by Gina Ciocca
“Riiight.”
“Kelse, I’m going to walk Isabel to class,” David said. “You want to walk with us?”
I slammed my locker shut, wishing I could have figured out a way to catch Isabel’s head in it as I did. “No. I have to stop by the guidance office.”
The only way I could convince my mother of my mental stability after the bathroom incident was to agree to a few sessions with the school psychologist, Mr. Petri. Even though she knew what she’d seen wasn’t what it looked like, she was afraid of the toll everything had taken on me. I knew I didn’t need his so-called services, but I would have done anything to make my mother stop hovering over me like I might fly over the cuckoo’s nest on a moment’s notice.
“Actually, David,” Isabel said, “I have to go that way too. I’ll walk with Kelsey.”
I would’ve rather swallowed worms. “You don’t have to.”
Isabel ignored the disdain in my voice. “I want to.”
“Cool. See you guys later, then.” With that, David walked away.
Come back! Don’t leave me here with her!
“So,” Isabel said the moment he was out of earshot. “If you weren’t trying to kill yourself, then what were you trying to do?”
“I wasn’t trying to do anything. I had a rough night and—” I realized I’d let her unnerve me and wanted to kick myself for it. “Wait, how is any of this your business?”
She folded her arms and squared her shoulders. “David was white as a sheet when he left my house. Are you willing to sink that low to get his attention?”
A wave of dizziness passed over me. “Are you kidding me? I was sick, Isabel. How could you think I did any of that on purpose?”
“You were so sick that you forgot where your bed was?” She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Kelsey. You were playing at something. And whatever it was, it worked, because David went running.”
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak.
“I know you hate me,” she continued. Her eyes bored into mine. “But if you care about David, then let him make his own choices.”
I should’ve told her to take her own advice. I should’ve said that David had never even wanted to go to the dance with her, that if he chose me over her, it would never be because I forced him.
Instead I watched as she turned on her heel and walked away, her hips swinging like the angry flick of a cat’s tail.
I stood rooted to the spot with her words echoing in my head until I finally remembered how to move my feet. Then I turned and headed to my appointment.
I signed in at the reception desk in the guidance office, and the receptionist told me to have a seat in one of the chairs between Mr. Petri’s closed door and my guidance counselor, Mrs. Malone’s, office. I looked up to find one of the chairs already occupied. By Maddie, of all people, because apparently this morning hadn’t sucked enough already. She sat there, twirling the ends of her hair around her fingers, avoiding my eyes and shifting around like she hoped the chair would grow jaws and swallow her.
“Hey,” I said quietly as I sat down, dropping my book bag on the floor. Her mouth twitched into a fleeting semi-smile.
“Kelsey. How are you?”
There was that question again.
“I have to meet with Mr. Petri. So someone must think I’m not doing all that great.” It was a lame attempt at humor, but I thought she’d at least crack a smile. She didn’t.
“I heard about what happened. It isn’t your fault.”
Shit. So Isabel had opened her trap.
“Maddie, this whole thing got blown way out of proportion. I don’t have an effing death wish.”
“Of course not.” She paused, studying the arm of the chair for a second. “But I’m glad you’re getting help anyway.” And there it was. She might as well have said, Sure you don’t.
My fingers dug into the faded upholstery of the seat, but before I could force words through my clamped teeth, Maddie added, “And at least David got to you in time. Oh, and I heard your dad has a new job. That’s good news, right?”
Her words knocked the wind right out of me. “David . . . what?”
Maddie’s face went as blank as mine was horrified. “Got to you?” she repeated slowly, as if I hadn’t spoken English my whole life. “Before anything got out of hand?”
I sank in my chair, the sound of keyboards clacking and coffee mugs clanging suddenly roaring in my ears. Everything was out of hand.
Mr. Petri’s door opened then, and he ushered another student out. “So sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Crawford—”
“Actually, I need one more second.” I barely glanced at him.
I stood up and threw my bag over my shoulder, then turned so I could face Mr. Petri and Maddie at the same time. “I want you both to know that I didn’t try to kill myself.” I yanked the sleeve of my shirt up to my elbow, exposing the bandage covering the slice Miranda had made down my hand. “This happened before the dance, and it was an accident.” I jerked up the other sleeve, where the cut from my dad’s scissors was fading to nothing more than a scratch. “No one had to rescue me, because nothing happened.”
“Maddie?” The sound of Mrs. Malone’s voice interrupted my speech. The door to her office had opened, and Maddie made a beeline for it. She hesitated in the door frame and turned back to me, like she’d reached safe territory and suddenly felt brave.
“Maddie.” My voice came out in a pleading whimper. “Why don’t you believe me?”
She looked at the floor, still twisting a section of her hair into a taut funnel. “It just makes sense. Why you’ve been pushing everyone away.”
“Why I’ve been—” I all but fell over. I wanted to do something, anything other than stand there like a dumbfounded idiot, but my brain refused to cooperate. So I stood there like a dumbfounded idiot.
“If you want to talk about it,” Maddie said hesitantly, “I’ll listen.”
With that, she disappeared inside Mrs. Malone’s office, and I stayed glued to the floor. She really didn’t believe me. Worse, I’d seen her mock me, and now she was treating me like a charity case. And I had a feeling she wouldn’t be the only one.
The next twenty minutes didn’t help me feel any less like a leper. Mr. Petri was nice enough, asking questions about my childhood, my friends, my goals for the future. But to me, every question felt like a thinly veiled attempt to expose me as a wack job. When he asked how things were at home, I heard, Do your parents make you want to kill yourself? When he asked about my friends, I assumed he meant, Do you not have any, and that’s why you tried to kill yourself?
It seemed funny, in a very unfunny way, that I’d been so worried about becoming the Sick Girl. I’d never thought about being the Girl Who Tried to Kill Herself, because, well, I’d never tried to kill myself.
Not that I would have had to think about it at all if it hadn’t been for David’s big mouth and his extremely crappy choice of girlfriend.
I stood the minute I sensed our meeting wrapping up. Every second that ticked by allowed for more gossip to spread like a disease, and I was anxious to get into the hall before it filled with more curious stares and thinly disguised whispers.
David had first period right around the corner, and I waited by the door of the classroom for the bell to ring. I ambushed him the moment I saw him, grabbing his arm and dragging him into an empty corner of the hall.
“What happened to not saying anything to anybody?” I hissed.
“What are you talking about?”
“How did Maddie know about my dad’s job offer?”
David flushed. “I—sorry, Kelse, I didn’t know it was a secret.”
“You know what, David? When something’s not your news to share, don’t share it.” He mumbled an apology, but I barely heard it over my tirade. “What else did you tell them? Why does everyone think that I tried to kill mysel
f and that you came to save my sorry ass?”
I waited for him to get angry, or indignant, or have any kind of reaction other than the one he had. He scratched the back of his neck and shifted from one foot to the other. “That’s crazy, Kelse. No one thinks anything like that.”
My eyes widened. “Yes, they do!” I told him about my run-in with Maddie, about what she’d said. “Am I supposed to let people think I’m a suicidal maniac? You have to make them stop this, because if she didn’t hear it from you, then she heard it from Isabel.”
David straightened, clearly offended. “I never said anything like that to either of them, and I’ve told you before, Maddie doesn’t hate you. She wouldn’t go around spreading rumors about you for the hell of it.”
“Isabel would.”
“Jesus!” David yanked a hand through his hair like he might rip it out of his head. “Do you realize anyone who was at her house the morning after the dance could be saying this shit? Shit, which, by the way, I hadn’t heard a word of until right now.”
“If they’re thinking it, I’m sure they’re saying it—”
“Kelse, listen. Who cares what people think? You know what really happened, and so do I. Don’t worry about what anyone else says. It’ll all blow over.”
I couldn’t believe those words had actually come out of his mouth. He made it sound like someone had insulted my shoes, or my choice of topic for a school project, and I should brush it off and get on with my life.
I narrowed my eyes at him, feeling my face flush with heat as I recalled Isabel’s accusation. “Easy for you to say. You come off looking like a hero in all of this, like you rescued the pathetic little damsel in distress. I hope you know I’m not that desperate for your attention, David.”
A flash of something shadowed his face, something that told me I’d hit a nerve despite the hardened expression that replaced it within a split second. He made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort.
“Trust me,” he said. “I know.”
Then, without another word, he turned and left me standing in the hall.
Twenty-Three
Rhode Island
Senior Year
“Are you coming down to watch us practice?”
I jumped at the sound of David’s voice. I hadn’t even heard him approach my locker. Then I racked my brain, wondering why he’d asked. He sounded completely casual, like watching the baseball team practice had been on my agenda for ages and he’d merely thrown out a reminder.
“Am I supposed to?” I asked. I couldn’t remember promising Ryan I’d be at any of their practices.
“No, you don’t have to. Candy and Violet said their coach is running late today, and they had time to kill. They’re coming, so I thought you might too.”
“Oh. They didn’t tell me.” Those biatches. “But I can’t, anyway. I have a paper to write.”
“Eh, you’ve got plenty of time. It’s nice out too.”
Even though we were on semi-hospitable terms again, it seemed strange that he’d want me there so badly. It made me wonder if he wanted me to see something specific, if maybe Ryan hadn’t been honest about not playing dirty. I searched David’s face for signs of something beneath the surface, but from what I could tell, he really just wanted me to watch him practice.
He smiled sheepishly, almost like he’d heard my thoughts. “I used to think you brought me luck, you know.”
It was an innocent enough comment, certainly nothing that should’ve made my heart do a spastic little dance, but that’s exactly what happened.
“All right,” I said. “I owe you for the flower anyway.”
His hand went immediately to his hair and he looked at the floor. “What flower?”
I landed a light punch to his ribs. “Nice try. How’d you get my locker combination?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled.
“Fine, have it your way. Anyhow, I can only stay and watch until Candy and Vi leave for practice.”
He flashed another grin at me and we fell into step beside each other. “Hey, why aren’t you a cheerleader?” he asked. “I mean, I know you were never into that stuff before, but now I could totally see you doing it. Especially since they’re your friends.”
I shook my head. “They wanted me to try out, but in the back of my mind I guess I’m still kind of afraid. I think about how they practically had me on house arrest while my blood counts improved, and I still feel like one wrong move could send me back to the hospital.”
He pressed his lips together and gave me a look of mock disapproval. “Now that’s what I call a shame. You let your high school career pass you by without ever wearing a short skirt while shaking pom-poms and demanding football players b-e aggressive? A travesty, Kelse.”
I laughed, bumping against him as I did. “I’d rather get my exercise on the Cliff Walk. You know that.”
“Until you get to the ‘scary’ part.”
“Ha! Wouldn’t want me to break a nail, right?”
David ducked as I faked like I was going to whack him with my textbook.
“How did you meet Candy, anyway? I wouldn’t have pegged her for your kind of people.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
I smiled to myself as I recounted the first time Candy’s and my paths crossed the summer before junior year. The summer I’d decided to reset my life.
It was at the salon where I had my hair highlighted, and Candy settled into her stylist’s chair a couple of minutes before I vacated mine, hemming and hawing that she wanted to try something new but didn’t know what.
“Maybe bangs?” her stylist suggested.
“Not unless I’m going to wake up eight years old again tomorrow, thank you,” Candy countered. “I think I want to do something with the color.” She gave me a once-over through the corner of her eye. “Now her hair looks awesome. Maybe we should get her opinion.” I beamed, flattered as hell at already receiving my first compliment on my new look as she swiveled her chair to face me head-on.
“I’ll bet red would look great on you,” my mother piped up from the chair on my other side.
I nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”
At the beginning of my appointment, they’d handed me a color chart full of faux hair swatches in every rich and vibrant shade imaginable. I’d paused a few times to admire a burgundy red called Black Cherry, but ultimately decided I could never pull it off. That was the one I suggested to her. The girl who did my hair removed my smock, shaking off the remnants of what she’d trimmed. I smiled at Candy. “Hope you like it. I wish I could see how it turns out.”
“You’re leaving?” Her smock rustled and her hand emerged clutching her phone. “Wait, give me your number and I’ll text you a pic when it’s done.” She grinned at me. “And then if I hate it, I can track you down.”
A couple of hours later, I’d received a text: Damn, I look good. We are so gonna party together.
“The rest is history,” I told David.
His face scrunched up. “Candy’s hair isn’t red.”
“She’s changed it a hundred times since then.”
We both laughed and I had to marvel at how the simplest things could bring on the strongest sense of déjà vu. When I’d first started at Clayton, walking through the halls without him felt like I’d lost a limb. With Candy taking me under her wing, I’d made friends pretty quickly, but it wasn’t the same. I missed having David’s long strides fall into sync with my short, quick ones, the way our arms would brush together every so often, the way we didn’t always need to talk.
At that moment, though, heading out the main doors with David, I knew we needed to talk. I needed to know for myself if Ryan had reason to be so paranoid, or if he was simply looking for excuses to torture the last boy who’d kissed his girlfriend.
St
arting with: “So have you decided on a college yet?”
David shrugged. “Sort of. I’ve narrowed it down to two, but I haven’t decided. Both offered me scholarships, but each has its pros and cons.”
“Which colleges?”
“Um, I’d rather not say until I pick one.”
I stopped in my tracks, squinting in the afternoon sun. “David! Since when are you superstitious?”
He looked at the ground and scratched his head. “Since my dad got sick, I guess. I need to sit down with him and talk about it.”
I felt a bubble of panic expand in my chest. “He’s not . . . ?”
“No, no. His scans have been good, his blood work is perfect. But he had stomach cancer, Kelse. You didn’t see how bad it was. There were nights when he’d sleep on the bathroom floor because he’d get so sick and then he’d be too weak to make it back to bed. And you know how stubborn he is. I had to learn parts of his job because he didn’t want them knowing he didn’t even feel well enough to work from home. If anything ever happens to him, I need to be close by.”
Not out of touch and out of reach like I’d been the first time.
“David,” I said softly. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for that. I wish I’d known. I would’ve . . .” I didn’t finish, because I honestly didn’t know what I would’ve done. I definitely wouldn’t have continued to cut him off like a stubborn, slighted brat. I would’ve been there for my friend, regardless of whatever had happened between us.
Now was my chance to do better than sort of.
“I would’ve—”
“There wasn’t much you could’ve done from here, anyway.” A half smile curled David’s lips.
He was letting me off the hook.
I must’ve looked as lost as I felt, because David put his hand on my shoulder and guided me in the direction of the path that led down the hill to the baseball field. “It’s okay,” he said. “So what about you? Have you picked a school?”
“I’m going to URI.”
He stopped again. “What happened to the University of Arizona? The rest of the apple pie?”