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Refugees

I just couldn’t go to school. I really couldn’t.

I begged Mom not to make me go back. I didn’t want to face the stares, the wondering, the whispering. People thinking that my sister was insane. I didn’t want to explain to Bethany and Rose that my sister had schizophrenia. I definitely didn’t want to see Summer and her backstabbing face—I’d probably smack it, and then they’d send
me
to see the school counselor. And I just really didn’t
feel
like going to school.

Surprisingly, Mom let me stay home. She let me go back to bed.

When I got up at ten thirty, Jill took me to the mall. Apparently
she
couldn’t deal with school either.

There we sat at Starbucks drinking our half-caf soy vanilla mocha lattes like two refugees from a prison camp. That’s just how it felt, like we were on leave for a little while, waiting to be picked up and taken back to jail. It was a temporary escape, that’s all, then the guards would take me back, and I’d have to go to school tomorrow.

Everything Is Wrong

Roman stopped by in the afternoon to take me to see Becca.
I got into his beater car, brushing fast food bags off the seat. His car really is a disaster area. I can’t imagine what his bedroom looks like.

“I like your shirt, Roman.”

He was wearing an old, black The Cure T-shirt with holes. It was so thin, you could practically see through it.

“Thanks. My dad gave it to me. Becca cut the sleeves off for me,” he said with a little smile.

Why didn’t
that
surprise me. It’s kind of funny when I think of it, Becca cutting the sleeves off of everything and how happy Roman was with his shirt. I’m just glad she didn’t go to town on
my
clothes too.

We rode most of the way in awkward silence except for the radio. I had no idea what to expect—if they’d even let us see her—and when we got to Brookside, the lady at the reception desk told us to come back because it was medication time, and then Becca had a therapy session after. Poor Roman was so confused, like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. He’s so used to Becca giving him his daily instructions. They’re like two halves of the same person.

On the drive home, he looked so sad. I wanted to hug him, but we’re not usually huggy like that. We were both quiet, and I thought about how things were before, when I was little. I pictured the three of us girls with Mom and Dad and how happy we were, but we didn’t know it at the time. Why would we?

How could life have changed so much? How did I get
here
?

Poor Roman

Roman and I cut school after third period
to go visit Becca. I risked Mom’s wrath, knowing she’d kill me for cutting classes, but I went anyway mainly just to keep Roman from jumping off the nearest roof.

At Brookside, I watched him and Becca have their little reunion, kind of staying in the background, because I didn’t want to intrude. It was sad and sweet. The two of them hugged like pale ghosts. Becca had this faraway look on her face. After a couple of minutes, I gave her shoulder a squeeze, said my goodbye, and waited for Roman outside on the benches.

Are You There, God?
It’s Me, Stacy

I’ve picked up a new habit the past few days.
A praying habit. Every night in bed, I’ve been saying a little prayer for Becca. It’s been years since I’ve prayed regularly, not since I was six years old and Mom and Dad took Jill and Becca and me to Sunday school at a church in the neighborhood. Mom and Dad only lasted for a couple of Sundays. It turned out to be a very holy-rollerish place. The pastor would call people up to the altar rail, encouraging them to “Let Jesus into your heart.” It wasn’t their cup of tea, I guess, but Dad kept taking us to Sunday school. I think he was concerned about us being godless heathens, which we totally were. I went to the younger kids’ section; Jill and Becca went with the older kids.

Two things stand out about my whole experience there: one, I remember the pastor’s wife cleaning the wax out of my ears with bobby pins. (Don’t they always say not to put anything in your ear sharper than your elbow? I guess she never heard that one.) And, two, the Sunday school teachers taught me how to pray by getting on my knees and placing my hands together and talking directly to God. I did this for a few nights. I got down on my knees and prayed that God would watch over my family, our cat Rex, my grandparents, Aunt Linda, and everyone else. This went on for a few nights, then I stopped, probably because Becca told me I looked like a dork doing it or most likely, because I got bored with it.

Now when I pray, I ask God for help with Becca. Just make her like she was before she started getting all strange and cutting things and smoking and putting syrup on everything. Just bring her back to us okay. Also, to help Mom and Jill and me. I don’t ask for anything else, because I don’t want God to get the idea that I’m greedy. I’m trying to come off as unselfish, even though my reasons are really maybe selfish. I just want my sister back. And I figure if I pray the same prayer every day, I’ll eventually wear Him down.

Residential Treatment

I sat across the table from Becca at her residential treatment center.
We were in the visitors room. It’s a large, open space with yellow walls, framed pictures of cats and dogs, and paintings of vases of flowers and bowls of fruit. There’s a pool table off to one side, little seating groups, a couple of couches, and a flat-screen TV. Groups of people were scattered around. It feels like a place for mental patients that they tried to make look like it’s not a place for mental patients, and the whole thing was kind of depressing.

The two of us played poker like we used to. I had a pair of twos and a pair of sixes. We used miniature peanut butter cups as our poker chips.

Becca put her cards down all of a sudden. “I can’t play right now. The numbers are all fuzzy. I can’t concentrate.”

She was pale, and her hair had this wild look like it hadn’t been brushed in a while. I picked up the
Cosmopolitan
that I’d found on one of the little tables and read “The Ten Worst Movie Pickup Lines” to her, and then her horoscope, while she sat there kind of staring off, not laughing or making snide comments like she usually would.

“Look, Becca.
Sleepless in Seattle
’s on.”

One of my favorites. So we went over and sat down next to a woman with bright orange hair who looked like she was about forty-five and a younger guy, maybe Becca’s age. He and the woman with orange hair were watching the movie intensely and didn’t even look over at us when we sat down. His arms were completely sleeved with tattoos, his ears were pierced about a million times, and he had long, black hair, almost to his shoulders, that he kept brushing out of his eyes. I kept watching him out of the corner of my eye, trying not to seem obvious.

It was the scene towards the end of the movie where Tom Hanks’s character realizes his eight-year-old son has bought an airplane ticket and is on his way to New York to meet Meg Ryan on top of the Empire State Building. I just love it. It’s, of course, usually
way
too mushy and romantic for Becca, but she sat quietly next to me watching. I gave her one of the KIT KAT bars from my purse that I’d brought for her, and she devoured it like she’d been stranded on a desert island and hadn’t seen chocolate in a very long time.

When the movie finished, visiting time was over.

“I’ve gotta go now, Becca.”

I gave her shoulder a little squeeze, and she felt fragile and small, almost like she was empty on the inside. I waited in the reception area for Mom to pick me up. As I watched a girl in a Hello Kitty shirt talking to the woman with bright orange hair, it struck me how I
never
would have thought I’d find myself in a situation like this.

Sometimes life can be really strange.

Chad, My Hero

In English class, I was hopelessly behind.
Our
Macbeth
papers were due Monday, and I really hadn’t even started mine.

I heard Mr. Selden say in his monotone voice, “They’re worth thirty percent of your grade this quarter, so please put some effort into them. And don’t forget, I want notecards and footnotes. Don’t disappoint me, people.”

Notecards? Footnotes? Apparently either he went over everything while I was absent or I
really
hadn’t been paying attention. It figured, the way things had been going.

I turned around to Daria, who’s usually on top of things, and asked, “What notecards?”

She looked at me as if I’d grown scales all over my green body.

“He wants us to cite our references and put them on notecards,
Stacy
.”

She might as well have gone, “Duh, idiot.”

“Ugh. I’m so not prepared for this. What is a notecard again?”

“If you want, I can come over and help you tonight,” she offered nicely.

While that might
sound
like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, the thing is, Daria’s kind of a freak. I mean, we’re sort of friends. She’s not bad-looking at all—pretty hair, pretty smile, white perfect teeth—but she’s got this monobrow thing going on and a healthy mustache, and when she’s not doing her homework or practicing with the volleyball team, she’s fantasizing about running away with Coach Rob.

Coach Rob is young for a teacher. I’d put him at maybe thirty, but according to Daria, he’s twenty-nine. How she knows this, I have no idea, but I wouldn’t put it past her to have broken into the school office one night dressed in her black ninja suit, found his personnel file, copied it, and then taped the different pages to her bedroom wall. She probably has a little Coach Rob doll that she sticks pins into while mumbling love spell incantations.

It’s not like the coach is ridiculously handsome or anything, but who can explain why people develop their obsessions? One day he casually dropped the fact that he was engaged. (Or maybe not so casually. He probably wanted her to back the hell off.) Daria was utterly crushed, really devastated for a couple of days, but she bounced back and convinced herself that it would never last, that his fiancée couldn’t possibly love him the way she did.

So I was caught in a dilemma: I definitely needed help on my paper, but did I really want Daria knowing where I lived?

I could tell Chad was eavesdropping on our conversation. He was giving me a raised-eyebrow look like, “Do you really want
her
help?”

I screamed out for him to help me with my eyes. And just in case he didn’t get it, I mouthed the words “Help me” when Daria wasn’t looking.

“You know, Stacy, didn’t you have that thing you had to do tonight? You know, with your mom?”

Chad, my hero.

“Um, yeah, that’s right. Shoot. I can’t get together tonight, Daria. I’ll just have my mom help me.”

Daria kind of gave a little shrug of her shoulders like “It’s your funeral” and went back to her letter to Coach Rob. I looked over at Chad and mouthed “Thank you.” He was practically doubled over with laughter.

At the end of class, as I was walking out, he caught up to me.

“Stacy, wait up.”

“Hey, thanks for helping me out with Daria. I’m
so
screwed on this paper. You know, I’ve barely even started it.”

“I can come over and help, if you want,” Chad said so casually, like it was absolutely no inconvenience to him at all. “I’ll bring what I have and show you what I’ve got.”

“
That
would be awesome. You’re a sweetheart.”

He had this great, big, mouth-full-of-braces smile.

“I’ve got an appointment after school, but I’ll call you when I’m done.”

“Great.”

And we walked to lunch together until horrible Vanessa saw him and called him over. He gave me a little “See ya,” and I hunted for Rose and Bethany, feeling that little twinge. My old friend jealousy was back.

Me jealous? Nah, it couldn’t be. Except I couldn’t help but wonder a little how things would have turned out between the two of us though, if I’d just given him a chance. Oh, and if he wasn’t such a terrible bad kisser.

At lunch, Rose and Bethany and I ate:

•
1 burrito

•
1 mini pizza

•
2 orders of chili cheese fries

•
3 Dr Peppers

Then we all talked about how we’ll be starting our diets tomorrow. Rose and Bethany looked for their crushes as usual. And snake-y Anthony—who I hadn’t spoken to or had a real conversation with in weeks—walked by and looked right at me.

“Hey, Stacy. How’s it goin’?” (Not said all in one word, but enunciated.)

I felt the little rush of excitement. My heart started beating faster. In spite of everything, I said, “Hi, Anthony!” giving him a big, dorky smile like a complete goofball,
hoping
secretly that he’d stop and talk to me, but he didn’t. He didn’t even slow down. Bethany poked me in the side.

“What’s wrong with you? Why are you being nice to him?”

“Because I’m a pathetic loser? Because I’m waiting—
waiting
—for him to give me any kind of sign, anything at all, the slightest crumb?”

Rose didn’t say anything, just kind of looked down. She didn’t need to say anything; I could tell what she was thinking.

Bethany said, “Oh, Stacy. You could do
so
much better. You know that.”

“If you haven’t noticed, the boys aren’t exactly knocking down my door. Well, pervy old guys maybe.”

The truth is, my heart was still broken. If Anthony were to say, “Stacy, can I call you sometime?” Or, “Stacy, wanna go to the movies?” I’d say “okay” in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even have to think about it, pathetic as it sounds. But that’s just the way it is when you’re a fool in love. Or maybe just a fool.