Authors: Barry Lyga
You can't rely on love. Love will let you down every time. Every. Single. Time.
I don't love Jecca. I don't love Fanboy.
But...
God, the
buts
in life will kill you absolutely every time, won't they?
I don't
love.
But I
need.
I can admit that to myself, I guess. When Jecca pretends like nothing happens between us, I get angry. I don't know why; I just do. And then I ignore her. Punish her.
And the whole time I was gone, the whole time I was DCHH, I missed Fanboy. I missed him, OK? I don't like admitting it; I don't like thinking it. But there it is.
My first week in the hospital was sheer hell. The doc who did my intake didn't listen to anything I said. He looked at my history and he just went ahead and put me on all kinds of meds. I did a pretty good job of pretending to take them, but the nurses were sly and they caught me a few times, so I had to take the meds sometimes. And those things just totally messed with my head. The first time I saw Dr. Kennedy, he took me off the meds and my brain straightened itself out.
But that first week, I was a mess. I would lie in bed and dream, only I was still awake while I was dreaming. It's so stupid. It's so dumb. I would ... I would think of
him.
I would dream of him. Little things. Meaningless things. I would imagine cold.
Cold.
Freezing outside.
And I'm sitting with Fanboy and he's wearing a hoodie and he takes it off and gives it to me and puts his arm around me to keep me warm.
And then bigger, even stupider things.
At night, after my psycho roommate whined and rocked herself into something like sleep, I would lie there, my head pushed and pulled and generally turned into taffy by the meds, and I would think,
Please, God, get me out of this place. Don't make me stay here forever. Don't leave me here. Don't leave me here, drugged up and left here and gone forever. Get me out of here. Please, God.
And then I would start to cry—quietly, though, because I didn't want to wake up the psycho and have to put up with her shit—and I would go to my worst place, my most shameful place. Lying there in bed, curled up like a baby in the womb, I would cry, and my tears felt
numb.
They were numb because of the drugs. I don't know how else to explain it. I cried my numb tears and at my absolute worst, I dreamed of
him,
dreamed of him saving me, rescuing me from that place, coming to me in a cape and tights and a giant
F
on his chest, my knight, my love, my hero, my superhero.
In the light of morning, the tear tracks dried on my cheeks, I would fake taking the morning meds (the morning nurse was an idiot—the night nurse was savvy) and my head would clear a little and I would hate myself for my weakness, for wanting to be rescued.
And I would hate him for not rescuing me.
H
IS MOM CALLS HIS NAME
from upstairs. "Dinner soon! Is Kyra staying?"
He looks the question at me. I can't believe it. I must look totally normal. It feels like everything going on in my head should be so
obvious.
It should be plastered all over me. But it's not.
I blame/thank the bald dome and the clothes. He doesn't know how to read me anymore.
"I don't think I can," I hear myself say.
I've totally botched this. All I have for my troubles is a stack of
Literary Paws,
naked artwork, and a lecture on
Sandman.
Nothing useful.
"OK, well, I guess I better take you back to school, then."
I've accomplished nothing. I just stare at the naked Courteney.
"It's all because of you, you know," he says.
"Huh?" I look up at him.
"This whole scene." He gestures to the pages in my hands. "The whole 'season finale'thing. It's all thanks to you. Remember how you told me she shouldn't just get all pissed off when she sees her husband's fantasies toward the end of the book? She should, like, realize she has her own, too? That's what I'm setting up here. It's foreshadowing. So, you know, thanks."
I just stare at him. He listened to me.
He actually listened to me.
And changed his book because of me.
"In fact..." He gets all shy and bumbling all of a sudden. It's like six months ago all over again, when he had no idea how to react or talk to me. Only I'm not doing any talking, so he's on his own. "I was gonna ... I wanted it to be a surprise ... But since you're ... Oh, what the hell, right?"
He grabs another sheet of paper. This one is larger. He holds it up to me. It's the opening splash page for his "season finale," the exact same image that I'm holding—shrunken to regular paper size—in my hands already. Only
this
version is lettered, with a title and everything:
SCHEMATA: SEASON ONE FINALE
DREAMING WHILE I'M AWAKE
And then, at the bottom of the page, the credit box, with "Writer/Artist" and his name, followed by:
Editor/Letterer: Cal Willingham
Advisor: Craig Tollin
For
Literary Paws:
Gina Horowitz
But then, under
that,
in bold letters that even a blind person could see...
Extra-special thanks to Kyra Sellers, who made it possible.
I
STARE AT IT.
Why did he have to go and do something nice? Why couldn't he just keep being a dick so I could keep hating him?
He's grinning at me like he's just given me the world's greatest Christmas present. My brain splits in two.
The first part snorts and says, "Thanks a lot, Fanboy," hitting just the right tone of voice. He's used to it. He'll think I'm secretly happy.
The second part...
I smile at him. "No, seriously, thanks. It's too much."
He believes me. God, am I good or what?
"Well, you deserve it. You made this all possible."
I point to the page. "So I've read."
"Ha! OK, let's go."
We go out to the car. I pile up all of the
Schemata
stuff on my lap and soon we're out of the driveway and heading back to school. It's weird, having him drive. He does the speed limit and he's really, really careful.
I have to make a decision. He's taking me back to school because he thinks I have a car there. And he thinks this because I always lied to him and told him I had a car, even though I was stealing them.
So, do I let him take me back to school and then walk home? Or do I tell him the truth?
It's cold out. My head is vulnerable. I sigh.
"Hey, Fanboy." I go All Tough with him. My tone will brook no shit. That's a great expression my dad uses sometimes, though he says "crap" instead of"shit."
"Yeah?"
"I took the bus today, so I need you to take me home."
"Oh, yeah?"
He sounds way too smug.
"Nothing wrong with taking the bus, Fanboy. Except for the assholes."
"What happened? Couldn't find a car?"
I've been watching him the whole time, but as he says this, he turns quickly to look at me and I have to look away. I
have
to. It's like magnets, when you put two of them together with the wrong ends facing and they force each other apart. I turn away. It's like my neck muscles have locked into place and if my life depended on it, I couldn't turn to the left to look at him. My cheeks flame and burn. Hell, I think my
scalp
is blushing.
"I figured it out," he tells me. "Eventually. You really had me going for a while there, with all that crap about your mom's car and your sister's car and your sister's boyfriend's car..."
My sister. God, that's right. Katherine. I used Katherine and I told him I had a sister. Man, I really laid the lies on thick, didn't I?
Busted.
"But then I realized," he goes on, "that none of it made sense. And once your dad told me you didn't
have
a sister, I figured out that, uh, you know, you must have been, like, stealing those cars."
"Big effing deal, Sherlock. You think you're Batman or something'cause you figured that out?" Inside, I'm curled up in shame. Outside, I have to be tough. That's how it works.
"No. No. I guess not. I just..."
"Just
what?
" Stop it, Kyra! Stop goading him! Just get home and get the hell out of the car.
He sighs. "I'm just really glad you're back, is all. I hope ... I hope it helped. Being—you know ... being
away.
Like that."
If I weren't all tense and freaked out, it would be funny, listening to him stumble over the words and the phrases and even the goddamn syllables. But I am, so it's not.
"Whatever, Fanboy."
"I just ... I was really worried about you, so I hope you got the help you needed and that you're doing better."
God. What an effing
baby.
Here's the thing. Here's the thing I hate: His concern is like a really warm drink when your body is cold, and you feel it go all the way down your throat and then into your stomach, where it pools and spreads out.
But the problem is that cold is
good.
Cold is
numb.
And when you're numb, you can't feel pain. You can't feel pain until some stupid warm drink makes you not numb anymore and then you can feel again.
I'm not weak. I'm
not.
And he can't change that.
"I'm fine," I tell him, and I've lost the edge in my voice, the "get off my back" edge that keeps people away. Where the hell did it go? What did he do to it? Why is he making me all weak and needy? And
how?
"Well, that's good. I'm glad. Heh. I'm saying 'I'm glad'a lot, aren't I?"
He pulls into my driveway, so I don't have to answer. I just get out of the car, my messenger bag over one shoulder, my copies of the
Schemata
stuff under my arm.
"So, uh, take a look at everything and let me know what you think," he says, all eager. "Some stuff has changed from what you saw before."
And then it hits me. It hits me so hard and so fast that I don't even think it—I just say it.
"Sure. Hey, Fanboy, look, since things have changed ... it would be cool if I could see the old pages. You know, the originals. So I can compare the changes and everything."
I figure there's no way in hell he'll buy it. Why would he? But he's so happy to have me back, so happy to have me involved again, that he just nods like an idiot. "Oh, yeah, sure. I get it. OK. I'll print that stuff out and bring it to school tomorrow."
And then he backs out, honking the horn as he pulls away. I raise my hand and wave to him before I even realize what I'm doing. It's the same hand I'll use to stab him in the back.
T
HAT WAS ALL THE FIRST PART
of my brain. The part that feels out of sorts. Like, I've won and it was easy because he likes me and he trusts me. I don't know how to feel about that...
But the second part is off and scheming. I have to do this now. I'll get the original Dina art and with the new art I can do a sort of exposé, showing them side by side. I'll do
more
than just take it all to Michelle. Hell, I'll make
posters
and put them up all over school. I'll make a website about it. I'll show the
world.
That will mortally embarrass Fanboy beyond belief. I'll destroy him.
I should feel triumphant. I'm going to win.
Instead, I just feel like crap.
Maybe I shouldn't do this. Maybe I should just...
Maybe I should just
ask
him.
Hey, Fanboy! What the hell? Why didn't you e-mail me—at least—while I was away?
Yeah, right. Puh-lease. This is
Fanboy.
He'll just lie. He'll say he
did
e-mail and the e-mails must have gotten lost or caught in a spam filter or something. That's what he does—he makes things up for fun. Why the hell should I trust him?
I stand out in the cold until Fanboy's car turns at the main road and disappears, then I go inside. Roger isn't home yet.
I throw all of my stuff on my bed. My phone goes off—it's a text from Simone:
get ready!
What?
And then I get like six pictures in a row, all snapped from Simone's cell—it's her and Jecca at the mall, in the Victoria's Secret changing room, dressed up all slutty and shit, pretending to be like the models on TV. They won't actually buy anything—they're just messing around.
Final text:
wish u wr hr.
Yeah, whatever. I'm done playing those stupid games.