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“At the price of telling me something you haven’t shared with anyone?”
I swallowed. “Secrets are burdensome. Maybe I want you to carry some of my baggage.” Maybe I’ve been wanting to tell McMonster for a while now.
“Will you carry some of mine?”
I nodded, not breaking eye contact. I didn’t know why, but I really, really wanted to carry some of his baggage. Even if it meant showing him the most embarrassing, scarred part of me in return. Maybe if he knew what I’d gone through, he would understand why I didn’t do relationships.
“So what do you say?” I held my breath for his answer.
He halted his steps, turning his head toward the other side of the residential street. “Hey, wasn’t that your hangout spot?”
I swiveled to follow his line of sight and saw we were on the edge of Staindrop’s community park. A lousy excuse for a playground. Two slides, two swings, one seesaw, and monkey bars. In high school, Dylan and I had come here in the summers to drink and gossip.
“A slice of heaven,” I said breathlessly, my cheeks stinging with a smile. I twisted my head to face him. “Detour? For old times’ sake?”
I couldn’t read his face in the dark, but I thought I heard him smile. “Heaven better buckle up.” He treaded in that direction, giving me his back. “Because the devil’s about to drop in for a visit.”
CAL
“What’s Up?”—4 Non Blondes
I discarded my backpack on the ground, rushing toward the swings. I grabbed the frosty chains and planted one foot over the rubber seat, hoisting myself up, finding my balance, then started rocking my body, creating momentum. “Now all that’s missing is a stolen bottle of your dad’s Tito’s!” I howled into the night, a cloud of condensation rolling through my lips.
Row sighed like a wary parent, producing a bottle of vodka from his messenger bag and raising it between us. I wasn’t sure whether he’d planned this or if it was just another item to add to my evidence file that he was an alcoholic. First, shaking hands, now this.
“Ambrose Rhett Casablancas!” I shrieked, beaming in delight. “You knew our darkest secret?”
“That was a secret?” He scowled. “I’ve met thongs more discreet than you two.”
Row trudged toward me, holding the vodka bottle by its neck. He perched on the swing next to mine and cracked the bottle open, taking a swig and passing it to me. I sat down and took a gulp, kicking my feet to sway back and forth.
I squinted at the mountains draped by the night. Suddenly, I had the distinct feeling I was in exactly the right place, at the right time, with the right person. A tiny part of a trillion-piece puzzle that neatly fit into this universe.
“So.” Row received the bottle from me, unscrewed the vodka cap, sipped, then handed it back to me. “Start from the beginning. What happened that made you stop running and swear off humans?” He swished the clear liquid in his mouth. “Who did this to you?”
“Sure you want to find out?”
“How else would I know who to kill?”
His face told me he wasn’t kidding.
My heart told me he was a safe person to open up to.
“I was bullied at school.” The words rolled off my tongue without prior consent from my brain. Like Row’s heartbeat next to mine was enough to squeeze the truth out of me. “Actually, it started in preschool. That’s when kids realized not only was I an odd bird but I also came from an eccentric nest. My parents would send me out with socked feet and sandals in the summers. I looked ridiculous, and ridiculous makes five-year-olds laugh.” It was silly for my throat to clog up about something that had happened almost two decades ago. “But what my peers found amusing in kindergarten, they found worthy of antagonizing me in elementary school. I dressed odd, I spoke odd, I lived odd. I had my eye tic every time I was nervous, which made me shy away from all the plays, parties, and major school events. To rub salt on a corroding wound, my parents were thrifty, so instead of eating at the school cafeteria, they sent me with cold meat sandwiches. They’d buy liver sausages and pork tongue at a deli and tuck them in my sandwiches. My lunches smelled from miles away and I’d be teased for it mercilessly.”
“Why didn’t you tell your folks sandals and socks don’t go together? That you prefer jelly and sunflower butter on your sandwich?” Row’s thick eyebrows slammed together angrily.
I pressed my lips together. “Because what people saw as quirks were actually my parents’ upbringing. They grew up in Russia. It was the makeup of their DNA. The way they’d been brought up. I didn’t want them to think they weren’t doing a good job or that I was ashamed of what we are, of who we are…” My nose stung, and I held back tears. It was all so silly. Water under the bridge. Then, why did thinking about it make me feel like I was drowning? “I think…I think being an immigrant can go two different ways. You either preserve, or you hide. My parents chose to wear their heritage like a badge of honor, and so, their legacy became mine. Every day I was taunted, I kept reminding myself of how lucky I was. I had two languages. Two cultures. Two worlds to enjoy. I could read Tolstoy in his native tongue. How lucky was I?”
Row’s sunset eyes were glowing embers in the dark. He stared at me wordlessly, and in that moment, it did feel like I was unloading my baggage onto his broad shoulders. “You chose to get hurt so your parents wouldn’t. I get it.”
The bullies were gone now, but the scars they’d left lingered. “Anyway,” I sniffed. “Kids didn’t like me. Other than Dylan.”
Dylan had had total main character energy from the get-go. She had been there to shoo the bullies away. To snitch on those who’d pulled the chair from under my butt. She had chosen to sit with me at lunch unfailingly, and one day was even brave enough to try my tea sandwich with the liver, even though it had smelled like a whey protein fart. She stood up for what she believed in, and she believed in kindness.
Row nodded in my periphery. “How many people are we talking about?”
“Like, sixty percent of my grade?” I let out a snort. “It made it worse that I didn’t want to fit in. I didn’t try to dress, look, and talk like everyone else. I had the audacity to like my baked milk cookies and pork stew lard and Hypnotic Poison.” I still wore the latter as a perfume.
