Part 14 (1/2)
”Why does everyone hate Damian? It's like the whole school is out to get him!” I snarl.
”Cora, I don't know what you're talking about, but no one is out to get Damian. I just saw you two dancing and thought maybe something had happened between you.” Helenas blue eyes are flas.h.i.+ng with hurt and frustration.
”Helena, I'm sorry,” I sigh. ”I just... We're friends, and after I danced with him, my supposed best friend reamed me out for it,”
”Oh,” Helena says, her mouth pursed. ”What a jerk!”
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”Yeah, well...” I don't know what to say. Helena puts her arm around my shoulder and draws me into an embrace. Even though she's older, she's shorter than I am and slight, and so it feels like being hugged by a fairy, and in her sea-colored blue dress of filmy organza with iridescent beads sewn onto it, she looks like she could be a water nymph. ”Hey, you look really pretty,” I tell her as I pull back.
”Thanks,” she says, smiling, then peering at me searchingly. ”Are you all right?”
”Yes, really, I'm fine. Thank you. Thank you for listening and for -- caring.”
”Look, I don't know Damian that well,” she begins, ”but he's always seemed like a nice guy to me. Trouble, maybe, but not a bad guy. You know?” she says. She squeezes my hand then ducks into the girls' room. Turning back to me, she calls, ”I have to get back soon; Cam awaits. Have a good night, Cor, and don't be sad!”
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Chapter Nine.
The viciousness of my exchange with Rachel at the dance plays itself over and over again in my mind. I am lying in bed, blanket pulled to my chin. I threw my beautiful green dress on the floor, where it remains, crumpled like a piece of garbage. Part of me aches to pick up the phone and call her, to make up and take back all the hurtful things I said. But as the cruelty of her part in the fight comes back to me, I get burned up with anger again.
Are people really calling me a freak? Do I look or act like a freak? The word itself sounds scary, sick. Freak, It is an ugly word. There's so much malice in it, in people's voices when they speak it.
Freak. The way the mouth puckers, like it's filled with revulsion or loathing, to form the f the disgust that gets spit out with the final hard k. I roll the shape of the word around in my mouth, and my eyes narrow with the long e.
And a baby. Because I don't want to dress up and hang around with the Nasties and wear makeup and hook up? Does 145.
this also brand me a freak? If it does, so be it. I'm not ready. For any of it.
I shudder. I've become an object of disdain, of hatred, maybe. Does death mark those it touches this way? Are the real victims of Nate's accident those of us who were left to survive him?
My thoughts turn to Damian, whose life was also turned upside down since Nate's death. He and Nate worked so hard over the past three years to make sure no one knew about their artwork. Why? Why didn't they want anyone to know what they did, what they cared about?
I can't imagine life without my art. It would feel so empty. Barren and cold and terrible, like that Siberian tundra. I reach under my bed and slide out the bundle of Nate's watercolor paintings. Leafing through them, I study the delicate splashes of line and color. I pause when I come to an image of a young woman staring out a window. It is a portrait of Julie. Her profile is rendered with such grace and care. There's something about the edge of her nose, the hint of eyelashes, and a wistful-ness in her bearing. Nate captured her humanity, her very humanness, with so much longing and desire and hope. Sometimes I feel I am filled with hope. Had Nate been hopeful? I can't be sure. He was so angry all the time.
Maybe boys just don't manage it as well, don't handle all the pain and worry and need as well as girls do. It's frightening facing the fact that things may or may not work out as you'd 146.
like them to. I figure all I can do is hope that life will turn out the way I want it to be, that I will turn out to be who I want to be, that I'll accomplish all that I want to do. That someday I'll reach a point where all the wis.h.i.+ng and dreaming and hoping finishes in something grand. And hope is a flimsy thing. So maybe boys don't deal with the unpredictability, the capriciousness of hope as well as girls do.
Oh, I do not want to be trapped in this tiny town, watching tiny football games with the same people year after year, with no chance to see what lies beyond the highway, beyond the county road. Was Nate afraid of this, too? Is Damian scared, as well? Is everybody in the whole world walking around feeling frightened all the time? Full of the sense that life promises so many possibilities, yet we're totally petrified of missing them, at the same time? I suspect that this might be the case.
Nothing would be more dreadful than being stuck in Lincoln Grove for the rest of my life -- like my parents. I have to get out. I have to get to London. I stand up, filled up with resolution. My mom has to see. Has to be convinced. But what can I do to change her mind? Is it hopeless? My dad will certainly be of no help -- his silence is worse than my mother's shrill anger, her bitterness, her fear.
I need to talk to someone about all of this. I need help. I need to get out of this house. With a deep breath, I reach for my cell phone and again thank Damian silently for 147.
programming his number into it. Will he think it's weird that I'm calling him now -- after the dance? I begin to dial.
”h.e.l.lo?” His voice sounds m.u.f.fled, gruff.
”Dannan? Hi, it's me, Cora,” I say.
”Hey, what's up?” he answers. He sounds happy to hear from me, I think -- or, at least he doesn't sound horrified.
”Hey, um, I wondered if you would meet me at the diner? I just.. ”Just what? I have no idea. ”I guess I just want to talk to someone. To you.” Ah, I am such a dolt! ”I'm sorry. I'm just...”
”No problem. I can meet you. Twenty minutes?”
”Sounds great,” I reply, very relieved. I open my window, look out on the roof and down at the ground below. I've never snuck out this way before, but my mom is still roving around in the kitchen. I hear her opening cabinets and running water in the sink, I think of Nate, how carelessly he pulled himself out through the window. Then, carefully, nervously, I throw one leg over the windowsill and pull my body through the window after it. Have I joined Nate's rebel ranks? Or maybe I'm already way past that point.
Balanced on the roof, I have plenty of room, but my knees are knocking. My whole body is shaking, actually. I teeter down the length of the roof until I come to the gutter. I hook my arms and legs around the pipe and let myself slide to the ground. All together it isn't more than a twelve-foot drop. I land easily and, brus.h.i.+ng off the front of my coat and pajama bottoms, I look around, checking to make sure I haven't caught 148.
my parents' attention, then I sprint down the driveway, toward the diner.
Twenty-three minutes later, Damian and I are tucked into a booth at the back of the diner on Union Street. The orange-and-yellow vinyl benches are cracked and stained. The smell of cleaning fluids and grease and stale coffee coats the red formica table, the long countertop, the air.
I swirl a straw around in my chocolate shake, watching the milk froth and mix with the ice cream. I glance up quickly and find Damians steady gray eyes on me. I look down into my shake again. He is drinking coffee: one sugar, no milk. He's so much more grown up than I am.
”So, what's up?” Damian asks casually, curiosity leaking into his voice.
”I'm not sure,” I respond. ”I'm just having all these thoughts about Nate and my parents and what I want to do. And I don't know what to think.” I stop to take a sip of my milk shake.
”Well, what are you thinking exactly?” Damian prods.
The thick shake travels up the straw slowly, and I wince when it finally fills my mouth, the cold sending a shot of dull pain to the center of my forehead. Brain freeze ... how appropriate. I shake my head, then, as the pain subsides, I speak quietly. ”I'm thinking that I have to get out of here, but I'm too much of a wimp, a coward, to do anything about it.”
”Okay, start from the beginning,” Damian directs with a half grin.
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”The beginning? I don't even know where that is anymore. But I can start here: Remember how Ms. Calico told us about some summer art programs?” I wait for him to nod yes. ”Well, she wants to recommend me for one. She gave me the application and everything. They have a cla.s.s on mapmaking. All expenses are paid except for the travel -- meals, housing, everything.”
”Sounds good so far,” he says questioningly.
”Yeah, well, the catch is the program is in London. And there is no way my parents will ever, ever let me go. Not in a million years.” A heavy sigh escapes me.
A sigh is like a salty yellow triangle.
”Are you sure? Did you ask?”
”Yes, I asked. But really, does it surprise you? My mom doesn't want to let me out of the house, out of her sight. I'm lucky she hasn't started home schooling me. Ever since -- you know -- it's like she's convinced I'm going to do something stupid, something dangerous -- something unlike anything I've ever done before in the fourteen years of my life.”
”Well, you have gotten in a car with me. She probably wasn't prepared for that one,” Damian adds, his grin widening.