Dang. Typical.
I picture her like basically everyone at my school, with a breezy personality and simple needs. Or even like Meg, smart and quirky. Either way, white. Some damn messy bun.
I do the yoga breaths I practiced with Susan: slowly and thoughtfully in through the nose, then out through the mouth with my lips pursed like a whistle. (I can’t whistle.) (Or is it in through the mouth and out through the nose? Ugh, I can’t even relax right.)
“Er, ex-girlfriend, I guess. I’m still figuring out how to say that, four freaking months later. Ex ex ex ex ex…”
He talks to the air above us, head titled up toward the rolling duvet of gray clouds. “Sorry. Anyway, it will pass. We’ll just sit here quietly and wait it out.”
“K. You can go back in if you want.”
“No way, dude. Wanna talk about it?”
I don’t know anything about this guy. How could I possibly know what to tell him, what words to even use? How would I tell anyone, for that matter?
I stare at the small pool of rainwater that swirls around our shoes. And for a second, I just sit and exist. He lets it happen. He seems totally chill.
“I think maybe God smited me.” I don’t know if I mean it as a joke or as a true confession. Maybe both.
“Oh noooo, dude! A curse upon your house for all generations? Or just a low-key plague of locusts or what?”
“Nice.” Of course, it comes off snarkier than I want. What I wish I could do is giggle and tuck my hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry, I just…” The empty space between us is so uncomfortable, but I can’t think of anything else to say.
I close my eyes. I imagine being anywhere else. I imagine David not seeing me this way, not now or ever. I’m almost mad at him for being here, his hand limply cupping my shoulder.
We sit like this on the curb for thirty minutes, not saying much, every now and then passing movie recommendations between us. He’s never seen my favorite, All About Eve, and I’ve never seen his favorite, Fight Club.
“Man, you gotta let me know what you think of the ending,” he basically squeals.
I know I should feel warmth with David in this moment, maybe even butterflies. I’m grateful for his kindness and I think he’s awesome, but it’s hard to feel excited about making a new friend, because I can’t feel anything. I’m watching it happen, but it isn’t happening to me. I’m disconnected from everything outside my head.
The rain starts up again for a minute; we watch it splash down from the awning. I hate this kind of rain, the slanty kind that comes in short, hard bursts. Finally David jumps up and scrunches his face, appraising the wet butt of his pants.
“We should get going before we have to answer to the Moms.”
“Oh, you’re right.” I dart up, damp and light-headed.
“Let me put my number in your phone.”
“Huh? Oh yeah, okay.” I fish my phone out of the pocket of my Pretty Girls Make Graves hoodie (I always wear merch hoodies on rainy days) and hand it over.
“And…,” he mumbles as he types briskly. “I’m texting myself….” He hands the phone back to me, grinning.
“Hey, um, thanks, for today, for this.”
“Psh, ain’t no thing, dude.”
He marches off swinging his arms in wide, weightless half-moons.
Settling into my car, I take a deep breath and collect myself. Glance over my CDs and decide on silence. My phone dings as I plop it into the cup holder. Text message from David Santos. David.
<3
Huh.
I try not to smile, but I’m only human.
MARISSA
This is a story about Marissa. Marissa was a pretend friend before she was a real one, back when you were thirteen. It was convenient—her mom didn’t let her watch TV, but yours did; you could walk to each other’s houses; you sat together at your brothers’ Little League games and stayed after to watch the boys from your class. You lusted over her entitled relationship to fun. Marissa flirts with the boys and they flirt back. Even her crush flirts back, which you didn’t even know was possible. In your universe, it isn’t.
If you’re mad at Marissa, she finds a reason to get mad at you. She has a way of turning the tables. She commits the crime, but somehow you end up apologizing, and maybe you even owe her. The scales of the world tip in Marissa’s direction.
Marissa isn’t really emo. (She listens to Good Charlotte.) She’s a poser, but the boys don’t care. Wanting her makes them not care about anything else. Marissa tells you you’re jealous that boys like her and not you, and then goes back to painting her nails silver and watching Mandy Moore in the movie. She tucks a piece of thin long hair behind her ear with a sense of satisfaction and ease that you have never experienced and probably never will. Not in this universe. Everyone you can’t be is a Marissa, and you are surrounded by Marissas.
This is a story about you. The night you spill the bottle of Disco Fever polish on the carpet in your bedroom, you feel pitiful. Everything about the moment—those dumb songs in A Walk to Remember and Mandy Moore’s horrible dumpy cardigans; Marissa’s puka shells; the sting you feel and keep feeling—reminds you how pitiful you are. Reminds you of your place.
You’re the Laney Boggs in She’s All That. You spill the nail polish and ruin your carpet. You swallow the words down.
But this is not a story about you. This is a story about me, and I am the hero.
MORGAN PARKER NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED
This morning I am a scientific curiosity on the examination table at Dr. Li’s office, a place I’ve been coming to since I was a kid. Except this time, I’m not getting shots for the new school year. I’m getting pills. Dr. Li already spoke to Susan about my symptoms and official diagnosis: DSM-IV 311 Depressive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. (Go figure, even the Manual of Mental Disorders doesn’t have a name for me. What a life, defying classification.)
He talked to my parents, too, and they probably explained that they are at the “end of their rope” and “don’t know what to do with me.” (“Are we bad parents?” they probably asked him, just like they keep asking me. “Is it something we did?” “How can we fix this?” This, in case it’s not clear, is me, the fucked-up firstborn.)
The nurse gives me a photocopied questionnaire and a golf pencil that’s almost too small to use. “Take your time!” she chirps, then slips out of the room, her blond ponytail shimmying.
There are these truly awful illustrations of bunnies and flower gardens filling the white spaces between the text: Over the past month, have you experienced any of the following problems?, followed by a list of statements like I have little interest in my activities and I believe other people are generally better than I am. I know all the right answers because I’ve already been through this with Susan. I check the same pathetic boxes and wait, hunching and straightening my shoulders and swinging my Vans.