They don’t see me.
It’s a strangely comforting mantra, the opposite of what I’ve been recommending to everyone else. But it’s my comfort zone. Invisible. Safe.
I give myself an extra hard head-squeeze before dashing to class. Lipton doesn’t look at me when I walk in, but as soon as I sit down, he hands me a note.
I’m afraid to read it.
I go through the process of pulling out my world history notes, and my book, and lining up my pencil. I even consider walking to the sharpener, and I hate walking to the sharpener. I have a half dozen newly sharpened pencils in my bag to avoid that.
Lipton clears his throat and tips his chin to the note in my hand. I can’t avoid it any longer. I unfold the small square of paper on which he wrote: Is it something I said?
I almost sink to the floor with relief, then am shamed with guilt for making him worry that he’d done something wrong. I shake my head and scrawl a reply: Just my stupid brain, messing with me.
He smiles and pretends to wipe sweat from his brow, like whew! And quickly scribbles another note.
Not to say I am glad your brain is messing with you. I am not. Tell your brain to piss off.
I smile. Before I can reply, he’s sliding another note onto my desk.
Don’t tell your WHOLE brain to piss off.
Just the part that’s behaving badly.
The rest is perfect and should remain in
place as is.
I pat my head, a gesture I guess is supposed to indicate that my brain is intact. He smiles and dips his head down to write one more note.
Can we talk after class?
The question takes away all the good feelings from our note exchange, because of course we can talk after class. We’ve been talking after class all week. Why is he making a special point of asking?
I nod, and spend the rest of the period imagining various reasons he might want to speak with me so officially, including all the ways he could break up with me. My brain likes to torment me that way, contemplating a future where everyone I care about leaves me behind.
My brain is pretty much an asshole.
After class, Lipton pulls me into the alcove where he asked me out only last week.
“I’m going away,” he says, and my stomach drops to my ankles. I didn’t actually think my brain was going to be right.
“Forever?” I whisper.
“What? No.” He laughs and pulls me into the circle of his arms. Right there in front of everyone. “Just for Thanksgiving. We’re visiting my aunt in Pittsburgh. Which sucks. I mean, she’s great, but I’d rather be here with you. I just wanted you to know why I wasn’t asking you out this weekend.”
I blink at him.
“We could go out next weekend, though, if you want. To a movie or something, or get pizza, or I don’t know.” He lets his forehead knock against mine. “I’m terrible at this.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
I lean into him, crazily unconcerned with the nearby presence of the entire student body. “I’m terribler.”
He hugs me tighter, and I hug him back.
It makes me feel like a real person.
And I need that, amid all the talk of Vicurious. I need a reminder that I exist outside the internet and that someone in the real world wants me here, more than my followers want me there.
28
THE LINGERING EFFECT OF LIPTON’S hug is like armor, shielding me from all the Vicurious talk. I’m only a little nervous when Marissa mentions her again in the yearbook office over lunch period.
“Adrian and I spent two hours on her Instagram last night,” she says. “Which was great and everything—I mean, at least we were together for a change.” She pauses and sighs. Lays her forehead on her calculus notes. “I just don’t think I can keep it up. And why wasn’t there a yearbook photographer at the game last night?”
“What game?” Beth Ann peers around her computer.
“My game. The biggest one of the season. I told you to assign a photographer.”
“You did?” She flashes a glance toward Marvo for some backup, but he just shrugs. “Sorry, I—”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry. Everybody’s sorry, but nobody gets anything done,” says Marissa. “I have to do it all myself.”
“Okay, Miss Perfect.” Beth Ann wheels away from her desk. “I’ll try to do a better job of reading your mind the next time.”
“Don’t call me that,” Marissa snaps. “I’m not perfect. I missed an easy goal last night, looking around for that stupid photographer, and lost us the game. I’m going to fail this calc test, and Adrian expects me to be a damn Mother Teresa. I can’t take it.”
“Whoa. Hey.” Marvo approaches Marissa with calming hands.
She spins away from him. “I am not perfect,” she says again, voice wobbly now. “I can’t do everything. I can’t be perfect at everything.”
“Nobody said—” Marvo starts.
“Nobody says it, but everyone expects it. Marissa can do it! Marissa can do everything! Manage East 48, book all their gigs? Sure! Marissa can do that! Can’t you, Marissa? And keep up those straight As while you’re at it. We’re counting on that academic scholarship. Run the yearbook. Win the field hockey games! Look pretty and wave at the homecoming parade. And be nice to all the sad people on the internet!”
She stops, finally. Marvo, Beth Ann, and I are silenced, pretty much holding our collective breath to see if she erupts again.
Beth Ann is the first to talk. “Tell us how you really feel, why don’t you?”
Marissa gives a half laugh, half sob. “I’ve just been under a lot of pressure lately.”
“You think?” Marvo hands her a box of tissues from the bookshelf.
She snatches one and dabs her eyes. I’m kind of impressed at how un-perfect she looks right now. She’s much more likable this way.
“Sometimes I wish I could be somebody else that nobody knows or expects anything from. Someone like—” She glances up at me, and for one frantic second I think she’s going to say Vicurious.
“Like Vicky,” she says.
My eyes widen. “Me?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way. But when you came here to work on yearbook, I thought, Great. Mrs. Greene is pawning her off on us because she can’t do anything else. I had zero expectations of you. Zip.”
Beth Ann opens her mouth to object, but Marissa holds her hand up and continues. “And then you turned out to be amazing and brilliant, and super nice. You had nowhere to go but up. And you did. But when you start up here”—she wiggles her fingers high above her head—“there’s nowhere to go but down. And everyone is just waiting for you to fall so they can pounce.”
I’m not sure how to feel about being the poster child for low expectations, but did she just call me “amazing” and “brilliant”?
“Nobody’s waiting to pounce on you,” says Beth Ann.
Marissa snorts. “Oh, yes, they are.”
“Not everyone,” says Marvo. “Some of us are here to catch you. And hold you up if you need us.”
“Yeah.” Beth Ann throws an arm around Marissa’s neck. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Marvo wraps his arms around both of them. Marissa is still half crying. “I am so going to fail this test.”