Not My Problem

I lay in the dark and waited to hear the turn of the key. My nose was very cold and I contemplated whether you only felt your nose when it was cold or if you felt it during other times. Was I even really feeling my nose in that moment, or the coldness? Was there a difference?

So basically anything to keep my mind off the reason I was lying awake.

At five thirty I heard a thump against the door and I jumped.

“Fuck.”

That was Mam. Instantly I felt a wave of relief at the same time as a horrible dread. She was home.

But on the other hand, she was home.

I refused to get up and open the door. I wanted to avoid her, if I could, while she was awake. If she’d been out since this morning, she had probably crossed over into that weird place where nothing she said made any sense and she’d want to pick a fight. Somehow, after a lot of scraping, I heard the door unlock and she stumbled in. I’d removed anything from the hall that she might have broken but it didn’t stop her making a terrible racket as she dragged herself to her bedroom. I felt my temper rise. She wasn’t even trying to be quiet. I could be sleeping and she was just banging around out there.

It was a stupid thing to get angry about in the grand scheme of things, but in that moment I was absolutely livid. I wanted more than anything to go out into the hall and start screaming at her. I saw myself doing it. I thought of the mean, horrible things I could say and the look on her face if I said them. I’d tell her she was a shit mother and that I wished she’d die. That I wished that she’d drown in a pool of her own vomit because that’s what she deserved. And when she started to cry I’d scratch my fingernails down her face.

When I heard her snoring in her bed I got up and locked the front door again. I picked her purse up from the floor and put it on the table. I went into her bedroom, stepped over her shoes, and placed a glass of water on the bedside table. I shifted her onto her side and tried not to gag at the smell. She’d obviously thrown up already somewhere but that was a good thing. We didn’t have a basin so I laid a towel underneath her head and hoped she wouldn’t throw up again.

Then I tiptoed back to bed and tried to sleep. I think I dozed off but I stirred every time I heard her cough.

When I opened her door a crack the next morning, she wasn’t snoring anymore. The room smelled sour and musty at the same time but she hadn’t thrown up again from what I could see. My heart paused until I saw the rise and fall of her chest and then I closed the door again. I thought about staying home. Normally that’s what I would do. But I felt something I’d never felt before. I wanted to be in school. I had to talk to Angela and get started on my next plan. Mam would be fine.

Guilt wrung my stomach like a dishcloth as I closed the front door behind me. Instantly I was plagued with thoughts about what might happen while I was gone. I stood outside the flat, stuck in place. If I left and something did happen, it would be my fault. I hadn’t even checked to see if she was okay. Did I really see her breathing or did I imagine it? But I imagined her crawling out of bed around noon, croaking voice and creaking bones, and dragging herself to the bathroom to vomit. Maybe she’d tell me she had the flu. Maybe she wouldn’t bother with the pretense and would tell me it wouldn’t happen again. It was just a slip. And what would I say? The thought made me feel a gasping, grabbing tightness in my chest. Like someone was holding a pillow over my mouth, only the teeny-tiniest molecules of air getting through, more of a taunt than a lifeline. I squeezed my eyes tight shut and forced that part of my mind to turn black. It wasn’t there. There was no problem.

Kavi found Angela and asked her to meet me in the PE hall. I’d realized how she could repay her favor, and I figured it was better to rip the plaster off quickly because she wasn’t going to like it. When I arrived on the balcony for second-period PE (Ms. Devlin largely unimpressed with my current diagnosis), Meabh was already there. I hung by the stairs for a second, watching her tap furiously on the keys of her laptop until she groaned and pressed down on the back button, deleting. Deleting a lot. She ran her hands through her hair and clutched at her scalp as she read over whatever was left. When she started tugging on the roots, I intervened.

“Is this for the debate?”

She started, nearly knocking her laptop to the ground. When she saw me her face broke into a genuine, warm smile. It was a nice smile. She had full lips and when they weren’t pursed it made her face look completely different. Relaxed. Pretty. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve a smile like that.

“Debate speech going well, I see?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “But we don’t have to talk about that.”

I bristled.

Oh, yes, sorry for asking, Queen Meabh. I’m obviously too stupid to understand your fancy words and—

“You’re obviously going to vote for Holly and I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to get information from you about her speech or anything.”

Oh.

That was . . . thoughtful?

Obviously I’d vote for Holly. She was my best friend. Obviously. No question. Just because we’d had a fight didn’t mean I didn’t want her to win.

“We can talk about it if you want. I don’t know anything about her speech.”

She looked surprised. “But why would you want to help me now? Not that you wanted to help me before, but you did,” she said, glancing at the stairs. “But now that Holly’s running . . .”

“Trust me. I can’t help you. I don’t know the first thing about speeches and all that stuff. But you look like you’re about to detonate. I could rescue the whole student body by letting you get it off your chest now.”

She hesitated. I could see her wrestling with something but I didn’t know what it was. I had no doubt I was going to find out though. I could see her building up steam.

“Okay, so I have all these great ideas, right?”

That was a rhetorical question.

“But I don’t know how to get people to care about them. I proposed the recycling cup scheme in the café last year but I just got the figures back and no one is really using it. No one is bringing reusable cups in, even though they get charged ten cents to buy a paper one. And no one is putting the paper ones in the recycling bins. And yes, the charge goes toward paying for other green stuff around the school, but do you know how much we’ve collected in the last ninety school days?”

I waited.

“One thousand, eight hundred euros.”

“Christ.”

“That’s around two hundred paper cups a day. I mean, what the fuck? There’s only four hundred students in our school. I want to write a speech that makes people care about what that means. I know it’s one tiny little thing in the grand scheme of a world that is burning up and of course the onus of climate change is really on corporations and big business but I can’t go, Oh well, I guess there’s no point in doing anything then! I just don’t know how to make anyone else care. About this or anything else. I can’t get people to care about my community projects, I can’t get them to care about bringing Polish classes into school, I can’t get them to care about anything other than can we get Friday afternoons off school and can we have no homework on the weekends. I mean, FUCKING OF COURSE NOT YOU ABSOLUTE GOBSHITES. THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS.”

There was the Meabh I knew. Angry. Condescending. Terrifying. But I saw something else there too. Passion, frustration, and a whole lot of heart. It was a confusing moment, two versions of her collided at once. The old Meabh I couldn’t stand and the new one I liked even though I shouldn’t. I finally saw that I’d filtered everything about her through the wrong lens. She made sense to me now.

Before I could say anything, Angela appeared. She looked at me expectantly.

I glanced at Meabh. She shook her head as though she was shaking off the stress. “Go,” she said, waving me on.

“We’re going to figure this out,” I said. We locked eyes for a moment and I felt this urge to wrap her up and take all her stress away. Not because she was annoying me with her tantrums but because I wanted her to only feel good things for a change.

Angela’s arms were folded and she seemed nervous. When I got close she gave Meabh a once-over and then whispered to me.

“Does she know?”

I shook my head. “Come on downstairs and we’ll talk.”

We walked out into the hall and found a quiet spot.

“Are you going to rat me out?” Angela bit her lip.

I frowned. Didn’t she trust me? Then again, why would she? We didn’t really know each other.

“Of course not. Why would I?”

“I heard you got detention. I figured you got caught. I was going to text you last night but I didn’t have your number and I don’t know anyone who does.”

“Where’d you hear I got detention?”

“Ellen saw you running laps in the field with Ms. Devlin watching. She said Ms. Devlin wasn’t wearing any shoes because she threw them at you.”

It did sound like something she’d do.

“You’re half right. I did get caught; I did get detention. I did not rat you out and Ms. Devlin gave me her shoes. Granted, I can see why Ellen would jump to that conclusion given Ms. D’s generally threatening vibes.”

“Oh. So what happened when you got caught?”

“I took the heat, what do you think?”

She raised her eyebrows. Her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “That’s really sound. I wouldn’t have expected you to do that.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Do you think I’d just land you in it?”

“I don’t expect you to prioritize me getting in trouble over yourself.”

“Well, it’s my risk to take,” I said.

“I admire that. It’s good business.”

I felt my cheeks heat. Angela Berry thought I was good at business. “Anyway, that’s not why I called you here. I need you to repay your favor.”

“Okay . . . ,” she said, wary now.

“You’re having a party on Saturday night—”

“And you want an invite? Fine. Come if you must.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Eh, no. First of all, you already invited me. I need to bring someone else there—”

“A plus-one? You’re really pushing it.” She winked. I nearly fainted.

“Wrong again.” I cleared my throat. “This person is also already invited. I need to get them there. So I’m going to need your car.”

She gulped. “Uh . . . I don’t think so.”

“Well, that’s what I need from you.”

“It’s my car.”

“So?”

“So it’s a car. It’s not a lip gloss. Do you know how much laxative tea I had to shill from shady sponsors to pay for that car?”

“Borrowing lip gloss is unhygienic. This is way better. Less chance of herpes.”

“You have herpes?” she asked. This time she was the one wrinkling her nose.

“Oh, for God’s sake. I did you a favor, you owe me one. That’s the deal. You knew that. The thing I want is to borrow your car.”

She met my gaze evenly and I could tell she was trying to come up with an alternative.

“What’s going on?” Kavi appeared behind me. Which was literally impossible seeing as he would have had to walk past me on the stairs.

“Angela here doesn’t want to pay her debts,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

I had visions of Kavi using his height and strength to be intimidating and menacing.

Those visions were not accurate. He was biting his lip.

“Um, I don’t want to be rude and we, like, don’t want to pressure you or anything because you know that’s not really what we’re about and I’m not really the blackmaily kind. But then I suppose who is the blackmaily kind? That’s the question. Are we born blackmaily or do we become blackmaily through unfortunate circumstances? I mean, maybe everyone who’s ever done something crappy to someone else started off doing it for the right reason and in a way that’s kind of a nice idea because it means that humanity is basically good but then they end up in an ever more tangled mess and they stop seeing people as people and start seeing them as, you know, pawns in their wicked games and maybe that’s even more scary than if they were born that way because that means it could happen to any one of us if we’re not careful.”

Silence.

Kavi was always there when I needed him but I never had any idea what he was going to say.

Angela looked unhappy; she bit her thumbnail as she thought about it. My heart pounded. I knew that I was full of hot air. If Angela wouldn’t back down there was no way I’d do anything about it.

I almost gave up and walked away. It wasn’t worth it. But I hadn’t failed on one of my tasks yet and if I let clients set the terms of their repayment then I wouldn’t get what I needed. It’s not like Meabh had wanted to break into the school.

“We had a deal,” I said, hoping to play on her sense of fair business practice—she was an entrepreneur too, after all—but I thought it came out too whiny.

“Fine,” she said grudgingly. “You can use my car to transport your person, but I’m driving.”

“You’ll miss some of your own party.”

“If something happens to that car I’ll miss the rest of my life. My parents would kill me. They barely let me keep it after the sideswipe incident. Even though I paid for the damage . . . ” She trailed off, grumbling at the end.

I thought about it. I didn’t technically have a driver’s license, after all. After a moment we shook on it and Angela left.

The air rushed out of me and my shoulders dropped.

“Hey,” Kavi said softly, and he pulled me into a hug immediately, squishing my face against his chest. Okay, more like his stomach. He was really tall. You know, compared to me.

I let myself breathe in the clean, cottony scent from his uniform and thought about how his mother must have washed it last night for it to smell so good. I don’t know why I felt so rubbish. I hated the idea that Angela would be annoyed with me, even if I was just asking her to stick to the deal. Yes, she was a sixth year, and yes, she was intimidatingly hot, but it wasn’t any of that. I didn’t want to feel like a pest, like people didn’t want me around. Which was stupid because I didn’t need anyone to be my friend either. There was something safe about not needing anyone to like me. As long as they didn’t have any reason to dislike me. I realize that’s a low bar but I like to keep my expectations reasonable.

After a moment, Kavi held me at arm’s length and although I hadn’t cried, I could feel my eyes were red.

“Are you okay?” he said.

“I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep.” That was it. That confrontation was not a big deal. I was being emotional because I was exhausted. “I get it. I wouldn’t want someone driving my car if I had one. I don’t know why I’m taking it so personal.”

Kavi looked like he was searching for something to say. Or was he waiting for me to say something else? Where was a distracting monologue when you wanted one?

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Seriously. Now we can tell Daniel Something that we’ll take him to the party.”

“I’ll let him know. I saw him when I passed the home ec kitchen and I’m going that way.”

“Thanks,” I said. He saluted me and disappeared downstairs. He had seemingly become comfortable with skipping class. I hoped I wasn’t a bad influence.

Back upstairs I sat down near Meabh. She was eyeing me with what I can only describe as a very Ms. Devlin look.

“What was that about?” she demanded.

“Um. None of your business?”

“You’re ‘helping’ other people. Aren’t you?”

“No,” I lied.

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. I know it. You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m a great liar.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.”

“You definitely aren’t.”

“Okay, fine. I am helping other people. So what?”

“That is a bad idea,” she said firmly. “You should focus on your own problems. Have you got all your homework done for today?”

I rolled my eyes. She was becoming more like Ms. Devlin every second.

“That’s your problem,” I replied. “You think you know what everyone should do and so you tell them and expect them to fall in line. You’re a dictator.”

Meabh shuffled uncomfortably and then shrugged. “I do know better. Am I supposed to pretend I don’t so I don’t hurt their fragile feelings? Maybe other people should just be smarter.”

“You’re upset about people not following the rules you set for them, right? You think it means they don’t care about whatever cause you have on at the time.”

“They don’t care. People are terrible,” she said hotly.

“Most people want to do the right thing,” I said, “but if they aren’t, then figure out a way to make it easy for them to be good people.”

Meabh thought about this for a minute. She frowned.

“So you’re saying I have to hold their hands like babies? They’re incapable of making the slightest bit of effort themselves even if they know it’s the right thing to do?”

I shrugged. “If you really want them to do what you want, you have to make it the best option.”

“Leave them no other choice,” she said, more to herself than to me.

“Well, I didn’t quite put it like that, Kaiser, but sure.”

“Well, what about this?” she said, suddenly excited. “Every year people doing Gaisce Awards have to go out and find volunteering opportunities, but we can create those opportunities in the school. We could set up a homework club for kids who are falling behind for whatever reason. You donate hours of tutoring.”

I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was one of those kids and the whatever reason was the kind of thing that Meabh would never have to experience. I also didn’t think she had thought about what it might be like to be on the receiving end of one of her charitable notions.

“Okay,” I said steadily. “What if you’re falling behind because, let’s say, you have to work after school because your family is struggling, and you don’t have time for your homework, let alone extra hours of tutoring? The people you’re trying to help most are the people you might not be able to reach like that.”

Meabh paused. She frowned. Her frown deepened, and I felt bad.

“What do I do about that?” she asked, sounding genuinely lost.

“I don’t know. Those are problems you can’t fix as a student council president. You want to fix the whole world, but you can’t.”

“I could if I was in charge of the whole world,” she pouted. “I could be so effective if people would just do what I want them to do. I’d fix everything.”

I laughed. “I believe you.”

“I’ll work on it,” she said immediately, beginning to type down some notes. Without looking up, she added, “But don’t think I don’t know that you’re deflecting.”

“Fine. Will you do my Maths homework with me again?” I asked with a grin. “I just used up all my brilliance.”

I watched her wrestle with her desire to tell me what to do with my life and her desire to tell me what to do with my homework. Luckily for me, homework won.