“Yes,” I said. “Maybe it would.” I was trying to sort of half agree so we could maybe discuss something else.
“I’m serious,” she said. “You should read it.”
“I think I know all about it,” I said. I suddenly felt kind of impatient.
“How?”
“I read the back cover,” I said.
“Ha!”
I looked at her. “No—I did,” I said. “I read the back cover, like, fifty times. And my mom told me about it. She told me all about it a hundred times, trying to get me to read it. But I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
I’ve got to admit that this was hard for me. I mean, it was so much easier just walking around with Laura, thinking she was a beautiful goddess.
And she was; that was the problem.
Actually, for the first time it was sort of irritating that she was so incredibly pretty, because it sort of biased me against myself or something. I mean, it made me feel stupid for talking, and even starting to argue with her over a dumb book, because the last thing I wanted to do was make her think I was, like, critical of her in any way. And I will admit I was afraid that if I spoke the truth about what I felt she might not really like me anymore.
But I couldn’t stop.
I really felt impatient.
Super impatient.
To tell you the truth, I was actually getting a little bit mad at her, which was weird, because I’d never been mad at her before, and didn’t even think I ever could. But for some reason, her just loving this book really pissed me off, and I couldn’t help it.
Maybe it was because my mom had, like, applauded the book so much to me and I’d never argued with her or told her my true feelings about it.
But with Laura I just let it go.
I let it rip.
I said everything.
I couldn’t believe it.
“Yeah, I know what it’s about. It’s about this girl, right? And there’s this thing with her dad—she either hates her dad or loves him and all he does is sort of intimidate her or ignore her or something—and it has the part when she’s in boarding school and thinks all her teachers are morons, and when she dreams about being in the stupid box and can’t get the lid up, and it has the part that—”
“You haven’t even read it and you hate it,” Laura said.
“I don’t have to read it! I live it! With my mom. I’m sick of it! It’s a book that says life is horrible and meaningless, but that’s something she has a choice to feel or not, okay?”
I was sweating and felt out of breath. I swear, saying all that had been a workout for me. I mean, really, I didn’t know what had come over me.
And besides, I was getting this funny idea.
I was getting this funny idea that I would tell her something I’d done that she might think was stupid—something I’d never told anybody, but I’d tell her, because maybe it would make her shut up about the book.
Laura had stopped walking. She looked at the ground, then up ahead, then at me.
“Some people don’t have a choice,” she said, sort of quietly.
I was surprised. I mean her attitude surprised me, because usually she acted so hard as nails.
“What? To see everything as horrible and meaningless?”
“That’s right.”
I guess I was kind of mad. I’ll admit I was actually very mad at her. She’d really pissed me off. Because I’d kind of put her on a pedestal—and she hadn’t exactly prevented me, what with all the great stuff she told me about herself—and here she was sort of deliberately jumping off the pedestal, saying this depressing stuff, and that really bothered me.
I hardly knew what to think.
For a second I wanted to ask her a question. I wanted to ask, Do you see everything as horrible and meaningless? Do you believe that BS? I wanted to ask her all that, because it sort of seemed like what she was saying, without actually saying it.
But it didn’t seem possible to me.
She was perfect.
Was she unhappy? How in hell? The thought really scared me. Because, I mean, if she was unhappy with her life, how the hell should I feel?
I mean, I know it sounds ridiculous, but up to then, everything I knew about her life was great.
I could barely stand hearing her talk to me this way. I wanted to ask, Why? What possible reason could you have for—
Instead I said, “There’s a choice. There’s always a choice.”
“No, there isn’t,” she said. “Not for everybody. Because it’s like she said in the book. Some people can’t stand being themselves. The lid comes down. The lid—”
“Oh, to hell with the lid!” I said.
Boy, was I impatient.
I turned and stopped and looked at her. I must have looked crazy, because that idea I’d had was sort of buzzing around in my head, and it felt crazy. She even looked a little afraid of me.
“Do you want to hear something about somebody not standing being themselves? Something about me? Something I never told anybody? Do you want to hear it?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice still quiet. “I would.”
“You might think it’s stupid.”
“I won’t think it’s stupid.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Then I’ll tell you.”
We walked along the street, and we went up to my old elementary school, and telling her took the whole time, and it was almost dark by the time I was done.
And she didn’t say anything.
She didn’t interrupt me even once.
She just listened, and she didn’t even react at all when I was talking, but just sort of stared ahead and
