The First Time She Drowned (20 page)

I DON’T KNOW
what to do with this memory, what to make of it, where to put it. It feels like there is information missing, something important. But all I know is that thinking about my uncle Billy, about that day, has made me sad and confused. I’m so caught up in my head, trying to make sense of things, that as I walk to the library to meet Zoey, I don’t see Chris until I’m almost upon him.

He is sitting on the steps of the boys’ freshman dorm with some friends, looking easy and full of laughter and at home. I consider turning and running in the opposite direction, but I’m almost in front of them and I don’t want to draw attention to myself. Instead, I conjure an invisible cloak around me, pretend I have no peripheral vision and hope to pass by unseen.

“Look at you, crazy girl,” he calls, and instantly I freeze. Despite my efforts to escape it, that word, the unfair label, has followed me here. I am sure he has found out about me, about my being locked up.

I pull my chest back, stand tall, stare him down. “What did you just say?”

He looks taken aback, and a few of his friends start ribbing him in low, mocking voices about being in trouble with a girl.

“Just that I almost didn’t recognize you!” He jumps up and comes toward me, points to the armload of books I am bringing
to the library. “You’ve actually got books. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Huh?” I say, and then the world, which has narrowed to the slits of my eyes, expands again. “Oh, my
books
 . . . Right . . . Crazy . . .”

Still, the adrenaline lingers, unwilling to give the all clear just yet. At the same time, my heart remembers Chris, pushes against my chest as if to get closer to him. Then I remember my mother’s words.

“Well, nice to see you.” I start walking fast again. He follows.

“Hold on . . .” He scrambles to catch up. “What did you think I meant?” I can feel him looking at me funny, though I’m trying to avoid eye contact.

“I don’t know. Nothing.” I realize I’m being weird, so I turn and add, “Why are you being weird?”

“Am I?” He puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me and frowns with boyish concern. “I probably am. You make me nervous. Especially when you avoid me.”

“I’m not avoiding you.” I shake his hand off my shoulder and resume walking.

“Oh really?” he says, and proceeds to imitate me speed-walking with my head down away from him. I can’t help but laugh.

He turns and smiles, and I immediately stop laughing. “Well, since you’re not avoiding me, you wanna go do something? Grab some pizza? Hang out on the beach? Hang out on a pizza?”

He grins at me in that way that makes my stupid stomach flip and I want nothing more than to say yes, my heart leaping yes. But then I think of my mother again, of what she said, and I remind
myself he’s probably only after one thing. “I have to study,” I say. I adjust my arms as the stack of books threatens to topple.

He catches the binder at the top of my pile. “I could help if you want. At least with the English stuff.”

“Why would you do that? You think you’re gonna get lucky in the stacks or something?”

“Whoa!” he says, stepping back. “What?” He looks angry or offended. Maybe both.

“Nothing, forget it.”

He searches my face, which I can feel has gone red, and then he smiles roguishly. “Not that I’m opposed. I mean . . . if that’s your assignment or something, I’m totally willing to sacrifice myself for the cause.”

I roll my eyes and then grab my binder back from him. “I really have to get to the library before it closes.” I start walking even faster away from him. This time he does not follow.

“Uh, Cassie?” he calls.

I turn.

“It’s right there. You just passed it. And the library doesn’t close.”

I look to where he’s pointing and see the huge letters at the top of the building that say L
IBRARY
.

“Right.” I change course too quickly and half my books go flying out of my arms. “Dammit!” I drop to my knees and grab furiously at a few scattered papers that have fallen out of one of my notebooks.

Chris walks over and kneels down beside me.

“I got it.” I glare at him and then sink into the grass, feeling so foolish and embarrassed, I could cry. Chris picks up my books and hands them to me. Then, before I can stop myself I say, “Why are you being so nice? What do you want from me?”

He looks shocked. “Nothing! Jeez.”

“So then do you have a hero complex or something? You think I’m some charity case, is that it?”

He stares at me.

“Or maybe you just like the chase?”

“Maybe I just like you,” he says irritably, as though him liking me should be above question. “And I get it. You don’t like me. It’s fine.”

“No, it’s . . .” I look down at the grass, at the scatter of papers, all the mess I’ve made. “It’s just . . . why?”

“Why what? Why do I like you? Is that a serious question?”

I meet his eyes, daring him to answer it.

“Okay,” he says. “Well . . .” His whole demeanor shifts, loosens. “Hmm . . .” He looks up at the clouds and taps his finger against his chin. “Thinking. Thinking. There’s got to be a reason somewhere . . .”

“Oh, forget it!”

His eyes twinkle. “No, no, just give me a minute.”

I start to laugh despite myself.

“Okay, well, for one thing I like making you laugh.”

I stop laughing.

“And you’re very unpredictable. You definitely keep me on my toes . . .”

I roll my eyes.

“And you’re almost sweet when you want to be. Plus, you’re sort of an endearing disaster.”

“Hey!”

He gestures at the remaining papers on the ground. “You want to debate that?”

I open my mouth and then realize I have no case.

His face gets serious then, his eyes holding me. “And I guess I just like being nice to you. Sometimes I get the feeling that no one has been nice to you your whole life.”

I go to speak, but his words have knocked the wind out of me. I wonder if it’s possible that he really does like me. That in spite of all my efforts to hide myself, he sees me and likes me anyway. That maybe my mother was wrong about him, about all of it.

He puts his hand on top of mine and this strange, salty whoosh goes through my body like a breaking wave. He bends his face to me, his eyes looking into mine, searching my face. I imagine what he sees: mascara, blush, lipstick, foundation.

“You don’t know me,” I say.

I collect my mess quickly, stand and march ahead to the library without looking back. I picture Chris behind me, coming to his senses, realizing that I’m just too much.

“So let’s get to know each other!” he calls out. “Go to the homecoming dance with me!”

I walk into the library and let the door slam shut behind me.

SAFELY INSIDE THE
library, I search for Zoey and, failing to find her, plop my books down at an empty corner table, open the first and proceed to read the opening paragraph at least three times without processing a word.

My ears are ringing and my face feels like it’s on fire. My mind is at war with itself, a jumble of incongruent thoughts fighting each other to the death. I have to keep reminding myself that Chris is an undercover jerk who just wants to use me. And even if he’s not a jerk, even if he
thinks
he likes me, it’s only because he’s not seeing the real me. But then Zoey’s voice in my head argues that I should trust this, that I shouldn’t listen to my mother. And sometimes when I’m with Chris I think she’s right—that he does care. But I just can’t tell what’s real.

It’s as if all the same questions I’ve had for years—quelled for a time in my mother’s absence—have just now reemerged, demanding answers: Am I acting crazy or am I just protecting myself? Which threats are real and which are imagined? Whose perception is accurate, my mother’s or mine? And at the core of all these questions is the biggest one, the only one really: Am I lovable or unlovable?

I remember how James used to literally yell at me if I dared to doubt myself. James, who insisted every day that I see my own
worth beyond my mother’s rejecting eyes. But of course, a mother’s eyes are the very first mirror we look into, the image that gets imprinted on our souls—whether they gaze back at us with love or with disgust. So I don’t know how to differentiate between her perceptions of me and my own when hers were the first I’ve ever known, so deeply ingrained from the second I hit the world.

I think if I could just find a way to be sure of who was good and who was bad, who was right and who was wrong when I was growing up, then maybe the present wouldn’t seem so muddied. The answers had seemed clearer to me before my mother came back into my life acting so maternal, making me question my reality, throwing both my past and my present situation with Chris into confusion. She seems so sincere, and yet this mother bears no resemblance to the one I knew.

As I struggle to reconcile the two versions of her, I find myself dipping back into memory once again, to right before it all went completely to hell.

• • •

It started with Christmas. On Christmas Eve, I found a single giant present under the tree with my name on it. Even though it was only one gift to my brothers’ many presents, the sight of it there was a complete shock, having prepared myself to have no gifts, no Christmas at all. I even double-checked my name on the little tag to make sure there was no mistake. But it was definitely addressed to me.

It was clearly a peace offering of sorts. The spirit of Christmas had seized my mother, pushing her to bring this long, awful war to an end. And even though I would never admit it out loud, I needed
desperately for the war to end. The world was hard without parents. That one single Christmas present felt like nothing less than a rescue plane to the stranded.

I wondered all night what it might be. I couldn’t sleep. In the morning, both unable to bear the suspense and wanting to prepare my reaction under such tenuous circumstances, I slipped downstairs before everyone else woke up. Carefully, I peeled away a little tape and pulled back the wrapping paper. I saw canvas and a zipper, but still I couldn’t figure out what it was. And then it hit me and I felt the awful thud of collapsed hope.

A suitcase.

The message was undeniable: Pack up your shit. You’re not wanted here.

• • •

So I stayed away as much as I could, hanging out with Wade—the two of us like orphans—both raising each other and rebelling against a world that had shut us out. When I was at home, I moved through the house like a soldier crossing enemy lines, slipping up to my room as quickly as possible, trying not to get caught in the act of existing. I was not invited to join my family at mealtime but instead snacked on their leftovers or scavenged my food from the cabinets. I did this mostly late at night, sneaking quietly into the kitchen like a mouse in a cat’s house to grab whatever I could get my hands on quickly: doughnuts, cookies, candy bars. I began stealing money from my mother’s purse to pay for school lunches.

Even when my father was home on the occasional weekend between trips, I remained cast out. He would try to talk to me, small talk at the door to my room, as if nothing was happening,
and sometimes I would hear him attempt to defend me in the unfair tirades my mother would wage about me in full voice from their bedroom. But it didn’t make any difference. Eventually he just gave up.

• • •

February break came.

On the first night off from school, Wade and I had been at a party of some girl whose parents weren’t home until the loud music brought the cops, who broke it up. We piled into the car of Wade’s friend Max, a senior, and though it was kind of late, none of us wanted to go home. Max, being older, had a later curfew and Wade seemed to have none at all.

“I have an idea,” Wade said.

“I’m down for trouble,” Max replied.

“You in?” Wade asked me.

I looked at the clock—almost 11:00
P
.
M
. My mother had never mentioned a curfew to me and I assumed she didn’t care enough to give me one, though it seemed like common sense that I couldn’t just roll in any time I pleased. Then again, my father was back from his latest trip, which made the thought of being in my house somehow even less appealing. When he was around, my mother’s unhappiness ballooned, traveling through the atmosphere, looking for a place to land. And, as usual, I was her misery’s favorite spot. No matter what I did, I was going to get shit.

“Well?” Wade said, pulling me out of my thoughts and into the car. “In or out. We don’t have all night.”

“Screw it,” I said. “I’m in.”

It was silly, the stuff we did that night. We drove around
and stole F
OR
S
ALE
signs and then put them all over the lawn of the high school. We went to the 7-Eleven and ate microwaved burritos standing by the counter and played a game of catch with a box of condoms across the aisles until the store manager chased us out with a broom while we laughed. We drove to the town’s outdoor ice-skating rink and climbed over the fence and slid around on our sneakers until police headlights became a spotlight for our pirouettes. Then we ran like hell, whooping as they chased us, cutting through bushes and over fences to escape them. We ran until we found a tree house to hide in and climbed up and inside, pressed against one another in a pile to keep warm while we waited for the cops to give up. It was luminous to be in that huddle of friendship, turned toward one another in the darkness of adolescence, surrounding one another like glass around a candle. I was happy. I belonged. This is what I remember most about that night: that I was alive. That I was allowed to be. It was the last time I could remember feeling that way. It was the last time I ever wanted to be happy, for what a dangerous feeling happiness was, how much worse a fall from such a great height.

“Let’s egg some houses!” Wade said as we trotted back to the car once it was safe.

I laughed. “I gotta go. But feel free to egg mine.”

• • •

It was almost one in the morning when they dropped me off. The lights were on downstairs.

Not a good sign.

I had hoped my parents might have gone to bed without noticing
my absence, which wouldn’t have been unusual. I could hear them shouting at each other as I came up the driveway, followed by the completely unhelpful sound of Max’s car screeching loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood as he sped away.

I put my key in the back lock, my hands shaking with both cold and dread. My mother appeared at the door. “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” she said.

I ignored her and stepped past her into the house. My father was standing by the door to the hall.

“Where the hell were you?” he said.

“Out,” I mumbled.

“Out where?”

“Who cares where?” my mother said to him. “It’s one in the morning. Stop pussyfooting around her.”

“I’m not pussyfooting, Bev. I’m just—”

“Oh right,” she said. “What do you care if she tramps all over us? You’re off living it up in Europe while I’m stuck here being abused!”

I actually laughed. “Abused?” I turned to my father. “She’s the one who won’t even speak to me. Except to call me fat. Or hit me in the face.”

She pointed her finger at me. “You shut up.” Then back to my father: “Do you see how she treats me? She’s deliberately trying to hurt me.”

“
I’m
trying to hurt
you
?” I said. Everything was so backward, so warped and twisted. I couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m going upstairs. Go ahead and ground me. It’s not like you actually want me around.” I started toward the door.

“Oh great,” she spat at my father. “You’re just going to let her go? God, Ed, you are
such
a simp!”

My father gritted his teeth. All the sympathy he had for her seemed to drain out of him in an instant. I could almost smell the rage coming off of him like the wet panting of a dog. “I am not a simp!” he said, and for a second he looked like he might lunge for her.

“You’re worse than a simp,” she said. “You’re pathetic.”

My father’s body trembled as if the charge of his own fury were electrocuting him. Then just when I thought he might finally explode on her after all the years of putdowns and abuse, he turned without warning, stepped forward to block my exit and slammed me against the wall.

“What the hell?” I said, stunned.

I put my hand to the back of my head and we stood there looking at each other inside a pause so tense and serious that I almost felt like laughing. For one passing instant, I thought I saw pleading in his eyes. Then just as quickly, it was gone.

“From now on you are forbidden to see these new friends of yours, do you hear me?” he said.

“You’ve never even met them!”

“I don’t give a goddamn shit. We’re your parents, and you’ll do whatever we say!”

“Oh, so now you’ve decided to be my parents? What brought on the sudden change?”

He stepped right up to me, towering over me, and stuck his
enraged face into mine. I refused to show fear, though I felt it.

“You’re going to give me some goddamn respect from now on, do you hear me? I’m tired of not being respected in this house!”

“Take that up with her!” I said, pointing at my mother, who stood calm now, watching satisfied as my father and I argued. “She’s the one you should be pissed off at! She’s the one who treats you like crap! And you just take it out on me!”

My father’s eyes glittered with rage. I had hit him where he lived. “Don’t you talk to me that way!”

“Fuck you!” I screamed. “You’re not a father to me. You don’t protect me from her. You don’t even live here!”

He turned to look at my mother, and in that split second, I ducked past him and ran up to my room, slamming the door behind me. I sat on my bed and waited, heart pounding as I heard my mother’s footsteps climb the stairs. They stopped in front of my room.

“You’re done,” she hissed through the door. “Do you hear me? Done.”

I climbed under the covers and closed my eyes and thought of Wade so I wouldn’t cry.

In the morning I awoke to them standing over my bed, my mother, my father and Matthew, with ropes in their hands.

• • •

“Earth to Cassie,” Zoey says, and waves her hand in front of my face.

I hadn’t even noticed her standing there.

She plops herself down across from me.

“Have you been here long?” she says. Then before I can answer
she adds, “I don’t actually need to study. I’m just here to check out guys. Do you realize the homecoming dance is
next week
?”

I roll my eyes. “Who cares?”

“Umm . . . we do. And we need dates.”

“Try again. I’m not going to the stupid homecoming dance.”

“Oh please,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. As if she would ever allow that to happen.