They never had noticed him all that much. Not after what happened.
In fact, maybe, secretly, they’d have some guilty happiness that it wasn’t Owen who had drowned. Maybe they’d be a little relieved that Seth was no longer a walking reminder of that summer before they moved. Maybe –
Seth sets down the empty can of spaghetti and wipes his mouth with his sleeve.
Then he wipes his eyes with his other sleeve.
But, he thinks, it’s possible to die before you die.
There’s no one walking through the park, no one in this world at all who can see him sitting on the edge of the sandbox, but he lowers his face down to his knees, as he can’t help but weep once more.
14
“I mean, for God’s sake, just look at them,” Monica said as they lay on a hill out of the sight line of their cross-country coach, watching the cheerleaders practice on the football field. “How can anyone’s boobs be that perky without surgery?”
“It’s the autumn chill in the air,” H said, ironically quoting something Mr. Edson, their English teacher, had said that morning. “Makes everything firm up.”
Monica slapped him upside the head.
“Ow!” H protested. “What’d you do that for? You’re the one who said to look at them!”
“I didn’t mean you.”
It was the second week of their senior year, early September. By mutual agreement, they’d taken a well-known shortcut on their running route, hiding in almost plain sight near the practice finish line, and giving themselves twenty minutes before they were expected back. Remarkably for this time of year, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, though the wind coming in off the ocean gave the air an extra snap.
Days like this you could almost call beautiful, Seth thought.
“The chill firms them up?” Gudmund asked H, stretching back on the grass incline. “Is that why you have a permanent boner all autumn?”
“All year more like it,” Monica mumbled.
“As long as you kids stay safe,” Gudmund said.
Monica gave him a look. “Like I’m going to have his baby.”
“Hey!” H said. “That’s not nice.”
“There they go again,” Seth said.
They all looked back over the field, and sure enough, Boswell High’s own blonde and brunette terrors were back at it. Though that wasn’t fair, Seth thought. Most of them were actually pretty nice. They all watched, though, as Chiara Leithauser, one of the less nice ones, left the pack and started walking back toward the main school building.
“Where’s she going?” Gudmund said.
“Forgot to give Principal Marshall his after-school hand job,” H sniggered.
“Oh, please,” Monica said. “Chiara’s serious about that chastity shit. Won’t even let Blake Woodrow put his hands on her bra.”
Gudmund shrugged. “Good for her.”
Monica laughed, but when he didn’t reply, she scanned his face closely. “You mean that, don’t you?”
Gudmund shrugged again. “At least she’s got principles. What’s wrong with that? Somebody’s got to counterbalance all us amoral types.”
“That’s what we can tell Coach Goodall when he catches us,” Seth said as they caught sight of the cross-country coach across the field, looking annoyed at his watch, wondering why his senior runners were quite so overdue from their first long training run.
“There’s nothing wrong with anyone having principles,” Monica said. “But there is something wrong with using them to beat four kinds of crap out of everybody else.”
“They’re only her opinions,” Gudmund said. “You don’t have to listen to them.”
Monica’s mouth opened to reply, and then it dropped open farther in amused astonishment. “You like her.”
Gudmund put on an ostentatiously innocent face.
“You do!” Monica nearly shouted. “Jesus, Gudmund, that’s like loving a concentration-camp guard!”
“I’m not saying I like her, don’t be stupid,” Gudmund said. “I’m just saying I could get her.”
Seth looked over at him.
“Get her?” H asked. “You mean like –” and he made a thrusting motion with his h*ps that caused a horrified silence. “What?” he said as they all stared at him.
Monica shook her head. “Not in a million years. It’s like she’s got a limited lifetime supply of fun, and she isn’t going to waste any of it on high school.”
“Those are the easiest ones to get,” Gudmund said. “All their morals are balanced way up high. One push knocks ’em right over.”
Monica shook her head again, smiling at him, like she always did. “The shit you talk.”
“You know what we should do?” H said, suddenly enthusiastic. “We should have like a bet, right? Where Gudmund has to sleep with Chiara Leithauser by like, spring break or something? ’Cause you could totally do it, bro. Show her where the wild things are.”
“From someone who can’t even find a map to the wild things,” Monica said.
“Hey!” H said to her, his voice low and aggrieved. “What did I say about telling them our business?”
Monica huffed and turned her back.
“What do you think, Sethy?” Gudmund said, trying to steer the moment away from an argument. “Think I should take that bet? Go for Chiara Leithauser?”
“What,” Seth said, “and then secretly find out she’s got a heart of gold and actually fall in love with her and then she dumps you when she finds out about the bet but you prove yourself to her by standing outside her house in the rain playing her your special song and on prom night you share a dance that reminds not just the school but the entire wounded world what love really means?”
He stopped because they were all looking at him.
“Damn, Seth,” Monica said admiringly. “‘The entire wounded world.’ I’m putting that in my next paper for Edson.”
Seth crossed his arms. “I’m just saying a bet over Gudmund ha**ng s*x with Chiara Leithauser sounds like some piece of shit teenage movie none of us would watch in a million years.”
“Truer words, never spoken,” Gudmund said, standing up from the grass. “She doesn’t deserve me, anyway.”
“You’re right,” Monica said. “Dating the best-looking, richest, and most popular guy in school must be punishment enough.”