The Victoria in My Head

by Janelle Milanes

  I start to back out, but she says, “Come in. Close the door.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I was looking for Krina.”

  Kaitlyn doesn’t acknowledge my statement. “You want?” she asks, lifting a small plastic bag of weed.

  “No.” I touch the door handle, trying to make my exit. All I want is to get away from Kaitlyn, looking so lifeless and scary. “Do you know where Krina is?”

  “Sit down,” Kaitlyn says, patting the space next to her.

  “I’m okay.”

  “You’re the new lead singer, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sit down,” she repeats. I can tell she’s not giving up until I listen to her, so I sit cross-legged across from her. The bathroom tiles are icy cold through my clothing.

  “Krina’s gone,” she says.

  “Gone where?”

  “Out. Out of this apartment.” She waves her hand around and I catch a whiff of her scent, a mix of lavender and weed.

  “What happened?”

  “I tried to apologize to her. She just left. She didn’t even talk to me.”

  “Well . . . she kind of hates you.”

  “I guess I deserve that.” She rubs her eyes, and mascara smears around her lids. “I miss her. I thought if I invited you guys to play, she would maybe . . .”

  Her voice trails off, and she stares into space.

  “So why did you do it?” I ask. “Dump her, I mean.”

  “Come on.”

  “Come on, what?”

  “What was I going to do? Fall in love? Get married, have kids, tour the country like a gay Partridge Family?”

  “Yes. Why not?”

  “You have no idea what people expect of me.”

  Ha. I know a thing or two about living up to people’s expectations, but I don’t argue with her.

  “Did she make you happy?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer me. She takes a giant sniff, and I can’t tell if she’s crying or on something. Then she says, finally, “Yes. But I was scared. I’m not like you.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I can tell.” Kaitlyn leans her head against the wall and closes her eyes. “You’re a brave one.”

  The door bangs open, and I jump up. Levi is standing there, looking exhausted. “Vi, come on. We found her.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “HOT AND COLD”

  —EX HEX

  Krin, where’s your coat?” Annie asks. Even though the rest of us are bundled up, the cold still penetrates straight through our bones. Krina doesn’t seem aware of the freezing temperature, or anything at all, really. She’s stumbling around, drunk off her ass, mumbling something about rocks.

  “I can’t believe this,” Levi mutters.

  “What?” I ask, catching Krina before she face-plants. Krina shoves my hand away, lurching forward to grab a small black stone from the pavement outside Kaitlyn’s building.

  “This!” Levi waves his arm in Krina and Annie’s direction. “Strand takes off, Krina gets completely trashed . . .”

  Annie turns on him, furious. “And whose fault is that?”

  “Certainly not mine,” Levi says.

  “Oh, no,” Annie replies. “You just pushed her into playing at her ex-girlfriend’s after Kaitlyn dumped her, cheated on her, spread rumors about her—”

  “If Krina wasn’t ready, she shouldn’t have agreed to do it.”

  “You pressured her into it!”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I interrupt as Krina hurls the stone at Kaitlyn’s building, slurring profanities at the top of her lungs. She spins around as she throws it, slipping on her heels and landing squarely on her rear.

  “Fuck!” Krina groans. “That fucking hurt, fucking Kaitlyn!”

  Annie gives Levi a glare and goes to pull Krina up. Levi shakes his head at the two of them.

  “I’m gonna go tell Kaitlyn the band’s not playing,” he says, moving toward the building’s entrance. “You two get Krina home before someone calls the cops.”

  “Great,” Annie calls to his back. “Thanks for the help!”

  “Annie,” I warn.

  “I’m sorry, Vi, but he’s being a real—”

  “Dick,” Krina mutters, resting her head on Annie’s shoulder.

  “Jerk, I was going to say.” Annie sighs. She wipes some smeared liner that’s ended up on Krina’s cheek.

  I pull the hood of my jacket over my head and scan the street for open cabs. “Well, he’s right about getting Krina home.”

  “No,” Krina moans, still slouched over Annie. “I don’t want to.”

  “We’ll take her to my place,” Annie says.

  “And how are we going to explain her to your parents tomorrow morning?” I ask.

  “We’ll get her out before they wake up.”

  “Fine,” I reply. I’m too tired to argue, and Annie has her determined face on. “Follow me.”

  I walk uneasily to the street corner, not totally sober myself, and hail the first cab I see. It squeals to a stop against the curb as Annie hurries over, dragging Krina alongside her. The cabbie, a middle-aged white man, turns his head and glares at the three of us as we slide into the backseat.

  Annie gives him explicit directions to her apartment in Queens, telling him to take the Grand Central Parkway and explaining, unnecessarily, why it’s superior to any other route. The cabbie, meanwhile, looks at Krina through the rearview mirror.

  “Hey,” he says. “Your friend doesn’t look so good.”

  “Sir, we have it under control,” Annie says, but she gives Krina’s hand a squeeze and whispers to her, “Let me know if you have to throw up.”

  I lie back against the headrest, letting my eyes flutter closed, wishing this nightmare could just end. I’m in that strange, half-drunk, half-sober state where you just become groggy and sad. The only thing I want right now is to curl up in Annie’s bed and never wake up.

  I was mean tonight. I was mean to Strand for no reason except that he was kissing a girl. I can still see how he looked at me, like he’d been slapped. I didn’t know anyone could make him look like that, let alone someone like me. The longer I close my eyes, the more his sad face is seared into my brain.

  “Um, Vi?”

  I’m yanked awake by Annie’s panicked tone. I didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep. We’re still in the cab with Krina between us, completely passed out. She’s snoring loudly with her mouth hanging open.

  “Are we there?” I ask. “Are we at your house?”

  “Vi, where is your phone?” Annie asks, her voice rising.

  “It’s dead. Why?”

  She groans and puts her fingers over her eyes. “This is bad. This is very, very bad.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I turned my phone off after we found Krina.”

  “And?”

  “And I just turned it back on.”

  I don’t know what Annie’s talking about or why it matters when she turned off her phone. Every time the cab flies over a bump in the road, I feel my stomach leap with it. I try to breathe slowly in and out through my nostrils.

  “I don’t understand, Annie.”

  “What I’m telling you,” Annie says, growing hysterical, “is that I have fourteen voice mails from our parents!”

  Now I need to throw up for multiple reasons. If Mom and Dad are calling Annie at this time of night, they must have somehow found out what we were doing.

  “Shit,” I mutter. I’m fully awake now. I lean forward in my seat to look at Annie. “How far are we from your house?”

  “A couple of minutes.”

  “All right. Let’s not panic,” I say, but my voice is high and flimsy and the cabbie keeps braking too suddenly, sending me smacking into the seat in front of me.

  “We’re dead,” Annie says. “We’re completely dead.”

  “We’re not dead! We just need an alibi.”

  “An alibi for why we snuck out of my apartment on a Friday ni
ght? Literally the only excuse our parents will accept is if someone had a gun to our heads.”

  “Just think, just think,” I mutter as the cab turns the corner onto Annie’s street.

  “Oh. My. God.” Annie’s face pales as she looks out the window. “Vi.”

  I look, and there, standing in Annie’s front yard, are the police, Annie’s parents . . . and my dad.

  * * *

  He doesn’t say a word to me when he sees us getting out of the cab. I see him turn to Annie’s parents and say something to them. Then he marches toward me and grabs my wrist, his thumbs digging into my skin.

  “Ow,” I whimper, but he doesn’t loosen his grip.

  He yanks open the car door for me before walking around to the driver’s side. I get in the passenger seat and shut the door, looking through the window at Annie and a wobbly Krina standing in front of Mr. and Mrs. Lin.

  As soon as Dad pulls out of Annie’s driveway, I wait for the yelling to start. Instead, he stays quiet for a long time. I slide out of my coat and peek over at him, but he’s staring at the traffic ahead, jaw clenched.

  After a few minutes he finally speaks. His voice is low and stiff. “Your grandmother is in the hospital.”

  “Abi?” I clutch the side of the car, feeling my pulse in my stomach. I knew something horrible had happened. This is karma. Because of my lying, my overall shittiness, everyone around me is now going to suffer. This is why I can’t step out of bounds. I’m not made for it. “What’s wrong? Is she okay?”

  “We think she’s going to be fine.”

  “You think? What happened?”

  Abi has never had any health problems. She’s seventy-two years old, but she lives on her own and takes aerobics classes at the Y.

  “We thought she had a stroke, but the doctor says it could be TIA.”

  “What is—”

  “It’s a blood clot that blocks blood flow to the brain. Same symptoms as a stroke, but temporary. Slurred speech, facial paralysis, loss of movement . . .” Dad rattles off other scary symptoms in the same way someone would read a grocery list. His face is pulled tight, like it’s made of elastic.

  Everything he lists, I picture happening to Abi. Strong, stubborn Abi, not being able to move, feeling scared and confused because her body isn’t working right. I swallow hard. God, I pray. If you make Abi all right, I’ll be the perfect daughter again. I’ll quit the band, I’ll be a good girlfriend to Levi, I’ll do anything.

  “We’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour,” Dad goes on. “We called Mr. and Mrs. Lin when we couldn’t get you or Annie on your cell phones.”

  “Oh,” I say in a small voice.

  “Imagine how your mom and I felt when the Lins told us you were missing from their house.”

  I lean my head against the window and keep my eyes on the flashing lights of traffic. I know I deserve the guilt trip, but I feel horrible enough already.

  Without looking at Dad, I start to say, “We weren’t—”

  “Don’t. We’re not talking about it right now.” His accent comes out harsh, his voice spitting out words like a stream of bullets. He pulls his cell phone from his pocket and hands it to me. “Text your mom that we’re on our way to the hospital.”

  I quickly text my mom that we’ll be there soon. I will myself not to cry, but the enormity of the night crashes into me all at once. How I hurt Strand, how I let my parents down, how I could have lost Abi. All this horribleness in one night.

  Dad doesn’t say another word to me until we get to the hospital. It’s one of the rare moments I want to be yelled at. Anger is easier to take than the silent treatment.

  The waiting room is quiet and practically empty. Matty is strung across two chairs, asleep. Mom stands up as soon as Dad and I get out of the elevator. As we approach, I can see the exhaustion etched in her face. Her eyes are pink and watery, with heavy bags. Fresh guilt overtakes me, because I’m part of the reason she looks like this.

  “How’s Abi?” I ask immediately.

  “Abi’s okay,” Mom says. “She’s asleep.” Then she stops and stares at me in a way you would look at a stranger you can’t place. I remember I’m wearing my band makeup, all heavy black eyeliner and rouge red lips.

  “You smell like alcohol,” she says, her voice cracking.

  “Come on.” Dad leads her back to the stiff vinyl chairs in the waiting area. I trail behind them, choosing the seat across from theirs. Mom collapses into her chair. Her eyes don’t leave my face.

  “I need you to start explaining yourself,” she says. “Right now.”

  Under his breath, Dad asks her in Spanish if she really wants to bring it up tonight, and Mom snaps back, “Yes, Jorge. Our daughter is going to tell us exactly where she was and why she reeks of booze.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “You should be. Do you realize what you put us through tonight?”

  I lower my head and nod at the floor.

  “No,” Mom says. “You have no idea. You have no idea what it’s like to hear that your child isn’t safe in bed. To spend half the night worrying about your sick mother and your missing kid.”

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I say feebly. “There was something I had to do, and—”

  Dad shakes his head. “Bullshit, Victoria.”

  “Where were you?” Mom asks quietly.

  “At a party.” It sounds so inadequate right now, out of context.

  “Drunk at a party,” Dad cuts in. Mom starts crying now, like a parent who’s found out their kid is a heroin addict. I know what I did tonight was wrong. I’m not saying it wasn’t. But my parents don’t get that every other student at Evanston does this kind of stuff on a weekly basis. I’m supposed to be better, somehow, because I’m Victoria Cruz. When I do what everyone else does, I’m automatically worse than all of them.

  “I had a little to drink,” I admit. It’s not a secret anymore. Mom smelled me coming off the elevator.

  “You’re underage!” Mom snaps. The only other person in the waiting room, besides Matty, gives us a narrow-eyed stare. I wish I could teleport right now. To Hawaii, or to Japan, or to Neptune. Yeah, Neptune would be good.

  “I know . . . I . . .” The tears spill down my cheeks. It’s a Cruz family trait to cry too much, too easily. We’re not weak, we just feel a lot. And tonight I’m feeling like my heart’s been hit with a mallet over and over again. “I really am sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Why did you do it?” Dad asks. “What did you have to do at this party?”

  Before I can answer, Mom’s face clouds over, and I know she’s figured it out.

  “You’re still in that band,” she says. “Aren’t you.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  She bites her lip and closes her eyes, then opens them to look up at the ceiling. I feel like she’s looking to God, asking him what she did to deserve such a crappy daughter.

  “But it’s not like that,” I say desperately. “It’s not what you think. I’m not this girl who parties and gets drunk all the time or anything.”

  I want them to get it, to know that I’m still me. I don’t like lying to them, but I did what I had to do.

  “Did you or did you not sneak out to a party?” Dad asks.

  “Yes,” I say, “but—”

  “Did you or did you not drink?”

  “I just—”

  “Did you or did you not lie to us about quitting the band?”

  I stop. I look at Mom, and she’s crying as much as I am. It seems like all I do these days is make my parents cry.

  She turns to Dad and says, “I don’t know her anymore.”

  The words rip me apart.

  When I was little, every fight with my family seemed like the end of the world. I would cry so hard that I couldn’t speak or catch my breath. There would be snot and hiccupping and all kinds of messiness, but I wouldn’t care because I was so overwhelmed by sadness. This is how I feel now. I don’t know how I
ended up here. All I wanted was to sing and be a part of something that made me happy, and suddenly it became this. My parents don’t know who I am, and I’m not sure I do either.

  Mom can’t look at me, but Dad faces me straight on.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he says. He’s calm, which is surprising because he’s usually the most temperamental of us all. The effect is unsettling. “You’ll continue to come straight home after school.”

  I nod.

  “And you’re grounded every weekend. All day, all night. No more . . . sleepovers . . . at Annie’s.” He doesn’t physically make the air quotes when he says sleepovers, but his tone does it for him.

  “Except for quince practices,” Mom says. She glances at me now. “Your cousin is counting on you and Strand.”

  “Except for quince practices,” Dad confirms.

  I’m not resisting anymore. It’s over. I’ve been running and hiding from this moment, but I’m tired. Fate has caught up to me.

  Levi will probably call Greg to replace me, or some other singer who doesn’t have a family like mine. Someone who doesn’t have to sneak around and lie and hurt people. It’ll be better for everyone. In the meantime, I can go back to being normal. Go to class, go home, finish my homework, repeat. Being normal will mean I don’t feel anything, but it beats feeling like this, this horrible mix of disappointment and misery.

  “You’re going to have to earn back our trust,” Dad says. “It’s going to take a long time.”

  I nod again. “I understand.”

  Mom gets up from her seat. I get the feeling that she can’t stand to be near me anymore. “I’m going to talk to the doctor again.”

  “Glo,” Dad says to her. He cups his hand over hers. “Everything’s okay.”

  Her lower lip quivers like Matty’s does when he gets scared. I have the strange urge to get up and hug her, because she looks so small and pale under the hospital lights. But I don’t do it. I don’t think she would hug me back tonight. She leaves to talk to the doctor, and Dad watches the TV overhead with a glazed, unresponsive expression.