22
82 days
J,
I’m sitting in the bathroom. The teachers’ bathroom, even. You remember the signs, and how they’d glare if it looked like we might walk near it. It’s not much nicer than our bathrooms though, which surprised me. You’d think all the glaring would at least protect something interesting.
I’m pretty sure as long as I don’t move, as long as I stay right here, invisible—well, if I do that, I think my fi rst day at school will be just fi ne.
Mrs. Griggles was the guidance counselor me and Mom had to see. She actually tried to look happy when we showed up. She ended up looking like someone had shoved a lemon in her mouth. Good old Giggles. (I wish 23
you’d been there to call her that. I could never work up the nerve.) I thought she was going to explode when she saw the suggested class schedule Pinewood had put together for me. I kind of thought I might explode.
One of the things I had to do at Pinewood was take a bunch of tests. You know, in case I was “developmentally damaged” from drinking. I refused to see the results—
what did they matter? The only thing I like is words, and English in Lawrenceville County schools is all about stomping the enjoyment of them out of you. School is a waste of time, and school without you wasn’t something I wanted to think about, but apparently I’m not developmentally damaged at all. In fact, I may have started drinking because I “wasn’t challenged enough in class.” I bet you anything Laurie wrote that. Pen clicking idiot.
So anyway, instead of my normal schedule of study halls and low expectations, I’m taking honors English, honors U.S. history, honors physics, French, math analy-sis, and psychology. (I smell Laurie in that one too.) When Giggles was reading the list I tried to say, “No, I don’t want this,” but my throat had dried up, and when I glanced at my mother she looked like a stranger.
For a second, I forgot and looked around for you, because when I’m in Giggles’s office it’s always with you.
It was always with you. God, J. Was. You should have 24
been there, but you weren’t. You never will be again.
I had to get out of there then, so I asked to go to the bathroom.
I was actually going to leave, but halfway down the hall I realized where I was going. I’d automatically headed for it.
Your locker.
I saw it, J. Do you know what they’ve done to it? It’s plastered with foil stars covered with glitter. On the stars are bad poems and little messages about you. People MISS YOU! and LOVE YOU!! and are THINKING
OF YOU!!! I opened it—it was unlocked—and inside was the same thing. All your stuff was gone. The card Kevin got you for your six-month anniversary. The pictures of you and me. Your makeup bag. The plastic bag way in the back, the one you always kept filled with tiny liquor bottles for me and a couple of pills for you. The coat you never wore and the picture of you and your mom where you were both smiling for real that you kept hidden in the pocket. It was all gone, replaced by fake stars and fake words.
I wanted to tear it all down. You could have. You would have. You always knew what to do, what to say. You knew how to make anyone smile or shut the hell up. You dyed your hair purple with Kool-Aid for kicks and made 25
snoring noises when Giggles lectured us about being late.
Even drunk I could never do those things.
So now I’m here, at school, hiding out in the teachers’ bathroom, and I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave, Julia. I’m just stuck here freaking out. If I close my eyes, will you come to me? You don’t have to make everything all right. You don’t have to do anything. I just want you here. Just for a second.
Please.
26
82 days
J,
Me again. Guess where I am?
History class. Excuse me, honors history. Mom found me in the teachers’ bathroom. I wanted to ask how she had but couldn’t. I don’t know how to.
“You’re a very smart girl, Amy,” she said, and it was weird to be sitting locked in a toilet stall and hear that. It was weirder hearing Mom say it. “You have an opportu-nity for . . .” She trailed off then, which was good because I was afraid she was going to say something like “a new start” or “a second chance.” I was afraid she’d say something I have no idea how to get and wouldn’t be able to even if I did.
I was afraid she’d say something I don’t deserve to hear.
27
This one girl keeps staring at me. She looks kind of familiar. She has very straight, very blond hair and is totally adorable in that way only girls like her can be.
You’d imitate her, make me laugh and forget I’m a million feet tall and not adorable at all.
There are two guys looking at me too. I think maybe I made out with the first one once or something because he looked away when I stared back at him. He probably has a girlfriend, and she’s probably in this class too. Great. The other one guy—I don’t know. There’s something about him, plus when I looked at him he just stared back at me.
That’s not what guys do when I look at them. They smile and look away or just look away. I don’t get it.
That girl is still staring at me. This is going to be a very long day.
28
F O U R
I HADN’T MADE OUT with the guy who looked away. In fact, I hadn’t done anything with him. The more I looked at him, the more I was sure I didn’t even know him. I mean, I’d seen him around at a few parties, but that’s how it is with parties. Or at least it’s how it is with the ones around here. You see everyone at them eventually.
In English he sat down near me, smiled, and said,
“Hey, I’m Mel.”
“Hey,” I said back, and noticed everyone—by which I mean the girls—was watching me. It was easy to fi gure out why. Mel would be the most beautiful boy ever except for two things:
1. He barely comes up to my shoulders.
2. He will not shut up. (That’s when I knew for sure 29
that I hadn’t done a thing with him. I never went for the talkers.)
These honors kids have everything so fucking easy.
In English, for example, our assignment was to sit in groups and discuss our thoughts about a novel. That’s a class?
Please. It was just like study hall, only more boring.
Anyway, Mel ended up in my group. The bitch girl from history was there too. Mel called her “Caro,” and as soon as he said it I realized I did know her.
Julia and I used to be friends with her.
Back in middle school, we hung out with Caro for a while. Or, as J called her, Corn Syrup. I can’t remember when Julia came up with the name, but it fi t. And still did.
She gave me a look as I sat down but (obviously) didn’t speak to me. The last person in the group was the other guy who’d stared at me in history. He didn’t say anything to me or anyone else, just looked at his desk until Mel said, “Patrick, what do you think?”
Patrick looked up, shrugged, and then glanced at me before staring at his desk again. That’s when I realized that while I hadn’t messed around with Mel, I had defi -
nitely hooked up with Patrick.
30
He looked at me and all this stuff I thought I’d forgotten came roaring back.
I got through the rest of class by staring at the wall and thinking about how me and Julia used to go to that twenty-four-hour pancake place after parties and eat chocolate chip pancakes and drink coffee until our wait-ress would come by and say, “So, are you going to pay your check or what?”
As soon as the bell rang I went to the nurse’s offi ce and faked cramps. They called Mom, who called Dad, who called the school back and asked to talk to me. He said, “I called Laurie and she said you really need to stick it out.”