In the Book of Me and You

“Fuck..” I mumbled as I hit my alarm clock to turn it off and roll over in bed, not greeting the day, wishing instead I could spit in its eye. I had stayed out from 3 to 5 by the time I got home, which was a formidable hit to my sleep schedule. Somehow though, I managed to roll out of bed and slip into the shower and then get ready on autopilot.

“Wow Andy, you look like you didn’t sleep well last night,” DJ said as I showed up downstairs and I just nodded, figuring that was better than explaining everything. I made a mental note to put some cover-up on the bags under my eyes before heading back upstairs with a now full water bowl for Daisy.

When I finally left I’d covered most of my signs of exhaustion and I just got onto my bike with purse in backpack and rode off after saying bye to my cousin. I contemplated last night and wondered if that should really change how I acted to John, but I knew that’d be a bad idea. If I wanted to maintain some sense of normalcy, I should not really change just because I knew something new.

The day until lunch passed in a haze until lunch where I navigated to Dakota’s table and sat down next to the one I was pretty sure was named, with Garret on the other side. I talked to Garrett for a while about games and zombies before Pat came over and took over Garrett’s entire attention. I just smiled and turned to Nick, trying to get to know him, which turned out to be easy as he was relaxed and generally an easy person to talk to.

“So you like country music and WWE?” I asked and he nodded, breaking out into Taylor Swift. I wasn’t a fan of Taylor Swift or country but as Nick sang I smiled widely and patted him on the shoulder, “You’re a really good singer Nick!”

“I’d hope so, since he sings for our band,” Eric Halvorsen said and I looked at him questioningly.

“Oh! I didn’t know that Eric, that’s really cool,” I said and he gave me a horrified look that I really didn’t understand in the least.

“Halvo, just call me Halvo,” he said and I nodded, liking the way the nickname fit the brown haired weasel-y sort of boy.

“So how are classes going for you. I hear you take senior AP English,” Nick said, rolling his eyes slightly over Halvo’s reaction to being called by his actual name.

“It’s going well and yeah, actually we have to read a book and write a report on it. Just assigned today,” I murmured and finally it seemed that John had something he wanted to say.

“Wow, here I was thinking you weren’t paying attention at all in that class, but it seems you listened at least a little bit,” I was going to retort but I remembered the daisies and it slowed my mind enough that I thought through my reaction and remembered Matt’s advice which I decided I would follow. I just ignored that John had said anything.

“What book are you going to do it on,” Nick asked, catching my drift and pretending not to have heard John either.

“There’s a list of them, but I’m going to go with 1984 by George Orwell,” I said and John scoffed, which I tried to ignore, but then he followed it by speaking.

“That may be a little difficult for you, analyzing a book like that takes skill,” he said and everyone was watching me, seeing how I’d react, but I still ignored him, trying to pretend he didn’t exist and wasn’t an infuriating little dick.

Oh, I’ve read that before, it’s a good book, definitely interesting. Dakota told me you got a dog” Nick said, trying his best to make up for his friend’s dickish behavior and also steer away from books.

“Yeah! I got a gold retriever puppy, she’s really sweet and enjoys sleeping in my bed at night next to me. I named her Daisy,” I said and Nick nodded, showing he’d probably already been told as much but needed a subject change so he’d grasped at something.

“Why’d you choose Daisy as a name?” Nick asked, with genuine curiosity now, meaning he, and consequently my cousin didn’t know why I’d chosen that name.

“Daisies are my favorite flowers and I just sort of liked that name for her,” I said and John stayed surprisingly quiet, but I just ignored it, assuming he’d run out of venom for me.

“Why do you like daisies?” John said, and I turned to look at him because his face had changed, he seemed like he was seeing a ghost but wasn’t particularly scared.

“They remind me of slightly cloudy days, the center being the sun and the petals being the white clouds,” I said without thinking it through, realizing a little late that my answer was similar to the one I’d given as a kid and John was just looking confused now. He was staring intently like he was trying to analyze my face so I took the opportunity to do the same to him and I realized that while I looked very different from when I was kid, John wasn’t different enough that I should’ve missed that it was the same boy I knew before.

“Dakota, did you visit the house yesterday? It was the anniversary” John asked my cousin, still looking at me. I had to look away at this point, I knew what he was referring to and it brought my mind back to the bouquet.

“No.. I forgot. Shit, I can’t believe I didn’t remember…” Dakota said and she looked at me and I shook my head slightly, telling her that trying to apologize to me would be suspicious. I saw her recalculating, inventing a reason why she would’ve been looking to me, “Did you go Andy? I’m sure you miss cousin Alexandra,” she said, wincing, knowing I wouldn’t want to talk about this.

“I did actually go… There were flowers there,” I said trying to shake off my discomfort, but I was forced to look at Dakota so as to avoid looking at John which meant I had to see the guilt and apology there.
“So you left flowers Jahwno?” Dakota said, trying to tease him and lighten the mood, which seemed to work as the other guys at the table chuckled at the way she pronounced John’s name.

“Yeah, what of it?” John snapped and I frowned, wondering why exactly he thought snapping at my cousin was a suitable reaction.

“Don’t be pissy Jahwny, I was just enquiring. Not poking fun,” DJ said and I braved looking at John, only to see he was looking down slightly and was lookings troubled.

“You’re being pretty easy about all of this considering what the anniversary was of. Do you not care?” John asked and I knew instantly it was the wrong thing to do. Dakota went from calm to angry in a second flat.

“Are you joking me? Do I care that my aunt and uncle are gone? Yes, I do John. But it’s been eight years and it’s hard to be sad forever,” Dakota said, glaring daggers at John.

“Your aunt and uncle aren’t the only ones gone. So is your cousin, and they didn’t even find her body. You spent your childhood with her, I thought you’d give a lot more of a shit about it,” John said, not intimidated in the least by my irate cousin. Now this was just uncomfortable. Of course Dakota wouldn’t feel as bad because she was in the know, unlike John.

“You spent your childhood with her too, but when the news speculated she had started the fire, you hopped right on that bandwagon. You believed that my cousin would at the age of eight burn her house to the ground with her parents inside,” Dakota almost shouted now and more of the lunchroom was paying attention than just our table. And at that point I felt tears prickling at the backs of my eyes because I hadn’t ever heard that the news had said that. How could they think…

“There was no natural source for the fire so they ruled it arson! And no one found her and she wasn’t with anyone at the time so why not! She could have!” John shouted and now I knew I was crying. Fuck this, fuck this all to hell because I couldn’t sit here and listen to this. Before Dakota could even speak I let out a derisive laugh.

“Go to hell,” I said in a stupidly wavering voice, knowing my face would reflect more hurt than anger. And with that I got up and left the lunch room quickly, hearing everyone at the table arguing in my wake, with the exception of Dakota who I glanced to see was staring at my back with the most sympathy I’d ever seen in a human expression.

Before I knew what I was doing I was outside of the school, dialing my aunt on the phone quickly, feeling relieved when she answered.

“Aunt Amy? I need you to call the school and check me out. I can’t stay… I’ll explain when I get home,” I said and hoped she’d understand.

“Slow down, Andrea, what’s wrong, are you crying?” she asked and I sniffed a little, wiping off my face carelessly.

“They thought I did it, the news thought I burnt the house down with my parents inside. They think-” I broke down, not being able to stay calm anymore filling the words in in my head ‘they think I killed my parents’. I slid down the wall of the outside of the school and cried, the phone still held to my ear.

“Andrea, it’s okay, people were stupid. And no one could explain to the contrary. Don’t worry, I’ll call the office and I’ll come and pick you up, you shouldn’t be biking right now, so we’ll throw it in the car. Okay?” I couldn’t say anything because I still didn’t trust my voice to work, “Okay? Andrea? I need you to answer,” she said and managed to choke out an okay. The phone clicked and I set it on the ground and curled in on myself where I was sitting.

I heard the doors to the school open to my right but I tried to ignore it and hide my face. There was a little sound that was someone clearing their throat and I looked up to see the blonde haired Jared Monaco looking at me like I would kill him or possibly cry more. Regardless I tried to calm down a little so he would feel able to talk.

“Um, they nominated me to check on you..” he said and I could tell he felt awkward but he also seemed to be empathetic which I supposed was the reason they’d chosen him to check on me.

“It’s fine Jared, um tell them I’m fine, but can you let Dakota know discretely that I’m going home for the day when you get the chance?” I asked, his face making me trust him not to go tell everyone that I was leaving.

“I’m sorry about your cousin. And I’m sorry John doesn’t always think,” Jared said and I nodded thinking that it wasn’t his responsibility to apologize for his friend’s action before he walked back inside. I just waited where I was with my head down until I heard a car pull up into the carpool loop and then heard my Aunt saying my name quietly.

“Help me get your bike in the car and we can go?” She asked softly and I got up, unlocking my bike from the stand and pushing inside the back seat area before I climbed into the passenger seat.

“Can we stop to get flowers and bring them to my house?” I asked, looking at her and wondering how she’d forgotten.

“Yes, I was going to do it yesterday, but I didn’t want to bring up bad memories on your first day of school,” she said and gave her a weak smile. And of course my aunt hadn’t forgot, she’d put aside her own sadness so as to make me happy and I leaned to my side to hug her.

“Thank you,” I said as we drove to the grocery store where we could get flowers. Once we’d arrived we went the makeshift florist booth and I looked at the different flowers, my aunt quickly picked a bouquet of lilies that she knew was her sister’s favorite flowers but I took a while longer looking around until I found a bouquet with penstemons, golden columbines, pink rain lilies, and Mexican petunias, smiling at it.

“I recognize all of those, your mom used to grow them in your garden, didn’t she?” Aunt Amy said and I nodded, as she paid for the two bouquets.