Cracked Up To Be

"Are you asking me out?"



He blinks. "Am I?"



I lean my head back and stare at the bus ceiling where a huge wad of pink gum has attached itself. Gross. "Well, say you are asking me out. That means you'd have to get off at my stop and we'd go from there, right?"



"It seems that would be the most convenient way to go about it."



I unfold the paper in my hands. HOW TO BREATHE. I fold it back up again.



"You'd have to meet my parents," I say carefully. "I've sort of freaked them out lately and they don't really like me going out when I can't be supervised, and since they've never met you they'd probably say no and I'd probably have to be back before my curfew, which is seven thirty..."



I look him directly in the eyes.



"I mean, you know how it is. You chase a bottle of sleeping pills with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and life's never the same, no matter how many times you try to tell people it was an accident."



"Is that a no?" he asks. "If you don't want to, just say so. You don't have to be such a smart-ass about everything."



I want to laugh, but I don't. There's something unsatisfying about what just happened here. I set the paper down.



I could have a good time if I went out with Jake. But that doesn't mean I should.



"Are you asking me out?"



"Yeah," he finally says.



"Mom, Dad--this is Jake Gardner."



After they get over the initial shock that I still have a friend to bring home, my parents play twenty questions with Jake. They're straight out of The Parent's Handbook and they're so standard it doesn't even matter who's asking them.



MOM/DAD: Well, it's nice to meet you, Jake! Gardner, Gardner... that wouldn't be any relation to the Gardners down on Marriott Avenue?



JAKE: Thanks, nice to meet you, too. It might be. See, my family just moved here from the West Coast not that long ago.



MOM/DAD: Oh, wow! How exciting! Welcome to Corby! So how do you know Parker? Do you two share a class together?



JAKE: We have art together. We're partnered for a big project due at the end of the year.



MOM/DAD: Oooh. Aaah.



At this point I go upstairs and change out of my uniform. When I go back downstairs, wearing something more casual, Jake and my parents are winding it up.



MOM/DAD: And your parents--what do they do?



JAKE: Well, my dad's in tech support down at that call center in Belton, my mom's a zoologist and my stepmother does voice-overs for commercials. You've probably heard her. She did the one for those crazy mop-broom hybrids. The Bop?



MOM/DAD: My mother-in-law loves the Bop! Wow! That's great, Jake! You're welcome here anytime!



We decide not to go to the coffeehouse right away, opting to wait for the school day to settle first. And Bailey needs a walk, so we take him to this patch of park where people bring their dogs to interact with other people's dogs and chase Frisbees and things.



"Here, Bailey." Jake grabs a stick off the ground. Bailey hops around lightly as Jake swings it back and forth. "Fetch, boy!" Jake throws the stick. Bailey goes lunging after it and lets out a startled yelp when he's jerked back by the neck, and that's when I realize his leash is wrapped tightly around my hand at a painfully short length.



"Shit!" I say. "Oh, Bailey--I'm sorry!"



He gives a pitiful whimper and I crouch down and gesture him forward. He tiptoes up to me with this big Sad Dog expression and it makes me feel guilty. I wrap my arms around his neck because I don't know how to apologize to a dog, but this one always wants me to pet him, so a hug should be, like, huge.



"I'm sorry, Bailey. I didn't do it on purpose."



"You're obviously unfamiliar with the game of fetch," Jake says behind me.



I ignore him and pat Bailey on the head until he looks less pained and more adoring and for a second I think I'm going to do something I haven't done--and genuinely meant--in a long time.



Cry.



Chris is crying over my hospital bed the second time I wake up. The first thing I think is I can't pay him back. It's the first thing I say, too.



"Good boy." Bailey wags his tail. I turn to Jake because I can't shake this stupid sad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I snap my fingers. "Do you think he hates me for that? I mean, do you think he understands it was an accident?"



"He's a dog," Jake says. But then he looks at my face. "But sure, yeah. I bet he understands. He's clearly smitten with you."



"Clearly," I echo. I shove my hands in my pockets. "You have a lot in common with my dog!"



"Har, har," he says, reaching for another stick.



"I don't feel comfortable letting him off the leash," I say quickly, and Jake drops it and then I start feeling even worse for some reason. I shouldn't be doing this with him. I should stop. "And I'm not hungry. We should skip the coffeehouse."



His face falls. "Sure, that's fine."



"But we can still do this, though," I say.



"What's this?"



It's a good question. We're just standing here, Bailey sitting between us and glad to do it, but it's not really anything and Jake wants something. So I think about kissing him, but then I don't because that would be really stupid.



"I guess I'll just catch the bus home then, is that it?" he asks. "I wish you'd told me you weren't really into this, Parker."



"It's not that--"



"Then what is it?"



"Never mind. Let's just go to the coffeehouse."



He laughs. "Right, yeah, we'll just do that when you've already said you don't want to. You know, this is so typical--"



"No, I do! I asked you if you were asking me out and you said you were and I agreed to it, so we're going to eat and we're going to talk about our stupid art project, okay? You cancel a date before it happens, not during. So we're going to the coffeehouse. That's what we're doing."



"Fine, Parker. Whatever."



We drop Bailey off at home and go to the coffeehouse and I order a bagel and a black coffee and Jake orders a chicken salad sandwich and a black coffee and neither of us says anything even though we're supposed to be talking about our art project. "If I knew why you liked me," I say after the waitress drops the bill on the table, "I could probably handle it a lot better."



"That makes two of us." He hesitates. "Do you even like me at all?"



"I don't know. It freaks me out. I try not to think about it too much."



Jake sighs, grabs the bill and stands. I do the same. And then I start thinking of the dog and I feel guilty all over again and I want it to go away and snapping my fingers doesn't help, so I do that really stupid thing.



I lean over the table and kiss him.



TWELVE



Chris wants to talk.



In homeroom, he hisses my name, but I ignore him. In art, he tries to start a conversation and I ignore him. After the bell goes, he tells me to meet him in the gym and--ignored. He either knows about Jake or wants to talk about Evan and I don't want to talk about either, so I have to find somewhere else to spend my lunch hour, somewhere that's relatively peaceful and not totally crowded.



Like the chapel.



Why didn't I think of it before? If I'd thought of it before, I never would've tried the nurse's office or made a habit of "hiding out" in the gym. The chapel. It's only a Catholic school. No one goes to the chapel.



But I'd forgotten just how awful and uncomfortable the place makes you feel until I push through the doors and step into the little God's House adjacent to the caf. It's like the walls know I'm a bad person. I stand before the altar, cross myself--force of habit--and try to pick the best pew of the lot, settling for one in the middle on the left-hand side. I could sleep away my afternoon classes and no one would ever think to look for me here.



"Parker?"



I groan.



"Oh my God. It's true."



"Go away," I mutter. "I'm not talking to you."



"You're a mess."



The thing about being drunk is people want to congratulate you for it, often in the form of giving you more to drink.



Or maybe this anomaly is only true of people in my high school.



Chris drags me out to the pool and for the next hour all anyone can talk about is how Perfect Parker Fadley is actually drunk, and then they slap me on the back and they say "way to go" all admiringly, and next thing I know, someone's pressing a red plastic cup into my hand. And because I start feeling that rush I usually feel when I've done something perfectly and everyone knows it, I drink whatever is in the red plastic cup.



And then I get props and another red plastic cup.



Four or six red plastic cups later, I have:



Danced horrendously in front of everyone, even though Chris assures me I looked sexy and plenty of guys want to "tap" that, nearly fallen into the pool, told several people I loved them, apologized to most of the cheerleading squad for being a Nazi--except for Becky, fallen down and cried, was helped up and laughed, threw up, cried again, told Chris I hated him for doing this to me because I was being stupid and he promised me I wouldn't and stumbled away to the front lawn, which is where I'm lying now, flat on my back with perfectly manicured blades of grass pressing into my legs, hands and neck.



Chris is probably searching for me all over the house and backyard where the party is, which is why I'm out front, where the party isn't. The remaining minuscule sober part of my brain refuses to let me make a fool of myself in front of everyone any more than I already have and the remaining minuscule sober part of my brain says the only way I can do this is if I stay the fuck away from people altogether.



"Do you need help up?" Jessie asks. "If I get Evan and Chris and maybe Becky, I'm sure we can drag you up to Chris's parents' bedroom."



I throw my arm over my eyes.



"Go away." She doesn't. She sits down on a patch of grass close to my head.