“I can put in other stuff,” Patrick said without turning away from the window. “Just tell me what you want.”
Both Mel and Caro shut up for about thirty seconds before wandering off again, their hands almost, but not quite, touching. I swear, I could practically see sparks flying around them. It was sweet in a nauseating way, and I couldn’t help but wonder why Mel had hooked up with Beth when it was so clear he liked Caro more.
“She told him Caro hated him.”
I glanced over at Patrick. He was looking at me.
“Beth did, I mean,” he said.
I laughed because of course she did. Classic Beth. She’d done that with me and Gus DePrio when we were in fifth grade and she’d decided he should be her boyfriend instead of mine. How stupid are guys that they fall for the same crap they did when we were ten?
Patrick’s mouth twitched at the corners, and then he was smiling. Really smiling, and suddenly I felt like I had to look away. But I couldn’t.
“Amy,” he said, and Patrick’s voice is—it’s different. It’s deep, this low rumble, but it’s not loud. He speaks so quietly, like everything is a secret. Like you’re the only person he wants listening. “About the other day and Julia’s locker—I know I disappeared when the bell rang.” He glanced away, looking back out the window. “I shouldn’t have done that. I just…my parents—my mother—she’s got so much to deal with already. But that’s not—I still should have stayed, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”
I shrugged and stared at the table. Him saying my name made me feel weird. Him saying Julia’s name made me feel weird. Him talking to me made me feel weird.
“Did it make you feel better, getting rid of everything people wanted to tell her?”
“What?” I looked at him. He wasn’t looking out the window anymore. He was looking at me.
“I didn’t—it wasn’t like that. Nothing anyone said was real. It was just stuff they thought they should say or that their friends said.”
As soon as I said it, I realized how stupid it sounded. How false. Lots of people knew Julia, liked her, and their missing her was real. I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to. I felt my face heat up.
“I did it for her.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. “Can you at least walk by her locker now?”
“Shut up,” I said, standing up and grabbing my stuff, and my voice sounded strange, crackly and raw. I walked out of the library, across campus, home. When I got there, I smiled and told my parents I’d had a great time.
I haven’t walked by Julia’s locker since I fixed it. I thought I’d be able to, but I can’t. I don’t…I don’t think what I did to it was for her. I think it was for me. But fixing her locker didn’t make me feel better. It didn’t make Julia being gone easier to bear.
144 days
J—
Laurie’s back. I saw her this afternoon. I wasn’t going to say anything about her dad, but she looked really tired and sad and I felt…well, I actually felt sorry for her.
“I hope your father’s okay,” I said as I sat down, and she said, “He’s much better, thank you.” When I looked at her she looked back at me steadily, and I saw that although her father might be better now, he wouldn’t be for long, and before I knew it, I’d told her everything about the day I visited the cemetery. Even the stuff about your mom.
“It sounds like it was very intense.”
I nodded.
“What about the things she said to you?”
I shrugged.
“Do you think Julia would say them?”
“No. She wasn’t like that. She would never—forget it.” Typical Laurie not getting it, not seeing who you were. “There’s some other stuff I have to tell you too.”
I told her what I’d realized that night, about how drinking was my choice. It felt so great to finally tell her, to point out something she hadn’t seen, but do you know what she said?
“Good.”
That was it? Good? “But you said—you asked me all that stuff about Julia and me. You implied things.”
“Did I?”
I glared at her.
“Let me ask you something,” she said. “What do you think choice means in terms of everything we’ve been discussing here?”
“What do you mean?”
She clicked her pen. “You made choices. Presumably Julia did too, right?”
“Duh.”
“Did she ever make ones that you didn’t agree with? Or that hurt you?”
I looked down. My hands were knotted into fists on my lap. I forced them to relax. I stared at my fingers.
I thought about that time right after you got your car. The night we were supposed to go to Kenny Madden’s party. I didn’t want to go. I just wanted a break from it all, you know? Even when I drank I sometimes still felt too tall and stupid and too…me at parties.
You said, “Fine, it’ll probably suck anyway,” even though we both knew if you went you could hook up with a very hot senior who’d called earlier to make sure you were going. We stayed at your house and watched DVDs. You made fudge, and when your mother came home she didn’t even bitch about the melted chocolate that had hardened on the counter, just laughed and said she’d clean it up in the morning. It was so much fun. I had so much fun.
I thought you did too.
But you didn’t, I know you didn’t, because after I fell asleep, you snuck out your window. You came back in the morning after your mom had already gotten up, walked in as I was trying to edge out your front door and away from your mom’s furious face and accusations.
“Tell her I didn’t do anything,” I said to you. “Tell her I didn’t even know you’d left.”
“Where the hell were you?” your mother said. “Do you know how worried I was? Do you know how I felt when I looked in your room and you weren’t there?”
“Whatever,” you said, tossing your jacket on a chair and heading upstairs. “I’m so sick of you not wanting me to have any fun.”
I never knew which one of us you were talking to.
I sat in silence till Laurie told me I could go.
NINETEEN
CARO CALLED the day after we went to the university library. I wondered why until I picked up the phone and she said, “Have you done the research you said you would yet?”
“I’m working on it,” I said, and watched Mom, who’d answered the phone, wave at me and mouth, “I’ll give you some privacy,” before leaving the room, a huge smile on her face.
“Okay, good,” Caro said. “It’s just that you left kind of early, and Patrick basically bolted the second Mel and I came back again, so I was thinking that maybe you hadn’t…” She trailed off. I stared at the ceiling and told myself I wasn’t thinking about what Patrick had said to me.
“I guess I’d better go,” she finally said, and we hung up. Mom came in a few minutes later, still smiling. I said, “It was just someone about an English project,” before she could say anything, and then went back to doing my homework.
I could feel Mom watching me for a while, but she didn’t say anything.
Caro called again, and it was a repeat of before with Mom’s reaction, but after a few more calls—all the same, all about the presentation—Mom seemed to realize that my social life wasn’t about to change. I thought I’d be glad that Mom stopped looking so hopeful every time she called me to the phone, but I sort of missed her smiling like she knew something good was going to happen and that she wanted it for me.
Then Caro called last night, completely frantic about our presentation.
“Hi,” she said, when I picked up the phone. “Do you have any ideas about the role of the Mississippi in Huck Finn?”
“Well, since it was only all we talked about in class today, nope.”
“Oh crap, it was all we talked about today. I’m an obsessive freak, aren’t I?” she said, and laughed.
The laugh surprised me. I spent my days surrounded by people who were completely u
nable to relax about anything even remotely school related, but Caro—at least Caro could laugh about it.
“Nah. A real obsessive wouldn’t have bothered saying hi first,” I said.
She laughed again. “Hey, I—I have to go to Millertown tomorrow afternoon to pick up something for my dad. Mom won’t let me drive to school, so I have to go home and get the car before I can go. It’s such a pain. Do you maybe want to meet me at my house and come with?”
“What?”
“Never mind,” she said hastily. “I was just—it was a stupid idea. I’ve got a lot of homework so—”
“I’ll go.” I don’t know why I said it, but I did.
Mom and Dad were so happy when I told them I was doing something with someone after school that I was afraid they might explode.
Then Dad said, “Who’s Caro again?”
“I’m doing this thing, this presentation in English, with her,” I said. “And you guys know her. She used to come over all the time when I was little.”
“Oh, Caro,” Mom said, and Dad nodded, but I knew neither of them remembered her.
“Well, that’s great,” Dad said. “I guess you won’t need me to pick you up tomorrow.”
“No, I will. You have to drive me to her house because Caro can’t let anyone see me and her hanging out at school.”
“I’m sure that’s not the case,” Dad said in a too-hearty voice that made even him look like he wanted to wince.
“Your father can drop you off,” Mom said, and then changed the subject to the latest company Dad was trying to work with, putting her hand on top of his. I figured that meant all the phone calls that hadn’t led to a glittering social life let her see this wasn’t a big deal.
As usual, I was wrong.
When I got home tonight, Mom was waiting for me, and as soon as I came in she said, “So, how was it? Did you have fun?”
I shrugged.
“What did you do?”
I looked at her. “We drove to Millertown. We picked up a bowling trophy for her dad, and then we got cheese fries. Then she drove me home, and here I am. Now I’m going to go work on the presentation we have to do tomorrow.”
I walked off before she could say anything else. I didn’t want to talk about the afternoon with her. I just—I don’t know.
It was fun. I had fun. The trophy me and Caro picked up—it was unbelievable. It was almost as tall as I am, and on top there was a guy standing with his arms in a victory V, one hand holding a bowling ball. We started laughing as soon as we saw it, and when we were eating our fries, she said, “Mom’s already made my dad swear to keep it in the basement,” and then imitated them arguing about it. I laughed so hard my sides hurt.
We didn’t talk about school, we didn’t even talk about Beth or Mel. We just…we just got a stupid trophy and ate fries, nothing really, but the whole time I didn’t feel as bad as I usually do. I didn’t hate myself so much.
Mom didn’t quit, though. She came up to my room a few minutes later and said, “Well, I think it’s great you went out. And you know what? I was thinking that this weekend we could go to Oasis and get our hair cut. Maybe we could even go to their spa, make a day of it.”
“I’m growing my hair out.” Julia always cut my hair. She was really good at it, and I know she would have had her own salon by the time she was twenty, just like she always said, and it would have been way better than Oasis. (Even if I never have been there.)
“Oh. Well, maybe we could go to the mall or something instead.”
“I don’t think I can. And look, I have a lot of homework, and the presentation is tomorrow, like I said, and I ate already, so I—you know. I need to focus.”
Mom didn’t do anything for a moment, and then she nodded and left.
I thought maybe Mom would come back and ask me to do something with her again, but she didn’t. I went downstairs later to get a soda, and she and Dad were sitting at the kitchen table, holding hands and talking. They didn’t even look up when I came in. They didn’t seem to notice me at all. Totally familiar territory, and exactly what I wanted. It just didn’t feel as great as I wanted it to.
I know things will go back to normal after tomorrow. Caro won’t talk to me after the presentation, and it looks like things are getting back to how they were with Mom and Dad. It’s good. It’s all really good. It’ll all be like it was. Like I deserve.
But then why…
Why do I feel so bad?
TWENTY
MEL AND CARO ended up doing all of the talking during our presentation, which was fine with me. I hadn’t thought about what a class presentation really meant. How it was a whole standing-in-front-of-an-entire-room-of-people (annoying people, but still) thing. It was like being at a party, only worse because it was school, I wasn’t drunk, and Julia wasn’t there.
If there was a way I could have bolted out of class and gone and gotten a drink, I would have.
I suppose I could have. I could have walked out of class, out of school, and found a drink. But I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. I was too scared to move. I stood there, too tall, too quiet, tugging at the ends of my too-red hair, and missed J so much it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
If Julia had been there, I could have gotten through today okay. Safely.
We were the last group to go, and when the bell rang Mel was still talking. Gladwell said, “Thank you all for a wonderful presentation,” raising an eyebrow at me because I hadn’t said a word the whole time. (But she didn’t give Patrick the eyebrow. Apparently clicking a mouse counts as talking.)
Everyone left except us and the other two groups that had spoken. Of course they got their grades first. Caro disappeared into the hall before we got ours, though, because Beth gave her a look, and so me and Patrick and Mel were left standing there.
“You know,” Mel said, “I thought about you when I was talking about Huck and Jim’s friendship.”
I (stupidly) nodded, figuring Mel was about to head off into one of his tangents where he asked me if I liked tacos or something, but instead he said, “You must really miss Julia. I mean, you never talk about her or anything, which is kind of weird, but I can just tell you do. I talked to her at parties a couple of times, you know. She had a great laugh. I remember this one time—” He kept talking and I thought about taking my copy of Huckleberry Finn and stuffing it in his mouth so he’d shut up.
I could actually see myself doing it. I wanted to do it.
I wanted to do it so badly it scared me.
Patrick cleared his throat. I looked at him, surprised. He looked away, of course. Mel glanced at him too but kept talking to me. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think Julia would have wanted you to be so sad.”
I forced myself to nod. A few conversations at a party and Mel was qualified to tell me what Julia wanted? It was like being in freaking Pinewood or talking to stupid Laurie, where everyone was so sure they knew J and what she thought about her life and me even though they’d never met her.
“See, the thing about grief is—” Mel said, and Patrick shifted the laptop he was carrying, his elbow clipping Mel’s side.
“Sorry,” Patrick said. “Hey, can you go grab the CDs? I left them on the bookshelf in the back. I would get them, but I have to put all this stuff away before my next class.”
“Sure,” Mel said and patted my arm before he turned away.
“Thanks,” I told Patrick, and I meant it. I thought he understood, and it was nice that someone knew that people telling you what you should feel sucks.
“Sure. The anger will go away, you know. Mostly, anyway.”
“What?” That wasn’t understanding at all, and I felt so stupid for thinking, even for a second, that someone could really get how I felt. It pissed me off.
He took a step back. “Never mind.”
“No, go on. You were going to, what? Tell me I’m not sad, I’m angry at myself? Wow, you’re a genius. Congratulations on observing the obvious!”
&nb
sp; “You know what I mean,” Patrick muttered.
“Whatever.” I started to walk away. Hearing my grade could wait. I just wanted to get out of there.
“You’re angry at her,” he said. “At Julia.”
I kept walking like I didn’t hear him. But I did.
I should have just left it at that, but I had to sit through lunch and the rest of my classes, and even though I ignored Patrick I knew he was there. I saw him sitting in physics with both hands clamped to his lab table like they were bolted to it. He got up and left when we still had twenty minutes to go, saying he had to use the bathroom and never coming back.
And did anything happen to him? Did the teacher realize he was gone and report him? Of course not.
I got mad then. I got really mad. It was okay for him to leave class early, because he was smart and not a freak like me? It was okay for him to skulk around hallways and not talk during class presentations? But me not wanting to talk about Julia with the losers I’m stuck seeing in class?
Well, something must be wrong with me, and I shouldn’t be so sad. But wait! I’m not sad, I’m mad at Julia!
I raised my hand and asked to go to the nurse’s office. I told the nurse I had cramps. She let me lie down and went off to gossip with the secretaries. I used her phone to call Dad. He was on a conference call, but his secretary put me through.
I told him he didn’t need to pick me up. I said I was going to the library. I said I was going with Caro. I said she was going to give me a ride home. He said, “That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” and sounded so happy. The “sweetheart” didn’t even sound forced.
I should have called him back and said I’d changed my mind or something. Should have, should have, should have. Instead I flipped through the school directory in the nurse’s desk and wrote down an address. Patrick lives in Meadow Hills, over by the golf course.
I took the bus there. His house looked like every other one on the street, white with big columns and a stained glass window over the front door. A woman shouted, “Come in!” when I knocked.
I didn’t see anyone when I walked inside, but there was a television on in the room right in front of me, and past that I could see a kitchen with the fake marble linoleum Julia’s mom always wanted. (And Julia was right, it looks horrible.)
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