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Friday, November 30, 2007
November 30th: And I'm just dreaming, counting the ways to where you are
Saturday, December 27th, 1:14 PM
“Pookie...”
“Leave it.”
She sighs. Reaches over to turn up the heat. Adjusts her grip on the steering wheel. “Life sucks. It’s a bitch. Really. I...”
“Can we just go home?” I rest my head on the window. Close my eyes. I want this day to be over. I want this year to be over.
“You have to talk about it,” she says quietly. “Pookie, Jesus, just... Swallow your damn pride for ten seconds. When you talked about her earlier... I...”
“Josephine.”
She sighs. “I know. You don’t want to talk about it. I get it. But Pookie, you... You seem dead, all the time. And then when you talk about her, you’re alive. Or something. And I know it sounds cheesy and cliché but you need to talk.” She drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “Trust me,” she adds, her voice soft, barely audible over the heat.
We drive in silence. It’s not that I don’t want to talk. I just don’t know what to say. It all would sound ridiculous. How in love with her I was. She made me want to write songs, run marathons, run for president, fly.... I could have done any of it, though I’d never done anything approaching any of it before. But she made me that guy. The guy who actually flosses. Who remembers that she only likes orange and yellow bell peppers, not the red and green. Who rents the romantic comedy over the action movie because that’s what she’d want to watch. I was that guy. But it seemed like she didn’t notice. Or at least like bell peppers and dental hygiene and impossible ambitions weren’t enough to make her love me back. And then....
“I did everything right. Because I wanted her to see that I was perfect. That she couldn’t find a better man. That the elusive guy she’d been looking for since she knew she was supposed to look was right there under her nose. When she said she liked a band, I downloaded all their songs. When she said she’d always wanted to learn to play the guitar, I sat down and taught her her all the chords I knew, even though I had a paper due the next day. When she was around me, I was different. I wasn’t the guy who got kicked out of his house for beating the shit out of some freak in his own home. I wasn’t the guy who sat around all day worrying about his sisters. I was smart, and I was funny, and even when I wasn’t she put up with me, even when I drove her crazy she stuck around and...”
“And she was madly in love with you.”
I sigh. My breath fogs up the window. I close my eyes. “I just... I didn’t ever see it. She was always mad at me for something. Always frowning. She was miserable. I made her miserable. And she would just be sitting there, doing her homework or something, in sweats with her hair all dirty and messed up, and I would just stare at her and wonder why the hell she didn’t want to stare at me. And now... I thought she killed herself. I thought... I thought she... And she was happy? She was never happy. She thought her father had killed her mother, she slept around, she never really let anybody get to know her, and then she tells me she loves me and suddenly she’s sending out text messages with lame emoticons and exclamation points for god’s sake, and she’s soaring on this adrenaline high and then she dies? Then? Why are we stuck in a Lifetime movie? Where the hell is Meredith Baxter Birney?”
She snorts. “This year does feel like it’s just been crazy.”
“I know.”
“Just one thing after the other. It never fucking stops. We’re too young to feel like this, you know? We’re just kids. I mean, look how fucked up we are. I’ve got these hideous scars on my arms and you’ve got those ridiculous casts on yours, and we’re both emotional wrecks, and the personal tragedies and the sister in the hospital and...”
“It’s just too much.”
“Right. I mean, we’re fucking kids. I just... I don’t get it. We shouldn’t have anything big to worry about. We should be thinking about who we’re going to go to prom with in five months and whether any of the colleges we applied to will actually take our sorry asses in. Those should be our big worries. And here we are... And I don’t even know what just happened. And I don’t mean today, I mean... This year. I went to some stupid summer party and now...”
I bite my lip. “Yeah.”
“Look, I know I’ve been... Tough. I guess... I understood that you’d had a really rough time up here, that someone had died, all that, but... I guess, just...”
“I know.”
She sighs. “I just... I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel like an idiot. Everyone treats me like I’m this whining little bitch on the edge of a breakdown. Everyone at school looks at me like I’m crazy. I’m not the big news anymore, or anything, but... And then... He’s in my calculus class. I don’t... I suck at math. I suck at math. And then he’s there, staring at me, and even when he’s not it feels like he is, and I can’t concentrate, and I already suck at math, and... And he’s dating your ex-girlfriend. It just seems so wrong. Like, he’s the bad guy, I’m the good guy – I’m supposed to win. And I’m not winning, Pookie. My life sucks. It sucks. And he’s the one... Why doesn’t his life suck?”
“I don’t know.”
It doesn’t make any sense, really. How these insane coincidences and tragedies have come to define our lives. We used to be so lucky. I mean, of course we had our problems. We hardly celebrated when our father walked out, weren’t thanking any deities when Mom suddenly couldn’t sleep anymore. But we always got by. And then... Helen wets the bed and has terrible nightmares. Virginia is still in precarious condition and has barely even started to cope emotionally with all of this shit. Josephine is fresh out of a psychiatric facility after a botched suicide attempt and is still not unconvinced that the entire world is against her. My mother hasn’t slept in nine years and probably won’t for nine more, and she gets thinner and more desperate by the minute, watching us all fall apart. And then there’s me. Beating up guys while their families watch, completely irrational, falling in love with girls in faraway lands who do nothing to help my sanity and eventually break my heart. When did this happen to us? We used to be happy, all things considered. There were no skeletons in our closets, no bloodstains on our carpets. It still rained, but there were never hurricanes. It hasn’t even been six months since that changed, but already that mythical world – one of sisters who don’t cry when they think you’re not looking and girls who don’t die just before they can steal your heart – seems years away. We were just kids then. I don’t know who we are now.
* * *
Wednesday, December 3rd, 12:01 PM
“He didn’t even know her.”
Lindsay bit into her apple with a violence usually reserved for brutal stabbings. “He’s a jerk.”
“They all are. Jesus. They didn’t even talk to her. This is insane.”
Emma shrugged. “I don’t see why it’s such a big deal.”
Max, Lia, and I simultaneously turned to stare at her. “Are you kidding me?” Max asked, picking the crust off his sandwich.
Emma rolled her eyes. “Jesus. You people are so melodramatic. So what if people are upset? Someone they know is dead. Let them be sad.”
“They didn’t even know her!” Lindsay exclaimed, looking disgusted. “God, Emma, just because you’re a fake bitch doesn’t mean everyone else should be.”
Emma took a long sip of her water. “Yeah. I’m the bitch.”
“You are,” Max agreed, shrugging. Emma glared at him. “What, you want me to lie? This is fucking ridiculous. Everybody and his mother is weeping into their Lucky Charms over her and they barely even know who she was.”
“I don’t see why you people have to be so possessive.” Emma rolled her eyes. “We grew up in this tiny town. Everybody knew her. They can be sad if they so fucking please.”
“Emma, they’re organizing prayer services,” I spat, cracking my knuckles in rapid succession. “Her crash site is covered in flowers. She would have hated it. But they don’t know that, because they have no idea who she is.”
“Neither do you.”
I glanced over at Lia, who stared down at her lap, her eyes red-rimmed. She’d been crying for three days. “Excuse me?”
She looked up. Her gaze was steely. “You’ve been here for like, three months, Kennedy. Just because you were sleeping with her didn’t mean you knew her.”
I stared at her, incredulous. “Seriously? Seriously? We were... You...”
“I’ve known her since we were born. Same month, two weeks and three days apart. I bet you don’t even know what month it is, do you?”
I looked back at the others. Max gave me a helpless look. Lindsay’s eyes were wide. Emma chewed nonchalantly, pretending not to look at me.
“What, so because I don’t know when she was born, I don’t know her? She told me --”
“No,” Lia cut me off. “No. She didn’t tell you anything special. Do you... Do you really think... Kennedy, I was there. When the shit hit the fan. Not eight years later. I had to take care of her then. Don’t come in here and pretend that you’re some amazing person with a unique and fantastic perspective on Poppy Law. You barely knew her. Just because you got a different copy of the book than everyone else doesn’t mean yours is the unabridged.”
“What the fuck, Lia? She... You barely talked to her. She was always with me. And she was miserable. What’s the point in pretending that this was an accident? That’s fucking ridiculous!”
“You didn’t know her. God, Kennedy, are you stupid?”
“She sent me a text message that said she was sorry. And she loved me. She didn’t. You know she didn’t. She said it because she was about to drive off the side of the road and wanted me to feel warm and fuzzy inside.”
Lia shook her head, glaring at me, her eyes ablaze. “You don’t understand her, Kennedy. Why the... Why is that so hard for you to wrap your head around? It’s... You didn’t know her. She wasn’t sad. She just...”
“You know what, fuck it. Fuck it, Lia. I don’t care if you don’t like me. What the fuck ever. But don’t be some jealous bitch about it.”
“I’m the jealous bitch?” She stared at me, mouth agape. “Kennedy, ever since you moved here you’ve acted like your mission in life is to steal her away from the world. Like you know everything about her and nobody else has a clue. I get that you were in love with her, and your mind was all hazy and stupid, but you’ve been an ass. And this... Talking about her like that when she’s... When she’s dead? Like you’re certain that she was some miserable loner who was hopeless and god knows since she didn’t have you to talk to with your stupid, petty fighting she had no one to talk to about her pathetic existence... Who the hell do you think you are, Kennedy? You don’t even belong here. You don’t even know her birthday. You... You...” She shook her head, chewing on her lower lip, her hands trembling with rage. “Screw you. Just... Jesus.”
“You know what? I’m done.” I stood, grabbing my trash and balling it up angrily in my fist. “Fuck you. You want to act like it was an accident, fine. You want to act like she had nothing to be sad about, fine. You want to act like the two of you were super BFFs, fine. Fuck you, Lia. I’m done.”
My breath shook as I stormed over the grass. No one said a word as I walked away. I shoved my garbage into a trash can and slammed my way into the school, my footsteps echoing in the otherwise silent hallway.
I sank down, my back against the lockers, and buried my head in my hands. Fuck it. She made me want to doubt myself. But I was so damn sure. She’d done it. She had to have done it. She was so... She was so sad. She was. It wasn’t something I’d imagined. I didn’t understand her. Lia was right. But I understood that much. She felt hopeless. I recognized that. Maybe because I was looking for it, because I knew what to look for, after Josephine, but... I just knew. She had killed herself. There had never been any question in my mind.
I sat there, not moving, elbows resting on my knees, forearms sheltering my head. I was ready for a hurricane.
But I was not ready for Lia, storming through the door and down the hall, sobbing and gasping for air.
I didn’t look up. I knew it was her. She stopped in front of me. I could feel her staring down at me. Still, I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see the grief behind her eyes. She believed she was right, just as much as I did. She had loved Poppy. Maybe more than I had. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to look at that. That raw, mournful conviction. It would be too much like looking in a mirror. And I was the last person I wanted to see right then.
“You have known her for four months. I have known her for seventeen years. You have heard what she’s wanted you to hear, the glossed over version that makes everything sound perfectly tragic and makes her some screwed up hero. I heard her crying on the phone when we were eight and her father picked her mother up and tossed her down the stairs. When we were nine and he picked up a lamp and beat her mother over the head. You fell in love with her because she was pretty and horny and she seemed appropriately tortured and savable. I loved her because I had to, because I didn’t know how not to, because even on her worst days she was practically my sister and you forgive family for being mopey and stupid and slutty because you know they’d do the same for you. And you think you know what you’re talking about when you say that she was miserable, but you’re only looking at bits and pieces. She was sleeping with you. Congratulations. She slept with everybody. She only had one best friend. And it wasn’t you. So you know what, Kennedy?” She was gasping for breath between sentences, her voice shaking. “Fuck you. Go home. It’s over. Go the fuck home.”
Her footsteps echoed down the hall. I kept my head down. Struggling to think. I knew then, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to. She was right. Not about Poppy. But that it was time.
I needed to go home.
* * *
Tuesday, December 30th, 10:12 PM
“Pookie?”
“Yeah?” I look up from my book, sticking my fingertips between the pages to mark my spot.
Josephine bit her lip and stared at the ground self-consciously. “I’m about to say something, and then you can tell me if you think it’s ridiculous and stupid and I shouldn’t, okay?”
“O... Okay?”
She inhales deeply. “I think I’m going to go to Laura Janken’s New Years party.”
I nod slowly, focusing my eyes on the floor. “Are you sure you’re... Going to be okay?”
“I... I don’t know.” She sighs, shutting the door behind her, leaning against the wall. “I just... My therapist thinks I should. I’ve hardly done anything in ages. It’s just... It’s a party. A party. With drunk teenagers and sweaty people and dancing and... I just...”
“If you’re not ready, don’t go.”
“But I think I am.” She sighs. “I just... I don’t know. I mean, I’m kind of afraid to go, but at the same time, I want to. I’m tired of this. I’m tired of sitting at home all the time. I just...”
I nod. I understand in a way, though I’m not sure how fully. “You think you can handle it, but you’re terrified, and that doesn’t really help you out with knowing whether you should or not.”
“Right. I mean, just because I’m worried doesn’t mean I’m not... That I can’t. Right? I just... I want to feel... Safe. Or something.”
“I could go with you, if you wanted.”
She looks at me for a long moment, then shakes her head. “I think... I don’t want to do that to you, first of all. People are going to treat you like shit when you come back, Pookie. They... They don’t know, obviously. If they did... But... Anyway, I think... This is just one of those things I have to do on my own.”
“Right.”
She sighs. “I just... I’m scared. Is that ridiculous? It’s a party. I’ve been to dozens of them, I... Something bad only ever happened once. But I feel like I’m heading into a... A hurricane, or something. Some big, ugly natural disaster. I don’t know... It’s just...”
“It’s a lot.”
She nods.
“I think you want to go,” I said carefully, looking into her eyes.
“You think I should?”
I shrug. “I think you want to. And you’re trying to talk yourself into it. And that’s okay, you know. I mean... It could be a big step forward, but if you go and you’re not ready, it could be a huge step back. Just... There’s nothing wrong with standing still.”
She considers this for a second, then nods. “I do want to go, though,” she says quietly. “I... I’m so tired of the life I’m leading, you know? Like, I’m fine. I just... I forget how to act like it.”
“I know.”
She nods, chewing on the inside of her lip. “I... I just want to bring in the new year knowing that I’m better, you know? I want to put this whole... Everything... I want to put it all behind me. I’m tired of walking on eggshells, or whatever this is I’m doing. I’m just... I don’t want to be scared for the rest of my life, you know? Because after awhile... Even the people who know, they’ll just look at me like, I don’t know, shouldn’t you be over this by now? It’s been months. And I just... I want to be over it. And I know that’s a ridiculous thing to expect of myself, so I’m trying just to take it one step at a time, but... All the steps are terrifying. Are they supposed to be terrifying?”
“I think so.” I shoot her a tiny smile. She returns it, a tiny light shining behind her eyes.
“Hey, Pookie...”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” She bites her lip, nodding slowly. “I just... You’re the only person I feel like... Like I can talk to. About all this. I mean, that I’m not paying to listen.”
“I’m your brother.”
“So? Lots of people aren’t like this with their brothers. Most people I know barely know their siblings.”
I shrug. “Most people you know are missing out.”
She smiles, her eyes bright with what might be tears. “I think so, too.”
And for a second, she’s who she used to be. Wiser, humbler, a little worse for wear, but she has some sort of hope and life that I was sure she had lost.
Maybe someday I will regain mine, as well.
* * *
Wednesday, December 10th, 5:48 PM
“I want to go home.”
Nana dropped her fork. It clattered to her plate, a sound that echoed through the kitchen. “Ulysses. I really don’t think --”
“Nana, I’m done here. I can’t stay here. I can’t. I love you, but... I need to go home. I miss them. I love them. I... I need to be with them.”
She considered it for a moment, then shook her head slowly. “Ulysses, your mother told me not to even think of letting you go back until I was sure you were ready. And quite frankly, I’m just not --”
“I feel crazy here.” I set my fork down on my plate, meeting her eyes. “Nana, I... She was my best friend. And my girlfriend, kind of, and... I just need to go home. I can’t be here. I can’t. It was good that I came, it was, I... I needed it. But I’m okay. I’m as okay as I can be, and I just need to be with my family. My whole family. I’m... I need them.”
She looked down at her plate. Moved a grain of rice around with her knife. “You were in love with her, Ulysses. You’re just heartbroken. That doesn’t mean you’re better.”
I shook my head. “No, but... Look, I did something terrible. And I needed to come here. I’ve said that. I needed to come here. It probably saved me and a lot of other people a lot of heartache. But now... I need to go back there. It’s my home Nana. I just... I’m ready to start over, or something. I...” My voice trailed off. I didn’t know what else there was to say. Because all the things I was really feeling I couldn’t vocalize. That every time I looked at her house I wanted to grab a lamp and beat Tobias over the head with it, until he was bleeding and begging me to stop. That I wanted to grab Lia by the shoulders and shake her until she couldn’t see straight, until she understood what had happened the night that Poppy drove off the side of the road and never came back up. There were things I couldn’t say. Especially not after what I had done back home, months ago, to someone who had deserved it almost as much as Tobias did. Somehow, though I think Nana knew them anyway.
She looked at me sternly, her eyes boring into mine, then sighed heavily. “I will talk to your mother. I cannot promise that she will agree to have you come home. But... I will try.”
“Thank you,” I said softly, staring down at my plate.
“Ulysses.”
I looked up.
She shook her head slowly. “Running away can’t solve all your problems. They’ll follow you when you go.”
* * *
Wednesday, December 31st, 8:06 PM
“Gin.”
I sigh. “Well, I mean, when your arms are stuck at weird angles, it’s a bit of a handicap.”
She rolls her eyes. “Four games in a row ain’t the cast’s fault. Up for another?”
I shrug. “Whatever you want.”
She gathers up the deck and shuffles it once, then sets it on the table between us. “So Josiewent to her party.”
I nod. “Mom bought her a new dress and everything. I think she’ll be okay. Seriously. She’s... You know. She’s Josephine.”
“Has Helen been sleeping okay?” She fixes me with a critical eye. “I asked Mom, but I’m sure she would lie. Everything is always ‘fine’ with her. It’s always, ‘Oh, don’t worry sweetheart, it’s fine’. And if it’s not fine, it will be fine, or... You know.” She rolls her eyes. “Anyway. Seriously. How’s the baby?”
“She’s actually pretty okay. Wet her bed maybe once this week? I think? It’s really not that bad. I haven’t even been home very long and it seems like it’s less often.”
Virginia shrugs. “I wouldn’t read too much into it. She’s... I don’t know. Nine. They’re fickle. But I mean... I hope she is. Getting better and all.”
And I see it then. The Virginia I’ve known was in there all along. Before Josephine, she was a nightmare. It was all she could do to lower herself enough to talk to us. That ordeal brought her back to the family, a little bit at least. She worried about us, if nothing else. But since the accident she’s been completely different. I think it gave her the excuse to change and pass it off as not being an intentional shift. Moments like now, I think it might be here to stay. She seems willing to make an effort, at least. It’s more than we’ve ever gotten before.
“Mom sent the bracelet back. The one Dad sent me.”
I nod. “Is that what you wanted?”
She shrugs. “I... Kind of. I don’t know. I just... Why now? I know she called him when we crashed. She called him when Josie had to come here, so it kind of makes sense. Figures that she’d call him now, but not when she’s exhausted and working two jobs because he won’t send child support after he ditched her with four kids.” She rolls her eyes. “But... I think he just feels bad. Or something. Bad enough to buy me jewelry but not bad enough to call or keep pictures of me at his house, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“But I mean... I don’t want it. I think it was supposed to be an apology for not being here worrying with everybody else. In which case he should give one to you, too, and Josie, but... I don’t know. I mean, on some level, he was at least trying to be a dad, a little bit. It was something.”
“But still.”
She nods. “Yeah. But still. He’s a jerk and I don’t want his shit.”
I grin at her, rolling my eyes. “You just sounded so Divorce Court right then it was insane.”
“Yeah, well. Have you checked out the channels this thing gets?” She nodded toward the television in the corner of the room. “Jesus. Divorce Court is actually programming to look forward to.”
I grimace. “That’s pitiful.”
She laughs. “Yeah, kind of. You try being stuck in a bed for two weeks. Like, seriously. I’m barely even allowed to get up. Broken legs and fucked up lungs and whacked out brains apparently combine to make a kind of unstable walker. Who knew? But I am allowed to make supervised bathroom visits now, – seriously, the nurse walks me the four feet over to that door and the four feet back – so you might say I’m privileged.”
I roll my eyes. “Obviously. Dude, you can actually open doors without taking ten minutes to get a good grip on the handle. Jesus. You’re lucky.”
“Yeah. I mean, I can flip through the channels on the TV, too. So I have free choice between Judge Judy and Divorce Court and Montel. Plus some weird public access channel and this random station that’s always showing reruns of Julia Child’s old show.”
“You could be watching Julia Child and you’re watching Divorce Court?”
“Oh, I watched Julia for awhile. But god, that lady starts to grate the nerves after awhile. Her episode about crepes was mind numbing. I think it turned me against pastry for the rest of my life.”
“Mmm. Be nice to old Julia. She’s probably looking down on you from the heavens with a lightning bolt at the ready.”
“So Julia Child is like Zeus?”
“Right. Except the lightning bolt is made of horseradish and fettuchini noodles.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. They were the first foods I could think of.”
She rolls her eyes, laughing in spite of herself. “You’re a freak.”
“I know.”
She studies me for a moment, then sighs. “Is it wrong that even though all my friends are out getting drunk and acting like sluts, and when I eventually drag my broken ass off to school they’re all going to bitch about how much I missed out on, and all that.... That I kind of don’t mind not being there?”
“Seriously?”
She looks down at her lap, nodding slowly. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
“Yeah, well. I kind of feel the same way. Except I don’t think my friends will be saying much to me when I head back to school.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Not everybody hates you, you know.”
“For real?”
She rolls her eyes. “For real, dickface. I think visiting hours are almost over.”
I nod. “Yeah. A couple of minutes. Are you okay here? I mean, you’re kind of stuck and everything, but do you need anything?”
“No.” She eyes me for a few seconds, then drops her gaze. “Look, Pookie...”
“Yeah?”
She shrugs. “Nothing. I just... Thanks for coming.”
“Sure, kid.” I stand, attempt to shrug on my coat. I fail miserably. Things like that are hard when one of your shoulders can’t move and even your other arm is mostly useless.
Virginia sits up in bed. “You need help?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
We wrestle my coat on, not without some difficulty. Finally, I stand back, ready to face the winter cold, and look at her for a second. Her face is healing. She’ll never look exactly like she did before, but she’ll be fine. I think maybe we’ll all be fine. As fine as we can be.
She raises her eyebrows. “What? Are you alright?”
I nod. “Yeah. Alright. I’ll see you next year, kid.”
“Night, Pookie. Tell the baby hello. And Josie. And Mom, if she’s up.”
I nod. “Will do.”
“Okay.” She smiles tightly, then sighs, leaning back against her pillows with closed eyes.
I turn to leave.
“Look, Pookie...”
“Yeah?” I turn to face her, raising my eyebrows.
She bites her lip. “I am a bitchy teenage girl.”
“What?” I stare at her, brow furrowed. “No you’re --”
She laughs to herself, rolling her eyes. “You said it... Right before we crashed. That I was some bitchy teenage girl who only cared about herself. And I am a bitchy teenage girl.”
I shrug. “Sometimes.”
“But I don’t just care about me. I...” she swallows, takes a deep breath, and continues. “I care about you, too.”
And I know for sure now that Virginia is not the same person. But I’m more than okay with who she has become.
I just hope people can say the same for me.
*****
Wednesday, December 10th, 11:32 PM
I was drunk. I was drunk and it was dark out. And I was crazy inside. I didn’t know what to do. How to make them see. How to make them listen to me. They’d been blind to her when she was alive and they didn’t seem willing to open their eyes now that she was gone. I didn’t know what to do about it. So I drank.
When you’re inebriated, suddenly all sorts of things seem like good ideas. And maybe that’s how I ended up standing in front of Susie with a can of black spray paint at one o’clock in the morning, too angry to breathe right. Staring down at the can in my hands, concentrating with all the decision-making power I could muster. And then it faded into the anger, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
I pressed down on the nozzle and a jet of paint shot to the ground. I stepped back and stared up at Susie, the water tower that had inexplicably become as much a part of my misadventures as I myself had been, and pressed it down again. Slowly, carefully, I formed the letters, shaking with the cold and the liquor and the rage:
THERE WAS NO ACCIDENT
By the time anyone saw it, I was long gone. But I had made my mark on the town forever.
******
Thursday, January 1st, 2:01 AM
“Josephine?”
Her face is streaked with makeup. She throws her coat on the ground, slamming the door shut behind her, and slides down the door, her dress pooling around her.
I heave myself off the couch. “What’s wrong?”
She stares at me, then shakes her head. “I... It was a disaster. God, Pookie, it was a fucking disaster. I don’t... I’m so fucking stupid.”
“You’re not.”
She shakes her head. “No. No, I am. I thought that this year would be... That once midnight hit, it would be perfect, you know? And everything that happened last year would just vanish into thin air. And we’d be okay. All of us. But especially me, because I’m fucking selfish, but...” Her voice cracks. Tears are running down her cheeks. She looks so damn sad.
I crouch down next to her, biting my lip. “What happened?”
“I just... Nothing!” she wails, like that is the worst possibility. “Nothing happened, Pookie. That’s the problem.” She can barely speak. She’s sobbing now, clutching at my cast, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that it hurts.
“What do you mean?” I try to sound soothing, but I don’t think it’s working.
She shakes her head. “I just... It was midnight and it was going to be a new year and everyone looked so happy and then the ball dropped and everybody kissed and screamed and I was still sad. The year’s over, Pookie. I’m supposed to... It’s all supposed to be...” Her voice breaks again.
I sigh. “Josie...”
And we must look so crazy, right now. The boy with two casts, still stuck in his coat because he can’t get it off without help, crouching next to his sister, a crying mess in a long-sleeved black dress that looks at once beautiful and ridiculous, staring at her helplessly. I want to scoop her up and carry her up the stairs, lay her down on her bed, sit there with her staring until all the demons stop screaming inside of her head. But there’s no hope of that.
So I sit down instead. Scoot over until my back is against the wall next to the door, a safe distance away from her, but still close enough that she can grab my hand if she wants to, because I’m not going to tell her that it hurts. And she does, and it does, but it’s two in the morning and it’s a new year and she is still miserable. And I don’t know how to help her. It had never occurred to me that somewhere inside, she was still the eternal optimist she had been before. That she wasn’t entirely destroyed by what had happened. That there was still that shred of her left.
She grips my fingers and I let her. I cannot give her all the things she’s missing. I can’t quell the nightmares, can’t make the days seem shorter. I can’t make the new year bring the magical things she feels it has promised her. All I can do is sit here. Making sympathetic noises. Holding her hand.
* * *
Thursday, December 11th, 7:07 PM
It was snowing. A light snow, but enough to make driving a special kind of hell. Three hours. There were three hours of snowy highway between me and Jefferson, between Nana’s house and home. But the snow made everything take longer, and the journey lengthened by half an hour, and I was tired and upset and ready to be home. It had been months. I had barely spoken to my sisters, to my mother. I wanted to see them. Needed to see them. They were all that could make this grief, this rage in me fade.
Poppy had been everything, once upon a time. She was everything I wanted. Everything I needed. And I was in love with her. Desperately in love. I would have followed her anywhere. She meant everything to me, almost, although Lia was right. I barely knew her. I’d heard the parts of her past she had wanted me to know. She had left out the good moments. Had painted herself as despondent, miserable. And she had been. I was sure of it. But there was more to her than what she said. I knew it as well as anyone else, even if I wouldn’t tell them so. In a way, Poppy was still in love with the world. Even when she drove off the road, when her car burst into flames, when she breathed in the last burning, smoky gasp. There was something in the way she looked at you. Like even though she claimed to be emotionally dead, even though she said she didn’t love or hope or care, she really believed that you were going to do the right thing, in the end.
She was dead. I had loved her, and she was dead. It was the most overwhelming thing I could think of. It didn’t leave room for any other thoughts in my head, just blared over them with a megaphone blast. I had forgotten how to define myself without her. I had become “Poppy’s friend”. Who was I by myself? Just “that guy who went crazy on Brennan”? I didn’t want to be that guy. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to be.
I stared straight ahead, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. The driving was mindless – mile after mile, rolling listlessly over the slick highway, heat turned on full blast and the radio whispering Christmas carols in the background.
It seemed ridiculous, at that moment. That I had only been gone for four months. It felt like it had been years. I could remember it all so vividly. Every time she blinked was captured somewhere in my mind. I wanted to keep it all. It was such a frightening thought, forgetting. That someday, in my old age, I would struggle to remember her name. That someday it wouldn’t run through my head constantly. That I would have difficulty in recalling the lines of her face, the color of her eyes, what her hair looked like when she woke up in the morning.
Less than two weeks before, she had been alive. Breathing. Heart beating. Cheeks flushed. And she had looked at me, pulling up her jeans in the corner of the room, and grinned at me, her eyes laughing. “You’re cute when you’re sleepy.”
I’d rolled my bleary eyes at her. “I’m always cute. Especially when I’m half-naked.”
“That’s what you think.” And she’d wrinkled her nose at me, smiling a real smile, her hair glowing like a halo silhouetted against the light pouring in the window. And I had loved her then more than ever. That was how I wanted to remember her. Buttoning her jeans in the corner of my bedroom, looking young and naïve and happy. It only lasted for a minute, but it was the most damn beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. And that was how I wanted her to live on in my mind’s eye. Not some world-weary high school skank who drank to forget her problems and never really let anyone know her. Not the girl who turned the wheel when the road went straight, who sat motionless as the car plummeted, who died at war with the world. And not the girl who had hated that I loved her, who had rejected my affections with a coldness that chilled my blood. Just someone young and beautiful and happy. Someone who looked ready to take on the world, rather than run away from it. Someone I loved more than I understood. Someone who seemed like she would live forever, and certainly wouldn’t die three days later, because the girl standing there knew I couldn’t live without her. And she would never do anything to break my heart.
For months, it seemed like all that had been done. Josephine, sitting on her bed, staring at the ceiling, praying to the same god who had forsaken her, begging him for some relief. Virginia, standing in our front hall, eyes wide with fear -- What did you do, Pookie? Oh my God, what did you do?. My mother, pacing the floors, angry and sad and disappointed, always left out of the loop. Helen, screaming in the middle of the night, remembering things she shouldn’t have been able to imagine. Poppy, walking out my door, her shoulders slumped with the weight of my confessions. They had all broken my heart. Four long months of heartbreak. And I couldn’t take any more.
I pulled into my driveway without thinking. It was still automatic, a reflex, to drive through the streets of town in search of this place. It was dark, and my headlights glared against the siding. Angry yellow beams disrupting the suburban harmony. And though it was home, the house I had grown up in, had learned to walk in, had snuck into and out of, the place I had lived for seventeen years less four months, it felt hollow, somehow. A faint whisper of the place it had been then. I had forgotten more things about this place in those four months than I knew possible. It seemed smaller. Somehow dwarfed by that big yellow house three hours away, where the secret room had beckoned me in my youth and a tired, angry girl had done the same in my adolescence. It didn’t feel like home anymore, this squat little house with the one car garage and the outdated green siding. I wasn’t sure it ever would.
I sat in my car for a long time. Afraid to move. Afraid that when that door opened, it would reveal something profoundly changed. Sisters I didn’t recognize. A mother who barely remembered me. That it would all ring hollow, would seem like a memory or a dream more than a home. I had lost everything. I needed this place to be the same.
I climbed from the car with shaking legs and popped the trunk open. I grabbed two suitcases and a box. Things to keep my hands full, so I wouldn’t have to decide whether to hug or shake hands, so there would be some sort of barrier between me and the family I had hardly spoken to in months.
I walked up the path with a sense of dread. Almost turned back, almost drove those three hours in the snow back to Nana, back to Poppy, back home. Because it had become my home. I didn’t know what this place was, anymore. Just a house in the suburbs. Four kids, a tired woman, their demons.
I rang the bell.
There was a shuffling inside. She was waiting for me. I knew she would be. I hoped she would be, anyway, though a part of me thought she wouldn’t. Her face appeared in the window beside the door. Apprehensive. The key turned in the lock. The door pulled open.
“You’re home.”
“Pookie...”
“Leave it.”
She sighs. Reaches over to turn up the heat. Adjusts her grip on the steering wheel. “Life sucks. It’s a bitch. Really. I...”
“Can we just go home?” I rest my head on the window. Close my eyes. I want this day to be over. I want this year to be over.
“You have to talk about it,” she says quietly. “Pookie, Jesus, just... Swallow your damn pride for ten seconds. When you talked about her earlier... I...”
“Josephine.”
She sighs. “I know. You don’t want to talk about it. I get it. But Pookie, you... You seem dead, all the time. And then when you talk about her, you’re alive. Or something. And I know it sounds cheesy and cliché but you need to talk.” She drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “Trust me,” she adds, her voice soft, barely audible over the heat.
We drive in silence. It’s not that I don’t want to talk. I just don’t know what to say. It all would sound ridiculous. How in love with her I was. She made me want to write songs, run marathons, run for president, fly.... I could have done any of it, though I’d never done anything approaching any of it before. But she made me that guy. The guy who actually flosses. Who remembers that she only likes orange and yellow bell peppers, not the red and green. Who rents the romantic comedy over the action movie because that’s what she’d want to watch. I was that guy. But it seemed like she didn’t notice. Or at least like bell peppers and dental hygiene and impossible ambitions weren’t enough to make her love me back. And then....
“I did everything right. Because I wanted her to see that I was perfect. That she couldn’t find a better man. That the elusive guy she’d been looking for since she knew she was supposed to look was right there under her nose. When she said she liked a band, I downloaded all their songs. When she said she’d always wanted to learn to play the guitar, I sat down and taught her her all the chords I knew, even though I had a paper due the next day. When she was around me, I was different. I wasn’t the guy who got kicked out of his house for beating the shit out of some freak in his own home. I wasn’t the guy who sat around all day worrying about his sisters. I was smart, and I was funny, and even when I wasn’t she put up with me, even when I drove her crazy she stuck around and...”
“And she was madly in love with you.”
I sigh. My breath fogs up the window. I close my eyes. “I just... I didn’t ever see it. She was always mad at me for something. Always frowning. She was miserable. I made her miserable. And she would just be sitting there, doing her homework or something, in sweats with her hair all dirty and messed up, and I would just stare at her and wonder why the hell she didn’t want to stare at me. And now... I thought she killed herself. I thought... I thought she... And she was happy? She was never happy. She thought her father had killed her mother, she slept around, she never really let anybody get to know her, and then she tells me she loves me and suddenly she’s sending out text messages with lame emoticons and exclamation points for god’s sake, and she’s soaring on this adrenaline high and then she dies? Then? Why are we stuck in a Lifetime movie? Where the hell is Meredith Baxter Birney?”
She snorts. “This year does feel like it’s just been crazy.”
“I know.”
“Just one thing after the other. It never fucking stops. We’re too young to feel like this, you know? We’re just kids. I mean, look how fucked up we are. I’ve got these hideous scars on my arms and you’ve got those ridiculous casts on yours, and we’re both emotional wrecks, and the personal tragedies and the sister in the hospital and...”
“It’s just too much.”
“Right. I mean, we’re fucking kids. I just... I don’t get it. We shouldn’t have anything big to worry about. We should be thinking about who we’re going to go to prom with in five months and whether any of the colleges we applied to will actually take our sorry asses in. Those should be our big worries. And here we are... And I don’t even know what just happened. And I don’t mean today, I mean... This year. I went to some stupid summer party and now...”
I bite my lip. “Yeah.”
“Look, I know I’ve been... Tough. I guess... I understood that you’d had a really rough time up here, that someone had died, all that, but... I guess, just...”
“I know.”
She sighs. “I just... I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel like an idiot. Everyone treats me like I’m this whining little bitch on the edge of a breakdown. Everyone at school looks at me like I’m crazy. I’m not the big news anymore, or anything, but... And then... He’s in my calculus class. I don’t... I suck at math. I suck at math. And then he’s there, staring at me, and even when he’s not it feels like he is, and I can’t concentrate, and I already suck at math, and... And he’s dating your ex-girlfriend. It just seems so wrong. Like, he’s the bad guy, I’m the good guy – I’m supposed to win. And I’m not winning, Pookie. My life sucks. It sucks. And he’s the one... Why doesn’t his life suck?”
“I don’t know.”
It doesn’t make any sense, really. How these insane coincidences and tragedies have come to define our lives. We used to be so lucky. I mean, of course we had our problems. We hardly celebrated when our father walked out, weren’t thanking any deities when Mom suddenly couldn’t sleep anymore. But we always got by. And then... Helen wets the bed and has terrible nightmares. Virginia is still in precarious condition and has barely even started to cope emotionally with all of this shit. Josephine is fresh out of a psychiatric facility after a botched suicide attempt and is still not unconvinced that the entire world is against her. My mother hasn’t slept in nine years and probably won’t for nine more, and she gets thinner and more desperate by the minute, watching us all fall apart. And then there’s me. Beating up guys while their families watch, completely irrational, falling in love with girls in faraway lands who do nothing to help my sanity and eventually break my heart. When did this happen to us? We used to be happy, all things considered. There were no skeletons in our closets, no bloodstains on our carpets. It still rained, but there were never hurricanes. It hasn’t even been six months since that changed, but already that mythical world – one of sisters who don’t cry when they think you’re not looking and girls who don’t die just before they can steal your heart – seems years away. We were just kids then. I don’t know who we are now.
Wednesday, December 3rd, 12:01 PM
“He didn’t even know her.”
Lindsay bit into her apple with a violence usually reserved for brutal stabbings. “He’s a jerk.”
“They all are. Jesus. They didn’t even talk to her. This is insane.”
Emma shrugged. “I don’t see why it’s such a big deal.”
Max, Lia, and I simultaneously turned to stare at her. “Are you kidding me?” Max asked, picking the crust off his sandwich.
Emma rolled her eyes. “Jesus. You people are so melodramatic. So what if people are upset? Someone they know is dead. Let them be sad.”
“They didn’t even know her!” Lindsay exclaimed, looking disgusted. “God, Emma, just because you’re a fake bitch doesn’t mean everyone else should be.”
Emma took a long sip of her water. “Yeah. I’m the bitch.”
“You are,” Max agreed, shrugging. Emma glared at him. “What, you want me to lie? This is fucking ridiculous. Everybody and his mother is weeping into their Lucky Charms over her and they barely even know who she was.”
“I don’t see why you people have to be so possessive.” Emma rolled her eyes. “We grew up in this tiny town. Everybody knew her. They can be sad if they so fucking please.”
“Emma, they’re organizing prayer services,” I spat, cracking my knuckles in rapid succession. “Her crash site is covered in flowers. She would have hated it. But they don’t know that, because they have no idea who she is.”
“Neither do you.”
I glanced over at Lia, who stared down at her lap, her eyes red-rimmed. She’d been crying for three days. “Excuse me?”
She looked up. Her gaze was steely. “You’ve been here for like, three months, Kennedy. Just because you were sleeping with her didn’t mean you knew her.”
I stared at her, incredulous. “Seriously? Seriously? We were... You...”
“I’ve known her since we were born. Same month, two weeks and three days apart. I bet you don’t even know what month it is, do you?”
I looked back at the others. Max gave me a helpless look. Lindsay’s eyes were wide. Emma chewed nonchalantly, pretending not to look at me.
“What, so because I don’t know when she was born, I don’t know her? She told me --”
“No,” Lia cut me off. “No. She didn’t tell you anything special. Do you... Do you really think... Kennedy, I was there. When the shit hit the fan. Not eight years later. I had to take care of her then. Don’t come in here and pretend that you’re some amazing person with a unique and fantastic perspective on Poppy Law. You barely knew her. Just because you got a different copy of the book than everyone else doesn’t mean yours is the unabridged.”
“What the fuck, Lia? She... You barely talked to her. She was always with me. And she was miserable. What’s the point in pretending that this was an accident? That’s fucking ridiculous!”
“You didn’t know her. God, Kennedy, are you stupid?”
“She sent me a text message that said she was sorry. And she loved me. She didn’t. You know she didn’t. She said it because she was about to drive off the side of the road and wanted me to feel warm and fuzzy inside.”
Lia shook her head, glaring at me, her eyes ablaze. “You don’t understand her, Kennedy. Why the... Why is that so hard for you to wrap your head around? It’s... You didn’t know her. She wasn’t sad. She just...”
“You know what, fuck it. Fuck it, Lia. I don’t care if you don’t like me. What the fuck ever. But don’t be some jealous bitch about it.”
“I’m the jealous bitch?” She stared at me, mouth agape. “Kennedy, ever since you moved here you’ve acted like your mission in life is to steal her away from the world. Like you know everything about her and nobody else has a clue. I get that you were in love with her, and your mind was all hazy and stupid, but you’ve been an ass. And this... Talking about her like that when she’s... When she’s dead? Like you’re certain that she was some miserable loner who was hopeless and god knows since she didn’t have you to talk to with your stupid, petty fighting she had no one to talk to about her pathetic existence... Who the hell do you think you are, Kennedy? You don’t even belong here. You don’t even know her birthday. You... You...” She shook her head, chewing on her lower lip, her hands trembling with rage. “Screw you. Just... Jesus.”
“You know what? I’m done.” I stood, grabbing my trash and balling it up angrily in my fist. “Fuck you. You want to act like it was an accident, fine. You want to act like she had nothing to be sad about, fine. You want to act like the two of you were super BFFs, fine. Fuck you, Lia. I’m done.”
My breath shook as I stormed over the grass. No one said a word as I walked away. I shoved my garbage into a trash can and slammed my way into the school, my footsteps echoing in the otherwise silent hallway.
I sank down, my back against the lockers, and buried my head in my hands. Fuck it. She made me want to doubt myself. But I was so damn sure. She’d done it. She had to have done it. She was so... She was so sad. She was. It wasn’t something I’d imagined. I didn’t understand her. Lia was right. But I understood that much. She felt hopeless. I recognized that. Maybe because I was looking for it, because I knew what to look for, after Josephine, but... I just knew. She had killed herself. There had never been any question in my mind.
I sat there, not moving, elbows resting on my knees, forearms sheltering my head. I was ready for a hurricane.
But I was not ready for Lia, storming through the door and down the hall, sobbing and gasping for air.
I didn’t look up. I knew it was her. She stopped in front of me. I could feel her staring down at me. Still, I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see the grief behind her eyes. She believed she was right, just as much as I did. She had loved Poppy. Maybe more than I had. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to look at that. That raw, mournful conviction. It would be too much like looking in a mirror. And I was the last person I wanted to see right then.
“You have known her for four months. I have known her for seventeen years. You have heard what she’s wanted you to hear, the glossed over version that makes everything sound perfectly tragic and makes her some screwed up hero. I heard her crying on the phone when we were eight and her father picked her mother up and tossed her down the stairs. When we were nine and he picked up a lamp and beat her mother over the head. You fell in love with her because she was pretty and horny and she seemed appropriately tortured and savable. I loved her because I had to, because I didn’t know how not to, because even on her worst days she was practically my sister and you forgive family for being mopey and stupid and slutty because you know they’d do the same for you. And you think you know what you’re talking about when you say that she was miserable, but you’re only looking at bits and pieces. She was sleeping with you. Congratulations. She slept with everybody. She only had one best friend. And it wasn’t you. So you know what, Kennedy?” She was gasping for breath between sentences, her voice shaking. “Fuck you. Go home. It’s over. Go the fuck home.”
Her footsteps echoed down the hall. I kept my head down. Struggling to think. I knew then, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to. She was right. Not about Poppy. But that it was time.
I needed to go home.
Tuesday, December 30th, 10:12 PM
“Pookie?”
“Yeah?” I look up from my book, sticking my fingertips between the pages to mark my spot.
Josephine bit her lip and stared at the ground self-consciously. “I’m about to say something, and then you can tell me if you think it’s ridiculous and stupid and I shouldn’t, okay?”
“O... Okay?”
She inhales deeply. “I think I’m going to go to Laura Janken’s New Years party.”
I nod slowly, focusing my eyes on the floor. “Are you sure you’re... Going to be okay?”
“I... I don’t know.” She sighs, shutting the door behind her, leaning against the wall. “I just... My therapist thinks I should. I’ve hardly done anything in ages. It’s just... It’s a party. A party. With drunk teenagers and sweaty people and dancing and... I just...”
“If you’re not ready, don’t go.”
“But I think I am.” She sighs. “I just... I don’t know. I mean, I’m kind of afraid to go, but at the same time, I want to. I’m tired of this. I’m tired of sitting at home all the time. I just...”
I nod. I understand in a way, though I’m not sure how fully. “You think you can handle it, but you’re terrified, and that doesn’t really help you out with knowing whether you should or not.”
“Right. I mean, just because I’m worried doesn’t mean I’m not... That I can’t. Right? I just... I want to feel... Safe. Or something.”
“I could go with you, if you wanted.”
She looks at me for a long moment, then shakes her head. “I think... I don’t want to do that to you, first of all. People are going to treat you like shit when you come back, Pookie. They... They don’t know, obviously. If they did... But... Anyway, I think... This is just one of those things I have to do on my own.”
“Right.”
She sighs. “I just... I’m scared. Is that ridiculous? It’s a party. I’ve been to dozens of them, I... Something bad only ever happened once. But I feel like I’m heading into a... A hurricane, or something. Some big, ugly natural disaster. I don’t know... It’s just...”
“It’s a lot.”
She nods.
“I think you want to go,” I said carefully, looking into her eyes.
“You think I should?”
I shrug. “I think you want to. And you’re trying to talk yourself into it. And that’s okay, you know. I mean... It could be a big step forward, but if you go and you’re not ready, it could be a huge step back. Just... There’s nothing wrong with standing still.”
She considers this for a second, then nods. “I do want to go, though,” she says quietly. “I... I’m so tired of the life I’m leading, you know? Like, I’m fine. I just... I forget how to act like it.”
“I know.”
She nods, chewing on the inside of her lip. “I... I just want to bring in the new year knowing that I’m better, you know? I want to put this whole... Everything... I want to put it all behind me. I’m tired of walking on eggshells, or whatever this is I’m doing. I’m just... I don’t want to be scared for the rest of my life, you know? Because after awhile... Even the people who know, they’ll just look at me like, I don’t know, shouldn’t you be over this by now? It’s been months. And I just... I want to be over it. And I know that’s a ridiculous thing to expect of myself, so I’m trying just to take it one step at a time, but... All the steps are terrifying. Are they supposed to be terrifying?”
“I think so.” I shoot her a tiny smile. She returns it, a tiny light shining behind her eyes.
“Hey, Pookie...”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” She bites her lip, nodding slowly. “I just... You’re the only person I feel like... Like I can talk to. About all this. I mean, that I’m not paying to listen.”
“I’m your brother.”
“So? Lots of people aren’t like this with their brothers. Most people I know barely know their siblings.”
I shrug. “Most people you know are missing out.”
She smiles, her eyes bright with what might be tears. “I think so, too.”
And for a second, she’s who she used to be. Wiser, humbler, a little worse for wear, but she has some sort of hope and life that I was sure she had lost.
Maybe someday I will regain mine, as well.
Wednesday, December 10th, 5:48 PM
“I want to go home.”
Nana dropped her fork. It clattered to her plate, a sound that echoed through the kitchen. “Ulysses. I really don’t think --”
“Nana, I’m done here. I can’t stay here. I can’t. I love you, but... I need to go home. I miss them. I love them. I... I need to be with them.”
She considered it for a moment, then shook her head slowly. “Ulysses, your mother told me not to even think of letting you go back until I was sure you were ready. And quite frankly, I’m just not --”
“I feel crazy here.” I set my fork down on my plate, meeting her eyes. “Nana, I... She was my best friend. And my girlfriend, kind of, and... I just need to go home. I can’t be here. I can’t. It was good that I came, it was, I... I needed it. But I’m okay. I’m as okay as I can be, and I just need to be with my family. My whole family. I’m... I need them.”
She looked down at her plate. Moved a grain of rice around with her knife. “You were in love with her, Ulysses. You’re just heartbroken. That doesn’t mean you’re better.”
I shook my head. “No, but... Look, I did something terrible. And I needed to come here. I’ve said that. I needed to come here. It probably saved me and a lot of other people a lot of heartache. But now... I need to go back there. It’s my home Nana. I just... I’m ready to start over, or something. I...” My voice trailed off. I didn’t know what else there was to say. Because all the things I was really feeling I couldn’t vocalize. That every time I looked at her house I wanted to grab a lamp and beat Tobias over the head with it, until he was bleeding and begging me to stop. That I wanted to grab Lia by the shoulders and shake her until she couldn’t see straight, until she understood what had happened the night that Poppy drove off the side of the road and never came back up. There were things I couldn’t say. Especially not after what I had done back home, months ago, to someone who had deserved it almost as much as Tobias did. Somehow, though I think Nana knew them anyway.
She looked at me sternly, her eyes boring into mine, then sighed heavily. “I will talk to your mother. I cannot promise that she will agree to have you come home. But... I will try.”
“Thank you,” I said softly, staring down at my plate.
“Ulysses.”
I looked up.
She shook her head slowly. “Running away can’t solve all your problems. They’ll follow you when you go.”
Wednesday, December 31st, 8:06 PM
“Gin.”
I sigh. “Well, I mean, when your arms are stuck at weird angles, it’s a bit of a handicap.”
She rolls her eyes. “Four games in a row ain’t the cast’s fault. Up for another?”
I shrug. “Whatever you want.”
She gathers up the deck and shuffles it once, then sets it on the table between us. “So Josiewent to her party.”
I nod. “Mom bought her a new dress and everything. I think she’ll be okay. Seriously. She’s... You know. She’s Josephine.”
“Has Helen been sleeping okay?” She fixes me with a critical eye. “I asked Mom, but I’m sure she would lie. Everything is always ‘fine’ with her. It’s always, ‘Oh, don’t worry sweetheart, it’s fine’. And if it’s not fine, it will be fine, or... You know.” She rolls her eyes. “Anyway. Seriously. How’s the baby?”
“She’s actually pretty okay. Wet her bed maybe once this week? I think? It’s really not that bad. I haven’t even been home very long and it seems like it’s less often.”
Virginia shrugs. “I wouldn’t read too much into it. She’s... I don’t know. Nine. They’re fickle. But I mean... I hope she is. Getting better and all.”
And I see it then. The Virginia I’ve known was in there all along. Before Josephine, she was a nightmare. It was all she could do to lower herself enough to talk to us. That ordeal brought her back to the family, a little bit at least. She worried about us, if nothing else. But since the accident she’s been completely different. I think it gave her the excuse to change and pass it off as not being an intentional shift. Moments like now, I think it might be here to stay. She seems willing to make an effort, at least. It’s more than we’ve ever gotten before.
“Mom sent the bracelet back. The one Dad sent me.”
I nod. “Is that what you wanted?”
She shrugs. “I... Kind of. I don’t know. I just... Why now? I know she called him when we crashed. She called him when Josie had to come here, so it kind of makes sense. Figures that she’d call him now, but not when she’s exhausted and working two jobs because he won’t send child support after he ditched her with four kids.” She rolls her eyes. “But... I think he just feels bad. Or something. Bad enough to buy me jewelry but not bad enough to call or keep pictures of me at his house, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“But I mean... I don’t want it. I think it was supposed to be an apology for not being here worrying with everybody else. In which case he should give one to you, too, and Josie, but... I don’t know. I mean, on some level, he was at least trying to be a dad, a little bit. It was something.”
“But still.”
She nods. “Yeah. But still. He’s a jerk and I don’t want his shit.”
I grin at her, rolling my eyes. “You just sounded so Divorce Court right then it was insane.”
“Yeah, well. Have you checked out the channels this thing gets?” She nodded toward the television in the corner of the room. “Jesus. Divorce Court is actually programming to look forward to.”
I grimace. “That’s pitiful.”
She laughs. “Yeah, kind of. You try being stuck in a bed for two weeks. Like, seriously. I’m barely even allowed to get up. Broken legs and fucked up lungs and whacked out brains apparently combine to make a kind of unstable walker. Who knew? But I am allowed to make supervised bathroom visits now, – seriously, the nurse walks me the four feet over to that door and the four feet back – so you might say I’m privileged.”
I roll my eyes. “Obviously. Dude, you can actually open doors without taking ten minutes to get a good grip on the handle. Jesus. You’re lucky.”
“Yeah. I mean, I can flip through the channels on the TV, too. So I have free choice between Judge Judy and Divorce Court and Montel. Plus some weird public access channel and this random station that’s always showing reruns of Julia Child’s old show.”
“You could be watching Julia Child and you’re watching Divorce Court?”
“Oh, I watched Julia for awhile. But god, that lady starts to grate the nerves after awhile. Her episode about crepes was mind numbing. I think it turned me against pastry for the rest of my life.”
“Mmm. Be nice to old Julia. She’s probably looking down on you from the heavens with a lightning bolt at the ready.”
“So Julia Child is like Zeus?”
“Right. Except the lightning bolt is made of horseradish and fettuchini noodles.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. They were the first foods I could think of.”
She rolls her eyes, laughing in spite of herself. “You’re a freak.”
“I know.”
She studies me for a moment, then sighs. “Is it wrong that even though all my friends are out getting drunk and acting like sluts, and when I eventually drag my broken ass off to school they’re all going to bitch about how much I missed out on, and all that.... That I kind of don’t mind not being there?”
“Seriously?”
She looks down at her lap, nodding slowly. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
“Yeah, well. I kind of feel the same way. Except I don’t think my friends will be saying much to me when I head back to school.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Not everybody hates you, you know.”
“For real?”
She rolls her eyes. “For real, dickface. I think visiting hours are almost over.”
I nod. “Yeah. A couple of minutes. Are you okay here? I mean, you’re kind of stuck and everything, but do you need anything?”
“No.” She eyes me for a few seconds, then drops her gaze. “Look, Pookie...”
“Yeah?”
She shrugs. “Nothing. I just... Thanks for coming.”
“Sure, kid.” I stand, attempt to shrug on my coat. I fail miserably. Things like that are hard when one of your shoulders can’t move and even your other arm is mostly useless.
Virginia sits up in bed. “You need help?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
We wrestle my coat on, not without some difficulty. Finally, I stand back, ready to face the winter cold, and look at her for a second. Her face is healing. She’ll never look exactly like she did before, but she’ll be fine. I think maybe we’ll all be fine. As fine as we can be.
She raises her eyebrows. “What? Are you alright?”
I nod. “Yeah. Alright. I’ll see you next year, kid.”
“Night, Pookie. Tell the baby hello. And Josie. And Mom, if she’s up.”
I nod. “Will do.”
“Okay.” She smiles tightly, then sighs, leaning back against her pillows with closed eyes.
I turn to leave.
“Look, Pookie...”
“Yeah?” I turn to face her, raising my eyebrows.
She bites her lip. “I am a bitchy teenage girl.”
“What?” I stare at her, brow furrowed. “No you’re --”
She laughs to herself, rolling her eyes. “You said it... Right before we crashed. That I was some bitchy teenage girl who only cared about herself. And I am a bitchy teenage girl.”
I shrug. “Sometimes.”
“But I don’t just care about me. I...” she swallows, takes a deep breath, and continues. “I care about you, too.”
And I know for sure now that Virginia is not the same person. But I’m more than okay with who she has become.
I just hope people can say the same for me.
Wednesday, December 10th, 11:32 PM
I was drunk. I was drunk and it was dark out. And I was crazy inside. I didn’t know what to do. How to make them see. How to make them listen to me. They’d been blind to her when she was alive and they didn’t seem willing to open their eyes now that she was gone. I didn’t know what to do about it. So I drank.
When you’re inebriated, suddenly all sorts of things seem like good ideas. And maybe that’s how I ended up standing in front of Susie with a can of black spray paint at one o’clock in the morning, too angry to breathe right. Staring down at the can in my hands, concentrating with all the decision-making power I could muster. And then it faded into the anger, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
I pressed down on the nozzle and a jet of paint shot to the ground. I stepped back and stared up at Susie, the water tower that had inexplicably become as much a part of my misadventures as I myself had been, and pressed it down again. Slowly, carefully, I formed the letters, shaking with the cold and the liquor and the rage:
THERE WAS NO ACCIDENT
By the time anyone saw it, I was long gone. But I had made my mark on the town forever.
Thursday, January 1st, 2:01 AM
“Josephine?”
Her face is streaked with makeup. She throws her coat on the ground, slamming the door shut behind her, and slides down the door, her dress pooling around her.
I heave myself off the couch. “What’s wrong?”
She stares at me, then shakes her head. “I... It was a disaster. God, Pookie, it was a fucking disaster. I don’t... I’m so fucking stupid.”
“You’re not.”
She shakes her head. “No. No, I am. I thought that this year would be... That once midnight hit, it would be perfect, you know? And everything that happened last year would just vanish into thin air. And we’d be okay. All of us. But especially me, because I’m fucking selfish, but...” Her voice cracks. Tears are running down her cheeks. She looks so damn sad.
I crouch down next to her, biting my lip. “What happened?”
“I just... Nothing!” she wails, like that is the worst possibility. “Nothing happened, Pookie. That’s the problem.” She can barely speak. She’s sobbing now, clutching at my cast, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that it hurts.
“What do you mean?” I try to sound soothing, but I don’t think it’s working.
She shakes her head. “I just... It was midnight and it was going to be a new year and everyone looked so happy and then the ball dropped and everybody kissed and screamed and I was still sad. The year’s over, Pookie. I’m supposed to... It’s all supposed to be...” Her voice breaks again.
I sigh. “Josie...”
And we must look so crazy, right now. The boy with two casts, still stuck in his coat because he can’t get it off without help, crouching next to his sister, a crying mess in a long-sleeved black dress that looks at once beautiful and ridiculous, staring at her helplessly. I want to scoop her up and carry her up the stairs, lay her down on her bed, sit there with her staring until all the demons stop screaming inside of her head. But there’s no hope of that.
So I sit down instead. Scoot over until my back is against the wall next to the door, a safe distance away from her, but still close enough that she can grab my hand if she wants to, because I’m not going to tell her that it hurts. And she does, and it does, but it’s two in the morning and it’s a new year and she is still miserable. And I don’t know how to help her. It had never occurred to me that somewhere inside, she was still the eternal optimist she had been before. That she wasn’t entirely destroyed by what had happened. That there was still that shred of her left.
She grips my fingers and I let her. I cannot give her all the things she’s missing. I can’t quell the nightmares, can’t make the days seem shorter. I can’t make the new year bring the magical things she feels it has promised her. All I can do is sit here. Making sympathetic noises. Holding her hand.
Thursday, December 11th, 7:07 PM
It was snowing. A light snow, but enough to make driving a special kind of hell. Three hours. There were three hours of snowy highway between me and Jefferson, between Nana’s house and home. But the snow made everything take longer, and the journey lengthened by half an hour, and I was tired and upset and ready to be home. It had been months. I had barely spoken to my sisters, to my mother. I wanted to see them. Needed to see them. They were all that could make this grief, this rage in me fade.
Poppy had been everything, once upon a time. She was everything I wanted. Everything I needed. And I was in love with her. Desperately in love. I would have followed her anywhere. She meant everything to me, almost, although Lia was right. I barely knew her. I’d heard the parts of her past she had wanted me to know. She had left out the good moments. Had painted herself as despondent, miserable. And she had been. I was sure of it. But there was more to her than what she said. I knew it as well as anyone else, even if I wouldn’t tell them so. In a way, Poppy was still in love with the world. Even when she drove off the road, when her car burst into flames, when she breathed in the last burning, smoky gasp. There was something in the way she looked at you. Like even though she claimed to be emotionally dead, even though she said she didn’t love or hope or care, she really believed that you were going to do the right thing, in the end.
She was dead. I had loved her, and she was dead. It was the most overwhelming thing I could think of. It didn’t leave room for any other thoughts in my head, just blared over them with a megaphone blast. I had forgotten how to define myself without her. I had become “Poppy’s friend”. Who was I by myself? Just “that guy who went crazy on Brennan”? I didn’t want to be that guy. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to be.
I stared straight ahead, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. The driving was mindless – mile after mile, rolling listlessly over the slick highway, heat turned on full blast and the radio whispering Christmas carols in the background.
It seemed ridiculous, at that moment. That I had only been gone for four months. It felt like it had been years. I could remember it all so vividly. Every time she blinked was captured somewhere in my mind. I wanted to keep it all. It was such a frightening thought, forgetting. That someday, in my old age, I would struggle to remember her name. That someday it wouldn’t run through my head constantly. That I would have difficulty in recalling the lines of her face, the color of her eyes, what her hair looked like when she woke up in the morning.
Less than two weeks before, she had been alive. Breathing. Heart beating. Cheeks flushed. And she had looked at me, pulling up her jeans in the corner of the room, and grinned at me, her eyes laughing. “You’re cute when you’re sleepy.”
I’d rolled my bleary eyes at her. “I’m always cute. Especially when I’m half-naked.”
“That’s what you think.” And she’d wrinkled her nose at me, smiling a real smile, her hair glowing like a halo silhouetted against the light pouring in the window. And I had loved her then more than ever. That was how I wanted to remember her. Buttoning her jeans in the corner of my bedroom, looking young and naïve and happy. It only lasted for a minute, but it was the most damn beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. And that was how I wanted her to live on in my mind’s eye. Not some world-weary high school skank who drank to forget her problems and never really let anyone know her. Not the girl who turned the wheel when the road went straight, who sat motionless as the car plummeted, who died at war with the world. And not the girl who had hated that I loved her, who had rejected my affections with a coldness that chilled my blood. Just someone young and beautiful and happy. Someone who looked ready to take on the world, rather than run away from it. Someone I loved more than I understood. Someone who seemed like she would live forever, and certainly wouldn’t die three days later, because the girl standing there knew I couldn’t live without her. And she would never do anything to break my heart.
For months, it seemed like all that had been done. Josephine, sitting on her bed, staring at the ceiling, praying to the same god who had forsaken her, begging him for some relief. Virginia, standing in our front hall, eyes wide with fear -- What did you do, Pookie? Oh my God, what did you do?. My mother, pacing the floors, angry and sad and disappointed, always left out of the loop. Helen, screaming in the middle of the night, remembering things she shouldn’t have been able to imagine. Poppy, walking out my door, her shoulders slumped with the weight of my confessions. They had all broken my heart. Four long months of heartbreak. And I couldn’t take any more.
I pulled into my driveway without thinking. It was still automatic, a reflex, to drive through the streets of town in search of this place. It was dark, and my headlights glared against the siding. Angry yellow beams disrupting the suburban harmony. And though it was home, the house I had grown up in, had learned to walk in, had snuck into and out of, the place I had lived for seventeen years less four months, it felt hollow, somehow. A faint whisper of the place it had been then. I had forgotten more things about this place in those four months than I knew possible. It seemed smaller. Somehow dwarfed by that big yellow house three hours away, where the secret room had beckoned me in my youth and a tired, angry girl had done the same in my adolescence. It didn’t feel like home anymore, this squat little house with the one car garage and the outdated green siding. I wasn’t sure it ever would.
I sat in my car for a long time. Afraid to move. Afraid that when that door opened, it would reveal something profoundly changed. Sisters I didn’t recognize. A mother who barely remembered me. That it would all ring hollow, would seem like a memory or a dream more than a home. I had lost everything. I needed this place to be the same.
I climbed from the car with shaking legs and popped the trunk open. I grabbed two suitcases and a box. Things to keep my hands full, so I wouldn’t have to decide whether to hug or shake hands, so there would be some sort of barrier between me and the family I had hardly spoken to in months.
I walked up the path with a sense of dread. Almost turned back, almost drove those three hours in the snow back to Nana, back to Poppy, back home. Because it had become my home. I didn’t know what this place was, anymore. Just a house in the suburbs. Four kids, a tired woman, their demons.
I rang the bell.
There was a shuffling inside. She was waiting for me. I knew she would be. I hoped she would be, anyway, though a part of me thought she wouldn’t. Her face appeared in the window beside the door. Apprehensive. The key turned in the lock. The door pulled open.
“You’re home.”
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
November 27th: and he took my shoulders and he shook my face... and he takes, and he takes, and he takes.
Saturday December 27th, 6:35 AM
“You’re awake.”
I nod slowly. I don’t want to talk to her. Don’t want to breathe, really. My head is cloudy. A part of me is glad.
“I’m sorry, Pookie,” she whispers. “Seriously, I... I’m sorry.”
She’s sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed, watching me. Elbows resting on her knees. Head resting on her palms. She looks tired. I would be tired, too.
“Look, we can try to get it fixed. Or something. I set the cartridge thing out to dry out. So it might be alright. We’ll see.”
“It’s not about that.”
She sighs. “I know.”
I sit up with the usual difficulty, my arms dead and useless weight. “What time is it?”
She doesn’t look at her watch. “A little after six thirty. You weren’t asleep all that long.”
“Uh-huh.”
I chew on the inside of my lip, staring at the bedspread. “I... She was... I feel like an idiot.”
“I know.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“I know.”
“I really thought I was over it. Or whatever. It shouldn’t even be this big a deal.”
She half-smiles at me. “Trust me. I know. Your sense of personal tragedy is nothing new.”
“I know.”
“So what are we doing today? Are you ready to head home?”
I bite my lip. “Almost. There’s someone I need to talk to, first.”
*****
Tuesday, December 2nd, 9:01 PM
“Nana?”
She turned around, wiping her hands on her apron. “Are you alright, dear? You look...”
“Poppy was in an accident.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh dear.”
“Her car flipped over. I... It burned, or something, I don’t really know...”
She stared at me for a long moment, then closed her eyes and massaged her temples with floury hands. “Oh dear.”
“She... She died.”
Her eyes opened, and she fixed me with a silent, solemn stare.
“Can I... I need to...”
She sighed deeply. “I have to make a phone call. Excuse me.”
She shoved past me. I stood there for a moment, leaning against the wall, staring through the kitchen window. It was grey and cold outside. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
It stared to hit me in pieces. The first one knocked my mind numb. A swift hit to the head. I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t think. A part of me, some part that could still feel, didn’t care. My throat was next. It tightened. I couldn’t swallow. Could barely breathe. My heart went crazy. Wild, for a moment, and then impossibly painful. My gut ached. I bent over from the weight of it all. And then it hit my knees. And I fell forward. Collapsed to the floor in the dining room. Not crying. Not praying. Just hurting. For Poppy. For Josephine. For myself.
I lay there for a year. Maybe more. The clock read it as mere minutes, but the clock lies. Time is, after all, somewhat relative. I aged in those minutes, those years, whatever they were. My forehead creased. I forgot things. And I rose a different person, though I wasn’t sure how.
I went off in search of Nana’s voice. Because I needed to be with someone. More than anything, I needed to be with her. I wanted to call her. I didn’t know who else to talk to. And sure, she would mock me, deride me, turn my grief into something laughable and trivial. But I was in love with her. Even her mockery would have been suitable comfort. But she wasn’t here. She never would be. So someone else, anyone else, would have to do.
Nana sat on her bed in the room she had shared with my grandfather. His pictures still littered the dresser; his cologne sat on the corner of the nightstand. The parts of him she couldn’t bear to throw away. She turned and looked at me, long and despairing, then patted the bed next to her.
I sat. Not leaning against her, not even touching. Her hands sat, folded and prim, in her lap. I rested my chin on my closed fist. I was so damn tired, suddenly. The kind of tired that takes hold in an instant and lasts for the rest of your life.
“There’s someone coming,” she said quietly, after we had sat and stared until there were no thoughts left to get lost in. “I’ll explain it to you later... But you should be here.”
I nodded. I had nowhere to go, really. Not down to a crash site to mourn the wreckage. It would have just seemed ridiculous, and hollow besides. Not out to some water tower, some worthless water tower, to hold vigil with people who’d barely known her and wonder whether to count myself among them.
She got up eventually and left me alone. I didn’t move.
I was in love with her. I knew for sure, then. Those jumbled up nerves, the feeling of completeness when she was there and a certain brokenness when she was not, the fruitless but powerful urge to grab her and kiss her will the full force of the energy she instilled in me. It had been love. She had made me feel invincible. And it’s hard to heed warnings when you feel like nothing can destroy you. I was tumbling through life in a lovesick haze. So I had ignored her, when she’d begged me not to fall in love with her. And I had faced the train head-on. Laughing. Not caring if it caught me.
And now I was alone. Forgotten by the tracks. Life without her seemed impossible. She was my life. We walked to school in the mornings, had all our classes together, home together in the afternoons. We had sex almost daily, and even when we didn’t she was here, on my bed, doing Nana’s crossword puzzles. “Five letters for ‘ornery’.” “Poppy.” And my jokes were never funny, but she always laughed, and even when I was sure she didn’t mean it, I pretended that she did. She never went home until long after dark. Sometimes she didn’t go home at all. And I loved her. I lived her. She was so much a part of me. Even then, knowing that those lazy afternoons were far behind us, I didn’t know how to pull her away.
*****
Saturday, December 27th, 11:11 AM
“Hi? Can I...” Her eyes meet mine. “Oh. Hi, Kennedy.”
Josephine squeezes my hand protectively, then releases it and offers it to Lia. “Hi. I’m Josephine. Kennedy’s sister.”
Lia nods, her eyes wide. “Yeah, sure. Twins, right?’ But her gaze is trained on me. What are you doing here?
“Can we come in?”
She closes her eyes for a moment and sighs. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry. It’s freezing out there.”
She ushers us inside, looking exhausted. As if my mere presence drains her. She leads us past an ornately furnished living room and down a flight of stairs. “Sorry. My brothers are home. They’re big on eavesdropping.”
Josephine pulls the door shut behind us and we descend into a large, well-lit basement. There are an elliptical machine and a treadmill in one corner, a bar in another, and a whole wall is dedicated to a monstrous television set. Once couch sits before it, permanently staring, while two others flank that one, glaring at one another. Lia perches on one of the latter, and gestures for us to sit opposite her.
We sit. Josephine shoots me worried glances out of the corner of her eye. Lia crosses her legs and tries to look demure. We collapse into an awkward silence.
“You came back,” Lia says finally, rolling the hem of her skirt between her fingers. “Why?”
“I need... I don’t know. Closure, I guess.”
She chews on her lip and stares at the ground. “She’s dead, Kennedy. I don’t know what else you want.”
“She... Look, I know I was bad to be around when it happened.”
“It happened less than a month ago.”
I sigh. “And then I was crazy, okay? I’m not always like that.”
“She wasn't who you thought she was.” She says it under her breath, talking to the floor, avoiding my eyes.
Josephine opens her mouth. I shake my head. It’s fine. She nods. I crack my knuckles one by one, choosing my words. “I was a jackass. I’m not going to pretend otherwise, Lia. You know I was. I know it, too. I said things... Look, I’m sorry. I am. I... I took a lot out on you. And you were... I mean, I know it was hard for you... Is hard for you, too.”
“It’s not about what you said to me.” She fixes me with a stare for the first time since I arrived. Her eyes dark and accusing.
“If you’re... I still believe that, Lia. I know you don’t, but... I do. I don’t think...”
“Because she sent you some text message?”
I sigh. “Because I know her. She was miserable. And she... You read the message she sent me.”
“Yeah. I did. Kennedy, you didn’t know her that well. I don’t know why you act like you did. You two were... She was different when she was around you. She’s not like that. She’s not miserable.”
“Not anymore.”
She looks for an instant like she’s about to cry, but she swallows it back and rolls her eyes. “Don’t pull that shit. Don’t.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
She sighs, biting her lip. “Look, she didn’t kill herself. She was... She sent me a message too, okay?”
“Right. What? ‘I’m going to get in an accident now. Make sure you realize that I am not killing myself.’ Right. I’m sure.”
Her jaw juts forward. “You know what? Fuck you.” Her eyes flash. And I have never seen her this angry. Not even when we first had this argument, and we had both ended up crying and furious, and I sprinted all the way home, just trying not to scream. Now, she stands up and yanks up the waistband of her jeans, storming back up the stairs.
Josephine looks at me. “What is this all about?”
“It’s... I... Just... I’ll tell you later.” I hear Lia stomping down the stairs, breathing hard, her face streaked with tears, her phone in hand. She punches a button and then throws it down on the couch beside me, wiping her eyes furiously with her hand.
I stare down at the phone, then back up at her. “What, am I supposed to read it?”
She raises her eyebrows. “Whatever you fucking please.”
And I know that something about this must be important, because before today, I have never seen her act this way. She’s mild-mannered. Quiet. Poppy’s exact opposite, in a lot of ways. She’s great with kids and animals. She always calls adults “sir” and “ma’am”. Even just before I left, when she looked at me with nothing but hatred and venom, she didn’t raise her voice. And now she stands above me, looking like she could take an axe to my head and not feel a single pang of conscience. I pick up the phone and read the message.
And then I read it again.
I check the date. The name. “She sent this to you?”
“Yes. She did.” Her voice shakes. All her anger evaporates suddenly, as if it were never there. She perches on the arm of the couch, reading over my shoulder. “God, Kennedy, I just...”
“Why didn’t you show me?”
“Because I was mad at you. Because by the time I found out that she’d had a chance to... I... You were already running around talking about how you were sure she had done it to herself. And I... I was so angry. I was so angry with you.”
I stare down at the phone. Reading, again and again. My hands trembling inside my casts. Josephine leans over. Reads it once. Fixes me with the saddest look I have ever seen.
“You knew?” I look up at Lia. “It... It just says ‘him’. You knew it was me?”
She closes her eyes. “You were all she could talk about. You... She wanted to tell you. She did. She waited for months, but she didn’t want to... She didn’t think you did, until you two started fighting about it, and then... She... She didn’t know how to approach it. She said every time you brought it up she wanted to say something, but she’d kept it up for so long, she didn’t know how.”
“She... Oh my god.” I drop the phone on the floor in front of me. Stare straight ahead. Disbelieving. Josephine reaches down and grabs the phone and hands it to Lia over my head, then lays her head on my shoulder.
“It was an accident, Kennedy. I... I’m sorry.”
I stare down at my knees, biting the inside of my lip. “God. I was... I...”
“We should go.” Josephine picks her head up and takes my arm, gently, pulling me up. “I... Thanks, Lia. I’ll take him home.”
Lia’s eyes are huge and red, shining with tears. “Jesus, Kennedy, I would have told you. I would have. But you thought you had it all figured out, and I... You... She was my best friend. I was miserable. I was... I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. It’s... I just...”
“I know.”
Josephine leads me up the stairs. Lia stares down at her phone. Silent. Reading it again and again. 6:21 PM -- three minutes after i love you. i’m sorry had crossed through the air into my inbox. Both from the same number. The same name. Hers: i just txtd him. i told him. i told him! rly! xD
*****
Wednesday, December 3rd, 10:48 AM
“Ulysses, this is Felice.” Nana’s eyes were dark, clouded over with some intense, bitter worry.
I stared.
Felice stared back at me.
I knew, then. And she understood that I knew. No further introductions were necessary.
“I’ll go get the jewelry,” I mumbled. Nana nodded. Felice shifted her weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. Glancing nervously behind her. Her arms crossed over her chest. She swallowed hard.
I ran down the hallway and up the stairs to my room. Pulled open a dresser drawer. Pulled out a sweatshirt and held it over the bed by its hood, watching the jewelry tumble onto the bedspread. I hung the necklaces and bracelets around my wrist, piled the rings onto my right pinky. I walked back downstairs carefully. Each step somehow heavier, knowing what awaited me.
Felice stared at my outstretched arm, then over at Nana. “Oh, God,” she said softly. “Oh, Erma, she kept it. I didn’t think she would.”
“Of course she did.” My voice was harsher than I had expected. Stinging with bitterness. “She thought you were dead.”
“Ulysses,” Nana warned me.
“I didn’t know what else to do.” Felice covered her mouth, shaking her head slowly. “I didn’t want to leave her. I didn’t... I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Take her with you!”
Nana held up her hand. “Ulysses.”
“I... It sound easy, it... I can’t even explain to you. How... I couldn’t...” She was sobbing openly by then. Big, ugly tears. “I wanted to come back for her. I kept telling myself that I would, but... And then she was older... Erma... I told Erma to look out for her. I...”
I dropped the jewelry on the table. Piece by piece. My eyes never leaving hers. She shook her head, sobbing. I bit my lip. “She thought he’d killed you. She... She thought he killed you.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I just... The doctor came in and he... He told me he wasn’t going to send me home. That I should take Poppy and leave and... And I... I just couldn’t.”
“He thinks you’re dead? Tobias?”
She nodded, her hand trembling. “God, I just wanted to get away from him. I just wanted to get away from him. He never asked questions. They told him I had... Surgery... And...” She collapsed into tears again. My grandmother took a step toward her and clasped her shoulders.
I stared. I didn’t know what to think. They looked so much alike. It was like seeing a ghost. The bad dye-job hid nothing. They had the same eyes. The same slightly upturned nose. The same hands, with the long delicate fingers, pianists fingers. I could hardly look at her, and yet somehow, I could hardly look away.
“I was so in love with her. God, she was... She was so beautiful. And so smart. God, she was so smart. I didn’t... I wanted to take her everywhere with me. But I... I didn’t know where I was going... He’d never laid a finger on her... I thought she would be safe.” She paused, then gasped and began sobbing again, her whole body shaking with it. “I was so in love with her. I was sure she would be safe.” Her voice cracked. Nana tightened her grip on Felice’s shoulders. Fixed me with a warning glare.
I bit my lip. Stared down at the table. The shining gold. The things Poppy had made me promise to keep. And I knew then. What she would have wanted me, would have needed me, to do.
I stepped toward her slowly. She flinched, took a step back. I held out my hands. My arms outstretched. She bent over a little, toppling under the weight of her grief. She collapsed into my arms. We stood there, in the middle of my grandmother’s kitchen, gripping each other, holding on for dear life. We rocked back and forth. Nana stood to the side and watched us, her arms crossed, an incomprehensible look on her face. Felice sobbed into my chest, I into her hair. And somehow, in this embrace with a dead woman, I began to feel alive again.
“You’re awake.”
I nod slowly. I don’t want to talk to her. Don’t want to breathe, really. My head is cloudy. A part of me is glad.
“I’m sorry, Pookie,” she whispers. “Seriously, I... I’m sorry.”
She’s sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed, watching me. Elbows resting on her knees. Head resting on her palms. She looks tired. I would be tired, too.
“Look, we can try to get it fixed. Or something. I set the cartridge thing out to dry out. So it might be alright. We’ll see.”
“It’s not about that.”
She sighs. “I know.”
I sit up with the usual difficulty, my arms dead and useless weight. “What time is it?”
She doesn’t look at her watch. “A little after six thirty. You weren’t asleep all that long.”
“Uh-huh.”
I chew on the inside of my lip, staring at the bedspread. “I... She was... I feel like an idiot.”
“I know.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“I know.”
“I really thought I was over it. Or whatever. It shouldn’t even be this big a deal.”
She half-smiles at me. “Trust me. I know. Your sense of personal tragedy is nothing new.”
“I know.”
“So what are we doing today? Are you ready to head home?”
I bite my lip. “Almost. There’s someone I need to talk to, first.”
Tuesday, December 2nd, 9:01 PM
“Nana?”
She turned around, wiping her hands on her apron. “Are you alright, dear? You look...”
“Poppy was in an accident.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh dear.”
“Her car flipped over. I... It burned, or something, I don’t really know...”
She stared at me for a long moment, then closed her eyes and massaged her temples with floury hands. “Oh dear.”
“She... She died.”
Her eyes opened, and she fixed me with a silent, solemn stare.
“Can I... I need to...”
She sighed deeply. “I have to make a phone call. Excuse me.”
She shoved past me. I stood there for a moment, leaning against the wall, staring through the kitchen window. It was grey and cold outside. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
It stared to hit me in pieces. The first one knocked my mind numb. A swift hit to the head. I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t think. A part of me, some part that could still feel, didn’t care. My throat was next. It tightened. I couldn’t swallow. Could barely breathe. My heart went crazy. Wild, for a moment, and then impossibly painful. My gut ached. I bent over from the weight of it all. And then it hit my knees. And I fell forward. Collapsed to the floor in the dining room. Not crying. Not praying. Just hurting. For Poppy. For Josephine. For myself.
I lay there for a year. Maybe more. The clock read it as mere minutes, but the clock lies. Time is, after all, somewhat relative. I aged in those minutes, those years, whatever they were. My forehead creased. I forgot things. And I rose a different person, though I wasn’t sure how.
I went off in search of Nana’s voice. Because I needed to be with someone. More than anything, I needed to be with her. I wanted to call her. I didn’t know who else to talk to. And sure, she would mock me, deride me, turn my grief into something laughable and trivial. But I was in love with her. Even her mockery would have been suitable comfort. But she wasn’t here. She never would be. So someone else, anyone else, would have to do.
Nana sat on her bed in the room she had shared with my grandfather. His pictures still littered the dresser; his cologne sat on the corner of the nightstand. The parts of him she couldn’t bear to throw away. She turned and looked at me, long and despairing, then patted the bed next to her.
I sat. Not leaning against her, not even touching. Her hands sat, folded and prim, in her lap. I rested my chin on my closed fist. I was so damn tired, suddenly. The kind of tired that takes hold in an instant and lasts for the rest of your life.
“There’s someone coming,” she said quietly, after we had sat and stared until there were no thoughts left to get lost in. “I’ll explain it to you later... But you should be here.”
I nodded. I had nowhere to go, really. Not down to a crash site to mourn the wreckage. It would have just seemed ridiculous, and hollow besides. Not out to some water tower, some worthless water tower, to hold vigil with people who’d barely known her and wonder whether to count myself among them.
She got up eventually and left me alone. I didn’t move.
I was in love with her. I knew for sure, then. Those jumbled up nerves, the feeling of completeness when she was there and a certain brokenness when she was not, the fruitless but powerful urge to grab her and kiss her will the full force of the energy she instilled in me. It had been love. She had made me feel invincible. And it’s hard to heed warnings when you feel like nothing can destroy you. I was tumbling through life in a lovesick haze. So I had ignored her, when she’d begged me not to fall in love with her. And I had faced the train head-on. Laughing. Not caring if it caught me.
And now I was alone. Forgotten by the tracks. Life without her seemed impossible. She was my life. We walked to school in the mornings, had all our classes together, home together in the afternoons. We had sex almost daily, and even when we didn’t she was here, on my bed, doing Nana’s crossword puzzles. “Five letters for ‘ornery’.” “Poppy.” And my jokes were never funny, but she always laughed, and even when I was sure she didn’t mean it, I pretended that she did. She never went home until long after dark. Sometimes she didn’t go home at all. And I loved her. I lived her. She was so much a part of me. Even then, knowing that those lazy afternoons were far behind us, I didn’t know how to pull her away.
Saturday, December 27th, 11:11 AM
“Hi? Can I...” Her eyes meet mine. “Oh. Hi, Kennedy.”
Josephine squeezes my hand protectively, then releases it and offers it to Lia. “Hi. I’m Josephine. Kennedy’s sister.”
Lia nods, her eyes wide. “Yeah, sure. Twins, right?’ But her gaze is trained on me. What are you doing here?
“Can we come in?”
She closes her eyes for a moment and sighs. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry. It’s freezing out there.”
She ushers us inside, looking exhausted. As if my mere presence drains her. She leads us past an ornately furnished living room and down a flight of stairs. “Sorry. My brothers are home. They’re big on eavesdropping.”
Josephine pulls the door shut behind us and we descend into a large, well-lit basement. There are an elliptical machine and a treadmill in one corner, a bar in another, and a whole wall is dedicated to a monstrous television set. Once couch sits before it, permanently staring, while two others flank that one, glaring at one another. Lia perches on one of the latter, and gestures for us to sit opposite her.
We sit. Josephine shoots me worried glances out of the corner of her eye. Lia crosses her legs and tries to look demure. We collapse into an awkward silence.
“You came back,” Lia says finally, rolling the hem of her skirt between her fingers. “Why?”
“I need... I don’t know. Closure, I guess.”
She chews on her lip and stares at the ground. “She’s dead, Kennedy. I don’t know what else you want.”
“She... Look, I know I was bad to be around when it happened.”
“It happened less than a month ago.”
I sigh. “And then I was crazy, okay? I’m not always like that.”
“She wasn't who you thought she was.” She says it under her breath, talking to the floor, avoiding my eyes.
Josephine opens her mouth. I shake my head. It’s fine. She nods. I crack my knuckles one by one, choosing my words. “I was a jackass. I’m not going to pretend otherwise, Lia. You know I was. I know it, too. I said things... Look, I’m sorry. I am. I... I took a lot out on you. And you were... I mean, I know it was hard for you... Is hard for you, too.”
“It’s not about what you said to me.” She fixes me with a stare for the first time since I arrived. Her eyes dark and accusing.
“If you’re... I still believe that, Lia. I know you don’t, but... I do. I don’t think...”
“Because she sent you some text message?”
I sigh. “Because I know her. She was miserable. And she... You read the message she sent me.”
“Yeah. I did. Kennedy, you didn’t know her that well. I don’t know why you act like you did. You two were... She was different when she was around you. She’s not like that. She’s not miserable.”
“Not anymore.”
She looks for an instant like she’s about to cry, but she swallows it back and rolls her eyes. “Don’t pull that shit. Don’t.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
She sighs, biting her lip. “Look, she didn’t kill herself. She was... She sent me a message too, okay?”
“Right. What? ‘I’m going to get in an accident now. Make sure you realize that I am not killing myself.’ Right. I’m sure.”
Her jaw juts forward. “You know what? Fuck you.” Her eyes flash. And I have never seen her this angry. Not even when we first had this argument, and we had both ended up crying and furious, and I sprinted all the way home, just trying not to scream. Now, she stands up and yanks up the waistband of her jeans, storming back up the stairs.
Josephine looks at me. “What is this all about?”
“It’s... I... Just... I’ll tell you later.” I hear Lia stomping down the stairs, breathing hard, her face streaked with tears, her phone in hand. She punches a button and then throws it down on the couch beside me, wiping her eyes furiously with her hand.
I stare down at the phone, then back up at her. “What, am I supposed to read it?”
She raises her eyebrows. “Whatever you fucking please.”
And I know that something about this must be important, because before today, I have never seen her act this way. She’s mild-mannered. Quiet. Poppy’s exact opposite, in a lot of ways. She’s great with kids and animals. She always calls adults “sir” and “ma’am”. Even just before I left, when she looked at me with nothing but hatred and venom, she didn’t raise her voice. And now she stands above me, looking like she could take an axe to my head and not feel a single pang of conscience. I pick up the phone and read the message.
And then I read it again.
I check the date. The name. “She sent this to you?”
“Yes. She did.” Her voice shakes. All her anger evaporates suddenly, as if it were never there. She perches on the arm of the couch, reading over my shoulder. “God, Kennedy, I just...”
“Why didn’t you show me?”
“Because I was mad at you. Because by the time I found out that she’d had a chance to... I... You were already running around talking about how you were sure she had done it to herself. And I... I was so angry. I was so angry with you.”
I stare down at the phone. Reading, again and again. My hands trembling inside my casts. Josephine leans over. Reads it once. Fixes me with the saddest look I have ever seen.
“You knew?” I look up at Lia. “It... It just says ‘him’. You knew it was me?”
She closes her eyes. “You were all she could talk about. You... She wanted to tell you. She did. She waited for months, but she didn’t want to... She didn’t think you did, until you two started fighting about it, and then... She... She didn’t know how to approach it. She said every time you brought it up she wanted to say something, but she’d kept it up for so long, she didn’t know how.”
“She... Oh my god.” I drop the phone on the floor in front of me. Stare straight ahead. Disbelieving. Josephine reaches down and grabs the phone and hands it to Lia over my head, then lays her head on my shoulder.
“It was an accident, Kennedy. I... I’m sorry.”
I stare down at my knees, biting the inside of my lip. “God. I was... I...”
“We should go.” Josephine picks her head up and takes my arm, gently, pulling me up. “I... Thanks, Lia. I’ll take him home.”
Lia’s eyes are huge and red, shining with tears. “Jesus, Kennedy, I would have told you. I would have. But you thought you had it all figured out, and I... You... She was my best friend. I was miserable. I was... I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. It’s... I just...”
“I know.”
Josephine leads me up the stairs. Lia stares down at her phone. Silent. Reading it again and again. 6:21 PM -- three minutes after i love you. i’m sorry had crossed through the air into my inbox. Both from the same number. The same name. Hers: i just txtd him. i told him. i told him! rly! xD
Wednesday, December 3rd, 10:48 AM
“Ulysses, this is Felice.” Nana’s eyes were dark, clouded over with some intense, bitter worry.
I stared.
Felice stared back at me.
I knew, then. And she understood that I knew. No further introductions were necessary.
“I’ll go get the jewelry,” I mumbled. Nana nodded. Felice shifted her weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. Glancing nervously behind her. Her arms crossed over her chest. She swallowed hard.
I ran down the hallway and up the stairs to my room. Pulled open a dresser drawer. Pulled out a sweatshirt and held it over the bed by its hood, watching the jewelry tumble onto the bedspread. I hung the necklaces and bracelets around my wrist, piled the rings onto my right pinky. I walked back downstairs carefully. Each step somehow heavier, knowing what awaited me.
Felice stared at my outstretched arm, then over at Nana. “Oh, God,” she said softly. “Oh, Erma, she kept it. I didn’t think she would.”
“Of course she did.” My voice was harsher than I had expected. Stinging with bitterness. “She thought you were dead.”
“Ulysses,” Nana warned me.
“I didn’t know what else to do.” Felice covered her mouth, shaking her head slowly. “I didn’t want to leave her. I didn’t... I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Take her with you!”
Nana held up her hand. “Ulysses.”
“I... It sound easy, it... I can’t even explain to you. How... I couldn’t...” She was sobbing openly by then. Big, ugly tears. “I wanted to come back for her. I kept telling myself that I would, but... And then she was older... Erma... I told Erma to look out for her. I...”
I dropped the jewelry on the table. Piece by piece. My eyes never leaving hers. She shook her head, sobbing. I bit my lip. “She thought he’d killed you. She... She thought he killed you.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I just... The doctor came in and he... He told me he wasn’t going to send me home. That I should take Poppy and leave and... And I... I just couldn’t.”
“He thinks you’re dead? Tobias?”
She nodded, her hand trembling. “God, I just wanted to get away from him. I just wanted to get away from him. He never asked questions. They told him I had... Surgery... And...” She collapsed into tears again. My grandmother took a step toward her and clasped her shoulders.
I stared. I didn’t know what to think. They looked so much alike. It was like seeing a ghost. The bad dye-job hid nothing. They had the same eyes. The same slightly upturned nose. The same hands, with the long delicate fingers, pianists fingers. I could hardly look at her, and yet somehow, I could hardly look away.
“I was so in love with her. God, she was... She was so beautiful. And so smart. God, she was so smart. I didn’t... I wanted to take her everywhere with me. But I... I didn’t know where I was going... He’d never laid a finger on her... I thought she would be safe.” She paused, then gasped and began sobbing again, her whole body shaking with it. “I was so in love with her. I was sure she would be safe.” Her voice cracked. Nana tightened her grip on Felice’s shoulders. Fixed me with a warning glare.
I bit my lip. Stared down at the table. The shining gold. The things Poppy had made me promise to keep. And I knew then. What she would have wanted me, would have needed me, to do.
I stepped toward her slowly. She flinched, took a step back. I held out my hands. My arms outstretched. She bent over a little, toppling under the weight of her grief. She collapsed into my arms. We stood there, in the middle of my grandmother’s kitchen, gripping each other, holding on for dear life. We rocked back and forth. Nana stood to the side and watched us, her arms crossed, an incomprehensible look on her face. Felice sobbed into my chest, I into her hair. And somehow, in this embrace with a dead woman, I began to feel alive again.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
November 24th: You don't recover from a night like this.
Monday December 1st, 10:17 AM
“Have you seen Poppy?”
Lia slammed her locker and stared at me. “She really doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”
“Well, I need to... Can you just ask her if she’ll hear me out? We...”
“I really can’t.” She gave me a strange look, halfway between annoyed and regretful. “Look, Kennedy, there are plenty of girls around here, whether it seems like it or not. Find someone. Someone who isn’t Poppy. She’s... She’s not your type.”
“How would you know?”
She sighed, adjusting her sweater. “Kennedy, you’re a nice guy. Really. And you’re patient and sweet and willing to overlook a lot of bullshit, obviously, because Poppy is all about the bullshit. But I know her better than you do. She’s... Look, I don’t know how much she’s told you about herself, and I really don’t care. But she’s not who you think she is. I promise. Find someone else. Leave her be.”
“She’s my best friend here. I’m not going to just... Leave her be.”
Lia blinked at me, then rolled her eyes and shouldered her bag. “Look, Kennedy, she’s my best friend. You’re another in a long string of boys who she’s put through their paces. I know she makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside and it’s all very touching, really, but she doesn’t do this. Or, really, she always does this. Don’t try to stop it. She’ll break your heart.”
She breezed past me. “She already did,” I called after her. Hands in my pockets. Lia ignored me. I leaned against the lockers and sighed. Let my head bang hard against the metal doors. Right then, I hated Poppy Law.
*****
Friday December 26th, 11:55 PM
“Is this it?”
“Yeah. I think parking is... Yeah. Turn right. Here. Right. Good.’
Josephine pulls into a parking spot and turns off the engine. “Do you want me to come?”
I shrug. “Whatever you want.”
She gives me a long look. “Will you be okay out there?”
“Yeah.”
I’m not sure about that. But I can pretend.
Josephine isn’t convinced, but she gives me the benefit of the doubt. “Alright. You’ve got your phone. Call me if you need me. And don’t stay out there too long. You’re going to catch your death of pneumonia.” She shoots me a small smile, but she’s only half kidding.
“Right.” I stare at the door handle. “Hey, can you...”
She blinks at me. “Oh.” She reaches over me and pushes the door open. I smile at her and step out of the car, then stick my head back inside. “Look... Thanks. Seriously.”
She shrugs. “Whatever you need. I’m sort of stuck with your sorry ass, you know.”
“I know.” I stand up and bump the door shut with my hip.
I head toward the curving road that winds through the cemetery, hands hanging awkwardly as ever at my sides. These roads haven’t been plowed in a long time. My feet are freezing. Every hundred yards or so there is a set of street lamps, but they cast only a dim light on the rows of graves. You wouldn’t think a small community would have so many deaths. But it’s an old graveyard, and closer to Mason than to town. So I guess it makes sense.
I remember where she’s buried. Little things like that are impossible to forget. Every step was agonizing, that first time. I didn’t attend the burial. Didn’t watch her father throw in the first handful of dirt, looking appropriately tearful. I wouldn’t have been welcome, and I probably couldn’t have handled it, anyway. I went later. In the middle of the night. Max had called to tell me where to look. He felt sorry for me. He was the only one.
It’s not hard to find, now. Four lights down, you turn to the right. It’s the sixth row past the light, three back from the road. Her headstone neighbors her mother’s, though Poppy’s is more elaborate. A piece of granite, half-buried in the snow. Her mother’s is flush to the ground. You wouldn’t even know it was there, now. Tobias didn’t want to pay for a more expensive stone. I understand why, now. A month ago, it just angered me. Now, I can’t decide which of Poppy’s parents I despise more.
There are flowers poking out of the snow. They’ll be dead in the morning, but for now I pull them out carefully with my left hand, struggling to dig them out of the snow with my frozen fingers, and lay them on its surface. They’re from Lia. A soggy note is attached. We miss you, Poppy. Merry Christmas. It seems at once ridiculous and charming. I’m not sure why, but it hits me harder than ever, all of a sudden. That she’s gone. Not just for me. For everyone.
“Hey.” I crouch down next to her headstone, biting my lip. “I feel kind of stupid. You’d probably make fun of me. With my broken arms and my busted up shoulder and all that. Sitting here in the snow. Talking to you. It’s not like you can hear me. If you could, it would be kind of humiliating. You hate stuff like this. Or at least, I think you do. I don’t know how well I know you, really. For some reason, I feel like we met a long, long time ago. I don’t know. See, I told you. I’m lame. You’d mock me, if you were here. I know you would. I would never live this down.”
I’ve sunken down into the snow, halfway up my calves. I sit down, though I know getting up will be impossible, and I will be frozen, and Josephine will yell. “We need to talk, Poppy. About this whole business. Because you left me this message, and I don’t know what it means. Because if you did what they say you did, then it’s true. And you love me. Care about me even when you hate me love me. Make me chicken soup when I’m snotty and pathetic and sick love me. Throw yourself under a bus for me love me. And I don’t know why that’s so hard for me to believe. But I really don’t. Because I think you did this all on purpose. Which I get. And so you were just telling me what I wanted to hear, because you’d never get to tell me anything again, and you were trying to make me happy because you knew it would mean something to me, even though somehow it doesn’t, if this is true. And I know I make no sense, but hear me out, Poppy. Because if you did what I think you did, I get why. Your father was a jerk. Not a little bit of a jerk, like he drinks too much and orders you to make him grilled cheese jerk. But a beats your mother, hits your boyfriend, only pretends to like you when other people are around jerk. And I was an idiot to you, and that couldn’t have been fun. And none of your friends really got you, probably including me. And your mother was dead, or not, and I think you knew more about her than we think you knew. And that sucks. And if I were you, I don’t know what I would’ve done. But I can see. How you would be desperate and all that. And it sucks, what you did, or what I think you did, or whatever, but I get it. I might’ve done the same thing. And in that case, your message doesn’t mean a lot. So I don’t want to assume that it does. I mean, it does, but it doesn’t mean you love me love me. And that’s fine. I don’t even like me, so I don’t really get why you would. But you know. I kind of wish, a little bit.”
My casts are wet. They’re not supposed to get wet. I’ll probably have to get them replaced, and it will probably cost entirely too much money, but I don’t know what else to do. I need to talk to her. And it’s snowing. And I can’t stop the snow. I couldn’t even stop her from dying. I certainly can’t stop the snow.
“But whichever it is... I don’t blame you. And I know I fucked up. I know I didn’t... If you did, then I fucked up. And if you didn’t, if you were just saying that because you wanted it to be the last thing I heard you say, that’s okay too. But either way. I fucked up. We... I wish we’d been talking. Because when you died, it... It broke my heart, Poppy. Seriously. I’ve never... My sister, she was raped. I beat the guy up, who did it. And I never told you that. But that, that broke my heart. The way she reacted. It just... It fucking destroyed me, Poppy, but you... When you died, it was like, it was... Because I really did love you. I don’t know if you think I was just saying that, or if I didn’t know what I was talking about... And maybe I didn’t, because Lia says I didn’t even know you, and I believe that, even though I thought I did, I was sure I did, but now I know... And look, I know I’m not making sense, and again, I’m sitting here spilling all my deepest secrets to a corpse buried under six feet of dirt and a solid foot of snow, and I probably look a little bit crazy, and my sister is going to kill me – the one who it happened to, and all that, my twin... She’s kind of a hardass, because she worries about me, and all that. You know. But yeah. No, but she’s going to kill me, because I really am going to get triple pneumonia, or something, because I’m sitting here in the snow with wet clothes and no coat on and I...” I swallow the lump in my throat. Stare up at the sky. The moon glares back at me through the falling snow. “Jesus, Poppy, I just love you. I really do. I always did. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I let you down, that I couldn’t save you, all that sappy stuff you would hate, I... I’m sorry I didn’t find out about your mother till after, because I would’ve told you, and I’m sorry... I... I don’t know if you did love me, or if we were just friends with benefits, and either way I think it would destroy me the same, but... Jesus, Poppy, I love you. Love you love you. And I know you turned it into a joke, at first, and then you turned me down, and I know it might have wrecked us, and I know it’s not helping me at all to be telling you this, but I did. And I do. And if you are listening, because I was wrong about this whole God thing and I’m really as stupid as you thought I was... You’ll probably be laughing at me right now, and you’re going to laugh even harder when I say this, but... I... You were my first love. And... And I feel really cheesy, sitting here taking to you, and saying all of this, but you were. And I... I’m never going to forget you. You changed me. And I miss you, you idiot, and I don’t know why you had to die, and whether you did it on purpose or not, and whether you loved me back or not... I wish we’d had more time. Because I don’t want to talk to you like this. I want to talk to you for real. And I... I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being an idiot and a jerk and I’m sorry for never knowing what to say. Because... I just love you. I love you. I don’t know when it’s going to stop. I don’t know if I want it to.”
I bite my lip. Stare down at the ground. My jeans are soaked through. I’m shivering like crazy. But I sit there for awhile, anyway, freezing cold. Just spending time with her. Because a part of me doesn’t care if it’s cheesy, if she would’ve thought I was lame, if I do catch pneumonia and die. I miss her. I want to be near her. I don’t know what else to do. For five months, she’s meant everything to me. Everything. I have held onto her, have grabbed at every piece of her that I could find, stowed her away wherever she would fit, wherever I could carry her. And when I get up, when I stand and shake off the snow and walk back to my sister in the midnight dark, I will be letting her go.
*****
Monday, December 1st, 5:12 PM
“Poppy, can we please talk?”
She leaned against the door frame and smacked her gum, giving me a withering look. “I think we’ve talked too much, Kennedy. I really do.”
“I... I didn’t mean it.”
She sighed. “Yes, you did. Don’t talk like that. Don’t disqualify your feelings. Look, you’re not the first guy to make an idiot of himself like that. And you won’t be the last. But that’s not what I want, Kennedy. I don’t want love. I just want... I want a friend. And I want sex. Sure. Whatever. But I’m not going to do this if you want more. I’m not that girl. I’m not going to lead you on.”
“Poppy.”
She shook her head. “Kennedy, I don’t want a relationship. Do you not get that? You’ve been a great friend. Seriously. Since you moved here, my horizons have been brighter and all the colors have seemed a little bit more vivid. Is that what you want to hear?” She rolled her eyes. “I like you. Because you’re funny and you listen to me and you have nice abs and you’re on the good side of mediocre in the sack. And whatever girl snags you in the end will be very lucky, and I will be honored to attend your wedding. I suggest you propose with white gold, square cut diamond. All the rage these days. But I have a lot on my plate. And I do not need you on my plate. I will eat you, but I will not eat you. Capice?”
I bit my lip. “I just...”
She held up a hand. “It’s done, Kennedy. And I don’t think you understand this. I think you think that I’m going to change my mind, and when you start down the sidewalk I’m going to run up to you, screaming for you to wait, and we’re going to kiss in the most passionate and beautiful way, and the camera is going to rotate around us, and I will fall in love with you, desperately in love with you. Except this is not some cheesy romance movie. I’m a headstrong bitch. I am bitter. I hate men. All men. Tobias poisoned me against your gender. I apologize. I like to drink. I like to jerk people around. I like casual sex. I don’t love people. You are no exception.”
“What, that’s it? You’re pleading the callous bitch defense?”
She stared at me. “That’s low. That’s fucking low.”
“What, are you denying it?”
“Fuck you, Kennedy. Just... Fuck you.”
Her eyes were shining. We stood there for a second, just staring at each other, neither of us wanting to make the next move. “I’m done with this,” she said after a moment. The door slammed in my face.
It was the last time I ever spoke to her. I tried to call her later that night. She never picked up the phone. I didn’t really think she would.
*****
Saturday, December 27th, 2:10 AM
“Tell me about her.”
She perches on the end of my bed. My bed. But it’s not, not really. I slept here for months. Poppy slept here with beside me, probably more often than she should have, if she really were so desperate for me not to fall in love with her. But somehow, though home is three hours away, I feel at home here, too. I think a part of me always will.
“She had red hair. Hazel eyes. She was really pretty. And I’m not just saying that because. You know? Everybody thought so. She was always mad about something, but she was... I don’t know. At school, she was always happy. I guess kind of like... I don’t know. You know.” Like you used to be. But I can’t say that. “But yeah, she was beautiful. And really smart. She got some of the best grades in school. They might have been the very best, I wouldn’t know. Anyway. She lived next door. Her father... God, he was crazy.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. The first time... I mean, when... One night, I was over there, right after I came here, I guess, and he found us... I mean, not like, doing it, but you know? Like, he knew that... You know. And he decked me. Jesus. Almost broke my damn jaw. He used to hit her mom, you know? God. He was fucking crazy. She never talked to him, you know that? He would talk to her and she’d just pretend she didn’t hear him. It drove him crazy, you could tell.”
“Uh-huh.” She’s listening intently, her head resting on her hand. I realize that this is the first time we’ve talked, really talked, since summer. Since she fell apart, and I followed her, and we both forgot how.
“We were... I mean, we were friends. Best friends, kind of, even though I didn’t really know her all that well. She told me things, things I was pretty sure she hadn’t told anyone else, but she’d never really answer my questions. She’d just throw it in when I least expected it. She was like that. She was the first person I met here, and everything. I think we’d actually slept together before I met anyone else. I don’t know for sure. It’s all jumbled up in my head.”
She nods, giving me a tight smile. “I know the feeling.”
“But yeah. I... I really liked her. She didn’t feel the same way. Or she said she didn’t. She could tell, though, that I did. She made fun of me. Told me I needed to get over it. But I never really did. It’s hard to, when she’s everywhere, and you’re talking all the time, and sleeping together, and all that. I tried sometimes, to play it off like I was over her, but we both knew it was bullshit. But we kept it up for months. Spent all our time together, pretty much. We started fighting all the time, and for some reason, that’s when I fell in love with her.” I bite my lip sheepishly. My cheeks flushing. It sounds so corny, when you say it out loud.
“Aww.”
I shrug my left shoulder, the right one aching in protest. “And we kept fighting. And I kept telling her that we should reevaluate. That maybe the whole friends with benefits thing wasn’t for us. She knew what I meant, but I don’t think she wanted to break it off. But she didn’t want more, either. So we stuck with it, and we kept fighting. We fought all the time. Our friends – well, they were her friends, really, but they tried to be mine, too – wanted to kill us half the time, I think. But we stayed with it even though it wasn’t working. Because I loved her, and she liked... I don’t know. You know what I mean. But one time, we were fighting over it, and I just screamed it at her. That I loved her. And it sounds really stupid, but it was such an understatement, you know? By then, I was completely crazy about her. I would’ve done anything she asked me to. She... God. I don’t know. But you know what I mean?”
She smiles faintly. “Yeah. I think so.”
“But... I don’t know. Now that I’d said it, she couldn’t really pretend it wasn’t true anymore. So we... She said we weren’t... You know. That we wouldn’t do it anymore. If I couldn’t control my emotions. She was such a guy, I swear.” I bite my lip, nodding slowly. “But yeah. I mean, that wasn’t very long ago. That all this happened. End of November. And then, on the second, December second, Max called me – he was her friend, and mine, the only one that actually put up with me, really. He... He said she had been in an accident. That they found her car. Halfway between here and Mason. She’d veered off the road. Car had flipped over. Caught on fire. It was an ugly accident. She was dead before anyone even drove by.” I say it quickly. I don’t want to think about it. I dropped the phone when he told me. I couldn’t even understand it. I felt like I was shrinking into myself, somehow. Even now, I’m not sure I’ve come all the way back out.
“That sucks.”
I nod. “Yeah. I... She left me a message, I guess. I don’t know what it means. I... I saved it. I... Can you get my phone? It’s on the dresser.”
She climbs off the bed and grabs the phone. Presses the button to turn it on. “Look, Pookie... I’m sorry. I really am. I... That sucks. Really.”
“I want you to hear the message,” I reply. I don’t want to talk about this. I just want her to read it. To tell me what it means. Because I don’t know. I’ve tried to figure it out. But I don’t know.
She looks down at my phone. Her brow furrows. “I... It’s not turning on.”
“What?”
She walks over and shows it to me. “Was it in your pocket? Maybe it got wet.”
“No. That’s... It can’t... No, I need it. Turn it on, Josie.” I haven’t called her that since we were kids. She hates it. “Turn it on. Please.”
She shakes her head. “I tried. It... I’ll try again. Maybe if I take out the thing...” She pries open the back of the phone, pulls out the card, and replaces it. “Let’s see...” She holds down the on button. Nothing happens. No welcome screen. Nothing.
“Josie!”
“Just tell me what it said. It’s okay.”
I shake my head. “No. It’s not. It’s... It’s the last thing she... If it... It’s gone. Oh my god.”
“Pookie...”
“It’s gone.”
“Pookie, calm down.”
“Josie, it’s gone.”
She pulls the phone back and closes it. Her eyes are impossibly sad. “Pookie. Calm down. We don’t know that.”
But I do. I know it. The one thing I have of her. The one thing that was left. And it’s gone. I lost it. And she is gone, too.
*****
Tuesday December 2nd, 8:12 PM
“Hello?”
“Kennedy?”
“Lia?”
“You heard.”
“I... It’s real, then? It... She’s...”
She was crying. Her voice sounded strained. Heavy. “Yeah. She’s... Kennedy, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.”
We hung up the phone quickly, after mumbling strained goodbyes. I stared down at my phone. I had a text message. Probably someone else wanting to tell me. I punched the buttons halfheartedly. Saw her name. My heart broke. Again.
I stared at the ceiling for a moment, then looked down at the screen. Pushed the button. Read it. Closed my eyes. Read it again. And again. Until it was burned into my mind.
i love you. i’m sorry.
I was sure, then. That it had finally caught up to her. The misery. The pain. Those little things, and big things, that she didn’t want to talk about. They’d broken her. Because she never would have sent it if she hadn’t known. Poppy hated to be wrong.
She had done it on purpose. And she had shown us all.
“Have you seen Poppy?”
Lia slammed her locker and stared at me. “She really doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”
“Well, I need to... Can you just ask her if she’ll hear me out? We...”
“I really can’t.” She gave me a strange look, halfway between annoyed and regretful. “Look, Kennedy, there are plenty of girls around here, whether it seems like it or not. Find someone. Someone who isn’t Poppy. She’s... She’s not your type.”
“How would you know?”
She sighed, adjusting her sweater. “Kennedy, you’re a nice guy. Really. And you’re patient and sweet and willing to overlook a lot of bullshit, obviously, because Poppy is all about the bullshit. But I know her better than you do. She’s... Look, I don’t know how much she’s told you about herself, and I really don’t care. But she’s not who you think she is. I promise. Find someone else. Leave her be.”
“She’s my best friend here. I’m not going to just... Leave her be.”
Lia blinked at me, then rolled her eyes and shouldered her bag. “Look, Kennedy, she’s my best friend. You’re another in a long string of boys who she’s put through their paces. I know she makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside and it’s all very touching, really, but she doesn’t do this. Or, really, she always does this. Don’t try to stop it. She’ll break your heart.”
She breezed past me. “She already did,” I called after her. Hands in my pockets. Lia ignored me. I leaned against the lockers and sighed. Let my head bang hard against the metal doors. Right then, I hated Poppy Law.
Friday December 26th, 11:55 PM
“Is this it?”
“Yeah. I think parking is... Yeah. Turn right. Here. Right. Good.’
Josephine pulls into a parking spot and turns off the engine. “Do you want me to come?”
I shrug. “Whatever you want.”
She gives me a long look. “Will you be okay out there?”
“Yeah.”
I’m not sure about that. But I can pretend.
Josephine isn’t convinced, but she gives me the benefit of the doubt. “Alright. You’ve got your phone. Call me if you need me. And don’t stay out there too long. You’re going to catch your death of pneumonia.” She shoots me a small smile, but she’s only half kidding.
“Right.” I stare at the door handle. “Hey, can you...”
She blinks at me. “Oh.” She reaches over me and pushes the door open. I smile at her and step out of the car, then stick my head back inside. “Look... Thanks. Seriously.”
She shrugs. “Whatever you need. I’m sort of stuck with your sorry ass, you know.”
“I know.” I stand up and bump the door shut with my hip.
I head toward the curving road that winds through the cemetery, hands hanging awkwardly as ever at my sides. These roads haven’t been plowed in a long time. My feet are freezing. Every hundred yards or so there is a set of street lamps, but they cast only a dim light on the rows of graves. You wouldn’t think a small community would have so many deaths. But it’s an old graveyard, and closer to Mason than to town. So I guess it makes sense.
I remember where she’s buried. Little things like that are impossible to forget. Every step was agonizing, that first time. I didn’t attend the burial. Didn’t watch her father throw in the first handful of dirt, looking appropriately tearful. I wouldn’t have been welcome, and I probably couldn’t have handled it, anyway. I went later. In the middle of the night. Max had called to tell me where to look. He felt sorry for me. He was the only one.
It’s not hard to find, now. Four lights down, you turn to the right. It’s the sixth row past the light, three back from the road. Her headstone neighbors her mother’s, though Poppy’s is more elaborate. A piece of granite, half-buried in the snow. Her mother’s is flush to the ground. You wouldn’t even know it was there, now. Tobias didn’t want to pay for a more expensive stone. I understand why, now. A month ago, it just angered me. Now, I can’t decide which of Poppy’s parents I despise more.
There are flowers poking out of the snow. They’ll be dead in the morning, but for now I pull them out carefully with my left hand, struggling to dig them out of the snow with my frozen fingers, and lay them on its surface. They’re from Lia. A soggy note is attached. We miss you, Poppy. Merry Christmas. It seems at once ridiculous and charming. I’m not sure why, but it hits me harder than ever, all of a sudden. That she’s gone. Not just for me. For everyone.
“Hey.” I crouch down next to her headstone, biting my lip. “I feel kind of stupid. You’d probably make fun of me. With my broken arms and my busted up shoulder and all that. Sitting here in the snow. Talking to you. It’s not like you can hear me. If you could, it would be kind of humiliating. You hate stuff like this. Or at least, I think you do. I don’t know how well I know you, really. For some reason, I feel like we met a long, long time ago. I don’t know. See, I told you. I’m lame. You’d mock me, if you were here. I know you would. I would never live this down.”
I’ve sunken down into the snow, halfway up my calves. I sit down, though I know getting up will be impossible, and I will be frozen, and Josephine will yell. “We need to talk, Poppy. About this whole business. Because you left me this message, and I don’t know what it means. Because if you did what they say you did, then it’s true. And you love me. Care about me even when you hate me love me. Make me chicken soup when I’m snotty and pathetic and sick love me. Throw yourself under a bus for me love me. And I don’t know why that’s so hard for me to believe. But I really don’t. Because I think you did this all on purpose. Which I get. And so you were just telling me what I wanted to hear, because you’d never get to tell me anything again, and you were trying to make me happy because you knew it would mean something to me, even though somehow it doesn’t, if this is true. And I know I make no sense, but hear me out, Poppy. Because if you did what I think you did, I get why. Your father was a jerk. Not a little bit of a jerk, like he drinks too much and orders you to make him grilled cheese jerk. But a beats your mother, hits your boyfriend, only pretends to like you when other people are around jerk. And I was an idiot to you, and that couldn’t have been fun. And none of your friends really got you, probably including me. And your mother was dead, or not, and I think you knew more about her than we think you knew. And that sucks. And if I were you, I don’t know what I would’ve done. But I can see. How you would be desperate and all that. And it sucks, what you did, or what I think you did, or whatever, but I get it. I might’ve done the same thing. And in that case, your message doesn’t mean a lot. So I don’t want to assume that it does. I mean, it does, but it doesn’t mean you love me love me. And that’s fine. I don’t even like me, so I don’t really get why you would. But you know. I kind of wish, a little bit.”
My casts are wet. They’re not supposed to get wet. I’ll probably have to get them replaced, and it will probably cost entirely too much money, but I don’t know what else to do. I need to talk to her. And it’s snowing. And I can’t stop the snow. I couldn’t even stop her from dying. I certainly can’t stop the snow.
“But whichever it is... I don’t blame you. And I know I fucked up. I know I didn’t... If you did, then I fucked up. And if you didn’t, if you were just saying that because you wanted it to be the last thing I heard you say, that’s okay too. But either way. I fucked up. We... I wish we’d been talking. Because when you died, it... It broke my heart, Poppy. Seriously. I’ve never... My sister, she was raped. I beat the guy up, who did it. And I never told you that. But that, that broke my heart. The way she reacted. It just... It fucking destroyed me, Poppy, but you... When you died, it was like, it was... Because I really did love you. I don’t know if you think I was just saying that, or if I didn’t know what I was talking about... And maybe I didn’t, because Lia says I didn’t even know you, and I believe that, even though I thought I did, I was sure I did, but now I know... And look, I know I’m not making sense, and again, I’m sitting here spilling all my deepest secrets to a corpse buried under six feet of dirt and a solid foot of snow, and I probably look a little bit crazy, and my sister is going to kill me – the one who it happened to, and all that, my twin... She’s kind of a hardass, because she worries about me, and all that. You know. But yeah. No, but she’s going to kill me, because I really am going to get triple pneumonia, or something, because I’m sitting here in the snow with wet clothes and no coat on and I...” I swallow the lump in my throat. Stare up at the sky. The moon glares back at me through the falling snow. “Jesus, Poppy, I just love you. I really do. I always did. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I let you down, that I couldn’t save you, all that sappy stuff you would hate, I... I’m sorry I didn’t find out about your mother till after, because I would’ve told you, and I’m sorry... I... I don’t know if you did love me, or if we were just friends with benefits, and either way I think it would destroy me the same, but... Jesus, Poppy, I love you. Love you love you. And I know you turned it into a joke, at first, and then you turned me down, and I know it might have wrecked us, and I know it’s not helping me at all to be telling you this, but I did. And I do. And if you are listening, because I was wrong about this whole God thing and I’m really as stupid as you thought I was... You’ll probably be laughing at me right now, and you’re going to laugh even harder when I say this, but... I... You were my first love. And... And I feel really cheesy, sitting here taking to you, and saying all of this, but you were. And I... I’m never going to forget you. You changed me. And I miss you, you idiot, and I don’t know why you had to die, and whether you did it on purpose or not, and whether you loved me back or not... I wish we’d had more time. Because I don’t want to talk to you like this. I want to talk to you for real. And I... I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being an idiot and a jerk and I’m sorry for never knowing what to say. Because... I just love you. I love you. I don’t know when it’s going to stop. I don’t know if I want it to.”
I bite my lip. Stare down at the ground. My jeans are soaked through. I’m shivering like crazy. But I sit there for awhile, anyway, freezing cold. Just spending time with her. Because a part of me doesn’t care if it’s cheesy, if she would’ve thought I was lame, if I do catch pneumonia and die. I miss her. I want to be near her. I don’t know what else to do. For five months, she’s meant everything to me. Everything. I have held onto her, have grabbed at every piece of her that I could find, stowed her away wherever she would fit, wherever I could carry her. And when I get up, when I stand and shake off the snow and walk back to my sister in the midnight dark, I will be letting her go.
Monday, December 1st, 5:12 PM
“Poppy, can we please talk?”
She leaned against the door frame and smacked her gum, giving me a withering look. “I think we’ve talked too much, Kennedy. I really do.”
“I... I didn’t mean it.”
She sighed. “Yes, you did. Don’t talk like that. Don’t disqualify your feelings. Look, you’re not the first guy to make an idiot of himself like that. And you won’t be the last. But that’s not what I want, Kennedy. I don’t want love. I just want... I want a friend. And I want sex. Sure. Whatever. But I’m not going to do this if you want more. I’m not that girl. I’m not going to lead you on.”
“Poppy.”
She shook her head. “Kennedy, I don’t want a relationship. Do you not get that? You’ve been a great friend. Seriously. Since you moved here, my horizons have been brighter and all the colors have seemed a little bit more vivid. Is that what you want to hear?” She rolled her eyes. “I like you. Because you’re funny and you listen to me and you have nice abs and you’re on the good side of mediocre in the sack. And whatever girl snags you in the end will be very lucky, and I will be honored to attend your wedding. I suggest you propose with white gold, square cut diamond. All the rage these days. But I have a lot on my plate. And I do not need you on my plate. I will eat you, but I will not eat you. Capice?”
I bit my lip. “I just...”
She held up a hand. “It’s done, Kennedy. And I don’t think you understand this. I think you think that I’m going to change my mind, and when you start down the sidewalk I’m going to run up to you, screaming for you to wait, and we’re going to kiss in the most passionate and beautiful way, and the camera is going to rotate around us, and I will fall in love with you, desperately in love with you. Except this is not some cheesy romance movie. I’m a headstrong bitch. I am bitter. I hate men. All men. Tobias poisoned me against your gender. I apologize. I like to drink. I like to jerk people around. I like casual sex. I don’t love people. You are no exception.”
“What, that’s it? You’re pleading the callous bitch defense?”
She stared at me. “That’s low. That’s fucking low.”
“What, are you denying it?”
“Fuck you, Kennedy. Just... Fuck you.”
Her eyes were shining. We stood there for a second, just staring at each other, neither of us wanting to make the next move. “I’m done with this,” she said after a moment. The door slammed in my face.
It was the last time I ever spoke to her. I tried to call her later that night. She never picked up the phone. I didn’t really think she would.
Saturday, December 27th, 2:10 AM
“Tell me about her.”
She perches on the end of my bed. My bed. But it’s not, not really. I slept here for months. Poppy slept here with beside me, probably more often than she should have, if she really were so desperate for me not to fall in love with her. But somehow, though home is three hours away, I feel at home here, too. I think a part of me always will.
“She had red hair. Hazel eyes. She was really pretty. And I’m not just saying that because. You know? Everybody thought so. She was always mad about something, but she was... I don’t know. At school, she was always happy. I guess kind of like... I don’t know. You know.” Like you used to be. But I can’t say that. “But yeah, she was beautiful. And really smart. She got some of the best grades in school. They might have been the very best, I wouldn’t know. Anyway. She lived next door. Her father... God, he was crazy.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. The first time... I mean, when... One night, I was over there, right after I came here, I guess, and he found us... I mean, not like, doing it, but you know? Like, he knew that... You know. And he decked me. Jesus. Almost broke my damn jaw. He used to hit her mom, you know? God. He was fucking crazy. She never talked to him, you know that? He would talk to her and she’d just pretend she didn’t hear him. It drove him crazy, you could tell.”
“Uh-huh.” She’s listening intently, her head resting on her hand. I realize that this is the first time we’ve talked, really talked, since summer. Since she fell apart, and I followed her, and we both forgot how.
“We were... I mean, we were friends. Best friends, kind of, even though I didn’t really know her all that well. She told me things, things I was pretty sure she hadn’t told anyone else, but she’d never really answer my questions. She’d just throw it in when I least expected it. She was like that. She was the first person I met here, and everything. I think we’d actually slept together before I met anyone else. I don’t know for sure. It’s all jumbled up in my head.”
She nods, giving me a tight smile. “I know the feeling.”
“But yeah. I... I really liked her. She didn’t feel the same way. Or she said she didn’t. She could tell, though, that I did. She made fun of me. Told me I needed to get over it. But I never really did. It’s hard to, when she’s everywhere, and you’re talking all the time, and sleeping together, and all that. I tried sometimes, to play it off like I was over her, but we both knew it was bullshit. But we kept it up for months. Spent all our time together, pretty much. We started fighting all the time, and for some reason, that’s when I fell in love with her.” I bite my lip sheepishly. My cheeks flushing. It sounds so corny, when you say it out loud.
“Aww.”
I shrug my left shoulder, the right one aching in protest. “And we kept fighting. And I kept telling her that we should reevaluate. That maybe the whole friends with benefits thing wasn’t for us. She knew what I meant, but I don’t think she wanted to break it off. But she didn’t want more, either. So we stuck with it, and we kept fighting. We fought all the time. Our friends – well, they were her friends, really, but they tried to be mine, too – wanted to kill us half the time, I think. But we stayed with it even though it wasn’t working. Because I loved her, and she liked... I don’t know. You know what I mean. But one time, we were fighting over it, and I just screamed it at her. That I loved her. And it sounds really stupid, but it was such an understatement, you know? By then, I was completely crazy about her. I would’ve done anything she asked me to. She... God. I don’t know. But you know what I mean?”
She smiles faintly. “Yeah. I think so.”
“But... I don’t know. Now that I’d said it, she couldn’t really pretend it wasn’t true anymore. So we... She said we weren’t... You know. That we wouldn’t do it anymore. If I couldn’t control my emotions. She was such a guy, I swear.” I bite my lip, nodding slowly. “But yeah. I mean, that wasn’t very long ago. That all this happened. End of November. And then, on the second, December second, Max called me – he was her friend, and mine, the only one that actually put up with me, really. He... He said she had been in an accident. That they found her car. Halfway between here and Mason. She’d veered off the road. Car had flipped over. Caught on fire. It was an ugly accident. She was dead before anyone even drove by.” I say it quickly. I don’t want to think about it. I dropped the phone when he told me. I couldn’t even understand it. I felt like I was shrinking into myself, somehow. Even now, I’m not sure I’ve come all the way back out.
“That sucks.”
I nod. “Yeah. I... She left me a message, I guess. I don’t know what it means. I... I saved it. I... Can you get my phone? It’s on the dresser.”
She climbs off the bed and grabs the phone. Presses the button to turn it on. “Look, Pookie... I’m sorry. I really am. I... That sucks. Really.”
“I want you to hear the message,” I reply. I don’t want to talk about this. I just want her to read it. To tell me what it means. Because I don’t know. I’ve tried to figure it out. But I don’t know.
She looks down at my phone. Her brow furrows. “I... It’s not turning on.”
“What?”
She walks over and shows it to me. “Was it in your pocket? Maybe it got wet.”
“No. That’s... It can’t... No, I need it. Turn it on, Josie.” I haven’t called her that since we were kids. She hates it. “Turn it on. Please.”
She shakes her head. “I tried. It... I’ll try again. Maybe if I take out the thing...” She pries open the back of the phone, pulls out the card, and replaces it. “Let’s see...” She holds down the on button. Nothing happens. No welcome screen. Nothing.
“Josie!”
“Just tell me what it said. It’s okay.”
I shake my head. “No. It’s not. It’s... It’s the last thing she... If it... It’s gone. Oh my god.”
“Pookie...”
“It’s gone.”
“Pookie, calm down.”
“Josie, it’s gone.”
She pulls the phone back and closes it. Her eyes are impossibly sad. “Pookie. Calm down. We don’t know that.”
But I do. I know it. The one thing I have of her. The one thing that was left. And it’s gone. I lost it. And she is gone, too.
Tuesday December 2nd, 8:12 PM
“Hello?”
“Kennedy?”
“Lia?”
“You heard.”
“I... It’s real, then? It... She’s...”
She was crying. Her voice sounded strained. Heavy. “Yeah. She’s... Kennedy, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.”
We hung up the phone quickly, after mumbling strained goodbyes. I stared down at my phone. I had a text message. Probably someone else wanting to tell me. I punched the buttons halfheartedly. Saw her name. My heart broke. Again.
I stared at the ceiling for a moment, then looked down at the screen. Pushed the button. Read it. Closed my eyes. Read it again. And again. Until it was burned into my mind.
i love you. i’m sorry.
I was sure, then. That it had finally caught up to her. The misery. The pain. Those little things, and big things, that she didn’t want to talk about. They’d broken her. Because she never would have sent it if she hadn’t known. Poppy hated to be wrong.
She had done it on purpose. And she had shown us all.
November 24th: You can keep to yourself. I'll keep out of your way.
Friday, December 25th, 5:38 PM
“What, you don’t like it?”
She smiles. “No, I do. The left half of my face is kind of sluggish. Sorry.”
We all smile and nod. Inside, we‘re all a little shaken. It was supposed to be better by now. The doctors said it was just the medication. The bottom half of her face had been fine after the accident. From the nose up it had been completely broken, but her mouth and chin were fine. Now it’s like only the right half of her face can move at all. The bruises and bandages decorating her forehead and nose don’t help. Virginia, the prettiest and the vainest of my sisters, isn’t either of those things anymore.
But we all pretend not to notice. “I can hardly tell,” Josephine encourages her, squeezing her hand. “Open something else.”
“Alright.” She fumbles with the wrapping paper, pulling off the printed paper Santas and carefully prying open the box. “Aww! It’s so cute!”
“It’s a purse. To remind you that eventually you will be walking places where there will not be a phone automatically placed within one foot of you.”
She smiles, or tries to. “It’s perfect.”
“Well, you know. I’m amazing.”
Josephine elbows me. I shrug my left shoulder.
“I think there’s only one left,” my mother says, handing Virginia a bag with a laughing snowman on the front. “Go ahead, sweetie. Merry Christmas.”
Virginia shoots her a smile and sticks her hand into the bag. “Wait... Oh, is this it?”
My mother shrugs, raising her eyebrows.
Virginia pulls out a small box. A jewelry box. I shoot Josephine a look. She shrugs. I don’t think Mom has ever given jewelry at Christmas before. We’ve never really had the money. And we certainly don’t now, with hospital bills for three of us, college approaching for two... Even Virginia looks apprehensive. “What’s this?”
“Just open it, honey,” my mother tells her.
Virginia pries the box open. Her eyebrows shoot up. “Mom... Are... Is this real?”
Mom stares down at the ground and mumbles something.
“What?”
“Your father sent it.”
My eyes widen. Josephine elbows me, shooting me a frantic look. Did you just hear that? her eyes ask. My mouth hangs slightly open. This is insane.
“I don’t want it.” Virginia slams the box shut, her jaw set. “Send it back. I don’t want it.”
“Sweetie...”
Virginia holds out the box. “Give it back to him. I don’t want it. This is ridiculous. No. I don’t want it.”
“He wants you to have it,” my mother whispers.
“I don’t care what he wants. No. Give it back.”
“Virginia...”
Virginia throws the box to the ground. “Leave.”
“Sweetie...”
Josephine steps forward. “Look, I know you’re pissed off at him. We all are. But...”
“But what? I should take his gifts? Why doesn’t he just call like normal deadbeat fathers do when their children are hospitalized?” She shakes her head, her eyes flashing. “No. No. I won’t take it. And I can’t believe you! You’re ridiculous!” She glares at Josephine. “Where was he for you? This summer? No. This is... No.”
“Sweetie...”
“Leave her alone,” I say quietly.
My mother glances back at me. “What?”
“She doesn’t want it. Can you blame her? Leave it alone.”
Josephine runs her fingers through her hair. “Can we sell it?”
“We’re not going to sell it,” my mother says softly.
“Then we’re going to throw it away. We’re not keeping it.”
“Virginia...”
Helen sits in the corner, staring out the window. I walk over and join her, and even though it’s only a few steps away, it seems like a different world.
“Do they ever shut up?” she asks me, sounding disturbingly old.
“They’re just opinionated.”
She shoots me a sad smile. “Christmas was funner last year.”
I look down at her. Her face is creased with disappointment, her ponytail drooping. And I realize that our tragedies have been hers, too. The nightmares and the worrying. She’s had nowhere to regroup. No hospitals, no psych facilities, no grandmothers’ houses. And somehow, by being the only one never separated, she’s been the one who’s stood the most alone.
“I don’t think anyone’s having all that much fun.”
She grabs my cast gently and loops her arm through it, laying her head on my plaster arm. “Josephine said your friend died. At Nana’s.”
I stare out the window at the snow, falling down on the parking lot. “Yeah. Well. Can I tell you a secret?”
She nods earnestly against my arm. “Uh-huh.”
“I loved her. A lot.”
Helen pulls her head away and looks up at me, her eyes wide. “Was she your girlfriend?”
I bite my lip and laugh lightly. “I don’t know. A little bit. But she didn’t love me back. Except...”
Helen waits patiently for me to finish my sentence.
I swallow hard. “I don’t know. Before she died. She left me a message. And said that she did. And part of me kind of wants to believe it, but I don’t.”
Helen thinks for a minute, then shrugs and grabs my arm again, burrowing into my side and propping my cast up on her shoulders. “Well, I love you.”
And I don’t know why she does. I have failed her in a thousand different ways. I don’t love me all that much. I don’t understand what there is to me but a failure, a violent failure who reads too much into too little. Who wakes up in the morning and is already defeated. There’s nothing admirable here. No heroism, no glory. I’m not loyal, or smart, or caring. I’m not good with people. I’m a liar and a vandal and a jackass. At the end of the day, the only thing I like about myself are these people. The people in this room. The one who we buried up in Mason, in the family plot. Without them, I’m just another jerk who doesn’t deserve anything good. This isn’t who I wanted to grow up to be.
And I make up my mind. I’m going. I’m going to visit her. I need to talk to her. She is the only person who can make sense of me, even now. She’s the only person I’ve ever loved enough to let try.
*****
Friday, November 28h, 8:23 PM
“Open up. Kennedy. Kennedy!”
I sighed. “Poppy, why are you here?”
I pulled open the door. She stood there, gasping for breath, her hands shoved in her pockets, her jacket zipped to under her chin. She grimaced.
“I’m sorry. I’m... I need you to do something for me.”
And all the fantasies in my head vanished. Of her grabbing me and kissing me, still fighting to breathe, her fingers tangled in my hair. Having run however many blocks in the cold and the darkness to get to me. Because she needed me. Loved me. Couldn’t bear to let me go another night without knowing.
I rolled my eyes and stepped aside, motioning her in. I slammed the door shut behind her. “What do you want?”
She dug in her pockets. “This,” she said, clasping something in her fist. I held out my hand. She dropped a diamond necklace into my palm, then reached back into her jacket. I stared at her. “And this.” She dropped a ring. “There’s more, wait...”
Piece by piece, she dropped jewelry into my hand. Fantastic jewelry. The kind you see on celebrities, in museums. Not the kind you randomly hand to people, on chilly November nights, with no explanation.
“What the hell is this, Poppy?”
She dropped a pair of earrings into my hand and crossed her arms, sighing. “This is my mother’s jewelry. Tobias is looking for it. You can’t let him have it. He won’t think of you. He’ll think I have it, which I’m supposed to, or that I gave it to Lia, or pawned it, or something. But you can’t give it to him. You can’t. It’s important.”
“Poppy...”
She shook her head. “Look, I know this is weird. And very suspect. And you probably feel like you’re trapped in a really bad Lifetime movie right now, and I’m going to turn up dead and then it’s going to be you and Meredith Baxter Birney is going to have to save the day but it won’t matter for us because we’ll already be dead. And I will be the first to tell you that this is a very real possibility.”
My eyes widened. She laughed. “I’m kidding. Look, just keep it. Please. If he finds it, he’ll sell it. It’s my mom’s. I took it after she died, when he was selling everything he could find of hers. I... I just need you to keep it safe. Until I know I can keep it again.”
I shook my head. “This is ridiculous. Seriously. Poppy, this is like, thousands of dollars worth of shit, I can’t...”
She pressed a finger to my lips. “Please.”
And so of course I agreed. Because she was Poppy, and I loved her. I loved her in a way that made me crazy. She was all that I could think about. And that it was hopeless, that it would never go anywhere, that it was the most unrequited of unrequited loves... That only made me love her more.
*****
Friday, December 26th, 5:21 PM
“We really should’ve brought Helen with us.”
I glance over at her and shake my head. “No we shouldn’t have. Helen doesn’t need to get dragged through my dirty laundry.”
“And I do?”
I roll my eyes. “You can drive. I can’t. Besides, you were born six minutes before I was. Meaning you’re my big sister. Meaning you’re supposed to take care of me.”
She shakes her head, shooting me a half amused, half annoyed look. “You’re such an idiot, Pookie.”
“I know. But it’s endearing, you have to admit.”
She reaches over and turns up the heat, biting her lip. “You know I feel kind of responsible for all of this, right?”
I stare at her. “All of what?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know... This mess you got into up at Nana’s. You never would’ve gotten... I’m just... I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? You didn’t do anything. You were pretty much the only person involved in this fiasco who didn’t do anything wrong.”
She raises her eyebrows. “I slit my wrists, Pookie. That doesn’t exactly qualify as award winning behavior.”
“You were... Look, don’t....” I trail off. It’s not the sort of sentence that’s easy to finish.
“I know,” she replies, shooting me a slight smile. “Look, I know you get a lot of flak for what you did. To Brennan. And I know we’ve kind of had this conversation before, but... I really do admire you. In a way. I think it was a stupid thing to do, but you... You were trying to protect me. To stick up for me. Or whatever. And I respect that, Pookie, even if I think you went about it in a really horrible way. I mean... He deserved what he got. You... You know what I’m saying.”
I nod. Even though I don’t, really. Because I did the right thing. I don’t care what anyone says. The only thing I regret is the effect it had on her.
None of us reacted very well. To the whole thing. The night it happened, Josephine came home crying. I had just gotten back from a date. I figured her boyfriend had broken up with her. Or done something equally horrible, like insulting her dress. Or saying that he didn’t like her choice of nail polish. Josephine was a girl. In the worst sense of the word. Well, no, because Virginia was a girl in the worst sense. Josephine’s type came in a close second. She was peppy. Always. Always organizing a bake sale or a dance. She used pens with feathers on the end, pencils scented like flowers. I kid you not. She dotted her ‘I’s with little circles. She talked on the phone while giving herself pedicures. It was slightly terrifying. And she was always crying about something, but only ever at home. At school, she was peppy. At home, she cried. She flew off the handle. She loved too hard and too fast, got her heart broken too damn easily. So that she came home crying wasn’t a big deal. It was kind of an eye rolling moment. An Oh my God, please don’t make me deal with this moment. But if I didn’t, no one else would. And so I went up to her room and knocked on her door.
She didn’t say anything when I knocked. And again. I opened it up and saw her sitting there. On her bed. Her dress hiked up around her waist, pajama pants on underneath. One knee pulled up to her chest. Staring. Her makeup running. The dress was red and shiny and ridiculous. Her PJs bore pictures of Santa and snowmen, even though it was the middle of July. She looked straight out of a horrible teen movie. But she was my sister. So I cared, even though I didn’t want to.
“What’s up?”
She glared at me. Shook her head. Then turned her attention back to the ceiling. Staring and crying and staring.
I left her alone. Even though I wasn’t sure I should. I still thought it was just some stupid breakup. Something inconsequential. Something she’d get over.
But she didn’t. She walked around the house like a ghost for a week. Pale and disoriented. Every time I walked past her room she was sitting there. Staring.
By the time she told me, I wasn’t surprised. I mean, I was, because I hadn’t known. But at the same time, I had. I had known all along.
We were driving. Except I was driving, instead of her, and neither of us was wearing a cast, much less two of them – though she might as well have been. She sat huddled in the corner of her seat, as far away from me as possible. We approached an intersection. Some idiot cut me off. I honked.
She chose that moment. The car horn blaring over her words. Like a censoring bleep on a television show. Blocking out the things you aren’t supposed to hear. “I was raped.”
I slammed on the brakes. The car behind me honked this time. I gave him the finger. Not thinking. Not feeling. “What?” Even though I didn’t need her to repeat it. Certainly didn’t want her to. Didn’t want to hear those words ever again.
“Last weekend. I...” And then she was crying. Sobbing. And there was nothing I could say. I knew that I could only make it worse.
I asked her who. She wouldn’t tell me. I asked her again. She spat out a name.
That was how I ended up on Brennan Power’s porch at ten thirty that night. His mother offered me something to drink. No, I was fine. His father asked how I’d been, if I was still with the Scouts. No, sir. Didn’t have the time, but flattered that he remembered me, sir. His mother asked if she should call him down. I said no. Said I remembered where his room was.
I walked in and he stared at me. Stood up. Held his hands up. I don’t remember what he said. I don’t remember what I said back. It was like one of those montages they play at the end of TV dramas, where the song covers up the voices, but you can see the anger. The fear. I shoved him down on the bed. Shoved my knee into his chest. He couldn’t breathe. I was glad. I screamed something at him. Didn’t care if his parents heard. Punched him in the face. His nose broke, then. It was the most satisfying thing I had ever done. I was screaming at him, still, but I don’t remember anything I said. Something about her. Because this was all about her. I wanted to obliterate him. Not just to kill him, but to erase him, somehow. I hit him. Over and over. Screaming. Crying, eventually, though that just pissed me off more. And I had never really hit anyone before. Stupid playground fights in elementary school. One halfhearted fistfight in the ninth grade. But never like this. Never like I meant it.
His parents were there. Then his little brother. Standing in the door. He couldn’t have been older than Helen. His mother was screaming at me. “Stop it!” Over and over and over. “Stop it!” His father just stood there helplessly. I hit him again. And again. And then his father grabbed me, pulled me off. I lunged for him again. He didn’t move. Well, that’s not true. His head moved. He groaned. Spat. His entire face was bloody. My knuckles were destroyed. His father pinned me against the wall, twisted my arm behind my back. He was an ex-cop. He knew how to handle people like me. Crazy people. The violent youth of America.
And that was how I got a police escort home. They tried to book me, but he wouldn’t let them. Refused. They took me in to the station, but if he wasn’t going to charge me, I was a waste of their time. And so I was escorted home with a stern warning. Anything else like this and I would not be so lucky. He swore it was just a fistfight that had gotten out of hand. That we were fighting over a girl. That I was a lot stronger than he had thought. But there wasn’t a scratch on me, while he was bleeding everywhere. His knuckles were clean. Mine were torn open. Not that it stopped me from punching a hole in the wall once the police were gone. Virginia stared at me. What did you do, Pookie? Oh my god, what did you do? Her face pale, her eyes wide. Afraid. I wouldn’t respond. She asked again. I was silent. She walked down the hall and woke up our mother.
Josephine came down the stairs and saw me. Saw my knuckles. The hole in the wall. Turned on her heel and went back to her room. Downstairs, my mother paced the floor. Shaking her head. I don’t know what to do with you. Virginia sat on the couch behind her, head cradled in her hands.
I mumbled something to my mother and ran upstairs to try to talk to Josephine. She stared at the ceiling. Ignored me. My mother called me back downstairs. I went. I listened as she lectured, as she bemoaned my behavior, my sudden transformation from model child into crazed psychopath. She said she didn’t understand me. But I wasn’t all that hard to understand.
She sent me to my room. Said she’d deal with me in the morning. Which wasn’t so much about me as it was about her. She was tired. She was always tired. And she hardly had enough time to sleep. She worked two jobs. She was exhausted. And she could never sleep. And now here I was, stirring up trouble. Making holes in her walls. My knuckles bleeding on her carpet. What was she going to do with me?
I went upstairs. Knocked on Josephine’s door, but she didn’t answer. I left it shut. Went to my room. Left the lights off. Sat on my bed in the dark. Stared at the ceiling, looking for answers. For confirmation that I had done the right thing. My knuckles stung. I heard something move. Heard someone breathing. I reached over. Turned on the light.
She was lying there in the corner. Barely breathing. Not moving. Surrounded by blood. I had never seen so much blood. I ran over to her. Turned her over. Screamed. I heard Virginia’s feet pounding up the stairs. You’re going to wake Mom up. Shut up! You’re going to wake Mom up! And then she opened the door. And she saw what I saw. And she screamed, too.
I collapsed back onto my bed. She ran over to Josephine. Turned back to look at me. She’s going to die. Oh my god. Call 911. I didn’t move. Call 911! she screamed. I reached in my pocket, pulled out my cell phone. Crying. Panted out something, some address, some description of the scene, but I didn’t know what to say. We’re in my bedroom. My sister’s dying. There’s blood everywhere. I think she killed herself. Virginia was in the corner, her full weight on Josephine’s outstretched forearms, her clothes soaked in blood, her hair falling over them both. God, Pookie, see if she’s breathing. But I was frozen. She called for me again. I didn’t move. And so she did it herself. She did it all herself. I sat back and watched. Sobbing. My knuckles throbbing. I didn’t know what to do.
Josie, baby, what did you do? Virginia asked her. But it wasn’t at all how she had asked me. She sounded sad, this time. Lonesome. Hopeful and hopeless all at once.
The paramedics came. Carted her away. Virginia woke my mother up again, soaked in blood. My mother screamed. I will never forget that sound.
I turn to Josephine now, sleeves pulled down securely over her scars, hands gripping the steering wheel. She shoots me a small smile. “Lot on your mind?”
“Yeah.” I nod, turning my head to stare out the window. “Yeah. I guess.”
*****
Saturday, November 29th, 3:42 PM
“Poppy...”
She sniffled. “What? Leave me alone, Kennedy. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I’m a jerk,” I admit, leaning against the door. “And you have every reason to hate me, probably some that I’m not even aware of. But letting me in would be a great first step to sainthood. And I know how you’ve always wanted to be a saint.”
She cleared her throat. “Yeah, well, I think I would look very good on a prayer card.”
“Can I come in, then?”
The door opened. She stood there, her jeans unbuttoned, with only a bra on top. I stared at her. “You didn’t have to get so dressed up.”
Her brow furrowed. “You suck, Kennedy. Don’t make me hate you right now. I need to like you. You have so far proved the only redeeming member of your... Penis having people thing.”
“Gender?”
She glared at me. “Don’t. You’re making fun of me. I’m drunk and unhappy and you’re making fun of me.”
I sighed. “Okay. What’s wrong? What did I do this time?”
She stared at me, her teary eyes wide with confusion. “When did I say that you did anything?”
“You were mad at me. Hence the talk about your saintliness in letting me in. Do you not pay attention to the text messages you send out? You know, the I hate you, leave me alone kind that send me running over here when I should be doing my history homework?”
She rolled her eyes, wiping them with the back of her hand. “I’m not mad at you. I didn’t even know that sent to you. What, you just automatically assumed it was about you?”
“It was sent to me!”
Poppy sighed, sliding down the door and falling to a heap at its bottom. “I quit life.”
“Can you just talk about what’s going on? Is this Tobias? Or something else?”
She sighed. “I slept with Max.”
“Again?” I tried my best to sound nonchalant, but it came out squeaky and pathetic. I didn’t want her to sleep with Max. I didn’t want her to sleep with anyone but me. And honestly, if I hadn’t been such a horrible person, I wouldn’t have wanted that, either.
“No!” She sighed, frustrated with my stupidity. “No, I slept with Max two years ago and I am still being punished.” She twisted her hair around her finger, shaking her head slowly. “He called me.”
“He called you?”
“He wants to get back together. No, seriously! He’s been avoiding me for ages because he has feelings for me. And I’m like, you didn’t have feelings when we did it the first time! But he says that doesn’t matter. He’s actually quite convinced that it doesn’t. Because he is Max. And he is illogical and insane. And he has feelings now. You know who doesn’t have feelings now? Me. I don’t even have feelings for you, Kennedy, and I’m sleeping with you. Hell, if I liked anyone, it would be you. With your rapidly diminishing abs and your... You know... Listening stuff.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve been watching too much Grey’s Anatomy. This is not a crisis. This is not deserving of a little speech. You’re supposed to eat Ben and Jerry’s and watch a chick flick and get through this. And call Lia. And not text message Max, or, even better, mistakenly text message me. Because my listening stuff really isn’t as up to par as you thought it was.”
“Kennedyyyyy,” she whined, grabbing my leg. “Sit down. Stay with me. I’m lonely.”
And she really had been drinking. She was glassy eyed and weepy, her words were a little bit slurred, her movements were exaggerated. Her father was bound to come home at any moment and renew the damage he had done to my face back when school started. Now was not a good time to sit down next to her and have her rest her head on my shoulder. Now was not a good time to put my arm around her waist and let her cry about nothing but really about everything she had never bothered to cry about. But I was crazy, and I was in love. It was hard to tell which had led to which. And so her drunkenness, the inappropriateness of the moment flew right over my head. Because she wanted me. And I was glad.
*****
Friday, December 26th, 8:07 PM
“Well, hello! It’s so good to see you two!”
Josephine stoops down to hug her, squeezing her for a moment before letting her go. “It’s good to see you too, Nana. It’s been so long!”
“Hi, Nana.”
She eyes me warily, but offers me a hug. “Welcome back, Ulysses.” I accept her embrace awkwardly, my casts dangling at her sides.
She ushers us inside, pulling the door shut behind us. Josephine pulls off her coat and helps me with mine, and accepts the tea Nana thrusts into her frozen hands. I smile awkwardly and ask for a straw and a table. Nana obliges, and we all sit down and sip, avoiding the elephant in the room for as long as we can.
“So,” Josephine says finally, clearing her throat. “Did you have a good Christmas, Nana?”
My grandmother nods. “Oh, you know. It was quiet, but lovely. It would’ve been nicer if you all were here, of course. But obviously that wasn’t going to work.”
“Maybe next year,” Josephine replies, but she doesn’t mean it. She sips her tea and looks across the table at me. “So Virginia is doing well. She might get out of the hospital in a week or so, if all goes well. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
Nana smiles. “Good, good.” She stares at something over my head, obviously a world a way. None of us are here, really. Small talk has taken a definite backseat to the other things on our minds.
We sit in silence for entirely too long, the only sound the uncomfortable shifting of feet and the occasional swallow. “Tobias thinks I stole the jewelry,” I say finally, looking up at Nana.
She closes her eyes for a moment, her expression unreadable. “Does he now.”
“So does my mother.”
She sighs. “And what do you want me to do, Ulysses? What do you think there is for me to do?”
“I don’t know. I just...” There isn’t anything for her to do, really. Nothing that would make sense. Nothing that wouldn’t make everything that much worse. But still. “It seems unfair. That I’m the one who ends up the scapegoat for everything.”
“It’s not unfair. Most of it’s your fault.”
I blink at her. This is not the Nana I know so well and love so much. The kind woman who taught us all to bake, to grill, to drive. Who we called when we were young and upset. Who sent the best Christmas gifts. “No it’s not,” I reply, even though she’s right.
“Ulysses, you came out here for reasons that were entirely your own doing, whether you will admit that or not. You fell in love with the neighbor girl, even though she and everyone else warned you not to, most especially her father. You let yourself be taken in by her lies. She died, for whatever reason, and you alienated all those who would have helped you by insisting that you knew her and they did not. You vandalized a water tower for petty revenge. You left a horrible letter for her father, her grieving father, Ulysses. And don’t you think that I haven’t read it. Everyone has read it. You’re an angry young man who has lost all his sense. So don’t blame me or anyone else for this. Tobias Law has lost everything. And all you want to do is rip open his wounds. So of course he’s going to suspect you when things go awry. I know where that jewelry is and a part of me still thinks you were behind it.”
I stare at her. “I... They weren’t lies.”
“Excuse me”
“I wasn’t taken in by her lies. They weren’t lies.”
Nana sighs. She looks much older than she is, suddenly. Completely exhausted. “Leave it be, Ulysses.”
“But they weren’t! You know that better than anyone else! She was telling the truth!”
“Pookie,” Josephine says warningly, taking a long, slow sip of her tea.
“She told some of the truth, of course. But that clouded her judgment, Ulysses. She let the past define the present. She saw things that were never there.”
“He punched the shit out of me!” I shout, standing up. My chair clatters to the floor behind me. “What the hell do you think she was making up?”
“Leave it be,” she repeats.
I shake my head. I want to throw something. Hit something. Anything. Adrenaline courses through me. My legs twitch beneath me, wanting to run. I glance out the window. Stare for a moment at the snow falling white and relentless outside. And I can’t bear it anymore. To be stuck in here, in this house where everything is all about her. I kick the chair out of my way, sending it clattering into the desk by the door. I storm to the porch door, fumbling with the doorknob. Behind me, I hear Josephine’s chair scrape back. She grabs her coat as I finally pull the door open. I take off at a clumsy run. She chases after me.
By now, the snow is deep. Several inches, hard packed to the ground. Running is hardly an option. I trip through it, my arms helpless at my sides. My shoes can’t seem to get a solid grip. I move as quickly as I can, faltering repeatedly, almost falling twice. If I fall, it will be over. My arms won’t be there to catch me. She will have to help me up, to carry me back to Nana’s house. And that is the last place I want to be. So I stumble along, Josephine walking behind me at a safe distance, calling after me.
“Pookie, come on. It’s fine. It’s... Pookie.”
I ignore her. Plod along slowly, my jeans soaked through, shivering. I should have left my coat on when I came in. But there’s no way I’m turning around. I can get hypothermia and die. I don’t fucking care.
“Pookie...”
“Stop following me!” I call back, the wind drowning out my voice.
“I love you, you idiot! I’m always going to follow you!”
I turn around to face her. The snow has picked up even since we started walking, and it’s hard to make her out behind the blanket of white flecks. “I can’t stay here. I...”
“Just... Come on. Come with me back to the house and we’ll go for a drive or something. Or... I don’t know. But you can’t be out here. You... You’ve got to be freezing, I know I am, and all this wet isn’t good for your casts.”
“I’m fine. You can go home. I...”
“You’re not fine! You’re chasing some girl’s ghost in the middle of a snowstorm with two broken arms. You’re stupid and stubborn and you need a friend.”
I sigh. “Go home, Josephine.”
“I’m not going anywhere that won’t come with me.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t need you to protect me!”
“Yes you do.”
“What the hell are you running away from, Pookie?”
And I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that question. I don’t know if there is one. The truth is, I don’t know where I’m headed. I’m just walking. I don’t know why, except that because I can’t stand to be back there right now. I’m looking for what I lost in this snow-covered town. I’m looking for answers. For the truth. And, as always, a part of me is looking for her. In my head, she is always at the end of my journeys. She is the only end that would make it all worthwhile.
*****
Sunday, November 30th, 6:21 PM
“We should talk.”
She snuggled into my chest, sighing contentedly. “Mmm?”
“About us.”
She pulled away, rolling to her side of the bed. “What do you want now, Kennedy?”
“I want to know where this is going.”
“It’s not going anywhere. How many times do I have to tell you this?”
I sighed. “There’s no possibility? Nothing? We can’t possibly just be friends with benefits, Poppy. There’s... That’s ridiculous!”
“Of course we can be! It’s been working for months now, Kennedy!” She pulled on her shirt, then turned her head back to look at me, hazel eyes flashing, her hair a tangled mess.
“It hasn’t been working! Don’t even pretend like you think it has!”
She threw up her hands. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why can’t you just leave a good thing alone?”
“Because!”
“Way to make sense. Great reasoning. Great, just fucking --”
“Because I love you!”
Her hands fell to the bed beside her. She stood up. Staring. Like she couldn’t believe this was happening. Like it was the worst thing possible.
“I should go,” she said quietly, grabbing her jeans and pulling them up in one swift motion. “I should really... I should really go.”
“Poppy...”
“No. No. I... No, you... I need... I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
She left. I begged her not to. But she wouldn’t listen. And this time, when she pulled the door shut behind her, my heart didn’t swell. It broke. And every cliché was realized in that moment. I fell back onto my bed, exhausted.
*****
Friday, December 26th, 9:00 PM
“It’s warm in here.”
I shake my head. “Shh.”
She follows me, our shoes squeaking on the wood floors. We don’t speak. The saints stare down at us with glassy eyes, watching us walk slowly down the aisle. Judging us.
I duck into a pew. Josephine stands awkwardly for a moment, then walks a few rows up and sits down across the aisle. Her hair is dripping with melting snow.
This is where we had Poppy’s funeral. Not that I’m included in that ‘we’, not really. Her father organized it, with Nana’s help. Lia got everyone at school to bring flowers. The altar was a mess of color. The girls all sat in the front pews and cried. Max and Josh and Todd were pallbearers, along with Clay, my replacement. I was surprised I was even allowed in the church. I stood in the back, motionless, half-hidden by one of the pillars. As they processed out, Max shot me a quick smile, but everyone else avoided my eyes. Except Tobias, of course. He glared at me with a special sort of hatred. As if this were my fault, somehow.
Our father had always been big on Church. Every Sunday at eight o’clock we were there, in the third pew back, second row from the right. Josephine and I poked each other and whispered back and forth while Virginia drew on the prayer cards. Mom stared straight ahead, obviously not paying attention. But my father was absorbed. Afterward, we were expected to Talk About It. It was a ritual deserving of the capitalization. “What did you think of the scripture?” my father would ask. And we would be expected to respond. We never had a good enough answer. He always went to bed angry on Sundays. But Monday morning, we were back to pretending that it had never happened.
I feel out of place here. In this pew, in this church, surrounded by the disappointed saints. But it’s warm and I’m tired and I have nowhere else to go.
“What, you don’t like it?”
She smiles. “No, I do. The left half of my face is kind of sluggish. Sorry.”
We all smile and nod. Inside, we‘re all a little shaken. It was supposed to be better by now. The doctors said it was just the medication. The bottom half of her face had been fine after the accident. From the nose up it had been completely broken, but her mouth and chin were fine. Now it’s like only the right half of her face can move at all. The bruises and bandages decorating her forehead and nose don’t help. Virginia, the prettiest and the vainest of my sisters, isn’t either of those things anymore.
But we all pretend not to notice. “I can hardly tell,” Josephine encourages her, squeezing her hand. “Open something else.”
“Alright.” She fumbles with the wrapping paper, pulling off the printed paper Santas and carefully prying open the box. “Aww! It’s so cute!”
“It’s a purse. To remind you that eventually you will be walking places where there will not be a phone automatically placed within one foot of you.”
She smiles, or tries to. “It’s perfect.”
“Well, you know. I’m amazing.”
Josephine elbows me. I shrug my left shoulder.
“I think there’s only one left,” my mother says, handing Virginia a bag with a laughing snowman on the front. “Go ahead, sweetie. Merry Christmas.”
Virginia shoots her a smile and sticks her hand into the bag. “Wait... Oh, is this it?”
My mother shrugs, raising her eyebrows.
Virginia pulls out a small box. A jewelry box. I shoot Josephine a look. She shrugs. I don’t think Mom has ever given jewelry at Christmas before. We’ve never really had the money. And we certainly don’t now, with hospital bills for three of us, college approaching for two... Even Virginia looks apprehensive. “What’s this?”
“Just open it, honey,” my mother tells her.
Virginia pries the box open. Her eyebrows shoot up. “Mom... Are... Is this real?”
Mom stares down at the ground and mumbles something.
“What?”
“Your father sent it.”
My eyes widen. Josephine elbows me, shooting me a frantic look. Did you just hear that? her eyes ask. My mouth hangs slightly open. This is insane.
“I don’t want it.” Virginia slams the box shut, her jaw set. “Send it back. I don’t want it.”
“Sweetie...”
Virginia holds out the box. “Give it back to him. I don’t want it. This is ridiculous. No. I don’t want it.”
“He wants you to have it,” my mother whispers.
“I don’t care what he wants. No. Give it back.”
“Virginia...”
Virginia throws the box to the ground. “Leave.”
“Sweetie...”
Josephine steps forward. “Look, I know you’re pissed off at him. We all are. But...”
“But what? I should take his gifts? Why doesn’t he just call like normal deadbeat fathers do when their children are hospitalized?” She shakes her head, her eyes flashing. “No. No. I won’t take it. And I can’t believe you! You’re ridiculous!” She glares at Josephine. “Where was he for you? This summer? No. This is... No.”
“Sweetie...”
“Leave her alone,” I say quietly.
My mother glances back at me. “What?”
“She doesn’t want it. Can you blame her? Leave it alone.”
Josephine runs her fingers through her hair. “Can we sell it?”
“We’re not going to sell it,” my mother says softly.
“Then we’re going to throw it away. We’re not keeping it.”
“Virginia...”
Helen sits in the corner, staring out the window. I walk over and join her, and even though it’s only a few steps away, it seems like a different world.
“Do they ever shut up?” she asks me, sounding disturbingly old.
“They’re just opinionated.”
She shoots me a sad smile. “Christmas was funner last year.”
I look down at her. Her face is creased with disappointment, her ponytail drooping. And I realize that our tragedies have been hers, too. The nightmares and the worrying. She’s had nowhere to regroup. No hospitals, no psych facilities, no grandmothers’ houses. And somehow, by being the only one never separated, she’s been the one who’s stood the most alone.
“I don’t think anyone’s having all that much fun.”
She grabs my cast gently and loops her arm through it, laying her head on my plaster arm. “Josephine said your friend died. At Nana’s.”
I stare out the window at the snow, falling down on the parking lot. “Yeah. Well. Can I tell you a secret?”
She nods earnestly against my arm. “Uh-huh.”
“I loved her. A lot.”
Helen pulls her head away and looks up at me, her eyes wide. “Was she your girlfriend?”
I bite my lip and laugh lightly. “I don’t know. A little bit. But she didn’t love me back. Except...”
Helen waits patiently for me to finish my sentence.
I swallow hard. “I don’t know. Before she died. She left me a message. And said that she did. And part of me kind of wants to believe it, but I don’t.”
Helen thinks for a minute, then shrugs and grabs my arm again, burrowing into my side and propping my cast up on her shoulders. “Well, I love you.”
And I don’t know why she does. I have failed her in a thousand different ways. I don’t love me all that much. I don’t understand what there is to me but a failure, a violent failure who reads too much into too little. Who wakes up in the morning and is already defeated. There’s nothing admirable here. No heroism, no glory. I’m not loyal, or smart, or caring. I’m not good with people. I’m a liar and a vandal and a jackass. At the end of the day, the only thing I like about myself are these people. The people in this room. The one who we buried up in Mason, in the family plot. Without them, I’m just another jerk who doesn’t deserve anything good. This isn’t who I wanted to grow up to be.
And I make up my mind. I’m going. I’m going to visit her. I need to talk to her. She is the only person who can make sense of me, even now. She’s the only person I’ve ever loved enough to let try.
Friday, November 28h, 8:23 PM
“Open up. Kennedy. Kennedy!”
I sighed. “Poppy, why are you here?”
I pulled open the door. She stood there, gasping for breath, her hands shoved in her pockets, her jacket zipped to under her chin. She grimaced.
“I’m sorry. I’m... I need you to do something for me.”
And all the fantasies in my head vanished. Of her grabbing me and kissing me, still fighting to breathe, her fingers tangled in my hair. Having run however many blocks in the cold and the darkness to get to me. Because she needed me. Loved me. Couldn’t bear to let me go another night without knowing.
I rolled my eyes and stepped aside, motioning her in. I slammed the door shut behind her. “What do you want?”
She dug in her pockets. “This,” she said, clasping something in her fist. I held out my hand. She dropped a diamond necklace into my palm, then reached back into her jacket. I stared at her. “And this.” She dropped a ring. “There’s more, wait...”
Piece by piece, she dropped jewelry into my hand. Fantastic jewelry. The kind you see on celebrities, in museums. Not the kind you randomly hand to people, on chilly November nights, with no explanation.
“What the hell is this, Poppy?”
She dropped a pair of earrings into my hand and crossed her arms, sighing. “This is my mother’s jewelry. Tobias is looking for it. You can’t let him have it. He won’t think of you. He’ll think I have it, which I’m supposed to, or that I gave it to Lia, or pawned it, or something. But you can’t give it to him. You can’t. It’s important.”
“Poppy...”
She shook her head. “Look, I know this is weird. And very suspect. And you probably feel like you’re trapped in a really bad Lifetime movie right now, and I’m going to turn up dead and then it’s going to be you and Meredith Baxter Birney is going to have to save the day but it won’t matter for us because we’ll already be dead. And I will be the first to tell you that this is a very real possibility.”
My eyes widened. She laughed. “I’m kidding. Look, just keep it. Please. If he finds it, he’ll sell it. It’s my mom’s. I took it after she died, when he was selling everything he could find of hers. I... I just need you to keep it safe. Until I know I can keep it again.”
I shook my head. “This is ridiculous. Seriously. Poppy, this is like, thousands of dollars worth of shit, I can’t...”
She pressed a finger to my lips. “Please.”
And so of course I agreed. Because she was Poppy, and I loved her. I loved her in a way that made me crazy. She was all that I could think about. And that it was hopeless, that it would never go anywhere, that it was the most unrequited of unrequited loves... That only made me love her more.
Friday, December 26th, 5:21 PM
“We really should’ve brought Helen with us.”
I glance over at her and shake my head. “No we shouldn’t have. Helen doesn’t need to get dragged through my dirty laundry.”
“And I do?”
I roll my eyes. “You can drive. I can’t. Besides, you were born six minutes before I was. Meaning you’re my big sister. Meaning you’re supposed to take care of me.”
She shakes her head, shooting me a half amused, half annoyed look. “You’re such an idiot, Pookie.”
“I know. But it’s endearing, you have to admit.”
She reaches over and turns up the heat, biting her lip. “You know I feel kind of responsible for all of this, right?”
I stare at her. “All of what?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know... This mess you got into up at Nana’s. You never would’ve gotten... I’m just... I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? You didn’t do anything. You were pretty much the only person involved in this fiasco who didn’t do anything wrong.”
She raises her eyebrows. “I slit my wrists, Pookie. That doesn’t exactly qualify as award winning behavior.”
“You were... Look, don’t....” I trail off. It’s not the sort of sentence that’s easy to finish.
“I know,” she replies, shooting me a slight smile. “Look, I know you get a lot of flak for what you did. To Brennan. And I know we’ve kind of had this conversation before, but... I really do admire you. In a way. I think it was a stupid thing to do, but you... You were trying to protect me. To stick up for me. Or whatever. And I respect that, Pookie, even if I think you went about it in a really horrible way. I mean... He deserved what he got. You... You know what I’m saying.”
I nod. Even though I don’t, really. Because I did the right thing. I don’t care what anyone says. The only thing I regret is the effect it had on her.
None of us reacted very well. To the whole thing. The night it happened, Josephine came home crying. I had just gotten back from a date. I figured her boyfriend had broken up with her. Or done something equally horrible, like insulting her dress. Or saying that he didn’t like her choice of nail polish. Josephine was a girl. In the worst sense of the word. Well, no, because Virginia was a girl in the worst sense. Josephine’s type came in a close second. She was peppy. Always. Always organizing a bake sale or a dance. She used pens with feathers on the end, pencils scented like flowers. I kid you not. She dotted her ‘I’s with little circles. She talked on the phone while giving herself pedicures. It was slightly terrifying. And she was always crying about something, but only ever at home. At school, she was peppy. At home, she cried. She flew off the handle. She loved too hard and too fast, got her heart broken too damn easily. So that she came home crying wasn’t a big deal. It was kind of an eye rolling moment. An Oh my God, please don’t make me deal with this moment. But if I didn’t, no one else would. And so I went up to her room and knocked on her door.
She didn’t say anything when I knocked. And again. I opened it up and saw her sitting there. On her bed. Her dress hiked up around her waist, pajama pants on underneath. One knee pulled up to her chest. Staring. Her makeup running. The dress was red and shiny and ridiculous. Her PJs bore pictures of Santa and snowmen, even though it was the middle of July. She looked straight out of a horrible teen movie. But she was my sister. So I cared, even though I didn’t want to.
“What’s up?”
She glared at me. Shook her head. Then turned her attention back to the ceiling. Staring and crying and staring.
I left her alone. Even though I wasn’t sure I should. I still thought it was just some stupid breakup. Something inconsequential. Something she’d get over.
But she didn’t. She walked around the house like a ghost for a week. Pale and disoriented. Every time I walked past her room she was sitting there. Staring.
By the time she told me, I wasn’t surprised. I mean, I was, because I hadn’t known. But at the same time, I had. I had known all along.
We were driving. Except I was driving, instead of her, and neither of us was wearing a cast, much less two of them – though she might as well have been. She sat huddled in the corner of her seat, as far away from me as possible. We approached an intersection. Some idiot cut me off. I honked.
She chose that moment. The car horn blaring over her words. Like a censoring bleep on a television show. Blocking out the things you aren’t supposed to hear. “I was raped.”
I slammed on the brakes. The car behind me honked this time. I gave him the finger. Not thinking. Not feeling. “What?” Even though I didn’t need her to repeat it. Certainly didn’t want her to. Didn’t want to hear those words ever again.
“Last weekend. I...” And then she was crying. Sobbing. And there was nothing I could say. I knew that I could only make it worse.
I asked her who. She wouldn’t tell me. I asked her again. She spat out a name.
That was how I ended up on Brennan Power’s porch at ten thirty that night. His mother offered me something to drink. No, I was fine. His father asked how I’d been, if I was still with the Scouts. No, sir. Didn’t have the time, but flattered that he remembered me, sir. His mother asked if she should call him down. I said no. Said I remembered where his room was.
I walked in and he stared at me. Stood up. Held his hands up. I don’t remember what he said. I don’t remember what I said back. It was like one of those montages they play at the end of TV dramas, where the song covers up the voices, but you can see the anger. The fear. I shoved him down on the bed. Shoved my knee into his chest. He couldn’t breathe. I was glad. I screamed something at him. Didn’t care if his parents heard. Punched him in the face. His nose broke, then. It was the most satisfying thing I had ever done. I was screaming at him, still, but I don’t remember anything I said. Something about her. Because this was all about her. I wanted to obliterate him. Not just to kill him, but to erase him, somehow. I hit him. Over and over. Screaming. Crying, eventually, though that just pissed me off more. And I had never really hit anyone before. Stupid playground fights in elementary school. One halfhearted fistfight in the ninth grade. But never like this. Never like I meant it.
His parents were there. Then his little brother. Standing in the door. He couldn’t have been older than Helen. His mother was screaming at me. “Stop it!” Over and over and over. “Stop it!” His father just stood there helplessly. I hit him again. And again. And then his father grabbed me, pulled me off. I lunged for him again. He didn’t move. Well, that’s not true. His head moved. He groaned. Spat. His entire face was bloody. My knuckles were destroyed. His father pinned me against the wall, twisted my arm behind my back. He was an ex-cop. He knew how to handle people like me. Crazy people. The violent youth of America.
And that was how I got a police escort home. They tried to book me, but he wouldn’t let them. Refused. They took me in to the station, but if he wasn’t going to charge me, I was a waste of their time. And so I was escorted home with a stern warning. Anything else like this and I would not be so lucky. He swore it was just a fistfight that had gotten out of hand. That we were fighting over a girl. That I was a lot stronger than he had thought. But there wasn’t a scratch on me, while he was bleeding everywhere. His knuckles were clean. Mine were torn open. Not that it stopped me from punching a hole in the wall once the police were gone. Virginia stared at me. What did you do, Pookie? Oh my god, what did you do? Her face pale, her eyes wide. Afraid. I wouldn’t respond. She asked again. I was silent. She walked down the hall and woke up our mother.
Josephine came down the stairs and saw me. Saw my knuckles. The hole in the wall. Turned on her heel and went back to her room. Downstairs, my mother paced the floor. Shaking her head. I don’t know what to do with you. Virginia sat on the couch behind her, head cradled in her hands.
I mumbled something to my mother and ran upstairs to try to talk to Josephine. She stared at the ceiling. Ignored me. My mother called me back downstairs. I went. I listened as she lectured, as she bemoaned my behavior, my sudden transformation from model child into crazed psychopath. She said she didn’t understand me. But I wasn’t all that hard to understand.
She sent me to my room. Said she’d deal with me in the morning. Which wasn’t so much about me as it was about her. She was tired. She was always tired. And she hardly had enough time to sleep. She worked two jobs. She was exhausted. And she could never sleep. And now here I was, stirring up trouble. Making holes in her walls. My knuckles bleeding on her carpet. What was she going to do with me?
I went upstairs. Knocked on Josephine’s door, but she didn’t answer. I left it shut. Went to my room. Left the lights off. Sat on my bed in the dark. Stared at the ceiling, looking for answers. For confirmation that I had done the right thing. My knuckles stung. I heard something move. Heard someone breathing. I reached over. Turned on the light.
She was lying there in the corner. Barely breathing. Not moving. Surrounded by blood. I had never seen so much blood. I ran over to her. Turned her over. Screamed. I heard Virginia’s feet pounding up the stairs. You’re going to wake Mom up. Shut up! You’re going to wake Mom up! And then she opened the door. And she saw what I saw. And she screamed, too.
I collapsed back onto my bed. She ran over to Josephine. Turned back to look at me. She’s going to die. Oh my god. Call 911. I didn’t move. Call 911! she screamed. I reached in my pocket, pulled out my cell phone. Crying. Panted out something, some address, some description of the scene, but I didn’t know what to say. We’re in my bedroom. My sister’s dying. There’s blood everywhere. I think she killed herself. Virginia was in the corner, her full weight on Josephine’s outstretched forearms, her clothes soaked in blood, her hair falling over them both. God, Pookie, see if she’s breathing. But I was frozen. She called for me again. I didn’t move. And so she did it herself. She did it all herself. I sat back and watched. Sobbing. My knuckles throbbing. I didn’t know what to do.
Josie, baby, what did you do? Virginia asked her. But it wasn’t at all how she had asked me. She sounded sad, this time. Lonesome. Hopeful and hopeless all at once.
The paramedics came. Carted her away. Virginia woke my mother up again, soaked in blood. My mother screamed. I will never forget that sound.
I turn to Josephine now, sleeves pulled down securely over her scars, hands gripping the steering wheel. She shoots me a small smile. “Lot on your mind?”
“Yeah.” I nod, turning my head to stare out the window. “Yeah. I guess.”
Saturday, November 29th, 3:42 PM
“Poppy...”
She sniffled. “What? Leave me alone, Kennedy. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I’m a jerk,” I admit, leaning against the door. “And you have every reason to hate me, probably some that I’m not even aware of. But letting me in would be a great first step to sainthood. And I know how you’ve always wanted to be a saint.”
She cleared her throat. “Yeah, well, I think I would look very good on a prayer card.”
“Can I come in, then?”
The door opened. She stood there, her jeans unbuttoned, with only a bra on top. I stared at her. “You didn’t have to get so dressed up.”
Her brow furrowed. “You suck, Kennedy. Don’t make me hate you right now. I need to like you. You have so far proved the only redeeming member of your... Penis having people thing.”
“Gender?”
She glared at me. “Don’t. You’re making fun of me. I’m drunk and unhappy and you’re making fun of me.”
I sighed. “Okay. What’s wrong? What did I do this time?”
She stared at me, her teary eyes wide with confusion. “When did I say that you did anything?”
“You were mad at me. Hence the talk about your saintliness in letting me in. Do you not pay attention to the text messages you send out? You know, the I hate you, leave me alone kind that send me running over here when I should be doing my history homework?”
She rolled her eyes, wiping them with the back of her hand. “I’m not mad at you. I didn’t even know that sent to you. What, you just automatically assumed it was about you?”
“It was sent to me!”
Poppy sighed, sliding down the door and falling to a heap at its bottom. “I quit life.”
“Can you just talk about what’s going on? Is this Tobias? Or something else?”
She sighed. “I slept with Max.”
“Again?” I tried my best to sound nonchalant, but it came out squeaky and pathetic. I didn’t want her to sleep with Max. I didn’t want her to sleep with anyone but me. And honestly, if I hadn’t been such a horrible person, I wouldn’t have wanted that, either.
“No!” She sighed, frustrated with my stupidity. “No, I slept with Max two years ago and I am still being punished.” She twisted her hair around her finger, shaking her head slowly. “He called me.”
“He called you?”
“He wants to get back together. No, seriously! He’s been avoiding me for ages because he has feelings for me. And I’m like, you didn’t have feelings when we did it the first time! But he says that doesn’t matter. He’s actually quite convinced that it doesn’t. Because he is Max. And he is illogical and insane. And he has feelings now. You know who doesn’t have feelings now? Me. I don’t even have feelings for you, Kennedy, and I’m sleeping with you. Hell, if I liked anyone, it would be you. With your rapidly diminishing abs and your... You know... Listening stuff.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve been watching too much Grey’s Anatomy. This is not a crisis. This is not deserving of a little speech. You’re supposed to eat Ben and Jerry’s and watch a chick flick and get through this. And call Lia. And not text message Max, or, even better, mistakenly text message me. Because my listening stuff really isn’t as up to par as you thought it was.”
“Kennedyyyyy,” she whined, grabbing my leg. “Sit down. Stay with me. I’m lonely.”
And she really had been drinking. She was glassy eyed and weepy, her words were a little bit slurred, her movements were exaggerated. Her father was bound to come home at any moment and renew the damage he had done to my face back when school started. Now was not a good time to sit down next to her and have her rest her head on my shoulder. Now was not a good time to put my arm around her waist and let her cry about nothing but really about everything she had never bothered to cry about. But I was crazy, and I was in love. It was hard to tell which had led to which. And so her drunkenness, the inappropriateness of the moment flew right over my head. Because she wanted me. And I was glad.
Friday, December 26th, 8:07 PM
“Well, hello! It’s so good to see you two!”
Josephine stoops down to hug her, squeezing her for a moment before letting her go. “It’s good to see you too, Nana. It’s been so long!”
“Hi, Nana.”
She eyes me warily, but offers me a hug. “Welcome back, Ulysses.” I accept her embrace awkwardly, my casts dangling at her sides.
She ushers us inside, pulling the door shut behind us. Josephine pulls off her coat and helps me with mine, and accepts the tea Nana thrusts into her frozen hands. I smile awkwardly and ask for a straw and a table. Nana obliges, and we all sit down and sip, avoiding the elephant in the room for as long as we can.
“So,” Josephine says finally, clearing her throat. “Did you have a good Christmas, Nana?”
My grandmother nods. “Oh, you know. It was quiet, but lovely. It would’ve been nicer if you all were here, of course. But obviously that wasn’t going to work.”
“Maybe next year,” Josephine replies, but she doesn’t mean it. She sips her tea and looks across the table at me. “So Virginia is doing well. She might get out of the hospital in a week or so, if all goes well. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
Nana smiles. “Good, good.” She stares at something over my head, obviously a world a way. None of us are here, really. Small talk has taken a definite backseat to the other things on our minds.
We sit in silence for entirely too long, the only sound the uncomfortable shifting of feet and the occasional swallow. “Tobias thinks I stole the jewelry,” I say finally, looking up at Nana.
She closes her eyes for a moment, her expression unreadable. “Does he now.”
“So does my mother.”
She sighs. “And what do you want me to do, Ulysses? What do you think there is for me to do?”
“I don’t know. I just...” There isn’t anything for her to do, really. Nothing that would make sense. Nothing that wouldn’t make everything that much worse. But still. “It seems unfair. That I’m the one who ends up the scapegoat for everything.”
“It’s not unfair. Most of it’s your fault.”
I blink at her. This is not the Nana I know so well and love so much. The kind woman who taught us all to bake, to grill, to drive. Who we called when we were young and upset. Who sent the best Christmas gifts. “No it’s not,” I reply, even though she’s right.
“Ulysses, you came out here for reasons that were entirely your own doing, whether you will admit that or not. You fell in love with the neighbor girl, even though she and everyone else warned you not to, most especially her father. You let yourself be taken in by her lies. She died, for whatever reason, and you alienated all those who would have helped you by insisting that you knew her and they did not. You vandalized a water tower for petty revenge. You left a horrible letter for her father, her grieving father, Ulysses. And don’t you think that I haven’t read it. Everyone has read it. You’re an angry young man who has lost all his sense. So don’t blame me or anyone else for this. Tobias Law has lost everything. And all you want to do is rip open his wounds. So of course he’s going to suspect you when things go awry. I know where that jewelry is and a part of me still thinks you were behind it.”
I stare at her. “I... They weren’t lies.”
“Excuse me”
“I wasn’t taken in by her lies. They weren’t lies.”
Nana sighs. She looks much older than she is, suddenly. Completely exhausted. “Leave it be, Ulysses.”
“But they weren’t! You know that better than anyone else! She was telling the truth!”
“Pookie,” Josephine says warningly, taking a long, slow sip of her tea.
“She told some of the truth, of course. But that clouded her judgment, Ulysses. She let the past define the present. She saw things that were never there.”
“He punched the shit out of me!” I shout, standing up. My chair clatters to the floor behind me. “What the hell do you think she was making up?”
“Leave it be,” she repeats.
I shake my head. I want to throw something. Hit something. Anything. Adrenaline courses through me. My legs twitch beneath me, wanting to run. I glance out the window. Stare for a moment at the snow falling white and relentless outside. And I can’t bear it anymore. To be stuck in here, in this house where everything is all about her. I kick the chair out of my way, sending it clattering into the desk by the door. I storm to the porch door, fumbling with the doorknob. Behind me, I hear Josephine’s chair scrape back. She grabs her coat as I finally pull the door open. I take off at a clumsy run. She chases after me.
By now, the snow is deep. Several inches, hard packed to the ground. Running is hardly an option. I trip through it, my arms helpless at my sides. My shoes can’t seem to get a solid grip. I move as quickly as I can, faltering repeatedly, almost falling twice. If I fall, it will be over. My arms won’t be there to catch me. She will have to help me up, to carry me back to Nana’s house. And that is the last place I want to be. So I stumble along, Josephine walking behind me at a safe distance, calling after me.
“Pookie, come on. It’s fine. It’s... Pookie.”
I ignore her. Plod along slowly, my jeans soaked through, shivering. I should have left my coat on when I came in. But there’s no way I’m turning around. I can get hypothermia and die. I don’t fucking care.
“Pookie...”
“Stop following me!” I call back, the wind drowning out my voice.
“I love you, you idiot! I’m always going to follow you!”
I turn around to face her. The snow has picked up even since we started walking, and it’s hard to make her out behind the blanket of white flecks. “I can’t stay here. I...”
“Just... Come on. Come with me back to the house and we’ll go for a drive or something. Or... I don’t know. But you can’t be out here. You... You’ve got to be freezing, I know I am, and all this wet isn’t good for your casts.”
“I’m fine. You can go home. I...”
“You’re not fine! You’re chasing some girl’s ghost in the middle of a snowstorm with two broken arms. You’re stupid and stubborn and you need a friend.”
I sigh. “Go home, Josephine.”
“I’m not going anywhere that won’t come with me.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t need you to protect me!”
“Yes you do.”
“What the hell are you running away from, Pookie?”
And I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that question. I don’t know if there is one. The truth is, I don’t know where I’m headed. I’m just walking. I don’t know why, except that because I can’t stand to be back there right now. I’m looking for what I lost in this snow-covered town. I’m looking for answers. For the truth. And, as always, a part of me is looking for her. In my head, she is always at the end of my journeys. She is the only end that would make it all worthwhile.
Sunday, November 30th, 6:21 PM
“We should talk.”
She snuggled into my chest, sighing contentedly. “Mmm?”
“About us.”
She pulled away, rolling to her side of the bed. “What do you want now, Kennedy?”
“I want to know where this is going.”
“It’s not going anywhere. How many times do I have to tell you this?”
I sighed. “There’s no possibility? Nothing? We can’t possibly just be friends with benefits, Poppy. There’s... That’s ridiculous!”
“Of course we can be! It’s been working for months now, Kennedy!” She pulled on her shirt, then turned her head back to look at me, hazel eyes flashing, her hair a tangled mess.
“It hasn’t been working! Don’t even pretend like you think it has!”
She threw up her hands. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why can’t you just leave a good thing alone?”
“Because!”
“Way to make sense. Great reasoning. Great, just fucking --”
“Because I love you!”
Her hands fell to the bed beside her. She stood up. Staring. Like she couldn’t believe this was happening. Like it was the worst thing possible.
“I should go,” she said quietly, grabbing her jeans and pulling them up in one swift motion. “I should really... I should really go.”
“Poppy...”
“No. No. I... No, you... I need... I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
She left. I begged her not to. But she wouldn’t listen. And this time, when she pulled the door shut behind her, my heart didn’t swell. It broke. And every cliché was realized in that moment. I fell back onto my bed, exhausted.
Friday, December 26th, 9:00 PM
“It’s warm in here.”
I shake my head. “Shh.”
She follows me, our shoes squeaking on the wood floors. We don’t speak. The saints stare down at us with glassy eyes, watching us walk slowly down the aisle. Judging us.
I duck into a pew. Josephine stands awkwardly for a moment, then walks a few rows up and sits down across the aisle. Her hair is dripping with melting snow.
This is where we had Poppy’s funeral. Not that I’m included in that ‘we’, not really. Her father organized it, with Nana’s help. Lia got everyone at school to bring flowers. The altar was a mess of color. The girls all sat in the front pews and cried. Max and Josh and Todd were pallbearers, along with Clay, my replacement. I was surprised I was even allowed in the church. I stood in the back, motionless, half-hidden by one of the pillars. As they processed out, Max shot me a quick smile, but everyone else avoided my eyes. Except Tobias, of course. He glared at me with a special sort of hatred. As if this were my fault, somehow.
Our father had always been big on Church. Every Sunday at eight o’clock we were there, in the third pew back, second row from the right. Josephine and I poked each other and whispered back and forth while Virginia drew on the prayer cards. Mom stared straight ahead, obviously not paying attention. But my father was absorbed. Afterward, we were expected to Talk About It. It was a ritual deserving of the capitalization. “What did you think of the scripture?” my father would ask. And we would be expected to respond. We never had a good enough answer. He always went to bed angry on Sundays. But Monday morning, we were back to pretending that it had never happened.
I feel out of place here. In this pew, in this church, surrounded by the disappointed saints. But it’s warm and I’m tired and I have nowhere else to go.
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