“My feet are freezing,” Syd complains when we get inside.
“Do you want me to make you some hot chocolate?”
She gives me a strange look. Under the kitchen lights, I can see the dried tear tracks that stain her cheeks, still tinged pink from the chill outside.
“What?” I ask.
Syd opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but closes it and looks down at her bare feet, which have bits of grass still stuck to them. “Nothing,” she mumbles. “Hot chocolate would be nice.”
I know she was going to say something else, but I don’t have the energy for twenty questions. Whatever’s on her mind, Syd’s gonna have to just spit it out.
I’ve just finished pouring the boiling water into the mugs when the front door opens and slams shut.
“How could you, Pete?” Mom shouts. “Do you realize you’ve probably single-handedly sunk my reelection campaign?”
“I’m sorry …”
“A citation for disorderly conduct? What kind of example —”
“Seriously, Kathy? That … woman almost killed our daughter and you’re worried about the election and setting examples?”
My former best friend and her mother punked me and I tried to kill myself over a guy who didn’t even exist, my dad’s been cited for disorderly conduct by the police — I’m sure the video of him losing it on our neighbor’s lawn in his pajamas is all over YouTube as we speak — and my mother’s reelection campaign is probably over as of tonight.
Everything is a complete disaster, and it’s all because of me.
Syd grabs my wrist as soon as I put down her mug of hot chocolate.
“Don’t.”
The fierce urgency in her voice shocks me. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t do that thing you do. Don’t go all zombie on me right now.”
Her eyes burn into me, trying to force me out of the numbness I’m trying so desperately to retreat into.
“You always do that. You always disappear when things get hard,” she says. “I’m sick of it. It’s not fair.”
I think, I’m not disappearing. I’m trying to save myself.
I say, “I’m right here, Syd.”
Syd rolls her eyes and blows a raspberry of disgust through her lips. “Sure, Lara. Okay, Lara. Whatever you say.”
She slides out of her chair, taking the mug of hot chocolate with her, and storms out of the kitchen, while I listen to our parents fighting and try my best to slip back into the comforting void, alone.
I THOUGHT when Mr. Kelley went crazy on our lawn in his pajamas and got cited by the police for disorderly conduct, it would take some of the heat off Mom and me.
Well, that’s just another example of how stupid I am.
What actually happened was that it brought more attention to us. There’s a huge front-page spread in the Lake Hills Independent under the headline “Mother-Daughter Bullying Team.”
Mom and me a team? That’s got to be the biggest joke ever. The truth is, she’s the crazy coach and I’m the player who always gets yelled at for no reason.
There were reports on the local news stations with the same “Bullying Team” tagline. Not that the Kelleys got off easy, either, which didn’t make me feel any better. There was video footage of Mr. Kelley ranting on our front lawn in his pj’s. When Mom watched the news yesterday morning during breakfast, she laughed at that.
“There goes Kathy Kelley’s political career,” she cackled.
“Zip it, Mary Jo,” Dad said. “That’s enough.”
Dad’s been pretty quiet since the front lawn ruckus, but it’s not his normal, laid-back quiet. It’s a brooding, tense silence as he goes around the house with a furrowed brow, and without his usual good humor.
I don’t pay much attention to politics, but I think Lara’s mom has been a good councilwoman. She always seems to be talking about making sure the schools have enough money, which sounds important to me. I can’t understand why Mom is so happy about her career going down the toilet, especially since she worked on Mrs. Kelley’s campaign when she first ran for office.
It can’t be all because of that stupid tax abatement thing that Mom’s always complaining about, can it? I suddenly wonder if that’s the reason Mom worked on the campaign. I always thought it was because she and Mrs. Kelley were friends.
Just before dinner, the doorbell rings. Mom tells me to get it. When I open the door, a well-groomed lady is standing there holding a microphone. Behind her is a cameraman, pointing the lens of his camera over her shoulder in my direction. One of those trucks with a satellite dish is parked at the curb outside our house.
“Are you Breanna Connors?” she asks.
“Yeah. Wait, are you filming this?” I ask, wondering if I should be talking to her at all, or if I should just shut the door in her face.
She ignores my question.
“Is your mother home?”
“She’s making dinner,” I say, trying to avoid looking at the cameraman, but then wonder, if they are filming, if that would just make me look sketchy.
“Well, can you get her?”
Fine, snippy Reporter Lady. Be that way.
“Moooom!” I shout without moving from the doorway. “There’s a TV reporter here to see you.”
“You were Lara Kelley’s best friend. Why would you do this to someone you allegedly cared about?”
She sticks her big black microphone right next to my mouth, staring at me accusingly, and I freeze, panic stricken. I don’t want a microphone in my face. I don’t want to be there at all. I want to be in my room, with the curtains closed, hiding under the covers, shutting the rest of the world out.
“I … didn’t … mean … to.”
“You didn’t mean to create a fake profile to trick her?”
“No. I just … I didn’t …”
“What’s going on here?” Mom says. “I didn’t give my consent for you to interview my daughter. She’s a minor.”
They need Mom’s permission to interview me? Normally that would make me mad because I’m old enough to make my own decisions, but at this moment I just feel relieved.
“I apologize,” says the reporter, but she doesn’t look or sound the teensiest bit sorry. “Do we have your permission to interview your daughter, Mrs. Connors?”
I hold my breath, hoping Mom won’t agree.
“No,” she says, and I exhale my relief. “Get lost.”
Mom turns to me. “Go finish your homework.”
I’d already finished it, but I use the excuse to escape into the family room.
Still, I notice that I don’t hear the front door slam shut for another five minutes.
“Don’t answer it,” Mom says when the phone rings during dinner. “It’s probably another one of those nosy reporters.”
We all sit listening to the answering machine. Sure enough, it’s a reporter from CNN. Practically as soon as he hangs up, the phone rings again. This time it’s a woman, who says she works for Nancy Grace on Fox.
“For crying out loud, Mary Jo,” Dad says, getting up and turning both the answering machine volume and the phone ringer to silent. “This is giving me indigestion.”
“What do you expect me to do about it?” Mom asks.
Dad opens his mouth to retort, but the doorbell rings again.
Liam jumps up to get it.
“Ignore it,” Dad says.
“But, Dad, what if it’s —”
“I said, ignore it!” Dad shouts.