Big Fat Disaster

by Beth Fehlbaum

  Chief Taylor refolds the paper and slides it into his pocket, then leans forward again with his elbows on his knees. He clasps his hands as if in prayer and asks, “Is that about the way it happened, Colby?”

  I bite my lip, close my eyes, and lower my head. A tear runs down my nose and lingers a moment before falling onto my forearm.

  Mom shrieks, “Why did you make up that story? Why?”

  I whisper, “I didn’t.”

  She slaps the side of my head. “What did you say? Stop mumbling! Why did you make up that story?”

  I sigh. “I didn’t. You did. All I did was keep it going.”

  Chief Taylor asks loudly, “Mrs. Denton? Is that true? Did you purposely derail my investigation?”

  Mom snorts. “I did not make up any story. Colby Diane Denton, tell him that I did not make up that story.”

  My head snaps up. “Yes, you did. You said it in the ambulance, when you told the paramedic that I didn’t remember trying to save my cousin! I never told you I did. You decided that I did!”

  Mom’s face has that melting-off-her-skull look. She latches onto my wrist, digs her fingernails in, and shakes her head. “But the police officer said…I never…”

  “Yes, you did, Mama. I heard you.”

  All eyes turn to Drew. Her voice is tiny. “I remember, Mama. You told Colby not to look at Ryan when we were getting in the ambulance. I asked you if Colby was in trouble and you said, ‘No, she can’t help it if Ryan tried to kill himself.’ Then Colby tried to talk, and you told the man in the blue shirt to help her calm down because she didn’t remember trying to save Ryan.”

  Mom’s eyes are huge. She’s still got a death grip on my wrist and she looks down at her hand as if it belongs to someone else. She releases her claws and crosses her arms tightly over her chest.

  Leah sobs, “How could you, Colby? How could you let me think that Ryan committed suicide? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  My heart is pounding in my ears. No one is speaking; it’s like they’re waiting for me to make some kind of profound statement that will explain why I’m a terrible person. “It…was…I mean…Mom was…” I stop, realizing that no matter what I say, no one will understand how badly I needed my mom to be proud of me for something.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I wish it had been me. Every day, I wish I had been the one who died.” I shake my head. “That day…the Facebook page…the video of me getting dressed…and…Mom said it was all my fault because I’m so…” I sob, “I just wanted to die. I needed to not be here anymore.”

  I reach for my mother’s hand and try to pull it into my own, but she keeps her arm locked firmly against her chest. “Please, Mom, please don’t hate me. I…I need you not to hate me anymore.”

  Mom won’t look at me. Leah rocks herself back and forth in her chair, and Drew stares at our mother like she’s an exhibit in a museum.

  Chief Taylor scribbles on his notepad for what seems like forever. At last, he stands and says quietly, “I’ll forward my findings to the medical examiner. Leah, I think it’s safe to assume that Ryan’s death will be classified as an accident.”

  She nods and gets up, moves to the front door, and holds it open. “Thank you for letting me know the truth,” she says softly. “I knew it. I knew he wouldn’t leave me on purpose.” She closes the door behind him, then turns to us. “I’d like to be alone now.” She goes to her bedroom, and when she turns the door lock, the sound makes me jump.

  Mom gets up without a word and walks out the front door. Drew follows her immediately, but I remain frozen in the same spot. I think about the promise I made Dr. Matt, and I hear his voice in my head: “You’re not a terrible person.”

  Even after I told him the truth about what happened, he didn’t seem to change his opinion of me. I shake my head. Maybe he wasn’t listening closely. If he had been, there’s no way he would have been so nice to me…

  That sound—the waterfall of loss that I heard when the truck’s brakes stopped squealing—is coming from Leah’s bedroom. It sends me slamming into the pavement all over again and the horrifying moment I knew that Ryan was dead and I was alive.

  I’ve got to get away from it. I work my way off the sofa and start for the front door, but stop in the hallway. I stare at Ryan’s closed bedroom door, trying to work up the courage to open it. I swallow hard, then twist the doorknob and step inside his room. I turn on the light and sit on the edge of his bed, breathe in his scent, take in my surroundings.

  He never invited me into this place when he was alive.

  There’s a framed photo on his desk of him and Leah. She has her arm draped around his neck and they’re both making silly faces. Another shows Ryan staring full on at the camera while Leah gazes at him with love in her eyes. My stomach clenches with pangs of jealousy. I wish my mom would look at me like that, but I know she never will. Especially now that she knows the truth about Ryan’s death.

  I rise and close Ryan’s door quietly behind me. I step out the front door and start down the steps. Charley briefly raises her head from her place on Dad’s recliner, but lowers her head to the armrest and goes back to sleep. There’s no sign of Zeeke. He probably followed Drew home to the trailer.

  I start toward it, too, but I know what awaits me: Mom’s disappointed face and more affirmation that I’ve achieved a new level of being a big fat disaster. Can’t face it.

  Just can’t.

  There’s still enough sunlight to see that the barn door is ajar. I open it wider and step inside, startling some birds nesting in the rafters. I duck when they fly out over my head. I straighten, and my eyes light on the solid-looking wood beam about five feet over my head. There’s a crossbeam above it…and an idea begins forming in my mind. A way I won’t have to see that look on my mom’s face anymore.

  I look around for a rope. I’m not sure how to make a noose—especially with one arm in a cast—but I’ll bet if I tie it just right, it’ll break my neck as perfectly as that semi broke Ryan’s. The same crackling electricity that drives me to pig out—or to march into the center of Main Street on the prowl for a semi-truck—is in charge of me now. I’m not even thinking; my heart is racing like I’m jet fuel–powered with the idea of hanging myself.

  The barn is so full of our crap that I can’t get back into the depths of it. I open the doors wide since nobody’s paying any attention to me anyway. I drag the bits and pieces of our lives that didn’t fit anywhere else out into the yard. Zeeke reappears; he and Charley sit off to the side like they’re watching a furniture parade.

  I clear enough of a path to get to a workbench in the back of the barn. Next to it, dangling from a hook, is a rope. The perfect rope. It looks like the kind a cowboy uses for a lasso. I lean against the workbench and futz with it, trying to figure out how to form a noose. I’m able to wiggle the fingers on my left hand perfectly; it just takes a little while to figure out the best way to work the rope with a left arm that’s in an L-shaped cast. After a while, I give up on making a noose and loop the rope across my shoulders, pull it into position, and try to get the stiff material to loosen enough to knot.

  I sigh loudly; it’s getting darker and I’m having a hard time seeing what I’m doing. I move to the doorway, dragging that long-ass rope behind me like a tail on the ground.

  I glance toward the trailer and remember what it was like to look in the window at Sugar’s and wait for my mom to come talk to me…that feeling when she smiled and went to help Drew decorate her fucking day-old cookies, when I was dying inside because everyone and their brother was watching Ryan’s video of me dressing.

  Fuck her. Wait’ll she finds me hanging in this barn. Bet she won’t be laughing then.

  I finagle the rope into a knot, then a double knot, and check to make sure there’s not too much room between it and my skin. It reminds me of pulling my bed sheet up just under my jaw so that I can’t feel my double chin sticking to my neck. I pull the end of the rope even tighter, grunting as I do so. />
  I drag our end table back into the barn and place it under the beam. I step onto the wobbly table, and—

  “What are you doing?”

  —I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound of Leah’s voice.

  She steps into the barn and flips the light switch just inside the door. Harsh fluorescent light floods the small space.

  Leah shrieks, “What the fuck are you doing, Colby?” She stomps over to me and pulls me off the table by my good arm, then stands between me and my plans. “Huh? Tell me.”

  I say nothing; just look at my feet. She tries to pull the makeshift noose over my head, but it catches on my chin.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Colby!” She uses both hands to loosen the knot a little and work the rope over my head, then tosses it to the ground. She wraps her beefy arms around me and sobs, “What are you thinking?”

  I don’t know how long Leah and I stand in barn. She weeps and babbles and to be honest I can’t understand most of what she says, but I do catch this: “Not you, too. Please. No.”

  Leah drags me back to her house. I’m rubbing my neck, wondering if the itchy feeling means there are telltale signs of rope burn, kind of like the icing streaks. Seems like every time I let the crazies take over, I end up with an outward sign that I’ve been up to something. Sometimes it’s red food coloring stains; sometimes it’s more whale blubber.

  Leah takes my hand away from my neck and leads me to the sofa. She sits, pulling me down with her. She holds her hands over her face, and I think she’s going to burst out crying again, but she doesn’t.

  I whisper, “Leah, I’m—I’m so, so sorry. I should have told you the truth, but I couldn’t, because…”

  I can’t say it.

  She lowers her hands and tilts her head, whispers, “Why?”

  I force the words to come out: “I killed Ryan, I—”

  Leah holds up her hand, shakes her head rapidly. “No. Uh-uh. No.” She closes her eyes, lowers her head, whispers, “No, Colby. What happened was a horrible accident. Ryan saw you there and”—she stops, takes a deep breath, and blows it out—“he did what I’d have expected him to do.”

  She looks toward his room and says softly, “My son wasn’t perfect. I know that. I have no idea what possessed him to film you through your window, and for that”—she looks back at me—“I am so, so sorry.” She rounds her shoulders and crosses her arms. I force myself to look at her face but can’t for long, because it’s like seeing Ryan all over again.

  Leah takes my hand and turns to me. “It seemed to me that you and Ryan were good friends when you were little and we’d visit your parents, before his dad and I got divorced and, you know…my relationship with my family completely went to shit. I hope you have at least some good memories of him from when you were young, when he wasn’t so angry. That’s the only explanation I can think of for what he did, filming you while you dressed. Anger can make people do things they never would otherwise. It’s what drove you to stand in the middle of the street and try to die, isn’t it?”

  I shrug, and the ache of my mom blaming me for Ryan making the video feels just as strong now as it did then.

  She chews her lip, like she’s trying to choose the right words. She takes a big breath in and blows it out. “The way his dad abused us really messed up Ryan’s sense of trust. He witnessed it when Mark decided that I was going to come back to him, and when I refused, he grabbed a pot of boiling water off my stove and threw it at me. That’s the reason I have tattoos covering my body like I do. I was lucky enough to find an artist who was able to make beauty out of this evidence of Mark’s rage.” Leah straightens her arm, and I notice for the first time the unevenness of her skin, and how the winding flowers and vines conceal splattered scars.

  She continues, “And when Ryan reported that girl’s rape and nearly all his friends turned on him—even beat him so severely that he ended up in the hospital…it left him with an anger so big that it just about broke him. Top it off with that disaster of a Fourth of July picnic, and…” She shakes her head. A tear runs down her cheek beside her nose. I watch it until it slides down her jaw and drops off her chin. Another one immediately follows, and I am watching her tears, because looking into her eyes is more than I can do.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t speak up for him at the picnic,” I murmur. “I didn’t agree with what was said…I’ve never been good at speaking up for anyone. Including myself.”

  Leah’s eyes are soft. “Oh, honey, it’d be nice if my family would actually hear it when others disagree with them, but they don’t. That’s part of the reason I had to get away from them. No matter what I said, I wasn’t heard. Problem is, my idea of getting away from them when I was just out of high school was to marry a slick talker who didn’t listen to me any more than they did. Mark had a weakness for beer and a fondness for knocking me and Ryan around.” She shrugs and snorts. “No wonder my parents love him so much!”

  I laugh uneasily.

  Aunt Leah brushes my hair out of my eyes and runs her hand down the back of my head. “The scars that Mark gave me aren’t the only ones I have.” She turns up her forearms and shows me the long scars, disguised by ink as flower stems, extending from her wrists to her elbows.

  I gasp. “You tried to kill yourself, Leah? When? Why?”

  Leah stares at the Hope Will Find You print on the wall. “It was a long time ago. I was about your age. I was beat down with my family’s bullshit, and I thought that checking out was the answer.” Her eyes take on a far-away look and she says softly, “I’ve been thinking lately that it might still be. My life has a hole in it now. What do I have left? I just want to be with my boy…”

  I gasp. “Leah, you can’t!”

  She turns to me, takes my face in her hands, and I have to look her in the eye. She chokes out, “My life will never be the same. Ever. Yours won’t be, either, Colby.”

  “Please, Leah, don’t kill yourself. Please!”

  She sobs, “You’re telling me that I can’t kill myself, but what were you trying to do in the barn when I found you?”

  I try to pull out of her grasp, but she holds tight. “Please. Let me go.” She leans in and kisses me on the forehead, then releases me.

  We sit in silence for a few minutes. Shame fills me from head to toe: I took Ryan from her, and because of what I did, Leah wants to die, too. That thought in my head—I’m done. I can’t be here anymore—is tidal-wave strong, like the urge that propels me face-first into a four-cup measure of cake icing. I squeeze my eyes tightly and bite down hard on the inside of my lower lip.

  Leah touches my knee just as I’m tasting blood. I open my eyes. Her head is bowed, and her voice is barely above a whisper. “I think…you and I need to have an agreement.”

  What does she want from me? I’m surprised I can’t see my heart pounding through my shirt. “…What kind of agreement?” Are we going to kill ourselves together?

  Leah faces me, and I see Ryan in her eyes. Not the bloody Ryan. Her eyes are soft and a little scared, like his were when he apologized to me and said that he doesn’t mean to be such an asshole.

  “Ryan gave up his life trying to save you from taking your own. You wanted to die, and I’m spending most of my waking hours asking myself just what I’ve got to live for—”

  I sob, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I…I wish I had died…I do, I wish it had been me.”

  Leah moves closer and pulls me tightly against her. She holds me while I cry, running her hand over and over my head and shoulders.

  When all I’ve got left is shuddery breathing, she speaks in a low, soothing voice. “Let’s agree that we’re going to live. It’s a choice, you know. You promise not to throw the gift of a second chance away, and I promise to stick around to be here for you in a way that your own mama isn’t.”

  Mom’s face flashes through my mind: that tight-lipped look of hers that says, “Don’t embarrass me.” I pull out of Leah’s embrace and try to sound convincing. “My…mom…it’s not so b
ad—”

  Leah waves me off. “Pssht. Save it, girl. You don’t have to maintain appearances with me. I see the way she looks at you. I hear the little digs she makes, and a person would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to notice how she favors Rachel and Drew over you. Sometimes parents beat their kids—like Mark used to knock Ryan around—but words hurt, too, and they can totally skew a person’s view of themselves. You’re going to have to learn to separate what you know about yourself to be true from what your mom thinks is your truth.”

  Her mention of the word “truth” is like a knife through my heart. I choke out, “What I’ve done…H-how do I—what do I—everyone’s going to hate me now…” I cover my face as shame threatens to drown me.

  Her voice is soft. “Didn’t your mom take you to some kind of counselor today, sweetie? He ought to be able to help you deal so that you don’t…you know…try again. I mean, you and I have an agreement, right? You’ve got a second chance at life, and I can decide to hang in and make sure you don’t fuck it up.”

  She pulls my hands from my face, takes them into her own. I swallow hard and nod. “Y-yes. I promise not to waste the gift I’ve been given. At least…I’ll try not to fuck it up, Leah. I’ll try to be someone who will make you…proud. Somehow.”

  “You don’t have to be anybody but who you are, Colby. We need to be each other’s reason to keep going when it feels like there’s not one.” She gives me a tiny smile. “That’s why you need to work hard in therapy, so that wanting to live is not such hard work.”

  “Are you going to get some help, Leah?”

  She closes her eyes, nods. “Yeah, I think I’m due for a tune-up. I was in therapy for a long time after my suicide attempt, but I think I’m going to need support to get through…this.”