A Step Toward Falling (20 page)

More than mad, actually. She's furious.

Which makes me think—wait, didn't he ask her to come and audition? Weren't the cheerleaders meant to be at a competition? And that's when I realize—there isn't any competition.

Lucas hasn't told them anything about this play.

E
XCEPT FOR THE POLICE
right afterward, no one has ever asked me what happened with Mitchell Breski. Nan doesn't want his name said in our house, so Mom can't ask. Cynthia and Rhonda, my teachers, haven't asked me either.

I don't think I want to talk about it, but sometimes I would like someone to explain what he was doing. I thought at first he was trying to help me. He knew I was crying and embarrassed and he kept saying, “Shh, shh . . . it's okay. I'll help you pick up your things.”

I said, “Thank you,” because I needed help. Everything was broken and there were a lot of pieces. Then he started rubbing my arm, which didn't make sense because my arm wasn't hurt. He said those guys were a swear word and I shouldn't pay any attention to them.

He was touching me more which I didn't like so I tried crawling away, but he grabbed my sweater and said, “Hey, girly, not so fast—you can't walk back out there like that,
all covered in dirt. Let me wipe you off first.”

I stood up near the gate to the field. It was very dark where I stood and bright up ahead. I thought maybe he was right—if I walked out everyone would know what just happened and would laugh at me. I knew I couldn't go back and sit with the band, with Coke on my skirt and popcorn in my hair.

“Let me help you,” he said again.

And then he was so close in the dark, I could smell his breath which was terrible, like he'd been eating metal. He touched my hair and put his mouth on my neck. It felt like when a dog licks you. You want to push the dog away but Nan always says you have to be nice to dogs, they're just dogs, so you shouldn't push them away. I tried to push him away, but he kept doing something with his mouth like he wanted to eat my neck.

“You have pretty yellow hair,” he said.

“I have to go,” I said. I definitely didn't want him to put his mouth on me anymore but he was holding my shoe box. “Can I have that back, please?”

He held it away like he wanted to make it a game, where I grabbed for it and he kept holding it back farther. I didn't want to play that game but the rest of him was trapping me against the fence. He kept leaning so I had to grab the fence to lean away from him. My hair got caught on the fence and hurt when I pulled. I started to cry it hurt so much and I was so scared.

He said, “Shh, don't cry.”

Then he started touching my chest but I don't think he
liked what he was doing. His face was red and sweaty and he made noises like it was hurting him.

Then he said, “Don't look,” and he unzipped his pants.

I
did
look even though he told me not to. I looked and that's when I screamed so loud that a janitor came.

I knew what it was called but I had never seen anything like that before. It scared me because it was ugly and his face was red and ugly when he pulled it out. In school we learned about personal space and good touch/bad touch. Good touch is things like hugs from your family. Bad touch is people who hug you when you don't want to be hugged or touch your private parts. Private parts are any places on your body that a bathing suit hides.

When we talk about it in class, everyone asks, “Is a belly button private?” “Is your neck private?” When Anthony said this, I told him to please think before he asked questions like that. “Is your neck underneath your bathing suit? I don't think so.”

I got mad at Anthony because I didn't think boys and girls should all be in the same room learning this stuff. I thought it would only give the boys ideas and they were already too girl crazy to start with. All Douglas wants to talk about is girls, girls, girls. I think sometimes you should not talk about certain things, the way they do in
Pride and Prejudice
when no one wants to say what a bad singer Mary is or how Lydia is flirting too much. They are polite and don't say anything. That's how I think we should all be about sex. We should just not say anything.

When I told Rhonda this she said it was not a good
idea. She said that sooner or later we will all have feelings about wanting to touch somebody else and sooner or later someone will want to touch us and we have to learn how to say no if we don't want it.

We practiced that a lot in class. We took turns saying, “No, you're in my personal space. I don't want you to stand so close.”

It worked fine in class where the other kids knew they had to step away if you said it. Mitchell Breski didn't step away, though. Now I think maybe Rhonda was right—that it's okay to talk about some of these things because I would like to understand what happened and what I did wrong.

Anthony did a good job at the audition, but he was very nervous, especially around the armpits. When he asked if I could tell they were sweaty I said yes because I don't like to lie to anyone, especially not to Anthony. “It's okay, though, because other people didn't see it,” I said, which wasn't true. His face was sweaty and everyone could see that, too.

For me, auditions are fun. They don't make me nervous anymore because I've had lots of practice doing them. For Anthony it was different. He sounded like he was saying his lines with food in his mouth. It was very hard to understand him. I still told him he was great afterward, though, because I thought he was.

Then I get home that night and I start to worry: What if I get a part and Anthony doesn't? I'll feel terrible if that happens. Maybe I'll find Lucas or Emily tomorrow and
tell them that Anthony works very hard and gets much better at things with practice. When he first got to high school, he couldn't open his locker which didn't surprise me because no one in our class uses the lockers we got in ninth grade. We all tried to open them once and we couldn't so we left our things in our classroom and forgot about our lockers, but Anthony kept trying and trying. Every morning he went back and finally in November he opened it by himself. Then he offered private classes called How to Open Your Locker. We each took turns being his student. He taught me in three days which made me his best student, he said.

Maybe that's when I first knew Anthony liked me but I couldn't like him back because he was in ninth grade and I was in eleventh.

Now he says age doesn't matter if you're in love.

I tell him, “We're not in love, Anthony!” which we aren't.

Except I'm so worried about him getting a part in this play that it's almost like I care more about him being in it than me. Which doesn't make sense except I can't help it.

I
CAN
'
T BELIEVE HOW MUCH
time I've wasted sitting on my bed, staring at my phone. I'm waiting for Lucas to call so we can decide what to do about our failed play project,
but really I want him to tell me what happened with Debbie after the audition. By the time she interrupted us, it was already 4:15, just enough time to end our auditions and get Belinda and Anthony onto the late bus. Packing up our things, I tried not to be obvious, but I watched Lucas talk to Debbie in the corner. He didn't look embarrassed so much as tired of whatever conversation they were having. She did most of the talking. He listened and nodded.

If he'd never told her what we were doing—which seemed pretty obvious by the expression on her face—how much of a couple could they really be, I thought, but maybe I've got this wrong.

When I first saw Debbie in the back of the theater, I thought I knew what was going on. The reason no one had shown up to our audition was that Lucas hadn't told any of his friends—including his girlfriend—what we were doing. Earlier today that would have made me mad. I thought I wanted popular people to show up so we could prove to Belinda that lots of people will help her even if we didn't that one time. Now I understand the story is more complicated. Lucas has ostracized himself from this group because they aren't the people to demonstrate anything to Belinda, least of all kindness.

His teammates were terrible to Belinda. Ron was the worst, but every one of them had run by her without stopping to help her up. Lucas was right. None of these people should have been part of our show. He understood that and I didn't.

Now I see all the ways Lucas has distanced himself
from his teammates. He not only agreed to be in a play, he found just the right one. When no one showed up, he felt as bad as I did and something happened—something real—in that moment when he held my hand. I'm sure of that. Which is why I assume he'll call me the minute he gets done breaking up with Debbie.

Except he doesn't.

Fine, I think. He doesn't have to call me, but he
can't
keep going out with her. He just can't. He's too kind, he's too decent; he's too smart to waste himself on a girl like her. That's all I want to tell him.
You don't have to date me, just don't date her.
Please, as your friend, I'm begging you not to date someone who doesn't appreciate you.

I
am
his friend, I think, staring at the phone. And good friends talk like this. They say
You're too smart for that person.
Richard says it to me all the time even when it's not true. He always tells me I'm too good for every boy I've ever liked who didn't like me back. In my case it wasn't true, but in Lucas's case, it's so true it's almost hard for me to breathe. He isn't a football-playing, cheerleader-dating idiot. He's so different from the rest of that crowd that I don't want him to ever waste his time with them again. He should be hanging out with me and my friends. He should be laughing with us and being himself. He should get to know them so they can get to know him and see what I see: how unexpected and amazing and sweet he is.

Of course I also realize why this is making me so nervous. I think about the way he kissed the back of my hand and then held it to his cheek. I don't just want to be
friends, I want more than that. I want to kiss him. I want to walk down the hallway with one finger hooked around a belt loop on his pants. I want everything Debbie has and doesn't appreciate. I want things I can't have because the laws of social stratification in high school might allow us to be friends for a while, but would never permit any more than that. I'm not blind; I know this much. He couldn't sit comfortably at my lunch table any more than I could sit comfortably at his.

I think about watching him up onstage playing Mr. Darcy with tiny perfect gestures: his folded lips, his one raised finger. I think about him looking at Belinda, then at me, then back to Belinda. He feels it, too. I know he does. My heart races stupidly at the thought. At least I think he does. To me it was so obvious by the end of his scene with Belinda that I half expected him to look out into the audience and break up with Debbie right then. After the day we'd just spent, how could he
not
?
But now four hours have gone by and nothing has happened. He hasn't called. He hasn't texted or emailed. I feel the knot of expectation in my stomach loosen to make room for the story I'll have to tell myself tomorrow and the next day and the day after that when we see each other and talk about everything except this.

I can already imagine it and I can't stand the picture. We'll talk about the play and agree we can't do it. It was a nice idea, we'll say, but you can't put on a show if you have no actors. We'll shrug and walk away from this thing we've been working on for weeks because we have no other choice.

All these thoughts are confirmed the next day when I see Lucas once in the morning, talking to a boy I don't recognize but who, judging by his size, must be a football player. Lucas holds up a finger in my direction but I can't tell if he's trying to say
Wait, I want to talk to you
or if it's a simple, one-finger hi.

He doesn't stop talking, so I keep walking with a laugh that sounds fake because it is.

At lunch I see him again but he doesn't see me or look in my direction. I realize that he's making a choice, not looking over. For two weeks we dropped all self-consciousness with each other. We talked easily in the hallway and in the cafeteria. We had a purpose that made us unshy with each other. As if, because we were talking about a play few people would ever see, we didn't think anyone would notice us talking.

Now even looking over in his direction, at the table full of his friends, feels loaded and dangerous. As if a thousand eyes will notice what an idiot I've been. As if they'll see what I'm thinking because it's written on my face: Why did we do all that if we're just going to give up? Didn't we hold hands for three minutes because Belinda's story wasn't the only thing that made us sad, the idea of not doing this play did, too?

I keep thinking that we can't go this whole day without saying anything, but apparently we can because we do.

I
SPEND MOST OF THE
weekend by myself at home. In three days, Lucas hasn't called or messaged me once. The only explanation I can think of now is that what happened before Belinda and Anthony walked in wasn't about me at all, it was about the story he told. He hates these guys. Telling me was a relief. Holding my hand was a courtesy. Kissing it was a thank-you. That's all, I decide. Now that our time in the Boundaries and Relationships class is almost over—we have three more classes—we won't even share that anymore. Next semester we might say hi when we pass in the hall, but it's possible we won't even do that. It's possible this whole time will be something neither one of us ever understands well enough to talk about.

We felt bad about what happened to Belinda. Really bad. Then we moved on.

As if Lucas is trying to prove my theory right, we don't talk the next week in school. He doesn't ask for a ride and
on Wednesday night, he doesn't show up to Boundaries and Relationships.

But here's a surprise: Chad does.

“Hey! How're you doing?” Chad says, smiling at me and spinning around in his chair when I walk past him to get to an empty seat. “I was just thinking about you the other day.”

I whisper, “Hi,” and then point up to the front. “I think Mary's about to start.”

Mary claps her hands and says, “We've got a new topic, everyone! Today we're going to talk about expectations.”

I look over at the empty chair where Lucas usually sits. Even Mary pauses when she registers the fact that Lucas isn't here. This whole time—even with his injury—he's never missed a class.

“Who can tell us what that word—expectations—means?” Two hands go up. “Yes, Thomas?”

“It's when you expect something like a package in the mail.”

“Good!” Mary says. “It's something that you hope will happen but you also think it probably will happen. Like a package coming. That's a good example, Thomas. Thank you. What are some expectations that people might have when they get in a relationship?”

The question is confusing for this group. She's jumped too quickly—from packages to relationships. No one says anything. They blink up at her and then around at one another.

“Sheila, when you imagine having a boyfriend, what
are some of the things you picture doing with that person?”

Sheila doesn't have to think about this for long. She makes a list on her fingers. “Go shopping at the mall, but not for candles. I hate candles. Go to movies. Eat tacos in restaurants. Maybe roller-skating, maybe not. Probably not.”

“Great!” Mary claps her hands. “That's perfect.”

Sheila grins. “If it's Justin Bieber, I might pick different things.”

“That's right. With different people, you might pick different things. Okay, Simon, how about you—when you imagine having a girlfriend, what do you picture doing with her?”

“I don't understand the question.”

“If you had a girlfriend, what would you do with her?”

“Touch her butt.”

Chad laughs and gives Simon a thumbs-up. Mary gives him a warning look, though I'm not sure he sees it. “Okay, what else?”

Simon screws up his lips to think. “Touch her tummy?”'

“Okay. Do you picture doing things together, like going to the movies or out to dinner?”

Simon shakes his head. “Movie theaters smell like poo. I don't go to movies anymore.”

“Do they always smell like that, Simon, or did that just happen once?”

“It just happened once, but it was
bad.
”

“Okay, fine. Thank you, Simon. Let's look at the difference between what Sheila expects to do with a boyfriend
and what Simon expects to do with a girlfriend.”

She goes to the whiteboard and gets help from the group making two lists. I have to admit it's a pretty good exercise: the woman wants to go out, the man wants to stay home and touch things that aren't technically private parts but have obviously been driving Simon crazy for years. By the time the list is complete (now it includes “touch her shoulder, hug, smell her hair”) he's red in the face.

Mary asks, “Does anyone look at these lists and see any problems that might come up?”

Not at first, they don't. They squint to read the board. A few play with shirt threads or stare out the window. For them, the conversation got too hard with the first part of the first sentence, “When you imagine . . .” But slowly they seem to get the point she's trying to make: men and woman expect different things out of relationships. Women are more public; they want to do things together and “show off their boyfriend.” Men are more private. They'd rather stay home together and not bring other people into the equation.

I think about Lucas and me, sitting in the dark of the empty auditorium, saying something with our hands that neither one of us was brave enough to say out loud. Whatever was happening between us these last two weeks felt scary and unfamiliar because it also felt real. It wasn't the head rush of a college boy asking for my phone number. With Lucas, it was completely different. We talked; we plotted; we disagreed. Up until the day of the audition, I had no expectations. I marveled at how much I liked Lucas
but my brain made no time-warp leaps ahead. I didn't imagine anything except putting on a decent show starring Belinda. Which he wanted, too. Our expectations were the same. Maybe we surprised each other with our inexplicable intensity. Without talking about why, we egged each other into caring more about this idea. We imagined the whole school would come and see Belinda. They'd be awed by her talent and her life would change forever. We both believed our classmates would think the same way we did, that they'd show up to audition for a play to be nice to a girl we all felt bad for. Now when I think about everyone's busy schedules—the sports practices, the college apps, the AP exams—I don't feel mad that no one came. I feel mystified that I ever thought they would.

Lucas and I both wanted it to happen so much that we convinced ourselves it would.

Expectations are sad and complicated things.

At break, I do something I've been promising to do for weeks now: I sit with Sheila and look through a Justin Bieber scrapbook she has brought from home. She has many of these, apparently, but is only allowed to bring in one at a time that she can share with one person each class session. This is Mary's way of reminding her that certain conversation topics have to be limited. At an early meeting with Lucas and me, Mary explained it this way: “She should get to have one good Justin Bieber conversation a class. That way, she can learn it's a fine topic in
small
doses.”

Though Sheila is explaining every picture she points to, Chad pulls a chair over to my other side and starts talking.

“Do you want to go to the vending machines,” he whispers, “and I'll tell you about a cool party I'm having this weekend?”

Even Sheila looks confused at his interruption.

“Not right now, Chad,” I say. “I'm finally getting my chance to see Sheila's Justin Bieber scrapbook.” What I'm doing is important, though Chad either never got that talk from Mary or else he didn't hear it. He leans over and whispers, “I'm trying to
rescue you.
It's our break time.”

“No, thanks,” I say.

After he has left the room, Sheila turns to me. “He's rude,” she pronounces.

Suddenly it occurs to me: these students understood this about Chad long before I did. That was the reason no one volunteered to act with him the first class. That was why he so often asked me to be his partner. No one else would do it.

At the end of class, Chad disappears quickly and Mary walks out with me to ask if everything is okay with Lucas. I almost tell her, “I'm not sure—we had a fight,” which makes no sense because we didn't. It just feels that way. Not talking in school. Not saying hello.

“Well, tell him he'll need to add a class at the end because he's missed this one.”

“I will,” I say. I notice she's not asking Chad to add any classes for the ones he's skipped.

“We missed him today,” Mary says. “Tell him that, too.”

Somehow what Mary has said, combined with the class activity about expectations, has made me think differently
about all this. Instead of being mad at Lucas for ignoring me in school and skipping class, I call him when I get home and tell him I'm sorry that our plan didn't work.

“Yeah,” he sighs, like it's been an hour since we talked, not six days. “I'm sorry, too.”

It's a little awkward, but I'm surprised—it isn't nearly as awkward as I imagined it would be. After we've talked for a while, we agree that we don't really have a choice. We have to cancel the show. From the sadness in his voice, it's pretty clear—the reason we haven't talked is that neither one of us wanted to have to say this.

“What should we say to Belinda and Anthony?” he says. “I don't want her to think it's her fault. You were right. She's a really good actress. I was surprised.”

After all this, it feels so easy talking to him that I surprise myself. “So were you, Lucas. Who would have guessed you've got a little Mr. Darcy in you. . . .”

“What—I'm arrogant? Pretentious?”

I pause and then just say it. “No—more the smoldering, sensitive stuff. You were almost as good as Keira Knightly's Mr. Darcy.”

“I
could
be as good as him. I just need the cape and the hair that looks like brown straw.”

I laugh. “Watching you guys, I kept thinking, I wish we could pare this play down to three actors, or even two.”

This time he laughs. “Anthony was pretty bad, wasn't he?”

“But he was so sweet.” We both laugh together, at the memory of him screaming lines that were impossible to
understand. “Maybe we could find a different job for him.”

There's a pause. “I don't think we should try to put on a two-person play, Em.”

My stomach flutters every time he calls me Em. “Yeah, you're right.”

“So how was class today?”

“It was good. We missed you. Where were you?”

“My dad and I had a fight and he grounded me. He says if I can't get a football scholarship, I have to join ROTC. I guess I overreacted a little and told him to fuck off.”

“What's ROTC?” I've heard of it, I just don't remember what it is.

For a moment, he doesn't answer. “Do you really not know?” he says softly.

I have to admit, I don't.

“The army,” he says. “If I want to go to college, I have to join the army.”

He explains that his older brother lost his football scholarship after an injury his freshman year and had to get a scholarship through ROTC to keep going. After he graduated, he spent eighteen months in Afghanistan. When he came home, he never talked about what it was like or what he'd done over there, but he was different.

“Where is he now?” I ask.

“He went back. He didn't have any choice. If they pay for college, you have to sign on for four years afterward,” he explains.

We're silent for a little while because all of this is sad and there's not much either one of us can say. I wonder if
he told Debbie about this fight. I wonder what she said. I can't ask, of course. For now I'm just glad I called him—that we can talk and be normal again, like the real friends we've become. “It's good you said no. Even if he got mad, I admire that.”

“You do? Why?”

“You're not afraid of saying what you think. You're braver than I expected.” My heart is beating. I'm treading into dangerous territory here, but I can't help myself. Even if he's been too chicken to talk to me for the last week, I still admire other things he's done: caring about Belinda, and doing the right thing. I can't imagine anyone else on the football team trying as hard as he has.

“So, listen, about that thing with Debbie walking into our auditions.”

As much as I wanted to talk about this last week, I'm now terrified at what he might say.

“I guess she came into the auditorium earlier, before Belinda and Anthony. She saw what we were doing. That holding hands thing.”

She did?
I don't say anything. I'm shocked that he's saying it straight out like this.

“She wasn't very happy about it.”

“What did you say?” I steel myself for the worst:
I told her it didn't mean anything. We were upset because no one showed up.
Even if he says this, I tell myself it will be okay. I like him so much I can understand the bind he's in: we're connected in ways that make us feel older, but the reality remains that we are still in high school, at
opposite ends of the social hierarchy.

And then he says, “I told her the truth. That I like you.”

He stops there. I wonder if he can hear my heart beating wildly over the phone. “And then what?”

“She didn't say much. Well, yes, she did. She said I was a jerk. And then we broke up.”

“You
did
?”

“Pretty much.”

Now I
really
don't understand. Why didn't he
call
me, then? “What was your plan? Were we going to not talk about this for the rest of the year?”

“I don't know. I kept getting nervous every time I saw you, so, yeah, I guess that was my plan. Just to be really awkward whenever you were around.”

“Okay. Should we just go with that plan or should we think of something else? Like maybe going out for coffee some time and getting to know each other. Except I hate coffee, so whatever. Hot chocolate.”

“See, this is why you worry me.”

“Why?”

“Because with Debbie, it was easy. Debbie never wanted to go out and talk.”

I think of telling him about class today, about Sheila and Simon and their list of expectations. “What did Debbie want?”