The Beautiful Between - Alyssa B. Sheinmel [24]
If I look plain enough, then it won’t look like anything out of the ordinary has happened. But then I think, as I pull my hair into a ponytail, as I deliberately avoid the mascara next to the bathroom sink, that maybe this is too plain. I don’t want Jeremy to think that I don’t care. I want him to know that I understand he was talking about Kate—that I understand him and I know how much this matters. So I put on some lip gloss, but only a little, because I also don’t want him to think this is somehow exciting to me; that I’m curious, selfish, longing for gossip. And certainly the right outfit can’t help me figure out what I’m supposed to say to him.
There is no right way to handle this situation.
Physics is first period. Jeremy is never early to class like I am. They don’t let us into the science classrooms until the teacher shows up, because there are Bunsen burners and all kinds of chemicals in there, and I guess they’re worried about what we’ll touch. So it’s me and the early nerds waiting outside the room for Mr. Kreel, ready to rush in and get the good seats. I’m staring at my feet, and for the first time I think that maybe it’s strange that our school is carpeted.
By the time Jeremy gets to class, I’m sitting perched in the second row, my notebook and pen at the ready, and the teacher is at the front of the room, waiting for everyone to settle down. It’s only the cool kids who wait until the last minute to settle. I swing my legs back and forth on the stool, but then I realize I’m irritating everyone else in my row, so I stop. But then I start clicking my pen so the tip comes in and out, which is probably even more irritating.
Jeremy sits behind me like he always does, so I don’t see his face until class is over and we’re packing up. I’m in full panic mode because nothing that Mr. Kreel said today made sense to me. I want to ask Jeremy for help, but I’m also scared to talk to him, because I don’t know the right things to say.
But he leaves the room without looking at me. I watch his back. How can he be so calm when I’m so nervous? I’ve been so worried all morning about looking, saying, and doing the right thing that I haven’t even thought about my father, and that seems wrong too. I should care about what I now know: he was ill. There was no terrible fall, no fatal accident: he was sick. He was sick, and I think the only reason Jeremy sought me out in the lunchroom that day was because whatever he had is like whatever Kate has and Jeremy thought there might be some wisdom I could impart about how you get through the death of a loved one. He never thought I was cool; he never cared about helping me with physics. That doesn’t make me angry; he was looking for help from me. But I was two years old; a two-year-old doesn’t even know enough to know that she’s getting through something. And I’m just as clueless now. At sixteen, I still haven’t gotten past what happened to my father. How can I have gotten past it when I don’t know what it is?
I think that whatever’s wrong with Kate can somehow tell me what was wrong with my dad.
At lunch, Jeremy finds me at the usual table. I’m waiting for him; I have my physics book with me in case we start working. I hurried so I’d be here if he came looking for me. I didn’t even grab food. Now that he’s here, I realize I’m starving and glance hungrily at the bagel table.
“Sternin. Still no Alexis?” He sits beside me.
“Nope.”
“Well, rehab, you know. She’ll be back in twenty-eight days.”
“That’s the standard. Of course, the really sick ones stay longer.”
“Of course.”
Neither of us thinks this banter is particularly funny, since neither of us thinks that Alexis had a drug problem. I decide to test the waters.
“It’s hard, you know, to see someone making herself sick like that when there are people we love who didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
I can’t believe I really just said that. I certainly don’t mean it. But I go on.
“Maybe,” I continue, “that’s why we’re so fascinated by her when everyone else needs to think it was a drug problem, you know?”
Jeremy shrugs. “Listen,