Speechless

It’s less nauseating to think about flowery vaginas than it is to focus on what I am so acutely aware of—Sam’s very, very near proximity. But as Ms. Kinsey drones on (and on, and on, and on), I can’t help but wonder if he’s going to try anything. At any moment he could make a nasty comment, tell me to fuck off and die, or do something worse, like mess with my stuff. Or with me. The art room has plenty of arsenal: scissors, permanent markers, superglue, X-Acto knives. Oh, God, I didn’t even think about X-Acto knives. I’m going to have to channel Jason Bourne now if I want to survive high school. Assess the situation! Know your exits! Everything is a weapon!

If I’m lucky, Sam’ll just give me the cold shoulder like everyone else. Even though I don’t know him very well—or at all, really, aside from sharing a few choice classes over the years—he’s never come across as a particularly potent brand of douche bag. But then, neither did Derek, so what do I know about anything?

When Sam’s elbow accidentally knocks against mine, I nearly jump out of my skin. So much for playing it cool. He glances at me with big blue eyes, clearly surprised by my crazy overreaction, but doesn’t say anything. I blush and try to return my attention to whatever Ms. Kinsey’s still discussing.

“…and four weeks from now we’ll have the presentations,” she says.

Oh, right, the project. I’m looking forward to it so much I could just shoot myself in the face in anticipation. Ms. Kinsey beams brightly at me, and I struggle to look less outwardly like I feel, which at the moment is borderline suicidal.

“So why don’t you go ahead and partner up, and you can start deciding who you want to choose as your subject.”

Wait. Partners? What?

Please, please, please tell me I heard that wrong.

I didn’t. Everyone in the classroom shuffles around, making the migration to other workstations, meeting up with the partners they arranged via silent hand signals and elbow nudging during Ms. Kinsey’s ramble. Everyone except me, of course. And, oddly enough, Sam. I notice he hasn’t moved from his spot. Doesn’t he have friends?

I try to remember who I’ve seen him with in the past. Noah, mostly. And I know they hung out with a lot of groups, but I can’t think of any specific one—they’re not art freaks, or super academics, or straight edge, or burnouts. I’ve seen them both skateboarding, but they don’t hang out with the skaters, either. Definitely not the jocks, even though Noah plays soccer. They just…floated from group to group. Somehow they still managed to be friends with practically everyone. Cool but still accessible. Which is the reason Noah was allowed to come to the party in the first place.

I chance a glance at Sam as he drums his fingers on the countertop. He sees me watching and stops abruptly.

“Uh…” he starts to say. He looks everywhere else before he settles his gaze on me, and then he does the hair rubbing thing again, like it’s a nervous tic. “It looks like everyone else paired off. Guess that leaves us.”

Sam doesn’t look happy about it, but he isn’t looking at me like he wants to stab me in the face with his pencil, either, which isn’t something I can claim with the least bit of confidence for anyone else in this class. If he can handle this, so can I.

He flicks open his sketchbook to a fresh page. I notice there are a bunch of other drawings on the ones before it, but he flips past them too fast for me to see what they are.

“I don’t know if you had any ideas,” he says, “but I was thinking maybe something more modern. Like Salvador Dali.” He writes the name down on the pad.

I’m not really crazy about the idea of recreating dreamscapes with melting clock faces—that is way beyond my skill level—so I make an apathetic face at the suggestion.

Sam notices my unenthused expression and mutters, “Or not,” crossing out the name sharply. He drops the pen onto the sketchpad and looks me straight in the eye. “You know, I realize this isn’t exactly a dream collaboration for either of us, but it’d be nice if you’d contribute a little something more than a judgmental glare.”

I’m considering how to respond to this without actually responding when Ms. Kinsey flutters over to our station. She looks over Sam’s shoulder at our blank page of brainstorms.

“Need any help?” she asks.

We both shake our heads.

“Think we can handle it,” he tells her, but he doesn’t sound like he believes it.

“I just want you to know,” she says to me, “that I am very much willing to work around your spiritual commitment. All I ask is that you find another way to participate if you aren’t going to speak. Use your imagination! Be creative!”

From the way she says it, I can only assume she’s expecting me to break into an interpretive dance for our presentation. Which is just not going to happen in this lifetime. Or any other.

I give her a thumbs-up that far overstates my enthusiasm for her suggestion, and Sam looks at me with raised eyebrows.

“‘Spiritual commitment’?” he echoes, bemused.

“You didn’t tell him?” Ms. Kinsey says. “Well, of course you didn’t tell him!” She laughs at her own joke, turning to Sam with a big smile. “Chelsea here has taken an oath of silence.”

“You’ve—what?” He gapes at me like a floundering fish, processing this piece of information, and then turns to Ms. Kinsey. “How am I supposed to do a project with someone who won’t talk?”

“There are many forms of communication,” she says airily. “I know you’ll find a way to make it work while still respecting her spiritual beliefs.” She pats him on the shoulder, sauntering off as he stares after her with an annoyed look.

I grab the pen from him, scratch out a sentence on the clean sheet and hold up the pad.

I’m silent, not stupid.

“Yeah, okay, if you say so.” He snatches back the notebook. “Let’s just get this over with.”

We spend the rest of the period going back and forth, trying to brainstorm artists, Sam voicing his ideas and me writing down mine. He doesn’t once stray from the topic at hand, and I’m certainly not about to bring Noah’s name into the conversation. Sam was right; we just need to plow through this and get it done.

Eventually we settle on Jackson Pollack (my idea). I think it’s a solid choice—Sam likes modern art, and I like the idea of doing something easy like indiscriminately slashing paint across a canvas. But when at the end of class we go to inform Ms. Kinsey of our selection, she tells us someone else in the class has beaten us to the punch.

“I’m sorry,” she says with a frown, glancing down at her notebook, “but it looks like you’ll have to come up with someone else.” The bell rings, and she smiles again. “Oh, by the way, Chelsea, would you stay for a moment? I have something for you.”

I nod, surprised, and Sam looks at me and shrugs.

“We’ll talk about the project later,” he says. He rolls his eyes. “Or, I guess, not talk. Whatever.”

After everyone has shuffled out of the room, Ms. Kinsey goes to one of the supply cabinets and pulls out a small whiteboard and a dry-erase marker. She hands both to me and says, “I was thinking this might solve some of your communication hurdles.”

I’m touched by the gesture. I uncap the marker and write Thank you on the board.

“You’re very welcome, Chelsea,” she says. “But keep in mind I’m not technically allowed to just give school supplies away, especially with the art budget being what it is. So consider it a loan.” She smiles, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder. “Until you find your voice again.”

* * *

I’m almost late to detention because I’m too busy scrubbing the vandalism off my locker. All I have is a wet paper towel and hand soap, and the marker’s dried already, so it’s slow going. After some time I’ve rubbed it off enough so that there are only a few black smears left. Not perfect, but it’ll have to do.

When I get to the detention room to sign in, I immediately spot Brendon Ryan sitting in the front row. I’m surprised by his presence—Brendon is hardly the detention type. All the teachers adore him, just like the rest of the world. He looks just as startled when he meets my eye, blinking a few times before his mouth twitches into a half smile. He’s probably amused by the memory of how I acted on New Year’s Eve, the pinnacle of pathetic drunken desperation. Still, I can’t help it; my heart flips in my chest at the sight of him, the way it has for the past year, the way it has as long as I’ve been stupidly in love with him and his stupid face.

The problem, of course, is that Brendon’s face isn’t stupid at all. It’s gorgeous. Like the sort of Abercrombie model, statuesque perfection that would leave Michelangelo in tears. I want to lick his high-set cheekbones. I want to run my hands over his chest to see if it’s as hard as it looks. I don’t even want to make out with him—I mean, I do, obviously, of course, but really I’d settle for just tracing his perfect lips with my finger. Or running my hands through his gorgeous blond hair over and over for hours. Or—

Okay, this could go on, but I’m actually starting to creep myself out, and the point remains. Brendon is gorgeous, and even more so because he doesn’t seem to notice exactly how good-looking he is. Maybe he just doesn’t care. He’s that fucking cool.

I tear my eyes off him and hastily duck into a seat on the other side of the room, way in the back row, next to a short, petite Indian girl with long, black hair that falls all the way to her waist. There’s a lone apple sitting in the middle of her desk. I watch as she stares at it intently for almost a full minute, then reaches out and rotates it about forty-five degrees to her right. A minute later, after some more staring, she spins the apple slightly again.

What a freak.

I turn my attention back to Brendon. My enormous crush on him might’ve meant something a few weeks ago. Actually things had been going well in that arena—up until Kristen’s party. I could tell he wanted to kiss me that night. Um, before I ran upstairs to puke, that is, and instead stumbled into Kristen’s guest room. Before I decided to out Noah to everyone within earshot. Brendon’s body language was clear as day. He was totally into me.

Probably.

It doesn’t matter now. He’s just like everyone else; I might as well not exist, unless someone needs a spitball/eraser/pencil/food/sexual harassment target.

That doesn’t stop me from spending all of detention staring at the back of his dumb/gorgeous blond head, willing him to turn around and smile at me, which is one of my most absurd fantasies. Right up there with owning a pet unicorn or marrying Prince Harry. It’s just never going to happen. I don’t know why I’m torturing myself like this. I’m such a masochist.

I take out a notebook and a pen and doodle the outlines of models, drawing different dresses—some of them angular with low necklines, others with big, swooping skirts. My mind and eyes keep wandering back to Brendon, though, and soon enough my outfit doodles turn into me doodling a trail of broken hearts along the margin. When I realize what I’m doing, I stop myself and scratch the hearts out so hard my pen tip almost tears through the paper, my display of aggression causing the girl next to me to glance over. I ignore her and rip the page clean out of the notebook, crumple it in my fist and shove it into my backpack.

There are only two and a half years left of high school. I can make it alone. Once I graduate, I’ll never have to see any of these losers ever again. I will find a way to move to a new, big city where no one knows who I am or what I’ve done, leave all this behind me, and become the fashion designer I’ve always dreamed of being. I’ll be able to block Kristen and Noah and this entire mess from memory.

Until then, I will just show up and shut up and grit my teeth and get through this. Whatever it takes.

* * *

“She needs to see a doctor,” my mother says at dinner.

Of course that’s what she says. Therapy is my mother’s solution to everything. I’m sure she thinks there’d be peace in the Middle East if every country were forced to sit down on a stiff leather couch with a box of Kleenex and talk about their feeeeelings.

Actually…has anyone tried that yet?

Ever since my mother got home from work, she’s been hounding me. Ms. Davidson made good on her threat and apparently spoke to her about my insubordination issues. She also recommended counseling. I’m not crazy; I’m perceptive. What comes out of my mouth is the root of my problems, so the solution is for nothing to come out. Ms. Davidson said I couldn’t shut out the world, but my question is, why can’t I do just that? It’s what the world wants. It’s the only way to keep myself out of trouble.

Mom probably wouldn’t be on my back so much if I’d just owned up and confessed my true motivations behind the vow, but instead I’m passing it off to my parents as an experiment. It’s just the easier explanation, and I know if I was honest, she’d take it as some personal parental failure even though it has nothing to do with her. I can tell she doesn’t believe me, though, by the way she’s staring like I’ll crack under the pressure of her intent gaze if she just waits long enough.

I sigh loud enough to get my father’s attention and roll my eyes, just to garner some jeez, this isn’t a big deal, must be Mom’s time of the month again, huh? solidarity. It works like a charm. He cracks a small smile at me.

“Isn’t sighing almost the same as speaking?” he teases.

I scribble on the whiteboard Ms. Kinsey gave me—the one I’ve resolved to cart around with me at all times—and show it to him. My vow, my rules.

He chuckles. “Fair enough.”

“Frank,” Mom says warningly. She hates when he humors me. She’s not big on humor in general, really. She’s into managing a floral shop, which is what she does for a living. And being a florist is very serious business in her world. God forbid you don’t discuss the art of flower arrangements with the utmost reverence.

“I don’t see the big problem,” Dad replies. “I think it’s important to nurture creativity, and if this is how Chelsea decides to…express herself, then we should be supportive.”

I smile at him to show I appreciate his principled stand, even though I was banking on it all along. See, Dad has this stiff office job where he wears a suit and sits in the most depressing cubicle ever for eight hours a day and tries to sell office chairs over the phone to people who don’t want to buy anything in this economy anyway. He’s got to hate it. I’ve seen pictures of him when he was my age; he rocked long hair and wore these crazy sunglasses and played drums in a band. There’s even this cassette tape of their recordings he keeps in his closet. I listened to it once, but it was all endless jamming that can only sound genius if you’re seriously stoned. All of the lyrics revolved around a) getting high and b) sticking it to The Man. He’s still a hippie at heart, and as someone who went from fighting The Man to working for him, I’m sure he secretly thinks my vow is “rad” or whatever slang word he thinks is hip.

“‘Expressing herself’? How? By not expressing herself at all?” Mom harrumphs and drops her forkful of tofurkey. I swear I’m the only kid not on television who is actually subjected to the evils of tofu on a regular basis. My mother’s been having a two-year-long love affair with organic foods. It’s tragic. For me, I mean. “That’s it. I’m scheduling an appointment with Dr. Gebhart tomorrow,” she declares.

“Irene, come on. It’s just a harmless social experiment,” Dad says. “It’s a phase. She’ll get over it soon enough. Why not let her have a little fun?”

“This isn’t her ‘having fun.’ It certainly isn’t healthy behavior,” she insists.

I really hate how they’re talking about me like I’m not in the room. I pick up the board and write, I’m sitting right here you know.

Ooh, on second thought, maybe not a smart move. Because now that Mom is looking at me, she’s really looking at me.

“If you choose not to act like an adult,” she says with a cool stare, “you do not get to partake in adult conversations.”

And you know, that’s the last straw. There’s only so much condescension one girl can take in a day before reaching her breaking point.

I slam my chair back from the table so hard all the dishes rattle, and then storm up the stairs to my room, making sure to stomp as hard as I can on each step. It’s very six-years-old of me, I realize, and probably won’t help my “please stop treating me like a damn child” case, but I’m too pissed and upset to care. God, everything just sucks today.

As I go to shut my door, I hear Mom and Dad downstairs, arguing. I listen just long enough to hear my name thrown around before flinging myself dramatically onto the bed and staring at the ceiling. When I was thirteen, Dad painted it dark blue and stuck on those glow-in-the-dark plastic stars, so when all the lights are off, it’s like being in a planetarium. A pretty crappy imitation of a planetarium, but whatever. I count each one and list something that is pissing me off: Lowell. Derek. Mrs. Finch. Tofu. My mom. Jell-O shots. Warren. Joey. Whoever invented markers. The list of everything I hate at this very moment could fill an entire galaxy.

I can’t help but wonder what Kristen is doing right now. And how she is, really. Is she upset? Is she worried about Warren? Has she cried? Is she thinking about me? Or was I ever really only a placeholder, someone completely disposable, like Natalie said?

I’m not great at a lot, but I’m good at being Kristen’s friend. Or, I was, until I messed it all up for myself on a stupid whim. I liked it, being in her orbit. Girls wanted to be us. Guys wanted to date us. Even those who hated us wanted a look. I loved that, loved that I mattered, that people were jealous. I loved turning heads. It didn’t matter if most of them were looking at Kristen; I was in their line of vision, and that totally counted for something. Being on the radar at all. It made me more than average. It was everything to me.

I don’t know who I am without Kristen. I don’t know if I want to find out.

I’m interrupted from my thoughts by a knock at the door. Obviously I don’t answer, so it opens on its own. I twist around to see Dad in the doorway.

He hovers for a minute and then clears his throat. “Hey, kid. Can I come in?”

I nod. He walks across the room and sits at the foot of the bed, pushing my feet to one side for room. I lie there and look at him. His shoulders have this tired slump to them, and there are tired lines around his eyes. He looks old. Drained. It makes me wonder how he ever had the energy to do things like paint my ceiling.

“How was school?” he asks softly.

I shrug, pulling my sleeves over my hands. I’m not going to burden him with my problems. This is my hill to climb alone.

“Don’t worry about your mother. I talked her down from siccing Dr. Gebhart on you. You have to understand, she’s just worried,” he says. He puts his hand on my shoe and squeezes. “And I worry, too. Things have been stressful lately. For all of us.”

Is Noah’s father doing the same thing right now, sitting by his bedside and offering comfort? Did he even know his son was gay before I said anything? Does it matter to him?

I fish the whiteboard from the floor where I’d dropped it.

Would you care if I was gay? I write.

Dad blinks a few times. “Are you? Is that what this—?”

I tap the board again with my marker tip. I want to hear his answer first.

“No,” he says quickly. “Of course not. Who you love…that isn’t important. It doesn’t change who you are, or how much we love you. Nothing could change that.”

I knew that’s what he’d say. Still, it feels nice to hear it regardless.

I erase the board and write, I’m not gay. But I’m glad it wouldn’t matter.

He looks at it and smiles a little. “We just want you to be happy. You know that, right?”

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

I nod, and he drops a kiss on my forehead, sets his palm flat on the top of my head for a moment before he starts to leave. “Stay sweet,” he says on his way out, the same thing he always says to me. He hesitates, lingering at the doorway. “What happened to that boy… You did the right thing, Chelsea.”

I feel like such an idiot. I don’t even care if I did the right thing—it doesn’t feel like the right thing. It feels like I screwed myself over. One stupid moment of fleeting conscience and I’ve lost all I care about. Maybe I could try groveling for forgiveness, hope it would get me back into everyone’s good graces, but the thought of it alone is nauseating. Natalie might think I’m just Kristen’s little minion, but I’m not.

I don’t know exactly what I am, but I’m more than that. I know that much.

day two

The next day, Mrs. Finch issues me another pretty pink detention slip. She also keeps me after class because I clearly have not been berated by her enough. I wait until the rest of the students have cleared the room before I reluctantly walk over to her desk.

“Chelsea, I obviously can’t force you to participate in class,” she says, “but for every day you refuse to contribute, I can—and will—give you a detention.” She pauses to press her lips together for a moment. “Do you understand?”

I stare at her stony-faced.

She sighs with a curt nod. “Very well, then.”

If Mrs. Finch thinks the threat of detention is enough to deter me, she really doesn’t understand the scope of my stubborn streak.

No Brendon in detention this time, but the Indian girl from yesterday is there again. I sign in and sit down next to her. Today she has a single orange on her desk, but she isn’t looking at it. Instead she’s knitting something out of teal and purple yarn while reading a folded up newspaper. The only other person I know who knits is my grandma Doris. But this girl is good at it; she moves the needles in smooth, quick motions, in and out, in and out, not even looking down at her work as she reads. It’s oddly fascinating to watch.

I pull out my geometry assignment and get to work. Or I plan to, anyway, except five and a half problems in, the numbers start blurring together. I end up doodling spirals all over the page while I stare into space. I don’t mind detention, really. It’s boring, yeah, but it’s not like I have anything better to do. There could be way worse punishments. Mrs. Finch can suck it.

The girl next to me shifts in her seat, the chair legs scraping against the floor, and I glance up just in time to see the orange roll off her desk and toward mine. I put my foot out to stop it, then bend down, pick it up and extend it back to the girl.

“Thank you,” she says brightly. She takes it from me and peers at my open textbook. “Hmm. Asymptotes are so depressing.”

I stare at her, trying to figure out if she’s actually serious. She looks like she is.

“The curve goes toward the line, you know, and they get closer and closer, but they never get to touch,” she explains. She shrugs. “It’s just sad, is all.” She holds out the fruit. “You want my orange?”

I shake my head. The detention teacher shoots us a stern glare from behind her book.

“I’m Asha,” the girl hisses out of the side of her mouth, when the teacher’s buried her nose back in her trashy romance novel.

I look back down at my textbook, pretending to be absorbed in the nonsensical formulas and graphs displayed before me, but I can feel her gaze on me, like she’s expecting a response. I consider ignoring her; it’s what I would’ve done before. Normally I wouldn’t bother with some geeky freshman loser dressed in the most unfortunate fuzzy purple sweater I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t associate with freaks.

Except this particular freak won’t stop staring at me, and it’s a chore to act like I’m concentrating on this math homework, so I write I’m Chelsea on the whiteboard and slide it to the corner of the desk so she can see. Maybe now she’ll leave me alone.

Asha nods knowingly. “I know. I’ve heard of you,” she whispers.

Oh, great. Is she going to give me a hard time, too? Even the freaks hate me.