Secret Life (RVHS Secrets) (18 page)

He was having no problem with the girl whose back his hand
was sneaking around to unclasp her barely-there bra.

I have no idea what came over me, but his phone was flying
through the air and crashing into his shoulder before I knew it.

And I was done.

Done with all of it.

I was in the hall before I even heard my name shouted from
those too pretty lips, followed by just about every curse word I’d ever heard
and a couple that were new to me.

I must have looked as crazed as I felt because the crowd
parted as I shoved my way toward the door, desperate to get out. Escape.

And then I was in my car, racing home. I had to get home. If
I could just get home…I don’t remember the drive or the stops or the turns.

My hands were shaking so badly on the wheel, I could barely
clasp it. The road was blurry, but I didn’t care.

My phone rang and rang and rang till it went to voicemail.

Five more blocks.

Four more blocks.

I could see the lights on my front porch when the texts
started.

I didn’t even make the driveway. The lawn was going to have to
be good enough. I raced in, slammed the door and sprinted to my room.

The first thing I saw, the mirror I’d had a blanket tossed
over for months and just uncovered, mocked me the second I closed the door.

I picked up my jewelry box and threw it right through the
mirror.
Right through me.

Chapter
24

“Rachel, open the door.” My mother was pounding on the other
side even as I pushed my dresser in front of it. “Open the door now!”

“Go away.”

“I’m not going away. You know I’m not going away. You’re
opening this door or I’m calling the cops to come take you out.”

She would, too. I didn’t even care. I sat on the floor, back
to the dresser, dresser to the door.

I got up, stepping around the glass and pulled the shades on
my windows before I caught my reflection.

“Rachel.”

Her voice was so far away. I started to reach out for it, to
move the furniture and let her in, but then I saw my hands. They looked tiny on
the ends of my arms. I knew it. I knew my arms had always been crazy out of
proportion.

“Rachel, open the door.”

“No. Mom, please, please
go
away.”
I couldn’t let her see me. If she saw me, she’d see everything.

I think my arms might have been getting longer. That
couldn’t be right. That wasn’t rational. They must have always been this wrong.
If she saw me like this, she’d never look at me and not see it. I’d be the
daughter who was crazy
and
ugly.

How could she love me then, even if she was my mom?

“Open it, Rachel.” I couldn’t tell if she was angry or
panicked.

These clothes.
They felt tight. And
it was so hot in there. I needed to get out of them. Stripping my shirt over my
head, I imagined what Chris had seen. This misshaped girl who looked so wrong
he couldn’t stand to touch her.

Through the bathroom door, I caught a reflection in the
mirror over the sink and couldn’t help the anger, the despair. I chased myself
across the room till we stood eye-to-eye. My head looked
giant
.
I’d always known it was abnormally large, that hats were not my friend, but now
it was huge. Like a bobble-head doll.

All I could see was the gorgeous, tiny, perfectly-shaped
girl under Chris, running her foot up the back of his leg.

My own porno nightmare.

My fist shot out and slammed into the glass, cutting through
it to the medicine cabinet behind.

“Damn it to hell, Rachel Ann! Open this door or I’m taking
an ax to it!”

Something dripped on my foot.
Something
thick and red.
I needed her so bad, but I would lose her if I let her
in. How could I lose my mom?

“Mom?
I think I’m bleeding.” My
voice kind of echoed in my head.

But, I couldn’t be sure I was cut because it didn’t ache or
anything. It seemed like if you were bleeding it would hurt, right?

“Rachel, baby. Please.” I think she was crying. It sounded
like it even through the door.

I started to push the dresser aside but panicked. My heart
hurt from how fast it sped, the beats an uncountable jackhammer drowning out
everything else—my breathing, my soul weeping.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I want to let you in, but you have to promise not to look
at me.”

I could hear her sobbing from the other side of the door.

“Yeah, hon. I promise. Just let me in.”

I tried to push the dresser aside, but it didn't want to
move and now its corner was red and slick too. I shoved it part of the way from
the door, enough so my mom could squeeze through.

I could hear her talking to someone, low and urgent, and
another sound of someone crying, but I couldn’t go out there. I couldn’t let
them see me. It would just be worse.

“Rachel, honey, can I come in now?”

I nodded trying to remember how to talk—how to remind her
not to look at me. She squeezed through the space between the wall and the door
where the dresser stopped the door, her head lowered,
eyes
on the floor until she saw the red drops there.

Her head jerked up and then back down fast, but enough to
make me step back.

“Don’t!” She put out a hand to stop me. “There’s glass
behind you.”

Her hand stayed out, reaching toward me but not making it,
not making the distance between us.

“Where are you cut?”

I shook my head again. Was I really cut?

“Where are you cut, Rachel?”

“Mom?”
I didn’t know what to do. I
knew she needed to look at me, but I couldn’t stand the thought. Once she saw
me…“Mom, will you still love me?”

“Always.
Always, baby.” She yanked me
into her arms and it was better there because I was safe but she still couldn’t
see me. “Rachel, we’re going to have to go to the hospital, okay?”

“No!” Do you know how many people are in hospitals? And they
make you sit in that waiting room where everyone looks at you wondering.
Wondering.
Wondering.
“No.”

“I already called. They’re sending someone to get us and
they’ll bring you straight in. Dr. Meadows is going to meet us there and make
sure it’s safe.
No one but us.
I promise.”

I tried shaking my head, but she was holding me so tight I
couldn’t. And I couldn’t breathe. I just couldn’t breathe.

The front bell rang and there were heavy steps on the
stairs.

They were coming and they were going to see me and then drag
me out there. Out where people could see me. God, why were they making me go?

I tried to pull away, yanking myself from my mom, but she
held me so tight—so tight I couldn’t move. I pushed at her, trying to get loose
of her arms, trying to escape that hug that cinched me to her.

“Mrs. Wells?” The voice came through the dresser-blocked
door.

“We’re in here. You’re going to have to come in.”

How could she do this to me?

I started kicking, shoving. I swung my arms and pushed at
her.
If I could just get away.
If I
could just get to the bathroom and lock myself in.

“Hush. Hush.” She just kept saying it as the people on the
other side of the door pushed and pushed until they broke their way into my
room. The world was coming in. I eyed the door to the bathroom, frantic to
reach it.

“No, honey.”
My mom still held
tight, holding me so close she didn’t break her promise not to look.

Then the strangers were there, one was trying to take me
from my mom. I wouldn’t let him. If he got me he’d make me leave, make me go
outside. Bigger, stronger arms clasped
me,
locking me
in an embrace that lacked the love my mom’s had. The other stranger wrapped my
hand and some type of gauze that turned from white to red.

“She won’t leave. She won’t go.” My mom just kept saying
that, over and over. Maybe they wouldn’t make me. Maybe they’d get out. Neither
of them had looked anywhere but my hand, but they were going to drag me out
there. People would stop and look then. Look and cringe.

I couldn’t leave.
Could.
Not.
Leave. I fought them with all the fear I had, punching and kicking and begging
at the same time.
Begging them not to kill me.
That’s
what would happen if they made me go. I’d die. I knew I’d die.

Everyone was talking, all at once I think, but the noise in
my ears was so loud I couldn’t hear them. Sound, sight, everything—everything
was hazy. I was still struggling against the guy holding me from behind,
bracing my hand as the lady changed the gauze to white again and watched it
turn red…it was all turning red…I couldn’t breathe. My lungs hurt and I gasped
for air. He changed the cloth, binding my wrist as it turned red another
time…and then, gasping once more, it all went dark.

Chapter
25

My mom didn’t make me leave the house for another nine days
except for the outpatient meetings. Everyone was very clear I’d have to go back
to school that Monday though.

Part of me couldn’t wait to go, to escape the damage I’d
done. My mother was covered in bruises. My sisters were afraid to look at me.
My room was being repaired. My mom had been able to squeeze through the tiny opening
I’d made for her, but EMTs had to break down my door in the end to get in. Mom
left the door for
last,
probably afraid I’d lock
myself in again.

The day before I went back, Amy came to the house. She’d
been there every day, but I hadn’t been able to face her. To admit to her what
I was…as if she didn’t know.

Mom stopped policing me long enough to let Amy come up to my
room. She knew I’d feel safe there, even if the doorframe still hadn’t been
replaced.

I sat on the bed, listening to Amy climb the stairs and
pause at the top. She was right to be afraid. Who wanted to claim a crazy girl
as their best friend?

“Hey.”

She was looking at me, but not straight on. As if she
couldn’t stand to. As if someone had warned her.

“Hey.”

She picked at the splinters of the doorframe and just kind
of waited.

“You can come in.”

Who knows why
that
made her look
relieved. You’d think she’d want to get
as far away from me as possible if she were smart. She held out a little bag as
she came toward me.

“Ben sent this.” I took the bag and even as I pulled the
gift out, I couldn’t have guessed what it was until I unfolded it with a laugh.

“He sent you a pillow case?” Amy ran her fingers along the
edge as if there might be something magical to it.

And, of course, I knew there was. “It’s the
most-comforting-smell-in-the-world pillow case.”

I tugged it over my own pillow, breathing in the scent. The
pool party seemed years ago, but this gift, this made me smile like nothing had
since I’d come home.

Amy circled the foot of the bed and curled up on it next to
me,
like we’d done all those nights she’d stayed at my house
after her mom had died. After a few moments, she spoke.
Whispered
really.

“I’m hoping you’re ready to talk to me now.”

I wished she could just magically know. That I didn’t have
to tell her anything but she could just download it, like an mp3 or something.

“I wasn’t away being a camp counselor this summer.”

“Okay.”

And it was.
At least with Amy.

I was about to say it out loud. Even with Dr. Meadows, I’d
never actually had to
say
what was
wrong. I had to talk about how I was
doing
and how I
felt,
but not
what I had
. Now, I was going to put into
words the mess I was.

“I’ve been on meds since freshman year for BDD…and the panic
attacks it causes for me.” I leaned back into one of the pillows pulling
another one from under me to wrap my arms around. “I’m on them again.”

“Tell me.” Only Amy could make this sound like no big deal.
“Your mom told me a little about it, but not much.”

That was Mom. I cause mass chaos and destruction in the
house, and she tries to smooth the way with my best friend.
Probably
my only friend.

“Body
Dysmorphic
Disorder.
Basically, I can’t see me. I know rationally…” I forced a
grin, trying to hide my embarrassment, “…when I’m
being
rational, what I’m seeing isn’t true. But there’re triggers
and stuff.”

“But no one sees themselves like they are.” She sounded more
confused than argumentative.

“Yeah.
True.” I curled on my side
facing her, and she slid down next to me, another pillow wrapped in her arms
too. “But more, like, extreme…you know? It’s as if we both looked at a swan and
you saw a swan and I saw an elephant. Or constantly seeing yourself in a
funhouse
mirror,
all warped and mangled and stuff.”

She nodded, trying to understand. Listening, like no one
outside my family and Dr. Meadows ever had.

“But things have never been this bad, right?”

I still didn’t want to talk about that night. It was
humiliating. Not just the attack, but everything leading up to it. Even now I
couldn’t stand to think about it.

“No.”

“You had a big trigger? Chris?”

I wasn’t sure what she knew. Part of me wanted to ask how
much and how she knew it. But most of me, the part of me fighting to get my
feet back under me and feel almost normal again, didn’t care.

Okay. That’s a lie. I still cared.
A lot.
I just hurt more than I cared.

“Yeah.
Stuff with Chris got bad,
and he…”

I’m not sure why, but I didn’t want to tell her what he’d done.
How much he’d hurt me. She had promised we were best friends and we never
cheated on each other. I knew that even meant Chris…that even Chris, her
fragile ex-hero, wouldn’t come before me.

“I know.”

I hadn’t realized I’d been studying the quilt pattern of my
comforter until she said that and my gaze snapped back to hers.

“You do?”

“Yeah.
He called Luke that night to
get him from Mark’s. Luke said he was so trashed he couldn’t stand, but he
wouldn’t go home. He tried to get Luke to bring him here.”

That would have been bad to say the least.

“What did he do? Luke, I mean?” I prayed he was smart enough
to not bring Chris home.

“He brought him to the Parkers’.” She paused, running a
finger around the ribbing of the pillow. “He’s still there. He’s staying with
the Parkers.”

Just what that house needed.
A fifth boy.

“How is he?” Why did I ask that?

“Honestly, a mess. You’re calmer than he is.”

I coughed out my first almost-laugh since that night. Yeah,
but I was the one on pills. Mine were small, and kind of diamond shaped and
vital.
Right now
, they were vital.

And that was okay.
For now.

“So.”
Amy was looking at the pillow
again. “Where were you this summer?”

“I went to a camp where you come off your meds while doing
cognitive therapy…retraining your brain. It’s supposed to make it easier than
doing it around people you know and during school and stuff. There’s more than
that, but yeah.”

“How’d that go?”

I started laughing. Only Amy could look at a complete
meltdown and wonder if everything was still going okay. It wasn’t, but it was
getting there.

“I’m back on the meds…obviously.” I grinned at her. It did
seem a little funny. I mean, of course I was back on the meds. “I think it
wouldn’t have happened if I had been more careful. I was supposed to follow
rules, like no dating boys to make myself feel better.”

“Chris?” she sounded shocked.

“No.
No, not Chris.
Jared. Guys
like Jared who you date and move on from. Only this time I wasn’t the one to
move on. And then there was Chris.”

I wasn’t ready to talk about that. It sounded like she knew
enough to piece together most of it.

I kept talking, trying to get it all out before I turned
into a coward again. “And all the things I did that I wasn’t supposed to added
up until I was walking this line I couldn’t handle.”

“Like in the bathroom that day?”

That seemed so long ago. Had it really been less than a
month since seeing Jared with the next girlfriend sent me into a mini-panic
attack?

“Yeah.
Like that.”

“So, how long have you been…you know, taking meds and stuff
for this?”

Translation:
How long
have you been lying to me?

Only that wasn’t Amy. I should have realized it sooner, but
I was too busy trying to balance all the chaos going on in my head to realize
she’d be like this. She’d be calm and smooth, and when it was all said and done
she’d probably look at me and say, “
whatever
.”

“Junior high.”
I stopped and
thought back. “Actually, the anxiety and the looks-worry started sooner, but
everyone chalked it up to puberty.”

I
grinned,
glad to finally have something
to lay at puberty’s door. Before that—before the head-stuff started—I hadn’t
cared about my looks. But, then I’d gotten nuts about everything being perfect
and balanced.

Amy must have remembered the change too, because she gave a
small nod. She
hadn’t
changed. She
was still comfortable in a cute T-shirt and a ponytail. I envied her that.

“It took about a year to get the right diagnosis, but then
they put me on anti-anxiety pills and started doing the therapy.
Lots of therapy.
I’m so sick of myself, I can’t even tell
you.”

She laughed. She laughed right out loud, a warm relieved
sound.

“You could have told me.” I’d been so afraid she’d be
pissed, but she sounded more worried. More hurt. “You know that, right?”

I could have. I realized it wasn’t that I didn’t trust her
that made me keep it a secret. It was embarrassment and fear that she’d see
what I saw. Or maybe that she’d become like my sisters had that first month,
afraid to talk or look or move for fear of setting me off. That when I told
her, no matter how much she’d insist it didn’t matter, she’d see the freak I
saw in the mirror.

“I know.” And I did. I was suddenly very sure. “I just
couldn’t.”

“Okay.”

We laid there, just the two of us like we hadn’t done in
months—since I’d gone away—and listened to the quiet. I was the one who finally
broke it.

“What are people saying at school?”

She shut her eyes like she did when she was collecting her
thoughts.

“Don’t
lie
, Amy. I need to know
ahead of time so I can be prepared.”

“Well, a lot of people saw Chris trying to chase you down
half-naked and limping.” She got this silly grin, the first relaxed moment I’d
seen since she came in. “I wish
I’d
seen
that. And then you weren’t in school, and he was drunk and living at the
Parkers. People are guessing a lot of things.”

“About me?”

“Actually, not so much.
You looked
pissed when you left. It’s mostly falling on him. I mean, he was
chasing
you and he didn’t even have any
pants on…or so I heard.” She grinned again. “I mentioned I wish I’d seen that,
right?”

God, I loved her.

“Then he stayed and wouldn’t talk to anyone and drank until
he couldn’t stand—which someone told me was weird. He hasn’t ever really been a
drinker or anything. People are saying you ripped his heart out and just don’t
want to deal with him.”

Wow. I couldn’t believe he’d let people say that.
 

“Did you?”

Did I? I doubted it. I mean, he was the one who didn’t want
me.

“No. We just…we just didn’t fit.”

What else could I say? In the end, maybe that’s all it was.
We just didn’t fit.
Couldn’t fit.

“What are you going to do?” Her hand slid from the pillow
and wrapped around mine.

“Go back to school. Try not to think about it. Stay on the
meds until I’m even and see what my doctor says.”

It had taken me all of this to see that they were not a
crutch or a red flag, but just something I might need. They weren’t the enemy.
If next year I went off to college with a monthly prescription to fill, that
didn’t make me any less Normal Girl than the next Girl.

It just made me someone who knew how to make things in my
life work.

She nodded.
Agreement.
Support.

“What about Chris?” she asked quietly.

Seriously?
I rolled on my back not
wanting to think about him and how he might be the one person in the RV as
screwed up as I was.

“What about him?”

“You’re going to have to talk to him eventually.”

I was thinking about that—how do you talk to a boy who
forced you into your clothes, and then hooked up with some bimbo? How do you
talk to a boy you were falling in love with but couldn’t trust?

Amy shifted away almost nervously. “You know…um…”

With everything we just talked about, there was still
something she was afraid to say? How bad could it be?

When she didn’t keep going, I felt my heart start to pace
and prompted her. “Amy?”

“So, when I talked to your mom, it wasn’t just me. She sat
us all down while you were at the doctor’s and gave kind of an overview of
everything so we’d know what was going on. So we’d understand and not push you
and stuff.”

A stark fear ripped through me about who the “we” was. I
know my mom. I probably didn’t have to ask. But, a girl could hope, right?
“We who?”

“Me and Luke.
And Ben asked if he
could come.” Her eyes met mine. I could see she was forcing herself to hold my
gaze.
“And Chris.”

Crap.