Love and Leftovers Read online

  at Katie’s when we were studying.

  I didn’t plan on reading it,

  but I couldn’t help myself.”

  The Cry of a Thousand Years

  Somewhere inside me

  the dammed-up storm

  of missing Linus

  and not knowing if he liked me

  enough to touch me

  of kissing J.D.

  and leaving him in New Hampshire

  like an unwanted puppy

  of losing Katie

  and wondering if we’d ever be friends again

  of wanting back

  what I had to begin with: Linus

  begins to overflow,

  and tears streak down my cheeks.

  I stand up, fling myself into his arms.

  He cups one hand over my head,

  and pulls me to his shoulder,

  shushing me with quiet lullabies

  as we sway to the motion of the bus.

  Even Though It’s Not Our Stop

  Linus takes my hand,

  leads me down the aisle,

  down the steps.

  The bus rolls away,

  leaving us in the privacy

  of a dark winter morning.

  “People were staring,”

  he explains, handing me

  my notebook.

  I take it from him,

  fold it

  in my arms

  over my beating heart—

  as if

  to shield myself

  with the one thing

  that made me

  most

  vulnerable.

  Question

  “You didn’t happen to skip

  the one about

  me holding you close

  under the covers

  with only

  a condom

  between us?”

  Linus smiles

  and says

  he wouldn’t have

  missed it for the world.

  And that he read that one

  twice.

  Rebellion

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  “The next bus is coming.”

  I nod in the direction

  of a bus stopped at a light.

  “We can take that.”

  “Not to school,” he explains.

  A thrill shoots though me

  as we join hands

  and

  take

  off

  running

  toward

  downtown.

  Three Choices

  Crying and running gave me the hiccups

  so I am a snotty hiccupping mess

  when Linus sits me on a couch in a coffee shop.

  He hands me a napkin

  and says, “I’ll be right back.”

  But eight a.m. is coffee rush hour

  and the line snakes from the counter to the door.

  Alone in the crowd,

  I smooth my fingers over my notebook’s cover,

  over the lopsided loops of wire that hold it together,

  over the ballpoint-pen ripples on the inside pages.

  Slowly, it sinks in.

  That Linus read my notebook.

  Like an annoying little brother.

  Or a parent convinced their child

  is having sex or smoking pot.

  My primitive monkey brain

  wants to hit him upside the head,

  shout at the top of my lungs,

  “You had no right!”

  My logical analytical brain

  reasons that reading a notebook

  isn’t nearly as bad as

  kissing J.D. without my shirt on.

  My infatuated insistent heart

  and my kiss-happy lips

  want me to run up behind Linus,

  put my arms around his waist,

  and squeeze.

  So I do.

  Over Coffee and a Cranberry Scone

  “Does this mean you forgive me?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Linus says, leaning closer.

  “How come?”

  “Because I understand how you felt.”

  “Yeah, thanks to reading my diary.”

  “Sorry.”

  “But aren’t you and Emily an item?”

  “Em thinks I’m a saint.”

  “Linus, you are a saint.”

  “That’s just it, I’m not,” he says.

  “Every time I see Em,

  I want to hold her tight.

  But she freezes like

  a cardboard cutout of Marilyn Monroe

  every time I try.”

  “That’s sad,” I say. “Poor Em.”

  “So I think I understand,

  how you felt, a million miles away

  without someone to hug you.”

  Calculated

  “It wasn’t easy, forgiving you, I mean,” Linus says.

  “I guess I never got a chance to tell you

  how angry I felt—

  how betrayed.

  I couldn’t quite believe

  you chose to be honest

  after so many months of deceit.

  I tried to calculate

  when you might have fallen

  away from me

  and for J.D.

  I tried to calculate

  the duration of your lies,

  figuring that

  the longer you lied,

  the worse I’d punish you—

  the more my lyrics’ whip would sting.

  But after I did it,

  after you swore at me

  and ran from the auditorium,

  it occurred to me—

  I no longer wanted to hurt you.

  I wanted you back.”

  Wishing Well

  After coffee and breakfast have warmed us up

  we head out into the blue-gray morning,

  lit by strings of leftover Christmas lights.

  Linus puts his arm around me

  as we cross the street.

  He directs my steps to the frosted-over fountain—

  the water resembling a blue raspberry slushy.

  From his pocket, Linus pulls two pennies—

  handing me one. Warm in my palm.

  Together we toss

  our pennies in,

  wishing, maybe,

  for the very same thing.

  “My Life Has Been a Hurricane”

  I tell Linus as we wait for the light on Front to change.

  “Not only did I let it whoosh me

  from one side of the country to another,

  I let it sweep away my conscience,

  turning me into a tropical storm, too.

  I darted here and there

  without a care in the world—

  hurting people, messing up their lives.

  All the while, I blamed it on the hurricane,

  not myself.

  I thought it was your fault

  because you didn’t touch me.

  I thought it was Dad’s fault

  because he wrecked our family.

  I thought it was Mom’s fault

  because she slept all day.

  I thought it was Katie’s fault

  because she chose the Leftovers over me.

  I couldn’t see through the wind and rain and tears.

  I couldn’t see you loved me

  because I was in New Hampshire

  and you were here.

  I couldn’t see that Dad was all alone

  in his marriage without anyone to talk to.

  I couldn’t see that Mom needed meds

  just to set her earth back on its axis.

  I couldn’t see that I was a horrible best friend

  who demanded unconditional love in return.

  I had become the hurricane,

  leaving broken hearts,

  disappointed parents,

  and torn friendships

  in my wake.”<
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  Skipping School Never Sounded So Good

  In Julia Davis Park,

  Linus sings to me from the band-shell stage,

  using his fist like a microphone,

  my heart thump-thumping the beat:

  I want to tell you just one thing

  You closed me out, I want back in

  Give me a chance, give me a spin

  Don’t turn your back, don’t walk away

  It’ll just take a minute to say

  I think about you every day

  I love you, girl, I’m not gay

  I didn’t love you right, let me try again

  You said you wanted real passion

  I can give it to you, darlin’

  Don’t turn your back, don’t walk away

  It’ll just take a minute to say

  I think about you every day

  I love you, girl, I’m not gay

  Take me back, make me sing

  I can give it to you, darlin’

  I can give it to you, darlin’

  I’m his adoring crowd of one,

  who giggles uncontrollably

  then smothers his little-boy face with kisses.

  Skipping Stones

  Linus races me to the riverbank,

  and I win.

  “You’re in good shape,” he says, gasping.

  “It’s just a bad habit I picked up,” I tell him.

  “I can run three miles.”

  Linus says, “That’s cool,”

  picking up a flat, gray stone and whipping it

  so it skips across the water’s surface.

  “Running helped me deal with things . . .”

  I tell him, letting my voice trail off

  like the stones plunk, plunk, plunking.

  “And I just wrote Dr. Seuss breakup songs,

  but you know about those.”

  Tunnel of Love

  At the playground,

  we play hide-and-seek,

  ducking under too-small gazebos

  slip-sliding on icy metal platforms

  leaping handrails to get away

  chasing each other up slides and down again

  while static electricity stands our hair on end.

  I tag his sneaker.

  (As if I couldn’t see those telltale All Stars

  sticking out from the end of the red tunnel.)

  Rather than scooting out and chasing after me,

  he curls one finger in my direction,

  calling me closer.

  On all fours,

  I crawl over him

  in slow motion

  until my hands are planted at his shoulders,

  my knees at his hips.

  He smiles up at me, in a toying boyish way

  and then pulls me into a head-to-toe embrace.

  My body presses against his—

  jeans, keys, pockets, parkas

  all in between—

  yet not there at all.

  In the Library!

  “I’m frozen,” Linus whispers.

  Together we decide the library

  would be a warm place to hide.

  We sneak up the stairs

  and tiptoe deep into the stacks.

  Lub dub | lub dub

  I take his guitar-calloused hands

  and cozy them under my sweater

  against my beating heart.

  Lub dub | lub dub

  His fingers spread

  to span the geography of my body,

  ice cubes melting

  against moist sweat.

  Lub dub | lub dub

  “I can feel your heartbeat.”

  “I can hear it,” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s been talking about you.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Love dub | love dub.”

  At Zeppole

  We only have $4.62 between us,

  so we share a bowl of soup

  and a plate of all-you-can-eat bread.

  Linus says he can’t miss that history test seventh period,

  and although he claims he isn’t a saint,

  he isn’t about to mess up his A average.

  At the office,

  I explain that my alarm clock never went off

  and I missed the bus, but Linus has his

  license and keys to his brother’s car.

  And if she didn’t mind,

  the secretary could call my dad’s boyfriend,

  Danny, and he’d explain everything

  even though he couldn’t write me a note,

  being that he isn’t my legal guardian or anything.

  Somehow that

  gets us back into school.

  In Both of My Classes

  my teachers sound like

  the one in the Peanuts cartoons,

  talking gibberish.

  Because all I can hear

  all afternoon

  is my heartbeat

  thumping out its new mantra

  Love dub | love dub

  Love dub | love dub

  Love dub | love dub

  After the Last Bell

  Linus stops

  by my locker.

  I notice that he doesn’t

  kiss, touch, or hug me.

  I hope he hasn’t

  changed his mind.

  “I’ve got to tell Emily,” Linus says.

  “Before this hits the fan.”

  And I realize he’s doing

  what I should have done

  the day J.D. kissed me:

  tell the truth

  before it grew stale.

  Walking Daydreams

  I am so happy giddy giddy

  I smile at the blue blue sky

  and practically skip.

  I wish Katie was here

  so I could kiss and tell,

  gossip about love and fairy tales.

  I tell the trees, the squirrels,

  the fence posts, the mailbox,

  “I’m in love. He loves me.”

  “I can’t quite believe it!

  We skipped school to fall in love.

  I kissed Linus and he kissed me.”

  “He’s telling Emily

  he’d rather just be friends.

  He’s in love. He loves me.”

  And she’ll admit she liked him

  and how he respected her, but

  that wasn’t love and she understood.

  Or maybe she’ll say she loved him

  and wanted to hold him tight, but

  forgot how to do it. Could he show her?

  Maybe he’ll wrap his arms around her,

  feel her curves under her sweater,

  and ask, “Can I spend forever here?”

  I skid to a stop.

  What? Huh?

  This is my daydream

  my Cinderella story

  my first time falling in love.

  He can’t possibly go running off

  with the prettiest girl in school

  instead of me!

  Can he?

  Worries

  I try to do my math homework

  but end up writing proofs as if they were poetry.

  I try to analyze King Lear

  but end up writing my paper in poems.

  I try to work on my biology project

  but I end up with poems in my PowerPoint presentation.

  Danny asks me, “What’s wrong?”

  and I tell him that Linus and I skipped school.

  “And you’re worried about what your dad will think?”

  “No. I’m worried

  that Linus might not love me

  after all—

  that maybe I was just a quick fix.

  A hug and a kiss to tide him over

  until cardboard cutout Emily