Forget Me Not (17 page)

to help you make it

through the darkness.

Could I

really believe that?

we go to Elijah’s house

and he crashes on his bed

like he hasn’t slept for days.

I crawl up next to him and try to gently press

my body against his so I can remember

what it feels like to breathe.

Breathe,
I whisper to myself

as if this will resuscitate me,

but of course it can’t be

that easy.

Then I sleep too, thinking

that maybe when I wake up,

I’ll discover this whole thing was a nightmare.

But how far back would I have to go

to be able to wake up with a normal life?

Before homecoming?

Before the night I danced on the roof?

Before I ditched Brianna?

Before I kissed Davis?

Before Mom left?

And even if I did go back in time,

would I be smart enough

not to do the same things twice?

I see Elijah buttoning

a black dress shirt.

“Where are you going?”

“We—we’re going to a play.

It’s the final night of
My Fair Lady
.”

“No way. You can’t expect me

to go watch Darla prance around the stage.”

“That’s exactly what I expect.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Why?”

“Because she’s who you could be in three years.”

“The lead in the musical?”

Elijah shakes his head.

“No. The school’s alpha bitch.”

His words sting,

but his eyes are not unkind.

He’s just stating a fact.

“You don’t think much of me, do you?”

He glances in my direction.

“To be honest, I think you’re one of the

most egocentric people I know.

But for some reason, I can’t stop loving you.”

I remember my mother’s words

“Only one can be the fairest,”

and tonight it’s Darla Johnson.

Her performance of the peasant flower seller

turned society darling is flawless.

But even though she’s singing and dancing

with the other actors, she never really

looks them in the eyes, and you get the sense

they’re really just props for her one-woman show.

For a moment I wonder

what life is like

for her at home.

What is it that drives her?

Does she have a mother

who left her like mine,

or a father who spends all his time

avoiding conversation?

At intermission I see

Brianna selling cookies.

Guess she decided

not to boycott

the performance after all.

When the show is over, the crowd has gone,

and the drama teacher thinks everything

is locked up tight, Darla and her friends go

up on the roof of the theater to celebrate.

“You gotta do this part alone,”

Elijah tells me. “If I go with you, they’ll see me.”

“You want me to go up there by myself?”

I look up at the place where I tried to end my life.

“You’ve got to remember

what happened, Ally.

Time is running out.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Then you go back

to the H Hall,

forever.

But that’s not an option, okay?

I’ll be waiting for you back at home.”

He tries to touch my cheek

but only touches air.

“I’d wait for you forever.”

I look up at the roof, and

all of a sudden it begins

to come back to me.

I remember going up there

because I thought I’d find Davis.

He’d sent me a text:

ALLY—WE HAVE TO TALK.

MEET ME ON TOP OF BRADY.

I was so elated I snuck

out my window and ran

all the way to the school,

even though it was past midnight

and it was raining.

When I climbed up the ladder

and over the edge,

Davis wasn’t there.

But somebody else

was waiting.

She was standing there alone,

in the moonlight, and

she was smiling.

It was Darla.

“Where’s Davis?” I asked her,

and she shook her head.

“He’s not coming.”

The frustration of the past two weeks

caught up to me and I yelled,

“I’m the one he wants to be with!”

Her eyes narrowed into catlike slits.

“He wants to be with a lot of people.

I can’t change that, but at least I can decide who

it’s gonna be. I call it ‘damage control.’”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you really think I didn’t know about you

and Davis? I set you up with him.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You want to know why I picked you?

Because desperate people are easy to manipulate.”

“Whatever you want to believe.”

“You think I’m lying?

I dressed you up and painted you up

and set you on display. Then I broke up

with him just long enough for the two of you

to hook up.”

“You’re crazy. You’re just jealous

because you found out

he wanted to be with me.

He wanted to take me to homecoming,

and he wanted to meet me here tonight.”

She held up something small and black,

and I cringed when I realized it was Davis’s phone.

“No,
I
wanted to meet you here.”

She deepened her voice, pretending to sound like Davis.

“Ally, you make me feel like such a man.

Ally, you’re the one I really want.

Ally, I think about you every night.”

I felt a cold panic seize me.

“You’ve been reading his texts.”

She laughed out loud,

and her bellow sounded like the

caw of a deadly bird.

“Ally, I wrote those texts.”

I suddenly felt as if I’d just discovered

the world was flat.

I shook my head violently.

“No. That’s not possible.”

“It wasn’t that hard. All I had to do

was pick up his phone every now and then

when he left it on the table.

I loved your responses, by the way. So cute.

‘Oh, Davis, your tongue tastes like a York Peppermint Pattie.’”

“Stop.”

“‘Oh, Davis, your hands are
sooo
strong.

I want feel them on my body
nooooow
.’”

“Please stop!”

“‘Oh, Davis, you’ve made a woman out of me.’”

I put my hands over my ears and started to cry,

but I could still hear her voice.

“Yes, that’s right, Ally. You were sending those texts to me.

By the way, that night when you were dancing on the roof,

I was the one who told Davis to take you home.”

“Why?” I sobbed, humiliated to be crying like a baby in front of her.

“Oh, I think you’ll understand in a couple of years,

when you’re the one fighting to stay on top of the trash heap.

In fact, you may be one of the only people

who really will ever understand me.”

I remember looking up at her

and wondering what the hell she was talking about.

“What did you say to him at homecoming?” I begged to know.

“You looked at Davis and said, ‘I told you.’

What did you tell him?”

“Just that you’d been bragging about wanting to sleep

with every guy on the football team. Nasty double standard.

It’s okay for boys to be whores but not cute little freshman girls.

Will didn’t seem to mind, though.

I was the one who told him he should ask you to homecoming,

by the way.

I think you make a nice couple.”

I leaned on the short wall that ran the length of the roof, because my legs

wouldn’t hold me up any longer.

Then I doubled over because I felt like I might vomit.

The concrete below came into view.

Darla walked up behind me and said,

“There are queens and there are pawns,

and you’d do well to remember which one you are.”

Then she left and I remember thinking

how easy it would be to fall.

But I don’t want to fall

anymore.

What I want now

is to walk through this shit

and get to the other side.

I also want

to know what’s going on

up there on the roof.

So I push through my fear,

and I climb.

With each rung I feel

a stabbing pain

shooting through my heart,

but it’s a pain I can endure

because I know it won’t last.

And each rung I pass

makes me feel

a little stronger,

a little closer

to figuring it all out.

When I get to the top

this time,

I see Darla with her friends.

She’s reenacting scenes from the play

with such frantic zeal I wonder if she’s on crack.

I recognize something in her

the rest of her friends can’t see.

It’s desperation.

At one point they get tired of her act

and start talking among themselves.

That’s when she jumps up on top of an air-conditioning

unit and starts singing “The Rain in Spain.”

Is that what I look like,

a girl who has to be the center of attention

all the time?

Kids start making excuses for why they have to leave.

“Wait!” she says to Lauren Payne.

“I need you to help me run lines.”

“For what? The play is over,” Lauren says.

“For
The Glass Menagerie
. The community theater tryouts are

tomorrow.”

Lauren just shakes her head. “I’m out of here.”

As she walks toward the ladder, Darla grabs her arm.

“Don’t you dare leave me. I can make your life a living hell.”

Lauren shakes her off. “Yeah, you’re good at that.”

“I wouldn’t be so glib if I were you.

Do you want to end up like Ally?”

I stiffen when I hear her

throwing around my name

as casually as she might

toss a heel of bread to a sparrow.

“It would be better than ending up like you,”

says Lauren, and I realize not everyone

has been fooled by Darla’s act.

“I’ve had enough of your games

and so have a lot of other people.

I’m out of here.”

Lauren starts to climb down the ladder.

Darla rushes to the edge.

“You’ll be sorry if you leave me!”

“Oh yeah? Is that what you told Davis?”

For the first time

I realize Davis

isn’t on the roof.

I didn’t even look for him

at the play,

and I know I am

totally over him.

The pain in my heart

finally begins to fade,

to be replaced by a burning ache

in both legs,

a throb in my head,

and a strange beeping

in my ears

that sounds faintly

like the machines

in the ICU.

Could I finally be

on my way back?

Lauren leaves and Darla sits down on the roof,

banging her head against her knees and rocking.

The few people who are left

nod at each other

and slip away.

Suddenly Darla stops rocking,

frantically searches her pockets,

pulls out a vial, and

swallows a handful of pills.

Then she closes her eyes

and leans her head against the wall

as if she just drank a tall glass of warm milk.

Her face is different,

now that she thinks she’s alone.

As if the mask she’s been wearing suddenly slipped,

revealing someone scarred and sick beneath.

Or like when Toto pulled back the curtain

to reveal that the Wizard of Oz wasn’t

some omnipotent being but really just a scared, little old man.

I smell rubbing alcohol

and see the glare of

hospital lights overhead.

“I am coming back,”

I say out loud.

From somewhere far away

I hear Nana’s voice

as she tells the nurse,

“I think she’s trying to talk.”

“Nana?” I say,

and I can make out the trace

of her smile.

Darla’s eyes snap open.

She glares at me and says,

“What the hell are you doing here?”

I glance around to see who she’s looking at,

but I’m the only other person on the roof.

“Are you talking to me?”

“No, Sherlock, I’m talking to the pigeons.”

“You can
hear
me too?”

“Do you think I’m blind and deaf?”

My heart starts racing.

Darla can see me.

I’m alive.

But wait.

This isn’t the real me.

Darla closes her eyes again.

“Sometimes I get so tired.

Life can be exhausting.”

Her hand goes limp and the

vial rolls out of her palm.

It stops at my feet and I take a look

at the label—oxycodone.

“How many of those did you take?”

Something is wrong. Terribly wrong.

I feel Nana and the hospital slipping away.

“Wait!” I scream,

but Nana is gone.

“Do you ever feel like the world is spinning in slow motion?”

Darla’s words are slurred and labored.

She lies down on the roof and rests her head

against her hands in a makeshift pillow.

I rush over to her side.

“Sit up, Darla, you have to stay awake.”

I don’t know why I’m trying to help her.

I hate this girl. But I still can’t bear the thought

of her overdosing up here on this roof.

What if nobody finds her? What if the ravens

started pecking at her eyes?