I'm Not Her (9 page)

I pick up the third pair and they’re softer than they look. I pull them on and they snuggle down below my belly button in a way that’s surprisingly comfortable. I turn my head and peer over my shoulder, and a tiny thrill courses through me. My butt looks friggin’ amazing in these jeans. I’m not supposed to care, but it looks…friggin’ amazing.

I stare and suppress a giggle. Instead of being as flat as my chest, my butt looks rounder and, well, for lack of a better word…bootylicious. The bottom half of my body actually looks attractive.

Mom rattles on the other side of the door. “Let me see!”

I allow her access and she squeals with delight as she makes me do a pirouette. The salesgirl joins us and demands that I come out of the room and they practically shout with excitement. The salesgirl holds an armful of tank tops and offers them to me, but I shake my head.

Mom looks at my face and must sense my brain is about to go into overload. “Okay, no tops. Well, maybe just this one.” She pulls a turquoise top off the salesgirl’s arm and checks the size. “And a black one. They’re your colors. You don’t even have to try them on. Just these and those jeans.” She smiles at the clerk. “Maybe another pair of the same style in black? Okay? Please, Tess.”

I’m the weirdest teen in the world if my mom is begging to buy me cool clothes.

“Okay, okay,” I say, like I’m being forced, but I close the door to the changing room and turn to admire the reflection of my butt and then the front view. The cut of the jeans makes my legs look long but the color and texture add muscle tone to my thighs. I’m rocking these jeans like a friggin’ Sister of the Traveling Pants. It shouldn’t matter. I’m above needing clothes to make me feel good. But I love them. And I want them. I imagine Nick checking out my butt and then freak out inside and pull them off and put my old comfy pair back on.

At the cash register, Mom pulls out her credit card and, as the clerk slides it through the reader, she smiles, seemingly having reached the shopping high she was looking for. While she’s signing the receipt I wonder if I’ll have the nerve to ever wear them to school. I don’t want to look like I’m trying to be one of the cool kids, do I? I’m not sure I can pull it off or if I even want to risk it.

She puts an arm around my shoulders as we head to the parking lot. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but believe it or not that helped.” I wiggle out from under her. “Thanks,” she says. “For doing that for me.”

It’s hard to say “You’re welcome,” to something so self-serving. Coping is so stupid.

***

The next day I bike to school but I don’t stop at my locker before class. Melissa is acting snarly and I’d rather not face her questions or snarky comments about Kristina.

She finally catches up with me at lunch when she finds me outside. I’m taking advantage of the warm fall weather before the snow arrives. “Where’ve you been?” she asks.

I lift a shoulder and bite into my sandwich. She makes a face as she unwraps hers and plops down on the grass beside me. “How’s your homework?” she asks, but there’s much more in her voice.

“Fine.”

“You getting good grades?”

I shrug again.

She takes a big bite of her sandwich. “I heard rumors about your sister.” She’s speaking with food in her mouth, and it turns my stomach almost as much as her words.

My head snaps up. “What rumors?”

“She’s sick. I heard brain tumor.” Chomp, chomp, chomp. She bites off another hunk of bread, watching me.

I swallow. “She does not have a brain tumor,” I tell her, my voice tight and uppity.

“Pregnant?”

“What do you think, Melissa?” My hands shake a little and I lower my sandwich to my lap.

“Hospitalized for anorexia?” Melissa’s eyes bore into mine for a second and I think she’s going to say something else, but then she looks down at the grass. She eats in silence, but my appetite is gone. When she’s done, she mumbles an excuse about studying in the library, packs up her stuff, and leaves me.

I head back inside to my own class, and when it’s finally over I head out the door and stop. Devon is leaning against the wall, watching me. He stands straighter, as if he’s waiting for me. “Hey,” he says and I realize he was. He shuffles around and I actually feel a bit sorry for him, even as I’m wishing him away. I try not to remember that he’s obsessed with sex. With my sister.

Other kids walk by, glancing at us. The hot senior boy and the freshman nobody. Of course, ever since my sister, the wonderful and mysteriously absent Kristina Smith, disappeared, I’ve become the freshman nobody with the missing hot sister. Less nobody only because people think I have the inside scoop on my sister.

Devon steps beside me so we’re both facing the same way and I’m forced to walk with him. “So,” he says.

I wait.

“Uh…” He puts out his hand and stops me. I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to see the confused expression in his eyes. “When’s Kristina going to be back?”

I bite my lip and lift my shoulders, looking around at people passing by us, anywhere but at him. “I’m not sure,” I manage to say.

“She okay?”

I try. I really do try. But I can’t think of anything to say, so I shrug again.

“Is she, uh, mad at me or something?” He has no idea my sister is sick.

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I really doubt it.” It’s about as honest as I can be.

“Um, because…” He looks over his shoulder and checks to make sure no one is listening. He lowers his voice. “I’ve been texting and emailing and calling and she hasn’t answered. She hasn’t even signed onto Facebook.”

I nod and wonder why Kristina didn’t come up with a more elaborate explanation for her absence. Saying she’s home with the flu isn’t going to buy many more absent days. The flu wouldn’t cause Kristina’s total abandonment of her social connections on top of missing school. Rumors are flying if Melissa heard about a possible brain tumor. Or eating disorder.

Devon stares at me as if he’s waiting for me to say something more. I chew my lip and squirm. “Uh, she, uh…she’s just not up to it. She hasn’t been on the computer at all.”

“So she’s really sick?”

I nod. “She doesn’t have a brain tumor, if that’s what you heard.” At least this much is true. God! She lost her
virginity
to this guy and he has no idea why. I wonder if he thinks she’s pregnant.

“Can I stop by to see her?” he asks.

“No!” I almost yell. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

His cheeks go pink and he throws his shoulders back and stands straighter. “Well, whatever then,” he mumbles and then starts to hurry off. I almost see the steam coming out of his ears. Smooth, Tess.

“Devon.”

He turns immediately as if he’d been waiting for me to stop him.

I walk forward so I can speak to him in a quiet voice. “She won’t see anyone. It’s not you. She really isn’t feeling well.”

He stares at me. I can tell by his eyes that he cares. “Is she okay?” he asks again. “I mean. Is it something bad? Or is she pissed at me for…something?”

My eyes burn with tears but I can’t let myself cry. I bite my lip hard. “No. She’s not mad at you. She’s just…sick,” I tell him.

He takes a deep breath. “You’re sure?”

“No,” I say softly. “She just won’t see anyone. Not even you.”

He lets out a breath of air and reaches out and takes my arm. “Okay. Well, will you at least tell her I said hey?”

A gaggle of freshman jock girls walk by then, openly ogling us. Their eyes are wide and their ears are practically wagging, trying to pick up what we’re talking about. I try not to be bothered by the girls but there I am again, totally visible, in a place I never wanted to be.

“Sure,” I tell Devon. “No problem.”

“Thanks.” Devon touches my arm again and I step back, but he just spins around and leaves me while the girls whisper-squeal about the physical contact between us. Me, the invisible girl, and Devon.

“That is so skanky. She’s totally hitting on her sister’s ex,” I hear one of them squeak as Devon saunters away from me down the hallway. “Sonya said she pushed Kristina off a ladder and broke her leg, and that’s why Kristina’s been away from school so long—she has to get one of those metal things put in it.”

“I know. I also heard she’s hooking up with Nick Evonic,” another answers. “Someone saw them outside the school making out. Man, going after him and Devon.”

A wave of fury rattles my head. “That’s a lie, get a freakin’ life,” I yell at them.

They stop in unison and spin to stare at me, their mouths open.

I hear the sound of a voice clearing and look over my shoulder. Faculty Advisor Extraordinaire, Mr. Meekers.

And me. Not exactly performing a show of extreme student leadership.

“We didn’t say a word to her, Mr. Meekers,” one of the girls whines. “I have no idea why she yelled at us.”

“That’s not the kind of attitude or behavior we encourage around here, Miss Smith,” he says, and his nose turns up as if he’s smelled something foul. I’m doomed.

The girls scurry down the hallway, leaving me alone to face the lion. I hear their giggles as they hurry off, hyenas who escaped the predator.

“I expect more from you.” He taps his finger against his cheek, staring at me. “You know that a measure of a man’s worth is how he handles adversity.”

“I’m not a man,” I remind him, and groan inwardly. Way to assert my growing verbal powers and defend my gender to my obviously frustrated art teacher, whose only pleasure is the miniscule power control he holds over students like me.

I step into the human-body freeway rushing by and disappear in the opposite direction. He calls my name with an abrupt tone, but I keep moving, knowing I’ve just added another paragraph or two to my Honor Society obituary. Melissa would be so pissed off, but I’m definitely not going to be the one to tell her.

Truthfully, the drawing contest needs my attention now. I want to win it so badly. It means more to me than a club. It means redemption. I have to get myself in the proper mind frame to do it right.

***

The dinner table is quiet. For the first time in as long as I can remember, Mom hasn’t cooked us a well-balanced, healthy meal. She ordered in pizza. Normally this would make me delirious, but now it is just another sign of how much things have changed around the house.

I gaze across the table at Dad. He’s stuffing pizza in his mouth, chewing with gusto. The picture of health. Mom is nibbling on the crust of the one piece she’ll allow herself. Her teeth nibble and nibble. My stomach hurts watching the two of them, so focused on their food.

“I can’t keep this secret any longer,” I blurt out.

Dad glances at me and then at Mom, and then takes another slice of pizza from the box and bites off a huge chunk.

“Why not?” Mom asks, putting down her single piece of pizza and reaching for her napkin to wipe her fingers.

I stare at her. “You’re joking, right?”

“Well, it’s not as if…I mean…you and Kristina don’t have a lot of friends in common, so how hard can it be?”

“Are you freaking kidding me?” I shout.

“Hey,” Dad says. “Calm down.”

I shoot him a death ray. He’s been burying himself so deeply I wonder if he even remembers my name. He’s ignoring everything going on right in front of his eyes and we’re letting him get away with it. A family pattern I’d never let bother me before.

“I’m being stalked by the entire girls’ volleyball team. And half the boys’ team. People are bugging me every single day. I’m supposed to be focused on school…making the Honor Society, not sabotaging myself by missing classes and hiding from people. I should be working for my leadership and service obligations, but instead the freakin’ Prom Committee is chasing me down between classes and at lunch, looking for my sister and her witty quip contributions. They asked
me
for ideas. People are making things up. Brain tumors. Pregnancy. Worse, Kristina’s boyfriend is hunting me down with big puppy-dog eyes, wondering why she won’t return his phone calls or text messages. It. Is. Very. Hard.”

“Her boyfriend?” my mom says. “Kristina has a boyfriend?”

“Give me a break!” I shout and throw my napkin on the table. “Do you really think that’s what’s important right now? Whether or not she has a boyfriend?”

My mom mumbles something under her breath but, for the sanity of both of us, I choose to ignore her.

“We can’t keep the cancer a secret anymore. It’s not doing anyone any good and what exactly is the freaking point? Are you ashamed of Kristina because she has cancer? Because to me, you’re giving her the message that she should be ashamed, or maybe that
you
are ashamed that your perfect daughter is no longer perfect.”

My mom clamps her mouth shut and stares at me with wide, shocked eyes. My dad looks guilty and uncertain.

“But what will people say?” Mom finally asks.

“Who cares what they say! They’re already talking, and anyhow it’s
not her fault!
” I yell at the top of my lungs. “And don’t you think she wants to hear what people have to say? I mean, the people who care about her? She might get some support from her friends. Her entire volleyball team is freaking out.”

When exactly did my parents turn into children?

“We need to respect Kristina’s wishes—” my dad starts to say.

“Do you know what her wishes are, Dad? Have you sat down and asked her?” He harrumphs me, but has the decency to look embarrassed. He’s come to me, but has he gone to her?

I don’t want to hear excuses from my parents and their misbehaving, stubborn-little-kid act. I’m fifteen, for God’s sake! I don’t want to be the one to start having the power of veto in my family, but they both seem content to pretend we’re living in a TV sitcom and our life is an episode that will miraculously be solved by a team of writers.

“What’s wrong with you people?” I yell.

My mom lifts her finger and starts biting her nail. The only bad habit she allows herself. “Do you really think we should tell everyone?” she asks.

Dad runs his hands through his messy hair. “It might be best,” he mumbles, then looks at me with watery eyes.

“Yes,” I say. “It is.” I’m so exasperated I want to shake both of them.