Love You Hate You Miss You (12 page)

135 days

Hey J,

It’s Saturday night, but when I told Mom and Dad I was going to study in my room after dinner, they didn’t say, “Are you sure you don’t want to call someone and go out?” or “Maybe you could take a break later and watch a movie with us.”

That’s right, I’m spared an evening watching Mom and Dad snuggle on the sofa. The reason for this freedom? I went to the stupid library to work with my stupid English group on our stupid project.

I wasn’t planning on going, but when I got up this morning Mom had made chocolate chip muffins and Dad was looking through the
Lawrenceville Parks and Leisure
guide, and it was so—the whole scene should have been under glass in a museum. Or on television. Mom
with fresh-baked muffins! Dad planning a family outing! Rehabilitated teenager standing in the kitchen ready to embrace family
and
life!

All I need is to be six inches shorter, bustier, with normal-colored hair, and the ability to act like I believe in these moments they keep trying to create.

I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, Amy, how horrible to have parents who are always so nice! What a burden to have them look so hopeful when you do something as stupid as refill someone’s juice glass as you’re taking the carton to the table!

What a blessing that they never expected or wanted anything from me until after they had to see me with glass in my hair and listen while an ER doctor told them what it meant, that I’d been there when my best friend died. What a blessing to hear your mother screaming for you even though you’d never answer before turning to me with hate-filled eyes. What a blessing to haunt my parents’ house but never have them really see me until newspaper stories ran featuring a photo taken by Kevin, bleary-eyed me leaning against a tree with a bottle pressed to my lips as you stood next to me, smiling bright-eyed and beautiful at the camera. (An hour later, the photo would have shown you with pinholes for eyes, your forehead blister
hot, slurring that no, Kevin promised it was good shit before you threw up everywhere.)

Too late, too late, juice pouring does not a kind soul make, and I killed you.

I had to get out of the house after that. When they asked me where I was going, I didn’t look at their faces as I told them. I didn’t want to see the smiles, the relief in their eyes. I turned down the offer of a ride. I did take the twenty bucks Dad said he wanted to give me.

You already know where this is going, don’t you? You know I probably would have gone to meet Caro if there hadn’t been any muffins or grateful looks when I poured juice.

You know that if you had never moved to town I would be just like her.

I don’t want to understand how she feels, I don’t. But I do.

WHEN I GOT TO BLUE MOON,
it was too early for students to be there, but Corn Syrup was right up front, sitting by herself at a table by the window. She was pretending to read a book. I know because when she saw me walk up, her eyes got wide and flicked from me to the page and then back again. Then she waved, one of those small ones you do when you aren’t sure the other person will wave back.

I didn’t wave back, but I went inside. Don’t get me wrong, I knew what was going on. It was okay for her to eat breakfast with me outside of school when it was too early for anyone she knows to show up and see her. It was okay for her to talk to me about class, for us to wonder how we’re going to fill a ten-minute presentation. It was even okay for us to talk about her parents
and sister. For some reason, I even mentioned Mom and Dad, the morning o’ muffins, and gratitude for juice pouring.

“That must be weird,” she said.

I pushed a piece of pancake around on my plate. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you know, having them be all over you. They used to be so into each other.”

“Still are.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Wow. I remember when we were little and I’d come over to play, they’d say, “Go outside and have fun!” and then actually let us do that and not check in every ten seconds like my mom did. Plus the day we tried to climb up to the roof—do you remember that?—I went in to get a drink of water and they were, um, making out in your living room.”

She cleared her throat. “Anyway, Mom used to talk about how you’d follow her around the kitchen whenever you came over and she was making dinner. She thought it was so great that you asked if you could help and then did. She always said…” She trailed off.

“What?” I’d massacred my piece of pancake into nothing, and my fork slipped across the plate.

Caro bit her lip. “She said you always seemed so lonely.”

“Oh.” I put my fork down and pushed my plate away, resting my hands in my lap, palms down and pressing into my knees.

“I didn’t mean to—look, she’s crazy. She’s convinced that if I stand up straighter I’ll get a boyfriend. Really, that’s what she says.” She laughed but it was soft, weak sounding, and I could tell she knew what her mother had said wasn’t crazy at all. I pushed my hands down harder, as if I could press through my jeans, my skin, my bones, and into something else, something more solid, more real.

I wanted to tell her that what happened at breakfast with my parents wasn’t weird, it was awful. I wanted to tell her that I hated them for trying so hard and hated myself for how much part of me wants to believe that they love me as much as they love each other.

I wanted to smack her, hard, and tell her to wake up, go after Mel, grab life and live it like Julia did. I wanted to tell her that people like me and her aren’t really living at all. We’re just here. I was lucky. I got Julia, even if it wasn’t for as long as I thought. Even though I ruined it.

“We should go,” I said, and got up, dug around in my pockets and found the twenty, dropped it on the table.

“That’s too much,” Caro said, but I was already gathering my stuff and heading for the door.

She came after me. I was heading away from the university, walking toward home and those stupid muffins, when she grabbed my arm.

“You have to come or Beth will destroy me,” she said, and in that moment I actually liked her. She didn’t pretend she wanted to pay me back for her breakfast or act like she cared about what she’d said. She told me the truth. She needed me to come with her because when she talked to Beth, she had to bitch about me being there so she could be safe.

So I went to the university library with her. Mel was already there, perched outside on the stairs waving his arms around like he was talking to someone even though he was alone. Caro let out a little sigh when we saw him.

“I bet if you tried, he could be yours by the end of the day,” I said.

“I don’t want him,” she said, and before I could laugh, added, “Oh. He’s not talking to himself. Patrick showed up. I didn’t think he would.”

Patrick was indeed there, sitting beside the huge book-drop bin, almost totally hidden from view. Inside, Mel said something about being closer to the reference databases as we grabbed a table by a window and near
a door, but it was obvious that wasn’t the reason why because Patrick practically threw himself into the chair closest to the window and then stared out it like he wanted to be gone.

I wondered if that was how I looked to other people. How I acted. Maybe it should have bothered me, but it didn’t. Patrick looked uncomfortable with life, and I knew that feeling.

Mel sat across from him and next to me. Caro sat across from me. They didn’t talk at first, but within three minutes they were arguing and we’d been glared at by a couple of bleary-eyed students slumped over laptops. After a while, they went off to look something up, still arguing, leaving me with Patrick.

It was just like being alone. He didn’t talk, and every time I glanced at him—Caro wanted me to look through a list of things she’d written down, and it was so boring—he was staring out the window. Mel and Caro came back after a while, still arguing and clearly having a good time doing it because both of them were fighting back smiles as they talked.

“We can look at the other articles. I’m just asking you to—” Mel said.

“No, you were telling me there’s only one way to talk about the Mississippi River’s role in the book.”

“I’m not. I swear! It’s just that Patrick worked really hard on the multimedia presentation and I don’t think we should ask him to change—”

“I can put in other stuff,” Patrick said without turning away from the window. “Just tell me what you want.”

Both Mel and Caro shut up for about thirty seconds before wandering off again, their hands almost, but not quite, touching. I swear, I could practically see sparks flying around them. It was sweet in a nauseating way, and I couldn’t help but wonder why Mel had hooked up with Beth when it was so clear he liked Caro more.

“She told him Caro hated him.”

I glanced over at Patrick. He was looking at me.

“Beth did, I mean,” he said.

I laughed because of course she did. Classic Beth. She’d done that with me and Gus DePrio when we were in fifth grade and she’d decided he should be her boyfriend instead of mine. How stupid are guys that they fall for the same crap they did when we were ten?

Patrick’s mouth twitched at the corners, and then he was smiling. Really smiling, and suddenly I felt like I had to look away. But I couldn’t.

“Amy,” he said, and Patrick’s voice is—it’s different. It’s deep, this low rumble, but it’s not loud. He speaks so quietly, like everything is a secret. Like you’re the only
person he wants listening. “About the other day and Julia’s locker—I know I disappeared when the bell rang.” He glanced away, looking back out the window. “I shouldn’t have done that. I just…my parents—my mother—she’s got so much to deal with already. But that’s not—I still should have stayed, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”

I shrugged and stared at the table. Him saying my name made me feel weird. Him saying Julia’s name made me feel weird. Him talking to me made me feel weird.

“Did it make you feel better, getting rid of everything people wanted to tell her?”

“What?” I looked at him. He wasn’t looking out the window anymore. He was looking at me.

“I didn’t—it wasn’t like that. Nothing anyone said was real. It was just stuff they thought they should say or that their friends said.”

As soon as I said it, I realized how stupid it sounded. How false. Lots of people knew Julia, liked her, and their missing her was real. I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to. I felt my face heat up.

“I did it for her.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. “Can you at least walk by her locker now?”

“Shut up,” I said, standing up and grabbing my stuff, and my voice sounded strange, crackly and raw. I walked
out of the library, across campus, home. When I got there, I smiled and told my parents I’d had a great time.

I haven’t walked by Julia’s locker since I fixed it. I thought I’d be able to, but I can’t. I don’t…I don’t think what I did to it was for her. I think it was for me. But fixing her locker didn’t make me feel better. It didn’t make Julia being gone easier to bear.

144 days

J—

Laurie’s back. I saw her this afternoon. I wasn’t going to say anything about her dad, but she looked really tired and sad and I felt…well, I actually felt sorry for her.

“I hope your father’s okay,” I said as I sat down, and she said, “He’s much better, thank you.” When I looked at her she looked back at me steadily, and I saw that although her father might be better now, he wouldn’t be for long, and before I knew it, I’d told her everything about the day I visited the cemetery. Even the stuff about your mom.

“It sounds like it was very intense.”

I nodded.

“What about the things she said to you?”

I shrugged.

“Do you think Julia would say them?”

“No. She wasn’t like that. She would never—forget it.” Typical Laurie not getting it, not seeing who you were. “There’s some other stuff I have to tell you too.”

I told her what I’d realized that night, about how drinking was my choice. It felt so great to finally tell her, to point out something she hadn’t seen, but do you know what she said?

“Good.”

That was it? Good? “But you said—you asked me all that stuff about Julia and me. You implied things.”

“Did I?”

I glared at her.

“Let me ask you something,” she said. “What do you think choice means in terms of everything we’ve been discussing here?”

“What do you mean?”

She clicked her pen. “You made choices. Presumably Julia did too, right?”

“Duh.”

“Did she ever make ones that you didn’t agree with? Or that hurt you?”

I looked down. My hands were knotted into fists on my lap. I forced them to relax. I stared at my fingers.

I thought about that time right after you got your car. The night we were supposed to go to Kenny Madden’s party. I didn’t want to go. I just wanted a break from it all, you know? Even when I drank I sometimes still felt too tall and stupid and too…me at parties.

You said, “Fine, it’ll probably suck anyway,” even though we both knew if you went you could hook up with a very hot senior who’d called earlier to make sure you were going. We stayed at your house and watched DVDs. You made fudge, and when your mother came home she didn’t even bitch about the melted chocolate that had hardened on the counter, just laughed and said she’d clean it up in the morning. It was so much fun. I had so much fun.

I thought you did too.

But you didn’t, I know you didn’t, because after I fell asleep, you snuck out your window. You came back in the morning after your mom had already gotten up, walked in as I was trying to edge out your front door and away from your mom’s furious face and accusations.

“Tell her I didn’t do anything,” I said to you. “Tell her I didn’t even know you’d left.”

“Where the hell were you?” your mother said. “Do you know how worried I was? Do you know how I felt when I looked in your room and you weren’t there?”

“Whatever,” you said, tossing your jacket on a chair and heading upstairs. “I’m so sick of you not wanting me to have any fun.”

I never knew which one of us you were talking to.

I sat in silence till Laurie told me I could go.