To Love Her: A NaNoWriMo Novel

We're All Winners, Deep Inside

2007-11-30T19:47:00.000-08:00

Thanks for reading.

November 30th: And I'm just dreaming, counting the ways to where you are

2007-11-30T14:27:00.000-08:00

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.”

November 27th: and he took my shoulders and he shook my face... and he takes, and he takes, and he takes.

2007-11-27T17:56:00.000-08:00

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.

November 24th: You don't recover from a night like this.

2007-11-24T19:21:00.000-08:00

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.

November 24th: You can keep to yourself. I'll keep out of your way.

2007-11-24T17:01:00.000-08:00

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.

November 21st (very late): The broken clock is a comfort. It helps me sleep, tonight.

2007-11-21T23:30:00.000-08:00

PART TWO

******

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.

November 21st: Woman, I ain't gonna meet you anywhere

2007-11-21T11:51:00.000-08:00

Monday, August 18th, 2:15 PM

“Mmm, what time is it?”

I rolled over and looked at the clock. “Two fifteen.”

“Huh.”

She sat up, her clothes rumpled and her face slightly flushed. She ran her fingers through her hair, working out the tangles. She was gorgeous, then. Silhouetted against the light flooding in through the window next to her, the sunlight peeking through her tousled hair, her bare legs twisted into some odd contortion.

And then she caught me staring, and immediately her self-consciousness ruined it all. She pulled back her hair into a hurried ponytail, pulled the legs of her shorts down her thighs, smoothed her shirt with her hands. “I really should go home.”

“Stay,” I implored her, grabbing her hand. I regretted it immediately. I sounded desperate, creepy. But maybe I was. The truth was, I missed her. She was standing right there, and I missed her. It made no sense. The word love ran through my head, a neon-lit sign flashing on the street corner. I ignored it. I had said more than enough.

She shook her head, pulling her hand away. “I have to go. Really. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

She was always leaving. Always.

*****

Monday, December 15th, 5:59 PM

“I think he’s waking up.”

And I am. My eyes flicker open. It’s like one of those horrible movie scenes, with sluggish blinking flashes in front of the camera, the glaring white of a hospital room and the blinding fluorescent lights. I try to sit up, but can’t even get my head off the pillow.

Josephine moves to stand at the end of the bed. “You’re awake,” she say softly, sticking her hands in her coat pockets. She looks awkward and terrified. I wonder how long she’s been standing here, waiting for me.

“I’m awake,” I reply.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

She bites her lip. “You don’t look too bad. Both of your shoulders are... I don’t know. And you broke your arms pretty badly. The doctor is coming in a minute, I’m sure. He’ll probably know what happened better than I do. The nurse just left a second ago to go get him, because you seemed like you were waking up.” She shifts her weight nervously from one foot to the other, her arms crossed over her chest.

“How’s Virginia?”

“She’s --”

The doctor breezes in at that moment, cutting her off. He’s middle-aged, bald, and jovial, with a salt and pepper beard and a twinkle in his eye. If he gained fifty pounds and donned a red suit, he would make a great mall Santa. “Good to see you’re up, Ulysses,” he remarks, coming over and adjusting the bed. I can see the whole room now – the chair by the door, the window beside the bed, my mother’s coat lying in a heap by the door.

“I’m Dr. Fathers. You’ve dislocated your right shoulder, it looks like. Both arms are broken. We had to put you in emergency surgery for that shoulder, so it may be a little sore when you wake up more – you had a bone sticking clear out of the skin, it really wasn’t pretty. We are worried about head injury, but you’re awake, so that’s a big step in the right direction. Internally, everything seems okay. You were wearing your seatbelt, so you were lucky there.” He paces as he talks, taking two steps forward and then two back, over and over again. It makes me nervous. It obviously is affecting Josephine the same way. She’s biting the nails on her right hand, staring at me without meeting my eyes.

“How’s my sister?”

He looks at me for a long moment, his pleasantness suddenly gone. “She’s still in surgery.”

“Why?”

He looks down at the floor. “Right now we think her airbag didn’t function properly. She was wearing her seatbelt as well, which helped keep her in the vehicle, but she hit the dashboard with remarkable force. We’ll let you know as soon as we know anything.”

“And the woman? The other woman?”

He manages a smile. “She’s fine. She was the one who called 911, actually. She was extremely worried about you two. She’s already gone home.”

He scribbles something on his clipboard and leaves the room with a spring in his step. I feel sick.

“Have you seen Virginia?”

Josephine shakes her head. “Just you. They didn’t even call us until after two o’clock. You were through surgery by the time we got here.”

“So Mom’s here? And Helen?”

She bites her lip. “They left.”

“They left?”

She sighs. “Mom can’t deal with any of this right now, Pookie. She’s... I mean, just think. She’s been through so damn much with all of us this year. I sent her home. I told her I’d call her when they gave us news about Virginia.”

“Oh.”

“Look, it’ll be fine. You both will be. Seriously.” She forces a twitchy smile.

“What if she’s not? What if...” I trail off. I don’t want to name the possibilities.

Josephine sighs, walking over to my left to stare out the window. “I don’t know. I... I don’t know. She’ll be fine. She has to be.” She smiles at me, grabbing my hand, biting down hard on her lower lip.

“She doesn’t have to be. People die in car wrecks all the time. Poppy --”

“You said Poppy did it on purpose.”

“So?”

“So that’s different.”

We fall silent. I am exhausted, but I refuse to fall asleep. I lie there, staring at the wall. Josephine stands at the window and looks out at the city, wiping the occasional tear from her eye. We hope. But neither of us believes in what we’re hoping. We wait in a numbed agony to hear something, anything. We will take anything.

*****

Monday, August 19th, 5:49 PM

“Are you sick, sweetheart? You’ve been cooped up in here all day.”

I sat up, groggily rubbing my eyes. “Mmm.”

“Oh!” She lets out a gasp of surprise when she sees my face. “Oh, Ulysses, what happened?”

I shrug. “Nothing. It’s... Just teenage boys. You know. We’re stupid.” And really, that summed up everything pretty nicely. Not necessarily this part, but my life in general.

“Is it broken? This looks horrible, Ulysses. Let me see.” She clucked her tongue as she examined it, shaking her head.

“Not broken. Just... I don’t know. It’s fine. Seriously, Nana, never felt better.”

She stepped back, her arms crossed, wearing a disapproving look. “You’ve been here barely one weekend and you’re already picking fights?”

“I didn’t... Look, he hit me, and I kind of deserved it, but I swear I didn’t hit back.” That much was true. Unfortunately.

“Who?”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “I... Just... It’s fine, Nana. Seriously. I’ll be okay.”

“Who, Ulysses?”

I stared at her. Shook my head.

“I’ll have to call your mother.”

I pictured it in my head. My mother on the phone, listening. Crying. Virginia slumped against the wall outside her door, hair pushed back with shaking fingers, worrying. She was always worrying. But what could I really say to stop it? The truth was, my mother would cry and Virginia would worry, whether I gave them new reason to or not.

“Fine.”

She blinked at me, then shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving mine. “You are so much better than this, Ulysses.”

But I wasn’t. I was protecting Poppy. In my mind, it was the only thing to do.

*****

Tuesday, December 16th, 10:10 AM

“Hey sweetie.”

I force my eyes open. “Hey, Mom.”

She looks old. Very, very old. She takes my hand and rubs it between her own, her fingers frightfully cold. “How are you?”

“I’m okay. Just some broken bones and sh... stuff. No big deal.”

She manages a quick smile before her face collapses again. “Uh-huh. That’s good, sweetie. Your sisters have been worried about you.”

“Virginia?” I ask hopefully, my voice rising at least an octave.

She pulls one hand away and wipes her eye. “She’s still asleep.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She cracked her head open, and her seatbelt had to jerk her so hard it broke a rib, which punctured a lung,” chimes in a different, flatter voice. A voice I would know anywhere.

“Josie,” my mother admonishes. “Please.”

“What? You think thirty percent is a good thing? Do you carry an umbrella for a thirty percent chance of rain?”

My mother turns to look at her, eyes brimming with tears. “She’ll be fine.”

“If by fine you mean brain-damaged, can’t breathe, doesn’t know what the hell is going on then yeah, yeah Mom, she’ll be just fine.” Josephine sighs, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“We’re going to talk about something else,” my mother says, trying to make her voice firm. It comes out shaky, warbling. I cringe.

“Is the thirty percent... What of?” I ask, ignoring my mother, terrified of the answer.

Josephine crosses her arms and stares at the ground. “Coming out alright. No significant brain damage and shit.”

“Josie,” my mother warns halfheartedly, staring down at our hands.

“She’ll almost definitely live. I guess. This was all a few hours ago, they haven’t really told us anything since earlier. The doctor was actually in here, but we didn’t want to wake you up.”

“I can’t believe this.”

Josephine closes her eyes and bows her head. My mother doesn’t look at me.

“We were just... I... She just...”

I give up. I give up on trying to give a voice this thing, this horrible dark feeling that is eating every shred of hope inside of me. Things like this do not happen to people like us. We’ve been through enough. We have survived everything that has been thrown in our path, but we are weak. We are tired. We are worn down. We cannot make it over this wall. We don’t even have the strength to try.

*****

Tuesday, August 20th, 7:25 AM

“Are you going to walk me to school or not?”

“Oh.” I shouldered my backpack and grabbed my summer reading essay off the kitchen table, attempting to chew what was left of my granola bar without dislocating my already troubled jaw. “Mmmph.”

“Uh-huh. You’re a real charmer. Your face looks a little better, at least.”

I nodded, glancing over at her for the first time. She wore a brown tweed miniskirt and a lime green tank top, with a brown corduroy jacket thrown over her arm beneath several textbooks. She had her hair down and waving, with a brown leather headband pushing it out of her face. She looked beautiful. Not just in the way that everyone seems to the first day of school, when there’s still hope for a year unmarred by histrionics and stress and general teenage miseries. But Poppy looked legitimately beautiful. Take her to prom beautiful. Think about the future beautiful. Fall in love beautiful. On her best day, Cassie had looked half as gorgeous. I wondered how much of that was physical and how much of it was my perception. If Poppy only looked so perfect because I wanted her to, because I was starting to love her. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to imagine she looked that way to everyone. Damaged and fragile and lovely. I wanted nothing more then than to be allowed love her. To follow her everywhere, for the rest of her life, and never be cast aside.

“What are you looking at?” she asked, obviously self-conscious, smoothing her tank top with her hands.

I shook my head. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

We walked out the door and down the driveway, her flip-flops thwacking against the pavement. “Ready for your first day at Quincy? It’ll be a sauna today. You’re going to regret those jeans.”

I shrugged. “I’ll live.”

“That’s what you think now. You’ve never had the pleasure of spending hour after hour stuck inside the sweaty bowels of our nation’s sixth president.”

I grimaced, my still swollen face protesting in a fit of pain to my change in expression. “That’s a nasty mental image.”

“It’s the only one that fits.”

I looked around us at the empty street. “Where is everyone? Nana said everyone walks.”

“Not on the first day. The Scav, remember? Everyone has their shit in their cars. And the little kids don’t start until 8:30.” She shrugged. “But we get out an hour earlier than they do, so sucks to be them, really.”

“What are you doing after school?”

“Probably hanging out with Lia. If Todd comes, you can. I’ll let you know. We’ll probably have all the same classes.”

“Seriously?”

She raised an eyebrow at me, shifting her books in her arms. “There’s an honors/AP track and a regular track. Try to remember that our class has about seventy kids in it. We don’t have all the fancy shit that you did back in Jefferson.”

“And you’re in the honors track?”

She nodded. “Yeah. We have three AP classes, too, that you take senior year – Politics, Calculus, and Spanish Language. You’ll be in all three. There’s an honors French IV class, too, but it’s only got like, ten people in it, if that.”

“So you don’t have much class choice, I take it.”

She laughed. “God no. They can tell you by second grade what classes you’ll take in high school.”

“Huh.” We turned the corner and started down the road toward school, my jeans already starting to stick to my legs in the early morning heat.

We were about fifty yards away when the noise started. As we drew closer, it became unmistakable – it was the sound of school. Of hundreds of people talking all at once, chattering about the summer they had all spent together and the trips they had taken to nowhere special. Poppy walked through the crowd unfazed, waving and smiling at nearly everyone she passed, but never stopping to say a word of greeting.

“You know everyone?” I shouted to her.

“Of course,” she replied, finally reaching the other side of the crowd. Lia sat on a railing separating the school from the bank next door, resting her feet on the lower rung. She snapped her gum as Poppy approached, unhooking her Stilettos and jumping up to hug her.

“Senior year!” she squealed, and Poppy squealed in return. I fought the feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was beginning to dawn at me that this was, in fact, my senior year. That I was damned to spend it here, at John Quincy Adams High School, with its ugly brick and its three hundred students and its lack of ventilation. It was enough to make anyone a little nervous and a lot miserable.

Lia eyed me for a second and then gave me a quick hug, as well. I stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do. She smiled warmly. “What happened to your face, Kennedy? Are you okay?”

I nodded. It seemed like a sufficient response. Lia evidently agreed, and returned to gushing to Poppy, something about Todd and the Scav and her summer reading paper. I had no idea how all three things could fit together and frankly didn’t really care very much.

“Are you Kennedy?”

I turned around. A tall, sturdy guy stood behind me, his hand stuck out, a friendly smile on his face. “I’m Max. This is – wait a second. Emma!”

A girl appeared next to him. She looked suspiciously like a Berenstain Bear and her hair had been highlighted to the point that it was lighter than her tanned skin. “Hi. Emma. You’re Kennedy, right? Cute name.” She didn’t seem convinced.

I took Max’s still outstretched hand and shook it, giving them both a tight smile. “Poppy mentioned you both.”

“Did she?” Max seemed interested, perhaps a little too much so, but Emma just looked annoyed. It seemed like a consistent trend.

“What’s this I hear about myself?” Poppy sidled up behind me, resting her head on my shoulder. I tried to ignore it. I was falling in love with her by the minute, or at the very least in like, and she wanted no part of it. She was just bent on making it as hard for me as possible.

“You’ve been talking about him, apparently,” Emma said, rolling her eyes. She reminded me of Virginia, a little bit, except I didn’t think she had anything good buried beneath her surly exterior. “What, describing your past conquests to your newest beau?”

“You’re still so sweet, Emma,” Poppy said, smiling toothily and holding out her arms for a hug. “And such great company. It sucks that this is our last year together!”

I searched her words for the snotty comeback. I couldn’t find it. It was alarming.

“Please don’t touch me. I don’t want your diseases,” Emma replied, shying away from Poppy’s reaching hands.

“What’s going on over here?” Lia appeared beside Poppy, towing Todd, who looked disgruntled. “I made everybody cookies for the first day of school. I already put them in my locker, but I’ll hand them out at lunch.”

“What if they don’t have the same lunch?” I pointed out.

Everyone stared at me. “He hasn’t really gotten this whole ‘small town’ thing yet,” Poppy explained, shooting me a patronizing smile. “Lia and Max will be in your classes, too, by the way. Emma won’t, which sucks, but you can get to know her over lunch.” She smiled sweetly in Emma’s direction. “And Todd is stuck in junior year, because he had to repeat his freshman year. We miss him dearly. But you’ll see him at lunch, too, if Lia isn’t too busy licking his face or something.”

There it was. That Poppy I recognized. Lia glared at her, and they both exploded into a fit of giggles. Okay, not so much. But it was a start.

“What happened to your face?” Emma asked, wrinkling her nose. “Did Clay do that?”

“He hasn’t even met Clay,” Poppy replied, shaking her head. “He just got into a fight out in Mason. He won, of course. He’s got great muscles.” She laid her head on my arm, grinning up at me. “Kennedy, show her your abs.”

“I’d rather not.”

Emma shot Poppy a look and rolled her eyes again. She was reminding me more of Virginia every minute. “Where are Josh and Lindsay? And Clay, for that matter? I haven’t seen him, and he’s kind of hard to miss.”

“I heard he got busted for that party he had in July,” Max noted, crossing his arms. “Serves him right. Kid is a fucking idiot, telling all the freshmen. Freshmen shouldn’t be invited to parties.

“They’re not freshmen anymore,” Lia noted, but nodded in agreement.

Lindsay walked up just then, looking exhausted. “Jesus Christ. Dad told me I could have the car and then got pissed at me, so I had to run halfway here. I’m going to smell like crazy BO all day.” She grimaced. “Where’s Josh? Jesus, he’s got to be here. We have to judge the Scav today.”

“I’m right here.” He emerged from the crowd, shaking his blonde hair, winking at Lindsay. “What a beautiful day to be educated.”

Poppy laughed. “It is my favorite pastime.”

The bell rang just then. “Go to the front office,” Poppy instructed me, pointing. “We’re all off to homeroom. You’ll get your assignment there. Okay?” She had to shout to be heard over the stampede of students heading off to their first day of torture.

I nodded, looking in the direction she had pointed. The building glared back at me, taunting. “The front office. Right. I can find it.”

She smiled at me and patted my arm. “I’ll see you, then,” she shouted, and was swept away into the crowd.

I waited until the path was clear to walk alone down the sidewalk to the entrance nearest where Poppy had pointed. The door was unlocked. No security guard stood inside waiting to look through my bag. No metal detectors blocked my path. I didn’t even have to enter a code on the lock at the door (a code that was supposed to be secret at my school in Jefferson but, of course, was not). It was surreal. I walked down the hallway, where only a few stragglers remained, toward the glass-front office at the end of the hall. Even that had been easy to find. This school was not a maze where all the hallways looked the same, where were it not for room numbers you would have no way to know if you were on the second floor or the third. It was a different school, to say the least.

“Can I help you?” The secretary looked me up and down, seemingly perturbed. “You’re not a freshman, are you? Freshman orientation is down the --”

I shook my head. “I’m Ulysses Kennedy? I’m new.”

She thought for a moment and then nodded emphatically, a warm smile lighting up her face. “We were expecting you. You don’t look much like your picture, but --”

“It’s the haircut. And the face,” I said, with what I hoped was a charming smile, but charming smiles were hard to come by when you could only feel half your face moving and had to trust that the other half was doing the same.

“Of course,” she replied, pulling a form from the top of a pile. “We’ll need you to fill this out, just some basic information, and then you can go to your homeroom. You’ll be in F through O with Mr. McMahon. That’s room 137.”

I nodded, accepting the pen and paper. “Where is that, exactly?”

“Down this hall to the end, then turn left. It should be on your right somewhere.”

“Uh-huh.” I filled in my name, address, and phone number, tapping the pen against my teeth. “Will I get my schedule there?”

She nodded. “You need one more emergency contact.”

I looked down at the form. Trying to think of someone, anyone, who would count. “Can I... I have family in Jefferson. Can I just put them down?”

She looked at me over the rims of her glasses. “Just leave it blank. I know your grandmother. She’ll be home.” She smiled.

“Yeah.” I handed over the form. “Room 137, then?”

She nodded. I called a quick thanks as I walked back down the hall. Ready to start over, at a school where no one had heard yet that I was crazy. Where I was just the new kid with the messed up face. And where she was. That, more than anything, was the important part.

*****

Tuesday, December 16th, 4:55 PM

“You can’t do that,” I caution her. “You have to rewrite g as a triple product and use the triple product rule. You can’t find the derivative until you’ve done that. Like you did in the last one. Seriously, this is like a continuation of that one.”

“This is impossible. I’m going to fail.”

“Are you taking it tomorrow? What about the ones you missed today?”

She shrugs. “It’s an excused absence. They have make up days at the end. As soon as we have some definite news about Virginia I’ll go back. Which is why I need to study for this. Now.” She makes it sound so simple. As soon as we have some definite news about Virginia. I don’t want definite news. I fear definite news. The test results, the brain wave scans. I’ll gladly look the other way.

“You think she’ll be okay?” I ask softly, my eyes welling up. I swallow the tears down. I’m instantly embarrassed. I attempt to wipe my eyes, but my hand doesn’t move. Damn it.

Josephine looks over at me, biting her lip. “I hope so. She... She’s Virginia. You know?”

I know. For the first time in my life, I know her. And yet a part of me still feels impossibly far away.

“She’s just had a really tough year.” I stare down at my lap, at Josephine’s open calculus book. “Right? And...”

“I know.” Virginia was the one who knew what to do. It was the crazy thing. This girl who had never seemed interested in anyone but herself had come to life when the rest of us were dying. Had held us together when we were falling apart. She had saved us, in more than one way. We owed her everything. And now she was the one who was helpless and needy. And none of us could do anything but wait.

Josephine picks up her pencil and shifts her notebook in her lap. “Let’s just work, okay?”

I nod. “Right. Try this one. It should help you with the chain rule. You just need to get used to applying all of this. You’ll be fine.”

She shoots me a grateful smile, but there is no light in her eyes. We are all dying, slowly, and will not stop until we know that she will live.

*****

Tuesday, August 20th, 11:54 AM

“Having a fun first day?”

I collapsed onto the picnic bench, glaring at her. “No. No, I am not having a good first day. I am hot. And people keep looking at me funny. And you, you are mean.”

She batted her eyelashes innocently. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Way to ditch me in econ. That was sweet of you.”

Poppy rolled her eyes. “You did fine. You and Brianna seemed to get along.”

“Yeah, well. Next time there’s a seat next to the awkward new kid who has no friends yet, please take it. He feels really damn stupid sitting alone in the back of the room by the window.”

Max laughed. “Yeah, you’re so dejected. The women around here think you’re Jesus or something. I think you’ve spoken to every girl in town in the past four hours.”

“Well, he’s cute,” Lindsay pointed out, shooting me a grin. “And tough. What with the face and all.”

Emma scowled. “Can we stop flirting with him, please? You people are ridiculous.”

“Who’s ridiculous? Linds, what the hell are you doing?” Josh stood over her, looking confused. “We’re supposed to be judging.”

“Shit.” Lindsay shoved the rest of her granola bar into her mouth and waved a silent goodbye to us all as she chewed, shouldering her backpack.

Max stared at Emma. Emma stared at Poppy. Poppy’s eyes were trained on Lia, who was kicking Josh under the table. And for a moment, I felt like a part of this place. This tiny school in a nowhere town in the middle of farm country, miles and miles away from everyone I had ever met before. And the ties holding me to Jefferson slowly began to unravel.

*****

Tuesday, December 16th, 6:21 PM

“This looks appetizing.”

I stare down at my plate as she pokes at it with a fork. “It looks like someone put a weasel in a blender and poured it onto a plate. With mashed potatoes. And Jello.”

Josephine wrinkles her nose. “Okay, first of all, weirdest comparison ever. Second, ew. And third... I brought you a Snickers from the vending machine.”

I groan. “Thank god.”

She pulls the candybar out of her bag and unwraps it, breaking off a piece. “Open.” I oblige, and she pops the candy into my mouth. “This is weird. Don’t you think?”

I nod, my teeth stuck together with caramel.

“This isn’t how I pictured my last exam week of high school. Or Christmas. Or any of it. I mean, not that it’s not fine.” She breaks off another piece and shoves it between my lips. “It’s just weird. We’ve had a really weird year.”

I chew and swallow. “No kidding.” I attempt to scrape the chocolate out of my molars with my tongue, grimacing. “The past six months have been insane.”

“Yeah.” She stares down at the candy bar, turning it slowly in her hands. “I’m worried about her,” she says after a moment, not looking up.

“We all are.”

She shakes her head. “I just... We’ve all been so damn lucky. Even though we haven’t at all. You know? Like, it’s been bad, but in that really weird way where you know it could have been a lot worse.”

“Yeah.” I bite my lip. “Look, she’s Virginia. She’ll be... I mean, she’s Virginia. She’s a hardass. Remember when we were kids, and she fell out of that tree?”

“And she broke her arm, but she didn’t tell anyone until two days later, even though it must’ve hurt like a bitch?” She the corners of her mouth twitch. “Yeah. I remember.”

“And how they didn’t pick her for the lead in the school play in eighth grade, but she learned all the lines anyway? And she hung out with the girl who got the part and slipped in all these little jabs until she had her convinced that she was a horrible actress who was going to forget all of her lines?”

“And she got the part at the last minute when the girl inexplicably backed out. Yeah.”

“And last summer, she knew exactly what to do when the rest of us were going crazy. And she did it without thinking.”

Josephine bites her lip. “You really think she’ll be okay?”

“She’s Virginia,” I repeat, shrugging. “She won’t die from something mundane like a car crash. She’s way too hardcore for that. She’ll go out from hypothermia, skinnydipping in the Arctic Ocean on her fiftieth wedding anniversary.”

“Trying to ride a buffalo in South Dakota.”

“Parasailing into piranha infested waters.”

“Choking on a peanut butter sandwich with just a little too much peanut butter.”

She grins up at me. “We’re horrible people.”

“Yeah, well.”

“She’ll be fine, then.”

“Of course she will.”

She still doesn’t look entirely convinced. For that matter, neither am I. But we’re trying. Trying to believe. She holds up a piece of the Snickers bar and puts it in my mouth. “She loves you, you know.”

“Who?” I ask, my mouth full.

“Virginia. She slept in your room all the time while you were gone. She had to wear like, three sweatshirts sometimes. But she missed you.”

“You think?”

She nods. “She felt really horrible. About how she treated you before we left.”

“That was my own fault.”

“No it wasn’t.”

She feeds me the rest of the candy bar, then stares down at her hands.

“Look, I know I blamed you for a lot of shit back then. I know we all did. I was just...” She sighs. “Look, what I’m trying to say...”

“Just say it.”

She looks up at me, her eyes shining. “Thanks.”

It’s the last thing I expected to hear.

“Why?”

She shrugs, examining her fingernails. “You did what you thought was best for me.”

“So?”

“So I love you. Now shut up.”

We sit for a while in silence. Josephine reaches for the TV remote just as our mother pokes her head into the room. She’s grinning from ear to ear.

“Your sister is awake.”

November 17th: I want to feel the car crash, cos I'm dying on the inside.

2007-11-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

Monday, August 18th, 11:31 AM

“Okay. I checked the fridge. You’ve got V8, orange juice, grapefruit juice, milk, coffee of course, hot tea, iced tea, and plain water. Or –“ she reached over to the dresser and fished around in her bag, holding up three tiny bottles, “You have liquor. My father banged a flight attendant a couple weeks ago. His conquests are occasionally useful.”

I blinked at her. “You scare me.”

“I’m not the one who looks like I’m wearing a mask.” She raised her eyebrows and jingled the bottles. “If you want, I can also mix this with something. The possibilities are endless.”

“What’s it?”

“Vodka.”

I shrugged. “Screwdriver?”

She nodded. “Coming right up.” She set the bottles down on the dresser and disappeared out the door.

She reappeared moments later with two plastic cups full of ice and a carton of orange juice. “I think your grandmother thinks I’m a lush. I was walking up the stairs and she was like, ‘You don’t need ice for that, dear, it’s already cold. Unless you’re making mixed drinks.’ And then she laughed like she was kidding, but she totally wasn’t.”

“You’re paranoid.”

“Doubt it.” She set the cups down and opened the orange juice, pouring some into each. Then she uncapped one of the mini bottles and looked back at me. “Strong? Weak? Or should I say, like Toby or like you?”

I groaned. “You’re charming. Strong. Well, wait, what’s strong to you?”

She shrugged. “Two bottles.”

I eyed the bottle. “What’s one, two ounces?”

She read the label. “One point seven. About as much as you get in a regular screwdriver.”

“Yeah. Give me two.”

She laughed. “Looks like I’m not the only lush around here.”

“My face feels like it’s going to erupt. And I’m hopped up on seven kinds of painkillers. Well, two. Which is only a little less than seven.”

She poured in one bottle and opened another. “Mr. Faulty Arithmetic, meet the greatest painkiller of them all.”

I accepted the cup when she handed it to me, complete with flamingo straw. “Let’s hope so.”

“Oh, it can’t hurt that bad. You took enough Tylenol to take the bite out of a rhino.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

She shrugged. “Toby always used to say that to my mother. ‘Quit bitching. You’re on enough painkillers to take the bite out of a rhino.’ Sometimes it was a hippo, which made more sense. I think it depended on how inebriated he was when he was saying it.”

“Your father drinks a lot?”

She took a swig right from the bottle before emptying what was left into her cup. “Not really. He used to. He’s given up a lot of his vices in his old age.”

“He’s like, forty.”

She laughed. “You’d think. He looks a lot younger than he is. It helps him get the ladies. It’s a combination of Just for Men and religious visits to a plastic surgeon out in Jefferson. He’s in his late fifties.” She pawed through her purse for a moment and produced two more bottles. “My mother was young, though. She was only twenty-two when I was born. Tobias was over forty. It was all very scandalous.”

“How’d they meet?”

She shrugged. “The grocery store check out line. In front of the movies. Some crappy bar in Mason. One of the places he always meets women.”

“So he and your mother weren’t dating?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Well, kind of. She wouldn’t sleep with him the first night out, so he had to take her to dinner another time. And then she put out. And conceived me. And so the tragedy began.”

“Your existence is a tragedy?”

“No. But that’s a mighty flattering thought.” She rolled her eyes, opening a bottle and downing it in its entirety. “I was actually referring to my parents’ relationship. You know, the sham that was. They stayed together because Tobias was too lazy to leave. And he liked having her around to hit.”

“Sounds like a healthy environment.”

She laughed. “Yeah, well. I enjoyed myself immensely, what with the constant yelling and screaming and throwing of punches.”

“So they were still together when she died?”

Poppy looked at me for a long moment. “Oh, yeah. Definitely.”

I stared down at my hands. “I have a really tactless question.”

“Shoot.” She leaned back against the dresser, setting the cup down next to her and crossing her arms.

I avoided her eyes, choosing a spot on the wall behind her. “How did your mother die?”

She eyed me warily. “Seriously a very tactless question.”

“I warned you.”

“Eh.” She thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the Lead Pipe. And by that I mean Tobias in the living room with a lamp.” She stood up and grabbed

It wasn’t the reply I expected. I set my drink down on the nightstand, sitting up in bed. “Is this the part where you’re trying to freak me out and then you name some kind of cancer and I laugh but inside I think how psychotic you are and start planning escape routes?”

She stared at me. “Not so much.”

“Huh.” I sat back in bed, my head swimming. “So... Why isn’t he in jail? Or something?”

“He’s family,” she said, avoiding my eyes.

“You don’t even talk to him.”

She shook her head. “Not my family. I don’t think anyone gives two thirds of a fuck that we’re related, least of all either of us. This town, I mean. He’s family. He’s got a Sunday ad in the Mason newspaper. He’s an important man. People around here trip over themselves trying to impress him. You saw your grandmother. She’s a lot better than most. People just... They like him. I’d like him, too, if I didn’t know him. Hell, all my friends love him. They think he’s fucking fantastic.”

“But people had to know. I mean...” I trailed off, afraid to say too much.

“He took her to the doctor on 4th street. Dr. Palmer. The guy lives three doors down. He’s known my father since Tobias was a kid. He brought my mother in with concussions and wrist fractures and cracked ribs, a broken leg, a broken collarbone, bruises everywhere... But you don’t ask your neighbors questions about it. You just pretend there’s nothing to see.”

“Even when she dies?”

Poppy chewed on the inside of her lip, staring down at the ground. “This town... It does that to you. You grow up here, and even if you want nothing more than to escape, you’re pretty much damned to die here. People get to know you, whether you want them to or not. They cut your breaks. A lot of breaks. They... She was dead. And if he’d spoken up then, it would’ve called a lot more than just Tobias into question. What kind of doctor lets all those other injuries to by without saying jack shit? So he saved his own skin, and Toby’s. And my mother died.”

“You say this like it’s nothing remarkable.”

She raised her eyebrows. “It’s death, Kennedy. It’s the one thing everybody’s got in common. It’s not supposed to be remarkable.”

“Poppy, your father killed your mother.”

“And that,” she said, tipping her head back and downing her drink in one swallow, “is a great reason to drink.”

“Poppy...”

She rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to tell me to say something to someone, don’t. If you’re going to tell me that we should talk about it further, don’t. I let you see my demons. Whatever. Truth is, I’m not all that haunted. And you’ve got your own troubled past. Deal with that, not mine. It happens. Shit happens. Tobias happens. As you must be familiar with by now.”

I sighed, touching my jaw self-consciously. “It just seems kind of crazy. How little it affects you.”

“Of course it affects me, you idiot. Have you met me?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m drinking before noon, telling my tragic life story to someone I barely know. I’m seventeen and I’ve slept with every guy I know between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one not related to me by blood or marriage. I am terrified of forgetting things about my mother, so right after she died I wrote down everything I could think of and once a year I take it out and read it and eat cookie dough out of the tube with some shitty Sarah McLachlan song playing in the background. I haven’t spoken a word to my father in almost ten years. I am weepy and moody and bitter. And yeah,” she paused to breathe, tears trickling slowly down her cheeks, “it affects me. So shut up with all your judgment and your bullshit and your busted up face. You suck.”

I closed my eyes, leaning back into the pillows. “Can I talk now?”

“I guess.” She sniffled.

I propped myself up on my elbows, my stomach aching where his knee had pierced my gut. “I didn’t mean that it didn’t affect you. Just that you talked a good game.”

“Yeah, well. I’m practiced.” She sniffled, looking embarrassed, her eyes red-rimmed.

“You want to just take a nap? I promise not to grope you.”

She wiped her eyes, glaring at me. “I hate you.”

“I know. You probably should.”

She sighed and sat down on the end of the bed, staring at herself in the mirror. “You probably think I’m crazy.”

“Not really.”

She lay down next to me, pulling the elastic band out of her hair. “Liar.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy. You’re just sad.”

She turned her head to face me, raising her eyebrows. “Seriously? You think that’s all that this is? A little bit of sad?”

“A lot,” I corrected her, pulling up the sheet to cover us both. “A lot of sad.”

She sighed and looked about to say something, then turned her head away. “Is that your problem, too?”

“No.” But it was.

*****

Monday, December 15th, 12:44 PM

“How was it?”

Virginia shrugs, pulling her phone out of the pocket of her hoodie. “Alright.”

“So junior year is treating you okay?”

“I guess.”

I put the car in drive and started toward the road. “What midterms did you have?”

“Pre-cal and French.”

“Was pre-cal alright? Josephine hated it last year. Said it was the hardest thing she’d ever taken.”

She shrugs again. “It was fine.”

“Right.”

We drive for awhile without talking, the keypad of her phone clicking under her fingers. I concentrate on the road. It’s snowing in an insane way. I have the heat on full blast, but it’s still bone-chillingly cold. It will take us twice as long to get home as it should.

“This snow is crazy,” she says after awhile, closing her phone.

I nod. “I know. First big one of the year.”

“Yeah.” She bites her lip. “Rob broke up with me.”

I stare straight ahead and exhale deeply. “Why?”

“It’s nothing.” She shifted, crossing her arms, bringing one leg up to her chest.

“Really? You seemed to like him.”

“How would you know?” Her voice is flat and weary. She sounds entirely too old.

I sigh. “I guess I wouldn’t.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

I grip the steering wheel tighter. “Look, I know it’s been a rough few months. But you’ve... You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You’ll be fine.”

“That’s what Mom always said about you.” She doesn’t look at me. Stares out the window at the snow as it tumbles endlessly to the ground.

“Virginia, I made a mistake. I get it. I don’t need everyone to talk about it all the time.”

She shakes her head, turning it to face me. “Everyone’s talking about it. It’s all anyone’s talked about since you came home. Rob started a pool. A fucking pool. Who would win the fight. The one they know you’re going to have with Brennan. Because you’re a time bomb. Do you not get it? Do you have no idea what you’ve done to yourself?”

“I was angry. And what the hell do they know, Virginia? Let them have their fucking bets. They’re in high school. They’re idiots.”

She sighs. “You act like you’re so much better than everyone else. Like you’re this saint who had a tough moment, and even that was justified. You could’ve killed him, Pookie. Are you stupid? Do you really think that was some valiant move on your part?”

“I think I did it. And it doesn’t matter whether I should have or not.”

“You’re proud of it!” She throws up her hands, letting her leg fall to the floor. “You were supposed to get over this whole thing at Nana’s. Make new friends. Figure shit out. And you just came back even more fucked up than you were when you left.”

“My girlfriend is dead.”

She rolls her eyes. “Am I supposed to be impressed, Pookie? Hell, do you even expect me to care? Really? You use that like some sort of all-purpose excuse. We needed you. And you were off fucking some girl. And you expect us to be sorry for you, because she died and left you, but Jesus, you could’ve come home back in fucking October and you waited two months because of her.”

“Why are you so damn jealous of everybody else, Virginia?” I slam my hand down on the steering wheel. “She wasn’t some other woman or whatever the hell you’re trying to make her. Take your daddy issues somewhere else. It’s done.”

“Yeah, because you have no daddy issues. Right. Just a constant need to prove you’re a man. Beating the shit out of guys who cross you. Sleeping with girls you know don’t give half a shit about you. But then the second something real is wrong, you just go crazy. Scream and cry like a little girl. Way to step up, Pookie. Way to fucking step up.” She shakes her head, crossing her arms. “You need to grow up. Seriously. Just grow the fuck up.”

“Who are you? When did you become such a raging bitch?”

“Maybe it was when you came home with a police escort and bloody knuckles. Maybe it was when she slit her wrists in your bedroom and all you could do was cry about it. Maybe while you were gone fucking some chick at your grandmother’s house and I was at home washing Helen’s sheets at three in the morning and trying to stop her screaming. Or maybe just now, when my boyfriend broke up with me because I got upset that he called you a mindless jackass, which honestly shouldn’t have upset me much because you are. Yeah, Pookie, I’m a raging bitch. It’s your own damn fault. Quit feeling so fucking sorry for yourself.”

“So I’m a fuck-up. What the hell do you want me to do about it?”

She sighs. “Just drop it.”

“What? You get to make speeches about how much I suck but you don’t have any advice for what I can do to make you not hate me?”

“I don’t hate you. What are you, five? There aren’t any solutions, Pookie. This isn’t a fucking math problem, it’s life. Quit looking for everyone to have something to offer you. You’re just another jackass with an anger problem. You’re not that different from anyone else.

“I don’t have an anger problem! I beat up the guy who raped my sister!”

“You almost killed him!” Her voice cracks. “Jesus, Pookie, you scared the shit out of all of us, especially her. What did you think you were doing? How did you think that would help? You just fucked everything up worse!”

“So I made a mistake! It happens!”

“But you don’t even think it was a mistake. You’re still exactly the same person you were. You’d do it again in a second. You haven’t changed at all.”

I roll my eyes. “Jesus, Virginia, how do you figure that? Because you know me so damn well?”

“Of course I do! Everyone does! You’re not that complicated and tortured, Pookie. Just stupid and full of angst.”

“And what are you? You’re a walking cliché, Virginia. Just some bitchy teenage girl who thinks she’s too good for everyone.”

“I’m not the one who skipped out on my family when things got rough!”

“You sent me away!”

“No I didn’t, Mom did! And it’s not like you ever give half a shit about what she says, do you? She’s just the crazy bitch who got put in charge of this circus.”

“She tries her best, Virginia. Maybe you wouldn’t recognize that, since you’ve always settled for --”

Virginia screams. “Stop! Shit, Pookie!”

“Why?” I ask, and then I see it. A stalled out SUV ahead of me. The woman beside it, staring at us as we hurtle toward her, caught in the glare of the headlights. I slam on the brakes. It’s worthless. In an instant, we’re slamming into the car, lurching forward. Virginia screaming. My elbows locked. Outside, the snow falls in slow motion.

November 12th: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. If you can't trust the living, baby, who can you trust?

2007-11-12T23:10:00.000-08:00

Sunday, December 14th, 2:23 PM

“Aren’t those poisonous? Don’t they have lead or something in them?”

I raise an eyebrow. “They’re just sugar.”

“Yeah. Sugar and metal. Seriously, you’re not supposed to eat them. Helen, come on. Not the whole bottle.”

Helen set the sprinkles down, pouting. “It tastes better with more.”

“It’s pure sugar. On sugar cookies. Pookie, quit putting those on. Seriously, you’re trying to kill us or something.”

Virginia rolls her eyes. “You worry too much, Josie.”

“You should worry, too. Have you met your brother? He’s not a big fan of thinking ahead.”

“They’re not going to kill you. There’s like, three per cookie.”

“Uh-huh. When you keel over, I’ll make sure to remind you of that.”

Virginia grabs a silver ball from my hand and throws it at her. “You’re pathetic. And a worrywart.”

“And you’re like, fifty. ‘Worrywart’? Seriously?”

Virginia shrugs, grabbing the container of metallic decorations. “Eat one.”

“What?”

“Seriously. Eat one. If you eat one, I’ll eat five.”

Josephine rolls her eyes. “So we can both die?”

“We’re not going to die!”

Helen sticks her finger in the dough. I swat her hand away. She grins up at me as our sisters fight, Virginia holding the bottle up to her lips, pretending she’s going to chug them. Josephine has her hands on her hips, looking panicked. Helen grabs my hand with sticky fingers. “Let me help,” she says.

I look down at her. “You promise to use less than half a container of sprinkles per cookie?”

She laughs. “No.”

“Fine.” I roll my eyes, handing her the container. “Have at it.”

I turn around to see Josephine and Virginia still battling, my mother standing behind them with her arms crossed, looking tired.

“Did we wake you up?”

She shakes her head distractedly. “Virginia, put those down, sweetie. I don’t think you’re supposed to eat those.”

“I told you!” Josephine cries, throwing up her hands.

“Keep your pants on, Josie. Jesus.” Virginia sets the balls down on the counter, rolling her eyes. “What’s up, Mom?”

My mother jolts, as if surprised to be addressed. “What?”

“You want to help? I mean, we’re not getting a whole lot done, except Pookie, but you can... Help.” She forces a smile, looking awkward.

My mother shakes her head. “I actually need to talk to Pookie for a minute.”

Josephine shoots me a worried look. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, sweetie. You girls keep baking. I’ll have him back out in a minute.” Her eyes meet mine. Steely. I’ve done something wrong.

Mom retreats to her bedroom. Josephine grabs my arm. “What’s going on?”

“I... I don’t know.” I shrug, giving what I hope is a reassuring smile. “I’m sure it’s nothing. We’ll talk later, okay?”

I’m not sure it’s fine, really. Actually, I’m almost positive that it’s not.

I walk down the hall and into my mother’s room. She’s sitting on her bed, her head cradled in her hands. She doesn’t look up when I enter.

“What were you thinking, Ulysses?”

I push the door shut with my foot. “I... I don’t... About the water tower? It was just... I was angry, it was a stupid thing to do, but they...”

She holds up a hand, massaging her temple with the other. “I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t want to. I don’t need another reason to worry about you.”

“What are you... What...”

She sighs deeply. Her shoulders are tense, her hands shaking slightly. “Tobias Law wants to know where his daughter’s jewelry is.”

“Oh.” Shit.

*****

Monday, August 18th, 1:33 AM

“Oh. Ulysses, is it?”

“Um...” I grabbed my shirt and hurriedly pulled it on over my head, squinting through the very bright lights. “Jesus. I’m so sorry, sir. I... I’ll be out of here in a second. I’m so sorry. We were just watching a movie. I fell asleep, sir. I apologize. So sorry. Um...” I found my belt on the floor and started to thread it through my belt loops, then gave up and coiled it in my hand. “I will... Be... Going....”

“Do you watch all your movies shirtless, Ulysses?”

I flinched. “Um, not... Not usually, sir. It’s very warm. God, sir, I’m really... Have you seen my shoes? Poppy, where did I put my shoes?”

She propped herself up on her elbows. “I don’t keep track of your shit.”

“Do you... Oh, for goodness sake, Poppy, put a shirt on.” Tobias rolled his eyes, grabbing one off the floor. “Here.” He tossed it to her.

She ignored him. “Kennedy, try out in the hall. I think I put them out there because they smelled like feet.”

“Great. I’ll see you... I don’t know. Call me.” I stared at the ground as I walked out, giving a sheepish wave to her father, hoping he would leave me be.

I had no such luck. He followed me into the hall, pulling the door shut behind him. “Are you sleeping with my daughter?”

“I... No, sir.”

He laughed. Not a little scoffing laugh, but a hearty guffaw. “Of course you are.”

“I...” I stepped into my left shoe, hopping on one foot, trying to jam it on.

And that was when he grabbed me by the throat and shoved me up against the wall. I gasped for air, my leg jerking instinctively and catching him between the legs. He jerked back in surprise, and his grip loosened enough for me to get away.

“What the hell?” I gasped.

Poppy pulled open her door just as Tobias went for me again. This time his fist flew at me, connecting with my jaw. “Kennedy, go! Go!” Poppy screamed, her voice shrill and piercing. “Hurry, go home.”

But I was down. I was down, falling, dizzy and in pain. One shoe on, the other lying on the floor a few feet away. Tobias grabbed me by the throat again, pressing his thumbs into my neck, and I couldn’t breathe. He threw me up against the wall, shoving his knee into my stomach. “Get out of my house,” he growled in my ear, releasing me. I gasped for breath, falling to my knees as he backed away. I struggled to my feet and stumbled over to my shoe. Poppy, still shirtless, grabbed it and handed it to me, her eyes shining.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll call you. I...” She bit her lip, sniffling. “Damn it.”

It was the last thing I saw as I stumbled from the house through the back door, my belt still clutched in my hand. Poppy, standing in the middle of the hallway in her underwear, sobbing. I felt I knew all her tragedies, then. But I hadn’t even come close.

*****

Sunday, December 14th, 2:27 PM

“I don’t have it.”

She sighs. “Yes you do. Yes you do, Ulysses. And you think I’m so stupid that I won’t realize.” She looks up at me, her eyes red rimmed. “I don’t know what to do with you. I don’t know what... You used to be so good. What happened? What did I do?”

I stare down at the floor, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “I... I really don’t have it, Mom. I... I never did. It’s... Look, I’m sure he called Nana and she wouldn’t tell him and now he’s just upset and looking for blood. It’ll be fine.”

She looks at me like I’m crazy, tears welling up in her eyes. “Why are you lying to me?” she whispers, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Just tell the man where you put his damn property, Ulysses, it’s not a difficult thing!” Her voice cracks. She shakes her head angrily, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I don’t have it. I really don’t. I...” I shake my head. “I can’t help him. I don’t know where it is. I just know I don’t have it.”

I pull the door open and walk back to the kitchen. Her sobs echo down the empty hall.

Josephine looks up as I walk in, meeting my eyes. “What’s up?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.” I lean against the counter and run my fingers back through my hair, staring at the ground.

Josephine wipes her hands on a dishtowel and whispers something to Virginia. “Come on.” She grabs my arm, coaxing me down the hall and toward the stairs. I follow her dazedly, and she looks back at me with a furrowed brow. “Come on. My room?”

I shrug. She leads me down the hallway and holds open the door, shutting it behind me.

“Talk.”

I stare at her. I have no idea where to start. No idea what to say.

“I don’t know,” I say finally, collapsing into her desk chair.

She sits on her bed, sighing. “What did Mom want to talk to you about?”

“She thinks I have some jewelry. Poppy’s. Her father thinks I stole it.”

“And you didn’t?”

I shake my head. “I know where it is. But he doesn’t. And he can’t.”

“Why not?”

I stare down at my hands. Cracking my knuckles one by one. “I can’t tell you.”

She sighs. “Pookie...”

“No, I can’t. I can’t tell you. Believe me.” I bite my lip and stare up at the ceiling, then sigh. “I... It’s complicated.”

“I’ve got time.”

I shake my head.

“Look, I know what it’s like. To feel like you can’t say anything.” She picks at a thread on her pants, avoiding my eyes. “But something happened. When you were over there. And it’s driving you crazy, and...”

“It’s not that,” I interrupt her. “She died. That’s all that happened. This isn’t about that.”

“Then what is it about?”

I shrug, standing. “I can’t tell you. Really. Josephine... There... You’ve got to trust me. This isn’t just about me and some girl.”

“Then what is it about?”

I walk out the door and down the hall, choking back the words. The things I want to tell her. The things I can never tell anyone.

*****

Monday, August 18th, 10:58 AM

“Poppy’s on the phone, sweetheart. Are you awake enough to talk?”

I moaned groggily and held up a hand, my face buried in the pillow. My grandmother passed me the receiver and left, shutting the door quietly behind her.

“Mmmmph.”

“Kennedy?”

I rolled over, my jaw throbbing. “Ow.”

“I’m coming over.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Has your grandmother seen your face?”

The previous night’s memories began flooding back to me. “Uh-uh.”

“Don’t let her. She’ll freak out. I’m bringing ice and a crazy straw that is, regrettably, not shaped like Abraham Lincoln. You need anything else?”

“My dignity,” I mumbled, but it came out garbled. I could barely move the left side of my jaw. I groaned.

“Yeah. Good luck with that one. I’ll be over in a few.”

And she was. Holding a plastic sandpail full of ice and a pink crazy straw in the shape of a flamingo. She pushed the door shut with her hip, grimacing at me. My shirt was twisted around my torso from a fitful night’s sleep. I pulled it down with one hand as she surveyed my room, clucking her tongue.

“This is like, retirement home meets porno movie. You know. With all the dirty underwear on the floor.” She wrinkled her nose, moving a pair of my boxers with her foot. “You know, it’s kind of too late, but I’m suddenly very wary of catching something from you. Like the plague.”

I rolled my eyes. “Charming,” I managed, sitting up in bed. I looked at myself in the mirror across from me. Most of the left side of my face was swollen, and my cheek and jaw were black and blue. My throat still bore the imprints of his hands, with two angry bruises where his thumbs had pressed in with all their might. I collapsed back into bed, groaning.

“You weren’t that attractive before, if it helps.”

I glared at her. “Your father is a freak.”

“Yeah, well, you got it easy. He broke my mother’s leg once.” She perched on the bed by my feet, grabbing a dirty t-shirt from my floor and filling it with ice. “Here,” she said, passing me the compress. “I honestly didn’t think he was coming home. He hardly ever does.”

“Mmm.” I pressed the ice against my jaw and immediately pulled it away. “Jesus Christ.”

She rolled her eyes. “Wimp. Lay on your side. I’ll do it.”

I glared at her. “Not a wimp.”

“Yes you are. My mother never whined this much.” She grabbed my shoulder and rolled me over herself so that my injured jaw was prominently displayed. She scooted up the bed and rubbed my shoulder, resting the ice gently on my cheek, barely grazing the bruises. “You’re lucky. We were on the ground floor. He’s big on throwing people down the stairs.”

“He hits you?”

She laughed. “He’s scared to death of me.”

“He hits you?” I repeated.

She sighed. “You’re really not a very good listener. No, he does not hit me. He’s terrified of me. He used to hit my mother. And no, that is not why I don’t talk to him. Not really.”

“Your dead mother?”

“No, my other mother. Jesus, what do you think? Yes, my dead mother. You’ve sure got a lot of tact.” She moved the compress a bit lower and let it rest a bit heavier on my cheek. “Toby is very crazy. He’s never hit anyone else before, though. He must really like you.”

I groaned. “You’re funny.”

“You’re a whiner.” She shifted her weight, putting her legs up on the bed next to mine. “You’ll be fine. It’ll take a week, at most. You’ll be damn interesting looking tomorrow, though. Luckily most people saw you at the Scav, so they won’t think you’re deformed or something.”

“The Scav?” I flinched as she shifted the ice, pressing it into a bruise. “Shit, Poppy, I’m sorry.”

“The Scav is stupid. Besides, we wouldn’t have won, anyway. Lindsay will give Max and Emma everything. She’s totally sleeping with him.” She paused. “Max kind of sleeps with everyone.”

“He gave you chlamydia?”

She laughed. “Yeah. Maybe you’re not such a bad listener. A horrible fighter, but not a bad listener.”

“I didn’t want to hit your dad.”

“Probably a good idea. Not because he’s my father, just because he could totally take you. He’s got a punching bag down in the basement. Needed something to hit once my mother died.”

“Mmm.”

“Do you want me to stop talking?”

“No.”

“Okay. Anything specific you’d like to hear me talk about?”

“No.”

“Huh.” She thought for a moment. “I assume that you don’t want to hear about how shitty your face looks. Or how little I want to make out with your right now. Or how you left your wallet on my bedroom floor. Nice driver’s license photo, by the way. I like the hair. It’s interesting.”

“It was windy.”

“Uh-huh. If by ‘it’ you mean ‘I’ and by ‘was windy’ you mean ‘put way too much product in because I was going through a gay phase’.”

“You’re mean.”

She laughed. “I know. I take pride in it. Most people find it endearing.”

“I don’t.”

“Yeah, well, you have bad taste. As evidenced by that horrible pair of boxers over there with the dollar signs all over them. Those are some classy drawers.”

“Says the girl who sleeps naked.”

“Says the boy who thinks it’s hot.”

“I’m a teenage boy.”

“Like that excuses you for being a horny freak.” She thought for a minute. “Hey, random question.”

“What?”

“If you’re Mr. Tough Guy who got sent out here because you assaulted some guy, why didn’t you hit my father back? Like, instinctively, at least?”

“Not mad enough.”

She whistled softly. “Dude. How mad were you at this first guy?”

“Would’ve killed him.”

“Seriously?”

“His dad pulled me off.”

“But you were that pissed.”

“Should’ve shot him.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Huh.” She pulled away the compress. “The swelling looks a little bit... Oh, hell, it looks the same, but I’m trying to be encouraging.”

“Thanks.”

We were silent for a moment. “I get it,” she said finally, softly.

“What?”

“Wanting to kill somebody.”

“Your dad?”

“Yeah. Not anymore, or anything. But when I was a kid.”

“Cos of your mom?”

“Yeah. Is that stupid? I mean, I was like, eight. But I just remember when she died... All I could think about at her funeral was that I wanted him in a casket, too. Not just that I wouldn’t miss him if he died or something. But really wanting him to. Wanting to push him down the stairs. Or off a building. Or something. Scare him shitless. Laugh at him as he went down.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“Yeah. I never did anything about it, though. Too chicken.”

“It didn’t really help.”

“What?”

“Beating the shit out of him. Didn’t really help.”

She thought for a minute. “Would you do it again? If you could go back?”

“Yeah. Of course.” I said it without thinking. It wasn’t something I had to think about.

“Yeah.” She put the compress back on my cheek, gently pressing it to the swell. “I thought so.”

*****

Sunday, December 14th, 9:51 PM

“How’s Brennan?”

Virginia looks up from her desk and stares at me. “Pookie.”

“No. Seriously. Just curious. How’s his face?”

“He got a nose job over Thanksgiving break. He looks the same as before, now.”

I lean against her dresser and look down at the ground. “And he’s still at school.”

“Yes, he’s still at school. Look, Pookie, just leave it. He’s still Brennan. He doesn’t hold anything against you. Rob says he never even talked about you when he mentioned getting the nose job and stuff. He thinks you were right. But you can’t go picking fights with him.”

I stare at her. “How does Rob know what Brennan says?”

She sighs. “Because... I don’t know, Pookie, because they talk sometimes, okay? Jesus.”

“Your boyfriend talks to the guy who... He talks to Brennan?”

“Everyone talks to Brennan. Everyone loves Brennan. Except us.” She rolls her eyes. “Look, just drop it. Seriously. You’ve beaten the shit out of him. Look where that got you. There’s nothing left. You got your vigilante justice. Let it be.”

“Your boyfriend talks to Brennan.”

She sighs and turns back to her homework. “I’m not talking about this with you anymore.”

“Does Josephine know?”

“Well, she knows my boyfriend, and she knows who Brennan hangs out with, so yeah, she does. And she doesn’t care. So you shouldn’t either.”

“Do you really think it’s wise? Going out with a guy who talks to someone like that?”

She slams her book shut. “Everyone talks to him. Everyone. He’s dating your ex-girlfriend, Pookie. He’s in Josie’s calculus class. He’s everywhere. You’ve got to get over this blind rage you’ve got going every time someone says his name.”

“He’s dating Cassie?”

“Yes, he’s dating Cassie. And you will not do anything to change that.” She glares at me. “Pookie, seriously, move on. It sucks. What happened. It sucks. I know. But you had your moment. You settled the score the best you could, in your own special violent way. And we’re done. You, me, Josie. We’re done.”

“What are we supposed to do now, then?”

She sighs, giving a slight shrug. “This is what we do now. We... We bake cookies. We do our homework. We get back to living. We move on.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

But I can’t. I shoot her a pleading look. She shakes her head slowly, her eyes locked on mine. I look away. I can’t.

November 11th: that's where I go when I go home

2007-11-11T23:28:00.000-08:00

Sunday, August 17th, 3:25 PM

“Okay. Let’s go over what we have.”

I rooted through our bags for a moment. “Okay. We have a pair of red socks with Santa’s face on them, adorned with jingling bells. We have a box of condoms in various flavors, from banana to chocolate. We have a wine glass with a stem that lights up in four – that’s right, ladies and gentlemen, four -- different neon colors. We have an oak leaf, a dandelion chain, a DVD copy of Tom Hanks’s classic performance in Philadelphia. We have a movie poster for a horrible Tyler Perry comedy that is unfortunately showing at the Mason Cineplex as we speak, not that anyone would know because we stole the poster. We have two rusty nails, a 1977 penny, and the cap from a Heineken. I’d say we’re doing pretty well.”

“I’d say we’re screwed. We have all the easy stuff now.” She sighed, plopping down on a park bench. “Seriously, Kennedy, I have no idea where to get most of this stuff.”

“Isn’t that the point? That you have to look for it? That it’s not readily available? Seriously. Otherwise everyone would win.”

She sighed. “This isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be.” She looked so damn disappointed, just then. Tired.

I sat down next to her and looked down at my watch. “Hey. We’ve still go tomorrow. And we’ve got tons of stuff. Seriously. We stand a good chance. Let’s just... I promised Nana I’d make dinner. Let’s go to the grocery store or something and then I’ll take you home.”

She smiled over at me, shaking her head. “I’m the one with the car, remember?”

“Right.” I put an arm around her, and she rested her head on my shoulder. Complacent, for once.

“So do I get to come over for this dinner you’re cooking?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Do you want to come over?”

She reached up and grabbed my hand, playing with my fingers. “I want to spend time with you.”

I grabbed her other hand from her lap, lacing my fingers through it. “Well, I am a hot hunk of manflesh.”

She giggled. “You’re stupid. It’s endearing. Like a dog chasing its tail.”

“You’re the one who kissed me.”

She laughed into my neck. “Yeah, well. I think we’d have good sex.”

“Amazing sex.”

“The best.”

“But you don’t like me.”

She pulled away and studied me for a moment, biting her lip. “Not in so many words.”

“Then what is this?”

She shrugged, looking down at her lap. At our hands, still joined, lying on her thigh. “You make me feel like me. I like that.”

“But not me.”

She shook her head. “No. Not really. It’s... It’s complicated, Kennedy.”

“Uh-huh.” I pulled my hand away, nodding slowly. “So you want to have sex. But no relationship.”

“I want to have sex, but I don’t want to fall in love with you.”

I met her eyes. “I never said you had to fall in love with me.”

“But you want me to.”

“How do you figure?”

“You’re that kind of boy,” she said, smiling faintly. “You want a girl to really love you. To daydream about you proposing. To imagine what your kids would look like. We’re in high school. I don’t want to speculate about something that’s never going to happen. I just want...”

“Sex,” I finished. “Right.”

“Friends with benefits. It happens. It could be really great.”

I shrugged. “I just got broken up with by the girl I’d been with for two years. I think my head is just in long term relationship mode. I need to flip the switch.”

“Why’d you break up?” she asked, her voice a light sing-song. She rested her hand on my knee.

I stared ahead for a moment, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “I scared her.”

“Haunted house style?” Poppy raised her eyebrows skeptically.

“Beating the crap out of some guy in his own home for no apparent reason style.”

Her smile fell. “Wow. So that’s why you’re here.”

“Not really.”

She watched me expectantly for a moment, then sighed. “You, my friend, are a riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma.”

“And you, my friend, are not Winston Churchill.”

She shrugged. “Let’s go grocery shopping, smartass. Your grandmother could use some good old-fashioned charming from the girl next door.”

“You’re hardly the girl next door.”

She laughed, standing. “I’m a lot of things. You don’t know the half of it.”

And that was true. It was all true.

*****

Saturday, December 13th, 6:12 PM

“You look pretty.”

She twirls around, grinning at me. “It’s my Christmas dress! It’s green and really soft.”

I smile in spite of myself. “Yeah, well. We should bake cookies next weekend. Huh, Mom?”

My mother looks over from the closet by the door, where she’s hanging up their coats. “I don’t think we have any dough.”

“She doesn’t think we have any dough, Helen. Do we have any dough?”

Helen giggles. “I don’t know.”

“Of course we have dough. Oh ye of little faith. We have sugar and flour and vanilla extract and eggs. It doesn’t come from a Pillsbury roll, but it is dough.”

“We don’t have flour, actually,” my mother notes over her shoulder.

I roll my eyes. “Why don’t we have flour?”

“Because we use the dough from the roll.”

“We always used to have flour.”

She shuts the closet door, blinking at me. “Well, you used to bake.”

“I still bake. I still cook. I still surf in the Internet and wear pajamas. Did you really think I was going to change that much?”

“That was sort of the idea,” Virginia notes, walking in off the porch. “Jesus, it’s cold out there. Are you guys talking about baking? We’re doing Christmas cookies tomorrow, right?”

“There’s no flour,” I tell her.

Helen is standing in the middle of the floor in her Christmas dress, sucking her thumb. She stopped doing it when she was five. Another thing she started doing again while I was gone.

Virginia looks at my mother. “Why isn’t there any flour?”

“Because we don’t use flour,” Mom tells her, sighing impatiently. “And when you don’t use flour, it gets wormy. And I don’t want mealworms infesting my kitchen.”

“Of course we use flour,” Virginia protests, rolling her eyes. “Everyone uses flour.”

“We don’t.”

“Pookie does!”

Mom sighs again, gritting her teeth. “Sweetie, Pookie’s been gone for months. Or haven’t you noticed?”

“I’m just saying. We always bake cookies. I thought maybe we could actually start acting normal again but no, I guess we’ll just keep acting insane.”

“No one is acting insane,” I sigh, rolling my eyes.

Virginia glares at me. “You seemed pretty insane in the mall today.”

“And you seem pretty bitchy right now.”

“Ulysses!” my mother barks. “Stop it.”

“Oh yeah, coddle her, Mom, that helps.”

“I’m not coddling anyone.”

Virginia laughs, her expression cloudy. “Uh-huh. You don’t coddle the twins at all. God, if I beat the shit out of somebody you’d pay them to arrest me!”

“Watch your language!”

“He called me a bitch and you didn’t tell him to watch his language! What, were you afraid he would hit you?”

“That’s ridiculous, Virginia.”

I roll my eyes. “Seriously, Virginia, way to be in third grade.”

“Ulysses.”

“What, Mom? I’m not doing anything!”

“You’re antagonizing her!”

“I’m not antagonizing anyone!”

Virginia laughs again. “Uh-huh. God knows you’ve been a pleasure since you got back.”

“Like you’ve ever been a pleasure.”

“Rob thinks so.”

My mother stares at her. “Virginia Marie!”

“Oh, God, Mom, you let me spend the night at my boyfriend’s house all the time. What the hell do you think we’re doing?”

“Well now that there’s no doubt, I know you’re never going back!”

“When Pookie left, you found condoms in his room!”

I roll my eyes. “Why do you always have to bring me into everything? Are you that jealous of me?”

“I’m not jealous of you!”

And that’s when Helen starts to scream. An ear-splitting, senseless, wailing scream. We all look down at her, shocked to see her standing there. All dressed up. Her eyes closed, her fists clenched. Screaming.

“Helen,” Virginia says gently, stepping toward her.

Helen backs away. “Stop it.”

“Okay,” Virginia agrees, reaching out a hand. “Hey, it’s alright. We’re done. We’re done.”

Helen’s lip quivers. “Promise?”

I nod. “Promise.”

Virginia crouches down and takes both of Helen’s hands in her own. “I promise too. Okay? And tomorrow, we’ll all bake cookies together. Double promise. It’ll be Christmas like always.”

Helen sniffles. “Uh-huh.”

“Do you want to change your clothes?”

Helen nods. Virginia stands up and leads her up the stairs, talking to her softly.

I look over at my mother once they’re gone. She looks tired. Unbelievably tired.

“I’ll go get the flour,” she says finally, and she’s out the door before I can say a word.

*****

Sunday, August 17th, 5:15 PM

“What do you want me to do with this again?”

I looked over at her. “Chop it up? Seriously, you don’t have to help.”

“I want to.” She glared at me, only half kidding. “Tobias never lets me touch anything.”

“Huh.”

She shrugged, squinting down at the zucchini. “Wait, you want the slices in quarters? Or halves?”

“Thirds.” I grinned at her.

She threw a piece at me, frowning. “Now you’re just making fun of me!”

“I’m not. I promise. Scout’s honor.”

She went back to chopping, carefully quartering each slice. I wanted to tell her that it really didn’t matter what size they were, but I was afraid to offend her when she was holding a knife.

“Okay,” she said five minutes later, as I finished cutting up the last bell pepper. “I’m done.” She looked over at me with a self-satisfied smile.

“Alright. Put it in the pan.”

She obliged, then watched as I shoveled in handfuls of mushrooms, peppers, squash, and broccoli. “How did you get all that chopped up so fast?”

“I’m a prodigy. Turn on the heat.”

“How high?”

“Medium.”

She peered carefully at the knobs on the stove. “There is no medium.”

“What is there?”

“A ten, a six, a three, and an off.”

“You can put it in between those marks, you know.”

She frowned over at me. “They’re all numbers.”

“So ten is the hottest?”

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?”

She laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” She twisted the knob to medium and leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. Staring at me intently.

“What?”

“We should do it.”

“Do what?” I poured on some more soy sauce, stirring the vegetables lightly.

She raised her eyebrows. “We have a box.”

“So we can play fort?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re so damn dense. It. We should do it.”

“Oh.” My eyes widened. I turned my focus to the stove, suddenly fascinated by the swirling green and yellow and red. “Huh.”

“We talked about it this afternoon. I figured you’d get the point. That I wanted to.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But obviously, you didn’t, and now you’re going to make me feel as awkward as you possibly can for asking.”

I switch on the fan, drawing the steam away from my face. “Huh.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So you don’t want to do it?”

“Uhhh...” This was not how it had gone with Cassie. I was not sure it had ever gone this way with any couple, however informal, in the history of sex.

“Because if you keep on answering me with vagueness, I can just go home. I mean, whatever you want. But you at least should care.”

“This is just... Weird.”

“Weird,” she repeated. “It’s weird.”

“It’s just... It’s really forward.”

She studied me for a moment, then nodded slowly. “So you want me to beat around the bush. You want me to talk to you like you’re a child. It’s sex, Kennedy. People do it. You’re living proof that people do it. Get over it.”

“Romantic,” I managed, staring down at the stove.

“Look, I get it. I do. I get what you’re saying. But seriously. I think we should do it. I want you to think we should, too. But I mean, you just broke up with your girlfriend, or she broke up with you, or whatever, and you’re an awkward teenage boy, and this is your grandmother’s house and I get it. If you don’t. Think we should. Yeah.” She trailed off awkwardly, sucking her upper lip into her mouth.

I stirred the vegetables for a minute, biting my lip. “No, we should. I need to get laid. Not in my grandmother’s house, though. And not with banana flavored condoms.”

“Yeah, like I don’t have two boxes of regular ones in my sock drawer. You underestimate my sex life, Kennedy. And we can do it at my place. Tobias is out with some floozy.”

“You don’t like her?”

Poppy laughed. “I don’t even know her. He has at least two dates a week, all different women. You’d think he’d have gone through the whole pool by now, but he keeps dragging them up from some street corner or something. I don’t know. He used to bring them back to the house, but when I got chlamydia sophomore year, he decided he was being a bad influence and if he wanted an abstinent daughter, he couldn’t keep bringing women by the dozen to spend the night. But it happens.”

“What?”

“What what?”

“You have chlamydia?”

“I had it. Everyone did, pretty much. Lia, Todd, Lindsay, Jordan, Josh, Brianna of course, Heather the slutty freshman, Alex, and Max. Max was the one who gave it to me. He got it from Heather. She got it from some guy in Mason and gave it to like, four guys. Who infected their four girlfriends, plus me. And that’s how we learned that STIs spread really, really fast in small high schools.”

I blinked at her. “You say this like it’s very, very normal.”

“Well, it was a little more traumatic at the time. Namely when my father slept with some nurse from Mason who came back to town with him and found out he had a sixteen year old daughter, at which point she asked him if the chlamydia outbreak around here scared him. I was being treated already, but the pills were on my dresser. He wasn’t all that happy.”

“Well, you had chlamydia.”

“He’s a hypocrite.”

“Is that why you don’t talk to him?”

She laughed. “You really think I don’t speak to my father because he’s a manwhore? You really think I’m that petty? He can fuck who he wants.”

“Right.”

“It doesn’t help, though. Really.” She examined her nails, avoiding my eyes. “You’d think if your only family refused to speak to you, you’d at least try to redeem yourself. Not that he ever could.”

“But he could try.”

“Right.” She sighed, shrugging. “Oh well. It happens.”

“It shouldn’t. You’re family. Family’s important.”

She raised one eyebrow. “Obviously your family disagrees.”

“They don’t hate me, Poppy.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I love them too much, sometimes.”

She rolled her eyes. “Look at you, trying to be all cryptic and really just sounding incestuous.”

“I just want them to be happy. Always.”

“And they’re not?”

I stared intently down at the pan, stirring it idly, trying to quell the images flashing through my mind. Blood. Josephine, sobbing. Sitting on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Virginia on the couch, head cradled in her hands. My mother pacing. What did you do, Pookie? Oh my God, what did you do?

“Not really. Not anymore.”

*****

Saturday, December 13th, 9:40 PM

“I’m sorry.”

She looks up from her desk with a heavy sigh. “What do you want, Pookie?”

“A time machine.”

“Yeah, well. Don’t we all.”

I lean against the doorframe, chewing on the inside of my lower lip. “You’re allowed to hate me. Sometimes I do.”

“I’d really love to take you up on that offer, sometimes.”

I sigh. “Look, I know. I know I’ve been awful since I got back. And it’s totally unfair that you all have to deal with the aftermath of everything. It’s... This afternoon sucked, Josephine. I felt horrible. I... I’m a monumental fuck up. And I’m sorry. I’m really damn sorry.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, then sighs, staring down at her desk. “I was wrong, too. I don’t know. I’m just ready for this year to be over.”

“I know.” I slide down the wall and heave a sigh. “For what it’s worth, if I’d had the year you did, I’d probably be a crazy shut-in. Who ate marshmallow fluff out of the container. And had lots of dogs.”

“Dogs with ridiculous names. Like Eunice. And Thor.”

“Thaddeus.”

“Bernice.”

“Yvonne.”

She rolls her eyes. “Can you imagine? That’s some serious animal cruelty.”

“Yvonne the German Shepherd. I love it.”

“You’re a sadist.”

“You’re related to me.”

She shakes her head. “No. I was adopted. Or you were. Probably me. Then I wouldn’t have to claim Virginia, either.”

I roll my eyes. “Wishful thinking.”

“No kidding.” She cracks her knuckles and grimaces down at her desk. “God, calculus can blow me.”

“When’s your exam?”

“Wednesday. Same day as econ. Which can also blow me.”

“Sucks. You want help?”

She groans. “I want someone to take it for me. But help would be good.”

“What are you doing?”

She sticks out her tongue. “Logarithmic differentiation. We just learned it two weeks ago. I got a D on the test, and that was with a ten point curve. I think I’m going to die.”

I stand up and walk over to her, peering down at the textbook. “You can’t take a derivative until you revise it. You’re skipping ahead. You don’t need a common denominator until later.”

Josephine stares at me blankly. “Did you not just hear me say that I got a D on the last test? I have no idea how to do this. The word ‘derivative’ means very little to me.”

“Come on. Write the problem out again, just what they gave you, and we’ll start over.”

“Fine.”

She peers down at her book, then carefully begins copying the problem into her notebook. “I missed you, you know. I need the math help.”

“See, I’m not so bad sometimes.”

She rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

And for a minute, we are okay again. And it’s almost like the last five months never happened. Almost.

*****

Sunday, August 17th, 7:32 PM

“Not half bad.”

I groaned. “Gee. Thanks.”

“I’m sorry if I’m not shaking from head to toe with a neverending orgasm, Kennedy. Jesus.” She sat up, crossing her arms over her breasts. “Give it a couple hours and we’ll try it again.”

“Seriously? I have to get home by ten.”

“No. I told your grandmother we were going to the movies. She said to have you home by midnight.”

I sat up, massaging my temples. “What kind of movie lasts from seven to midnight?”

“The kind where your grandmother likes me.” She rolled her eyes. “Seriously. You need to get better at this sneaking around stuff.”

“I’m sorry if I don’t like lying to blood relatives.”

“Yeah, well. Get used to it.” She looked over at me and winked. “You’re cute when I annoy you.”

“I thought you said I was just generally cute.”

“Well, you are. And you have nice abs. Damn.” She laughed. “Seriously, though. You’re not all that bad in bed.”

“I thought you said the sex would be mind blowing.”

“The sex will be mind blowing. Once you get over this whole liking me thing.”

“I don’t like you!”

She rolled her eyes, laughing lightly. “You do, though. It’s so obvious. It doesn’t really help, either, that you’re so inexperienced.”

“I’m not inexperienced!” I yelped, starting to stand up and immediately sitting back down. It didn’t seem like a good time to expose myself.

“When you can count your previous sex partners on one finger, we usually call that inexperienced.” She wrinkled her nose, stifling a laugh. “I think it’s cute. You’re practically a virgin. I’m like Columbus or something.”

“Great. I love when girls claim me for Spain.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re so nerdy.”

“I’m not nerdy. I’m an intellectual. You’re supposed to find that attractive.” I bit my lip. “Plus, I have great abs. Seriously, I should sell these things on the Internet or something.”

“Uh-huh. Because the urge to sell things on the Internet isn’t nerdy.”

I glared at her and grabbed my jeans off the floor, pulling them on. “Yeah, yeah. Hey, I don’t have to help you scavenge tomorrow. I can ask Nana to teach me to crochet or something. Make some baby booties.”

“See? You look at me naked and you think of babies. You like me.” She fished in the sheets for a minute, finally pulling out her shirt. “Two hours, lover boy. Want to make popcorn and watch a movie or something? Or would that give you fuzzy romantic feelings?”

“I don’t know, but if you don’t put a shirt on soon, we’re not going to be waiting two hours.”

She laughed. “You want a piece of this, Ulysses Kennedy?”

“I already got a piece. Like, ten minutes ago. Which is why we’re both half-naked. But no, to answer your question, I wouldn’t object to another.”

She shook her hair out and pulled it back into a sloppy ponytail at the nape of her neck and tossed her shirt on the ground. “Come on, then. Show me your moves, boy.”

“Oh, I have moves now?” I bit my finger suggestively, laughing.

She raised her eyebrows. “I’m beginning to doubt it. But you’re free to prove me wrong.”

“Hm. We’ll see.” I sat back down on the bed next to her, then grabbed her, viciously tickling her sides. She squirmed and giggled her way into my lap, throwing one leg over me, straddling my torso.

“You’re an idiot,” she said finally, gasping for breath, pinning my hands above my head. “Your moves are pathetic and juvenile.” She leaned down and kissed me, hard, chewing lightly on my lower lip.

“Yeah, well, you’re naked and on top of me. So obviously I’m doing something right.”

She rolled her eyes, grabbing the button of my jeans. “I take pity on you.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll take your pity. Donations graciously accepted.” I reached up and grabbed her, pressing her against me. She laughed as I kicked off my jeans, lightly kissing my neck.

“You’re such a dork,” she said finally, reaching over to her nightstand and grabbing a condom, smirking down at me.

“You like me.”

“No I don’t,” she scoffed, shaking her hair loose and rolling her eyes, still straddling my chest.

“You do. You totally, totally do.”

It was the last thing either of us said for awhile. But I would always remember the look on her face at that moment. The tiniest doubt flashing through her eyes.

November 10th: Nothing in life will ever come that easy, doesn't mean it has to be that hard

2007-11-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

Saturday, August 16th, 10:16 PM

“Where have you been?”

I stepped back. “I... We were just walking around.”

“For four hours?” She looked just like my mother, in that moment. The night I came home, knuckles bloody, at three in the morning, and watched her pace the living room, chewing her nails, Virginia sitting on the couch staring, Josephine upstairs in her room, eyes focused on the ceiling. My mother looked so damn weary that night. It terrified me.

“I’m sorry. I should have called.”

She shook her head. “You came here to get out of trouble Ulysses. And you can’t stay away. You’re courting disaster. Roaming like that. Not calling. I tried to call you. Your phone wasn’t on.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, staring at the ground.

She sighed. “I want you to be happy here. I want this to work out for you. You’re making it so hard.” She clutched her head with one veined hand, massaging her temples.

“I’m not getting into trouble. Poppy was just showing me around. Getting to know me.”

The thing – the sad thing, maybe, or the strange thing – was that I was telling the truth. We had sat out there for hours, leaning against Susie, talking. About nothing, really – nothing important, nothing about family or worry or fear. School. Friends. How her best friend Lia was always calling her in the middle of the night to talk about nothing. How Virginia had used an at-home highlighting kit the year before and bleached her hair out so badly the salon had to cut most of the top layer out. We were just talking. That was all. And on the way home I had given her my flip-flops, hilariously too big for her, and we had tripped along for a mile and a half with our arms thrown around each other’s shoulders. I had kissed her goodnight on her front lawn, but it hadn’t been more than a peck. It hadn’t even occurred to me how late it was until I went inside.

She shook her head. “Your mother called. She wanted to talk to you, but you weren’t here. You can’t go running off like that. I need to know where you are.”

It wasn’t until later, laying sleeplessly in my mother’s old bed, watching the moonlight shadows on the wall across from me, that I realized what had scared her. She was afraid I had gone home. Had gone back to his house, fists clenched and ready. Had punched him until my knuckles bled and his nose was not all that was broken. That I would again stumble home in tears, and once again someone would have to beg my confession – What did you do? Oh my God, what did you do? That this time, the answers would not be so easy.

******

Saturday, December 13th, 9:47 AM

“Peace offering.”

I scratch my chest, squinting. “What’s that?”

Virginia rolls her eyes. “Breakfast burrito. Extra sausage, no onion, and a side of apology for being a bitch.”

I accept the plate, raising my eyebrows. “Seriously?”

She shrugs, swallowing hard. “It’s almost Christmas, Pookie. Consider it an early gift.”

It’s the first time I can remember that Virginia has apologized for anything. I pull open a drawer and pull out a fork. “I need to get my shopping done. Seriously.”

She groans. “Shit. It’s only two weeks away, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. You want to hit the mall today?”

She mulls it over for a minute. “I guess. I’m going to Rob’s at four...”

“Rob?”

She eyes me warily. “Yeah. My boyfriend. Jesus, Pookie, don’t start.”

“What? I’m not trying to start. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

She rolls her eyes. “Pookie, seriously. I’m sixteen. When you were sixteen, you were out having sex with Cassie in the backseat of your car. Don’t get all high and mighty on me.”

I shake my head. “Not getting high and mighty. Just going to eat my breakfast burrito. But, you know, for the sake of sharing knowledge, you’re not going to follow in the footsteps of my backseat sex fests, right?”

“And why does it matter to you?” She shifts her weight, jutting her hip out to one side.

“No. Doesn’t matter. Not judging. Just curious.” I dig my fork inside the burrito and dig out some scrambled eggs, shoving them into my mouth. When I’m done chewing, I stare at her for a minute. She’s pretty, my sister. They all are, really. Virginia even more than the others. Even when her hair is greasy and pulled back, even when she has no makeup on, even when she’s walking around the house in sweats with no bra on, she’s pretty. And I worry about her. I worry about them all.

She eyes me for a moment longer, then sighs. “When you’re done eating, we can hit up the mall. And if you want, I can tell Rob to come over here. He should meet you.”

She’s trying, today. Maybe she’s been trying all along. Maybe I’m finally starting to notice. Either way, I nod. I will take whatever she will agree to give me.

*****

Sunday, August 17th, 11:34 AM

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

She stood in front of the door. Blocking my path. “Out where?”

“Out. Poppy called. We’re driving out to Mason to wander aimlessly. I’ll have my phone on.”

Nana eyed me warily. “Ulysses...”

“Nana, it’s fine. I promise. I know you want to keep me safe, but really. You said yourself that she’s a nice girl. She’s a nice girl. I’m trying to be proactive. Meet some friends around here.” I shrugged. “Look, I’ll be home for dinner. Earlier than that. By five at the latest. We can have a nice meal together. Hey, if you want, I can stop by the grocery store up in Mason and buy some stuff, and I can make something.”

Her expression brightened. “Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt...”

“I’ll be okay, Nana. I promise.”

It was hard for anyone to believe me. I wasn’t even sure I believed me. But she yielded, backing away from the door, and I gave her a quick kiss as I ran through it and across the lawn to Poppy’s house.

She was waiting, her late nineties green sedan humming in the driveway. As soon as I jumped in she threw it into reverse. “Are you ready?”

“Ready for what exactly?”

She groaned. “To rumble, obviously. Seriously, does no one tell you anything?”

“I moved here all of two days ago, so not really. What’s going on?”

She grinned and handed me a piece of paper. “Last two days before school starts. And we’re finally seniors, so this year it actually means something.”

I open the piece of paper and read:

Welcome to the Thirteenth Annual John Quincy Adams Scavenger Hunt

Who are we kidding? You know the rules. Two days. Your mission, whether or not you choose to accept it, is to pair up and find fifty items. Some of them are readily accessible (like your mother’s vagina) (seriously, she’s loose for an old lady). By the end, most of you will be collapsed in sobbing heaps. But for the two of you who find the most – or find the whole list in the least amount of time --, the rewards will be great. And, most importantly, your senior (or junior, but really, juniors, you’re only invited because otherwise we wouldn’t have nearly enough players) year will be a marvelous exercise in, and we are ashamed to say this, “being the bomb-diggity”. Congratulations in advance to this year’s winners.

Important Notes:
1. You must have the item itself. No pictures. No live witnesses. If you can’t buy it, steal it. But if you get caught shoplifting (or stealing street signs, a la the class of 2003), it’s on you. See #5 for details.

2. No physical violence is allowed against other teams. If your teammate is being an idiot (Todd), however, feel free to hit him/her (seriously, Lia, we can leave you a baseball bat if you’d like).

3. First prize is cold hard cash. There are no other prizes. So go for the cash. We might also manage some celebratory liquor, but that’s dependent on how strictly Norm’s Adult Beverages is carding these days.

4. Susie. Noon. Saturday. If you’re not there, you’re not playing.

5. To paraphrase Fight Club, those corny Las Vegas tourism commercials, and a particularly mind-numbing episode of Laguna Beach: What happens on the Scav stays on the Scav. Meaning? Don’t tell your parents. Don’t tell your school friends who live on some shitty farm fourteen miles down the road. And while you’re Scavenging, you are prohibited from explaining to outsiders why you are searching for whatever you are searching for, and why you are the twelfth couple to be looking for it in the span of two hours.

On that note, we look forward to seeing you on the 17th. Be there or... Don’t be there. But then what will you have to talk about on Tuesday?

I refolded the paper, eyebrows raised. “So we’re going on a scavenger hunt?”

“The Scav. Yeah. You’re lucky you got here in time. Actually, so am I. I didn’t know who I was going to partner with, since Lia and Todd got back together.” She rolled her eyes. “So, anyway, we’ve been looking forward to this pretty much forever. Since middle school, definitely. We did it last year, but Lia got bored halfway through, and she was the one with the car, so we lost pretty miserably.” She grinned over at me. “If we win, you’re doing me. I’m not even kidding.”

I groaned. “Do I have to?”

“Unfortunately, yes. You do. Fuck, we’re going to be early.” She pulled the car to the side of the road, where several others were already parked. “Are you ready? Seriously, it’s weird that you’re not excited. It makes sense, but it’s still weird. I’ve been looking forward to this for years.” She opened her door and looked over at me with a shrug. “Here goes nothing.”

“Sure.” Because spending two days with the girl who turned your head inside out was nothing. Especially when this girl you would do anything to impress has chosen you to accompany her on some strange small town ritual she’s dreamed of since she was twelve. When all her friends will be there, judging you, and you will have nothing to say, nothing to offer, because all that you can think about concerns people they have never met and mistakes they have never made. So yes, of course it was nothing. Nothing at all.

******
Saturday, December 13th, 11:01 AM

“So what’s going on with you and this Rob kid?”

She shrugs, holding up a dark blue sweater. “No?” I shake my head. It washes her out. She puts it back, sighing. “I don’t know. What are you buying for Josie?”

I show her a pair of turquoise earrings. “You think she’d like these?”

Virginia shakes her head. “Her piercings closed up while she was gone. Try a bracelet, maybe? All her sleeves have to be really long, so she wears them over top a lot of the time.”

“Right.” I put the earrings back on the display, biting my lip. “What kind of bracelet? Jesus, you saw the shit I bought for Cassie. It’s not like I’m good at buying jewelry.”

She laughs. “That shell necklace? God. Look, just... Buy her something. I don’t know. Get her a sweater or something. She looks good in green.” She tosses me a forest green cable knit sweater.

I wrinkle my nose. “It’s kind of impersonal.”

“Pookie. Seriously.”

“What?”

She rolls her eyes. “Have you ever considered just talking to her? You’ve been really weird since you got back.”

“My girlfriend died.”

She bites her lip, staring down at the navy sweater she’s still holding. Silent.

“She drove her car off the side of the road. Everyone says it was an accident. It wasn’t.”

“Pookie...” Her voice is higher and softer than I have ever heard it. “Don’t...”

“I’m weird. Okay? I’m weird, because my sister...” I look around the store. A woman a few feet away is looking at me over the jeans display.

“Let’s go.” Virginia drops the sweater and grabs the green one out of my hands. “We can shop later. Seriously. Let’s just go.”

“It’s fine.”

“Pookie.”

I pick up the green sweater and pick at the collar. “Let’s just get the shopping done, alright?”

She exhales heavily. “Pookie.”

“Virginia, I’m not taking you home. So let’s just shut up and do this, alright?”

“Okay.” She closes her eyes and sighs. “Whatever. I’ll get a ride home. Maybe Rob will take me.” She breezes past me, her jaw set.

“Virginia...”

She turns back and smiles sweetly. “God, I hope we don’t end up fucking in his backseat. Bye, Pookie. Have a nice shop.”

That’s Virginia. You can fool yourself for awhile into thinking things will be okay, but in the end, the peace is temporary. And you will lose the battle every time.

*****

Sunday, August 17th, 11:57 AM

“I assume you’ve all read the rule sheets?”

“Lindsay, just give us the damn lists,” said the stocky boy next to me. He had a shaved head and radiated a serious attitude. His black polo shirt stretched tight over his chest and biceps. Poppy had told me that he was Todd, her best friend Lia’s sometimes boyfriend. Lia was tall and willowy, with unkempt dark brown hair and a mouth stuck in a permanent grin. She was the kind of person who organized bake sales and wore lots of argyle. The kind of girl Josephine had been, before.

“Who’s missing? Anybody? Don’t move for a second, people, I’m trying to get a head count...” Lindsay mouthed names as she pointed to each of us in turn, pausing when she got to me.

“Who are you and what exactly are you doing here?”

“I’m... Poppy...”

Poppy rolled her eyes. “He’s mine! I needed a partner and he moved in next door. Can you believe it? Seriously? Nobody ever moves in. I was destined to win the Scav.”

I shot her a weird look. She didn’t seem to notice.

“New?” Lindsay glanced at me, nodding slowly. “God, of all places to get stuck. Sucks to be you... What’s your name?”

“Kennedy.”

“Like the president?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Like it’s my last name and my first name is unspeakable.”

“Ah.”

Todd cleared his throat. “Ninety seconds. There are ten teams here, can we just start?”

“We have to give everyone a fair chance.” She shuffled the lists in her hands. “This year’s a good one, people. If anybody finishes this list, I swear I will buy the liquor myself. And that was totally Josh’s thing, too.” She turned back to me. “So you’re going to Quincy, I’m guessing. Not one of the private schools up in Mason.”

“Yeah. Start my senior year with everybody else on Tuesday.”

She nodded. “Uh-huh. God, that sucks. Seriously, I’m used to this place, I’ve lived here all my life, but moving here? When you’ve lived pretty much anywhere else? God.”

Todd tapped his watch. “Dude. Time to start. Hand out the lists, woman.”

Lindsay glared at him. “Alright, everybody, shut your mouths.”

“Wait!”

We looked over to see two guys, one blonde and one Hispanic, emerging from the trees. “Sorry,” said the blonde. “Wow, Linds. Cute haircut.”

She shot him a withering glance. “Yeah. Okay. Josh will pass out the lists in just a minute. First, I’d just like to officially welcome everybody to this year’s Scav. The cash is better this year than it’s ever been before, so you can cheer for that.”

There were some weak claps and one wolf whistle.

“All your items should be in your car on the first day of school. During lunch we’ll come out, you’ll come out, and we’ll all sit around and have a look. Judging might need to continue after school, in which case you can walk home. You live all of two miles away, at the most. Whoever has the most items wins. It’s pretty simple. Some of the shit is easy to find, some of it will make you want to cry. But everything is one point. He with the most points wins.”

The blonde boy spoke up. “You should be able to detail where and how you got each item if asked. And we will ask about at least one thing to each group. So if your story sucks, or doesn’t match up to what we know is true? You’re out. End of story.”

“Thanks for interrupting, Josh.” Lindsay smiled at all of us. “Now that he’s done, let’s hand out the lists, alright?”

Immediately, Poppy ran up and plucked one from her hands. “Scav list! Let’s go, Kennedy.”

I followed her through the trees. “I’ll read it while you drive.”

She nodded, handing it over to me as she yanked open her car door. “Sounds good.”

We climbed inside and Poppy gunned it, flying down the street toward Mason. “Read, boy. Come on.”

“Okay...” I smoothed out the list and began to read. “A beer bottle cap. A penny from 1977. A green feather boa. A calendar featuring a snake for each month of the year. A pair of galoshes. A dandelion chain. Three orange marbles. A wine glass with a light-up stem. Some sort of physical representation of a one eyed, one horned, giant purple people eater. Pink ribbon with white polka dots. A watch with an octagonal face. A crazy straw shaped like a historical figure. A movie poster for a movie currently in theaters. An oak leaf. A pair of festive Christmas socks. A DVD of the movie “Philadelphia”. Two rusty nails. A box of flavored condoms. A fingerless lace glove. And an etch-a-sketch key chain.”

Poppy groaned. “Okay. I know where to find all of two things on that list. Are you serious? A crazy straw shaped like a historical figure? Who makes those?”

“We need a strategy,” I decided, staring at the list. “Like, each of us gets three easy items and three hard items to look for at a time, and when you find one, you get to replace it with another one.”

“Alright. What are you taking?”

I read it over quickly. “The wine glass, the dandelions, and the bottle cap for my easy. The glove, the key chain, and the one eyed one horned giant purple people eater for the hard.”

“Leaf, Philadelphia, and the condoms. Calendar, galoshes, and... Give me something hard.”

“Umm... The socks? It’s the middle of August.”

“Fine. So the festive socks. I think I know where we can get those, actually... And there’s a drug store across the street for the condoms. It’s big enough that you might be able to find a light-up wine glass. Then we can hit up the video store for Tom Hanks, and then go to the park and get the leaf and the dandelions. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sure.” I stared down at my lap for a moment. “Look, Poppy... What was up back there?”

She glanced over at me. “What?”

“When you introduced me. What the hell was that?”

She raised one eyebrow. “That was... An introduction. What, did you want a marching band? Some balloons?”

“No. You just... Never mind. You just seemed really different. That’s all.”

“Uh-huh.” She squinted into the rearview mirror. “Jesus, they’re right behind us.” She stepped on the gas, and the car accelerated with a roar, hurtling down the road. I was glad, for once, to live in the middle of nowhere, where the roads are so straight you could go for miles and miles without even the slightest turn of the wheel. We drove in silence, my arms crossed, her eyes trained on the rearview.

Finally, we arrived in town. Mason was an interesting place. In reality, it wasn’t much of a city – one mall with two department stores, a food court, and a number of smaller specialty stores. Two record stores. One hotel. Lots of chain restaurants, two libraries, a few banks, and a hodgepodge of other amusements. But in the surrounding towns, it was a Destination, if only because everyone didn’t know your name.

“I’ll drop you off at the drug store. Look for the wine glass. I’ll get the socks and then come over there and get the condoms.” Poppy braked hard to make the turn into the drug store parking lot, throwing my body forward. She grimaced at me. “Hurry up, Kennedy.”

I obeyed, scampering out of the car. She squealed off, leaving me behind. It was the first time of many.

******
Saturday, December 13th, 3:38 PM

“Where’s Virginia?”

I shrug. “She left with her boyfriend.”

Josephine sits down across from me, slowly stirring her tea. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Liar.” She looks down at her mug, shaking her head. “Look, Pookie, I don’t know what happened up at Nana’s. And I’m not asking you to tell me. But you’ve got to talk about it. Do something about it. You’re obviously not okay.”

“I’m fine.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s like you forget who you’re talking to.”

“What? Because what happened to you is the same as what happened up at Nana’s?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

She shrugs. “Because I know you.”

“No. You don’t.” I stand up and push in my chair, the soles of my shoes squeaking on the linoleum. “It happens, Josephine. Shit happens. People die. You move on. That’s how it works.”

“But you’re not moving on, Pookie. You’re standing still. Waiting for something to change.”

I roll my eyes. “What, now that you get stuck in therapy three times a week you’re so damn wise? Look who’s talking about standing still. You don’t even leave the house. You don’t talk to anybody that isn’t related to you or who you’re not paying to listen. Way to move on. Way to take your life in your own hands.”

“Why are you such a jackass lately? What the hell are you trying to prove?” She shakes her head, running her tongue over her teeth. “That you were right to do what you did to Brennan? That you’re not who you were that night up in your room? That you’re tougher than that? Don’t just curl up in a ball and cry when things get too tough anymore?”

“That’s not fair.”

She stands up, her eyes flashing. “What’s not fair is that you run around treating everyone like shit. Like you have some sort of right because you’ve had it so tough. You don’t even know tough, Pookie. Tough isn’t watching bad things happen to other people. Get over yourself.”

“What, you’re the only one who’s allowed any personal tragedies now?” Our voices are getting progressively louder. I don’t care. I don’t care if the whole damn neighborhood hears us.

“Pookie, you haven’t had any personal tragedies! Nothing has happened to you!”

“I probably would’ve killed a guy if his father hadn’t dragged me off of him. I got banished to my grandmother’s house in the middle of nowhere. And the one person there who actually seemed to give a shit about me went and drove her car off the side of the road, because apparently I awaken everyone’s suicidal urges! Is that enough tragedy for you, Josephine? Or do we all have to slit our wrists to qualify?”

“I was raped. Fuck you.”

She throws her mug down on floor and storms out. It shatters, the handle breaking off and flying across the floor. Tea splatters on everything. I stand there. Staring. Suddenly exhausted. I collapse back into my chair. Lost.

It’s not that she hadn’t told me before. I was the first one. The one she trusted to do the right thing. And that’s what haunts me, now. It’s been five months. Somewhere in there, I stopped trying. I don’t think she expects anyone to do the right thing, anymore.

November 4th: Whenever you fall, as low as you can go, I'll be there to pick you up again

2007-11-04T20:50:00.000-08:00

Saturday, August 16th, 6:10 PM

“This is really delicious, Erma. What a spread!”

He was laying it on thick. You could tell that Nana loved it. She was beaming down at the table, her cheeks flushed. “Yes, it is nice, isn’t it? And so wonderful to be able to share it with friends and family.” She smiled shyly up at him, like a schoolgirl with a crush. It was disturbing, watching my grandmother – my dignified grandmother – throw herself so shamelessly at this man thirty years her junior. Mortifying, really. I glanced at Poppy, trying to gauge if she agreed. She was staring intently at her mashed potatoes, which she had made into a mountain and was presently filling, kernel by kernel, with corn.

“Delicious,” she agreed sullenly, shooting Nana a tight-lipped smile. “Loved it.”

“Would anyone like more?” My grandmother was drinking in the moment. Reveling in it, really. She couldn’t stop smiling.

I shook my head, and Poppy continued with her construction. Tobias, however, nodded, and chatted politely with Nana as she filled up his plate at the stove.

Finally, I pushed back my chair. “Poppy and I are going to go get some fresh air.”

Poppy looked up at me gratefully. “Lots of fresh hair. I’ll show Kennedy around town.”

Nana set Tobias’s plate in front of him and looked at me, her brow furrowed. “Sweetheart, are you sure you don’t want something more to eat? And Poppy, you’ve barely touched your vegetables.”

“We’re fine, Nana. Thanks. We’ll be home in awhile.” I grabbed the house keys off a hook by the door as Poppy stood and picked up her purse.

“Bye, Mrs. Haber. Always a pleasure.” She nodded her head and then scampered after me, out the door and onto the driveway.

I pulled the door shut and followed her. “Give me a second.” She kicked off her heels and tossed them in the air. They hurtled over the fence and into the bushes somewhere in her front yard. She laughed. “I hate those shoes. Jesus. So. Let’s tour, Mystery Man.”

We set off walking toward Main Street, the sun still high in the sky behind us. “So, what brings you to grandma’s? Did you just get out of juvie or something?”

I shook my head. “Stuff at home.”

She glanced at me, obviously hoping for more, and I shrugged. “Well,” she said, “I hope you get out of here soon. Jesus. This town eats your soul.”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head slowly, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know. Everybody just knows everybody’s damn business. Except you get the feeling sometimes that nobody really knows anybody else at all.”

We walked for awhile in silence, then turned onto Main. “You’ve been here before, I guess. So there’s really not much of a tour to give.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I know where the school is. The post office. The bank. All of that.”

“Yeah. So where do you live, anyway?”

“Jefferson.”

She thought for a moment. “I think we went on a field trip once to the science museum in Jefferson. God, that must suck. Coming here from there.”

She had no idea how much. “Yeah. Not a whole lot going on around here.”

“Yeah.”

We lapsed into silence for a few minutes. “So,” I said finally. “It’s just you and Tobias, I guess?”

She nodded. “My mother’s dead.”

“Oh.”

“It’s fine. I mean, I don’t even remember it.”

“Yeah.” I stuck my hands in my pockets with a shrug. “I live in a house with four women. Well, three women and a nine-year-old girl. Apparently, I was such a stunning specimen of masculinity that the parents stuck with girls from then on.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure that was it. You probably terrified them. So how old are your sisters?”

“Helen’s the nine-year old. She’s the baby, completely. And she loves it. Virginia is sixteen, and way too cool for all of us, of course. And then Josephine’s the twin. Obviously, I’m the better looking one, but you know.” My voice gave it all away. That I loved them. Missed them. Would do anything for them.

Poppy could tell. Her expression softened. “So where are you and your sister applying to college next year?” she said, obviously trying to change the topic.

But I was having trouble thinking of anything else. “I don’t know. Josephine wants to go up north. One of the Ivies. She’s crazy smart, she could make it in a heartbeat. I’ll probably stay in-state. It’s weird, because we’ve always done everything together, til now. And it’s like, what if for the rest of our lives, we go in different directions?”

She shrugged, obviously unable to think of anything to say.

“Sorry. I always do this. Get too personal with people I barely know.”

Poppy looked over, smiling faintly. “No. It’s really sweet. The way you talk about your family.”

“You think?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

We fell silent for awhile, lost in our own thoughts. “I haven’t spoken to my father since I was seven,” she said finally, jarring me from my mind.

“What?”

She shrugged. “He talks to me. I just... Don’t respond.”

“Why not?”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, mulling it over. “I don’t know.”

“Of course you know.”

She looked over at me, amused. “Tell me why you’re here.”

“What?”

“Why are you here? In this podunk town in the middle of nowhere? When you have this family in Jefferson that you obviously would kill to go back to? What did you do?”

I heard it in my head, then. Virginia’s voice, insistent, demanding. ”What did you do, Pookie? Oh my God, what did you do?” I bit my lip, tearing away the skin. “What does that have to do with you and your father?”

“There are some things I don’t tell near-strangers, Kennedy.”

And, as I would learn, a lot of things she didn’t tell anyone at all.

******

Friday, December 12th, 10:29 PM

“Shhh. Helen, come on. It’s okay. You’re okay. Shhh. You’re going to wake Mom up. God, come on. Come on, Helen, it’s okay.”

“What’s going on?”

Virginia looks back at me. She’s kneeling next to Helen’s bed, running her fingers through my youngest sister’s hair. Helen is in tears. “It’s fine. I’ve got it.”

Helen whispers something to Virginia, who nods, then turns back to me. “Can you just go get some clean sheets or something? Jesus.” She stands, keeping a consoling hand on Helen’s shoulder. I walk down the hall to the bathroom linen closet, grab a set of sheets, and return. Virginia has stripped the bed, and Helen is wearing new pajamas, the old ones lying with the linens in a heap on the floor. Helen is still crying.

I hand Virginia the sheets. She gives me a tight smile. I move to help her with the bed, but she glares at me, and I back away.

Helen tugs at my hand. “Stay with me.”

“He’s not going to stay with you,” Virginia remarks from the corner.

“Why not?” Helen and I ask at the same time.

Virginia rolls her eyes. “Because she’s nine years old, Pookie. She should be able to sleep by herself.”

“Well obviously she’s not,” I retort.

Helen’s lip is quivering, her silent tears threatening to turn threateningly loud. Virginia’s expression softens. “Let’s talk in the hall.”

We pull the door closed behind us. Virginia immediately crosses her arms, popping out one hip. “Let’s get this straight. You go away for months. The worst months of her life so far, and probably for a damn long time. And then you come back and you want to be the hero? The guy who wakes up in the middle of the night and comforts her? Where were you two months ago, Captain Planet?”

“What the hell does it matter? I’m here now. And is that what this is really about? You’re jealous? Grow up, Virginia.” I move to open the door, but she grabs my wrist. Her grip is tougher than I remembered. She always was unnervingly strong.

“She doesn’t need to be coddled. You think you know what’s best, but obviously that’s not true.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I hiss.

She throws up her hands. “What, you think Brennan was a remarkable judgment of some kind? That the way you acted when Josephine cut her wrists open was this amazing feat of logic?” Her voice is getting louder now.

I fight the urge to slap her. “You don’t even know the whole story. Don’t tell me how I should’ve --”

“Oh my God.” She steps back, her whole body twitching. “You really think I don’t know exactly what happened? You think I’m stupid? That just because nobody actually tells me anything I don’t know it?”

The hall light flickers on. Josephine stands there in her pajamas, reading glasses on and a mechanical pencil tucked behind her ear. It’s obvious that she’s heard what we’ve said, and it’s obvious that she’s trying to decide whom to kill first.

“Your baby sister is crying, you... You motherfucking idiots.” She grits her teeth, her fists clenched at her sides. “She’s in there in tears, and all you two care about is who’s right – no, no, who’s less wrong.” She shakes her head, chewing on her lower lip. “Grow up.”

“Look, Josie...” Virginia begins, but Josephine silences her with a glare.

“Virginia, deal with it. Pookie, my room.”

“What the hell?” I yelp. I feel like I’m being dragged off to the principal’s office.

“Shut up.” she hisses, then turns on her heel and retreats down the hall, shutting the door quietly behind her.

*****

Saturday, August 16th, 6:32 PM

“Come on. Follow me.”

I peered through the trees ahead as she disappears from view. “Are you some kind of serial killer? Is this the part where you pull out your chainsaw?”

“Could be,” she called back to me. “Why don’t you find out for sure?”

I grimaced and pushed through the trees, scraping my arms on the branches. “This had better be good.”

“Hey, the tour has no quality guarantees.”

I emerged from the foliage and brushed the leaves out of my hair. “Wait, this is what you wanted to show me? I saw this from the road.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Hey, city-boy, don’t be hatin’. Just because we don’t have movie theaters or those blinky light things hanging over our streets doesn’t mean you have to act all superior.”

I rolled my eyes. “Poppy, it’s a water tower.”

“A water tower?” She raised her eyebrows. “Is that what you see here? A water tower?”

I nodded. “Pretty much.”

She shook her head, wagging a finger at me with exaggerated disappointment. “Look, Mr. The-Tractor-Supply-Catalog-Doesn’t-Come-To-MY-House, you’re going to have to get over this whole ‘being entertained’ thing you’ve got going on. Yes, it is a water tower. Congratulations. But to us, this is kind of a big deal. This is where my parents met at a wild keg party. This is where I got my first kiss. This is the single most important spot to teenagers in this shitty town. And now you’re here. A teenager. In this town. So start finding it important, or give up on fitting in.” She paused. “It’d be kind of a shame, because you’re damn hot.”

“Excuse me?”

She grinned and grabbed my arm, pulling me toward her. “I have lived my entire life here. With about sixteen guys. Most of whom are dating my friends, and the rest of which have been there and, if you’ll excuse the crudeness, done that. And, you know, there’s some overlap in the groups, but that’s bound to happen when you’ve got a small pond and not a lot of fish. You are fresh meat. Sushi-grade. And I got here first. So yeah. You’re damn hot.”

I stared at her. She winked at me, laughing. “Get over yourself. You’re not that special. It’s been four months since I’ve gotten laid. I’d jump on the paper boy if he weren’t like, twelve.”

I finally found my voice. “Flattering,” I croaked.

She raised one eyebrow. “Anyway, this is our water tower. We kind of love it. And its name is Susie, because my mother’s generation was hopeless with naming things and nobody in between has bothered to change it.”

I looked it up and down, still reeling from her speech. “Susie?”

“Right.”

“Huh.”

She put an arm around my waist and laid her head on my shoulder. “What, do you think she’s hot? Should I set you guys up?”

I pushed her away, laughing, and she laughed, and we stood there, smiling, the sunset visible over the trees and through Susie’s legs. Two things happened then. First, she grabbed me around the neck and kissed me like she meant it, running her fingers through my hair, setting electricity racing through my body. And I don’t know if that’s why the second thing happened, or if it would have happened if we had just stood there all evening. But either way, it happened. I fell head over heels in love with Poppy Law. Standing there beneath the shadow of a water tower, out in the middle of nowhere, a girl with no shoes and a mischievous grin forced her way into my heart.

******
Friday, December 12th, 10:36 PM

“What was that?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t... I don’t know. What just happened. What that was about. Josephine, I’m... I...”

She holds up a hand, sighing. She closes her eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply. “Look, Pookie, I don’t care. I don’t care anymore. I’m just... I just want this whole thing to be done. Okay? And you fighting with Virginia in the hallway... Pookie, it’s not your fucking battle.”

“She was the one who brought it up. And we weren’t talking about you, we were --”

“No.” She cuts me off, shaking her head. “No, you don’t... Pookie, it’s about me. What you did is about me. You being gone for five months is about me. Look, you were the one telling me yesterday that she’s been through a lot. Cut her a break. Helen wakes up screaming most nights. Mom can’t sleep at all. She’s just trying. You know Virginia. She can take care of things, okay? Just let her take care of things.”

“She’s just a kid, Josephine.”

She throws up her hands. “Pookie, you’re a year and a half older than she is! And you’ve been gone for five months. Virginia has a system down for the screaming nightmare thing. Seriously. Just let her do what she’s doing. Don’t mess with her.”

“I just... Helen wanted someone to stay with her and Virginia said that was a bad idea.” I shrug, biting my lip. “I... I’m worried about her. I just want her to be okay.”

She sighs. “Pookie,” she says, her voice softer, “you can’t take care of everybody.”

“Don’t pull that Oprah crap on me.”

“It’s not ‘Oprah crap’. I was talking to my therapist about you. She said that until you stop trying to rescue everybody, you’re going to keep getting hurt.”

“You talk to your therapist about me?”

She shakes her head, sighing. “Just let Virginia deal with Helen, okay? And get some sleep.”

I turn and open the door. I’m halfway into the hallway before she calls me back.

“Pookie?”

“Yeah?”

“Let us take care of you.” Her eyes meet mine, and she bites her lip. “We need you. And we worry about you, too.”

“Don’t.”

But they should. I know they should. It’s catching up with me. Everything. And I’m so damn tired of running.

November 3rd: I know it's been another long day

2007-11-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

Friday, December 12th, 3:35 PM

“Uh-huh. And so I told her, I know you want to get his attention, but please keep your bra on next time.”

The group around her explodes into laughter, and Virginia raises a cocky eyebrow. It falls the instant she sees me.

“Just a second,” she sighs to her friends, then abandons them on the curb and runs up to the car, sticking her head through the passenger window.

“What, are you spying on me now?” she hisses, crossing her arms.

I roll my eyes. “I have better things to do. Mom told me I was supposed to give you a ride home. Here I am.”

“Oh my God.” She rolls her eyes and sighs so emphatically it fogs up the windshield. “You’re supposed to park over at the office building and call. It’s bad enough that I don’t have a car. You don’t have to remind people.”

My patience is wearing thin. “Go get your stuff and get in.”

“No! You’re just mad because I have friends and you’re some sort of leper now.”

I slam my hand down on the steering wheel and grit my teeth. “Virginia, get in the damn car.”

She sets her jaw and shakes her head, then storms away back to her friends. “I have to go. My brother is a complete ass.”

“Wait, is this Kennedy? Your hot brother?” One girl cranes her neck. Great. I’m being scoped out by my little sister’s friends. This day is turning out well. I stare ahead through the windshield, teeth gritted, waiting.

“Oh, put your fucking legs together, Erica. He’s not interested in getting the clap.” She shoulders her backpack and stomps toward me, her skirt riding up and revealing entirely too much of her thighs.

She yanks open the door and throws her bag into the backseat, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the car. “Fuck you, Pookie. Jesus. Jesus.” She rolls up her window, her left hand clenched into a tight fist.

“Good to be home. How was your day?”

She glares out the window, arms and legs crossed, a million miles away.

*****

Saturday, August 16th, 5:52 PM

“Hi. Mr. Law?”

He stuck out a hand. “Call me Tobias. I assume you’re Erma’s grandson?”

I nodded, accepting the handshake with a shy grin. “Yeah. She wanted me to come over and let you know that dinner will be ready in just a minute.”

Tobias smiled back, showing lots of teeth. “Will you excuse me for a minute?” He turned to look over his shoulder and up the stairs. “Poppy! Poppy! Hurry up and get down here!”

He turned back and looks me up and down, nodding slowly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Ulysses Kennedy, sir. I go by either the first or the last. It’s a tough name to have.” I smiled again, playing nervously with the hem of my shirt, rolling it over in my fingers. “My grandmother said that your daughter goes to the local high school?”

He nodded, leaning against the doorframe. “She’s a senior. And yourself?”

“A senior, as well.” I willed him not to ask why I was transferring in my senior year. I knew it would be questioned, that people would pry, but I wasn’t ready, yet. I probably never would be.

He looked me up and down again, appraising me with a knitted brow, then flashing a smile. The thing about Tobias, I would learn later, was that his smile gave him the ability to get away with anything. He was a charmer, and he knew it. Counted on it. What his status and money couldn’t get for him, charisma could, and he exuded it in abundance. He always seemed so genuine, somehow, even when he was lying through his teeth.

Before either of us could say anything more, a girl appeared behind him. She had the same eyes as her father – hazel, with heavy lids and long lashes. The rest of her face, though, was entirely her own – a thin, slightly upturned nose; full, pouting lips; high cheekbones. While her father had brown hair carefully mussed with just the right amount of gel, Poppy’s hair was auburn. She had it pulled back in a loose bun, a few tendrils escaping around her face. She was beautiful. Double take beautiful. Movie star beautiful. And she looked pissed.

She caught me staring at her and raised her eyebrows. “You’re the new one, then.” She smoothed her pinstriped black pants with one hand, adjusting the straps of her white tank top with the other. “It’s been a damn long time since someone actually moved into this town.”

“Watch your language,” Tobias warned her, but you could tell Poppy had no intention of listening to him. About anything. Ever.

“Kennedy.” I held out my hand. She stared at it for a moment before accepting, wrinkling her nose.

She pulled back her hand after one shake, adjusting her hair. “Excuse me?”

“My name. Kennedy. Well, Ulysses, but everyone calls me Kennedy.”

Poppy nodded, running her tongue over her upper teeth. “Uh-huh. Cute story.”

“Poppy...” Tobias said warningly, but again his daughter seemed not to hear him.

“Look, I swear I’m not this much of a bitch,” she said after a moment, managing a faint smile. “Well, some of the time.” She glanced over at her father. “So you’re a senior at Quincy, then?”
I nodded. John Quincy Adams High School enrolled a total of three hundred and seven students, bussed in from the north, south, and east. Mostly farm kids who were too far from Mason to make it to the public school system over there. It was on the same campus as the elementary school, which went K-8, and none of the buildings had air conditioning, and the heating system was constantly breaking down during the snowy Midwest winters. It was going to be a fun year.

Tobias cleared his throat. “Let’s get going, then.” He stepped back and held the door open. Poppy passed by without acknowledging him, putting her arm around my waist.

“What are you doing?” I asked in a whisper as we walked briskly toward Nana’s house, leaving Tobias behind.

“Making my father hate you,” she answered in a normal voice, sticking her hand in my back pocket. “You’ll thank me later.”

I turned to look over my shoulder. The kind, smiling man I had met moments ago had disappeared, leaving in his place a glowering man with clenched fists. His eyes met mine. I turned quickly away.

“I hate him,” she said, smiling over at me. She winked. “God, it’s been so long since I’ve met anyone new. This is going to be fun.”

It was going to be something, all right.

*****

Friday, December 12th, 5:14 PM

“Mom, stop.”

My mother brushes the hair from Josephine’s face with a sigh. “Sweetie, I’m just worried about you. I want you to be happy.”

Josephine backs away, arms crossed. “Mom, I’m fine. Great, really. I just... Look, Pookie’s home. Things are going to get back to normal soon, I swear. Just one step at a time, okay?”

“I just think it would be better for you to see some of your old friends, Josie. They called all the time when you were away, checking up on you. You’ve had two months to get settled since you’ve been back. I’m worried about you.” She reaches out and puts a hand on Josephine’s shoulder.

“Mom, stop it.” My sister jerks away, then massages her temples for a long moment, chewing on her lip. “Please,” she says softly, leaning against the counter. “Can we just make dinner? Please?”

Mom unties the back of her apron and pulls it over her head. “I’m done with this. I’m done.” She wipes her hands on a dishtowel and throws the apron on the floor. “Make your own damn dinner!” she calls behind her, storming across the hall into her bedroom and slamming the door.

“You need to tell her,” I say softly, stepping into the kitchen from my spot in the shadows of the hall.

Josephine looks up and glares at me. “Don’t start. Just... Don’t start.” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, her makeup smearing. “I hate this,” she says quietly, staring down at the floor. “Jesus, Pookie, I just hate it.”

I step forward and lean against the island, nudging her toe with mine. “I know.”

She looks up, meeting my eyes. People have always said we looked alike. But I have our mother’s eyes, like Virginia. Green and grey. Josephine’s are dark brown. Our father’s, probably. And now, it’s like I’m seeing them for the first time. She looks terrified. And sad. So damn sad.

“She thought it would get better when you came back.” Her voice is so soft I can barely hear it. She uncrosses her arms and braces herself against the counter, examining the fingernails on her other hand. “I just... She thought I was lonely. I don’t know.” She chews at her middle finger, tearing off the nail with her teeth. “I just don’t have the energy to see people. I’m so damn tired.”

She focuses her eyes on the wall above my head. I stare at the ground. We stand there for awhile, the sounds of our mother’s sobs echoing faintly from her bedroom. Eventually, Josephine sighs, grabs a granola bar from the pantry, and heads for her room. I hear the door slam overhead. And I am alone again. Missing something. Wishing for a way to fix us.

November 1st: Let's start at the very beginning

2007-11-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

Thursday, December 11th, 8:03 PM

“You’re home.”

I drop my bags by the door, pulling it shut behind me. “Yeah.” I shrug off my coat and drape it over the back of the couch. “I am.”

She nods, biting her lip. “Hey, if you... We made dinner. It’s in the microwave. We didn’t know if you’d be hungry.” She perches on the sofa, next to my jacket, fingering the sleeve. “I missed you,” she says after a moment, brushing a strand of hair out of her face, staring awkwardly at the ground. “And I’m sorry.”

I reach out a hand. She looks at me questioningly.

“Show me.”

She sighs, her breath shaky. “Yeah, okay.” She unhooks her thumb from the sleeve of her sweater. Pulls the fabric up her arm. It’s bigger than I remembered. Halfway to her elbow, easily. Raised up like a mountain range on her forearm, pink and swollen and scary. It looks better, though, than the last time I saw it. The one on her left arm was shallower. Together, though, I thought they were going to fill the whole house up with blood. Thought I might drown in it, waiting for the sirens. It was a long night. A long week. It’s been a long, long year.

We’re standing like that, her arm nestled in my palm, when I hear squealing. She smiles. “Go on. She missed you, too.” I drop her arm and turn around, just in time to miss being bowled over by a cyclone of a nine year old.

“I missed you!” The whirlwhind latches onto my waist, pressing her cheek into my stomach. “Virginia said you might never come home but you did, you came, you did!” She squeals in delight, squeezing me as hard as she can manage. “You’re home you’re home you’re home!”

I turn around and glance at Josephine, who’s examining her fingernails, her sleeve pulled safely back over her wrist. She smiles at me. “I told you.”

Meanwhile, Helen lets go of me and looks up at me expectantly. “You’re getting too big for this,” I admonish her, but scoop her up by the armpits nevertheless, spinning her around twice before I set her down. Josephine winces as Helen’s foot scrapes the wall.

“You spoil her,” she notes, rolling her eyes, then glances at the stairs. “I don’t know where Mom and Virginia are. Mom said she was coming...”

“I’m right here.” My mother emerges from her bedroom, navy bathrobe wrapped firmly around her bony torso. “Oh, honey, it’s so good to have you home.” She embraces me, resting her head on my shoulder. I hug her back, reluctantly, wondering how she could mean that when she was the one who sent me away.

“Hi.” My mother backs away, revealing the girl standing behind her. She’s taller than I remembered, and her hair is pulled back sloppily, but it looks freshly highlighted. She has her reading glasses on, and a red tank top, with lime green pajama pants rolled up at the waist. She looks me up and down critically, finally settling her eyes on my day-old scruff. “You need to shave.”

Helen puts her hands on her hips. “Mom, you said she had to be nice.”

“I’m being nice,” Virginia says, rolling her eyes. “God. Way to be annoying.” She shrugs, turning her attention back to me. “It’s good that you’re back though. I guess.”

I nod. That’s about as much as you can expect from Virginia. On a good day. Even when we were kids, she was, by her own estimation, way too cool for everything. Including, and especially, her family. But what happened to Josephine changed her, I think. She’s just figuring out how to transition without making it look like there was something wrong with who she was before.

My mother claps her hands. “There’s dinner in the microwave, sweetie. Are you hungry? Oh, and I picked up Mountain Dew today at the store, so you’ll have something to drink...”

I nod. “Yeah. Great.” It’s been months since I drank anything but water or liquor. But it’s nice that she remembers who I used to be.

Mom flees for the kitchen, leaving the rest of us standing there, awkwardly, in the living room. “So,” Josephine says finally.

Virginia sighs heavily and rolls her eyes. “I’ve got homework.” She turns on her heel and takes off up the stairs without another word.

Josephine shakes her head. “She’s a charmer.”

“She’s had a tough year,” I say, shrugging.

“Yeah, well...” She sighs. “Yeah. I guess she has.”

Helen tugs on my pants leg. “Will you help me with my homework?”

I smile down at her. “Yeah, sure. What are you guys doing? Solar physics? Advanced political theory?”

“Worse,” she says, shaking her head with a scowl. “Multiplication. With three digits.”

I shudder. “Tough stuff. Let’s see if we can help each other figure it out, right? Go get it and bring it in to the kitchen. I’m going to go eat.”

“Alright.” She takes off at a million miles an hour. I’d be surprised to see her move at anything less.

And so we’re left, standing alone together. The twins. I have known her for as long as I have known myself. And still I have nothing to say.

“They love you,” she observes, smiling wanly.

“They love you, too.”

She shakes her head. “Helen barely even noticed when I came home. Virginia certainly didn’t hang up her cell phone to come greet me.” She shrugs. “You’re their big brother. They need you.”

“To do what? Break noses? Disfigure? Narrowly escape lawsuits?”

Something dark passes over her face. “You know that wasn’t your fault.”

“Then why did I spend the last four months up at Nana’s, Josephine?”

She shakes her head. “Because Mom was --”

My mother emerges from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her bathrobe. “I was what?”

“Nothing.” Josephine glares at me, her jaw set. “Go eat, Pookie. We can talk later.”

*****

Friday, August 15th, 3:40 PM

“You’re here!”

I peered across the front lawn at my grandmother; watched her waddle down the stairs of her big yellow house. Here. It wasn’t home. Home was three hours away, the brick house on the corner that always seemed too small for all of us. Here was the middle of nowhere, a lonely little town where everyone knew everyone else and didn’t want to know anyone new. And here was where I was stuck, until I was deemed sane enough to go back to my sisters and my problems and the other things I had left behind.

She wrapped her arms around me the way grandmothers do, with an exaggerated zeal. As if seeing me were some special sort of reward, rather than a favor to her daughter. “It’s so good to see you, sweetheart,” she murmured in my ear, squeezing me tightly before letting me go. She smiled at me, looking me up and down, something dark behind her eyes. “Now, get your things from the trunk and we’ll get you settled, okay?”

I nodded and did as she said. She chattered on the whole time, about the school I’d be starting at the next week – where the total enrollment was smaller than my graduating class back home – and what she was cooking for dinner – tuna noodle casserole, which she’d heard from my mother was my favorite – and who even knows what else. I barely listened, grappling with my three suitcases and several boxes. I’d packed almost everything. I had no idea how long I would be staying.

“I know you usually sleep up in the attic when you all come to visit, but since you’ll be here for awhile, I thought you could have your mom’s old room.” She beamed at me, and I managed a tiny smile over the boxes I had balanced precariously in my arms. I had left the suitcases out on the lawn. Most people around here didn’t even lock their doors. I doubted anyone would take them.

Nana led me through the house and pulled open the door leading upstairs. “It’s been so long since you all have been here. I wish you all would come down more often.” She paused and sighed deeply before continuing up the stairs and pulling open a door down the hall.

“Here you go.” She smiled, standing back. I set the boxes down by the door and followed her inside. It was a small room, with blue wallpaper and slanting ceilings. A blue bedspread adorned a white bed, with a white whicker night table and dresser and a white desk in the corner. Light flooded the room from two windows, one porthole over the desk and one stretching from the floor to the low ceiling on the wall beside the bed. White, translucent curtains billowed out and away from the air conditioning unit and into the scant floor space. I had spent hours in this room with my sisters, searching for the elusive secret room – a boarded up old boiler room we had quested for earnestly in our childhood, sure that it held some sort of magical secret and that somewhere, there was indeed a door. It was different, this time. Lonely. There was nothing to find, and more importantly, no one with whom to search. Just me. Three hours away from home. Here.

Nana smiled hopefully, obviously dissatisfied with my lack of enthusiasm. “Dear, I know you miss home, but you’ll be fine here. It’s not such a bad place.” And to her, it wasn’t. She had lived her entire life in this town. Was used to its stifling smallness, to the streets with no traffic lights, to buying her gas and her groceries in the same tiny store on the edge of town. This was where she had been born, had met my grandfather, had raised four children. Where she felt safe enough not to lock her doors. To her, this was not a bad place. It was the best place. The only place. And she would never understand differently.

“No, it’s nice. I’m just a little homesick.” Candor. It had gotten me a lot of things in life – from girlfriends to jobs to scholarship nominations. The trick is to tell the truth and still, somehow, avoid it all together. To let go of the little secrets until people think you have nothing big left to hide.

As always, though, it soothed Nana. A touch of homesickness was the least of her worries, after everything I’d “been through” -- though I was hardly the one who had suffered. She enfolded me in a quick hug and pulled away, smiling again, this time seemingly genuine. “Sweetheart, you’ll be fine. You’ll get started at your new school and before you know it, you’ll be back home.”

It was a reward, home. For when I started acting sane again. When I stopped flying off the cuff, stopped hyperventilating in the face of crisis, stopped worrying about her until it hurt. But I couldn’t picture that ever happening. It didn’t matter, in the end; as it turned out, home wasn’t a reward. It was the only option. In the months that followed, I proved that tragedy could follow me anywhere, even a tiny town on the outskirts of nowhere; the town where I was supposed to find a fresh start.

The truth is, you aren’t safe anywhere, at home or two hundred miles down the road. They’ll find a way to break you down. You can never run far enough.

*****

Thursday, December 11th, 11:36 PM

“You should sleep.”

I look up from my book. Josephine leans against the door frame, resting a spoon on her chin. She cradles a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in her other hand, the lid dangling from her pinky.

“So should you. You have school tomorrow. I don’t.”

She shrugs, taking a spoonful of ice cream and eating it slowly, watching me. “You’re coming back after Christmas, right?”

I nod. “Finishing out the year. Yeah.”

“And then college?” She raises her eyebrows, chewing the inside of her lip. It hits me, all of a sudden. How little we know each other, now. We could always say anything to each other. And now, suddenly, we are afraid to say anything at all.

“Yeah. Of course.”

She nods slowly, gently stabbing the ice cream. “Look, Pookie, I...” She sighs. “I don’t know.”

“You can ask about her if you want to.”

She glances at me, obviously surprised. “It just happened a couple of weeks ago, though. I wanted to give you time.”

“Yeah.”

I know she wants more from me than that. Some comfort, some prompting, anything. But the truth is, I don’t want her to ask. I don’t want to talk about Poppy Law. I want to forget her. To erase her completely from my memory, from my history. Or at the very least, to allow her to fade into the background, until her face doesn’t glare back at me every time I close my eyes.

“I should...” She sighs again, staring at the ground. “You know, I’m just going to go to bed. Alright?”

“Sure.” I reopen my book, as if that’s what I’ve been waiting for all along. The truth is, I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Don’t know what I want her to say. I just want things to be like they used to be, somehow. When we could talk without worrying. When we had nothing real to hide.

She pauses, then walks away and disappears down the darkened hallway. I close my book again and stare at the wall, my eyes tracing the bloodstain on my carpet, remembering all the things I wish I hadn’t seen.

*****
Saturday, August 16th, 10:27 AM

“Did you sleep well?”

I took a slow sip of my coffee, shrugging. “Sure.” I had tossed and turned all night. At about six thirty, I’d finally fallen asleep, but even those four hours had been fitful, at best. I wanted to go home. It was hard to imagine that anything less would soothe me.

“Good.” She glanced down at her crossword. “Say, dear, was ‘Aida’ set in Egypt?”

“Yeah.” I had no idea, actually, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. Nana liked to believe that her grandchildren were cultured. The kind of people who go to operas, or at the very least are familiar with them. She wanted us to be bigger than the small-town world she lived in. So we humored her. When she was around, we spoke of classic novels and Tchaikovsky, documentaries on PBS, the pitfalls of the Times and the Post. Not that she would have known if we were making it all up – a fact we frequently counted on. But she hoped for us, and we didn’t want to disappoint her.

We sat in silence for awhile, save the scratching of her pencil against the crossword, the occasional murmur of a word under her breath. She was a fascinating woman, my grandmother. There were so many things she had never done, so many dreams she had never realized, and yet she still looked perfectly content. Worried, of course. After Josephine, it would have been insane not to worry. But there was something resolute about her mouth, something that overshadowed even the smear of bright orange-red lipstick. It appeared that she knew something none of us did; something she was unwilling to share, though she knew we worried, too. Maybe we just weren’t ready, yet. Maybe we never would be.

Finally, she set the puzzle aside. “We’re having the neighbors over for dinner tonight. The girl is about your age, I think. It would be good for you to get to know someone before you go to school. They’re a nice family, really. A very nice young woman. Extremely bright.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Extremely bright” didn’t sound like a promising prospect. I sincerely doubted that this girl, however bright she may be, really wanted to get to know me. She certainly didn’t want to spend a Saturday night with her family, to the old lady’s house next door, and meet her grandson. I was sure that I had been described as “a handsome young man,” and probably “a very nice boy.” Sweeping phrases, old-people phrases, that pretend to mean something though they really mean nothing at all.

“I was thinking I might go to the movies or something.” It wasn’t much of an attempt. I knew she wouldn’t let me off, but it seemed like I might as well try. The only thing I really wanted was to go home. To see her. To sleep on the floor beside her bed, as I had done for the previous week and a half. Just listening to her breathe. Knowing she was safe.

Nana shook her head with a roll of her eyes. “A very nice man and his daughter are expecting you this evening, sweetheart. Besides, I’ll need your help to grill the steaks.”

It wasn’t like I could have escaped, anyway. In a town this size, there was nowhere to escape to. And I could hardly go home, no matter how much I wanted to. She wasn’t there, anyway. And so I was damned to dinner with this “nice young woman” and her father, our bland and respectable neighbors. Or at least, that’s how I thought of them at the time.

Later, when I recounted this scene to Poppy, as we lay naked on her bed, her head on my chest, she would laugh. “ ‘Extremely bright.’ Jesus. And Tobias, a ‘very nice man’? What crack was your grandmother smoking, and where do I buy some?”

As it turned out, the Laws were many things. They were stubborn. Angry. Sad. Lonely. Dysfunctional. Secretive. They were impossible to understand. But they were not bland, and they were not respectable. And as for that girl, that “nice young woman” who seemed neither young nor nice? I loved her. Everything. Her virtues and her faults. Her hatred. Her bitterness. It hit me, and I was powerless to stop it. She stole my heart.

Holy holder post, Batman!

2007-10-06T13:31:00.001-07:00

Oh, year four of this insanity. This page? By November 30th, there will be a novel here. 50,000 words. The story of a boy and a girl and a few other people; of death and hopelessness and redemption. As of now, the story is unwritten. And that, my friend, is the journey.

Check back November 1st for the first chapter.