Glass Girl (A Young Adult Novel) (21 page)

She had a private bathroom and a sitting area with fabric-covered chairs and a small television. A colorful rug covered the floor next to her bed and her slippers waited patiently there for her. The closet was already full of mom’s clothes, probably gathered in haste by Dad and David this morning. There were dozens of shoes stacked on the floor, most of which she hadn’t worn in years, but at least Dad had brought a variety of choices.

The only thing that might give this room away for its true purpose was a tiny camera mounted in the corner and aimed directly at my mom.

I’m sure there was a desk, hidden from view somewhere, manned by a team of nurses who watched screens looking for any sign of the crazies getting out of hand. Oh, and there were no sharp edges on the furniture or objects that could be used as weapons.

Dad stood close, as close to Mom as he could get. My heart ached when I saw how tender he was with her. How softly he stroked her hair. How hard he worked at keeping his emotions steady. His lower lip trembled and his throat moved as he tried to swallow. A sob rose in my throat and I couldn’t stop it from coming out. Dad didn’t look back at me, but I know he heard me cry. He bent down and whispered something in her ear, and then he rubbed her hand, turned and walked out of the room without looking back.

I made my legs move until I stood next to her. I whispered, “Things will get better now, Mom.” I touched her cheek and squeezed her hand. “I love you so much. You can do this.” She squeezed my hand back and wiped at a tear on her cheek.

And then I walked away. It was all I could do for her.

David waited for us in the hall. He nodded when I came out of her room, put his arm around my shoulders, and walked out of the building with us. Dad and I drove home to pretend that everything would be okay.

***

Later, I heard Dad ordering a pizza on the phone. I’d locked myself in the bathroom,
without
my phone. I ran a scalding hot bath and stayed there for a long time, chasing away all thoughts before they formed. After at least an hour, Dad knocked softly at the door.

“Meg, are you okay?”

I tried to steady my voice. “I’m okay, Dad. Just trying to relax.” I stepped out of the tub, put on a tank top and some pajama shorts, and slipped into my room.

Dad brought in a couple of slices of pizza and a glass of water. He opened and closed his mouth, wanting to say something.

Finally, he dropped onto the corner of my bed and patted my leg. “I can tell you’d like to be alone and that’s fine. But I want you to know that we made the right decision today. This is going to be the thing we look back on and know that it made all the difference. Wyatt would be proud of us, of you.”

“I know, Dad. I know. But Wyatt gets to watch all the drama without getting his hands dirty. So it really doesn’t matter what he would think.”

He decided to ignore my clearly irrational anger towards Wyatt. “I booked a flight home for tomorrow. Since she can’t have visitors, there’s no reason for us to stay. I can go back to work and you can go to school. We’ll need to leave the house by six-thirty in the morning, so be sure you set an alarm.”

“See you in the morning.” I shuddered at the thought of facing a town full of people who thought they knew everything about me.

“I love you, Meg.”

“I love you, too. Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah, babe.”

“You know how Mom’s family seems knee-deep in mental health issues?”

He turned and hesitated by the door, then returned to my bedside. “Yes?”

“What does that mean for me? And don’t sugarcoat it. I’m sick to death of everyone around me forcing platitudes down my throat.”

He stared at me for a second and his eyes softened. He reached out to rub my back and that small tenderness almost overwhelmed me.

“Meggie, we’re all a product of our families. Some of us inherit easy things like high cholesterol. Some of us are predisposed to alcoholism, like me because of my dad. You already know these things.”

I pulled my knees up and laid my head on them.

“Nothing is definite—it’s all too difficult to predict,” he said. “Your mother has always been fine and strong, but she’s also always been emotional. She thinks a lot about the deeper issues of this life—the whys and wheres and hows of life.” His eyes flashed over to mine. “It’s why I fell in love with her. It’s why I still love her more than myself.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“Having a personality like hers tends to ignite fierce creativity coupled with brilliant flashes of understanding. She’s not depressed because of a defective gene. She’s depressed because she lost her only son and her intricate, beautiful mind is thinking through it all. She’s going to be fine. Even stronger than before, once she’s finished forging through this jungle.”

His shoulders hunched and he put his hands in his pockets, rattling his change. “You’re stronger than your mother. You always have been. I know that Wyatt had that little nickname for you and, to tell you the truth, it always bothered me a little. He loved how tender you are, how willing you are to love others, to help others, to cry with others. That’s beautiful…but it’s not fragile.”

“But what if I really do break one day?” I said. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility, is it?”

He met my eyes and gave me everything he had to give after this eternal day. “No one is perfect. We’ve all got quirks in our bodies and minds that create the canvas for our lives. But there’s no need for you to break when help is near. You have so many people who love you and want the best for you.”

He said goodnight and shut my door behind him. I heard him go into his room alone. I took little bites of pizza and stared at my phone as it powered up. I knew I wasn’t ready for messages from Tennyson and others who said things that revealed their inability to walk a hard mile with me. They would say, “Love ya,” instead of, “I love you,” and I hated that.

But I was starving for Henry, and I hoped I wasn’t too late to tell him about Wyatt on my own terms.

The messages were stacked up—text and email. I’d missed twenty-five calls—most of those from Henry. I touched his name and waited while the cell towers found him.

“Meg,” he said. And then nothing. His breathing sounded tortured. I recognized the sound because my breathing sounded the same. He knew.

His name came out like a sob. “Henry, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no,
no
. Don’t apologize. Where are you? Can I come see you?”

“I’m in Pittsburgh. We had to leave really fast and I wanted to call, but…”

“Whoa…back up. You had to leave really fast? Are you there for good?”

“No.” I scooted down in my old bed and buried myself under a blanket, the light of the phone glowed around me. “It’s so screwed up. We’re coming home tomorrow.”

“Thank God.”

“Tell me how you heard about my brother.”

He was in bed, too. I heard him moving around under his blankets. “The email that everyone forwarded around. I got it from Thanet who got it from who knows where. I’m really sorry.”

“What did it say?” I whispered.

“Meg—”

“What did it say, Henry?”

“It was a link to an article that talked about a school shooting. It talked about Wyatt Kavanagh and how he’d been a hero. And it talked about his grieving family.” Henry’s voice faltered and he ended in a whisper. “His sister who’d watched him….”

I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and finger, trying to stay calm enough to think. “That was one of the better articles. Some didn’t call him a hero.”

“We have a lot to talk about,” he said. “But I promise you that this doesn’t change how I feel.”

“How could it not change how you feel?” I laughed. “I lied to you. I said I was an only child. I didn’t tell you the biggest tragedy of my life!”

He was so quiet, I thought the call had dropped. “Henry?”

“I’m here. I wish I were
there
so I could show you how serious I am when I say this.” He paused and when he spoke again, I could tell he meant business. “This changes nothing. So you wanted to put this horrible thing behind you. Big deal. It’s why you moved to Chapin, isn’t it? Your family needed a fresh start? I don’t blame you for not telling me. One day, when you’re ready, I want you to tell me everything. But I can wait for you, Meg.”

“But people there—”

“Let me worry about people here. No one will bother you.”

I felt my shoulders relax for the first time all day. “Okay.”

“And, Meg? Hurry home.”

Dear Wyatt—

I don’t think of grief in steps. I think of it as a picture. Here’s my picture—there’s a monster eating us alive. The sick part is that the monster choked on Mom and she got stuck—couldn’t get out of him and couldn’t just end it either by throwing herself into his acidic gut. Now she has to live in a place that probably mashes her food up before they serve it.

Did you know it’s possible to grieve someone who is still alive?

Meg

K
ids have way too much time on their hands. In the time it took us to fly to Casper and drive to Chapin, the entire student body of Chapin High had done their research. They’d made the kinds of judgments people make when they are too far removed to understand complicated things. I’d become the hashtag of the week.

“Dad,” I called from my room. “Can you come here for a sec?”

I’d asked Tennyson for her passwords and logged into her accounts so I could see how bad it was. On my screen were half a dozen gruesome photos from my old school and long discussion threads about what else Meg Kavanagh could be running from. Girls had the nerve to talk about how hot my brother had been. Dad stood behind me, reading quietly.

“Well,” he said. “What do you want to do?”

“What do you mean?” I looked back at him. “There is no ‘what do I want’ in this. This is what they want. They want stories to occupy their minds for a while. At least in Pittsburgh people were respectful.”

He spun my desk chair around until I faced him, and then he dropped to one knee so we were eye to eye. “I mean are you going to throw in the towel now or hold your head up and live your life?”

“I guess I’m going to school,” I said. “I’ll let you know after that.”

He leaned toward me and kissed my forehead. “It’ll blow over, honey. They’ll lose interest quickly.”

***

Henry waited for me in his truck and stepped out when he saw me turn into the school parking lot. He motioned me into the space next to him, his face tight with concern. I unlocked the passenger door of the Jeep and he climbed in, pushing the seat back so he’d fit. He reached for me and gathered me as close as the gearshift would allow, burying his face in my hair. I tilted his face up because I wanted to see if his eyes had changed.

Holding his cheeks in my palms I stared and stared, looking for telltale signs of pity, but I just saw sweetness and Henry. I saw the little flecks of gold and the way his pupils always seem a little dilated, larger than everyone else’s. And I saw myself. Henry held my gaze for as long as I wanted him to and when I blinked he looked down and smiled.

“Find what you were looking for?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“I haven’t read anything else about you, Meg. Nothing. I’ve deleted everything people have sent me.”

I nodded. Somehow I’d known he would do that.

“Whatever it is you think I know, I don’t. I don’t know it, that is.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I missed you so much.” He smoothed his hand down my hair. “I like this pink on you. It’s nice.”

I glanced down at the sweater I’d worn, glad to see that it was clean. “What do ranchers do in late November in Wyoming?”

He chuckled. “Mostly it’s about cattle right now. Keeping ’em alive and healthy while it’s cold, and getting them to auction.”

“You’re always so busy.” I touched the tip of his nose with my index finger. “Riding the range and roping those cow babies.”

He laughed. “I am. But I’ll never be too busy for you.”

“Can the cows do without you after school today?”

“What about the bookstore?” he said, pressing his fingers between mine and squeezing. “Don’t you have to work?”

“I emailed Annie this morning and told her I couldn’t come in today. She’s fine.”

Henry’s mouth curved into the sweetest smile. “I guess I’ll email the cows, then, and tell them their dinner will be late.”

“Good,” I said. “I have so much to tell you.”

***

We walked to English together. People watched me with looks that were mixtures of pity and admiration. Some who’d never given me a second thought before now stared or said hello.

Mr. Landmann handed me a note from the office when we came into his classroom. “Take all the time you need,” he said. “I’ll make sure you get today’s notes.” I glanced at Henry once and then headed to the office.

Ms. Ewing closed her door, silencing the hallway noise that spilled into the main office. “How are you?” she said.

“Shocked,” I said.

“No doubt. I’m sorry it had to come out this way, Meg. I wish we all had more control over our private lives, but technology makes that impossible. I guess I just had my fingers crossed for you that no one would get curious about you and Google your name.”

“I was in denial, too.”

“I did it when I first heard from your principal.” She wiggled her fingers like she was typing on a keyboard. “I searched your name to see how much was out there.” Her eyes and mouth drew tight. “Have you done that?”

“No, ma’am. I lived it, why would I want to read about it?”

Ms. Ewing nodded, spinning side to side in her chair like a nervous child. “Probably best,” she said. “For now, I’m listening to what’s being said in the hallways and classrooms. I’m watching to make sure you’re safe and comfortable here. I need you to let me know how else I can help you.”

“I’ll see how today goes.” I shrugged because, really, I had no idea how to answer her. “That’s all I can do.”

I missed most of English and spent the morning in a daze, trying to make it through the day so I could see Henry again. At lunch, the discussion centered around who had outed me on social media. Tennyson surprised us all when she slammed her fist on the table. The sound nearly sent me running. I thought I was past startling at every loud noise.