Th.1

Waking up was a slow, luxurious process, cocooned in warm, soft sheets, hampered only by the fact that I had no idea where I was.

I had never seen this room before—at least, not from this angle.  It looked vaguely familiar, but...  Where was I?  And whose chest was that up against my back, whose arm across my waist?  Whose clothed erection just barely brushing against my rear?  I stretched to look over my shoulder.

Oh.  Brandon.

It's all coming together now.

Remembering where I was, unfortunately, meant remembering why I was there—what had brought me here yesterday, and what I'd have to do today.  So I wasn't in an especially pleased mood when I arose.  But I felt rested, if pensive, and waking up feeling rested was pretty rare thing for me.  I figured I might as well count my blessings.

I checked the clock after using the toilet.  Seven AM.  Normally I was up at 6:30, but since that alarm clock was in my room at home, not here, I'd slept in a bit.  Besides, since I'd taken a shower last night, there was no reason to be up that early.  Brandon, for his part, seemed completely laid out, undisturbed by the flush of the toilet, and his alarm hadn't rung either.  When exactly did he wake up?

The answer was, 7:30, as I found out after he stumbled into the kitchen, a little bleary, at 7:39, interrupting me and my bowl of cereal.  He looked at me for a second, past me through me at me, as though some critical program in his brain was glitching; then everything snapped to life, and he said, "Did we seriously sleep together last night?"

"Well," I said.  "Depends what you mean by 'sleep together.'"

"The literal meaning.  Not sex.  Just actual sleeping."

"Yeah, we did," I said.

"Hunh," said Brandon, and went for his own cereal bowl.  "Never figured that the first time there'd be someone in bed with me, it'd be totally platonic."

Always with the sex, that guy.  "Why, is something wrong with that," I asked, annoyed.

He thought for a minute.  "Actually, no.  Totally platonic is fine.  Beats sleeping alone any day.  But...  Still, you know.  Surprising."

I let him get away with that.  It wasn't like I had that problem; the first time I'd shared a bed had been with a boyfriend.

"Do we tell Meredith," I asked him.

He looked startled.  "How do you know about me and Meredith?" he asked through a mouthful of cereal.  Hau do yugh know abogt me an Meridef?

I shrugged.  "It's been obvious from the start."  Which it had.  And I didn't feel like saying more than that.  True, I'd been completely out of it last night, which is probably when most of the fireworks happened, but I'd seen the way they looked at each other.  "So, do we tell?"

"I dunno," he said, "I'm not sure how jealous she gets."

"How would you feel if you found out she slept with...  God, I dunno.  Derek, maybe."

A faint smile broke across his features.  "And that's really the question, isn't it..."  I had no idea what he was talking about.  "Honestly," he said, "I don't know.  I'd like to find out what Derek was thinking.  And what Meredith was thinking."

"So, what were you thinking," I asked him.

"Thinking?  What the hell are you talking about, thinking?  It was late.  We were tired.  I just sort of let things happen."  He winced.  "That's not gonna sound good."

"Does she trust you?"

"I dunno," he said.  "I hope so.  I mean, it's not like we've been on a date or anything.  We barely know each other."

"So we'll talk to her," I said.  "We'll let her know what happened.  If she doesn't trust you, she doesn't.  If she does, she does."  I felt too tired to be anything other than blunt and pragmatic.  Forget all lofty conclusions; let things settle into place, like things sinking to the bottom of a riverbed.

"Maybe she can accept that we're just friends," he said.  "Like Sam and Frodo.  No attraction whatsoever."

"That's what you think," I retorted.

He rolled his eyes.  "Middle-Earth isn't feudal Japan, Arie.  No pretty-boy-loving 'round the Shire."

Part of me wanted to say, What if I meant the other thing, about being attracted to each other, but it wasn't really true, and I was too tired.  Instead I said, "It's nice to have a friend when you're alone at night."

"Yeah, it is," he said.  "Especially in lack of a significant other."

"But you don't lack a significant other anymore," I reminded him.

"Maybe I don't," he said, "but I lack a significant other who's willing to share a bed with me.  And...  It's nice to have someone there.  Someone you can trust.  It's like having a big stuffed animal.  Of course," he added with a wry smile, "if Meredith does want to share a bed with me, she gets first dibs."

"Fine," I said.  Apathy was the name of my game right now.  I only have a certain amount of care in me, and today I needed to save it.  Save it until I really, really needed it.

By the time Brandon had parked his car at school, I'd made my decision.  "I'll tell her," I said.  "It'll be good practice.  For later."  For when I'd have to confront my parents.  And explain to them why my arms looked the way they did.  And then explain to them that, actually, I was not the only one of their daughters with this problem.

God, I needed the practice.

But Meredith was not there; only Zachary and Kelsey.  "Hey, it's my main man," Zach said, "whassup dawg?"  To which Brandon replied with affable sarcasm, "Zach, is it really too much to ask that you speak actual English?"

Kelsey laughed.  "English?  What choo talkin about, white boy?  We be speakin American.  English?  'Pip pip, top of the mornin, chap, cheerio.'  American?  'Yo bitch, how's it hangin?'"

To which Zach replied, in British accent and total deadpan, "Wot is up, my homie?"  To which I was helpless to keep from laughing.  And just like that, the morning felt better.

"You know what?" I said.  "It's really cool to have friends, for once, that I don't talk to through a computer."

"W0rd j0," Zach said, and just like that I was giggling again.

All too soon, though, the bell rang, and it was back to the same old routines.  A few people stopped to fondle me on the way, and I thought, Finally, it's a little weird to have gone all the way to Thursday having never gotten felt up.  But then, thinking back, I realized that people had felt me up—every day of the week, if you wanted to count Dr. Schlemmer's insane Psychology class on Monday.  Today was simply the first time I was paying attention.  Today was the first time I felt ready to do anything other than ignore it.

And it was good.

I mean, let's be honest.  I lost my virginity at age fifteen and I liked it.  I haven't had a lot of boyfriends, but I've been—well, the politically correct term is "free with my favors," but that's just a polite way of saying "easy."  Brandon says that political correctness is simply about using as many words as possible to describe something, and I think he's right.  But that's neither here nor there—I like sex.  It's fun, it's tasty, it's enjoyable; and when I agreed to go into The Program, it was because I figured people might actually fondle me.  Or maybe do other things.  Nobody had whipped out their cocks yet, but if someone did, I wouldn't mind.  Though I hadn't quite expected a Program week like this one.

So, the fondling made things better.  Zach and Brandon and Kelsey made the day better.  The person who made it good...  Was Derek.  Derek Strong, grinning at me as I walked into the only class we share together (third period Current Events), tall and grinning and looking appallingly like Ben Savage with the way his hair curled and the cast of his features, and suddenly my little corner of the world was a lot brighter.  He's such a great friend.  He was so supportive yesterday.  I don't think I could've made it through the day without him.

He followed me to the normal meeting place on the north side of Stetsen, where Brandon, at least, greeted him like a long-lost friend.  Sajel and Zach and the others, taking their cues from him, were receptive; and within a few minutes, Derek and Brandon and Zach, together, had just about everyone in stitches.  Poor Meredith, missing out on all this—she didn't know where to find us!

"So, what'd I miss," Sajel asked.  "What'd we miss.  We haven't seen either of you since this time yesterday, since you disappeared during lunch."  Zach and Tim and Kelsey watched with eager faces.

Brandon and Derek and I exchanged glances.  What had happened?  Oh boy.

Brandon went first.  "Well, the first thing that happened was I broke up with Jane.  Right there at break."  He shrugged.  "There just...  Wasn't any point to it."

"Then," I said, "at lunch, we—"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Kelsey said, "you broke up with Jane?  Say more.  Explain."

Brandon and Derek said, quite simultaneously, "Hey, that rhymed."  They traded amused glances while Kelsey made an ostentatious show of rolling up her sleeves and deliberating who to punch first.

"No, let us finish," I said.  "There's a lot that happened.  Let us tell you everything.  Then you ask questions."

We went through it all, starting from the beginning of the day for Kelsey's and Zach's benefit, who hadn't seen my mother's crusade through the halls of the school, determined to knock me out of The Program.  Brandon covered his speech in English class, which Kelsey and Tim and Derek applauded vocally, and then translated the gist of his schism with Jane.  Skipping Steve and Shannon, I next explained my Internet adventures at lunch, which drew murmurs of shock from Sajel, Tim and Kelsey.  Derek joined in when we got to dinner, but both he and I fell away for Brandon's solo explanation of what exactly had passed between him and Meredith.  (This was the first time any of us heard for certain what had gone on.)  The events in the assembly and Tegman Room were next, culminating finally in the one thing we really needed Meredith for: an explanation of what had gone on between Brandon and I last night.

Zach was our savior.  We had to compact sixteen dense, eventful hours into a twenty-minute recess period, and he kept yelling, "Hurry up, get to the point!"  At first, Sajel tried to shush him, but he defended himself successfully: "Break's half over and they haven't even had dinner yet!"  At which point she started hurrying us along too.  We managed to cover it all, though only barely, before the bell rang.

"Jeez," Sajel yelled as we packed up.  "That was one day?  You guys could make a movie out of it!"

Ain't that the truth, I thought to myself.

Th.2

The first time we saw Meredith that day was fifth period Psychology.  And that class in itself was quite a mess.  Dr. Schlemmer evidently felt we'd exhausted everything there was to say about depression (you won't hear me complaining), because he shifted us back into human sexuality.  Specifically, he wanted a living, breathing (moaning) demonstration of the sexual response cycle.  And since I was Brandon Chambers, naked in school—or, perhaps more pertinently, Brandon Chambers, exhibiting his cock in school—Dr. Schlemmer wanted to use me as his first example.

Okay, maybe you will hear me complaining.

Obviously, this made sense.  After all, it's much harder to see the visual signs of the female response.  Women have... what?—secretion of lubricants, increased blood flow to the vulval area, distended and spread labia, engorgement of the clitoris...  Yeah, you can see that in an intimate, one-on-one environment (for instance, when you're going down on her), but thirty people, crowding around, jostling for a glimpse of Arie's pussy?  That just wasn't going to work.  In comparison, I could just stand there at the front of the classroom with my dick sticking out, and when the time came, everyone could just watch me let fly.  So, no, it's not that I think Dr. Schlemmer was making some sort of logistical mistake.

It's that Dr. Schlemmer has clearly never stood in front of thirty staring people and attempted to develop an erection.  It is not exactly easy.  When one is blushing furiously, after all, it's very hard for blood to rush in the more proper direction, no matter how frantically (or feebly) one is fingering one's prick.

After a few minutes of fumbling around, during which I was more embarrassed than I have ever been in my life, Dr. Schlemmer finally took pity on me.  "Maybe we had better consider this an occasion of relief," he said.  "Would someone like to volunteer?"

A number of girls (and one or two guys) raised their hands, but my eyes were drawn instantly and without choice to the girl sitting to Arie's right, poised and calm, her hand in the air and the coolest of smiles on her face, the barest of suggestive twinkles in her eyes.  Her eyes—those strange, dark eyes that looked so large against her pale skin and golden hair.

I couldn't, it would be totally unfair—she didn't yet know what Arie and I had done, we hadn't been able to tell her.  It would be like lying to her.  It would be like cheating on her.  And yet in my heart I knew—having seen her offer, there was no one else I could pick.

Noise came out of my throat in a dry croak.  I swallowed.  "Meredith."

She rose and moved between me and Arie.  When I could see Arie again, she was staring in purest disbelief.

I couldn't tell her now; that just wouldn't fly.  Part of me wanted to anyway, in the interests of fair play—in the interests of keeping her good will.  I didn't like to manipulate her like this.  But all I did was catch her by the shoulders and say, low so that no one else could hear, "Are you sure about this?  The first time you're gonna do this is in front of the whole class?"

She smiled at me.  "If I wasn't, I wouldn't've volunteered."  She kissed me on the nose.  "Now let me get to work."

Her eyes were deep and clear, the kind a man could get lost in and never return from.  A smile curved the sides of her pale pink lips.  Her cheeks were dusted with a light, sparse coating of pale freckles that brought out the faint rosiness of her skin.  Her fine gold hair, loose in a cloud around her head, shone under the fluorescent lights.  That unmistakable sparkle hovered in her eyes, in the quirky lift of one eyebrow, promising mischief, promising experience.

As she sank down to her knees before me, I blurted out without thinking: "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life."

Some of the class whooped.  Some of the class Aww-www'ed.  Meredith gave me a heart-melting smile.  Arie just looked vaguely sick.

At first nothing happened, despite the gentle pressure of hands on my cock.  I was scared.  She still didn't know what Arie and I had done (and not done), I still didn't know how she'd react...  She didn't know, in essence, whose cock it was she was currently stroking, her fingers sliding deft and gentle across its surface, over the head and shaft and underside.  Would she have volunteered if she did no?  And if the answer was No, how would she feel later, having discovered in retrospect?

It made me feel sick to my stomach.  She'd hate me.  That was the simple answer.  This, as well as the first, might be the last time I'd ever feel her touch my cock.

But with that thought came a strange clarity, and a single overriding impulse:  Well, kiddo, if that's the way it goes, then you'd better enjoy it, eh?  Enjoy it while it lasts.

"Oooh," Meredith breathed as my cock swelled under her fingers.

Standing far to my left, Dr. Schlemmer began narrating.  I had actually forgotten he was there.  "Finally found your on switch?  Got the safety released?  I've heard of erectile dysfunction, but this is really—  Sorry.  The first stage of sexual response is called excitement, and the most important thing that happens, in both sexes, is that things start to puff up.  You can see Brandon's penis getting engorged right now; if he were a woman, it would be his nipples stiffening instead, and his vulva (otherwise known as pussy lips) would become engorged as well.  An interesting secret to human sex organs is that they're all powered by blood.  Clitoral and penile erection, the engorgement of the labia, even the moisture a woman produces, are a result of increased blood flow.  How you doing, Brandon?" he asked cheerfully.

"Uh," I said, my concentration momentarily broken.  By simply listening to Dr. Schlemmer's monologue, I could block out some of the embarrassment.  And a lot of the sensations.  I felt a little bad shunting Meredith off to the side like that, but if not for the distraction, I might have gone off already.  "I'm hanging in there.  Think we're ready for the next stage?"

Someone yelled, "More like you're hanging out there," and there was a sputter of laughter.

"Unfortunately, no, there's still a couple more things to cover," Dr. Schlemmer said, not at all bothered by the sight of a naked student being fondled by a girl.  "During the excitement phase, one's pulse and blood pressure rises, and generally one begins to breathe more deeply and quickly.  And this one's important, guys: an unaroused vagina is not large enough to accept an erect penis.  During the excitement phase, it lengthens and broadens, and the uterus moves upward to make more room.  And often it takes quite a bit of stimulation before enough lubrication has been produced.  So guys—take your time.  Don't rush it.  Both you and your partner will thank you.

"Now, plateau.  That's the next phase, but really you can just think of it as 'more Excitement' and you'll get it right.  The clitoris first—"

Around this time my eyes happened to fall upon Meredith's, and I found her looking up at me with one hand wrapped around my cock.  Its head was about level with her mouth.  Meeting my eyes, she licked her lips deliberately.

"Uh—" I murmured.  "Maybe that's not such a good i—"

Then her lips were around the head of my cock.  And if I thought I was close to going off earlier, that was nothing to now.  Her mouth was warm and wet, and her tongue covered the tip of my cock like a blanket.

"Slow down!" I hissed.  "He's not ready yet!"  Meaning the teacher.  Meredith, without taking my cock from her mouth, gave me a quirk of an eyebrow, and then mercifully gave me a break.

"—and the uterus continues to move, opening more space.  Now what's most interesting is the development of what is called the 'orgasmic platform.'  In erotic fiction this is generally referred to as the ring of muscles at the mouth of the vagina.  Now you know what it's actually called.  It's not actually muscle though, just really really engorged tissue.  Using this ring, the vagina can grip the penis during intercourse, instead of just being a container.

"Of course, all this complicated stuff only happens in women."  He waved a careless hand in my direction.  "Men just get harder.  If anything changes at all."  He raised his voice.  "Are we about ready over there?"

Meredith let go of my cock to speak: "Why, is something wrong?"

"Well, the next phase is orgasm, we sort of need a demonstration," said Dr. Schlemmer.  "Brandon, how about you turn this way—there—so that people can see you from the side.  Anyone want to guess how far he shoots?"

I felt really embarrassed, like a carnival sideshow or something.  You'd think I'd be used to it, because of my scars; but, strangely enough, the fact that involved something other than my scars, only made it worse.

But Meredith looked up at me with those beautiful eyes of hers, and took my hand and squeezed it.  And I thought: If she is with me, I can do anything.

"Okay, you two," Dr. Schlemmer said, "whenever the urge comes up."

Meredith used her hand; if they wanted to see how far I would go, using her mouth would probably be counterproductive.  Dr. Schlemmer continued to narrate: "Orgasms in general are characterized by strong muscular contractions all through the reproductive tract.  In men, this pushes sperm and semen out of their various—"

"Are you ready," Meredith asked me.

"Any second now," I grunted, and she kissed the nearest part of me available—in this case, my left thigh.

"—in women, these contractions start at the uterus and ripple on downwards.  They are also characterized by intense awareness of one's body in general and one's genitals in particular.  Pulse rate, blood pressure—"

Her hands was wrapped around my shaft, moving up and down at a steady pace.  The wetness of her mouth was lubrication enough.  Each movement sent ripples of pleasure through me, joining that common store deep in my loins that was gradually building up, gradually overflowing, gradually boiling over to burst out of—

I not sure what I said—something like "Ouf" or "urgh" or "ungph"—but it got everyone's attention.  Dr. Schlemmer trailed off as I went off—one squirt, two squirts, three, four—each arcing through the air to puddle on the floor.  Me, I was in orbit somewhere, delirious with release, as my hips twitched and my knees shook and Meredith knelt at my side, her hand resting on my hip, her eyes on my face the anchor I grasped at to bring me safely down.

"The last phase is called resolution," said Dr. Schlemmer.  "Basically, everything that has happened, un-happens.  Anything engorged flattens out again; anything tense smoothes out; anything that has gotten fast, slows down; and so on and so forth.  Brandon, are you all right?  Would you like some assistance in getting back to your seat?"

"I think I'll be fine, thanks," I gasped, tottering.

"And let's hear it for Ms. Levine," Dr. Schlemmer said, seizing Meredith's hand and holding it aloft.  Everybody clapped and whistled and cheered.

And looking at her as she stood there, being applauded for her sexual prowess, looking pleased and a little shy but not ashamed, I was struck by how lucky I was to have her in my life, and hoped with all my might that Arie and I had not destroyed things by being friends in need.

When the bell rang, Arie got to her first.  Which makes sense, considering they sit within arm's reach of each other.  She threw me this Leave us alone look and scurried off with the other people heading off to find their lunches, her arm through Meredith's, their heads bent together.  And I shrugged and went to go get some food.

But I had barely joined Derek and Sajel and Zach and the others at the usual place at Stetsen when Meredith appeared.  I was sitting on the ground with my back to the wall and she towered over me.  "Can we talk?"

We wandered the halls for a minute, not really saying anything, waiting for someone else to broach the subject.  I think both of us were a little bit scared of hearing what the other had to say—sure, it might be something we'd like hearing, but what if it wasn't?  What if this beautiful, awesome creature beside me (whom I was falling for way too fast) was going to open her mouth and say, No, I'm sorry, I can't take it, you suck, goodbye.  I mean, God, we haven't even been on a date yet.  But if she said that...

"Look," I said, "maybe we had just better get this over with."

"Will you tell the truth," she asked.

"Always," I told her.

"All right.  What happened?"  "Last night?"  "Yeah."  "What did Arie say?"  "I'm not going to tell you.  That way if you two have different stories, you won't know where you're contradicting each other."

I smiled.  "Wise girl.  All right.  Last night, after we dropped off Derek, Arie wasn't...  She was in a bad mood.  She said she didn't want to be alone.  And my house is perfect for that, since there are no parents around.  Originally I had her set up in a sleeping bag in my room, but she wanted to move into my bed.

"You have to understand, this was eleven at night.  And it'd been a really long day.  First I was happy, then I was sad, then I was happy, then I was sad...  You can run fifty miles and heartache still makes you feel worse.  We were tired, we were worn out, she wanted the company, and I can't say I would've turned it down either.  But I didn't want anything to happen—anything... sexual... I mean—"  My God, who thought it'd be so hard to say that to her?  "—and I made sure she wasn't planning some sort of seduction or something.  At least, she said she wasn't, who knows what she says without meaning it, but she was so tired...  I don't think she could've seduced me without, like, falling asleep, or bursting into tears or something."

"So Arie is...  Your friend?"

"My friend.  A close friend.  As important to me as Zach or Sajel or you.  But just that.  We tried the lovers thing on Tuesday, and it didn't work out so well."

Meredith stiffened slightly.  "She didn't tell me that."

Uh-oh.  I hope I wasn't about to get Arie in trouble, because there wasn't exactly a choice now, I'd have to plow through it.  "She's probably still not okay with it.  You saw her on Tuesday, she was really hyper—manic, almost—and she decided that I'd been such a gentleman on Monday, that she ought to thank me."

"By seducing you."

"By seducing me.  Only, later, she realized what a mistake it was."  I sighed.  "And came in yesterday with fresh cuts on her arm."

Meredith hissed sharp indrawn breath.

"Yeah," I said.  "That was Wednesday's first emotional downswing."

"Is that normal for her?"  "What, the cutting?"  "No, the...  The sex.  When most people want to say thank-you, they just send a Hallmark card."

"I dunno," I said.  "Honestly, I haven't thought about it.  Any ideas?"

"One, actually," Meredith said.  "Maybe...  Maybe she was testing to see if you were attracted to her."

"Well, she got her answer," I said, feeling a bit uncomfortable.  "It's a little hard to, you know, get all stiff and ready if you're not physically attracted to the girl—"

"No, not like that," Meredith said.  "If I were naked, you'd be stiff in a hurry."  She giggled.  "Well, even if I wasn't naked."  And reached down to finger my hard-on, which had surged precipitously at the very idea.

"That's not very conducive to conversation," I said.

"All right, all right," she sighed, grinning, and relented.  "Maybe she was trying to figure out if you were attracted to her...  What, emotionally, I guess.  Not just physically.  You have a bit of that knight-in-shining-armor thing going, Brandon.  And you like that about yourself.  Don't deny it, you may be blushing but you're grinning too.  And the truth is, every girl dreams about having her knight in shining armor fall in love with her."  She gave a soft giggle.  "Unless she's a militant feminist, of course, at which point she just kicks him in the et cetera."

"Well, I'm glad Arie didn't do that!" I laughed.

"So am I," Meredith said.  "No one gets to kick you in the nuts except me."

"Oh-hhh, is that a threat," I replied haughtily.  "I'll have you know that ever since that incident on Tuesday, I've gotten—uh—  I've gotten very adept at being saved by Steve Proust.  If you try it, you might find yourself in a world of hurt, young missy."

"Steve Proust, eh," Meredith said, laughing.  "So he's your knight in shining armor?  Going to try and trip him into bed or something?"

"Gah!  Steve?  Are you kidding?  Did you see how much hair he has!  Too much testosterone for my liking!"

Somewhere along the line we had turned to face each other, and we were grinning and smiling and laughing and standing very close to each other.  And then we weren't laughing so much—just sort of staring, worried and curious and unsure.

And then our lips were touching, and the only thing I could feel was the nearness of her body, the gentle touch and taste of her breath, her cheek pressed against mine, the way our shoulders bumped against each other as we fumbled, not quite sure what we were doing—only knowing that we wanted it.

I opened my eyes.  Her face was near, her eyes wide and serious on mine.  Her mouth was open slightly and I could feel the whisper of her breath.  Her tongue flicked out once and slipped over her lips.

I drew her close to me and kissed her again.

Sajel was yelling, "Get a room, you guys!"  Really loud, of course, to cover the twenty or so yards between them and us.  And I could hear Kelsey and Zach and Tim whooping, and Derek and Arie laughing, and other people laughing and whistling as they walked by, and Meredith broke away from me and giggled, and I knew that we had only made one tactical error in all of this: standing somewhere where Sajel could see us.

We walked back to them hand in hand.  Arie was practically glowing.  "Oh my God guys you are so cute!  You had no idea how bad I felt!  I was like, you know, 'What if I totally ruined that!'"

I laughed.  "Well, I think I'd feel pretty bad if you'd ruined that too!"

"So, Brandon," Zach was saying.  "This is who again?  Unless you've suddenly developed the habit of yanking random girls off the street and kissing them..."

"Come on, this is Brandon, he's asked for relief how many times," Sajel replied.

"How many times has he asked," Kelsey interrupted, a huge grin on her face.

I rolled my eyes.  "In the interests of protecting my purity, then.  Sajel, Zach, Tim, Kelsey..."  They watched me, proud of me, smiling.  "This is Meredith."

Th.3

Brandon and Meredith are so cute!

See, I guess this is what I missed about those two Program graduates from Westport, back when I was Arie Chang, Face Buried In My Salad, but it wasn't right now and I could see.  I could see clearly.  They touched each other.  No, not like that, even though Meri could've just lead him around by the dick if she wanted.  I mean, it was accessible and everything.  But they held hands.  And even when they weren't near each other (which wasn't often, that first lunchtime, while Meredith met everyone for the first time and they met her), even when they weren't near each other they...  Oriented on each other, I guess.  It was like they were magnets or something—pointing towards each other no matter where they actually were.

I don't think I'd ever seen something like that before.  It was so sweet—  But, Goddammit, why hadn't I ever gotten that lucky before!

"Now do you see," Derek murmured to me.

"Huh?"

"If you look at them," Derek said.  "It's kinda obvious how—"

"Oh, yeah, I see that," I said.  "Sorry, I just got distracted."

At that moment, something else was distracting me too—a pair of eyes, a frozen face, stiff shoulders.  Jane, evidently, could see too.  A welter of emotions flowed across her face, and then she turned and walked away.

Uh-oh.

"Brandon," I said, "excuse me."  "Where are you going?"  "Jane just came by, not looking happy."

He blinked in surprise.  "And you're going to talk to her?"

I bristled.  "What, is something wrong with that?"

"Absolutely not.  I'm just a little surprised, I figured you'd ask me to go.  Go for it."

Should I have asked him to go? was the thought that rattled through my head as I chased Jane down (with Derek at my heels).  While talking to him would probably hurt Jane more, he knew her a lot better than I did—by which I mean, he knows her at all.  What's normal for Jane Myers?

Not this, clearly, I thought, watching the rigid way she moved, ten yards down the hall and gaining distance, the tension of her shoulders visible even from here.  Not this.

"Jane!"

She turned and stared without moving towards us.

"Jane," I said again.

"What do you want?"

And I'm going to talk to her?  "Well, I—  I saw you, and you looked, I dunno, kind of unhappy, I thought I'd better—"

"Did Brandon send you," she said crossly.

"No, Brandon did not send me," I retorted, "I decided to come talk to you out of the goodness and compassion of my heart."  Ahh, sarcasm.  I see why Brandon likes it.  "But if you're not interested in having a friend right now, I can always leave."

Jane stared at me for a long, silent moment.  Then she walked back towards us.  Not to be outdone, I also walked towards her, Derek bobbing behind me.  We met about halfway.

"I wanted to know—"

"We wanted to know," Derek interrupted.

"We wanted to know," I said, "how you were doing."

"I'm all right," Jane said.  "I'm fine."

Did Brandon teach her the meaning of that acronym?  And it's not just that we screwed-up-Internet people managed to make a twisted acronym out of it—I think a lot of people say they're 'fine' when, really, they're nothing of the sort.  It's like a universal code.

"No adverse effects from dumping your boyfriend," I asked.

"He dumped me," Jane said, her anger flashing.  "I'd call that an adverse effect."

"That's amusing logic," Derek said.  "Breakup as cause and effect."

"Derek, hush," I said.

"All right, so that's not quite right," Jane grumped.  "But aren't most break-ups completely bad things?"

"No," I said judiciously, "sometimes you realize that getting rid of a boyfriend who was bad for you, is the best thing in the world."

Jane made an irritated noise like a stepped-on cat.  "That'd be him then, wouldn't it.  It's barely been a day and he already has somebody else."

Ugh, God.  Brandon, couldn't you have waited a few weeks before being seen in public with her?  A few days?  "...Well, some people just get lucky, I guess."

"Huh," said Jane.  "I see how it is.  He finds someone better and then he takes off."

"Now hold on," I said, at the same time Derek said, "That's not how he told it."

Jane blinked at us.

"He said basically that you didn't have room for him in your life," Derek said.  "He said you were always busy and kind of reluctant to spend time with him."

"And you wouldn't have sex with him," I added.

"Well, who would," Jane flashed.

"Not me," Derek said jokingly, and turned to me for corroboration.  But something must have shown on my face, because his eyebrows climbed into his hairline.

"You didn't," Jane breathed.

"Yes, I did," I said, trying to control the burn on my cheeks.  "Is something particularly wrong with that?"  Remembering Brandon's conversation with her on Tuesday morning: "You knew about it."

"Yes, something's wrong with it," Jane said.  "He was my boyfriend!"

"Not in that way," I said.  "As Brandon explained it, you'd already forfeited your rights to his dick."

"So," Jane retorted.  "No one should have rights to his dick."

Derek and I exchanged glances at that (completely missing how red Jane turned when she realized what a dirty word she'd said).  "Really," I said.

"You know, that probably has something to do with why he broke up with you," Derek said candidly.

"Well that's his problem," Jane snapped.  "If he wants to—to hook up with some slut who—"

"Hey, now," Derek said.  "Meredith is not a slut.  She's a very sweet girl."

"Look," I said.  "I don't feel bad because I had sex.  And I don't I feel bad because I had sex with Brandon.  I feel bad because I had sex with Brandon who is not really attracted to me and whom I am not really attracted to.  We used each other, and afterwards we just felt used.  It's not something you should do with people you're only friends with.  Or at least not with Brandon.  Because he doesn't just do it with random people like I do, he does it with people he really cares about.  And I know he cares about me, but not in that way.

"Now, you, on the other hand.  He loved you.  Maybe he still does."  I don't know where these words came from.  As they had from Brandon's lips, as they had from Meredith's, they just flowed.  "He wanted to share this with you for the same reason he wants to share it with Meredith now—because he loves her and if she asked, he'd do anything for her.  He's like that.  All he has is loyalty, and honesty, and a kind heart, but he makes it go a long way.  He wanted to give it all to you, Jane.  But, as far as he could tell...  You didn't want it.  And it hurt him every time you turned him down.  So now he's found someone who does want it, who he can give himself whole-heartedly to, who gives back to him in exactly the same way.  And I'm happy for him—I'm happy for them both—because they've found someone to value them for who they really are.  And I'm sorry for you—who had such a kind, loving man, and for some reason turned him away."

Jane looked at me silently for a long time, nary an expression on her face.  Then she turned, without a word, and walked away.

I let out a shuddering breath.  "My God.  What was all that I said?"

"The truth?" Derek offered hopefully.

"Maybe," I said.  "Hopefully."  I hadn't been aware I knew Brandon all that well.  It all sounded right to me—what Dr. Schlemmer called 'surface validity,' a thing that sounds true even though it might not be—but there were no guarantees.

I guess the silence stretched, because Derek pulled a smile out of somewhere and gave it to me.  "So, we know what Brandon's looking for in a girlfriend.  What are you looking for?"

"Me?  In a girlfriend?"

He laughed.  "In anyone you'd date."

"I dunno," I said.  "Someone...  Lively.  Who can make me laugh.  Someone who isn't as delicate as Brandon is.  I mean, he's a sweetie, but he's so...  Sensitive sometimes.  He doesn't challenge me.  Except for my patience.  He needs to be more adventurous."

"Oh-h," said Derek, in the manner of a man absorbing some ancient wisdom, and I looked at him standing there half a head taller than me with that smile and that secretive, mischievous look in his eyes, and wondered how I could have been so stupid as to miss it before.

"What, have you found something," he asked.  "Is there something on my face or something?"

"There will be," I growled, and pulled his head down to kiss him.

When I stopped, he protested—"Hey, it's gone, put it back!"—and kissed me just as fiercely.

"Not on campus, you guys."  This time it was Dr. Zelvetti, an amused smile on her face as she moved majestically down the hall.  Students cleared before her as water from the prow of a boat.  Derek and I just laughed and laughed.

Th.4

On occasion, things happen that you can't predict.  No, scratch that—frequently things happen that you can't predict.  (Like Meredith.)  Less frequently but far more surprising, sometimes things happen that you couldn't predict if you wanted to.  Like, I never imagined that when they made Brandon Chambers go naked in school, people might start stopping to talk to him.

But then, I could never have predicted Claire Redecker's photos either.

The first one showed up while Meredith and I actually got around to eating our lunches.  I didn't know who he was, though we were in US History AP together, but he had really liked the photos Claire had taken, and wanted me to know that.  Those were his exact words.  Meredith's face, when I looked at it, didn't seem to have any answers, so I told him thank you and he went away.

"What," she asked.

"What does that have to do with me," I said.  I'd fooled around with cameras before.  "When someone takes a good picture of, I dunno, a tree or a mountain or a deer or something, it's because the person took a good picture.  I just stood there."

"Ohh, ri-iiight," said Meredith, laughing softly, "and the fact that it's an interesting tree or a pretty mountain or a cute deer has nothing to do with it."

"I am neither mountain nor tree nor deer," I said with some asperity.

She chuckled again and brushed the side of my face.  "Well, you'd better get used to it, because here comes somebody else."

And it didn't stop, either.  Once Derek and Arie came back they whooped up a storm about all my visitors, which Zach joined in gleefully, but it didn't exactly cause all the well-wishers to stop.  One of them, Christa, stayed, evidently having found more entertainment in us than in her normal friends.  The cherry on top was Claire herself, now with a new proposition.  "I'm not going to call it a reasonable request," she said, "that'd just be mean.  But everybody loves those pictures—"

"Yeah," I said dryly, "we noticed."

"—and most of the advanced photography class has been clamoring to get their hands on you.  Do you think you could come out after school today and let us work with you?  It's okay if you've got music rehearsal," she said, forestalling the expected argument, "we can find another time.  But Gordon Lachea says that your rehearsal's cancelled today because of the Open House last night."  Meredith and I traded glances.  Damn, she's done her homework.  "And everyone's starting to wonder why they never looked at you twice before."

"That's me," I chuckled, "all layers beneath the surface."

"Well, it's not just that," Derek said, "it's also you, Claire, who knew how to bring all those layers out.  I don't think just anybody could have done that."

Claire laughed.  "It's all in the fingers.  So, whaddaya say, Brandon?  Wanna see what other layers people bring out of you?"

This all made me nervous.  I don't, as a rule, trust other people, because the only ones who ever seem to bother with me are Bald and Smelly.  If they're the only type of stranger that's walked up to you in sixteen years, are you going to trust strangers in general?  And here was Claire, bludgeoning me with not only a bunch of strangers, but a bunch of strangers with cameras.  The fact that she could vouch for them, only made it worse; Ruby Bitchinger wasn't the only one who had turned a complete about-face on me, only the most memorable.  I didn't like it one bit.

But how, exactly, was I going said no?

They kept coming after Claire left, but more sporadically; I guess she'd told them all they'd get their chance at me.  To Meredith I said, "I think I've been railroaded."

She grinned.  "Oh, come on.  What's the worst that could happen?"

"They could all be a bunch of bitchingers."

Her eyes shadowed and her brow furrowed; clearly she hadn't thought of that alternative.  "Yeah, they could be.  But are they likely to be?  Do you think Claire would help them get their hands on you if they were?"

"That's a good point," I said.

"Look," she said.  "If it makes you feel better, I'll come out too and just watch.  Honestly, Brandon, nothing bad is going to happen.  You need to calm down and stop assuming the worst."

I sighed.  "Yeah, I guess I do, don't I.  It's not easy, you know."

"I know."  Her hand rested over mine, turned it over to trace the scar with delicate manipulations.  When I turned to look at her, her eyes were full on mine and beautiful.  "That's why I'm here."

I kissed her and pulled her into my arms.  "You're the best, you know that?"

Over my shoulder, I felt her giggle.  "Hee.  I know."

"Though you, uh, may wanna work on that modesty thing."

"Hee.  I know."

And so it was that later that day, after the bell had rung, I found myself deep in the art section of the Norter wing, all the way back at Building D, with Meredith at my side and fifteen or twenty eager students waiting for me, cameras in hand.  Claire, of course, was at the forefront, pacing, waiting for us to arrive.  "Oooh," she said, seeing us hand in hand.  "Do we get two subjects?"

A mischievous part wanted to say, "Of course we do" and just let Meredith react.  Common sense overrode that, though.  Adventure was all well and good, but I didn't think it was a very smart idea right now.

But Meredith made a show of considering it, and said, "Hmm, maybe."  Go figure, huh?

The photography room had been converted into a makeshift studio; it had a ton of props, backdrops, chairs, things like that, for people to play with.  Meredith made a game of rooting through their supplies and finding humorous and bizarre things for me to showcase.  Once she came up with a set of fake plastic carrots with bushy green fronds attached.  Another time she handed me a rubber chicken.  And there was a naked Barbie doll in there—the photographers had fun with that one.  They had me hold it by the legs and stare at it as if it scared me.

Claire seemed to be de facto leader, even though the teacher, Mr. Trineer, was there.  His presence made me nervous, since he was the teacher who had generated Program support among the studentry.  Certainly he had a number of suggestions about how I held myself—mostly involving spreading my legs to let my package 'have some air,' as he put it.  "It's a beautiful specimen, Brandon, why not show it off?"  He also made some suggestions to Meredith, mostly about her stripping off and joining me, but she declined with grace and a malicious wit that he simply couldn't handle.  Though most of her quips seemed to revolve around the idea that it'd be a crime to shift attention off my naughty bits.  She spent quite a few random moments staring distractedly at my penis, too.

None of this particularly helped.

Claire, for her part, kept things moving.  She set up a sort of queue—anyone who wanted me in a specific pose, or to set up their shot in a specific way, should get in line, and whoever happened to be first, got control of me for the moment.  Those who were content to just snap off what others were setting up, stood out of the way.  There weren't many of them; these photographers were charged with creative energy, and just about anything I did (or Meredith handed me!) seemed to spark possibilities in their minds.  The room grew stuffy with the lights and bodies and movement crammed into it, but still the process continued.

Finally Mr. Trineer suggested that we might want to move outdoors, mostly to escape the oppressive working conditions in the studio.  "It's not really meant for this many people," he explained to me as we trooped out.  Claire, in a stroke of singular brilliance, took us to the football field.  There were jokes of slipping me in with the people who actually knew football, but I told them that probably wasn't a good idea—I couldn't throw worth a damn, and any attempt to tackle (much less be tackled) would probably result in broken bones.  But once Claire remembered that Steve Proust or Shannon Salvolestra might be there, the idea took off, and I hoped I wouldn't find myself girded in football pads before long.

"Don't worry," Meredith said, skipping alongside me cute as a button.  "If anyone tries to tackle you, I'll be there to defend you."  That was such a ludicrous idea that she couldn't manage to keep a straight face long enough to finish the sentence, and after we finished laughing I kissed her on the nose and assured her: "Well, that makes me feel much safer, knowing that my beautiful, only-slightly-fragile, hundred-pound girlfriend will be fending off some huge, hulking brute of a football player, armed with nothing but..."  And then we were laughing again.

But, as is probably predictable, it was a really good thing Steve and Shannon were around.

You remember who hangs out in the scrubby brushland south of the football field; the area itself is almost the size of a football field, it's that wide, and the people who hang there, the ones who have something to hide, have gotten very good at blending into the surroundings.  They're the ones who smoke, who drink, who take drugs, the ones who want to practice their graffiti.  You don't hang around there for your health.  There was a concerted effort last year by the football people to root them out, but it didn't work very well; the delinquents came back.  But almost immediately there was a confrontation, and the ones from the wasteland discovered that the football players didn't really fear them.  And it's been relative peace ever since.

At least, until I showed up to tip the balance.

Claire had a digital camera.  Whatever shot she produced of Shannon and I, it was something spectacular, and people gathered around her to gawp at it, leaving Shan and I standing some distance off, wondering where everyone had went.  Meredith and Steve were sitting on the grass chatting.  I didn't know what was going on; all I saw was them looking our direction, talking amiably—and then their eyes widening, their mouths forming into shouts as one person.

An unseen hand grabbed the back of my head; its partner stuck something plastic into my mouth that reached up in front of my noise.  It tasted of saliva—someone else's saliva.  Before my brain could quite get around that amusing fact, the hand holding the plastic thing-in-my-mouth changed shape somehow, the fingers moving, and there was a hissing noise and a faint mist squirted into my mouth.

Then I started laughing.

My report on the incident mostly involves me being dizzy and giggling a lot and thinking everything was really funny—Meredith rushed over, and she looked so lovely I had to laugh; she started crying, and that was funny too; and then there were shouts and yells and the patter of feet, and that was really funny.  Dear Lord, my ribs were busted afterwards.  But I can't really say anything constructive about any of it, because I was laughing too hard.  So I'll let Arie explain.

Th.5

I forfeited my ride home again.  I came out to the car (with my clothes on) and told my mother that I needed to stay here for a while, despite the lack of orchestra practice.  Trina gave me a disdainful look between chattering with our mother.  Mom, for her part, almost blasted over the moon.  See, I have weekly appointments known as violin lessons—I have to learn from someone, you know—and if I spent more than three minutes on my business here, I'd be late.  Trina has her flute lessons today too.  Thursdays are very tightly scheduled for my family.

Mom launched into the whole tirade.  Money doesn't grow on trees, you know...  Such an inconvenience for...  Haven't we taught you be more considerate than...

I held my ground.  "Mom.  This is a lot more important than any violin lesson.  Call Mr. Porter.  Tell him I can't make it.  You know he's understanding about these things, he's late to half his appointments."

And my mother, grumblingly, grudgingly, complied.

"Well," she said, rolling up her window.  "Just don't get into any trouble."

Enh.  Too late on that one, Mom.

Hi, I'm Arie Chang, and boy, have I got problems.

I paced around the school for a while, trying to put my thoughts in some sort of order.  They refused.  It was like trying to put a puzzle together.  You have to start somewhere, you have to start by putting two pieces together, you have to have something to work out of, to branch away from...  And this was only slightly more important than putting puzzle pieces together.  This was my chance, my one chance, to maybe put some things right in my life.  Which only stressed me out worse.  And besides, was there any guarantee that any of the pieces actually did fit together?  This might be a completely unsolvable puzzle.  Fuck, the pieces might not even be from the same puzzle!

Dr. Zelvetti greeted me with a mischievous grin when I walked into her office.  Bloody hell, a sixty-year-old woman should not be allowed to use such speculative, plotting looks!  "Shouldn't you have your clothes off, Ms. Chang?"

I rolled my eyes.  "You're such a big advocate of The Program, shouldn't you have your clothes off?"

Dr. Zelvetti eyed me for a second—and then stood and began to doff her clothes.  No shame, no fuss, no embarrassment.  I felt very very numb.

"So," she said, once we were both seated and as naked as could be.  "What can I do for you?"

I took a deep breath.  "I decided to tell my parents."

"Good for you," Dr. Zelvetti said, a warm smile on her face.

"But," I said.  "There's a complication."

"Tell me," Dr. Zelvetti said.

That was such a mind-boggling proposition that I wasn't sure how to respond.  "It's...  It's complicated," I said.  How long had I been doing this whole cutting thing?  I started...  What, just before summer vacation?  And when had I found out about Candlelight Vigil?  When had Trina picked it up?  Was it my fault, or had I simply abetted her descent into madness?  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Was I simply being a chicken to have delayed this for so long?  Or was I just a spoiled, rotten egg, past the help of anyone?  Where the fuck had that stupid metaphor come from?

"Then start at the beginning," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "Start at the beginning, and end when there is no more to tell."

The beginning.  The beginning.  When had it began?  My mouth opened, and, almost without my realizing it, the story poured out.

"My mom's a nut.  I know she means well, but she hasn't done well.  She has all these things she thinks I have to have in order to succeed—music training, education, high GPA, extracurriculars—"

"Well, those do look good on your college applications," Dr. Zelvetti remarked.

"I know, and I appreciate that, but...  It's hard to be nice about it when it's all stuff I don't want."

Dr. Zelvetti said nothing.

"I mean...  God, I dunno.  I like music.  I don't know about the other kids in the orchestra, but I can't live without music, I think I'd rather go blind than deaf.  But I don't like violin.  It's loud and it hurts your arms holding it up.  I mean, look at this."  I clasped my hands together, palms in, like I was praying.  "The fingers on my left hand are longer than the ones on my right.  It's because of violin.  That's the hand you press the strings with.  ...Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's actually kind of cool.  But...  I didn't choose it.  My mom chose it.  But I have to live with it."

Dr. Zelvetti was nodding.

"And then this school stuff.  You just don't say no to my mom."  Remembering Wednesday morning:  "I have no idea how you did it."

Dr. Zelvetti smiled.  "It was quite a challenge, I can tell you that."

"And so...  That's sort of the story of my life.  Mom chooses.  Arie will take these classes and learn this instrument and do these things and go to this college.  She's already thinking about careers for me.  And I..."  I sighed.  The scars on my arms burned so fiercely, I didn't understand why they weren't glowing.  "I pay the price."

"With depression," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "And self-harm.  And all that stuff."

"Yeah.  All that stuff."

"Do you want to change it," Dr. Zelvetti asked.

"I don't think I have a choice anymore," I said.  "It's not just me anymore."

Dr. Zelvetti blinked at me with unseeing eyes.

"At lunch," I said, "yesterday, I was using one of the campus computers to check a website.  It's a place where cutters hang out and...  I dunno, trade notes or something.  It's almost group therapy, except that it's unmoderated...  Well, there are administrator figures, but it's not like, you know, we're controlled or guided or anything.  But it's better than nothing.  Like, everyone who shows up at the site talks about having felt alone, and about, you know, not feeling it anymore..."

Dr. Zelvetti was nodding.

"And...  I was able to identify one of the other members as my sister Trina," I said.

Dr. Zelvetti sat motionless.

"So now...  It's both of us on the line," I said.  "I think my sister's even worse than I am, she won't do anything.  So now it's..."

"You feel responsible," Dr. Zelvetti said.

"Should I?" I asked.

"I don't know," Dr. Zelvetti said, "it may be a bad thing or a good thing.  Go on."

"I...  Well...  Actually, there isn't much else to tell.  The person identified herself to me as Trina, and then deleted the page she'd used to do it, so now I don't have the proof, but somehow I...  I just know.  I think it's true."

"So do I," Dr. Zelvetti said.

There was silence for a time.

"You know," Dr. Zelvetti said mildly.  "There are laws in this state.  If a teacher hears about students doing things like this—suicide attempts, self-harm, that sort of thing—we're obligated by law to have you hospitalized.  Which would inevitably lead to you and your sister being diagnosed with depression, being put on medication.  Being treated.  I could force the issue.  I could take the choice out of your hands."

I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.  I knew that, Dr. Schlemmer had already told me, but I'd been hoping that Dr. Zelvetti wouldn't bring it up.  It was simply too terrifying to comprehend.  But at the same time...  "But you won't."

"I won't," Dr. Zelvetti said.

I sighed.  "I wish you would."

"Don't lie to me, Arie," Dr. Zelvetti said, infinitely gentle.  "If I did it, you'd hate me.  And so would your sister.  You'd be on the track to recovery, sure, but it wouldn't be your track.  It'd be something some stranger had forced on you.  Your principal!  Chuh.  Who's she to decide what you need and don't need?  And you wouldn't get better.  Oh, sure, you'd jump through the hoops, just to get out of the inpatient program, but you wouldn't recover.  I'd just be another mother—another woman deciding what you have to live with.  What you have to pay for.  And that wouldn't work.

"Besides, child, you didn't come to me for a solution.  You already have the solution.  I am your mother right now, for you to rehearse against.  And it went just fine, there isn't anything you could do to make it better.  You're ready.

"But you're scared.  Which is absolutely understandable, given what you're about to do.  You're scared.  And that's why you came.  Not just to make sure you could do it...  But to ask me to close all the doors behind you.  'cause you're committed now.  No turning back.  You can't go back.  And you can't stay put, at least not for long.  The only door out of this place...  Leads upward."

She and I were silent for a long time.

Until Claire Redecker arrived.

We heard the door open, close.  We heard her footsteps from a long way off—because they were loud, and rapid, like she was running.  We heard them get louder, echoing in the silent halls, and I think we knew where they were planning to stop.  And neither of us was particularly surprised when Claire burst into the office, clattering against the open door, panting hard.

"Dr. Zelvetti!  (pant)  Nurse Chaplain wants you.  (pant)  We had a (pant) nother incident."

"What do you mean," Dr. Zelvetti asked, her voice dark.

"It's (pant) Brandon Chambers (pant).  We were out (pant) on the football field—"

Panic surged through me.  "What, what, is something wrong?"

"Those demented fools," Dr. Zelvetti muttered under her breath, "let's go."

Claire must have run straight from the football field, but she followed us gamely, and we arrived at Nurse Chaplain's office about the same time as the convoy of photographers and football players, and Mr. Trineer, who was holding up one half of Brandon.  The other half was supported by one of the footballers.  Brandon dangled like some bizarre pendulum, his arms slung over the shoulders of his beneficiaries, giggling unabashedly at everything and everyone.  Meredith orbited the three, an unbalanced satellite.  Steve Proust and Shannon Salvolestra brought up the rear.  Shannon looked pale and Steve had his arm around her.

"What happened," Dr. Zelvetti asked, to which Mr. Trineer answered, "I have no idea."

Meredith looked apt to paint something with her lunch, but she had the presence of mind to answer.  "One of the creeps from the badlands stuck something in Brandon's mouth.  I think it was an asthma inhaler.  But it wasn't a normal one, because now he's like this."

"Hiiii!" said Brandon loudly, a gleeful smile on his face, and giggled some more.

"He almost got Shannon too," Meredith said, "except that by then Steve and I were yelling for help, and I guess he chickened out."

"Do we know who this person is," Dr. Zelvetti asked.  When Meredith or Mr. Trineer failed to provide an answer, she raised her voice.  "Attention!  Does anyone know who assaulted Brandon Chambers?  Did anyone see him or recognize him!"

A few people did, mostly through shared classes.  No one hung out in the badlands, or with people from the badlands, if they had their way.

"Stay here," she said to them.  "The rest of you, please disperse.  A crowd solves nothing.  I doubt anything permanent has happened to Brandon, and word will be brought to the entire school tomorrow."

"Somebody probably drugged him," Nurse Chaplain said when we brought him in.  "Goddamn pharmaceutical companies."  At the time I had no idea what she was talking about, but the next day, after Dr. Zelvetti made her announcement, Mr. Wu covered the topic in Current Events.  During and because of the discovery of the AIDS vaccine, there were a number of significant leaps made in research against diseases (like STDs) which were previously untreatable.  Diseases and infections are practically unknown nowadays.  With cancer the only remaining major health problem, many medical companies have started forays into much more marketable alternatives—pleasure drugs.  Most of them are based off of heroin or THC molecules, and the field is mostly unregulated; no one really knows what these drugs do.  Long-term side effects?  Interactions with normal medication?  Totally uncharted.  But there's a thriving market for them, both over and under the counter.  Americans, Mr. Wu pronounced sternly, are not particularly careful about what they put in their bodies.

Nurse Chaplain had drug tests, and she would administer them, but (she told us) they might not even be able to determine what Brandon had inhaled, if the drug was new enough, or too different from the "normal" drugs—hash, speed, coke, so on.  But there was nothing else for her to try right now.

The first one required Brandon to pee into a cup.  But, judging by the way Brandon was laughing, that wasn't going to happen.  Despite the fact that Brandon wasn't wearing any clothes in the first place.  At first Nurse Chaplain just took the cup in one hand and reached between his legs with the other, but that put Brandon into such spastic laughter that it was impossible for Nurse Chaplain to aim him.  And besides, it was clear she wasn't exactly comfortable with the whole idea.

"The only other thing I have is a saliva test," she said with dismay.  "It doesn't detect certain drugs until a set time has passed."

"Whatever it was, it hit him in the mouth," Meredith said.  "There may be some left over."

"Heehee," said Brandon.  "Dr. Zelvetti doesn't have any clothes on."  For the first time Meredith and Nurse Chaplain seemed to notice this, and gave Dr. Zelvetti identical looks of astonishment.  Dr. Zelvetti, for her part, seemed discomforted by her nudity for the first time ever, and fidgeted at her post by the door.

Whatever it was Brandon had inhaled, registered on the test as THC.

"You said he took it out of an inhaler," Nurse Chaplain said.

"Yeah," said Meredith, "an asthma inhaler."

"You're sure it was one of those," Nurse Chaplain asked.

"As sure as I can be," Meredith said.  "It's the logical hiding place.  Nobody questions them."

"Heehee, Evelyn Chaplain," said Brandon, and I looked at the framed diploma on the wall.  Yeah.  Evelyn Chaplain.  My God, who names their kid Evelyn, anyway?  That name might work for, like, a grandmother, but a teenager, or a little kid?

"I didn't know you could make inhalers do that," I said.  "Make an inhaler dispense pot."

"There's no reason they can't," Nurse Chaplain said, evidently having decided to trust Meredith's opinion.  "An inhaler's just a plastic container with a slot for the metal cartridge and a button connected to the valve.  You find a cartridge with something other than medication?  Or fill an empty cartridge?  Sure, it'll work."  She sighed, her anger ebbing away.  "Take a basic chemistry or physics class, that'll probably teach you how to do it."

"I'm in Chemistry," I said, "and I don't get it."

Meredith looked at me.  "Seriously?  PV = nRT?  You don't remember that?"

"...You do remember that?" I asked.

"I'm surprised you haven't taken action against this, Dr. Zelvetti," Nurse Chaplain said.

Dr. Zelvetti said, "We know it happens.  We haven't confiscated them because...  Well, I mean, hell.  They keep their 'medication' separate from the inhaler itself, they say they lost it...  They just keep coming back with new ones.  It hasn't been worth the effort.  But this..."  Her eyes narrowed, almost unconsciously.  "Is just a little bit different."

"There's not much I can do for him," Nurse Chaplain said.  "Here, Brandon, swallow this—"

"Heehee," said Brandon, "swallow."

"That'll bring you down more quickly," Nurse Chaplain said.  "Instead of having to wait for two or three hours for the effect to wear off normally.  Regardless, I don't think he should drive.  We should call his parents and send him home."

"Heehee, parents," said Brandon.  "Call parents.  No one there.  Parents in Baltimore."

Nurse Chaplain and Dr. Zelvetti gave him questioning looks.  Meredith and I, for our part, simply met eyes.  Evidently the teachers didn't know about his amusing living arrangement.

"Baltimore," said Dr. Zelvetti.  It wasn't really a question.

"Well, one of them is," said Brandon, chuckling.  "The other's in San Francisco.  Maybe she's hitting the gay bars."  He seemed to be calming down.

Nurse Chaplain looked vaguely disturbed.  Dr. Zelvetti, on the other hand, had her Zen-like calm in place, and she just nodded and said, "Can one of you give him a ride back?"

"I can," Meredith said quickly.  "But I don't know where he lives."

"Come back to my office, we'll look it up on MapQuest," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "When he leaves school tomorrow he can drive home normally.

"Heehee, MapQuest," said Brandon, and I blew breath in a huff.  God, that was getting old.  Whichever terrorist-in-training had managed to get Brandon high on pot, he ought to be kicked in the nuts, simply for forcing us to listen to this.

Poor Meredith ended up having to give me a ride too, so I was there when Nurse Chaplain's medicine, whatever it had been, took effect and Brandon dispensed with the contents of his stomach.  "Be careful, it'll make him nauseous," Nurse Chaplain had said, and boy, she'd been right.  The stop at my house was a frenzied rush between the kitchen and Meredith's front passenger seat, using paper towels to mop up and wondering what exactly to do with the floor mat—Meredith drove it, making it nominally her car, but her parents still owned it and would probably not be pleased—while Brandon sat on the sidewalk with his head between his knees and groaned.  Trina simply stood by and giggled, but my mother was, surprisingly, a gracious host; control-freak or not, she was still a mother, and the sight of Meredith and I floundering on damage control triggered those long-dormant maternal instincts.  The hose, some soap, a scrubbing brush, and fifteen minutes' work rendered the floor mat clean, if somewhat soggy.  As to the smell, they'd simply have to open the windows and deal with it.  I didn't exactly envy them that.

But then they were driving away, and my mother shut the front door behind them and gave me a look:  You are so going to get it, young lady.

Yeah, I thought.  I suppose I will.  But you'll be getting an earful too, and we'll see who's still standing after that little confrontation.

Th.6

Around the time my lunch came surging back up my esophagus was when I also got my brain back.  Meredith was a dear—she drove slowly and carefully, trying to avoid sudden starts or stops, and never once complained about the mess I'd made.  Forget Brandon Chambers, Naked in School: let me be Brandon Chambers, Boyfriend of Meredith Levine for the rest of my life, and I'll be happy.  Except for that whole nausea-in-the-aftermath-of-anti-pot-treatment.  Ugh.  Have you ever tried to drive the 220 while nauseous?  I do not recommend it.

"Would you like to come in," I asked.  She'd stopped the car in the driveway and I was pretty sure she didn't want to leave.  I didn't want her to either.  "No, seriously, you should stay for dinner or something."  Watch me brainstorm.  I was making this up on the spot.  "I have to cook all the time, I've gotten pretty good at it.  And I've got to do something to thank you for putting up with me."  Not the part about cooking, I can do that.  But the rest of it.

She smiled at me.  "Sure.  That sounds nice."

"Good, that's settled," I said, smiling too.  At least, until I opened the car door and tried to stand up.  "Oh-kay, maybe it'll be dinner for one, I'm not sure my stomach likes food right now."

Meredith giggled, kissed me on the cheek, and took my arm.

"This place is big, isn't it," she said to me as I led her through the white, sterile hallways.

"Yeah," I said, "too big for one person.  That's why I keep bringing girls home.  It's too quiet in here."  She laughed, but I think she knew I wasn't really joking.

The kitchen was in its usual state of order and stainless-steel serenity.  Greta, the housekeeper, did most of the organizing and cleaning, though I'd been known to pitch in on occasion.  Sometimes that made finding my way around the kitchen difficult, because where Greta might store something and where I might look for something, could be two completely different places, but for the most part we got along.

"First," I said, and got some aspirin.  "You want something to drink?"  I filled a glass with water, swallowed two tablets and chased them down with a mouthful of water, used the rest of the glass to rinse out my mouth from the lingering puke-taste (Yum!), then turned to see if Meredith wanted anything.  "Do you want something to—"

She was sitting on one of the high stools that serviced the island.  (For those of you unfamiliar with architecture, that's a freestanding counter not connected to the wall.)  I'd tossed the aspirin container on it while I went for some water, and she was staring at it...  Or maybe past it.  Through it.  What was she seeing?

"Why, do you need one," I asked.

"No," said Meredith, not moving at all except to expel that single word.

Then she seemed to realize what she was doing (whatever that was) and looked up at me.  "I do have a question, though."

"Shoot."

She gave me a lopsided grin and mimed firing a gun at me.  "No, seriously.  We..."  She hesitated for a long moment.  "We haven't done anything yet.  I mean...  You know.  Haven't fooled around or anything.  Were you...  Were you intending something to happen tonight?"

I blinked at her.  "No, I wasn't."  No, I wasn't?  I sound like a fucking eunuch!  "Not that, like, I wouldn't mind something happening, but, like..."

"I mean, I know how it was like with Jane," she said.  "And...  It's your Program week and all that.  So, I guess, I was just wondering."

I said, "No, Meredith, I don't want to have sex with you."

She smirked.  "Riiiight."

Watch him dig himself deeper, folks!  "Okay, more accurately.  I do wanna have sex with you, but there's other things I wanna do with you more than I want that.  I like being around you.  I like talking to you.  I like just holding you.  And sex is...  Well, I mean, it's sex, it's cool.  But not if it means forfeiting that other stuff.  I want the other stuff.  If I just wanted sex, I'd have taken more advantage of The Program.  I didn't.  I don't want that.  I want..."  Deep breath, try not to sound overly sappy or outrageous, ignore just how many lines you may be stepping over:  "I want you."

She stood up and flowed into my arms.  "Well, you've got me."  And she rested her head on my shoulder and we stood there for a long moment, feeling only the dual rise and fall of our synchronized breathing.

"Do you have any idea," I said, "how scared I was of how you'd react after you'd heard about Arie and I?  Today, I mean.  After I'd let you rescue me from impotence in the face of psychology experiments.  I would've given anything to get you to put your hand down, because...  I mean, what if you'd heard what Arie had to say and then decided you hated me?  And you'd just gone and blown me?  How awful would that be?"

"About as awful as this," Meredith said, her eyes shining, and kissed me.  For a long moment everything—the cold of the floor and the air, the reddish late-afternoon light slanting through the windows, the vague whispers of trees and birds—were gone, replaced only by the softness of her lips, the deftness of her tongue, the smell of her skin.  She was warm and alive in my arms.  I could feel faintly the beat of her heart.

"You," she said, "are just the sweetest man."

"At least I'm not dizzy anymore, or I'd be on the floor," I said, a little grumpish, and she laughed.

Meredith called her parents while I took stock of the state of the refrigerator.  To minimize the number of times Greta or I would have to go grocery-shopping, my parents had bought the largest fridge they could find, and we shopped at Costco a lot.  Greta had obviously restocked recently: some frozen ground beef, frozen chicken parts, some sausages, a bunch of different vegetables...  Goodness, it was getting towards October, where had she found corn on the cob?  I hope we pay her a lot.

Meredith called from the phone on the wall.  "When is dinner?"

I shrugged.  "I dunno, maybe an hour, hour and fifteen minutes?"

Meredith consulted with the phone while I checked the pantry.  Good, apricot jam, just what I was looking for.  This would be perfect.  Too bad no dried apricots, but if wishes were fishes, we'd need a lot more ocean.

Meredith appeared, bouncing up and down.  "We're good," she said.

"Yay.  You're not vegetarian, are you?"

"Nope."  She beamed.  "I like meat."

"Cool," I said, grinning, and deciding to ignore the double meaning.  "Now, give me a second and I'll get this thing started."

One thing that surprises most people about cooking is that some dishes are actually surprisingly easy.  Spaghetti is one.  Ground beef is easy to cook and mix with pre-made sauce, and any kid can boil spaghetti.  Boom!  Done.  Okay, maybe I'm cheating a little with the Prego, but I am sixteen.  And who cares where it came from, as long as it tastes good?  I mean, people buy fast food, don't they?

Okay, let's see here.  Oven to 325 degrees (Fahrenheit).  Chicken breasts into the microwave to thaw.  Normally I'd set them out to thaw the instant I got home; normally, I'd get home before 5 PM.  Apricot jam, dried onion soup mix, French dressing, into the bowl to mix.  Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed.  Rice into the rice cooker, which takes care of everything—steams it, and then shifts over to 'Keep Warm' mode when the cooking's done.  (Arie's Chinese, does her family have one of these?)  Foil on tray, chicken onto tray, sauce over chicken, chicken into oven, timer set for forty-five minutes.  Done!

"Now we have some time to kill," I said to Meredith, grinning and feeling bizarrely like a cooking show host.  Which she only amplified by batting her eyelashes and clapping appreciatively.  I fought the urge to flex.

I had planned to just flick on that big-screen TV, but Meredith saw the gaming consoles.  Do you have any idea how disconcerting it is to have your girlfriend beat you at "Smash Brothers"?  Do you have any idea how fun it is?  For a while we were lost to the chaotic, kaleidoscope whirl of colors, sounds and images, laughing at the craziness onscreen.  Smash Brothers is a great multiplayer game, because the action never stops; and mashing random buttons will still get you somewhere, which means anyone can play it—as opposed to some other games, which require you to memorize long, tricky combinations of button presses.  To know what you're doing, in other words.  No such thing here.  Good thing the oven alarm was as loud as it was.

Back in the kitchen, I grabbed and washed the asparagus spears, chopped them up, tipped them into a pan with a bit of oil, and covered it.  Which was a good idea, because it started splashing up immediately.  I learned that lesson the hard way, let me tell you.  As it sizzled and hummed to itself, I checked the chicken.  It was basically ready to come out.  I needed to toss a bit of salt, and maybe a little garlic, on the asparagus, and stir it a bit to make sure it had gotten cooked all the way around, but after that, we could eat.

Of course, when I started digging around for more suitable serving dishes than the baking pan, Meredith said, "Oh, no, Brandon, you don't have to do that."  And I rolled my eyes and said, "Of course I do, how could I give my girlfriend anything less than the best?"  And Meredith tossed her hands and sighed with an expression of exasperated affection, and let me be my usual sappy self.

We sat at the table—a little too large for just the two of us, but nothing to be done about that.  Meredith, of course, took the first bite.  I felt a passing flicker of panic—what if I'd totally screwed up?  What if the chicken was pink, the rice inedible?  What if I'd somehow managed to put too much salt on the asparagus?  What if the whole thing, despite any signs or signals to the contrary, was totally ruined?

...What if I panicked without the slightest provocation?

"Mmm," said Meredith.  "This is delicious."

Like that.  See.  What if I did that for the rest of my life and died of a premature and pointless heart attack?  What a dumb eulogy.  Brandon Chambers, and then the year I was born and the year I died, and then, Died of worrying too much.  The stupid idiot.

After the small talk and pleasant, pointless chatter of dinner, we ended up back at the television, smashing our little cartoon heroes about.  But that only lasted for a little while, until Meredith set the controller away and said she'd had enough.  "I can do this at home," she said.  "But I don't always have you around."

"And now that you have me," I said, letting a smile grow on my lips, "what are you going to do with me?"

She looked at me in complete seriousness.  "Wrap you around me like a blanket.  And never let go."

I sat on the floor with my back against the sofa, and she reclined between my legs, using me as her chair, my arms draped (non-provocatively, I hoped) across her belly.  It was slightly uncomfortable to support two people's weight, but I didn't mind.  Her head rested back against my shoulder, and I was pretty sure she could feel my heartbeat.  She was wearing a pretty loose white shirt with one of those ribbonish gathers across the chest—supposed to accentuate the cleavage, I guess—and if I cared to, I could probably see down her shirt.  And of course, I was getting an erection just because of her proximity.  Which she could probably notice, too, if she had a mind to.

She sighed.  "I haven't had somebody hold me in years.  Do you know how long it's been?  Freshman year.  Well, not freshman year, it lasted through the summer.  But right around the second week of school, well..."

"Who was it," I asked.

"Nick Housman," she said.  Huh.  Didn't have the faintest idea who he was.  "What about you, when was your last hug?"

"Hmm...  Late August."

"Jane?"

"Yeah."

"...Wait, it's September.  She didn't hug you for a whole month?!"

"Nope."

"...Is she nuts?"

"No," I said, "just extremely dedicated to maintaining propriety.  Could we talk about someone else right about now?"

Meredith's hand moved to cover mine, squeezed it gently.  "She still bothers you?"

I sighed.  "I have had one relationship aside from her," I said, "in eighth grade, and that wasn't exactly real.  I mean, how could it be, we were so young.  So this thing with Jane was kind of significant.  We only broke up yesterday.  And yeah, I found you, which has helped me stay away from all that self-doubt shit and dwelling on it and all that...  But no, I'm not over it.  I don't think you can do that in two days."

"No, you can't," Meredith said.  "If you can, it's probably a sign that you shouldn't have gotten into it in the first place."

"Yeah, that's what I figure," I said.  I let a flash of humor register on my face.  "Now a week, on the other hand..."

She giggled.

After that there was silence for a little while.  I didn't mind.  Every now and then, Jane had allowed me to hold her like this—probably telling herself that it was simply a nice, comfortable way to sit, that it wasn't the least bit sexual (despite how easy it would be for my hands to stray to her breasts), just...  Two people sitting.  No.  I think there was something sexual about the way we sat, the way our bodies pressed together.  And I think we knew it, and liked it.  We were...  Flirting with it.  (With each other?)  Wondering where it would lead, but content to let it sit for now.

And besides, there's something to be said about sitting around with an armful of warm, breathing, beautiful, fragrant female.

Eventually Meredith took my right hand in her own, turning it over with the same deft, delicate motions I had learned to recognize.  Her fingernail traced over the raised, pale line, making it tingle.  "This is from...  That one time, I suppose."

It was kind of funny—I couldn't see very well, only feel, and this time my stomach showed no sign of discontent.  "Yeah," I said, "that one time."

Much to my surprise, she raised my wrist to her lips and kissed it—just a gentle brushing of lips.  And strangely, I felt...  Whole, as though some part of me long missing had been returned.

Her hand trailed down my arm.  I was wearing a T-shirt, so she had full access to the skin of my arm, covered in sparse, dark hair.  "Anything else out here of interest?"  Her fingers paced the distance, coming to rest on the outside of my elbow.

"Good instincts," I said.  "That's the one I got on my bike.  After the last time I went to Rob's house—  Did I tell you about that?"

"You told us on Monday," she said.

Her fingers investigated.  It was a jagged, irregular-shaped patch of scar tissue, roughly the shape size of the gap between thumb and forefinger when you join their tips together.

"Proof, of a sort," I said.  "Proof of a pain that might not have been real.  Proof of a pain that no one could see."

"Mmm," said Meredith, a sound of understanding, and her fingers left it be.

I picked up her hand now, raising it above her head so that I could kiss the back.  She had beautiful hands, slender and well-formed.  Everything about this girl was beautiful.  I had no idea how I had gotten so lucky with her.  I turned her hand over, to kiss the palm, and her shirtsleeve slipped down to her elbow, letting me see the inside of her wrist.

For a moment, we were completely still.  She knew what I'd found.  All this time she had hidden them, but she knew what I'd found.  Just as she'd known, immediately, what the marks on my wrist were.

The ball of my thumb traced gently the line of her scar.

"It was last Christmas," she said quietly.  "Christmas is a time of great joy.  But then you go outside and see the couples all bundled up—wrapped in their woolens, wrapped in each other—and you feel the empty space next to you where somebody should be, where nobody is, and it can be hard to remember."

"And your had just been dumped that August," I murmured.  I'd spent Christmases alone; I knew what she meant.  It's like Valentine's Day, except it's the entire month of December, of being cold in bed at night and watching people with girlfriends rub it in your face.  No wonder the aspirin had momentarily freaked her out.

"No one heard about it," she said.  "Because it was Christmas.  Like, literally Christmas.  My brother was home, and my mom came in to tuck me into bed on Christmas Eve, and she was all happy and smiling and, you know, 'I'm so glad it's Christmas and our whole family's here and...'  I felt so bad.  I felt so bad knowing that tomorrow she might wake up and the youngest member of the family might be dead in bed.  So I told her.  An hour later they were pumping out my stomach.  And spent Christmas Day in the hospital.

"I have some friends, yeah, but none close enough to care that much.  None that I could trust.  Dr. Zelvetti knows, but only because they thought she ought to know—"

"They?"

"My parents.  And later my therapist."  She sighed, and suddenly I heard the tears in her voice.  "Put it down, Brandon, it makes me feel sick too."

I held her tightly.

"You're the only one who knows now," she said.  "I'm done being with depressed, I'm glad I'm done with being depressed, but...  There they are."

I held her tightly.

"Are you going to say something," she asked.

"I don't know what to say," I said honestly.  "So instead I thought I'd show you.  That nothing I could find out about you, could ever make me feel differently about you.  And that I'm never letting you go."

"I can live with that," she said quietly, and she sank into my arms.  "I can live with that."

Th.7

I don't know how I did it, but I somehow completely forgot about my birthday.  Not that, like, your seventeenth birthday is really important, but it's one more step to the big one-eight.  But seriously.  If you were Arie Chang, Naked in School—and, more importantly, Arie Chang, Figuring Out How To Face Down Your Parents—you'd forget your birthday too.

"When are you going to tell us," my mom said, grabbing me as I went upstairs.

"After dinner," I said.  "After Trina goes to her flute lesson."  I didn't want her here.  Her skepticism and ridiculous attitude would make it a lot harder to explain.  Even Mom, perpetually blind, could see that, and she let me delay until after dinner.

During dinner, though, my dad asked what I was planning for my birthday tomorrow.  He'd asked me about this time last week, when I couldn't think of anything—I'm turning seventeen, I've got no friends (at least no friends who I don't talk to through the computer), everybody hates me, my arms are bleeding under my shirtsleeves...  Not a good time to ask about birthday party plans.

"I dunno, let me think, I'll have to make some phone calls," I said, reaching for my school's phone directory.

'Chambers, Brandon' was first on my list for a really simple reason: because I needed to ask him what Sajel and Zach thought of me.  I wanted to invite them, but I wouldn't even try if Brandon thought they'd decline.  My self-esteem isn't that robust yet.  (Though at least now I have some.)  Brandon thought they'd be interested.  "They like you, Arie.  Maybe Meredith and Derek and I have been around you a little more frequently, but I know they like you.  Go for it.  Just," he chuckled, "you'll have to tell us what presents to get you.  I don't think we know you that well."

As an added bonus, Meredith was there with him.  She said she'd need to clear it with her parents, but she was pretty sure there would be no objections.

("Jeez, Brandon, you just kissed her today and you're already bringing her home!"  "Shut up, you know it's not like that.  Besides, we didn't kiss, doesn't look like they're very related.")

I had almost hung up with them when I remembered another glitch in the plan.  "Brandon!  Wait!  Can you drive?"

He laughed.  "Uh, well, I've only driven you around twice this week, I think I can drive."

"No, I mean tomorrow," I said.  "I can't drive.  How many people can your car fit?"  "Five, counting me."  "Crap, there's six of us.  Well, assuming everyone says they can come—"

In the background of the kitchen, Mom asked Dad, "What's she doing?"

In the background of Brandon's kitchen, he said, "Meredith, would you mind driving people around for Arie tomorrow?"

Both of them made decisions at the same time, because Brandon said, "Good news, Arie, now we have ten car seats," about the same time my mother shrieked, "What were you thinking, Bernie!"  Bernie's my dad.  Don't ask me.  These immigrant families—the scary part is that they named themselves when they came over.  I haven't a clue what Dad's name is in Cantonese, but I assure you, it's not Bernie.

She grabbed my shoulder.  "Arie!  Put down the phone right now!"

"Mom, please," I said, "I'm trying to talk to—"

"—So, don't worry, that's gotta be enough—"

"Brandon, can you hold on a second—  Mom!  Please.  At least let me finish talking to Brandon, that'll take about a minute.  Okay?  Brandon?"

"Umm.  Hello?  Sounds like a mess over there."

"Just a little.  Anyway.  Thank Meredith for me and tell her that's great.  I'll get back to you tomorrow on how many—  She drives to school, right?  Good.  Okay.  All right, thank you.  Bye.

"Yes mother?"

"Who said anything about a birthday," mother said.

"Uh," I said, feeling stubborn and rebellious, "mine's tomorrow.  Don't you remember, you were there at the time, I think I was being pushed out of you."

"Who said you could do see your friends," she asked.

"Who said I couldn't?  It's my birthday, Mom.  I want to take my friends out to dinner because this is the first time I've had any to take."

"That's ridiculous, what about your friend, uh, whatshername...  Larsa?"

"Lisa," I said.  Still doesn't remember that girl's name.  "We haven't talked regularly since eighth grade, Mom, she goes to Westport now."  Not that there's anything wrong with Lisa.  It's just that, when a friendship starts with seeing someone every day in school, sometimes it doesn't survive the change to a once-a-week-phone-conversation friendship.

"And who's paying for all this," my mother asked.

"Melissa, be reasonable," said my dad.  See what I mean about naming themselves?  Who'd want to be called Melissa?  Bernie and Melissa.  God, that must have been a crazy wedding.  "It's her birthday, she wants to see her friends.  When's the last time you've seen her smile?"

When's the last time you've seen me...  What?  "Have I really been that dismal?" I asked him.

"When are you not dismal," Trina said.

"Thanks hon," I said, "I love you too."

"Let her go," my dad said to my mother.  "It'll be good for her."  My mom looked rather annoyed at being overruled by common sense—after all, nothing must get in Mom's way!—but she subsided, and I made my other phone calls.

Sajel and Zach, true to predictions, were interested and enthusiastic.  Even better, Zach had access to a seven-seat van, which eliminated the annoying hassle of splitting into two cars.  However, when I told Brandon on Friday, he laughed and said, "You really want Zach driving," which made me wonder just exactly what I had signed myself up for.  When Sajel and Zach asked about presents, I told them not to worry: "Having friends around will be cool enough as it is."  Which Zach of course teased me mercilessly for.  Stupid boy.  Can't a girl be shamelessly sentimental without being made fun of around here?

Derek was, of course, last on the list.  I felt strangely trepid calling him, which was odd because I'd just blithely sent calls out to Sajel and Zach, whom I knew less than I did Derek.  For that matter, I never felt scared calling boyfriends before.  Weird, huh?  Maybe because...  Well, is he my boyfriend?  I mean, we've kissed, but so what?  As Brandon pointed out, that doesn't seem to mean anything.

"Hi, Mr. Strong?  This is Arie Chang, from Mount Hill High.  May I speak to Derek, please?"  "Sure, Arie, just a second."

Except...  Maybe not.  Meredith gave Brandon a handjob in Psychology class today.  Hell, she blew him for a little while.  But when does Sajel start whooping and tell them to get a room?  When they kiss for the first time.  Because which one means anything?  And which one do you point at, definitively, when you need proof that Bran and Meri are going out?

"Arie!  Hey! What's up?"

"Are you my boyfriend?"

Oh my God.  Of all the things to come galloping out of my mouth.  Of all the stupid things.  The silence on the other end of the phone was mirrored only by the stares of my parents.  (Trina had gone off to get her flute-lesson stuff together.)

"I dunno," said Derek after a moment.  "Do you want me to be?"

"Uhh."

I felt completely frozen.  Panic bubbled up in my throat.  It was a simple question, wasn't it?  The trouble was, I wasn't sure what I wanted—because the panic was masking everything else tumbling around in my heart.  I couldn't've told you what my name was if my life depended on it.

So I decided to blurt something else out.  "Would you like to go to dinner with me tomorrow?"

Another bit of silence.  Then Derek chuckled.  "Well, you've asked me out at least, there's a start."

A smile worked its way through the bog of panic and crept onto my face.  I giggled nervously.  Suddenly the world was a much happier place.  I explained about the whole birthday thing and the calls I'd made.  Derek seemed quite pleased, but he had a question: "Where are we eating?"

...Wow.  How had I made it through four other invitations without being asked that?  "It's this Korean barbeque place called Hot Pot Palace," I said.  "It's in Oak Glen."

"That's on the other side of Westport," said Derek.  "Sounds fancy."

"It's a lot of fun," I said.  "It's a buffet thing, except, not really.  They give you the food, but then there's this fryer thing and a pot of boiling water back at the table, and you have to cook it all yourself."

"Sounds interesting," Derek said.

"You can't tell anybody," I said, making a decision.  "It's a surprise."

I could hear the grin in his voice.  "I am honored to be such a trusted advisor that you would spill such beans to the ears of my unworthy self."

I giggled.  "You're such an idiot."

"Ah, you know you love it."

And that was that.  I got Dad's help in making a reservation at the restaurant, which is generally pretty popular, but the hard part was over.  Fifteen minutes of talking had built me a birthday party.  That's pretty cool, you know?

Th.8

After that, my mom left to drive Trina to her flute lesson.  I left too—I went into my room and hid.  Mom would be back in about twenty minutes.  And then my parents would come up—no, my mom would come up—and demand that I explain it all.  My stomach felt queasy and I wished that I hadn't eaten as much.  And in my head was just a sort of high, thready panic: Oh my God I've been keeping this secret for two years and now I have to explain it to Dad and my mom and in a way that they can understand when they haven't understood me since I was eight never mind this whole cutting thing—

Yeah.  I was in a bit of a panic.

The first thing I thought was that I had better dive out the window.  Maybe I'd be like a secret agent and escape across the rooftops of the neighborhood.  And maybe while trying to get out the window, I'd slip and fall and break my neck.  Okay, that's out.

Maybe I could lie.  And bluff.  And just tell them that somebody's cat did it.  And maybe they'd ask me why I'd made a big deal of covering it up and getting Trina out of the house before just explaining that, and I wouldn't be able to lie effectively on the spot and the story would just all come out.  Okay, that's out.

Maybe I could get Brandon or Derek or Sajel or Meredith to come over and help me.  But what would they say, what would they do?  Would they leave the house alive?  My mother would almost certainly blame them, regardless of the truth.  No, that was why I had to do this alone, without Dr. Zelvetti to hide behind, with Trina out of the house.  So that my mother wouldn't be able to delude herself and cry, O, the horrors of the Internet!  O, the horrors of rock music!  O, the horrors of television!  No, mother.  No.  Just the horrors of an unhappy teenager.

I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling.  The lamps and lights made a warm glow on the walls.  "Yeeaah.  Arie, it's just you now.  No more choice.  You gotta just...  Stand up, and do it."

And then, softer: "...Can I do it?"

Can I? I asked myself.  Can I really make them understand?  Maybe if this happened...  But, no, then that might happen, and it would...  But what if this happened, and then that other thing didn't happen, and then...

It was a universe of possibilities, but none of it changed this one simple fact:  I have to do it.  I don't know if I can.  But I have to.

And I guess that was my answer.

When Mom gets home, I thought.  She'll come storming straight up here and stand there at the door without knocking.  She'll put her hands on her hips.  She'll glare.  She'll say, "Arie, it's time for you to explain yourself," or something like that.  And...  And I'll be ready.

Mother was glaring.  "Arie.  You have to explain now."

I couldn't help it: I laughed.  Exactly!  Exactly how it was!  Ah, how we all act out our programming!  "I knew you were gonna say that.  Even if Trina hadn't had a lesson today, you would've, like, bundled her off to her friend's house or Aunt Qiling's or something, just to get that explanation out of me.  You're so predictable, Mom."

It wasn't of contempt or hatred that I laughed from, but from joy—from a sudden happiness that, even in times of turmoil and change, certain things would always stay the same.  Like my mother's bullheaded refusal to let anything get in her way, be he Confucius or Lord Buddha or God Himself.  And a burst of affection for my mother herself, who could be depended on in her predictability.

But my mother stiffened, and stalked downstairs without a word.

My laughter died just as suddenly as it started.  Aiya.  Of course she takes it the wrong way too.  But there's nothing to be done about that.

From the door, I looked out over my room: this, my sanctum, my inner space.  My soul given form.  All the bric-a-brac of sixteen (seventeen less one day) female years on this planet.  There was a lot of pink in here, now that I thought about it.  Was I really that girly?  How could my closet be mostly filled with jeans and black denim and black shirts, when its sliding mirror doors opened out onto a room this filled with stuffed animals, with greeting cards festooned with hearts, with lace and frills, with tiny crystal statues of teddy bears and ballet dancers, with the pinks and oranges of lampshades and filament bulbs, with the endless scents of teenage girlhood?  Who the hell was I, anyway, to have sheltered this bloody grudge with my iMac for so long, completely oblivious to this warm pastel world around me?  Because this was my room.  The closet of screaming black clothes, the bedspread of queasy pale pink, the computer's glaring screen.  This was my soul given form.  As completely odd as that may be.

"Well," I said, still in the overwhelming presence of myself.  "Wish me luck."

I did.

Dad and my mother were sitting on the couch in the family room, waiting for me.  They weren't touching, which I didn't know what to make of, but Dad, leaning back, had his arms across the top of the back rest.  My mother leaned forward, almost hunched, her elbows tangling between her knees.  She started to stand up when she saw me, but Dad said, "Melissa," and she kept her seat.  It made me wonder about the lines of power.  Most of the time Dad just keeps his peace and lets my mother walk all over me, over Trina—over everybody.  What was he doing now, keeping such a leash on her?

"Okay," I said, taking a deep breath.

The couch was the same couch my family had owned for my entire life: white, with large-petaled blue and pink and purple flowers.  The coffee table in front of it was a plate of five-sided glass on a circular stand like an oversized crown.  The table was festooned with magazines, with TV and VCR and sound system remotes, with this bizarre black-glass-vase silk-flower floral arrangement my mom had gotten somewhere.  Table and floral arrangement together were almost four feet tall.  The couch was positioned the way it was, not just because the TV was nestled in the corner and faced out diagonally, but because I'd spilled grape juice on the carpet when I was four and they needed to cover the stain.

This was my home.  This was a place I knew, a battleground I had lived for many years.  It didn't have the same intimacy as my room, but that almost made it easier; my room was suddenly a foreign zone, a place I only slightly recognized.  Here, I was at peace.

"I don't know where to begin," I said.  "I can't start at the beginning, because that's what won't make sense to you.  But I can't start at the end, because that won't make sense without the beginning."

"Maybe the middle, then," Dad said.

"There isn't really one," I said, "there's only two dominoes in the sequence."

"What is this," my mother said, her bluster just barely getting started.

"Mom," I said, authority welling up from somewhere within me.  "You're about to hear some things that you won't like and won't want to believe.  So I'm going to have to ask you to remain silent until I finish.  You wanted to hear the truth.  So, you'll hear it.  Warts and all."

"Why, is it something I did," my mother asked.  I was surprised: she didn't sound defensive, only astonished.

"Yes," I said.  "In part.  But now I'm getting ahead of myself."

My God, where to start?  My mother was the one I needed to convince, plain and simple, and the logical thing to do was to start in the territory she understood, and move from there into the more confusing things.  But she wouldn't understand the cutting, and she wouldn't understand how her well-meaning wishes had nailed Trina and I to the floor—she wouldn't understand any of it.  So how should I presume?  And where the hell do I begin?

But even as I thought about that, I realized I was wrong.  There was a third domino in the sequence.  Mom didn't understand how her well-meaning wishes had led Trina and I to depression, nor how depression lead to cutting—but she did understand those wishes.  Just as, I realized, I did.  It was a truly, truly startling moment.  I didn't hate my mother.  Not at all.  Sometimes I found her intensely annoying, and I could pin a lot of my current troubles directly to her influence, but...  That was no reason to hate her.  It wasn't like she'd killed millions of Jews or something.

"Mom," I said.  "You want the best for us.  You want the best for me and Trina.  You want us to...  I dunno, you want us to be involved in music, and get good grades, and take part in school organizations and—  You know, all that stuff.  You want what's best for me and Trina.

"The problem is...  What you think is best, is different from what we think is best.  I like music, I like orchestra, and I guess Trina does too.  But what if we want to do something else?  What if I, I dunno, suddenly wanted to start playing piano?  Or..."

"Or join the choir," Dad said.

I shrugged.  "Maybe.  I don't know if I can sing that well."

"You sound fine in the shower," Dad said, smiling.

"Everyone sounds fine in the shower," I said, laughing.  "But that's not the point.  The point is...  Mom, if I told you I wanted to do that, you'd say, I dunno, you'd say something like, 'No, you can't, because you've been playing violin for years, I don't want to have wasted all that time and money and effort just because you feel like doing something else.'  And I mean there's nothing wrong with that, I know I'd be annoyed in your place if my daughter had done that...  But the problem is, we can't even say it.  I mean, you basically made Trina take flute lessons.  What if she wanted to play a bassoon instead?"

Mom said nothing.

"So...  That's the first thing.  Trina and I...  Sometimes we want to do different things than what you want us to do.  And we don't feel like we can even tell you that we want to do something different, it's like...  Your way or the highway.  You know?  And that hurts.

"And it keeps happening.  You put Trina and I into the advanced programs, you sign us up for AP classes...  We feel like...  I dunno, chess pieces or something, that you're using for your own ends.  It's like you're trying to run our lives.  It's like you don't care about us unless we're doing what you want us to.  And that hurts.

"So.  I don't know when it started, but I got depressed.  According to my psychology teacher, that means a chemical imbalance in my brain that means I basically can't be happy.  Or as happy.  It makes me feel hopeless, it makes me excessively negative, it makes me stop smiling.  And it started because you want things for me that I... just...  Don't."

Mom said nothing.  Her eyes looked past me, through me, beyond me.  Somewhere deep inside them, something roiled, unsettled.

"So.  That leads to this."  I rolled up my right sleeve.  "These are scars.  They're self-inflicted.  It's a behavior called self-injury, or self-harm.  Or, simply, cutting.  I won't bother explaining about why or how it works; we've been talking about that in Psychology class all week, and we still don't have a good answer.  Let's just say, I do it because it makes me feel better.  I mean, it's not like I can punch walls or yell or anything.  You'd come up to my room and tell me to stop, without asking why.  Or, if you did ask why and I told you, It's because I'm really upset and frustrated right now, you wouldn't believe me.  I don't feel like I can say that to you, not and have you believe it.  Because, like, you know.  Your daughter Arie's gonna play violin, she's gonna get perfect grades, she's gonna be first violinist in the school orchestra, and she's gonna be happy and well-adjusted and...  You know, being unhappy just isn't gonna happen.  How could I say anything?"

Mom said nothing.

"But that's not all it is."  I swallowed.  Strangely enough, this was gonna be the hardest part.  Why?  Because...  Because I had to talk about Trina.  Because I don't care if they lose respect for me—as things stand, it's not like I have it anyway.  But I don't want to lose Trina's.  I want her to be...  I want her to be well.

"But that's not all it is.  If you asked my sister, she'd say the same thing.  Trina cuts too.  Trina's depressed too.  Trina goes up to the bathroom when no one's looking and throws up her dinner, because she feels like she has to be thin and pretty and perfect.  Or maybe just her lunch, it's probably easier to do it at school."

"How do you know," my father asked.

"You know that website I told you guys about," I said.  "Candlelight Vigil.  It's for...  It's for people like me.  People depressed and confused and lost.  Well, Trina's there too.  She...  She identified herself to me and I was able to figure out everything from there."

"Are you sure," my father said.

Suddenly all my nervousness and panic came flooding back and I burst out, "No, Daddy, I'm not sure!  She deleted the post afterward.  Maybe I'm just insane—nobody else seems to understand how I could be unhappy with my life!  But if there's a chance, even the slightest chance, that it's true, then someone has to know!  Because someone has to do something!"

My father sat back and said nothing, his eyes far away, understanding turning in them like doors swinging closed.

"So," I said, feeling stiff and brittle.  "That's that.  That's all of it.  Except that maybe we should seek therapy.  At least Trina and I should.  Maybe it'll help Mom too.  Mother, you can talk now, but only to Dad.  I need to go back upstairs and try not to throw up myself.  I've said all I can.  Thank...  Thank you for listening."

My legs nearly gave out and sent me down the stairs backwards.  Good thing for handrails.

I slumped on my bed, my head in my hands, trying to ignore the overpowering mounds of things around me, trying to ignore all this clamoring I call me, trying to think.  What had I done?  Had I done it well?  Had all the relevant points been covered?  Yes, I think so, on that last.  I don't know what Mom thought—honestly, I wasn't sure if I cared.  Maybe that's cruel, but it was born of practicality: I had done my level best, and how Mom reacted was her business alone.  I could have stayed—I should have stayed—but my shaking knees were only the metaphor for the rest of me.  I wouldn't have been able to handle it.  I knew that as surely as I lived.

From my computer screen came the traditional yelp of an incoming Instant Message.

It was, as Violetta described it, a tricky situation.  Someone on the East Coast—Chiana was what she called herself—had broadcast her intention to end it all, end it all forever, end it all tonight night.  She was online now, talking to her friends (presumably saying goodbye before beginning her next overdose adventure) and anyone available was being contacted to see what could be done.  This was fairly normal for Candlelight members; whenever anyone announces intention to suicide, we start trying to talk her out of it.  The tricky part was that Chiana's parents didn't know about their daughter's, err, habits.  Should drastic measures need to be taken, there might be a lot of explaining to do.

Like me, I thought.  And then: Oh, wait.  Not like me.  Not anymore.

There's a pretty standard procedure whenever someone gets suicidal on the boards.  For one, it's almost always a girl—just because most of the people on Candlelight are girls.  Seriously, it's about a twenty-to-one ratio female to male.  We're not entirely sure why this is the case; we suspect lingering "macho man" attitudes.  You know, men are tough, men never cry, men don't get depressed—shit like that.  And it is shit, because it means that a teenage boy who needs emotional help...  May never get it.  And then he'll jump in front of a train and his friends will stand over the casket and ask each other, "Why?" and there will never be an answer for them.

Anyway.  When someone gets suicidal, her friends try to talk her down from the ledge, and anyone else available drops in to give support (whether we know her or not).  Sure, we could all try to talk her down from the ledge, but have you ever tried to juggle more than four Instant Messaging conversations at once?  It simply can't be done.  You give up—and that's the exact thing we don't want the person to do.  So the rest of us—mostly Sara, who's good at it—get to work with the phone books, with MapQuest, with things like that.  If the girl's friends can get her in-real-life contact information—city, street address, so on—then, if worst comes to worst, we can call that city's emergency services and get her to the hospital.  We've done it before.  Some of Candlelight's members have even released their contact information to the board in general, knowing that, if one night they stand to the ledge, they'll regret it the next day if they weren't talked down.  Again, with Chiana, actually using the contact info would cause trouble, because her parents (as far as we knew) had no idea their daughter was this fucked up; how exactly would they react if ambulances rolled up to their New Jersey home and said that someone (Sara) had called them from California to report an attempted suicide?  They'd probably flip; parents of Candlelight members aren't known for being rational.  Regardless, we needed her location, just to be safe.

As it turned out, Chiana was one of the people whose contact info was public knowledge, so Sara didn't have a lot of scrambling to do.  Instead, we mostly just hung around online, keeping each others' spirits up.  It's almost like an excuse to throw a party, only that we're all sitting on the edge of our seats, keeping an eye on our buddy lists.  The longer Chiana stayed online, the more tired she'd get—until eventually it would be too much effort to swallow a hundred pills.  (We don't have to talk her down, so much as just keep her talking.)  Then she'd go to bed, ready to wake up tomorrow and face another day; and then we'd all go to bed, and fall asleep exhausted.  Tired, overwrought, grumpy—but alive.

In 2003 or so there was a CNN report about a woman who did this for a boy she knew through an online game—got his contact info through the Internet, set ambulances on him from another state, and got him hospitalized in time to save his life.  Violetta, who spied the article online, just laughed.  "This is news?  We've been doing it for years."

It's kind of funny, though: that night, sitting there with my back to the door, as I always do, hunched over that keyboard, typing and blinking blearily into the night, it really hit me.  Why had Chiana announced it?—and she had, she'd made a formal announcement, we practically could have penciled this into our calendars had we wanted.  Why wasn't she on a ledge somewhere?  An overpass, maybe, ready to nosedive onto a freeway; or a bridge above the Atlantic.  A gun against her temple.  Tylenol and vodka?  Slow.  It takes a couple of days to work, plenty of time to be rescued.  Especially since we have it penciled into our calendars.  Call Chiana during these two days.  If not, call ambulances.  Why was she sitting around letting people talk her out of it, when she could be trying something so much more...  Precipitous?

That's when it really hit me.

Meredith was right.  We do seek attention.  Chiana didn't want to end it; maybe she never had.  What she wanted, was just exactly what I wanted.  The reason I cut, the reason I hatched my deal with Dr. Zelvetti to let me skip classes and homework as much as I wanted, the reason I eventually ended up naked in school with only my scars to protect me.  The reason I'd finally stood up in front of my parents today, naked despite my clothes, and admitted that I couldn't handle everything that had been pushed on me.

It was a cry for help.

TainaGrrl0085: dont worry chaina

TainaGrrl0085: well help u

Chiana Nightwind: thanks arie.  i probably need it.