Finding Mr. Brightside

“Has anyone ever told you that you think too much?” Abram asks.

It must be time for my pill. I pull a tiny fourth from my jeans pocket.

“Didn’t you just take one?”

Yes, but that was a long time ago—several minutes, at least. He looks worried.

“Here,” I say, casually transferring the pill from my hand to his. “To help you get through class.”

He swallows it without a word, tells me he wants to know what it feels like to take what I’m taking. It’s the nicest, most disturbing thing anyone has ever said to me. We walk into class together. Abram pumps his fist that our English teacher, Mr. Pewsey, hasn’t come back from his cig break yet. I spot a familiar pink North Face jacket and a pair of long, ta

I head in her direction, Abram ambling slowly behind. I find her leaning over and flirting with a lacrosse player I don’t approve of. Heidi is perfect just the way she is, except for the Crocs and two more things: 1) Trust issues (she trusts way too many people), and 2) Bad taste in guys. She’s the girl who’d smile and wave when the white van rolled up and the scraggly-haired guy inside who smelled like public-restroom soap offered her a dollar if she’d accompany him to his cabin in the woods. Sure! Mind if my friend Juliette comes, too? she’d reply, as I tackled her away from his extended hand.

I sit down in the desk beside hers and make myself uncomfortable. Abram sits directly behind me.

Heidi turns around, grabs my arm, and says, “We need to talk before Mr. Pussy gets back.”

The nickname is still fu

“Did you remember my te

“Yes,” I lie to her smiling, adorably freckled face that looks like it escaped from a Wendy’s hamburger wrapper. “Not really, no. Where is it again?”

“My house,” she says. “Well, my dad’s house. Should I feel bad for hosting it while he’s out of town?”

“Not when he still owes you for a lifetime of disappointment.”

That came out exactly right, but wrong. Heidi looks less excited about the world now.

“Sorry, Heid.” I sigh. “What can I bring to the party, besides a better attitude?”

“Hard liquor, if you have it,” she says, “and a date.” With a deliberately creepy smile, she nods in Abram’s direction. I pretend not to know what she’s talking about. “Yeah, okay,” Heidi says, letting me play it my way. “Let’s shop online for costumes tonight.”

“Yay.”

Shopping online with Heidi means her hovering over my laptop, talking about “getting deals,” not letting me buy anything cute, and then forcing me to select something from this offbeat clothing store where almost all the inventory is colorful and sporty: her closet. Looks like I’m going as Maria Sharapova, which is fine, since I’m already wearing the bitchy-face part of the costume, 24/7.

I look back to check on Abram, see if he’s having an allergic reaction to the pill I gave him, and maybe watch him do a little homework for the first time. He’s picking a scab on his arm.

I send him a text that says Stop it! and he responds with a winky face. I almost reply that he’s only allowed to text me winky faces when I can relate to the joke, but I have enough dumb rules to keep track of as is. Instead, I send him my specialty: a mixed message.

Come to Heidi’s party with me on Saturday?*

*Please assume I still want to go when I try to cancel. ;/

13

ABRAM

THINGS WERE GOING so well until Juliette avoided her locker for the rest of the week, instead choosing to lug around her entire textbook collection from room to room, walking faster whenever she pretended not to hear me calling out for her. I didn’t get the hint, just went ahead and kept fooling myself, thinking she might show up in my basement and be like, Hi, sorry—you’re not making popcorn tonight?

Trust me, I made the popcorn. Every night. She remained a no-show.

Now it’s Saturday morning, and I’m guessing Juliette’s status for Heidi’s party is “canceled,” but I’ve already taken a shower per her instructions to assume she secretly wants to go. I may have to settle for walking over to the window and watching her storm into a cab in exactly four minutes. Still remember the first Saturday I saw her do this, a few weeks after the accident. I could tell she was having to struggle to keep it together but was refusing to succumb, her eyes glassy and sleep-deprived, the skin underneath shadowy. I almost knocked on the window that day, but there was never going to be a smooth follow-up to taking such an action, let alone a right thing to say. Couldn’t pantomime to her, for instance, how watching her getting on with life made me feel like things had a chance to be normal for me again someday, too. No doubt they’ve been better than normal these past few weeks, in turn making it harder to go back to standing here, my breath fogging the glass, a completely separate entity from her.

I have to see her. Even if it’s not on her terms. Even if there’s never going to be a right thing to say.

I’ll need help, though, which is hopefully where my mom comes in. I find her in the kitchen, distributing a huge wad of cash into the envelopes arranged on the table. She’s been on a lucky streak at the casino lately, and I need to borrow some of it for a few hours, along with her car.

“Morning, Mom.”

“Someone’s up and ready early.” She looks at me and smiles. “Come here, let me smell your hair.”

I dip my head so she can sniff the conditioner she bought me, determine if she made the right decision. While she’s deciding, I pluck her car keys from her purse.

“Mind if I borrow?”

“Did my son run out of gas again?” She’s not asking this as a way to point out a past error of mine—just making conversation.

“Nope, he just wants to wash his mom’s car.”

She raises her eyebrows. “He does?”

“He does. Automatically.”

She nods like that’s the son she knows, hands me a twenty for the Ultra Wash, and then another twenty just for being me. It kind of feels like blood money I don’t deserve … but we’re blood, and it’s not as if I’m drawing a salary from somewhere, so I accept it, promising to vacuum the interior, too.

Juliette

DON’T GET ME WRONG, I can tolerate Abram more than I’ve ever been able to tolerate a guy in my age demographic. I’m ignoring his existence now because I care. And I can foresee the dead end that will come from letting our feelings fester on and on, as long as we both shall not kill ourselves.

He needs to find himself a people-pleaser—a natural-born pushover who will do weird things like wear a special dress when the occasion never calls for it, forget to complain about going to the amusement park or a baseball game, and agree with his point of view for the sake of getting along. Like that musically talented Asian girl he cheats off of … but not, because I recently decided to hate that girl.

What Abram doesn’t need is a problem-maker, and he’s looking at her. The back of my shoddily straightened hair, actually, through the windshield of his mom’s candy apple Lexus.

What is he doing?

According to the side mirror of the cab, he’s singing. Doesn’t seem to care if any passing cars catch him getting into it, tapping the wheel as he strains his neck muscles for a high note. He’s going to hurt himself. He’s so … quick to embrace the present moment for what it is, even if he doesn’t understand why I’m complicating it. I briefly consider teaching him a lesson he’ll probably forget, but that kind of effort is what got me into this tailgating party in the first place. Besides, I don’t want to keep this other guy waiting—the cute one I’m on my way to visit right now.