Are You Still There (18 page)

“Chloe!” Mom's voice warns. Chloe makes a big show out of slurping the spilled soda directly off the counter. Mom holds up one hand. “I'm not even going to comment on that.”

Chloe grins at me. I try not to laugh. I really do. Unfortunately, swallowing that laughter makes it come out my nose, and I sound like I'm blowing my nose into my hand.

Mom just looks at us both for a moment, her lips so tight that I can see little wrinkle indentations around them. That almost makes me want to laugh more, but this time I hold it in. Mom lowers her gaze back to the vegetables and begins to slice the cherry tomatoes in quarters. They spurt juice everywhere.

“Mom,” Chloe begins, and I can tell she's about to say something she thinks is funny, because her nose wrinkles up. “I don't think you actually need to slice cherry tomatoes. They're like grapes. No one slices grapes.”

And then so suddenly that I don't see it coming, Mom throws the salad bowl across the room. Like a Frisbee almost. Thank god it's Tupperware. It bounces off the wall, and bits of sliced carrots and gooey cherry tomatoes and ripped-up lettuce tumble out onto the floor.

“You girls are so critical all the time!” She looks at the washed veggies, now scattered across the room like confetti, and I see instant regret in her eyes. All that chopping for nothing. But then she turns to face us, and the regret disappears. “Make your own goddamn salad!” And then she storms out of the kitchen so fast, it takes me a few seconds to realize she's crying.

“PMS.” The wrinkles are gone from Chloe's nose, so I know she feels bad, but she's still joking around. “Big-time PMS.”

“You shouldn't set her off like that,” I scold, almost without thinking.

Chloe turns to me, and her earbud falls out of her other ear. “You always tell me not to make waves. But
come on!
Because I drink Sprite instead of vitamin water? Because I like my own music? Because I express myself through my clothes? Because I joke around?” She shoves her Sprite into my hand, still cold with condensation on the outside, but about half empty. She turns to leave but then swivels back.

“Those things wouldn't even be waves if you weren't dodging every conflict like it's a freaking tsunami. I make waves because
you
don't. So how about you give me a break and make some waves of your own?” And with that she snatches the Sprite back out of my hands. “You wouldn't drink it anyway.”

I grab the drink right back and chug it. All the way down. I don't think about sugar or calories or preservatives or backwash. I don't think about the carbonation. I just guzzle it. Then I crumple the empty can in my hand and shove it back at her. “Maybe you don't know me as well as you think.”

I love the look in her eyes. And I love that she doesn't say anything. Maybe doesn't know what to say. At first I hate that she starts laughing. But then I'm laughing too. Hysterically. And crying. Both at the same time.

We collect all the chopped vegetables in the salad bowl. “Should we rewash these?” Chloe asks.

“Probably.” The tomatoes are making my hands all sticky. The little seeds have leaked out everywhere. “But let's not, how 'bout it?”

“Right on. I support you in your rebellion. Next let's dye your hair bright pink.”

I sock her arm. Hard.

For the next three hours, I have the worst case of carbonation burps ever known to man. And it's totally worth it.

The LGBTQ Club and the Red Ribbon/Suicide Prevention Committee are battling it out. The anniversary of Jo Moon's suicide is coming up in a week, and they both want to host a moment of silence. It's a PR thing really. Not like anyone in either of those groups ever knew Jo Moon, but it's popular to pretend they did.

Because let's face it, Jo was sort of a closeted lesbian, so she wasn't a member of the LGBTQ Club. And she most definitely was not on the Red Ribbon/Suicide Prevention Committee, because they didn't start up until last year. Besides, Jo Moon being on a suicide prevention committee would have been kind of hypocritical. Although I suppose she didn't know she was going to kill herself until she actually did it.

This thought catches in my brain for a moment. It's kind of uncomfortable, like a hangnail stuck on a piece of fabric. Because I wonder how it works. Is suicide one of those things people think through over and over again before they build up the guts to pull it off? Is it a decision they edge closer and closer to, or is it more like quicksand? Something they stumble into, get stuck in, and rapidly sink into, unable to crawl out.

And what about homicide? This bomber guy seems like he's got it all planned out. All calculated, mathematical, not emotional. Is he a ball gathering speed, faster and faster down the hill, unable to be stopped? Is he carefully edging closer and closer to a decision, waiting for the final straw to push him over the edge? Or is he hoping someone will stop him? Figure him out and stand in his way?

I walk down the main quad, where each group has a fold-up table out, recruiting membership and petition votes to try to get a moment of silence approved by administration. I guess they both figure whichever one brings the largest number of petition votes to admin will get to host. Not being a member of either group, I want to point out to them that they can cohost the moment of silence.

But that's not the way my school works—not with the clubs, factions, and cliques parked in nooks and crannies. Everyone scrambling to find a space to fit in. Like a game of musical chairs, everyone knowing there won't be enough seats when the music stops. It makes me admire Chloe, kind of. Because her group is not about fitting in. In fact
none
of them fit in.

I remember, for a moment, Jo's memorial. In my life I had maybe exchanged ten words with Jo Moon. I didn't know her. I didn't particularly like her. Although I didn't hate her either. She was just sort of not in my league. I know that sounds awful and conceited, but I don't mean it to be. I just mean it to be real. Because people are like magnets. And we attract people who are sort of in the same category.

Jo Moon had that laugh-at-me hillbilly thing going on. Stringy hair and stringy limbs, none of her clothes ever looking clean. She laughed way too loud in a hyena way that sounded so bizarre that it sucked other people into laughing too—but more in an “at her” kind of way. Someone should've taped her laugh, because I bet she had no idea how ridiculous she sounded. I had only one class with her. P.E.

So why did I go to her memorial? To honor this girl I didn't even like? I went because I laughed. I heard what those cheerleaders did to her, and I laughed. The meanness of it didn't register in my mind until after she died.

So when I heard, no one had to explain why she did it. I knew. And the knowing made me sick to my stomach.

At the memorial, I wondered how many people were there out of guilt. Like me. The auditorium was packed. Maybe everyone just wanted to get out of class. Or maybe it was morbid curiosity. I craned my neck to see her parents. They were stiff, like their bones had been frozen and hadn't yet completely thawed. Her mother leaned forward in that brittle way, curling in on herself. Her head tipped forward toward her chest, her hands balled, her stomach concave and turned in on itself. All I kept thinking was that she wanted to disappear.

At least two thirds of the students sat, body to body, sweaty. The air too thick to really breathe. Some people cried. At first I felt irritated that anyone dared to cry. No one had a right to cry for her except her family and her scrawny sidekick. But then I felt my own tears creeping up my throat and welling up at the bridge of my nose. I swallowed hard.

The tears were pushy though, backing up my nose and forcing themselves through the ducts in my eyes. I couldn't hold them in. I tried to hide it at first, dabbing at the corners of my eyes and swiping my sleeve across my nose. Guilty thoughts nipped at my mind.
Oh, well
. I thought.
Too late
. And that just made me cry harder.

After that day, I tried to forget. Maybe we all did.

Stranger's Manifesto

Entry 16

You probably think I don't have feelings,

That any asshole who could do something like this

Must be totally devoid of feelings.

So I'll tell you—

I don't cry. I forgot how.

I bet you'd say it's one of those things you never forget.

Like riding a bike.

But I can't do it.

Corny as it sounds, I want to cry.

I feel it building inside me like a wave. I feel the pain of it,

The way it burns the back of my throat and pinches my nose,

But there is nowhere for it to go.

I didn't cry when I broke my arm in P.E.

I didn't cry when my neighbor backed up over my dog.

I didn't cry when I found Jo hanging like a goddamn marionette.

The last time I cried was when my mom left. I cried hard then.

I wanted her to twist in her seat, stare out the back window,

And wave until I couldn't see her anymore.

But she didn't wave long enough.

Just turned back around and started talking to the driver.

I waved until my hand nearly fell off.

I cried until my eyes were so swollen I could barely see.

But then it all dried up and my tear ducts shriveled,

And I haven't cried since.

27

“Who picked this movie? It's gonna be stupid,” Mel complains from the backseat of my car. I glance in the rearview mirror, and Chloe bugs her eyes out at me. I know she's thinking I'm getting what I deserve for trying to be all peer counselor-ish about Mel. She kept telling me that Mel was a good “group friend,” not a good one-on-one friend. I'm beginning to understand why.

Janae is in the front seat, her legs pulled up to her chest and her head resting on them. She is along for moral support although she doesn't know why. I can't tell anyone I recognized Mel's voice on that line, but I also can't shake this feeling of responsibility.

“I thought a comedy might be fun.”

Mel makes her sarcastic
mmhmm
. Truth is, I knew a slapstick comedy wouldn't be Eeyore's style, but I wasn't about to sit through a tearjerker when my goal is to pull Mel from marinating in self-pity.

It's gonna be a long night. My parents are out of town, so Mel and Janae are sleeping over. And I can tell just by looking at Janae's hunched shoulders that she is so done with anything Eeyore.

At least there will be no talking during the movie.

Miguel slips his hand into mine, and the butter on his fingers makes them soft. He and Garth met us here at the movie, and we are all split up in different sections of the theater. Chloe and Mel are sitting up front in the fifth row. Janae and Garth in the very back, for optimal make-out potential, and Miguel and I are off to the right side.

We are actually trying to watch the movie. Only the way he's rubbing his thumb across the outside of my hand is distracting me. It's making me want to crawl right into his lap and pepper his neck with kisses.

I think I might be distracting him too. He's all but forgotten about the popcorn bucket that he set down on the floor in between us. He's wrapped his ankle around mine, and it's a little awkward but who cares. Everyone in the audience laughs, and it startles me. I missed whatever was funny. Miguel shifts in his seat and leans in toward me.

Okay, so never mind
. We are no longer going to watch the movie. We are going to make out. And I'm going to wish we'd sat in the back like Janae and Garth. He kisses me softly, and he tastes so different that I almost feel like I'm kissing someone else. All salty and buttery, his tongue icy cold from the soda he's been sipping. The stubble on his upper lip and chin rubs across my lips. I lose myself in it.

Miguel leaves the movie to use the restroom, and I sit in the darkness, tasting him in my mouth and contemplating whether I love him. I have never felt like this in my life. I could sit here in a dark theater and kiss him forever. If I move to Washington, DC, for college, I'll have to leave him behind, and I may never find someone like him again.

When he comes back in, it's awkward at first, like maybe we forgot where we left off. I don't want to act like I expect him to make out with me the entire movie, so I face forward and put my eyes on the screen. He goes back to rubbing my hand, and then I relax. I nuzzle my head against his shoulder. He plays with my hair, running his fingers through the length of it.

I peek up at his round, dark eyes and lean in. Bold, like I haven't been before. His hands are full of my hair. The sounds of laughter blur into the background, and I am floating.

I leave the movie having no idea what it was supposed to be about.

And I don't care one bit.

After the movie, we say good-bye to the boys and then walk out into the bright sunshine. I squint, feeling disoriented. I click my car doors unlocked and notice that there is an advertisement facedown and stuck under my windshield wiper. It's rectangular and white. Probably an advertisement for a furniture sale.

Janae, Chloe, and Mel walk around to their respective car doors. I pull out the ad and start to crumple it, but it's thicker than paper. I flip it over in my hand.
Shit
. A playing card. Written on with Sharpie like all the others. But this one has no words. No veiled threats. Just a queen with little heart bubbles floating out of her chest.

Who
is watching me?

I whirl around, scanning the parking lot. I see nothing out of the ordinary.

Or is one of my friends pranking me with these cards?

They're all climbing into their seats, not looking at me.

I shove it deep in the pocket of my sweatshirt. I'll deal with it later.

Stranger's Manifesto

Entry 17

Why playing cards, do you ask?