Julie Halpern - The F- It List

“Your black coffee.” I delivered the cup in front of Leo, drawing his attention back inside. I shook off my coat but left on my gloves, fingerless ones that converted into mittens.

“Thanks,” Leo offered flatly, and poured a heaping amount of sugar into his cup.

I felt like I was supposed to talk. But what about? The easiest segue into conversation was Dead of Winter Con, so I took it.

“How was Reanimator?”

“The same as it always is.” Leo didn’t look at me when he answered.

He stirred his coffee. I blew on mine. An imaginary clock ticked loudly in my brain.

“Why are we here?” I broke the silence. He managed to look at me. I wanted to drown in his green eyes, until he said, “Fuck if I know. Brian made me text you last night.”

“He made you? Like, held a gun to your head and threatened your firstborn?”

Leo stared at me drolly. “This was your idea. Total mistake.” He abruptly pushed his chair back but didn’t stand.

“I don’t feel like it is,” I told him.

“What do you feel, Alex?”

Shit. Was this the moment where I was supposed to excrete emotions? Was that the only way to make this thing right?

“Do you still love me?” I asked.

Wrong question.

“Seriously. Seriously? You are royally fucked up, Alex.”

“Oh, is that why you asked me here? To be a total dick and tell me shitty things about myself? Because I don’t need you for that. Perfectly capable of self-loathing on my own, thank you.”

We stared at each other through squinted eyes. If we were bulls, steam would have come snorting out of our noses.

“Why did you ask me here? And don’t tell me because Brian made you.”

“I don’t know. It’s been a shitty few months, and as much as I hated running into you yesterday you looked really cute with that viscera hanging off your head.”

And… melt.

I tried not to smile at the compliment, but it was impossible not to. “That’s a good word. Viscera.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. We watched each other, silent again, less snorty. “I need more than cute viscera, though.” He sipped his coffee.

“Like what?” I asked, stumped.

“I’m not going to feed you your lines, Alex.” I still didn’t know what to say. He waited. “So that’s it, then?” he questioned.

Part of me had hoped that everything that happened, or didn’t happen, in the last few months could be erased. Forgotten. What good would it do to rehash all of the shit?

I’m the idiot who asked if he still loved me. And I’m also the idiot who decided to say, “I got a new print of Children of the Corn if you want to watch it.”

“Maybe.” He didn’t look quite as mad anymore, just disappointed. Which was much worse.

I stood up and walked over to his chair. We were about the same height when he sat and I stood, and I pulled off his hat to run my fingers over his hair. It had worked for me in the past when words failed me, as they often did. I leaned in and stole a kiss, then backed away to gauge his reaction. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward him, his other hand cupping my neck as he kissed me back. The warmth rushed from my lips to my toes, and for a minute all was forgiven.

Until he pushed me away and snatched back his hat. “Damnit, Alex.” He wiped his lips off with the top of his hand. “I gotta go.” He crushed his hat back on his head and shoved his way out the door, leaving his large coffee behind.

I slunk back to my chair and sipped my mocha. When I was done, I forced myself to drink the rest of Leo’s coffee, too. The bitter taste filled my mouth and coated my stomach. I imagined it was poison, a concoction that would eat away at my tongue, my teeth, my esophagus, rendering me physically speechless. A fitting end to someone who never said the right thing.

BECCA STAYED HOME from school much of the next week. The radiation made her throat incredibly sore, to the point where swallowing hurt. Her mom wouldn’t let me come over, telling me I made Becca laugh too much and that would just hurt her throat more. I sent Becca a link to Ordinary People, the saddest movie ever made, with the note, “I hope you never laugh again.”

She wrote me back that Caleb had come to her rescue with homemade hard candies.

Right. Hard candies. I know what you mean.

Perv.

Takes one to know one.

It was hard to communicate with Becca about Leo through typing only. She was stuck on the positive of “At least he wanted to see you. And he kissed you!”

“And then he stopped kissing me. Is there anything more mortifying than a guy not wanting to kiss you back?”

“Try not being able to kiss a guy because you have puke breath twenty-four, seven.”

That shut me up. My problems still weren’t real problems next to Becca’s.

I drowned my sorrow and guilt in Ben and Jerry’s and horror movies. Friday night, my mom asked if I would watch the twins so she could play mahjong with some friends.

“I know they’re old enough to be alone, but I’d feel better if you were home with them. Please don’t drive anywhere.” Mom had chilled a lot with her tension over driving, except at the thought of her three children being alone in a car together. She never said, but I knew what she thought; if we were all driving together, we could all die together, too. I told her we’d stay home, order pizza, watch some movies.

“Nothing too scary,” Mom requested. “CJ wouldn’t want you to know, but he’s been having nightmares lately.”

For being such a turd, CJ sure was sensitive.

I suggested we watch Dead Set with our pizza. “You know how you always ask me why I dress like this everyday? Well, now you’ll know. Plus, you love reality TV.”

“Sounds cool,” AJ agreed.

CJ wasn’t so convinced. “Is it scary?”

“No. It’s fake. Do you believe in zombies?”

“Not really. I mean, no.” CJ played it cool.

“The show is about a group of idiots on a reality show where they all have to live together in the same house. We get to watch behind the scenes, too, which is where my character is. Then, outside the house, where they’re totally locked in, the world is overrun with zombies. And they have to figure out what to do. It’s genius. Way more gross than scary. You love gross, CJ. Remember that mole rat that was eating its own baby at the zoo? It’s practically the same thing.”

CJ was lightly convinced by the mole rat, and we started the marathon. All was well for the first hour. But then things took a turn for the worse, and not just for the characters turning into the living dead.

“Can we turn it off?” I hadn’t noticed that CJ was squinting his eyes in an effort not to see the screen. I paused, unintentionally on a screen shot of someone getting their eyeball eaten.

“Just turn it off!” CJ yelled. I complied. This wasn’t normal CJ behavior. Tears formed at the corners of his closed eyes.

“It’s off. What’s wrong? It’s not real,” I told him.

“But it was real! People die! And they look gross! Dad looked gross!” CJ began full-on sobbing.

I didn’t know what to do. Not that I ever did, but it was paralyzing seeing my normally brash and annoying tween brother turn into a blubbering little kid. Then things got even worse. AJ began crying, too.

“What’s going on?” I panicked.

“Don’t you ever think about him, Alex? Don’t you miss him?”

Dad. I rarely heard them talk about Dad, not in a way that expressed any sadness.

“Of course I do,” I admitted.

“Then how come you never talk about him?” CJ sniffed.

“What do you want me to say? Remember when Dad got mangled in a taxi?”

Wrong again. CJ exploded like a four-year-old who lost his blankey.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I fumbled. “I do miss him. I loved him so much. He was my dad. Our dad. He was funny. And smart. And he listened and taught us things and now he’ll never be here to teach us anything else. Like how to make my gigantic brothers feel better when they’re crying next to me on the couch.” I pressed back my own tears, until AJ started laughing.

“We’re not gigantic,” he snuffled.

Somehow that made more tears escape from my eyes. “To me you are. You sure you guys weren’t adopted?” I joked.

“You’re the death-loving weirdo,” CJ noted.

“I don’t love death,” I defended myself.

“Then why do you watch this stuff?” He waved his hand at the blackened television.

“Because it’s not death. It’s ridiculous. It’s fake and it’s controlled and it’s hilarious and girls like me can kick zombie ass, that’s why. Because in the movies, I could stop Dad from getting in a cab and turning into shrapnel.”

AJ and CJ just looked at me. I didn’t know if they got the full impact of my confession, that even making a confession was one of the hardest things I could do.

“What’s shrapnel?” CJ asked.

“Never mind. That’s not important.” I rubbed my eyes. “You guys want to watch something else?”

“We never got to watch this week’s Wipeout,” AJ hinted.

“Big balls it is.” I switched on Wipeout, and my heart warmed at the sight and sound of my brothers laughing at others’ stupidity.

It wasn’t a direct lesson from my dad, and it was about the most sour lemonade I could have made out of lemons, but his death forced me to have a real talk with my brothers for maybe the first time ever. And for the first time in forever, some of my guilt finally lifted.

That night, my mom home, the twins in bed, I sent a text to Leo.

I want to say I’m sorry, but I don’t know how.

Those words, “I’m sorry,” felt so contrived to me for so long and yet I knew they were important. What Leo did with them was up to him.

SNOW FELL STEADILY on my way to work Saturday, and I gripped the steering wheel to the point of hand cramps. Drivers ed never prepared me for skidding sideways uncontrollably until my possessed car decided to stop inches from a stop sign. Not to mention how other people drove like complete assholes. I don’t know how many times I yelled into my rearview mirror, “Two car lengths, dickwad!” There were very few things I feared, and driving in snow was one of them. My mom claimed it would get better with practice, but since it didn’t snow year-round, how could I ever stay on top of it? I’d either have to move to Antarctica to have snow all the time or the equator to never have it. But I liked the seasons.

I arrived at work shaking and dripping in sweat.

“Did you run here?” asked Ila. She wore fingerless gloves, as the front counter received a lot of the draft from the opening door.

I peeled my scarf away from my neck and shivered at the newly exposed wetness. “Snowshoed, actually.” I hung my jacket up in the back room and pulled my grungy work t-shirt out of my schoolbag. Before I re-smoothed my hair into a low ponytail and tucked a towel into my waistband, I checked my phone. No reply from Leo. Using Becca’s positive thinking, I told myself he probably slept in. Using my usual apocalyptic brand of thinking, I guessed he barfed on the word “sorry” and had his phone number changed.

Since it was only 10:00 a.m., the lunch rush was still to come, although on a snowy day there could either be a ton of people who didn’t want to cook or just a trickle of customers. Enough people lived within walking distance, and walking around in the snow was a lot easier than driving. I passed the time by refilling the mayo and mustard squeeze bottles, restocking cheese, and arguing with Doug about the greatest sequels of all time.

“Aside from the obvious Evil Dead and Basket Case, I think A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 was really good,” I said.

“I haven’t even seen that. I’m sure it sucks. Commercial crap.”

“Aren’t we all pretentious, Mr. College Student? You can’t judge a movie you haven’t seen. We’re talking teens in a mental hospital. At one point, Freddy pulls out some kid’s tendons and works him like a marionette. Brilliant.”

I was so busy making my obviously winning point that it took me a few minutes to notice Leo watching me on the other side of the counter. He wore a gray winter hat this time with his black winter coat. Not that I noticed. His cheeks were red from where the falling snow burned them.

“You know nothing,” I told Doug as I budged past him toward Leo. “Hey,” I greeted him, hopefulness practically exploding off my face.

“Hey.” He leaned on the counter, as was his usual position here. It had been so long, though, did he actually have a usual position?