Here Lies Bridget by Paige Harbison Page A

approaching him, like the easy girl in movies, and him holding up a hand to say “Halt, harlot!”
    I fell asleep, slipping into the kind of dreams that aren’t dreams at all—just memories with all the details you never thought you’d remember and couldn’t believe you’d forgotten.

    C H A P T E R S I X
    I woke up the next morning with a palpitating heartbeat and an overall feeling of fragility. It seemed like anything could tip me over the edge and make me throw up. I stayed in bed with the TV on until 6:00 p.m., drifting in and out of consciousness.
    The room might have spun all day, and my head might have pounded, but nothing could have been worse than going into the kitchen for graham crackers and Coke and seeing—
    through unfocused eyes—Anna and Meredith sitting at my table. Together. In my kitchen.
    Please tell me this was me drifting out of consciousness, and into a nightmare.
    I was wearing my scruffy terry cloth robe and mismatched socks, which went well with my bird’s nest of a hairdo and face streaked with mascara from sideways tears I’d apparently cried in my sleep. So to stumble around the corner and see the perfectly styled heads of the two of them… I thought I might just need to find a gun. I wasn’t sure yet which of us to use it on.
    “What are you—” I started to ask why Anna was there, 9 4
    P A I G E H A R B I S O N
    but realized Meredith wasn’t supposed to be home yet, either.
    “Why is either of you here?”
    Meredith looked at me. My heart stopped as I remembered the mess I hadn’t thought to clean up the night before.
    “I came home early because your father was too busy.”
    Something f lickered in her face that I was too confused to wonder about. “But I can’t believe you!” she exclaimed.
    My heart stopped. I scrambled to think of an excuse for all the bottles and cans that must be strewn all over the porch.
    “I didn’t think you’d be home yet, I just—”
    Anna coughed, and pushed a stray hair from her face.
    “It’s no big deal, Mrs. Duke. Honestly, I only waited a few minutes.”
    What the hell was she talking about? I squinted my eyes at Anna.
    “Oh, Anna, that’s nice of you to say, but it was completely inconsiderate of her to sleep through her plans with you.”
    I looked at Anna, who was smiling. Yes, the gun was to be used on her.
    “Well, I probably should head out anyway.” She looked at me. “You don’t look like you’re feeling all that well, so we’ll just hang out another time, okay?”
    I watched in a daze as Anna told Meredith how nice it was to meet her, as Meredith agreed, and as they kissed the air next to each other’s cheeks.
    Well, that’s just sarcastic.
    I chased Anna out to her car to ask her what the hell was going on. My robe billowed in the wind like some kind of ridiculous cape, and my slippers f lapped around on the driveway.
    “What
    was
    that all about?”
    “Don’t worry about it,” she said, coolly. “I came back after driving some of your friends home and cleaned up the mess 9 5
    from last night. I assumed you didn’t want her to know about the drinking, and I was right in assuming you’d be in no condition to clean it all up. I’m just lucky I got here before she did.”
    I stared angrily at her before spitting out, “Well, then.
    Thanks.”
    I started up the front stairs and ignored her advice to take a cold shower.
    For the rest of the evening, I worked myself into a depression. Anna was here, taking over. She was undoing all the work I’d done. She was moving in on my territory, and suddenly I wasn’t the person I was at least comfortable being anymore. My power was failing.
    It wasn’t my imagination. That much I knew. People listened to me and did what I asked, things worked out for me whether the reason was luck or f lirting, and I’d been perfectly content with that for a long time. Sure, sometimes it felt like I had only fans and no friends…but that’d been fine for a long time.
    My life had