this world of broken people

Chapter 11 - The Weight of Everything

Chapter 11 – The Weight of Everything

In first grade, Andy put a staple through his finger.

It happened in school, too. I was standing right beside him when he did it. Our teacher, a nervous woman named Ms. Cartwright, nearly cried when she saw the piece of metal sticking out of his pointer finger. Andy just gasped, and began to laugh hysterically.

My eyes widened when I saw the blood flowing from his weirdly short pointer finger. "What did you do, you stupid face?" I yelled. He just continued to laugh hysterically as our teacher stood in front of us and stared at his finger, tears welling up in her eyes.

He finally answered. "I stapled my finger?" he said, and then started laughing again.

"You're such a stupid idiot!" I cried, and then looked at our teacher. "Are you gonna take him to Nurse Guerrier?"

Ms. Cartwright just continued to stare dazedly at his finger. I groaned and then dragged my best friend out of the classroom and only a few doors down (luckily) to where our sweet, chubby, Haitian nurse was. She made a "tsk" sound at him and then gently wrapped a bandage around his finger before calling his dad.

As this happened, I sat in a chair beside the door giving Andy 'you're so stupid' looks and praying that Andy's dad would sign me out, too. We were learning our times tables. That was when I decided that math was never going to be a friend of mine.

Unfortunately for my budding hatred for math, Andy's dad gave me a flat-out no when I asked him to sign me out early. So, later, when I walked into Andy's house and found him sitting on the worn-out brown couch in front of the TV with a bowl of ice cream in his lap, it took nearly all of my willpower not to dump the bowl over his head, especially when he shot me a smug look.

"You wanna see the x-ray they took of my finger?" he asked, and then pulled the film out of a manila folder before I could answer. "It looks really gross, there's a staple that goes into my finger, Lottie!"

My eyes widened when I see the picture. "Oh, ow, did it hurt when they pulled it out?" I asked. I hadn't been to the hospital or really ever hurt myself that bad ever, but for whatever reason, I had a weird fascination with weird ways people get hurt. Like, once, my dad broke his toe by dropping the toaster on it.

He shrugged and tried to look manly. "Not really," he said and then took another bite of his ice cream.

"Don't lie, Andy, you cried like a baby," Andy's dad said as he walked out of the kitchen and into the living room.

"Dad!" Andy cried. He shot his dad a betrayed look while I laughed, nearly falling off the couch.

"Don't tell lies to your best friend, then!" his dad replied.

 

~*~

 

"You ready to go?"

My head whips around to look at the entrance to Stellar's room. Tony is standing there, casually leaning against the doorframe and smirking. I force a smile in response and then finish tying my shoe before standing not-so-gracefully. His smirk changes to an amused smile when I nearly fall over, but I manage to stand up straight before he can help me.

"I got it, let's go," I mumble. It takes all my willpower to keep myself from looking him in the eyes, but I know if I do, I'll do something embarrassing. Almost every other time I've been as attracted to someone as much as I'm attracted to Tony (which is a whole freaking lot) I've ended up doing something excruciatingly embarrassing. Like, sophomore year, there was this guy in my biology class that I accidentally admitted my fantasy of us getting married and having three kids and a dog and living in a light blue house with dark blue shutters.