Chapter 22: Safe with Me: Chapter 21

I feel better somehow, after writing the letter to the donor’s family. Like a weight I’d been carrying around has lifted and I can breathe easier knowing I’ve done the right thing. It must show, because as I slide into my seat in computer science a few days later, Noah throws a playful punch from where he sits across from me, lightly brushing against my shoulder.

“What are you so happy about?” he asks. He stretches his long legs out in front of him and leans down to pull his binder from his book bag.

“Nothing much,” I say with a shrug, uncertain if I really want to tell him the reason for my good mood. I’m sure Zoe, the transplant coordinator, has reviewed the letter by now and forwarded it to the family. I wonder if I’ll ever hear back from them, though it doesn’t matter, I suppose. All that matters is that I finally told them how much I appreciate their gift to me. And maybe more important, how sorry I am for everything they lost. “I just took care of something I’ve needed to do for a long time, you know? I feel relieved.”

“I get you,” he says, bobbing his head. He opens his binder and wiggles his mechanical pencil between his index and middle fingers before speaking again. “So, hey . . . I was thinking. Are you busy after school today? I thought we could maybe hang out in the computer lab. See if we can figure this scripting assignment out together.” He glances at me sidelong, and I notice he’s blushing. He likes me, I think, and the realization creates an unexpected, fluttery sensation in my chest. The pencil wiggling speeds up as he waits for my response.

“I can’t,” I say. “Sorry. I promised I’d go to Bellevue Square with Hailey and Jade.” His face crumples, and I immediately feel awful for hurting his feelings. “Can we do it tomorrow?” I ask. “Or Monday?”

“Sure,” he says, but he doesn’t look at me. He sets his pencil on top of his desk. “Are they like, your best friends now or something?” He doesn’t even attempt to hide his disdain. Hailey made it clear that she doesn’t like Noah, and apparently, the feeling is mutual.

“No,” I say. “I’m new here, okay? I’m just getting to know everyone. They asked me to go and I said sure. That’s all.” He rolls his shoulders as though trying to dislodge something from the middle of his back. I want to say more, to tell him that all of these weird who-is-supposed-to-be-friends-with-whom rules are something I’ve never dealt with before. I don’t know where I fit in. And even though Hailey was seriously rude to me on my first day, I definitely understand that I don’t want to be on her bad side. Right now, she thinks Dirk is my boyfriend, and even though it is a lie, it makes me feel like I’m just as good as she and her pretty friends.

Noah ducks his head so his hair falls over his face, ignoring my explanation. Sighing, I rip a small corner of paper from my notebook and quickly write down my phone number with a small note. Text me later. Please? I fold it up into a tight square and then chuck it across the aisle. It lands right in front of him, but he hesitates a moment before opening it. Though once he does, a smile spreads across his face and he surreptitiously reaches into his sweatshirt pocket, turning away from me. I feel my phone buzz inside my own jacket a second later, and I pull it out to read his text. “Is it later yet?”

I look at Noah and smile, and when he smiles back at me, I feel something in my stomach flip over, the same way it did when Dirk first spoke my name. What is that about? But before I can send a response, the teacher raps on her desk with a ruler as an indication that it’s time for class to begin.

•  •  •

A few hours later, after I meet Hailey and Jade in the parking lot and we’re on our way to the mall, I go back to that moment in class when Noah smiled at me. Specifically, I think about his mouth—the way his lips might feel against mine. Suddenly, the fluttering I’d felt earlier in my stomach moves into my pelvis and I have to suck in a quick breath.

“You okay?” Jade asks, twisting around from her place in the front passenger seat to look at me. Hailey is driving—the candy-apple-red BMW her dad bought her for her sixteenth birthday—and it was made clear that, as the new girl in their little circle, my place is in the back.

“Yeah,” I say, embarrassed my breath had been loud enough for her to hear. It’s a little weird to picture Noah kissing me—I’d pictured Dirk doing it a hundred times, but it was different with him, since I’d never actually had him standing in front of me. With Noah, I could imagine how he’d smell—like Axe cologne and bubble gum—how he’d have to brush his bangs out of his eyes. I know his touch would be gentle and suspect his braces might click against my teeth.

“What time does your boyfriend get off work?” Hailey asks as she turns in to the parking garage of the mall. “Maybe he can come meet us.”

“He’s traveling right now,” I say, trying not to stammer. “Some kind of programmer conference in Texas.” This is true, actually. Dirk texted me yesterday morning to say he would be out of contact for a few days, on a business trip to Dallas. Which doesn’t make sense to me, exactly, since I’m pretty sure he’ll have his phone with him when he’s there, but maybe he’ll just be too busy working to talk or text with me. At least, this is what I hope. I wonder if he isn’t losing interest in me altogether. And then, surprisingly, I realize that might not be such a horrible thing.

“Too bad,” Hailey says, giving Jade a quick, meaningful stare as she pulls into a parking spot and turns off the engine. “We wanted to see him for ourselves.”

“I can show you his texts,” I offer, thinking this would be enough to placate them, but they refuse and we make our way into the mall. Hailey and Jade walk together, their arms brushing against each other’s, and I try to keep up with them.

“Where do you like to shop?” I ask, but they are already headed inside Forever 21, which I think is sort of an ironic name considering the three of us are only sixteen. Loud, bass-driven music pumps through hidden speakers, and an assortment of teenagers and grown women—whom I think should probably be old enough to know better than to wear the styles the store carries—mill through the various racks and displays.

“What about this?” Hailey asks, holding up a sparkling turquoise tank top with the word SLUT emblazoned across the chest in tall, dark letters.

“OMG, super cute!” Jade squeals. “Do they have it in pink?”

I wonder what I’m doing hanging out with girls who think the word slut is super-cute. With their text-speak and exclamation-mark-studded speech patterns, I’m pretty sure Jade and the long-limbed car model Tiffani would totally hit it off.

Hailey doesn’t answer; instead, she pushes the top closer to me. “Do you like it? Maybe we all could get matching ones.”

“I like the color,” I say, trying to find something positive about the top. “But my dad would freak out if he saw me wearing it.” I pause. “Wouldn’t yours?”

Hailey flips her red curls over her shoulder and shoves the top back on the rack, where Jade is digging through for a different color. “He doesn’t care what I do,” she says. And even though she tries to sound proud, I can hear a gloomy shadow of disappointment behind her words.

“I’m sorry,” I say, knowing how much it hurts to feel invisible to my dad. Maybe Hailey and I have more in common than I previously thought.

“What for?” she asks, and I just shake my head, thinking this isn’t the best place to have a conversation about our fathers. We spend the next half an hour or so looking through the rest of the racks, pulling out various items we like—Hailey and Jade more than me, since most of the styles are cut for size-two-and-below body types, not for my slightly bloated, after-the-liver-transplant shape. I do manage to find a pair of sparkling black leggings I think I might be able to squeeze into, and when we head toward the dressing rooms, Hailey slips into one with me, leaving Jade on her own.

“Um . . . did I grab one of your outfits?” I say, immediately terrified by the thought of undressing in front of her. No one other than my parents and doctors has seen my scar, and Hailey is probably the last person I’d choose to add to that short list.

“Nope,” she says. “I thought we could share.” She lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I think Jade likes to look at my boobs.”

I give her a weak smile, knowing she’s joking but still trying to figure out a way to get her to leave me alone. “I’ll just let you go first,” I say, moving like I’m going to push the curtain back, but she stops me.

“Oh come on. Let’s try things on together. It’ll be fun.” She smiles, and a mischievous light pops up in her green eyes. As she is pulling her shirt off over her head, I try not to stare at her breasts, which are practically spilling out of a black push-up bra. But she catches me. “Perv,” she says, laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Jade’s voice comes through the thin wall between our two dressing rooms. I hear the panic floating in her tone—she’s worried, I’m sure, that we’re talking behind her back. Which Hailey did, but I’d never tell Jade that. I don’t want to be that kind of person.

“Maddie just said something totally hysterical about having sex with her boyfriend,” Hailey says, giving me a quick wink. “She’ll tell you later.”

“Hailey,” I say through gritted teeth. “Don’t lie to her.” Now that’s funny, I think. Perhaps I should take my own advice.

“Whatever,” Hailey says. She grabs a thin silk blouse with cap sleeves and puts it on, regarding her reflection in the mirror. “What do you think?”

“I like it,” I say, grasping the leggings to my chest, wondering how I can avoid getting undressed. “I’m pretty sure these will fit me.”

“The waist looks like it might be small for you. You better at least try them.” Hailey pulls off the silk top and shimmies out of her Levi’s. She’s wearing a lacy black thong to match her bra, and I wonder why the hell anyone would purposely put her underwear up her butt like that. She grabs another pair of jeans from the pile on the bench and tries them on.

“I think I’m good,” I say, watching as she examines her half-naked image, twisting around to see herself from the back. I can’t believe how perfect her body is—smooth, pale skin and not an ounce of fat on her. She tilts her head as she looks at me over her shoulder.

“You think I care about your scar or something? It’s no big deal.”

Maybe not to you, I think, but what I say is “I know. I just don’t think I’m going to buy anything, anyway. My mom took me shopping last weekend for a bunch of new clothes.”

“Whatever,” Hailey says again, then throws me the silk top. “Can you put that on under your shirt then, please?”

“Why?” I ask, staring at the top as she takes off the jeans and puts her own back on.

“Because I want the red one, too, and I can’t wear both of them under my own shirt. It’ll be too bulky.” I must still appear confused, because she lets loose an irritated sigh. “I’m not going to pay for them, okay?” She keeps her voice low, almost too quiet for me to hear. “I’ll buy the jeans, but we’re wearing the tops on our way out.”

“I don’t know,” I say slowly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She laughs. “You don’t think it’s a ‘good idea’?” She says this in a high-pitched, mocking tone that makes me cringe. “Seriously? We do it all the time. Stores write this shit off—they expect it to happen. It’s not like we’re hurting anyone.”

“Still,” I say, swallowing the anxiety that rises in my throat. I suddenly don’t care about getting on her bad side because I realize something important. Hailey is, without a doubt, an idiot. I should have hung out with Noah in the computer lab. I hold out the top to her. “It won’t fit me, anyway.”

Frowning, she glances at the top, then back to me before snatching it from my hand. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”

“No,” I say. “I just don’t want to do it.” I pause. “I’ll wait for you outside, okay?” She doesn’t answer, so I slip out of the dressing room and walk over to the jewelry display, wondering if my mom would like anything they carry here. I want to call her, to ask her to please come pick me up so I don’t have to hang out with Hailey a minute longer—I even finger my cell phone in the pocket of my hoodie, ready to dial her number—but I can just imagine how that story would get twisted and told at school: She had to have her mommy come get her at the mall. Better I just hold my ground against shoplifting and make it through the rest of the afternoon as best I can.

“Those are pretty,” Hailey says as she sidles up next to me, the jeans she tried on slung over her forearm. She must have seen me touch a pair of small sparkling silver hoops on the rack.

“Yeah, they are. I was thinking my mom might like them.” I look over and see Jade by the cash register, paying for a couple of T-shirts. She looks up and waves at me with a knowing half smile on her face, and I wonder what she is wearing under her already bulky blue sweater—what items she’s in the middle of stealing.

As I’m staring at Jade, Hailey takes another step and bumps into me. “Oh, sorry,” she says. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“That’s okay,” I say. “And I’m sorry, you know . . . if I was weird about that whole thing.” I might not like her very much, but I still don’t want to piss her off.

“What whole thing?” she asks, widening her eyes and raising her thin eyebrows, throwing a quick, meaningful look over to the salesclerk.

“Nothing,” I respond, realizing she doesn’t want to talk about it, especially not while we’re still in the store. I wait with her in line while she buys the jeans, holding my breath to see if the clerk notices the slight bulge beneath her shirt, but nothing is said, and after Hailey produces a black American Express card to make her purchase, we are on our way out of the store.

“See?” she says to me as we walk into the crowded corridor. “No worries.”

“Totally easy,” Jade agrees.

“I guess,” I say, checking my phone to see if Noah has sent me another text. I’m rewarded by the sight of his name, which I’d added to his phone number after the first message he sent me during class. When I click on the text, my stomach flip-flops again because he’s written this: “I think UR 2 pretty 4 a geek like me.” I stop walking and read the note again. I’ve never been told by anyone other than my parents that I’m pretty. Dirk doesn’t count, because he’s talking about a picture of a different girl. But Noah, he sees me . . . the real me. And I know it can’t be easy for him to put himself out there like this, to ask me to hang out with him and send me this sweet text. Because he is kind of a nerd, but I realize that I like that about him. And then I realize why—because he’s a bit of a misfit, like me.

I’m trying to figure out how to answer him when I look up to see that Hailey and Jade are about fifty feet ahead of me already, oblivious to the fact that I’ve fallen behind. No matter how I feel about them, I don’t want to lose my ride home. I shove my phone back in my pocket and start to trot to catch up with them, just as I hear a man’s deep voice call out behind me. “You! Stop, please,” he says, and I whip around to see a large security guard making his way through the crowd, pointing a chubby finger right at me.

“Hailey!” I call out, speeding up my pace, bumping into a few people around me. She stops and turns around with a bored, seemingly annoyed look on her face, but then she sees the guard and her expression flips into one of panic as she grabs Jade by the arm. And they take off without me.

For some reason, I start to run after them, even though I haven’t done anything wrong. I wonder if being with them makes me an accomplice to a crime, if not telling the clerk what they were up to makes me just as guilty. My heart begins to race as I think about what might happen if my dad finds out that I got caught hanging out with girls who shoplifted. It’s not like I knew they were going to do it, but that won’t matter to him. I can hear his loud, angry voice, my mother’s quiet pleas behind a closed door for him to calm down. And then the moment will come when she cries out before going totally silent. I see me, outside their room, knowing exactly what my father’s done to her. Knowing it’s my fault.

“Miss!” the guard calls out, snapping me out of this horrifying thought. “Don’t make me chase you!”

Craning my neck to see over the crowd of people in front of me, I catch a glimpse of Hailey and Jade disappearing around a corner. Bitches. I stop running, realizing that it only makes me look like I have something to hide. The guard catches up with me, and I hold both my hands up, palms facing him, breathing hard. “I’m sorry,” I say, hoping I can talk my way out of this. “I didn’t know you meant me.”

“And that’s why you ran, right?” he asks, a smirk on his red, round face. He’s breathing hard, too. “Do you mind showing me the contents of your pockets, please?”

“My pockets?”

He gives me an exasperated look. “Yes.” He motions me over to the bench by the wall, and I do what he asks because I don’t know what else to do. I look up, straining to see if Hailey and Jade have come back, but of course, they haven’t. They’re probably halfway to Hailey’s car by now.

“I’m not sure what you’re looking for,” I say, pulling out my phone and then reaching into my other pocket for my small wallet. My fingers brush up against something sharp, and it takes a minute for me to identify it. The earrings. The ones I’d been admiring when Hailey stood next to me in the store, when I looked away from her and she bumped into me. My next breath seizes in my throat. “I don’t know how these got here,” I stammer, taking them out and holding them in my open palm. “Seriously. My friend must have put them in there.”

“Uh-huh,” the guard says, snatching them out of my hand. “You need to come with me, miss.”

“No,” I say, “you don’t understand. I didn’t take anything. I told them I wouldn’t.” Tears fill my eyes and my jaw begins to tremble. “Please. You have to believe me. I didn’t do anything wrong.” I consider telling him about my transplant, thinking it might win me some sympathy, but then he looks down at the earrings and back at me, clearly not believing a word. Well, here it is. My lies are catching up with me. And then, because there’s nothing else I can say, I follow the guard down the long, narrow hall, terrified of what will come next.