Hidden Truths, page 12
“Ouch!”
“And if I’m being honest,” his knee speeds up, “I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to be. So just hear me out, then I’ll take off.” He opens his chocolate milk and takes a swig.
“I’m listening.”
Meadow holds up a burger from the lunch line, and I nod.
“I want to do a story or something for Speak Out! about what happened that morning at the Cape.”
“Why?” I snap.
“So what happened to you doesn’t happen to anyone else. Like the guy with the lawn mower. Remember him, from that show we saw?”
My frustration sparks. “Can’t you just forget about it? Like everything else you’ve ever not done?”
He shakes his head. “Look, we can help a lot of people. Just think about it.”
“Fine,” I say wanting to end this conversation. Then I see Rachel wave to Eric, and his face turns red.
“What’s going on with you guys?” I ask, kind of surprised I don’t know.
“We’ve been hanging out.” He smiles at Rachel, then tosses his empty chocolate milk carton toward the garbage can. It lands on the floor.
McKinnon and the team walk past my table. I wave with my left hand, my right on my lap like it’s a choice. They nod and keep walking.
My insides hollow.
Meadow comes over with my lunch. She puts down the tray. “Thanks,” I say.
She smiles at me, then turns to Eric and in a super loud voice says, “This loser bothering you?” as she settles into the now-full table.
Kids laugh.
Somewhere in the background I hear Leo loudly chanting, “Loser! Loser! Loser!”
Eric waits for me to defend him.
But I don’t.
I see the hurt seep across his face. I bite the inside of my cheek and twirl his lucky coin in my pocket.
I should do something. Say something. But my words stick.
I close my eyes and imagine my old life.
And when I open them, Eric’s gone.
31
True Enough
Two days have gone by.
No apology. No “Wow, I’ve been the world’s biggest jerk!”
Nothing.
How could Dani sit there and let Meadow call me a loser in front of everyone?
I open and close my shutters three times. Before all this, that was my and Dani’s emergency signal to meet at our windows. I do it one more time. But again…nothing.
I leave the window, give Tony and Stark some yogurt treats, and check my school email. Turns out after all that, Ms. Suarez isn’t a fan of sharing Dani’s story through Speak Out! Something about school policy barring the school from lobbying against a privately held company.
No. No. No. I go downstairs. The thump of the laundry machine fills the kitchen. Zoe looks up. She’s wearing her newest princess crown and coloring. I eat an entire row of Oreos, hoping to find answers in the creamy filling. But all I find is that eating that many Oreos gives me a stomachache.
Aunt Josie walks in and eyes the missing row of cookies. “Something you want to talk about?”
I shrug. “I’m trying to do something good, but I keep making things worse, and now I don’t know what to do.”
“If this is important to you, Eric, keep going. You’ll find a way in.” She hugs me tight. “I promise.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we’re a lot alike, you and me, and that scattered part of us that can sometimes be a total pain is also the part that never gives up on the things or people who matter most.”
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I can do this.
“Thanks, Aunt Josie.” I go back to my room and text Rachel what Ms. Suarez said. She’s as mad as I am. We decide to figure out our next move at her house.
Before I leave, I sprinkle some powder on my palms.
When I see Rachel, she’s wearing this aqua shirt.
“Hi,” I say, thankful she can’t see my brain and all its feelings.
We go into the family room and sit on a velvety tan couch. The kind you’d see in a fancy hotel and be too afraid to sit on. The dogs follow.
“Look, about the other day and the whole application thing. You get it, right?” I say, petting Milo.
“Yeah. It’s just my dad. He gets a little overeager about this stuff.”
“I mean, some of the things I told you about that morning were, um, private. You know? Like, I wouldn’t want them ending up in an essay.”
Rachel nods. “I totally get it.”
A rush of relief comes over me.
She inches a little closer, and I don’t want to move.
Ever.
But then Rachel starts talking about next steps and gets up to grab her laptop.
We need more information to find a way to get the manufacturer to stop selling the defective remote-control cars.
We start by searching the company online again. A bunch of YouTube videos pop up. One is of a similar car that starts a small fire with a bunch of teenagers, but no one gets hurt. The other is like that, but with two old dudes. However, I can’t tell in either video if the car is the same as the remote-control camper we had.
We do a broader search, and something called the Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, comes up. Says it’s a government agency that’s about keeping people safe. There are links on its homepage: “Report Unsafe Products.” “Search Unsafe Products.” I click on “Report” first and put in all the information I know about the car and the explosion and hit Submit.
Then I click on Search.
Four results.
“I still can’t tell if any of these are the same model or, really, what this stuff means,” I say.
“Look,” Rachel says, pointing to something called a Freedom of Information Act Request. “You can put in the information you have, ask about other injuries, and it’ll send you what they know. Maybe if there are enough injuries, we can contact the news station or The Clippings, and then the car company will have to listen.”
Yes!
I find an email address I can send the request to instead of filing the form. There’s a fee if I file, but the email is free. I put in the information and hit Send. Then I scroll down the page and in small print see that if we’re lucky, we’ll get a response in weeks, but most likely months or longer.
I stare at the words as frustration steals my hope.
32
Something I Was
For the past few days, Meadow’s been trying to convince me that I need to celebrate. “It’s your birthday. It’s been, like, a month since the accident. You can’t hide in your house forever. You have to do something other than just school.”
Yesterday I finally gave in.
“The party is going to be so much fun,” she says, while I lie on my back lifting and lowering my leg. Waylan told me when I can walk all the way across the parallel bars, I can ditch the walker and graduate to forearm crutches. So I’ve been doing my PT a lot in hopes of speeding up my graduation date.
“Your fans will be here soon.” Meadow laughs.
“What fans?” I sit up.
She hands me her phone. “See?” She points to the thousand-plus people following us on TikTok.
“Wow,” I say. “When did that happen? Last time I checked, there were maybe thirty followers. I was pretty sure half were related to you and the other half had crushes on you.”
“After our last post, they started following. You totally nailed it.”
I fake-smile, hiding the flash of nausea shooting through my body. That post was a Say It about Eric, or me and Eric, and the whole loser comment. Meadow brought it up while we were videotaping. “Dani, tell everyone what really happened,” she said.
I remember the long silence that surrounded her words. I couldn’t speak. It was as if haze had snatched my brain. Meadow looked at me with wide eyes, like Aren’t you going to say something? But I didn’t. So she filled the uncomfortable silence with a lot of words.
Some true.
Most not.
All hurtful.
But I never said Eric was a loser. I wouldn’t do that. He’s my friend. Or was. Or whatever. I just wouldn’t. But I never said he wasn’t either. And that’s the part that makes me feel like I’m turning into someone Gigi would be disappointed in.
When she was alive, I could almost handle her being mad at me. But the whole “I’m disappointed in you, Dani” always felt way worse. Like the thing she was upset about wasn’t something I did but something I was.
I should have spoken up when Meadow called Eric a loser that day in the cafeteria. But I was so frustrated with him treating me like some stupid cause that I let the words float in the air for everyone to hear. Then when she said, “Right, Dani?” I just said, “Yeah. Let’s move on.” And we did. Leaving the loser thing to live forever.
She holds up a pink shirt with sparkles that is definitely not something she found in my closet.
“I got this for you to wear to the party. It slides over your head, so you don’t have to worry about buttoning it.”
I stare at Meadow and wonder how she can be so thoughtful with me and so obnoxious to Eric. I’ve always assumed people were either good or bad. I didn’t think there were in-betweeners. But Meadow’s definitely an in-betweener.
She hands me the shirt, and I use my good arm to glide it over the bad one. I’ve gotten better at this. Now I can even move my right arm a bit, and there’s less numbness in my hand, but my shoulder still hurts when I put anything over my head.
“You look totally cute.” She takes her rhinestone-decorated hand mirror out of her bag and shows me.
I stare at the person looking back at me. The person I used to know. The one who had a best friend named Eric and hated pink.
I realize that I barely know this person, but I smile anyway. “Thanks.”
Meadow hands me the walker, and we move into the family room onto the ugly couch.
Someone knocks. Casey runs to the door, and Meadow answers it. Her little sister and her mom walk in. “They wanted to wish you a happy birthday before everyone gets here.”
“Happy Birthday, Dani.” Millie hands me a homemade card covered with smiley face stickers. “Look what I can do,” she says as she wiggles the fingers on her injured hand.
“Great job,” I say, petting Casey, who’s sniffing the floor for crumbs.
She smiles, then plops down next to me. “I think you’re really brave.”
“Well, I think you’re brave, too,” I tell her.
“You know what else?” she says, taking a gingerbread cookie from the plate Mom left out earlier.
“What?”
“I’m not even mad at Meadow anymore,” she says. “And I was pretty mad.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.” I don’t really get why she’d be mad at Meadow. I mean, Meadow was with her all the time at the hospital.
Meadow walks over. “Don’t you guys need to go?”
Millie looks at me and then at her big sister. She finishes her cookie and gives me a hug good-bye.
I pet Casey, who’s snuggled next to me, and ask Meadow, “What did your sister mean?”
“Nothing,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Let’s just celebrate your birthday.”
The doorbell rings.
Casey barks as Meadow’s mom and little sister leave and Meadow’s friends Taylor, Brie, Kya, and Jojo come in.
“Happy birthday,” my new sort-of friends say at once. Kya and Jojo dig into the plate of cookies. Brie immediately starts talking about this kid in English she has a crush on.
Brie finds the kid’s pic and sweeps her phone across the room.
“Yep, definitely cute,” Meadow says.
“Does anyone know the score of the Red Sox game?” I ask, scanning the room for my phone or another Sox fan.
I find neither.
The doorbell rings again. McKinnon and four others from my baseball team stroll in, and my heart drops.
“Surprise!” Meadow says, hooking her arm through the second baseman’s. “Isn’t this great?”
Then, in unison, my teammates say, “Happy birthday!”
“Thanks,” I say, trying to hide how not-great this is.
I look at my teammates standing in my house.
I’m not ready.
Not ready.
Not ready.
Another knock at the door. I pray it’s not more kids from the team. Meadow gets up.
Eric walks in.
I’m shocked he’s here after everything, and the second I see him, my heart fills with things I should have said.
Casey runs over and jumps on him. Eric’s wearing the gray, white, and red flannel we got together last fall. I have the same one in blue, white, and yellow. When we bought them, I said we were twins.
“I, um, didn’t know you were having people over,” he says, walking toward me. I can see the hurt behind his eyes.
Meadow steps in his path. “It’s just something I put together for Dani’s birthday,” she says, like she’s the friend who knows I sleep with my closet light on, that I don’t like different foods on my plate to touch, and that I hate the smell of cantaloupe.
Don’t hate me.
He ignores Meadow and comes over to me.
I’m sorry I let her call you a loser.
“I would have invited you but—”
“Don’t,” he snaps before the rest of my words trickle out. “Things are different now.”
My heart aches. In this moment I know he’s right. Things are different. I’m different. We’re different. And as much as I don’t want Eric to feel bad, I’m not sure I can go back.
“I just stopped by to drop this off.” He hands me a lumpy brown paper bag. “I thought you should have it.”
As he turns around to leave, Meadow yells to the back of his shirt, “My cousin Leo says hi.”
Eric hesitates for a moment but doesn’t turn around.
A switch inside me flicks on.
But it’s too late.
Eric’s already walking out the door.
“Open it,” Meadow says, sliding next to me.
“Later,” I tell her, shaking my head.
“Aw, come on. Let’s see what the loser got you,” she says, and the people on the couch laugh.
I close my eyes. “You gotta stop, Meadow.”
I know my words are too late, but at least I finally said them.
“Whatever,” she says.
I open the paper bag with my left hand, and sitting in my lap is my baseball glove. I smile and hug Betty. The leather smells like mornings at the park with the giant red tub of baseballs.
It reminds me of me.
And a friend who knows my heart.
33
Forever Jerk
It’s been a week since I walked in on the birthday party I wasn’t invited to. Honestly, I thought Dani’s jerkiness was temporary. I thought it was because her body hurt, not because she actually was a forever jerk. But now I think it’s permanent.
Dani invited a bunch of kids she barely knows, never did anything about all that stuff Meadow said about me, and is now best friends with my bully’s cousin. It’s like she doesn’t care. Like she never cared.
I’ve tried to make excuses for her, ignore the truth, but I finally know that I don’t want to fix things with Dani anymore.
I don’t like this version of my once best-friend.
The one I missed all summer.
The one I saved.
It’s time to move on. No big confrontation in the cafeteria. No yelling phone call or angry texts.
She’s changed.
I’ve changed.
We’ve changed.
Plus, Rachel’s coming over and I want to focus on not messing that up.
Deodorant √
Powder √
Chapstick √
Body spray. On it.
When the doorbell rings, Zoe runs and opens the door. “Hi,” she says, her voice bouncy. “Do you like princesses?”
“Sure,” Rachel says, walking into my house for the first time.
“Who’s your favorite?” Zoe straightens her crown. “Mine’s Princess Jasmine.”
“I like Princess Jasmine, too, but my favorite is Mulan.”
“What about princes?”
I step between Zoe and Rachel. “Let’s give Rachel some time to think about it. Okay, Peanut?”
Zoe stares at me. “You smell funny,” she says, rubbing her nose.
My face burns with embarrassment. Trying to ignore my little sister, I turn to Rachel. “Hi.”
“Hello,” she says, following me to the tree fort in the backyard. Dani and I used to hang out here, but not since before baseball camp.
I open a box of donuts. Rachel takes a bite of a powdered one.
I pause, find my courage, lean over, and gently wipe the powder from her cheek. Then I hold her hand.
God, please let this not be weird.
Rachel smiles.
Not weird. Thank you.
We sit and talk like this for a while. Then we share her purple pen and finish the latest Clippings crossword puzzle together.
We dive into the comics I have. Some online and some of Dad’s old-school paper ones.
Rachel picks up Dani’s favorite Mystique comic. I watch as she reads it. She takes the last bite of her donut and says, “Not sure I really like Mystique.”
I blink. “Why? She’s cool.” For some weird reason I feel like I need to defend Mystique.
“Well, she’s a shape-shifter, right?”
I nod. “Yeah. That’s what makes her so amazing. She can be anyone.” Dani always said that about her.
