The S-Word

by Chelsea Pitcher

  I know then what I have to do.

  My heart breaks as I turn away from you, away from everyone, and look up at the sky. I know the angels won’t swoop in to save me.

  I don’t so much jump as

  Just

  Fall

  Off.

  I’m halfway to the ground when your eyes finally meet mine in recognition.

  You step out of the way just in time.

  eighteen

  THE MORNING OF her death, Lizzie arrived at school bright and early for the first time since middle school. She even beat security to the punch, barely. According to the police report, she shimmied up the old fire escape and pulled herself onto the clock tower ledge. The wind was fierce that day. She must have held on to the bricks for dear life.

  Until she didn’t anymore.

  No one saw her jump. She might have simply fallen, like in her dream. It’s probably better we don’t know. What we do know is that she was alone. We know she was wearing a white dress, no shoes. But none of that is surprising if you knew Lizzie at all.

  The surprising thing is she cried out. One single cry, following a life of silence.

  Charlie Bigsby was crossing the parking lot when he heard it. The birds on the grounds took flight. Charlie had worked security at Verity for the better part of his life, but the most he ever expected to see was a fistfight. Maybe a realistic replica of a gun. Seeing Lizzie’s body sprawled on the cement, he must have lost a little piece of his mind. He managed to call the police; rumor has it his recorded statement is half gibberish. And then he just tuned out. Quit on the spot.

  Then the students started to arrive.

  They didn’t tell us who died until later. In retrospect, it’s probably a good thing. I would have insisted on seeing some kind of proof, and then my nightmares would be plagued with realistic imagery.

  Maybe I would have lost it completely, like Charlie. Walked away and never come back.

  I CAN HARDLY see as I stumble through the coffee shop and out onto the street. I must be crying but my face feels numb. I keep putting one leg in front of the other but I can’t feel myself do it. I tell myself I just have to make it to my car, like it’s the light at the end of some tunnel. It takes forever to get there. And when I get inside, it’s dark.

  Then I do something really dumb. I try to drive home while I’m still crying. I feel like I can do it. I keep wiping my eyes like my fingers are windshield wipers. This thought almost makes me laugh, it’s so stupid, but then again, it’s stupid thoughts like these that keep me from driving into a ditch.

  I have to pull over twice before making it to Dad’s. Then I do a little damage control with the rearview mirror and my makeup bag. I put a dot of concealer on my nose to hide the redness. Blush distracts from puffy eyes. When I walk through the door I’m damn near bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

  Dad’s glued to the couch. I plop down and he puts his arm around me like we’re buddies. He’s watching recorded college basketball. I know I should get up and try to piece things together, but my brain just won’t allow it. I turn off my phone and sit there for the duration of two games. We order a pizza so I don’t have to do the scrounge/cook thing.

  It’s dark when I finally try to stand up. My legs feel sewn into the couch. Dad laughs at me as I hobble to my room, but he doesn’t try to stop me. Maybe he can tell how exhausted I am. I guess I’ve kind of been ignoring it. I don’t exactly love falling asleep these days. All the thoughts I try to avoid while I’m awake come crashing down on me.

  Tonight the thinking-avoidance dance is worse than usual. No thought is safe. I can’t even think of Jesse without this intense guilt pressing into me. Kennedy said he liked me. She’s usually right about these things.

  Of course, she meant he liked me as a friend, and that’s where the problem comes in. I’ve been trying and trying to pretend that’s all I want: a friend. Someone to help thaw the numbness inside of me. But my feelings for Jesse go beyond that, and anyone with half a brain can see it. And that just means I’m going to lose.

  I have to let him go. He deserves to be around people who accept him as he is. If I keep getting closer to him, I’ll just try to make him into what I want him to be. And that’s sick.

  Other people don’t belong to us. They never have and never will. If Lizzie’s words have taught me anything, it’s that. And just like that, her face is all I can see.

  Tears are pooling in her eyes, the way they did on prom night when I found her in the room with Drake. She’s looking at me like this little girl who skinned her knee for the first time. Like she can’t believe there’s blood coming out of her. Like she’s just now aware of her mortality.

  And I just walked away. Again and again, I walked away as her world fell down around her. As they destroyed her. We destroyed her.

  I’m sorry.

  I fall asleep telling her I’m sorry over and over again. The word penetrates into my dreams.

  nineteen

  LIZZIE CAME UP behind me in the mirror, wrapping her arms around me. The movement smashed my boobs together even more. “I can’t believe you talked me into strapless,” I said, tugging at the fabric beneath my arms.

  “You look beautiful. Black really is your color.”

  “How macabre.”

  For a minute I looked at the two of us in the hotel room mirror, light and dark, day and night. My black satin number was quite the opposite of her pale blue empire waist gown. She’d braided the two front pieces of her hair and pulled them back with a flower barrette. She looked like she’d just returned from conversing with little animals in the forest. I probably looked like a poser, but I’d been faking confidence for so long I almost believed the act myself.

  And nobody had seen through it yet.

  She laid her head on my shoulder, still hugging me. “I miss you.”

  “I’m right here.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “I know, I’m sorry.” I turned to look at her. She looked surprised, like she wasn’t expecting me to be so close. “But summer’s almost here, and Drake’s going on that trip with his dad, so . . . God, I sound pathetic, don’t I?” My boyfriend’s leaving, so we can hang out more.

  Yikes.

  Lizzie brushed the hair from my eyes. I’d parted it far over on the side, in an attempt to look glamorous. Even my eyes were dark. Smoky. Sultry.

  Yeah, right.

  “You don’t sound pathetic,” she said. “You sound like someone who’s in love.” She popped her glossy pink lips. She never needed to wear much makeup, did she? “Are you in love?” she asked.

  It was weird. Even with Drake in my life, Lizzie and I still spent the night together about once a week. But she’d never asked me that. And I’d never offered it up.

  “I love him.” Wrenching myself from the mirror, I sat down on one of the two beds. Normal kids got ready for prom in their bedrooms, but Lizzie and I didn’t feel at home in our houses. We’d checked into our room early, wanting a space that was our own.

  Lizzie continued to fuss with her hair, giving me the space she knew I needed. “That doesn’t sound so convincing.”

  Her tone was playful, but I caught the underlying message: If he’s not so great, why do I have to share my best friend with him?

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I said. “Drake’s great. He’s sweet, he’s funny. I know for a fact he looks hot in a tux.”

  She grinned.

  “But we’ve been together for four years. For all of high school. This is the time where people break up or, like, get married.”

  Her grin slipped, but she caught it quickly.

  “And I don’t want to break up,” I said. “But marriage? Seriously? I don’t even know if I want that.”

  “Pragmatist,” she teased, an old joke.

  “Hopeless romantic.”

  “You don’t have to make a decision yet. Just because other people do doesn’t mean you have to.”

  “I know, but . . . I have
to register for school,” I reminded her. “I’ve got, like, two weeks left. Two weeks to decide between CU—”

  “Where Drake is going.”

  “Or Colorado State—”

  “Where I’m going.” Lizzie smiled sweetly, as if to say, Pick me!

  Of course, I hadn’t told either of them about the acceptance letter to UCLA I’d buried under a mountain of socks in my top dresser drawer. They wouldn’t have understood. Drake lived a charmed life in Colorado, and Lizzie refused to leave her widowed dad.

  As for me, well, my parents would be better off without me. And I hated this wintry place.

  But could I leave Lizzie and Drake?

  “Well, even if you do go to CU,” Lizzie said, clearly taking my silence to mean I’d chosen my boyfriend, “it doesn’t mean you have to marry him.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’m full of shit. Tell me what to do!”

  Lizzie laughed. “Tell me if you’re in love with him, and I will.”

  I can’t.

  If I admitted to being in love with him, he became everything to me. Then, if I lost him, I lost everything. Better to keep myself safe.

  I said, “I just don’t want to be like Romeo and Juliet, you know? They died for each other and they were, like, fourteen.”

  “So you wouldn’t die for me?” She gasped, flitting over to me like a butterfly.

  “That’s different.” I could still see us in the mirror. Even though we looked like opposites, we complemented each other. For the first time in my life, I let myself believe I deserved her friendship.

  “So you would?” She put her hand over her forehead, like a damsel. “You’d die for me?”

  “Of course I would. You’re my best friend.”

  She stared at me a minute, like she wanted to say something important. But when Drake entered the room, she only whispered, “Me too.”

  I KNOW WHAT you’re thinking. I was thinking it too. I’d wanted Drake for so long and now I was afraid to let myself fall in love with him. After all, he was just a guy, I told myself as we moved to the dance floor, leaving Lizzie behind. He didn’t get involved when I talked about psychology, or politics, or the hundred little things that bothered me about religion. And when we made love, I tried so hard to get him to connect with me, I swear I missed out on the experience half the time.

  He was average.

  No, he was better than average, because he genuinely cared about me, and he did make me laugh, doing goofy impressions or telling me funny stories about the stuff that happened during practice. Hell, he didn’t even balk when I insisted we bring my best friend to the prom, because she didn’t have anyone to go with and wasn’t it our responsibility, as good people, to make sure she had a rockin’ time?

  Drake was a great guy. I was lucky. And right now, he was doing that dorky thing where he tried to slow dance with me to a really fast song, and it was making me laugh. I leaned into him, watching the dangling star-lights twinkle over our heads. Behind his back, van Gogh’s celestial masterpiece spread out across the circular wall, re-created by the art students. Even our outfits matched the Starry Night theme: Lizzie in blue, me in black, and Drake in a black tux with blue accents. I slid my hands up his lapel, wrapping my arms around his neck. It didn’t even bother me that people were knocking into us and it was totally our fault. I just wanted to be close to him.

  Maybe I really am in love.

  For the first time in a long time, I felt safe. Happy.

  Unfortunately, I was so immersed in this newfound feeling of happiness that it took me far too long to realize Lizzie was missing. Okay, I probably noticed after two or three songs. But I felt like an asshole, standing there clinging to my boyfriend while my best friend had fled the premises.

  And, in that moment, I started to think about some things.

  If Lizzie was really my opposite, then she needed romance. She was Cinderella searching for her prince. And though it was far from midnight, the sight of me, and so many others, pairing off in this beautiful ballroom was probably too much for her slippered feet to handle.

  So she bailed. And maybe I should’ve let her. But it seemed unfair that she should miss out on tonight when she was the one who actually cared about these things.

  I detangled myself from Drake. “Lizzie left.”

  “What? She’s right over . . .” He trailed off, pointing in some vague direction.

  “She was over there,” I said. “Then she was at the snack table.”

  He smirked. “Were you just pretending to pay attention to me?”

  “Drake, she’s my best friend. And this is kind of a big night for some people. People who, like, believe in this shit.”

  “Eloquent, as always.”

  I punched him in the arm. “Stop teasing me. I’m being serious.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Listen, you go fulfill your Prom Court duties.” He nodded to the cluster of girls in the center of the room. Naturally, devil-in-a-red-dress Kennedy had scored the best real estate in the place. “I’ll look around for Lizzie,” he said. “It’s pretty warm in here anyway.”

  “We’re not supposed to leave the ballroom.”

  “They’re not even paying attention.” Then, as if to settle the matter, he planted one on me.

  “Thank you.” I felt a spread of warmth as he left my side. Sure, he was a guy, but it was his prom too. He should’ve been mingling with his buddies and making lewd jokes about prom sex. Instead, he was searching the grounds for my friend.

  Searching. And searching. Yeah, Drake ended up being gone for a long time. By the end of the first half hour, all my doubts had mutated, and I started to think about some more things. Things my heart hadn’t let me see before.

  I thought of that night in middle school when Lizzie described the attributes of her crush. Brown hair. Blue eyes. How many guys in our grade even had notably blue eyes?

  I thought of that day in the Alternate Dimension Bathroom. Lizzie had looked so flustered after her talk with Drake. Her hair had been messed up. She’d immediately reglossed her lips. I had to have been an idiot to miss what those things meant.

  They’d kissed!

  Or he’d kissed her. God, had Drake wanted Lizzie all along? Had he merely settled for me? No wonder he hadn’t minded that she’d come with us to prom.

  She was the one he wanted to take.

  I raced out of the ballroom. My heart couldn’t even catch up with my feet, but damn it if it didn’t try. It took practically no time at all to reach the hotel room. I remember thinking, even before I opened the door, that I’d gotten there too quickly. I wasn’t ready for this, wasn’t ready to be proven right. I’d never be ready.

  But I opened the door anyway.

  I opened the door and I heard Lizzie gasp.

  It might’ve been a gasp of surprise. Looking back, that’s what makes the most sense. But at the time, I heard it as a gasp of pleasure. And part of me died.

  So much of me died.

  Lizzie.

  Yes, I looked at her first. I’d been close to her the longest. I’d trusted her the most. A part of me had always suspected Drake might break my heart. Hell, wasn’t that why I’d been so afraid to get close to him?

  But Lizzie? The sun to my moonlight? The girl I’d rocked to sleep when she had nightmares as a child. The girl who was always supposed to be a part of my life, whether boys came and went.

  My forever friend.

  The truth hit me so hard I could barely stand.

  Lizzie doesn’t love me.

  My eyes turned to Drake then. Drake, crawling off her like an animal. He had a look in his eyes I’d never seen. Was it passion?

  My heart cracked and spilled out inside of me.

  Was it love?

  Was this how he looked when he loved someone?

  I looked him right in the eye and said, “Thanks for proving me right.”

  I tried, without turning, to back out
of the room. But Lizzie called to me, and I looked. Stupidly, I looked.

  Her eyes were bright. Her lips were red from kissing. I hated her in that moment, but only because I’d loved her so much. I hated her because she didn’t love me, and hers was the only love I’d ever completely believed in.

  Why don’t you love me?

  My eyes strayed to her hands as she pulled at the broken strap of her dress. Stumbling from the bed, she brushed past me, out of the room. But my eyes were stuck on Drake now, thinking: You wanted her all along. She wanted you. You both fooled me.

  Neither of you love me.

  I finally succeeded in backing out of the room. Halfway down the hall, I ran into the cheerleading squad. At the time, I thought they were worried about me.

  Now I think they were just sniffing for a scandal.

  It took three of them to lead me down the hallway. Ideally, they would’ve just locked me up in a hotel room, but hell, mine was already occupied. I remember Kennedy stroking my hair while the girls yelled obscenities in Drake’s direction. We slipped into the ballroom through a door in the back (who knew?) and spent the next half hour taking pulls from Kennedy’s flask. I don’t remember much after that, though not really because of the alcohol.

  What I do remember is this: Lizzie and Drake never returned to the dance, but their damage had been done. The entire ballroom was abuzz with whispers of my undoing. When the results for Prom Queen were announced, a quiet numbness overtook me. I climbed to the stage and looked out at the student body. They stared back at me, filled with sympathy. Filled with awe. And I realized something: I finally had the recognition I’d desired.

  I had nothing.

  twenty

  AT TWO IN the morning there’s a knock on my window. Half-asleep, I’m convinced it’s Lizzie’s ghost. I’m scared shitless but I go to the window anyway.

  I’m wrong. It’s not a ghost. It’s a flesh-and-blood person.

  I open the window so he can climb in. I can see him perfectly in the moonlight. “Hey.”