Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always (34 page)

“Oh.” The word hits home, slugs me right in the guts. It’s what I’m searching for, a way to repent, to make up for being the traitor. But how can I, when I can’t see or speak to Drew? And even if I could speak, what could I possibly say that could begin to make up for everything I’ve done?
And the things I’ve left undone.

Claire smiles cheerfully, but she leans down on the counter so that her eyes can find mine and hold them. “Maybe you need to hang upside down for a while,” she says. “Change your perspective.”

I feel stupid, but maybe she’s right. I spin around and hook my legs over the top of the chair and lean back—not graceful like Claire, but at least I’m upside down. I look around. Stone tile, chair legs, cabinets with glass fronts so I can see the dishes and things inside. Claire’s bare feet dancing around, pink polish chipping off her big toes. In the gap between the stove and the refrigerator, a little tumbleweed of dust moves slowly along the floor in the current of air from the heat registers. The blood is pooling in my head, and I’m trying to capture that serene feeling of the baby waiting to be born, but really all I want to do is to figure out the least awkward way of getting myself upright again.

A note flutters past my face, escaping my pocket and landing on the tile below me.
Try to look at the assignment from a different perspective
, the note suggests. The assignment.

“Repentance.” I flop around until I’m upright, digging out the sketchbook that Darin gave me last night.
Write something.
Make something right.

55. The song you
can’t help singing …

The Winter Carnival is in full swing when we arrive. Darin and I sneak past the kissing booth and head toward the snow sculptures, hoping to evade my parents and anyone else who might want to interrupt my plan.

Kayla is in her element, leading Martin Shaddox around by the arm, pointing out all her favorite sculptures, and flirting
—of course she’s flirting. Martin takes it all in stride, geeking out right beside her about all this comic book stuff.

“Cassandra, what the hell?” she says by way of greeting. “Here, Martin, excuse me for a minute. Tell Darin about the evolution of gay comic book heroes after Northstar.” She grabs me by the arm and drags me behind a stack of speakers next to the pavilion.

She looks over her shoulder. “Your parents have been
freaking
. They made this huge announcement, and they were, like, crying and asking everyone to look for you. Seriously, your mom looked awful.” She shoves me a little, on the shoulder.
“Where the hell
were
you? My sources said you stayed with sketchy-boy last night, but I told my sources you were way too lame for that.”

“My parents—where are they now?” I need them to be here when I do this, and Eric too.

“They’re with some pastor guy. Your church put up a hot-chocolate-slash-Bible-study tent on the other side of the park.” She points.

Some pastor guy? I can’t believe they’d bring Fordham here. Like they’re planning an all-out intervention for me, dragging me kicking and screaming back to Jesus. My hands start to sweat, but I have to do this. “You’ve got to do me a favor, Kayla,” I say. “Before Martin announces the winners for the sculpture contest, I need him to give me the microphone, for just a minute.”

Kayla hesitates. “I don’t know, Cass … ”

“Please. It’s for Drew.”

She nods, still looking uneasy. “Be ready, then. The awards ceremony starts in fifteen minutes, right here at the pavilion, and then the dance starts.”

Fifteen minutes. The sketchbook feels heavy in my hands, and my lungs constrict as I look up at the tall stacks of speakers and think about what I’m going to do.

“It looks really nice,” I say, nodding at the decorations, the paths winding among the snow sculptures lined with glowing jar lanterns. “You did a great job.”

Kayla smiles, but she looks surprised. “Thanks,” she says, and turns to the stage.

“You’ve got a plan,” says Darin, sidling over to me. I glance over his shoulder to see Kayla standing on tiptoe, leaning in to whisper something in Martin’s ear. Her friend’s crazy request. It takes a lot for her to trust me, since she’s obviously on shaky ground here with the carnival, and I appreciate it. Appreciate
her
. It occurs to me, watching her eyes light up as she talks to this famous comic book illustrator, that it wasn’t all her fault. Our friendship falling apart, I mean. Okay, so I’ve always followed her lead, but did I ever really try to understand her excitement about this kind of thing? Did I ever try to really be interested, instead of reciting my best friend lines?

“I don’t know if it’s a good plan.” I shift the sketchbook to my other hand, my sweaty fingers leaving a dark smear across the blue cover. I can still back out, run away again. I could make up with my parents, be a better daughter. Finding a new perspective could mean so many things.

Darin puts an arm around me and reaches over, flips open the book to my song. I clear my throat. “‘Song of Myself: The Hanged Man Remix.’” It sounds so stupid. “Darin, I can’t … ”

“‘For Drew, with Repentance,’” says Darin, reading the dedication over my shoulder. He waves his smiley-faced finger at me. “You can,” he says. “I’ll go get your family.”

56. The self you
wish you could be …

The microphone that Martin Shaddox hands me slips in my fingers, and my nervous breath puffs out in a cold billowy cloud as I look out at the students and teachers assembled around the pavilion. They’re talking, laughing, shoving each other—gathered here because they’ve been told to assemble, not because they’re terribly concerned with who won the sculpture contest or the ski race or whatever. I search the crowd for Darin, for my parents. For Eric or Gavin. But it’s like my eyes have frosted up and everyone in front of me is slightly blurry.

I raise the mic, but it’s no good. I can’t. The crowd loses in-
terest, starts talking more loudly. Someone shouts, “Come
on
already!”

I blink, wipe my eyes with my sleeve, blink again, and their faces swim out of the crowd and stare at me, scornful and mocking. Annika and her robot chicken army. Perfect. I stand up straighter, tap the microphone lightly with one finger.

“Okay. So I know this isn’t what you’re here for,” I say. My voice trembles, my breath catching awkwardly in my chest.

A teacher I don’t recognize starts moving toward the stairs, a frown on her face and an official spring in her step. She’s coming to get this show back on its pre-approved track, to remove the unpredictable. My eyes flicker over to her and then back to the audience, which is actually quieter now, waiting. I can feel them restlessly pulling together, into a solid mass. A wall. I take a deep breath.

“I—” I glance at the approaching teacher again, but now Mr. Dawkins is standing next to her, his hand lightly resting on her arm, asking her to let the unpredictable happen, like poetry. Or fate. “Wait just a moment,” he says to her, though of course I can’t hear him. A moment. This moment.

“I know you’ve all heard about what happened on the Divinia Starr blog,” I say, and I can almost hear the crowd draw in a breath. “I can’t take back what happened, the hurtful things that were said about Drew Godfrey, or the awful result.”

“You’re the one who posted all those mean things about her!” A shout from the back of the crowd, and heads swivel to see who it is.

“No, I—I didn’t say the mean things about her, but … ” My fingers fumble with the sketchbook, which slips from my hands and falls open on the floor in front of me.

“She thought you were her
friend
!” shouts someone else.

“Traitor!” This time I’m almost sure it’s Annika.

I bend down to pick up the sketchbook, which has fallen open to the page where Darin drew the two of us as heroes, saving the day.
Traitor.
Hanging from one foot. I stand up and take a shaky breath. “Yes. I wasn’t a good friend.” I resolve to say it all, no matter who shouts at me. “I didn’t post those terrible things about Drew, but I could have stopped them, because the blog they were on was mine. I was Divinia Starr, and I
knew
there was a possibility of the comments turning mean. I knew that because they’d gone over the line once already, but … I didn’t moderate them.”

This part is hard to say, but at last the crowd is silent, letting me speak. “I’ve told myself that I didn’t moderate the comments because I didn’t think people would be that mean, but the hard truth is, I think part of me enjoyed seeing the drama.” This isn’t in the script, even though there isn’t a script, and I’m as surprised as any of the kids in the crowd by what I’m saying.

“I guess probably a lot of us have that reaction when we see crazy Internet drama,” I continue. “It’s easy to laugh, or hit share, or post some anonymous comments of our own.” I sigh. “I wish I could say I’m braver in person. That I never laugh at the mean things people say to get a laugh, that I never repeat those things to get a laugh of my own, later.”

I have to wrap this up before I start crying or something stupid like that. “Okay, so … I’m failing English class.” I risk a glance at Mr. D, who smiles and gives me a nod of encouragement. The woman beside him nervously scans the group of students, but she lets me continue.

“It’s stupid, really, but we had to write a poem, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t write a poem celebrating myself and singing myself because the thing is, I’m not always sure what my
self
is, you know? Like with Drew. Was I the kind of person who could be her friend? The kind of person who
would
be her friend, even when it was difficult?”

I look at Britney, who kept my secret, and at Annika and her mechanical girls. “I guess I couldn’t write a poem to celebrate who I was because I was so many different people, depending on who was leading the way. So I wrote this poem, to celebrate the self I
wish
I was. The self I hope I can be.”

It’s quiet. The crowd is still, leaning forward. I search for Darin and find him at last, see my parents on either side of him—my mom with her hand pressed up against her mouth, my dad with his shoulders drawn in tight, his fingers plucking at the stubble on his cheek. I think I see him start to smile. “So this is my song,” I say, and my voice is clear and strong. “For Drew, and for myself.” And then I read, but in my heart, I sing.

Song of Myself: The Hanged Man Remix

For Drew, with Repentance

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

a traitor hanging in this tree

and what I assume you shall assume.

I’m life suspended at seventeen,

uncertain and undeclared,

free, as you said,

to believe in nothing—

nothing at all.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

the self

I want to be—

the self who doesn’t need a tragic superpower

to be interesting

the self who would welcome you.

I thought I could hide behind another name,

walk behind someone brave enough to take
the first step,

but they led me away from myself.

Hanging here, I find a new perspective.

I see the leaves are making a comeback—

little tendrils snaking around my ankles,

and it’s not enough, to follow.

I don’t want to get lost, carried away

in a crowd of gossiping mouths

and stony eyes.

I celebrate the self

that steps down

from this tree

and steps up

and stands up

for you.

57. What forgiveness
is to you …

What doesn’t happen after that:

I don’t stage dive into the arms of all my adoring fellow students and crowd surf my way over to my parents, who don’t weep and tear their garments and don’t tell me I’ll never again have to eat tater-tot hotdish or go to church or do the dishes if I’ll only come home. That doesn’t happen.