Chapter Nine – The First Misunderstanding
"Lizzie's all upset because Frank is treating her like she doesn't even exist," Alex told Bobby. He was pushing her on the swing at the park again. "And after he kissed her, she thought that he really liked her…"
Bobby didn't answer. How could he possibly explain that Frank was leaving Lizzie alone because he did actually like her? Frank had been going on about some girl named Marcy, and Bobby had asked him, "But what about Lizzie? I thought you liked her?"
"I told you," Frank had huffed impatiently. "Lizzie's looking for a boyfriend. That's not me. Now Marcy… she can show a guy a good time."
"You mean… uh…"
"And she's got big titties," Frank had added.
Bobby had let the subject drop after that. He was not interested in a tale involving Marcy and her 'big titties', although Frank relayed it to his father on a rare occasion he was home. Their father had encouraged him in pursuing this girl. Bobby would have preferred that Frank instead perfected his 'boyfriend' skills, and started seeing Lizzie. Maybe he just didn't know enough about the world yet, as his brother did. He was constantly being told that he read too much.
"Life isn't a fairy tale, little brother," Frank reminded him regularly. Bobby already knew that. But he didn't see why they couldn't at least tryto make it different.
"Hey!" Alex said, drawing Bobby back to the present. "Are you listening to me?"
"Sorry," Bobby replied.
"That's okay," she replied. "I wasn't saying anything important anyway."
Something about her tone of voice made him frown. "Is everything alright, Alex?" he asked.
"Oh, sure," she replied unconvincingly. Bobby felt guilt wash over him. She had been trying to tell him something important and he hadn't been paying attention.
"Please tell me," he begged.
"Why should I?" she snapped, suddenly irritated. "You never tell me anything."
"That's not true!" Bobby said.
"Oh yeah?" Alex asked. She was really fired up now. Bobby had learned over the past four years that Alex became angry and defensive when she was upset. He tried not to get too angry with her now. "Well how about this – I'll tell me what's bothering me if you tell me what's bothering you," she snapped. She began pumping her legs even harder. Her feet nearly collided with his face as the swing came back towards him.
He stepped aside and contemplated her proposal. What could he tell her? That he had seen his father with his hands up 'Mrs. Across the Street's' shirt two nights ago? That last week his mother had sent him sprawling down the stairs in one of her delusions? That by the time he woke up, crumpled in a heap at the foot of the stairs, she had gone? That it took him three hours to finally find her, wandering the streets and warding off imaginary beings with a two-by-four? That rather than help look for his mother, Frank had been out doing drugs with his friends?
He could not tell her any of those things. He didn't want to lie to her, but what choice did he have? So, since he was forced to lie, he told the biggest lie of all. "There's nothing bothering me," he said.
She dug her heels into the ground, stopping the swing. She jumped up and tossed the swing aside, advancing on him. Though he was still bigger than her, he backed up nervously. She stopped when she was right in front of him.
"You. Are. Lying. To. Me," she accused, a pause between each word, making them sharp.
"Alex-"
"Friends don't lie to each other, Bobby," she said. "Especially not best friends."
She waited, her face inches from his, her angry eyes boring into his. He didn't know what to say.
When he hadn't spoken after she glared at him for a time, she said, "If you're going to lie to me, we can't be best friends anymore."
Panic filled him as her words sunk in. She had said it in a deadly calm voice. She was completely serious. He tried to find something to say, anything that would make her change her mind.
When he still hadn't spoken, Alex turned sharply and stomped away. Though her entire body language said 'angry', what she was feeling was hurt. He obviously didn't like her as much as she had thought. She didn't understand that he couldn't possibly explain. She misunderstood his silence, which was due to panic, as meaning that he didn't care. She stomped angrily away to prevent herself from letting her anger give way to sadness. She didn't want to cry.
Watching her leave, Bobby only saw the anger. Obviously their friendship meant more to him than it did to her. He misunderstood her anger, thinking it meant that she didn't care, when in reality it was because she cared a great deal.
He couldn't let her go. He had to stop her – he didn't want to lose her as his best friend! "Wait!" he called desperately.
She did. She stopped, and waited. But he didn't say anything else. He really did try. His mouth moved soundlessly, but he couldn't find the words. In that moment, he wanted to tell her the whole, sorry, tale. He wanted to tell her how his family continued to slip away from him, in different ways, every day. But he had been keeping secrets for too long; he had been withdrawing from others for too long. He couldn't make his mouth utter the thoughts that chased themselves through his mind. The only safe place was in his head, and his voice would not take the risk.
She stood and waited for a long time. Finally, she had to admit that he had nothing to say. Forcing the tears not to fall, she left. He didn't call her back again, though she listened.
He flopped down into the vacated swing. How had things gotten so bad, so quickly? He didn't understand. He just wanted his best friend. He just wanted Alex.
Alex sat in her bedroom that night, clutching her flashlight and staring intently out the window. Come on Bobby, she thought. I'm sorry. It occurred to her now how lacking their flashlight signals really were – no sign for 'I'm sorry'.
If he would just signal her something, anything. Even just telling her he was upset. But he didn't. She waited, her hand clenched around the flashlight, and her eyes swimming with tears. But with each passing minute he didn't communicate, she grew more and more disappointed.
She fell asleep waiting for a sign that never came.
Bobby tapped his flashlight against his leg rhythmically. Please, Alex, he thought. I'm sorry. He resolved that if she ever spoke to him again, they needed to make a flashlight sign for 'I'm sorry'.
He ran through the signs they did have in his mind. Are you awake? No, that wouldn't work. You didn't just ask someone who was your best friend, and now wanted nothing to do with you, if they were awake. See you tomorrow. No, she probably wouldn't want to see him tomorrow. He could send her a smile. But then she might think he was happy that she was angry. He could say he was upset. But there was nothing else she could say to that anyway, and he doubted she'd care. She had been so angry.
Maybe she was in her room right now, laughing at him. Frank sometimes laughed at him when he was upset. Of course, that was usually when Frank was high.
He considered simply turning his flashlight on and making crazy patterns all over her window, but he didn't want to make her even angrier. If she would just send him a signal, then he would respond. But she didn't.
He finally fell asleep very late that night, his flashlight clamped tightly in his hand and held close against him – a lifeline to his friend.
There was nothing else she could think of to do. Alex had squished herself under the fence and wriggled her way into Bobby's backyard. She hadn't used the hole under the fence for some time now, and she was surprised to learn that it was a tight fit. They normally went to the park now.
Alex settled herself against the fence to wait. This way she would see as soon as Bobby left the house, and she could immediately run up to him and apologize. She hoped he wouldn't turn and go right back into the house as soon as he saw her.
The back door opened and Alex looked up expectantly. But it was not Bobby who was leaving the house. It was a man. This must be his father.
Alex knew she wouldn't have time to get back under the fence quickly enough. She hadn't even considered the fact that one of his parents might leave the house out the back door before he did.
The man caught sight of her and frowned. Alex swallowed her nervousness and tried to look braver than she felt. "Hello," she said, and was proud that her voice didn't waver at all.
The man didn't reply. She got up and walked over to him. "I'm waiting for Bobby," she said. As she got closer to him, she tried not to wrinkle her nose. He reeked, and with a smell she knew well. She felt her spine stiffen and had to resist the urge to run away.
"Robert?" the man echoed, as if he was unaware that someone could possibly be interested in speaking with his younger son. "Are you a playmate of his?"
Alex frowned in distaste at the word. She also wanted to protect their 'secret' friendship. Assuming of course, that Bobby didn't hate her now. "My sister knows his brother," Alex explained. "She wanted me to pass on a message." She realized, too late, that he would now question why she was waiting for Bobby instead of Frank.
She was surprised when he said instead, "You're Marcy's sister?"
"Uh, no," Alex replied. "I'm Lizzie's sister."
"Huh," the man replied. "I thought you didn't look much like you could be related to the girl Frank described." The man looked her over, taking in the tangled hair, the baggy t-shirt, the dirt-stained jeans. She wasn't much of a looker, in his opinion.
Alex suddenly felt self-conscious at his staring. She should have brushed her hair before heading over. She brushed some dirt off of her pants while waiting for him to look somewhere else.
William Goren shook his head. It figured that his younger son would hang around with riffraff like this sorry-looking girl. Frank could certainly do much better. Bobby had always been a misfit, like this little tomboy probably was.
"Excuse me, sir?" Alex finally asked when it seemed like he wasn't going to say anything. "Is Bobby home?"
The man spun around and headed for the door. He opened it, leaned in, and bellowed, "ROBERT!"
Alex flinched at his shout. Perhaps it was the smell that clung to him, or the way he glowered at her, or maybe the way he called Bobby Robert. But she didn't like this man.
"ROBERT!" William thundered again when Bobby didn't appear fast enough.
Alex heard scurried footsteps leading to the door. "Yes, sir?" She recognized Bobby's voice. As if he called his father sir! Alex still called her own father Daddy.
"Some ugly little thing's here to see you," William replied, obviously thinking he was speaking quietly enough. He wasn't.
Alex bit her lip and tried not to let his offhand comment get to her. She knew she wasn't as pretty as her mother or sister, but no one had ever called her ugly before. She looked down at the ground.
Bobby poked his head out the door, and felt his heart leap at the sight of her standing there. His joy was diminished as he saw her biting her lip and staring at the ground. She had heard what his father had said.
William had brushed past Bobby into the house. Bobby spun around to shout, "She's NOT ugly!" and slammed the door, which he knew he would pay for later.
Alex looked up at him. Like his father, Bobby looked her over up and down. Unlike his father, he didn't see messy hair or baggy clothes. He saw the familiarity of his best friend, and he didn't think she was ugly at all.
Her eyes met his, and she offered a tentative smile. And then, they had no idea who spoke first, but almost at the same time they said, "I'm sorry!"
She rushed over and hugged him, and he responded in kind. Then, she followed the same routine that had been enforced by her mother when she apologized to her siblings. Saying she was sorry, giving a hug, and then finishing with, "I love you," she said.
The words fell from her lips with ease. She had plenty of opportunities to say those three words. There was no shortage of love in her family. Bobby, on the other hand, was shocked by her utterance. He hadn't had much of a chance to practice these words, and they were spoken by him like a foreign language, "I love you too."
"Can we still be best friends?" she asked.
"Yes," Bobby replied. "Will you still marry me when we're grown up?"
"Of course," she replied, giggling. It had become their practice to joke about the plans they had made when they were four years younger.
And so, in the way that children can, they went back to their friendship as if nothing ever happened. This was the first time a misunderstanding had led to hurt feelings between them, but it wouldn't be the last.
