Kitabı oku: «Every Day», sayfa 3

I hope, but never expect.

Owen’s nowhere to be found, so I head to the swings and hang in the air for a while. Eventually he appears on the sidewalk and heads over to me.

“You always pick that swing,” he says, sitting down on the swing next to mine.

“I do?” I say.

“Yeah.”

I wait for him to say something else. He doesn’t.

“Owen,” I finally say. “What happened?”

He shakes his head. He’s not going to tell me.

I stop swinging and plant my feet on the ground.

“This is stupid, Owen. You have five seconds to tell me what happened, or I’m going to head right back home, and you’ll be on your own for whatever happens next.”

Owen is surprised. But I figure the circumstances can justify Leslie’s anger.

“What do you want me to say? Josh Wolf gets me my pot. Today we got into a fight over it – he was saying I owed him, when I didn’t. He started pushing me around, so I pushed him back. And we got caught. He had the drugs, so he said I’d just dealt them to him. Real smooth. I said that was totally wrong, but he’s in all AP classes and everything, so who do you think they’re going to believe?”

He has definitely convinced himself it’s the truth. But whether it started out being the truth or not, I can’t tell.

“Well,” I say, “you have to come home. Dad’s trashed your room, but they haven’t found any drugs yet. And they didn’t find any in your locker, and I’m guessing they didn’t find any in the car or I would’ve heard about it. So right now, it’s all okay.”

“I’m telling you, there aren’t any drugs. I used the weed up this morning. That’s why I needed more from Josh.”

“Josh, your former best friend.”

“What are you talking about? I haven’t been friends with him since we were, like, eight.”

I am sensing that this was the last time Owen had a best friend.

“Let’s go,” I tell him. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“Easy for you to say.”

I am not expecting our father to hit Owen. But as soon as he sees him in the house, he decks him.

I think I am the only one who is truly stunned.

“What have you done?” my father is yelling. “What stupid, stupid thing have you done?”

Both my mother and I move to stand between them. Grandma just watches from the sidelines, looking mildly pleased.

“I haven’t done anything!” Owen protests.

“Is that why you ran away? Is that why you are being expelled? Because you haven’t done anything?”

“They won’t expel him until they hear his side of the story,” I point out, fairly sure this is true.

“Stay out of this!” my father warns.

“Why don’t we all sit down and talk this over?” my mother suggests.

The anger rises off my father like heat. I feel myself receding in a way that I’m guessing is not unusual for Leslie when she’s with her family.

It is during moments like this that I become nostalgic for that first waking moment of the morning, back before I had any idea what ugliness the day would bring.

We sit down this time in the den. Or, rather, Owen, our mother and I sit down – Owen and me on the couch, our mother in a nearby chair. Our father hovers over us. Our grandmother stays in the doorway, as if she’s keeping lookout.

“You are a drug dealer !” our father yells.

“I am not a drug dealer,” Owen answers. “For one, if I were a drug dealer, I’d have a lot more money. And I’d have a stash of drugs that you would’ve found by now!”

Owen, I think, needs to shut up.

“Josh Wolf was the drug dealer,” I volunteer. “Not Owen.”

“So what was your brother doing – buying from him ?”

Maybe, I think, I’m the one who needs to shut up.

“Our fight had nothing to do with drugs,” Owen says. “They just found them on him afterward.”

“Then what were you and Josh fighting about?” our mother asks, as if the fact that these two boyhood chums fought is the most unbelievable thing that’s occurred.

“A girl,” Owen says. “We were fighting about a girl.”

I wonder if Owen thought this one out ahead of time, or whether it’s come to him spontaneously. Whatever the case, it’s probably the only thing he could have possibly said that would have made our parents momentarily . . . happy might be overstating it. But less angry. They don’t want their son to be buying or selling drugs, being bullied or bullying anyone else. But fighting over a girl? Perfectly acceptable. Especially since, I’m guessing, it’s not like Owen’s ever mentioned a girl to them before.

Owen sees he’s gained ground. He pushes further. “If she found out – oh God, she can’t find out. I know some girls like it when you fight over them, but she definitely doesn’t.”

Mom nods her approval.

“What’s her name?” Dad asks.

“Do I have to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Natasha. Natasha Lee.”

Wow, he’s even made her Chinese. Amazing.

“Do you know this girl?” Dad asks me.

“Yes,” I say. “She’s awesome.” Then I turn to Owen and shoot him fake daggers. “But Romeo over here never told me he was into her. Although now that he says it, it’s starting to make sense. He has been acting very weird lately.”

Mom nods again. “He has.”

Eyes bloodshot, I want to say. Eating a lot of Cheetos. Staring into space. Eating more Cheetos. It must be love. What else could it possibly be?

What was threatening to be an all-out war becomes a war council, with our parents strategizing what the principal can be told, especially about the running away. I hope for Owen’s sake that Natasha Lee is in fact a student at the high school, whether he has a crush on her or not. I can’t access any memory of her. If the name rings a bell, the bell’s in a vacuum.

Now that our father can see a way of saving face, he’s almost amiable. Owen’s big punishment is that he has to go clean up his room before dinner.

I can’t imagine I would have gotten the same reaction if I’d beaten up another girl over a boy.

I follow Owen up to his room. When we’re safely inside, door closed, no parents around, I tell him, “That was kinda brilliant.”

He looks at me with unconcealed annoyance and says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Get out of my room.”

This is why I prefer to be an only child.

I have a sense that Leslie would let it go. So I should let it go. That’s the law I’ve set down for myself – don’t disrupt the life you’re living in. Leave it as close to the same as you can.

But I’m pissed. So I diverge a little from the law. I think, perversely, that Rhiannon would want me to. Even though she has no idea who Owen or Leslie are. Or who I am.

“Look,” I say, “you lying little pothead bitch. You are going to be nice to me, okay? Not only because I am covering your butt, but because I am the one person in the world right now who is being decent to you. Is that understood?”

Shocked, and maybe a little contrite, Owen mumbles his assent.

“Good,” I say, knocking a few things off his shelves. “Now happy cleaning.”

Nobody talks at dinner.

I don’t think this is unusual.

I wait until everyone is asleep before I go on the computer. I retrieve Justin’s email and password from my own email, then log in as him.

There’s an email from Rhiannon, sent at 10:11p.m.

J –

i just don’t understand. was it something I did? yesterday was so perfect, and today you are mad at me again. if it’s something I did, please tell me, and I’ll fix it. I want us to be together. I want all our days to end on a nice note. not like tonight.

with all my heart,

r

I reel back in my seat. I want to hit reply, I want to reassure her that it will be better – but I can’t. You’re not him anymore, I have to remind myself. You’re not there.

And then I think: What have I done?

I hear Owen moving around in his room. Hiding evidence? Or is fear keeping him awake?

I wonder if he’ll be able to pull it off tomorrow.

There’s no way for me to know.

I want to get back to her. I want to get back to yesterday.

DAY 5996

All I get is tomorrow.

As I fell asleep, I had a glint of an idea. But I as I wake up, I realize the glint has no light left in it.

Today I’m a boy. Skylar Smith. Soccer player, but not a star soccer player. Clean room, but not compulsively so. Video-game console in his room. Ready to wake up. Parents asleep.

He lives in a town that’s about a four hour drive from where Rhiannon lives.

This is nowhere near close enough.

It’s an uneventful day, as most are. The only suspense comes from whether I can access things fast enough.

Soccer practice is the hardest part. The coach keeps calling out names, and I have to access like crazy to figure out who everyone is. It’s not Skylar’s best day at practice, but he doesn’t embarrass himself.

I know how to play most sports, but I’ve also learned my limits. I found this out the hard way when I was eleven. I woke up in the body of some kid who was in the middle of a ski trip. I thought that, hey, skiing had always looked fun. So I figured I’d try. Learn it as I went. How hard could it be?

The kid had already graduated from the bunny slopes, and I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a bunny slope. I thought skiing was like sledding – one hill fits all.

I broke the kid’s leg in three places.

The pain was pretty bad. And I honestly wondered if, when I woke up the next morning, I would still feel the pain of the broken leg, even though I was in a new body. But instead of the pain, I felt something just as bad – the fierce, living weight of terrifying guilt. Just as if I’d rammed him with a car, I was consumed by the knowledge that a stranger was lying in a hospital bed because of me.

And if he’d died . . . I wondered if I would have died too. There is no way for me to know. All I know is that, in a way, it doesn’t matter. Whether I die or just wake up the next morning as if nothing happened, the fact of the death will destroy me.

So I’m careful. Soccer, baseball, field hockey, football, softball, basketball, swimming, track – all of those are fine. But I’ve also woken up in the body of an ice hockey player, a gymnast, a horse jumper, and once, recently, a volunteer firefighter.

I’ve sat all those out.

If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s video games. It’s a universal presence, like TV or the internet. No matter where I am, I usually have access to these things, and video games especially help me calm my mind.

After soccer practice, Skylar’s friends come over to play World of Warcraft . We talk about school and talk about girls (except for his friends Chris and David, who talk about boys.) This, I’ve discovered, is the best way to waste time, because it isn’t really wasted – surrounded by friends, talking crap and sometimes talking for real, with snacks around and something on a screen.

I might even be enjoying myself, if I could only unmoor myself from the place I want to be.

DAY 5997

It’s almost eerie how well the next day works out.

I wake up early – six in the morning.

I wake up as a girl.

A girl with a car. And a licence.

In a town only an hour away from Rhiannon’s.

I apologize to Amy Tran as I drive away from her house, a half hour after waking up. What I’m doing is, no doubt, a strange form of kidnapping.

I strongly suspect that Amy Tran wouldn’t mind. Getting dressed this morning, the options were black, black, or . . . black. Not in a Goth sense – none of the black came in the form of lace gloves – but more in a rock ’n’ roll sense. The mix in her car stereo puts Janis Joplin and Brian Eno side by side, and somehow it works.

I can’t rely on Amy’s memory here – we’re going somewhere she’s never been. So I did some Google mapping right after my shower, typed in the address of Rhiannon’s school and watched it pop up in front of me. That simple. I printed it out, then cleared the history.

I have become very good at clearing histories.

I know I shouldn’t be doing this. I know I’m poking a wound, not healing it. I know there’s no way to have a future with Rhiannon.

All I’m doing is extending the past by a day.

Normal people don’t have to decide what’s worth remembering. You are given a hierarchy, recurring characters, the help of repetition, of anticipation, the firm hold of a long history. But I have to decide the importance of each and every memory. I only remember a handful of people, and in order to do that, I have to hold tight, because the only repetition available – the only way I am going to see them again – is if I conjure them in my mind.

I choose what to remember, and I am choosing Rhiannon. Again and again, I am choosing her, I am conjuring her, because to let go for an instant will allow her to disappear.

The same song that we heard in Justin’s car comes on – And if I only could, I’d make a deal with God . . .

I feel the universe is telling me something. And it doesn’t even matter if it’s true or not. What matters is that I feel it, and believe it.

The enormity rises within me.

The universe nods along to the songs.

I try to hold on to as few mundane, everyday memories as possible. Facts and figures, sure. Books I’ve read or information I need to know. The rules of soccer, for instance. The plot of Romeo and Juliet . The phone number to dial if there’s an emergency. I remember those.

But what about the thousands of everyday memories, the thousands of everyday reminders, that every person accumulates? The place you keep your house keys. Your mother’s birthday. The name of your first pet. The name of your current pet. Your locker combination. The location of the silverware drawer. The channel number for MTV. Your best friend’s last name.

These are the things I have no need for. And, over time, my mind has rewired itself so all this information falls away as soon as the next morning comes.

Which is why it’s remarkable – but not surprising – that I remember exactly where Rhiannon’s locker is.

I have my cover story ready: If anyone asks, I am checking out the school because my parents might be moving to town.

I don’t remember if there are assigned parking spaces, so just in case, I park far from the school. Then I simply walk in. I am just another random girl in the halls – the freshmen will think I’m a senior, and the seniors will think I’m a freshman. I have Amy’s school bag with me – black with anime details, filled with books that won’t really apply here. I look like I have a destination. And I do.

If the universe wants this to happen, she will be there at her locker.

I tell myself this, and there she is. Right there in front of me.

Sometimes memory tricks you. Sometimes beauty is best when it’s distant. But even from here, thirty feet away, I know that the reality of her is going to match my memory.

Twenty feet away.

Even in the crowded hallway, there is something in her that radiates out to me.

Ten.

She is carrying herself through the day, and it’s not an easy task.

Five.

I can stand right here and she has no idea who I am. I can stand right here and watch her. I can see that the sadness has returned. And it’s not a beautiful sadness – beautiful sadness is a myth. Sadness turns our features to clay, not porcelain. She is dragging.

“Hey,” I say, my voice thin, a stranger here.

At first, she doesn’t understand that I’m talking to her. Then it registers.

“Hey,” she says back.

Most people, I’ve noticed, are instinctively unkind to strangers. They expect every approach to be an attack, every question to be an interruption. But not Rhiannon. She doesn’t have any idea who I am, but she’s not going to hold that against me. She is not going to assume the worst.

“Don’t worry – you don’t know me,” I quickly say. “It’s just – it’s my first day here. I’m checking the school out. And I really like your skirt and your bag. So I thought, you know, I’d say hello. Because, to be honest, I am completely alone right now.”

Again, some people would be scared by this. But not Rhiannon. She offers her hand, introduces herself as we shake, and asks me why there isn’t someone showing me around.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Well, why don’t I take you to the office? I’m sure they can figure something out.”

I panic. “No!” I blurt out. Then I try to cover for myself, and prolong my time with her. “It’s just . . . I’m not here officially. Actually, my parents don’t even know I’m doing this. They just told me we’re moving here, and I . . . I wanted to see it and decide whether I should be freaking out or not.”

Rhiannon nods. “That makes sense. So you’re cutting school in order to check school out?”

“Exactly.”

“What year are you?”

“A junior.”

“So am I. Let’s see if we can pull this off. Do you want to come around with me today?”

“I’d love that.”

I know she’s just being nice. Irrationally, I also want there to be some kind of recognition. I want her to be able to see behind this body, to see me inside here, to know that it’s the same person she spent an afternoon with on the beach.

I follow her. Along the way, she introduces me to a few of her friends, and I am relieved to meet each one, relieved to know that she has more people in her life than Justin. The way she includes me, the way she takes this total stranger and makes her feel a part of this world, makes me care about her even more. It’s one thing to be love-worthy when you are interacting with your boyfriend; it’s quite another when you act the same way with a girl you don’t know. I no longer think she’s just being nice. She’s being kind. Which is much more a sign of character than mere niceness. Kindness connects to who you are, while niceness connects to how you want to be seen.

Justin makes his first appearance between second and third period. We pass him in the hall; he barely acknowledges Rhiannon and completely ignores me. He doesn’t stop walking, just nods at her. She’s hurt – I can tell – but she doesn’t say anything about it to me.

By the time we get to math class, fourth period, the day has turned into an exquisite form of torture. I am right there next to her, but I can’t do a thing. As the teacher reduces us to theorems, I must remain silent. I write her a note, just as an excuse to touch her shoulder, to pass her some words. But they are inconsequential. They are the words of a guest.

I want to know if I changed her. I want to know if that day changed her, if only for a day.

I want her to see me, even though I know she can’t.

He joins us at lunch.

As strange as it is to see Rhiannon again, and to have her measure so well against my memory, it is even stranger to be sitting across from the jerk whose body I inhabited just three days ago. Mirror images do no justice to this sensation. He is more attractive than I thought, but also uglier. His features are attractive, but what he does with them is not. He wears the superior scowl of someone who can barely hide his feelings of inferiority. His eyes are full of scattershot anger, his posture one of defensive bravado.

I must have rendered him unrecognizable.

Rhiannon explains to him who I am, and where I come from. He makes it clear that he couldn’t care less. He tells her he left his wallet at home, so she goes and buys him food. When she gets back to the table with it, he says thanks, and I’m almost disappointed that he does. Because I’m sure that a single thank you will go a long way in her mind.

I want to know about three days ago, about what he remembers.

“How far is it to the ocean?” I ask Rhiannon.

“It’s so funny you should say that,” she tells me. “We were just there the other day. It took about an hour or so.”

I am looking at him, looking for some recognition. But he just keeps eating.

“Did you have a good time?” I ask him.

She answers. “It was amazing.”

Still no response from him.

I try again. “Did you drive?”

He looks at me like I’m asking really stupid questions, which I suppose I am.

“Yes, I drove” is all he’ll give me.

“We had such a great time,” Rhiannon goes on. And it’s making her happy – the memory is making her happy. Which only makes me sadder.

I should not have come here. I should not have tried this. I should just go.

But I can’t. I am with her. I try to pretend that this is what matters.

I play along.

I don’t want to love her. I don’t want to be in love.

People take love’s continuity for granted, just as they take their body’s continuity for granted. They don’t realize that the best thing about love it its regular presence. Once you can establish that, it’s an added foundation to your life. But if you cannot have that regular presence, you only have the one foundation to support you, always.

She is sitting right next to me. I want to run my finger along her arm. I want to kiss her neck. I want to whisper the truth in her ear.

But instead I watch as she conjugates verbs. I listen as the air is filled with a foreign language, spoken in haphazard bursts. I try to sketch her in my notebook, but I am not an artist, and all that comes out are the wrong shapes, the wrong lines. I cannot hold on to anything that’s her.

The final bell rings. She asks me where I’ve parked, and I know that this is it, this is the end. She is writing her email address on a piece of paper for me. This is goodbye. For all I know, Amy Tran’s parents have called the police. For all I know, there’s a manhunt going on, an hour away. It is cruel of me, but I don’t care. I want Rhiannon to ask me to go to a movie, to invite me over to her house, to suggest we drive to the beach. But then Justin appears. Impatient. I don’t know what they are going to do, but I have a bad feeling. He wouldn’t be so insistent if sex weren’t involved.

“Walk me to my car?” I ask.

She looks at Justin for permission.

“I’ll get my car,” he says.

We have a parking lot’s length of time left with each other. I know I need something from her, but I’m not sure what.

“Tell me something nobody else knows about you,” I say.

She looks at me strangely. “What?”

“It’s something I always ask people – tell me something about you that nobody else knows. It doesn’t have to be major. Just something.”

Now that she gets it, I can tell she likes the challenge of the question, and I like her even more for liking it.

“Okay,” she says. “When I was ten, I tried to pierce my own ear with a sewing needle. I got it halfway through, and then I passed out. Nobody was home, so nobody found me. I just woke up, with this needle halfway in my ear, drops of blood all over my shirt. I pulled the needle out, cleaned up, and never tried it again. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that I went to the mall with my mom and got my ears pierced for real. She had no idea. How about you?”

There are so many lives to choose from, although I don’t remember most of them.

I also don’t remember whether Amy Tran has pierced ears or not, so it won’t be an ear-piercing memory.

“I stole Judy Blume’s Forever from my sister when I was eight,” I say. “I figured if it was by the author of Superfudge, it had to be good. Well, I soon realized why she kept it under her bed. I’m not sure I understood it all, but I thought it was unfair that the boy would name his, um, organ, and the girl wouldn’t name hers. So I decided to give mine a name.”

Rhiannon is laughing. “What was its name?”

“Helena . I introduced everyone to her at dinner that night. It went over really well.”

We’re at my car. Rhiannon doesn’t know it’s my car, but it’s the farthest car, so it’s not like we can keep walking.

“It was great to meet you,” she says. “Hopefully I’ll see you around next year.”

“Yeah,” I say, “it was great to meet you too.”

I thank her about five different ways. Then Justin drives over and honks.

Our time is up.

Amy Tran’s parents haven’t called the police. They haven’t even gotten home yet. I check the house phone’s voicemail, but the school hasn’t called.

It’s the one lucky thing that’s happened all day.