Chapter 20

“Her eyes flashed, hot and angry, like lightning cutting through a red sunset.”
—Tyffani Clark Kemp, Bittersweet

BEING A PARANOID MALE—at any age—I just knew that something was going to explode between Rachel and Rebeca. I almost dreaded going to lunch. But they seemed to get along like old comrades. Wednesday, as we were walking from lunch to Geometry, Rachel nudged me gently.

“Someone came to school looking happy this morning,” she whispered.

“Me? I look the same as always.”

“No. Francie. She was giggling all through our first period literature class. You know she’s a sweet girl but not the brightest spoon in the drawer.” I looked over at Rachel with an eyebrow raised. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the saying. “She’s taking the same Junior Lit class I am.”

“I thought you were a sophomore,” I said.

“I thought you were a freshman. Do you think you’re the only person in the school who gets advanced placement?”

“How do you get advanced placement in an English class? I want to take them all.”

“I thought you were into math.”

“No. Math is easy for me but I want to be a writer.” I’d managed to divert the conversation away from Francie.

7 December 2018

I’m only using one crutch today. The treadmill has done wonders for me. I’m up to three miles an hour and Jock says that’s a good comfortable walking speed. I’ve managed to hit the gym twice a day all week except Wednesday when I had to take the last unit exam for Geometry that I was behind. I’m current with the class and the curriculum. It’s going to take me the rest of the semester to complete all the work for AP Human Geography, though. I can’t believe all the papers I have to write. At least my friend is helping me on Wednesdays after school.

That’s nice. I mean really nice. She’s a sweetheart. I think of her like one of the special aides you see in a nursing home. She’s just giving her time to make life better for me.

And that worries me. We’re just a week away from the Winter Dance and I’m looking forward to her company but I just can’t get ... up for her. She doesn’t turn me on. I give her a hug and it feels like I’m hugging my granddaughter. What if she’s in love with me and I can’t return that kind of love? I’m not going to use her but I’m afraid she’ll expect something more from me at the dance.

Unlike our other friend. I’m embarrassed to say that I can’t wait to undress her and make love. There are few girls—or I guess I’m supposed to say young women—who do anything for me at all. But when I look at that friend, I feel like a horny teen. I guess I am. But she’s given every indication that she feels the same way and I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it. I sure hope everything works out at the dance next week. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.

“Polygons are going to kill me,” Rachel sighed as she sat at lunch with us Friday.

“Are those nasty polygamists trying to get you into their cult?” Beca asked brightly.

“Poly... ?” Rachel snorted in the most unladylike manner I’d ever seen. She reached across the table to slap Beca’s hand. “You are wicked, girlfriend. Just what I needed on a Friday afternoon. Now if Jacob can just get me through Geometry, all will be well.”

“What’s got you stumped, Rache?”

“Irregular polygons, Heron’s formula, area and perimeter in the coordinate plane. They are all going to be on the test next week.”

“I should probably review the chapter on triangles and polygons, too,” I said. “I spent most of my time this week catching up on Human Geography. I needed to review the material in Geometry just so I wouldn’t accidentally blow something simple. Not to mention my review of Maus I & II. We’ll have an essay test in English on that one next week. Ms. Levy always gives us the question the day before and expects us to come to class with an outline.”

“God! For a comic book, that was one of the hardest things to read in freshman English. If you have any sensitivity to what is happening in our world today, you can see the rise of the Third Reich all over again,” Rachel said.

“I’ll trade you advice on Geometry for advice in English,” I laughed.

“What a great idea!” Beca said. “Why don’t you join our study session on Sunday, Rachel? Jacob and I have to go over the notes for the unit test in Human Geography. I feel like religion must have a more important impact on settlement than I thought. I can’t believe there are whole countries who only have one religion and are ruled by the priest caste.”

“Oh. Um ... Yeah.”

“Oh, shit. I just invited someone to your house without asking you first!” Beca said.

“I thought you were talking about coming to your house!” Rachel said. “I was going to be all over that.”

“It’s ... um ... okay. It’s like Sunday is this massive study day at my house. Even Em and Pey joined us last weekend. One more won’t hurt anything. I mean ... Rachel, if it’s okay for you to go to a boy’s house ... to study, I mean. You’d be welcome to join us.” The smile she shot at me guaranteed I’d have a hard-on all through Geometry.

“It would be great if you’re sure I’m not imposing on your time together,” she said.

“No problem,” Beca said. She gave us both a squeeze before rushing off to class and Rachel and I turned toward Geometry. I grabbed my wheelie in my left hand as I used my crutch to stabilize my right side.

“You don’t need me anymore,” Rachel sighed.

“Um ... It’s not like ... I mean ... Did you really want to carry my books?” Back in V1, it was pretty common for a boy to volunteer to carry a girl’s books between classes, or if they were fortunate enough to live near each other, even carry them home for her. I hadn’t seen any of that in our high school halls.

“I’m teasing. Sometimes it seems almost like you aren’t mentally part of our society, you know?” she said. Don’t I know!

“I find that since I woke up from my accident, I’m less sure of myself,” I explained. “Some things that should be familiar sound strange to me. It’s like ... I forgot all about the National Service until Em got her induction letter over break. Then it was like ... WHAM! ... All of a sudden I realized I had that to look forward to.”

“I get it. Sometimes I feel out of place, too. I think we all do. Well, I’m a year older than you. I’ll help guide you through the jungle.” She dropped her voice so I had to lean close to her as we entered Mrs. Stierwalt’s class. “And right into the swamp,” she whispered.

That was all it took. Her bare legs were right in my line of sight every time I glanced down at my workbook. I contemplated what she meant by that.

Our study session over the weekend had been mostly relaxed and we really got a lot accomplished. Rachel even had a few words of advice on our Human Geography assignment and since Beca was just in a different section of freshman English, she participated fully in our discussion of Maus. They found my perspective a little different, too. I almost lost them.

“The Krauts and the Japs were bloodthirsty hordes. If the war had gone on six more months, Truman would have dropped the first A-bomb on Berlin and there’d just be a big hole in the middle of Europe now.”

“Jacob! That’s a racist comment! The Japanese and the Germans are our allies now. It would have been a terrible loss to humanity if we’d destroyed Berlin completely.”

“Do you think there was no loss to humanity with the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima? It was a war—and the last war America fought that she intended to win. We should have wiped out the whole Middle East in ‘90. There’d have been no 9/11,” I said hotly.

“You sound like an old man,” Rachel said. “20/20 hindsight. Welcome to the twenty-first century, dude. We have future problems to face. We need to learn from the past, not repeat it.”

“We could have saved a million more Jewish lives if we’d bombed Berlin in ‘44,” I said. I was settling down and separating V1 from my heated responses.

“At the cost of a million innocent German lives who were also living under the tyranny of the Third Reich,” Rachel said. “We learned.”

“Take this lesson to the future. Act sooner, even if you aren’t sure. Apologize later.”

I’m afraid I scared the girls a little and tried to back off. No matter what my V1 life dictated, this was a different reality. I needed to learn before I spoke.

“Oh my God! She’s back in the hunt,” Beca said as she pulled me to her side at lunch Monday. Instead of sitting across from us, Rachel slid in beside me. I followed Beca’s eyes and saw Joan. If anything, her skirt and top were more outrageous than ever. Last week she’d gone overboard looking nondescript. Today, I wanted to go check the floor around her to see if she was dripping.