Life by Committee (26 page)

Sasha Cotton starts to shake. It is a small tremble in her fingers at first, but it moves through her whole body, her thighs especially, which shake so hard they can't hold her up anymore and she has to lean against her car.

Of course, she looks like an old-school, tragic movie star, leaning against her retro convertible and having a
panic attack.

“You're Bitty,” she says. She flips through
The Secret Garden
some more, and when she reaches the page with the website, she shakes her head some more and says, “Shit.” I didn't know Sasha Cotton knew how to swear.

“Yeah.”

“So then who—”

Sasha Cotton is not stupid. She doesn't ask the whole question. She swallows and throws the book on the ground with a forceful swing of her arm, and I wonder if Sasha Cotton's father played catch with her on the front lawn like Paul did with me, because she kind of has an arm.

“No,” she says. And again, “No!”

“I didn't know,” I say, “if that helps.”

“I'm calling Joe,” she says. It is the last thing I thought she'd say. I don't know why I didn't think about Joe. I thought about what I did with Joe. I thought about how much I loved Joe, or maybe didn't love him but needed him to be someone I could love. I thought about Sasha being devastated over Joe. But I didn't consider that Sasha would tell Joe anything. I didn't picture Joe coming over here and getting involved.

“It's over with me and Joe now. I mean, you know that. You can see it on the site. It's been over for, like, a day.
Which, I know, is nothing. But it's over. He loves you. Please don't . . . Let's work this out between us.” I pick up the book and brush off the dirt and give it back to her, like the world's worst peace offering.

“I told you to go for it,” Sasha Cotton whispers. Her voice breaks and she cries in that perfect Sasha Cotton way: all tears and no sobs and no snot and no hiccuping. “I told you to kiss my boyfriend. I can't—” She turns away from me, and I think that's what I would do in her situation, too.

She hugs herself and hugs the book to her chest, too.

I don't feel bad for Sasha Cotton. Not exactly. It's more like I realize, really realize, that she wrote those notes. The ones that changed my life. That of all the people in the world, she is maybe the one who gets me best. She's the one who made me feel not alone.

Two weeks ago I would have said Sasha Cotton was my nemesis, more so than Jemma or Alison or Luke or anyone else at Circle Community who I sort of can't stand. But today, right now, in her driveway with a mess of secrets and resentments between us, I think Sasha Cotton is maybe my best friend.

“What should we do?” I say. I guess I'm thinking she'll feel the same way, when she has a chance to catch her breath. That she'll see the connection, she'll realize how much I loved her notes in the book and how we are the
only two people in this little corner of the world who know about LBC and the strange possibilities life has.

“What do you mean? We ask Zed,” she says. She turns back to face me, and her face is red and wet but the tears have stopped pouring out and she looks sure.

Secret:
I hate Bitty and I hate myself and I still somehow love Joe.

—Agnes

ASSIGNMENT:
Tell everyone everything.

Sasha Cotton doesn't want me on her porch. She doesn't want to watch me watching her as she watches Life by Committee decide our fate. But I'm not getting in my car and driving away. I can't.

“It makes sense, you know?” I say. The sun is setting and it's sort of beautiful, the way it makes the sky and trees and ground flush a reflective pink. And I actually think Sasha would like it too. That she and I share an appreciation for nature and unstoppable love and excellent books and long pauses and deep thoughts.

“What makes sense? Nothing makes sense,” Sasha Cotton says. She is wiping away tears that won't stop coming out. Her hair has the perfect wave-to-curl-to-frizz ratio, and she looks like a painting of a girl in France in,
like, the 1800s or something. Her sadness is rooted in history and seriousness, while the rest of us are products of, like, reality TV and
Us Weekly
and that trend where you wear feathers in your hair so everyone knows you're unique.

Sasha Cotton will never have to wear feathers in her hair. Everyone knows she is special already.

Joe knows she is special.

“It makes sense that we both . . . that we loved the same person. That we joined the same group. I mean, your book. Your notes in the book. They were . . . I've never had that much in common with anyone, ever.” I almost touch her shoulder, but I decide not to.

“What do you mean you loved him?” She is literally leaking. The girl has sprung a leak. The tears will not stop coming.

“I mean, I thought I did. Or whatever. I got swept up. You saw. On LBC. You read what I wrote, so you know.”

“You don't even know him. I've been with him for over a year. We tell secrets on the phone all night long. We talk about going to the same college. He gave me a promise ring. He made me lasagna. He warmed up bread and put garlic on it, and he comes over whenever I'm really upset. He sings along with my favorite songs to cheer me up. He has a terrible voice, did you know that?”

“I didn't know that,” I say. I didn't know anything, I
guess. I didn't know Joe.

“You should go,” she says.

“Are you going to do it?” I say. I can't take my eyes off her computer screen.

“It's an Assignment,” Sasha Cotton says, before getting up and going back inside her house.

I stay out there for a while. Long enough that Sasha could call the police. It's not like the police in town are real anyway. Our D.A.R.E. officer, Officer Mayo, would show up like he did when I crashed my car into a tree when I lost control of it on the ice that day. We chatted about how much I'd grown up, and he told Paul and Cate what a good kid I was.

I'm not afraid of Officer Mayo. I'm afraid of Zed and the secrets Sasha knows and loneliness.

I am really, really afraid of how alone I am.

When I finally get home, I sign on to LBC. Agnes's secret and Assignment load immediately, and I consider writing a pleading message to Zed, asking him to retract Sasha's Assignment.

I wonder if no one's ever asked before. I wonder if that's even possible, but I know that it is, because it had never occurred to me to ask. When you are involved in something kind of magical, you don't necessarily want to know how the magic works. You don't want to prove it wrong.

My image of Zed shifts. Like he was this beautiful silhouette of a person. Long lines. Floppy hair. The outline of a cool, holy, unreachable being who knows things.
Except now, he's not behind the veil anymore. He's a whole person. Not an outline. Not a shadow. He's a sad guy who is desperate for us to stay. He maybe doesn't have friends. He loves someone who doesn't love him. I flip through his secrets over the last few years since the site began, and they are all about unrequited feelings, and not wanting to weigh more than 150 pounds, and how sure he is that he can remain in control.

He never says whether he's completed his Assignments. I hadn't noticed. I assumed that he was being one of us.

I close my eyes, and I can't get the new Zed out of my head. Too skinny, ribs poking out under an ugly, worn-through, colorless T-shirt. A dirty smell of someone who spends too much time on the computer and not enough time in the shower. Crumbs in his lap. Crumbs of bran and kale and celery and other sad, calorieless foods. A lamp that barely works. A pile of laundry and a pile of dishes and an inability to take care of either.

“Tabby?” Cate and Paul come into Cate's office, holding hands. “What's going on?”

I shake my head. Cate touches her belly with my sister inside, and Paul follows suit.

“We're going to be okay,” she says. “Sometimes things get worse before they get better. Sometimes you
have to do really hard things, really terrible things, to come out on the other side.” I guess she's talking about leaving Paul for a few days, or maybe she's talking about Paul giving me drugs and being a totally terrible father for a second there. Or maybe she's talking in general, about the nosedive my life has taken.

But she sounds like Zed.

“The only way through is . . . through,” Cate says. She wrinkles her nose and furrows her brow. “That's not quite the saying,” she says. “But you get the point.”

“The only way through is through,” I repeat.

BITTY:
They're not your secrets to tell.

The next morning:

Cate's prepregnancy, post-thirtieth-birthday gold dress.

A rhinestone headband.

A list of all my secrets, as many as Cate and Paul and I could think up.

Caramel-colored cowboy boots.

Hair out in beachy waves.

Purple eye shadow. No eyeliner.

I am ready to go. Paul and Cate said it was okay. That the only way through is through.

Headmaster Brownser has on his tweed jacket and a tired expression, like he is obviously going to retire before most of us graduate and his making-a-difference
days are more or less over.

It's a Thursday assembly, a long one, but just as planned, his guest (Cate's friend who was scheduled to give us a lecture on organic farming) has canceled last minute and he's left with an hour to fill. He stands at the mic with a thermos of green tea (we know because he smells like it) and asks if anyone has any announcements.

I let the hockey team remind everyone to come to their game, and the charity club remind everyone that today is the last day to bring any mitten donations.

“I have something,” I call out when they've finished. When I raise my hand, my beaded bracelets clatter together and meet around my elbow. Sasha Cotton turns around in her seat, and Joe's hand slips from her shoulder to his own waist.

“Yes?” Headmaster Brownser says, shielding his eyes to see who is speaking out from the crowd.

“Can I come up?” I say.

Shit. I wasn't supposed to ask. When I planned this with Cate and Paul, they reminded me not to ask for permission. “If you don't ask for permission, no one can turn you down,” Paul said, and Cate nodded vigorously. She is really into Paul's new therapist, who supplies him with excellent insights like that one.

“That's not usually—”

“I'm coming up!” I say, and I pump my arm in a horrible awkward way that would bother me if I weren't going up there to completely destroy what is left of my reputation.

The aisle up to the stage is long and slippery, and cowboy boots don't have any traction, so I keep almost slipping and then barely catching myself. But I get up there, and Headmaster Brownser is so old or so confused that he just steps aside and gives me the stage, clearing his throat and nodding his head first.

I've been on the stage only a few times, during misguided attempts at musical theater and band, neither of which went anywhere. But the lights are even more blinding than I remember, and that's actually okay, since it blocks out most of the faces in the crowd. The whole school—three hundred kids—is out there, but I can only see the first few rows and hear their breathing and shifting and sighing.

“Hi,” I say. I smile. It hurts and the rest of me is trembling and nothing about that smile could have looked believable as an expression of friendliness or joy or warmth. “I have some things to say. Because I got myself into a pickle, and, um, I have to do this because I'm, like, in charge of my own destiny and stuff.” Headmaster Brownser, standing off to the side with his head cocked, nods, but I don't know if anyone else does. I just used
the word
pickle
in front of my entire school, so I'm hating myself a little. “Like
The Odyssey
?” I try. Headmaster Brownser really likes
The Odyssey
. And I feel like we talked about destiny and fate when we studied it, so I'm hoping that's relevant.

Deep breath.

I could leave the stage right now. No one's holding me hostage in the bright lights. I could leave the stage and let Sasha Cotton do what she's going to do, and go crying to Zed after. I could let everyone else make these decisions for me. It would be easier. Cate and Paul say the last two years of high school go pretty fast anyway, and that in college no one will care.

I could power through another two years and let it all pass me by.

But I won't. Because I don't trust Zed anymore, but he's right, that you only live once.

Someone in the back of the auditorium blows their nose. Then the whispering starts. First soft explosions of voices from identifiable areas in the audience, and then a more general mumble that turns to white noise. I am the person standing between them and the rest of their lives.