The Van Pact

31: Stevie

 I caught a ride with Carla and Jan to early morning band on Monday. Valerie bounced around the band room, from one group of friends to another. She didn't talk to Jesse, and she didn't even look at me. While Mr. Lang struggled to take attendance, I sat with my trombone and felt alone, for the first time since I moved to Linden Valley. Jesse slid into the seat in front of me, his usual spot, beside the rest of the percussion section. We made eye contact. He smiled, but before I could even register that, he had turned his head and chatted endlessly with Shane Hernandez.

"The Green Mile is for sure a horror film," Shane insisted, "Have you ever considered complete immortality? If that's not horrifying, I don't know what is-"

"Natalia is more horrifying than that," Jesse said, "you're whipped, my friend."

"Natalia is a model."

"With a borderline personality."

"Yeah, grow some facial hair and come talk to me about women."

It was the same sort of conversation I would have eavesdropped on during summer band. It felt as if the past month hadn't happened, and Jesse and I hadn't become friends. Love is a weird thing. When you think you've found it in someone, you build something nice and shiny with them, a cozy mutual sympathy. And then, when love fails to materialize in that someone's heart, there goes that nice and shiny mutual sympathy-which would have lasted much longer, had it only been created in the pursuit of an end lesser than love: friendship, company, entertainment. Love destroys as much as it creates.

***

"It's been five weeks since we started talking," Ms. Gabel clasped her hands together over her desk. "I think now would be a good time to reflect. Discuss how helpful you feel our meetings have been."

I couldn't say that I thought they were absolute bullshit. Ms. Gabel was so very keen on discussing things.

"Great," I said, and tried to smile, "very helpful."

Ms. Gabel balled her fist and pressed it below the tip of her nose, over her nostrils and lips and chin.

"I'm not convinced, Stevie," she said.

Imagine my shock.

"No really," I attempted to smile again, this time with teeth. "It's been so helpful."

"Please stop grimacing at me," Ms. Gabel waved her unballed fingers over her mouth "That thing you're doing with your teeth there. Don't."

"I wasn't grimacing-" I noticed a sun-faded Garfield plush on her windowsill.

"I'm going to be honest with you," she said, and my gaze darted back to her face. "A little birdie told me your relationship with Valerie has deteriorated."

How did? I tried to say something, but Ms. Gabel answered my unasked question.

"Mr. Webb," she said. "The birdie was Mr. Webb. He tells me you don't talk to each other in class anymore."

That's it. Mr. Webb had reached official nemesis status. I was glad we stole his skeleton and dealt a death-blow to his motivation. The man belongs nowhere near a classroom. I wondered if he had approached Ms. Gabel for psychological counsel. What else would give those two an occasion to speak? I could see him in the same chair in which I sat, his elbows on her desktop: I can't even, Ms. Gabel, I thought teaching would be YAS QUEEN lit fam, but it's ratchet AF. Like crying face emoji, I caught feels. Am literally shaking.

"What's particularly concerning about this," Ms. Gabel said, "is that you were sent to me about your grief related to Valerie's diagnosis. Fibromyalgia is a very treatable condition, though I understand it can be scary-"

I wanted to knock the 'I Hate Mondays' coffee cup off Ms. Gabel's stupid desk.

"Valerie and I are fine."

"You shouldn't let your grief sabotage the relationship," Ms. Gabel didn't believe me. "You have to catch yourself when fall into self-destructive behavior and actively choose healthy alternatives." She took a pamphlet from her top desk drawer and handed it to me. "Read this." The title was SELF Care or SELF Sabotage? Know ThySELF! It had a cartoon Shakespeare on the cover.

There was no conceivable way I was going to read that. I think Ms. Gabel could tell, because she pinched her temple.

"Fine, I'll cut the shit," she said, and startled me. "It's only going to get harder for you to make friends, Stevie. You need to hold onto the ones you have now."

This didn't sound like therapist mumbo-jumbo.

"Because one day, you'll wake up and be thirty-four, and all your sorority sisters will be unavailable all the time because they have to take care of the babies you're not going to be able to have because there aren't any good men left, and you can't afford a quality sperm donor," Ms. Gabel set her rectangular glasses on her desk and rubbed her eyes. Her mascara smudged on her brow bone.

"Are you alright, Ms. Gabel?" This was obviously a rhetorical question, because Ms. Gabel continued:

"And nobody will want to see John Mulaney at the casino with you, because it's 'smoky' in there," she made finger quotes as she spoke, "and they're 'not comfortable with you trying to hook up with celebrities' and 'he's a married man.' I mean, Jesus Christ, it was a joke. Unless they had a better idea as to where to find an employed, clean-" Ms. Gabel dropped her hands to her lap. She blinked when she noticed the horror on my face.

"Look, all I'm saying is keep your friends. It's uphill from here."

***

Calculus was average. We have our own desks, and our seats are assigned alphabetically. Valerie's sits halfway across the room from me. There was no chance to make it awkward. As for Anatomy? Valerie and I shared a lab table on the first class, and that has since become our assigned seats. To make matters worse, Mr. Webb decided today was a good day to start teaching again after a week of moping around watching YouTube. And not only were we going to have an actual lesson, but a lab. And not a mere lab, but an in-depth frog dissection. Valerie had to be my partner. To say I was nervous would be an understatement. I figured she'd shoot me dagger eyes or make sharp comments, or not talk to me the entire time.

What actually happened was worse than I could have imagined. She was nice, in the way she's nice to people she doesn't know. She made a couple of flat jokes when she accidentally cracked one of the frog's vertebrae. She smiled when she asked for a colored pencil from the box on my side of the table. And then, after we had turned in our preliminary lab report, she made no attempt at any conversation, not even small talk.

I rode the bus home and felt like a freshman.

Except it's nearly the middle of October. By now, the freshmen have friends.

***

A/N: Happy Tuesday! Thanks for commenting, voting, and reading! Next update Friday!