“Haley!” I hear my mom holler.
I didn’t figure she could get here this quick. She drives like an old lady.
I start to pace in the confines of the little bathroom as I push the ball into my pocket. This is bad. Mom in Dodge’s house. Really bad. I stop and unlock the bathroom door. “Mom?”
“Haley!”
First I see her at the end of the hallway, then I see Dodge, sitting on the floor next to the bathroom door. He jumps up as I hurry toward my mother. “Mom, what are you doing?” I ask. I’m mortified. Obviously I don’t want her in here. She’s liable to call the cops or something. I can’t believe she’d come inside.
“Are you okay?” she asks me. Her face changes and she reaches out to try to touch my face. “Oh my God. Haley, what happened?”
I pull back because I don’t want her touching me. The side of my face hurts. Dodge’s ring caught on my cheekbone and it bled a little. But it’s not a big deal. He didn’t mean to hurt me.
Dodge grabs my arm from behind me. “You called your mom, you little c—”
“Let’s go,” I tell my mom, giving her a push. Not a hard one, just enough to make her understand she can’t be here. As I try to follow her, Dodge tries to stop me.
“Let her go!” my mother hollers. I think she’s hollering because “Get Bread” is blasting from the speakers in the living room. It’s Trick-Trick. I like Trick-Trick. Sort of. Caitlin hated rap music. She liked hippie stuff like Ben Harper. We used to talk about going to the music festival Bonnaroo. We were going to camp out and wear homemade tie-dye shirts and stuff.
I spin around and shove Dodge. He’s a big guy, a lot bigger than me, but he’s not expecting me to fight back, I guess. He lets go of me, but he’s pissed. Really pissed.
I turn back to Mom and say, “Let’s go,” in her ear as I push her into the living room. She’s wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants. Her hair’s all messed up. She looks so bad she almost looks like one of Dodge’s junkies who come to his door.
Everybody in the living room is looking at us. My friends. Well, they’re sort of my friends. Not really. They looked pissed now too. We’re almost out the door when this dude I don’t know grabs my arm. His fingers sink into me until it hurts.
“You goin’ somewhere?” he asks me. “Hey, Dodge! She goin’ somewhere?”
My mom’s almost out the door, but she turns around. “You better take your hands off her,” she tells the dude, like she’s going to do something about it if he doesn’t let go of me.
I can’t believe this is my mom. I’ve never seen her act like this before. Pretty badass.
I jerk my arm from the guy’s and start for the door again.
“Want me to stop her?” he asks Dodge.
“Nah. Let her go,” Dodge says. “Bitch,” he calls after me.
I flip him the bird with one hand while I push my mom out the door with the other. Dodge’s pit bull is mad barking in his kennel in the back. “Come on. Hurry,” I say under my breath. I wouldn’t put it past Dodge to sic his dog on us. I’ve seen him do it before to deadbeats who owe him money and people he just doesn’t like.
“What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” my mom asks. Now she’s started to sound like herself again. Criticizing me. “I told you you were grounded.”
“Let’s get in the car,” I tell her.
“Haley, do I have to tell you how dangerous a place like this is? These people? How did you get here? Did that man pick you up from our house?” She throws a look over her shoulder that’s straight out of one of Caitlin’s made-for-TV movies. The face moms always make when they’re disappointed in their children’s “choices.” “How old is that man? He’s got to be thirty. Please tell me that’s not your boyfriend.”
I hurry to the passenger side of Dad’s truck. I have no idea why she brought the truck. Some people follow us out. I hear Dodge yelling inside and breaking shit. I don’t care. I’m so done with him. But the dude from the house is coming our way and he scares me. “Get in the effing, car, Mom!”
She gives me another one of her looks, but she unlocks the door with the remote thingy. I jump inside.
She gets in.
I lock all the doors with the button on my door. I realize that my heart’s pounding. I don’t like how it feels. I don’t like being scared like this. But the weird thing is, it doesn’t feel much worse than I normally feel. I’m always scared since Caitlin left me. “Let’s go, let’s go.” I sit back and yank my hoodie up. I left my leather jacket inside somewhere, which pisses me off because one of Dodge’s crack hoes will get it, but I’m sure not going back for it.
Mom starts the engine, but she’s taking too long. She’s messing with her seat belt. The joker who tried to stop me from leaving is almost to the truck.
“Today, Mom,” I say, slumping down in the seat.
The guy hits the tailgate with his fist or something.
Mom throws the truck into gear, hits the gas, and surprises me again. She pulls away so fast that she burns rubber.
Chapter 7
Izzy
3 years, 8 months
“Are you there?”
I wait and then I whisper, “I can’t sleep. I don’t know where Mom went.” I roll onto my side in my bed, hugging the stuffed bunny that was mine when I was a baby. It’s kind of ratty looking; he’s missing part of his left ear and he’s got nail polish on his back. I’ve been told he stinks, but I don’t think so. He just smells like . . . an old stuffed bunny.
“She’s been gone almost an hour,” I say, glancing at the digital clock next to my bed. I wait for her to answer.
When Caitlin talks to me, it feels like her voice is coming out of the dark, but from no one place in particular. I only hear her when it’s dark. I know she’s probably not in the room, or if she is, she’s invisible. Maybe she just talks in my head. I don’t really care how she talks to me. What matters is that she does.
“I don’t know if I should do something. Should I wake up Dad?” I ask. It occurs to me that it’s pretty crappy that the only person I have to talk to is my dead sister, but I’ve already got enough things to be upset about right now. “Should I tell him that She Who Shall Not Be Named went out her D window, then Mom’s phone rang and now she’s gone too?” I wait. There’s always a long second of silence between when I speak and Caitlin answers, like we’re talking over short-wave radios or something. I learned about short-wave radios on the Discovery Channel.
“Who called Mom?”
She finally speaks and I smile, even though I sure don’t have anything to smile about.
“I don’t know. Maybe the police. They called Mom when you flatlined. Maybe She Who Shall Not Be Named got in another car accident and she bit the bullet too.” The minute I say it, I realize it wasn’t very nice. I mean . . . I know Caitlin knows she’s as dead as a doornail, but it’s not exactly a nice thing to bring up. “Sorry,” I say in a little voice. “I didn’t mean to remind you that . . . you know, that we cremated you and stuff.”
Caitlin laughs.
There’s no time delay this time. She just laughs. I love it when I make her laugh because I hear her laughter not just in my ears, but in my chest. As crazy as it sounds (and I know crazy is already a possibility because a dead person talks to me like in that old Bruce Willis movie), I feel like I hear her in my heart.
“It’s okay, Sizzy Izzy,” she tells me. “No worries.”
She used to call me that all the time. Sizzy Izzy. It’s a play on Sissy Izzy. I know I’m too old for silly baby names (and stuffed animals), but I like it. I miss it. I miss Caitlin calling me Sizzy Izzy, even though when she was alive, I didn’t like it. It’s one of the things I wish I could take back now that she’s dead. I think about telling her that, but I don’t. I think she knows.
“What if Mom got in an accident?” I whisper, afraid again.
“It’s going to be all right.”
“It’s not,” I say kind of loud and mean. “It’s n
ot going to be okay. Not ever again. That’s just something adults say because they think they’re supposed to. Like kids are stupid and are going to buy it. Things aren’t going to be okay, Caitlin. If anyone knows that, you of all people should.” I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to be a crybaby like Mom, but I can’t help it. My eyes fill up with tears and I squeeze my bunny tighter. I rub his front paw against my cheek like I used to when I was little. I sniff so snot doesn’t run out of my nose. Bunny’s too old to get snotted on.
I wipe my face on my pillow. “How’d things work out for you?” I ask Caitlin. “Things work out okay for you?”
She doesn’t answer and I feel bad that I said that. I sound like She Who Shall Not Be Named when I say mean things like that. And I don’t want to be her. Not ever. I want to be like Caitlin. I want to be smart and funny. I want to be pretty like her, too, but I’m smart enough to know that’s never going to happen.
“Caitlin? Are you still there?” I whisper. I’m afraid she’s gone. Please don’t be gone, I think. Every time she leaves, I’m afraid she won’t come back. Or I’m afraid I’ll convince myself she can’t really be here. Because she’s de facto deceased. And then I’ll never talk to her again.
“Caitlin?” I say again.
My room is quiet except for the sound of the air coming through the vent. I can hear my dad snoring in the living room. That’s how loud he snores. He’s supposed to put a mask on his face, connected to a machine, to help him breathe at night and make him stop snoring. He says it doesn’t work and he keeps it in the closet. It’s called a pap something. Not a pap smear. I know what that is and that’s not for guys.
“Shhhhh,” Caitlin soothes. Her voice is right in my ear and it’s so soft and so pretty that I close my eyes. She seems so close that I think if I reached up, I could touch her. Like she’s leaning right over my bed. I’m pretty sure I can smell the perfume that she gets from Victoria’s Secret. But I don’t reach up because what if she’s not there?
“I’m worried about Mom,” I tell her. I’m starting to feel sleepy, which is another hint that I might be crazy. How could a person fall asleep under these circumstances? How could I have slept at all since February 17th? “What if she bit it too?” I ask Caitlin. “What if She Who Shall Not Be Named killed her, too?”
Again, silence. The whistle of the cool air in the vents, my dad’s snoring.
“It wasn’t Haley’s fault, Izzy,” my pretty, smart, dead sister tells me.
“It was her fault,” I answer stubbornly. “She didn’t stop her car at the stop sign. She went through the intersection and she let that truck hit you. She made you go through the windshield and she splattered your brains all over the road!”
I’m crying again. Not loud crying like the way Mom cried the first week after Caitlin died. Quiet crying, like the way you cry when you don’t really want to bother anyone. Like the way Mom cries most of the time, now.
“It was an accident,” Caitlin murmurs. I can almost feel her touch my hair, smoothing it with her fingers. “She didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“If she didn’t mean for it to happen, she should have stopped at the stop sign. I’m ten, I don’t have a driver’s license, and I know you have to stop at stop signs or cars will hit you and kill people.”
“It was an accident. And if it was anyone’s fault,” she whispers, “it was mine.”
I rub Bunny’s paw against my cheek. I don’t want to fall asleep. I want to stay awake and see if the police call to tell us someone else is dead, but I can’t help it. I can’t stay awake. “That’s ridiculous,” I tell Caitlin. “It can’t be your fault.”
“Sure it can. If I had been wearing my seat belt, I wouldn’t be dead right now.”
Chapter 8
Haley
48 days, 13 hours
I hear my cell phone vibrating on my nightstand. It’s the second or third time it’s gone off. I groan and roll over and pick it up. WTF? I look at the screen. It’s Marissa. My best friend. Well, my best friend now. Since the other one is in the cemetery in a jar. I slide the thingy on the screen. “Hey,” I say, flopping back on my pillow.
“Hey. I’ve been calling you. Why didn’t you pick up?”
I close my eyes. “I thought you were supposed to go shopping with your grandmother or something today.”
“I am,” she says. “I’m in the dressing room at Forever 21. She said she’ll buy me whatever I want. I’ve got a whole pile of stuff. You should come here.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again. My curtains are closed on my window, but there’s light around the edges. I feel hung over even though I didn’t drink that much last night. “I probably can’t. I’m in deep shit.”
“Get caught sneaking out? I told you it wasn’t a good idea. Do you think I can wear yellow? I think it makes my skin look yellow.”
I tuck my phone between my shoulder and my ear and rub the little bumps on my forearm under my T-shirt. I can feel the need bubbling up. I try to ignore it. “Don’t buy anything yellow.”
“But I like yellow,” Marissa whines.
“You look shitty in yellow. Everybody does.” I exhale, remembering the nightmare of a night. “I had to call my mom last night to come get me at Dodge’s.”
“You’re kidding. Holy shiite.”
I close my eyes and wince. One of the bumps on my forearm really hurts. I should probably put Neosporin on it. “He wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do.”
“Like kinky sex stuff?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I can’t believe you called your mom to come get you. Did she even know about Dodge?”
“She knows now.” I rub the bump that hurts. “I didn’t know who else to call. Your car’s in the shop and you’re not allowed to drive your mom’s. Cassie wouldn’t answer her phone. I got scared.”
“You? You never get scared.” Marissa groaned. “God, I have got to stop eating. My butt is getting bigger by the day. Do they have this in a six?” she hollers to someone. Probably her grandmother. She talks to her grandmother that way. Like they’re friends. I don’t have a friend kind of grandmother. My mom’s mom is dead and my dad’s mom . . . I can’t stand that bitch. She’s so judgmental, such a hypocrite. I don’t even feel bad about stealing her drugs.
“What’d your mom say when she picked you up last night?” Marissa asks. She’s grunting and groaning, trying to fit her size six butt into a pair of size four jeans, probably.
“She came inside Dodge’s house,” I say.
“What?”
“I locked myself in the bathroom after he hit me. She walked right in the house.”
“Holy crap.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “These people were smoking crack right on the couch.”
“You’re in sooo much trouble, Haley.”
I sigh and rub harder. My shirt is wet under my fingertips. Blood. “I doubt it. Mom’s afraid to say anything to me. She’s afraid I’ll go stark raving mad or something. And you know how Dad is. He checked out months ago.”
“Because of Caitlin?”
“I guess. I don’t know. It’s been worse since then for sure. He’s not really into being a dad or a husband. He’s already got his mommy and his brothers and his business.”
“But you said you heard him telling your mom they should send you away to boarding school. You think he will?”
“I doubt it.” I press my lips together. My arm’s really starting to bleed. I can smell the blood now. It smells like Caitlin’s blood that night. It’s weird, but the blood makes me feel better. “Whatever,” I add.
“I don’t think your mom will send you away. I don’t think Julia’s got it in her. You’re still her daughter, no matter what you did.”
“Yeah, but she’s still got another one. Izzy’s smart and she always does the right thing.”
“I got news for you; your little sister is weird. All those weird facts she’s always telling us. And getting under her bed a
ll the time. Certifiable.”
I smile. “She is, isn’t she? A little weirdo.”
“Almost done,” Marissa says loudly. “I gotta go. G-mom’s hungry. Low blood sugar. You sure you don’t want to come to the mall? We’re going to Chipotle for lunch.”
“I better stay here,” I say, slowly pushing up my sleeve. I feel like I’m stretched tight like a rubber band, like something bad’s going to happen if I don’t relieve the tension. Something really bad. I open the drawer in my nightstand and dig around. “Just in case Mom wants to come in here and lose her shit on me.”
Chapter 9
Julia
49 days
“You called me!” Laney exclaims into the phone, clearly tickled. “Jules, I can’t believe you actually called me.”
“And a day early,” I point out. “And I’m not in bed.”
“Good for you. How about a shower?”
This is so like Laney. You give her an inch, she wants a mile.
“I even shaved my pits.”
“I’m proud of you.”
I’m standing in front of the mirror in my bathroom, just out of the shower. It’s noon. I haven’t talked to Haley yet; she’s still in bed. I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m going to say. What I need to say. I think that’s why I picked up the phone and called Laney. Not because I told her I would call her. Not because I’m hoping for answers from her (though I’m sure she’ll have an opinion; Laney has an opinion on everything), I just think I need her strength. Because I have to say something to Haley. I have to do something.
My towel slips and I stare at my naked reflection in the mirror. I don’t recognize my body anymore. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen my hip bones when standing. Pre-puberty? I like this new thinness-without-even-trying, but I don’t like what it’s done to my face. I look like I’ve aged ten years in the last seven weeks. There are fine lines around my mouth and eyes, lines I didn’t have two months ago.
“I’m serious,” Laney says gently. “I know how hard it is to get out of bed. You know I know.”
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