When Everything Feels like the Movies (16 page)

“Are you all right?” she asked, waving away the smoke. “Are you sick? You look sick.”

“I’m fine,” I said, walking toward the bathroom. “Just cold.”

I took a long shower and then went down to my room to bandage my hand. It wasn’t that bad. It’s not like I could see bone or anything. I covered most of the cuts and tried not to move my fingers too much because every time they bent, my knuckles bled.

Then I packed my suitcase with my favourite clothes, shoes, and makeup. I put the holy trinity,
People,
Star,
and
In Touch,
in my backpack
.
I also had Candy Darling’s
My Face for the World to See
to read as inspiration on the bus. Candy was like me. Stubble showed through her powder, and too much of everything was never enough.

Stoned Hairspray curled up in my suitcase. I think she knew. She kept meowing and sounding so forlorn, I wished I could take her with me. But she had her own lives to lead. Besides, Keefer would need the company once I was gone. She’d love him, even if no one else in our house knew how. Stoned was good like that. She had a way of reminding you that you weren’t totally alone.

“Take care of him,” I told her, and she purred.

It was almost time for the Valentine’s dance, so I started getting ready. Maybe I needed more to miss, but mostly I just wanted to say goodbye to Angela. I wanted to tell her that I’d write. That even if she didn’t open my letters, she should keep them somewhere safe because one day, they’d be worth a fortune.
The Jude Rothesay Letters
. The secret letters of a star! She could sell them to private collectors after my inevitably tragic and mysterious Hollywood ending in which the coroner couldn’t decide if it was an overdose or suicide and the online forums filled with conspiracies of a government-plotted assassination and of the satanic ritual my corpse, which was found cold in the Beverly Hilton, had been subjected to.

I threw on some clothes, nothing radical, just the plain jeans and shirt I was going to wear on the bus. I didn’t want to get bed bugs in my sequins.

Then I squeezed through my window like I was stepping out of a limousine, and I never looked back.

20

Director’s Cut

I
went to the Day-n-Nite before the dance. It was the only place I wanted to see one last time. I sat at the back booth and didn’t look under the table because I was too scared his name would be there.

Brooke walked past like she didn’t expect me to order, but I asked for fries. When she brought them out, I started to cry. I just couldn’t handle it when she walked away. And not just because of her pancake ass.

When I was finished eating, I left Brooke a tip for once, using some of my Hollywood money. A really big tip—I was feeling generous. You have to give to get, and besides, things were going to happen for me. Money was trivial. I was sure I’d have a daddy and a Bentley my first night in West Hollywood.

I left the Day-n-Nite and walked to school, stopping at the gate because Angela and Luke were standing outside the front doors. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it looked like they were arguing. Angela was flailing her arms, and Luke was kicking ice off the stairs. I strained my ears to hear, but they were too far away. Angela tried to grab his bomber jacket. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to kiss or hit him, but he pushed her away and went inside.

She lit a cigarette as I walked up to her. She looked cute. She wore a baby-doll dress with black tights and chunky leather boots. I could tell by the way she didn’t see me until I was standing right in front of her that she was already wasted. Her eyes were as slippery as the ice.

“You came,” she said, puffing on her smoke. “I didn’t think you would.”

“Why not?”

“The bathroom thing. I thought you would’ve killed yourself by now.”

“Matt’s already bragging about it?”

“He filmed it with his phone. It’s on Vimeo.”

“What?”

“They posted the video on Vimeo,” she said, smoke sliding off her tongue. “You’re fucking viral, dude.”

“I guess the tarot cards were right.”

“What?”

“I guess I am famous.”

“More like infamous.”

“Are you here with Luke?” I asked.

She didn’t even have the decency to look surprised.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“Why not?”

“No one wants you here.”

“Do you?”

“Just go, Jude.”

“What about Trey?”

“What about him?”

“Do you care about anyone but yourself?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw you. I fucking saw you!”

“You saw what?”

“You said you’d never do it.”

“Do what?” she screamed, even though she knew.

“Don’t be slut
and
a liar, Angela.”

“Fuck you!”

“You pretend you’re different, but you’re just like everyone else.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Jealous?” I laughed. “What, of you?”

“Yes, of me.”

“Why would I be jealous of a future hooker-slash-waitress?”

“You’re jealous because I have tits and I have a cunt—”

“You
are
a cunt.”

“—and you don’t! You don’t have either of those things and you never will. You’re a boy, and he doesn’t want a boy. Don’t you get it?” she laughed. “You’re just a stupid fag, and he doesn’t want you.”

“You’re right, he wants a come dumpster like you.”

She slapped me across the face so hard I saw lights. Greyhound headlights, disappearing down the highway.

“You know,” she said, tossing her cigarette at my feet and opening the door to go inside, “I almost hope he does it.”

I was about to leave. That’s what kills me. Well, you know.

My face stung, and I choked on the cold, gulping it down like I was dehydrated. I felt sick. The glamour that usually flowed through my veins had drained out. I felt like I might vomit, but then I heard a car door open in the parking lot, and the voices brought me back to life. I went inside, standing up as straight as I could.

As soon as I walked into the gym, I realized that this scene should have been deleted, and yet it looked as sweet as a dream. The lights were dimmed, and a TA was DJing on the stage. Mr Callagher guarded the punch bowl protectively. I watched from the corner of the gym as he rushed to separate Madison and Matt, who were practically dry humping in the middle of the dance floor. As soon as he left his post, Kenny blocked the table while Colin poured a bottle of vodka into the punch. I glanced at the door almost expecting Molly Ringwald to walk through, pretty in pink. I wished all the boys wanted to sniff
my
panties in the bathroom.

Everyone was dirty dancing as I looked around the gym for Luke. I wanted to see him one last time so that when I closed my eyes and thought of him, I could hear the cheesy school board-approved music blaring from the shitty speakers, and not the sound of his desk crashing to the floor like a heart breaking.

I couldn’t find him, but I saw Mr Dawson across the gym. He looked right at me, and I almost puckered my lips, but he looked away too quickly. And although I waited, he never looked back.

I checked my watch. It was almost time—show time. I stepped onto the middle of the floor for my last dance, throwing my arms in the air and twirling around like the Good Witch. I had wanted to pack Glinda’s dress, but it wouldn’t fit in my suitcase. I thought about giving it back to Mrs Whiltman, but I couldn’t part with it. If I couldn’t have it, then no one could. There were already too many things I couldn’t have. So I took it to the backyard, put it in the trash can, and then got the gas can Ray kept in the garage. He claimed he used it to refill the car, but I knew he just liked to sniff the fumes. I dumped it all over the dress, lit a single match, and watched it burn. Dorothy was an idiot to leave Oz. There’s no place like home until you realize you’re alone. She had it all. Friends
and
ruby slippers. She went over the rainbow and came back! But you can never go back.

I stopped dancing and lowered my hands to my sides, sweat sliding down the curve of my nose. When I opened my eyes, Luke was standing in front of me. I couldn’t believe it; it was just like my dream. I reached for him at the same moment he lifted his hand, but I saw it in his eyes first.

Then the lights from the disco ball reflected off the barrel, and everything went white. I tried to wake up, but it was too late.

Before I knew the dream was a nightmare, I was sleeping forever.

Luke shot me twice in the head, point-blank. But it was my heart that ruptured.

There I was on the gymnasium floor in a pool of my own blood, which was also splattered across the wall and on the balloons that had popped as if grazed by the fingernail of the angel of death himself. There was screaming as the music stopped. People kept saying, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” They weren’t looking at me, but Luke was. He was stunned, the gun still pointed at where I had stood. Where it felt like I was still standing. Everyone else looked at my body splattered on the floor, but I was still standing. I reached for Luke and my hand went through him. He shuddered and dropped the gun with a thud.

Luke ran out of the gym. I chased after him, screaming his name. I couldn’t catch up to him. He was faster than the speed of light.

I stood outside and tried to see my breath; although it was freezing outside, I couldn’t. I wasn’t cold, either. The ambulance pulled up to the school with its red lights flashing, and the paramedics rolled the stretcher right through me.

I wouldn’t believe it. Even when they came back out, and I saw myself on the stretcher with an oxygen mask over my face, I just stood there with my arms crossed like I was refusing to film this last scene, like this wasn’t the ending I’d signed on for. The script had been altered, and I didn’t want to star in this cheap fucking movie anymore.

But I couldn’t stop following the stretcher. I was pulled along with it, right into the back of the ambulance. I looked down at myself with disdain. Red wasn’t my colour. As we drove out of the school parking lot, my fans ran after me. Some chased the ambulance with their camera phones, snapping pictures. Vultures, all of them. The cameras banged against the windows like they were taking me away to put me under a 5150 psych hold.

“We’re losing him,” one of the paramedics said. “He’s slipping!”

The numbers on the screen dropped, and the paramedics began to move frantically. The ambulance sped down the empty street, its sirens blaring so loudly that branches shook and snow sprinkled down like magic dust. Where the fuck was my fairy godmother?

Suddenly, I saw what I had to do. I leaned over and kissed my lips. I went through the oxygen mask, straight to my mouth, lips still parted, still waiting for Luke. Still dreaming.

And then I knew I wasn’t going to wake up.

Everything went black, but I could still hear. The machine I was hooked up to stopped its menacing beeping. “There he is,” one of the paramedics said, catching his breath. “We got him.”

I knew when I was in the hospital even though everything was still dark and I couldn’t feel the bed beneath me. I tried to open my eyes, but they stayed shut. I couldn’t feel anything, but I could hear the sounds the doctors and nurses made and the humming of the life-support machine, which felt like an extension of my heart. Its white noise was the sound of breath in an eternity of void.

The void was infinite, but it wasn’t scary. It was a peaceful place between worlds, without the regret of purgatory. I felt only an eager excitement for the light, which I couldn’t see but knew was coming. I had no doubt where the tunnel led, but it wasn’t like I was going through it; rather I was a part of it, and the light would be revealed as a part of me.

They didn’t perform surgery. I was brain-dead and wouldn’t recover. The life-support machine was the only thing keeping me in this world. Ha! As if anything could have kept me in this world.

“I’m so sorry,” the doctor said. It was his favourite line. So dramatic.

But my mom was there, and she couldn’t let me go, not right away. She stayed with me all night. I couldn’t feel her clutching my hand, but I knew she was. Clutching it as she cried, begging me to wake up.

My grandma came and prayed next to me, over and over again until her prayers became a chant making the void vibrate.

In the morning, my mom brought Keefer to see me, and I could hear them both crying. Mom told him that he had to say goodbye to me. “Why?” Keefer asked. “Where’s Jude going?”

“He’s going to be your guardian angel,” my mom said. But I know she didn’t believe in angels. My mother only knew that I was going. That I was gone.

“But he can’t go like this,” Keefer cried. “He wouldn’t go anywhere like this!” I heard the zipper of my mom’s purse and the sound of her cosmetics clinking together as Keefer brought over her makeup bag and climbed up on the bed next to me.