No, she thought stubbornly, it’s not all in my head.
“It’s
not
my insecurities only, Bridget, you’re always making comments about what I should do to look prettier and telling me my clothes are all wrong, and I just can’t—”
“I’m your friend, Michelle, it’s called advice?” I paused at my realization. “Michelle, is this about the gym shorts? They’re from freshman year. And they just don’t fit you anymore!”
She had no response. Bridget just wasn’t going to understand. She was glad she hadn’t told me the whole truth.
I think I knew it now.
Time sped by like fast-forwarding through a movie. I could hardly see any of the scenes that passed me. When the reel slowed down enough for me to actually pay attention, I was still in Michelle’s head, staring at the ornate front door of my house and standing next to Jillian, who had just rung the doorbell.
I heard my distant voice call from upstairs for them to come in.
“Are you sure you feel up to this?” Jillian asked Michelle, who nodded, feeling friendly affection toward her one—real, she thought—best friend.
They came up the stairs and found me observing the clothes in my closet.
“Hey. Do you need help bringing in the rest of the beer?
Jillian, why don’t you help her?”
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Michelle stopped dead. I felt the alarm she was feeling as she realized her mistake, and her worry as she imagined what I might say or do next, how I might explode at her.
“The
rest of the beer?” she asked quietly, and watched as I turned to Jillian.
“Tell me there’s a ‘rest of the beer.’”
Michelle felt her fear turn into anger as she watched me use one of my favorite bitch techniques: the laugh, and the shake of the head.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Michelle? God, it’s like you’re stupid or something. One minute you’re telling me you’re all insecure about everything and the next minute you’re ruining my party. Great job. Seriously.”
As had always been her f law when it came to getting mad, Michelle felt the inescapable urge to cry. A memory resurfaced in her mind of the anger and embarrassment she’d felt after the prank I’d taken the rap for at Outdoor Ed.
“But Bridget, you just said to get some beer, you didn’t say—”
She started to explain that she didn’t know she was responsible for the whole party, and that her brother only bought what he did buy because he thought it was for just the three girls. It had been hard enough to convince him to do even that.
“I gave you Meredith’s credit card and told you to get beer for the party, how is it not obvious that you’re going to need more? If you really didn’t know, then why didn’t you just call me and ask how much?”
“I tried! You didn’t pick up!” It was true, Michelle thought, she had tried to call. She wasn’t calling to ask how much she needed, though, she was just calling to say that all she could get was just the two six-packs. She’d known it would go over badly.
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P A I G E H A R B I S O N
“Bullshit.”
Michelle could tell this conversation would go nowhere, and that the easiest thing was to just apologize.
“I’m sorry, it was stupid—”
“You’re right, so why are you still here?”
Michelle’s heart jolted for a moment. This is how it always is with Bridget, she thought. Since Michelle didn’t want to be on my bad side, she’d had to swallow all kinds of pride to stay friends—even if she hated it.
“What do you mean?” she asked, afraid of what Bridget—
I—might say.
“I
mean why aren’t you driving back to get your brother to go buy more?”
Michelle took a second to breathe normally again, before she came upon the second hurdle.
“Um. Well, he’s not at home.”
“I’m
sorry,
what? Your brother has been sitting in that stupid gaming chair since we were like, six. What do you mean he’s not home?” I felt Michelle’s pang of defensiveness for her brother.
“He went out with a friend.”
“God, Michelle. Now what the hell are we going to do?”
Time sped by again, and I found that Michelle was standing in my kitchen. She was eating the chips and salsa Liam had brought to the party, and something in her mind said that she was doing something wrong. I worried about what it might be, wondering if she was getting back at me in some way. She spotted the box of Oreos and took out four of the cookies, then put one back.
Three, she thought to herself, three is okay.
“Having your own private eating contest, Miche?” She 1 5 1
turned to see me stumbling past with a drink in one hand, and my arm around Matt Churchill.
She instantly felt embarrassed, and so did the current me.
I’d said it only because there was an impromptu hot dog-eating contest being held on the back deck. But as soon as I heard the words come out of my mouth, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. Michelle obviously didn’t know what I was referencing.
I watched myself go stumbling off, still laughing. Michelle was right, I said that kind of thing to her all the time. I said things that sounded okay in my head but that just weren’t.
The doorbell rang, and I heard myself shout “Pizza!” to the crowd. I ran by in my black bikini.
I could feel Michelle’s envy at my confidence, at my ability to wander around unselfconsciously in a tiny bathing suit like that one.
What she didn’t notice was how much bonier she was than me.
And she had no idea how all that self-assurance she noticed in me would go straight down the drain after I opened the door.
Michelle walked upstairs, hoping no one would see her go. As she entered my room, I could feel her guilt combining with embarrassment. I couldn’t figure out what her problem was. She was acting like she’d hidden a body in the backyard or something.
She opened the door to my bathroom and closed it behind her. She tried to lock the door for a few seconds before remembering that I had said it was broken.
She felt dread. She hoped no one would come in.
Michelle looked at her ref lection in the mirror, and her frame of mind grew worse still. She stared at her stomach, seeming to believe that the chips and salsa she’d eaten 1 5 2
P A I G E H A R B I S O N
downstairs had made her abdomen expand offensively. She started to cry, feeling like she was doing so far too often, and lifted up the toilet seat.
Suddenly guessing what was coming, I still felt stunned as she knelt down in front of the toilet and stuck her fingers down her throat until she heaved.
Michelle threw up again and again, her face throbbing with the blood that was rushing to it. She leaned back on her feet, feeling something I’d been feeling a lot recently.
Disgusted with her own behavior.
She wished she wasn’t this way, and wished she could take it back. But then she realized that what she wanted to take back was the junk food she’d been eating. She vowed never to do it again. But she knew it was an empty promise to herself.
She was just vomiting again when the door opened.
A shriek escaped Michelle’s mouth as she saw my shocked face leave the doorway again.
C H A P T E R E L E V E N
I stared at Michelle, who was still f lipping mutely through her notepad on the conference table.
I didn’t know what to say, or what to think. How does someone go about apologizing for contributing to something so dangerous?
Until now, I’d had no idea that Michelle was bulimic.
Though suddenly it seemed so obvious.
Certainly, I thought, I would have been more careful about what I said to her if I had known. If I’d had any idea. But a small voice in my head asked a question: Why weren’t you careful what you said
to her just because she’s your friend?
And for that, I had no response.
I turned to Anna. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t.” She said it sincerely. Not sarcasti-cally, like I always meant that phrase. “Do you need to take a moment, or shall we continue on?”
I glanced at Michelle, longing to talk to her and have her hear me. But I knew that it was impossible.
Why was she even friends with me? Sure, after the Kotex event, I’d sworn to her it wasn’t me, and told her the truth—
that I’d been trying to undo what they’d done. I knew there 1 5 4
P A I G E H A R B I S O N
had been a brief period in the beginning of high school when I was a good and normal friend, but now…even I could see that I was toxic for her.
“Let’s go,” I said, standing up. Anna pointed down to a pair of dark-brown Steve Madden loafers on the ground.
My gut lurched.
“No, stop.” I stepped away from the shoes.
Anna looked at me. I shook my head.
“I can’t go into Liam’s mind, I know how I was. I was wrong, and I know it.” I stepped toward her. “Please, can’t we just…skip him, or something? I can’t know for sure what he thinks of me. It’ll hurt too much.”
I knew that my plea wouldn’t get me anywhere.
Anna smiled composedly.
“We have to. I’m sorry.”
I found myself on the blacktop at my elementary school, walking toward the playground, which was about a hundred yards away. I shuddered as I guessed what day it was.
Liam looked down at his feet, and I noticed that he was wearing his Jetsons T-shirt.
He climbed up the slide and headed toward the red tunnel I used to hide in as a kid after such traumas as being the last called for Red Rover. Sure enough, there I was, my face covered in smushed bananas and streaked with tears.
“Hi, Bridget,” Liam said, his voice husky even then.
“Hi,” I said, the word coming out more like a question as I launched into a new set of tears.
“Oh, don’t cry!” He crawled toward me a little bit. He placed an awkward little eight-year-old hand on my shoulder and patted.
“But I’m…so…embarrassed!” I said, my breath catching on every word.
“I know. But it’s okay, they’ll forget about it soon enough.”
1 5 5
He thought desperately for something comforting to say. “If it helps, they didn’t tell anyone else what they were going to do. I think it just happened.”
“I don’t…even…like…bananas!” I said, still more desperately.
“I know. But hey, at least you know that if there had been a banana-eating-contest, you would have won it.”
Little me rolled her eyes, thinking what a small consolation prize that was.
“But I can’t believe that I fell for it. I mean, why did I think they were putting the blindfold on me?”
Liam continued to pat my shoulder comfortingly, imitating the adults he’d seen do the same thing in upsetting situations.
I was impressed to find that Liam didn’t seem to be holding back any laughter. He seemed to think it was just as unfair as I did.
“I have a deck of cards in my cubby. Do you want to play with me?”
I nodded, touched by his willingness to leave recess to play with me. It was, after all, the ultimate sacrifice.
Liam told me to go ahead inside, he had to get something first. He watched as I skipped into the school, and then he walked resolutely toward the sponsors of the banana-eating contest.
“Hey, Tammy, Jenny, come here. I want to talk to you.”
Even the current me felt intimidated watching the girls exchange an amused look and walk toward him. They might as well have been cracking their knuckles or hitting their palms with a baseball bat.
At least he was the same height as they were. That was a luxury most boys didn’t have in elementary school. He didn’t feel frightened at all as they walked over to him. All he felt was contempt.
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P A I G E H A R B I S O N
“What do you want, Wee-em?” Jenny asked, giving a loud guffaw at the nickname she’d starting using for him three years ago.
“That wasn’t nice what you did to Bridget.”
“Well, we weren’t trying to be nice!” Tammy said, her high voice ringing in his ears.
He felt angry just looking at them. “Still, you shouldn’t have done that and I think you should apologize.”
The two girls laughed boisterously again, and Jenny pulled a banana from the crate on the ground. A teacher had brought the fruit to give as a treat today, since it was Friday. It was a nice idea, but, Liam considered, he should have been outside making sure this kind of thing didn’t happen.
“I didn’t know you wanted some, too.” She f lattened the banana on his face.
Liam pushed her hand away and ignored the other students who were laughing.
“You can put as many bananas as you want in our faces, Jenny, but we could never look as stupid as you do.” Her mouth fell open, and Liam turned on his heel and walked casually inside, f linging the banana from his face to the ground.
Too cool for an eight-year-old.
The ground fell away as soon as he ran in the door. I didn’t need to see it from Liam’s perspective to remember the rest of the day. We’d played Crazy Eights for the rest of recess, and Liam had stood by my side and protected me from Jenny and Tammy for the rest of third grade.
That day should have shown me what real friends were.
Instead it marked the beginning of my quest to be “in” with those girls, so they’d never, ever treat me like that again.
The next place we landed was my patio. I was glad to see that we hadn’t ended up at the scene of the breakup.
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It was clearly late into the night of my last party, and I had a feeling that I was going to come crawling around the corner any second.
Liam was talking on the phone with a voice I recognized as his mother’s.
“Well, just try to drive home anyone you can. I’m disappointed that Meredith allowed drinking at one of Bridget’s parties, but I suppose we have to do what we can to make sure none of them end up out on the road. You didn’t have anything to drink?”
“Nah. And I don’t think Meredith actually knew about the party at all,” Liam said, waving his hand at the suggestion even though she couldn’t see him.
“Good. Well, once again, I’m proud of you, Liam.”
“Thanks, Ma.” He smiled into the phone.
“How’s Bridget doing?”
“Mmm,” he said looking in the window for me. “I’m not sure. She was drinking kind of a lot tonight.”
“I thought she didn’t drink?”
“Yeah, she doesn’t, which is why she’s bound to be sick in the morning.”
His mother chuckled. “I guess we all have to learn the hard way. Did everyone enjoy the party, do you think?”
“Yeah, I think so. I think most of ’em just came to get drunk, but none of them are being rude to her or anything.”
This observation shook me. What did that mean? Did he expect them to be rude to me?
“Well, that’s good. Don’t worry, honey, she’ll settle down soon. She’ll get back to herself one of these days, I’m sure of it.”
Doubt entered his mind. “Hope so.” He looked down at the brown shoes I’d just stepped into and felt another pang of some emotion I couldn’t quite identify. “All right, well, 1 5 8
P A I G E H A R B I S O N
you better get to bed. I think I’ll drive a couple of these guys home, and then come home myself.”
“Okay, drive safely, I don’t want anything to happen to you.
You know it’s not that I don’t trust your driving, it’s—”
“—other people, I know.” Liam smiled again. He’d heard her say it so many times. “’Bye, don’t wait up.”
<
br /> “You know I will!”
He shook his head and closed his phone. And then, there I was, crawling on my hands and knees looking for Meredith’s earring. Which, incidentally, I would find on my dresser in the morning. It turned out I’d never put the second one on, which meant not only that I was losing my mind, but also that I’d walked around like a pirate the whole night.
“Bridge?” Liam squinted his eyes into the darkness to see who it was. Judging by the ice-blond hair, he decided it was me.
“Yeah?” I responded after my startled squeal.
“What are you…uh, what are you doin’?” He crouched down, hoping that it wasn’t something he didn’t know how to handle.
“My
earring?”
“Did you lose it?” Liam asked, thinking of all the times he’d looked all over the place for something I’d lost. It’s probably still in her room, he thought. I was taken aback by his accuracy.
“I
did.”
“All right, let’s look for it then. Do you know that it’s out here somewhere?” Liam watched me nod and then try to stand. He was braced for what he was sure was going to turn into a nasty spill. Then, to only my own surprise at the time, I fell. He helped me stand.
“Liam…” I mumbled.
“Y’all right, Bridget? Why don’t you sit down.”
“My
earring—”
1 5 9
“I know.” He helped me to the seat he’d just vacated.
“It looks like, um…an earring that’s, uh. It’s like a silver, sort of loops around…”
Liam laughed at my vague description, and at the fact that I hadn’t thought to simply show him the other one.
I watched his hand tuck my hair behind my ear to look at the earring. He seemed to be sensing the familiarity that went along with this affectionate touch just as much as I had.
He looked into my eyes. I noticed, with a twinge of mortification, that I didn’t look as cool and collected as I had hoped.
Instead, I looked a lot like a deer in headlights.
I listened to Liam’s internal battle. He cared for me, just as he had for so long. He looked at me, and saw the eight-year-old version of me with banana all over my face, and remembered my embarrassment at the pool after I’d knocked my own tooth out. More recently than that, he envisioned me the moment before we first kissed.
Here Lies Bridget Page 14