maybe it was all those voices in the dark, or maybe it was just that bits and pieces of all those laughs sounded like Julia’s, like I could almost hear her. Whatever it was, the whole theater suddenly seemed like it wasn’t real, and I was afraid if I moved everything around me would fall away and I’d be lost.
I felt shaky and weirdly dizzy—not like everything was spinning, but like I was spinning, and I knew it was wrong for me to be there. I shouldn’t be at the movies, even if it was in the middle of a bizarre situation I didn’t get and with a bunch of people I didn’t like. I had to get out. I had to get away and—
Drink.
I wanted a drink. I wanted one so bad.
Somehow I managed to get out of the theater, and as I was wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans and heading to the lobby, I realized I hadn’t had to step over anyone in order to leave. Patrick had left too.
I thought it was weird, but then Patrick was weird, and then I couldn’t think at all because the unsteadiness 103
came back, the lobby and the crowds of people standing around waiting for their movie to start turning into a spinning blur of color and faces. I had to get out of there. Even more than I wanted a drink, I wanted to go home.
I thought about going back and telling Mel I was leaving, but I figured he wouldn’t even notice I was gone and I was starting to feel like I was going to pass out or worse.
I managed to find a pay phone—Mom and Dad want me to prove I’m “ready” to have a cell again, which is stupid because who would I call if I had one?—and called home.
Dad said he’d come get me right away and as soon as I hung up I sat down on the floor right by the phone, not caring that people were staring.
That didn’t last long. I’ve always hated it when people stare at me, because I know they’re seeing how I’m too tall and have weird-colored hair, and being the only person sitting down in a huge shifting swarm of people meant everyone was stepping on my feet or stepping over them and staring at me, the girl on the floor. I stood up and scuttled along the wall to an exit.
Outside, I felt better. Everything didn’t seem so bright, so closed in, and I rubbed my still sweating and now shaking hands down my arms. A couple pushed past me, bumping into me like I wasn’t there. Maybe I wasn’t.
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I sure felt like I wasn’t. I walked blindly down the sidewalk, head bent so I wouldn’t have to see anything, and hoped Dad would come soon.
“The sidewalk pretty much ends here,” someone said.
It was Patrick. He was sitting down, leaning against the theater wall, almost hidden from the enormous lights that were shining down on everything, including the parking lot.
“Sorry,” I muttered. My voice sounded strange, far away. I looked back at the lobby. It looked even brighter and more crowded than before, cartoon fake. No way could I ever go back. I wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else. I wanted to feel better. I wanted a drink again.
I hated myself for it, but I did.
“You should sit down,” he said. I looked at him. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring straight ahead with his arms folded tight around his bent knees. Everything went blurry then, and when my vision cleared it was too clear, like the world had turned into nothing but sharp edges waiting to cut me open.
I sat down. I had to, or I was afraid I’d fall down. I knew I was having a panic attack. I’d had them after . . .
after what happened. After Julia died, and all through my fi rst few weeks in Pinewood. I hadn’t had one in a while, though, and I’d forgotten how they made everything 105
seem like it—and I—was going to fall apart. How they reminded me of how trapped I was.
I tried to stare straight ahead like Patrick, but the world still looked odd. Wrong. I stared down at the ground and tried to talk to myself the way Laurie taught me to. I told myself it was just panic, that I was upset, on edge, and that it would pass.
It didn’t work. I felt worse; less connected to myself, to everything. My hands shook, and I could feel my heart beating too fast, racing and skipping beats, and I couldn’t close my eyes because when I did all I saw was Julia leaning against me, crying as we walked toward a waiting car.
“Is this the first time you’ve gone out since J—”
“Yes,” I said, and started to stand up. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to go back to the lobby, but I didn’t want to talk about me and Julia.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” Patrick said. “Showing up with Mel and everything, I mean. It was—you know.”
I didn’t but nodded anyway.
“There was a carnival just down the road,” Patrick said. “Two years ago.” His voice sounded funny, thin and stretched out. I figured he was high. Strangely, it made me feel better. High guys were easy to deal with.
“Sure, I remember,” I said, even though I didn’t.
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Patrick looked at me.
“No, you don’t,” he said, and he wasn’t high at all. I could see it in his eyes, bright and clear and in pain, and suddenly I did remember the carnival. I remembered it coming to town, setting up in the parking lot of a closed discount store. I remembered what happened there.
No wonder Patrick had left the movie.
“How’s your dad?”
Patrick shrugged. “The same.” Two years ago, when Patrick had just moved to town and was a new star at school, super smart and an athlete all the jocks, even the seniors, were talking about, his dad had a stroke at the carnival. He’d almost died. I’d forgotten all about it.
“People forget stuff like that,” Patrick said, and in his eyes I could see he knew exactly what I’d been thinking.
What I’d just remembered. “Stuff that . . . something happens that changes your whole life, and people tell you how sorry they are and all that, but then, after a while, it’s like you’re the only one who remembers. It’ll happen to you too. People will forget what happened to Julia.
They’ll forget her.”
“I won’t.”
“No,” he said. “You won’t. Even if you want to forget, you’ll remember. I can still see my dad’s face. He was mad about how much it cost to get in, kept talking about 107
it. People were staring. I wasn’t listening, wanted to go find my friends, and then he sort of . . . he just gave me this look. This weird look, like he didn’t know me, like he didn’t know anything, and then he was on the ground . . .”
Patrick stopped talking. He looked like he was back there, like he was trapped in one horrible moment. I know what that feels like.
“The movie made you think about it, didn’t it?”
He laughed, and I was sorry I’d said anything because his laugh didn’t sound like a laugh at all. It sounded like pain.
“Everything makes me think about it. I know it shouldn’t. He didn’t die. He’s still alive; he’s doing okay, learning how to walk again and stuff, so really, I’m pretty damn lucky. I shouldn’t be so . . . I shouldn’t be out here, hiding. I should be okay.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You didn’t have to. It’s the truth.” He wrapped his arms around his legs again. “Do you miss the person you were before she died?”
“I . . . No.” I did, though. I do. I thought things were hard before but they weren’t. I never knew how lucky I was until it was too late.
He looked at me again. He didn’t say anything but his eyes were easy to read. In them I saw he was calling me a 108
liar without ever saying a word. Laurie would love him.
“It wouldn’t matter if I did,” I said sharply. “It’s not like I can go back.”
“If you could, though? If you could go back and change things a little, make it so Julia would live, would—?”
“You can’t say things like that. You shouldn’t . . . you can’t think like that.” I stood up, shaking. “I don’t think like that.”