Dirk rules. I’ve been wondering the same exact thing. Especially ever since Sterling and I watched
My So-Called Life
. It just doesn’t make sense that so many quality shows get taken off to make room for more of the same crap.
“It’s like that old
Sesame Street
segment. What was it? ‘Which of These Things Does Not Belong?’” He tries to sing the song that goes with it, but he can’t remember the words. “Nice—just got an e-mail that’s saying the song is called ‘One of These Things Is Not Like the Others.’ Oooh . . . and a link to Cookie Monster singing it! Sweet! Let’s have a listen, shall we?”
Then Dirk plays the song. You’d think it would be dorky with Dirk playing some old
Sesame Street
song and all of us in our rooms, listening. But it’s not. Sometimes when I feel stressed, I revert back to my old Judy Blume books from middle school or reruns of shows I used to watch in fifth grade. These things are comforting. They remind me of who I was before life got so complicated. And they give me hope that maybe one day I can get back to that peaceful place again.
14
Do you think it matters whether you drink warm water or cold water?” Nash wants to know. I’m used to his non sequiturs by now. It’s amazing how we’ve become such good friends since school started, after years of hardly talking. Things like this make me think that anything can happen.
I say, “Yeah, it matters. Who wants to drink warm water?”
“No, I meant room temperature. Like if you leave a bottle of water out instead of putting it in the refrigerator.”
“Oh. Is that what room temperature means? Thanks for clearing that up, Dr. Obvious.” Nash feels the need to explain the most obvious concepts to you. Sometimes in great detail. Which is
so
annoying.
He was the same way in chem today.
We were doing this lab and the partners at the next table didn’t get how to do part of the procedure. So they asked Nash for help and he explained some stuff. But then later, for this really simple question about ratios, Nash started telling them all this super basic stuff that even a fifth grader knows.
The girl was like, “Yeah. We know.”
“Just trying to help,” Nash said.
“Do you think we’re stupid or something?” she shot back.
“No, I was—”
“Then why are you talking to us like that?” her partner accused.
I know Nash didn’t mean anything by it. But if you didn’t know him, I could see how it would be easy to take him the wrong way.
“Well?” Nash is asking me.
“What?”
“Do you think it matters to your body?”
“Why would your body care what temperature water you drink?”
“Here’s what we know: Your body’s standard temperature is ninety-eight point six degrees. So, if you drink some really cold water that’s like fifty degrees below your normal body temperature, wouldn’t that be a huge shock to your system?”
I flip a few pages ahead in the project we’re working on. “What page is that on?”
“It’s not part of the project. I’m just wondering.”
That’s another thing about Nash. He wonders about the most random things.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve never thought about it before.”
“Let me know if you come up with a theory.”
“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll definitely be the first.”
Three hours and two breaks later, the project is done. The middle of October is stressful enough with the first marking period ending and report cards coming out, without having this huge chem project on top of everything. At least things are sort of getting better. I actually feel like I can contribute when we work together now. When we first started doing lab reports, Nash was so smart and I didn’t know anything. I felt like such an idiot.
I hate it when other people feel like they have to do all the work or answer questions for me because they know I’ll never get it. That happened a lot back in my dark days. When I got really depressed, I’d tune out in school. Or sometimes not even go. And my mom would let me stay home because she didn’t know what else to do. Dad would come home early and play Uno with me and try to get me to talk about what was wrong, but I usually didn’t feel like talking much. Mainly because I didn’t know how to explain it. So I was absent a lot and I’d miss what was going on in class. Whenever I had to do group work, everyone would be looking at me like,
You’re supposed to know this. Why are you being so dense?
It was really embarrassing.
But now I feel like I’m actually getting some of this stuff. And I think we did a really good job on the project. I smile at Nash, all proud of us.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
“Nothing. It’s just . . . I think we’re a good team.”
Nash stops stapling pages together. “I do, too.”
I smile some more. Nash looks terrified.
“Are you okay?” I ask him.
“Um . . . yeah . . .” He gets up from the coffee table where we were working. “I got some new bells.”
“Oh, cool. Let’s see.” He shows me a string of tiny bells hanging from the window frame. I shake them. They sound light and tinkly. “They’re cute.”
Then Nash launches into this long, complicated description of where they’re from and how he found them and why they’re significant to a certain culture halfway around the world and—
“Hey, Nash?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re cute.”
“Thanks.”
And then we’re just standing there, with no one saying or doing anything. He’s just looking at me.
It’s weird. For the first time with Nash, I feel like I need something to say. I’m all, “So . . . whatever happened with . . . the letter?” I was going to say,
Whatever happened with Birgitte?
But Nash never told me it was for her and I don’t want him to know that I saw her laughing at Jordan.
“What letter?”
“You know . . . the one you wrote for . . . um . . .”
“Oh! That. Nothing. She didn’t feel the same way.”
“That sucks.”
“Not really. It’s actually a good thing. I was more interested in someone else anyway, so . . . ”
“Who?”
“Just someone.”
“So why didn’t you give it to her?”
“Practice,” Nash says. “You think I’m going to bust out my best material in the preliminary round?”
I’m not buying this whole thing where Nash is trying to blow it off like it’s no big deal. Liking someone and having them reject you is a
major
deal. I’m learning how to read Nash and he’s not very convincing. But this is what he wants me to believe and the truth is humiliating, so I let it go.
“So, um . . . I guess we’re done,” I say.
“Done?”
I point to the coffee table. “With the project.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah, we’re done.”
“I think it’s really good.”
Nash says, “Marisa . . .” And then he moves closer to me. As if he’s going to kiss me or something.
Oh my god.
Nash is going to kiss me.
I
knew
he liked me!
I turn away from him.
“What’s wrong?” he says.
“I’m not . . . I don’t . . . Were you trying to kiss me?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On why you didn’t let me.”
This is really hard. How do you tell someone who likes you that you don’t feel the same way about them? No one wants to hear that. It’s devastating.
But I have to tell him.
“Nash, I don’t . . . you know . . . like you that way.”
“You don’t?”
“No. Did you think I did?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed like you did.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Yeah, I’m picking up on that.”
“Sorry.”
Nash skulks to the other side of the room.
I have to know exactly why he thought I liked him. It’s so strange because I totally don’t. “Did I . . . do something? To make you think I liked you?”
“You could say there were some clues.”
“Like what?”
“You always like to come over, for one.”
“To get our work done. And because we’re friends.”
Nash picks up the big cowbell from his desk. He clanks it a few times.
“So that’s it?” I say. “I like coming over, so you thought I liked you?”
“No, there’s more than that. You just seem . . . forget it.”
I still have no idea what he’s talking about. But he already feels bad enough, so I decide to let it go.
Nash is like, “I can’t believe this is happening again.”
“What?”
“
This.
Rejection.”
“I’m sorry. But I didn’t—”
“Yeah. You can’t force yourself to feel something you don’t, right?”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“If it’s worse than that, I really don’t want to hear it.”
“I was going to say that I didn’t mean to hurt you. You just . . . surprised me, is all.”
“You surprised me more.”
We both stand there, looking anywhere but at each other. “Okay,” he says, “this is awkward.”
“It doesn’t have to be. I still want to be friends.”
Nash snorts.
“Don’t you?” I ask.
“Do you really think that’s possible?”
“Why not? I mean, it’ll probably be weird for a while, but—”
“It would be more than weird for me. I’m the one who likes you.”
“So . . . what are you saying?”
Nash shakes his head. He still won’t look at me. “I don’t know yet.”
This is so unfair. Why did he have to go and ruin everything? How could he think that I liked him? Did I give him any indication that I did? No, I couldn’t have. Because I don’t like him. I still want to be friends with him, though. We have to still be friends.
Only . . . what if we can’t?
November-January
15
Here’s the bad news: It’s been two weeks since the non-kiss incident and Nash and I haven’t seen each other outside of school at all. He said it would be better if I didn’t go over to his house the way I usually did for our lab reports. So now we’re doing the parts of our lab reports separately and putting them together to hand them in, the way everyone else does.
Here’s the good news: Dad almost finished building my darkroom. He converted a closet that we never use in the basement, and now it’s all mine. I’m totally psyched to start using it, but the sink needs a new part or something. So I have to wait a few more days.
Unlike Mom, I’m not into the empty house thing. If I want to get away from everyone, I just go to my room and sequester myself in the fortress. But when no one else is home, it just feels lonely. Like now. It’s like the lack of people in other parts of the house makes my own space feel empty. And I can’t concentrate on homework because my brain keeps insisting on being noisy.
I go downstairs, trying to decide what to do. I don’t feel like reading or going online or watching anything.
We have thick photo albums on the living room bookshelf. When Sandra and I were little, my mom was obsessive about taking pictures of us. But she doesn’t really do that anymore. I’m not sure why. So when you look at the albums, there’s tons of pictures of us until we’re about twelve and ten, and then only a few after that.
I pull out one of the middle albums from when I was about seven. We had a dog named Buttons. I loved him so much. When he died, I cried for weeks. I thought I’d never feel better again. My dad kept saying things like “time heals all wounds,” but I didn’t believe him.
Flipping through the pages, I remember that my mom has this whole box of old pictures she never put into albums. The albums are supposed to be for the best pictures, but she has a lot more pictures she thought weren’t good enough for other people to see. Those are the ones I always thought were way more interesting. I think that box is in her closet.
My parents’ room always feels so decadent. Of course it’s the biggest bedroom in our house, since they were here first and all. They have this awesome walk-in closet. I go in and search the shelves for the box, but I can’t find it anywhere. I check my dad’s side. I know my mom stores random stuff there because she has way more clothes and there’s no room on her side. I still can’t find it.
Something feels strange about Dad’s side of the closet. It’s just . . . off. Emptier, somehow. Every two years, my mom makes everyone clean out their closet and put things in piles to donate. Maybe she just cleaned out Dad’s stuff. But her side of the closet looks the same. Plus, she would have told me to do mine because she always donates everyone’s things at the same time.
I check again. Something just feels wrong.
And, suddenly, I remember something Sandra told me a few weeks ago. Supposedly, she saw Dad leaving with a box of stuff when he thought no one was home. I told her it was probably just some work stuff he was taking to the studio, but Sandra didn’t think so. Maybe Dad did his own cleaning this time.
I eventually find the box of photos on Mom’s side of the closet. I lift it off the shelf and sit down with it on the floor. Sifting through photos of family picnics and trips to Vermont and all of us hiking and my parents looking like kids swimming in the river, all of these memories come rushing back at me in one big wave. This intense emotion washes over me, but I don’t know what it’s called.
I’m not sure how much time passes. Minutes or hours, it’s all a blur. I just know that by the time I’m finished looking through all of the photos in the box, I can’t believe how lucky I am. I have parents who love each other and love me. I have a nice house and enough money for things I want. I have everything I need.
So I don’t get why I was all depressed before. My psychologist said how my body can’t help feeling bad because of genetics and environmental factors, but I disagree. I think you can decide how to feel and then make yourself feel that way, if you’re determined enough. I probably just didn’t try hard enough to be happy. But it doesn’t mean that I can’t try harder now.