Until It Hurts to Stop (14 page)

I close my eyes and picture it, trying sports psychology– style mental cheerleading. 
I am brave! I am strong! I can climb this mountain!
 All this does is make me want to giggle. I guess seeing three minutes of a sports psychologist interview on TV doesn’t make me an expert.

But nervous as I am, I don’t want to back away from this.

Over the weekend, I talk Nick off the proverbial ledge four more times, which is average for a weekend with his father. To keep his spirits up, I remind him of Crystal, even though I tell him I need more time before going back to the Cinnamon Range. But I quote the trail guide to him: “‘The sheer cliffs and steep climbs of the Crystal Mountain trail make it unsuitable for beginners, but strong hikers should have no serious trouble.’” Which I realize would not cheer up anyone else on the planet, but that’s Nick.

But during the school week, it’s as if none of that happened, as if he never called the Maggie Lifeline. I rarely see Nick alone. On Monday, he doesn’t even show up at our lunch table. I guess he’s with Vanessa, because I don’t see her, either.

I’m not sure which is harder: seeing him with Vanessa, or not seeing them at all and wondering where they’ve slipped off to. In French class, I study Vanessa’s dreamy smile for any signs that she’s been with Nick at lunch. Talking with him. Making out with him. Or—

If Nick lost his virginity, he would tell me, wouldn’t he? I can’t imagine him not telling me something that big.
On the other hand, I can’t imagine him announcing it, either.
But they’ve only been together for a couple of weeks. Surely nothing that intense is happening yet? Even if you could practically light a bonfire from the heat between them. Even if they lose all awareness of whoever else is around them when they’re together.
On Tuesday, hoping to avoid them, I go to the library instead of the cafeteria. But it’s just my luck to catch a glimpse of them in a far corner of the library: Nick’s hand stroking her shoulder, their mouths meeting with an intensity that makes me dizzy, hungry, lonely, embarrassed to see it.
When Nick drives me to and from school, Luis is in the car for most of the ride. I sit in the car behind Nick, trying not to stare at the back of his head. Trying to make myself stop wanting what I want.

nineteen

This week, I go to the piano every night. The music I choose is dark and heavy as thunder: stormy pieces with plenty of
crescendo
and
fortissimo
and left-hand keys. It’s the waves from a hurricane breaking on a beach, the huge curls you get when a storm is out at sea. I used to play these songs a lot in junior high. Lately, I’ve been hungry for the piano again, playing more than ever.

Mom hovers, trying to lift me out of my “moodiness.” She has just gone through a closet-cleaning frenzy, and I shoot down her suggestion that I sort through the boxes of elementaryschool projects, leaf collections, and seashells under my bed.

I do give her my college list. She has me go back and reorganize it geographically, cross-referencing it by how much I want to attend each school, but it’s finally finished. I’ve picked ten schools all over the Northeast. It’s still hard for me to believe that I will finish high school someday, that I won’t be stuck here forever. It’s a fantasy, a fairy tale: something I’ve dreamed of without ever expecting it to come true. I have another half of high school to get through.

And even then . . . what if I don’t belong at college, either? I’ve been assuming it will be better than high school, but what if I’m wrong? This time I’ll probably get away from Raleigh for good, but what if there are Raleigh Barringers everywhere?

Dad asks me to sand the bench he made for Grandma. The sanding burns off my nervous energy; I do it until my arms ache. When Dad checks my work and runs his fingers over the wood, he doesn’t have to tell me it’s a good job. Even before he smiles, I know. And it’s a relief to have done something right this week, to have helped make something real and solid and worthwhile.

On Wednesday, again, Nick and Vanessa don’t come to lunch. Sitting by myself, with a ring of empty seats around me that implies I might be carrying polio, I pull out my phone and text

Sylvie.
where are you
?
yearbook committee
.
you
?
alone in the caf
,
where else
?
nick is never around anymore
.

he
’
s always busy
.
tell me about it
.
wendy
’
s busy all the time too
.
i don
’
t think this is the same kind of busy
.
i hope not
!!
i
’
m sure you have nothing to worry about
.
wendy has a lot

to do in college
,
right
?

When she doesn’t answer, I send:
_{are you there}
?
a couple of times.

sorry
.
we had to take a vote here
.
what color cover to put on the yearbook
.
well
,
don
’
t keep me in suspense
!
blue
.
A pause, then:
i should go now
.
they expect me to participate
.

At the end of lunch, Sylvie and I cross paths in the girls’ room. I check for feet beneath the stall doors, and she asks, “Why do you always do that?”

“Checking for ambushes,” I say without thinking.

“‘Ambushes?!’” she says with an uneasy laugh, unsure if I’m joking.
I hesitate. “It’s a leftover habit from junior high.”
That’s all I say, and she doesn’t ask for more. I suppose I’ve just told her all she ever needs to know about my junior high experience.

I walk into bio lab to find Raleigh at my bench, arguing with Adriana. I creep toward Raleigh as if she’s a tarantula, but she doesn’t even see me. She’s blocking the way to my seat. I hang back, waiting.

“Ethan’s such a jerk,” Raleigh says. “I don’t know why you ever liked him.”
“But I did like him,” Adriana says.
“I told you he was trouble.”
“You have no right to tell me who to like.”
“Oh, honestly. You’re better off without him.”
“Will you stop saying that?”
Raleigh sighs impatiently. “I’m only trying to help you move on. Believe me, he’s not worth all this drama. He’s an idiot. He wouldn’t even have made it to high school without Matt giving him the answers.”
Adriana’s mouth tightens. “You’re one to talk about giving answers!”
Raleigh recoils. Fascinated, because I’ve never seen her caught off guard, I inch closer.
“Don’t even
think
about going there,” she says in a voice so venomous, so much a part of seventh and eighth grades, that for one confused minute I’m back in junior high. She snaps, “And pull yourself together. You don’t want to cry in the middle of bio lab.” With that, she marches out of the room.
I take my place as the bell rings, not knowing what to say to Adriana, who stares at the benchtop. Thornhart has barely started the lecture when Adriana claps her hand over her face and runs out of the room.
Everyone stares at her empty seat, at the door. Thornhart stands with his hand in the air, still pointing at a diagram of animal-kingdom classifications. “Maggie,” he says at last, “why don’t you check on your partner and see if she’s okay? Walk her to the nurse if that’s what she needs.”
I find Adriana in the girls’ room, sobbing over one of the sinks. I do a quick check under the stall doors before coming to stand beside her. “What do you want?” she chokes out.
“Thornhart sent me to check on you. He thinks you’re sick.”
“Well, he can go on thinking it.”
Tears and makeup drip down her puffy red face. I have never seen Adriana look less than perfect, and here she is with her face melting. I would’ve given anything to see this in junior high. I would’ve given anything to believe that the people who tormented me had bad moments, that they ever hurt. But now I’m only sorry for her.
“For what it’s worth,” I say, “I thought Raleigh was being pretty unfair to you.”
“She can be such a bitch sometimes,” Adriana blubbers. She runs a paper towel under the faucet and presses it to her face.
No argument there,
I think, but I don’t say it. I expect Adriana to make up with Raleigh, and I don’t want to say anything that can be used against me.
Adriana goes on. “She had a hell of a nerve, saying that about Ethan getting answers from Matt. When
she
nearly got kicked out of West End for doing Scott Brewer’s homework.”
“What?”
Adriana mops off her face. “Oh yeah,” she says, her voice still fierce. “At the end of eighth grade, she wrote about four English papers for Scott. They nearly got expelled. And the worst of it was, she thought he was in love with her, but once she couldn’t do his homework anymore, he acted like he didn’t even know her name.”
I vaguely remember Scott Brewer—a boy with a bland, pretty face and a self-satisfied smirk. Much like Raleigh’s own smirk, in fact. It’s hard for me to imagine Raleigh doing extra work for so much risk and so little in return. “Why did she do it?”
I hand Adriana another paper towel. She wets it and wrings it out, keeping her eyes on the sink. “She really liked him. It’s the closest she ever came to having a boyfriend. He was using her, but she never saw it until the end, when her parents got called into school.”
It hasn’t hit me until now, but I’ve never seen Raleigh with a boy. With groups of boys, yes. I think of her joking with Luis at the basketball court, polished and self-assured. Drawing the other boys toward her, and then walking away as if they couldn’t hold her interest. But—a boyfriend, a close relationship? No. Not unless she had one in Italy.
“She made a total fool out of herself,” Adriana says. “Which Raleigh never does. But you should’ve heard her talking about Scott this and Scott that, how amazing he was, how in love with her he was. . . .” Grimacing, Adriana presses the towel to her eyes. “That’s why it’s so unfair for her to be a bitch about Ethan. She should know how I feel.”
Adriana might as well expect sympathy from the bathroom sink she’s leaning over, but I won’t waste my breath telling her that. I’m far more interested in Raleigh’s past, anyway.
“Why
didn’t
they kick her out of school?”
“She would kill me if she knew I told you this. But—do you swear not to tell anyone?”
“Yes,” I say. Though I’m not sure if I mean it. Why should I keep any promise to Adriana, or agree to protect Raleigh?
Adriana lowers the towel, glances around the empty bathroom, and drops her voice. “Raleigh’s parents almost broke up that year. Her father was involved with someone else and everything. That’s why they went to Italy, so her parents could work on their marriage—which I guess they did, because they’re still together. So, because Raleigh was having such a hard time at home and was leaving for Italy, anyway, they decided not expel her. And Scott ended up transferring to Hayward so they wouldn’t expel him.”
So much for the “zero tolerance” policy against cheating that West End always used to brag about. Even now, more than two years later, I resent the school officials for not expelling Raleigh. God knows it would’ve made my life easier.
But beneath my anger is a seed of surprise that Raleigh is human.
Not that her troubles excuse what she did to me. According to Adriana, Raleigh’s problems happened in eighth grade, and she started her war against me early in seventh.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Adriana says, dabbing at the mascara stains on her cheeks. “It’s just—she makes me so mad sometimes.”
“I know,” I murmur.
“Please promise me you’ll keep it to yourself. Her family doesn’t need this hashed over again.”
“Mm,” I say, which I tell myself could be a yes or could be a no.
Raleigh, a cheater. Nearly expelled. Used and dumped by Scott Brewer—a trap I would’ve guessed she’d be too smart and too self-centered to fall into.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen any real weakness in Raleigh. And something dark and strong stirs deep inside me, an energy I’ve never felt before.
I know that Sylvie would tell me to pretend I’ve never heard all this. Not only because she doesn’t know my full history with Raleigh, but I can’t imagine her encouraging revenge— against anyone, for any reason.
But . . .
Oh my God. After all Raleigh did to me. If she had known such things about me, she wouldn’t have hesitated to use them.
Maggie, why did you really go to Italy? Hey, Maggie, do you wipe Scott Brewer’s ass for him, too? You didn’t truly believe that a guy could like you, did you?
I once told Nick about imagining her blue faced from poisoning. But that was always unreal, a fantasy. I let my imagination run free because I never expected to have power over Raleigh anywhere but in my own mind. I never expected she would have any real vulnerability—to me, least of all.
For now, there’s comfort simply in holding this information to myself. Cradling it, weighing it. Tasting every drop of its rich bittersweetness.

twenty

Hard as it is to eat lunch alone on the days when Sylvie has a club meeting, it’s not much easier to eat with Nick and Vanessa.

They show up together in the cafeteria the day after I learn Raleigh’s secret. Sitting across from me, they eat off each other’s plates. It’s like tagging along on a honeymoon, and I want to bury my head in the giant tub of cafeteria coleslaw. Instead I smile, and chew my food, and answer Vanessa’s questions. Lunch lasts approximately seventy-four thousand hours.