The Frenzy by Francesca Lia Block Page B

She’s like a kitten, huh?”
    “You do have a way with them,” I said.
    “I used to have a way with them but one won’t come chat anymore.” He gave me a knowing look and I avoided his gaze again.
    “One,” meaning me. But I’d meant animals when I said “them,” and Joe knew it, too.
    “They get skittish around the full moon,” he said. “Know why?”
    I shook my head. Didn’t really want him to tell me but I knew he wouldn’t stop now.
    “Predator and prey. They know they’re more visible, more in danger. When it wanes they can relax a little.”
    He was right to use the word skittish . That’s how I felt. “I have to go meet Corey,” I said.
    “Yeah. But don’t be a stranger.” Joe winked.
    I nodded and waved to him.
    “Watch out for those woods,” he called. “Full moon coming.”
    And it did, as it inevitably does. They say it can make you mad.
    Maybe that is what happened with the full moon murderer.
    Maybe that is what happened with Pace.
    I only know that when I got home at sunset the next day, after making love with Corey in the barn, my mom was on the phone and her face looked pale and tight. She was standing at the sink, holding on to the counter for support and her voice was low. When she saw me her eyes flashed and I knew it was something bad.
    “What?” I kept saying it until she got off the phone.
    “Pace.”
    “What about Pace?”
    She came toward me and I backed away. “Come sit,” she said.
    “No! What is it? What happened?”
    “Olivia. I need you to breathe.”
    “Tell me!”
    “He passed away,” my mom said.
    “What? He what?”
    I watched myself clawing my fingernails along my arms like they belonged to someone else.
    “Liv!” She tried to hold me but I wrenched myself away and she stumbled in her high heels.
    “What?” I kept saying over and over. “Passed away? What is that? You mean dead? He’s dead?”
    “He took his life,” she said, and I thought I saw her crossing herself, but very quickly.
    I forced my teeth into my lip, trying to break the skin, to taste my own blood. I thought about how little I’d seen him for the last month, how sad he had been about Michael, how I hadn’t been there for him. I kept trying to rewind the sequence of events in my mind, go back to when we were talking on the phone and he was telling me about the hottie he met in the house on Green. If I could stop it there, then redothe rest. He had said, “Maybe things are changing for us, Skirt.” But he hadn’t meant this way. Pace, my brother, my best friend. Playing Little Earthquakes for me. Writing Tori lyrics on my blue jeans. Letting me comb his hair, soft and gold as the silk inside a cornstalk. Watching him at football practice pretending to be tough and straight and then we’d go home and sing our favorite songs in my room and paint each other’s toenails. I had to take the polish off of him afterward, though, because someone might see in the locker room. Weird the things you think of so you don’t see the images in your mind of how he actually did it, took his life. With a rope. Around his neck. With a rope.
    I wanted to scream everything at my mother. You don’t know who I am! You don’t know who Pace is! Everything is a lie—everything! It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault!
    But I knew it was just as much my fault. For not calling Pace more. For letting him hurt alone. For not seeing the signs. Maybe even for being born.
    I smacked my lips together, saliva accumulatingin the corners or my mouth. My skin itched and my skull and hips ached. I had my period and it felt like blood was pouring out of me, all of my blood, leaving me drained, a lifeless corpse. I backed up, glaring at my mother. I could hear Sasha’s voice whispering in my mind.
    Kill your mother. Kill her.
    “Stop it!” my mom shouted at me. “You’re scaring me. Stop hurting yourself.”
    I looked down and saw streaks of blood on my arms. A salty taste burned on my lips. Soon the