Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee by Mary G. Thompson Page A

door looks like it got attacked by a coyote or a pack of wild geese or something.”
    â€œYou mean he scratched up the wall?” I ask.
    â€œI guess. And now Felicia is texting him again. But she’s
still
going out with this old guy.”
    I try to think of something to say, but I can’t.
    â€œAnd he’s not even cute,” Lee finishes as she parks a block away from my house, far enough so that hopefully we won’t wake my parents. “I mean, at least Ben is cute, right?”
    â€œYeah,” I say, even though Ben is far from
muy guapo
, in my opinion. Maybe it’s the fact that he looks like he doesn’t shower. Maybe if he cleaned up, he’d be all right. I wonder if I’m supposed to think Ben is cute. Is that something all girls are supposed to know?
    â€œRemember, I was never here,” Lee says. “If Aunt Patty finds out I took you to a party . . .” She runs a finger across her neck dramatically.
    I smile and put the paper towel in my pocket. “You were never here,” I say.
    She watches me while I walk the block back to my house, and I don’t realize that I’m only taking shallow tiny breaths until I’m through the window, and I take a deep breath in, and the breath doesn’t really catch. The room isdark, covered in shadows. The new twin bed sits in the same spot my twin bed used to sit in, before. And all of a sudden there we are, nine-year-old Amy and eleven-year-old Dee. I’m on the twin and she’s on the trundle, the extra mattress that rolled beneath it. We’re supposed to be asleep, but of course, we aren’t. We’re eating Red Vines that we bought at the convenience store on our way home from school. We’re giggling as we eat them, because it’s illicit. We’re getting away with something.
    I blink and shake my head, and the scene disappears. I’m looking at the new bed again, and I’m alone in the room. I don’t turn the light on, but I look at myself in the full-length mirror that’s hanging on the closet door. In my skirt, with my new haircut and my makeup, I don’t look like either Amy or Chelsea. I look like a completely new person. This is the person who met Lee’s friends tonight, who got Vinnie’s phone number and took her very first sip of beer. Maybe this is the person I’m supposed to be now, I think. Maybe I should just be this person, this new Amy. Maybe this Amy is the person I was supposed to be, who I would have become if the past six years had never happened. If I could forget, then it would be easy. But how can I be the girl who drinks beer and cares about parties and friends and boys when I know what it’s like to be a mother? I know what it’s like to love someone more than anyone could ever love their parents or their friends or a boy. But I can’t know that, I think. I
have
to be Amy. It will be better for them if I pretend like they don’t even exist.
    I sit down on the bed and close my eyes. “There was an old lion who was missing half of his hair,” I whisper. Lola liked this one the best. “This was no ordinary lion that lived in Africa, but this was the kind of lion that lived by the river. He liked to eat crawdads and play with the snail shells . . .” I lie down. Maybe I can be this new Amy on the outside, but on the inside, when it’s dark out and no one else is awake, I can still be myself, and I can still remember.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    My dad is yelling at someone. I wake up in the clothes I was wearing last night.
    â€œGet out of here!” my dad yells.
    I change my clothes in a flash and wipe my face with an old T-shirt to get the rest of the makeup off.
    â€œI’m calling the police,” my dad says. “This is trespass!”
    He must be yelling at reporters. They’ve been calling us, and now they’ve stopped being polite. I knew it was