Backlash

by Sarah Littman

  I really need to get going on my math homework, but I see he’s typing.

  What were you like in middle school?

  Is he serious? Didn’t I just say I had all this work to do and I don’t have time to chat? Besides, if there’s anything in the world I’d rather do less than math homework, it’s talk about middle school.

  I really have to do homework, I type.

  Come on, baby, please? Tell me a little something and then you can go. I really want to get to know you better.

  I want to go, but I can’t. Maybe if I tell him something, he’ll finally ask me to the dance. But … middle school? Ugh.

  I don’t really like to think about middle school, much less talk about it.

  Why not?

  Oh you know. Bad hair. Bad clothes. Whatever. I’ve moved on.

  What about friends?

  That’s the part I want to talk about the least. He’s picking a scab on a wound that’s only recently healed — if it even has healed all the way. Why the sudden inquisition?

  In middle school, I was best friends with this girl, Bree.

  There, satisfied?

  What happened?

  I’ll tell him this one last thing, and then I’m signing off to do my homework.

  I don’t know. She just kind of dumped me when we got to high school. Like all of a sudden she didn’t want to know me anymore. And now …

  I hesitate, wondering if I should tell him about Bree. She’s one of his Facebook friends. I wonder how well they know each other.

  Now what? Go on, tell me …

  Now she’s acting like a total brat. Like, when I made cheerleading and she didn’t, she gave me a death glare. Seriously, if looks could kill, I’d be dead.

  Why can’t she just be happy for me?

  After all this time, I’m —

  I pause in the middle of typing this last thought because I was about to write getting my life together, but that would tell him that my life in middle school had fallen apart, and I don’t want him to know that. I’m trying to figure out what to say instead, when he types, Well, I guess you better go do your homework. Later.

  And he goes offline.

  What?!

  He could see I was in the middle of typing something to him. And he didn’t sign off with anything like Love you, not even Later, baby. Just Later like I’d said something to offend him.

  I have to catch up on my homework and get my cheerleading outfit in the wash, not spend the rest of the night worrying about why he quit our chat so suddenly and went offline.

  Like I’m actually going to be able to do that easily now.

  WHEN I log out of Christian DeWitt’s profile, I’m fuming.

  So I’m “being a total brat,” am I? Maybe Lara Kelley should look in the mirror! I’m not the one who was a total porker in middle school. I’m not the one who was so psycho I had to see a shrink. And to top it all off, Lara expects me to be happy for her? WOW. That girl is totally delusional.

  I print the chat out and put it in my backpack to show to Marci tomorrow in school. I’m going to talk it through with her, but I’m pretty sure I already know what I’m going to do. It’s time to bring this prank to an end and finally give Lara the lesson she deserves.

  I’m tired of chatting with that girl every night. That’s why I stopped being friends with her in the first place — because I was sick of listening to her whine about her miserable life.

  Another reason I’m ready to end this is because now that Mom knows she keeps making all these little suggestions about how I can flirt with Lara better, which is weird and freaks me out on too many levels to count. Last night after I broke off the chat with Lara, she came into my room and wanted me to start it up again so she could be Christian for a while and “have a little fun.”

  I was like, “Are you insane?”

  Mom got mad and told me to show her some respect, which just pissed me off even more. Seriously — this was my thing and now Mom’s trying to take it over. Story of my life.

  Sighing, I look out the bedroom window and notice a light flickering in the window of the old tree fort. Who would be in there? I haven’t been up there in, like, forever. It reminds me too much of Lara. I wonder if all those posters of bands we liked in middle school are still on the walls, and if the book of secret passwords and rules we used to keep Liam and Sydney out is still hidden under the remnant of carpet that Mom got from one of her clients after they moved into their new house.

  I just hope it’s not some crazy axe murderer or a stinky hobo or something living up there. That would suck. I better make sure to close my curtains from now on. I don’t want to give some random tree-fort freak an eyeful.

  The next morning before school, I pull Marci aside and show her the chat convo printout. Jenny tries to horn in on our conversation, but Marci says, “Do you mind? This is private,” and Jenny huffs away. I can’t help feeling good about that. Jenny’s always trying to make out like Marci’s her best friend and I’m this unwanted cling-on.

  “Wow,” Marci says after she reads the chat. “I can’t believe you didn’t let her have it then and there.”

  “Well, they say revenge is a dish best served cold, right?” I tell her.

  “So are you going to dump her tonight?” Marci asks.

  “After school,” I say. “I’m going to do it publicly. On her Facebook wall. So everyone can see.”

  “I can’t wait,” Marci says, grinning. “It’s going to be epic.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” I remind her.

  “Top secret,” she says, pretending to button her lips shut. “My lips are sealed. Text me when it’s done, promise?”

  “Yeah, I promise.”

  As I walk to the cafeteria at lunchtime, I pass Lara in the hallway. She’s wearing her cheerleading uniform and she’s with Ashley, her new BFF, and some other cheerleaders. She doesn’t even acknowledge I’m alive.

  I don’t care. Because I know what’s going to happen to her later today, and she doesn’t. So let her giggle with Ashley and the rest of her stupid cheerleader friends, all their ponytails bobbing as they laugh with their matching purple-and-gold ribbons, like a bunch of horses’ butts on a merry-go-round.

  My classes after lunch drag even more than usual. Now that I’ve made the decision to break up with Lara — or that Christian is going to break up with her — I want to get it over with. Not just think about it, do it. Everything has been leading up to this; the fake account, the fake flirting, it’s all been a setup for what’s going to go down later on today.

  Deep down, I wonder if Lara has any clue that Christian isn’t who he says he is. Deep down, I wonder if she has any idea that he is really me.

  No way. I’ve covered my tracks pretty well. The only people who know are Marci and Mom. Marci is totally for it, and strangely, so is Mom. It’s all good.

  As anxious as I was to get it over with all afternoon in school, when I get home, I find myself hesitating. Once I do it, I can’t go back to pretending I’m him anymore. Once I do it, I lose that power. This will really be the end.

  So I make myself a snack — Nutella on toast with a glass of milk — and watch a few episodes of a reality show about crazy stage moms.

  “Why do you even watch that show?” Liam asks, coming into the family room chomping on an apple. “Those people are seriously messed up.”

  In my head I hear Mom urging me to log back in to chat with Lara so she can pretend to be Christian again.

  “Ya think? They’re no more screwed up than our parents. Trust me.”

  Liam stares at me, goggle-eyed, his mouth hanging open, filled with unchewed apple. It’s gross, like looking at a train wreck in a tunnel.

  “No way Mom and Dad are like those crazies,” he says.

  “Can you at least finish chewing before you talk so I don’t have to look at your food debris?”

  He swallows.

  “Okay, fine, but I’m serious. I wouldn’t want to be one of those stage kids. No
way.”

  I would. Even with an ambitious, pressuring stage mom. ’Cause I already have a pressuring mom, but at least then she’d be pressuring me to do what I want, instead of what she wants me to do.

  Too bad, Mom. I failed, too. Guess we’re both losers, huh?

  I wonder if my failure is going to give me “grit” so I’ll be more like Mom. But is that what I really want? Dad’s the one who’s always understood me more. Or at least he’s the one who tries.

  I switch off the TV and get up off the sofa. “Don’t worry,” I tell Liam. “You’re not talented enough to be onstage anyway.”

  He nabs the sofa and the remote and turns on some geeky science show that’s just an excuse to blow things up and call it an “experiment.” I’ve caught a few episodes when I haven’t had anything better to do, and the explosions are pretty cool, especially in slow motion.

  Showtime, I figure, as I walk up the stairs. Time for Christian to teach Lara a lesson. Time for the final curtain in the Christian and Lara Show.

  I log into Facebook as Christian and go to Lara’s wall. I type, look it over once, and add one more thing. My finger hesitates over the mouse button for a moment. I take a deep breath, and click Post.

  Then I log out, log back in as myself, and wait for the fun to start.

  IF YOU hold the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet toward the bathroom mirror there are hundreds of versions of you, like clones created in a secret lab by white-coated scientists. The first time I did it I thought it was so cool — an infinite tunnel of possible Laras. But now my hand trembles on the mirror as I watch a tear ice its way down all of my cheeks. I guess you could say each one of those faces is either the Lara that I once was, that I am now, or that I would be in the future, if I had one.

  I don’t.

  Christian just messaged me that the world would be a better place without me in it. He’s right.

  I wish I knew what I did to make him change his mind about me so suddenly, without any warning. One minute I think he’s about to ask me to his school dance, the next minute he’s posting on my wall that I’m an awful person and a terrible friend. That he would never consider being seen with a loser like me at his school dance.

  He didn’t even know me in middle school, before Mom took me to the nutritionist and the shrink and I lost thirty pounds.

  Why? What did I do? I just want to understand. I need to understand. If I only understood, then I could change, I could be a different Lara, a nicer Lara, a better Lara. A Lara that people didn’t like one minute and then hate the next. A Lara that didn’t make friends, then lose them.

  But it doesn’t matter now, I guess. This way is better for everyone.

  Mom will freak out if I make a mess, so I take all the pill bottles and line them up on the edge of the bathtub, neatly, like soldiers. I’ve got Mom’s sleeping pills, the ones she pretends she doesn’t take and hides in her bedside table under the latest copy of Vanity Fair; the painkillers Dad has for when his back plays up; and the acetaminophen with codeine from when I had my wisdom teeth removed over the summer. I grab the plastic cup that holds my toothbrush and bring it with me as I stand by the bathtub, trying to decide if I should get undressed or be fully clothed. I don’t want to be naked when they find me dead. That would add insult to injury, having policemen taking pictures of me and making comments about how I could lose a few pounds and stuff.

  In the end, I strip down to my underwear and T-shirt.

  Making the Lake Hills High varsity cheerleading squad is probably the most awesome thing I’ve ever accomplished in my life. It made me feel like I’d finally turned the corner from miserable to happy.

  That didn’t last long.

  I settle myself in the tub and turn on the water. I thought about doing this in the bedroom, but locking my bedroom door is too out of the norm. This way it’s less obvious.

  It feels weird when the water starts to soak into my underwear and T-shirt, and I wonder if I should have just laid on the bathroom floor and pretended to be in the bath, but once I get used to it, the water is warm and comforting. Anyway, wearing clothes in the bathtub isn’t half as weird as thinking that in less than an hour — I think, because I don’t know how long this actually is going to take — that’s not going to matter. Nothing will. I won’t be here anymore.

  No more pain.

  No more feelings.

  No more anything.

  No more me.

  Fill up the glass from the faucet. Open the first bottle. Don’t even bother to look at what it is. It doesn’t matter anyway. Just pour the pills into my shaking palm, put as many into my mouth as I think I can swallow, and wash them down.

  Rinse and repeat.

  And repeat.

  And repeat.

  And repeat.

  And keep on repeating.

  Turn off the water when I start to feel dizzy.

  Because … I don’t … want to … drown … just want to … die …

  MY SISTER has had what her shrink calls “a setback” since the police told her there is no Christian DeWitt — and she realized she tried to kill herself over some guy who never even existed. A “setback” is apparently shrinkspeak for saying that after getting a teensy bit better, she’s now as much of a mess as she was before — maybe an even bigger one.

  Mom and Dad were discussing if Lara should go back into the psych ward, but she was all, “If you even think about locking me up in that place, I’ll try to kill myself again,” so that plan got nixed. She gets to stay home but is still living under Lara Watch. No closed doors, not even to shower or pee or sleep. No Internet or phone without parental supervision. No privacy, period.

  She told me last night that I’m lucky, because I get to close the door when I go to the bathroom.

  Seriously, Lara?

  “Luck has nothing to do with it,” I said. “Mom and Dad just know I’m not going to do anything in there except the normal things people do in a bathroom.”

  She looked like a baby seal who’d just been hit with a club on a frozen beach in the Arctic Circle — wounded, blinking big eyes staring at me, asking how I could be so cruel.

  So then I felt bad about hurting her, but at the same time I was mad about feeling bad because I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. I was just telling the truth, stating the obvious. Someone has to do that around here, and it’s pretty clear that someone isn’t going to be either one of my parents.

  I’m doing homework on the computer — another thing Lara can be jealous of because I don’t have to have Mom looking over my shoulder — when the doorbell rings.

  “Can you get that?” Mom says. “I’m in the middle of something.”

  I don’t bother to point out that I am, too. Mom’s got cabin fever from being stuck here babysitting Lara all day, and she’s worrying about how this is affecting her political career. I know this because her campaign manager was here one day when I came home from school and they were talking about it, and then I heard her stressing about it to Dad. And then I heard him getting all pissed about the fact that she was even thinking about politics when Lara was so sick, and she just got mad back because he’s not the one who is having to take off from work to keep an eye on a fifteen-year-old 24/7 and … well, it went on from there.

  It’s just easier to get up and do it than argue with Mom when all that’s going on.

  When I open the door, Mrs. Connors is standing there carrying a foil-covered casserole dish. Since it happened, all of our neighbors have been trying to out–Martha Stewart one another. It’s like they’re all competing to bring us the best casseroles as a way of showing their concern. But there’s another reason, too, besides neighborly compassion. It’s also because they want the latest dirt so when they bump into people in line at the supermarket they can say: “Well, I was at the Kelley house today, and I heard …”

  “Hi, honey,” Mrs. Connors says, holding out the dish. “I brought you some lasagna so your mom doesn’t have to cook. I’m sure sh
e’s got enough on her plate with … everything that’s going on.”

  “Yeah,” I say, taking the dish from her. I remember Mrs. Connors’s lasagna. It’s not as good as Mom’s. But with the mood my mother is in, any edible food is good as far as I’m concerned. “She’s pretty stressed out. Thanks.”

  “How’s … Lara doing?”

  It’s like she’s afraid to say Lara’s name. It’s like that with everyone who comes by. I want to scream at them to stop whispering her name; that she didn’t actually die. She’s just super messed up, that’s all.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “But she’s not back at school yet?”

  Doesn’t anyone talk to each other in that house? I mean, Bree must know that Lara hasn’t been in school.

  “No, not yet.”

  “She’s not feeling up to it?”

  What is this, a police interrogation?

  “Um, no. Not yet.”

  “Well, give her our love,” Mrs. Connors says, which is kind of weird, given that Lara and Bree aren’t really friends anymore. She turns and is halfway down the steps before she calls back over her shoulder, “And give my best to your mom.”

  “I will,” I tell her. “Thanks for the lasagna.”

  I take the dish into the kitchen, where Mom’s reading city council briefing papers and sipping a glass of chardonnay. There’s no evidence of any dinner preparation in sight.

  “Mrs. Connors brought over a lasagna. Should I heat it up for dinner?”

  “Sure, throw it in the oven,” Mom says, reaching for the wineglass. “That was nice of Mary Jo.”

  “She was asking a lot of questions about Lara.”

  Mom drains half of what’s in her wineglass in one gulp. I hope all this stress isn’t turning my mother into a wino.

  “Everyone who brings over food to help me out so I don’t have to cook asks a lot of questions about Lara,” she says with a sigh. “We’re the talk of the neighborhood. I’m sure everyone is dissecting my mothering skills and judging me on where I went wrong.”