The Distance from A to Z (7 page)

I HAVE A RAGING HEADACHE
when I wake up.

Which is unlikely the reason why Alice is upside down. In the middle of the room. And she's not in a headstand like the ones I struggle through in gym class, arms wrapped around my head, praying I won't fall over and hurt myself. Or kill someone else. Nope. She's actually standing on her hands, legs straight and perfectly still.

“Are you—” I try to formulate the question but the truth is, I'm not sure if I'm totally awake or if this is somehow part of my dream.

“One sec,” Alice stutters.

Well, at least it's evidently not quite as effortless as she makes it out to be.

It takes another fifteen seconds before she flips down, one leg at a time, as controlled and graceful as she was in the position.

She rolls her shoulders back and forth and stretches out her wrists.

“Do you do that every morning?”

“Yup.” She smiles. “Only usually you're gone before I start my yoga routine.”

“Why?” My eyes are only open a crack because the light seems especially bright this morning. Like it's shining from the sun directly into the back of my eyes. Which seems to be impossible, but this morning? Anything's possible.

“Because usually you're up before nine?”

Nine?

Nine?

My eyes screw shut. Not because of the blinding light or the epic eye pain. But because class starts at nine and—

Merde. Merde. Merde.

“Relax,” I hear Alice say as I whip off the covers and desperately try to find something—no, anything—to wear. Wednesday's jeans? Fabulous. Don't care if they have a coffee stain on them. The sweater I wore Thursday night to the dorm eighties party? Not a problem.

“Abby!” There's clothing falling everywhere, and I know I should be one of these people who hangs up her clothing, but this week totally owned me. Next week I'll be better, I promise myself as I try to shove both my feet in the same skinny-jean leg. If I can just get to class before Marianne
notices I'm not there, I'll hang up all my clothing before I go to sleep and even video chat with my grandmother this weekend and—

“Abby! It's Saturday. Breakfast isn't until eleven because we're doing that special pancake brunch. That's why I didn't wake you.”

Saturday. Breakfast. Eleven.

Merde
.

“Why didn't you—” I collapse back against my bed, trying desperately to get my jeans off my leg while burying myself under my covers. Before my head is officially under my pillow, I peek at the clock. Nine fifteen.

I need more sleep.

“So what are you doing today?” I ask Alice as we walk out of the cafeteria. She's wearing a tight black tank over bright green pants, and it makes me feel like a mess with my cutoff jeans and old Doctor Who
Where's My Tardis?
T-shirt that used to be black but now, not so much.

Two pain pills, an additional hour of sleep, and a shower are contributing nicely to the feeling I'm no longer wearing my head inside out. That and copious amounts of coffee and a stack of pancakes that should have been illegal. So between the sugar and the caffeine, I feel like I can do anything.

“I'll tell you in a minute. First, what's the story with Zeke?”

Except maybe talk about Zeke.

Zeke, who came back yesterday and might be with some girl who makes the sound
rwar
. And redheaded Stephie. And who knows who else.

Not that I care. Especially since I'm apparently too nosy for his taste.

But now my shoulders are up near my ears and all the morning relaxation is gone. “Nothing.” I sigh. “We spend a ton of time together and we speak French and I think that's just messing with my brain.”

“Are you interested in him?”

Interested?

“No,” I say, without letting the question fully settle in the air.

Except then it does—

“He confuses me. He's clearly into sports and is everything I don't want. But he's also as passionate about French as I am.”

“Can't he be both?”

I turn to face Alice and she shrugs, the braids on each side of her head bopping as she moves. “Yes,” I say slowly. “Obviously, yes, but . . .”

But I'm not into sporty guys. Been there, done that, pitched the commemorative T-shirts. How can I say that without sounding like a bitch?

“He's just not right for me.”

“Because he's into sports.”

“Yes.”

“Even though he loves French and you spend hours and hours together.”

“Yes.”

“Because you don't really like him that much.”

This time there's a longer pause. “Right.”

These words, all these words, are wrong. I hate them. I hate the feeling of the
yes
and
right
coming out of my mouth, the bitterness of the lies. I hate the fact that I'm lying to Alice and to myself and and and . . .

Oh, Zeke. Zeke with his perfect French, his easy smile, his arms around every girl, his name screeched across the hallway. It's too much, even before I roll in the baseball shirts and the refusal to talk about what's wrong with his shoulder.

Too effing much.

And the headache is back.

“I'm not interested in dating a player,” I blurt out, and Alice doesn't need to hear the inner monologue to understand. To understand that at least this isn't completely a lie. “I've seen too many athletes go from girl to girl, and I'm not interested in that. It turns out that my first boyfriend only dated me because my family has season tickets to the Cubs. And true, that was seventh grade. But then in high school,
my two short-lived romances were all spent listening to guys talk ad nauseam about sports with my brothers. I think Eddie actually had a crush on my brother Si, though nobody believes me.

“So let's just say that between having a family that puts all things on hold for a Cubs game, and then having a boyfriend who didn't want to go to homecoming with me because he wanted to watch the conference championship on TV, I'm a little done with anyone who's into sports.”

“He might not be—”

I can't do this.

“So, what are you up to today?” I ask, and I so appreciate that Alice lets me get away with the punt.

“There's a pottery studio in town I want to check out,” Alice says.

“You do yoga and pottery?”

We're crossing the quad, close to our dorm, and I'm not really paying attention. I'm thinking about not tripping on the cracks in the pavement, and how I don't like Zeke, not really.

“They're both good for helping with my anxiety. The yoga is something I do every day, sometimes more than once a day. And the pottery I do when I can. They both help me center myself in different ways. Well, between that and the medication.”

“You take medication?” I don't notice the surprise and slight disdain that creeps into my voice, but I see Alice's reaction. She heard it.

Alice stops, her hands fisting on her hips. “Yes,” she says, looking me in the eye. “I do. And it helps a lot.”

“I didn't mean—”

“You meant only crazy people take medication?”

“No,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes. “No. I just didn't realize that you need medicine for something like that.”

“It's not a choice,” Alice says, her words dripping with rage and pain. This is not the gentle Alice I've grown to see as someone who understands me better than most. Not the calm Alice who writes pages and pages in her journals. This is an Alice who is trying her hardest to keep it together. Her thin shoulders are shaking with the effort. “I don't want to be like this. It isn't a matter of just trying harder. It's about using all kinds of techniques. Breathing techniques. Centering techniques. Self-talk and therapy. And yes, medication. Before I started taking my meds, it was hell. And while things are still hard now, I wouldn't give up a day of medication just so that people won't judge me. I'm giving my body the support it needs. And I won't apologize for that.”

“I'm sorry,” I whisper again, but Alice's head is shaking so hard now that I'm not even sure she can hear me.

“I'm heading into town for the day. I'll see you later,” she
says, her eyes firmly trained on the polished blue toenails that stick out of her leather sandals.

And before I can think of the right answer, of any answer, anything to make this better, she's gone.

I clean our room. I refill our fridge with snacks from the campus convenience store, careful to pick up the chocolate-covered espresso beans I know Alice loves to snack on and the flavored seltzer I've learned she likes. And then I wander through town, trying to figure out what else I can do to make things better.

I call my mom.

“Everything okay, sweetie?” she asks. The booming voice of the Cubs announcer welcoming everyone to the game is loud even over the phone, and I know she's outside Wrigley Field trying to sell her extra tickets for today's game.

“Everything's fine,” I lie. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.” And I know she means it, truly, though she's also distracted.

My life in a nutshell.

“Okay.” I sigh, knowing that the sound won't be audible over the noise on Addison as a Cubs game begins.

“How are your classes?”

I nod.
Class, just one class,
I want to say. I told her this, but . . . “It's great. I'm loving my French prof and I'm learning
a ton.”

“I'm so glad.” Her voice almost sounds wistful, and I'm not sure what to do with that. “I'm still hoping your dad and I can come out to visit but the summer is crazy busy and . . .”

I know. And she knows I know. And she feels bad that I feel bad and there's nothing we need to say.

“I have a great roommate,” I tell her, even though usually in the conversation, this would be the point where I'd let her go. “Her name is Alice and she's from Hyde Park.”

“That's fabulous. Well, then even if we don't make it to visit, we'll at least meet her in Chicago. Maybe you can convince her to go to a Cubs game and she'll take you to a Sox game.”

It's all about baseball. As well as my mom knows me, she still can't hear the different neighborhoods in the city without translating them into fan teams.

But I'll take a Cubs game and a Sox game if that means I've convinced Alice I was being an ass and she's forgiven me.

“I love you,” I say, and she repeats my words back to me and hangs up. Even if I were in Chicago, I wouldn't be with her right now. But I don't think I quite realized how much I'd miss that.

I finally find myself at Tea and Sympathy in the late afternoon, a small teahouse on an out-of-the-way street off the
downtown strip. With painted mugs and knitted tea cozies, it screams the perfect place to disappear into. Because in six days, I've managed to piss off my roommate, who I love, and my study partner, who I . . . who I . . .

Who is Zeke to me?

Apart from the boy I've pissed off.

As I sip my tea, the herbs begin to relax the knots between my shoulder blades. I pick up the French novel I'm supposed to be puzzling through, but for once, the words do little to comfort me.

“You're welcome to join us if you'd like.” I startle at the hand on my shoulder, almost knocking my teacup off the table.

“Crap,” I mutter, making a grab for the table to settle it.

“I'm sorry,” says a woman with bright red hair in a thick braid down her back. She's wearing overalls and a tie-dye shirt that seems to work quite well with her hair.

“I'm good.” I smile.

“I'm teaching a graphic arts technique in the corner over there,” she says, pointing to a group of tables that have been pushed together to form a large clutter of table space, “and it's free. So if you want . . .”

“I suck at art.” I shrug.

“Ha! That's exactly what every single person said before they joined us. This is actually using words and quotes to
make art. I'm Rebecca, by the way.”

Words. Quotes. My favorite things.

But she's probably a religious freak, or she wants me to come live on her commune, where they grow pot and have massive orgies.

Except the other people look remarkably normal.

“There's no catch,” she calls over her shoulder as she makes her way back to the group. “I'm in art school, and this helps me develop my teaching projects. Today we're making mugs with quotes on them. The store is providing us with the mugs at cost so it's only two bucks a mug. Or you could just hang out and learn the technique and then it's free.”

I stare at the group. Four women and two men, all somewhere near college age. What's the worst—

“Hey, Abby, mind if I join you?”

I apparently chose the most popular cafe in Merritt. Lucky me, because Drew is now standing over my table, his once-attractive long poet hair now looking like he should have washed it before he left the house this morning.

Ew.

“I was also coming in to work on French, so maybe we could work together. I mean, I know you're technically with Zeke, but it can't hurt to stretch yourself.”

The words individually are probably okay but it's the way he licks his lips at the end of the sentence that makes me
feel like I need a shower now too. “I'm actually moving over there to learn this new art technique.” I smile, my dry lips catching on my teeth. “But you're welcome to the table.”

And then I pack my stuff in record speed and practically sprint to the corner, where I grab a chair and thrust it between two normal-looking women. It's a tight squeeze but it puts me with my back to Drew, which is exactly what I want.

At first I'm content to watch Rebecca describe the process. Some of the others are looking through the books of quotes she's provided, but I'm just happy not to have to make excuses as to why I can't sit with Drew.