Kicked Out (5 page)

“You’re different. You like music that sounds like a gravel truck. You’d rather smash through a wall than use a door. I’m more like them,” Darren said.

“You are not,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Darren grinned and said, “Put it to you this way, Dime. They’d like you more if you were like them. But it would cost you. For one thing, you’d have to dress like them. I do. But then, I like it.”

Tonight, my brother was dressed like a preppie. I was trying hard to ignore this.

Darren kept talking. He seemed to have an awful lot to say tonight. Leaning forward, he said, “I think because you’re so different, they get confused. More than confused — they’re scared for you. You’re always pushing the edge. Remember when I first came home from the hospital? You got suspended from school just so you could be
with me. We watched the soaps all week. I never felt closer to anyone. That meant a lot.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking away. It was a tough week to remember.

Darren touched my hand and said softly, “You almost flunked your year because of that. But you can’t keep wrecking your life to prove that you love me, Dime.”

I stared at him. “What d’you mean?”

Darren’s face grew sad. As he stared at his curled-up fingers, he said, “It hurts me to think about the accident and what I lost. It hurts a lot. But it’s my pain, Dime — not yours. When you go around hurting yourself, you don’t help me. I know it means we both hurt at the same time, but that makes it worse for me. I love my little sister. That means I want her to do well. That would make me feel like a million bucks.”

Darren smiled, then added, “And it doesn’t mean you have to dress like me.”

“So what does it mean?” I asked.

Darren paused. Then he asked, “What d’you like about Gabe?”

That wasn’t hard.

“His bod. And his bike,” I grinned.

“D’you like the way he treats you?” Darren asked.

Okay, so now we were getting to the tough questions. I tried to shrug this one off. With a bored face, I asked, “What do you mean?”

Darren shrugged back, then said, “Ordering you around. Turning on our stereo without asking.”

Opening the fridge without asking too
, I thought. I knew Darren must be getting close to his punch line. This conversation was moving along too easily, as if he’d been planning it for a while. But it didn’t feel like a set-up to me. It felt like he cared.

“So?” I asked, kind of tough.

Darren took a deep breath and said slowly, “What’s the difference between the way Gabe treats you, and the way Mom and Dad do?”

I felt as if he’d picked up his beer bottle and whacked me with it. My face got hot.

Then I tried for a joke, but it was pretty weak.

“C’mon, what about his bod and his bike? And the way he dresses?” I asked.

“You can get a bod with a better attitude,” Darren smiled.

“What about a bike?” I grinned weakly.

Now that we were through the tough stuff, Darren lit up like the sun. He beamed at me and said, “Y’know my friend Larry? He’ll teach you to drive his bike. He’s got a Harley with a sidecar. And he knows about a used Kawasaki Ninja I can get dirt cheap. You get your license, and I’ll buy it for you. Then you and Larry and I will take a trip this summer. Larry can be my aide.”

Excitement blazed through me.

“Where can we go?” I demanded.

“How about California?” Darren asked.

“Wow! You mean it?” I shouted.

“Yes,” Darren grinned.

“So you’re saying if I dump Gabe, and get along with Mom and Dad —” I started.

Darren frowned, then said, “No, that’s your business. But if you complain about
Mom and Dad, why not Gabe?”

“Y’know, I think he actually wants me to fight his ex to prove that I love him,” I said quietly. I felt so stupid having to admit this to my brother.

“If he really cared about you, would he want that?” Darren asked.

I guess that was the question to ask. And the answer was pretty obvious.
No
. Or, as Gabe would have put it:
No, no, no
.

Then Darren asked, “And if you really loved yourself, would you do it?”

It was another good question, with another obvious answer. I figured — change the subject. So I asked, “Hey, d’you think Mom and Dad would come over for supper some night? If I didn’t make hamburgers?”

Darren laughed.

“Except we’d have to get a new phone to call them. I sort of drowned your old one while I was watering the plants,” I admitted.

“I already bought one. You owe me forty bucks,” Darren said.

Chapter Eight

The next morning, I had to fight my way out of my blankets, but I made it. There really was no choice — the night before, I’d put my radio on the other side of the room. Then I’d turned it to a country station. I hate country, but I knew it would force me to get up when the alarm went off. Someone was howling, “Baby, baby, the full moon rises in your eyes.” I would have crawled out of
my grave to shut that guy off.

Darren looked pretty beat too. His aide was in the kitchen, helping him get ready for an early class. As I tore past him and out the door, I waved madly. I’d already missed the early bus, but I reached the stop in time for the next one. I spent the entire ride waiting at the back door. When the bus reached the school, the late bell was ringing. I pushed open the door and hit the ground running. I was lucky. My homeroom teacher gave me a break, probably because I was breathing so hard. I was so relieved I didn’t get sent to the office for another late slip. I already had a major collection. I’ll have to remember the breathing-hard trick for the next time.

Halfway through my first class, I realized I hadn’t seen Gabe yet. Then I realized that our phone had been working the night before and he hadn’t called. I didn’t worry too much about it though. My math class was actually kind of interesting — finishing homework helps, I guess. But at mid-morning break, something happened to make me
think about Gabe for the rest of the morning. I was walking down the hall toward science class, when I passed a girls’ bathroom. The door was open, and I could see girls crowded inside. They were standing on tiptoe.

“Fight, fight,” they were saying.

The weird thing was how quiet they all were. I guess no one wanted a teacher coming in. There were all kinds of girls in there — prep-pies, skaters, jocks and headbangers. No one was stopping the fight — they all wanted it to go on as long as possible. It was like a show to them, something to watch on TV.

I stood at the back of the crowd, wondering what to do. No one likes do-gooders at our school. I wouldn’t be making myself popular if I tried to help. The bathroom was packed and the fight was going on by the sinks. I couldn’t see who was fighting because of the crowd, and I didn’t know why they were fighting. Maybe the girl going down had asked for it. On the other hand, maybe the Queen of the Cans was taking down some poor loser.

Whatever
, I shrugged. It wasn’t my problem, and I already had enough to deal with.

But a new thought stopped me from walking away. What if it had been me in there getting hammered? The ex was just waiting for the right time and place. Would anyone help me when she jumped me? Of course not — I knew that answer without having to ask the question. So if I walked away from this fight, was I any better than the girls who were watching it?

I stood thinking about it too long. The fight was over by the time I began pushing my way into the crowd. I never even saw who the winner was. Girls were rushing out of the bathroom to tell the rest of the school about the fight. Only one girl was left behind, standing by the sinks. She looked familiar, but she was older than me. I didn’t know her name. Her nose was bleeding a little, and there were scratches on her arms. She smelled as if she’d been drinking.

“You all right?” I asked.

She didn’t even look at me. At our
school, it isn’t cool to ask that kind of question. Without a word, she pushed past me and walked out. I stared into the mirror and imagined blood pouring from my nose. Had this fight been over a guy? Was he worth it? I tried to imagine slamming my fist into the ex’s nose and scratching her arms. Was Gabe worth that? Was any guy?

Science class went by in a blur while I thought and thought. Finally the bell rang. I pushed my way through the crowded halls, still thinking. When I got to my locker, I found Tiff waiting for me.

“You’re not going to be happy when we get outside,” she warned.

“Why not?” I asked, shoving my books into my locker.

“You’ll see,” she sighed.

“C’mon Tiff — don’t do this to me,” I begged, but she wouldn’t tell me. We headed out the back door, and I caught on pretty fast. You have to when the reason is mashed in your face. There was Gabe’s ex, sitting on his bike with her arms wrapped around him.

Gabe was grinning as if he was starring in a toothpaste commercial.

So now she’s the ex-ex
, I thought.
That’s why Gabe didn’t call last night
.

“He changes his mind like he changes his underwear,” Tiff muttered.

Gabe saw me. His grin got a little wider, and he lifted an eyebrow. Then he looked away. I felt like something that had been thrown into the trash. For a moment, I considered creeping off to my library hideout. Then I remembered what Darren had said about Gabe ordering me around. Gabe wasn’t actually saying anything right now. Still, he was telling me,
I’m finished with you, so get lost
.

Well, I was finished with him too.

The thought blew through me like a happy wind, cleaning out a lot of crud. I realized I was actually relieved to see the whole thing end. Everything with Gabe had been so confusing. I never knew when he was about to blow up. From the beginning, I’d always felt as if he was about to ditch me. Suddenly I realized he’d wanted me to feel that way.

He’d wanted me to feel so low-down that I’d do anything to keep him.

I took a deep, thinking breath. You had to be pretty insecure to treat other people that way. Sometime real soon I was going to go looking for a bod with a better attitude. But that didn’t mean I had to be mean to Gabe. Or to his ex-ex. Well, okay — she has a name. It’s Lena.

I walked up to them and leaned against the bike. Everyone around us tuned in as if this was prime-time TV.

“Hi, Gabe. Hi, Lena,” I said.

Gabe lost half his grin. I could tell he was nervous. I wasn’t running off the way I was supposed to.

“Get lost,” Lena said.

“I wanted to wish you the best,” I said.

“I said, get lost,” said Lena. Maybe she thought I was a germ and Gabe might catch me again. She got off the bike and stood staring at me. Yup, she looked hostile.

“Hey, relax. I left my brass knuckles and chains at home,” I said.

Lena stepped forward and pushed me hard. I bumped into Tiff, who bumped into someone else, who kept us standing up. This was helpful, because I had to duck a couple of swings Lena took at me. Gabe sat and watched as if one of his dreams was coming true — two girls fighting for his love.

No, Gabe, Lena’s the only one fighting for you
, I thought. I stepped back. Lena stopped swinging and waited to see what I’d do.

I looked at Lena’s face. Even with the killer look she was wearing, she was pretty. But for the first time, I saw how sad she was. She didn’t like herself much. She was fighting for Gabe because she thought he was all she could get.

Gabe knew this, and he’d use it to get what he wanted from her. All the kids watching and cheering probably knew it too. But Lena had to figure it out for herself, just like I had.

In spite of everything, I wanted to kiss Gabe goodbye. But I didn’t. Instead I said, “Lena, he’s yours.”

Then I turned and walked away.

Chapter Nine

“C’mon, babe, give me another chance. It was just a one-day thing with Lena,” said Gabe.

It was two days after the parking lot showdown. I sat in our kitchen and stared at the phone. When I’d first heard Gabe’s voice on the other end, I’d felt so happy. Then I’d started to feel like a pretzel, all twisted around.

“Maybe I’ll be another one-day thing for you too,” I said.

“No, babe. Never you,” Gabe said quickly.

“I don’t want to go out with you anymore,” I said.

Then I hung up the phone. It felt as if I was hanging up on my heart. You can make a decision with your head. It still takes your heart a while to catch up with it. For the next few weeks, I thought about Gabe a lot. There were bad moments, when I remembered his grin and his bod. And there was that bike. I spent a solid week watching my wall blur as the tears came. But slowly the lump in my stomach faded. It was May, and that beautiful green thing was happening to the trees. I had a ton of homework I needed to catch up on. And final exams were one month away.

Final exams! I wasn’t used to studying, and it was hard to get into. I had to psyche myself up for it. I’d stand at one end of my room and take a run at the opposite wall. As my shoulder hit, I’d yell, “I hate this! I hate this!” After a couple of minutes of this, I was ready to sit down and work. Darren got used
to it. I think my general problem is that I need to make a lot of noise. Let me do that, and I’m fine.

Darren’s friend Larry started taking me for lessons on his Harley. He had a pretty good bod. Better than that, he never yelled. It took me a while to realize he wasn’t going to blow up if I made a mistake. When I finally figured this out, I stopped blanking out. It made me one heck of a better driver — at least now I stayed on the road.

I also realized that the reason I blanked out was because I was afraid of being yelled at. I’d always thought it was because I was crazy, a loner or just plain stupid. I’d never realized it was fear. I tried to figure out what exactly I was afraid of. Finally, I realized I was afraid of not being good enough. The fear had started way back when I was small, and it hadn’t gone away when I got older. The blanking out had always been there, right along with the fear.

Blanking out is when Nothing drops on you. It’s the feeling of The Big Nothing.
It used to drop on me a lot when I lived with my parents. Now I’d finally figured out what it meant — if Mom and Dad didn’t love me, then I was nothing. That was the way I’d always felt around my parents. When you feel like nothing, you treat yourself like nothing. You let other people treat you like nothing too.