by Stacie Ramey
“Than John Strickland, who is suddenly your favorite person and also probably the reason you’re getting high and taking pills. You’re changing, Allie. This isn’t like you.”
Is she kidding? Of course I’ve changed. My sister killed herself. Did she think I’d still be the same after that?
I lean my head against the window. Why won’t Nick let me talk to him? Why won’t he give me the chance? I get so dizzy with all this that I have to close my eyes. I pretend I’m somewhere happy. Like our house on Cape Cod when Dad and Mom still liked each other.
A text comes in. I jump.
John Strickland, not Nick.
Found the guy who sent the pics. He’s on the baseball team with Nick.
What are you going to do?
Make him pay.
I lean my head back and smile. Good, I text. Let him pay. Let everyone pay. I’m sick of being the only one.
“Is that Nick?” Emery asks.
“No.”
“You seem sort of out of it. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say again, even though each minute I spend with Emery makes me feel like I’m suffocating. Plus it’s getting harder to keep it all from her. The lies are exhausting. Part of me wants to tell her the truth. But that’s the weak part. Another part whispers that she’ll never understand. That she’ll ditch me when she sees how broken and stupid I am.
“Just gonna be a minute,” Emery says. She gets out of the car and pulls her hood up against the rain that’s starting. She disappears into Walgreens.
I settle into my seat and try to get those colors back, the Cape Cod colors. But every time I try to tune them in, they slip through my fingers.
My phone vibrates.
R we over? Nick.
I look at the text, run my fingers over it. He’s the one who wouldn’t talk to me. He’s the one who got mad without even finding out my side of the story. I stare at it. What should I do? I delete it.
The phone rings. It’s him. I want to answer. I do. But my mouth feels all weird and like I’ve been to the dentist. I don’t want him to hear me this way.
“Don’t answer it.” Leah comes to me—too late.
“Hi.” My voice is low and gravelly with the tiniest slur. “I just want to talk to you.”
“You sound like Mom!” Leah yells.
I cover the phone with my hand so Nick won’t hear her—and hang up on him by accident. I try to call him back, but my fingers feel impossibly big and can’t work the buttons. I put the phone down. It’s no use.
The phone rings. It’s him again. I push the button to answer.
“Hi,” I breathe again.
“You sound drunk. What’s going on with you?”
“I’m just…”
“Call me when you can make sense,” Nick says. And then he’s gone.
“Leah?” I have a question I want to ask her, even more pressing than why she did it. I know Leah will tell me the truth. “Do I keep going after the wrong guys?”
Her eyes get sad. “Maybe. But that’s kind of what everyone does. Until they go after the right ones.”
“Did you love John Strickland?”
Her face scrunches up. “Love makes you weak. I was never weak.”
Until she killed herself.
Lies. It hits me—Leah is lying. So stupid. Of course she is. She always did. She handed out little bits of truth wrapped in beautiful lies. She managed all the information. Even what she shared with me.
“I wanted you to look up to me,” she explains.
“I did. You didn’t have to lie.”
“You wouldn’t have understood.”
“You didn’t try.”
“I wanted you to think I was perfect. Picture perfect.”
“You didn’t have to pose for me. I didn’t need that.”
Leah’s face turns hard. “Oh no? You seemed to love it when I did. You lapped it up.”
I want to yell at her, but I see Emery walking back to the car. Leah follows my gaze. “Get ready for the crash,” she says, and I worry about her, because now her words are looping like a bad recording.
Emery opens the door and climbs back into the car, a little white bag in hand, her face pinched. I want to ask her what’s wrong, but I can’t. I’m exhausted.
We drive the rest of the way home without talking. Emery seems wigged, and I am just plain worn out. So is Leah. She rides in the backseat, her face cupped in her hand, her arm propped on the door. She looks as tired as I feel.
“Thanks,” I say to Emery when she drops me off.
“I miss you, Allie.” Emery looks like she’s about to cry.
I come back, lean in her window.
“We’ll talk soon. I just have a headache.” My usual excuse.
“Yeah. Feel better.” Emery waves as she pulls out of my driveway.
It occurs to me that I didn’t even ask what was in the bag. I need to be a better friend.
• • •
Max climbs in my window as soon as I open the door to my room. He must have been watching for me. I swallow hard. This can’t be good.
“Hi.” He looks at me, sheepish, like I caught him doing something bad. Did I?
“What’s up?” I ask, not really wanting to know. Knowing that this moment of suck, whatever it is, has been a long time coming.
“I need to talk to you.” He looks at the floor. Not at me. Max always looks at me. “I have to tell you I’m sorry. But you’re so mad all the time that I can’t get to you.”
“If I’m acting so bad, then why are you the one who’s sorry?”
I sit down in front of my computer and put my head in my hand. The room is spinning. His voice is echoing, bouncing off the walls. I need him to stop talking. I need it all to stop.
He kneels on the floor beside me. “You know how I feel about you,” he says.
I look at my hands that are trembling like Mom’s now. “Do I?”
His phone vibrates. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him pull it out of his pocket and look at it.
“Whatever, Max. Why don’t you go talk to whoever is texting you? Obviously they’re more important than me.”
“No one’s more important than you.” Tears slide out of his eyes. He braces his jaw. His hands go in his pockets. I’ve never seen Max actually cry. Whatever this is, it must be bad. “Oh God, Allie. She told you, didn’t she?”
“What?” My head swivels, my stomach is suddenly cold like I’ve swallowed a ball of ice. Cold blood runs through my veins. Max makes my heart beat. He can make it stop too. Why do I give him so much power? Leah was right. I’m stupid when it comes to him.
“Allie, it was nothing…” Max backs up, runs his hand through his hair. I stay silent. I know who he’s talking about—the only person who could hurt me more than Max. And now I bet I know what was in Emery’s drugstore bag.
“I thought she was on the pill,” I say. It’s a guess, but I hope I’m wrong.
“She was. I mean, she is. She was late, and she was worried.” Max looks at his hands. “I knew she’d tell you. I begged her not to. It was just that one time, and it didn’t mean anything.”
“When?”
He looks out the window. “Don’t, Allie, it’s not important.”
I stumble across the room and start hitting him. My fists sink into his flesh over and over again, making a sickening sound. I want to beat him till it hurts as much as he hurt me. Even though that’s not possible. I grab his arms and shake him. “Tell me,” I growl.
“That night.” He grabs my hands, tears running freely down his face now. “I’m so sorry.”
“What night?” I whisper even though I know.
“The night you went out with your sister.” The words come out almost unformed, like he doesn’t want to touch them, like they taste bad
in his mouth.
“She...she had an audition. She said she had an audition.”
“She did. I went with her. Eric was supposed to read, but he got sick.”
“Oh my God.” My hand is over my mouth. This can’t be happening. My legs buckle. I sit.
“It just sort of happened.” He follows me to the ground.
I’m in a tunnel.
“She called me. I went to help.” Max is still talking. I can hear the words, but none of it makes sense. Max and Emery. Together. “It was a rush to be up on stage like that. We went to a party after. We were drunk…”
Words float in and out of me. I am adrift.
“It was a mistake.”
“Is she?” I look at him.
“Pregnant? No. That was her just now. She did the test. It’s no.”
I nod. The tears pour out of me fast and furious.
“Allie.” He tries to put his hands on my face.
“Don’t.” I pull them off me.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t.” I get up.
“I… We…didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Whatever. You’re a free agent. So is she.” The words sound distant. Like they’re not mine. Max and Emery. Together. My world is ending.
“Don’t push me away. I didn’t mean it. I don’t love her like—”
I turn to face him, my face wet and hot. “Don’t. Don’t ever say that to me again.”
“Allie, please…”
“Get out of my room!” I point toward the door.
“Allie.”
“Don’t. Ever. Come. Back.”
“Okay, I’ll go. But I’m not giving up. You’ll forgive me. You will.”
The door closes, and I put my head in my hands and cry full-out. When I can’t cry anymore, I grab my purse. I pull out the baggie John Strickland gave me at that party and the one he gave me today at school.
“Let me help you pick. I know these,” Leah says.
She looks at me, her eyes now the exact same blue as mine. If I looked in the mirror, would I have her brown ones? Are we switching?
“God, I’m stupid,” I say, hoping she’ll disagree. Knowing she won’t.
“Your friends were stupid. You were just too trusting.” She rifles through the bag but must see me stare at her, because she says, “They’re not the same. I wouldn’t do that. I promised. These are powder blue. Baby blue. These won’t hurt you. I swear.”
I take the pill.
“I’ll get you water.”
I shake my head and swallow it dry. Don’t need any.
Leah lies back on the bed. “I hate people. They totally suck. You need to be more like I was.”
Before she killed herself.
“And I can’t believe they told you. I mean, what was the point? If I didn’t tell you, why would they?”
I sit straight up, despite the pills and the woozy and the numb. Somehow the message still gets through. The party. John Strickland’s. Had to be. “How could you?”
Leah sits up too. “What did I do?”
“You knew. You knew and didn’t tell me.”
Leah’s mouth gets firm, and her eyes turn to steel. Her jaw sets. “I couldn’t.”
“You didn’t.” For once, I match her.
“I was going through a lot.” Her voice is buzz-saw sharp.
I get off the bed. I need to get away from her. As far as I can. “How would I know? It’s not like you told me. You never told me the important things.”
“You’re too much. I killed myself. I killed myself. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I didn’t mean it the way it sounded…”
“It means everything to me. It’s the only thing I can think about. It’s ruining my life. And my art. It’s ruining me.”
“I didn’t mean…”
I stand. “Get out of here.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You heard me. I won’t leave. You invited me here. Now deal with me.”
“You said it was up to me. You said just when I wanted to see you.”
She laughs. “I lied. I’m here because you brought me here. Remember that.”
I look at her ring that I painted on my wall.
“Oh God, Allie. You can’t be that dense, can you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You think that’s why I’m here? That graffiti? Hardly.”
My head swims. My heart pounds. She can’t mean…
“The paintings…”
I feel as if she slapped me across the face. Why am I always the last to know? I walk down the stairs, unsteady and fighting the dizzy and the sick. Black-and-white photographs of Leah and I that run the length of our staircase blur by me. I pass through the empty living room, choking on my pain. Sophie circles my legs, almost tripping me. I grab the key chain from the hook in the kitchen, knocking a set of keys to the floor. The sound they make reminds me of the Cape memory—everything crashing down.
I push the door open, Sophie on my heels, trying to keep up, her tiny paws slipping on the cold ground. I know I should help her. I know I should protect her, but I can’t. The pain is screaming through my body. All I can think about is stopping the pain.
And the whole time I’m running, she’s with me. Leah. She’s my shadow, hugging me to her. I couldn’t shake her if I wanted to. I should have known. I’m so stupid about people. When I get to my studio, I try to jam the key in the lock but miss. I try again.
“Let me.” She grabs at the key.
I ignore her and shove it in the lock, twist, bump the door with my hip, and the two of us go flying inward. Once inside, I’m not sure I want to do this. Maybe I should go back upstairs, forget she said anything. Maybe I should just take another pill.
“You’re going to have to face it one day,” Leah says.
She’s right. Like always. I creep toward the paintings, most of them covered with sheets, looking like burial sheaths. Just one is uncovered and I wonder when that happened. Who uncovered my past? It’s the one with Leah in her ballet leotard. All black with pink tights. It was practically her uniform. So I tried to capture that mood.
“I’m so pink.” Her voice comes from that memory, not from her ghost. This one memory is real. Not summoned. Or imagined. “Is that how you see me?”
I move forward, my hands tracing the painting. Leah standing straight, her back to me, the simple lines of her neck and back, the outline of her profile. She looked so sweet. And soft. And pink. All kinds of pink. Innocence. Reverie. Blush. Bridal pink. That painting was supposed to be a summation of all the Leahs—past, present, and future. Except now she isn’t going to have one.
I move to the next canvas and pull the sheet down. It’s Leah sitting on my window seat, wearing Sean’s jersey over her skinny black jeans. I walk from one painting to the next, pulling the sheets off each of them.
Leah with Sophie in her lap, wearing her college-girl look, complete with violet glasses. I painted her hair shiny and honey blond with lowlights and highlights and everything so completely perfect, like she was. It’s so real, I can almost smell the mango shampoo.
Leah in her dance uniform ready for the pep rally. These pictures are exactly how ghost-Leah looked when she came to me. All of those times. So it must be true. She’s in my mind. Only in my mind. I was just remembering her. I sit down. I am crazy. Definitely.
Leah sits next to me. “Crazy runs in our family. You know that.”
“You’re not real?” I ask, hoping there’s another explanation.
“Of course I’m real. To you, I’m real.”
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” I put my hands to my head. Press in. I need to make this stop. It’s too much. I need
to make it stop.
“This was how you brought me back. So what? You’re grieving. It’s not that crazy. It’s not tragic crazy, kill-yourself crazy, like I was.”
“But we had a deal. We had a pact. It is the same.” I look at the pill bags in my hand.
Leah raises an eyebrow. “That’s a good point, Allie. You know what Dr. Applegate would say if she were here?”
I shake my head.
“She’d say you need to take your pills.” She takes the baggies from me and empties them into her palm.
I look at them and shake my head. “Not these. Not like this.”
Leah’s ghost that isn’t really a ghost but really just me says, “The blue ones mellow you out. Take two.”
I don’t want to, but that makes sense. Mom always took two. Should I? No one answers. Of course they don’t. Another test failed. I take two pills.
“You think I should take more? Is that the right thing?” I know it’s crazy to ask advice from a ghost. Especially my sister’s ghost. My eyes are swimmy and my mouth feels fuzzy. I’m not sure I could swallow more pills if I tried.
“It’s about the colors, Allie. And the pills. And the choices. Which bottle, which pill, which color, which guy? The red one gets you up. Do you want to get up? The blue one gets you down. You already seem pretty down, so I’m thinking red.”
I agree. At least I think I do. I’m not entirely sure. But honestly, why am I arguing? Leah’s always right. Isn’t she? Even imagined Leah?
“Good one, Al,” she says.
I’m funny. Leah thinks I’m funny. And that feeling spreads through me, warming me, making me feel as if everything is going to be okay. Even though I can barely focus my eyes or feel my lips or fingers or anything. If Numb was what I was aiming for, I totally nailed it.
“You ready for a yellow one? A red? What color do you want, Al? You’re the artist. What’s your color?”
I look at her. And then at my paintings. I look at the pills in her hand. And I realize I have no fucking idea what my color is. I’m an artist who doesn’t know her own palette. I start to laugh. Really laugh, because that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. I try to stand. My legs, guitar-string loose, won’t hold me. So I sit.
My phone rings. I try to look at the number, but my eyes won’t focus. I show it to Leah.