Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott Page B

some freshman girl upstairs.”
    I’d known it was coming, I knew how Kevin was. I knew Julia loved him, but he…he kept messingaround with other girls, and she’d get mad and yell and say she’d never see him again.
    But she always did. Why? I still don’t get that. She said she loved him, but, really, what good is love?
    What does it do? Julia loved Kevin, and he hurt her, and I wanted her to see that. I wanted her to understand that she could do better.
    Mom and Dad were looking at me. Not confused, exactly, more like…more like they thought they were safe.
    They were wrong.
    “I made sure Kevin had time to do what I knew he would,” I said, making sure I spoke slowly even as the words stung my mouth, curdled my heart. “I went and found Julia. I told her he wasn’t there, but that I’d heard he would be. So we waited.”
    We waited, me drinking in the car while Julia tapped her fingers against the steering wheel and sang along to a love song, shaking her head when I offered her the bottle.
    “After I got drunk,” I said, “I told her we should go in. And when we did, and she couldn’t find Kevin, I said I’d heard some girls talking about him going upstairs.”
    He was upstairs, and he was with another girl, just like I knew he would be, and I waited for Julia to finally bethrough with him. To realize he wasn’t going to change, toss off a few words that would turn him into nothing, slam the door, and move on.
    But that’s not what happened. She saw everything and started to cry. I didn’t want her to cry. I wanted to help her. I wanted her to be free of Kevin, free of what she called love. I thought that if we left she’d feel better.
    “So you told her that her boyfriend was upstairs, and you knew he was?” Mom said. “Amy—”
    “I knew he’d be fucking someone else,” I told her, and wondered if the look on my face was as horrible as the way I knew my heart was, ruined and bitter and wrong. “I knew Julia would go up and see it. And that’s what happened. I did that. I made it happen. And when she got upset like I knew she would, I told her we should go.”
    Let’s go, everything will be fine, school’s finally over and summer’s here. Screw Kevin and his freshman skank, you can do better and you will. It’ll be okay. We just need to get out of here.
    I just wanted her to stop crying. I wanted her to be happy. I didn’t…I didn’t want to think about the fact that I’d made sure she’d seen her boyfriend cheating on her again.
    I didn’t want to think about how I’d hurt her.
    I didn’t realize I’d hurt her even more.
    “So you—?” Dad said, and his voice cracked a little.
    “Yes,” I said. “I was the reason we left the party. I made it so we had to. And when we did leave, I had to tell her to get in the car twice because she was crying so hard. I told her to put on her seat belt, and then I buckled it for her. I had to—I even had to tell her to start the car.”
    I could tell Mom was getting ready to say something, so I kept talking. “I told Julia to drive. She did and I didn’t care where we were going, only that I’d gotten her out of there. We were going fast, so fast it was like flying….” My throat felt tight and sticky. I looked over at Mom and Dad. They were still looking at me.
    I could change that.
    “Then the car—we went around a corner and spun out,” I said. “It happened so fast. There was so much noise, this weird ripping screech, and then it was like—then it was like we were flying for real. I could feel it. Everything was so quiet and the car was going round and round. I could see the sky. I still remember seeing all the stars turn. Then my head hit the window and I passed out. And Julia…” My voice trailed off, broken.
    “Amy,” Dad said. He was holding my hand. I hadn’t even noticed him taking it. I pulled away so I wouldn’t have to feel him drop it.
    “When I woke up everything looked so strange. The ground was up in the