Confessions of a Teenage Leper Page 6

  “Oh, hey, Dustin. How’s it going?” I said.

  We talked a little about spring break and what he had done (gone skiing up in Whistler and stayed up there in a cabin with his family), what I had done (recovered from several bodily injuries and a brain injury on account of my fall).

  “Oh, yeah, I heard about that,” he said.

  “I was in a coma for sixteen days,” I said.

  He asked me what that was like and I told him. I didn’t know why he was being so nice to me. I kept expecting him to stand up and point at me and yell FREAK! But he never did.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “I’ve been better,” I said.

  He nodded. “It looks like you still have some scrapes from the fall,” he said, pointing to his own cheek.

  I looked down. “Those aren’t from the fall.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  I looked back up at him. He had such kind eyes. The color of Werther’s Originals.

  He looked at a spot on the table where someone had carved A.L. + W.S. inside a heart. He traced the heart with his finger. “My sister was sick,” he said, nodding. “Nobody knew what it was for a long time. She kept getting misdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, meanwhile, she got worse.”

  “What did she have?” I asked.

  “Crohn’s disease,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  He nodded.

  “Did she have to get surgery?”

  “No. Surgery doesn’t cure it. There is no cure.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling like an idiot. “That sucks.”

  He nodded.

  “Is she alright, though?”

  “She has a lot of pain. But I think she’ll be able to get it under control. She’s not supposed to drink is the thing.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. But she does, once in a while, and then it flares up really bad and so…” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “How did they finally find out what she had?” I said.

  “They did a biopsy of her colon, I think.”

  “Is that when they scrape a little piece off and then study it under a microscope?”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  “Hm,” I said. Then the bell rang.

  “Well, I’ll see you around,” Dustin said. He gave me a small smile and took off. It was a pity smile, I was pretty sure of that.

  No one had ever really given me a pity smile before. I was usually the one giving them out. I promised myself that when I got better, if I got better, I wouldn’t do that anymore.

  I skipped the next period and called my mom at work. She’s the manager of an office supplies store downtown.

  “Hello?”

  I could hear the photocopier running in the background. “Mom. Have I had a biopsy?”

  “A biopsy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I need one. Right away. Maybe of my colon.”

  When I got home, I texted Marla and Liz: WTF???!!!??? Liz texted back: Sorry. Really busy with yearbook and studying.

  So you can’t even say hi to me in the hall???

  Sorry, Abby.

  Marla didn’t text back at all.

  Mom booked me in for a biopsy and I had it a few days later. Dr. Neal scraped some cells from my arm and some from my leg and some from the inside of my nose. He gave me a nod and said the lab would call when the results were in.

  School sucked more than anything has ever sucked before in the history of the world. I hated myself and the way I looked and the way everyone looked at me, or didn’t look at me. I felt bad for all the kids who had lived their whole lives ugly. It was a terrible way to go through the world. People looked right through you. Or immediately away. Good-looking people have so many more advantages. And they don’t even realize it because things have always been that way for them. People really give them the benefit of the doubt. And all of the other benefits too. It’s so unfair, there should be a law against it. No discrimination against uglies. But then people would have to identify as ugly. And that would be a whole other thing.

  Later that week, I came home early from school because I just couldn’t stand it anymore. When I walked into the house, Dean was on the couch making out with someone.

  “Well, well, well,” I said. “What do we have here?”

  They both turned to look at me. And the person beneath him was a boy.

  It was Aaron Forsythe.

  They both had their shirts off. Dean stood up and put his shirt back on. He was clumsy and soft. His face flushed scarlet. Aaron sat up, all casual, buckled his studded belt, and said, “Oh, hey, Abby.”

  I started laughing. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t funny. I think, sometimes, people laugh when they get a real surprise. That was a real surprise.

  Dean coughed into his hand. “What are you doing home?” he said.

  “Um, I live here?” I said.

  Aaron reached for his pack of cigarettes on the coffee table and lit one.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” I said.

  Aaron just stared at the wall like he hadn’t heard me. He blew smoke rings that floated toward the ceiling like weightless sugar doughnuts. Dean stared at the pack of cigarettes. Then he took one out and stuck it behind his ear. “C’mon, Aaron,” Dean said. He started walking toward the screen door in the kitchen. Aaron looked sidelong at me and then at Dean, then got up and followed Dean. They went out to the backyard, slamming the screen door behind them.

  I laughed again, shook my head and went up to my room. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering how many other things I didn’t know about Dean. I wondered if I would tell my parents. And I wondered who else knew besides Aaron.

  Awhile later, there was a knock on my bedroom door. I jolted awake. I had dozed off staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to my ceiling, trying to decide if they were nerdy or cool.

  Dean stepped inside my room. “It’s dinner,” he said.

  I rubbed my face. It was itchy and hot. My left eyelid felt scaly. I covered it with my palm for a moment.

  Dean’s eyes flicked from the edge of my bed to me. “Ab,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Are you going to say anything?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to say a lot of things. I know a lot of words,” I said. “Some in Spanish too.”

  “No, I mean…You know.”

  “No. What, Dean?”

  “C’mon, you know what I’m talking about.”

  “What? That you’re gay?”

  Dean blinked hard. “I’m not.”

  “You’re not gay?”

  He shook his head.

  “So. Then…What? You’re bisexual?”

  He pressed his lips together.

  “Come on, man!” I said. “You can’t even make up your mind about who you want to sleep with? Pick one!”

  “Abby—”

  “What? What do you want, Dean? You want me to tell you that it’s okay to screw Aaron on our couch? It’s not okay. It’s not okay to screw anyone on our couch. Guy. Girl. Donkey. No! Nobody! I have to sit there! Now where am I going to sit? It’s gross! You’re gross!”

  “You’re one to talk,” he said. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

  I picked up a glass on my bedside table and whipped it at his head. He ducked and it shattered against the wall.

  He opened the door to leave. “Just keep it to yourself, okay?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because,” he said. “You’re my sister.”

  Then he left, and I rolled over and cried into my pillow.

  That night at dinner, Mom and Dad announced that they were going to some fancy-schmancy all-inclusive resort in Mexico for their anniversary. They had been married for twenty years, which was longer than my entire lifetime and impossible to imagine.

  Mom stretched her arm across the table and squeezed Dad’s hand. “We’d planned on going for two weeks,” she said. “But I don’
t feel good about leaving you guys for that long, now that Abby’s…”

  “Abby will be fine, Mom. Go, enjoy yourself. You kids deserve it!” Dean said.

  I stared at my plate.

  “No,” Dad said. “We’re going for a week. That’s enough.” He smiled at Mom and she smiled back. They weren’t happy smiles.

  Dean cleared his throat. “And when were you planning on going?”

  “This Friday,” Dad said.

  “Absolutely no parties while we’re gone,” Mom said.

  “Of course not!” Dean said.

  “I mean it, Dean,” said Mom. “Auntie Karen’s coming by to check on you and she’ll tell me everything.”

  “Great,” Dean said.

  Auntie Karen is Dad’s younger sister. She’s a documentary filmmaker. Last time she had come to check on us while Mom and Dad were away, she bought us a case of beer, so her swinging by wasn’t too much of a threat.

  “Did the lab call today?” I said.

  “No, sweetie,” Mom said. “Dr. Neal said they probably wouldn’t have the results until sometime next week. It could even be the week after that, depending on how backed up they are.”

  I nodded.

  “And if anything happens while we’re away and you need us to be here, you just call and we’ll be on the next flight home, okay? That’s no problem.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I could hear the clock in the hall ticking. I was still hungry, but I didn’t want to eat anymore. My food suddenly looked revolting. The pork chop especially.

  “You’re going to get better, Abby,” Mom said. “You might not believe it now, but you will.”

  “This too shall pass,” Dad said, nodding.

  I wondered who they were trying to convince. Me or themselves.

  Dean had invited a whole schwack of people to the party at our house Saturday night. I texted Marla to invite her and she wrote back: Sorry. Can’t make it this Saturday. Have fun:)

  The smiley-face was the worst.

  Liz said: Have to babysit.

  Yeah, right. She never babysat on a Saturday night if there was a party. She always said that having a rich social life was more important than having extra spending money.

  I sat on my bed and stared at my phone. I thought about inviting Dustin, but I figured he would probably be there anyway, since he was a friend of Aaron and Aaron was my brother’s boyfriend. Or something. I hoped that Jude and Carrie wouldn’t come. And I also hoped that nobody would come. It was too hard for me to have people see me now. They used to smile when they saw me, strangers too. Guys were constantly checking me out. Now, people looked away or, worse, stared, and sometimes pointed. Just being alive was humiliating. I so badly wanted things to be like how they were before. I wanted to be beautiful again. I wanted my friends back. I had gone from being one of the hottest girls in school to one of the ugliest people in Texas, and maybe all of the United States, in a matter of months. It was devastating. Obviously.

  Dean wasn’t what I would call popular, but he knew everybody, and everybody kind of liked him. Or at least tolerated him. Or thought he was funny. I don’t know. He was a jackass and he knew it. For some people, that kind of person is easy to be around because they never pretend to be something they’re not. They don’t pretend to like you when they actually don’t. You know they don’t like you because they don’t like anybody. They’re not fake. Or, it’s a different kind of fake. I’m not sure.

  Saturday afternoon was difficult. I went back and forth between being excited that we were having a party and trying to decide what to wear, to feeling like a hideous beast and deciding to stay locked in my room all night where no one could see me. I was beyond the help of makeup by this point. Only a full face-mask would save me, and it was too late to tell everyone it was a masquerade party and it would be too freaky for me to be the only one wearing a mask. Although I did consider wearing this old Phantom of the Opera mask that Mom had in her bottom drawer. But it creeped me right out when I tried it on and looked in the mirror, so I put it back. My lips were puffier than any Botox botch job you’ve seen, and I had bumpy red-and-white patches all along my hairline, behind my ears and a big oozy one on my left cheek. There were a bunch of scaly patches on my feet, legs, arms and hands, but I could keep those covered up easily enough.

  I tore through my closet, pulling out everything with a hood or high collar. Dean burst into my room as I was trying on an old striped turtleneck.

  “Hey! Knocking? Ever heard of it?”

  “Abby.” Dean walked in and grabbed my phone off my dresser, held it out to me. “You need to invite some of your girlfriends or else this is going to be a total sausage party.”

  “Isn’t that what you want?”

  “Abby! Come on!”

  “Well? Isn’t it?”

  “For one, it’s none of your business, okay, so you can just forget about what you saw the other day. And for two, nobody likes a party with just guys. It’s weird. It’s like a golf tournament or something.”

  “What, you don’t want a hole in one?”

  “Abs! Come on! Call your bitches!” He shoved the phone into my hand.

  I stared at it.

  “You know, the redhead and the short one you always hang around with.”

  “They’re not coming,” I mumbled.

  “Well, maybe that’s because you haven’t called them!”

  I shook my head.

  Dean stared at me.

  Tears welled up in the corners of my eyes. I shrugged and threw the phone on my bed.

  “Because of…” He pointed to his face.

  I nodded.

  “Those little bitches.”

  I nodded.

  “Do you want me to beat them up?”

  “Yeah.” I stepped into my closet so he wouldn’t see my face. I was about to crumble. My best friends in the whole world had abandoned me when I needed them most. I had always thought that it would be a boy who broke my heart. But I was wrong.

  People started showing up around nine. At first I stayed in my room but kept the door open so I could hear. I couldn’t hear very well because of all the voices mixing together and the music on top of that. But if I sat right outside my door, I could peer over the banister and see what was going on and hear a little better. I wanted to go downstairs in the worst way, but there were so many people down there, people who knew me, knew how I was before, and I would’ve been ashamed to be around them. To have them see me like that. It made me sick to my stomach to think of them looking at me, pointing at my face, whispering about me once I turned my back. I couldn’t bring myself to go downstairs, as much as I wanted to.

  Nobody even asked where I was, even though most of the people there knew I was Dean’s sister, knew it was my house too. It was like I didn’t even exist anymore. It was like I was a big ugly smudge on someone’s notebook that they had gone ahead and erased. These were the beautiful people; I was dead to them now.

  At one point I really had to pee. I knew that people had been coming upstairs to use the bathroom; there was even a lineup for it at one point. I so did not want to run into anyone but finally I couldn’t hold it anymore. I bolted to the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I peed, washed my hands, and then, in case I saw anyone on my way back to my room, I put an avocado face-mask on, spreading the green goo over everything but my lips and eyes. I opened the bathroom door a crack and peered out. Nothing. Then I opened it wider and stepped out, right into Dustin Lorimer’s chest. I let out a little shout and he laughed in surprise, catching me by the shoulders. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said.

  “Hey, Dustin.”

  “You alright?”

  “Yeah. You just startled me is all.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Nice, um…” He pointed to his face.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s very hydrating. Would you like to try some?”

  He smiled. “Maybe some other ti
me,” he said.

  “Alright. We can arrange that.” I grinned at him, suddenly bold, since my face was covered in avocado and the lights were dim.

  He asked me how I was doing and why I wasn’t joining the party.

  “I’m not feeling that well,” I said and coughed into my sleeve.

  “That’s too bad. Missing your own party.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s more of a facial-mask and mani-pedi night for me.”

  He looked confused.

  “Um, manicure-pedicure?” I waved my fingernails at him, my chipped bronze polish catching the light.

  “Right,” he said. “Gotta stay on top of that stuff.”

  “Totally.”

  “But you should come downstairs. Even just for a bit. I think the beer pong’s started. That’s your game, isn’t it?”

  I did kick ass at beer pong. “I really can’t,” I said. “I’d like to. But I can’t.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Well…” He gestured to the bathroom door.

  “Right. It was good to see you, Dustin.”

  “You too, Abby. Hope you’re feeling better soon.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Have a good night.”

  “I already have,” he said.

  We smiled at each other. Then I went back to my room and sat with my back against the door, wishing I could go downstairs. Wishing I was the kind of person who didn’t care what she looked like, didn’t care what other people thought of her. But I did, I did.

  I hung out for a while in my room, painted my toenails black, then crept back out to the landing to listen to the party. Around midnight, it started pouring rain. It was, like, buckets and buckets of rain hitting the roof and the windows. There was lightning and thunder too. I could hear people saying it was just like Tropical Storm Allison, but nobody there could probably even remember Allison since we were all babies when it happened and some people at the party hadn’t even been born yet. I heard Dustin say that he was going to get his car to high ground so it didn’t float away, then he left and a bunch of other people did too, probably to do the same thing. Dean yelled after them, “Don’t go! Don’t leave! We’ll survive this together! We’ve got to stick together! We’ll build a raft!”