Period 8 by Chris Crutcher

the car, and Mary flinches. He breathes deep, pushing back equal parts of rage and pity, and curiosity. “Sorry. Tell me what it’s like.”
    â€œYou don’t want to know.”
    â€œTell me. ”
    â€œGod, you hate me.”
    He closes his eyes. “Look, Mary, you said you wanted to talk to me. I’m listening. I don’t hate you. I’m pissed but I’m as pissed at myself as I am at you. More pissed. If telling me what it’s like to be you helps me get it, then tell me what it’s fucking like.”
    She touches her forehead to the steering wheel. “It’s like I can’t just be me, ever , like there’s this thing I’m supposed to be and I have to be it. No matter how bad I feel or how much I hate how everyone sees me, there’s nothing I can do to change it. It’s like a black hole, it sucks you in and there’s not even a trace of you.” She closes her eyes. “When your life is like that, you do things . . . things you don’t understand. This is stupid,” she says. “You don’t want to know this.” She stares out the windshield, quiet. Then, almost as if to someone else, “There are spies everywhere.”
    â€œWhat?”
    Mary doesn’t seem to hear.
    â€œSpies?” Paulie says. “What are you talking about?”
    Mary’s head jerks. She hesitates, as if Paulie snapped her out of a daydream. “My dad,” she says finally. “He knows things about me there’s no way he could guess.”
    â€œLike . . .”
    â€œOne of his friends saw me at Taco Time, what was I doing there? Or somebody saw me driving up by the lake, wasn’t I supposed to be home? There are forty thousand people in this town; there can’t be that many coincidences. Half the time he knows what route I take from school for my Running Start classes and I take a different one every time, just to mess him up.”
    â€œSo how did you get away being at the Armory that night? Or with disappearing? What about your mom?”
    Mary looks out the side window. “My mother barely exists ,” she says. “She just does what my dad says.”
    Paulie knows a thing or two about irrational parent behavior. He watches Mary and shakes his head.
    â€œAll I ever hear from my mother is that my dad loves me and I should ‘do his bidding.’ I got to the Armory by telling him I had extra cheerleading practice. When I disappeared he was so freaked out he didn’t know what to do.”
    â€œSo getting with me was one of those things you barely understand?” His voice is tinged with skepticism.
    â€œThat’s part of it.”
    â€œWhy me ?”
    â€œYou’re safe. You don’t hurt people.”
    Paulie sits back. Great. I don’t hurt people, so I get screwed.
    â€œI messed up. There’s more to tell, but . . .”
    â€œJesus, don’t stop now.”
    Mary leans back, grips the wheel until her knuckles are white. “Some awful things, Paulie. Awful things.”
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t do you any good to know.”
    In a low, measured voice, he says, “Mary, it might do you some good for me to know, or at least for somebody to know.” Paulie is being the Paulie who drives himself nuts. Why can’t I just say, “Tell it to your shrink”? I’m not supposed to be the fucking shrink. Why can’t I still be that guy Justin thinks can have any girl he wants?
    She shakes her head. “Trust me.”
    If you want to talk, say it all or go fuck yourself. He’s that close to saying it.
    She sees it in his eyes. “That can’t sound right coming from me,” she says.
    â€œWon’t argue with that. You gotta admit, Mary. This is bizarre. Getting all up in my stuff, then running into Hannah in the middle of the road at midnight and then the whole school’s looking for you dead in the