Vibes by Amy Kathleen Ryan Page A

It feels like slowly extracting a tooth, talking to Gusty this way. The only way I can get through this is to babble. "I purposely frustrate my teachers. I don't take school seriously. I keep a cat in the house that makes my mother sick. I have a terrible diet. I just eat pizza and chips and I drink soda and stuff ice cream down my throat at night while I watch stupid TV. I'm conceited about my intelligence, and I think everyone around me is stupid because usually they are. I don't exercise. I drink too much coffee." I remember the way the dog had been trotting down the street, a huge smile on his face. He was so happy to be free, and for the first time I wonder if Minnie Mouse is truly happy. "I keep my cat locked in my bedroom all day because I have to hide her from my mother, and it isn't fair. I never write to my dad, which is maybe why he's stayed away so long. And he's coming back on Thursday and I don't know if he means to stay or not, and I'm not sure I want him to, even though if you had asked me a week ago what I most wanted in the whole world, I'd have said it was for my dad to come back. But I don't want him anymore. I don't want him to see me. I'm fat and he'll be disappointed, and I hate him. I just hate him!"
    At some point Gusty has stopped writing things down and is just looking at me, and then pretty soon the people at the next table are looking, and then the guy at the front counter is looking at me. When I realize what an ass I'm making of myself I shut up completely and hold my hand over my face, which makes me look even crazier.
What am I doing? Why did I say all that?
    I feel a hand on my shoulder, and Gusty blinks at me. His face is so sad that he almost looks ugly. He takes a napkin out of the holder on our table and hands it to me because he can see I'm nearly crying. I dab at my nose. It's totally full of snot but I don't want to expel mucus in front of him. "You're not fat," he says once I've calmed down a little.
    "I'm not skinny."
    "Skinny girls remind me of my sister," he says, wrinkling his nose. "Yech."
    I laugh, but this makes a tear squeeze out of my eye. "I'm sorry!" I cry.
    "For what?" It's not a rhetorical question. He really doesn't understand why I'm sorry, and he wants to know.
    Somehow this scares me. I don't know how to answer him, and I don't know what to do. The way he looks at me is so—what? I don't like it. I don't like the way he's looking at me, as though he can see past my face into the toxic dump inside my head. I can feel his thoughts working their way through the tiny gaps in my mind. Like a trickle of water they seep through the wall I've held up between us, and I can hear them begin to drip onto my feelings, and they burn.
She's got real problems,
he thinks.
    "It's getting late. I should get going," I say. "I'm sorry that I..." What? Had a conniption fit?
    "You don't have to go, do you?"
    "I'm sorry. I just—I just realized I forgot to feed my cat this morning."
    "Oh, okay," he says. He seems confused. "I'll see you later?"
    "Yeah." I pick up my backpack so quickly that I knock his satchel onto the floor, and everyone in the place turns to look at me again. I hold my head down and walk out of Pluribus.
    I'm never going back there. I can't be with Gusty Peterson. He hurts too much.

PICKING UP DAD AT THE AIRPORT
    Airports were invented by psychotic savants with an uncanny ability to pinpoint the precise level of grossness hungry travelers will tolerate in overpriced food.
    We arrive forty-five minutes early only to find that Dad's flight is delayed by two hours. For the first hour we walk around and Aunt Ann buys me a pile of crap I don't need. I get a silk scarf with brown butterflies on it, a best-selling novel by some ex-marine hack, a mint green travel mug, some botanical body oil that smells like sandalwood, a Denver Broncos team jersey, a glass paperweight with a scorpion inside it, some Zuni Indian turquoise earrings, a vibrating massage thingy, and finally,