22 September 2015
After the party, I kept to myself and counted down the days until the end of the world—129 for the math-impaired. Almost two weeks had passed since Marcus ditched me at Taco Bell, and he hadn’t tried to apologize. No texts, no notes, no gropes in the restroom during lunch. The only thing that changed is that he calls me Space Boy twice as often, which only toughens my resolve not to press the button.
If the sluggers were looking for someone to save the world, they chose the wrong guy. Marcus would press the button to save his own ass, Audrey would do it because she honestly believes every person on the planet deserves to live, and I’m sure even Charlie would do it, but only because the button is red and he likes bright things.
I’m not sure what Jesse would have done. He had this way of seeing the truth about a person. He understood people in a way I never could. Maybe he would have saved the world because it deserved to be saved, or maybe he wouldn’t have pressed it because he figured we’d only wind up finding some other way to annihilate ourselves. Whatever choice he might have made, it would have been the right one. Jesse was the best of us. Definitely the best of me.
Not that it makes a difference. The sluggers chose me and, as far as I’m concerned, life is like a game of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Everything’s made up, and the points don’t matter.
• • •
I was pretending to pay attention to Ms. Faraci while she taught us about buffers and pH by leaning on my fist and covering one eye, keeping the other open to look like I was awake. Mom and Charlie were still fighting whenever they were in the same room, so I wasn’t getting much sleep at home. I must have dozed off because the bell rang, startling me. Marcus slapped the back of my head as he passed, and threw a nickel on my desk. It bounced off my book and rolled on its edge to the floor. “Keep the change, Space Boy.” Adrian dropped a handful of them at my feet, laughing so hard, he looked like he was going to give himself a hernia.
I watched them go and, when I turned around, caught Audrey eyeing me. “What?”
“Someone started a rumor that you trade blow jobs for nickels behind the gym.”
“That’s stupid,” I said, looking at the change on the floor.
“They seem to think it’s hilarious.”
“If I’m supposedly some kind of nickel whore, and they’re giving me spare change, doesn’t that mean—”
Audrey flapped her hands in exasperation. “Just ignore them.”
“Whatever.”
She was huffing like she was dying to give me more unsolicited advice, but she said, “Forget it,” instead, gathered her books, and left.
Audrey hadn’t tried to talk to me since the party, and I was grateful for the silence. The last thing I want is for Audrey to tell me how sorry she is or make some lame attempt to fix our friendship. I’m content to let the world end with our friendship as dead as Jesse.
“Henry, may I speak to you for a moment?” Ms. Faraci sat behind her desk and caught me as I tried to sneak out.
“I’m kind of on my way to lunch and—”
Ms. Faraci picked up a Scantron sheet and set it on the edge of her desk. Even from a distance, the red lines were visible and plenty. “You failed your exam, Henry. This isn’t like you.”
I shuffled forward to look at the grade. I hadn’t failed the exam, I’d bombed it hard. We’d taken the test the Monday after Marcus’s party, and I knew I’d tanked it when I turned it in. “It’s just one test.”
“If someone is giving you a hard time, I can speak to them.”
“Please don’t.”
Ms. Faraci bit back whatever she was planning to say. “I know high school can be difficult.”
“Is this the part where you tell me it gets better, and that if I toughen up and make it through the next two years, my life will be awesome?” I hoisted my backpack higher on my shoulder. “Can I go?”
“I’d like to give you the opportunity to do some extra credit.”
“Pass.”
“An essay on a science-related topic of your choosing.”
“I don’t have time.”
“Maybe you could ask Audrey Dorn to help you; I’ve seen you talking, and she’s got the highest average in the class.”
“Definitely not, but thanks anyway.”
“You’ve got a real talent for science, and I don’t want to see your grade suffer. Think about it, okay?” Ms. Faraci’s voice was sincere, and I didn’t want it to be. I wanted her to be like the rest of my teachers: bored, jaded, and counting down the seconds until retirement.
“Sure, whatever.” I took off before she could detain me any longer. Even though I didn’t have anywhere to go, I didn’t want to spend my lunch period with a teacher.
My locker was in the art building, which was quiet and centrally located. When I reached it, I dialed in the combination and grabbed my lunch. I heard the door open at the end of the hall, and turned to see Diego Vega enter. I hoped he hadn’t seen me.
“Henry Denton!”
Damn. He was waving like we were best friends. It was hot as balls outside, but he was wearing a green sweater over an oxford shirt and tie that made him look like he’d gotten lost on his way to a polo match, only his tie was askew and his collar flaps out. It was probably as contrived as everything else about him.
Diego sidled up to me as I slammed my locker door shut, and said, “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“Guilty.”
“If it’s about what I said at the party—”
“Forget it. I’m used to it.” I wanted to leave out the west exit, but the north doors were closer, so I headed for them.
“Cafeteria’s the other way.”
I kept walking. “I don’t eat in the cafeteria.”
Diego trotted along beside me. This kid wasn’t going to give up. “Please tell me you don’t eat in the restrooms. That would be too tragic.”
“There are benches near the library.”
Diego crinkled his nose. “Even worse.” He tried to drag me by the arm, but I pulled away. “Come on. I don’t have anyone to sit with. You’d be doing me a favor.”
“Trust me, I wouldn’t be doing you any favors.” We’d both stopped walking, and for some reason, my feet wouldn’t start again. Diego’s sincerity, which I’d been fooled by at the party, was back in full effect. The thing was, I wanted to believe him. I considered for a moment that maybe he hadn’t known what he was doing when he’d called me Space Boy. Maybe he was exactly what he seemed.
“Just, whatever. My rep’s no better.”
“I doubt that.”
“For real. I’m sure they’ll come up with a nickname for me any day now.”
I shrugged because it was easier to go with him than to continue arguing. “Fine, but if you call me Space Boy again, I’m gone.”
Diego slung his arm around my shoulders. “Deal.”
• • •
I hadn’t eaten in the cafeteria since the middle of sophomore year. Jesse, Audrey, and I always sat together. We were a unit. After Jesse, I stopped eating inside.
Not much about the cafeteria had changed. It was loud and jagged, and I made myself small. Most people were sitting in the same groups with the same people they’d known all through high school. We aren’t just defined by who we are, but by who our friends are. It’s funny that we put so much importance on something that won’t mean shit once we graduate.
“You hungry?” Diego asked. “I’m starving. My sister is hardly home to cook, so I’ve been living on delivery pizza and microwave popcorn.” He slid into the lunch line, grabbed a tray, and tossed on a bag of chips, mac and cheese, a pudding cup, and something the serving guy claimed was chicken potpie. “Food here is so much better than at my last school. We were happy if all we got was E. coli.”
I cringed looking at Diego’s lunch. “I’m not sure that qualifies as food.”
Diego shuffled to the cashier and fished money from his pocket. “Sometimes you have to learn to adjust your expectations to survive.”
“How bad was your last school?”
“Pretty much a prison.” Diego grabbed his tray and waded into the sea of tables and chairs. I followed him to a table with a couple of free seats, and watched him tear into his lunch while I dumped mine out of its paper bag.
“Is that meatloaf?” Diego grabbed my sandwich without asking and peeled back the plastic wrap. He sniffed it before I could snatch it back.
“Yeah.” A thick slice of meatloaf rested between the bread, one side slathered with mayo, the other with ketchup. A mixture of sunflower seeds and raisins rolled around freely at the bottom of the bag.
Diego talked with his mouth full of mac and cheese. “My mom made great meatloaf. It was my favorite.”
I tossed the sandwich aside. “We had meatloaf last week, and it was terrible then.” Diego frowned, so I said, “Sometimes my grandma packs my lunch. She’s a little senile. I should be grateful we didn’t have any gravy left.”
“It could be worse.” Diego tossed me his potato chips; I was too hungry to refuse the gift. “You do anything fun this weekend?”
“Mostly hid in my room to avoid my mother and brother. He knocked up his girlfriend and dropped out of college, and my mom’s not taking it so well.” Diego probably didn’t want to hear about my fucked-up family, but I couldn’t think of anything else to talk about.
“What about your dad?”
“Not around.” I was content to let it drop there, but Diego had this way of looking at me that made me keep talking, like I was afraid to let the silence creep up between us. “My parents divorced when I was younger, and my father disappeared. I haven’t heard from him in years.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Diego had eaten most of what he’d bought, but there was still some potpie he was eyeing like he couldn’t decide whether to finish it. “Did you stay at the party after I decided to see how much of my foot I could shove in my mouth? I tried to find you, but that house is huge. I got lost in a closet for an hour. It was fun.”
“About as much fun as a throbbing hemorrhoid.”
“Tell me how you really feel.”
The last thing I wanted to be reminded of was Marcus’s party. “I don’t really do parties.”
“They’re not my thing either.”
“What is your thing?”
“Painting.”
“That’s right. You’re an artist.”
“When you say it, it sounds like an insult.”
“Artists always seem so self-involved. Everything is about their art.” I chuckled to let him know I was teasing. “I mean, come on. What’s up with all the self-portraits?”
Diego was quiet for a moment, but the empty space was filled by the chaotic noise from other tables. I hoped I hadn’t offended him. “Artists have to learn how to paint what’s in the mirror, even if what they see is a total shit show.” He gave in and scooped up the last bite of potpie. “If you can’t paint yourself honestly, everything else you paint will be a lie too.”
“I didn’t realize artists were so self-aware.”
“Yeah, well, being self-aware only means that we know we’re assholes.” Diego shrugged and pushed his empty tray to the side. “Anyway, that’s what my ex-girlfriend used to tell me.”
“Ex-g-girlfriend?” I tried not to stutter, but I couldn’t help it, and ended up drooling. “Shit.” I forced a laugh and wiped my lip with a napkin.
Diego pretended not to notice, but I caught him grinning. “Her name was Leigh. She’d tell you I was the biggest prick in North America. Probably the world.”
Having recovered from my sudden inability to keep saliva in my mouth, I said, “Did you break up because you moved here?”
“Nah, we were done way before that.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m not. She was only using me for my big prick. Didn’t I mention that?”
I snorted and laughed. The students at the other end of the table glared at me, which only made it harder to stop. “I know the feeling.”
“You got a . . . ?”
“Not really,” I said. “Maybe. I don’t know. He’s a big prick too.” I considered telling Diego about Marcus, but I hardly knew him, and it wasn’t my secret to tell. It would destroy Marcus if word got out he was hooking up with Space Boy. “Why’d you move to Calypso?”
Rather than answer, Diego looked at the table and the walls and over my shoulder—everywhere but at me.
“I get the feeling you don’t want to talk about it. I was only trying to make conversation,” I said.
“It’s complicated.” I thought Diego was going to explain, but instead he said, “What do you do for fun around here?”
Diego’s unwillingness to discuss why he moved from Colorado to a shit hole town in the limp dick of the nation only made me more curious. Maybe he was shipped off by his parents as punishment for robbing liquor stores or cheating on history exams. Or maybe he was a secret government operative whose mission was to befriend me and discover what I knew about the sluggers. That actually made more sense than anything else. Still, I hated secrets. Jesse had kept secrets. Maybe if he hadn’t, he’d still be alive. Only, Diego wasn’t Jesse. Diego was nobody to me, and I didn’t want to piss him off by prying.
“You already went to the biggest party of the year. What more do you want?”
Diego leaned back in his chair. “Something exciting.”
“What’d you do in Colorado?”
“Stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Yeah,” Diego said. “Hung out with friends, avoided my parents. Stuff. All of it very exciting. I miss it.” He looked far away, like he’d traveled there in the silence between our words. That’s the problem with memories: you can visit them, but you can’t live in them.
“Then why don’t you go back?” I regretted asking the moment the question left my mouth. Shadows crowded Diego’s face, and every muscle tensed up. Shoulders, fists, cheeks. I cleared my throat and said, “All we’ve got here are beaches, but you already know about those.”
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
Diego grabbed his tray, already half standing. “The beach. We’ll bail on class, and you can show me around Calypso. I’ve got a car. We’ll get some sandwiches and hang out.”
Jesse and I skipped once in tenth grade. It was the first week he got his driver’s license. Vice Principal Marten nearly caught us trying to sneak off campus, but Jesse’s car was faster than Marten’s golf cart. We drank beer on the beach and lay in each other’s arms until the sun was only a memory burned into our brains. He’d said, “You know, I think I love you, Henry Denton,” and I believed him. I believed all of Jesse’s lies.
“I can’t.”
Diego slumped back into his seat. “It’s cool.”
“Maybe some other time.”
Rather than giving me a guilt trip, Diego said, “Any time,” and I knew he meant it. “So, tell me about these aliens of yours.”
I twisted a bit of sandwich wrap around the end of my index finger, watching it turn grape red. Diego snapped his fingers in front of my face. “I’m not making fun of you.”
“I didn’t—”
“You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.”
“It’s not something I talk about.”
“Then you should write about it.”
“Drop it.”
Diego was either oblivious or determined or simply a giant prick like his ex-girlfriend had said. “Writing’s like painting. You have to write about yourself before you can write about anything else.”
I was done talking, but I couldn’t figure out how to shut Diego up. It was like something inside of him had malfunctioned, and he was going to keep rambling until his batteries died.
“There’s an amazing world out there for you to discover, Henry Denton, but you have to be willing to discover yourself first.”
The bell rang, saving me, and we all rose like Pavlovian dogs, eager to run to our next classes. Except Diego. He was still sitting, like he was waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t know what. Finally I said, “What if I don’t give a shit about the world?”
Diego gathered our trash and frowned. “I’d say that’s pretty fucking sad.”
“Why?”
“Because the world is so beautiful.”