He reads the first slip. “‘The secret to good friends is no secret to you.’ I don’t know what that means.”
It means time to man up and clear your life of douchebags.
He tilts his head at me. “You’re starting to sound less proper.”
And you’re starting to sound less smart. End it now.
After another half hour of my cajoling, Eli breaks up with Vanessa via text. She doesn’t reply. No begging, crying, threatening. Deep down she knows why he’s ended it, because I told her. She’ll chalk it up to intuition.
At bedtime, rather than setting me on the nightstand or in his guitar case, Eli takes off my hat and boots, wraps me in the blue silk cami Vanessa left behind and holds me close as he lies down to sleep. I fit perfectly under his chin.
This is something new, this...cuddling. Even when I belonged to women, I was in unhuggable forms, such as a crystal elephant or a carved wooden Woman of Willendorf fertility statue. Maybe if I’d ever been a child’s figment, I’d have experienced this closeness, this neediness. For the first time, I’m more than an advisor and miracle worker. I’m a friend.
Eli sleeps fitfully, and soon I tumble out of his arms and onto the floor. I’ve never spoken to him in his sleep, but he needs settling.
Wake up and write. You’ll feel better.
He comes awake with a sharp breath, then without a word, slips out of bed and crosses to his desk, the direction I’m facing. He lifts his Magic 8 Ball from atop a stack of notebooks, takes the top pad, then sets down the worthless prediction device.
On the way back to the bed, he accidentally steps on my face. “Sorry, Fig!” Eli picks me up, unwraps the camisole from around my torso and brings both to the bed with him.
Do you need my help?
He shakes his head and pulls the cap off the pen with his teeth. “This is one thing I do best on my own.”
Pen in one hand, Vanessa’s cami in the other, Eli scribbles furiously for the next four hours, frowning and crossing out as many lines as he writes. Just after 3:00 a.m. he pulls out his guitar and plays a series of chords—softly, so as not to wake his mom.
The next day at school, he returns Vanessa’s shirt, wrinkles ironed out. She takes it without a word, or at least none that I can hear from inside his bag.
In history class, he sets me on the corner of his desk, facing forward. “Good-luck charm for the exam,” he explains to Lyra.
“Let me see.”
He spins me to face him and Lyra. Instead of gushing over my cute widdle boots and hat, she takes a good long look at me. “That expression,” she says finally. “Like the whole world is amazing.”
It’s just the way the manufacturer shaped my eyes. The world is most definitely not amazing.
Eli gives me a skeptical smile.
But maybe she is, I add.
Friday afternoon, Eli meets Tyler and Jules for burgers at Five Guys before band practice. I’m left in the bag, of course, on the seat of the booth. His so-called friends sit across from him.
“I’m leaving the band,” he tells them when their food’s arrived.
“Aw, man.” Tyler pounds the bottom of a ketchup bottle. “Why now, when we’re finally getting good?”
“I don’t think we’re getting good, but that’s not the main reason. My main reason is that Jules here can’t keep his hands off my girlfriend.”
“What?” Jules stammers. “How do you know?”
“I knew this would happen,” Tyler says. “I told her to knock it off.”
“Wait, how did you know?” Jules asks him.
“I have eyes. Eyes that saw you feeling her up in the school parking lot last week.”
“Tyler, you knew and didn’t tell me?” Eli says. “I thought you were my best friend.”
“I didn’t want to make you mad.”
He didn’t want you to break up the band, I tell Eli. He wanted to do it himself.
“Well, I’m twice as mad now.”
“I can see that.” Tyler pounds the ketchup bottle again. “What is with this stuff? It’s stuck.”
“Eli, I’m sorry, man. I really am.” Jules sounds sincere.
He’s not sorry.
“It’s my fault,” he continues with a full mouth. “You shouldn’t blame Vanessa. I’ll stay away from her, I swear.”
“It’s too late for that.”
“I’m just saying, it’s over with us. So you might as well keep her.”
“Keep her?” Eli’s voice rises above the din of the crowd. “She’s a girl, not a doll!”
Tyler snorts. “Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Eli’s voice is colder than I’ve ever heard it.
“You’ve gotten a little too attached to that stuffed cat your loser dad gave you.”
“I’m not attached.”
“Oh, really? Then let me have it for a week.” Tyler sets down the bottle hard on the table. “It’s the least you can do, Mr. I’m Too Talented for My Band.”
“Why would you even want him?” Eli’s voice turns hot with anger again.
“It’s a ‘him’ now? Is he your new best friend? Is that why you don’t need me anymore?”
Jules breaks in. “Take it easy, Ty. Eli didn’t say we weren’t still friends. The band stuff is just business.”
“‘Business’?” Ty says. “This is your fault, Jules! It wasn’t business when you had your hand inside Vanessa’s shirt.”
Eli’s silverware hits the table with a clatter. A fork or knife bounces onto the booth seat beside my bag. “Screw you guys both.”
Suddenly I’m lifted, bag and all. He’s walking fast toward the door, faster than he’s ever headed to class. The corner of his calculus textbook digs into my stomach with every step, and I’m very glad I have no pain nerves.
A door creaks open, and Eli says, “I’m sorry. Excuse me. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, but what...” The girl’s familiar voice fades as Eli keeps going.
We stop suddenly, and a car door handle rattles. Eli curses. He tears open the bag, letting in bright sunlight I can’t blink away.
Your keys aren’t in here. I didn’t hear them jangle.
“Looking for these?” Tyler says behind us.
Now I hear them jangle.
“Give me my keys,” Eli demands.
“I’ll trade you.” Tyler laughs. “The keys for the kitty.”
“Why do you want him so much?”
He doesn’t want me. He wants to destroy me to hurt you, because you hurt him.
Eli lunges, and now it’s Jules’s turn to laugh, though more nervously than Tyler did. “We’re just messin’ with you. Come on, our burgers are getting cold. Give Ty the stupid doll for two seconds so he’ll stop being a dick. Or give it to me, whatever.”
Eli drops the bag on the ground. “Haven’t I given you enough? My songs, my time, my girlfriend?”
“Vanessa wasn’t your girlfriend—she was just a regular hookup. You know what she called you? Her favorite charity.”
There’s a smack of bone against bone, and Jules cries out. Then a thud and the sound of denim skidding over blacktop.
Suddenly, I’m pulled out into the brightness. By Tyler.
“How do you like him now, dude?” He rips off my hat and boots. “Nothing better than a naked p—” Tyler buckles over with an “oof!” He clutches me against his stomach, groaning. Something in bright blue leather—a gloved fist? A booted foot?—flashes past me, up into his chin. Released from his grip, I fall to the pavement, rolling to rest faceup.