Everything Is Fine

Tessa’s life is crumbling. She’s using secrets as glue to keep it all together, but falling apart doesn’t mean you’re broken.

Sneak Peak

Chapter 1

            I watch my best friend Kaira from across the hall in our ninth-grade wing, wondering if I’m crazy or if she’s avoiding me. She looks like the Kaira I know, sounds like her, is wearing her usual tight black jeans with holes in the knees, but things feel different. Her long, shiny black hair hangs down her back in thick waves, not her usual braids, and it feels like a statement. Like she’s saying: I’ve outgrown you.

            But who am I kidding? She isn’t thinking about me at all. She’s friends with Rumi now.  I saw pictures of them together online and thought for a minute I was wrong, that Kaira wouldn’t lie to me. It must be a different girl who looked like my best friend. But no, it was her. Smiling with glossy lips and painted nails, wearing matching silk pajama sets with Rumi, Avory, and Ceci.   

            Did Kaira know that I would see the pictures? Did she care?

It’s a special kind of dread mixed with deep aching disappointment when you see other kids together through a tiny glass screen in your palm while sitting alone in your bedroom, uninvited. It’s like getting dropped fifty feet into a scalding pool of water, then yanked violently back on your feet and told to keep walking, act normal, like your skin’s not burning off. It would have hurt if Kaira had told me, but at least I would have known. I could have been prepared.

            I’ve been trying to get over my feelings for the last week. But I can’t pretend I don’t feel her pulling away. I just wish I wasn’t so angry about it.

And jealous.

Kaira finishes primping in the little mirror stuck to her locker door and slams it closed. I don’t wait for her to look around for me because I know she won’t. I move swiftly through the sea of kids to her side. “Kaira, hey.” Maybe she’ll prove me wrong. Perhaps she really has had “family stuff” the last two weekends. “Do you have plans today? Wanna hang out after school?” Why do I feel so needy? So nervous, like I’m asking someone for their spare kidney?

“Hey, Tessa,” she says with a tight smile, and starts to walk. I fall in sync beside her, waiting for an answer. “How’d you do on that math test? I studied all weekend,” she says.

Did she not hear me? Or is she giving herself time to come up with an excuse? “Um, I guess I did okay. I studied this weekend, too.” Mostly because I didn’t have anything else to do.

She walks fast. I have to hurry to keep up.

“Cool,” she says. The word is like a period marking the end of our conversation.

“My parents are getting divorced,” I blurt, the words darting from my mouth like little sticky arms. I didn’t want to tell her like this, but I guess I don’t have a choice. Even if I’m not her best friend anymore, she’s still mine. She’s the only one I have to talk to. I need her now more than ever.

She stops walking and finally looks me in the eye. “Shit. Sorry, Tessa. That sucks.”

I flinch at the swear word. That’s new for her. She never used to swear. It makes me feel even more childish. And pathetic, because now I’m guilting her into hanging out with me. But I don’t care. I don’t have anyone else. “So today, are you free? I could really use,”

“Not today,” Kaira interrupts. Her eyes shift over my shoulder, then back at me. “I have, um, a thing with my mom. But I’ll text you.” She touches my arm and gives me a sad look.

Her desire to end this conversation is as sharp as the pang of humiliation in my gut. A switch flips inside me. Something snaps, and before I know what’s happening, I turn on her like a raging bull, nostrils flaring, shoulders shaking. “Whatever, Kaira. Tell your mom I say hi.”

            She stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Geez, Tessa. What’s wrong with you?” She spits out the word you like a disgusting bite of black licorice. We both hate black licorice.

            “Nothing. You’re just a liar. You lied about being at Rumi’s this weekend. And now you’re lying about plans with your mom. Just grow up and tell me the truth.” The words lash out of me, tight and sharp, snapping like a whip around the thing I want to say but can’t. I’m still hoping she tells me I’m crazy. That, of course, she wouldn’t lie to me. Of course, that wasn’t her at Rumi’s sleepover. She would have invited me too. Right?

            Kaira’s mouth twists and tightens into a dark red knot. Her eyes squint into thin slices of black ice. “What is your problem?” 

I can’t hold it in. “Rumi is my problem. How can you be friends with her?” Tears have the humiliating audacity to well up in my eyes. I furiously blink them away.

Kaira’s shoulders drop. Her eyes roll. “This is why I didn’t tell you. You get upset every time I hang out with anyone else.”

            There it is – confirmation like a grenade set gently in my hands. My lips quiver. Fury spews from me like lava. “I’m mad because you lied, Kaira. And yes, because you were with Rumi, of all people.” Kaira was in the same English class on the first day of middle school when Rumi called me to her like a dog in front of everyone. “Here, Tessy, Tessy, Tessy. Here, girl,” she cooed, and everyone laughed. Kaira was in the lunchroom sitting beside me when Rumi accidentally dropped an overly saucy piece of pizza in my lap, then cackled with her group of clones as she walked away. Kaira was at the school dance last year when Rumi bullied Marcus Miller into asking me to dance so she could laugh at us. Kaira has known it all, but apparently, she’s been chosen now. She belongs. So, none of it matters.

Kaira rolls her eyes. “That was all when we were kids. We’re in high school now, Tessa. Leave it alone.”

I ball my fists in anger. “Would you forget it all, if you were me?” When she doesn’t answer, I can’t help but drive my point home. “Rumi will always be a total b…”

            “You’re the one being a B, Tessa,” Rumi interrupts, suddenly appearing beside Kaira. I snap my mouth shut. A group of girls gathers around Rumi. Her posse. Her glossy girls surrounding her like a cluster of petals around their pistil. Kaira’s eyes flicker, and I almost think she feels bad for me, but she stays quiet.

            I consider fleeing, just bolting away from this gang-like group of terrifying teenage girls, but refuse to look weak in front of them. One sniff of fear and they will pounce like wolves on a sick dog. I’m not someone who backs down, but I’m not a fighter either. I’m a close my eyes and hope it all goes away kind of girl. But in this case, the anxious thump of my heart is so loud I think there’s a marching band stomping around inside it. I can’t run, but I have to do something to escape this stare-down.

I do the worst thing possible. I pull my arm back and thrust it forward, launching the plastic water bottle I’ve been holding into the air and straight at Rumi’s face. I watch in horror as it flies, wishing instantly that I could stop it. But I can’t. It’s too late. Time slows down, and I separate from my body, viewing the whole scene from above in slow motion. I picture the bottle slamming into her nose, blood spewing everywhere. Or maybe it will collide with her eye and scratch her cornea. I imagine myself getting expelled for bruising her flawless and evil face.

I don’t want to hurt her, but it would be slightly rewarding to see her wearing an eye patch, as long as she’s not permanently blind or anything.

            Except, instead of hitting Rumi in the face, the water bottle, which happens to be half-empty and not very heavy, falls short and collides directly with Rumi’s left boob. She flinches as it makes a tiny crinkle sound, barely even a thud, and falls lazily to the ground.