Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always (3 page)

She rolls her eyes, which are thickly lined in black. “Bullying,
right
. You’re such a retard, Cass.” She steps aside, barely.

“Midget? Retard? Seriously?” I shove past her. The lock spins beneath my fingers. “What’s next? You gonna start calling me gay too, like we’re in middle school?”

She smiles. “I need you to do page layout for the school newspaper.”

I look up—she’s serious. “What happened to what’s-her-face?” As if I don’t know her name like everyone else in the entire school. (Okay, so I usually call the whole group of them the Vomit Vixens, and I know that’s insensitive, but it’s not my fault Jenny’s got an eating disorder. It’s not like snide nicknames between me and Kayla are injuring her popularity.)

“Jenny Hilderman?” Kayla lowers her voice. “Treatment,” she whispers. “They’re saying eight weeks minimum. Cass, they need you. I told them you’re a wiz at page layout.”

Them. She means the senior editorial staff, who are somehow the most influential people at our high school despite what seems to me to be an obvious lack in important traits. Like … the human emotions of empathy and compassion. And blemishes. And body fat.

The Gordon High Gazette
is actually kind of a big thing. Like, adults read it. I’m not sure why, except maybe there isn’t really any other kind of local paper and the editorial staff of the GHG is … well,
selective
about who gets to write for them. Annika Nielson and Britney Summers know everyone’s business. And they know how to make it into a good story.

“No way would they let me do that. I have no experience.” Really, I do. It’s just not the kind of experience I want anyone to know about. The church newsletter. My church has a reputation for being weird and controversial—the kind of thing that Britney and Annika would definitely turn their nose up at. Still, K’s right that this could be a great opportunity if I’m interested in the newspaper—get on the staff as a junior, maybe even get an editorial position by my senior year.

So, am I interested in the newspaper? It would look good on my college applications, if nothing else. Which … well, it would make my parents happy. But is it what I want? I put my hand into my pocket, feeling the edge of the twenty-dollar bill, my promise to discover myself.

Kayla snaps her gum, twice. “Cass, they’re desperate. Not one of those bitches can run a freaking computer, so I told them about that bulletin thing you do at church. Come on.” Not even looking back to see if I’ll follow, she starts down the hall. My homeroom is in the opposite direction. I stand helplessly looking after her for a moment. She’s a formidable sight, it’s true—ever since she grew out of that slouching phase in eighth grade—and I can only withstand the tug for a moment before I’m sprinting down the hallway after her, a trailing puppy skidding on the wet tile floor.

“Kayla, I’m gonna be late again!” Whine, whine. Follower Cassandra is a follower. Sigh. I trot up beside her. “Seriously, K, I gotta go if you want to see me at lunch. Franklin’s going to—”

“You must be Cassie!”

“It’s soooooo good to meet you!”

Squealing. Cooing. These girls are like rabid or something. They pretty much attack me when I reach the top of the junior stairs. Annika Nielson and Britney Summers claw at me enthusiastically with their bubble-gum-pink fingernails, smother me with their perky perfume. I pull back, stumbling into Kayla, who steps to the side and lets me fall. The tardy bell rings, and I go down.

I mean, for real. I’m so overcome by the fawning attention of the senior editors of
The Gordon High Gazette
that I fall on my ass and slither down seven marble steps on my backside right in front of everyone.

“OMG, Cassie, are you okay?” Britney scurries down the stairs and hovers over me on the landing, her fringe of perfect blond hair hanging in my face. She actually says “oh em gee.” And she calls me Cassie. Ew.

“I’m sooooooo sorry!” squeals Annika, directing people to pass around me.

“We’ll take you to the nurse!”

I scramble to my feet, but my butt really hurts, and I can barely stand up straight. “No, I’m okay, it’s just … ” I look for Kayla, but she’s nowhere. The final bell rings. Pain shoots up my spine. I try to laugh, but it’s unconvincing.

“Cassie, you could have a broken tailbone!” Annika’s eyes are wide, each thick, curled lash visible. “My neighbor broke her tailbone ice skating once, and she had to carry around a little blow-up donut pillow for, like …
ever.
”

Britney gathers my books from the floor. I try to help her, but a sensation like a scalpel slicing open my spinal column from the bottom up stops me. “Well … ” At least it would get me a pass into homeroom. “Okay. But I don’t really think I broke my ass.” I wince. “God, I hope not.”

“Wow, Cassie, you say ‘God’? I didn’t think people who go to your church would say that,” says Britney, her face a caricature of surprise.

“And ‘ass.’” Annika’s eyes are wide, too, but there’s something else there. Admiration. For swearing? How lame is that.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I’m a real believer … in the idea that words are words, you know?” I limp toward the nurse’s office, flanked by the two perkiest girls I’ve ever met. They link arms behind my back, practically forcing me to lean on them for support on the walk to the nurse. At least I can’t smell any vomit on their breath.

6. Your most
embarrassing moment …

The nurse’s eyes are bored. “Do you want to ice it?” she says. No inflection. No concern. Thank god she doesn’t want to examine it, is all I can think.

“Uh, sure.” I look around. “Like, can I stay here?” I’m not wild about the idea of icing my ass in homeroom. Besides, I’m not sure I can make it up the stairs at the moment.

“Do you have one of those blow-up donut pillows?” Annika leans over the nurse’s desk, her face serious. “She could have broken her tailbone. I mean, I watched her hit, and she hit hard. The whole floor shook.”

Was that a crack about my weight? Because, whatever. I’m perfectly happy with my body. Okay, so maybe not my broken ass. At least I’m not a Vomit Vixen. Their newspaper may look good on my college applications, but is it worth this? Is it worth this to
me,
to Cassandra?

“No, we don’t have any of those,” says the nurse. She sighs. “Look. You ladies need to head to class. You’re already tardy.”

“
What?
We were helping our friend get here after she fell! You
have
to give us a pass to homeroom.” Britney is indignant. I can see her writing up the story now—a shockingly honest exposé on the woeful state of the health care system at Gordon High.

The nurse sighs again, dragging a small blue pad of passes out of the drawer of her desk. “You could
ask
,” she says, her cursive angry and cramped.

“And you could take some lessons in bedside manner,” snaps Britney.

The nurse doesn’t respond; in fact, she looks past Britney as though she’s not standing there. Then her apathy slips away into a warm concern, and she stands up and starts toward the door. “Oh, Drew honey, you poor thing. Need your pills again today?” Am I imagining the smug look the nurse points at the perky twins? “I’ll get you a glass of water right away, hon, and let me know if you need anything else.”

Seriously? Drew is here? Eff my life, I can’t escape this girl.

“Hi, Cassandra,” she says. Her voice is small and her eyes dart over at Britney and Annika nervously. “Are you all right?”

I smile. “Yeah, I fell on the stairs in the junior hall.”
Lame
.

“Drew Godfrey?” Annika’s voice is syrupy. “How
are
you?”

Drew’s answering smile is thin but hopeful. “I’m okay,” she says. “It’s just … normal stuff.” She waves a pudgy hand in the air aimlessly. For a moment her sleeve falls up around her elbow, and the skin on her arm is red and scabby. Quickly her fingers tug the sleeve back down, over the backs of her hands. I try to remember if I’ve ever seen her arms before.

“Oh,
good
,” says Annika, smiling even more. “I was worried for a minute that you might have head lice again.” She and Britney take the blue pass and they both waggle their fingers at me. “See you soon, Cassie!” they say in perky harmony.

“Sorry you got injured on the stairs!” says Annika.

“Maybe you should sue the school,” says Britney. “They totally didn’t have a wet floor sign out!” And then they’re gone. And Drew and I sit here in the hard plastic chairs, both of us nursing our humiliation in silence.

“I never had head lice,” she says after a while.

Okay. I try to think of something to say. “So you’re taking some pills?” Obviously, I don’t think long enough before speaking.

Drew is one of those people who never look you directly in the eye; instead, her eyes search and search along my hairline like a confused newborn. “It’s my eczema,” she says. “It’s all over my body. It’s itchy, and I have anxiety, and then it gets itchier, so then I scratch, and it gets scabby, and that makes me anxious, so I pick at it, and that makes it get itchier.” She rubs her hands over her arms.

Gross. I struggle for an appropriate response to this level of oversharing. “Um. That sucks.” I mean, it’s not like I’m judging her for having eczema. She can’t help that, I guess. But … I don’t know. I didn’t really need to know about her scabby rash, that’s all. I feel terrible, but seriously, do I need to know about anyone’s scabby rash? I’m not a freaking dermatologist.

The nurse hands her a paper cup of water, and Drew swallows two pills before her eyes roam my way again. They’re muddy eyes, a leftover color like dried paint stuck to the art room tables, a color without any brightness in it.

“Yeah,” she says. “It does suck.” She crushes the paper cup in her fist. “But I
never
had head lice.”

7. In your spare time …

The pain is less by math class, and my butt is only slightly sore by the time English rolls around. This is the first class I have with Kayla—well, the only class, actually—and I’m pissed. I accost her at the door with a barrage of complaints.

“How could you leave me like that? You disappeared. You totally dodged out of the way and let me fall down the stairs, Kayla, and then you were … gone. Do you realize I may have broken my fucking tailbone?”

“Cassandra,” says my English teacher, stepping between us on his way into the classroom. “I don’t need to hear that kind of language in my workplace.” He raises an eyebrow, but his tone is indulgent. He’s not the type to get hysterical about an F-bomb, luckily. Ms. Franklin would have emailed my mother. Which … well, I’d rather not contemplate that scene. She’d probably make me go in for counseling with Pastor Fordham or something. I shudder at the thought.

“Oh, relax,” says Kayla, sweeping past me into the room. “It’s not like I
meant
to abandon you.” She shrugs. “The tardy bell rang. I thought you were right behind me. How was I supposed to know you’d go over backwards?”

Mr. Dawkins stands at the front of the room and claps his hands twice, his customary cue that we should shut up and get down to business.

Right. So she’s trying to get me to believe she didn’t
notice
that I fell down half a flight of stairs? I make my way to my assigned seat, which is inconveniently across the room from Kayla’s, and take out my notebook. She’s not going to brush me off like this, not about this. She dragged me all the way across the school and then left me to die on the stairs. I start scribbling a note, my hand quickly cramping up from my angry grip on the pen.

“Cassandra, really. You’re not impressing me today.” He keeps his voice quiet—Mr. D is not the type of teacher who believes in public humiliation—but he holds his hand out for the note. “You know my thoughts on notes. No reading, no writing, no folding, no passing.” He leans in closer. “Please, Cass. Can you put this out of your mind, at least for the next fifty minutes?”

I nod and hand him the page from my notebook, grateful to him for immediately crumpling it up into a little ball. And then, when he actually walks across the room and drops the ball on Kayla’s desk, I’m blown away. I see him lean down and speak to her, and she nods, shoving the paper into her pocket without reading it.

“
I celebrate myself, and sing myself
, ” says Mr. D, in that voice that means he is quoting some writer he loves. “
And what I assume you shall assume
.”

“Narcissistic much?” mutters the boy next to me. He doodles in the margin of his literature book with a heavy black pen. I turn my head, startled to hear, for the first time, the voice of this kid I’ve been sitting next to for weeks.

“Exactly so, Darin,” says Mr. Dawkins with a smile and a nod. “And many people at the time were shocked, outraged by Whitman’s poetry. They called it indecent.” Mr. D continues reading from the poem, cradling the heavy textbook in his arms as he stalks around the room, quietly tapping the page of the books of students who aren’t listening as he walks by, never pausing in his reading. He drops a clean sheet of drawing paper on Darin’s desk as he strides past. Darin shrugs and moves his doodling to the approved medium without a word.