And then he left her in the hallway to calm herself. To push back the storm. To breathe.
Chapter Seven
CLAIRE IGNORED HER BURRITO BOWL, WAITING FOR Derrick to come pick her up, trying to dismiss every red flag rising inside her. Calling every fear a liar.
It didn’t help that God had watched her the entire walk to Chipotle—a look she knew all too well. She’d used that same microscope to dissect every movement and intention of every person she met, these boys included. She expected him to turn one of the lamps on her and begin the interrogation any minute.
Instead, the three of them ordered food, found seats, and generally acted the same as usual—loud and unabashedly idiotic. Still, every so often she caught God staring at her. He never let his gaze linger, always smiling at something Leg or Dark said and turning away as soon as she caught him. At first she thought it was actually in her head—a fiction her anxiety was knitting together.
“I mean, they do make you pay for guac, which is total bullshit. But otherwise?” Leg lifted his burrito, as if to consecrate it before the food gods, and let loose a too-loud ommmmm. “Best restaurant in the entire world, fight me.”
A couple shot him a rude look, but he didn’t notice. He stared reverently at his burrito for a moment before taking a huge bite.
“I prefer Taco Bell,” Dark said, looking up from the table only to catch Leg’s incredulous face.
They were still arguing when Derrick walked in and started bumping fists and swiping rogue pieces of steak from their bowls.
“What up, degenerates?” he said, dropping into the seat next to Claire.
“No context,” Leg said. “Chipotle or Taco Bell?”
Derrick said, “Wow, I mean—how does one gauge his response? Affordability? Freshness? The ability not to spend the rest of one’s life on the toilet after consuming?”
“See?” Leg said, slamming his hands down on the metal table. “You don’t ever get the shits after eating at Chipotle. It’s, like, in their business plan. This matter is settled.”
Derrick was laughing with the boys when he turned and saw Claire, halfway out of her seat and obviously waiting for him to be done. She didn’t need to say anything. He stood up and said good-bye for both of them, but just as he was about to walk away, he snapped his fingers and pointed at the three boys.
“I almost forgot—Mark-O had somebody cancel at the product demo tomorrow. So, me and Claire are going to hit up the Lair tomorrow night. If you guys are down, I’m skating. Plus, if you don’t make a big deal about it, after I’m finished I’ll let you walk off with some of the promo gear.”
Leg was nodding before Derrick had even finished his first sentence, and now he looked like he was on the verge of choking himself with enthusiasm and a mouthful of burrito.
“Hell yes,” he managed. “We’ll be there.”
God was staring at Claire again, and she forced a smile. Forced cheer into her voice, hoping it would be enough to end this conversation and get them out the door.
“You guys should totally come,” she said, her voice all wrong.
Derrick looked from Claire to the boys, before finally saying. “Okay, well. It starts at seven o’clock. Maybe we’ll see you guys.”
As they were walking outside into the cold night air, it started snowing once again. Big, fat flakes that fell from the sky and disappeared as soon as they hit the ground—a singular thing returning to the masses.
When they got to the car, Derrick put his hands on the roof and looked over at her.
“So, what was that about?”
The lights inside the restaurant made it seem warm for a second. Leg was gone from the table, getting another soda. And God was talking to Dark intently, neither of them looking toward the window or Claire.
She had no idea what they were talking about or how she should feel.
“Nothing. I’m just ready to go home.”
At school the next day, Claire was too distracted to focus on her project. And when Dr. Palmer once again stopped by her desk, she didn’t need another conversation. So, she wrote “The Monster” at the top of her page, which was enough to appease Palmer, who moved on to bother the kid in the back who was obviously flummoxed by Leaves of Grass and had taken to just staring at the unopened book, as if waiting for inspiration.
She opened Frankenstein and started flipping pages, toward the section she knew was written in the point of view of the Monster. The first time she’d read the book, she’d been shocked to discover that the Monster wasn’t, well, a monster. She could still remember the moment—in her bed, Derrick asleep in his room—realizing the profound loneliness of the Monster and not understanding what it would be like to be that much of an outsider.
A little over a year ago. Only months before she became an outsider, too.
In the months after, people used Monster language a lot. The monster who did this, that sort of thing. She hadn’t known the kid and now could barely remember his face, even though sometimes he would appear to her in dreams, nothing but a shadow. Something she never thought she could escape.
She could feel tears beginning to well up and she wiped at them quickly, hoping nobody saw her. Trying to stem the tide, to give herself a distraction, she quickly wrote, The Monster was created.
She stared at the words, which felt truer than she’d expected. The Monster was unable to experience the world in even the simplest of ways. The joy of discovery was always mixed with the pain of rejection, the sudden and brutal reminder that the Monster would never be the same—a continual life of after.
The bell rang and kids stood up, hurrying into the hallways for their five minutes of cramped freedom between classes. When Claire didn’t join them, Dr. Palmer came over and rapped her knuckles on the desk.
She opened her mouth to speak but noticed the words on the paper. Her face changed ever so slightly, from playful to thoughtful to, maybe, impressed.
“It must be difficult to be a creation,” she said. “To lose all sense of . . . I don’t know. Agency, maybe? Control?”
Claire didn’t want to look up. Didn’t want Dr. Palmer to see her face, the shadow of her tears, which were surely evident. The undeniable truth that she’d lost control of even the simplest parts of her life.
“Claire . . . are you okay?”
Claire wanted to say it exactly right, so she didn’t answer right away, even though kids were coming into the classroom now. She forced all the emotion out of her voice, trying to sound more robot than human.
“Do you think the Monster would’ve ever been, you know, able to live in the normal world?”
Dr. Palmer sat down in the desk in front of her and waited for Claire to look up. When she did, Dr. Palmer smiled gently and said, “Well, what happens in the cottage at the edge of the village?”
Claire thought for a second. “He listens to the family.”
“Right. And more importantly, he learns. He becomes educated. And education leads to . . .”
“College?”
Dr. Palmer laughed.
“Well, sometimes. But I was thinking empathy. The more we know, the more difficult it becomes to ignore our surroundings—to ignore things like suffering and joy and pleasure.”
“So, he’s becoming less of a monster,” Claire said.