The Way I Used to Be

“HEY,” A GUY’S VOICE whispers in my ear, “I hear you’re real dirty.”

I swing around to face him. I remember he was with Josh that day in the hall, Jock Guy, in this exact spot, in fact, when Josh gave me the note at my locker. But it wasn’t just a him, it was a them—two guys. The other one I recognize too—a senior, not a jock, but still in with Josh’s clique. He is more like page-sixteen Abercrombie catalog model; his are weight-room fitness-equipment muscles, not sports muscles.

It’s the first day back from winter break. There isn’t another person in the hall. It’s late, after school. I stayed to help Miss Sullivan catalog a shipment of new books. “What did you just say?” I manage, thinking for sure I must’ve heard him wrong.

“I said you really like fucking, don’t you?” Jock Guy answers, trying to touch my cheek. I back away, slam my locker shut, loop my arms through the straps of my backpack and start walking. DANGER DANGER DANGER: my skin getting hot and itchy again.

The other one—Pretty Boy—says, “Don’t run away. We just have a question for you.”

“Yeah, what?” I ask sharply, trying to seem brave, calm, and tough while moving myself down the hall, away from them, toward the front doors of the school, as fast as I can.

Pretty Boy answers, “Yeah. We wanted to know if you wanna be in our movie?”

Then Jock Guy chimes in, “It’s just a little film we’re doing and we hear you have a lot of experience in that, uh . . . genre. We figure you could have the leading role.”

The human brain is a truly amazing organ because, despite all the nauseous thoughts electrifying my neurons at that moment, somewhere in the dark folds and recesses I was genuinely impressed that he used the word “genre” correctly.

“You’ll be happy to know you have excellent references,” Pretty Boy adds quickly before spitting his laughter all over me.

I walk faster, as the fear sinks in, as fast as I can without running, my feet getting heavier with every step. They follow behind, cackling and wheezing.

“Wait, is this you doing hard to get? Because word is that you’re actually pretty easy.” Jock Guy laughs, catching right up with me. Pretty Boy gets on the other side. “Come on,” Jock Guy continues, “don’t you wanna be a star? Get paid for what you do? You’d make a killing.”

Where the hell is a janitor when you need one, damn it?

“No, we’re just kidding, there’s no movie. But you know,” Pretty Boy says, putting his arm around my shoulder, his fingers coiling around a strand of my hair, his mouth close to my ear, “if you let me fuck you, I’ll be real gentle, I promise.”

And then they crack up.

All I can hear is Caelin’s voice in my head: They’ll just chew you up and spit you out. Girls like me. Girls like me, he said. And then Pretty Boy licks his lips like he might just devour me. Why am I not screaming? Why am I not screaming-running-fighting for my life? They wouldn’t do anything, not in school, not in a public place. There could be people around, not any that I can see or hear, but there has to be someone somewhere, right? Right? My heart is about to explode—about to implode. I feel that bullet buried deep, dig in, piercing through some fresh warm meat inside of me. How could this possibly be happening?

“Stop, okay? Don’t touch me!” I finally shout, trying to pry his fingers out of my hair. My voice echoes through the hall, mingling with the sound of their laughter.

“ ‘Don’t touch me,’ ” Pretty Boy mimics. “That’s not what you said to Josh.”

I break into a jog but only make a few strides before he’s caught up with me again. “Get away from me!” I finally yell.

“Or what, you’ll get your big bad brother to come and beat me up too?” Pretty Boy says. “I don’t think so.” He grabs my backpack and it stops me dead in my tracks.

“Dude. Come on,” Jock Guy subtly reprimands.

All the feeling just drains out of my body, like slowly being novocained from head to toe, so much that I feel like I’m about to pass out. He spins me around, holding on to my arms so tightly, pulling me in so close, I’m afraid he might kiss me. I try to break out of his clutch, but I can’t move an inch.

“Relax, she loves it,” he tells him. “Don’t you?”

“Come on, bro,” he calls out, stepping closer. “We gotta go, come on! Let’s get outta here, all right?”

Pretty Boy’s evil grin fades and he allows some distance, and then hesitantly, he finally lets go. I stumble away from him, backing myself right up against the lockers, and I see something like remorse flicker in his eye, like a neurological twitch. I guess even a psychotic asshole can see I’m terrified.

“Come on, McSlutty”—he claps me on the shoulder—“we’re just fucking with you,” he says casually, glancing over at Jock Guy.

“Yeah, just fucking around,” Jock Guy echoes, reassuring Pretty Boy, or himself maybe, but not me.

“Take a joke,” Pretty Boy adds, instantly resuming his phony bravado, running a hand through his perfect hair.

“Leave me alone,” I try to say as firmly as possible despite the fact that I’m shaking uncontrollably and my voice is scarcely above a whisper.

“You can’t have your brother fight all your battles for you,” Jock Guy says, smiling as he hitches my chin up with his knuckle. I want to spit in his face.

They shuffle down the hall, snickering and high-fiving their job well done.

I practically run all the way home. I slip on the ice at least a dozen times because I’m not being careful at all. My brain is like scrambled eggs. Josh wouldn’t have told them to do that, I know he wouldn’t have.

Caelin was still home on vacation from school, and I was going to get answers out of him if I had to hold a knife to his throat. He obviously did something to make things worse. I throw the front door open and he flinches, slouched on the couch, watching some ridiculous reality TV show.

“What the hell, Edy?” he whines.

“What did you do?” I demand, rushing toward him, not bothering to take my boots off, dragging dirty wet slush in on the carpet.

“Edy, take your fucking shoes off—you’re ruining the rug!”

“What did you do?” I repeat, snatching the remote out of his hand. I almost throw it right at his face, but I stop myself at the last second and throw it on the floor instead. It cracks open and the batteries go flying out in opposite directions.

He’s on his feet, just needing to show me how much bigger and stronger he is than me. As if I could ever forget. As if the entire world wasn’t organized just to make sure I never forget, even for a second, that any boy, anywhere, even my brother, could take me. “What the hell is with you?” he finally shouts, looking down at me.

“What did you do?” I say, losing my voice to the tears.

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t even know what you did! You made everything worse! I told you to stay out of it and now everything’s worse! Do you even realize what you’ve done? Do you even care? God, I hate you!” The tears stream down my face, my words fading to nothing as my voice strains to make him comprehend how much he’s hurt me: “I hate you I hate you hate you so much I hate you hate you I fucking hate you . . . hate . . . you . . . hate . . . I . . . hate . . .” I see his mouth moving, but I can barely hear the words he’s screaming back at me. I want to fight now. It’s deafening, blinding. I want to fight so hard. To the death.

“Edy, stop it! Stop!” he keeps saying over and over. I realize that his hands are now around my wrists. And it’s because I had been pounding my fists against his chest. “Would you just calmthefuckdown, sit, and tell me what the hell happened.” He pulls me down onto the couch but doesn’t let go of my arms. I look at his hands gripping on to me; his knuckles all red and swollen, the skin broken and raw. So he got in a fight with him, with Josh—that’s what they meant.

“So, what, you beat him up?”

“Edy, you don’t understand what happened—”

“No, you don’t understand. You don’t understand what happened!” I sob.

“Edy, I had to,” he continues, ignoring every word out of my mouth, as usual.

“No, you didn’t! Why couldn’t you let me deal with it? It was over. Everything was fine and now—” But how could I admit what had just happened? Because if they had wanted to, they could’ve done anything. And I was not tough. I was weak. So fucking weak, like I always knew I was, like everyone always knew I was. It’s too humiliating. “When did you even see him?” I ask instead.

“New Year’s Eve. We were at this party, drinking, whatever, and then a bunch of the guys start talking shit—things that he told them, Eden—things I never wanted to hear about my little sister, by the way! And so then he shows up later and he’s drinking and saying all this stupid, fucked-up shit. . . . We got into it, okay?”

“Got into it—let go of me—what is that supposed to mean? Let go of me!”

“No, I’m scared!” he roars back. “I’m scared of you! You’re out of your mind. I’m not letting go.”

“Let. Me. Go.” I jerk my arms with each word.

“Don’t. Don’t. Hit me. Again. I’m so fucking serious, Edy,” he says, his voice low, as he tightens his grip. We stare each other down, brimming with some kind of deep-seated rivalry that’s about to drown us both, then he finally releases my wrists.

“What did they say he said, Caelin?” I take my coat off, wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my shirt.

He leans back, crossing his arms, sulking like a child. “I can’t even repeat it.”

“If it’s that bad, then it didn’t come from him. He’s not like that—you don’t know him! He doesn’t even drink. He doesn’t like being around drunk people. Was he even really there, or did you have to go find him?”

“Edy.” He looks up at me and grins. “Come on, all he had to do was say one thing to these assholes. It came from him, no matter what he said to start it. And he was there. And completely fucking trashed, okay? God, you’re so naive,” he says with a laugh.

“You’re the one who’s naive! Did you actually think they would just let something like this go?” That piques his attention—the sudden realization that he’s not all powerful, that he’s not in control of everything anymore.

“Did somebody say something—did he actually have the balls to talk to you again?”

“No, not him—I didn’t even see him at school today.”

“Who, then?” he demands. “Who?”

“Why, do you want to make it ten million times worse? Maybe get me killed or something? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you wouldn’t have to be so embarrassed of me.”

“Edy, come on, don’t say that.” He tries to reach for me. “You know that’s not—Edy . . . ,” he calls.

But I’m already gone.

I slam my bedroom door as hard as I can.

I turn the lock, ninety degrees, and slink down to the floor.

And suddenly everything in my body goes quiet. Everything in my mind—quiet. Like I’ve exhausted every emotion, every reaction, every thought, and I have nothing left to offer, not to Caelin, not even to myself.

I hear him shouting on the other side of my door, pounding. “Edy. Edy? Eden!” Pounding, pounding, pounding. “Open this fucking door!” He rattles the doorknob, trying to get in. “Edy? Are you okay? Edy, damn it.”

I say nothing. I do nothing. I feel nothing.

“Edy, please,” he says quietly, almost sadly. “Please, Edy.” I can hear him breathing on the other side of the door, breathing oddly, like, unevenly. But no, it’s not just him breathing, I realize slowly. He’s crying. And I kneel there on the other side of the door that might as well be the other side of the galaxy, feeling so empty, so dead inside. He tries the knob one more time and then I hear nothing. Until the front door closes, then the rumble of his car starts in the driveway.

Later, after I am a no-show at family-dinner theater, where we play the parts of a loving, functional family (sans little sister—no understudy), after Mom and Dad (reading for the roles of doting mother and father) go to bed, Caelin (wholesome, caring big brother) lures me out of my room with my favorite food in the entire world. Caelin McCrorey’s famous pizza sandwich, which is exactly what it sounds like: a sandwich filled with pizza toppings—sauce, tons of cheese, pepperoni and mushrooms, and black and green olives—grilled in the sandwich maker to buttery golden perfection. Sinfully delicious and a time-tested, never-failed peace offering. I can’t resist.

We stay up late like we did when we were kids, with the TV on low, mocking infomercials and horrible nineties music videos, genuinely entertained by ridiculously corny children’s cartoons. And when I fall asleep on the couch, he covers me with the old, scratchy, dusty-smelling but incredibly warm blanket from the hall closet. It is a temporary truce, anyway.

I finally see Josh at school the next day. He looks pretty roughed up—purplish green under his right eye, left cheekbone scraped, a yellowish bruise fading from his jaw. He watches me intently as I walk toward him, like I’m speaking and he’s trying really hard to listen to what I’m saying. I’m going to tell him that I didn’t have anything to do with what my brother did to him. I want him to tell me he had nothing to do with what his friends did to me. I want to say sorry. I want to make up. I want, even, to tell him how much I’ve missed him and how much I want to be with him again, but really with him this time. I’m going to tell him all these things. I am.

But suddenly Jock Guy appears next to him, sneering at me. He cups his hand over his mouth and coughs “slut,” nudging Josh in the ribs with his elbow. Grinning wide, he looks to Josh, then to me, then back to Josh. I stop walking. I wait for his reaction, like Jock Guy waits for it. Please don’t laugh, please don’t laugh, I silently beg.

I barely hear his voice carry through the jungle of noise, but I see him glaring at Jock Guy, see his mouth taking the shape of words: “Don’t fucking do that, man—that’s so stupid!” Jock Guy looks embarrassed, mad—mad at me. Mad as hell at me. He exits, stage left, a rabid dog with its tail between its legs.

Enter stage right, beautiful brunette in a miniskirt and tight sweater, inexplicably tan for the dead of winter; interlacing her French-tipped fingers with Josh’s, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, her smile dripping with honey. I guess she’s my replacement—an upgrade, clearly. She nuzzles her face into his arm like some kind of adoring pedigree kitten, but when her eyes meet mine, that sweet smile is all feral and fanged. It scares me more than slut coughs, almost as much as secret after-school ambushes.

Obviously, I have stumbled onto the wrong side of the invisible but ever-present velvet rope. Even Josh isn’t immune to these cruel taxonomies. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, call out to me, like he’s been waiting to say something, just as I have. But then, remembering the order of things, he stops himself, looks down at the girl latched to his side. Things would have to stay unsaid. And so I put on my game face, my new face, my tough face, and just walk away.