By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

by Julie Anne Peters

  Kim stands there.

  Take it! I want to scream. Get it off me.

  “Does it bite?” she asks.

  How do I know? The whiskers tickle my neck.

  Kim lowers herself to the bench, keeping her distance. “Why didn’t you ask me to drive you here if you needed to come back to school?” She sounds mad.

  “Did you forget some homework?” She lets out a little shriek as the rat leaps into her lap.

  I’m wheezing and shaking all over. I might be dying.

  “Here we go.” He gallops up with a plastic cup, which he thrusts in my face. He lifts my spazzing arm to take it. The cup is slimy, like water sloshed out and mixed with his sweaty hand.

  Holding my hand, he raises the cup to my lips.

  Stop touching me.

  Oh, God. Liquid.

  I swig the whole cup of cold water.

  “Better?”

  He takes his hand away and I blink yes.

  “You can pet him,” he says to Kim. “In fact, here. He loves to have his belly rubbed.” Santana plucks the rat off Kim’s lap and upends him; stretches him out lengthwise in front of Kim.

  I can breathe again.

  “That’s okay,” Kim goes. “I don’t care to touch him.”

  I smile inwardly as she flattens herself against the back of the bench.

  “Awww.” Santana lifts the rat to his face and nuzzles his stomach. “The ladies are not appreciating your rockin’ rat dudeness, my man.” He loops Hervé over his head and onto his shoulders.

  I’m not watching, really. I’m still feeling the soothing liquid sliding down my throat as I press the cool cup to my forehead.

  Kim scoots closer and loops an arm across my shoulder. I feel the heaviness. Don’t feel. I can’t look at her because I know what I’ll see.

  Helplessness, weakness, a reflection of me.

  “Oh. Here.” Santana digs something out of his pocket and drops it in my lap. An energy bar. “Ariel buys these by the case.”

  Kim twists her head up to Santana. “Thank you.” She stands. She appears to compose herself. “We were on our way to Dairy Queen.”

  No. I know what she’s going to do.

  “Would you like to join us?”

  I spring to my feet and the energy bar flies. I shove the cup at Santana and head for the car.

  He says, loud enough for me to hear, “Thanks, but I promised Ariel I’d wait for her. It’s my night to cook.”

  Kim’s footsteps behind me. Santana’s too. “Hey, you should go to On the Border in Belmar. Ask to sit in Ariel’s section. Order the guac. While she’s making it at the table, tell her Santana says a little heavy on the cilantro, hon.” I turn and see him grin.

  I don’t care who Ariel is. Ariel who?

  “Rain check?” Santana says to Kim.

  “Definitely.” She smiles.

  I get in the car.

  He licks his index finger and sticks it in the air. “Low pressure trough dropping down from the north. Cold wave expected to move in by midnight. Bundle up, ladies.”

  Through the window, he hands me the energy bar. His eyes, his slight smile. I take it. Santana goes softly, “Hervé says eat more, skinnybones.”

  I’m not that skinny. I’m not fat anymore, but I’m not skinny. I’ll never be skinny. I went to fat camp. We’re not going to talk about what happened there. I was forced to go. I still feel fat. I’ll always be fat and ugly.

  I navigate to the Final Forum, to Bullied. I need to open the closet now and release that fear.

  “My mom thought moving would help,” I key. “Moving only made it worse because I was the new FAT girl. Boys jostle me in the hall. They come up behind me and go quack quack, waddle waddle. One calls me Krispy Kreme.”

  They make me sick.

  “One morning, this was at the beginning of 5th grade, they said, ‘Come over here. We want to show you something.’ I didn’t trust them, but then they said, ‘It’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone.’ Like they wanted me to be one of them, or something. How naïve am I? The janitor’s door was open and when I peeked in they shoved me inside and the steel door clanged shut. It locked automatically. I couldn’t turn the knob. I pounded on the door and yelled, ‘This isn’t funny. Let me out.’

  “Time passed, like ten or twenty minutes. ‘Help!’ I yelled. ‘I’m in here. Someone is locked in here. Get me out.’”

  The odor in that closet pinches my nose. I can’t get rid of it—still.

  J_Doe061171 writes: My friend—exfriend—started a rumor that I was a lesbian and someone spray painted the side of my car with DYKE.

  I key, “The closet reeked of ammonia and vomit. I screamed, ‘HELP! HELP ME!’”

  I close my eyes and I’m there, panicking. There’s no light. All I can see are shadows moving, like spiders and rats and more rats.

  I was in there for hours. Pounding on the door. I had to pee so bad. I couldn’t hold it.

  J_Doe090192 writes: I’m scard to leave my hous. Everone is after me. I’ve been dignosed parinoid schizofrenac, but I’m not. I kno there after me.

  “Finally,” I key, “like eight hours later, the janitor opened the door. He had a cop and the principal with him. And my mom and dad.”

  I stood on wobbly legs. “Oh, Daelyn.” I can still hear the pity in Mom’s voice. “What happened this time?”

  She blames me. I’m delirious from the ammonia fumes and the pounding and my hands are all bloody and she blames me. Daddy picks me up, bodily, and grunts with the weight.

  I was still fat back then. I felt cold and wet on my legs.

  I key, “I feel the chill on my legs. My dad says, ‘You’re wet. She’s all wet,’ he announces to the world. I about die of embarrassment. Yes, I peed my pants.”

  J_Doe090878 writes: Bad stuff happens in the dark. Evil lurks behind closed doors.

  Oh, that’s deep. You’re a real philosopher.

  Is anyone here listening?

  I pound the keyboard, taking my anger and frustration out on it. “My mom says, ‘Have you been in here all day?’ ‘Yes,’ I tell her. She screams at the janitor, ‘Didn’t anyone even notice she was missing?’”

  That same piercing screech in her voice every time at the hospital. “Do something!” When I slit my wrists. “Help her!” The last time too. “Somebody help her. Help us!”

  You’re helpless, both of you. All of us.

  J_Doe040595 writes: My father molested me when I was six.

  Put that in Sexual Assault! Can’t these people read?

  I start to key the rest, then give up. Who cares anyway? We had a sub that day and no one told her I was missing. Krispy Kreme. I take a deep breath and lie back on my pillow. Being locked in a closet is nothing. Pissing yourself is nothing. Sitting in your own pee and ammonia and vomit, your fingers caked with blood, inconsequential.

  I shouldn’t have been there. I should never have been born.

  By the time I was ten I already knew my destiny. By middle school I had a plan for escape, for control. There’s always a way out. All you have to do is take it.

  — 8 DAYS —

  A question appears on my monitor:

  How will you get to the light?

  What does that mean? What’s my mode of transportation? Spirit Express.

  I assume you just go. You float or fly or evaporate. You get sucked into a vortex. You shoot out of your body. You spiral or propel. The angels sing you up.

  I don’t believe in angels. There was a time I did. I even talked to God. While I was slitting my wrists, I said to God, “Take me. Please. Deliver me from evil.”

  When God didn’t, it made me question my faith. What little I had.

  The second time, I made it clear. I threatened God. “Okay, listen. If you save me again, I’ll hate you. I’ll never forgive you and I’ll stop believing.”

  God doesn’t listen.

  I keep my promises.

  How will you get to the light? Maybe I’m overthinking it. They wan
t to know my method. Way to Go.

  I key in, “Drowning.”

  * * *

  At breakfast Chip says, “That new laptop is password-protected. Will you give me your password?”

  I guess Kim told him about it. I should’ve told Kim, “Let’s not let Chip in on our dirty little secret.”

  Chip adds, “I won’t read your story.”

  “What story?” Kim asks.

  “She’s working on a story. For English, is it?”

  I suck in a spoonful of oatmeal.

  Kim swigs her coffee. “If she’s talking to Santana, that’s okay. They’re friends.” She smiles at me.

  I stir my slime.

  A long minute passes.

  “So, write down your password before you leave.” Chip gets up to load his dishes into the dishwasher.

  I almost salute. I’ll give him my password, but he won’t get in. I’m fingerprint protected.

  He’s lying on the bench, his hands under his head. He’s barefoot. His flip-flops are on the grass and he’s wearing those camo shorts that hang on him. He shaved today. He even doused with aftershave that smells like lime.

  A person with cancer doesn’t care about aftershave.

  “Did you see the fogbow this morning?” he asks. “I bet you know about fogbows. It’s uncommon knowledge, but you’re an uncommon person.”

  What a line. He doesn’t look at me not looking or listening to him.

  “I have a sixth sense about people,” he says. “Or it might be a seventh sense. I knew it from the first time I saw you, here on my bench, under this magnolia tree.”

  There’s no such thing as a seventh sense. It’s my bench.

  “Fogbows are rainbows in the fog. But you knew that. You have to look hard to see one. You have to know what you’re looking for.”

  He’s so full of shit.

  It rained all night. He was right about the rain. Thick fog this morning.

  I stand at the end of the bench, tapping my foot. Finally he swings his legs down and sits upright. He teeters and clenches the front of the bench. “Whoa,” he goes.

  I sit. I take out my book and open to my bookmark.

  Maggie Louise zipped up her jodhpurs and said to Charles, “I’m off for my riding lesson.”

  Charles peered over his book. “Do you think you should ride in this fog?”

  “Ariel’s my mom, as you no doubt figured out if you went to On the Border. I don’t want you consumed with jealous rage, thinking I have women all over town.”

  I raise the book to my face to hide any trace of a smile. He’s so not the stud he thinks he is.

  “There’s only one girl in my life.” He pushes to his feet.

  He’s leaving?

  “Maggie Louise.”

  Who will see you through the darkness?

  He’s funny. Dorky, but funny. If he really had cancer, wouldn’t it show? Wouldn’t he be bald or stuck in bed? My sickness is invisible, except when I fail and have to wear a neck brace.

  I press enter, but it won’t let me bypass the question.

  Who will see you through the darkness?

  It won’t be God. These questions are annoying. What do they mean? Who’s asking?

  Kim won’t see me through, I hope, if I’m looking back through the darkness. Although she’ll be the one to find me. She’ll drive up to St. Mary’s after school and see I’m not where I’m supposed to be. Maybe he’ll be there. With Hervé, of course.

  Hervé Villechaize Junior. In another life I might find that amusing. He watches reruns of Fantasy Island, like I used to. In another life I might not be terrified of rats.

  He’ll say, “I haven’t seen her, Mrs. R. I thought she might be sick today.”

  She only lets me stay home sick when I really am physically ill. I always go. I take it and take it and take it.

  Kim will say, “I dropped her off at school.” Checkpoint A. “I saw her go into the building.” Each day I’m her burden, she waits until I’m inside. She watches me open the gate, close it, walk up the wide path, climb the four marble steps, grab the iron handle, pull open the door, step inside. She waves. The last day, I think, I should wave back.

  No. That’d stick in her memory.

  If I’m Chip’s duty that day, my DOD, he’ll probably drive off before I enter the building. He usually trusts that I’ll make it inside once I’m through the gate.

  There’s a teacher at the door to check IDs and book bags. We must carry the official St. Mary’s book bag. It’s dark blue with the gold seal. You can convert it to a backpack or carry it like a tote.

  I never got a choice because my neck brace dictated tote.

  The first thing I always do every morning is go to the chapel. I get dropped off in plenty of time to make it to class, and I’m not about to hang out in the courtyard with the other girls. All the JenniferJessicas.

  Girls scare me more than boys. Boys are cruel. Girls are mean.

  One time in art we had to pair up to draw portraits. When was this, seventh grade? This girl, whose name I don’t remember and don’t care to, got stuck with me. She was pretty, or would’ve been if she didn’t scowl the whole time. My portrait of her was good. I took care with it. When she showed me mine, my face flushed. The roaring of people’s laughter swelled in my ears.

  She’d drawn this hideous blob with bandages on both wrists.

  It was her way of saying, “You should kill yourself.”

  In the chapel, I sit in a pew and look out the stained-glass window. Last week the window was cranked wide open. Why, I don’t know. To air out the evil?

  Suddenly he’s there. Santana. Across the yard, standing at the wrought-iron fence. A bunch of girls are milling around in the courtyard and he calls to them. They turn.

  One breaks away from the pack. JenniferJessica.

  Why is he talking to her? Why is she smiling and flipping her hair over her shoulder? She’s not your type! I want to scream.

  Like I care. What do I care?

  Who will see you through the darkness? Not Santana, unless he has X-ray vision. Which he obviously doesn’t.

  I’ll have to go to econ first period. Suffer through roll call.

  I’ve scoped out the school. A person can easily slip out through Gregory Hall and skim the hedges between buildings. Around the chapel, the cafeteria, make a run for the gate.

  Now JenniferJessica is walking away. She rejoins her crew and they put their heads together. I can guess what they’re saying, how they think his ears are big, how he babbles about the weather. So what? They don’t know him. They wouldn’t take the time.

  The gate is never locked. That’s symbolic, I suppose. Like the gates of heaven are always open to us.

  By 9:12 a.m., I’ll be on my way.

  My mind drifts and I’m gone for a while. When I wake up, the story fast-forwards.

  Santana’s gone.

  Kim will be concerned that I’m late. After school. She’ll check the clock in the car. She’ll debate with herself: Get out and go inside? Wait a few more minutes? Call Chip and ask him what to do?

  Santana might say, “I didn’t see her all day, Mrs. R.” If he’s still there, if he’s on my bench. If he’s been standing at the fence, flirting with JenniferJessica.

  She could give him what he wants. She won’t, but she could. He’d believe every word that came out of a JenniferJessica’s mouth. Because he’s desperate. Naïve. Then she’d drop him like a stink bomb.

  This isn’t about him, because he’s not dying and I don’t care.

  Thinking I walked, Kim might drive slowly. Chip might beat her home. Doubtful, since his office is clear across town. No, it’ll be Kim. She’ll call Chip to let him know what she’s doing. She might tell Santana, “Call me if she shows up, okay?” She’ll give him her cell number.

  She’ll park in the carport, Slot A, 3996 Indiana Street. She’ll grab her briefcase and lunch bag, or maybe she’ll leave them behind in her rush. Her shoes will crunch the gravel in
the patio. She’ll find the back door locked.

  If Chip beats her there—say he left immediately and tore home, it’s possible he would find me first—he’ll call, “Daelyn, are you here?”

  My stomach twists a little. I won’t be alive so I won’t care who finds me. In the bathtub all gray and bloated, a cinder block on my face.

  It disturbs me a little that Chip might think he had something to do with it. I’m sorry, Dad. If it hadn’t been cinder blocks I would’ve found other weights.

  I squelch the guilt.

  Who will see you through the darkness?

  “Me,” I key in the answer. “I’ll find my own way.”

  It’s hell dredging up these memories, but I need to purge. Remembering is costing me, though, by bringing back feelings. There’s only a week to cleanse, so I take a deep breath and key, “The summer between 7th and 8th grades, I lost 22 pounds at fat camp.” Just typing “fat camp” makes me sick. Maybe I should call it fitness camp.

  But I didn’t come back fit to live.

  A message appears on my screen: That password didn’t work. Are you sure it’s 123XYZ?

  Chip figured out my new IM name. I stare at his message for a minute, then IM him back, “I saved to autofill and can’t remember now.”

  He’ll keep trying, over and over.

  I message him, “I’m just working on my story. OK?”

  He writes back, “I can’t wait to read it.”

  I hope he never finds this forum after I’m gone.

  “After camp I grew a couple of inches. I went from 5’ 0” to 5’ 2”. And I lost 50 more pounds. My mom was like, ‘You look lovely. The boys will be lining up now,’ and Dad was like, ‘You’re growing up too fast. What happened to my little girl?’”

  She died, Chip.

  If a final ray of hope had been flickering inside me, it was snuffed out at fat camp. There’s no reason to remember. No purpose served by reliving that horror.

  So many bullying incidents to record. Like, the first day of eighth grade, these three girls walk by me at my locker and they all turn their heads. They’re clones. One of them curls a lip. She says something to her look-alikes and they all cackle. In unison, they form L’s on their foreheads with their fingers.