Never Look Back. Robert Ross

Chris was shy around girls, could never think of the right thing to say, and always flushed with embarrassment. Instead, he channeled his sexual frustrations and energies into his workouts. The gym was a release for him, a way to go into his own little world where he didn’t have to worry about having friends or getting laid or what his mother wanted him to do. There, he just was able to focus on what he was doing, on the effort and energy he needed to move the weights, to push the pedals on the stationary bike, and build his muscles up.

      He didn’t play any of the sports at Thomas More Prep, either—his mother didn’t believe in team sports (“they don’t teach individuality—just a pack mentality, and no son of mine is going to be in a pack”). That was fine with his father, who was short and overweight and completely blind without his glasses, and who had no interest in sports at all—other than to complain about all the money Boston College poured into its athletics department at the expense of academics. It was one of the few things Chris had in common with his dad, the total indifference he felt toward athletics. Most of the guys on the sports teams at More Prep were the biggest assholes at school. But Chris’s height and his devotion to weight training made him seem desirable to the coaches.

      There were times, late at night in his dorm room, wide awake and staring at the ceiling, when he thought it might be nice to belong somewhere.

      His roommate, Josh Benton, had no such qualms. Josh played football, was on the wrestling team, and pitched for the baseball team in the spring. Josh spent as little time in their room as possible, which was fine with Chris. Josh was always out with his teammates, and spent as much of his time as possible in the nearby town of Suffolk, trying to get into local girls’ pants—and if he was to be believed, he scored more off the football field than on it.

      Josh is okay, Chris thought as he tried to keep his eye on the girl in black as she pushed through the throngs of people, if a little sex-crazy. Josh didn’t tease him or call him beanpole the way some of the other boys did—although, Chris realized, a little smile stretching across his face, since he’d started lifting weights he wasn’t tall and skinny anymore. He was filling out quite nicely, his muscles thickening and hardening.

      Too bad the girl in black hadn’t noticed.

      He’d seen her the week he’d arrived—saw her walking up the street with her bag and her head down. He’d been exploring, and had just gotten an ice cream cone at the Ben & Jerry’s when she walked by. Something about her stuck in his head; there was something about her eyes that seemed to pierce into his soul. He knew that sounded weird, but he couldn’t help it. It was just a reaction he had; he couldn’t deny it. It wasn’t just that she was pretty—she was, even though she didn’t seem to care about styling her hair. She had a heart-shaped face with a strong chin, a nice little nose, and her eyes were round and big and pretty. More than her looks, however, it was the air of loneliness about her that he recognized. So he’d followed her, just to see where she was going. He had nothing else to do, and it would help kill some time before he had to get back home. Maybe he’d be able to talk to her, ask her out, make a connection with her, and they could date all summer, and maybe she’d be able to help make this summer bearable. He was smiling as these thoughts filled his mind—and then in front of the post office, a group of kids across the street starting yelling at her as she passed.

      “Hey, Spook, where you off to?”

      “Spook, do you have anything that’s not black?”

      “Going a-haunting, Spook? There’s a house on the east end that needs haunting!”

      “It’s not Halloween yet, Spook, why ya wearing a costume?”

      And then they started laughing. It was a cruel laugh, like the kids who made fun of him. His stomach clenched into a knot.

      The girl ignored them, didn’t look at them, acted as if she hadn’t heard a word they’d said. But she walked just a little bit faster.

      The laughter made him angry. He wanted to punch the smiles right off their asshole faces. He knew what it was like to be made fun of—which was part of the reason he worked out so hard. When he’d arrived at Thomas More, he’d already been six feet tall and weighed a hundred and forty wiry pounds. His bones showed through his skin, and he could count his ribs in the mirror. Then one of the gym teachers, who heard a bunch of boys calling Chris the “Jolly Green Giant” in the locker room one afternoon, suggested he start lifting weights. It turned out that Chris liked it, and he started getting up early in the mornings to lift before class, when the weight room was deserted.

      He liked having it to himself, liked the sound the weights made when he set them down in the otherwise silent gym. He’d grown another three inches since then, but had put on thirty pounds. But getting his mother to buy him a gym membership so he could keep working out during the summer had been a battle.

      “Shouldn’t you be spending the summer expanding your mind?” she’d insisted. “I gave you your reading list, didn’t I? I can add more books if you need more things to do. And I thought you were going to be my research assistant.” She’d offered to pay him five dollars an hour to look up information on the Internet for her.

      But for once his father intervened. “I don’t see what it can hurt. Come on, Lois, he can’t spend the whole summer cooped in here with a book. He has to keep his body sharp, too—remember? Body, mind, spirit?”

      His mother, startled by this rebellion, had stared, her mouth opening and closing. She wasn’t used to being opposed by anyone, and finally she just threw her arms up in the air. “Fine! But if it interferes with your reading or your work, it’s over.”

      Chris sat back on the bench and wished again he had worked up the nerve to say hello to the girl. It had been more than a month; the summer was almost over. Would he ever get to meet her?

      Why did they call her Spook? Just because she wore black all the time? That’s just stupid. It’s not like she’s ugly or anything. She’s pretty even if she doesn’t do anything with her hair or wear makeup. Why are the kids so mean to her? What did she do to them? Can’t they see how pretty she is?

      He wanted to say to her, “Don’t listen to them—they’re assholes. They’re gonna grow up and be garbage-men or something like that, and have rotten little lives with wives who can’t stand them and kids who won’t listen to them.” Chris closed his eyes, imagining himself reaching out and stroking her hair. “They don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re idiots, ignore them.”

      He’d practice in the mirror at night before bed, before brushing his teeth and washing his face, trying to see which facial expression would be the most reassuring, the friendliest, the studliest—which one might make the girl respond to him. He’d stare at himself, wondering how she would see him. Would she think he looked like Ichabod Crane? Would the goddamned Adam’s apple that stuck out so far from his long thin neck make her recoil? Would she think he was tall and dumb-looking? Would he be able to get the words out, or would he stammer and blush and make an ass out of himself like he did at the dances at school?

      Every day, he’d venture out into the streets, keeping an eye out for the spook-girl, steeling his nerve to actually talk to her. And every day, he’d see her. He’d sometimes walk behind her for a while as she looked into store windows or stopped into a coffee shop. He’d get a cup of coffee himself and sit on the steps of Spiritus Pizza, keeping his eyes on her, drumming up his courage to say something. Maybe she’s gay, he got to thinking. After all, so many people in P-town are. But she never said a word to anyone, male or female.

      Not once had she ever acknowledged his presence. Day in, day out, as more and more tourists filled up the town, as the shops and restaurants and cafés filled, as the beach became wall-to-wall bodies glistening with oil.

      Now he was leaving in less than three weeks, and he still hadn’t said a word to her. He cursed himself as a dork, loser, jerk, at every missed opportunity. He worked his way through his reading list—Simone deBeauvoir, Germaine Greer, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and all the other books his mother felt were mind-expanding and “important” for him to read.

      It’s