Chapter 4 The Crack in the Wall
Jake POV
I do not have feelings about Penny Cruz.
I tell myself this on Monday morning while I am tying my cleats. I tell myself this during practice while Coach Reynolds screams at me for missing the same route three times in a row. I tell myself this on the drive home when I realize I have been driving slightly faster than usual and I slow down specifically because of that realization.
She is the babysitter.
That is the whole sentence. There are no more sentences after that.
Marcus rides with me on Tuesdays and he is currently talking about the upcoming game against Riverside and I am nodding at the right moments and saying "yeah" when it sounds like "yeah" is the correct response and the whole time the only thing actually moving through my head is the image of Penny's face in the hallway this morning.
Brianna said something to her. I saw the tail end of it, the squad laughing, Penny doing that smile, the one that does not reach her eyes at all, the one that looks like something she built specifically to wear in public so nobody can see what is underneath it.
I walked past.
I know I walked past. I made the choice to walk past and I am not going to spend time on it because there is nothing to spend. Brianna is my ex-girlfriend whatever we are right now, it is complicated and loud and I do not have the energy to make it more complicated by stepping into something that is not my business.
"You good?" Marcus asks.
"Fine," I say.
"You missed the same route three times."
"I know."
"Reynolds is going to bench you if you keep "
"I know, Marcus."
He is quiet for approximately four seconds, which is his personal record.
"Is it the babysitter thing?" he asks.
I look at him.
He raises both hands. "I am just asking."
"No," I say. "It is not the babysitter thing."
I smell dinner before I open the front door.
Something with garlic. And something sweet underneath it I cannot figure out what and underneath that, the sound of Lily laughing. Not the polite laugh she does when she is trying to seem okay. The real one. The one that starts in her belly and comes out too loud and when she was three my mom used to say that laughter could cure anything.
I have not heard it in two years.
I stand on my own front porch with my hand on my own door handle and I breathe for a second.
Then I go in.
Penny is at the stove stirring something and Lily is sitting on the counter next to her which I have told her seventeen times not to do because it is not safe but I do not say anything about that right now because Lily is telling a story about Gerald the lizard and Penny is listening with her whole face, nodding in the right places, asking "then what happened" in a voice that makes Lily talk faster and louder and happier.
They have not noticed me.
I stand in the kitchen doorway.
The house smells like food and sounds like laughter and looks like the kind of home it used to be before everything broke and I feel something happen in my chest that I do not want to feel. Something is shifting. Something cracking at the edge.
I do not examine it.
I look at the wall.
"Practice ran long," I say, which is a lie, and I go upstairs before either of them can respond.
In my room I sit on the edge of my bed and I call Brianna.
She answers on the second ring, which means she has been waiting for me to call, which means she already knows I saw what happened in the hallway this morning.
"Hey you," she says in her soft voice.
"Hey."
"How was practice?"
"Fine." I lie back on my bed and stare at the ceiling. "What did you say to her this morning?"
A pause. Small and practiced. "To who?"
"Brianna."
"I was just being friendly." Her voice stays perfectly even. "I introduced myself. Is that a problem?"
I think about Penny's face. That smile that is not a smile. "Just leave her alone. She is here for Lily. That is it."
"I know that, Jake." A small laugh. "You sound very serious about your babysitter."
"I sound serious about keeping things simple."
"Of course." Another pause. "Is she a problem?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
I think about garlic and laughter and something cracking in my chest that I refuse to name. "She is nobody," I say. "Do not worry about it."
Brianna makes a satisfied sound and changes the subject to the party on Friday and I answer her questions on autopilot while I stare at the ceiling and somewhere below me Lily laughs again and I close my eyes.
I come back downstairs at nine to get water.
Lily is asleep. The kitchen is cleaner than I left it, everything put away, the counter wiped. There is a plate of food covered in foil on the stove with a sticky note that says for you, it reheats in two minutes.
I stare at that note.
Then I heat the food and eat it standing at the counter and it is the best thing I have eaten in this house since I do not finish that thought.
I rinse the plate. I go to the table to get my backpack. My English essay is where I left it printed, stapled, done, due tomorrow first period. I finished it last week and I am not worried about it.
Except now there is a yellow sticky note on the top page.
Small handwriting. Neat and quick, like someone who thinks faster than they write.
Your thesis is backwards. Your best argument is in paragraph four it should be paragraph one. The intro reads like you are apologizing for having an opinion. You are not. Fix it.
I read it twice.
I look around the empty kitchen like the note is going to explain itself.
She read my essay. I do not know when I have been home for three hours but she read it and she left this note and she did not say anything about it and she is asleep down the hall right now like she did not just tell me my best work has been sitting in the wrong place this whole time.
I look at the clock. It is nine forty-five. The essay is due at seven fifty-five tomorrow.
I sat down. I open my laptop.
I move paragraph four to the front.
It takes me an hour and fifteen minutes to restructure everything. I rewrote the intro three times. I cut two sentences from the conclusion that I now realize were, in fact, apologizing for having an opinion. At eleven o'clock I read the whole thing from the start.
It is better. It is noticeably, significantly better and I know enough about my own work to know that is not me being generous with myself.
I will print it. I staple it. I put it in my bag.
I look at the yellow sticky note on the table.
You are not apologizing for having an opinion.
I fold it in half. I put it in my pocket instead of the trash.
I do not examine why.
The essay comes back two days later.
B-plus. Written under the grade in red pen, the comment reads: Strongest structural argument in the class. Your thesis does exactly what a thesis should do.
I sat at my desk in the third period and I read that comment four times.
Then I take the yellow sticky note out of my pocket. I have been carrying it for two days without thinking too hard about why and I unfold it on my desk next to the essay.
Your best argument is in paragraph four. It should be paragraph one.
She knew. She read it once and she knew exactly what was wrong and exactly how to fix it and she left me a note and said nothing and went to bed.
I look at the B-plus.
I look at the note.
I think about the way she listened to Lily talk about Gerald the lizard with her whole face. I think about the food covered in foil with a sticky note. I think about the smile in the hallway that was not a smile at all.
I fold the yellow note back up.
I put it in my pocket.
Something is happening that I told Brianna was not happening and the real problem is that I am starting to think I was wrong.