“You’re high,” she said. She waited for me to calm down and then handed me her phone. I took it, just barely getting my breathing under control. On the screen was a photo of a girl with long, bleached hair curled in perfect ringlets, wearing a silver sequined gown.
“I think you’re a lot prettier now,” I said. I meant it. A warm wave ran from my toes up to my head.
“Our peers disagree,” she said. “Whatever. I could be her again if I wanted to be. They’re jackasses forever. Your turn.”
“My ears aren’t pierced.” I remembered asking my parents when I was little, and how embarrassed and confused I’d felt when Dad responded angrily. My emotional life had already begun to collapse at that point, but something about that particular dressing-down knocked loose the floodgates, and months of bottled up loneliness, fear, and shame poured out. I remembered lying on my bed after Dad was done yelling at me, listening to the cardinals outside, and wondering if that was the last time I would ever cry, if God had decided I only got a set amount of tears in my whole life.
“Seriously? That’s all you’ve got?”
“You said to start small!” I protested. “Okay fine. How’s this instead? I’ve never been drunk.”
“Well, you’re high as shit right now, so I’d say you’re well on your way. My turn: I’ve gotten to at least third base in every bathroom at school.”
“With who?” I said, loud enough to startle myself. I started giggling again, but did a better job keeping it in check. “With whom, I mean. Whom.” I liked the way “whom” felt in my mouth.
“Your turn,” Bee said, shaking her head.
“Ohh-kay,” I conceded, dragging the word out like a disappointed child. A bubble hovered at my mind’s edge, waiting to pop. I existed in the moment, free from the past and the future. “I switched schools because someone beat me up. You can still feel the stitches above my ear.”
She took a long drag on her cigarette, lighting the tip bright red, and held it for a while. “A year ago I spent a month at Valley down in Chattanooga.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Loony bin,” she said, tapping her cigarette on the table’s edge. Ash floated to the ground.
“I tried to kill myself my sophomore year,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “How?”
“It was a few weeks after my mom broke her leg. Her prescription painkillers were sitting out. I took too many.”
“How many’s too many?”
“Whole bottle,” I said, chewing my fingernails.
“Why, though?”
I just shook my head.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Bee said. “Kill yourself, I mean.” She met my eyes as she put her cigarette out on the table. “I’m bisexual.”
“Really?” I said slowly, trying to fit this fact in with everything I knew about Bee. I wondered if any part of me had suspected. “Have you ever dated a girl?”
“Remember when you saw me and Chloe at the game?”
“Wow,” I said, my eyebrows shooting up. I wondered if anyone else knew about Chloe. I doubted it; she was a little masculine, of course, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything, and it didn’t seem like anyone was out and proud at Lambertville High. “I thought maybe you were smoking.”
“Nah,” she said. “Chloe’s a huge jock, so she refuses to corrupt her body or whatever.”
I nodded, processing what she had told me. I had been so caught up with my own secret, I realized, it hadn’t occurred to me that my new friends were keeping secrets of their own.
We sat silently for a few moments, listening to the rain pound the roof. It reminded me of the time Dad took me hunting with some buddies from work and a freak storm kept us trapped in our cabin all weekend. I tried to make oatmeal cookies like in Mom’s recipe book from the ingredients on hand, but all it seemed to do was make Dad uncomfortable. He never took me hunting again.
Bee’s voice cut through the quiet. “Your turn. It’s your fourth, so better make it a good one.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to control my breathing. “Just give me a minute, okay?” She shrugged.
I thought again of that weekend, and how I threw the cookies away even though there was nothing wrong with them. I thought of how I’d stopped doing so many of the things I’d enjoyed so Dad wouldn’t be mad. I thought of going the rest of my life pretending I sprang to life from nothing at sixteen years old and felt my cheeks flush with shame and anger. I was so tired of cowering. I was so tired of hiding. I wanted to tell the truth, to say it out loud.
But when I went to speak, nothing came out.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally. My eyes felt dry. “I know what I need to say, but I just … can’t.”
She waited a moment. Lightning flashed outside the house. I expected her to prod me, or maybe try to guess. But she just leaned back and said, “The rain doesn’t look like it’s gonna let up anytime soon. Get your sketchbook.”
I set the pad on my lap. “What should I draw?”
“Whatever you want.”
I put a pencil to paper and licked my lips. Within a few seconds the outline of a sad-eyed little boy appeared. Minutes passed as I sketched, the only sound the pattering of the rain on the roof.
“It’s okay, you know,” Bee said quietly, taking a long drag of her cigarette. “Whatever it is you can’t tell me.” She met my eyes. “It’s gonna be okay.”