Chapter Thirty-One
Thursday, February 17th
Creative writing club meeting
“Is everyone ready?” Dr. Draper asks. Almost everybody who started is back for today. She’s announcing the winner of the best story and poem contest, which earns a small prize and will be the lead piece in the lit mag. The roses and razor blade girls are on pins and needles.
Gabby sits next to me. It’s a home game tonight so she’s here for me. She liked the story, but I couldn’t bring myself, even in fiction, to be false. Happy endings are for kids, and both Gabby and I stopped being kids at fourteen when trauma first touched our lives.
“I’m pleased to announce the first prize story of this year’s Fenton High School literary magazine is…” Kirk does a drum roll that gives me another reason to hate his guts.
“‘She’s Too Good for Me’ by Josh Brown.”
Charlotte gives Josh a huge hug. One of the razor blade girls wins the poetry prize. The others shred her with their black eyeliner glares. It’s easier for me. I already resent Josh.
Josh describes the winning story about a smart, sensitive-type boy in love with a beautiful, mysterious girl. The BMG has a mental breakdown that tests the SSB’s love for her. The SSB, of course, has a wacky sidekick—WSK—to tease and advise him. It’s the same characters as in his other stories, except the names and quirks. Why tinker with success?
At Dr. Draper’s urging, Josh reads from his prize-winning story, but I’m two thousand miles away from Fenton or fiction, thinking about Caitlin. When she’s ready to come home, I’ll still be in Fenton. I’m going to Baker in Flint, not Princeton. Josh and Charlotte will rule over Oberlin. Tim will be at MIT. Maybe I’m thinking about Caitlin because I feel this connection. Josh is Carol. I am Caitlin. I share the pain and rage of a total failure.
Josh’s reading takes forever. The only good thing is how Gabby keeps staring softly at me. She won’t let go of my eyes, although I don’t understand why. She’s a winner. I’m a loser.
When Josh finally finishes, the razor blade girl reads. As she does, one of her friends turns into an enemy and loudly leaves the room. I don’t know why, but I follow her out.
“Hey, you, where you going?” I ask, desperately trying to remember her name.
“I quit.” She jingles with the ten bracelets per arm parade when she talks.
“Why? Because you didn’t win?” I ask. “Why can’t you be happy for your friend?”
“Are you happy for Josh?” Bracelet Girl says with her tear-dripping raccoon eyes.
I don’t owe her anything, I hardly know anything about her, she’s a perfect stranger to me, so I tell her the truth. “He’s not my friend. No, I’m not happy for him. I hate everything he is.”
“I can tell.” A small slit of white teeth shows between the thick black lipstick.
“It is so unfair.” I sound like I’m eight, not eighteen. “He wins the contest. He’s going to a good college, and he’s born on third base.” Maybe Kirk was right—‘Accept your limitations’.
“I guess we’re both losers.”
“But I wanted this so bad,” I say, almost crying at how deeply this hurts.
“Carson, you’re a pretty good writer, but the things you write about are so unpleasant. I mean, maybe it’s real, but it’s too much. Why can’t you write about something else?”
“I write how the world is,” I say. “Josh writes how people want the world to be. I write about people who make mistakes. He writes about people with a quip always on the tip of their tongue contending for quote of the day. I’m about authenticity. He’s Mr. Aspirations.”
“Even so, the girl in your story is so messed up.”
“You’re sounding like Kirk,” I interject. The insult doesn’t faze her.
“No one deserves to have their own father hand them a gun to kill themselves,” she says in teacher lecture mode.
“It happened. Everything in these stories is real. My dad really did that.”
Her head jolts back as if I’d punched her jaw. “Seriously, Carson? I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing. I just thought you should know.”
“But I still don’t understand something,” she says in a hushed tone. “Why did you assume the dad gave the gun to the girl? It is implied, but the reader doesn’t see it. Maybe Autumn wouldn’t take the gun, so the father still has it.”
“But he wouldn’t pull the trigger like he was going to kill Autumn,” I say.
“But he does pull the trigger, because August heard the click, right?”
I nod.
“And I guess we can assume that she doesn’t know the gun isn’t loaded.”
Another nod.
“What if the reason Autumn runs away is because she watched her father put the gun in his own mouth and pull the trigger?” I glance up at the clock in the hallway. It ticks, so time is not standing still, it just feels that way.
So maybe it’s Caitlin who can’t forgive Dad, not the other way around. But what was it Gabby told me as I sat in the Excalibur parking lot and I understand even better now? That giving someone a second chance means forgiving them for their mistake, even if what they did hurt or disappointed you. It means you love them no matter what they did. If love is unconditional, then can it cure any condition—fear, shame and regret—like a magic drug?