I owe the hugest of thanks to Hadley Hemingway for her beta-love and support.
Believey, I love you heaps. Enjoy!
Chapter 3.
Crumpled pages, ripped from my Moleskine, are scattered across the desk. My fingers knotted in my hair. It's such a typical state of play that I glance over my shoulder, just to check you're not there, sprawled out on my bed with your homework, tapping a pen against your lips as you work.
…
"I don't know why you're freaking out about this." The bed frame squeaked as you abandoned your calculus books and moved to stand beside me. Outside, twilight was muting the end-of-summer sky. "You could hand in any one of those–" you flicked your fingers at the scraps of paper, "–and Berty'd be happy with it."
"Whatever." I picked up the waste paper basket and swept the ink-marred pages into it.
"Wait." You snagged one from the trash. "If you're going to throw them away, I might as well hand one in."
"Go for it." You would never.
Your eyes narrowed as you scanned the lines of text, lips vibrating around the words as you read them. I liked having my words in your mouth, but it also made me cringe. I wanted to give you better ones to taste.
"Explain it to me. What's wrong with this?"
I rocked back on my chair and its front legs lifted off the ground. In English class, that would've had Mrs. Berty wringing her age-spotted hands and telling the story about the boy she'd taught forty years ago who had almost died when he'd been swinging on his chair with a ruler in his mouth. She'd brought it up three times already that semester. I'm pretty sure she was bullshitting us. Or she'd told the story so many times she actually believed it happened.
I put my feet up on my desk, crossed my legs, and reached for the scrunched piece of poetry. "It's lame."
"I like it."
That made me smile. "Thanks." The paper crackled under my fingers as I smoothed it against my thigh. "It's just – it's not very… I mean, the stuff I write, it's all on the surface, you know? I'm not good enough to… I don't know, write a poem about a sparrow picking through the trash that's actually a metaphor for finding hope in a broken world."
"So?"
"So, I write really… transparent. Personal stuff."
You pushed my feet off the desk and plonked yourself down on my lap, your thighs perpendicular to mine. You smacked my chest when I feigned a groan.
"I don't get why that means it's not good enough to hand in for Berty's assignment. All she asked for was a poem at least ten lines long."
"It's–"
"And she's not even grading them."
It was true that Mrs. Berty wasn't grading them. "Poetry is too subjective to grade," she'd said as she passed out copies of the poem we were discussing that lesson. (Donne's "The Flea," because teenagers can relate to dudes using lame arguments to convince chicks to sleep with them, I guess). Though it was first period, her lipstick had come off, probably pressed onto her coffee mug. Only her lip-liner remained, drawn too high above the line of her top lip. It somehow exaggerated the movement of her mouth so that from my seat at the back of the room, it seemed like her speech had been badly dubbed.
I wondered if she was just copping out, about poetry being too subjective to grade. Maybe she didn't "get" poetry herself, and that's why she wouldn't put a numerical value on it—because she couldn't. I could differentiate between the crap I'd written and the stuff I was proud of. Poetry, art, it might be subjective to a point, but simply existing didn't make it any good.
But whether she graded our poems or not made no real difference to me. I couldn't seem to write something that didn't give a piece of myself away. Poetry was what I did when no one was looking. (Except you, little sneak.) Squishing my soul into word and verse. Those poems were my self portraits. And dropping one on Mrs. Berty's desk… I imagined her reading it, peering over the top of her glasses, my page at arm's length, and my jaw clenched.
"It's just the idea of her reading them." I rested my chin on your shoulder. Your hair, vanilla-scented that week, tickled my cheek. "It'd be like asking you to hand over your diary."
"I don't keep a diary anymore."
"You know what I mean."
You shrugged. The movement jolted my chin and I bit my tongue. "Ouch."
Snickering, you half-patted, half-slapped my face. "There, there. Poor baby."
In retaliation, I dug my chin into your shoulder, working my jaw as you wriggled and complained.
"Stop it. Ow… Edward. Ow. That hurts!"
I pulled away to avoid your slaps. "You made me bite my tongue."
"Your chin is really bony." I could hear the pout in your voice as you rubbed your shoulder.
"Sorry." I tugged your earlobe, making the little swallow swing.
"Oh, my God. You're so annoying." You pushed yourself off my lap. "Just write one of those acrostic poem thingies."
"Like this?" I grabbed my pen wrote the letters of your name down my page.
"Brilliant and beautiful is my best friend," you said, pointing at the B.
"Even when she's creating chaos." I scribbled the words down. "I'm totally going to turn this in, you know."
"I hope she makes you read it to the class."
I rolled my eyes. "Sure."
"Maybe it'd be a good thing," you said and the amusement drained from your voice. "Shut a few people up."
I sighed, putting down my pen. "Bella…"
"I'm serious."
Catching your hand, I looked up at you. The bangs falling into your eyes couldn't hide the worry and anger shining there. "It doesn't matter to me, what those assholes say."
Lips pressed into a line, you shook your head.
"What is it?"
"I don't – I just don't get why you're not more pissed off about it."
I looked at my hand on your wrist. Circling it, my thumb touched my the tip of my middle finger easily. I could probably stretch my hand around both your wrists.
"I was pissed off."
Right at the end of summer break, I'd run into Pete Stevenson in the record store I liked to haunt. A suburb over, it was poorly lit and always smelled of wet carpet. They had an awesome selection of vinyl, though, which more than made up for the dankness. The owner was a pretty cool guy, too, even if his musical tastes had stopped evolving in the early-nineties. Dude would never let go of grunge.
Pete had seen the vinyl copy of Odelay I was holding and we started chatting, which somehow slid into flirting. I liked his laugh. Warm and shy at the same time. There'd been no real intent on my part, I was just enjoying making him smile and the way his cheeks had turned kind of pink. I was surprised when he asked if I wanted to hang out at his place sometime.
I hadn't noticed Emmett McCarty browsing the Alt. Rock section until I heard his guffaw and his fake-whisper: "Faggots."
I'd rolled my eyes at his originality. But Pete had frozen, the blush draining from his cheeks. Looking at the floor, he made a strange choking noise. He sidestepped me, bumped a rack of DVDs, sending a bunch of them crashing to the floor, and then almost fell through the door in his hurry to leave.
I don't know if it was McCarty or Pete himself who'd started the rumors, but, by the time we were back in school, word had it that I'd tried to come onto Pete and wouldn't back off when he turned me down. Depending on who was telling the story, I'd also offered to give him head (and more) in the alley behind the store.
"You know I was upset." I picked up your other hand and pressed your wrists together. I was right: my fingers were long enough to shackle both your wrists. "But now… I guess I feel sorry for the guy."
"Pete? Or Emmett?"
"Pete. Emmett's an asshole."
You pulled your hands from my grip and folded your arms. "Pete's a coward."
"He's scared."
"But you–"
"You see how angry you are right now?" Cheeks flushed, eyes hard, knuckles white, knee bouncing: your anger was written in every line of your body.
You chewed your tongue as I got to my feet. You resisted me at first, shaking your head, but then dropped your arms and let me pull you into a hug. Your fingers twisted the hem of my shirt. Somewhere outside, an owl hooted.
"It's making you so mad, because you want to protect me from their shit. That's why I can feel sorry for Pete. Because his buddies are hateful assholes, and he has to hide who he is from them."
"He should…" You shook your head against my chest.
"He knows, Bella." I'd seen the guilt, the uncertainty on Pete's face as I walked past his idiot friends in the corridors. I ignored the insults they spat at me; he didn't. I could read it in his eyes. He hated what was happening… just not enough to put himself in the line of fire. I didn't hold it against him. Had it been a year or two earlier? Maybe I would've made the same choice.
"And Emmett. He's… he's a bigot and I hate him."
I flinched. Such an ugly word.
"Yeah, well. Sometimes I'd like to punch McCarty in the mouth," I chuckled. "But that's not my style."
You sniffled, but I could hear your smile when you spoke. "Might chip your nail polish."
"Right." I squeezed you closer then let you go. You held on for a another breath before you stepped away.
I looked at the ridiculous acrostic poem half-written on my desk. "The L has to be for loyal."
Touching your pinkies to the corners of your eyes, you smiled. "Or loser. Oh, wait." The elbow you aimed at my ribs was gentler than usual. "You're writing it about me."
…
Lost somewhere between my memories and the ink smudged across my page, I hear my phone chine.
Finally, I think. The little sparrow living inside the birdhouse of my ribcage wakes up, fluttering its wings and hopping around on its perch.
But the text is just from my mom. The sparrow settles, tucks its head beneath its wing.
Mom: Meeting ran late. Going for drinks w/ C. Be home v. late.
C?
Carlisle. Right.
"That's going to end badly." I toss my phone down without replying.
I've only met Carlisle twice, and the guy has douche written all over him.
…
The first time he'd come over—he had some documents that needed Mom's signature—you were curled up beside me on the sofa in a pair of shorts with your hair tied in a bunch on top of your head. It was Halloween and we were watching Love Actually because that's what you do: romantic comedies on Halloween and horror films on Valentine's Day and sweet-and-salty popcorn on every occasion. The creep couldn't keep his eyes off your legs as he waited for Mom to scrawl her name in the appropriate places.
The time after that, it had been almost eight o'clock when I opened the door, expecting you and finding him instead.
"You're up late, kid." The guy was wearing sunglasses. At eight o'clock at night.
"Your mom home?" He grinned at me as he flipped his shades up onto his head. Weirdly, the skinny-jeans-and-bowtie combo made him seem uncomfortably middle-aged instead of hipster-trendy. Shirt a little too loose, jeans a little too long: he looked like he was playing dress-up in a younger, but bigger, brother's clothes.
I grunted and opened the door enough to let him in. Immature maybe, but I could play uncommunicative teenager when I wanted. Kid. What an asshole.
"Your girl not around tonight?"
"Mom's in the kitchen," I told him, turning to head back to my room. I ignored him thanking me as I thundered back up the stairs.
You never did show up that night. At school the next morning you explained that your parents had grounded you for talking back to your dad and calling him sexist.
"He calls it 'traditional,'" you told me, shoving books into your locker. "Anyway, I'm just going through a phase."
"Something else you'll grow out of?" It was your dad's usual line when your ideologies were out of step with his.
"Yep." You slammed the metal door closed with a clang. "Once I'm out there in the real world, I'll realize the idea that women should get equal pay for the same job is just juvenile nonsense."
I chuckled. "Seriously. You need to grow the hell up."
Not long after that, you wrote an essay on the subject, and got an A for it. We stuck it on your refrigerator, in the middle of all the twins' artwork and perfect spelling tests, and your dad laughed when he saw it hanging there.
"An A for one of your little rants?" He took it down, flipped through the pages. "Looks like a woman's writing."
"I'll let Mr. Greene know that you think so." You grabbed my elbow and pulled me out of the kitchen. A reminder to keep the bedroom door open chased us up the stairs.
…
I'm smiling as I look out the window. The house next door is outlined in twinkling lights and a column of smoke rises from the chimney, smudging the night sky.
Where are you now? I slide my fingers through my hair. I really need to shower.
Yawning, I get to my feet and head for the bathroom.
The shower is hot enough to turn my skin red under the spray. I wash my hair and my face, swipe a finger under my eye to make sure all the eyeliner's gone, then scrawl your name on the fogged-over glass.
B
E
L
L
A
Words eddy in my mind like the steam in the shower stall: Bold. Loyal. Beautiful. Brave. Exquisite. Adventurous. Brilliant. Love.
Love.
My stomach tightens.
I draw a heart around your name. It's lopsided, the left side bigger than the right.
I laugh at myself and wipe the glass clean, then shut off the water.
By the time I'm dry and dressed, it's almost nine o'clock. Your curfew is nine-thirty. The sparrow ruffles its feathers. I'm certain I'll hear from you then.
…
