Sean Griswold's Head (22 page)

Then the system crashes and I hang up.

I'm breathing like I just finished the first quarter of a game. I was ready, I was moving ahead but then talking to Caleb plus the idea of bad news has sent me reeling back to January. How does this Specialist dish out bad news all day when I can't even face it once?

I can't.

Sobs burst out of me. I reach my hand into my pocket and come out with Mr. Nippers's drool toy. I sniff it, an act that only confirms my deeply rooted disgust of cats. What a stupid toy. What a stupid idea. A Focus Object.

The phone rings again and again and again. We don't have an answering machine, so the ringing never stops. I throw the mouse at it, knocking the receiver out of the cradle. This rodent has some sort of magical power, forcing me to answer against my will. Dad's asking if I'm there, and I finally pick up the phone and say I am.

“Payton?”

“What?”

“Don't hang up,” he says softly. “Listen. I need you to listen. I have to make this right. Can you at least give me the chance to do that?”

I pluck up the cat toy again and stroke it. It's kind of cute, for a disease carrier. The one eyeball could almost pass for endearing if it wasn't so creepy. “Okay.”

“Sometimes parents do things, pretending they're protecting their children, but they're really just protecting themselves. It's not that I didn't trust you. It's more … if I told you, it made it real. Irreversible. So I kept putting it off. That was a huge mistake. But it is real, honey. I can't change that. I can't change this. I'm sorry.”

He pauses but I don't answer. I dangle the mouse by its tail, watching it spin in a circle. Spinning and spinning until it hit me. Not the mouse. This: I wasn't mad at my dad for lying. Not really. That wasn't why I wasn't talking to them and avoiding spring break plans and wearing his T-shirt and being generally horrible. I spun the mouse again. It was fear.

Because a circle is endless. It goes on forever.

My dad, however, will not.

“So are you ready to hear the news?” he asks.

It takes me a few attempts to answer. My voice has mysteriously disappeared. “I don't think I can.”

He chuckles dryly. “It's really not that bad.”

“All right. I understand but … can we take a break? For tonight? Maybe when you get home, after I've done the bike ride. That's the right time. But right now, can we just not talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

“Talk about … oh, you were …” Wow, can he be any more wonderful? “Yeah. Nothing.”

“I would love to talk about nothing with you all night long. Just as long as we are finally talking.”

So we do. Well, it's not nothing—I tell him ridiculously specific details about the bike ride, and it's not all night long, just twenty-five minutes until Dad hangs up to call Caleb. But those are twenty-five more minutes than we've talked in weeks, in months, and they are twenty-five minutes that communicate much more than the height of my handlebars. When we're done, I go upstairs to lie down and wait for Trent. Dad's T-shirt is still tucked under my pillow.

Jac's right. He's here. No matter what the news might be, my dad is still here.

I wad the shirt up into a ball, fake left, then slam-dunk it into the hamper.

TWENTY-NINE

The first thing I see when I walk into the volunteers and bikers Sub Bash is a sub sandwich piled high with every processed meat imaginable, spanning across an endless buffet table. I'm a big fan of deli meats, the farther from an actual animal the better, so I take this as a good sign. The next thing I see is Grady next to it, a piece of bologna dangling from his chin. This is not a good sign. This is a very bad sign. As far as signs go, this is the worst, like every demonic sign rolled into one.

Jac's next to me in a second, tapping me on my shoulder like a famished woodpecker. “Did you see how much prime meat there is here? And I don't mean the sub. The paramedic table alone is enough to fill a shirtless calendar spread. I met this guy, Ryder—how cool is that? His name is RYDER—and he said I can help out at the booth. Me. Like Florence Nightingale over here.”

“Jac. Look.” I nudge my head toward Grady.

Jac snarls. “Tell me that isn't Grady the Goth inhaling a slice of salami at a charity event.”

“I think it's bologna.”

“I think it's disgusting. Why would Grady be here, unless …”

Her voice trails off as we see Sean punch Grady on the arm and shove a pickle into his mouth. It makes all the sense in the world and none at all. Of course Sean's doing the bike ride. I'll see him tomorrow. I can see him right now. Did he know I'd be here? Did he care either way?

“Maybe we should go.” I turn to leave.

Jac starts poking me again. “I've figured you out, you know. I've been reading all my mom's self-help books. I should write one someday. And if I do, I'm going to write a whole chapter on this self-sabotage stunt you're pulling.”

“Thanks.”

“Seriously. He's right there. And you're like, denying yourself of him. Torturing yourself. The only way to get out of it is to go talk to him.”

“You're right.”

“I am? I mean … of course I am.” Jac pretends to swoon. “Eternal love! You're going to talk to Sean!”

“No. Grady.”

“Uh, Grady. As in the not-cute one with a skull on his sweatshirt?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I meant Sean.”

“I know you did. But I have to talk to Grady first.”

Jack sighs. “Maybe I'll write two chapters on you then. Self-sabotage and going after the wrong guy. All right. Do you want me to come along?”

“Yes. But you can't.”

“I'll pretend to understand. But, either way, you'll need this.” Jac crosses me like she's a priest.

“What's that for? You're not Catholic. Isn't that like, blasphemous?”

She jerks her head toward Grady. “Saving your soul, potato. Can never be too cautious with that boy.”

I cross the room and stop at the end of the mile-long sandwich. I busy myself with the condiments, spreading the hoagie with a mayonnaise-mustard combo. I watch them from the corner of my eye, waiting to be noticed so Sean can make up his mind whether he'll stay or leave when he sees me.

My sandwich is inches away from my mouth when I feel Sean's penetrating gaze. Before, I would have dropped the sandwich and fled. But now, I take a small bite, chewing deliberately, and finally make eye contact.

I don't know why I ever thought his head was big. It's perfect, and so is he in every way possible. He's wearing a fitted forest green shirt, one that shows off both his biceps and eyes in equally tantalizing ways. His hair looks white in the lighting—white and brilliant. The only thing that would make him better looking would be a smile, which is completely absent from his face. But he's not frowning. His lips are a straight line, not committing either way. We're staring at each other, and I lose the contest when I look down at my food. When I look up again, he's gone.

But Grady isn't. And although I want so desperately to run after Sean, I have some beef to settle with Grady first.

When he sees me, his eyes dart around the room, trying to find Sean. Or maybe a coffin he can hide in.

“Hey, Grady. Great sub, huh?” I take a mammoth mouthful.

Grady looks down at his sandwich, then up at mine. He follows my motion, shoving as much meat in his mouth as he can, then mumbles a “Mmph.”

“I didn't know you were a philanthropist. What brings you to this lovely event?”

He continues to chew, focusing on his black Vans. Finally he swallows and says, “Sean wanted me to come with him. Free food, you know.”

“I hope you choke on your bologna,” I say.

Grady takes another bite, his expression more thoughtful this time. “Actually, I think it's salami.”

“Why did you tell Sean about my journal?”

Grady chokes on his deli meat and coughs. I grab a water bottle from the cooler below and consider splashing him with it, but my curiosity drives me to hand it to him instead. He gulps it down in three seconds, and smears his face against his dingy gray sweatshirt. “So
that's
why Sean and you aren't talking?”

“No.” That was my own doing. “But you didn't help things.”

Grady's face is about the same color as his sweatshirt now, and he looks like he's close to tears, which would not only smear his liner, but go against everything I thought I knew about him.

“This is so jacked. I had no idea I screwed things up for you guys.
That
's why Sean's been so depressed. I can't believe I did that to him. I'm such a freaking screwup!”

“I don't know if I'd say freaking—”

“Typical. This is so typical.” He looks up at the ceiling. “Two hours ago my dad chucked a beer bottle at me because I forgot to take the trash out, now I'm mooching free food from people in wheelchairs and ruining Sean's sad love life.”

And then he does it. He starts to cry. Not sobs or anything, just a trembling chin and a few silent tears. And it is SO not the reaction or the interaction I was expecting, that all I can do is awkwardly pat his back and say, “You're not a screwup.”

He mumbles a few choice words before raising his head, his eyes wild. “What do you know? I'm
completely
screwed up. My parents destined me to be a screwup—look at any family study, and there I am. The statistic.”

“Grady, that doesn't mean—”

But I can't stop him. He's really going now. “Yeah, a cliché. If this were a teen movie, I'd be the stock character.” He wipes his eyes and moans, “Dude, my makeup is even running. Can we get any more unoriginal? Next thing I'll be trying out for the part of teen shooter in some TV show.”

“Oh, no, they wouldn't cast you in that. All the teens on those shows are really twenty-five. And they just take models and try to nerd them up, you know? Not that you aren't good-looking enough, I just mean even that isn't really authentic. Those actors are more pretty boy James Dean than Marilyn Manson. Not that you're Marilyn Manson. Unless, uh … you want to be.”

“Yeah, that helps. You really suck at this, you know that?” Grady mops his face with a used napkin, transferring mustard to his left eyebrow. It makes him so vulnerable that for a second I let all his black armor melt away and I see him as just a regular guy, a guy who's a little whacked out but hello—join the club.

I analyze my sandwich. “You know none of that is true. Look, I am … I was mad at you but, actually, Sean thought it was all kind of funny. What happened, the reason we aren't talking … it wasn't you who messed things up. It was all me.”

“How was it you?”

“I did the whole run-away-Lassie thing.”

“You impersonated a dog?”

I shake my head. “I knew we were just setting ourselves up for the inevitable, so I broke things off now. Before things got too intense.”

“Then you're an idiot if you think that.” He rubs his eyes again. “I can't believe I cried. You must be channeling excessive estrogen with all that relationship crap. Too intense. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.”

And just like that, I distinctly remember why I left the Hall of Terror after our first cheery encounter. “Shut up,” I say. “Don't make me change my mind about you.”

“And don't make me change my mind about you. Not liking someone because you might get burned later? Haven't you heard the quote ‘ 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'?”

I snort. Another shattered notion. Now Vampire Boy is getting literary. “Uh, all right, Shakespeare.”

“Try Lord Tennyson. Just because I'm not on the honor roll doesn't mean I'm not smart enough to know that you should talk to him. You think hurting him like this is doing any good?”

I shrug.

He pushes up the sleeves of his gray hoodie, revealing a Sharpie tattoo that resembles an eagle's claw. He closes the gap between us in one broad step. I can smell the Dijon mustard on his breath. “Fine. We'll do this the hard way. If you don't make things better with my friend, I'll bite you again.”

I stiffen. “Seriously?”

“You want to find out?”

I sigh. “So I get to tell him how I feel and have him tell me I already missed my chance. Goody.”

“You just said goody.”

“So?”

Grady grabs two more sandwiches and starts to scoot away. “I better go. All that wholesomeness might rub off on me.”

“Yeah, next thing you know you'll be attending a charity event, quoting poets, and bawling your eyes out.”

“That kid is my best friend. You better make things right again or …” Grady gives me one more hearty fang flash and disappears into the crowd. And now he's weaved into our collective fate, which may sound poetic and all but … it's Grady. I just received love advice from Grady the Goth.

I take another bite of bologna. Or maybe it's salami. Doesn't matter. Suddenly everything tastes like cardboard.

PFE

April 5

Topic: A prayer

I don't think God reads my PFEs but since I'm not really accustomed to praying, I thought I'd get it down here. Ahem. I mean … Dear God. Hey. Just a few things. Grady's probably talking to Sean and please let him say something helpful. Please give me the courage to face Sean. And this impossible bike ride. And my dad's disease. And my dad. Please help me move away from all this Focus Object stuff so I don't develop a feline fetish or some other bizarre coping mechanism.

Instead, just help me to cope.

Please?