by Sarah Dessen
“Wow,” I said to Heather. “That was really something.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” she said. “You should have been here last week. He did ten minutes on castration.”
“It was disgusting,” Jane added. “Compelling, but disgusting.”
“Next up,” Esther said, “we have a first-time reader. Everyone, please, give it up for Whitney.”
Jane and Heather immediately burst into loud applause, and Kirsten and I followed suit. As Whitney walked up to the mike, I watched the crowd reacting to her, their heads turning, then double-taking, at her beauty.
“I’m going to read a short piece,” she said, her voice kind of faint. She stepped closer to the microphone. “A short piece,” she repeated, “about my sisters.”
I felt myself blink, surprised, and looked at Kirsten. I wanted to say something, but I kept quiet, not wanting to be shushed again.
Whitney swallowed, then looked down at her papers, the edge of which I could see fluttering, just barely. She looked scared, and it suddenly seemed too quiet. But then she began.
“I am the middle sister,” she read. “The one in between. Not oldest, not youngest, not boldest, not nicest. I am the shade of gray, the glass half empty or full, depending on your view. In my life, there has been little that I have done first or better than the one preceding or following me. Of all of us, though, I am the only one who has been broken.”
I heard the chime over the door sound, and turned in my seat to see an older woman with long curly hair come in and stand at the back. When she saw Whitney at the microphone she smiled, then began to unwind her scarf from around her neck.
“It happened on the day of my youngest sister’s ninth birthday party,” Whitney continued. “I’d been sulking around the house all day, feeling alternately ignored and entirely too hassled, which was pretty much my default setting, even at eleven.”
Kirsten’s eyes widened as, at the table next to us, a man laughed loudly, and I heard other chuckles as well. Whitney flushed, smiling. “My older sister, the social one, was going to ride her bike down to the neighborhood pool to meet some friends and asked me to come along. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be with anyone. If my older sister was friendly, and my younger sweet, I was the darkness. Nobody understood my pain. Not even me.”
There was another laugh, this time from someone across the room, and she smiled. So Whitney could be funny. Who knew?
“My older sister got on her bike and headed for the pool, and I started to follow. I always followed, and once we were riding, I started to get angry about it. I was tired of being second.”
I looked at Kirsten again; she was watching Whitney so intently, as if no one else was even there. “So I turned back. And suddenly, the road was empty ahead of me, this whole new view, all mine. I started to pedal as fast as I could.”
I could hear Heather’s spoon clinking as she added another packet of sugar to her coffee, as I sat silent, unmoving.
“It was great. Freedom, even the imagined kind, always is. But as I got farther away, and didn’t recognize what was ahead of me, I started to realize the distance I was covering. I was still going full speed, away from home, when my front wheel suddenly sank, and I was flying.”
Beside me, Kirsten shifted in her seat, and I moved my chair closer to her.
“It’s a funny feeling, being suddenly airborne,” Whitney said. “Just as you realize it, it’s over, and you’re sinking. When I hit the pavement, I heard the bone in my arm break. In the moments afterwards, I could hear the wheel of my bike, ticking as it spun. All I could think was what I always thought, even then: that this was just not fair. To get a taste of freedom, only to instantly be punished for it.”
I looked back at the woman by the door. She was watching Whitney with full concentration.
“Everything hurt. I closed my eyes, pressing my cheek to the street, and waited. What for, I didn’t know. To be rescued. Or found. But no one came. All I’d ever thought I wanted was to be left alone. Until I was.”
I swallowed, hearing this, then looked down at my coffee mug, sliding my fingers around it.
“I don’t know how long I lay there before my sister came back for me. I remember staring up at the sky, the clouds moving past, and then hearing her calling my name. When she skidded to a stop beside me, she was the last person I wanted to see. And yet, like so many times before and since, the only one I had.”
Whitney paused, taking a breath.
“She lifted me up and settled me onto her handlebars. I knew I should be grateful to her. But as we pedaled toward home, I was angry. With myself, for falling, and with her for being there to see it. As we came up the driveway, my younger sister, the birthday girl, burst out of the house. When she saw me, my arm dangling useless, she ran back inside yelling for my mother. That was her role, always, as the youngest. She was the one who told.”
I remembered that. My first thought had been that something had to be really wrong, because they were together, so close to each other. And that never happened.
“My father took me to the emergency room, where the bone was reset. When we got home, the party was almost over, presents unwrapped, the cake just being served. In the pictures taken that day, I am holding my arm over my cast, as if I don’t trust it to keep me together. My older sister is on one side, the hero; my younger, the birthday girl, on the other.”
I knew that picture. In it, I am wearing my bathing suit, a piece of cake in my hand; Kirsten is grinning, one hand on her hip, which is jutting out.
“For years, when I looked at the snapshot, all I could see was my broken arm. It was only later that I began to make out other things. Like how my sisters are both smiling and leaning in toward me, while I am, as always, between them.”
She took a breath, looking down at her papers.
“It was not the last time I would run away from my sisters. Not the last time I thought being alone was preferable. I am still the center sister. But I see it differently now. There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together. Thank you.”
I just sat there, a lump rising in my throat, as applause began all around me, first here and there, and then everywhere, filling the room. Whitney flushed, pressing a hand to her chest, then smiled as she stepped out from behind the microphone. Beside me, Kirsten had tears in her eyes.
As Whitney made her way toward our table, people nodding at her as she passed, I was so proud of her, because I could only imagine how hard it must have been to read this piece aloud. Not just for strangers, but us, as well. But she’d done it. Sitting there, watching my sister, I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered.
Chapter SEVENTEEN
The clock beside my bed, glowing red, said 12:15. Which meant that, by my count, I’d been trying to fall asleep for three hours and eight minutes.
Ever since Whitney’s reading the previous night, all the things I’d been trying to push away—my falling-out with Owen, Emily giving me the detective’s card, Clarke talking to me again—were suddenly haunting me. The house felt full and busy, my parents were more relaxed than they’d been in months, and my sisters were not only talking to each other but actually getting along. This sudden harmony was so unexpected, it just made me seem that much more out of sorts.
The night before, on the way home from the coffee shop, Kirsten had told Whitney about her film, and how it was similar to the piece she’d read. Whitney wanted to see it, so tonight before dinner, Kirsten had set up her laptop on the coffee table and we all assembled to watch.
My parents sat on the couch with Whitney perched on the arm beside them. Kirsten took a seat at an angle, motioning for me to sit closer, but I’d just shook my head, hanging back. “I’ve already seen it,” I told her. “You sit there.”
“I’ve seen
it a million times,” she replied, but took the spot anyway.
“This is so exciting!” my mother said, looking around at all of us, and I didn’t know if she meant that we were all there together, or the film itself.
Kirsten took in a breath, then reached forward to push a button. “Okay,” she said. “Here it is.”
As the first shot of that green, green grass, came up, I tried to keep my eyes on it. But slowly, I found myself looking instead at my family. My father’s face was serious, studying the screen; my mom, beside him, had her hands curled in her lap. Whitney, on my dad’s other side, had pulled a leg to her chest, and I watched the light flicker across her face as the piece continued.
“Why, Whitney,” my mother said as the girls pedaled down the street, “this is kind of like that essay you let us read a while back, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Kirsten said softly. “Weird, right? We just figured it out last night.”
Whitney didn’t say anything, her eyes on the screen as, in the distance, the camera showed the smaller girl, now off her bike, the wheel spinning. Then there were the scarier images of the neighborhood: the lunging dog, the old man getting his paper. When it finally ended with that last flash of green, we were all quiet for a moment.
“Kirsten, my goodness,” my mother finally said. “That was incredible.”
“Hardly incredible,” Kirsten replied, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. But she did look pleased. “It’s just a beginning.”
“Who knew you had such an eye?” my father said, reaching across to squeeze her leg. “All that TV-watching finally paid off.”
Kirsten smiled at him, but her real attention was on Whitney, who hadn’t said anything yet. “So,” she asked, “what did you think?”
“I liked it,” Whitney told her. “Although I never thought you’d left me behind.”
“And I never would have guessed you turned back,” Kirsten replied. “It’s so funny.”
Whitney nodded, not saying anything. Then my mother sighed and said, “Well, I never realized that day was such a big deal for either of you!”
“What, you don’t remember Whitney breaking her arm?” Kirsten asked.
“Your mother has a selective memory,” my dad told her. “I, however, have distinct recollection of the collective trauma.”
“Of course I remember it,” my mom said. “I just…had no idea it had resonated with you both so much.” She turned, glancing around behind her until her eyes found me. “What about you, Annabel? What do you remember about that day?”
“Turning nine,” my father said. “Right?”
I nodded, because they were all watching me. In truth, though, I wasn’t sure what I recalled most about that day, as so much of it had been retold now, through other eyes. It had been my birthday, I’d had a cake, I’d run to tell my mom Whitney was hurt. But the rest, I wasn’t sure of.
All through dinner I watched my family: Kirsten telling stories about the intense people in her filmmaking class, Whitney explaining the details of the sushi rolls she’d been working on all afternoon, my mother’s cheeks, pink and flushed, as she laughed. Even my father was relaxed, clearly happy to have everyone together, under such better circumstances. It was a good thing, and yet I felt strangely disconnected. As if I were now a car on the street outside, slowing down to stare, with nothing in common at all but proximity, and barely that.
Now, I pushed back the covers, getting up, then went to my door, easing it open. The hallway was silent and dark, but as I suspected, there was a light visible from the stairs. My dad was still up.
As soon as he saw me crossing the living room, he muted the TV. “Hey there,” he said. “Can’t sleep?”
I shook my head. On the screen, I could see the grainy black-and-white images of an old news report, two men shaking hands over a table. Behind them, a crowd was clapping.
“Well,” he said, “you are just in time to help me decide. It’s either this fascinating show on the beginning of World War One, or something on A&E about the Dust Bowl. What do you think?”
I looked at the TV, which he’d flipped to the other channel. It showed a bleak landscape, a car moving slowly across it. “I don’t know,” I said. “They sound equally compelling.”
“Hey,” he said. “Don’t knock history. This stuff is important.”
I smiled, moving to the couch and sitting down. “I know,” I said. “It’s just hard to get excited about it. I mean, for me.”
“How can you not get excited about this?” he asked. “It’s real. This isn’t some silly story somebody made up. These are things that actually happened.”
“A long time ago,” I added.
“Exactly!” he said, nodding. “That’s my point. That’s why we can’t forget it. No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you don’t pay attention to the past, you’ll never understand the future. It’s all linked together. You see what I’m saying?”
At first, I didn’t. But then, I looked back at the screen, those images moving across it, and realized he was right. The past did affect the present and the future, in the ways you could see and a million ones you couldn’t. Time wasn’t a thing you could divide easily; there was no defined middle or beginning or end. I could pretend to leave the past behind, but it would not leave me.
Sitting there, I could suddenly feel myself getting more anxious, even as I tried to focus on the images on the screen. My mind was racing, too fast to even think, and after a few minutes I went back to bed.
This is crazy, I thought as I found myself again staring at the ceiling, my sisters quiet in their rooms on either side. I closed my eyes, the events of the last few days blurring across my vision in bits and pieces. My heart was pounding. Something was happening I didn’t, or couldn’t, understand. I sat up, kicking off the covers; I needed something to calm me down, or just even take away these thoughts, if only for a little while. Reaching over to my bedside drawer, I grabbed my headphones and plugged them into my CD player, then went to my desk. In the bottom drawer, after digging through all the CDs Owen had made me, I finally found it: the yellow disc that said JUST LISTEN.
You might totally hate it, Owen had told me. Or not. It might be just what you need. That’s the beauty of it. You know?
When I hit the PLAY button, all I could hear was static, and I settled in, closing my eyes, and waited for the first song to begin. It didn’t. Not in the next few minutes, not ever. Then I realized: the CD was blank.
Maybe it was supposed to be a joke. Or something profound. But as I lay there, it only seemed like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.
It was the weirdest thing, so different from music. The sound was nothing, empty, but at the same time, it pushed everything else out, quieting me enough that I began to be able to make out something distant, hard to hear. But it was there, albeit softly, coming to me from some dark place I’d never seen but still knew well.
Shhh, Annabel. It’s just me.
But these words were only the middle of the story. There was a beginning here, too. And I knew suddenly that if I stayed where I was, in all that quiet, and didn’t run from it, I would hear it. I’d have to go back, all the way to that night at the party when I’d first heard Emily call out Sophie’s name, but that was okay. It was the only way, finally, to get to the end.
All I’d ever wanted was to forget. But even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below. A pink shirt, a rhyme with my name, the feeling of hands on my neck. Because that is what happens when you try to run from the past. It doesn’t just catch up: it overtakes, blotting out the future, the landscape, the very sky, until there is no path left except that which leads through it, the only one that can ever get you home.
I understood now. This voice, the one that had been trying to get my attention all this time, calling out to me, begging me to hear it—i
t wasn’t Will’s. It was mine.
Chapter EIGHTEEN
“This is WRUS, your community radio station. It’s seven fifty-eight, and this is Anger Management. Here’s one final song.”
There was a twang, followed by a burst of feedback. Something experimental, different, and not altogether listenable. Just another Sunday on Owen’s show.
It was not, however, just another Sunday for me. Somewhere between sliding on my headphones the night before and now, something had changed. After lying there for a long time, letting myself retrace the steps of that night at the party, I’d drifted off into that silence, the voice inside my head finally talked out. When I’d woken up at seven, my headphones were still on, and I could hear my heart in my ears. I sat up, sliding them off, and the quiet around me did not, for once, seem empty and vast. Instead, for the first time in a while, it felt like it already was full.
When I’d first turned on the radio, the show had just started with a blast of old-school metal, someone wailing over some heavy-duty guitars. After following up with what sounded like a Russian pop song, Owen finally came on.
“That was Leningrad,” he said, “and this is Anger Management. I’m Owen. It’s seven oh-six, thanks for hanging out with us. Got a request? A suggestion? Issues? Call us at 555–WRUS. Here’s Dominic Waverly.”
The song that followed was a techno one, beginning with several bouncy beats, seemingly out of sync, which eventually blended together. All those other Sundays I’d listened so intently, wanting to like or at least understand what I was hearing. When I hadn’t, I’d never hesitated to tell Owen. If only I’d been able to just tell him everything else, as well. But you can’t always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can, under the circumstances.
Which was why I was now in my car, pulling out of my neighborhood, heading toward WRUS. It was 8:02 when I turned into the lot. The Herbal Prescription, the syndicated show that followed his, was just starting. I parked between Owen’s and Rolly’s cars, then reached over to the passenger seat for the CD there and went inside.
