arm. “I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t want to see you. I’ve lost everything because of you. Everything.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and fi nally, finally it came out.
Finally I said it. “I’m so sorry for what I did.”
“You’re sorry?” She dropped my arm like my skin burned her. “You’re sorry? She was my world. Your words, your ‘sorry,’ what does it do? She’s still gone, and you’re still here.” She hit me with the flowers, the plastic smacking my face, petals flying into the air around us.
“Keep your words. They aren’t enough. They won’t ever be enough.”
I ran then, turned and stumbled my way across the parking lot, toward Mom’s car and Mom sitting calmly inside, smiling like she was glad to see me. I said I had a headache and lay down in the backseat, pressed my face into it and wished it would swallow me whole.
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130 days
I saw you, J. I saw your mother too, and she . . . well, what she said to me is true. Sorry is just a word, and a word can’t make things right. It can’t change what I did.
It can’t bring you back.
Mom knew something happened, I guess, because when we got home, she came up to my room and checked on me every five minutes till I finally gave up and went downstairs. I floated, numb, through homework and dinner, saying yes, I was fine, when both Mom and Dad asked, and then cried the tears I couldn’t before in bed. I didn’t feel better afterward.
I knew I wouldn’t.
I can’t sleep. I’ve been lying here for hours and hours thinking about the cemetery. About your mother’s face.
About what she said. About your grave.
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I’m thinking about you. Remember when we went to Splash World? You totally scammed us inside and even got us onto all the best rides without waiting. We bought cotton candy and ate horrible seven-dollar hot dogs. We got our picture taken with Swimmy the Seal.
I still have the picture. I’m smiling in it. You’re standing in front of me. Your face is a blur because you’d turned toward me, the camera capturing you like you were, always in motion. The side of your mouth is open, laughing, and you’re leaning in a bit, like you’re going to rest your head on my shoulder.
You did. You always did that when I made you laugh or when someone else made you sad.
I’ve thought about that day, and about the time we tried to make caramel in your kitchen and had to open all the windows to get rid of the horrible burnt-sugar smell. I’ve thought about all the times I rode to school in your car, digging around on the floor through the pile of CDs you’d burned and how no matter which one I picked there was always at least one stupid love song that you knew all the words to. I’ve thought about all the times I lay on your bed, watching you make faces as you talked on the phone.
I’ve thought about how you would make me knock on the door and pretend to be your mother if it was a guy you 184
didn’t want to talk to, and the way we’d laugh afterward.
I’ve thought about all the times we walked down the hallways at school and you’d whisper, “Amy, you’re model tall.
Model! Show it off! I didn’t loan you my T-shirt so you could do the slouchy hiding thing, you know.”
I’ve thought about what Laurie asked me.
That night, the one with the guy with mean eyes and the grain alcohol? You knew. I know that now. I can—I can say it. You knew. You knew everything. You said you were scared afterward. I know what that means. I think maybe I always did. You meant you were sorry.
I think Laurie would say that means something. I think she would say it means something big. I think she would say it means you hurt me.
I think it means you were sorry.
People aren’t just one thing, you know? They aren’t all good or all bad, and what Laurie wants me to see is true—you did hurt me—but it’s only part of the truth.
The truth is that you were strong and fierce and funny. The truth is that you had terrible taste in guys.
(And in music too, you and all your love songs.) The truth is that you would loan me anything of yours I wanted—even if you’d just gotten it—and never ask for it back. I still have your “My Broom Is in the Shop” tee in my closet.
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I was always afraid to wear it, but I wanted to. And you knew it. Without me ever saying so, you knew it and gave it to me.
The truth is that night, the night I picked up my bottle and swallowed grain alcohol, you knew what I was drinking when I didn’t.
The truth is that when I got sick, when I closed my eyes and faded away, you were there. You took me to the hospital. You didn’t leave me. You were there for me.
Yeah, it’s true that you never told me to stop drinking.
And yeah, it’s true that you helped me drink.
But I chose to. Every time—every single time—it was always my choice. Mine. Not yours.
The truth is I’m the one who drank. I’m going to tell Laurie that next time I see her.
Maybe she’ll even listen.
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S E V E N T E E N
IT FIGURED that the one time I actually wanted to see Laurie she wasn’t around.
“But you just saw her two days ago,” Dad said when he picked me up after school and I asked if I could see her again.
From the way he was looking at me, I knew he and Mom had already talked to Laurie about my visit to Julia’s grave.
I gritted my teeth and said, “I know, but I need to see her again.”
I was willing to put up with anything to see the look on Laurie’s face when I blew her stupid questions about Julia back in her face.
“All right,” Dad said, but after we got home (and he’d talked to Mom, of course) he called Laurie’s offi ce and 187
found out that Laurie’s father is sick and she’s gone out of town. So there’s no way I can see her now, plus my appointment for next week has been canceled. It’s weird to think of Laurie having parents. I would have thought she just hatched fully grown with a clicking pen in one hand.
Mom, who was home for the afternoon because she’d given her classes the day off to work on their papers, started to suggest I go see Dr. Marks, the group therapy leader at Pinewood. Apparently he has a private practice.
(I can just see it now. Me, him, and the ever-changing parade of food in his mustache.)
I cut her off before she could finish and asked her if she wanted to go to the mall. I knew that would stop her trying to get me to see Mustache Man, and it did.
“This is wonderful,” Mom said, sounding so pleased, and I stared at her until she looked away. Looked at Dad.
Julia’s mother drove her crazy, but she wanted J
in her life. She loved her so much. I’ve been thinking about her a lot since I saw her. I know it’s not possible, but I wish I could talk to her. Really talk to her, I mean.
Talk to her about Julia. She knows what it’s like to miss her. She knows how wrong a world without Julia in it is and isn’t afraid to say it.
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She isn’t afraid to say what’s true.
My parents, however, are.
They still haven’t said anything about what happened—
about what I did—and while Mom was getting her purse I wondered if they ever will.
I could ask. I know that. But I don’t.
Mom came back and said, “Ready to go?”
“Ready,” I said, and I don’t ask because I don’t want to hear their answer. I want to pretend I could be a daughter they could want even though I know I’m not. Never have been, never will be.
As soon as we got to the mall, Mom pressed one of her charge cards into my hands and told me to go shopping.
“I know you probably don’t want to run into people from school with your mom around,” she said, a huge smile on her face. “So go have fun, buy yourself some clothes. You must be tired of wearing those outfits we got after you—before you went back to school.”