Damsel Distressed (15 page)

“Yeah. Maybe,” I say with a cynical snarl.

All I wanted in the whole world was more of him.

I wanted more of him so that maybe I'd
need
less of him.

But Grant was looking for a way to reject me without rejecting me. Gently and kindly and without shaming me into oblivion, he'd made his feelings clear.

I think the reason he never actually
said
“no, Gen, I don't love you like that, and I don't want to kiss you” was so that I'd never have to remember the moment he said the words that broke my heart.

Brice continues to look at me with his hands on my knee and his head tilted in sympathy. I look over my shoulder just as a parade of ensemble members cuts through the hallways to practice their opening entrance and Gild calls for the girls' dancing skirts.

“I better get back to it.”

“Yeah,” I say, “I better go wrap things up with Antonique in the booth.”

Brice stands up and continues his work at the hot pink dress, and while his back is turned, I look down at the pin in my hand.

The left sleeve of my hoodie is caught on my watch, and I'm holding the tip of the pin against the pink of my skin. The point is pressing, right into the soft space between my thumb and forefinger on the palm of my hand, and it looks like my skin is being sucked down a drain where it touches. Just as the pressure threatens to pierce my flesh, just as the pin might draw the tiniest speck of red, I jump when Brice says, “Hey, can you hand me a pin before you go?”

Immediately, I stop poking myself and turn to see he's holding some folds of fabric in just the right position. I lean toward the mannequin, and hold the pin for him right next to his fingers. He wriggles his thumb and first finger free so that he can work it through the material and close it in place.

“Thanks,” he says.

“No, thank you—for asking about my juicy gossip again. Not that I totally wanted to talk about it or anything, but it was nice to talk. In general.”

“Anytime, cupcake,” he says. “Oh, speaking of cake, do you and Grant want to come with Jonathan and me for late night pancakes after rehearsal?”

“Yeah, that sounds great.” I surprise myself by asking, “Do you mind if I invite Antonique?”

“Isn't that your fish-kick?” he asks.

She is if she hasn't already told Gild she's quitting because her mentor went all crazypants today and abandoned her with a mountain of mic packs.

“Yeah. I think she'd really like to come.”

And I'd like to say I'm sorry.

“Well, of course she can come,” he says brightly without turning from his work.

I stop at the door and say, over my shoulder, “And next time I want to hear all about you and Jonathan, okay?”

He nods. Before he can return some pleasantry, I pull down my sleeve and close the door behind me.

14

T
he hardest part about having pancakes with other human beings at eleven o'clock on a school night is that it would be considered rude to pour the syrup straight into my mouth.

Grant is across from me, stacking what's left of his sausages like Lincoln Logs. He's pulled little bits of pancake apart to look like what I can only assume would be mortar.

On the ride over, I apologized to Grant for being totally out of line. He said “it's okay” a lot, which left me wanting because I know the shape of his mouth when he's annoyed and I know his frustration is still creeping under the surface.

But if he wants to be okay, I can be okay.

It seems like guys just need the space to be a little bit “not okay” until they just, randomly, are again.

Next to me, Antonique asks Grant with a grossed-out smile, “What did that food ever do to you?”

He looks up at her from under his dark eyelashes, his face crooked from smirking. “I was thinking about the structural integrity of pork as a building material.”

He gestures to his architectural project as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

“I see your point,” I interject. “That is a fine-looking piece of meat.”

“Did someone say my name?” Brice asks, extracting his face from Jonathan's for the first time in ten minutes.

Jonathan rolls his blue eyes and drops his chin, smiling and shaking his head as we all start laughing. They look at each other and smile as Antonique and Grant continue to debate the best breakfast building materials.

While they're otherwise distracted, I take a second to look at each one of them in turn.

I glance at my Grant, who has always been there. Then I watch Brice for a second, and I think about how fun it is to talk with him and how nice it is to have a friendship that isn't complicated or weighed down with serious stuff all the time. As Antonique's laugh catches my attention, I look to her and see someone who I've known for two days and who's already seen deeper into my emotional closet than almost anyone. Jonathan saved me in English class and I don't know much about him, but I appreciate that he's a friend to Grant. And I appreciate that he's a love for Brice.

I sit back and press my shoulder blades against the vinyl booth.

I don't want to worry about who I am or how awesome it feels to be sitting with four people who actually seem to like me. Other than Grant, not one of these people would have been in my life this time last year.

There just wasn't enough of me for them to see.

I smile and shake it off as I pick up my mostly empty glass of orange juice and gulp it down.

It's now that I notice Grant is staring at me.

“What?” I mouth.

“What?” he responds. His lips move without making a sound.

He smiles and leans his body across the little table strewn with half-empty plates filmed with the remains of maple syrup. Our cash is piled up unceremoniously on our bill. I lean closer to him before whispering.

“I was just wondering how a girl who is as messed up as me managed to be here. With other humans. Who don't seem to hate me. Kinda makes me nervous I'll mess it up. I've gotta be honest—today really scared me. Getting so upset at you and reacting that way toward Antonique and Andrew. Every little thing was pressing every one of my buttons. And it's scary, you know? Like how did I feel so good on Saturday and feel so horrible now? I can't handle another bad spell.”

Grant takes the last sip from his cup and averts his eyes. “I swear, Gen, sometimes I think you're addicted to being worried about stupid crap you can't even change. Like you somehow enjoy the familiarity of feeling OH-MY-GAWD-SO-TOTALLY-CRAZY.”

My head pulls back, and his words recoil like a fist. He's trying to keep his tone lighthearted, but his eyes are searing and his lips are pulled thin. Something about his words and the way my day has gone makes it all seem very, very upsetting. I try to keep things light.

“Ouch. No. Grant, I'm okay. I am. I'm just also aware of the fact that I've got—at best—a fifty-fifty chance of blowing it with all of them and being alone and friendless again.” I try to smile through my self-deprecation.

For the second time today, the edges of his mouth turn downward slowly. His face sets like concrete.

“Alone? Seriously? Alone. Right, because—no, you know what? Forget it.”

“Come on, Grant, you know what I mean.”

His voice is low, but I know the others can still hear him. “No, Gen. I don't.” He lowers his voice even more as we pretend that our friends only inches away aren't trying super-hard to ignore the tension growing on the other side of the ketchup bottle. “This is the same crap you pulled in the booth today! Don't apologize for saying stupid, thoughtless crap and then turn around and say the same stuff a few hours later! You know what your problem is, Gen? It's not your depression or your anxiety. It's fear. You're blinded by fear. That's your problem. You're blind, and you just don't see. Anything.”

I feel an electric tug, right through my belly button, and my heart starts beating double time. The confusion. It's killing me. His whole presentation, his whole rant makes me feel like I want to hold him and tell him I'm sorry. And it makes me feel like he wants me to.

But I know that's a lie. I know that I tried once and I won't take a risk like that again.

How can he wonder why I'm scared when a huge part of why I am is because I never want to see his December 28th, 2:00 AM face again?

Grant stands up, sending his paper napkin fluttering to the floor. He bumps the table edge, and I watch as the contents of every glass jiggle. He turns away from the table for a second before looking back to the group and saying, “I've got to get going, guys. I'll see you at rehearsal tomorrow.”

“Grant, you can't just walk home. Let me drive you,” I say.

If I weren't with three other people and stuck in this booth, I would jump out and stop him.

He raises a hand as if doing so is the only thing keeping him from saying about a million other things he could never take back.

And I want to know what they are, but I also totally, totally don't.

“I've got it, Gen. Don't worry about it.”

Without another word, Grant grabs his backpack off the back of his chair, and he's gone.

Once again, I'm just trying to connect the dots.

Antonique to Mom to panic attack.

Andrew to jealousy to treating Grant like crap.

Grant feeling invisible by my saying that I feel invisible…It feels like something's missing.

“Hey, love,” Brice says from his spot in the crook of Jonathan's shoulder, “is everything okay?”

“Yeah. It's fine.” I look away and throw my bag over my arm. “Look, I think I'm going to just head out, too. Um, Antonique, do you still want a ride?”

The last thing I want is to take her home, honestly. Only because I'm sure she'll want to talk, and there's no good way to tell her that I need her to shut it until tomorrow.

Jonathan looks up at me and shakes his dirty blond hair out of his eyes. “I can take her if you need to go, or I could always call Grant and make sure he's okay.”

For a moment, I consider taking him up on it. All of it.

“No, really, it's no big deal.” I turn to Antonique who is still a bit wide-eyed and anxiously twisting at her braids. “That is, of course, if you're ready to go?”

“Yeah, totally,” she says. “See you two tomorrow.” She waves timidly to the lovebirds, and I try to ignore the facial expression Brice flashes her that I assume means: good luck with her.

In the car, Antonique tries again to start a conversation. Her previous three attempts at making small talk have fizzled like dud firecrackers.

“Imogen?” Antonique reaches up and turns the air conditioner vent in the Grannymobile away from her and toward the window.

Attempt number four.

“Yeah?”

“Do you, um… Have I made you mad?” She asks this as if that would actually be a sad thing to her, and I almost burst into tears.

“No. No, absolutely not.”

“Oh.”

I scratch the crack in the plastic at the bottom of my steering wheel. “I'm sorry about today, Antonique. Leaving you with the guys and the mic packs.”

She mutters okay toward the window, but I feel like I have to say more if I want to fix this.

“I don't want to make excuses, but I have almost no practice at being a good friend. Today was just the worst, all around. I'm really sorry.”

“Can I tell you something?” she asks without looking at me.

“Okay.”

“I'm weird and shy and feel the same way. Like, I worry that everyone thinks I'm weird, or that as the new kid, I'll never make friends here. I feel awkward and alone all the time. Just like you. Well, except I don't know what it feels like to have depression.”

I try not to think about how she made the word “depression” sound like the word “cancer.” I busy myself with looking in my mirrors and try to calm my stomach that is now tense with knots.

“It's awfully hard to imagine you being the awkward new kid. I didn't know you were a transfer.”

“Yep. Just moved this summer. Crestwood is nothing like my old school.”

“Yeah. It's pretty huge,” I say.

“No, it's gigantic. Like, enormous. And everyone seems to already know all the people they plan to hang out with, and I just…It's really hard to find a group of friends, you know?”

I've been here forever, and I still don't have many. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure my first “group” of friends is about forty-eight hours old.

Antonique looks out the passenger side window, and I get a chill over my skin when I think about what I felt and wrote about her today.

Guilt rises in my throat like bile, and I nibble on my bottom lip as she gestures to which house is hers.

“Thanks for the ride,” she says.

“It's not a big deal,” I say.

I'm glad I had the distraction.