Authors: Janet Gurtler
Bob doesn’t say anything, but he watches me. His expression tells me that he will support my choices.
“How will you feel if you don’t make those records, Sam?” Dad asks. “You’ve trained so hard. You’ve set goals.”
I turn away from him. “None of this stuff matters.”
“Of course it matters,” Dad says and turns to Bob. “We moved to Tadita to get her the best coaching.”
I glance at both of them. Bob raises his hand, and Dad snaps his mouth shut. But his eyes flash with the anger churning inside him.
“Sam has to make that decision.” Bob glances at the clock on his wall. “I’d like to see you again,” he says to me and glances at my dad. He nods, but I can tell he wanted immediate results. One session to fix me. Get me back in the pool.
Bob stands. “Will you wait outside for a moment?” he asks me, and I nod. I’m emotionally shredded. Exhausted. He takes my limp hand and shakes it. He’s warm, and his grip is firm. There is something in my hand when I pull mine away.
“My cell number,” he tells me. “You can call me anytime if you need to talk. You’re going to be all right, Sam,” he says before he lets go.
I walk to the hallway as Dad writes out a check. Bob quietly tells Dad to give me space to recover. I plan on using his words to my advantage. I know how much it’s hurting him, but I can’t swim. Not even for him.
Days later, I still haven’t been to swim practice, even though my body is an uncomfortable mass of heaviness. It misses the feel of being in the water. Craves it. My hair smells different. My skin isn’t as dry. I have pimples on my forehead. But I can’t go back.
My life has become one major game of “if only.” If only I had kept my damn lips to myself. And boycotted peanut butter. I can make up millions of different scenarios, all with a different outcome. Alex. Alive.
A few times, my mind wanders to Zee. I can only imagine what he thinks of me now. I try not to.
Instead I flick on the flat screen Dad installed when we moved in. A treat for both of us, TVs in our bedrooms. The TV links me to a reality I’ve yet to return to. The story about Alex is a big one. Not just in Tadita or even in Washington state, but all over North America. Maybe even the world.
There’s a story about a school in Seattle with parents picketing and marching. “My daughter will only eat peanut butter,” a woman says to the reporter. “What I am I supposed to do?”
“Try Cheez Whiz,” a voice yells from behind them, and the camera pans to the red face of a man holding a little boy. “Is your kid’s fussiness really a reason for my child to die?”
“If my child had that handicap, I wouldn’t inflict her problem on everyone else,” the woman says to him. “Homeschool if you want a peanut-free environment. My kid has rights too.”
My stomach gets queasy, and my throat swells. Handicap? Really? A few weeks ago I probably wouldn’t have seen the big deal about taking a peanut butter sandwich to school, but things look different to me now. I’ll never eat it again.
I turn the TV off. After a minute, the silence in the room starts to eat my brain, so I flick the TV back on and click through the channels until Alex’s face fills the screen. It’s a national program. The crucial thing missing from all the coverage is me. My identity. I’m both grateful and ashamed that my name hasn’t made the headlines or eased into the feature stories about deadly allergies. It seems the media made a collective decision to leave me out. I have no idea whether it’s because of legalities or ethics, but I wonder why I deserve that respect.
I watch as the camera cuts to some lady doctor with a fancy suit sitting stiffly in a chair facing the camera. Her name and title appear on the screen. An allergist. Her face is serious as she answers an off-screen reporter’s questions about allergies. “A death of this sort is extremely rare and worrisome,” the doctor says.
She goes on to explain that the likeliness of dying by a kiss is remote. “It’s believed allergens can only survive in the saliva for an hour. Accidents like this, from contact with second parties, happen, but are extreme exceptions rather than the rule.”
I picture Alex’s face. His expression when he realized he couldn’t get his breath. The way he bent over at the waist, his hand in the air, looking for help. For him, it was definitely the rule.
I flick to a new channel. Local news. They’re showing a montage of pictures of Alex. My heart breaks at a shot of a cute little Alex wearing a Spider-Man costume. His mom tells the viewers he wore the costume almost every day when he was four. She laughs, but it abruptly stops.
Then the screen shows Alex, holding a giant fish and standing beside a man who has to be his dad. There’s a look of joy on Alex’s face and pride on his dad’s. It fades to another picture of young Alex with his arm wrapped protectively over his sister’s shoulder. In the background, his mom tells the camera that seven years ago, when Alex was ten, he rescued his sister from a rabid fox. He kicked the fox until it ran off. He’d been fierce protecting his sister. His mom explains that Alex and Chloe were less than eleven months apart. Born the same year.
How can his family possibly cope with his loss? How do you go on living when you lose someone like that? I lost my mom, but I was too young to really understand what was happening. I try to imagine losing my dad, and my mind goes blank. It can’t go there. I won’t.
The camera cuts to Alex’s mom. She’s in a chair across from the reporter, saying that three universities were interested in Alex for baseball scholarships. She wipes under her eyes. She’s clutching a Hot Wheels car, and when the reporter asks her about it she says that Alex had collected Hot Wheels since he was a boy. She holds up a red Mustang. “This was his favorite.”
I imagine it’s something that would have embarrassed him. If he was still alive.
For a moment I allow my “if only” to change to what might have happened if Alex had lived. I wonder if we’d have gone out for a while. He was cute. Seemed nice. He liked me. He could have made me forget about Zee. Maybe right now he’d be on the phone with me, confessing that he still had a Hot Wheels collection in his room.
I shake my head. And I remember that I pushed him away. I look back to the TV. A girl is being interviewed by a different reporter. They’re standing in front of my school with a microphone in the girl’s face. She’s skinny and short with fake-looking black hair and an eyebrow piercing.
“Everyone knew about Alex’s allergy,” she tells the reporter. “We all kind of watched out for him. He used to eat at a special table in elementary school. We were always reminded to wash our hands after eating nuts.”
Yeah. Well I was in Orlie then. I’d never heard of Alex.
“Some people say she shouldn’t be blamed,” the pierced girl says, “but honestly, what me and my friends wonder is—if she didn’t know him well enough to know about the allergy, what was she doing kissing him?”
A fair question, if I do say so myself.
The camera cuts back to his mom in the studio. A close up. She’s pretty but heartbreakingly sad. Pain is written into every inch of her skin, every breath she takes. I wonder what she looked like before he died.
I do know one thing.
Alex didn’t deserve to die.
The reporter asks his mom what it was like living with his peanut allergy and asthma. His mom describes years of diligence. Fighting to be the voice for her child. The underlying fear when she sent him out into the world without her. Her secret wish to find a peanut-free world and move there. She wipes her eyes again. I hear unspoken thoughts about the slip-up she couldn’t prevent. The girl who ate a sandwich and then kissed her son. She doesn’t mention me. She doesn’t turn to the TV and declare that Samantha Waxman murdered her baby boy, but she doesn’t have to. I imagine her desire to reach through the television screen, wrap her hands around my throat, and squeeze and squeeze until no air can fill my lungs.
For the rest of my life, this will be something that defines me. When people eventually find out, their opinion of me will change instantly. I switch the channel.
There’s a younger mother holding a little boy’s hand. They’re standing in a classroom. He’s cute, with lots of floppy copper hair and blue eyes that sparkle. He’s grinning the face-busting, nose-wrinkling grin of a young, happy kid.
“Rusty has nut allergies and a severe allergy to peanuts,” his mom says.
Beside her, he lifts his bicep and makes a muscle and does a strong man pose.
His mom smiles down on him. “We’ve taught him from a young age to be careful. No sharing food. No cupcakes at birthday parties. His school has a peanut table. It’s great in theory, but what happens if a child who does have peanuts or peanut butter forgets to wash their hands? And then they touch my son in a game of tag? Or holds hands with him in the hallway? They’re kids. They’re messy. They forget things.”
The little boy turns to the other side and flexes again, grinning cheekily at the TV camera.
“I would feel absolutely horrible if a child ate a peanut butter sandwich and killed my child.” The camera zooms in closer to the mom’s face. “But what about you? How would you feel if it was you? Your child who killed mine? What would that do to your kid too?”
The camera cuts to the boy.
“I just want to send him to school and know he’s safe. I don’t want to have to worry just because there’s nothing else you think you can feed your child besides a peanut butter sandwich.”
Dad pops his head into my bedroom. He glances at the TV and then at the clothes and books lying all over my floor. A sock I’d been trying to throw in the laundry bin hangs off the door handle. “Turn that off, okay?” He glances around my room but doesn’t comment. “I made some pancakes. You need to eat. And you could clean up this mess.”
“No.” I don’t look up or untangle my limbs from the sheets on my bed. He walks inside, takes the remote from my hand, and presses the power button.
I stare at the black TV screen as if it’s fascinating. My stomach growls, but I ignore it. “You going to swim tonight?” he asks. His voice is hopeful, but underlying anger ripples the edges. He’s trying not to be pushy. He’s trying to give me time. I can only imagine the strength it takes for him to stay calm about my refusal to swim.
“It’ll help to get your blood flowing again. Make you feel better.”
“No.” I wait, hoping he’ll get mad. Yell at me. Instead, he takes a deep breath. We both know how much speed and endurance I’m losing.
I stare at him, but he’s the one looking into space now.
“Why don’t we ever talk about Mom?” I ask.
“Your mom?” He looks me in the eyes and seems surprised, as if he’s forgotten a woman was involved in my creation. His back straightens, and he rolls out his neck. “She died a long time ago, butterfly.”
I move my gaze back to the blank television screen. “Obviously, I know that. But we never talk about her. I don’t even know what she was like. Did you love her?”
“Of course I loved her.” He’s pressing his lips tight, and his forehead explodes into wrinkles. His voice does not convince me that this is a fact. His lips disappear, and then he exhales and they reappear. “What do you want to know?”
“Lots of things.” I wait, but he says nothing. He isn’t going to make it easy. “Am I like her?”
“No.” He says it so quickly and with so much force it startles both of us. He turns away and studies the bulletin board on my wall. The first thing he hung up when we moved in. Layers and layers of different colored ribbons are stuck onto it with equally colorful pins. Above the board are pegs with medals dangling from them, and the wall is almost full with framed swim certificates. Club records I’ve broken. State records.
Dad gets everything framed. He keeps everything I’ve accomplished up on display, but he hides memories of the woman he created me with.
“Your mom was a glorious swimmer.” He turns and looks into my eyes. “And you look like her. But you’re different. She…” He glances away. “Had difficulties.”
He’s never told me that before. He steps forward and runs a finger over the top ledge of the TV, and then rubs it against his thumb to wipe away the dirt. “You’re different from your mom,” he repeats. Then he sighs and walks to the doorway. “We’ll talk about it another time. Come on. Come and get some supper.”
His footsteps clomp down the stairs, but I stay where I am.
“You told Bob you wanted to go back to school and it’s time,” he calls up the stairs. “You’ll go back to swimming soon. But first, back to school. Tomorrow.”
“I’ll never swim again,” I whisper to myself.
I shudder thinking about going back to school, but a small part of me almost wants the finger-pointing. Even though none of the newspapers or TV shows named me, everyone in Tadita knows it was me. Social media isn’t as polite as traditional media. It’s time to face the haters head on. The kids on Facebook who’ve dubbed me the Peanut Butter Killer.
We’ll see what I’m really made of when I am forced to face their wrath.
Walking has become a skill to relearn. Nothing about it comes naturally anymore. The cloud of despair has spread from the top of my head and surrounds me completely. My heart beats at triple pace. My hands quiver and I make a fist to still them. My eyes stay hidden behind long hair dangling in front of my face. I’m thankful Dad pushed me to keep my hair long even though short would be easier for swimming.
The horrible anticipation of running into Zee keeps my shaky steps moving through the hallway. Everyone veers around me as if I’m a live bomb about to go off, yet at the same time I might as well be naked, the way everyone stares. Their looks are either horrified or relieved, as if they’re glad it’s me and not them in this mess.
I cross my arms in front of me, clutching my backpack, trying to hide behind it. When I glance up and catch the eye of a short boy, he drops his gaze fast. Feeling isolated in the crowd is worse than the isolation in my room, but this is what I signed up for. My head hurts from the intensity.
“Hey, Sam,” a voice calls, and I glance up. A boy stares down at me, which means he’s pretty tall. Amazingly, his smile is bright and seems authentic. I recognize him, but my brain is mushy and sluggish and his name won’t come to me. I blink like a blank computer screen as my nose fills with the scent of an expensive, overpowering cologne.
“Casper,” he says.
An image pops into my head.
“And now you’re totally thinking about Casper the Ghost.”
A smile turns up my lips. Quickly I put my hand over my mouth to cover it.
He reaches over and touches my arm and without meaning to, I pull away.
“How you doing?” he says softly. “It’s okay to smile, you know.” He’s clearly a guy who’s familiar with the gym—and a number of styling products. Nothing about his tousled hair looks accidental.
Other students whiz past us, their dirty looks and disapproval so potent I don’t even have to look to feel them.
“Under the circumstances, not really,” I mumble. I move away, eager to get to my classroom. The first class of the day is a safe one. But it’s bringing me closer to the inevitable.
Fingers dig into my shoulder. “Ouch.” I turn.
Casper. He’s staring straight into my eyes. His expression is kind. “You didn’t know, Samantha,” he says softly, and the sympathy in his voice almost finishes me.
I blink quickly and successfully keep the tears behind the shutters, out of sight. “Thanks,” I whisper. His niceness makes me feel worse because I so stupidly judged his carefully planned appearance. “Um. I gotta go.” I shrug away from him and run-walk through the hall and hurry into my classroom. Safe for at least another hour. Everyone watches me as I take a seat near the front. By keeping my eyes lowered and staying deep inside my head, I pretend not to notice the hostility.
The bell rings, and Mrs. Elliot walks toward the front of the aisle where I’m sitting. I know she’s coming toward me, but I duck my head and dig inside my backpack to pull out my textbook.
“Everyone please get out your book and turn to page 65,” she calls as her shoes clack toward me.
Backpacks unzip and bodies shuffle around to get their books. She bends and touches the top of my head so I’m forced to look up. She smiles, and the turn of her lip and tilt of her head express so much compassion I kind of want to crawl into her arms and cry.
“We missed you the last couple weeks,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “You okay?”
I nod once and then drop my gaze, studying her feet. She’s wearing awesome brown leather boots with a long boho skirt. She’s youngish for a teacher, and I wonder if she has any little kids at home. I imagine her with an apron on, oven mitts up to her elbows, pulling a steaming pan of chocolate chip cookies from an oversized oven, and I almost smile. Then, with a start, I wonder if her child has an anaphylactic allergy to peanuts, and my whole body flushes.
“Let me know if you need some help catching up. Although with your grades, it shouldn’t be a problem.” She spins and click-clacks to the front of the class to begin her lesson.
After class, I take my time gathering up my things, waiting until everyone is gone before standing. It’s hard to breathe, knowing that they’re all out there. In the hallway.
Mrs. Elliot glances at me from the desk, where she’s grading papers. No doubt an exam I missed while hiding out at home.
“You okay?” she asks.
I pause before I stand. “Yeah. Thanks.”
She brings the red pencil to her chin, studying me. “Alex was a good boy, and the kids around here miss him. We all do. But no one is blaming you, Sam. You know that, right?”
My lips quiver. She’s wrong. They do blame me. How can they not? There’s blood on my hands that can never be scrubbed away. There is no forgiveness for this. None. There is nothing that can bring back a life. A real person is gone. A real person who will never speak again.
“The school had a memorial in the gym, did you know that?” she asks.
I nod. It was on Facebook. I’ve stalked his page. Thousands of condolences complete with updates on events. The memorial notice was posted.
“I was hoping you would come. But I guess it was…hard…”
I clutch my backpack closer and start inching toward the door.
“I can do the make-up test Friday,” I say.
Her expression changes, and she glances down at her work. When she looks up she nods. “Fine. Come see me at noon on Friday,” she says. A flash of something crosses her face. “Take care, Samantha.” Her voice is soft. She bends her head and returns to her work, dismissing me.
My heart dips, and even though it’s me who brushed her off, I can’t shake a twinge of disappointment. I want to go admit that my insides feel hollowed out. Tell her I worry I’m turning into a statue or an ice block chiseled into shape with a chainsaw.
An almost paralyzing desire to talk to my mom stops me in my tracks. Her face turns into Mrs. Elliot’s. Mrs. Elliot is way too young to be my surrogate mother figure. She doesn’t even know me. I wonder if I’ll keep looking for someone to mother me in every woman who’s nice to me.
I force myself to start walking and step into a tidal wave of people. Some glare at me, and the hostility is palatable. Someone elbows me in the side. Hard. Another voice calls, “What’s for lunch, Samantha? Peanut butter sandwiches?”
“Reese’s Pieces?” Someone else calls.
I blink faster, and the bodies become blurry roadblocks. I’m suddenly missing every single person from my old school. At least there people knew me as more than the swimmer who killed Alex.
“Sam!” a voice calls, ringing with familiarity.
I spot the hair first. Taylor lifts her hand, and relief flows into my blood and gives me extra oxygen. She runs at me, throwing her arms around me, squeezing me hard. I nestle my head against her shoulder, wanting her to absorb some of my pain but not wanting to hurt her. Yet I find I’m too weak to turn her away. I’m not as masochistic as I thought.
She is the first to let go. “You’ve ignored all my calls and texts,” she says. “And there were a lot of them.”
“I know.” I duck my head as people walk by and gawk when they realize who Taylor is talking to. “I’m sorry. I just…” My mouth clamps shut, unable to continue.
“I know.” Taylor places an arm over my shoulder and pulls me close. I inhale the clean smell of shampoo, a hint of chlorine. “You should have told me you were coming today. I would have come with you?”
“Really?”
“Really. God, Sam. You don’t need to face it all alone.”
I don’t? I inhale deeply and close my eyes. “Thanks,” I whisper. She’s thrown me a lifeline, and surprisingly, I grasp onto it, digging my fingernails in tightly. I didn’t realize how frightening it would be to be alone with this. I didn’t realize how much I want someone with me. Taking on the blame might be more than I thought I could handle.
“Take a frickin’ picture,” she snarls, and I glance over to see a group of freshman girls blatantly staring at us. I almost smile at the way they break up and scatter, running off in the other direction.
Taylor takes my hand and leads me. We walk slowly, and the crowd parts to let us through. Taylor seems oblivious. “We miss you so much at the pool.”
I attempt a smile, but my lips quaver and instead I duck my head down to keep from bawling. “Thanks,” I whisper.
She snarls at a couple more gawkers. “Get over it, bitches,” she calls and then turns to me. “Clair is nagging me to help get you back in the pool.”
“Not yet,” I say.
Not
ever
, I think. I drop her hand, but we keep walking together.
“Well, hurry. I need you to keep my slow ass moving.”
She’s lying. Taylor set a club record at a swim meet on the weekend, beating her best time in the 100 breast by over two seconds. She also beat my best time by half a second. Dad read me the results posted online.
“I heard you did great at the meet. Congratulations.” I swallow back my competitive juices and try to be genuinely happy for her. I want to be. I’m supposed to be. But happy is a stretch.
When Dad read off the winning times my legs itched. I did my best to ignore them. With neglect, my drive would eventually fade away the same way I would start disappearing off record books. Alex would never hit another home run. He’d never leap over a railing and pump his fist in the air while doing Parkour. Why should I be allowed to defend or break swim records?
“Thanks,” Taylor says. “It was kind of awesome.” She smiles. “Of course, as soon as you come back, you’ll beat my time. Me. I am destined for second best.”
“That’s not true,” I frown at her. “You’re not second best.”
She shrugs a shoulder and then flicks back her thick hair and runs her fingers through it. “It’s not a big deal. It’s where my mom would prefer me to be.”
The expression on her face changes. Her lips press together. Her eyes narrow. Interesting. I think of our swim meets. Neither of her parents is usually there. I’ve seen her dad around the pool, but I can’t remember seeing her mom. They never volunteer for the team. They’re what Dad calls “cutters” instead of “doers.” They cut checks instead of doing the work.
“You’re just as good as me.” I’m surprised to realize it’s true. I never questioned that I was better, and that’s probably what kept me in front of her in the pool. I’ve always believed I would win. And apparently she’s always believed she would come in second. It’s inexcusable that she felt this way and I was just too involved in my own life to notice. My shallowness surprises me.
“Whatever.” She shrugs again and then pulls her phone from her jacket and glances down at it. “Only a couple minutes left.” She stops abruptly, and I almost crash into her. “I have to go this way. Biology with Mr. Bruster.”
Reality hits with a thunk. I want to go back to thinking about her life. Go to class with her. I want to shrink her and carry her around in my pocket. I don’t want her to leave me. She leans in closer.
“Sam,” she says, lowering her voice. “I saw you and your dad parked outside at Alex’s funeral,” she whispers. “I waited for you, but you didn’t come in.”
I blink furiously as memories from the funeral day pop up.
“Sam?” Taylor’s voice pulls me back to the school hallway. “Are you okay?”
My hands shake, and I make fists to stop the trembling. “I couldn’t,” I whisper. “I didn’t want to upset his family.” I’m afraid the bigger truth is that I couldn’t made amends and I chickened out. And it shames me to the core. I never felt the quitter in me as much as I did that day. I didn’t like it at all.
Taylor reaches for my hand and squeezes it and then lets it go.
I open my mouth to say something, but my thought vanishes when something behind Taylor catches my eye. The air around me thins. I can’t talk or even breathe. I wonder if there’s a funky smell coming off me. I wonder if fear has an odor.
My vision goes blurry. My moment of reckoning has arrived. I can only stare. He’s walking toward me, someone at his side. There’s no way for me to escape. He’s seen me. It can’t get any worse.