The Opposite of Invisible (6 page)

I don’t sleep well at night because I think.

Thinking is the number one enemy of dreaming.

Dreams are what I need.

In dreams, I know everything, and nothing makes sense in that perfect way that’s sort of Zen. Like, the sky is totally not supposed to be that color. But cool. Let’s go fly a kite anyway. We’re feeling okay.

It’s always we. I think in terms of we.

Me and Jewel. Me and Simon, maybe. Me and me.

I exhale. “If I could sleep up there, I’d definitely do it.”

We walk another block and are at the giant stone troll. It sits, menacing, under the 99 freeway. The troll’s left hand crushes a real VW Beetle; that car used to travel the streets, but now it’s in a constant state of about-to-be-eaten.

We barely hear the traffic above our heads as we climb the rocks to the troll’s back.

Jewel is just ahead of me. I stumble and he turns around to grab my hand. We each have our junk shop bag in one hand, and now we have each other’s fingers in the other.

We reach the troll’s shoulders, up where we can lean back against his head. Jewel keeps my hand. We let our bags rest on the stone.

Then my planet wobbles.

His hand.

That wanting-to-be-close feeling starts to come over me again. I have the urge to lay my head on Jewel’s sweatshirt, on his shoulder. To feel how solid he is.

Did kissing Simon release something in me? Or would I feel this way toward Jewel right now anyway?

As if we’re at the slow-motion point in a movie, Jewel reaches across my body to my cheek. He pulls my face toward his. His fingers feel like hot ice. They’re cold but they burn me.

My eyes close as he kisses me.

I kiss him back, a dream I’ve never had.

This kiss is so soft, it’s almost like rain falling on my face.

I’ve never realized the softness of Jewel’s hair before. His skin.

Jewel kissing me, me kissing him, feels like a rocket. Like blastoff.

Finally, I pull away.

I’m thinking we shouldn’t be doing this. I’m thinking it feels too real. I’m thinking. Simon.

Jewel’s eyes are talking. They sparkle, and say yes, and please.

It’s the please that gets me. The glint of the question, of please kiss me again and please mean it and please let’s be together.

Because with Jewel and me, anything more than this, more than one kiss, means we’re a couple.

I’m thinking.

He says, “Wow.”

I think, Tell me about it.

I think, Have you honed your mind-reading skills yet, ’cause I hope not.

He leans toward me.

He lets out his breath.

His lips are like the rain.

Ten, nine, eight.

The pressure in me builds.

Seven.

I push him away.

He closes his eyes. Leans against the stone of the troll.

He leans forward. He tells me everything with those eyes. He tells me I’m all he wants. He tells me I’m perfect.

I say, “I better get home for dinner.”

He knows we don’t eat till seven.

He shuts his eyes. Climbs down the troll’s hill.

He pauses by the troll’s gigantic thumb. He doesn’t look at me again. He jumps to the sidewalk.

I watch him go.

My heart just beats and beats and beats and Jewel and I and—

We really kissed. This heartbeat might be a happy roller-coaster rush if it had happened one week ago. But now. It’s a two-guys-at-once-two-kisses-you-have-to-choose.

And I don’t know if my heart can survive that kind of beating.

In sixth grade, I tell my Dove Girl, Jewel and I would sneak out of our houses at night and lie under the tree in my front yard. We’d pretend to be on another planet. All we could see were shadowed leaves and night-cloudy sky through the branches. Sometimes it rained on us. We wore our pajamas there; sometimes all I wore was a big T-shirt. We talked about things like life on Mars. We whispered.

Under the tree in the drizzle, we had our first kiss. My first kiss. His first kiss. Our first kiss.

But I don’t actually count it as a real kiss. It was more of a peck. It didn’t change anything between us.

Not like today at the troll.

When he kissed me for the second time ever today, it felt amazing.

His lips, like the soft rain.

But I pushed him away.

I just don’t know. I don’t know if I should kiss Jewel.

It’s like we’ve always been one step away from Couplehood and kissing him is like a promise to him, that I’m saying we’ll be in Couplehood for sure and forever.

And, okay, yeah, to me a kiss means a lot too.

I’m still thinking about it, aren’t I? But should I be? Do I want to move to Couplehood with Jewel? Further into
our cocoon? Or do I want to leave the cocoon? Does my answer change when I think about Simon Murphy?

One thing’s for sure. My Dove Girl has sent me way more than I asked for.

  At lunch on Monday, I sit alone. Jewel has lunch fifth period and I have it sixth. Clara and Jeremy don’t show.

When Simon puts his tray down across from me, I sit up a little bit on my plastic stool.
“See ya”
meant “I’ll sit with you at lunch in front of the whole world!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Simon’s crew at their usual table: Mike Corrigan and another guy arm wrestling, a girl shredding an orange with her manicured nails.

I’m looking at Simon and his dimple. Right by his lips.

I want to touch his skin. Just like I wanted to touch Jewel’s yesterday.

“Glorious meal, eh?” He waves his hand like a game show hostess across his yellow plastic tray.

I say, “Gee. You’re easy to please.”

“Not when it comes to girls.”

Whoa.

Two tables away, his friends huddle around Corrigan. Yesterday he found out he’d won a football scholarship to the University of Washington. Everyone’s drooling over him.

I point my chin toward them and say, “My dad worked at Udub.”

“Good school.”

“So, Mike’s gonna be on scholarship?”

I want to know why Simon isn’t over there celebrating.

He’s eating carrot sticks. Simon Murphy is sitting across from me eating carrot sticks. Which he brought from home. Like we’re sitting in his kitchen.

Our first public appearance.

I’m so, so glad that Jewel isn’t here to see.

“Well, listen,” Simon says. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Something, eh? Sounds thrilling.”

“Bloodbath.” He smiles. Chomps a carrot stick. “Are you going?”

This is so not just
“See ya.”

“I’m gonna be a witch.”

“Well,” he says, “how are you getting there?”

“Broomstick, duh.”

“That’s only for hags,” he says. “I’ll drive you.”

Simon Murphy is asking me to the Bloodbath. Simon Murphy, who dated a senior cheerleader. Simon Murphy, who knows about octopi. Simon Murphy.

But I’m going with Jewel!

That’s just for goofs, though. That’s not
this
. That’s not a date. That’s just a thing. Like any other thing with Jewel. But, God, he just kissed me. So it would be a date. Wouldn’t it?

I have to say something now, though. To Simon. Jewel can deal. Right? Because I want to go with Simon. I do. Yes.

“Oh. Well. Okay then.”

How can I do this? What about Jewel? This isn’t me.

I could still back out.

“I’ll pick you up.”

I stare at my tray. I’m going to the dance with Simon
Murphy. Instead of going with my blend-into-the-lockers best friend. Who kissed me yesterday. Who I kissed back.

Jewel and I picked out our costumes together. I’m supposed to do his makeup. We told Tommy. He kissed me! I let him! How can I go with Simon?

How can I not?

Simon collects his things. “Catch you later.”

  All through English class, I alternate between popping my leg up and down in excitement over Simon and freezing in contemplation of Jewel.

We’re having an assembly, so no Spanish today. Thankfully, I won’t have to deal with being in the same room with both of them. But Jewel’s in my study hall.

I shut my eyes. I think of Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the story where that guy murders another guy and almost gets away with it but turns super-guilty and has a breakdown because he’s sure people can hear the corpse’s heart beating underneath the floorboards, where he has put the body. My heart is like that.

I’m afraid that somehow Jewel can sense what’s going on. And I’m afraid that Simon will realize how much this means to me. Which is how much exactly? On a scale of one to ten. And why? I have a date to the big dance. So? Now will my life be complete? Will I be, like, Halloween Queen? I so need to get a grip.

Dove Girl, quiet my heart.

After English, in my locker, I find a note from Jewel.

I look at it, notebook paper written on in blue felt-tip. Folded up,
Alice
written in tiny letters on the front.

My heart beats.

He’s included a photo of the troll. Black-and-white. Beautiful.

Alice
, the note says.
I’m writing because I’m afraid if I try to talk to you, I’ll just freeze up. I guess I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while, but I didn’t mean for it to actually happen. Or did you like it? Do you want to go to the dance with me, as my date? I’ll buy you a corsage made for a witch. Wilted to perfection
.

For one whole second, I’m excited. Then I remember.

I’m so not showing up to study hall. If Jewel’s heard about Simon by now, which is possible, I can’t face him. If he hasn’t, I still can’t face him, because I need to tell him that I won’t be his date and that I’m ditching him for the Bloodbath entirely.

When did I turn into this person?

I feel horrible. I’m
ditching
Jewel. I’m basically forcing him to hate me. But I’m also allowed to have a crush, right? I never promised Jewel anything. He’s my best friend. Not my boyfriend.

Thank God Mr. Smith is the study hall monitor. I wait outside the room until I see him making his way down the hall.

“Mr. Smith,” I say when he gets there. “Could I spend this period in the studio? I really want to do some watercolors.”

He writes me a pass.

Just by avoiding Jewel right now, I feel like I’m breaking the rules.

I get out my notebook, tear off a piece of paper, and write a note.

I ask him to meet me at the troll after school.

I walk down the empty hall, fast so I won’t flip out, and I slip the note into his locker.

  The VW’s rear windshield is newly decorated with a Day-Glo heart, spray-paint pink, filled in with squiggles. A garnish of love graffiti for the beast’s meal.

I lean against the troll’s fist, out of the misty rain, waiting for Jewel. I think about what to say to him.
I love you as a friend…. It’s not you, it’s me…
.

Jewel walks from the direction of school, his hood up against the drizzle and his eyes down.

He gets to where I am. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t look at me.

“I got your note.”

“I figured.” He moves his gaze to the pink heart.

“I don’t know what to say.” I close my eyes, then open them and speak to his forehead. “I can’t go with you. I have … a date, sort of.”

I let my gaze meet his. My eyes instantly water. “But I still want to hang out with you. You’re … my best friend.”

He finally looks at me. He’s heard. It’s obvious. His eyes are empty. Someone slapped Simon five on a new chick or something, in front of Jewel. Possibly on purpose.

In this instant, I want to erase everything with Simon
and just go back to normal with Jewel. But I also know that it’s impossible. Because now Jewel and I have our own kiss-weirdness so even if there weren’t a Simon Murphy in my life, there would not be normal with Jewel, either.

“Why don’t you come for dinner,” I say. “Lasagna. Saturday before the dance.”

He looks back at the VW. “Wouldn’t your boyfriend be pissed?”

He turns, keeps his head down as he walks through the rain.

I don’t think about it; I just run after him. “Hey,” I say. “Hey.”

He turns around.

“That’s not fair. For you to be mad at me for having a date to the Bath.”

He just looks at me, rain falling between us.

I go on. “I know we were supposed to go together. We do everything together. But you know … I’m allowed to have a date who’s not you. Isn’t that okay? And you might … go out with someone.”

Jewel and someone else? The thought is like someone stealing from me.

He stands there.

“Is it because Simon’s … what? Popular?”

“Alice, that’s so not it.” He walks away again. I don’t follow him.

I walk home feeling like something so low. Like I deserve to be eaten by the troll.

Because what Jewel really meant was: I’m breaking his heart.

When I go to bed and close my eyes, I hear Jewel’s voice, shaking. So I sit up and trace my Dove Girl with the tip of my finger, starting with her eyes, extending to her long nose, her uneven heart of a mouth. Then her head; lastly, the place where her skin turns into the wings of a dove. I try to memorize this shape. Peace. What it is to be still, calm.

I’ve tried drawing her in my sketchbook. She ends up too pointy or too mean-looking. Mean like me, according to Jewel. Maybe. Probably.

What if it were two weeks ago? What if Jewel had kissed me then and Simon and I had never hung out? And kissed? Then would I go with Jewel to the Bath as his date? Would I become his girlfriend?

What ifs. That’s all I’ve got because my Dove Girl doesn’t talk back. She just sits there, looking like the Buddha or something.

The Buddha reminds me of Vanessa’s new Zen thing.

I wonder what Vanessa would say about my boy situation. As if I would ever ask her.

I already know the answer, anyway. Deep down. Yeah. Yes. If Jewel had kissed me and Simon hadn’t, I’d be with Jewel. I’d be his.

We’d stay in our cocoon.