i bet you like girls
i bet you like girls
“what’s with your hair? i bet you like girls, don’t you?”
i looked up from my plastic baggie of goldfish crackers to find leah standing alone, lip quivering, as paul sneered. his friends laughed cruelly behind him, croaking imbeciles of indifference. they didn’t care who they harmed or how, just that they got a laugh out of it.
leah’s hair was short, had always been short, ever since we were kids. she preferred her red locks cropped just below her ears, so the straight edges framed her round, freckled face. she always wore baggy overalls with oversized t-shirts, something i admired about her; she had her own style, despite the badgering bullies that followed her every step in the hallways. sometimes, when i was getting dressed, i wondered if it was something leah would wear. not because i was trying to be her (it’s horrible to say, but no one wanted to be leah west—such an identity came with far too much pain), but because i thought she carried herself in an effortlessly sure way. this was who she was, and though no one liked it, she did.
the one thing i never seemed to realize until after everything happened was this; leah was fragile. her bones poked out at every intersection, knobby knees and wrists you could snap in half if you wanted to. her features were small, too. invisible chin, thin lips, almond eyes that made it appear like she was always squinting. and her soul, it was fragile too.
i stuffed a handful of crackers in my mouth, savoring the false cheesiness of each soggy bite, before i stood up. “i like her hair,” i said. “it looks much better than yours.” the boys guffawed, probably because i’d found a way to compare leah to paul, which seemed an impossibility given their drastically different social standings. “and besides, if she did like girls, what’s it to you?”
“you’re defending her, jellie?” paul smiled, an evil smile, too dark for a twelve-year-old. “didn’t know you liked girls, too.”
“just an fyi, my nickname is only reserved for people with brains. angelica should work just fine for you.” i paused, pondering my next words. “and no, i don’t like girls. everyone knows of my plan to one day marry harry styles.”
it was true. last year, during the spelling bee, i’d chosen to share my affection (it was also my first attempt at a publicity stunt, get the media talking, eventually, i hoped, the buzz would reach harry…it didn’t work) by respectfully declining to spell out the word beautiful in favor of simply spelling his name. apparently, a mere representation of beautiful wasn’t a feasible alternative to reciting the spelling of the given word. i protested my disqualification for weeks, though eventually i had to give in. they had a point. the rules, i supposed, were clear.
“how do we know that wasn’t just a way to distract us from the truth? i bet you’ve already kissed each other, you and leah.”
one of the boys started singing the classic, “leah and jellie, sitting in a tree…k-i-s-s-i-n-g.”
i winced at his lack of originality.
leah was still standing there, tears threatening to fall down her cheeks.
“why don’t you go and wipe your asses? i’m tired of your shit.” this made the boys widen their eyes and take a step back. i wasn’t someone to cross, they knew that. “go on, now. i don’t really want to see y'all's faces for the rest of today.”
they scattered away. i walked up to leah. she didn’t say anything at first, refusing to look in my direction. i suppose it was because she felt like she’d been caught, her secret on a spotlight in the middle of a stage she was never supposed to be on in the first place. but the truth was, we always knew leah liked girls. i guess since she never said anything, we never did either.
“don’t listen to them. they’re just insecure their voices squeak when they read out loud in class now.”
leah didn’t smile, though her eyes twinkled. i was getting somewhere.
“listen, what are you doing later?”
leah shrugged. “i’m not really the type to have plans.”
it broke my heart a little, hearing her quiet voice admit something i had always assumed. with paul and those boys on a friday night, i knew they’d be having a sleepover, playing video games and prank calling the girls. i knew this, because they always seemed to find out who’s house the girls and i had decided to sleep at and bombard us with calls about some man coming to murder us at 11:11 that night. “don’t make a wish,” they would say into the phone with falsely deep voices. and then they’d laugh and hang up, and the girls and i would scream like we were actually afraid. we never were; we knew we could take those boys if they ever tried.
but whenever i thought of leah on a friday night, i somehow knew she was alone, always. not even surrounded by her parents. no, they were just assholes who did too many drugs in college and never quite recovered.
“listen,” i said. “i’m having the girls over tonight for a sleepover. my dad said we could order pizza, and we were planning on watching the new star wars movie. but now, i’m thinking i have a better plan.”
“what’s that?” leah seemed hesitant.
“i say we tee-pee paul. payback, or karma, you decide how we frame it. the kid deserves a wakeup call for being so ignorant.”
“you want me to come?” she kept her eyes down, almost wincing as if to protect herself from hearing of another plan she wasn’t included on. i hated what the world had done to her, even then.
“well, yeah. you deserve to be a part of it, considering how mean he just was.”
her teeth dug into her lip; the skin bled white as she wondered. “is this some sort of trick? like i show up, and you all end up laughing at me for having the nerve to show up in the first place.”
“no,” i said with as much sincerity as i could muster. i meant it. i really did. “my dad will come pick you up around seven. does that work for you? you’ll be the last stop, since we live the closest to each other.”
she nodded, trying not to reveal too much, though i could see the excitement in her eyes. it made me feel good, to lift her up after she’d been squashed so many times. boys could be such assholes; it was no wonder she didn’t like them. i only wished i hadn’t been cursed to be attracted to such stupidity, though i knew with time maturity would refine my future beau until he came to resemble harry (even if only slightly, i would still take him).
the girls were bitches when i told them leah was coming, as i knew they would be.
“but she’s a lesbian,” kiki said as her expression twisted. maura and lily nodded in agreement; the suggestion was preposterous, in their minds. “what if she tries to feel us up while we’re sleeping?”
“just because she likes girls doesn’t mean she’ll like you.” i pondered my words, then finally added, “and no offense, but there’s not much for her to feel on you.” i glanced at the training bra peeking from beneath kiki’s uniform collared shirt. she was flat as a plain. it would be years before she progressed to an a-cup.
that silenced them.
when i told my dad leah was coming, he smiled. “i’m glad you invited her. she needs a friend like you, especially after everything…” he stopped himself.
theeverything he was referring to was aneverything folks didn’t really like to talk about. especially, parents to their kids. like i said, leah’s parents were the worst. they floated through life with glossy eyes of indifference, stoned out of their minds on god knows what, lazily holding leah’s hand through it. it was no secret that getting them to an open house at school required bribery. money was the only thing that made them care about anything, and not surprisingly, they didn’t have much of it. and then, there was the everything, whispered behind closed doors: leah’s brother luke died by suicide just seven months before. he wrote a note blaming his parents, then blamed himself, then drove off the edge of a cliff.
leah came to school the day after they found his body. she was alone, staring off into the seeming abyss, so i decided to sit with her. sometimes just sitting with someone is all they need to feel better.
after a while, i asked why she was at school. it seemed weird to me that she wasn’t home, curled up in bed, watching as the sun moved up and down across her windows just to track the passing days. it’s what i did after my mom left. back then, i assumed we all grieved in the same way. like we all had a checklist of things to do before we could officially say we were over it.
and you know what she said? she said, “i’d rather be here, than with them.”
i understood that. some parents were never supposed to be parents. but they’d gotten accidentally (or purposely, i guess) knocked up and now here they were, caring for someone they couldn’t care less about. it was how my mom was, and how i was sure leah’s parents were too.
while my dad was out picking up all the girls for the night, i decided to prepare. he wouldn’t be stoked about us using half our stash of toilet paper for such a seemingly fickle (in his mind) act of revenge, so i decided what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. i stashed sixteen rolls beneath my bed, then went to the freezer. my dad was a worrier, terribly afraid of the unpredictable future, so he always kept extra meat stashed. “just in case.” for what? i always wondered. it seemed impossible to me that anything would ever happen to grocery stores, but to him that was beside the point. i grabbed a t-bone steak, halibut, and salmon, tightly wrapping them in a plastic grocery bag so the stench of souring meat wouldn’t tip my father off to our plans once he fell asleep. i went outside and placed the bag behind the row of bushes lining our brick house. it would be dark before my dad returned; he wouldn’t suspect (or smell) a thing. then, i went to gather the extras. my dad and i had a certain proclivity for ordering takeout. ramen, chinese, pasta, thai, you name it. so, as a result, we had a surplus of plastic utensils senselessly stored in one of our kitchen drawers. i grabbed as many as i could, stored them in their own plastic bag, and placed beside the toilet paper beneath my bed. other supplies needed for perfect vengeance? honey, shaving cream, peeps (leftovers from easter, we were never going to eat them anyways), rubber bands, and just a few eggs.
the girls arrived, buzzing with excitement. kiki climbed out of the passenger side of my dad’s volkswagen carrying her favorite pale green pillow with ballooned flowers scattered along the fabric. she claimed she couldn’t sleep without it. maura scooted from the back seat, already dressed in her pajamas. plaid flannel pants with a big t-shirt from the local water park, hair tied back with a yellow scrunchy. lily was just behind her, wearing the leggings she always borrowed from her older sister for events such as these. they were slightly baggy on her, especially around the knees and butt. and then there was leah, quietly lugging her duffel bag as she grimaced in my direction. her bag seemed heavy, too heavy for just one night. but i decided to push the thought away; it wasn’t my place to judge.
from her expression, i could tell she was regretting her decision to come. i hoped to change her mind.
my dad knew his place when it came to hosting sleepovers. that is to say, there was always a routine. he would meekly make small talk, asking everyone how their parents were doing, what their favorite projects in school, etc. of course, the girls always obliged until the pizza arrived. and then my dad would retreat to his room, where he’d watch reruns of friends until he eventually fell asleep in his massage chair around seven thirty. that’s when the fun would happen. we would dance to our favorite harry styles song (my house, my rules) as we chewed on remnant pizza crusts until our stomachs hurt. then, around nine, my dad would emerge from his cave with sleepy eyes that made my heart melt a bit. he would make one final attempt at providing his services, whether for ice cream or chocolate milk, then retreat once again for good. once he was tucked in safely, things got real. scary stories, truth or dare, sneaking out to seek revenge. it was a tried and true formula that had never been broken. not in all my years.
that night, once he was asleep, i told the girls the plan.
maura was on the softball team, so she was in charge of the toilet paper. paul’s front yard had the tall, droopy kind of trees that were perfect for holding onto things they shouldn’t. kiki, who was the closest to the ground out of all of us, was in charge of the utensils. stick as many into paul’s grass as she could. lily was in charge of the extras: spread honey across the pathway leading up to paul’s front door, stick peeps to his kitchen window, scatter rubber bands across his lawn. leah, she had every right to stick it to paul, so she was in charge of the raw stuff: eggs, meat and fish. and me? i have a way with words, so i was in charge of the shaving cream.
the girls high-fived before we changed into our second outfits of the night. dark sweatshirts with running shoes. braided hair. mascara smeared across our cheeks. ready for battle.
“ready?” i asked leah.
“as i’ll ever be.” there was something about the way she said it, like her words meant more than she was letting on. i ignored the thought; at that point in my life, most things could be taken as they were. twelve-year olds typically aren’t smart enough for hidden deceit. no, that was a learned habit. supposedly.
there was something different about leah, an uncaging of who she was with every heavy breath of anticipation. her eyes glimmered in the darkness as she lugged her supplies, unafraid of the muck she carried. i remember glancing over and noticing her shoelaces were untied. i almost told her to tie them, but i didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. bringing attention to such a trifle flaw seemed unnecessary in front of the girls―they had grown to accept her. i feared if i mentioned any irregularity to them, they’d latch onto it and forget the progress they had made in accepting someone who had once seemed so different. of course, it was just shoelaces. but as those strings dragged against the pavement, growing more tattered and muddied with each step, they felt like something bigger. internally, i wondered why she wouldn’t just tie them already. now, i see she just didn’t care. she was content with letting her life unravel before she left it behind entirely.
paul’s house was just a few streets down, on the nicer side of the neighborhood where backyards stretched and the skin color of each family somehow seemed to lighten. like some sort of invisible spectrum, crayola’s colors of the world crayons growing from darkest to lightest, the big houses nearly translucent once you got through the whole box.
we walked the whole way, lugging our supplies. we were quiet at first, knowing we were on a mission, and all. but after a while, leah broke the silence.
“do you guys ever wish you were someone else?”
at first, the girls giggled. but leah was somber as she stared ahead, smacking us all into the depth of the question.
“sometimes i wish i had a mother,” i said because i appreciated the question; i understood it as meaning more to leah than just small talk to break the ice.
lily followed suit. “sometimes i wish i was an older sister.”
“sometimes i wish i were smarter,” maura said.
“sometimes i wish i had boobs,” kiki said.
we all laughed.
leah didn’t answer her own question. we all assumed we knew what she would say.
finally, we arrived at paul’s. the house was quiet, lights out, shutters closed. the room i knew to be the living room flashed quietly, the switching television the only tangible breath of the house, the only sign of life.
“let’s go girls,” i whispered into the darkness, commencing what i liked to call a perfect symphony. the girls went about their tasks, decorating his house until it looked like it had been kissed by a snowstorm yet trampled by a tornado, all at the same time. and leah was at the center of it all, a reckless grin smeared across her face as she removed the steak from the plastic, slop dripping from the end onto the pavement. i remember thinking the raw blood would add a nice effect to the scene in the morning, those boys wondering if there was more to the story. there could always be more to the story, if you really tried.
i shook the shaving cream in my hand and decided to keep my own task simple, straightforward in the way we described our reasoning for defacing paul’s home. i began, savoring the squirting sound of the shaving cream as it spurted from the can and landed onto the unassuming pavement. with quiet steps and an outreached arm, i spelled our proclamation on the driveway. karma, i wrote, and knew he would understand. shaving cream is a fun touch, because it can’t be scrubbed like other imperfections, plucked from the ground to forget it was ever there in the first place. it would remain through monsoons and dust storms alike, until the years had passed and hopefully, paul learned his lesson.
i smiled at my masterpiece, then went to help maura with the remaining toilet paper.
we were finishing up, dotting our eyes and crossing our tees, those last final touches that really make a difference. i was drooping toilet paper along the hedges. maura was aiming for the highest branches and making it; toilet paper dangled in beautiful arches from the branches. kiki was almost at the edge of the lawn, a maze of chopsticks and plastic forks jutting from the grass in her wake. lily was dribbling honey along the brick pathway leading to the front door, leaving gaps for leah as she removed the final piece of salmon from its bag, and placed it on the front door.
the lights turned on. the front door began to open.
“retreat,” i yelled.
the girls scattered.
“hey,” someone called from paul’s front door, probably his dad.
“follow me,” i said, calling loudly so they could all hear my voice. footsteps followed me in the darkness. we just needed to run a few blocks, then we could regroup. my lungs burned as i sprinted, my legs growing wobbly with each stride. finally, after i felt safe, i stopped, pressing my palms against my legs as i regained my breath. the footsteps pounded behind me until they stopped, only to be filled with the heaving breaths of the recovering.
“where’s leah?” kiki asked immediately.
“what do you mean?” i looked up. saw kiki. saw maura. saw lily. didn’t see leah. “oh, crap. we have to go back.”
the lights were all on in paul’s house when we returned. the raw party favors at the front door were gone. everything else remained, except leah.
“alright, we gotta be quiet because they’re still up. but we gotta find leah. i bet she’s hiding near here somewhere.” so, we held hands, and traversed through the darkness, whispering her name the whole time.
“we should’ve brought a flashlight,” maura said.
after some time, we decided maybe leah went home. except, when we got back, she wasn’t there either. so, i did the one thing i swore i would never do in all my years as a sleepover host: i woke my dad.
he was groggy at first, confused because weren’t we all in our pajamas just moments ago? he assessed the dark streaks on our cheeks and nodded. “let’s get in the car.”
the girls stayed home in case leah ever showed up while we drove around the neighborhood for what felt like hours, brights on as we scanned the perimeter of every single house, hoping leah’s bright glimmering eyes would blink from where she hid. but we never found her.
eventually, my dad decided to call her parents. they never answered. he called again. left a voicemail. they never called back.
so, he called the cops.
on my side of the neighborhood, we were used to cops. but paul’s side wasn’t. now, it was plagued with flashing lights of red and blue, fireworks of distress across the night sky.
my dad made the girls and me clean up the mess we’d made while he talked to the cops. and i feel bad for complaining, considering all that happened, but it was horrible. there’s a reason we picked the things we did; they were impossible to extract. eventually, paul came outside to help us. without saying anything, he sleepily began to remove peeps from the windows, dumping the sticky sugary candies in a trash bag. i could sense the guilt he felt just from the look on his face. i knew he learned his lesson. i almost wish it hadn’t been so quickly.
finally, once paul’s house was as clean as it could be, my dad decided it was time to go home. the girls and i never fell asleep that night, but we didn’t talk much either. the absence of leah weighed heavily upon us. we knew, in a way, we were responsible. just before the sky began to grow light again, lily asked, “what if they never find her?”
no one answered.
everyone assumed the worst. that leah had gone the same way as her brother. but i told everyone that couldn’t be the case; leah was shining bright that night. she wouldn’t have done such a thing. not after a night like that. but everyone shooed me away, or at least the adults did. they thought i couldn’t comprehend a thing like suicide, and i supposed i couldn’t. but that didn’t mean i could comprehend such a fate for a friend like leah. it just didn’t seem possible.
so, the girls and i explored. we spent most afternoons after school scouring the area around paul’s house, with paul’s help, looking for a clue. we emptied our sleepover bags, scavenged my room for a note. for any indication that leah was okay. maybe she was simply somewhere else.
one night, a few weeks later, as we were all falling asleep, side by side in our sleeping bags, maura gasped. she sat up, the outline of her body clear against the golden hue of my nightlight.
“didn’t she bring a duffel bag?”
“yeah,” i said sleepily, unsure the meaning behind such a proclamation.
“well, where is it?”
i sat up. “it’s gone. it was never here. that night when we got back.” i scrambled around my room, craning beneath my bed, digging behind the shoes piling in my closet, everywhere i had already looked and found nothing. i stopped. “she must have come back to get her things.”
“but that would mean―”
“she planned this whole thing.”
the girls were silent for a moment, dreary from the truth. we didn’t want to admit what this meant, didn’t want to suppose what was in that duffel bag. it was dark, far darker than the scary stories we used to squeal at late into the early hours of the morning, unbearable when the scary story involved someone you considered a friend.
“maybe what they were saying was true. that she…”
“she didn’t do that. leah wouldn’t do that.”
“you never really know what was going through her mind. she was upset. remember her question? do you ever wish you could be someone else? that seems…”
i jumped, standing amongst the chaos of my room. “she ran away.”
the girls grimaced. “jellie, we don’t know what happened. we may never know.”
“that doesn’t seem right, though.”
“some things in this world just ain’t right.” i forget who said it, but i still haven’t forgotten those words. they stuck like shaving cream to pavement. meant to withstand time, words like that.
eventually, the only thing we could do was wonder and pray. so that’s what i did. every night before i fell asleep, i asked whoever was out there to help me find leah. and if she didn’t want to be found, at least for me to know she was okay. still shining bright. still very much herself. but the seasons changed. with the heat came the summer, and the girls and i didn’t get together quite so much. everyone had better places to be than our hometown, so i stayed with my dad and enjoyed the quiet, sweating moments soothed by popsicles and romantic comedies my dad agreed to suffer through. we doused one another with the water hose, concocting our own slip n’ slide, grilled burgers and sipped soda. summers were perfect with my dad. they helped me to forget.
one day, paul showed up at my doorstep. immediately, i could tell he’d been crying. he held out his hand without another word. in it, a folded-up piece of paper. i took it, and began to read out loud, knowing instinctively, it was everything i’d been praying for.
paul,
sending a warm, sunny hello all the way from the west coast. i won’t tell you where, because i don’t quite want anyone to know where i’ve gone. just know i’m safe, and that there’s no reason to worry.
i guess you’re the person i decided to tell because i wanted to thank you. if it weren’t for you, i wouldn’t have had the courage to search for something better. and i wanted you to know that i forgive you. there’s no hatred on my end, only love. where i am now, there’s lots of love. and i hope you tell jellie that, too. knowing her, i am sure she’s been worried sick. but will you do something for me? will you tell her she always made a difference?
thanks, paul.
leah