I look around me, wondering if anyone noticed anything odd. Across the room, Samantha is staring at me. Out of everyone, she would know if I was acting strangely. Before the Homecoming Debacle of Sophomore Year, we did everything together, from painting each other’s toenails with zebra stripes to dancing to Lady Gaga on my bed.
She hasn’t spoken to me since the fire during a party at her house last fall. Not even to thank me for trying to pull her out before she was consumed by the flames. Unable to drag her by myself, I fainted. Rollins was the one to save us both.
Now Samantha sits there staring at me, like she knows something weird happened but she can’t quite put her finger on it. She takes a lock of her red hair and wraps it around her index finger again and again. Finally, she shrugs and goes back to her notes.
I look down at my hands.
They’re shaking uncontrollably.
Attributing the whole incident to a lack of caffeine, I pick up my pen and finish copying down the notes on the board.
By third-period study hall, I am feeling positively drained. Caffeine withdrawal is no joke. My head is pounding, and I want a cup of coffee so badly I feel like every vein in my body is crying out.
I tuck myself into the back of the library and lay my head on the desk, shutting my eyes. I’m even able to get a few seconds of sweet rest before the librarian rudely awakens me, tapping her garish red fingernails on the desk.
“The library is not your bedroom,” she says. “You need to keep your head up. If you don’t have any work to do, find something to read.”
I bite my tongue before saying something that would probably land me in detention, and watch her walk back to the front desk. Sighing, I stand, wander over to the magazine rack, and grab a Sports Illustrated. I paint a fake smile on my face for the librarian’s benefit and head back to my desk.
For a few minutes, I turn the pages, not really seeing the pictures. The tiny black type swims in front of me. Before long, I feel my head bowing again. But this time I’m not falling asleep. This is different. I can feel something on the pages of the magazine, a force compelling me to give in. I am about to slide.
The walls of the gymnasium pop up around me. I’m slowly jogging beside Randall Fritz, a junior on the football team. Air pumps steadily in and out of my lungs. The person I’ve slid into opens his mouth: “Tonight is going to be insane.”
Scotch again.
Ugh, only he would leave an emotional imprint on a tattered copy of a sports magazine. I briefly wonder what I did to piss off the universe so much that I’m forced to encounter this Neanderthal twice in one day. Though when I’m inside him, it’s hard to smell his stink breath, so that’s something.
I’m guessing Scotch is talking to Randall about the bonfire I overheard him mention this morning, the one he asked Samantha to attend with him. It’s all anyone’s been discussing this week. Not that I’m going.
“I know, dude. I’m stoked.”
Before I can hear any more of their conversation, I am swiftly transported back into my own mind, which is kind of a relief. I don’t need to hear Scotch and Randall talking about how wasted they’re going to get tonight.
At lunchtime, I lie on the ground underneath the bleachers, waiting for Rollins. This is our private space, among the trash and the leaves that have blown under here since fall. It’s not much, but it’s better than sitting in the cafeteria that mysteriously always smells like cabbage, watching the jocks compete to see who can eat the most slices of greasy pepperoni pizza.
I hear footsteps and open one eye.
“I brought you something,” Rollins says. He holds out a Mountain Dew.
“You’re so evil,” I say.
After a long internal debate, I rationalize that Mountain Dew isn’t as bad as coffee, and I might just need the drink to get through the day. I unscrew the cap and take a long swig.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I say, “Thanks.”
He shrugs. “Thought you might need it, the way you looked this morning.”
“You know me too well. I actually slid into Scotch Becker during third period. Today has been made of suck.”
Rollins looks at me with concern. He is the only person who knows that I can slide. When he found out, he was definitely freaked, especially when he learned that I’d slid into him while he was giving his wheelchair-bound mother a bath, but since he got over that he’s been amazingly supportive. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I just overheard him talking to Randall Fritz. They were making plans for that bonfire tonight.”
“How fascinating,” Rollins says.
“Exactly,” I reply. “So are you nervous for tonight?”
Rollins chews on his lip ring. “No.”
“Bullshit,” I say.
He sighs. “It’s not that I’m nervous, per se. It’s more that I’m apprehensive. What if no one calls in? What if I spend the whole night just talking to myself? What if I suck?”
I offer him a drink from my Mountain Dew. His fingers brush against mine as he takes it from me, and a shiver goes up my spine, as cliché as that may sound. It really, actually does. I pull my hand back, hoping he didn’t notice.
“You know me too well,” he says, handing the bottle back to me.
“It’s true.”
Dinner is my favorite—homemade pizza with green peppers on top.
I watch my father and Mattie bow their heads to pray. My sister’s cross necklace, the one that used to be my mother’s, reflects light from the old chandelier hanging above the table. My mother picked out the chandelier, along with most of our other furnishings, at a flea market.
I search for the comforting feeling of the picture of my mother that I stashed in my pocket this morning, but it’s not there. I reach deeper. Nothing. After checking the other pocket with no luck, I start to worry. Did I drop it somewhere?
“So how was the operation?” Mattie asks when they’re finished praying.
To my relief, my father doesn’t go into detail, as he sometimes does when discussing a particularly interesting case. He takes his oath seriously and never tells us the names of his patients, but he usually can’t resist raving about how well a surgery went or ranting about how a nurse nearly botched the whole thing.
“As well as could be expected,” he says. “I just hope the parents made the right decision.” I think about the baby recovering from the surgery. My heart clenches for her.
“How was school?” he asks.
Mattie cuts in before I can even say a word.
“I got terrible cramps during first period,” Mattie moans dramatically. “I had to go to the nurse, and she gave me an Advil and let me lie down for a little bit.”
My father looks a bit like he regrets asking. He turns to me. “How about you, Vee? Did you have a good day?”
I nod, taking a big bite of pizza. Hell if I’m going to tell them about the weird experience I had during English class today. Or about sliding into Scotch. I’m attributing both of those occurrences to caffeine withdrawal. Neither my father nor Mattie knows that, up until a few weeks ago, I was swallowing twenty to thirty caffeine pills a day, trying desperately to stay awake so I wouldn’t slide.
“I learned what motif is,” I offer.
My father bobs his head, looking almost like he’d rather hear about Mattie’s period than about the literary terms