Faking Normal (26 page)

I want to know who you are

Laughter from beneath the sheet, and I know this is the reveal.

Time.

Stands.

Still.

It’s Hayden. Hayden Harper dressed like a dementor and laughing like a clown. Enjoying every minute of this charade.

I laugh with my mouth too, but my heart cries. So gullible. The lies I tell myself are the ones that really sting. Only now, while I’m looking at a football player, do I realize how much I thought I’d be staring at Bodee.

“You surprised?” he says, and takes my hand.

“No. Heather’s been saying it was you for weeks.”

He puts on a grin. “Disappointed?” he asks. But the way he asks it shows me he believes that’s not possible. Who wouldn’t be thrilled to see his now-sweaty black hair and steel-gray eyes?

“Only that the mystery is over,” I lie.

“I’ll still write you songs. Like that Cameron Roots one you just wrote down. That was great,” he says.

I correct him. “Bandana Rhoades.”

“Thank God for Google,” he says with a laugh.

The lyrics aren’t inside him.

They are only words. I knew this about him already.

But Captain Hayden is my reality. He’s here in front of me, and he’s the blank slate I need. He doesn’t know about Craig,
or the closet or my neck. He knows nothing about me, and he never will.

Damaged. Broken. Ruined. If I can hide these things from my family, how much easier they’ll be to hide from Hayden. We can glide right through junior year with pictures and desk songs, and a pile of group memories. Liz will get back with Ray, probably tonight. And Heather will eventually forgive Collie. And then it will be three girls and their three football players.

Take it. Take it, I tell myself. But this fits like a discounted pair of jeans with
IRREGULAR
written on the tag: you search and can find nothing wrong with them.

Take it.

So I do.

Kissing Hayden is different this time. It’s not awkward and it’s not saturated in whiskey. All I need to make my life normal is in this kiss. Deep, penetrating. I only come out of the kiss-trance as he tries to touch my neck. I shimmy a little, and he pulls me into his lap and forgets all about my neck.

I try to forget he is not Bodee, so I kiss him harder.

Which he likes.

He’s in the middle of liking it when the screen door slams, and I know we aren’t alone.

“I was hoping that would happen,” Hayden whispers as I shift from his lap.

Bodee. Not in black. Not coming for me. Not Captain Lyric.

Not happy.

“Hey, Kool-Aid,” Hayden says.

“Don’t call him that,” I say, and stand up.

“Last time I kissed you, he punched me. So I’m thinking, ‘Hey Kool-Aid’ is pretty mild.”

“Bodee,” I say as apologetically as I know how.

But Bodee turns and leaves.

Hayden tugs me back into his lap. “Let him go,” he says, and kisses my cheek.

“You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I think I do.” There’s a cleft in Hayden’s chin that I’ve never noticed before, and it bobs arrogantly in front of me. “He likes you, and you feel sorry for him. So you accidentally encourage him. But trust me, you’re not doing Kool-Aid any favors by turning on the big doe-I’m-so-sorry-you’re-sad eyes. Girls like you don’t go with guys like him.”

“He’s important to me,” I say, and ignore the rest.

“Okay. Go on. Talk to him.” He releases me. “But come right back, Alexi. I’ve got another game we can play with the marker board.”

The crowd in the house has increased since I went to the patio. I shove Marilyn Monroe into Elvis, and then Captain America into Betty Boop (Maggie) to get to the front door.

Bodee’s almost to Ben’s truck down the street when I catch up to him.

“Wait. Please wait,” I yell.

Please and Bodee are peanut butter and jelly. He stops.

“He’s the Captain,” I say, hoping this will explain my actions.

“I’m sure he is.”

I kick at the reflector embedded in the road. “Why are you so mad at me? You came to this party to be with Heather.”

Crack. Crack. Crack.

“Do you like him?” he asks.

“Do you like her?” I fire back.

“No, you know that,” he says.

“What about fourth-period girl? Do you like her?”

Now it’s his turn to kick something. Ben’s truck tire. “Yes,” he says.

“Well, then, we’re even.”

“I can’t believe you’d choose him. Him, Lex. He’s a . . .”

. . . normal life, I think. My chance at a normal life is on the patio, not here in the middle of the street. Besides, it’s better for Bodee. He needs his fourth-period girl, uncomplicated, unruined, unbroken.

Not me.

These scrolling thoughts burn like rubbing alcohol, but I pour another bottle on my festering heart and raise my chin. “I’m choosing him,” I say.

And this time, Bodee believes the lie and leaves me standing on the dotted line.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

chapter 25

HEATHER
drives me home in time for curfew. Twelve thirty a.m.

She says nothing about Bodee’s quick appearance and disappearance at the party. He’s only a garnish to Collie’s caviar, anyway. And Collie, who came with Maggie, ditched Maggie and hung with Heather. And Heather let him.

Things between Bodee and me are still messy like pumpkin guts, but things between Heather and Collie don’t have to end up gutted and scattered to hell on yesterday’s newspaper.

“Do you want to know what really happened with Collie?” I ask her.

“He told you about . . . the girl.”

“Yes.” That boy’s told me everything since kindergarten. Up until the alumni game. But this time, when our lives are falling apart at the same time and mine with a misery I could
not share, I avoid him. Because his tale comes too close for comfort to mine. Sex. Mistakes. Apologies. “And I said I wouldn’t tell,” I explain. “But I couldn’t look at him for what he did to you.”

“So why are you telling me now?” she asks.

“Because I’m tired.” Too tired. “And because of the other night, Heather. The mess at the fort. You need to know there’s nothing between Collie and me.”

“I do. I do. Just sucks to know he told you and not me.”

“That’s different. I’m just his friend.” I don’t remind her that Collie did tell her. But with such incredibly poor,
guystupid
timing that it canceled out his honesty. “It happened the night of the alumni game. At my house,” I say.

Heather works the steering wheel with her fist. “Oh God, we were into it that night,” she remembers. “We got into a huge fight about his drinking so much with the guys. I told him if he was going to act like my father, he could get lost. That I had plenty of losers in my life, and I didn’t need another.”

“And after you left he was distraught.”

“Who was it? Julie Raimer? She’s always had a thing for him.”

I shake my head.

“Tanya?”

“Heather, it was Maggie,” I say, before she can guess every girl who’s ever sat with us at lunch.

“Maggie. But she . . . why would he do that?”

I give her a look. “Maggie, Heather. She was
there,”
I say.

Sort of like Hayden.

Now Heather pounds the steering wheel, and I don’t stop her. “We waited. We waited all that time, and then he slept with
her.”

“He was drunk. You know he doesn’t care about Maggie.”

“But that just makes it worse. Why do guys sleep with girls they don’t love?”

“’Cause . . .” I don’t have an answer.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say.

“Lex, I doubt you lied to me because you promised him. So why?”

I take a deep breath, because she’s gone right to the heart of it. “Because Collie is one of the few constants in your life. With your family and all.” As I pause and look at her, she nods. “And if you didn’t need to experience this pain, I wasn’t going to give it to you.” I lay my hand on hers, and she doesn’t jerk away. “I’m really sorry.”

She nods her understanding. “If I knew something like this about you, I wouldn’t tell you, either. And Lex . . . whatever you’ve got going on, I hope . . . I hope it gets better soon. I miss your smile.”

I smile.

“Your real one,” she says.

“See you Monday,” I say.

There are snores coming from the den. I lock the kitchen
door behind me and tiptoe to the couch and nudge Mom awake.

“I’m home,” I say. “You can go on to bed.”

She rubs her eyes and closes the book tented on her chest. “You have fun?”

“Yeah.” Maybe someday I’ll stop lying to her, too.

“That’s good, honey.” She pecks me on the cheek and cinches her robe for the walk to the bedroom. “See you in the morning.”

My heart is doughy, as if it’s being pummeled and kneaded as I head upstairs and open the door to my room.

It’s empty.

I try the closet, thinking I should polish off this crappy day on the floor, but the closet door is closed. There’s a Post-it Note over the knob that says,
Locked.

Bodee. Always a step ahead of my pain.

So I crawl into the bed, not bothering with pajamas or darkness, and make a cave of my covers. I bury myself in them, and the words that tumble out are muffled by my pillow: all pleas and prayers.

“Why am I so stupid—things are always wrong—no matter what I do—how hard I try—what am I supposed to do—oh Bodee—will you ever forgive me for this—please—Bodee—please—Bodee—please—you have to.”

“I forgive you, Lex,” says a voice from under the bed.

It’s embarrassing to know you’ve said things you never intended anyone to hear. I wipe my face on the pillow and flop
over to hang my head off the bed and peer underneath.

“Hey,” I say.

“You look funny upside down,” he says.

“I look funny right side up. Why are you under my bed?”

“’Cause someone put the boxes back under mine.” It’s too dark to see him smile, but it’s not too hard to hear him.

I smile too, because for once I was ahead of his pain.

“You wanna come out?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer, but stuff crinkles and rattles and slides, and he emerges.

Sneakers and all, he lies down on my bed.

“Who am I, Lex?” he asks.

“Bodee,” I say.

“Remember that,” he says, and puts a careful arm around me as I snuggle against his chest.

Even when I choose Hayden, Bodee’s still here. Constant. And we fall asleep in our clothes. It’s more accurate to say we fall awake in our clothes, because neither of us closes our eyes for a long time.

Bodee doesn’t bring up Craig again until Tuesday morning. It’s early. Maybe four thirty. The pressure has been building for this conversation ever since Craig showed up at church Sunday and sat in our pew and proceeded to eat pot roast and potatoes at our table. He and Kayla were tense, but civil. Mom and Dad were oddly reticent. And Bodee and I . . . well, we got through it.

And now Bodee and I are horn-locked and stubborn.

“Lex, you have to tell her before they work things out,” he says. “Don’t let him back in.”

“I can’t.” I roll away from the cave of his arms.

“Well, I can’t keep doing this.”

I prop up on one elbow and say, “Doing what?”

“Staying in your room.”

“Sorry it’s such a burden.”

“Shhh. Someone will hear us.”

He’s right, but shushing gets on my nerves. “So,” I say sarcastically. “You can’t keep doing
this
anymore.”

“Don’t be that way. You know I only—”

“What if I said the same thing to you? What if I said, ‘You’re broken, and I don’t want you in my life unless you testify against your dad’?” He has no defense except to roll away from me.

“See, Bodee. It’s not that easy.”

“Nothing’s easy. And I
am
broken. The difference between us isn’t the brokenness; it’s what we’re going to do about it.”

“Bodee, this is bullshit. We can’t keep having this same conversation. You already know my mind is made up; I don’t
want
anyone to know. I have to deal with Craig in private.”

He faces me again, and the nightlight puts the planes of his face in sharp relief. Lock-jawed and unyielding, he says, “I can’t let you do that.”

“You’re going to
tell.”

“Yes. I’ve made up my mind. If you don’t, I will.”

“Then whatever this is, whatever we are, is over,” I say.

“I didn’t know it ever started.”

“You
kissed
me.” The words bring the memory of the two of us in his sleeping bag.

“You kissed Hayden,” he says back. “You chose him.”

“And I’ll do it again. I’ll lie my face off if you tell Kayla or my parents about Craig.”

Bodee rolls off the bed; his sneakers make a soft thud against the carpet. “No, Lex. You’ll tear your neck apart and then look back ten years from now and realize you’re still stuck in the same closet tearing up football cards.”

While I’m still gasping, he opens the door to leave and then stops short with a little yelp.

I am shushing him as Bodee backs into my room.

Followed by Kayla.

“Well, well. Isn’t this interesting?” Kayla says snidely, and shuts the bedroom door behind her.

“Oh, don’t start. We were only talking,” I say.

“Craig and I used to
talk.”

Bodee turns his face toward me and mumbles, “I don’t doubt it.”

“Move on, Kayla, we weren’t doing anything.”

“At five a.m.? In your bedroom? Right. Nothing about you is as innocent as Mom and Dad think.”

“Believe what you want. We were just talking.”

All I see of Bodee is his back, but he’s cracking his knuckles like walnuts.

Kayla advances farther into the room, and our whispers
rise in volume. “Here’s what I think. You are going to tell me exactly what you said to Craig the other day that made him leave me.
Or
I’ll make sure your little bedroom buddy here is thrown out of our house.”