Calli

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Also by Jessica Lee Anderson

Circumstances don’t make a person, they reveal him or her.

A GIRL RUSHES TO THE TALLEST GUY in tenth grade and reaches up to drape her thin, muscular arms around his neck. The girl’s shirt rises up while her baggy khakis slide down over her narrow hips, revealing the strings of her red underwear.

The guy keeps his hands tucked in his pockets as the girl tilts her head slightly. She leans in to kiss him.

She kisses him.

Cherish kisses Dub.

My foster sister, Cherish, kisses my boyfriend, Dub.

Oh. My. God.
He’s not stopping her.

My blood feels like crude oil bubbling in a refinery furnace.

Inside me, the crude oil separates into toxic fuel. I want to yell at them to stop, to push each other away, but my words are trapped. My eyes and ears hurt from the pressure of holding back the tears. The hallway is full of students watching me, waiting for my reaction.

Like Cherish told me before, I’m a chicken turd. She thinks I won’t do anything. But she’s wrong.

I’M TOO MUCH OF A MESS to do anything now, so I run. Down the hall. Out of Building A. Past the exhaust of the school buses and past #72, which I should be boarding.

My pace slows once I’m far enough away from school and the line of buses. The long way home is the only option. Too many people have already witnessed the humiliation of Calli Adora Gilbeaux.

I’ll have to face their whispers at school tomorrow.

Worse than facing the gossip, I have to go home soon. Where Cherish lives in the room next to mine. At least my mom and her partner, Liz, don’t make us room together.

The sun’s pounding down on me and the top of my head is burning hot. I’d give anything for a breeze or a cloud. The sky is a stretch of never-ending blue and there
are so many trees that it looks like a wall of green closing in on me.

I wish I had the nerve to stick out my thumb and hitch a ride away from Lake Charles, Louisiana. As far away as the driver would be willing to take me. But when a truck zooms by on Opelousas Lane, my hands stay by my sides. I’m such a chicken turd that I even tuck them into my pockets.

Heading home isn’t an option. Besides, I don’t want to be responsible for my mother being sicker than she already is. I overheard Mom tell Liz that her lupus has started acting up because of the stress of Cherish and me fighting all the time.

I keep slogging on. Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes. Forty minutes. The water in the ditch reminds me of how thirsty I am.

The last bell of the day at Calcasieu High School seems like it rang hours ago. Sweat drips down my stomach and soaks into the waist of my pants. My whole body aches, but I drag on for another fifteen minutes.

I can’t get their kiss out of my mind. And then the next thought. Dub kissed me this morning.

His lips tasted sweet—like maple syrup. The taste reminded me of the pancakes Mom cooked that morning for breakfast. Everyone in the house had gotten up early. My mother said she wanted us to have a sweet start since Cherish had an important algebra test. She’d been helping Cherish study all week.

Liz makes peppermint tea every day for Mom, and this morning she made some for me and Cherish too. I prefer orange juice, but the tea was soothing, minty but
not too minty, hot but not too hot. We politely passed the pancakes, butter, and syrup to each other like we were a normal, happy family. Cherish even helped me do the dishes without making her usual snarky comments.

When I considered becoming a foster sister awhile back, this is what I imagined.

My boyfriend’s maple-syrupy kiss topped my perfect morning. As I grabbed books from my locker, Dub quietly walked up to me. His breath felt hot against my neck as he leaned in to whisper, “Missed you.” I turned around, tripping on his large, worn, green and white All Stars. He caught me, and before I could say anything, he pressed his soft, syrup-flavored lips against mine. I closed my eyes and kissed back, touching my tongue against his. Warmth and excitement zipped through my body.

But now I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I hang onto the guardrail near the ditch full of cattails and I throw up.

I stay bent over until the nausea passes. I have to swat away a couple of enormous, buzzing flies.

Another truck passes. This driver honks. Lovely. I keep my face low to the ground, and I can’t hold back the tears any longer.

I wanted to be a foster sister, but this isn’t what I had in mind.

LIZ IS PROBABLY SCOURING the neighborhood streets searching for me. The skin on Mom’s neck has surely broken out in a rash by now. She most likely has a fever too. For my mom’s sake, I pick up the pace even though my legs shake and my toes feel numb in my All Stars. Red and white, to complement Dub’s.

I hate worrying my parents. Especially since stress makes Mom’s weak immune system flare up.

Mom and me. We were a team before she met Liz. Then it was Mom and me and Liz.

My father left when I was a baby and moved back to France. He barely knows I exist. To me, the “F” word isn’t just the four-letter word found in most R-rated movies; it’s the six-letter word—French. Mom made me sign up for freshman French this year to be more in touch with my heritage, though I’d given up on that idea long, long ago.

The word “French” and almost all French things
disgust me, except for a few things like croissants and beignets.

French’em all—my father, Dub, and especially Cherish.

Sweat continues to ooze from my pores and pools in the thick rolls of my skin. I’m probably burning thousands of calories. I imagine being able to fit into an adorable little bikini on our summer vacation, only two months away. Four days in New Orleans will be amazing, but it won’t be just Mom, me, and Liz. Cherish will be there, plus a new foster sibling if everything works out.

Dub’s volunteered to watch our dog, Sassy, while we’re away. My stomach flip-flops. What was Dub thinking when he kissed Cherish? Have they been talking? Seeing each other? Doing more than just kissing at school?

Across the street from my house, the Wilsons’ roof is still covered with a blue tarp because of the hurricane damage from over a year ago. Mom says the Wilsons don’t have insurance. I think everyone should have some kind of insurance to fix what’s broken, even if it’s your family and life.

Finally I inch one foot in front of the other up the driveway of our plain brown, rectangular house. Mom’s gray Hocus Focus, as she calls her nonmagical car, is parked under the aluminum cover of our front patio, but Liz’s unnamed station wagon is not. The corner section of our patio cover looks like a ripped sheet of paper because of the hurricane’s high winds. Liz could have fixed the damage, but after the storm she said, “Let’s keep it like this to remind us of how lucky we are.” I certainly don’t feel lucky.