When I saw his foot hit the ground, that was it. I was gone. Off running. There was no way I was going to become a statistic. Not me.
I looked around — quick—considering the option of running up to one of the houses, but the houses nearby were dark, so I kept running. As I ran, I cursed my shoe choice, boots with three-inch heels (Stupid Becca’s boots.). And I tried not to slip on the pavement with all the little potholes.
The cold air hit my face, and I fell into a weird kind of rhythm, running, with each step saying a word in my prayer: “Dear God,” one, two, “please save,” three, four, “me from” five, six, “this lunatic,” six, seven.
I left Comb-over Man in the dust. When I looked over my shoulder, he was nowhere to be seen. I kept running though, and I ran until I got to my front door, gasping for breath. (I admit, I’m not in the world’s greatest shape.) But I made it and burst in through the front door, an out-of-breath, upset, sweaty mess. But I made it.
October 10, Even Later -
Tears,
Star-Crossed Lovers,
And Cocoa
Mom took one look at me and started asking a million questions at once.
“Stacy! What are you doing home? What’s wrong? What’s going on? What happened? Didn’t you get a ride? Why didn’t you call me? You know I don’t want you out walking alone at night.”
I sighed, took a deep breath, and told her a story about my evening. About me and heartbreak. Me and betrayal. I conveniently left out the part about the pervert and his roll of duct tape, axe, and hammer because then she’d never let me out of the house again. I started to cry—not my first choice.
“Oh, Stacy. Come here,” she said as she put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.” Which made me sob. And we just stood there in the middle of the living room. I was crying with her arms wrapped around me, and we didn’t say anything for a while. And it wasn’t just about my broken heart, it was everything all rolled into one—everything that was supposed to be that wasn’t. Everything about Mom and Dad growing old together and watching Jill, Becca, and me grow up and have families of our own. Everything about the whole of life that we’re all going to miss out on; everything that’s different now. I didn’t have to say all of those things, because they didn’t need to be said. The way you can just look into someone’s eyes and tell what they’re thinking sometimes, that’s kind of how it was with Mom and me.
“Come on,” she said as she handed me a tissue to wipe my eyes. “Let’s make some cocoa. How does that sound?”
“That sounds really good.”
I sat on a stool in the kitchen and watched as she made us hot cocoa from scratch, with milk and cocoa powder and sugar and vanilla. We chatted as she stirred it on the stove, like I was a little kid again.
We settled in on the couch with our cocoa, and she put on the DVD of The Way We Were with Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford—the same one we’ve watched a thousand times before. I got the box of tissues, and we sat sharing a blanket. At the end of the movie— when Katie and Hubbell see each other on the street, and they feel all wistful about how their lives could have been together, the star-crossed lovers—we cried like we always do.
When the movie was over, Mom told me all about Becca’s visit to the doctor and how he made a referral for her to see a psychiatrist. I tried to absorb the whole idea, but it just didn’t seem real to me. How could it?
October 11 -
Cheese Omelets
And Cheesy Movies
I woke up too early—the morning after the horrible football game and possible serial strangler encounter—and noticed Becca’s empty bed, and when I went to the kitchen for a glass of water, she was sitting at the kitchen table, pouring so much syrup on her toaster waffles that they practically floated on top of her plate. A cigarette burned in the ashtray next to her, her hair was a tangled mess, and her eyes were caked with makeup—who knows how old it was.
She stared at me.
“Hey, Becca.”
She gave me a blank look. I went back to bed, and when I got up later, Mom was making omelets.
“Have you seen the syrup? I could’ve sworn I bought some not too long ago. I thought it would be nice to have pancakes,” she said as she flipped an omelet over in the skillet.
Becca was in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the living room floor cutting out newspaper articles.
“What’s with her?” I asked Mom, who shrugged and gave me this eye-roll look.
“She’s working on a school project.”
“Can’t we make the scissors go away?” I whispered, and she gave me a look, one that meant that was going to happen very soon.
Jill joined us for breakfast, and we ate our cheese omelets as Becca sat with two Pop-Tarts and a glass of orange juice.
At work I did random, boring things that were still better than being at home avoiding Becca, and when Rose called me to see how I was feeling after the horrible football game betrayal, I told her I was great, which wasn’t true at all, but I was about three percent better than when she last saw me. Really, though, I was just feeling numb.
After work I went to the movies with her and Bethany, even though the two of them have terrible taste, and it was a horrible slasher film, a remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I sat through half of it with my hand covering my eyes.
When I’m in the mood for a scary movie, which is rare, I prefer old-school horror like The Blob or I Was a Teenage Werewolf, even though they’re corny and ridiculous. At least they don’t have all the blood and body parts.
I’ll never let Rose and Bethany pick the movie again.
October 13 -
Why I Don’t Like Mondays
For a lot of reasons besides my usual ones, I was not looking forward to school today. When I got up, I could feel a pimple coming to the surface right in the corner of my mouth, where the really sensitive skin meets the face, so I squeezed it. I know you’re not supposed to, but who doesn’t? Nothing happened, so I kept squeezing until I saw a little pinprick of blood. Not a good sign. The corner of my lip started to swell, and a few minutes later when I looked at myself in the mirror, the pimple had apparently turned itself inside out and was now swelling to the size of a pea, or a small country.
Not only did I want to avoid Summer, the traitor, and Anthony, the other traitor, I wanted to avoid every other person I knew. And it’s not like you can put a bandage on your face to cover a zit. That just doesn’t work except in stupid teen movies. Ugh. It looked like I’d been stung by a bee.
I scanned my closet looking for something that wouldn’t call attention to my face. Not having a bag to put directly over my head, I found a black sweater and black pants. Not only would I not stand out, I hoped, but it fit my dark mood. A bonus.
Mom took one look at me. “Oh, no. What happened?”
Ugh. “Mom, I really can’t go to school looking like this.”
I pleaded with her to let me stay home. Just this once.
“Oh, Stacy, don’t be ridiculous. It’s not that bad. Nobody will even notice. Don’t worry about it. You’re fine.” Spoken just like a mom (who, in fact, had noticed).
In homeroom, when I walked to the back of the class to throw something in the trash, Summer saw me, and by the horrified look on her face, I could tell she saw “it.” (Of all people to have to deal with at this moment!) She got up out of her seat to meet me.
“Stacy! What happened to your face?”
“What does it look like?”
“What’s your problem? I was just asking.” She gave her beautiful golden hair a flip with her hand like she always does and walked away. I could feel myself starting to boil over; my fingernails were digging into the flesh of my hands. (I don’t know how to express just how much I hated Summer at this moment.)
“I saw you with Anthony Friday night,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Yeah? And?”
She sta
red, defiant, with a hand on her hip. I just wanted to smack her face. She shocked me, how unconcerned she was about this. I forgot about Mr. Mandel.
“God, Summer. I can’t believe you. I thought you were my friend, and you stabbed me in the back. You’re a backstabber, Summer.”
On the verge of tears, losing it, my hands began to shake a little.
“Oh, come on, Stacy. It’s my fault he didn’t call you? I’m supposed to stay away from him forever just because you like him?”
“God, what a bitch,” I said, turning to walk back to my desk. She stopped me though, putting a hand on my shoulder, which I smacked away.
“You’re completely out of control, Stacy,” she hissed.
“You know what, Summer? I just wanna slap your face right now.”
Summer pushed herself up close to me.
“Come on. You want some? Right now.”
I imagined the two of us rolling around on the floor with me pulling her hair.
“Is there a problem, Ms. York? Ms. Phillips?” Mr. Mandel asked.
“No,” we said at the same time.
“Then get back to your seats, please.”
I gave Summer the evil eye. “Whatever, Summer. You two deserve each other.”
She stomped away, all pissed off.
My next two classes, I was in a very dark mood. And everyone was looking at me. They were trying to figure out what this thing was on my face. Maybe they thought I had herpes or ringworm or some other disease. I should’ve worn a little sign that said, “Hi, I’m Stacy, and this is my pimple. Don’t be afraid. It may be the size of a small island, but it won’t hurt you. Just don’t feed it.”
In English class, Chad turned around in his seat.
“Whoa, Stacy. What happened to your face? Did you walk into something?”
“Not in the mood right now, Chad.”
Why is it that I like him again?
“You know, I hear they make stuff for that.”
“Thanks, Chad. I didn’t know that. Grew up in a cave.”
“I’m kidding. It’s not that bad.”
“Yeah, sure.” I felt the little devil on my shoulder, and I couldn’t resist poking back at him just a little. “So I saw you at the game with Vanessa.”
“Oh, yeah.” He looked a little embarrassed and gave a shrug. “We’re just friends.”
“Just friends, huh? You two looked pretty cozy there.”
Sometimes I wish I’d keep my thoughts to myself. Now he thinks I care about him. I really need to stop talking sometimes. But he laughed and went back to his work, still insisting they were nothing but friends.
At lunch, I met Rose and Bethany in front of the library.
“Hey, guys. Meet my pimple. I’m thinking of naming it soon. I’m thinking of naming it Summer, as a matter of fact.”
“Oh, come on. It’s nothing,” Rose said, completely non-convincingly as she and Bethany looked at each other with eyebrows raised, like, “Whoa, did you see the size of Stacy’s zit?”
We walked to the cafeteria, and I felt people looking at me. We grabbed our trays, and I knew something was up when Roman walked over with this look on his face. He was supposed to have first lunch with Becca.
“Roman, what’re you doing here?”
He was all fidgety, like he didn’t know what to do with his hands, and looked more pale than usual.
“Um, Stacy, uh…Becca wigged out on the lunch ladies a while ago. Um, she just went off.”
I tried to process this information: she wigged out. This could mean a lot of things. I turned it over in my head, wondering exactly what he meant.
Roman looked right at me and brushed his straight, black hair out of his eyes.
“What happened? Roman, come on. What?” Oh god. Becca, what did you do? My mind was reeling with the possible nightmare scenarios; Roman looked like he’d rather be anywhere in the world than telling me this.
“She started throwing things. Flipped a tray of food over.”
Oh God, Becca.
“Um, there’s more.”
“More? More? What more?”
He swallowed hard, then bit his lip.
“Tell me.”
He looked like he wanted to die.
“She took her shirt off.”
“Why?” (Why?)
Roman sighed, and he looked like he was about eight years old, just like a little kid. “She said she was hot.”
Oh God, Becca.
“Please tell me she was wearing a bra.”
“Yeah, she was.”
Thank God for small favors. He filled me in on the rest of the horrible, awful details as I contemplated changing my name and coming to school in a wig and dark glasses. I’d been kind of waiting for something to happen—hoping it wouldn’t be at school—with Becca showing her colors to the world and exposing herself (but not so literally as taking off actual clothing).
So Becca caused a scene in the cafeteria and started a fight with the lunch ladies. I repeat. The lunch ladies. She wanted veggie burgers, and all they had were hamburgers and fried chicken.
Why did it have to be fried chicken?
And the poor lunch ladies. They’re actually very nice, and I know they don’t get paid enough to deal with my crazy, psycho sister.
Roman told me all about it, about how he tried to calm her down, and she just pushed him away, flipped the tray. After that, she whipped her shirt off in about two seconds.
Becca was agitated, started yelling, and the security guard ended up escorting her to the office, the whole time trying to get her to put her shirt back on. Oh God.
So that’s it. People know Becca’s crazy now.
“Roman, I gotta go. We’ll talk later.”
I brushed off Rose and Bethany’s offers to go with me. Their faces were sympathetic, and I couldn’t deal with that too. I practically ran to the school office. People were looking at me, but this time, I knew it wasn’t my pimple they were looking at.
October 13, Later -
Ms. Cruz Control
When I got to the office and gave the secretary my name, she was friendly, which was all wrong. A dead giveaway. I didn’t really know what to say, so I just told her, “My sister Becca was here a little while ago.”
“Just give me a minute, dear.”
I didn’t like how she looked at me. Her eyes looked a little sad, like I was some lost puppy. She called me “dear” when usually she says rude and impatient things.
“Okay, I’ll send her in,” she told the person on the other end of the phone, then turned to me. “Ms. Cruz would like to speak to you, dear. She’s the second door to the left.”
I mumbled, “Thanks,” and found Ms. Cruz sitting behind her desk. She was wearing a brown turtleneck, cute black eyeglasses, and dangly earrings. She tapped a pencil against the side of her desk, like this bundle of nervous energy. I think she’s a little off, to be completely honest. I’d met her once before when we planned my classes, my life. Her desk was full of little pamphlets about STDs and anorexia and crazy parents and the big one—teen pregnancy. I wanted to ask her, “So is there a book on what to do when your sister starts a fight with the lunch ladies?”
“Hi, Stacy. Have a seat.”
She motioned for me to sit down across the desk and focused her eyes on me.
“How are you today, Stacy?”
“Uh, I’m…okay? How are you?”
I tried to stay calm, but my stomach was in knots. I was right on the edge. The fragile hold I had on myself could disappear any second.
“Stacy, I don’t know if you heard, but there was an incident with your sister Becca—”
“Is she okay?” I cut her off. I couldn’t help myself.
“She’ll be fine, but your mother picked her up.”
I stared at Ms. Cruz, trying to concentrate on what she was telling me. Her face was soft, her voice reassuring.
“I hear things have been difficult around your house lately.”
“Yeah, the
y have. She’s been acting strange, not herself, for a while now. I really don’t understand, to tell you the truth.”
And I told her about some of Becca’s strange, new behaviors and how I’ve had no clue about anything—how to act, what to do around her.
“Try not to worry. She’ll be okay, she just needs some help. But are you okay? Do you want to call home?”
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