“Fine.” I so didn’t want to go through another round of Caro’s dumb Beth thing. It would just remind me of my stupidity the other day.
“Really?”
“Sure,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. If Patrick could skip out early, I could skip the whole thing. If nothing else, it would bring my A average down to something more familiar.
“Great,” she said, and relaxed her stranglehold on her bag. “So should we meet up at, like, ten? On the library steps?”
“Whatever.”
She was silent for a minute as the bus slowed down and then spoke in a rush as the brakes squealed us to a stop. “I’m going to get breakfast at Blue Moon before.
I’ll be there around nine. If you want . . . you could meet me there.”
She stood up before I could ask her if she was having 196
an aneurysm. I stared at the bus floor, with its covering of rail ticket stubs and crumpled newspapers, until the bus started moving again. At the next stop, I got off and called home.
Dad and Mom both came to get me. Dad was driving.
He kept his head turned away when I got in the car, but as I sat down I got a glimpse of his face in the rearview mirror. His eyes were red and swollen.
Mom said, “I don’t think what you’ve done is something to smile about, Amy.”
I reached up and touched my face. There was a grin stretching across it, so wide and sharp my fi ngers skimmed across the edges of my gritted teeth.
On the way home she asked where I’d gone and why. I told her about the bus. I didn’t mention Corn Syrup.
“Why did you leave the mall?” Dad asked as we pulled into the driveway. In the dark his eyes looked fi ne.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Amy, we understand that you need your space, but your mother and I—”
“I left because she was on the phone with you, talking about me. You know, the stranger you two live with. The killer.”
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“Amy—” Mom said, but I tossed her credit card at her and got out of the car before I could hear her say anything else. If there’s one thing I know, it’s how little words mean, and right then I didn’t want to hear any more of them.
Right then I knew that I couldn’t.
198
135 days
Hey J,
It’s Saturday night, but when I told Mom and Dad I was going to study in my room after dinner, they didn’t say, “Are you sure you don’t want to call someone and go out?” or “Maybe you could take a break later and watch a movie with us.”
That’s right, I’m spared an evening watching Mom and Dad snuggle on the sofa. The reason for this free-dom? I went to the stupid library to work with my stupid English group on our stupid project.
I wasn’t planning on going, but when I got up this morning Mom had made chocolate chip muffi ns and Dad was looking through the Lawrenceville Parks and Leisure guide, and it was so—the whole scene should have been under glass in a museum. Or on television. Mom 199
with fresh-baked muffi ns! Dad planning a family outing!
Rehabilitated teenager standing in the kitchen ready to embrace family and life!
All I need is to be six inches shorter, bustier, with normal-colored hair, and the ability to act like I believe in these moments they keep trying to create.
I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, Amy, how horrible to have parents who are always so nice! What a burden to have them look so hopeful when you do something as stupid as refill someone’s juice glass as you’re taking the carton to the table!
What a blessing that they never expected or wanted anything from me until after they had to see me with glass in my hair and listen while an ER doctor told them what it meant, that I’d been there when my best friend died.
What a blessing to hear your mother screaming for you even though you’d never answer before turning to me with hate-filled eyes. What a blessing to haunt my parents’
house but never have them really see me until newspaper stories ran featuring a photo taken by Kevin, bleary-eyed me leaning against a tree with a bottle pressed to my lips as you stood next to me, smiling bright-eyed and beautiful at the camera. (An hour later, the photo would have shown you with pinholes for eyes, your forehead blister 200
hot, slurring that no, Kevin promised it was good shit before you threw up everywhere.)
Too late, too late, juice pouring does not a kind soul make, and I killed you.
I had to get out of the house after that. When they asked me where I was going, I didn’t look at their faces as I told them. I didn’t want to see the smiles, the relief in their eyes. I turned down the offer of a ride. I did take the twenty bucks Dad said he wanted to give me.
You already know where this is going, don’t you? You know I probably would have gone to meet Caro if there hadn’t been any muffi ns or grateful looks when I poured juice.
You know that if you had never moved to town I would be just like her.
I don’t want to understand how she feels, I don’t.
But I do.
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E I G H T E E N
WHEN I GOT TO BLUE MOON, it was too early for students to be there, but Corn Syrup was right up front, sitting by herself at a table by the window. She was pretending to read a book. I know because when she saw me walk up, her eyes got wide and flicked from me to the page and then back again. Then she waved, one of those small ones you do when you aren’t sure the other person will wave back.
I didn’t wave back, but I went inside. Don’t get me wrong, I knew what was going on. It was okay for her to eat breakfast with me outside of school when it was too early for anyone she knows to show up and see her.
It was okay for her to talk to me about class, for us to wonder how we’re going to fill a ten-minute presentation. It was even okay for us to talk about her parents 202
and sister. For some reason, I even mentioned Mom and Dad, the morning o’ muffins, and gratitude for juice pouring.
“That must be weird,” she said.
I pushed a piece of pancake around on my plate.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know, having them be all over you. They used to be so into each other.”
“Still are.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. I remember when we were little and I’d come over to play, they’d say, “Go outside and have fun!” and then actually let us do that and not check in every ten seconds like my mom did. Plus the day we tried to climb up to the roof—do you remember that?—I went in to get a drink of water and they were, um, making out in your living room.”
She cleared her throat. “Anyway, Mom used to talk about how you’d follow her around the kitchen whenever you came over and she was making dinner. She thought it was so great that you asked if you could help and then did. She always said . . .” She trailed off.
“What?” I’d massacred my piece of pancake into nothing, and my fork slipped across the plate.
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Caro bit her lip. “She said you always seemed so lonely.”
“Oh.” I put my fork down and pushed my plate away, resting my hands in my lap, palms down and pressing into my knees.
“I didn’t mean to—look, she’s crazy. She’s convinced that if I stand up straighter I’ll get a boyfriend. Really, that’s what she says.” She laughed but it was soft, weak sounding, and I could tell she knew what her mother had said wasn’t crazy at all. I pushed my hands down harder, as if I could press through my jeans, my skin, my bones, and into something else, something more solid, more real.
I wanted to tell her that what happened at breakfast with my parents wasn’t weird, it was awful. I wanted to tell her that I hated them for trying so hard and hated myself for how much part of me wants to believe that they love me as much as they love each other.