
Hudson’s head snaps up. “What did you say?”
Oh, man. This is not good. We’re gonna be peeling him off the parking lot when this is all over. Hudson throws an arm out to block him, while Jace grabs him from behind in a choke hold. Brony’s fingers curl around Jace’s forearm, and I’m thinking I should really jump in and help the guy out, when he flips Jace over his shoulder and onto the pavement.
“Holy shit,” says Hudson, just staring for a second before he remembers he’s supposed to be ass-kicking right now.
He charges Brony, and the kid does this ridiculous submission move. I’ve never seen anything like it, even at all my wrestling meets. Jace is up now, and he gets in a good sucker punch to the face while Brony’s tied up with Hudson. Then one of the north lot doors opens, and Vice Principal Kahn sticks his head out, and Jace and Hudson take off running.
Brony waits until they’re gone before his legs go all wobbly and he crinkles to the asphalt holding his face. It was a pretty mean punch. And now I’m standing in front of him without any idea what to do next except to say, “Are you okay?”
He startles. He thinks he’s about to get hit again.
“It’s okay, man. I was just coming over to check on you.”
I give him a hand up, and he takes it.
“Thanks.”
I pick up his backpack, too, and I can’t help but notice all the My Little Pony pins as I hand it over. “Here.”
He kind of grimaces before slinging it over his shoulder. His shoulders tense like he’s waiting for me to make a comment about the bag, but there’s something else I’m much more interested in.
“How’d you learn to do that? Those guys were twice your size.”
He smiles, and his cheek pulls a little funny on the right side where it’s starting to swell up. “Brazilian jiujitsu. I used to go four times a week with my dad before we moved here. I got all the way to my blue belt.” The lights turn off inside his face. “There’s one about half an hour from here, but he’s deployed now, so I don’t know.”
“That’s really cool. The part about the jiujitsu, I mean.”
“Thanks,” he says, just as I say, “So, how much do you weigh?”
His eyebrows furrow.
“That came out creepier than I meant it to.” I laugh, but he’s still looking at me like I’m a weirdo. “I’m on the wrestling team. Freshman year I wrestled 113, but then I got too big, which is cool because now I wrestle 138.” (Hopefully.) “But we’re kind of screwed for the 113 spot. All the guys who tried to fill it last year sucked something fierce.”
“Wrestling,” he says, and his face kind of de-clouds itself.
“It’d be an adjustment, but you’ve definitely got the strength and the talent.”
“Um. Yeah. Hell, yeah. I’ll think about it. It would be good to . . . Yeah.”
I give him all the details for practice next week, and it turns out he’s between 115 and 120, which is definitely doable. We’re still swapping stories about wrestling meets and Brazilian jijitsu tournaments when the bell rings.
“I better get to class,” he says. “But thanks again—”
“Spencer,” I say.
“Traven.”
He heads across the parking lot with a bounce in his step that he didn’t have before, and I’m bouncing, too. All the way to Coach’s office, where I burst through the door with a huge grin on my face.
“I found your new 113 guy.”