Fix

Boston, a
seriously Catholic town,
everybody called him Thomas Aquinas
after the saint.
Thomas Aquinas was no
saint,
but he was
brilliant.
He could easily be valedictorian next year,
if he ever did any work or
wasn’t murdered first, which was entirely possible
since Thomas Aquinas was also
an asshole.
No one liked him.
Not the teachers
because he was a smart-ass.
Not the students
because he was a smart-ass.
Not Lidia
because she said he was always
around.
Me?
“Eve.”
We lived two doors apart on
Wrentham Street off
Dorchester and
we were
partners in the
School Within a School system,
a program in our large
high school that
functioned like a buddy system.
“Eve.”
Four.
Years.
“Hey, Eve.”
Same.
Buddy.
Which meant I saw
an awful lot of
Thomas Aquinas
and
did an awful lot of
SWAS assignments,
since he never did
shit.
“Eve.”
The sound of
Thomas Aquinas
saying my name
a fourth time
tweaked my last nerve, and I
cursed the alphabet,
my surname, and the universe—the
trifecta of causes for this miserable
pairing—and with my
judgment clouded
by his warm breath
on my neck,
I spun to face him.
“Good morning, gorgeous.” He
smiled over the top of his gold-rimmed
professor glasses, which perfectly matched his
dark intense stare, yet
always looked out of place
framed by long,
dirty hair, colorful
sleeve tattoos,
and one of the same ratty T-shirts
he wore every single day,
which read Gophers.
“I noticed you missed the last SWAS assignment,”
he said.
“I did not.”
A lie.
“That’s unlike you, Eve. Let
me know if you need help,”
he said.
“I do not.”
A lie.
“And by help,
I don’t mean with anything
SWAS related,”
he said,
winking.
Winking!
“Stop talking to me.”
“‘Your success is my success is our success,’”
he said, reciting
the SWAS motto.
I ignored him.
“Big surgery coming up next week.
Don’t worry. I’ve got your back.”
I ignored him.
“Get it, Eve? Your back?”
I ignored him.
“I just love our morning chats.”
He sighed.
I hated them.
A lie.

Everything I Want
SIX WEEKS OUT FROM SURGERY AND I’VE MADE IT AS FAR AS the living room couch. I had my mother place the telescope in front of the big picture window before she left for work. One nice thing about having a parent not ultra-interested in your life is they don’t ask inane questions like Why do you need me to drag a telescope into the living room for the day?
I sip the last of my lukewarm tea while I gaze at it.
“You really like that thing,” Lidia says.
“I do,” I tell her. “He gives me everything I want.”
She laughs at my silly-sounding response, which warms me more than the tea.
Having Lidia back makes me feel like I’m ten years old. I feel so good. Although I doubt I look it. My hair is supergreasy. My face is paler than the whiteboards at school. I’m wearing the same torn red snowflake pajamas I first put on when I got home from the hospital. And except when the nurse visits, I haven’t removed my brace once. I’ve also lost a bunch of weight. Too much weight. Being skinny may be the dream of most sixteen-year-old girls, but when your bones look like a game of pick-up sticks, having them more on display is never the goal.
“Your toenails are gross, Eve. Let me paint them.”
I look down at my feet. She’s right.
“Red, they’d look really good red,” she suggests.
“Um—” I say. Something feels wrong. I’m not sure what.
“I know,” she cuts me off. “You like blue better.”
“No, Lid,” I whisper. “I don’t like blue.”
We hear the front door open, followed by a whip of cold air. Lidia stands up. “I’ll get the polish,” she says, as she slips off into my bedroom just as my mother walks into the living room followed by…
Thomas Aquinas?
My head is ripped from its Roxy haze as I scoot below the couch throw. Pain from the thoughtless movement zings through the trunk of my body.
“I bumped into your pal Thomas on the way in, Eve,” my mother says.
Thomas Aquinas grins from behind her. He’s holding a stack of work for me.
“Thomas is not my pal,” I say. “He’s my partner.”
Instantly, I hear what this sounds like and quickly add, “For SWAS. My partner for SWAS.”
And then because I know my mother will not know what SWAS is, and I don’t want her asking in front of Thomas, I throw in, “You know, the School Within a School program.”
“Well, he’s also a June Jordan fan,” my mother informs me, not at all interested in what I just said. “And is considering a double major in poetry and women’s studies in college.” She’s the head of the English Department at Franklin Community College.
“A women’s studies major?” I ask. This is just like my mother, to know more about the neighbor kid than she does about me.
“Yes, and trust me, Eve, I’ve heard all the jokes,” Thomas says. He always has to annoyingly say my name.
“I don’t know any jokes.”
I sound a bit like an asshole, though I don’t mean to. I really just don’t know any jokes.
His eyes narrow, like he can’t figure me out. The easy hatred we share at school seems to be missing with him standing in my living room.
“Anyway,” he says, “you look busy.”
He turns toward my mother. “Nice seeing you again, Dr. Abbott.”
“No, no, she’s not busy. Siéntate. Siéntate.”
“Mom.” Oh my god, I hate my mother.
She ignores me. “Eve’s a huge June Jordan fan, too.”
I am not a June Jordan fan. I barely know who June Jordan is. We had to read a book of her poetry last year in AP English and my mother noticed it in my hands one day. Since then, she regularly refers to me as a lover of June Jordan. She and Mary Fay both teach at Franklin, my mother poetry and gender and Mary Fay poetry and African American studies. My mother has been dreaming of my future as a poetry major since she saw that book under my arm. I’ve stopped trying to correct her. Once something crawls into my mother’s head, it stays locked in there forever, like a prisoner without hope of parole.
My mother takes off down the hall… leaving Mr. Women’s Studies standing in our living room. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, glancing