The Way I used to Be

LUNCH-BREAK BOOK CLUB.
I named it. The next week we have our first
meeting. We bring our brown bags to the table in the back of the library by
the out-of-date reference materials nobody ever uses. It is me, Mara, Stephen,
plus these two freshmen girls. The one girl looks to be about ten years old and
transferred from a Catholic school at the beginning of the year. She dresses
like she’s still there, always wearing these starchy button-down shirts under
scratchy sweaters, and embarrassingly long skirts. The other girl chews on her
hair. She looks so out of it, I’m not sure if she even knows why we’re here.
“We’re one short,” I announce, hoping this doesn’t spoil everything.
Miss Sullivan looks at me like she knows just as well as I do that this is
basically bottom of the barrel here. Then she looks up at the clock. The
minute hand clicks on the one. “There’s still time,” she says, reading my
mind. “Besides, it’s all right if we don’t have all six people the first day.”
Just then this guy I’ve never seen walks toward the table—this severe-
looking guy—skinny, with pale skin and deep black hair with blue streaks that
match his bright blue eyes. He wears these funky, thick-rimmed glasses, and
two silver rings encircle his lower lip.
“Wow,” Mara whispers to me, grinning ear to ear.
“What?” I whisper back.
“Just . . . wow,” she repeats, not taking her eyes off him.
“Cameron!” Miss Sullivan greets him. “I’m so glad you decided to come.”
“Oh,” he says, pulling out the chair beside Stephen. “I mean, yeah. Hi.”
“All right,” Miss Sullivan begins, clearly encouraged by our new addition.
“Why don’t we get started? I thought maybe we could just go around the table
and introduce ourselves, tell everyone a little bit about your interests and why
you’re here. I’ll start. Obviously, I’m Miss Sullivan.” She laughs. “I’m your
librarian. But when I’m not here, I’m actually a real person, believe it or not. I
spend a lot of time volunteering for the animal shelter and I foster rescue
dogs while they’re waiting to be adopted. As far as this book club is

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concerned, as I mentioned to Eden, this is your club, so I want each of you to
shape it. I think this will be a great way to do some reading for fun, outside
the usual classroom setting, where we can have discussions and debates, talk
about issues we don’t normally get to address in your forty-minute classes.”
She waves her hand in my direction, as if to say 
you’re up
. I sink into my
skin a little deeper. “I’m Eden—Edy, I mean. Or Eden. Um, I guess, I just like
reading.” I shrug. “And I thought this book club sounded like a good idea,” I
mumble. Miss Sullivan nods her head encouragingly. I hate myself. I look to
Mara, silently begging her to just please interrupt me, just start talking—say
anything.
“My name is Mara,” she says sweetly, flashing her new smile at all of us.
“I’m a freshman. I’m interested in music—I’m in band. I like animals,” she
adds, so naturally. Why couldn’t I have thought to say something like that?
I’m in band too. I like animals—I love animals. “What else? I really think this
will be a great way to spend our lunches—it’s a lot nicer, and quieter, than the
cafeteria.” She adds a little giggle onto the end of her sentence, and everyone
smiles back at her. Especially this new guy. Mara kicks my foot under the
table, like, 
Are you seeing this?
“That’s great, Mara—we could always use more volunteers at the animal
shelter, you know,” Miss Sullivan says with a smile. And I really wonder how
people get to be normal like this. How they just seem to know what to say and
do, automatically.
“I’m Cameron,” the new guy says, skipping over the two other girls. “I’m
new here this year. I’m interested in art. And music,” he adds, smiling at
Mara. “I like reading too.” He breaks his gaze away from Mara to make eye
contact with me. “And dogs,” he smiles, looking at Miss Sullivan.
Miss Sullivan smiles back at him like she means it.
“I’m Stephen,” Stephen mumbles. “When Edy told me about this, I
thought it sounded like a good alternative to having lunch in the cafeteria.
Oh, and I like art too,” he adds, looking at Cameron. “Photography, I mean.
I’m on yearbook.”
“Awesome, man,” Cameron says, flashing Stephen one of those smiles.
This New Guy stepping all over my territory—first with Mara, then Miss

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Sullivan, now Stephen. And he’s going to try to smile at me like he’s some
kind of nice guy.
He catches me staring at him, trying to figure out what kind of game he’s
playing. I don’t know what expression I must be wearing, but his smile fades a
little, and his eyes look at me hard too, like he might be trying to figure out
why I’m trying to figure him out. Somewhere, my brain tells me I should be
listening as the two other girls introduce themselves, but I can’t.
“Thank you for the introductions—this is great. So, I think the thing to do
at this meeting is establish some logistics,” Miss Sullivan says through the fog
of my brain. Cameron redirects his attention to her, and I follow. “What
sounds reasonable to you? Two books a month? One? Three? I don’t know.
We can vote on which books we would like to read together—we’ll do the
reading on our own time, and then these lunch sessions will be for discussion.
Thoughts?”
“Two a month sounds good,” Cameron offers, just before I was going to
say the same thing.
“Yeah, two sounds right,” Mara agrees, with this strange twinkle in her eye.
“Why not three?” Catholic Schoolgirl asks.
“I don’t know if I have time for three extra books, with regular schoolwork
and everything,” Stephen says uncertainly, looking around the table for
support.
“I agree.” I say it firmly, just so I have something to say. Stephen smiles at
me. He had, after all, supported me on Columbus.
“All right. I think we have a majority then. Two books per month it is!”
Miss Sullivan concludes.
“Edy, this book thing was the best idea you’ve ever had!” Mara squeals the
second we cross the threshold of the outside world, as we prepare to walk
home after school. “That guy today was, like, so cool.”
“You mean the guy with blue hair and all the piercings?” I ask in disbelief.
“It’s not blue. It’s black with little steaks of blue. It’s awesome—he’s
awesome.”

---

Okay,
I mouth silently.
“Things are about to get good, Edy, I can feel it,” she says, clasping her
hands together.
“What are you talking about?”
“This is just the beginning—me and Cameron. We can only get closer
from here on out, right?” She trails off, looking into the distance. And I know
I’ve lost her; she’s gone into her obsessive fantasizing state: “Yeah,” she
continues, finally looking at me again, her eyes wide. “We’ll get to know him
now that we’re all doing this book thing. We’ll become friends first. They
always say that’s better, anyway. It will be—”
I have to tune her out, though, because she could go on like this for hours,
planning out how things will be.
“You noticed the way he was looking at me, right, like, 
looking
at me?” I
hear her say.
Sometimes I wonder if she gets it, like Miss Sullivan and Stephen—how
they just get it. Most of the time I think so, but then sometimes it seems like
we’re on different planets. Like now.
“Maybe I should dye my hair blue?” she concludes, after a monologue
that’s lasted almost the entire walk home from school.
“What? No, Mara.”
“I was just making sure you’re listening.” She smirks.
“Sorry, I’m listening,” I lie. We stand at the stop sign at the corner of my
street. This is where we part. I go straight. She goes left. Except I can’t force
my feet to move in that direction. It’s like I’m in quicksand. She stands there
looking at me like maybe she really does get it. Like she knows something is
wrong.
“Wanna come over?” she asks. “My mom won’t be home until later.”
I nod my head yes and we start walking toward her street.
“Okay, so I won’t dye my hair blue”—she grins—“but I am getting
contacts. I already guilted my dad into it. We’re going to the eye doctor next
weekend.”
“Sweet,” I tell her as I push my own glasses back up over the bridge of my
nose.

---

We have no choice but to walk past his house to get to Mara’s. Kevin’s
house. It hardly matters that he’s not there. I can feel my legs weakening the
closer we get. I suddenly hate this neighborhood, loathe it, despise the way
we’re all so close that we can’t get untangled from each other’s lives.
I already see Amanda in the front yard as we approach their house. His
sister. She always seemed so much younger than me—I always thought of her
as this little kid, but as I’m looking at her right now she doesn’t seem so little.
She’s only one year behind us in school. We used to play together a lot when
we were little, before Mara moved here in the sixth grade and took her place
as my best friend. Their youngest sister is with her, along with another little
kid—probably a neighbor—bundled up in layers, playing in the snow. It looks
like they’re trying to assemble a snowman, but it’s really just a big blob of cold
white. Amanda stands next to it, winding a scarf around and around the place
where the top blob and the middle blob meet, while the two little kids scream
and throw snowballs at each other.
The kids are oblivious to us, but Amanda sees us coming. She ties the scarf
in a final knot and then places her mittened hands in her coat pockets; she
stands there watching us. She doesn’t say anything, which is strange. Even
though we weren’t technically friends, not like we used to be, we still talked,
still got along at the occasional family get-together.
When I don’t say anything either, Mara fills in the blanks: “Hey, Mandy!”
Mandy. It’s what we all called her after they first moved here. It didn’t
stick. I remember that’s how they introduced her the first time we met. It was
at my eighth birthday party, back when our two families started celebrating
everything as one, because Kevin and Caelin were inseparable from the very
beginning. Kevin was always included, and his family by extension. But I
guess that was a million years ago.
“Hi, Amanda,” I offer, trying to smile.
She crosses her arms and stands up a little straighter. “Hey,” she finally
replies, monotone.
“So, did you have a nice Christmas?” I try, anyway, to act like things are
normal, but all I can think of is Kevin.
She shrugs slightly, staring at me. The seconds drag by.

---

The thing about the Armstrongs—the thing I never really gave much
thought until now—is that when they came here, they weren’t just moving
here. They were leaving something else. Something bad had happened
wherever they were before. I’d overheard Mrs. Armstrong telling Mom about
it. She was crying. And then later I was eavesdropping while Mom told Dad
about it. I didn’t get most of it, other than it involved Kevin, and Mr.
Armstrong’s brother, Kevin’s uncle.
“Actually”—I turn to Mara—“I think I am gonna go home instead. I’m not
feeling great, honestly.”
“Really, what’s wrong?” Mara asks, her voice genuinely concerned.
“Nothing, I just—” But I don’t finish, because I’m literally backing away
from them. I turn to look only once, and they both stand there watching me.
Mara raises her arm to wave, and yells, “I’ll call you!”
I start running after I round the corner, my head pounding harder and faster
with each footfall, my whole body in this cold sweat. By the time I make it
home I’m so nauseous I’m actually crying. I run into the bathroom and am
instantly on the floor kneeling in front of the toilet, gasping for air.
I lie down on the couch after, not even bothering to take my coat off.
I close my eyes.
The next thing I know, my mom is leaning over me, touching my forehead
with the back of her hand. “She sick?” I hear Dad ask as he tosses his keys
down on the kitchen table.
“Edy?” Mom puts her freezing hands on my cheeks—it feels so good.
“What’s the matter? Are you sick?”
“I guess so,” I mumble.
“Well, let’s get your coat off, here.” She puts her arm around my back to
help me up. And I wish more than anything that she would just hug me right
now. But she pulls my arms out of my coat instead.
“I threw up,” I tell her.
“Did you eat something weird today?” she asks.

---

“No.” In fact, I didn’t eat anything today. I was too busy trying to figure
out that Cameron guy during lunch break to actually eat the peanut butter
and jelly sandwich that I packed for myself.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” She stands and looks down at me like she really is.
“Why don’t you go get in your pajamas, and I’ll make you some soup, okay?”
“Okay,” I answer.
I go into my room to get changed, careful not to stare too hard at the
fading gray bruises that still line my thighs. Careful not to dwell too long on
the bruises on my hip bones and ribs. They’ll be gone soon, anyway. I pull on
my pajama bottoms and button the matching flannel shirt all the way up to
my neck to hide the remnants of bruises still on my collarbone.
“Chicken noodle?” Mom calls out from the kitchen as I take my seat at the
table.
Before I can answer, she sets a cup of steaming tea down in front of me.
I don’t actually feel like soup at all, chicken noodle or any other kind. But
she has this big smile on her face, like the kind she would always get running
around after Caelin. I think she must like having someone to take care of,
something concrete to do for me.
“Yeah, chicken noodle,” I agree, in spite of my churning stomach.
“Okay. You drink that,” she tells me, pointing at the tea.
I nod.
Dad sits down at the table across from me. Making his hands a tent, he
says, “Yep. Some kinda bug going around, I guess.”
If only I were sick all the time, things might feel a little more normal
around here.

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