Holding Up the Universe: List 1

If a genie popped out of my bedside lamp, I would wish for these three things: my mom to be alive, nothing bad or sad to ever happen again, and to be a member of the Martin Van Buren High School Damsels, the best drill team in the tristate area.

The only thing I had to worry about then was going to work, scavenging the local scrap yard, building (mind-blowing) projects in my workshop, and hanging out with my brothers.

Today, for the most part, I only see me—adorable navy dress, sneakers, medium-longish brown hair that my sweet but slightly demented grandmother once described as “the exact color of Highland cattle.”

I wait for my father to offer me sage words of advice or a stirring pep talk, but the most he comes up with is “You got this, Libbs. I’ll be here to pick you up when it’s over.”

And the way he says it sounds ominous, like we’re in the opening scene of a horror movie.

What if I accidentally tell someone off so that I become the Sassy Fat Girl?

What if I'm late to every class because I can't walk fast enough, and then I get detention, where I will meet the only boys who will pay attention to me—burnouts and delinquents—fall in love with one of them, get pregnant, drop out before I can graduate, and live with my dad for the rest of my life or at least until the baby is eighteen?

Which is why I join the crowd and let them carry me along until I’m waiting my turn at the entrance, opening my bag so that the guard can check it, walking through metal detectors, stepping into a long hallway that splinters off in all directions, bumped and jostled by elbows and arms.

I forge ahead. The great thing about my size is that I can clear a path.

In the passenger seat, Marcus sulks.

For one thing, Martin Van Buren High School has about two thousand students, so it is a place packed with commotion.

The way I see it, I’ve lost my mom, eaten myself nearly to death, been cut out of my house while the whole country watched, endured exercise regimes and diets and the nation’s disappointment, and I’ve received hate mail from total strangers.

I sit for thirty seconds, enjoying the solitude: 30. 29. 28. 27...

I superglue my eyes to her, but I can still see Mick in my peripheral vision.

The last time I saw them in person, Caroline was a homely eleven-year-old who wore the same Harry Potter scarf every day, no matter how hot it was.

Her other distinguishing factors were that she’d moved to Amos from Washington, DC, when she was in kindergarten, and she was self-conscious over her feet, which had these very long toes that curled like a parrot’s.

The waters are treacherous. And also fickle. This is the first thing I learned about high school. One minute you’re well liked, the next minute you’re an outcast.

The waters are treacherous. And also fickle. This is the first thing I learned about high school. One minute you’re well liked, the next minute you’re an outcast.

This guy runs to catch up with me. He’s about my height and stocky. His hair is brown and he’s wearing a nondescript shirt.

This guy runs to catch up with me. He’s about my height and stocky. His hair is brown and he’s wearing a nondescript shirt.

I decide to keep it generic while trying to sound as specific as possible.

I hear voices coming down the hall, loud and boisterous like a mob pillaging the countryside.

I hear voices coming down the hall, loud and boisterous like a mob pillaging the countryside.

One of them rams his shoulder into some poor kid slinking past and then tells the kid to watch where he’s going.

She wants to live in a world where the hot guy grabs the girl and just plants one on her because he’s so overcome with desire and love that he’s rendered brainless.

I am looking at the faces of everyone passing by and wondering what secrets they’re keeping, when someone slams into me, a square-headed boy with a big, ruddy face.

“I think you’re disgusting.”
I say, “If it’s any consolation, I think you are too.”

Her voice still has the same lilt to it, every sentence ending on a high, happy note.

As soon as she can talk again, she gives us a pop quiz to “judge our aptitude,” but really I think she’s doing it to mess with me, because she grades them at her desk and then says, “Jack Masselin. Pass these back.”

But I think about my dad losing his hair, about how paper-thin the chemo left him, about how frail he looked, like he might crumble away in front of us.