again.
I’m a fucked-up daughter because I threw the stupid, stereotypical, suburban-idiot party. I’m a fucked-up friend because I didn’t look out for Amy.
Where the fuck was I when she fell?
What happened that night?
It’s a question that’s always on my mind. It’s a question that I’m willing to sacrifice anything to finally answer.
Because I don’t think I can live with myself if I don’t know.
Still, I wish Mom wouldn’t constantly remind me of my failure. It’s not as if I tell her every time I see her that the situation with Dad is
all of your own making, honey
.
And that’s true, too.
Chapter Fifteen
T HURSDAY PASSES LIKE any other school day: slowly. I attend half my classes and spend the other half sitting next to Amy’s old locker, fiddling with the combination lock. They’ve reset her password and given it to some other student already. A girl named Justine. I heard one of her friends calling to her this morning when she was standing beside Amy’s locker. Watched the swish of her blond hair as she turned to answer with a smile.
She seemed totally unaware that her locker used to belong to someone else. That her locker used to belong to the dead girl.
After school I make one last visit to that corridor. I take in the dust motes floating in the colorful light streaming through the stained glass windows—the space already feels somehow different. Somehow lesser.
And it’s a fear, a fear that makes itself heard above the constant ache from my bruises. The world will moveon. The world will move on without Amy, and I’ll be left there standing still in a river of time. My hands splashing desperately through the waters around me, trying to catch the truth, trying to catch something, and always finding nothing.
I avoid Mark and Petal in the parking lot. Don’t even dare to look over at Cherry Bomb as I walk on by. Because my body may crave a Pick Me Up. But today my mind is too wrecked to play their games. To deal with Mark’s sideways smile, Petal’s extended silences.
I go straight home instead.
I go straight home; and in my bedroom, with so many useless, desperate thoughts to avoid and nothing better to distract me from them, I devour my homework as if it’s a Family fucking Feast.
I speed through my calc questions, English notes on Act 1 of
Hamlet
, science and history. When it’s all gone, when the notes for each subject are taken and lying in piles on my desk with colorful, annotated tabs sticking out the sides, I’m winded.
As if I’ve run a marathon.
I choke and wheeze among piles of homework. Because when there’s nothing else, no homework to distract me, no lying friends to puzzle the truth out of, I feel myself starting to lose it.
My fingers are shaking. My hands are shaking. I clampdown on the desk to try and stop the tremors passing through me, but that doesn’t work. The table just rattles along with me. Fuck. This. Shit.
Anxiety attacks are, apparently, normal when you don’t like the fact that your best friend threw herself off your roof. And landed in front of your garden gnome.
I get up, take a few deep breaths. It feels as if I’m running over jelly instead of carpet when I cross the room, open the door, and zip through the hall. Slide out the front door.
Run and run and run and run. I’m still barefoot. Grass slips between my toes. Sun-warmed pavement smashes into my blisters, burning me. I wince but keep running, and the ground starts to fall away beneath me. Starts to feel slippery like jelly, all too easy to sink into.
I’ve had panic attacks before—before Amy died, that is. I used to have them on game days for basketball, when I was all keyed up and so terrified of passing the ball to the wrong person.
That’s why I gave up basketball. Because I was scared of making mistakes.
I wonder whether I gave up on Amy for the same reason. Because I was afraid I’d screw up things.
I keep blaming it on myself. And I know I shouldn’t,because
I’m a fucked-up daughter because I threw the stupid, stereotypical, suburban-idiot party. I’m a fucked-up friend because I didn’t look out for Amy.
Where the fuck was I when she fell?
What happened that night?
It’s a question that’s always on my mind. It’s a question that I’m willing to sacrifice anything to finally answer.
Because I don’t think I can live with myself if I don’t know.
Still, I wish Mom wouldn’t constantly remind me of my failure. It’s not as if I tell her every time I see her that the situation with Dad is
all of your own making, honey
.
And that’s true, too.
Chapter Fifteen
T HURSDAY PASSES LIKE any other school day: slowly. I attend half my classes and spend the other half sitting next to Amy’s old locker, fiddling with the combination lock. They’ve reset her password and given it to some other student already. A girl named Justine. I heard one of her friends calling to her this morning when she was standing beside Amy’s locker. Watched the swish of her blond hair as she turned to answer with a smile.
She seemed totally unaware that her locker used to belong to someone else. That her locker used to belong to the dead girl.
After school I make one last visit to that corridor. I take in the dust motes floating in the colorful light streaming through the stained glass windows—the space already feels somehow different. Somehow lesser.
And it’s a fear, a fear that makes itself heard above the constant ache from my bruises. The world will moveon. The world will move on without Amy, and I’ll be left there standing still in a river of time. My hands splashing desperately through the waters around me, trying to catch the truth, trying to catch something, and always finding nothing.
I avoid Mark and Petal in the parking lot. Don’t even dare to look over at Cherry Bomb as I walk on by. Because my body may crave a Pick Me Up. But today my mind is too wrecked to play their games. To deal with Mark’s sideways smile, Petal’s extended silences.
I go straight home instead.
I go straight home; and in my bedroom, with so many useless, desperate thoughts to avoid and nothing better to distract me from them, I devour my homework as if it’s a Family fucking Feast.
I speed through my calc questions, English notes on Act 1 of
Hamlet
, science and history. When it’s all gone, when the notes for each subject are taken and lying in piles on my desk with colorful, annotated tabs sticking out the sides, I’m winded.
As if I’ve run a marathon.
I choke and wheeze among piles of homework. Because when there’s nothing else, no homework to distract me, no lying friends to puzzle the truth out of, I feel myself starting to lose it.
My fingers are shaking. My hands are shaking. I clampdown on the desk to try and stop the tremors passing through me, but that doesn’t work. The table just rattles along with me. Fuck. This. Shit.
Anxiety attacks are, apparently, normal when you don’t like the fact that your best friend threw herself off your roof. And landed in front of your garden gnome.
I get up, take a few deep breaths. It feels as if I’m running over jelly instead of carpet when I cross the room, open the door, and zip through the hall. Slide out the front door.
Run and run and run and run. I’m still barefoot. Grass slips between my toes. Sun-warmed pavement smashes into my blisters, burning me. I wince but keep running, and the ground starts to fall away beneath me. Starts to feel slippery like jelly, all too easy to sink into.
I’ve had panic attacks before—before Amy died, that is. I used to have them on game days for basketball, when I was all keyed up and so terrified of passing the ball to the wrong person.
That’s why I gave up basketball. Because I was scared of making mistakes.
I wonder whether I gave up on Amy for the same reason. Because I was afraid I’d screw up things.
I keep blaming it on myself. And I know I shouldn’t,because
Similar Books
