David Werzloski moved into the house at the corner two years ago. In second grade, he showed me his penis. Just pulled his pants down right in the middle of Mrs. Rossi’s math lesson and I couldn’t believe how wrinkly it was, kind of like a crumpled-up fruit roll-up.
And Rachel, Tina and Tiffany live three houses away with their parents and new dog named Rover. The Pashmis across the street. The Jacobs. The Gowers. The McDonnells. The Goldbergs. Dara and her family live about six houses down. There are more boys than girls on our street. The Goldbergs have triplet boys who are Gret’s age. One enlisted in the army, the other two went to some college in Oregon, I think.
My point. My point is that I feel like we all know each other in some way. I’ve trick-or-treated at everyone’s house. Beyond just this cul-de-sac, all the streets connect. I sold Girl Scout cookies when I was briefly a Brownie, just until I got to go to Sesame Place. Then, I decided I didn’t like being called a dessert that I couldn’t even eat because during that time Shirley prohibited sweets from our house. I’ve been to sleepovers and played Monopoly in these houses and swam in their pools and went to Halloween parties and even accompanied Shirley to a Tupperware party one evening at one of these homes.
When you pushed me, I stopped feeling safe. I was so afraid to go to school that Monday, but you acted like nothing even happened. Didn’t address me or taunt me or anything like that. Actually, I feel like that was the last time you ever bullied me.
Monday, October 25
Dear James,
It feels kind of weird to be writing to you like we are old friends or something and I’m just catching you up on what you’ve missed. It’s been a week. Just one week since you’ve . . . the ribbons people tied to their car antennas and backpacks are mostly gone. The wind took them away. Your picture will probably be in the yearbook under some kind of heading like: ‘In Memory Of’ or something like that. And then what? We move on? Nothing changes, and everything just keeps growing around us. I keep thinking about your mom. I hope she comes back to group. I hope your dad comes too.
Anyway, today Aggie and I sat together during lunch. It was incredible. I didn’t even realize we were in the same lunch period, and then I saw her. She actually motioned for me to sit next to her!
“Do you think your thoughts are strange?” I asked her.
“Yeah. Sometimes.”
“I feel like I’m thinking things I was trying not to think about and it’s . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Why don’t you want to think about them?” she asked.
“It’s like breathing. We can hold our breath and stop for a second or two, but eventually we have to go back and let the air in. Maybe I can try to not think for a second, but then my thoughts just come right back.”
Aggie smiled. Today, she had on some kind of shiny lip-gloss. I couldn’t stop staring.
“Maybe they keep coming back because they are still forming.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Anyway, let’s talk about something else, okay? Tell me about . . . tell me something that you haven’t told me yet.”
Aggie had just grabbed a large bite full of her tuna and capers sandwich, so she dragged her finger through the air as a symbol of hold on.
“Well, we haven’t been friends for very long, so there’s a lot on that list! I don’t know . . . umm . . . I pierced my own belly button last year, which was a painful mistake.”
“Bloody?”
“Infected.”
“Oh, well, my parents pierced my ears when I was a baby, never even asking me if I was cool with it. Once I was old enough, I unplugged my earlobes just as soon as I could. The hole is closed up now.” I grabbed my earlobe and twisted it toward her. “See?”
“Looks to be,” Aggie smiled. “Oh, I collect envelopes.”
“Like, new ones?”
“No,” she laughed. “The ones from junk mail or bills. It’s the insides that I like the best.”
“The letter?”
“No, the lining of the envelope. It’s always cool patterns and I used to dream of cutting them into tiny squares and gluing them together like a paper quilt. Can’t really say what I would have done with it. I imagine tiny, hidden stories inside the patterns. Like morse code. I’ve always wondered if other people notice how beautiful the inside of an envelope is. My dad knows about my collection, so he always saves them for me. Right now, I keep them in a giant envelope. Oh, my gosh, I just realized how funny that is.”
“Like those wooden Russian dolls that fit inside each other. A doll inside a doll. An envelope inside an—”
“What’s something that you collect?”
“I collect a bunch of stuff, but I used to collect . . .”
“What?” Aggie leaned in.
“Oh gosh, please don’t think I’m strange, but I used to collect my fingernails. Like baby half-moons. I kept them in a cigar box my dad gave me. Weird, I know.”
Aggie grabbed my hand and brought my fingers to her mouth. “How about I add to your collection?”
She pretended to bite my nails, and I laughed hard enough to feel my apple juice slosh around in my stomach.
“I’m glad you moved here,” I said. I could feel my entire face and body blushing. I only hoped Aggie hadn’t noticed.
“Yeah, me too. Hey,” she brought her hands to my cranberry fuzz and sloshed her fingers around. “You getting used to being hairless?”
I smiled. “I keep forgetting that. I don’t really have a habit of checking myself out. Yeah, it’s weird, but I feel more me like this.”
“What do you mean?”
James, I didn’t really know how to answer her. The thing is, there’s something else that’s been kind of growing inside me for a while now, but you know like when you don’t have a word for something, you kind of just twist your way out of that sentence? Am I making sense? Probably not. What I mean is, I feel something in me, something that feels incomplete. Something that feels unspoken. When Dara called me a lesbian, I thought that might be it, except that feeling remained. That feeling that something else is still there waiting to be found.
“You know like when we’re really young and our parents dress us and maybe it’s something we like, but then you look back on pictures taken and you’re like, ‘I would never have picked that!’”
“Definitely,” Aggie laughed.
“Maybe I’m just still figuring out to dress myself. How to look. Even though this haircut was definitely not thought out, I am starting to recognize myself a little more.”
“Hey, do you want to have a sleepover this weekend? If you’re not busy, I mean?”
Oh my gosh oh my gosh act cool, Eleanor.
“Sure, okay.” Inside, every single organ in my body grew teeth and lips just so a smile could form. My lungs, my intestines, my liver were all beaming!
James, have you ever met someone who made you feel like you wanted to understand everything about yourself?
Wednesday, October 27
Dear James,
Today in class, Ms. Raimondo said that there is a book out there for everyone. She said it because when we were discussing a poem by