Love You Hate You Miss You (3 page)

88 days

J,

Things aren’t going back to how they’ve always been at home, and it’s kind of freaking me out. Not “going to take a drink” freaking me out, though I suppose if I knew how to do drama right I’d be doing exactly that. But then I never did know how to do drama, did I? No matter how gone I was, I never confronted my parents or danced on tables. I just slumped onto sofas or chairs at parties and nodded at people or talked to you. I had sex five times—three times in ninth grade, twice last year. (I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I know you know about Patrick now, because I bet you know everything, and yes, I should have told you, but I don’t want to get into that again. Okay?)

When I first got to Pinewood and had to talk about the things I did while “under the influence,” I got these
looks, these “That’s your story? That’s all you did?” looks.

They went away when I talked about you. What I did.

The thing at home is that my parents keep talking to me and it’s—well, it’s weird. I don’t know how to talk to them. I alternate between wanting to scream at them for not caring enough to do it sooner and wanting to tell them everything.

Everything, J. I want to tell them it’s too late and why. I want to tell them I feel lost. I want to tell them how creepy it is to be in classes with the grade-obsessed freaks. It sucks that you had to die before they realized that maybe they should try talking to their own kid once in a while.

Let me illustrate the weirdness. This was the conversation I had with my mother yesterday after she drove me home from school:

Mom: [calling] Amy. [long pause] Honey. (Apparently, she’s trying to get the hang of the endearment thing too.) Where are you? Maybe we should talk about your—oh. You’re in the kitchen.

Yours Truly: Yeah. Remember, we came in here about five minutes ago? You watched me sit down and said you were going to put your bag away?

Mom: Of course! I just thought you might have gone up to your room.

YT: Oh, I can. I mean, I will. Just let me get my stuff and—

Mom: No, no, stay. [sits down] How was your day?

YT: Um. Fine.

Mom: How are your classes?

YT: Fine.

Mom: Are you working on homework?

YT: Yeah.

Mom: Are you—how is it going? I know it must seem like a lot of work. Not that I don’t think you can’t handle the work, but—

YT: It’s fine.

Mom [visibly relieved]: Oh, good. I feel like a snack. Do you want a bologna sandwich? I’m going to have one. [stands up]

YT: I’m a vegetarian. Have been since I was thirteen.

Mom: Oh…I didn’t…I’ve seen you pick pepperoni off pizza but I didn’t think it meant anything—I mean, I didn’t realize you were so committed. I think that’s great, really, and—

YT: Thanks. I’m just going to grab my stuff and go upstairs.

I did, and the thing is, Mom looked so sad, standing there in the kitchen all alone. Like she…I don’t know. Wanted me to stay and talk to her? But if that was true, why didn’t she just say it? I think you know why she didn’t. She felt bad for the mess she and Dad made. It wasn’t really about me at all.

But still, J. That look. It made me feel horrible. It made me feel something else too, something that left a bitter taste in my mouth and cramped my hands into fists.

See, now everything I do is worth noticing. Now the things I do mean something to them. Now, when what I’ve done is all I can see when I look at myself in the mirror.

Then there’s school. As long as I avoid your locker, it’s okay. Sort of.

Okay, not really. It sucks. Obviously, I’m not hanging out with the people we used to. Just looking at them makes me think of you and, well, I can’t handle it. Plus…J, they avoid me. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t talk to any of them after what happened or even at your funeral. I went to Pinewood this summer, not parties. I was there when you died.

I’m the reason you’re gone.

So no old friends. And no new ones among my dumb-ass honors classmates either, which, frankly, is fine with me, as I’m not interested in hanging out with people who have poles shoved up their butts. However—and I know you’ll find this amusing—Corn Syrup Caro has actually spoken to me! We were sitting in our groups in English class when someone across the room mentioned your name, and I just…I zoned out or something. Freaked out, I guess. My brain just kinda went
pzzzt
, and my face got all hot, and it was like I couldn’t hear or think or anything. I was dimly aware of Mel glancing at me and then at Patrick (who, as always, was staring at his desk, though I think he might have looked at me). But Caro actually said something. She said, “Amy, are you okay? Do you need some water or—” but then Beth Emory sneered at me and Corn Syrup shut up. She hasn’t spoken to me since.

You remember Beth Emory, right? Another middle school nightmare. She’s still exactly the same. Gorgeous, mean, and able to say things that make her friends act like frightened little sheep. Baaaaa. Of course Caro still hangs out with her.

There is actually one person who does talk to me. It’s that guy, Mel. In English class, when we’re stuck in that
stupid group, he’s always asking me questions. “What’s your favorite color?” or “How come you dropped psychology to take environmental science?” Stuff like that. It’s weird, because while he seems to know an awful lot about me—like my schedule, for instance—and is always asking stuff, he doesn’t seem all that interested in the answers. I can’t figure him out, but since I don’t care it works out fine.

You know what my biggest problem with school is? Lunch. I didn’t expect that. In Pinewood we had to do a lot of role-playing (I know!), and I was always fine with “learning to be by myself.” But at school it’s different. Who sits where, with whom, and why, matters. It matters a lot, and the fact that I don’t have anyone to sit with—well, you know what that makes me.

There’s a couple of other kids who eat by themselves, but I’m in no mood for a very special episode moment, and even if I was it still wouldn’t be enough to make me sit with the girl who needs to be told to bleach her mustache or the guy who always wears a suit and tie. I suppose he’s making a real fashion statement, but this is high school. You’re not supposed to be real. You’re supposed to be enough like everyone else to get through and out into the waiting world.

SCHOOL STARTED OFF
normally enough; annoying classes, annoying people. The usual. And then came lunch.

It was the same as always at first. I bought fries and a soda, and then grabbed a seat at the far end of the freshman reject table. The rejects—all pimples and desperation—gawked at me. I heard one of them whisper “Julia,” and thought of her sitting outside my house waiting for me in the morning, drinking coffee from the convenience store and picking the foam cup apart. She always made it “snow” when I got in the car, and for a second it was just like it used to be, me buckling my seat belt, yawning, and her laughing as little pieces of foam fell down on us. I felt my eyes get all prickly hot and stared at my fries.

Then someone sat down across from me. I was sure it was that fat girl with the mustache, and I know I’m supposed to be kind to my fellow losers, but screw that. I know they look at me and see exactly what I see when I look at them. They see someone who can’t find one person to eat lunch with. They see a loser. That’s what I am. That’s what mustache girl is too, and well, if there’s a reason no one wants to hang out with me…it’s not that hard to figure out why she’s alone too, is it?

It wasn’t her, though. It was freaking Corn Syrup Caro with a tray full of diet soda and lettuce and her cute little purse. I dropped the fry I was holding.

“I thought maybe you might want to go over the physics notes from yesterday,” she said. Her face was bright red, and her hands were shaking. I looked around the cafeteria. It took me a second to find her table—it’s on the other side, where the people who have some social standing are allowed to sit. Her friends were giggling, and Beth was eating salad and looking smug. I knew what was going on right away.

Before Julia, Beth and her dopey band of losers were my “friends,” which meant Beth was always getting mad at me and making me do stuff to prove I was sorry or worse, doing stuff to make me sorry for whatever it was I’d done wrong. In fourth grade she made me sit by myself on the
way home from a field trip to the aquarium while she and Caro and Anne Alice put crap in my hair. I still remember feeling Caro rub cupcake into my scalp.

Today I got to be the crap in Caro’s hair.

“How long do you have to stay before Beth forgives you?” I asked. Caro’s face got even redder.

“I’m not—” she said, and looked over at her table. Beth gave her a tight smile and then turned away just enough for me and Caro to see her say something. “I just thought you might want some help catching up.” Over at Beth’s table, everyone laughed again.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” She tried a smile, failed, and twisted her fork around in her salad really hard, spraying wilted lettuce and carrot into the air. Her face got even redder. I almost felt sorry for her, but then remembered she chose to hang out with someone who treated her like dirt.

So I said, “Did you have a choice? Like was it me or the nose picker or mustache girl, or am I the ultimate punishment? Talk to the girl whose best friend is dead and—”

“No one thinks it’s your fault,” Caro said quickly, too quickly.

I choked even though there was nothing in my mouth, my throat closing up tight around her words. The room
went blurry around me, my vision tunneling, and I pushed away from the table.

The thing is, I know people know what happened. I do. I know everyone looks at me and sees death scrawled across my skin. It was just weird to have someone finally say it. It hurt a lot more than I thought it would, this weird grinding twist in my chest, like my heart wanted to stop beating but couldn’t. Wouldn’t. I looked over at the mustache girl. She was staring but quickly looked away as our eyes met. Clearly I’d overestimated my social standing.

“I’m sorry,” Caro said even more quickly. “Don’t go. Please. I have to talk to you for five minutes.”

I know what Julia would have done. She would have dumped her fries on Caro’s head and walked off. But I looked at her, so miserable and so clearly desperate to make her friend (admittedly, a friend who is pure evil, but still) talk to her again, and I could get that. I mean, I always hated it when Julia was mad at me. So I sat back down.

She actually talked about physics. I thought we’d sit in silence but I guess Beth told her to talk and Caro figured physics would be easiest or something. The funny thing is, she was happy talking about it. Like, her face lit up, and she was smiling, and when I asked her questions
she really started talking. Caro’s a lot smarter—at least about physics—than she lets on because she started talking about stuff we’ve barely touched on in class. Halfway through her explanation of measuring the speed of light we got into a conversation about time travel (I know how it sounds, but it really is kind of interesting) and before I knew it lunch was over. Surprised the hell out of me. Corn Syrup too. The bell rang and her eyes got huge. She looked around for Beth and started to race off. And then she hesitated, just for a second, like we were going to keep talking.

She bolted, of course, but I was surprised she’d stopped for even that moment.

TODAY WAS A LAURIE DAY TOO
—as if I hadn’t dealt with enough crap with Caro and lunch already. I’d hoped to miss school to see Laurie, but naturally she has afternoon hours for her “teen” patients. Lucky, lucky me. Mom, thankfully, had to do some grocery shopping and just dropped me off. I wasn’t up for a discussion about “how things are going” with her while I was stuck in the waiting room.

Eventually, I guess Laurie must have somehow known I’d looked through all the magazines twice and was contemplating bolting and had me called back.

She started off normally enough—for her, anyway, with the “How are you feeling?” questions and all that crap. But then she said, “Today I want to talk about Julia.”

“Okay, well, it’s been ninety days today,” I said, because telling Laurie to shut the hell up doesn’t work. I’ve tried it.

“No,” she said. “I mean, tell me about her.”

“Well, the accident—”

“No, before that. When did you first meet?”

“She moved here when she was twelve.”

Laurie was silent. She does that sometimes. I can never tell if it’s because I’ve said something wrong or because she’s thinking. Either way, I always end up babbling.

“I was eleven.” See? Babbling. Does Laurie really care when I met Julia? Highly doubtful.

“What did Julia think about your drinking?” And once again, I was right. She’d gone right for the drinking. So predictable.

I stared at her, annoyed. She stared right back.

“Well, if it hadn’t been for…if it hadn’t been for that night, for me, she never would have—”

“Let’s not talk about that right now,” Laurie said. “You drank before the accident, right?”

“Yes.”

“A lot?”

I shrugged. It wasn’t like we hadn’t talked about this before.

But she kept quiet again, so I finally said, “Yeah, a lot.”

“When did you drink?”

“Before parties, at parties. Weekend stuff. Last year, though, I drank at school sometimes.”

“Why parties? Why sometimes at school?”

I made a face at her because, really, how stupid could she be? Even I know I drank because it made me feel okay about having weird red hair and being so tall. It also made me less nervous about acting like an idiot in front of other people, and parties and school were times when I desperately didn’t want to seem stupid. Drinking made me feel so much better about—well, everything.

“Amy, I know we’ve covered this before, but I think we should talk about it again. Let me ask another question,” Laurie said, as if I could stop her. “What sort of things did you do to keep your parents from noticing you took alcohol from them?”

“My parents don’t drink.” I knew she had all this in her little file or chart or whatever. My first week at Pinewood I talked and talked and talked about all this crap, and she was in the room when I did. (And she had her damn pen.)

Laurie didn’t say anything, though, just gave me her interested look (You’d think they’d learn more than one
expression in shrink school), so I sighed and recited what we both already knew.

“My mom had a cousin who died from alcohol poisoning when he was twenty-two. My dad’s aunt was an alcoholic. Why don’t you just say you want me to ask them about my dead drunk relatives?”

“Right now, I really would like to focus on you. How did you drink?”

I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth, holding up a pretend bottle.

She clicked her pen twice. I hate that damn thing.

“Julia would swipe stuff from her mom or find someone who’d buy for us.”

“So she drank too?”

“Sure, if there was nothing else around.”

“And if there was?”

“If there was what?”

“If there was something else around?”

“Then she’d do that.”

“I see,” Laurie said, and the minute she did I knew where she was going and it pissed me the hell off.

“Julia didn’t like how much I drank, you know. Like, if I’d puke she’d say I should think about cutting back, and that it was stupid to drink when I could just do
something that wouldn’t make me totally sick like drop aci…um. Anyway, she had to look out for me. And she did. But I—I didn’t do a very good job of looking out for her.”

She nodded. “For next time, I want you to think about talking about Julia. Not about the accident. Just about her. What she was like. How you met, the kind of things you did together. Would you be willing to do that?”

“I guess.”

After that we talked about the usual stuff we do when Laurie says we’re “wrapping up”—do I want to drink, what do I do when I want to drink, a review of my “coping skills,” blah blah blah. I swear I could tell Laurie I’d just murdered someone and she’d still make me review what I’ve “learned.”

Here’s the thing about that: how often I want to drink doesn’t seem to be a big deal to her. How can it not be? Look at what I did, at what my drinking cost…how can I even think about it at all?

But I do.

I also told her a little about lunch. I don’t know why, because she said she thought I should try to “strike up a conversation” with Corn Syrup. Yeah, okay, great idea.

Laurie really doesn’t get how high school works, but that’s how adults are. They think school is so easy and life there is so great. I’d like to see them go back.

Laurie wouldn’t last a day.