SYD CALLS and tells me to take Dad’s offer of a ride rather than fighting the press, even if it means being in the car with Bree. She says it will be less awkward than facing the looks we’ll get if we sit together on the bus again.
“Oh. Okay. Sure,” I say, but I’m gutted because I think that she’s already having second thoughts about kissing me. I’ve been replaying that kiss over and over and imagining more, but maybe she’s been thinking it was all one big mistake, never to be repeated, ever.
But then … “I got into a major fight with my parents at dinner,” she continues.
“What about?”
“You,” she says. “Lara saw us. And she snitched.”
“Uh-oh,” I say.
“ ‘Uh-oh’ is right,” she says. “My parents were all, What possessed you to hang out with him, Syd? It’s awkward under the circumstances, Syd, and I was like, Yeah, circumstances that have nothing to do with either of us.”
I smile, happy that she stood up to her parents for me. “Wow. Thanks.”
“And you know what’s the craziest thing of all?” she says. “After ratting me to Mom and Dad, guess who then stuck up for us and said they should back off?”
“Lara? No way.”
“Way! I couldn’t believe it, either,” Syd tells me. “And what’s even more amazing is the talk we had afterward. She came up to my room and said she was sorry for everything I’ve had to go through because of her.”
I try to imagine my sister saying something like that. Epic fail.
“Seriously?”
“I know, right? At first I was like, Who are you and what have you done with Lara?”
I laugh.
“But then, once I realized she really meant it, that maybe all this therapy stuff she’s been doing has actually made a difference, we talked. I mean really talked. It was pretty cool.”
I wonder what it would take for Bree to apologize to me. To any of us. Most of all, to Lara and the Kelleys. I wonder if I’ll ever understand what made my sister do the things she did.
We drop Bree off at the high school first the next morning.
“Keep your chin up, Breenut,” Dad says. “Don’t forget — go to the principal’s office and call me or Mom if you have a problem.”
Bree still doesn’t have a new cell. After what happened with her voice mail, she doesn’t seem in a hurry to get one, which is crazy because Bree’s life used to revolve around that phone.
Bree gets out of the car slowly, like she’s half-asleep still.
“Hey, Bree, could you hurry up? I have to get to school, too, you know,” I remind her.
Dad gives me a hush-up look in the rearview mirror.
“Bye,” Bree says, shutting the car door and shuffling off, shoulders hunched and head down.
“Can you try to show a little compassion for your sister, Liam?” Dad asks.
“What, like she showed for Lara?”
Dad’s lips set into a thin, grim line in the rearview mirror. “Bree did wrong. Very wrong. I’m not denying that,” Dad says. “And she deserves some consequences. But hacking her cell phone? Death threats? She’s fifteen years old, Liam, and she’s your sister. Can’t you cut her some slack?”
I’m so mad at Bree, it’s hard to let go of it, even though I hear what Dad’s saying. But I mumble, “I guess,” and figure I’ll try.
That’s until I hit the bathroom in between second and third period. I’m at the urinal taking care of business when four kids from the football team walk in, and Shane Perry says, “Yo, it’s Bullying Bree’s brother!”
Just my luck to be standing there, pants unzipped, midstream when four guys trap me in the bathroom.
Hurry up and finish, I tell my bladder, because all I want to do is zip up and get out of there. But it keeps on coming.
Meanwhile, they walk up behind me.
Steve Malloy says, “My sister’s a cheerleader at the high school. She said your sister pretended to be a guy and made Lara Kelley try to kill herself.”
He shoves me, and pee goes up the wall.
“Who does that?” Steve asks.
Not me. And could you at least let me put my junk away before you beat me up?
I finally finish and start trying to put myself back in my pants, but Todd Adams punches my arm really hard.
“Yeah,” he says as emphasis. “Who does that?”
“It wasn’t me,” I say. “It was Bree.”
Whose fault it is I’m getting beat up right now.
“And your mom,” Joe Anderson says. “Your mom is seriously cray-cray.”
I manage to get put away and zipped, just before Anderson and Malloy pin me against the wall.
Now I’m freaking out. I’m about to get seriously messed up. And there’s no way I can win four against one.
“That girl almost died,” Adams says, pulling my hair as he gets up into my face. “Doesn’t that make you feel bad, Connors?”
Spittle gets on my face as he says the s in Connors. I want to throw up.
“Of course it makes me feel bad,” I say, trying not to gag from the spittle.
“Not bad enough,” Shane Perry says. And he punches me in the stomach, hard, just as the bell rings for next period.
Anderson and Malloy let go of my arms and split with the rest of them, and I sink to the floor, clutching my stomach and trying to breathe.
All I can think of while I’m lying there is how much I hate my sister, because it’s all her fault that this happened.
WHEN I finally get to sleep, if I can sleep without dreaming, I’m able to escape for a while from the mess I’ve made of my life. Not just my life. My whole family’s life.
When the alarm goes off to wake me for school, I turn it off, fighting off tears, because I don’t know if I can face another day.
I wonder if this is how Lara felt.
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I try to summon up the energy to get moving. Get up and get dressed. Brush my hair. Put on makeup. Try to look my best on the outside, even though I feel awful on the inside. Go downstairs. Eat food that tastes like nothing, even though I’m not hungry, just so Dad doesn’t give me a hard time because I haven’t eaten.
“Come on, let’s go,” Dad says, picking up his car keys and his briefcase.
“I might take the bus today,” Liam mumbles, staring down into his cornflakes.
“Go with your father, Liam,” Mom orders. “There’s still some press outside.”
“I don’t care,” Liam says, looking up and staring Mom down defiantly. “I don’t want to go with them. I’ll take the bus.”
“Bree, go wait in the car,” Dad tells me.
“Liam just wants to take the bus so he doesn’t have to be with me, right, Liam?” I say.
“It doesn’t matter why,” Mom says grimly. “He’s not taking the bus, and that’s final.”
Liam picks up his backpack and storms out to the garage to wait in the car, slamming the door behind him.
“Your brother got roughed up in the bathroom at school yesterday,” Dad says. His knuckles are white around the handle of his coffee cup. “Four guys against one.”
“Because of …”
“Yes, Breanna — because of the situation that you and your mother created for this family. Because the two of you didn’t think about how the repercussions of your actions would affect all of us.”