Chapter Eight
“So how’s school going, Bear?” Dad asks on the ride to school Friday morning. I’m impressed he managed to hold off this long.
“Fine,” I say automatically.
“You seem to be adjusting well,” he says casually.
“I guess.”
I don’t know why I’m being like this. He’s trying. But something about the attentive father routine bugs.
Beside me, he is trying to decide what to say next. I can feel him toying with different approaches, looking for the magic words, exactly the right question to get me to open up. “Why didn’t you tell me Crossroads was an alternative school?” I ask abruptly, cutting him off at the pass.
He hesitates, but only for a second. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react,” he admits. “I know there’s a stigma associated with them, and I didn’t want you to read anything into my decision to send you to one.”
my decision. I never thought of it that way, as his decision, a choice he made on my behalf. But of course it was. Before I even left the hospital in L.A. the details were all worked out.
I grit my teeth, angry suddenly, why am I so pissed off? It’s a raw, unbridled feeling, a rope cut loose inside, fury flapping like a tarp inside my chest. Pain shoots up my jaw.
“Does it bother you?” he asks.
“The fact that it’s an alternative school? Or that you lied to me about it?”
“I didn’t lie about it,” he says, and now his voice is tight. “I may not have mentioned it, Jessa, but I didn’t purposely hide it from you. Please don’t accuse me of that.”
“Whatever.” A few minutes later he pulls into the bank. I get out without a word.
“Have a good day,” he says quietly. I slam the door. As soon as I do, I regret the drama of it. But he’s already pulling away.
Hannah is waiting for me under the stairs that go down to the gym. Our meeting place since Wednesday, when Dad had a client meeting and had to drop me off early and I went looking for a place to hide out and found hers. She was sitting cross-legged with a notebook in her lap and a wool cap on her head, all her auburn hair tucked in, and for a second I didn’t recognize her, but then she smiled and her brown eyes crinkled and I did.
Today it’s a calculus textbook and a black fedora and a scowl.
“Kill me now,” she says as I sit. “The bell’s gonna ring in three minutes and I have twenty-two problems left.”
“Out of how many?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Yikes.”
“I was up late practicing and slept through my alarm,” she says without looking up, her pencil moving methodically down the page.
Her phone is on the floor next to her, counting down the seconds until the warning bell. Two minutes and forty-three seconds. Now forty-two. Now forty-one. She had the timer going yesterday, too, when it was a music theory worksheet instead of math. “It keeps me from getting distracted,” she said when I asked her about it, shrugging like she hadn’t given it much thought. The time, meanwhile, was suddenly all I could think about. The changing numbers, the pressure of moments passing, the awareness of something scarce being lost. My pulse keeps pace with the racing seconds. Anxiety escalating, taking off.
Hannah’s timer buzzes just as the bell goes off. She closes her book and shoves it into her bag. “I have to stop by Dr. I’s office before class,” she says, getting to her feet.
please stop by dr. i’s office
The crumpled pink office slip. I haven’t thought about it since I dropped it in my bag on Tuesday morning.
“He’s the guidance counselor, right?” I ask casually, fiddling with my bag.
“Yeah, but don’t tell him that,” Hannah says. “‘I’m a psychiiiiiiatrist, long I, like my name.’” She rolls her eyes. “He went to med school, so apparently the counselor label is a real ego slam.”
“What are you seeing him for?” I ask. It’s weird that I haven’t stood up yet, but there’s no way I’m going with her to his office, no way I’m getting near the a school shrink.
“I’m gonna see if he’ll get me out of the English paper I have due next week,” she’s says. “Prioritizing my music career over a stupid essay won’t fly with him, so I’m gonna try the overwhelmed by stress angle and see if that works.” She starts up the stairs.
“I should get to class,” I say, so focused on the fact that I don’t want to go with her that it doesn’t register until she’s halfway up the stairs that she hasn’t even asked me to.
She waves over her shoulder. “See you at lunch.”
The practice room at lunch, that’s become the second half of our routine. There are six rooms total, but only one of them has a piano, so that’s the only one we ever use. Chloe and Janet are usually there when we get there and there’s a guy with a guitar waiting in the hall when we come out. Hannah says most of the kids in the music program have a free period they use to practice, but since she’s taking a double load of classes for Interlochen, for her it has to be during lunch.
Today, Hannah’s not at the water fountain when I get there, so I go down to the room. Janet and Chloe are on their way out.
“Is Hannah inside?” I ask.
They exchange a glance. Chloe smirks. “Nope.”
Janet has her hair pulled back in a ponytail. The scars on her forehead are all I see. The expression on her face is more apologetic than smirky.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Chloe says before Janet can answer. “We just finished practicing in the room we reserved. Now we’re going to lunch.” She pulls Janet down the hall.
As they round the corner at the end of the hall, Hannah comes through the side door from outside, her cheeks pink from the cold. She seems happier than she did this morning. Less stressed.
“Hey! Sorry I’m late,” she says brightly. “I had to run down to Rite Aid.” I start to tell her about the weird exchange I just had with Janet and Chloe, but she’s already pulling open the practice room door. As she steps in front of me I notice that her backpack is coming unzipped. A paper Rite Aid bag is caught in the zipper, the kind they put prescriptions in.
Hannah steps inside the room then stops abruptly. There’s a girl at the piano. Blond ringlets, tan that looks natural but has to have come from a can because it’s January in Colorado and the sun hasn’t been out all week. The girl has her eyes closed, playing a song I recognize but can’t place. The heavy door behind us shuts and the girl’s eyes spring open, a whoosh of mascaraed lashes like a butterfly’s wings. Her hands go still on the keys.
“What are you doing here?” Hannah demands.
“This is called a piano,” the girl says calmly, tapping her finger pointedly on the highest key, a shrill, repetitive scream. “I’m playing it.”
“Not in here you’re not,” Hannah says coldly. “There are five other practice rooms. You can go to one of those.”
“But this is the only room with a piano,” the girl replies. “Which is why I signed up to use it.” Hannah’s eyes dart to the wall by the door. There’s a print-out taped there, with the days of the week and time slots in a grid. The name Logan Dwyer is written in the 12:10-1:00 pm block for the next three weeks.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Hannah retorts. “Nobody uses those sign-up sheets.”
“I guess Mr. Tanaka does,” Logan says innocently. “I asked if I could reserve a practice room for the next couple weeks — you know, to help me get ready for my big audition — and he said to just sign the sheet.”
I can see Hannah in the corner of my eye, all angles and edges, balled hands at her hips. “What audition?”
Logan arranges her fingers on the piano with a smug smile. “I’m trying out for Interlochen.”
Hannah stares at her for several seconds. Then she turns and walks out.
She doesn’t stop in the hallway. She pushes through the side door. I follow her out, the sharp cold stinging my face.
“Where are you going?” I call.
“Marshall has my physics book,” she calls over her shoulder, not slowing down. “If I can’t practice now then I’ll have to put in an extra fifty minutes tonight, which means I’ll have less time for homework. Are you coming?”
I hurry to catch up to her.
“If I get my physics problem set done now,” she’s saying, “and I read for history on the drive home, then I’ll only have calc and music theory to finish. And those I can probably do in the morning. If I don’t sleep though my alarm. I should get a back-up clock.” She’s blinking fast, thinking, working it all out in her head.
“Wait, can we talk about what just happened? Who was that girl?”
“Logan Dwyer. She plays the piano too, obviously. Of course she’s sitting in there playing the freaking Moonlight Sonata. God. Could she be a bigger cliché?”
“Is she good?” I ask as I follow her back inside the building.
“Good enough,” Hannah says. “I mean, her technical skills aren’t great, but she makes up for it with expression. Which is all you need when you’re playing the freaking Moonlight Sonata. Or some crap by Mozart. Ugh. I hate Mr. Tanaka. He obviously told her about the Emerson. Not that she needs it, her parents are loaded. The only reason she wants it is because there’s a bunch of press when you get it. Do you see my brother anywhere?”
We’ve reached the windowed wall of the cafeteria, a fishbowl of tempered glass in the center of the main hall. The room is overcrowded, bodies jammed around tables, girls doubled up in blue plastic seats. “He usually sits on the far right,” Hannah says, craning her neck. “At the Aspie table.” She glances at me. “He doesn’t have Asperger’s, obviously. He just sits with the kids who do.” Her eyes go back to scanning.
“Why?” I ask.
“He says they’re the only people at Crossroads who don’t talk about themselves all the time,” she says, and I have the thought he would’ve hated wren. She taps the glass. “There he is. C’mon.”
She tugs the door open, and when she does the volume cranks way up. Without meaning to, I take a step back.
Instantly she’s back at my side. “I wasn’t even thinking about the crowd. I’m sorry. I can totally text him, tell him to come out.”
The concern in her voice makes me cringe.
barbie’s unstable
“It’s fine,” I say, and step past Hannah into the cafeteria.
Marshall is waving us over, so I keep my eyes on his outstretched arm and try to ignore everything else.
“Hey,” Marshall calls. “What happened to the practice session?”
“Change of plans,” Hannah says flatly. She kicks out a chair and sits down. “Can I have my physics book, please?”
I take the only other empty seat, next to Marshall, across from a girl with carrot-colored hair.
“You’re new,” the girl says bluntly. She’s looking at a spot in the air to the left of my face, blinking super fast.
make friends
“Uh, yeah,” I say. “I’m Jessa.”
“Are you on the spectrum?” the girl asks.
Hannah rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to be autistic to sit at this table, Sophie. She’s here because I’m here, and she’s my friend.”
“You don’t have any friends,” Sophie says.
“Shut up, Sophie,” Hannah says.
Beside me, Marshall leans forward, elbows on the table. I can’t tell who he’s looking at.
please don’t be looking at me
“Do you play an instrument?” the boy beside Sophie asks. “Hannah plays the piano. I play the trumpet. The trumpet has been around since 1500 BC.”
I shake my head, wishing I could leap from this table and run. Away from all the talking and the questions and the eyeballs on my face.
The boy across the table keeps talking at me, his voice sort of like a trumpet, ba ba ba ba da ba. “The precursor to the trumpet, the cornetto, didn’t have valves or keys,” the boy is saying now. “Modern trumpets have three valves and can play forty-five distinct notes.” He pauses now, abruptly, like it’s my turn to speak.
“Wow,” I say.
The boy doesn’t blink. “Are you saying that because you don’t believe me, or because you find it surprising, or because it’s something people say when other people tell them things they don’t care about?”
“I—,” I don’t know why I said it. I said it because it was something to say.
Marshall laughs. “Brendon, buddy, you’re supposed to ask yourself those questions, not the person you’re talking to.”
“But that’s stupid,” Brendon says flatly. “If I ask myself, how will I know if I’m right?”
“Leave Jessa alone,” Hannah says. As she works through physics problems, she picks at a red, scaly patch of skin on the inside of her wrist. “She doesn’t need to be interrogated over lunch.”
“But she’s not eating lunch,” Sophie points out.
“Sophie. Shut up.”
“I’m getting more pizza,” Brendon says, and abruptly stands up.
“Are you guys gonna eat?” Marshall asks us.
Hannah picks up the piece of pizza on her brother’s tray and takes a bite.
“Brendon,” Marshall calls. “Get me another slice.” He looks over at me. “You want one?”
“Sure,” I say, then remember the lunch Dad packed for me this morning, the almond butter he ground himself, the local blueberries in a half pint jar. eat well. “Actually — never mind. I have stuff.” The sack is at the very bottom of my bag, buried under my chem textbook, flattened and smushed. A piece of my hair slips from my braid as I’m digging for it. I push it back, tuck it behind my ear without thinking.
“What’s wrong with your face?” Sophie asks, and Hannah and Marshall go still.
The sack slips from my fingers, lands with a thud in my tote.
here I go down circle road strong and hopeful hearted through the dust and wind up just exactly where I started
The leather strap is wrapped around my wrist, cutting off the circulation to my hand. I hadn’t realized I’d been twirling it. I fumble for the piece of hair I tucked behind my ear and accidentally pull another chunk free.
“Jessa?” Hannah says my name in a way that makes me think she’s said it a few times already.
“I was in a car wreck,” I hear myself say.
“Did anyone die?” Sophie asks as I straighten up, her eyes darting from my face to the air beside it. The way a person would look at something gross, quick glances, too uncomfortable to stare. Steel walls partition off this thought, a Do Not Enter zone. I force another explanation, literally force my mind to form the thought.
she’s autistic. she looks at everyone that way.
“…suppressing internal thoughts,” I hear Marshall say in a low voice.
“I understand that,” Hannah snaps. “But she needs to know that she’s being super rude.”
don’t avoid
“It’s not a big deal,” I say, as breezily as I can, which isn’t breezy so much as stilted and heavy, the opposite of breezy, a boulder in the snow. I look directly at Sophie’s eyes, hiding in her one blind spot. “No, no one died. No one else was even hurt.”
“Move over, Sophie.” Brendon is back with the pizza. “Your chair is touching my chair. You know I don’t like it when other chairs touch my chair.”
It’s a diversion, and I should be thankful for it, because all the eyes have turned to him. But I just . . . can’t.
be here, do this, make small talk with these people i don’t know
“I’m gonna go,” I say abruptly, jerking to my feet. My chair scrapes noisily against the floor. I fumble for my bag.
“Jessa,” Hannah says.
“I’m fine,” I say, and force myself to look her in the eye, ignore the pity I find there. “Really,” I add, as convincingly as I can. “I just need a second.” She nods, and I see on her face I believe you. And I am grateful for this, for my ability to pretend.
this is what i’m good at
this one thing
Except I actually suck at it now because my face gives me away.
The bodies around me blur as I push my way toward the door.
The hallway is empty, thank god. No one to see my chest heaving, my fist balled at my mouth. Knuckles digging into my lips, pressing into my teeth. I move toward the girls’ bathroom, but then I think of the mirrors, there will be mirrors, and I freeze.
don’t avoid
But I can’t do a mirror right now. Not yet.
A surge of crowded voices behind me, cafeteria noise. Someone has opened the lunch room door. Hannah, maybe, coming after me, checking that I’m okay.
“Jessa,” Marshall calls.
His voice disorients me. I was expecting Hannah. I’m not prepared for him.
“I said I was fine,” I say loudly, too loud, without turning around. “I just need some space.”
The cafeteria door shuts, and the hall is quiet again.
“I need some space, too,” he says. “I really do not like it when Brendon’s chair touches my chair.”
Despite myself, I smile.
“It’s a problem,” I say, and turn around. Marshall is standing in the center of the hallway with his hands in the pockets of his cords. Dark hair falling in his face.
“We have to do something,” he’s saying. “In this carnival of ephemeral futility, the chair touching really has to stop.”
My eyes are on his chin, his forehead, then, finally, his eyes, which leap at me like they did yesterday, swallowing up the air between us.
let go of me
But he’s not holding on to me. He’s not even touching me. He’s just looking at me.
I want to look away, but that feels like cheating, or giving up. My pulse thumps in my neck.
“Mostly because people are so messy,” Marshall goes on. “Their stuff gets all over your stuff. And the next thing you know, you’re completely invaded.”
like how i feel right now
The cafeteria door opens again, and it’s Hannah this time.
“I’m gonna go outside,” she announces, then looks at me. Her eyes are so much gentler than his. “Come with me. You need some cold air.” It isn’t a question and she isn’t wrong.
“Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”
I look back at Marshall but he is already pulling open the cafeteria door. “Be brilliant,” he tells Hannah, then disappears inside.
Her features crunch, an irritated scowl.
“He’s an extrovert,” Hannah says. “It’s annoying as hell.”
agreed
I follow her out the side door, around the building to the practice field in the back. The chain link fence is rusty, and the grass is patchy in places, weeded, dotted with brown. My old school had a sparkly stadium, with Astroturf and a rubber track. The cheerleaders used to hang out on the bleachers before school, passing lip gloss around and taking pictures of themselves with their phones. There were seven of them, maybe eight, but without their faces in my head I can’t distinguish them, they are just those cheerleaders, they are just blond. I doubt they all had the same hair color, but I never paid enough attention to know.
We climb the metal bleachers and sit on the top row. It’s freezing out here, the kind of cold that makes your bones ache, but the starkness of the air is a comfort, a relief. It numbs everything else out.
“You wanna talk about it?” Hannah asks quietly.
The answer is automatic. “No.”
“You sure?”
don’t avoid
“Not right now,” I say, the best I can do.
“Okay,” Hannah says simply, and pulls her physics book from her bag. Her wrist looks even worse in this light, thick and scaly and red. She sees me see it.
“Eczema,” she says, tugging her sleeve down to hide it. “It’s disgusting, I know. I shouldn’t have worn this sweater. The wool makes it worse.”
“Trade you,” I say. “My face for your wrist.”
Her irises go glossy. The pity is back.
“I should read,” I say, looking away. I dig The Picture of Dorian Gray from my bag. We’re supposed to read through by Monday, and I still haven’t opened the book. This happens when my panic gets bad. Homework stresses me out so I don’t do it, which only stresses me out more. I was in the gifted program before Dad left, honors track, but after That Summer school became another chance for me to second guess myself, it’s too much i can’t do this, and after a couple months I’d proved myself right.
My mind pings to that pink office slip. If my grades drop they’ll send me another one, whatever color means you’re majorly messing up. Someone will call Dad and action plans will be made and I’ll end up in Dr. I’s office staring at an Ansel Adams print on the wall.
I flip past the preface and start on . The words are like bricks, the yellowed page an impenetrable wall. I grit my teeth and start again.
“The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world,” someone named Basil says on page two. My left cheek aches from clenching, from the cold, from the dense prose I can barely muddle through.
if he’s right then I’m in luck