Backlash

by Sarah Littman

  Liam’s already there when I climb up into the tree fort. It’s dusk and there’s no electricity up here, so he’s lit a few candles. In their flickering glow, I can see the fort is noticeably cleaner and less cobwebby than the last time I was there.

  “It looks cleaner up here.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You should see me with a feather duster. The spiders were quaking in their webs.”

  “Well, it’s a lot nicer being up here without getting them in my hair, that’s for sure.”

  And then we just look at each other in an awkward silence.

  I break eye contact first, unsure of what to make of what I see there.

  “Syd … I feel bad about this morning. You know … on the bus?”

  I meet his gaze again. His green eyes glow, reflecting candlelight and what I think is … what I hope is … honesty.

  I nod, afraid to say anything. And then he reaches over and takes my hand, warming my cold fingers.

  “I totally get it that this is all Bree’s fault. And my mom’s. I really do. I know that because of what they did, Lara almost …” He swallows, and I’m temporarily distracted by his Adam’s apple, so it’s not till I look back to his eyes that I realize how upset he is about this. “Almost died, and I get how sick that is.”

  Then he kind of tugs my hand, pulling me toward him, and we are in an awkward hug. I’m suddenly aware of how close his lips are to mine, and I wonder if Liam wants to kiss me. Because I want to kiss him. And then he’s leaning in, a brush of lips, soft and warm on mine, with the candle in between us, like a warning that I might get burned.

  I pull away and bite my lip. I wanted that kiss, but this is all just so messed up. My first kiss ever — and it’s with Liam Connors, whose sister almost caused my sister to die.

  “I know how hard things must be for you, Syd. I just … I just wanted you to understand that things are pretty messed up at our house, too.”

  “I know,” I say. “And I know it’s not your fault.” I sigh. “Are you still getting the death threat calls?”

  “We haven’t plugged the phones back in yet,” Liam says. “We’re not going to until we’ve changed the phone number to an unlisted one. But in the meantime, someone hacked Dad’s business website and redirected it to a porn site.”

  “Eww — that’s disgusting.”

  “It’s more than disgusting. It’s shut down his online business until he can get someone to fix it,” Liam says. “Not to mention how it’s hurting the reputation of his store. He says this could end up ruining everything he’s worked for his entire life — because Mom and Bree were idiots.”

  What does he want from me? Sympathy? Comfort? Understanding?

  “Bet that went down well with Mary Jo,” I say.

  Liam laughs bitterly. “Oh yeah. I’m surprised you couldn’t hear the shouting from your house.” He moves the index finger of his free hand back and forth through the tip of the candle flame.

  “Stop!” I exclaim. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

  “This?” he asks, doing it again, grinning. “No. Try it.”

  I shake my head. I already feel like it’s dangerous enough being up here with him. Kissing him, even. I don’t need to make it even more real by sticking my finger through a flame.

  “I spent a lot of time doing this up here last night when Mom and Dad were fighting, and the phones kept ringing off the hook, and Bree was crying,” Liam says, running his finger through the flame again. He looks back to me from the flame. “We have to change all our phone numbers. They haven’t hacked my cell yet, but the police said they could sooner or later, so Dad’s canceling everything tomorrow.”

  “That sucks,” I tell him. It does suck for him about the phone, because it’s a pain to have to change numbers, and I feel bad for Mr. Connors, because it wasn’t like he was pretending to be Christian DeWitt, either. But … I slide my fingers out from Liam’s, unsure of how he’ll react to what I’m about to say. “The thing is, Liam, it’s no picnic at our house, either. Lara’s a mess, and we have to tiptoe around her in case she relapses. My dad … Well, his being on the news going psycho on your lawn in his pj’s — that was fun.”

  Liam laughs until he realizes that I wasn’t trying to be funny, and his smile fades.

  “And then there’s Mom, who’s desperately trying to figure out how to salvage her election campaign because having an Emotionally Damaged Daughter and a Psycho Husband ruins her Perfect Wife and Mother cred, don’t you think?”

  “Do you … think she’ll withdraw?”

  I laugh. “Kathy Kelley? Withdraw? As if! My mom doesn’t withdraw. She just figures out a new angle.”

  Liam smiles. “I thought I was the World’s Most Cynical Teen, but apparently not. It’s you, Syd.”

  I wonder if he’ll kiss me again.

  “Do you ever wish you could change your name or be adopted by another family?” I ask. “A normal family? Like one that isn’t in the newspapers or on the national news or doesn’t have to pretend to be perfect because they’re running for public office?”

  “Or isn’t doing screwed-up things like setting up fake Facebook profiles and almost causing their former best friend to kill herself?”

  “Yeah, that kind of family,” I agree. “One that does normal stuff together like have barbecues and build tree forts. Like our families used to do before everything got screwed up.”

  “Do you think life can ever get back to normal after this?” Liam asks. “Or will I always be Son of Monster Mom?”

  “And will I always be the sister of the girl who tried to kill herself over the fake Facebook guy?” I say. “With all these news stories being online, we can’t even go off to college and escape this now. It’s going to follow us wherever we go.”

  “I’m not going to let Bree’s stupidity ruin the rest of my life,” Liam says. “I’m going to do something so amazing that people will remember me for being me, not because I’m her brother.” Then he laughs ruefully. “The problem is, I haven’t figured out what that amazing thing is yet.”

  Liam’s so brave and determined that I don’t doubt for a second that he’ll do it.

  “You will,” I tell him, taking his hand. “I know you will.”

  He smiles at me and shifts over so he’s sitting next to me. Then he puts his arm around my shoulder, and I snuggle next to him, resting my head on his shoulder. We sit looking at the flickering candle flame, just being there in our little tree house of sanity.

  I HATE the Gratitude List. I hate Linda’s office. I hate Linda.

  Days like today I wish the pills had worked so I wouldn’t be stuck sitting here in this stupid office, talking about the stupid Gratitude List with my stupid therapist.

  “I’m sure the last few days haven’t been easy for you, with this being all over the news,” Linda says. “How are you feeling?”

  If I were feeling good, would I be forced to come here to see you, Shrink Lady?

  “Okay, I guess.”

  I don’t want to talk to her today. I don’t want to be in her faux homey room with all the well-worn toys that are supposed to fool messed-up kids into thinking that they’re not being therapized.

  But therapists don’t get paid big bucks to give up easily.

  “How have things been at home?”

  “What, since Dad got cited for disturbing the peace in his pajamas and they had video footage of him on the news? Oh, Mom’s thrilled about that,” I tell her, trying not to sound too bitterly sarcastic because that just convinces her that I’m still messed up and I need even more time in therapy. “It’s done wonders for her election campaign.”

  “So your parents are fighting?”

  I should have kept my mouth shut. Every time I open my mouth I inadvertently give her more clues about “what is wrong with Lara.”

  “Parents fight. There’s nothing abnormal about that.”

  She stops writing on her notepad. It worries me when she scribbles notes about the stuff that comes out of my
mouth. I’m always wondering what it was I said that was so padworthy.

  “Have they been fighting more than they normally do?”

  “I guess,” I admit. “Just another thing that’s my fault.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because all the stuff they fight about … none of it would have happened if I hadn’t been stupid enough to talk to Christian. You know … if I wasn’t idiot enough to believe that someone that hot could like someone like me.”

  The therapist is scribbling again.

  “Lara, can you tell me … what did Christian give you?” Linda asks.

  What part of he didn’t even exist doesn’t she understand?

  “He didn’t give me anything,” I say. “He was Bree and her mom doing this for whatever messed-up reason they had for doing it. Giving me presents definitely wasn’t one of them.”

  Linda takes a deep breath and leans back in her chair. I get the feeling that today, at least, I’m annoying her as much as she annoys me. Yay! We’re even!

  “I’m not talking about presents, Lara. I’m asking you to think about what you got from those chats emotionally,” she says. “It must have been something, or you wouldn’t have kept chatting with him over a period of weeks.” She leans forward again, and the tight grip of her fingers around the pen betrays her frustration with me. “So you must have gotten something from your interactions — even if he did turn out to be a fictional friend.”

  “We talked about stuff,” I say.

  “Like what?” she asks. “What kind of ‘stuff’?”

  “I don’t know. School. Our families … Although I guess he … I mean Bree, was lying about his, like everything else, because the people he was describing weren’t the Connorses.”

  “What was it about Christian that made you feel so attached to him?”

  It’s too humiliating to admit, even to just her and these four walls, that I couldn’t believe such a hot guy was interested in me. That was just what made me do something I knew I wasn’t supposed to do — friending someone I didn’t know in real life in the first place. But his looks weren’t what made me feel close to him.

  “It was how he listened to me,” I tell her. “He made me feel …”

  I miss him.

  Without warning, the realization hits me. It’s like a piece of me cracks, and then I’m sobbing. Deep, shuddering sobs that rack my body so hard it hurts my chest. She’s taken her shrinky flashlight and pointed it into the dark corners of my mind, shining a light on the last thing in the world I wanted to think or talk about. By making me even consider for a moment how much I miss Christian, she’s opened the floodgates on all the pain I’ve been trying with every ounce of my being not to feel.

  And I hate her even more for doing it.

  She gets up from her chair and hands me the box of tissues, even though they’re on the table right next to me. I take one, and then another and then another. Are there enough tissues in that box, in the entire universe, to soak up all the pain I have inside?

  Linda is back in her chair, with pen and notepad good to go, waiting for my sobs to slow to sniffles. When I’ve blown my nose into the eleventh tissue, she says, “That brought up some strong emotions. What are you feeling right now?”

  I use tissue number twelve to wipe the mascara from under my eyes, which I’m sure are raccoon-like from all the tears. It also gives me a reason to delay answering the question I’ve grown to hate in all its variations — What are you feeling? How are you feeling? Are you feeling okay?

  “I feel s-sad,” I sniff.

  “Why?”

  I should have known she wouldn’t let it go at that.

  “Because …”

  I hesitate. How do I admit I miss a person who never really existed? That’s going to make me sound even crazier than everyone already thinks I am.

  “You probably won’t understand.”

  “Try me,” she says.

  It’s hard to know who I can trust anymore. I’m afraid to trust anyone. But I figure she’s bound by doctor-patient confidentiality and the truth is, there’s no one else I can really talk to about Christian.

  “I know this is going to sound crazy, because he wasn’t even a real person, but … I miss Christian. I miss him a lot.”

  I swallow, willing myself not to start crying again. “And when I feel that … when I’m alone in my bedroom crying because I miss him and I feel so lonely, I know I’m the stupidest girl who ever existed,” I tell her. “Because he was Bree. Or her mom. And none of the nice things they made him say were even true.”

  “Feelings just are, Lara,” she says. “It doesn’t do you any good to judge yourself for having them.”

  “But how can you miss a fake person?” I argue.

  “It’s not the person you miss,” she says. “It’s what he gave you emotionally.”

  I start ripping the tissue into little pieces in my lap as I consider what she’s said.

  “What do you miss the most about your chats? How did chatting with him make you feel?”

  And then I can’t stop the tears again, as I’m once again hit with the emptiness and the loss.

  “He … made … me … feel … special,” I sob. “Like … I was actually … worth something.”

  She lets me cry without probing further, and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful that I’m allowed to experience these feelings without her making me analyze them anymore. Because right now I’m exhausted just from having them.

  “Lara,” she says, and her voice is softer and gentler than it has ever been before. “You are worth something. Maybe we need to work on you owning that before you get into more relationships.”

  I shake my head. “How do I own something I can’t see?”

  “That’s what we’re going to work on,” she says. “Helping you to see your strengths.”

  I think it’s a useless exercise because I don’t have any strengths, but she sounds so confident about the possibility of it happening that I feel a tiny whiff of hope, as faint as the breeze from a butterfly wing.

  Even that is a step up from the utter despair I’ve felt ever since Christian told me the world would be better off without me in it. Is this progress?

  Mom is on her cell in the waiting room when I get out. We walk out of the office, and when I push the elevator button she shakes her head and points to the stairs, gesturing to the phone.

  “It’s Nightline,” she mouths.

  Oh no. Not more TV.

  I try to tune out as we walk down the three flights of stairs, but it’s hard to avoid the sound of Mom’s overloud cell-phone voice in the echoey stairwell.

  “Yes, it really is sick, and as a parent, one of the most frustrating things is that there’s no adequate legal remedy available,” Mom says. “That’s why I’m planning to work with existing antibullying organizations to lobby for Lara Laws, trying to persuade states to add specific cyberbullying language to their existing bullying statutes.”

  I stop so abruptly Mom almost trips over me on the stairs. “What are you talking about, ‘Lara Laws’?” I hiss.

  She mutes her phone. “Wait till I’m done,” she says. “I’ll explain everything.”

  I don’t want to wait. It’s my name she’s tossing around here. I don’t want my name on a law. I want it all to go away so I can try to forget it ever happened.

  “But, Mom —”

  She waves her hand at me to be quiet, and I turn and stomp down the rest of the stairs as noisily as I can, making sure to slam the door at the bottom.

  The brisk autumn air outside the building does nothing to cool my anger. Neither does the length of time I have to wait by the car as Mom stands in the lobby finishing her phone call. By the time she comes out to the car, I’m fuming.

  Mom acts like nothing happened.

  I get in the car and slam my door. “So are you going to tell me what these Lara Laws are about, or am I supposed to find out by watching Nightline?”

  M
om starts the car and backs out of the space like I haven’t even spoken. It strikes me that maybe there’s a good reason I feel like I don’t matter. Note to Linda …

  “Earth to Mother? Why are you using my name without my permission? I have a right to know what this is all about.”

  “I’ll tell you what this is all about,” Mom says, her voice calm and even. “It’s about helping you and other kids like you. It’s about making sure that if any adult is as sick as Mary Jo Connors, there are legal ramifications to make sure she ends up behind bars.”

  Mom says this is about me, but it isn’t. It’s about her. If it were about me, she would have told me sooner. I would have been a part of it. Instead I’m just the convenient excuse for her next political project.

  “Call it something else,” I say. “I don’t want it named after me.”

  The only sign Mom gives that I’ve pissed her off is how tightly her hands clench the steering wheel.

  “What else would we call it?” she asks.

  “How about the Psycho Parents Law?” I suggest.

  My mother is not amused.

  “I’m doing everything I know how to help you, Lara. It would be nice to have a little appreciation once in a while,” Mom snaps.

  “If this is really about helping me, how come you didn’t ask my opinion first?” I say. “Why didn’t you even tell me about it?”

  Mom doesn’t respond right away. Her eyes remain on the road ahead; her lips are tightly compressed. In my imagination, I can hear the cogs of her brain working, coming up with the way to frame this that she thinks will play best to the angry-teen-daughter constituent.

  “Lara, honey, you’ve been in a fragile state since your … hospitalization. We’ve been trying to protect you. The last thing Daddy or I want to do is cause you more anxiety when you’re in such a delicate state of mind.”

  “Really, Mom? You thought that using my name for some new law you want to get passed without asking me about it was going to help my delicate state of mind?”