Wide Awake (15 page)

After school, Andy didn't drive me home. Apparently, I had cheerleading practice and my new, bigger sized uniform was here and should work just fine, they said. I shook with regret and disgust as I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. Who was this girl?

Kali came up behind me and put her chin on my shoulder. "Oh, honey. You'll be back to your old size in no time. Don’t worry." Then she smacked my backside and yelled, "Let's go, skank! You've got a lot of catching up to do!"

She giggled as she left.

I felt…dirty for some reason as I made my way to the practice field. I wanted to go home, and bathe and wash away whatever this grimy feeling was.

"All right, beyatches! Listen up!" Kali yelled. "We've got our Emmie back." They all clapped and cheered. "But, as you can
see
," they giggled at my expense, "we've all got our work cut out for us whipping her back into shape. So, in Emmie's honor, everyone take a lap!"

They gasped and groaned. "Not fair!" one girl yelled.

"Run, skanks, run!" Kali yelled and laughed as they took off.

"You're not running?" I asked.

She smirked. "I took over as captain when you…took a nap." She smiled, but there was so much behind that smile. "Get going, Walker. Run that ass back down to manageable size."

I stared at her. I had an inkling to strip down right here, get the offending outfit off, throw it in her face, and tell her to kiss my fat, manageable assets. But I just stared instead, in silent contest. I needed to let her see that I wasn't about to be stomped on just because I couldn’t remember the pecking order.

Eventually, like when you stared down a dog to see who'll look away first, she caved. "Dang, Emma, lighten up. I'm just joking. But you really do need to run. You've got to get your body back up to par for working out every day and going to competition again. Come on, I'll run with you."

What a change. I almost laughed, but instead, I ran with her. I didn't say a word, just listened to her chatter on about some boy she had been sleeping with from another school. After a short while, when I was about to pass out from exhaustion and had to stop, I ignored her thinly veiled insults about being so out of shape.

Not only had the coma taken my memory, but it had taken my ability to outrun her. And right then, that pissed me off more than anything.

That night, I was too exhausted to do anything. I barely made it into the house before crashing in the bed, not showered and not caring. My stomach growled, but I couldn't move a muscle. I didn't even get to text Mason because I fell asleep and stayed there until morning.

In the morning, I followed the same routine as the day before, and let Isabella doll me up. Andy growled his happiness about how gorgeous I was, and I endured another day of my friends and their disdain for anyone that wasn't in our circle.

But math class changed everything for me.

You know when you have an epiphany? If you've ever had one, you'll know that it hits you at a moment you might not expect. The smallest thing can set it off, but it will change your life. It will ruin everything you've worked to build and it will not think twice. And when it comes, there's no stopping it.

I sat in the back and tried not to think about much. It was closer to the end of the day. Honestly, I felt more than tired. My legs felt like Jell-O, my brain was mush from all the fake smiling and pretending that I was OK, and my right arm hurt from taking so many notes. It was amazing the simple things we take for granted. I'd have to rest for a minute while note taking and then hurry to catch back up.

Andy leaned over. "Babe, we'll just get notes from someone later. Don't worry about it."

"Get notes from someone?" I thought back to the notes in my locker. "Like make someone give me their notes?"

"Yeah. I told you, everyone loves you. You're the
it
girl." I made a face. He made his own face. Resolve. He forged on, harder to make his point. "Guys want to bang you, and girls want to be you." I made a gross face and he held his hand up. "I'm just saying. Stop acting like a…nerd or boob or something. They'll give you some slack for a few days, but you've got to start acting like the old you. The old you takes what she wants, doesn't work for anything, doesn’t care what people say, and is gorgeous and on her game every damned day. Stop being
this
, and start being the girl that I want to be with."

I soaked that in. I leaned back in my seat and felt his eyes on me. He was just like my parents. They didn't have any interest in letting me work things out; they just wanted
that
girl back. Andy wasn't going to let me be me. He expected me to pretend that I was that girl, even if I wasn't.

I raised my hand.

"Yes, Mrs. Walker?"

"Can I go to the restroom, please?"

She looked at me carefully. "I guess so. Take the pass."

I stood and looked at her blankly. Oh, gah…she was going to make me say it. "Where's the pass?"
Every face turned to mine. She ticked her head to the side in question. I realized then that she was testing me. She didn't believe that I didn't remember? She finally moved her head to the right. "It's by the door. The little baseball bat keychain."

"Thanks," I muttered and grabbed it quickly before bolting. I practically ran until I saw the girls' bathroom sign. I pushed my way through and that was the invitation my tears had been waiting for. I slid down the wall with my back to the gross and grimy floor, but I just didn't care. Oh, how my chest hurt with the ache of holding in those sobs. And now they burst through me and all I could do was hang on to the ground for dear life and hope I survived.

I realized then what this was. I'd never mourned my life. I never understood until that very moment…that Emmie, that girl that everyone wanted me to be, was dead. She was gone. I may not have known her, but I mourned her. I was sorry that she died and I took her place. I pulled my knees up to my chest and cried and cried, and sobbed, and ached, and mourned, and rocked.

The coma was a liar. It gave everyone this false sense of security that she'd come back, but she was gone and I was here. And I wasn't her. No one here, or my parents, or anyone, got to mourn Emmie. They all assumed she'd come back one day or die on that bed the way they remembered her. But I took her place and I didn't belong.

This wasn't my body or my face or my life.

I cried for all of the people who wouldn’t understand that Emmie was gone and didn't realize they needed to stop waiting for her to wake up. That this was my body now and they needed to bury Emmie and move on. And then I cried because I knew they'd never do that. They'd never understand that she was gone. They would all wait for her to come back one day, for me to miraculously remember everything and go back to being her. But even if that did happen, if I did remember, I couldn't go back to the way things were.

I was different and I think Emmie would be different because of me.

I sat at a loss of what to do with myself. Everyone was so eager for me to get back to normal, but I may have moved too soon. Maybe I wasn't ready to face her life. I thought it would help me make my decision, to come here and be with all of her friends, but it just made me doubt her.

And then it hit me. I just made my decision, didn't I? Emmie was gone. I couldn't take her place. I had to be me.

I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. I was going to be a disappointment and people weren't going to like me, but I had to be myself. I could no longer put on the façade that I was Emmie Walker, head cheerleader, girlfriend of Andy, and queen to the royal court.

I was Emma Walker, girl with a life to figure out, girl that was falling head over feet for her tattooed therapist, and who loved useless facts and glow-in-the-dark dragonflies.

I stayed there all the rest of that period and the next. I heard the bell ring, but stayed. I felt an odd calm in that moment and I wasn't ready to let it go yet. So it shouldn't have surprised me when the door opened and a group of girls poured in. It was the girls' bathroom after all.

"What's the matter with you?" one of them asked, making them all turn to find me, tear-streaked and sitting on the dirty floor. I could tell by her tone and their looks that they had no love for the old me.

"Just thinking," I answered softly.

She scoffed in a laugh. "Yeah…" She checked her lipstick in the mirror. She was a normal looking girl, but a little on the heavier side according to my
friends
. I could only imagine that I'd picked on this girl at one time or another. "Trying something new, huh?"

"I don't remember you," I told her. "Any of you. I'm sorry if I ever did anything to you, but I'm not the same girl anymore."

She scoffed again. "Miss Emma Walker is apologizing to me…while bawling her eyes out on the bathroom floor." She laughed. "Wow." She looked back at me and smiled. "Karma's a beyatch, ain't it?"

Then she led the way for all the girls to walk out. The girl who I had bumped into, Misty with the red streaks, was there, too. A sympathetic look crossed her face for just a second before it fled and she followed them out the door.

Yeah. I had to agree with her. Karma had no love for me.

I made myself get up. I washed my face and hands, looked at myself in the mirror, and knew the one thing I wanted to do more than anything else in that moment. I pulled my cell out and called the hospice hospital and asked to talk to Mrs. Betty. When I asked her where Mason lived, she hesitated. I wondered about that, but begged her for it. She caved and I stuffed the phone back into my pocket. Even though I knew I couldn't hide my puffy eyes from everyone, I left the bathroom and went right out of the school. It was time to leave anyway, apparently, as the parking lot was unloading.

Andy saw me and seemed relieved, but I turned the other way to avoid him. When I looked back to see if he was following, I saw the understanding on his face. He knew I was done. He got into his car and slammed the door.

I didn't know if Mason was home yet, but I'd wait if he wasn't. It wasn't too far away and I needed to see him like I needed to breathe.

A few minutes later, a car rolled up slowly beside me. The engine revved a bit and I felt a shudder roll over me. It was like a flashback, but…not. It was like that day when Mason's ringtone jolted through me in such a vile way. That's what this did to me. I caught myself on my hands in the grass beside the sidewalk. Andy slammed on the breaks and was there before I could think. "Are you OK? Emma?"
He took my face in his hands and that seemed to bring me back down. "I just had a…" I shook my head. "Nothing. I'm fine."

"Emma…" He released my face and sat on the sidewalk beside me with a hard thump. "Please don’t do this. I'm sorry about what I said to you."

"Andy…look at me." He did, reluctantly. "I'm not her-"

"Not listening to this." He stood. "Come on. I'll give you a ride home."

"I'm not going home."

He seethed. "Fine." He eventually gritted out. He reached into his open window and grabbed something. "Here. I got your purse for you from math."

"Thanks," I whispered.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow, Emmie, give you a little time to think. But this isn't over. I've got a lot to make up for with you and you're not going to just run away from me."

With that, he got in his car and left. I was so confused, but stood and slung the purse over my shoulder to rest across my chest. I looked in the way of Mason's street. Even if he wasn't ready to be with me, or he thought I wasn’t ready, I needed him tonight.

So my steps quickened until a couple streets over when his house came into view. With my breathing out of control, I rested my arm on his mailbox and tried to catch my breath. His mailbox said, "You're at the Wright house." I laughed at that and made my way up the driveway.

It was a small, beaten little house. And the car in the driveway was as close to a beater as I'd ever seen. Or remembered.

I stepped on his porch and it didn’t matter what his house looked like. I missed him and couldn't wait to grab him. I knocked softly at first, then a little harder when no one came.

And then there he was. I smiled wide and it took me a second to notice the look on his face didn't match mine. He quickly came outside and shut the door behind him. "What are you doing here, Emma?"