My Beating Teenage Heart (20 page)

“Breckon?” Jules ventures, reaching out to touch his right arm.

Mr. Cirelli, who has followed Breckon back into the room, watches him without making any move to stop him from leaving.

Breckon swings away from Jules and retraces his steps out of the room. “Adios,” he says under his breath to no one in particular.

He treks along the school hallway keeping his head down but I, of course, can examine his face regardless. His pupils are dull and his skin is paler than a sliced almond. He looks like someone in danger of fading away and I ask, knowing that there’ll be no answer, “Where are you going?”

Near the gym he passes a cabinet overflowing with trophies and then a display of artwork dedicated to the theme of peace. Someone has adopted the blood-donor slogan and captioned their poster: “Peace—it’s in you to give.” The painting itself is of the traditional white dove symbol soaring against a rainbow background.

But the poster that truly catches my eye is a black-and-white comic-book-style drawing of a long line of people of various ethnicities, genders and ages holding hands and smiling back at whoever stops to look at them. There’s a woman in a wheelchair and a man with a prosthetic leg too. Printed across the bottom of the page in itty-bitty text is the word
peace
in what has to be over a hundred different languages.

La paix. Shalom. Damai. Mabuhay. Pingan. Santipap. Rukun. Heiwa. Salam. Amaithi. Der Frieden. Sulh. Ukuthula
. There are countless more, but those are the only ones I have time to process as I whiz along with Breckon.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” I know that the same way I know Dalí and Pink Floyd. The world I passed through—and the one that Breckon lives in now—is always at war. That makes me sadder now than when I was alive. People waste their limited time on earth fighting. They squash other people under their heels, make them crawl, make them beg, make them die.

I’ve left my life behind me and I don’t understand the greed and cruelty any better from the other side.
The other side
, what a massive, knee-slapper of a joke on me. All the other side is, it seems, is the flip side of a mirror. I’m Ashlyn Through the Looking Glass without the benefit of the Red Queen or Humpty Dumpty for my amusement. I’m clueless and useless. No one has explained the
through-the-looking-glass
rules to me and I’m floundering. No, not floundering, more like failing … I’m failing him.

Jules catches up with Breckon about fifteen feet beyond the peace art. I’m relieved to see her but not surprised.

She must’ve dyed her hair on Sunday. It has thick purple streaks through it that weren’t there when Breckon hung out with her on Saturday night. The nose ring she’s wearing today is a tiny cluster of three periwinkle-colored stones. They match the T-shirt Jules is wearing under her black-and-white-striped overalls dress.

“Where are you going?” she asks, her cheeks rosy from rushing after him. “What did Cirelli say to you out in the hall?”

Breckon shakes his head. Their eyes connect for a second before he looks away. “Not much … Jules, just go back to class, okay? I don’t want you to get in shit for this.”

Jules stands her ground. “You didn’t say where you were going.”

“Because I don’t know.”

“So … we could hang out together and when Cirelli calms down you can probably talk what happened through with him.” Jules folds her arms in front of her and leans back against the wall. “You know he can be pretty cool.”

Breckon presses his eyelids shut like he’s making a statement. When he opens them again he says, “Look, thanks for the concern but I’ll handle it how I want, okay? Just …” He waves her away. “I don’t need you a step behind me for everything.”

“That’s not how it is,” Jules counters. “I’m just checking on you. It’s not like you to pick up and leave in the middle of class. Cirelli was stunned. His face hit the floor.”

“Like I care.” Breckon’s tone sharpens. “Anyway, I’m on my way out. And we’re not conjoined twins, you know. I don’t have to account for everything to you.”

“O-kay.” Jules coils a strand of her purple-black hair around her finger and drags it back behind her ear. “I hope you know that you’re being an ass right now.”

Breckon’s face is as emotionless as stone. “You can call it what you want. But leave me alone.” He resumes his stride down the hallway and doesn’t look back at her, but I do. Jules stands with one shoulder against the wall, watching until he disappears out the doors to the school’s west parking lot.

Itȁtifatc9;s a beautiful May day outside and I crane automatically up to feel the warm rays on my skin.
Not for you, Ashlyn
, I remind myself bitterly.
It’s not your sun anymore
.

Breckon tosses his books into the backseat of his car and starts the engine. He heads north, towards cottage country, zipping up Highway 400—the very same highway my family motored up on their way to Farlain Lake—and I begin to wonder if we’ve developed some kind of psychic link and he’s reading my mind without knowing it, heading for the place I used to spend the summer years ago.

But then he pulls into a rest stop with a McDonald’s in it and orders medium fries and a large Coke. They sit, untouched, on the formica table in front of him as Breckon rests his head in his arms, facedown. I wish I knew where he was going, what the plan was.

“You should turn back,” I say gently. And then, for the umpteenth time, “Where are you going, Breckon?”

I cheat and peek at his face from under the table. His eyes are closed and the sound of his breathing is like someone ripping out a set of brand-new stitches.

No, no, no
. “Let’s go home,” I advise. “
Please
, Breckon. Listen to me.”

“Fuck you,” he whispers in a voice so quiet that probably only dead people and dogs can hear it.

Was that … was that meant for me?

Exhilaration surges through me, my worries for him momentarily pushed aside.

A long-haired boy of about five in a Toronto Maple Leafs T-shirt with a squiggly line of ketchup down the front is leaning over the back of the booth that adjoins Breckon’s. “Is that man sick?” he squeaks, his eyes shifting to his mother next to him.

“Shush, honey,” she commands. “Don’t stare. That’s rude.”

“But maybe he’s asleep and we should wake him up,” the boy says, loud enough for Breckon and anyone in our section of the restaurant to hear. “Or maybe he needs to go to the hospital.”

“Sit down, Jacob.” The woman tugs at the boy’s hand.

“Owww!” he yelps, although I can tell it didn’t hurt a bit.

A couple of minutes later Jacob’s plowed through his Happy Meal and his mother’s finished her salad. She throws their garbage away and sets the empty tray on top of the receptacle. I see her glance furtively at Breckon and then, maybe for the sake of her son, scurry over to the table with Jacob in tow.

“Excuse me,” she whispers, staring down at Breckon’s curly brown hair and the back of his neck. She pokes her tongue against her teeth and hovers by the table, about to attempt contact a second time.

Breckon lifts his head to stare at her. His eyes seem bottomless and she begins to sink into them but pulls hemeightherself back just enough to ask, “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. You had your head down for a long time and …”

Breckon glances past her at Jacob. “I know. I heard him.”

The woman smiles apologetically. “He’s at that age where—”

Breckon’s cell rings from his pocket. “I should get that,” he says, pulling the phone from his pocket and flipping the top up. I very much doubt he would’ve answered it if he hadn’t wanted to escape from the concerned woman next to him, but her presence forces him to mumble a guarded “hello” into the phone.

The woman disappears with her son and I listen to Breckon defend his behavior in Mr. Cirelli’s class, framing it as though his main concern was defending Violet from overzealous criticism. “Dad, I’ll fix it, okay?” he stammers. “I’ll go back and apologize to him tomorrow, but is there any way you can just keep this between us? Otherwise I’m going to have Mom breathing down my neck about the therapist again and, okay, maybe I lost it a little but …” He scrambles for the right words. “You know what some teachers can be like, and all I did, in the end, was bust out of class.”

Mr. Cody must be leaning towards agreeing because Breckon utters a penitent, “I know, I know. I won’t,
I swear
. Stuff was just … backing up on me. And then there’s my birthday coming up too and I just …” He grabs his straw and bends it over, tying it into a knot. “I don’t want to do anything for it. I want us to forget about it, okay? Just treat it like any other day.”

This is the first I’ve heard about Breckon’s approaching birthday. Maybe I haven’t been paying close enough attention. It’s impossible to stay focused during every hour of your existence. I don’t get physically tired anymore but my mind still wanders.

Whatever Mr. Cody says next is enough to get Breckon back in his car and driving home. The first thing he does when he gets there is scour his parents’ bathroom for sleeping pills. Amongst the assorted over-the-counter pain relievers and cold remedies he discovers acid-reflux pills, various outdated antibiotics and a fungal cream. Four remaining tablets rattle around the bottom of the lone trazodone bottle he ferrets out of the medicine cabinet. The length of time Breckon stares at them tells me he suspects they’re sleeping pills. But there aren’t enough left to help him for long, and certainly not enough to ensure that his mother (it’s her name that’s printed on the label) wouldn’t suspect someone else had been dipping into them.

The next person to arrive back at the house is Mr. Cody. He and Breckon have a powwow in the living room, Breckon sitting on the couch with his hands lost in his hoodie sleeves, nodding at everything his father says, except for the idea of meeting with Eva again. “Are you and Mom going to say I need to get my head shrinked every time I screw up now?” he asks defensively.

“You said things were backing up on you,” his father reminds him. “I just want you to know there are people you can talk to.” Mr. Cody wearily ruodyx201bs his forehead. “There’s nothing the matter with needing to speak to someone.”

“But I don’t,” Breckon says, eyes blazing. “I tried it. And I’m not going back. You can’t haul me out to the car and then carry me up to her office like I’m six. If I don’t want to go, I’m not going and
that’s it
.”

The strain between Breckon and his father sparked by that conversation hangs in the air for the rest of the night. Most of the infrequent words spoken over dinner are Mrs. Cody’s, but it gradually becomes evident that Mr. Cody has kept his word and not told her about Breckon’s conflict with Mr. Cirelli.

If Jules tries to call, I’m unaware of it because Breckon switches his phone off and keeps it off. In bed later he stares at the ceiling for hours but doesn’t swallow his sole remaining sleeping pill. During this time I test out my inner voice, asking Breckon if he can hear me, just like I’ve done in quiet points throughout the day.

He has nothing to say in response. If he
can
hear me, could it be that I’ve been making things worse for him? Maybe he’s scared that he’s losing his mind and that’s partly why he’s so adamant about not going back to Eva.

Bright and early the next morning Breckon knocks on the staff room door and apologizes to his teacher. He fixates on the ground, and then his Converse high-tops, and listens to Mr. Cirelli reply, “I spoke with your father yesterday and I think we can put this behind us. I know you haven’t been yourself lately.”

Breckon bobs his head and quietly thanks Mr. Cirelli but brushes off Jules when she drops by his locker and tries to talk to him. “I’m not in a good head space for any relationship drama,” he tells her. “Can we postpone this for a while?”

“What do you mean?” she asks. “Postpone what?”

Breckon curls his fingers around his locker door and sighs. “Talking about what I’m going through and how you think you can help.”

Jules stares at him for a long time, waiting for him to face her. If he did maybe things would be different. The way she feels about him shines so strongly in her eyes that it makes me want to cry. Breckon himself doesn’t look. He keeps his eyes safely on his locker and, after several seconds, Jules’s fingers graze against his on the locker, her black nails a stark contrast to his ashy skin.

“You know I love you,” she whispers before doing exactly what he seems to want—lifting her hand off his and falling back into the crowd, away from him.

sixteen
                            breckon

Mom’s parents won’t
take no for an answer. They say we should at least have tifat="0" alsome kind of family dinner to celebrate my birthday on Friday, and invite us over to their place. My mother starts to get into a fight with them about it over the phone, repeating that I don’t want a birthday dinner. Mom’s raised voice is what makes me give in. I don’t want her to argue with her parents because of me; I know they’ve helped her a lot over the past month.

My grandmother makes the blue-cheese hamburgers that were my favorite food as a kid and blueberry cake for dessert. “It’s not a birthday cake,” she makes a point of saying. “Just a cake.” My grandmother told us we could bring Moose, and because he’s not used to being here he keeps pacing around their house, looking lost. Watching him skitter around their vintage hand-painted coffee table makes some bizarre kind of statement—like he’s a small, hairy substitute for Skylar.

It feels wrong the way everything feels wrong lately. Even the dog seems different. All of us are like those early clones that died too soon because they weren’t right inside. We look like identical matches to the original but under the surface we’re defective.

I’m seventeen today and I don’t know how much longer I’ll last.

Jules gave me a birthday hug in the cafeteria earlier, even though we haven’t seen each other outside of school since last Saturday and probably won’t for a while. I don’t want to drag her down and I don’t want her knocking herself out trying to cheer me up—she’ll just end up hurt and frustrated either way. On Wednesday we stood in the parking lot beside my car and had part two of the conversation that we’d started at my locker the day before. I told her, “Everyone keeps saying that I’m not myself and no one knows that better than you do. Right now I just don’t have the energy for anything extra. It’s hard enough trying to drag my ass to class—there’s nothing left over for you.”