Chapter 15

Insects, whether they're bees or ants, should not be eaten alive.

Breakfast is half over when Nathan reappears.

"How's your tongue?" Miranda asks once he reaches our table.

Nathan shrugs. Noah is standing behind him. "He says it hurts to talk. The nurse told him the swelling should go down in a few hours."

"That's what you get for pinching my butt. God was punishing you."

He gives me the finger as he takes a seat beside me.

"God's gonna punish you for that, too."

Across the table, Miranda slams down her cup of milk. It splashes all over her uniform, but I don't think she notices.

"Amy, leave him alone. Don't you think he's dealing with enough without you making him feel worse?"

"I was just kidding, Miranda."

"Yeah, well..." Miranda looks around, realizing she's causing a scene. Miranda's not used to creating drama. Her voice shakes as she says, "Maybe Nathan doesn't know you're kidding."

"Nathan and I joke around all the time. We always do."

Nathan puts his arm around me, nods, and smiles.

"Oh," Miranda says, slowly sitting back down. She doesn't look up until we're done eating and dismissed from breakfast.

On the way back to the barracks, I catch up to Miranda. "I know why you're pissed with me. You have the hots for Nathan."

She glances sideways at me. "So?"

Wow, I'm right. I mean, I got the idea when she went all ballistic on me, milk splattered on her face during breakfast. But I still can't believe it.

"I'm not really dating him, you know."

Miranda stops and turns to me. "Then who are you dating, Amy?

Because you seem to be dating guys you hate, and hating guys you date, and hating girls who like the guys you date, or hate, and--"

My brain is on overload. "You lost me. I'm confused."

"That makes two of us." She stomps away from me.

I hurry to catch up. "What do you want me to do? I hate you being mad at me."

"I don't know. I have no claim to Nathan. He doesn't even like me."

"Are you double-jointed?"

"What?"

"Are you double-jointed?"

"No. In case you haven't noticed, I'm fat and had to step on people's backs in order to complete the monkey bars at the obstacle course."

"So did I. And you're not fat, Miranda."

She picks up her shirt and grabs her bulging stomach. "What do you call this?" To be honest, I've seen people way bigger.

Umm... Umm... "I call it extra.'"

"Extra what?"

Oh, I hate being put in a corner I can't get out of gracefully. "Just extra'."

She pulls her shirt down. "Well, I call it fat. Nathan isn't going to like me. Did you see his last girlfriend, Bicky? She was rail thin."

"Miranda, she was a druggie. That kind of thin is not attractive."

"Neither is this extra thirty pounds I carry around. And no matter how much I try to get rid of it, I cant. Because I crave sweets, and once I start eating I can't stop. Do you know what it's like not to be able to stop doing something you know isn't good for you?"

"Sure I do."

She puts her hand on her hip, totally unconvinced.

"Well, I know I do and say things that hurt other people," I tell her.

"I can't stop it sometimes. It's a protective thing. You know, so I hurt people before they have a chance to hurt me. Don't let anyone else know, but I've got issues."

"Everybody has issues, Amy." She sighs.

I guess she's right. Tori has issues from her parents' divorce, Miranda

has

weight/image

issues,

I

have

emotional

protection/ego issues, Jess has hypochondriac issues...

Is anyone human actually normal?

I'm beginning to think being normal is actually abnormal.

Chapter 16:

Zits are God's way of making sure we know we're only human and far from perfect.

I'd just like him to remind me a little less often.

Looking at my face in the bathroom mirror the next morning, I'm horrified. I stare at the small zit I noticed last night after I took a shower. The small red bump appeared above my left eyebrow. It's not small anymore.

Jessica is brushing her teeth at the sink next to me. "Don't touch it," she says as she wipes her mouth with a towel and places her toothbrush in a plastic tube she brought from home. "If you do, it'll just get worse and take longer to go away. Use cover-up and forget about it. Give it two or three days, and it'll be gone."

She walks out of the bathroom and I take another look in the mirror. Two or three days? Ugh. I tentatively touch it. It hurts. And it's so big it deserves its own name.George the Zit.

George is being stubborn. "Well, I'm stubborn too. I don't listen to Jess and I try and get rid of George myself by squeezing him away. But now George looks worse and has started to throb. It looks like a bright red radish has imbedded itself on my forehead.

If I had bangs, I could hide George from the rest of the world. But I don't. I head to the barracks with my hand over George and sneak past Jess. Lifting my makeup case, I pull out my trusty cover-up. But as I pat it on and examine it in my small travel mirror, the cover-up looks like caked-on silly putty. Besides, when I sweat the stuff is going to come right off. So I do the next best thing: I pull out my travel first-aid kit and cover George up with one of those round Band-Aids. "When George is hidden from the world, I head to the courtyard to wait for Ronit to order us into formation.

Nathan is outside, his tongue fully recovered from the bee incident.

"What the hell happened to your forehead?" Nathan asks with a grimace. I swear he says it so loud everyone within a mile can hear him.

"Nothing," I say, hoping against all hope he'll drop the subject.

"I've got two theories," he says. "Either you cut yourself shaving your monobrow, or you're covering up a huge zit."

"Shut up or I'll make you eat another bee."

"Hi, Nathan," Miranda says.

"Let me guess what's for breakfast," Jessica says as she walks up to us. "Ant-encrusted toast, hard-boiled eggs, and delicious bee-jam." Her voice trails off after a glance at my forehead. I'm trying to look the other way, but she grabs my arm. "Amy, please tell me you didn't touch it."

"I didn't touch it," I say roughly. I'm not lying. I didn't touch it, I mutilated it.

Nathan pretends to cough, but I know he's laughing. "She's got a big zit she's covering up but is too embarrassed to admit it. Come on, Amy, fess up," he says, then reaches over to pull the Band-Aid off.

I slap his hand away.

"How big is it?" Miranda asks.

"I told you to leave it alone," Jess scolds.

"Okay, okay everyone!" I yell, then pull the Band-Aid off and point to my forehead. "Everyone, meet George."

Nathan pretends to gag. "That looks so nasty, Amy. "What the hell did you do to it?"

"You named your zit?" Miranda asks.

"I figured since George and I are going to be together for a while, he might as well have a name," I tell her, ignoring Nathan. Jess is still staring at my forehead as if she's not quite sure how I managed to turn tiny George into big, red, angry George.

Nathan is laughing again.

"Does it look really bad?" I ask my friends.

Nathan gives me a resounding "Yes!"

Miranda shrugs and nods at the same time.

Jess says, "They might make you go to the infirmary for fear it's something contagious."

I slap my hand over my forehead and run back to the barracks.

Unfortunately, Tori is still in the room.

"We're supposed to be outside in less than a minute," Tori says.

"So leave." I pull out my mirror and look up at Tori. "Do you mind?

I need some privacy."

"For what?"

"It's a long story that has to do with a big zit I named George."

I examine George in the mirror. Unfortunately, Tori sees him too.

Her lips curl up in disgust. "Eww."

"I know. You want to call me a spaz again because I have a zit?"

"No. But you better go out there before you get in trouble for being late."

George looks nastier than before. "What am I gonna do?"

Tori shrugs. "Put on a hat."

"I don't even know where mine is. Besides, George might get infected from rubbing against the material."

"I could cut you some bangs, if you want," Tori says. "My mom's a hairdresser."

"Really?"

"Really. Your face structure would actually look good with bangs."

"You'd really cut me bangs?"

"Anything to get you to stop looking at yourself in the mirror." She pulls out scissors from her duffle and slides my hair through her fingers. "Trust me."

She has no clue how hard that is for me, but Rabbi Glassman says that sometimes it helps to make people feel needed. "I trust you," I tell her.

"Thanks for sharing your story about your parents when we had kitchen duty," she says as she snips away. "I see you with all the stuff you have, and I think you have the perfect life."

"It's my parents' way of making up for their shortcomings."

"There. I'm done." She puts the scissors down and holds up the mirror so I can inspect my new do.

I never really wanted bangs. I was six years old the last time I had bangs, and they feel weird brushing up against my forehead. I have to admit they don't look half bad.

Outside, sure enough, everyone is in formation. Tori and I come sauntering out. Sergeant B-S isn't here, thank goodness. But Avi is.

All eyes turn to Avi.

"Why are you late?" he asks us.

"It's my fault, not Tori's," I tell him. "It was a medical issue."

"Are you sick?" he asks, his voice laced with concern that makes my knees weak. He cocks his head and inspects me, looking for a wound or weakness.

"Not exactly."

"Do you have a fever?"

To my horror, he picks his hand up and is about to feel my forehead. I jump back, afraid he'll find George. "No!"

"Amy, my patience is wearing thin. Fast."

I can tell. "Its not a fever. Tori was cutting my hair."

"Since when is cutting hair a medical issue?"

"It just is."

Avi looks up to the sky, probably asking God for the strength to deal with me. I don't blame him. Truth is, I am aspaz.

"Tori, get back in formation. Amy, give me twenty push-ups.

"Can I do girlie ones?"

"No."

"I can't do guy's ones. I don't have enough upper arm strength."

"Yes, you do." He points to the ground. "Stop stalling."

I stretch out on the ground. Thankfully we're on a paved sidewalk so I don't have little pebbles sticking into my palms.

With my hands on either side of my shoulders and the tips of my toes on the pavement, I straighten my arms.

I look up, and stare straight into Avis eyes. He's squatting right in front of me. For him, pushups are no big deal. For me, on the other hand...

"Stop thinking and just do them," he says softly so no one else can hear. "Pretend your body is a piece of wood and your elbows are hinges." He gets in position and demonstrates it for me.

I bend my elbows a tiny bit and straighten them.

"That's not a pushup, Amy."

"It is for me."

"Go down farther." He demonstrates it again, reminding me of when I did them in front of Sergeant B-S my first night here.

I look into his eyes, which have determination written all over them.

"I wouldn't ask you to do something you couldn't do," he says.

"Push yourself."

The thing is, I want to make Avi proud of me. And if he says I can do it, maybe I can.

I bend my elbows again, all the while trying to keep the rest of my body straight. My boobs are almost touching the ground when I straighten.

"That's it. Nineteen more," Avi says, doing them right along with me.

I do two more, my arms shaking and struggling each time. Going down isn't the problem; it's the pushing up part.

"Seventeen more."

I take a deep breath. My arms are tired. I'm not mad at Avi for punishing me. It's my own fault for being so vain. I look up, wishing everyone wasn't watching.

"I have faith in you," Avi says softly. "No matter what, I always have."

Now I want to cry, because he probably has more faith in me than I have in myself. As I lower my body again, Avis determination makes me do more pushups. Every time I think I'm going to collapse, I look up into his beautiful milk-chocolate eyes for strength.

Sweat is dripping off my forehead. My shirt is wet from sweat and I probably smell, but I finish my twenty pushups and stand up.

"You'd be a great soldier if you didn't complain all the time."

I shrug. "And you'd be a great boyfriend if you didn't kiss other girls."

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 587