Unfriended (13 page)

TRULY

ONE NIGHT IN
fifth grade when I was sleeping over, Natasha had fallen asleep but I was up reading in the trundle bed when her mom came to check on us.
I love you like my own
, she'd whispered, while she braided my hair so it wouldn't tangle while I slept. After she left, I thought for a sec that Natasha was awake, but when I looked again, her eyes were definitely closed and her breathing was slow, steady. I lay there for a long time with my heart pounding horribly. I'm not sure why I felt so bad, so caught.

Today when I called Natasha to ask her to come over and join us, she didn't answer her cell so I called the house phone. Her mom answered. She said no, I could not speak with Natasha. “It's important,” I said.

“I saw what you posted,” her mom hissed. “What is wrong with you?”

“I wanted to—”

“I don't really care what you want,” she interrupted.

“I'm sorry,” I managed.

She hung up on me.

I sat down on the kitchen floor and cried. Luckily Mom was upstairs dealing with Molly, who was having a tantrum about something, so she didn't know I was falling apart. I am the easy one in my family, the no-trouble kid, the one who is Mom's break, her sunshine. She calls me that, her little ray of sunshine, her butterfly. The last thing she needed is me having trouble, too.

When I heard Mom's feet on the stairs, I dashed to the bathroom to hide.

I obviously have to figure out what the heck happened with that thing I supposedly posted because I really didn't. Nobody believes me. So much that I have started to wonder myself. I definitely have no memory of it. Could I have posted two pictures and multiple comments without knowing?

If that's possible, how can I ever trust myself one bit? How can anyone trust me? And how can I trust anyone? If people can just do things they don't mean to do and then honestly have no memory of doing them, how can there not be complete chaos all the time?

Thoughts of chaos make me feel like puking.

On the bus ride home, Evangeline clearly didn't believe me. When I swore on my life I didn't post either of those things about who was coming over, she suggested maybe I sleep-posted it. That's a thing. She saw it on the news: people post stuff in their sleep. She might do an extra-credit science project on it. I said I'd be happy to work with her on it if she wants a partner because now I am really intrigued.

“Intrigued?” Evangeline asked.

I started to shrug but stopped myself, not wanting to look like I was copying Brooke and also not wanting to admit I had already edited that word when I said it. If
intrigued
is not an okay word, even to Evangeline, who watches the news apparently, how awkward was my original draft:
suppressing a panic attack at the possibility that I might be psychotic?

So instead I forced my mouth into a smile and said, “Sure, I mean, what if I sleep-post more mean or embarrassing things?”

“That would suck,” Evangeline agreed.

“I better hide my computer from myself when I go to bed, from now on,” I said.

“Good idea,” she agreed. I know she wasn't threatening me but she has a very serious face and huge muscles.

And now here I was, hiding not my computer from myself but instead myself from my guests, in my own downstairs bathroom. Not. Good. I looked at myself in the mirror. I did not look like “the awesome one in pigtails.” I did not look like a wise goddess who could lead a hero through a city. I looked like a nine-year-old with a horrendous cold.

I filled up the sink with cold water and dunked my face in, holding my breath for as long as possible, thinking, I can handle this. Don't breathe. In a minute I will march myself back out there to these new friends who are sitting in my family room waiting for me to be a good host and come up with great ideas for our History Day project, which was the reason they even invited me to join their group to begin with. Good ideas on school projects. Do the work for the group. That's what I can do. It's not awesome but it's something. It's a little like being the kid who plays the dog in pretending games in elementary school. Not the doomed princess or the cruel stepmother, the wise spymaster or the evil wizard or the brave scout. The dog.

Like Henry. In elementary school, when he still had friends, he was always the dog. He wouldn't stop barking. Kids got annoyed. He crawled around on hands and knees and lifted his leg, pretending to pee in corners. My parents had to go in and talk with the school psychologist.

I used to be the princess or the sorcerer. Sometimes even the younger sister tragically dying of a disease in the Wild West or the Renaissance.

I stood up, gasping for breath, and grabbed the towel. Need to breathe overcomes willpower, again. Rubbing my face dry, I swallowed hard. I reminded myself to be good, light, fun. The dog is a decent part to play. At least it's a part. And I won't pretend to pee in the corner, at least. I don't think I will, anyway.

Who knows?

Oh, god. I can't. Can't deal. Can't hide that I am not at all cool, not light and fun and easy to be around. Can't keep up. Not even nice and loyal like a dog.

Pull yourself together, Truly,
I whispered to myself in the mirror.
Pretend to be fine. Everything depends on that.

JACK

IN FIFTH GRADE,
I was a fat kid. I knew it, and not just because the kids in my class called me Jumbo. I pretended that didn't bother me.

When my best friend Russell explained to me why I didn't get invited to his birthday party, I pretended that didn't bother me either. He said he was only allowed to have a limited number of guests. That didn't make me feel any better, that I didn't make the cut, whatever it was. He was the only kid I'd invited to my birthday just the month before. But I was just like, oh, sure, no big deal.

My dad had taken off to go hang out on the beach in Florida a few months before my tenth birthday. He really liked bumming around on the beach, he said, and he didn't feel old enough to be a dad.

I started staying up until Mom went to bed, slipping out each half hour pretending to go to the bathroom. I was really just checking if she was going to bed yet or still sitting at the table staring into space or at a pile of bills. She took me to the doctor to see if there was something wrong, that I was going to the bathroom so much. There wasn't. But the doctor said I should make an effort to cut down on the processed food and empty calories, maybe get some more exercise. I promised I would, mostly so my mom would have one fewer thing to worry about. Anyway I told her that for my birthday party I wanted to invite just Russell over and we could make a birthday cake together, from scratch, no processed anything. I was just starting to get into cooking then, after the visit to the doctor's. Also I didn't want her to spend a bundle and deal with lots of kids coming over.

So Russell made my cut of one person. And I didn't make his cut of I didn't know how many. Which felt bad enough.

But then it turned out he'd invited all the boys in the fifth grade except me.

We moved away from there that June. Not because of Russell. My mom got a better job here and it's nearer to my grandparents and we really needed a fresh start. Over that summer, I started working out a lot, building up to a five-mile run (the distance to my grandparents' house) plus sit-ups, pull-ups, and push-ups. My jiggly belly was gone by September, and I was as tall as Mom, who wasn't staying up late crying anymore. I made travel soccer and hoops right away.

The kids here don't know I was a fat kid, the one kid whose best friend back in fifth grade didn't invite him to the birthday party everybody else got to go to, with paintball, which I probably would have loved.

Nobody calls me Jumbo here. They just say Jack, and to all of them here I'm a nice guy, good at sports, and the undisputed lunch-making champion. I guess I'd say I'm in the popular group, but there's not a sharp division here of popular versus unpopular kids like in my old school. There are the sporty guys and the theater/music guys, with lots of overlap, and then the keep-to-themselves guys. But all the boys get along. Like if we're on a project together for History Day, we get into groups and make our posters. Everybody's included. Somebody says something at lunch? We're like a collection of bobble-heads, all nodding, yeah, true, good point. And then if somebody says, well yeah, but, the opposite of that, we all do the bobble-head thing again, yeah, true, that's a decent point, too.

At least that's how it feels to me. I'm always on the lookout for somebody being left out but I could be missing something. It's possible there are boys here I don't know that well who feel like the odd man out.

The girls have more of that kind of thing going on.

I can't tell if Truly Gonzales is starting to like me yet. I'm doing my best to act friendly and relaxed around her. Mom suggested that behavior instead of bringing Truly a little present of any kind. I busted her knee wide open and she needed two kinds of stitches for that, but still Mom thought an apology was sufficient and a gift could backfire in my goal of making Truly think positively about me.

So I am just going to hang on to this bracelet I bought for $16.99.

It's a very delicate chain that I think would look really pretty on Truly's tiny wrist. But I will just wait and see how things go in our friendship, as Mom suggested. Mom is very smart about relationships.

In the jewelry store where I secretly went to buy a gift for Truly before Mom said not to, the lady behind the counter looked at me like I might knock stuff down or steal it. I was thinking that people shouldn't judge a book by its cover but I didn't make my game face at her. I smiled what my mom calls my charming politician smile instead and pointed at the most delicate little chain in the display case. “May I see that one, please?” I asked her.

Her lemon-butt mouth tightened, but she reached into the case and lifted out the bracelet I was pointing at. I opened my palm like a beggar. She placed the bracelet in the center of it, which was slightly dirty from recess.

I wasn't sure what you are supposed to do, to decide whether or not you want to buy a bracelet. I watched it for a thirty-count. It stayed still. So did I.

“Thank you, I would like this one please,” I said. “To buy it, thank you.”

She lifted the chain out of my palm, but even after it was gone I could still feel it there, cool and light as mist. Then I put my hand down by my side so she wouldn't think I was begging for spare change or a banana or something.

The lady started to put the bracelet in a small white paper bag but stopped and turned just her head around to me, like an owl. “Is this for a special friend?” she asked.

I looked down at the counter and said, “Yes. It is.” I thought she might say something jokey like,
Well good because it would not fit you,
or maybe mocking, like,
Oooo, you have a girlfriend!
So I was taking a deep breath and preparing to say that yes I am aware it wouldn't fit me or no I did not have a girlfriend.

But the lady didn't say anything. When I looked up again, she was sliding the small chain into a white box padded up with a cloud of cotton.

“How much extra is that?” I asked. I had twenty dollars left from what my grandfather gave me over the summer for all the yard work I helped him with, even though I said he absolutely did not have to pay me, but I wasn't sure how to calculate tax on the bracelet, and also I didn't want to spend every last bit. Sometimes I like to treat myself to a pack of sour power straws.

“It's free,” the lady said. “My pleasure. I'm sure your friend will love the bracelet.”

“I hope so,” I said as she tied two ribbons around the box, a blue one and a silver, interlaced, and formed them into a loopy bow. “Thank you,” I said.

“You're very welcome,” the lady said as I was leaving with the box in a tiny white bag that dangled like a Christmas ornament from my fingers. “Be careful out there.”

I wasn't sure if she was saying be careful of life in general or specifically that giving presents like delicate bracelets to girls might put a guy at risk of having his heart broken. So I just said, “Okay,” and let the door close behind me.

I didn't show the box to my mom that night. During dinner, I just brought up the idea of maybe getting a small gift for Truly. The little box was bulging low in my sweatshirt jacket pocket, hidden. I was thinking I'd surprise Mom with it. Like a test run.

Mom was pretty clear, though, that it wasn't a great idea.

So I didn't show her. I slipped the box into my sock drawer after dessert, which was a molten chocolate chip cookie cake I had worked on all afternoon after I got home from the store. Soccer practice had been canceled because of rain, which is why I had time to go there, and also make the cake. Mom loved the cake. It was really delicious, even though we didn't have a double boiler for the chocolate and it was my first attempt at something with a molten center, which you really should have a double boiler for.

Now the box lives at the bottom back of my sock drawer and I feel a little like a traitor or a pirate, not telling Mom about it. I don't keep many secrets from her and this one feels big. It's like I'm betraying her or something. Like she might find it when she's putting away my clean socks for me, which I have told her she doesn't have to do anymore, I can do it—and she'll take that small white box with its ribbons out, and place it right in the center of the kitchen table. And I will see it sitting there when I get home and she won't even yell at me, she'll cry.

That's silly, I know. Why would Mom cry about that?

It's a nightmare I keep having, even when I'm not sleeping. Like when I used to dream about my dad coming back just to tell me he really left not because he loves the beach, or because of his age, but because I was a disappointment as a son. I'd run after him, trying to explain that I was just a little kid before he left! Little kids don't realize how annoying they're being. I would be way better as a son now! But I was shouting all those sorry excuses at his big broad back as he walked away, again and again. Or the other nightmare where Russell and everybody were standing on one side of the playground and they all pointed at me and laughed. Luckily I haven't had either of those lousy dreams in a long time.

But today on the playground, I thought of that old playground dream. We were playing catch instead of Salugi because unfortunately the teachers were out there enjoying the weather after the rain of the past few days. I was looking around after Mike missed an easy throw, and I saw that unbalance thing: most of us were on one side of the playground all together and Truly was sitting on the steps by herself, with her bum leg out to the side.

Mike lobbed me the ball after he got it from the bushes. I tossed it deep to Clay, who caught it easy, but before he could decide whether to throw it back to me or over to someone else I ducked my head and took a slow jog over toward where Truly was sitting on the steps.

I was wishing even though Mom thought it wasn't a great idea that I had that small white box in my sweatshirt jacket pocket again and I could give it to Truly and it would make her smile. She'd look a little confused, maybe, but then she would hold the box in her hands where it would look like a nice-size box, not a tiny thing like in my big paw. And she would open the ribbons slowly, untying them with expert delicate fingers, like a safecracker or a surgeon. And she'd be all flustered when she saw the bracelet and be all like, “Wow, Jack—thank you so much!” and maybe give me a hug or something for it. And then she'd put it on and wear it all the time from then on.

And I would always notice it there on her wrist.

But all I had in any of my pockets was a dollar seventy and my school ID. And probably some lint. Still, being the one kid not invited to Russell's party left a mark on me in the way that I don't like to see a kid sitting all alone. That's true even if it's not a person as smart and pretty and interesting as Truly Gonzales.

I sat down next to Truly. Because I didn't have the gift with me to hand over, I had to think of something to say to her instead, which I probably should have been working on during my jog across the playground instead of hashing over old experiences from when I was ten and lived in Ohio instead of here.

“Hi, Jack,” Truly said, after I was sitting there beside her for a while, clasping and unclasping my fingers, resting my forearms on my quads and trying to think of a good thing to say.

“Hi, Truly.”

My mom is probably right though. A gift at that point would have been awkward.

“How's your busted knee?” I asked her.

“Better,” she said. “I get the stitches out today.”

“That's good,” I said.

“Really?” she asked.

“Well, that means it's healing, right?”

“I never had stitches before. I'm kind of scared of getting them removed. Did you ever have stitches?”

“Yeah.” I showed her the scar on my forehead.

“Oh, no. What happened?” She was leaning close to my face to see the scar. It was the first time I ever felt proud of it, or happy I had it.

“I fell out of bed,” I told her. “When I was four. I don't even remember it, but my mom says there was blood everywhere. I remember getting the stitches out, though.”

“Was it awful?”

“No,” I said. “My dad gave me a lollipop to suck on so I just focused on that and then it was done and I still got to keep sucking on the lollipop. I thought I'd have to give it back when they were done, but no.”

Truly smiled at me. “They let you keep the half-eaten lollipop?”

“Yup. Pretty awesome, huh?”

“Didn't make you give it to the next kid who was getting stitches out?”

“Nope,” I said. “No presucked lollipop for that kid. All for me.”

“You're a lucky guy.”

“True that.”

She giggled a little, a throaty laugh.

“I wish I had a lollipop to give you,” I said.

She blinked her eyes at me. A few times in a row, nice and slow. They have very long eyelashes.

“And I could keep it the whole time?” she asked.