Noggin (14 page)

“Please. This will work. I know it.”

Then he ran back across the stage, hopped down onto the floor, and started flipping through a black binder sitting next to the lyrics monitor. His face lit up and he looked up at me, raising his eyebrows and nodding his head. He made it seem like he was almost asking me if I were ready, but he wasn’t. He’d already typed in the code for the song, and a blue spotlight burst onto the stage and found me where I stood.

“Zero hour!” he shouted.

“I hate you!” I shouted back.

Then the music started—loud piano keys with an electric guitar riffing right behind it and an abrupt thump of drums. And then I started singing because that’s what you do when you’ve got nothing to lose. You start singing with your eyes closed because you know the song and you know why your friend just forced you into singing it.

I managed to get the first few lines out with a sort of half-sing-half-whisper, my mouth touching the cold metal of the microphone.

I wanted to be with you alone. And talk about the weather.

Then I sort of mumbled for a while, a nervous, indistinguishable jumble of words to the general beat of the song. But when I looked up, there were people singing along. And a few were raising their drinks into the air and moving their heads back and forth. And then I saw her. She was sitting at one of the tables and looking right at me with her mouth slightly open, this look in her eyes that was both amazed and terrified.

So I grabbed the microphone, yanked it off the stand, and yelled the chorus out while looking right at her.

Something happens and I’m head over heels

I never find out till I’m head over heels

Something happens and I’m head over heels

Ah, don’t take my heart

Don’t break my heart

Don’t . . . don’t . . . don’t throw it away!

I didn’t finish the song because I saw her turn around and head for the door. I dropped the mic (not in the cool way, believe me) and jumped down from the stage, running through the crowd after her. When I got outside, I looked all around in both directions and didn’t see her. I backed up to the brick wall behind me and slid down it, covering my face with my hands. Seeing her had done something I hadn’t quite expected. It had nearly killed me all over again.

“Hey.” Someone poked my arm.

“What?” I looked up. It was the tattooed girl from the door.

“She went into that diner,” she said, pointing to the dive joint across the street.

“She did?” I stood up.

“Yeah. If she doesn’t come around, I’m all yours, Tears for Fears.” She smiled.

I ran across the street, didn’t even watch for traffic, and looked into the window. There she was, sitting in a booth in the back corner. She looked right at me. She’d been crying. Of course she’d been crying—her dead boyfriend was stalking her. I gestured, pointing to my chest and then to her, asking if I could come in. She nodded her head, and I could actually see her breathing as I walked across the room toward her.

“Hi.”

“You look exactly the same,” she said quietly.

“So do you.” I sat down across from her.

“I’m sorry.”

She buried her head in her arms on the table, almost the same position a school kid uses to take a nap in class. I wanted to just get up and squeeze in beside her, put my arm around her and tell her it was okay, that I wasn’t mad. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t me anymore. Well, I wasn’t to her yet, anyway. To her, I was only part me, and as much as that hurt, as unnatural as it felt not to touch her, I knew I couldn’t go wrapping some other guy’s arms around her and thinking that would make things better. I was Travis, sure, but I was Jeremy Pratt, too. It was an easy thing for me to forget, but I wasn’t so sure it would be that easy for her.

“The song was a bit much. My friend made me
do it.” I reached across the table, almost took her hand, then stopped myself.

“It was perfect,” she said, her voice muffled by her arms.

She raised her head up, and she had half of her top lip between her teeth. She did this, my Cate. When she was sad, she would chew on her lips so much they’d be chapped for days. She was still beautiful like before, maybe even more so. Her hair was shorter than I’d ever seen it, cut just above her shoulders, and she was definitely wearing less makeup than she used to, maybe none at all. But she’d never needed it anyway. Her cheeks were flushed a bit, maybe from the crying or from her quick exit from the bar, maybe still from embarrassment or the cold. She had on a dark green sweater and light gray jeans. There was a necklace, a tiny gold sailboat, dancing up and down on her chest, never quite resting there because of the way she sat, slumped over a little with her shoulders jutted forward.

“Hi,” I said again.

“When they told me you
were coming back, I couldn’t stop crying.”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” I said. “Really. It’s okay.”

“No. I want to. They told me, your mom and dad, and both of them sounded so . . . shocked. I just couldn’t believe it. I mean, I remember thinking that this was the absolute last thing I expected to hear when I picked up the phone. And then they had to go. They told me you were coming back, that it worked, and then they had more calls to make. Simple as that.”

“It was weird. Waking up, I mean. And you not being there.” I looked into her eyes, couldn’t stop looking into them.

“I just . . . I wasn’t sure what to do or where to start, really. I wanted someone to tell me what I was supposed to do. Was I supposed to go to Denver? What if I got there and you didn’t wake up? What if it didn’t work? And then I thought . . .”

She paused for a little more crying. This time I reached over and took a napkin out of the red plastic dispenser at the end of the table and handed it to her. It was a quick, almost instinctive gesture, but she looked up at me like I’d just handed her the Hope Diamond and then she started crying again.

“Cate, if you need me to go . . . if this is too much, I can go and we can—”

“No, stop. We have to. So I waited to hear news about the surgery, to make sure you were okay, and when I did, when I knew it had worked, I just sort of felt flooded by everything all over again. I couldn’t stop thinking about that last time I saw you, in the hospital.”

“You never turned around,” I said.

“I wanted to. I wanted to so badly. I almost did. I almost ran back in, but I knew you were right. It couldn’t feel like a real good-bye.”

“You knew I was lying,” I said.

“I knew you wanted me to think you’d come back.”

“It seemed so impossible.”

“Then I heard you made it home okay, and I got in my car, drove across town, and sat at the end of your street for a while thinking about what I’d say to you. I didn’t have a clue. I’m not sixteen anymore and you are, and I have no idea how to deal with that.”

“Me neither. I blinked and the world got older.”

“It’s so messed up,” she said, sighing. “But amazing, too, you know?”

“I know. I can’t believe I’m sitting here, let alone anywhere.”

“You saw Kyle?” she asked.

“Yeah. A couple times. He’s sort of not talking to me right now.”

“Oh. Why?”

“’Cause I’m a jerk. Your parents tell you I went to see them?” I tried to change the subject as quickly as possible.

“Yeah. They were thrilled. Mom’s been begging me to at least call you.”

“I understand, Cate.”

“It’s not right, though. I just . . . I still wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Welcome back’ seemed too simple.”

“I just need you to say we’re still the same. Everything else can be different, but I need this to be the same.”

“Travis.” She flashed her sad eyes.

“I know the body thing is weird. I know. But it’s actually better. This one is better. Embarrassingly better, actually.”

She smiled, looking down at my shoulders and chest, and my arms, too.

“You look incredible,” she said. “Healthy. I’ve seen you on TV, but it’s different like this. You’re not hunched over or pale. It’s nice seeing you like this.”

“Seeing me not dying? It feels pretty damn good too. On a scale from one to ten, I give dying a solid screw-that.”

“Can I see it?”

She reached her hand over and peeled down the collar of my shirt. Then she touched just above the scar first, then just under it. It was a soft touch. She whispered something, but I couldn’t make it out.

“What?”

“Impossible,” she repeated.

Then I grabbed her hand with both of mine, sort of enveloped it safely between them, and I was breathing really heavy and could hear her breathing too, like we’d both suddenly forgotten how to take in air properly.

“I love you. You know that. And I know maybe love doesn’t stay there after someone dies and this many years pass, but I don’t care. I needed to see you and I knew you needed to see me. So here I am.”

“Travis, I’m engaged.”

“I know. And if you can forgive me for leaving, then I can forgive you for that.”

“I have to go,” she said. “Thank you, though. Thank you for finding me like this. If I ever stop crying, I promise I’ll call you.”

She stood up and leaned down, kissed my cheek as she
slid her hand from my grasp, and walked out. I knew it wasn’t fair to go after her, to make her talk anymore or feel any worse for not talking. I watched her cross the street, her arms folded over her chest, protecting her from the cold air, and soon enough she was back inside the bar. I called Hatton and told him where I was.

“You hungry?” he said, sitting down a few minutes later.

“Starving.”

“Anything you want, dude. On me.” He waved over to a waiter across the room.

“This was a disaster,” I said. “But I’m glad we did it.”

“I’m assuming she isn’t coming home with you, then?”

“No, but at least I got to see her,” I said. “And now she’s seen me. In person, I mean.”

“Still think you can get her back?”

“Of course I can.”

“And you’re sure about this? You don’t want to give it a little more thought maybe?”

“I’m sure, Hatton. Never been so sure about anything in my life.”

I’ve got to say, serious Hatton wasn’t my favorite, but it was hard not to appreciate how he could go from being completely ridiculous and carefree to being this supportive, logical friend. It’s just that he didn’t understand
my
logic. My girlfriend was engaged to another guy. That had to be stopped. He had to go, and it was only a matter of time before Cate saw it my way too. There was no doubt in my mind.

We made it home just under curfew, and I was surprised to see that Dad still wasn’t there. Because it was so late, Mom insisted that Hatton stay the night, and after we dragged the inflatable air mattress up the stairs, he and I took turns airing it up with a flimsy manual pump.

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “There has to be a better way.”

“You’re kind of lazy, huh?” Hatton asked, grinning.

“I’m not lazy. I’m just . . . disappointed, I guess. The future’s kind of a letdown.”

“Wow, thanks,” he said.

“You know what I mean. It’s not this,” I said, gesturing toward the half-inflated mattress. “It’s everything else. I thought if this weird shit ever actually worked, then things would be—”

“Easier?” he asked. “Yeah. You’re lazy, man.”

“Maybe so.”

“But hey, you’re not a terrible singer, you know?” Hatton pressed his hand against the air mattress to test it out.

“Middle school choir.”

“For real?”

“Yep. I used to fake it, though. Most of the time I just moved my mouth and never really sang.”

“Was it convincing, you think?”

“I think so. I never got caught.”

“I once threw up auditioning for a play in middle school. Stage fright, I guess. Puked right on my script.”

“Cate has stage fright,” I said. “Or she used to anyway.”

“You really miss her, huh?”

“It’s weird. I know I should miss my body, but that’s not all that important to me. But Cate . . .
that’s
what I miss. Her. Us. Like the surgery didn’t have anything to do with my body or my head. It feels like they cut her off, and now she’s dangling there and I can’t have her anymore.”

“That’s maybe the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.” He stared up at the ceiling.

“Yeah, well. It’s been a long night. I’m gonna try to sleep.”

•  •  •

School was harder that next Monday. Everything, actually, was harder after I’d finally seen her up close. And she’d seen me, right? So she was supposed to be back. That was the plan. She was supposed to be just like the old Cate—calling me all day and showing up at my locker to say hello
in between classes. She was supposed to be waiting for me by her car when school was out, her book bag slung over one shoulder and her foot propped up against the door.

But she wasn’t there, just like I hadn’t been there all those times when I was supposed to be. If a few months felt this bad, then I can’t imagine what five years was like for her. Every time I passed her old locker at school and tried not to look at it, I’d close my eyes and see her doing the same with mine. You have to forget about people when you can’t have them anymore. That’s the only way to be okay, I think—to forget how they looked and sounded and left Post-it notes on your desk and told you they’d come back from the dead someday. She had to get over me because there was no alternative. But I couldn’t do that with her. I couldn’t forget that she was still here and I was still here and we weren’t together.

“Stacey Lowell wants to go out with me, I think,” Hatton said, sitting down at lunch.

“So go out with her.”

“She’s too smart for me.”

“You’re smart enough.”

“Not that smart. She’s always talking about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis.”

“She wants to be a therapist, I think. Maybe she just wants you for your problems.”

“Nah. I don’t have any problems. It’s my hair. Girls love my hair.”