“I called before we moved here. I was told the guidance counselor was up to her neck in college application assistance.”
I strained to sound casual. God, why did I tell her I’d investigated a counselor here? Why was I leaning forward in the chair across from Ms. P as if I were freezing to death and she was a roaring fire?
“Perhaps,” she said, “as part of your poetry assignment, we could have you come to my office once a week or so.”
“What for?”
“We could discuss your poems. Analyze them, maybe. From a literary standpoint, only.”
I wasn’t stupid. I could hear the words behind the words and the old defensive part of me wanted to tell her to mind her own business. Stick to being an English teacher, not some armchair psychologist.
But the broken pieces in me that faintly cried to be put back together were reaching for whatever it was she was offering. I was like Charlie Brown running to kick that football, each time thinking This is it! Finally! And that bitch, Lucy, always pulled it away. You’d think after so many times Charlie Brown would wise up, but no. I’m like him. I see the ball. I see help held out in front of me and I want to run at it full speed, my heart in my throat and hope choking my breath, because deep down I need it so badly.
But Gerry moved us too often, too quickly. He pulls the balls away and I’m left lying flat on my back, the wind knocked out of me and having to pick myself back up and start all over again.
It was too late in the year to be cozying up with Ms. P. Too late by half.
“If you want to help me, then let me graduate. I’ll write the love poem, okay? But that’s all I can do right now. I’m just…tapped out.”
The bell ending recess clanged. I rose and shouldered my bag. Ms. P gathered my poems in a folder and handed the folder to me, her eyes soft with disappointment. And concern.
“I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”
“Me too.”
I was curious myself. Writing a love letter or poem was like climbing up into a dusty, dark attic; cobweb-strewn and dust-choked. A cramped space where nothing had been touched in years. Gray and disconnected.
At lunch, I sat with the staff of Mo Vay Goo, but I didn’t eat or participate in the conversation around me. My one-eyed gaze roved and landed on Evan Salinger. He was at his customary spot, on a bench against the exposed brick wall of the cafeteria. A window above him streamed light over his blond hair, more than enough to read by. He was nose-buried in a book, as usual, absently eating a sandwich from a sack lunch.
He was beautiful, sitting under that beam of light. His hair fell in his face as he bent over his knees, and I watched him absently brush it out of his eyes. Not for the first time, it struck me how seriously miscast he looked for the role of School Freak.
I shot a glance at the table of popular kids, the jocks and the cheerleaders, the pep squad and the 4H rancher boys. On the surface, Evan Salinger belonged with them. I could easily imagine him talking and laughing in their ranks, his arm slung around some girl. Both of them likely to be nominated for Prom King and Queen.
It just didn’t make sense he was cast adrift from the islands of safety known in high school cafeterias all across the country as the lunch tables. Evan had no island. Even the geeks shunned him. My people, the misfits, shunned him. If anyone was going to take him under their wing, it should be us, if for no other reason than to give the finger to everyone else. But Marnie warned me I’d be S.O.L. to throw him a life preserver.
I wondered idly if it were worth it.
At my table, Adam talked about The Voice and who he thought was going to be voted off that night. Marnie chatted about prom and how fucking stupid it was, but of course she was going to go. We all knew she was secretly excited about it ever since Logan Greenway asked her to go with him.
I tuned them out, consumed by Evan Salinger. I wanted to know what he was reading. I tried to get a glimpse of the book’s spine, but I was too far away. Then Evan looked up as if someone had called his name. I froze while he looked around, some stupid part of me clamoring for him to look my way.
Then he did.
And he smiled.
My damn heart stopped beating. I felt hot all over, and was trapped by Evan’s smile, by his eyes that watched me with a gentle curiosity. A “Hi, how are you?” kind of look that would have put me at perfect ease if it hadn’t turned me completely inside out first.
I stared back for a good three seconds, wrapped in the warmth of his attention, then broke free with a flinch. I looked away, hiding behind my hair. When the heat flush drained out of me, I glanced through my wall of hair to where Evan had been sitting.
He was gone. The beam of light was empty and all that remained were dust motes, dancing.
I’d made plans with Jared to meet him after school behind the bleachers. And by “made plans with” I meant he shot me a questioning glance in Study Hall, and I nodded. But when the time came, I wasn’t feeling it.