Solving for Ex

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

no hope of a cure

That next Saturday morning at Pamela’s, Brendan had missed half my jokes, and had started at least two conversations completely out of the blue by telling me about some dumb-shit thing Sofia had said.

I swore “Sofia” was sounding more and more like a curse word every day.

My rational brain tried to convince me that my sinking back into depression was due to the lack of sunshine over the past couple weeks. But I knew it was more than that.  I’d lost my only friend at Mansfield, and all I wanted to do was skip school in favor of hiding under my covers every single day.

The need to sleep, sleep, and sleep some more wasn’t a good sign, and every time I took an extra Xanax, it was even more painfully obvious.

After another infuriating Saturday morning breakfast with Brendan, I sat on the couch, staring into space, debating over which stupid movie to turn on for way too long. I even felt too down to do my math homework.

Kristin settled herself down next to me on the couch, and leaned back. “Doing okay?”

I let out a long breath, and tried to blow away some of the sadness with it. No dice. “Not the best. I’m having kind of a tough time.” I was grateful that Kristin knew me well enough to know exactly what that meant.

“Is this a meds thing, or a tough week thing?”

I smiled and made sure to look at her steadily when I answered. “Just a tough week thing.”  A few tough weeks, all horribly mashed together.

“Come with me to the mall, huh? Help me pick out something for Bruce’s birthday.”

I stared out into the empty living room, and into the already-darkening sky out the windows, and nodded slowly. “Okay. That might be good.”

She patted my knee. “Good girl.”

I nodded, holding back tears. I always appreciated the way Kristin knew what my coded language meant, and did what she could to help me out without pushing me too far. She was better at it than Mom, even. Not that Mom had had much of a chance to deal with the spiral of depression-fallout that had come from Kaylie Mitchell making my life a living hell at Williamson High.

The mall was bustling and crazy. The newly frigid air must have driven every giggling preteen and weekend-stir-crazy parent to the mall, because it was packed. I did a quick headcount in my immediate area, and multiplied it to fit the square footage of the mall’s first floor that had been posted at the entrance. A couple hundred more people, and this place would literally be over capacity.

The air inside was heavy with the grossness of so many people breathing the same air, and I could almost see the germs floating through it as people coughed and blew their noses. Disgusting. The only thing worse than feeling down would be staying home from school with a sinus cold.

I helped Kristin pick out a new case for Bruce’s e-reader and I got him a nice pair of gloves, since forecasters were predicting one of the coldest winters Pittsburgh had ever seen. Kristin ran into one of her friends, and gave me some cash to grab coffee for both of us, if I’d rather skip their chatting. I shot her a grateful look and headed toward the coffee shop.

On my way there, I passed one of the kiosks that seemed to explode with tacky merchandise for the entire three months before Christmas. It sold custom-printed shirts, bags, and hats—so cheesy. But one of the shirts caught my eye. Printed on it in bold letters was “Do Not Drink and Derive.” I pointed to it and said to the girl at the register, “That’s a good one.”

“What?” she said, looking up from her cell phone.

Of course she didn’t know what it meant. “How much for that shirt?”

“Twenty.”

I went to pull out a bill, until I realized that the last thing I needed was one more geeky math shirt. I could have probably made a quilt out of the stack of them that I usually wore as pajamas now.

But just as I was about to turn away, I remembered. Sadie Hawkins was two weeks away. Girls gave the guys they were asking a matching shirt to wear to the dance. Whenever I had thought about asking Brendan before, I’d started shaking and promptly forgotten about the idea. But this would be a great excuse. Hey, I found these shirts, I’d say. Now we have to go to Sadie. Because who else would understand them? And where else would we wear them? He’d laugh, and agree, even though he was always saying how stupid school dances were, and hadn’t even gone to prom last year—he’d hung out watching movies with me instead.

But this would definitely work.

“Do you have a small and a medium?”

I walked away with my ticket to a date with Brendan finally in my hot little hands.