* * *
What’s happening to my father? He’s not himself. He’s like the living dead. I’ve seen him depressed. That’s nothing new. It happens every Christmas, and sometimes around his birthday. This is something different. Worse than the time he and Mom almost separated, or the time they were having money troubles and almost lost the house. Worse even than when I tried to die. It’s like all those other bouts of depression were just tremors, little quakes. Losing Mom is too big. The world is crashing down and all he can do is stand and watch, alone and terrified, powerless to go on living.
I’m here, but I’m not Mom. I can’t talk to him the way she talked to him.
Don’t get me wrong. He’s not totally neglectful. He turns off my light at night and tucks me in. Yesterday he tried to help me find the blow dryer. Tonight he opened a can of soup and made grilled cheese for dinner. It’s better than nothing, I guess, even if it was just soup and sandwiches. We were actually okay for a while, staring into our bowls, and waiting for the soup to cool. But then we had to ruin it by talking.
Dad: Aren’t you gonna eat?
Me: I’m eating.
Dad: No, you’re not. What’s wrong with it? It says you can use water. Is it better with milk?
Me: It’s okay. My taste buds aren’t working.
Dad: Maybe you’re catching a cold.
Me: There’s other stuff wrong, too. Weird stuff.
Dad: Like what?
Me: I feel like Mommy’s been holding my hand.
I wasn’t supposed to see it, the face he made before he tried to look curious. That split second when his eyeballs shifted toward the ceiling, showing too much white. That face that said, C’mon, Ellie. He didn’t believe me.
What I said next was meant to hurt him, but it was also true. I didn’t make it up. “No one’s waiting for us on the other side. All those stories about near-death experiences? Heaven doesn’t exist. There’s no white light. Mommy wasn’t there. When you die, you die. That’s it.”
My dad just sat there, spoon raised, blinking. He let out a rush of breath and pushed himself up and shuffled over and cradled my face in his hands.
“Ellie, sweetie, I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “If you feel like she’s with you—”
I lifted my chin and searched his eyes. Nothing. I didn’t have to ask, but I did.
“You don’t feel her?”
He shook his head. His face crumpled.
I feel New Ellie retreating. Old Ellie’s slithering back. We’re just barely living. We should’ve all died in the accident. We would’ve been better off.
four
The sky outside my window is clear and bright, but this house is shut up like a tomb. I want to go out, but I can’t. I’m afraid of the blackouts. Plus, there’s nowhere to go. Everywhere I look it’s mountains and trees and more mountains. I didn’t remember it being so desolate, so quiet. It’s like living in the bottom of a bowl. Where we live is hardly a town, just a road with some houses and a river. Even the name sounds Podunk-y: Pottsville. What were my parents thinking? No stores. No gas stations. No restaurants. The library is five miles away in a bigger small town. The nearest mall? God only knows. It might as well be on the moon.
five
I can’t get out of bed. My skin’s clammy. My hair is flat and greasy. And my eyes are raw from crying. I just sleep and sleep and sleep. My father doesn’t see anything wrong. He brings me juice and cereal and cheese-filled pretzels. He’s not Mom. He doesn’t whirl around my room like a cheery tornado. He knows what it’s like. He feels my pain.
I miss Mom. I miss my Lucy Cat. I miss Priscilla. She ruined my life but I’d give anything to talk to her. She’d understand. She’d listen. She was my best friend. My Scilla Monster. She wouldn’t have to tell Natalie Paquin. She wouldn’t have to tell anyone at Jackson Middle.
It could be our secret.
six
I hate the saying “When one door closes, another door opens.” My life has been nothing but doors shutting in my face. Doors do not open for Ellie. They only close … until today.
“Earth to Ellie. Hey, it’s me.”
I don’t know how long she’d been standing there—A minute? A lifetime?—but I flung my pen like a spaz and stuffed the letter I’d been writing in the drawer. Shimmering in the doorway was the most beautiful human being I’ve ever seen. Dark hair. Bright blue eyes. Just like me, but the similarities end there. With a body like hers, she has to be an athlete. Probably a runner. I’m too chunky to wear clothes like hers: flouncy dress and fingerless gloves, feather earrings and killer silver boots. It was a weird combination, but she pulled it off without looking clowny or skanky. I would look like a clown. Priscilla would look like a skank.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said and strolled over and scooped up the pen.
There was something about her that was familiar, but I knew we’d never met. I didn’t think there was any way I would forget someone like her. I racked my damaged brain.
“You don’t remember me. I know. You’ve been through a lot.” She cocked her hip and tapped the pen against her teeth. “We’ll fix that.” She took my hand—my left hand, my mother’s hand—and wrote her name on my palm, just like this:
MADELINE TORUS
All caps. Not like me, using all lowercase in my old journals. In English, too, until my teacher threatened to fail me. I stared at my palm. There was an instant connection I couldn’t explain. Even her name was familiar. Like something remembered from a dream. Forgetting her would be like forgetting a part of who I am, like the scars on my wrists or my birthday.
I hadn’t said a single word since she’d walked through the door. I looked into those big blue eyes and tried to speak, but my mouth went dry. Madeline tilted her head, waiting. My face grew hot as the seconds passed. I worried she could hear my heart thumping madly in my chest. Of course I couldn’t say something normal, like “What’s up?” or “Cool boots.”
“I like your eyes,” I whispered. “You have pretty eyes.”
Dork. Loser. This is why I don’t have any friends. Girls don’t say things like that to each other. That’s how rumors get started. I bit my lip and stared at my knees, waiting for her to say she had the wrong house, the wrong Ellie.
“You have pretty eyes, too,” she said. She sounded like she meant it, but I knew she didn’t. I don’t have pretty eyes. They’re small and a little too close, and skitter back and forth when I’m nervous.
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” she said softly. She took my hand and led me to the middle of the room where we sat on my rug face-to-face, crisscross applesauce.
She knows me, this Madeline Torus. We’ve met. We’ve talked. I’ve told her things about myself.
“So, Elanor Moss … Ellie,” she said. “You’re fourteen. You love cheese-filled pretzels. You love Halloween more than Christmas. You hate the word ‘pianist’ ’cause it sounds dirty. You’re into poetry and music and art that is dark and depressing and weird. You like things that make you think, make you feel something. But you like sweet stuff, too. Your favorite animal is the pygmy marmoset.”
My face flushed hotly. I just knew any minute a bunch of people were going to jump out of the closet, laughing their heads off at my stupidity. It sounds crazy, I know. But Madeline Torus is not the kind of person who would be friends with someone like me.
“Are you okay?” she said. “I can stop. I don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want.”
I played it cool. I didn’t want her thinking I was a head case. And I didn’t want her to stop. It was a first for me, having someone act like I’m interesting, like I’m something special. It’s like my life is a television show she’s been following since the first episode. I nodded for her to continue.
“You were in an accident. A really bad one. You lost your mother and maybe your cat. Lucy, right? You hurt your head and you’re having blackouts. You’re lonely right now because your best friend in the world—Priscilla Ho
dges—ditched you for a snob named Natalie Paquin.”
What hadn’t I told her? I was sweating through my sweats. The room was a furnace. I tried opening the window, but my father had painted it shut. I started searching through my dresser—I had something sharp somewhere—and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
I’m not trying to be vain, but I’m not totally ugly. I have some good qualities—not many, but some. I have nice eyebrows and a smallish nose and okay skin. But then my focus shifted to Madeline coming up behind me, smiling at my reflection. All the makeup in the world couldn’t make me that kind of pretty. I’m thinner than I was, but I’m still heavy. My body eclipsed hers, like the moon blotting out the sun. I hated it. The only thing we have in common besides our hair and our eyes is our height. I would’ve said she was taller, but she’s not. With her head on my shoulder we looked like a two-headed freak. Madeline smiled secretively. I smiled, too, and it felt good. It felt good to smile at someone who smiled back.
“What do you want most in the world?” she asked.
To be loved, I thought. But I knew that would sound corny and needy and might make her leave forever—so I never really answered. Instead, I said, “Can I try your boots?”
She went over to the chair and took them off, chucking them across the room. I sat on the bed and pulled them on. They fit. Madeline tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and froze. “You were writing when I came in,” she said, staring at my desk as if she could see the grimy sheet of paper—tearstained and rambling and full of exclamation marks—hidden in the drawer. The Scilla Letter. I’d been working on it all morning, but now I was sickened by what I had written—a pathetic plea for her to give me another chance. I don’t know why, but I took it out and let Madeline read.
“Oh, Ellie.” She sounded disappointed. Not with me. With a world where someone like me would have to beg someone like Priscilla to be her friend. “She didn’t deserve you,” she said, crushing the paper in her fist and tossing it where it belonged—in the trash. “It’s time to let go.” She held out her hands for the boots.
“Stay with me,” I pleaded.
“I’m right here,” she said, placing her hand on my heart.
Madeline Torus. I know she’s real because she wrote her name on my palm. I can see it, right there in blue ink. Without that, I’d think it was all a dream. Madeline and Ellie. Our names sound perfect together. Maybe Priscilla didn’t deserve me. But what did I do to deserve Madeline? I want her with me, always. That’s what I want most in the world. I’m drawn to her in a way I can’t explain. My mother clutches my hand and I’m little again, waiting at a busy crosswalk. She knows how I get: obsessive, dependent, clingy. She’s saying: Slow down. Give your friend room to breathe. Don’t smother her. People don’t like to be smothered.
seven
If I close my eyes I can see her, an afterimage, as if I’ve been staring at the sun. She’s standing in my doorway, looking down at me like the stone angel in the cemetery where Scilla and I used to hang out. It was an old cemetery, with hills and ravines, full of pines and weeping willows. We’d sneak past the caretaker’s cottage and run like crazy past the crypts and the soldiers’ field until we got to the clearing where the new bodies were buried. Then we’d stop, giggling and out of breath, by the statues. My angel had downcast eyes and a long, straight nose and a thick rope of hair that coiled noose-like around her neck. She was marble, I think, and her bare feet were green with lichen, her face and drape streaked black from acid rain.
Today has been a fog, but I think I’m getting better. I’m still having blackouts, but colors are starting to look normal again. Better than normal—everything glows. I can taste again, too, and smell things. This morning my father burnt the toast.
I need to see her. I need to see Madeline Torus. I need to talk to her. It’s killing me not knowing when she’ll be back. What if she never comes back? Her name on my palm is smudged and fading. Without her, I’m fading.
I don’t know anything about her. I don’t even know how to reach her. What’s her phone number? Where does she live? What’s her e-mail address? I asked my dad, but he looked confused. These days that’s normal for him. I told him he needs to snap out of it—we have to go on living—but he just gave me this wretched look like I was torturing him.
I want to be prepared for when she comes back. I have to live like she might show up any minute. I can’t let myself crash and burn with my father. He’s like that RV that plunged through the guardrail, torpedoing through space, destroying everything in its path. I have to steer clear. I have to get out of bed and shower and brush my teeth and wear long-sleeve shirts to cover my wrists. I have to keep my room clean.
After breakfast I scrubbed the bathroom. My father had gotten whiskers all over everything. (But at least he’s still shaving.) I bleached the rust ring on the sink from his shaving cream can, put the toilet paper in the roll holder, and cleared a little spot on the vanity for my makeup. The only lights are two fluorescent tubes on either side of the medicine cabinet—one takes forever to come on, the other flickers and hums—but I don’t know how to change them. It makes it hard to do your eyes, but I like it dark. I can’t see my flaws. I wonder if that’s how Madeline sees me? When I think of her I get this panicky rush, like I’m holding my breath. Probably because I am.
eight
Hooked up the DVD player today. All our movies are dumb family classics or cheesy comedies, but the sound keeps me company. It’s better than listening to my father bump around the house like a ghost. It’s better than sitting in my room waiting for my stone angel to appear.
nine
“God, this place is depressing!”
That’s what Madeline said when she sauntered into my bedroom all glitter and leopard print and killer silver boots. She tossed me a kiss and flopped down on the bed like she’d been gone minutes instead of days—the two longest days of my life.
I wanted to know where she’d been. Was it me? Had I done something wrong? But I didn’t want to be that girl—Old Ellie—thinking everything everybody does has something to do with me.
“We need some music,” she said, jumping up. She switched on the speakers, shuffling through my songs. “This one’s my favorite,” she said.
She played what was supposed to be The Last Song. A song by a band no one’s heard of. The song I played when I tried to kill myself. It’s not a song you can dance to, but Madeline did, circling the room, arms swinging, feet stomping, moving in a way I could never move without looking stupid. Madeline’s dance was freaky and erratic, eerie almost. Not like those girls who look like they’ve stepped out of a music video—all pop and grind.
“It’s my favorite, too,” I said.
Madeline nodded like she knew. “Dance with me,” she said. “It won’t kill you.” She smiled and wiggled and crooked her finger. I shook my head, but she reached down and dragged me across the floor by my foot until I gave in and got up.
I don’t dance. I love music, but I don’t have any rhythm. I don’t look natural. But I didn’t want to let Madeline down—didn’t want her to leave. I started moving my feet in this slow, shuffling way, trying to be her—raising my arms over my head, letting my head hang low. My beast of a shadow lumbered clumsily and I wanted to vanish, to curl up under my bed and die. The song was building and building, reaching for the part where I’m huddled in my closet, pressing the cold blade to my wrist. I forced myself to keep moving.
Madeline’s perfect blue eyes watched me carefully. Not in a judgmental way, not like Priscilla when she’d catch me singing or I’d read her a poem I’d written. (Was she ever really my friend?) She was watching me the way I’d watched her, like she wished she could be me. I know it’s absurd. But I saw it, this desperate longing in her eyes, like she was aching for something hopeless. It felt weird. It wasn’t right.
“I hate my body,” I said.
Madeline grabbed my hands and said, “Don’t ever say that again,” and spun me around the
room, faster and faster, until we were stumbling, tripping over our own feet, the heat radiating from our bodies making us dizzy. I’ve never taken drugs that make you feel good (painkillers, I guess), but I can imagine what it’s like. There were kids at Jackson Middle who stole their parents’ prescriptions (Valium, Oxycontin, Hydro-something) and took them or sold them, but I was never in that clique. Priscilla’s part of that clique now. I wonder if she’s taking drugs. I wonder if she knows what it’s like to feel free and peaceful and confident. To feel at home in your own skin.
I dropped to the floor and Madeline quickly dropped, too. My long-sleeve shirt was drenched and my breathing hard. (God, I’m out of shape.) Between gasps, I asked, “Have you ever played knife?”
Madeline was winded, too. The hair at her temples was damp and spiky.
“You first,” she said.
I was secretly happy when she circled her long, thin fingers around my wrist, but then I felt her thumb pressing against my scar. I knew I hadn’t told her about that. Someday I’d tell her. Not today. Mom had said, over and over, when we get to Pottsville, don’t publicize it. Keep it to yourself. Your new friends might not understand.
I pulled my arm free.
Where were my wrist bands? The black leather ones I’d bought online. Not the stupid rainbow ones Mom got me for gym. I started ransacking the room, tearing through drawers and boxes and bags. Madeline followed, trying to help. She was calling my name, but her voice was a million miles away. I’d fallen down a deep, dark hole.
“Whatever you’re looking for—Stop, Ellie.”
Madeline put her hands on my shoulders and sat me down on the bed. She had something to say, but I think she was deciding whether I was ready to hear it.
The In-Between Page 2
