That was a lot of fun.
5
Today they were clutching hands again, but they actually let go of each other and got up and hugged me.
Separately. That’s when I realized today was going to be weird. As in seriously weird.
I’m taller than both of them now. I can’t believe it. I knew I was taller than Mom but didn’t realize I’m taller than Dad. I guess maybe I grew some while I was here. It figures. Sixteen, about six feet tall, and just out of a “treatment center.” I’m such a winner.
On the drive home, Mom and Dad told me about my
“new” room. My bedroom up in the attic is gone. They moved all my stuff down into the guest room on the second floor, and now it’s my bedroom. I can’t believe my parents want me sleeping near them. Weird. But then I suppose it fits in with today.
Because after telling me about my new room, my parents had other things to say. They told me there wouldn’t be a lock on my door anymore. They told me that even though I’m now old enough to get my license, there’s no way I was going to. They also told me I would have to keep seeing Laurie every week.
I said “Fine” to everything. I think they expected arguing or something because they kept looking at me, Dad in the rearview mirror, Mom in the little one you’re supposed to use to check your makeup.
6
When we got here the weirdness was complete, because the house . . . it’s still the same, but yet it isn’t. For one thing, it’s blue now. Apparently, Mom had it painted again. It’s better than the yellow it was before but not by much. I don’t know how an art professor can be so clue-less when it comes to this stuff. I mean, she can paint and teach other people how to do it, but she can’t fi gure out that a blue house is a bad idea?
Mom and Dad might have been waiting for me to comment on the house. You never know with them. I didn’t say anything. It’s a new color, not a new house, not a new me and a new them, and Julia is still gone.
They helped me bring my stuff in, and then we all stood around looking at one another. I finally said, “I’m hungry,” just so it wasn’t so quiet. They, of course, both went to fix me something to eat. I know they don’t do everything together, and I’ve even heard them argue once in a while, but most of the time it’s like they’re one person. Not Colin and Grace. Just ColinandGrace.
I can hear them now, laughing at a joke they’ll never share with me. If Julia was here I never would have heard it because we’d be out having fun. I don’t care about my room or a stupid lock or driving or even having to see Laurie. I don’t care about any of it.
7
76 days
J,
It’s me. I’m home, though it doesn’t feel like it. Not without you.
I tossed the starter journal Dr. Marks gave me, which is just as well because it had little pine trees running along the bottom of every page. I suppose I should be happy it wasn’t teddy bears.
After I tossed it and a bunch of other random crap Pinewood gave me, pamphlets and books and bullshit about feelings, I found my old chemistry notebook.
Remember chemistry?
Me neither. I know I passed because I wore a short skirt every time we had a test. Mr. Lansing was such a pervert. Neither of us took a single note all year. I 8
flipped through the notebook when I pulled it out and it was blank page after blank page except for one.
Hey, you wrote me a note at the bottom of this page.
“Locker after class?”
Your handwriting is so much nicer than mine.
I just called your house. Your mother hung up as soon as I said hello.
9
T W O
78 DAYS TODAY, and Mom took me to the mall.
“A belated birthday present,” she said.
I wasn’t allowed to get gifts while I was in Pinewood.
Laurie had asked me how I felt about that at least a hundred times, but what did I care? What kind of birthday was it without Julia there? In the end it was just another day of therapy and bad food punctuated with an awkward visit with Mom and Dad.
They sang “Happy Birthday” and asked me how my room was, then stood around looking nervous. It was a visit just like all their others, except for the song. Laurie had asked me about that too. She has a question for everything.
Mom and Dad were both going to take me to the mall, but last night at dinner we were talking (by which I mean 10
I just sat there and tried to think of things to say when they asked me stuff—until now, dinner was always a two-person show) and Dad suggested she and I go since Mom wasn’t teaching today. He said he’d take me to get school supplies over the weekend.
Mom looked hurt (oh no, they weren’t going to be doing everything together!) and Dad reached out and took her hand, giving her the “you’re my whole world”
look. I don’t get how they can be so into each other. It’s not normal. (Julia thought it was sweet, but then she was in love with the whole idea of love. In my book being that
“in love” is, frankly, kind of creepy.) Anyway, they were holding hands and fi nishing each other’s sentences and Dad was starting to talk about trying to rearrange his schedule. I could feel myself fading, becoming invisible girl once again, but then Mom said,
“You know, I think that’s a great idea.”
She almost sounded like she meant it. Almost.
We went, just the two of us, and I spent the fi rst ten minutes waiting for her to shrivel up because Dad wasn’t around. She seemed fi ne, though.
Me—well, that was different. The mall was bigger than I remembered, too full of crap and people. One of the first stores we passed was the one where me and Julia almost got busted for putting a skirt in my purse. I’d 11
wanted to grab a plaid one, but she’d found one that was so much cooler. She had this gift of being able to fi nd the most amazing clothes in any store. Two seconds and she’d have the perfect outfi t, an outfi t that no one else but her could wear.
Anyway, she picked the skirt, it was in my bag, and we almost exploded trying not to laugh on our way out of the store.
I couldn’t breathe, thinking about that. How hard we tried not to laugh. How hard she did once we were back out in the mall again, her head thrown back and her eyes shining.
Julia always laughed so loudly, so happily.
I’m never going to hear her laugh again.
Everything started going fuzzy then, black around the edges.
“Mom,” I said. “I have to sit down.”
Mom took me to the food court, bought me a soda, and called Dad. I didn’t bother listening to the conversation because no one needs to hear “I love you” forty-seven million times. You’d think they’d get sick of saying it to each other. I know they never will.
Mom wouldn’t take me home when I fi nished my soda. I said, “But what about Dad?” and she said, “He’s fine. Which store do you want to go to fi rst?”
12
So we went shopping. What else could I do? We went into store after store, Mom looking, me standing there, trying to breathe. She kept showing me these little skirts and shirts, stuff like—stuff like Julia and me always wore.
She even said, “If I had your figure . . . ,” and I stared at her until she said, “Oh, Amy, I understand. You and Julia probably came here, right?” and squeezed my hand.
I’d always wanted to do this kind of thing with her, go shopping, do mom-and-daughter stuff I should have stopped longing for in middle school. I never wanted it to be like this.
On the way home, Mom asked about birth control, the question too casual to be anything but practiced at least a hundred times. I told her there was nothing to tell.
She said, “I know there must be,” so I told her I knew all about it and had been extra careful ever since I had to take a pregnancy test when I was fourteen. I shouldn’t have done it, but I didn’t want to talk about sex with Mom and I knew that would stop the conversation.