She sounded so miserable, so lost, that all the stuff about Julia and everything else that was clawing inside me, scratching me raw and making me desperate for a drink—it stilled. Because what she said and how she said it . . . it was how I felt too. How I always feel.
I don’t know why I’m here either, except that it’s what I deserve and that—I know it’s right, but I’m so lost without Julia. So lonely.
I guess maybe that’s why I ended up going to Caro’s house. She didn’t ask me, exactly, just said, “I’m going home. If you want to . . .”
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We walked there in silence. I remembered her living all the way at the edge of town but apparently she moved and now lives about ten blocks from the high school. I hadn’t known that, but then I never thought about Caro after me and Julia became friends, except for the occa-sional middle school flashback when I was nervous, and in those, Caro was always the shadow behind Beth, her little puppet.
I thought things hadn’t changed much, but Caro is different now. Sort of. For instance, the whole . . . whatever thing at school.
And then, when we got to her house, I found out she’s a vegetarian too.
“You want something to eat?” she said when we walked in. “I don’t do meat, but my parents do if you want a sandwich or something.”
“Oh,” I said. “I don’t—I don’t eat meat either.”
“Cheese?”
“What?” I said, and she grinned, just a little.
“Do you eat cheese?”
I nodded, and we ended up making grilled cheese sandwiches and eating them while we watched TV. It should have been weird, the whole sandwich thing (plus the being-at-her-house thing) but it wasn’t. It didn’t 118
feel normal, but it felt okay. And it definitely felt a lot better than being at school.
I was almost done with my sandwich when she cleared her throat and said, “You know, I wish I was tall, like you.”
I faked a smile while I ate my last crust and flashbacked to her and Beth and Anne Alice calling me “skyscraper”
in fourth grade, but she said, “No, Amy, seriously. I would love it.”
“Yeah, it’s a joy trying to find jeans and having the legs end around your shins. Or knees.”
“But you totally stand out. Even when we were kids you did. People would always talk about how tall you were, like a model, and how pretty your hair was and—”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Come on. Remember when we went to the aquarium and everyone we saw kept saying you had beautiful hair?”
“All I remember is the bus ride home.” Stuff being rubbed in my hair, giggles filling my ears. It was so hard not to cry, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t let myself. I just sat there and hoped it would be over soon.
I was sure she’d be all “What do you mean?” about it but she muttered, “Yeah,” and then said, “You just sat 119
there. If you’d just turned around and said something, anything, then maybe—”
“Beth would have told everyone to put more crap in my hair?”
“No, I would have . . . yeah, okay. She would have said that, and we would have done it. Beth was—she is—”
“A bitch?”
“Yeah,” Caro said, and then looked horrifi ed. “I mean—she’s not, not really. She’s my best friend and . . .”
She sighed. “Who am I kidding? She’s a total bitch. She knows I like Mel—how, I don’t know, because I didn’t tell her. But it doesn’t matter. She’s decided she likes him, and Beth always gets what she wants.”
“Not always,” I said, but I was lying. Girls like Beth do always get what they want. It’s like an unwritten law or something. And I could tell from the way Caro was looking at me that she knew I was lying too.
“I keep hoping she’ll get bored and go after someone else,” she said. “Dating Mel means hanging out with Patrick, and she really doesn’t like him. He’s so . . . well, he’s so quiet, it’s kind of freaky.”
“Because he’s quiet?”
“He’s not ordinary quiet, you know? He’s just . . .
always quiet. Didn’t you see him disappear at the movies on Friday? Or maybe you’d already left before he did?”
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When I didn’t say anything she shrugged. “Anyway, after his dad’s stroke he had to help out because his parents are pretty old, and he ended up missing a lot of school.
He made it all up, or whatever, but I guess what happened to his dad messed him up because when he came back he just . . . he wasn’t the same.”
“How?” I couldn’t help it. I had to know.
“He didn’t talk to his friends. He didn’t talk to anyone, and I think if Mel hadn’t just assumed that when he talked, Patrick would talk back, he might never have spoken to anyone again. It’s like just being there is difficult for him, and not because it’s school and we’re all sick of it. I think something about being around a lot of people—or anyone, really—bothers him. Weird, huh?”
“His dad had a stroke at a carnival, remember? Lots of people around.”
“Right, I forgot. That makes sense. I guess it explains why he left the movie too. There was that thing at the beginning, with the old guy . . .”
“I remember,” I said, and thought about Patrick sitting outside the movie theater. Where he was sitting. How he was sitting. What he said. How he knew exactly what it was like to be a totally different person even though you looked exactly the same.
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“It’s too bad, you know?” Caro said. “What happened to him, I mean. He was totally someone once. He did stuff. But now he doesn’t do anything. I couldn’t believe he was at the movies, actually. Mel must have dragged him there.”
“Maybe,” I said, even though I was sure he had.
“I’ve seen Patrick at two parties, maybe, in the past couple of years, and he always leaves after, like, ten minutes and goes and waits for Mel to drive him home. It’s just so sad how some people totally get messed up when someone . . .” She trailed off. “Not that you’re . . . I mean, everyone’s messed up, aren’t they?”
I made an agreeing noise and tried to remember if there was a crosstown bus stop nearby. Corn Syrup attempting to do deep? I definitely didn’t need that.
“I mean, look at me,” she continued. “I’m afraid to talk to a guy I really like because my best friend, who I hate to the point where I imagine her getting hit by a car at least twice at day, has decided she might want him.”
“Well, you could—never mind.” I got up. Bus stop or no bus stop, I was out of there. The last thing I needed to do was hang around and point out the obvious.
“What?”
I sighed, because really, for a supposedly smart person, she sure was dumb. “Beth treats you like crap, right?”
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Caro shrugged.
“So stop hanging out with her.”
“Oh, right. Great idea, because high school is totally the best place to do something that will make sure I have absolutely no friends.”
I hadn’t known Caro could do sarcasm. I sat back down.
“You know, it was easy for you to ditch Beth, but then you had Julia. I’ve never had someone like that, who would stand up for me no matter what. You were so lucky, Amy.”
Were. Past tense. I stood back up. “Look, I gotta—”
“I hated her, you know. Ever since that party when we were in sixth grade—”
“Yeah, so sorry you got called on your shit.”
“Like I was the only one doing stuff to you,” Caro said quietly. “But that’s not even it. You basically stopped talking to me after you met her. You just—you acted like we’d never been friends.”
“We were never friends. You and Beth and Anne Alice were friends.”
“Beth and Anne Alice were friends. Do you know how awful my life would be if Anne Alice hadn’t moved to Los Angeles two years ago? They treated me just like you, Amy, only I had to deal with it for a hell of a lot longer.