Empty

by K. M. Walton

  She doesn’t.

  I wait a few minutes to see if she will fall back to sleep on her own. My hand hurts from punching the wall. I rub it as anger bashes my insides—my heart, my brain.

  I can’t stand here another second. I need to do something.

  I tiptoe into my room and slide into my bed. I want to kick my feet and curse and go completely nuts, but I can’t. Meggie’s settled herself, and I don’t want to wake her again, so I clutch my pillow and silently scream into it. I press my face down into my pillow, deeper, deeper, deeper.

  My mother doesn’t come to apologize or comfort me, and I guess I fall asleep, because when I open my eyes it’s pitch-black. My first thought? How could she not have checked on me? How could she let me melt down alone? Doesn’t she care how I feel? My answer is: no.

  My mother is a zombie. Her heart is dead. Her soul is withered.

  My alarm clock says it’s 2:46. I sit up and blink a few times. My stomach growls, and my eyes hurt. My eyelids feel like I put Novocain in them. You know, like when you come from the dentist and your lips feel like you shoved a football underneath the skin? That’s how my eyes feel.

  I walk down to the bathroom. My skin is red and blotchy, and my eyes are swollen to slits. I splash cold water on my face and let it run down my neck. I’m hoping it’ll wake me up. My whole body feels numb. I puff my cheeks with air a few times and check the mirror to see if I look more alive. I look the same. I brush my teeth and pee.

  I check my reflection again, and it’s just as awful.

  • • •

  The next day in English class, I’m focused on getting my stuff organized on my desk and ignoring that Sydney’s behind me. Mrs. Salvatore has her back to us, writing discussion questions on the whiteboard. The sound of her squeaking marker blends with that of student voices. We’re allowed to talk to each other, but only until she stops writing and starts class with her usual “Game on, people, game on.” Then we all have to shut up.

  Sydney taps me on the shoulder.

  I just turn my head. “Hey.” I don’t want to talk to her, be interrogated by her, or have her tell me things I’m not supposed to know—like how Taryn’s got the hots for Jacob. I look back up front.

  She taps me again.

  “Dell?” She sounds nervous.

  I swivel in my seat this time.

  Her eyes drop, and she leans forward, her hair touching the desk. I’m waiting for her to start talking, but her face twists into a weird frowny wince.

  “Are you all right?” I ask. She looks constipated.

  “I have to tell you something,” she whispers through clenched teeth.

  Right away, two thoughts cross my mind:

  1. Sydney told Taryn that I went upstairs with Brandon at Melissa’s party, and they both assume that I had sex with Brandon.

  2. Sydney drew the cow and taped it to my locker.

  “Game on, people, game on!” Mrs. Salvatore announces from the front.

  “Forget it,” Sydney says. “Never mind.”

  As my heart slows down a little, I raise my eyebrows and shrug. Sydney closes her eyes. She is acting so bizarre. I face front and leave her to her thoughts.

  Running

  I WANT A LOT OF THINGS I CAN NEVER HAVE: A different body, my virginity back, for Brandon and whoever taped that drawing to my locker to explode like watermelons stuffed with dynamite, a best friend who would die for me, way less math homework, and cute clothes to wear for the talent show on Friday.

  At yesterday’s rehearsal, I decided I’m lucky to have a friend, and let Cara talk me into sticking with the talent show. Now I am sitting in the cafeteria, pushing dressing-soaked salad around on my tray. I’m back on a diet and gave myself a verbal lashing in the mirror this morning before school. I really let myself have it for eating those cookies and chips.

  Cara says, “You have to smile at the end, Dell. You looked scared up there yesterday. Just smile, and it’ll make the audience think you’re a pro.”

  “I’m not a pro, Cara. What’s the opposite of pro?”

  “Amateur.”

  “I’m below an amateur.”

  She rolls her eyes. “That’s what I’m talking about. You don’t have to let the audience know that. Will you listen to me for once? What are you wearing? You haven’t said a word.” She grimaces. “I’m worried.”

  With my fork, I roll a cherry tomato from one side of the tray to the other. “You’re worried? Way to have faith in me.” I shove a bite of lettuce into my mouth so that I don’t have to say anything else.

  “You’re avoiding the question! You are not wearing jeans, are you? Look me in the eye and tell me you have something to wear tomorrow night. Don’t embarrass us.”

  Embarrass us? So now she’s embarrassed by me?

  I swallow. “Will you shut up? I’ve got it under control.” Which is about as far from the truth as I am skinny. I have nothing to wear. I have nothing planned. I have zero under control.

  I won’t tell Cara this. Her eyeballs will pop from their sockets and bounce around the cafeteria if she knows. She needs her eyes to play the piano. I spare her my clothing dilemma by keeping my mouth shut. She’s practically growling at me from across the table anyway, so I give her the I’m-just-scratching-my-temple middle finger.

  Salad churns in my stomach. My wounded feelings twist and tangle around my neck, nearly strangling the life out of me. I cough into my napkin and quietly fight for a new breath.

  Cara grins and deadpans, “You’re so funny.” She’s clearly oblivious to my desperation. She’s just scratching her temple too. “Smile during today’s practice, and fuck you, too.”

  I manage to inhale and keep the salad down, which is a miracle, but I think I’d rather have just passed out. Lifeless and facedown in my tray.

  • • •

  After talent show rehearsal, Cara and I are talking in the hall and about to head home, when Emma shows up. She looks directly at Cara. “Did you hear about her?” She tilts her head toward me.

  “I know, Em, Dell was un-freaking-believable up there!” Cara’s voice shines with enthusiasm. “I am so proud of her.”

  Emma shakes her head. “No, not that.” She turns and walks away, then shouts over her shoulder, “Forget it. I can’t say it with her, like, right there and staring at me like that. Taryn messaged us on Facebook.”

  I immediately pull out my phone and log on. Cara gasps, obviously beating me to the punch. I look from my phone to her face. I don’t see what she’s freaking out about.

  “You’re not . . . ” Cara’s voice trails off as her face tightens with confusion. “You’re not in the message group, Dell.”

  Panicked, I blurt, “What is it? What does it say?”

  She doesn’t answer me. I move so I can read over her shoulder.

  Taryn: You guys!!!!! Dell the fat whore raped my boyfriend.

  Chase: dude, she screwed B-man? ew, i just puked in my mouth.

  Melissa: WHAT?!?!

  Taryn: He was drunk and she pinned him down at your party. Sydney said she saw them go upstairs. She told me so yesterday. Brandon admitted it just now. He said she almost killed him, the fat pig.

  Emma: I’m not surprised!

  Taryn: Beware of the rapist bovine, Cara. I heard she ate her best friend in kindergarten.

  This is all wrong. All wrong. All wrong. I drift a few feet away from Cara and the wrongness.

  “Wh-what,” she stammers and clears her throat. “What is this about?”

  I turn around. Cara’s eyes flutter and blink—it’s like she can’t even look at me.

  Despite my frozen stance, my brain is on overload.

  This can’t be real.

  He can’t be that much of an asshole.

  He complimented my grand slam, and he was sincere.

  He led me upstairs with his grins and his flirting.

  He raped me.

  I have to tell the truth.

  I can’t tell the truth.

&nbs
p; This is all wrong.

  He raped me.

  But who would believe me? Who would believe that he came on to me, that it was his idea to go upstairs, that he held me down and had sex with me? I couldn’t handle watching people wince with doubt. The eye rolls. The probing questions. Continuously having to validate the truth. That would feel as invasive and humiliating as the rape itself.

  I’ve wrecked my friendship with Cara by not telling her right after it happened. Cara will never trust me again. She will hate me.

  “I don’t—” My teeth chatter in my mouth. I’ve suddenly turned cold. “I can’t—”

  “God, Dell, what are you saying?” Cara says. “Is this true?”

  The JV cheerleading team jogs past the auditorium, laughing noisily. I don’t answer Cara. I want silence. I want to hide.

  Brandon’s little sister stops in front of us, and I watch Cara’s face light up. She’s insta-happy.

  Cara says, “Hi, Kim!” Cara knows her first name?

  Kim blows her a kiss. “Bye, Cara, gotta go,” she says in her best cheer voice. Kim’s black ponytail bobs as she jogs to catch up with the rest of her team.

  Cara turns back to me. Gone are the bright eyes and blinding smile. She’s back to grimace-face. “We just broke in! How could you do that? Taryn is a bitch. You do know she’ll ruin you, right?”

  Why isn’t she asking me what really happened?

  I am stunned by Cara’s ability to turn her popular-girl greeting on and off so quickly.

  Cara yanks my arm. “Everything’s ruined now.”

  I break her grip and run.

  A Damn Mess

  I RUN ALL THE WAY HOME, WHICH IS A MIRACLE, considering how much I hate running. After composing myself in the bathroom, I creep to the kitchen as quietly as I can. My mother is locked in her bedroom again. I sit at the table with the very un-diet and very empty “family size” bag of cheese puffs. I’m staring at the dent I made in the wall, when my phone buzzes again. I have a bunch of missed calls from Cara and four texts in a row that each say:

  SORRY!

  I don’t answer. The phone vibrates and I know she’s left a message. I listen: Dell, I suck. I’m sorry I reacted that way. We need to talk!

  That is the deepest Cara’s ever been with me in our seven-year friendship.

  She should be sorry.

  My mother shuffles into the kitchen. “Hey.” She eyes the empty bag.

  I wish I’d thrown it away after I’d finished eating, but it’s too late now. “Hey.” I sit up a little bit. Maybe the empty bag won’t matter. Maybe she wants to apologize for how she reacted when I gave her the money.

  She walks to the sink and starts washing dirty dishes. “I can’t afford your appetite, Adele. Look, I’m in a bad way. You have to understand where I’m coming from.”

  Some apology. She acts like I purposefully eat to make things harder on her. Doesn’t she know that we’re both messed up? She pops pills and I eat cheese puffs. She acts like I wasn’t affected when Dad left. My world sucked too, but she acts like I don’t understand anything.

  Shit, I wonder if she found out about my father getting remarried. I can’t believe I have to deal with all of this. Anger begins to bubble up from inside. I do not want to explode again. I grasp the sides of my chair and swallow my resentment. I just let her keep talking.

  “You eat too much, and you’re unhealthy. There, I said it.” She exhales loudly.

  I want to say, “No shit, Sherlock, and you’re the pill-popping walking dead.” I stare at the empty cheese-puff bag instead. There are orange crumbs all over the table. It’s a mess.

  I’m a mess.

  She’s a mess.

  My whole life is a damn mess.

  All I want to do is lick the salty cheese off the inside of the bag.

  Mom wipes her hands on her FoodMart shirt. “I can’t believe he’s marrying her. I don’t know why I wasn’t good enough for him. We had a life.”

  So she does know. He must have told her. I stay quiet and let my mother have this moment of introspection. I can’t imagine losing everything simply because my husband stopped loving me.

  I squint.

  Wait a second. That’s not true. I can imagine it, because that same man stopped loving me, and I lost everything too. Even my identity. I’ve eaten the girl I was before, swallowed her down with cookies and ice cream and cheese puffs.

  My mother and I lock eyes.

  “I guess I freaked out about the money because you and Meggie are all I’ve got left, and I want you to make smart decisions.”

  I guess we’re off the topic of my overeating. I go with it. “Are you saying that giving you two hundred seventy-nine dollars to help pay the rent was a bad decision?”

  “No.” She stares into the living room introspectively. “I don’t know what I’m saying. My whole damn life has been turned upside down.”

  I want to ask my mom what pills she stole from the drugstore. I want to ask her to dump every bottle in the toilet and flush it all away. Did she look into rehab yet so we can all start over? “So you don’t want the money?”

  “No, I—”

  I cut her off and yell, “I can’t believe you!” Then I bring it down a bit. “I can’t believe you aren’t thanking me and telling me that I am the best daughter in the world. What the hell, Mom?”

  She presses her lips together. “You didn’t let me finish. I will take the money. Thank you.”

  That seemed hard for her to say. Is it pride?

  I shrug.

  Then mom says quietly, “Were you going to tell me about softball?”

  How did she find out? Did Coach call her? Why would Coach do that? Or maybe it was my stupid father.

  I don’t want to fight with my mother, so I stay silent. She starts chewing her nail. Her hand is shaking. I’ve never seen her bite her nails before.

  “Don’t give me the silent treatment.”

  This startles me, and my knee hits the table leg, knocking over the salt and pepper shakers. The salt rolls off the table and across the floor, stopping at my mother’s feet. She bends over and grabs it in a flash. She looks like she’s going to throw it at me. I cover my face for protection.

  “I’m not going to throw it at you,” she says, her voice expressionless.

  I bring my arms back to my sides. I’m tired of talking. I want to go to my room.

  “I need you to pick up Meggie,” my mother says. “I have the night shift. I’ve gotta be out of here in twenty.”

  I wish my mother was a hugger. A hug right now would help a lot. A hug would fill me up, make me feel as if I exist, and maybe even douse the anger. Instead I get a shoulder squeeze as my mom heads back to her room. A shoulder squeeze can in no way be compared to a hug. They’re like the difference between a size twenty-four and a size two. The squeeze is so inadequate, and the hug just the right thing.

  I want perfect and I get insufficient.

  • • •

  Meggie pounds on her high-chair tray because she wants more macaroni and cheese. I stare down at my raw carrots, push my plate away, and start to cry. I’m starving. I’m fat. The carrots were my third attempt at dieting—after the bag of cheese puffs—and I’m sick of dieting. It’s been exactly one hour, and I’m a failure.

  I am a phony, rapist failure.

  I give my sister more mac and cheese, then grab a spoon to eat it straight out of the pot. Each bite of gooey, cheesy noodles explodes in my mouth with flavor. My heart stops racing, and I feel a distinct sense of pleasure each time I swallow. Those carrots can suck it. So can everyone at school.

  I’m mortified by what Taryn and Chase said on Facebook. The way they bantered back and forth, all “ha-ha, she’s a fat rapist, ha-ha,” was evil. How can I possibly face them in school? They’ve probably told the entire world by now.

  Sydney is a bitch. She doesn’t even know the truth. She fabricated and assumed and blabbed her stupid mouth and now everything’s even worse.

 
To calm myself down, I make a fresh batch of mac and cheese and eat every noodle. The buttery cheese clouds my head, helping me to forget the hideous Facebook comments. As I’m scraping out the last bits of orange from the pot, I pause. You promised yourself you would stick with the diet. How will I ever look normal if I eat two boxes of macaroni and cheese for dinner? The answer comes quickly, like a smack to the forehead: I won’t.

  Taunts and insults continue to torture me as I get the dishes cleaned up—even as I bathe Meggie and tuck her into her crib. In spite of the mental torment, I manage to tackle my math homework and a box of cherry frosted Pop-Tarts. Pink frosted crumbs fall on my notebook and into the spine of my textbook. I slam both books shut and rehash everything again.

  And I gag.

  I force myself to swallow the Pop-Tart that’s in my mouth. I don’t feel like cleaning up puke right now. I drop my head into my hands. My reality assaults me. That whole group thinks I held Brandon down at the party and raped him, like a disgusting pig. I don’t even know what Cara believes, and that hurts.

  It all hurts, and I’m so tired of feeling alone.

  • • •

  I can’t sleep. My brain runs through a thousand scenarios about how I could get out of school. Permanently. Then, around three thirty in the morning, I decide that I will do what I always do: fake it. But instead of making people like me because I make them laugh, I will drop my eyes and act like I don’t exist. I won’t listen to what they say. I’ll ignore them, and hopefully, they will ignore me.

  I just don’t want to deal with the stares, mean comments, and whispers. I want someone else to do something stupid, so everyone can move on to the next bullshit drama. But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to move on. I feel stained, like, ruined.

  At least Taryn’s comment was in a private message group and not out there for all of Facebook to see. I think I will die if any of this leaks out to my teachers or counselors. Discussing those evil comments—or what actually happened that night—with an adult would be as awful as being naked onstage. And in the meantime, I will be praying on my knees that some mutant parasite embeds itself into the balls of Brandon Levitt, eating him alive from the inside out.