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Wednesday, November 26th, 2:32 AM
“You’re awake.”
I groaned. “Jesus, Poppy, what time is it?” I squinted at the clock and bolted from bed, throwing her shirt to her. “You were supposed to be home hours ago. Tobias is going to kill me.”
“He’ll be fine. He actually kind of likes you, for some reason. Apparently you’re respectable or something. I think it’s because he hit you and you never said anything to him about it.”
“Flattering, but seriously. Go home. Now.” I sighed. “And be quiet. If Nana hears you I’m fucked over.”
“I could just say I spent the night at Lia’s. And tell your grandmother in the morning that I came over early through the back door and she didn’t hear me.”
I blinked. “Do you think my grandmother is exceptionally naïve? She’s like, eighty years old. I’m pretty sure she’s familiar with the symptoms of sneaking around.”
Poppy sat down on the bed, sighing. “You never have any fun.”
“I’m not here to have fun. I’m here to get responsible and level-headed, so I can go home.”
She looked down at her lap. “Jesus. Way to make a girl feel special.”
I sighed. “Seriously, can we have this discussion any other time? It’s a school night. Go home. Get some sleep in your own bed.” I paused for a moment, chewing on my lip. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this anymore,” I said softly.
She turned her head and looked at me for a long moment. “Fuck you.”
“It’s just not working out quite the way it’s supposed to.”
“You’re getting laid. I’m getting laid. That’s pretty much all that was supposed to happen.” She shakes her head, her jaw set, and pulls her shirt on over her head. “You know, Kennedy, maybe you need to grow up.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You expect too much out of this. You thought it was going to turn into something. It hasn’t. You’re bitter. We’re friends who sleep together. That’s all. Get used to it. I’m tired of having this fight.”
“You’re the one who makes every fight into this one.”
“We’re friends,” she spits, her voice a stage whisper. “Jesus. Friends aren’t supposed to fight this much. Friends don’t fight this much. Ask Max what happens when you fuck with the friends thing. It doesn’t end well.”
“Will you let it go? I said back in August that I wanted more. By now, all I really care about is that you somehow keep ending up at my house in the middle of the night, making excuses to stay longer, and I don’t need that.”
“You’re the one who treats me like some giant hurdle in his path to going home. Get over yourself, Kennedy.” She buttons and zips her pants, grabs her bra off the floor and sticks it in her pocket. “I’ll see you at school.”
And it was crazy, but when she closed the door, I loved her a little bit more than usual. It was always like that. I wanted her the most when she was walking away. Sometimes I felt like I was in love with the back of her head. Her shoulder blades. They were the only parts of her that bothered to kiss me good-bye.
Friday, December 25th, 8:41 AM
“Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas!”
“Hey, Virginia.”
“Hi, sweetie. How are you? Merry Christmas!”
Virginia laughs, her voice crackling over the telephone. “I’m alright. I wish I were home. How’s the freak going to unwrap his presents with no arms?”
I glare at the phone. “Some of the fingers on my left hand move, thanks a lot.”
I can almost hear her roll her eyes. “You’re ridiculous. How’s everyone else? It’s kind of early.”
“Never too early to hear your voice, sweetie,” my mother says. Josephine rolls her eyes behind Mom’s back. I stick out my tongue. “We’ll be by this evening to give you your gifts. Maybe Pookie can unwrap them for you with his one hand.”
“Hey!”
Virginia laughs on the other end of the line. “I can’t wait. How’s the baby? Good Christmas so far, Helen?”
Helen nods. “Uh-huh.” She’s beaming with excitement. The tragedies that have befallen her siblings lately haven’t seemed to affect her Christmas spirit. “It’s snowing!” she added, giving a little squeal of delight. Helen loves the snow. Mostly because she doesn’t have to shovel it. Of course, right now, neither do I. I’m supposed to have these casts on until long after the last snow has melted. I personally can’t wait to go back to school. Nothing like heading back to your old stomping grounds surrounded by rumors of insanity and wearing plaster tubes on your arms that make you the least threatening person this side of Teletubbyland.
“How are you feeling?” Josephine asks, leaning in over Mom’s shoulder.
“I don’t know. I’m okay. My chest still kills, but breathing is definitely easier. Or getting there. My head is... Eh. I don’t know. But whatever. It’s Christmas. So you guys are coming later?”
“Yeah. We’ll be by this afternoon or this evening with your gifts. Josephine got all the ones you told her about wrapped, by the way.”
“Good. Alright, I’ll let y’all go. I’m sure Helen is pretty close to going insane.”
“Bye!”
“Merry Christmas.”
“Love you, sweetie.”
“See you later.”
“Will do. Love you too, Mom. Bye.” The phone clicks.
Helen is already digging through her stocking by the fireplace. She’s managed to find several pair of socks and some lip balm. Mom is a historically bad stocking stuffer.
Usually, Christmas is an epic event. Lots of photos are taken. The lights are on full-blast at nine in the morning. We sit around all day in our pajamas, being reminded of all the thank you notes we should be writing, sipping various warm beverages and staring at the mountains of new stuff we probably won’t use. We wear the underwear and socks we recovered from our stockings, rifle through the pile of castoff gifts (mostly from random relatives on the east coast we haven’t seen since we were five) looking for something good. It’s all very well documented. We have a solid photo album filled each year.
But this year, there is no camera. Helen’s the only one who seems to be interested in this at all. I really doubt I could get a present open, despite what I told Virginia, and Josephine just seems listless, collapsed on the couch picking at the hem of her sleeve. My mother stands over us looking a little bit crazy but mostly just heartbroken. She has every right to be. Of all of us, she’s had the hardest year. A daughter who tried to kill herself but won’t tell her why, even though she knows the rest of her children know. A son who goes off punching the shit out of people and almost getting arrested, then has strange men call the house looking for jewelry that he doesn’t have, and goes on to crash the car on a snowy afternoon, crippling himself indefinitely and almost killing yet another daughter. A daughter who isn’t even here, but sitting alone in a hospital room watching twenty-four hours of “A Christmas Story” on TBS, because she won’t be out of the hospital for awhile yet, seeing as they’re still not sure her lungs are okay and just two days ago they had to do another surgery, something to do with her head. And the one child who hasn’t done anything to break you down is so damn cheerful, or trying to be, that she might be the worst of all. I wouldn’t want to be in my mother’s shoes. It looks bad enough from here.
So we’ll skip this year in the photo albums. This is nothing we want to remember. Next year will be better. Josephine and I will come home from college with some sort of new hope, ready to tear open our stockings with renewed enthusiasm and fully functioning arms, and Virginia will be here and Helen will still believe in Santa Claus and we will be a picture on a Christmas card like you have never seen before. We will look happy. And we will be happy. And we will never worry again.
Wednesday, November 26th, 4:41 PM
“Josh and I had sex.”
“About time! You’ve been flirting with each other since August.” Poppy grinned over at Lindsay, tossing a piece of popcorn in her direction. “Was it good? Was he better than Max?”
“Oh, god. You’d know. You’ve slept with Josh, right?”
Poppy shook her head. “No. Which is weird. Didn’t we date for awhile? He used to live across the street and everything.”
“I know! Weird. I really thought you had.” Lindsay shrugged. “Yeah, he’s better than Max.”
“How much better?”
“Actually paid attention to someone besides himself better.”
Poppy giggled. “Seriously! Max is so like that. Who’s he even going out with now? I’ve hardly talked to him since he and Emma broke up. She made me feel so guilty about it.”
“Do you two normally do this?” I finally interjected from my corner, raising my eyebrows.
Lindsay stared at me. “Yes?”
“Always,” Poppy assured me, then turned back to Lindsay. “Wait, is he going out with Heather?” Lindsay nodded. Poppy sighed. “I saw them together in the hall, but I didn’t believe it was true. I mean, they have nothing in common! I mean, they’re both kind of loose, but other than that....”
“Really loose. Did you hear about Heather and Anthony? That skinny kid from way out by the river?”
“Wait, what about them?”
“Supposedly he actually thought they were like, dating. Or something. And I mean, it’s Heather. She sleeps with everyone.”
“Sounds familiar,” I remarked. “You know. Skanky girl, genuinely good guy. Skanky girl forgets that sex isn’t just some meaningless thing.”
Poppy glared at me. “Kennedy has commitment issues. As in, he wants one.”
“As in I like you. I told you that in like, August. I don’t want you to go off and sleep with someone else. I’m sorry.”
Lindsay smiled at me sympathetically. “I think it’s sweet.”
“I don’t,” Poppy said, sighing. “He wants to break it off now, by the way. Because apparently I don’t get out of his house early enough or something.”
“I just don’t like waking up in the middle of the night and realizing that your father is probably going to shoot me in the face for keeping you out so late. If my grandmother doesn’t get to you first.”
She undid her ponytail and shook her hair out, red waves whipping around her head. “That’s not the real problem and you know it as well as I do.”
“I also know that you’ve slept with more guys than I’ve shaken hands with,” I retorted, only half-kidding.
“I think I’m going to go.” Lindsay stood up, giving both of us weird looks. “I’ll call you later, Poppy. See you both tomorrow.”
Poppy glared at me when she was gone. “Good job making things awkward, Kennedy. As usual.”
“You’re such a hypocrite.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know, I think Tobias is going to be home soon. Maybe you should leave.”
“What? You don’t want to talk about what’s wrong with you? Just what’s wrong with me?”
“There isn’t anything wrong with me to talk about,” she replied, leaning back against the bed.
“How about the way you sleep with absolutely everyone and then call other girls slutty. Or how you constantly bring up that I told you a month and a half ago that I liked you. That your father is crazy and you seem to think it’s kind of funny. That --”
“Oh, are we getting personal now?” She raised her eyebrows. “You beat up guys badly enough to almost get arrested and consequently sent to your grandmother’s house in the middle of nowhere. You fall for girls who explicitly tell you not to. You’ve really let your abs go since you moved here. And you’re really not that good at third base. Like, at all.”
“Jesus, just because I’m not as practiced as some people. And don’t even bring up Brennan. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re right, I don’t. Because you won’t tell me. You don’t tell me anything, except what you think is wrong with me. You mouth off about that twenty-four hours a day!”
“What, you want me to tell you my secrets?” I stretched my legs out in front of me, crossing my arms and leaning back against the wall. “You want me to talk?”
“What, you mean after a month and a half of fucking me we’re going to have a conversation?” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t care about your secrets. Although the more time goes by, the more I doubt why you say you got sent here. You don’t seem like the violent type. That would involve, you know, getting things done. Which you’re not a big fan of.”
“Why do you say things like that? Are you trying to drive me away? Is this how you break up with people? Oh, wait, you can’t break up with me, because we’re not dating, just sleeping together commitment-free. Which is why we spend all our free time together.”
“We do that because I feel sorry for you, you jackass.” She rolled her eyes. “Because you got thrown here for whatever pansy-ass reason, and made up some story to cover your ass, and you like me and I feel bad for you because I’m using you. Is that what you want to hear?”
“You like me back. That’s why you hang out with me. Don’t make up all this bullshit about feeling sorry for me. You like me back, Poppy. And it scares you, because you’re not supposed to like anyone, because you’re a frigid bitch with a complex the size of Montana.”
“And you’re an emotionally stunted jerkoff with a penis the size of my thumb. Where is this name-calling getting us?”
“I don’t know. Jesus.” I stood up and shoved my hands in my pockets, glowering at her. “I’m leaving.”
She shrugged. “Fine. You say that like you expect it to affect me.”
“Yeah, well. You caught me. Everything I do is about you.”
I turned around and stormed out of the room. We both knew that she was right, as usual. She didn’t like me. I was an emotionally stunted jerkoff. And, at least in part, she hung out with me because she pitied me. It certainly wasn’t because her friends liked me. Emma hated me by association, Lia liked me about as much as Lia liked anyone, which wasn’t a whole lot, Lindsay thought I was hot but otherwise didn’t care one way or the other, Max saw me as a threat, and the rest of the guys tolerated me because their girlfriends were BFFs with my best friend.
But more than anything, everything I did was about her. We both knew it. I could say it sarcastically a thousand times. But it would still be true. I was head over heels in love with her. And she couldn’t have cared less.
But she followed me anyway. Out the door of her house, pulling on her jacket, holding out mine with one hand. “You forgot this,” she called.
I turned around and squinted at her in the wind. “Are we stupid? To do this all the time?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
She tossed me my jacket and I caught it, slinging it over my shoulder. I walked away without saying another word, over to my driveway and onto the screened-in porch that led into our kitchen. Nana sat at the kitchen table, doing the crossword. She smiled when I came in.
“Five letter word for ‘a lot’. First letter L.”
“I don’t know.” I draped my jacket over the back of a chair and collapsed into it, sighing.
She put down her pencil and looked at me across the table. “Weight of the world?”
I shrugged. “As usual.”
Three months earlier, if any of my friends, or even Cassie, had treated me the way Poppy did, I would have been done with it all. In Jefferson, you could spare people, here and there. You would still get invited to the movies. Still have someone to go away with on Spring Break. Here, there was no one else.
Or there was. I had just been too busy staring at her to see it. And that certainly wasn’t going to change.
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