Ghosting

by Edith Pattou

  who nobody really knows,

  nobody hugs.

  Then I notice two girls whispering,

  pointing at me,

  not with their fingers,

  but with their eyes.

  I turn and run

  down the hall

  and don’t stop

  until I get

  home.

  CHLOE

  “Before Ghosting and After Ghosting”

  Bad:

  Twenty stitches

  and a foot I can’t walk on

  for a week.

  No more Anil.

  (His parents

  won’t let him see

  me,

  or any of us

  who were there

  that night.)

  My mother freaking out

  all over me,

  all the time.

  At first I wanted her

  warm, comforting hugs,

  but by the second week,

  oh my god.

  Reporters,

  especially the one

  with the flippy,

  fake blonde hair

  who asked if I felt guilty

  because I suggested ghosting

  in the first place.

  Mom stepped in then

  and blasted her.

  And one more thing:

  Nightmares.

  Every night.

  Good:

  Dad flew in from California.

  Yeah, without his new little family.

  That was a hug

  I’ll remember for

  a long time.

  Teachers are a lot nicer.

  Mr. Chandler even gave me

  an A I didn’t deserve

  on the first paper I wrote

  after ghosting.

  Oh, and Josh called.

  A lot.

  FAITH

  The doctors

  say I lost

  a dangerous

  amount

  of blood.

  That I

  should

  have died.

  I sleep

  most of

  the time.

  And when

  I wake up

  Mom or

  Dad or

  a nurse is

  usually

  there,

  but once

  no one

  is there

  and panic

  flutters

  in my chest

  like it’s

  suddenly

  filled with

  those

  white birds.

  But then

  I look

  over at

  the tray

  table

  next to

  me, and

  someone

  has set

  a small

  folded

  paper

  crane,

  a gleaming

  white one,

  right there

  beside me.

  The fluttery

  feeling

  eases and

  I smile.

  Then

  another

  time when

  I wake up,

  I open my

  eyes to see

  not just the

  one white

  paper crane

  but dozens

  of them,

  all over

  the room.

  My mom

  tells me

  that my

  friends from

  school made

  them and

  that each

  one has

  a poem

  folded inside.

  I’m grateful

  and astounded

  that my

  friends

  somehow

  knew about

  the white birds

  even though

  I haven’t

  told a

  single

  soul.

  Sunday, September 19

  ANIL

  1. It has been three weeks

  since that night

  and today my mother

  has spent the whole day

  in the kitchen.

  She is preparing a

  traditional Indian feast.

  She says it’s in honor of

  Ganesh Chaturthi,

  the celebration of the

  birthday of Lord Ganesha,

  son of Shiva and Parvati,

  whose head was sliced off

  by Shiva during a fierce

  battle of the gods

  and replaced with

  a baby elephant’s.

  Ganesha is the god of

  wisdom, prosperity,

  and good fortune.

  I looked online and

  discovered that

  Ganesh Chaturthi was

  a week ago.

  I think my mother is

  worried that I am not

  eating enough.

  2. The smell of the food

  fills the house,

  stirring my appetite,

  and when I speak on the

  phone with Viraj, who has been

  calling more often than usual,

  he claims he can even smell it

  in Boston. And he makes a gagging sound.

  But I love the deep rich smell of

  Indian cooking.

  It is pungent and tangible and I

  welcome the distraction

  and comfort of it.

  3. My mother made my favorite,

  red lentils and rice,

  but there are

  also kudumulu,

  steamed rice flour dumplings

  with coconut stuffing.

  She also prepared six varieties

  of naivedyam,

  my favorite of which is

  balehannu rasayana,

  a banana fruit salad.

  My mother even dug up

  a plaster of paris statue of

  the potbellied,

  elephant-headed Ganesha,

  which she put in the center

  of the table.

  4. After dinner I lie on my bed,

  stomach full,

  looking up at those

  glow-in-the-dark stars.

  And then,

  not for the first time,

  or the last,

  I think about

  Maxie.

  CHLOE

  “The Break”

  After that night

  the seven of us who were there

  all spin off in different directions.

  It reminds me of the “break” in billiards,

  which I learned about from Josh,

  who plays a lot of pool.

  Like the “break”

  this is how we all spun off:

  Brendan disappears.

  Felix is in a coma.

  Emma is always away somewhere for surgery.

  Maxie no one ever sees, like she’s exiled herself.

  Anil’s parents don’t let him hang out with any of us, especially me.

  And I guess that makes

  the kid with the gun,

  Walter Smith,

  the cue ball.

  Tuesday, September 21

  MAXIE

  This strange thing

  starts to happen.

  I hear little whispers of it

  here and there,

  but then it picks up steam.

  The best way I can

  describe it is that

  a “cult of Chloe”

  begins to form.

  It starts after Anil writes

  the article for the school paper

  about

  that night.

  I heard he did it

  because he was

  fed up

  with all the

  half-truths

  and the

  controve
rsy.

  And it was good he did.

  Because the stories that had been

  swirling around

  were freakish, scary.

  Not that what happened

  wasn’t

  freakish.

  Scary.

  It was.

  But not:

  that we came upon

  Walter Smith eviscerating

  a dead crow,

  or

  that he stuck a gun in Emma’s

  mouth and made her beg

  for her life.

  But when everyone learns

  how Chloe got the shooter

  to give her

  the gun,

  well, that did it.

  The story spread like wildfire

  and Chloe was all anyone could

  talk about.

  ANIL

  1. There were a lot of rumors

  going around,

  so I decided to tell

  what really happened,

  the truth, as I saw it,

  which is:

  2. We were in the SUV,

  Chloe and Maxie and I,

  with Felix,

  who had lost

  consciousness.

  I had taken over from Chloe,

  keeping up the

  pressure on the

  makeshift, blood-soaked bandage

  and Maxie was holding Felix’s hand,

  telling him to hang on

  and that he’d be all right.

  Then some noise or movement

  from outside the car

  made all three of us

  look up at the same time,

  and we saw, and heard,

  the final gunshot,

  saw Brendan and Emma go down.

  There was a horrible moment

  of silence, then Maxie

  let out a gasping sound

  and a stricken whispered oh no please God.

  We stared out at the shooter,

  who was still holding the rifle,

  standing very still,

  gazing down at the bodies

  lying on the ground.

  I remember thinking how small

  he looked. Like a boy.

  Then I heard

  Chloe let out a sigh.

  She slid through the half-open car door

  and hobbled across the grass,

  her right foot slipping around

  in her bloody sandal.

  The shooter didn’t move,

  just watched her

  coming toward him.

  3. She stopped a couple of feet

  away from him

  and held out her hand.

  I swear she looked like some

  unearthly angel-madonna.

  After a few seconds,

  the shooter handed her

  the rifle.

  Just like that.

  She looked down at the gun,

  like she didn’t know

  what to do with it.

  Then she threw it away.

  The rifle skittered

  across the sidewalk

  with a harsh, clattering sound,

  then came to a stop.

  4. Sirens were getting louder

  and the shooter,

  the small kid in a baggy green sweatshirt,

  suddenly sat down

  on the curb

  and started to cry.

  Chloe crossed over

  and sat next to him.

  When the first ambulance arrived,

  with a police car right behind it,

  she was still there.

  Sitting beside him.

  CHLOE

  “Reasons We Do Things”

  I don’t really know

  why I did it.

  He just looked so pathetic,

  this skinny little guy

  who’d hurt all these people

  and didn’t seem to understand

  any of it.

  And all of a sudden

  I got fed up.

  Someone needed

  to take that stupid gun

  away from him

  before anyone

  else got shot.

  I guess he could have shot me, too,

  but I didn’t really think about it,

  not then.

  Which was dumb.

  Except this time

  it turns out

  I was dumb

  and

  I was smart.

  Wednesday, September 29

  POLICE CHIEF AUBREY DELAFIELD

  Walter Smith was denied bail,

  which was no surprise.

  I attended the hearing

  and the kid looked like a ghost,

  paste-white pale,

  and like he had no clue

  where he was.

  When I realized he was headed for

  Cook County Jail, I knew Walter Smith

  would be eaten alive.

  So I put in a word,

  to see if there was any way

  to keep him sequestered.

  Turned out he was on suicide watch

  so they put him in solitary.

  And kept him there.

  Even now, a month later,

  gawkers still drive by the house,

  but there’s nothing to see.

  The house is deserted.

  A distant cousin came

  and put Adeline in an assisted-care facility.

  We had the photos printed up,

  the ones Maxine Kalman took that night.

  There’s one of those two girls,

  their smiling faces lit up

  by the light of their cell phones.

  And when I think of what came after,

  the sidewalk slick with blood,

  the ambulances,

  the havoc done to so many lives,

  the memory of those smiling faces

  knocks me flat.

  It’s an image

  that will stay burned

  in my mind.

  Forever.