Page 18 of So Long, Honey
“Did you hear that?” Paisley said.
“Who’s in here?” Georgia asked next, her boots stomping on the dingy titled floor outside my door. “I bet you it’s her, listening to us talking about how tragic she is. Did you hear that little loner Lorraine? Ryan is fucking with you.”
A sickening chorus of high school bully laughter echoed around the bathroom as the main door opened and swung shut, leaving me alone momentarily. I couldn’t help the tears as they flowed, rubbing my nose on my sleeve as it started to run.
After a moment, there was a soft knock on my door. “Lorraine?” The voice was quiet, sweet even. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Far from it.
I stiffened, whipping my cheeks and popping the latch to find Mary Cooper from third-period advanced biology staring back at me with her glassy brown eyes and round cheeks. “I’m sorry they said those things,” she said as I stood to walk to the bathroom. “They can be really mean, but Cadence’s home life sucks, and Georgia’s mom is cheating on her dad with the baseball coach.”
“What?” I huffed, pausing as I washed my hands and turned my head to look at her.
“Paisley pretends to be better than everyone, but she lives down by the trainyard with her grandma in a trailer,” Mary said as if that answered my question. “I’m just saying they’re only mean because they need an outlet.”
“Was that supposed to make me feel better?” I asked with a sniffle.
“No, but it levels the playing field. They were wrong,” she said, handing me a sheet of paper towel for my wet hands. “You aren’t tragic. They just don’t know how to be themselves without putting others down.”
“You talk a lot,” I said gently as she took the wet towel and threw it out for me.
“But I’m not wrong.” She smiled. “Do you want a walk home? I don't know about you, but I’m sick of this fair… they ran out of hot dogs an hour in, and Chet is running the kissing booth.”
“Chet Perkins?” I raised an eyebrow. The thought of his creepy bird lips sent a shiver down my spine.
“I can see by the haunting look on your face you’ve been a victim to his weird locker letters,” she laughed, her smile so bright it lit up all the dark spaces that were swallowing me whole. “I only live a street over from you. Your house is bigger, but we have a nicer yard that backs onto the lake. No offense,” she hooked her arm in mine and dragged me toward the door. “My Mama said that you were feeling better?” She asked me, and I was a bit taken aback. “She talks to your Mama at town hall. She likes to check in on you after—”
“I’m fine,” I said quietly with the small shake of my head. I wished my Mom would talk tomeabout anything. “It was just a cold.”
“Lying isn’t a great way to start a friendship, you know.” She scoffed. “Mama said the radiation was hard on your body. That's why you missed so much school before Christmas.”
“Stop, please,” I said in a tiny voice. I didn’t want to talk about that. I didn’t want to even think about it. It was over. That was gone. I was fine.
“I’m sorry, I’ve got a problem. My Mama calls it a waterfall and always threatens to build a dam if I don’t shut up. I just talk and talk. No one is ever really listening, but I talk anyways.”
I had never spoken to Mary Cooper in my life, but here she was, filling the spaces of doubt and fear with her sweet, funny voice and her incessant rambling.
She was shorter than me, her head bobbing next to my shoulder as we wandered through the dark hallways to the other side of the school. I waved hello to Mr. Waters, the night janitor, and he let us out through the front.
For a moment, I felt bad about leaving Ryan behind, but I wasn’t sure how to approach the situation. On one hand, I foolishly wanted to believe his actions and words—that maybe in some insane plane of reality, he really did justlikeme. But the rational part of my thinking was strong, arming every point my heart seemed to bring to my attention. A lot of ‘why?’ echoed around inside of me. Whyme? Whynow?
Maybe I needed a reality check from people who knew him better than anyone. It had only been a week, so I couldn’t say I knew him—not really. What I knew was what he had shown me… but what had that been?
His sadness.
I swallowed the bile that rose, “do you think maybe Ryan might actually like me?” I asked Mary out of the blue as we walked.
She looked up at me and smiled, “he’s been in the library every day this week.”
My brows furrowed at her response.
“When you’re invisible it makes it easier to pay attention to everyone around you. I help the librarian put books away at lunch. Until last week, I’ve never seen him in the library, except that one time he and Landry streaked through it and were suspended for a week.”
“They streaked through the library?” I laughed suddenly, the sound almost terrifying against the backdrop of all my other problems.
“Butt naked.” She laughed, “I was surprised, Landry has a pretty nice ass.”
“Mary Cooper!” I joined back into the chorus of laughter.