Yearbook Read online

  I’ve never heard gossip start in a million places simultaneously before. It was really weird. It was like there was this pause in the crowd as everyone breathed in and then everyone started talking. “She doesn’t have a date!” “Ooohh . . . I wonder if Connor dumped her last night so he could take Katherine!” “She’s hot . . . I’d be her escort in a second.” “She’s always so stuck up . . . it serves her right.” “Wouldn’t it be great if she won Queen and had to go up there all alone?” And on and on like that. Not one person I could hear was interested in Andrea the person, just Andrea the potential scandal.

  I was sitting pretty close to the front and I could almost see the expression on Andrea’s face as she was waiting for them to announce the Queen. I might have been imagining it, but it seemed like she was scared and going to panic. I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to go home in case my date got home early, or something. I told my buddies, but they were too interested in watching what was happening to really care. I headed out through the crowd to my car, trying hard not to pay any attention to what was going on over the loudspeakers.

  Well, not that hard. I paused partway across the parking lot to listen and I heard them announce her name. I wondered what people were saying now. No matter what, it was going to be tough for her to walk that walk all by herself. I couldn’t help but admire her. I was just glad I hadn’t had to see her face or listen to anyone around me when she won.

  By the time I located my old beast of a car, I saw her. She was running toward me across the parking lot, like Cinderella with her ball gone horribly awry. (Did I spell that right? Posterity, you’ll have to check it for me. I’m too lazy to find a dictionary right now. Besides, you’re lucky to be reading a journal entry from me anyway!) I could tell she wasn’t really paying attention, but I didn’t think she’d run right into me, which she did, and everything went flying and she started to cry.

  It was really weird seeing Andrea Beckett cry. I’d never thought of her crying. She’s so beautiful and she’s always winning everything. She’s like Midas, with a golden touch. But she was really crying, tears everywhere, makeup everywhere, no holds barred. I couldn’t stand it.

  I mumbled something about a ride home, and to my surprise, she agreed. She got in the car so fast and slammed the door so quickly that I could tell she wanted out of there right away. I didn’t know what to do so I handed her the roll of toilet paper that’s been rolling around my car since the last camping trip (I think my mess kit is in there somewhere too). She used up almost the whole thing crying.

  She had me pull around the corner of her house, so no one would see her if they came by, I guess, and I asked her if she was all right (like an idiot) and of course she lied and said yes. I sat there the whole time and wished that there were something I could do. I got the feeling that she was crying about more than the whole Homecoming thing and being alone on the stage. But how do you ask someone to explain what’s wrong when it’s fairly obvious their heart is breaking? I couldn’t even think of any jokes to make that wouldn’t make everything a hundred times worse. She tried to smile at me like everything was okay, but I knew it wasn’t, and so without thinking I reached out and held her hand. She let me for just a second before she reached for the door to leave.

  She was partway up the walk when I noticed she had left her crown behind. I grabbed it and jumped out. “Wait!” I yelled. “You forgot this!” I held it in front of me. She smiled at me and told me to keep it and ran inside. I wanted to go after her and talk to her, but it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. So, I took the crown and went home and went on my date later that night.

  It’s been two weeks now and nothing has really happened. We say hello in the halls but don’t talk any more than we did before. I took the crown to school once to try to give it back to her, but there’s no really subtle way to pass someone their Homecoming crown on the sly, so I brought it back home and buried it in my closet somewhere. I need to give it back to her. Even if she doesn’t think so, that crown represents something. It’s just a fake crown that the student body officers ordered for the occasion, but it represents something more than that stupid Homecoming mess to me now and I wish that I could explain it to her.

  Andrea really is regal. I knew that when she marched up to take her state trophy and I knew that when she was crying in the car. It’s like I saw for a minute how she really is—maybe how the Savior would see her—kind of alone and just like the rest of us, hurt by things that happen. I think she feels like people won’t respect her or something if they think she isn’t perfect. But, even though she’s not perfect, she’s still a person who matters. Everyone matters. I wonder if she doesn’t come to church because she can’t see that anymore. Could I talk to her about something like that?

  So what do I do? If I bring things up and everything goes wrong, I’ll feel like I made her feel worse and hurt her even more. But, if I sit around and do nothing, I might miss my chance to help her. And I admit it. I’ve fallen for her.

  It was a lot easier being a deacon. Even though I did spill the water that one Sunday.

  Chapter 9

  December

  Avery Matthews

  Yesterday I was suspended for smoking on the school grounds again. It’s the second time (they caught me in November too), so now everyone is getting very serious. Please. Like kids don’t do worse things every day. Ms. Downing, our stupid principal, gave me a little speech about how I should have pride in myself and treat my body with respect. Whatever. She’s not looking so hot herself. I wouldn’t be surprised if she were doing a little something on the side. Her eyes have been absolutely bloodshot all week.

  So today I couldn’t go to school because of the suspension. My parents, who were obviously not happy with the whole situation, didn’t really know what to do with me. They yelled, I yelled, I got grounded for some indeterminate, completely ridiculous amount of time, and then they were stuck deciding who was going to “monitor” me for the next few days while I couldn’t go to school. They ended up deciding to call every hour to see what I was doing and that they would take their lunches at different, undisclosed times so that they could come home and make sure I was there. What do they think this is? A major espionage endeavor? If I want to leave, I’ll leave. If, like right now, I can’t seem to find the energy, I won’t.

  So here I am, listening to my music as loudly as possible and drinking—a double latte, nothing more. As a day goes, it could be worse. It could also be better. Yesterday was only the third or fourth time I’d smoked. I don’t think that smoking a few times is nearly as bad as, say, Everett Wilson. That guy is pure poison, but he never gets in trouble for anything. Not even for the way he treats girls.

  The term hasn’t been going so well for me. It started going downhill the very first day of school. I found out then that I had been cut from the volleyball team, which really surprised me (and the assistant coach, by the way). I started not liking the way I looked. And the weather—I hate the winter. It’s so dark and long and depressing. Why get up in the morning if you automatically know it’s going to be cold or raining? Better to cut your losses and stay in bed.

  I got bored with listening to music, so I decided to watch some talk shows. Those always make me feel better about myself in a hurry. The people on there are so messed up that they make me look like Avery Matthews, Adolescent Genius.

  I was halfway through a particularly pathetic show when my dad walked in the door. I turned the TV off and assumed a look I like to call “Bored Nonchalance Version Five” when he came in.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I responded.

  “Well, then, if you’re not doing anything, I think you should clean out your binder.” He dumped it unceremoniously on my lap. “I found it in my car and it is a complete disaster. There’s no way you’ll start doing better in school until you get organized.”

  Ahh. Organization. The Palm Pilot King speaks.

  “I am going to
make some copies, and then I’m going to get your sister from kindergarten and we’re all going to lunch—you, Caitlin, and me. I want you to have this backpack organized by the time I get back. And I want you to think about the kind of example you are setting for Caitlin. She’s your little sister. Do you think this is good for her to see? Do you want her doing things like this?”

  I sat very still. Make it go away. My dad isn’t a bad guy, but he’s also completely out of touch with anything that goes on in my little universe.

  “Avery. Camille. Matthews.” Eye contact. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” I picked up my backpack, grabbed a handful of papers out of it, and feigned being industrious. Satisfied, he gave me a little wave and left.

  I flopped back on the couch. I glanced at the paper on top of the pile in my fist. “My Life, by Avery Matthews.” What is this? When did I write this?

  Oh yes. I remember now. Our autobiographies. We turned them in way back in September and Mr. Thomas took almost a whole month to read them and give them back to us. He said it took so long because he was really giving each one his time and attention and doing what it took to be a fair grader. Please. I’m sure he’s just lazy and has things going on that he thinks are more important than we are. Actually, that’s not entirely fair. He gives me too many speeches about trying and doing and blah blah blah, but he is a decent teacher and I’m sure he did try to do a good job. For what that’s worth.

  I looked at the grade at the top of the paper. I got an A on this paper? I couldn’t believe it. I thought I had quit caring by that point. Then I remembered that he had told me I could do a special assignment. “Since you like writing poems so much,” he had said after noticing that I was doing that instead of writing in my journal or doing assignments, “maybe you could write a poem for each year of your life as an autobiography instead of writing a more traditional one. I’d let you pick the topics—anything, as long as it’s something that relates to your life for each year. What do you think?”

  I hate it when teachers feel sorry for me and make exceptions for me, but I’m also not stupid, and I also don’t like to work any harder than I absolutely have to work. If I could do something I liked and get a good grade to help my average when I didn’t do other assignments later (because, let’s face it, that’s what was going to happen), then why not? I’m sure that Mr. Thomas felt that he had won some sort of small victory. He got the withdrawn, angry student to do an assignment. Teacher of the Year.

  Thinking back on this, I snorted. How disappointed he must have felt when I failed last term in spite of this A, this “special assignment.” I had stayed up all night finishing this one, and then I didn’t turn in anything the rest of the term.

  I started reading the first poem. It was about being one year old and being adorable for the last time in my life. Not great, but not bad. The poem about being two was about the terrible twos and was sticky sweet and totally fake. I kept reading.

  “Sixteen” jumped out at me from the last page. I remembered writing about how it felt to be sixteen. I remember choosing to include the color black because everyone always asked why I wore so much black, or, as my mom phrased it, “Why do you look so . . . I don’t know, so almost Gothic all of a sudden?”

  I knew that I thought this was the best one, but I couldn’t remember why. I read a few lines of one of the last stanzas:

  Better to feel anger than to feel sorrow.

  Better to feel nothing than to feel sorrow.

  Better not to feel.

  I could remember exactly how I felt when I wrote that. It was in the middle of the night, on one of those nights that I stayed up to avoid sleeping and dreaming the dark, thick, scary dreams that I have. I have them when I’m awake too, but they are more vague and there are other things going on. At night, the dreams are all that I see. They scare me. I had started to write simply to keep myself awake, but I remember feeling my mind engaging in the poem more than it had engaged in anything else I’d written this year.

  As I reread the poem, I was surprised to see a tear hit the paper, like a sharp staccato note. I was crying. The poem made me feel sorry for myself in a different way than I had been. It made me feel sad for that girl in September who wrote this, sad for anyone who felt this way. How long has it been, I wondered, since I felt happy? How long has it been since I got up in the morning without a dark feeling pulling me down? How long has it been since I didn’t cry in the shower, or feel like crying in the shower? Lately, I haven’t been able to figure out what the purpose is behind anything. No matter what we do, we’re still going to die. Why bother with anything?

  This morning when I got up, I felt so heavy. It had nothing to do with the smoking or anything else I’d been doing. It had everything to do with feeling like it was just way too much work. Just way too much work to eat breakfast, way too much work to interact with my parents, way too much work to run a comb through my hair. I must have felt the same way when I wrote the poem. I do remember feeling better for a little while after I wrote it, but obviously the feeling hadn’t stuck around for long. People always act like writing is so cathartic, and it is, but it’s not like it fixes everything. Although I guess anything that helps a little might be worth doing.

  Mr. Thomas had written on the page, “Please see me. This is one of the best pieces of writing I’ve seen in a long time. I’d like to publish it in the school paper. I am also worried about how you might be feeling.”

  I hadn’t seen him after class, but a few weeks later I’d been called into the school counselor’s office. Mr. Thomas must have tipped him off. I guess I can see why he did it, although it’s still not really any of his business. If the poem made me feel sad, it probably made him feel sad for me too. He is the advisor for the paper so he keeps asking me to look into writing for the school newspaper instead of having a free period for study hall (I never go) on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  I reread the part about writing again. “This is one of the best pieces of writing I’ve seen in a long time.” He should know. He certainly assigns enough pieces of writing.

  A little part of me remembered what it felt like to be good at something. I used to be good at volleyball. I used to like hearing people cheer for me and I liked feeling as though I was better than other people at something instead of inferior. The same little part of me also remembered what it felt like to get up and go to school and live my life without having to pull myself through every act. It was the part of me that made me want to try to swim back to the surface, the way I’d talked about swimming up again in the poem.

  For the first time in a while, I felt like maybe it was possible to be that person again. I don’t want to be this sad anymore. There has to be an answer to my question about what the purpose of all of this is. Do I have the energy to try to find out what it is? It might take a long, long time. I’m not sure I have what it takes to care again.

  •••

  My dad drove me to school the next day, making a big deal about where and when he would pick me up. I went straight to English before the bell rang and before I lost my courage. He was sitting at his desk, as usual.

  “Mr. Thomas?”

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering if maybe you would like to print this in that little spot in the paper where you guys do poems?” I handed him my “Sixteen” poem.

  He glanced at it and I saw that he recognized it. He looked at me with kind eyes. “I think it would be an excellent contribution. In fact, I think we could run it this Friday.”

  That soon? I panicked. “Actually, I was also wondering if you could print it without a name?”

  He studied me for a moment. “We don’t usually like to publish anonymous pieces. We want students to have accountability—and recognition, of course—for their writing.”

  “Oh, okay.” I walked back to my seat. I felt like I might burst into tears, which made me sit down in the wrong seat. The worst part of all is that I sat in Michaela Choi’s seat. She is one o
f those churchy girls who has never had a bad thing happen to her in her whole life. She’s cute and athletic and smart and has a nice boyfriend and thinks only happy thoughts, I’m sure.

  “Avery?” she said. “I think you’re sitting in my seat.”

  I didn’t even look at her. I just grabbed my stuff and started out the door. The bell hadn’t even rung yet.

  I was halfway to my locker when I heard someone say “Avery!” I turned around. It was Mr. Thomas. He had my poem in his hand.

  “Avery,” he said. “I think it would be a good idea to publish your poem, and I think it’s an important enough poem that I think we’ll make an exception and let you be anonymous.”

  “I don’t want you to publish it just because I left class. That’s not why I left.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I had time to reread it while the others were coming in, and when I looked up, you were leaving. I had forgotten how good it was. I think this needs to be printed.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “Because you describe how it feels to suffer.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “There are more of us out there who are suffering than you, and it feels good to know that we are not alone.”

  “We?” I stared at him.

  He looked out the hall windows, not directly at me. “I lost my wife last year.”

  I had forgotten. I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

  He faced me and his eyes looked sadder than any I’d seen, including mine in the mirror most mornings. “Will you let me publish it?”

  I nodded.

  “Will you come back to class? The bell’s going to ring soon.”

  I nodded again. “I need to go to the bathroom first.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you in a minute. And thank you, Avery, for writing the poem. And for letting others read it.”

  I gave him kind of a smile and ducked into the bathroom. I waited there for a few minutes before heading back to class. I felt better. Don’t get me wrong. I know that only the nerds and teachers read the Poetry Corner in the school paper. I know that the people who read it might not like it and that probably only a handful of people will even get it, and those people who do might be people that I wouldn’t even want to hang out with or that I don’t even know. But it still felt good, and just plain good was a feeling I hadn’t had in a long, long time. I mean sometimes it feels very good to me to be angry and dark. But this was the simpler kind of good. Not an answer to my question, but maybe a step in the right direction.