by E. E. Cooper
“Kalah. What was the fight about?” Brit’s dad demanded. Something in his voice scared me into telling him.
“They’re breaking up,” I said. “Jason cheated on her. Brit was devastated and really mad. She left school early, right after lunchtime. I don’t know where she was going. I offered to go with her, but she just wanted some time to think.” The words flew out of me. My mom patted my back like I was a baby spitting up and she wanted me to be sure to get it all out.
“If you hear anything from her, if she calls or texts you or stops by, you need to call us right away, do you understand?” His voice was harsh.
I nodded before I realized he couldn’t see me. “Okay,” I whispered. I opened my mouth to say I was sorry, but he’d already hung up. I stared at the phone as if I expected it to spring to life and do something, but it was just a phone. I turned to my mom. “Britney didn’t come home for dinner. Her parents are freaking out.”
“I know. They’re concerned about her.”
I waited for her to tell me that everything was going to be okay, but she didn’t. “I should take a shower,” I mumbled. The air on my sweaty skin gave me shivers.
“I wonder if you should talk to Dr. Sherman.” Mom tried to sound casual, but I knew there was nothing casual about the suggestion.
“I don’t need to see anyone,” I said. I clenched my hands to make sure they wouldn’t start fluttering around. I didn’t need therapy. I needed my friends to come back.
“You’ve got a lot on your plate these days,” Mom said. “It’s normal to find it upsetting.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. I could tell she was trying to decide if she wanted to push it. “All right, I’m not fine, but I’m okay. I’m dealing.”
“I wish I could save you from feeling anxious,” Mom said. I knew she felt guilty. There’s a genetic component to OCD anxiety, and even though I didn’t have it nearly as bad as my grandma, I could tell my mom still felt responsible. Genetics can be a real bitch. Personally, I was more upset that I’d gotten my dad’s giant flipper feet, but saying so probably wouldn’t help.
“I think being seventeen means I have to be anxious. It’s part of the job description,” I said, trying to make things lighter.
Mom didn’t smile. “Maybe all this is a good reminder that it’s important to spend time with your other friends. Not just being all wrapped up in Britney and Beth.”
My jaw clenched. “I like Beth and Brit.” I didn’t mention that my “other friends” weren’t real friends at all, just people I hung out with. If I told her that, she’d be even more convinced I needed some kind of help.
Mom held up her hands. “I like them too, but they’re intense.”
“You don’t even know them,” I protested.
“It isn’t that I don’t like them . . .”
“But?” I crossed my arms, creating a barrier between us.
“There are some people who collect more than their fair share of trouble. I’m not saying it’s their fault, but they do. It’s my job as your mom to want to keep you out of it.”
Too late. When it came to Beth and Brit, I was already in deep.
Beth stole a bottle of her dad’s bourbon and we took it out to Lighthouse Park.
“Will you get in trouble for taking his booze?” I grabbed a few more pieces of driftwood and stuffed them in the fire pit. I rubbed my hands on my jeans trying to get them warm, but my fingers felt stiff and clumsy from the cold.
Beth had her turtleneck sweater pulled up over her chin. “This?” She waved the bottle. “My dad goes through so much he hardly knows what he has anymore. He won’t miss it.”
I touched the match to the dry beach grass under the sticks and blew on it. I tried to buffer the small fire from the wind with my body. I didn’t want to fail after I’d bragged I could do it.
“Look at you—you’re a regular Girl Scout.”
I couldn’t tell if Beth was impressed or making fun of me, but either way, the attention made me glow. “A few years ago my dad got it in his head that we were going to become campers,” I said. “We bought all the gear and took a daylong class on how to forage, build a shelter, escape from bears, that kind of thing.” The fire started to grow and I added some larger sticks. My fingers loosened up in the heat.
“So, do you guys go camping every summer?” Beth held her hands out to warm them.
“Nope. We only made it three days before my brother quit and my parents remembered that they’re basically allergic to everything that lives outdoors.” I shrugged and pointed at the now roaring campfire. “At least I got some use out of those classes.”
Beth passed me the bottle after taking a swig. “Handy skill to have. I’m totally going to keep you around if there’s a zombie apocalypse.”
I felt absurdly proud. I didn’t know what it said about me that I wanted a brain-eating undead end-of-the-world event to happen just so Beth could find me useful and want me around.
Spending time with Beth was random. There never seemed to be any sort of plan; she would just show up at my house and ask if I wanted to go somewhere. If I invited her to do something, she would either say she was busy or invite Britney to join us. Time with her alone was on her terms or not at all.
I took a sip of the bourbon and tried not to spit it right back out. It was like liquid smoke, burning as it went down. I’d had beer at a few parties, but bourbon was so different it didn’t seem possible that they could both be in the alcohol family.
“Thanks for coming with me. I had to get out of the house. My mom is in a fighting mood.” Beth tossed a stick in the blaze. I could tell it was too damp to burn well, but didn’t stop her.
“Did you guys always have trouble getting along?”
“No. Yes.” She laughed. “How’s that for exact? We never got along as well as I did with my dad. I was a daddy’s girl. My brother was a total momma’s boy. I think she resents me because she lost her half of the deal.”
The smoke from the fire was making my eyes water. I wanted to say something that would make it better, but I didn’t have any idea what that would be.
“I know she wishes I’d been the one to die instead of Lucas.”
Whatever I’d been about to say turned to ash in my mouth. My heart winced.
“I can’t blame her. You never met Lucas, but he was an amazing kid. He had this giggle that made you laugh, even at his stupid knock-knock jokes. And he was mischievous but insanely cuddly. The thing is that he died when he was really young, right? So he never had a chance to screw up. He never snuck out of the house or brought home a C in math. He never stole liquor from my parents or put a dent in the car. He’s frozen at sort of this perfect stage, whereas I just keep on disappointing my parents over and over. I don’t think I’m that bad, but I’ll never be as good as he was, or as good as she imagines he would have been. We’re sorta doomed.”
I wanted to reach over and hug Beth, fold her into my arms and keep her safe from anyone trying to hurt her. I shifted on the log, trying to figure out if it would be okay or just weird. She wasn’t the superhuggy kind of friend like Brit. Beth hardly ever touched me.
“Things are so bad I told my mom I thought our family should see someone. She told me there wasn’t anything wrong with her.”
“I saw a psychiatrist for a while,” I said. The bourbon was burning a hole in the center of my chest. It was like the Iron Man power pack. I took another sip to buy some time. I didn’t know why I’d admitted that.
Beth nudged me with her elbow. “You don’t have to look like you’re confessing to murder. It’s no big deal.”
“I get anxious,” I explained, just in case she was imagining something worse. Or something less. The tip of my shoe made a pattern in the sand. “I worry about stuff. Like if someone is late, I start thinking about how they might have been in an accident, and then I picture it. How the car would look with all the glass broken and the air bag slowly deflating. And I start thinking about that person being hurt or eve
n dead. I know it’s stupid because the person is only a few minutes late and now I’m all worked up. So I started doing stuff to feel better.”
“What kind of stuff?”
I flushed, and I hoped Beth couldn’t see how embarrassed I was. “Weird stuff. Like tapping a set number of times, or needing things in my room to be arranged a certain way or else it feels like I’m putting people at risk. I have to do it right or something bad will happen.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. I don’t do it anymore.” I realized I was holding a stick so tightly that it was going to break. I forced myself to loosen my grip and be honest. “I still do it sometimes if I’m really stressed, but at least now I know I’m doing it. Knowing you’re crazy is half the battle, right?”
“You’re not crazy. Well, no crazier than the rest of us.” Beth took the bottle from me and took a drink. “We’ve already established I’m screwed up. And Brit’s whole family is seriously fucked.”
“I guess we’re all messed up a bit,” I said.
“All the best people are.”
I took the bottle back and took another drink so I’d have something to distract me from wanting to touch her.
Beth leaned toward me. “You’ve got sand on you.” She ran the pad of her thumb along my lip. I felt grains of sand slide off under her touch. It felt like a match being lit. My breath was coming faster. Beth leaned in closer, pausing just a few inches from my face. “Okay?” she asked, her voice soft.
I nodded, not entirely sure what she was asking. Not knowing what I wanted to happen, or maybe knowing, but unwilling to admit it.
Beth’s mouth touched mine. Her lips soft and then pressing. She cupped her hand behind my head, her fingers weaving into my hair. The sound of waves hitting the beach thumped like a heartbeat, filling me, connecting us.
She pulled back and let out a long breath. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
My heart was in overdrive. “I’m glad you did.”
She took the bottle back from me and took a sip. “Well, this is going to complicate things.”
“I like complicated things,” I said, sounding braver and surer than I felt. I had no idea what was happening, I just knew I wanted her to kiss me like that again.
She tapped the bottle to her forehead in a salute. “Then we’ll just have to be careful. Brit. Zach. Et cetera. How many times do I have to do this to keep us safe?” she teased.
“Six times.”
Beth beamed. “Six is my favorite number! Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” she crowed.
The bourbon was making my lips tingle. If I started laughing I wouldn’t be able to stop. “What?”
Beth rolled her eyes. “How do you not know that? It’s from Alice in Wonderland.”
“I never read it.”
“Serious?” Beth leaned back in shock and fell off the log, her legs in the air. I pulled her back up, giggling. I glanced down at our hands, our fingers laced together. “It’s my favorite book of all time.”
Beth tapped her head with the bottle six times. “There, now we’re good!”
I nodded. Technically, since she’d done it once before, that was seven times. Not that it mattered. As she leaned in to kiss me I tasted the sand and bourbon on her lips, and realized I’d never felt safer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
As soon as I came downstairs the next morning, I sensed something was wrong. The tension in the air was like a fog filling up the house. I paused in the doorway of the kitchen. My parents stopped their whispering. I stepped forward and reached for the paper on the counter between them.
There was a giant photo of Brit splashed across the front page. It was her senior photo, the one that looked like it belonged in a modeling portfolio. My dad took the paper out of my hands before I could read it. Mom picked up her tea mug and put it back down without taking a drink.
“We need to talk with you,” my dad said.
“Brit didn’t come home last night,” I said, guessing what he was going to say. If she had, the paper wouldn’t have bothered to run her photo. I was worried about her, but I wanted to ask why Britney being gone for a few hours merited a front-page story. Beth had been gone six days and no one had even put up a flyer.
“They found a note,” Dad said.
“Did it say where she was going?” If she’d figured out where Beth was and had gone to confront her, I wanted to go there too.
“Honey, I’m so sorry, but it was a suicide note.”
I blinked, trying to make sense of what Mom had said. It felt like someone had hit me in the head with a bat. My ears had a strange ringing sound to them.
“Brit would never kill herself.” I hoped by saying it aloud I could make it true. I knew Brit had been upset yesterday, but had she been that upset?
I pictured how distressed she had looked in the car and tried to remember exactly what she’d said. Had she been hinting, asking for help, and I’d been so consumed about Beth that I’d missed it?
I sat down hard on a kitchen stool. She’d tried to tell me and I hadn’t heard it. I swallowed hard to keep the vomit down.
“They found her car out at Lighthouse Park. She left her purse and phone on the beach with the note,” my dad explained. “The police found it last night.”
“We saw that in a movie.” My mind spun around trying to remember what it had been called. We used to have these movie marathons in Brit’s basement, one film blurring into another. Popcorn and diet soda and Beth’s feet in my lap. “The guy left all his stuff and just walked out into the water.” The music had swelled as he kept moving forward until the water went over his head. “Brit loves that kind of drama. But you can’t drown that way, can you? She’s probably just trying to make a point about how much Jason hurt her. She wants to scare him.”
“Sweetheart, she never came back for her car or her things. Her note was clear about her intentions.” Dad squeezed my hand. “I know you wish this weren’t true, and I wish it too, but the facts tell us different. The police believe Britney killed herself by jumping from the Point.”
I waited for both of them to yell they were joking even though I knew they would never make a joke out of something like this. I caught sight of the headline under Britney’s picture in the paper. LOCAL TEEN PRESUMED DEAD. It came to me in a flash that when Beth heard this news she would rush back immediately. I felt sick and ashamed for even having had the thought. My eyes were burning.
“We’re both going to be here for you, whatever you need. I’m going to call into work and stay home with you today,” Mom said. She put her arm around me and squeezed.
“They canceled school?” Once I said it I realized how stupid that sounded. Britney might be the unofficial queen of the senior class, but they wouldn’t close school down just because she was gone.
“I thought you might need some time,” Mom explained. “I know this is a shock.”
“No. I want to go to classes. I want to see Zach.” I wanted things to be like they had been, even if not a single thing felt familiar anymore. Maybe if I acted normal this would all magically turn out to be some kind of giant mistake.
My parents exchanged glances. My mom looked unhappy with my plan.
“Sometimes distraction can be the best thing,” my dad said, taking my side. “And the school is bringing in an additional counselor too, in case kids want to talk.”
“I don’t know. . . .” Mom’s earrings swayed as she shook her head.
“I think we can trust Kalah to know what’s best for her,” Dad said. “If she wants to go, then that’s what we’re going to support her doing.” He patted my shoulder. “Why don’t you take your time and go in a bit late this morning? I’ll let the school know. If you change your mind about staying all day, it’s no problem. We’re going to take our lead from you.”
I got to school at the end of first period, and as I walked through the halls, everyone moved back a step or two, leaving a space around me. I cou
ldn’t really blame them; I wouldn’t know what to say to me either. One of my best friends had run off, and the other had killed herself. I would have avoided myself too if it were possible.
Zach was waiting for me by my locker, like he’d promised when I’d texted. His hair was sticking up in the back and it looked like he hadn’t slept. When he spotted me, his eyes softened. I both wanted to throw myself into his arms and to spin around and hide in the girls’ bathroom. I already felt like brittle ice, crisscrossed with cracks, on the verge of shattering. I knew Zach. He would want to talk about how I was feeling. He would wrap his arms around me and I could burrow into that warm spot between his neck and shoulder and cry. If I let that happen, I didn’t know if I could stop. It was taking every ounce of strength I had to hold it together.
Zach pushed off from the locker and walked toward me, his arms spreading to pull me in. I backed up quickly and rammed into the water fountain. My bag fell from my shoulder and spilled out onto the floor. I dropped to my knees and started gathering everything back up. My hands were shaking. Zach reached down, wanting to pull me up.
“It’s okay, Kalah. Just leave it.”
“I can’t have them stepping on everything,” I said. I pulled the copy of Alice in Wonderland to my chest as if it were a rare relic I’d saved from a horde of wild savages. I shoved everything else back into my bag.
“You’re wrinkling up your papers,” Zach said. He reached for my bag, but I pulled it away.
“I like them wrinkled,” I snarled. Zach stared at me and I couldn’t meet his eyes. He dropped down next to me and put a steady hand on my arm.
“I’m so sorry,” Zach said. His eyes were filled with the pain I felt. “I know how upset you must be.”
“You don’t know,” I said, but I leaned into the warmth of his touch. “No one knows. No one understands. You don’t even like Brit that much.” I willed my eyes not to cry. “You always resented how much time I spent with her and Beth. I know you did.”
