If I Tell

CHAPTER seven



Ashley shifted the stick shift on her car and glanced at me. A truck sped past us in the other lane, bright lights momentarily blinding me. The flash of the headlights lit up the purple tips of her hair.

“Thanks for picking me up,” I said.

Thank God, she’d been home. I’d been nervous calling her since, until now, we hadn’t had the “I’m stranded. Can you pick me up on the side of the road?” kind of friendship. But she was the only person I could think of, and I’d been close to her neighborhood. She’d said she’d come without even hesitating.

“No big deal. Not like I was all booked up on a Sunday night. Homework can wait, and you sounded kind of desperate. What’s up?”

I leaned my head against the window of her car. “God. My freakin’ life is a mess.”

“Welcome to the club,” she said, but she grinned. “You want to talk about it?”

I sighed, not unaware that this was my second deep conversation inside a car in as many days. I wanted to talk about it. But I couldn’t.

“Not really.”

She nodded and didn’t pry. Ashley was good that way. She didn’t try to force things out of me if I didn’t want to share.

“So. Where to?” she asked.

I shook my head, unable to decide. I didn’t want to go home yet. Grandma would have too many questions.

“I had a fight with my mom and Simon,” I said instead of coming up with a destination. I watched out the window as we passed by the other high school, the one with the state champion football team. The school Ashley used to go to until they managed to chase her out. The pool she swam at stood beside it. The same pool from fourth grade. I looked away.

When I didn’t say more, Ashley spoke. “I hate fighting with my dad. But it happens all the time.”

I knew Ashley’s mom had died of breast cancer seven or so years back, but she didn’t like to talk about her mom any more than I liked to talk about my dad.

“Yeah? How come?” I asked.

“He has a hard time. You know. With me being gay. He struggles with it. I used to be his little princess. That’s what he thought anyway. He didn’t know his princess was hoping that the frog she was kissing would turn out to be a beautiful princess instead of a prince.”

I laughed and Ashley did too. But then she fell silent as we pulled up to a red light. “I can’t bring home my girlfriend. He won’t deal with it.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

The light changed, and she glanced at me again before her eyes went to the road and she put her foot on the gas. “Marnie O’Reilly.”

I gasped out loud. “Marnie is gay?” I shouted.

Ashley laughed. “Apparently.”

“Holy cow, I had no idea,” I sputtered stupidly.

Luckily Ashley wasn’t offended. “Marnie is pretty private. We don’t advertise.”

I nodded, still blown away. Thinking about it, I’d never seen Marnie with a guy. Another person I thought I’d known but didn’t know at all. “So why weren’t you at her party last night?”

“After swim practice I had to go to a dinner thing with my dad and his girlfriend. Keep up appearances, you know. He likes to pretend we’re fine.”

I nodded. I didn’t want to tell her about my night at Marnie’s. Or about Nathan.

“What about you?” she said as if she’d read my mind. “You seeing anyone?”

I snorted but an image of Jackson’s face appeared in my head. “As if,” I said.

“As if what?” she asked.

“Who’d want to go out with me?”

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked.

I didn’t say anything. We pulled up to another set of lights, and Ashley stopped but then flipped on her blinker and turned right. I had no idea where we were going.

“With that gorgeous hair, that face, and those eyes?”

“You have no idea how much each of those qualities has tormented me since birth.” My eyes were a funny color. Not dark brown or even green. Rusty. Like a rotting old car.

“You want to go for coffee somewhere?” I asked to change the topic. I looked out on the streets. We were in a residential area but getting closer to farmland.

“Nah. I like to drive around when I’m in think mode. You mind?”

I shook my head. It was kind of nice, driving in the dark with nowhere to go or be.

“You realize you have some serious self-esteem issues,” Ashley said.

I laughed, but I wiggled in my seat, uncomfortable. “Yeah. Well, you try being biracial in this town. No one wants anything to do with me.” I tried to keep my voice light, as if it didn’t matter. She turned down another street, and a group of young boys were playing hockey on the street. They pulled the net away from the middle of the road so we could pass.

Ashley made a noise in her throat. “That’s not true. You keep people at a distance. You don’t let anyone in. I mean, even me, and we’re friends.”

My blood boiled just a bit. “You don’t have any idea,” I told her. I glanced over my shoulder. The hockey game had resumed.

“So tell me,” she said.

I bit my lip, wishing life was that simple still, and swiveled back around.

“You can talk to me. We’re friends.”

I smiled at that. I wanted to tell her, I did. My sanity was pretty much hanging by my chewed-up nails. I closed my eyes, struggling with the memories that wanted to stay buried.

“It’s okay, Jaz.”

My stomach fluttered and I took a deep breath, not sure if it was fear or excitement making me feel nauseous. I wanted to tell someone. Share my shame.

“Everyone stopped paying attention to me a long time ago.” I closed my eyes, hearing the taunting voices from my past.

“What happened?” Ashley said softly.

I opened my eyes and looked at Ashley’s profile. Her hazel eyes sparkled with compassion.

I wanted to trust her. Let her in. Tell someone what had happened. We drove to the end of the street and turned onto an unpaved road. Without streetlights it was spooky and darker.

“When I was in fourth grade, I almost drowned at the pool because of the efforts of the entire fourth grade. They wouldn’t let me get to the side. And after that, they started ignoring me. I don’t keep people at a distance. They stay there on their own.”

“Your fourth-grade class almost drowned you?” Loose rocks sprayed the back bumper of Ashley’s car, and she swore. “Stupid unpaved road.”

She did a sudden U-turn, and we started back to the residential area. I stared out the window. “We were taking swimming lessons. The whole fourth grade. It was the last day. Free time. They started taunting me. It started out with a couple of kids, and then more came. A crowd mentality took over or something. Bullying at its finest, I guess. They trapped me in the middle and wouldn’t let me get to the side while they chanted that my skin was dirtying up the pool. I slipped under and stopped breathing. The lifeguard had to resuscitate me.”

We rolled over a bump and back onto the paved road.

“No wonder you’re afraid of the water,” Ashley said.

“You think?” I blinked away tears.

“That’s horrible, Jaz.”

“I’ve never told anyone before.”

“You haven’t? You never told your mom? Or your grandma?”

I shook my head. “It was hardest not to tell my grandpa. But it would have killed him. I was so ashamed. I felt like it was my fault.”

“Well, what about later on? You never talked to a friend?” She didn’t mention Lacey by name, but I knew who she meant.

“Lacey and I don’t talk about stuff like that. I mean, we didn’t. We’re not really friends anymore.”

“Yeah. I noticed that. What happened with you two?”

I lifted my thumb to my mouth and gnawed the calloused pad. “That I don’t want to talk about.”

Ashley didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry about what happened to you. With those kids.” She took her attention off the road for a second and glanced at me. “But do you want an honest observation?”

I shrugged. Ashley was all about telling the truth. Understandable after hiding it for so long, I guess.

“What they did was awful. But it was five or six years ago, right? Not that time makes it okay. But it seems to me that you play your part at keeping people away. I don’t want to be a jerk, but not everyone at Westwind could have been a part of what happened, right? But you don’t let anyone get close to you. Not even me. Not really. It’s like you’ve built a wall around yourself. You’re beautiful and smart and talented with your guitar and singing, but I think you use it to intimidate people. They think you’re looking down your nose at them.”

Her words stung, and I jumped in to defend myself. “You don’t know what it’s like. I’d always felt a little different, but I’d managed to fit in and have a few kids to play with. Until that day at the pool. They turned on me. Maybe they’d sensed my self-consciousness. My dark skin might have been more noticeable. Maybe they saw for the first time how different my hair was when it was wet. Maybe picking on me made them feel better about themselves. Whatever it was, it was awful.”

“Um. I had to switch schools when I came out, remember?” she said. “Try being a lesbian with a high-pitched voice,” she said and slowed down the car, flicked on her turn signal, and turned right onto a street with a kids’ park on the corner. My face warmed. “Sorry.” I sighed. “Pity party for one.” I stared out the window as we drove past a row of brown and gray houses. They all looked the same. If I were a house on the street, I’d be painted an ugly color and wouldn’t fit in. Then again Ashley would be yellow or maybe orange. I turned to her. “I have no idea what it would be like to be a lesbian with a high-pitched voice.”

“Yeah, well. That’s okay. I have that one covered. But I don’t have any idea what it would be like to be half black and half white in a town like Tadita.”

“True,” I said and then laughed. “But what the hell does being a lesbian have to do with your high-pitched voice?”

Her face lit up with a grin. “I don’t know. I think people expect me to sound like a man. It freaks them out that I don’t.” Her grin faded. “But tell me what’s it like,” she said. “Being biracial and not knowing your dad.”

“My mom moved out after she graduated from college. I stayed with my grandparents. I had my grandpa though. He made me feel like I was his gift. He told me he and my grandma wanted another child, but couldn’t have one until they got me.” I smiled at the memory of Grandpa’s serious face as he’d try to give me enough love to fill me up. “He said my mom loved me so much she let him and Grandma raise me, and it was the best thing that ever happened to him.”

“He sounds awesome.”

“He was. He tried so hard to fill the shoes of the man who didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Bizarre,” Ashley said. “Not the typical family, I guess.”

“I guess.” It’s all I knew.

“The weirdest thing is having a whole line of people I’m related to by blood, but I don’t even know them. The black side of me.”

“That sucks.” Ashley sneaked a side glance at me, and I saw pity in her expression.

“I spent a lot of time in therapy as a kid, talking about it.” I grinned, but I wasn’t kidding. “Grandpa insisted.”

Ashley nodded, but she reached over and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, and then she took back her hand, shoulder-checked, and turned down a back alley.

“I spent time in therapy too. My dad thought they might be able to talk me out of being gay.” She laughed. “Actually we spent most of the time talking about him.”

I laughed.

“I had one person who got me,” Ashley said. Her voice cracked, and her eyes filled with tears. “My uncle.” She blew out a breath and blinked a few times. “Remember that watch I misplaced at Marnie’s?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“It was his. He gave it to me when I was thirteen.” She kept one hand on the wheel and slowed down the car as she reached around to her back pocket and pulled the watch out, stroking the face of the watch with her thumb. “He was gay. I mean, he never came out and announced it to me, but he had a live-in boyfriend, and he didn’t hide that or how much they loved each other. His name was Grady, Uncle Grady. He was my mom’s brother.”

She sniffed, tucked the watch back in her pocket, and tapped the wheel with her fingers. “Dad didn’t care for him much, but I loved him. When Mom was alive, we’d visit him, and later we kept in touch online when he moved to California. He worked as an animator on some big movies.”

Tap. Tap. Tap. Her fingers went up and down on the steering wheel, tapping to a beat in her head.

“He died a few years ago. AIDS. We never had the chance to talk about me being gay, but I think he always knew. He said I was his favorite niece. My mom had three other brothers, and they all had kids too.” We came to the end of the alley, and she put on her signal and turned onto a street leading to the older part of town.

“You see them?” I asked. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have a big, extended family. Nine cousins. It sounded pretty awesome.

“No. None of them. They’re very conservative. Dad doesn’t have much in common with them either. Besides, they live in Georgia, and without Mom, well, we don’t visit. Probably just as well, given my so-called lifestyle choice.” She smiled, but bitterness turned down the corners of my mouth.

Worlds away. In miles and beliefs.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “The kids at your other high school sucked too.”

“Yeah. But my swim team is awesome. They don’t give a crap. They like me ’cause I swim fast.” She grinned. “And I have you.”

I nodded. “Yeah, you have me.” I stared out the window at the tall, thick trees lining the streets. They looked so bare. No leaves this time of year. “I wish I had something like swimming.”

“Well, you have your music,” Ashley said.

“Yeah. But that’s pretty solitary.”

“Maybe you should join a band.”

“I’m more the solo type, and I don’t want to make music a job. I do it because I love it. Anyhow, the music I like is not conducive to bands.”

“You don’t want to become a rich and famous rock star?”

“That’s the last thing I want. I play for me. It’s my escape. I’m not much into sharing it with people. Especially not for money.”

“Not yet. That might change.”

“I doubt it. I never want it to be something I have to do, you know?”

“Not really. I have to swim all the time to stay competitive. Sometimes I’d just like to sit on the couch and watch TV.”

“You would not.”

“Probably not. I do like me some physical punishment.”

Ashley kept driving, and both of us took turns talking and then listening. I didn’t bring up my fight with Simon or my mom again. I didn’t mention what had happened with Nathan or my ride home with Jackson. There were still a lot of things I didn’t want to talk about with Ashley. But we had crossed a line into a deeper friendship. And it warmed my heart. I loved the feeling of having someone on my side. Someone off center and on the outside. Like me.

“You need to come swimming with me,” Ashley said when she finally dropped me off at home. “Show yourself that you can.”

“I can’t.” I looked out the window at the front-porch light Grandma had left on for me. “I’m afraid.”

“I know. But I’ll help you. You need to do it. So you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

I shook my head.

“Well, when you’re ready, you know where I am.”