Time Lifts the Light

It took D.B. nineteen hours to find out about Jack Lewinski.

It took him forty-seven to crack.

It was Friday, he hadn't been in first period, art, or lunch, and nobody was worried.

"I, for one," Mikey stated regally through a mouthful of cheese crackers. "Am glad to be rid of him. If only for a day."
"Maybe George gave him herpes."
Mikey burped spectacularly in agreement.

Jack Lewinski, while being quite alright and abnormally smart for a jock, was still without. I realized that I'd become addicted to the mystery of D.B., his secrets and spontaneity. I had only known Jack for a day and a half and he had told me enough of his life story to give Daniel a heart attack -- Polish father, French mother, two older brothers, one already off at college. Kids had teased him in elementary school for being skinny and French, which they associated with snobby ladies and poodles, calling him things like Jacqueline and Jackie. He went to a summer sports camp to bulk up as retaliation and, since then, his passion has been running around after balls of various colors and sizes.

I had felt the urge to share something with him in return, so I told him about the time all twelve of my finches escaped from their cage and flew out an open window. My voice trailed off at the end of the story, knowing full well that it was exceptionally lame... but, funnily enough, Jack seemed interested.

D.B. probably would have laughed at me. "Wow, Indy," he'd say sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Great story."

I realized that, no matter how nice Jack was, no matter how much he loved my boring stories about finches hell-bent on freedom, I would always, always compare him to D.B. I couldn't shake it. I felt stupid calling it a crush. It had been a crush when I was obsessing over his past, sneaking around his house when invited to dinner to clandestinely look at family photos. It had been a crush when, on the first day of school, I couldn't speak because of his dark eyes.

But it had somehow grown into something more. Love was even worse than crush. What was the happy medium? Was there one? Lush? Crove? Like-like? I want to shut myself inside a locker and never come out. One thing was for sure, Daniel Booker Hawkins had turned me into a pre-pubescant dimwit. Like-like, honestly.

He turned up in History, Mr. Cross' class, looking like he'd been thrown into a lake. Bits of dried grass clung to his sleeves and a splotch of mud marked a long line running up his left leg. He was tired, I could see that, and jumpy. I wondered how long it had been since he'd traveled...

"Mr. Hawkins!"
"Huh?" Daniel asked, looking so bizarre and out of place that I almost wanted to laugh.

Mr. Cross went from red to purple. His wiry mustache quivered and I could practically feel the radiation from his anger. I winced and darted looks to Kim and Mikey across the room, checking to see if they were bracing themselves for the explosion. Daniel had been sent to the principal's office for a disheveled tie. And here he was, slightly moist and quite muddy, trembling and confused in the doorway.

"Where have you been?" Mr. Cross managed to ask, sounding very controlled and tight-lipped. I looked up to see that his purple face had molted into a sort of sickly grey.
"I was hiding on the football field and they turned the sprinklers on." It wasn't a joke. Everybody laughed.

Mr. Cross looked as if he were about to leap up on top of his desk and throttle himself. He raised an aimless hand, possibly meant to clench into a fist and hit D.B., but probably just to steady himself. He turned white.

"Just... sit down, Mr. Hawkins."
"Yes, sir."

D.B. sat.

The lesson continued and, as usual, Daniel didn't take notes. He didn't even have his backpack with him. He stared at his hands, folded upon the desk, with wide, tortured eyes. The bell rang and he practically jumped on me as I exited the classroom. Looking desperate and rather gaunt, he latched himself onto the waistband of my skirt and pulled me after him as he wordlessly sped through the hallway.

"Daniel!" I protested, stumbling over my feet as he charged onward. I tugged at his hand but his knuckles were white. He wasn't going to let go.

I had to trot awkwardly to keep up with him, praying desperately to the Greek Goddess of please, please grant me gracefulness for five seconds and hoping I wouldn't loose my footing.

He pushed through the first door he saw and whirled around to face me. He was livid and nervous -- as if he was angry, but not quite sure why.

"Jack Lewinski?" he asked, spitting each syllable out like it made his mouth taste foul. "Honestly?"
"Let go of my skirt. Now."
He released me, his hand shaking. "I'll kill him... I'm gonna kill him."
"You will not."
"Why him?" he demanded, pleaded. He slouched, leaned toward me, paused, tight-lipped, and opened his mouth to say something else before thinking better of it and screwing up his face in a grimace of tortured frustration. "And you're going to Caleb Lewinski's party? He's a senior, you know. It's going to be a senior party."
"I know," I said coldly.
"And you know what goes on at senior parties, don't you?"
"I'm not stupid, Daniel!"

"Hey, this is the boys' restroom!"

Dawson Blossom, the mousy boy from my math class was frozen in horror in front of the sink. He was pointing an accusing finger in my direction.

"What's she doing here?"
"Get out, Dawson." Bitter, like acid.
"There are rules against -"
D.B. seemed to snap. "Out, Blossom!" he yelled.
"But I haven't washed my hands..."
"Out!"

Dawson scurried past us, wringing his unwashed hands in anxiety. Static electricity buzzed through the bathroom. The smell of harsh cleansers mixed with a hint of eau de old urinal was starting to give me a headache. D.B. looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel.

"What's wrong with you?" I demanded, sighing in a long-suffering sort of way.

There was a moment when D.B. seemed to consider all possible implications of the question. His face crumpled, the tips of his eyebrows pushed upward to form a sort of heart-breaking inverted V shape over his eyes.

"You even have to ask?" he moaned pitifully, now leaning more towards crying than anything else. He took a stumbled step backwards, shuffling one foot after the other and bowing his head. "I can't -- There isn't -- Jack, he isn't..." He tugged at his hair in agony. "This is all your fault!"
"What? What's my fault?"
"Everything!" he shouted, trying to push his voice up from somewhere within his stomach to cover up the shakiness in his throat. "Jack fucking Lewinski!"
"Daniel!"
"I hate this... I hate this..."
"What are you -- get off me, D.B.!"
"This is because of Georgia, right? I mean, I'm not imagining this, am I?"
"Let go of my sleeve!"
"But you know... you know what I was doing -- right? What I, what I was... And you did with... you tried to get back at..."
"You're not making any sense!" I lied loudly.
"With Jack! You know! You have to know what I'm talking about!" He was shaking. "There's no way you would have... Jack and... if you didn't know what I... right? Right, Indy? Just tell me I'm right!"

He gave me a little shake and I pushed him backwards. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Daniel," I told him coldly.

"Wait, please, wait!" he yelped, slurring everything together as if it was one word. "Indy, wait, just wait, hear me out!"
I pushed him back again.
"I'm sorry! Please, I'm sorry! Please don't go to the party!" he cried after me as I pushed through the bathroom door and walked down the hall. "Indy, please!"

-_-_-_-

The party, as it turns out, was nothing like what I'd seen in movies.

For one thing, the music wasn't wordless thumping and definitely not part of the public domain. There was not a mass of grinding bodies crammed in the living room, occasionally throwing around priceless vases or beer cans. The stereo was set to a local rap station that, while not exactly being my style, wasn't terrible. People were stashed here and there, colliding in groups of twos and threes and really only congregating around the keg that someone had wheeled in in a bright red wagon.

I mostly stuck to Jack throughout the beginning of the night (as he was the only person I knew) and he was very accommodating of my poor social skills, introducing me to everyone he talked to. I'd overdressed, opting for one of my nicer dresses while everyone else was either wearing jeans or too-short-shorts. But Jack let me wear his jacket, which was old and made of dark denim, so it turned into sort of a "look".

Mikey and Kim hadn't stopped leaving teasing messages on my phone since I'd woken up that morning. (Are you getting ready for theparty, Indy? or Say, Indigo... aren't you supposed to be going to some sort ofsocial gathering soon?) I knew they probably wouldn't lose interest in making fun of me until I did something even more embarrassing, so I just took in in stride.

There was a slow bell curve, it appeared, when it came to the life in a party. It gradually got better and better as more people showed up and got drunk, then it reached a non-specific high point somewhere in the middle, although nobody could really pinpoint when or where. It sort of snuck down afterward, almost unnoticeable as it slowly, slowly dimmed. This, I figured, was shortly before midnight.

This was also when D.B. showed up.

I pretended not to notice him, even though we'd clearly made cold eye contact as he stalked in like some sort of moody thunderstorm, forcefully dragging a confused-looking Georgia by the hand. He wandered around idly for a while, pulling compulsively on his left earlobe and not speaking to anyone before disappearing in the direction of the keg.

I thought that would be the last I saw of him. A clap of thunder rolled in the distance and rain came suddenly, slashing at the windows and tearing away at the roof. Jack's brother, a tall, lush boy with a regal air that came only from power and popularity, laughed loudly. Everyone went along. It was as if the rain were a game. I wasn't quite sure of the rules, but it seemed to involve laughing and ignoring it. Someone turned up the music.

The lights flickered and everything was thrown into sharp relief for a second. There was silence for a moment, as nobody really knew how to react. The game had suddenly died and I felt Jack take me by the waist. We sat on the couch and Caleb came over to talk to him about possibly resetting the breaker if the lights went --

Fiiizzzzzz.

With a great, shuddering hum, the house went black. A few girls screamed. Jack sighed impatiently and leaned over to whisper something in my ear.

"What?" I asked him. People were talking and I couldn't hear.

"Everybody calm down! I'm going to go out and reset -- ouch, Cynthia! That's my foot!"
"I lost an earring! Nobody move!"
"Oh, shut up!"

Caleb stood before us as a spidery silhouette for a moment as he opened the door to step into the pouring rain. He flicked his hood over his head and set out for the electricity breaker, located somewhere on the side of his house. I realized suddenly that the music was off. It was oddly quiet without it. Somewhat eerie.

Jack was whispering again.

"Boo!"
"Chris, that was mean!"

"What?" I asked for the second time, feeling sheepish.

Lightning drained into the room and everyone was lit like a black and white movie for a moment. I thought I saw D.B. lounging across the room, feral and angry and insulted, like a wounded animal in some sort of teenage jungle.

Jack leaned in very close and said, "I've been meaning to talk to you about Marjorie Celliers. I was -"

D.B. was suddenly everywhere. I cried out and flung my hands up before I realized it wasn't me he was after. He hauled Jack up by the front of his shirt and reeled back, punching him solidly on the mouth. Jack spun hard, his arms still hanging almost stupidly at his sides as he tumbled like a falling log to the floor.

"Get up!"
"D.B., what are you doing?"
"Get up, you little shit!"
"Get off me, man!"

The lights buzzed back on, still orange and dim. Nobody noticed.

D.B. shook Jack by the shoulders and ducked under a punch aimed between his eyes. He hooked his fist into Jack's stomach, but the other boy wasn't fazed. He recovered quickly and sucked his swollen bottom lip into his mouth as he socked D.B. resonantly on the cheek, the sound of skin on skin -- like a great slab of meat being slapped onto a surface -- grating over everybody's ears. D.B.'s hands fell away from Jack's shirt and he didn't have time to recover before he was being punched in the eye, the mouth, the chin (where his teeth clacked together horribly).

"Jack!" I screamed.

But D.B. was drunk and he didn't know when he was down. He pushed away and then wallowed back, making wild and dramatic swings that weren't aimed at anything, only connecting with flesh when he was lucky. Jack winced and hunched his shoulders, trying to protect his nose, which was already dribbling a bit of blood. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but was probably only thirty seconds, the fight ended as D.B. accidentally bit his own tongue and spat up blood into his hand. He slumped, endured a half-hearted punch to the gut from Jack, and walked out of the living room, then out through the front door. His lip was split down the middle and there was a yellowish bruise forming on his right cheek, but he limped away as if nothing had ever happened.

A crowd surrounded Jack and I was pushed away. The lights gave another shiver into safety orange, then turned on. People shouted and clapped and I was pushed further away from my injured date as everyone gathered to see what was wrong.

I was so angry that my stomach felt sick. I tried to walk calmly out the front door to catch up with Daniel, but I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a dark, rain splattered window and I looked like I was a crazed executioner. In a way, I thought grimly. I am.

D.B. hadn't ran away. He'd gone as far as the front walkway, turned, and puked in the bushes. I walked outside, ignoring the cool rain and not even bothering to help him as he stumbled away from Mrs. Lewinski's rose bushes and flopped down into the wet grass on the lawn.

He saw me approaching and groaned, rolled onto his back and opened his mouth, letting rain water drip between his lips.

"Why is your mouth open?" I asked harshly, nudging his side with the toe of my shoe a bit harder than was strictly necessary. "What are you doing?"
He closed his mouth, swallowed, and said: "Drowning myself." Then he opened his mouth again.
"Well, stop. I need to talk to you."

He slowly closed his mouth again, letting the water dribble out past his teeth and gums and lips and sluice down his chin. Like a baby, I realized.

"You punched Jack Lewinski."
"I know."
"You punched him."
"I know."
"Daniel!"
"What? I really do know! I was there!"
"Care to explain why you did it?" Cold and angry, like Caesar betrayed.
"He kissed you."

My heart lurched sideways.

"No, he didn't."
"Yes, he did!"
"Daniel, he was leaning over to whisper so-"
"No, he kissed you! I saw him!"
"The lights were going out! You don't know what you saw!"
"He leaned over and kissed you! He leaned right over and he kissed you on your cheek!"
"He whispered in my ear! Unfortunately, I don't know what he was whispering because somebody interrupted him by punching him in the mouth!"

He looked like I'd just slapped him. I realized that I had never yelled at Daniel before, not like this -- teeth bared and metaphorical claws out, all raw throats and wild eyes. He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. I wondered if anyone had ever yelled at him like this.

"What do you think you're doing?" a familiar voice fumed. "I leave you alone for three seconds and I come back to find Jack Lewinski with a black eye? What the hell is that, Daniel?"
"My name is D.B.!"

Somebody from across the street opened up their second story window, stuck their head out and yelled: "You kids shut up!"

"Go home, Georgia," D.B. whined, rolling into a ball in the wet grass and hiding his face in his arms.
"Not until you explain what you -"
"Go home, you cow! Nobody wants you here!"
"F-Fine!" she stuttered, indignantly tucking a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. "Good luck finding a ride home, asshole!"

D.B. rolled over and looked up at me through the wet hair that now clung to his forehead. The rain had turned into a light spray, but I was already soaked completely through. I shivered slightly as I heard Georgia's car door slam. She pealed out into the street.

"I hate her," he said. "I really hate her."
"Then why are you dating her?"
"Please," he snorted, getting back up on his feet warily. "She looks exactly like you."

This shocked me so much that, for lack of anything better to do, I pushed him down again. He hit his shoulder hard.

"Ow, Indy!"
"That's just cruel, D.B.!"
"Well, I thought I took you out on a date!" he yelled, wounded. He rolled over and clutched his stomach, as if his anger was rising as bile in his throat. "I waited weeks for you to come and talk to me and you never did! I didn't know what else to do!"
"So when in doubt, force my clone to date you?!"
"Your boring clone, yes! And -- hey! -- I didn't force anyone!" He got up again, slouching and rubbing his shoulder. The sky spat on us, insulting the climactic scene with an entirely non-cinematic drizzle. "And don't tell me you did anything different with Jack Lewinski."
I reeled back as if struck. "That is -- completely... completely different!"
"Yeah? How?" he hissed.
"Whose to say I haven't fallen for Jack?" I asked vindictively. "Whose to say I haven't written Mrs. Indigo Lewinski all over my binders, little hearts and diamonds all -"
"You haven't."
"How do you know?"
"You haven't."
"How do you know?"
"You haven't, okay! You just haven't!" he shouted. He was suddenly on his feet again and I realized how much difference a few inches makes. He was scary, wet hair pushed back from his forehead with just a few strands hanging haphazardly in front of his booze-redened eyes. "You can't have done because you know that Jack Lewinski isn't good enough for you."

The man opened his window again. "Goddammit!" he shouted. "Shut up before I call the Police!"

D.B.'s voice rasped in his throat as he tried to shout, "No, you shut up!" but the words broke and ended in a whisper as he stumbled forward, wiping furiously at his eyes.

"Please, Indy. Please."
"Please what?"
"Just tell me you know... that Jack isn't good enough for... he isn't right for you." I didn't answer. "Please!"
"For the love of... Don't cry about it."
"M'not. Just say... Please just say it."
"Fine. Yes. Whatever."

He collapsed onto the ground in relief. Mud squelched under him, but he didn't seem to care.

"Nobody is good enough."
"So I'm just destined to be alone, is that it?"
"No," he mumbled.
"Are you suggesting that you're the only person in the world who is good enough for me?"
"No, I -"
"You, who just crashed a party and got stinking drunk? You, who attacked my date? Daniel Booker Hawkins, who called his own girlfriend a cow?"
"Please, I -"
"Shut up! Don't even try to explain yourself. What you did to Georgia was selfish and conceited and immature." My throat felt tight. My eyes burned. "You used -- don't interrupt! Jack invited me to this party, I didn't go chasing after him! I never kissed him, never led him on! I'm going back inside now... to make sure his nose isn't broken or something horrible. You can go ahead and cry and beg and yell, but don't you dare try to explain yourself to me. I don't care. I don't care anymore."

He was shocked, staring at me with lost eyes that screamed for something -- what exactly, I don't know. But they were screaming. And I turned away from him with a churning stomach because it was time to let go.