I was all ready to spill my guts, but when I looked up Madeline was frowning down through the window in the roof, pinching her nose at the deer smell. My mind went blank. I just sat there shivering and paranoid and sick to my stomach until Autumn lit a cigarette. When did she start smoking? I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I focused on the red tip glowing in the dark, pretending I was in one of those reality TV confessional booths. The red light meant the camera was rolling. I should say something, anything. I looked up. Madeline’s face was pressed to the glass.
“Do you see her?” I said.
Autumn’s blank gaze was my answer. She scratched her head like a normal person, and then sat on her hands. I probably sounded crazy, but I don’t care. It all came out in a rush: The death threat and how scared I am. My addiction to sleeping pills. All the stuff about Rad and me, like how we haven’t kissed. Everything about my dead sister, my ghost.
Once I got started I couldn’t stop. My mother would kill me if she knew what I’d told her. There’s some stuff you don’t talk about, like how your mother is not happy about being pregnant with twins and got tears all over the ultrasound and said she has choices and it’s not too late. Conversations like that are called “kitchen talk” in this house, which means what we say doesn’t leave the kitchen. I told Autumn anyway, told her how my mother was crying and apologizing, blaming it on the hormones and losing my dad and the stress of school. And then how later she was trying to take it all back—she didn’t mean it, she’d been thinking out loud. I should just ignore everything she says for the next five months.
“She won’t get rid of them,” I said. “But she’s probably praying one of them won’t make it, that one of the babies will vanish just like the last time. I know it’s hard on her, but I’ve been praying for God not to separate them.”
Autumn didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She hiked up her sleeping bag and hopped over, crashing beside me in my beanbag chair. I looked up. A fluffy white blanket covered the window in the roof. It was snowing. Madeline was gone.
“The only thing worse than taking them both is leaving just one. Believe me. I know.”
Autumn hugged me, then leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “We have the power to rebuild you,” she said. “Bigger. Faster. Stronger.” I don’t know what that’s from, but I like how it sounds. When I looked over, her eyes were watery, too, and suddenly I didn’t feel so alone.
It was warm next to Autumn, squashed together in the beanbag chair. I wish I was still there—in our sleeping bags, in the muffled quiet under the snow, with the shadows and the gray. Because even after the candle burned out, the darkness didn’t seem so dark.
fifty-five
I’m tired of talking. Everything I say is useless. It won’t change anything. I won’t be un-suspended no matter how many times I try to explain it. That’s what “zero tolerance” means. It means they refuse to consider extenuating circumstances during sentencing. It means there are no accidents. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know how the knife got in your bag. It means no one cares that you can’t sleep or that someone wants to kill you. No drugs. No weapons. End of story.
Until we got home.
“Why, Ellie? Why?” My mother’s face was red. Her voice was hoarse from yelling. She wanted answers. What was I thinking, bringing a knife to school?
In my defense, I didn’t “bring” the knife to school. It was already there, one of those X-Actos from art class. Why is it legal in one room and not another? They could’ve suspended me for stealing, I guess. Except I didn’t steal it. Madeline must’ve slipped it into my pencil case, so I’d have something to protect myself if somebody tried to hurt me.
The sleeping pills? That’s bullshit. A knife gives them the right to search my bag? It’s none of their business. It’s like aspirin. But aspirin’s on the list of contraband, too. If you have a headache, go see the nurse. My mother is upset because she does not think aspirin and sleeping pills are in the same category. She went up to her bedroom and started rummaging through her drawers, and then I was in deeper trouble. She couldn’t find her prescription. “Did you take those, too?” I lied and she knew I was lying. But how was she going to prove it?
At four o’clock the phone started ringing. Everybody wanted to know what happened. Rad called. Jess called. Kylie called. Autumn came to the door. My mother told them all I’m grounded.
“What else aren’t you telling me?” she said. “What else are you hiding? Do I need to go through your room?” Everything about her—her tone, her posture, the way her sadness and confusion dragged at her mouth—reeked of defeat. That was what got to me: my mother’s disappointment. The way she sat at the table with her head in her hands, trying to understand. Which is never going to happen. Not unless I start at the beginning, with dying and the In-Between, and finding Madeline, finding my sister. I want to tell her but I can’t. She’ll think I’m crazy. I’d rather have her think I’m a delinquent, so I didn’t say anything. I just stood there in front of her, trying not to look angry, until she got up and rubbed her belly. It was time to lay down the law. I’m not going to spend the next week lounging around, watching television. That’s not how it works. This isn’t a vacation. There are rules. I will talk to no one. I will not leave the house. I will do my schoolwork, and I will work on my attitude.
“It’s like being under house arrest.”
My mother winked and shot me with her finger. “That’s exactly what it’s like.”
fifty-six
It’s exhausting, really—school. Every single day is a performance. It’s hard being the girl everyone there knows as Ellie Moss. Because that’s not really Ellie. It’s a character I invented, a composite of all the girls I’ve ever wanted to be—the Natalie Paquins, the Jess Nolans. I could win an Academy Award for it. I’ve got everybody fooled—Jess, Rad, my mother, my teachers—into thinking I’m smart and good and normal. On the inside, I’m still me: Freak. Mistfit. Loser. A girl with scars, a girl with a ghost. No matter how many friends I have, no matter how many people I win over, my fear is that someday it will all come crashing down. It has to. I can’t keep this up forever. Madeline says it’s inevitable. She’s not trying to be mean, but someday everyone will see that I’m a fake. That’s why she’s helping me get back to my true self. When I’m with her, I get to wear what I want, eat what I want, say whatever comes into my head. I don’t have to be constantly censoring, analyzing, worrying that I’m too stupid or lame or weird or ugly. She loves me for me, because I am her sister and we are one.
My mother doesn’t understand. This isn’t punishment—being suspended, being grounded. It’s a break from all the bullshit. It’s so easy to get sucked into the distraction of boys and friends and grades and weight that you lose sight of what’s important. Madeline is the only thing that matters. How did I forget that? I won’t do it again. Stuck here in my room, it’s like we’re back in the In-Between. The only difference is that my mother is not my father. She won’t leave us alone. She hears us and storms in like a commando: “Who are you talking to?! Are you on the phone?!” And then she stands there confused because all she sees is me, so then she yells, “Turn that music down!” or “Sit at your desk!” or anything to show her authority.
At night, after my mother leaves for school, Madeline and I let loose. We crank the stereo and dance around the house and stuff our faces. My mother doesn’t keep anything good in the fridge, like frozen pizzas, and no one will deliver way out here, so we improvise with bagels and spaghetti sauce. Monday, for dessert, I baked a cake from scratch. Last night Madeline figured out how to make chocolate pudding. We ate it warm from the pan in front of the television. It helped me sleep. That and the green bottle of nighttime cold medicine. A shot of that and I’m out by eight. I’d sleep all day except my mother starts banging on my door at seven A.M. God, she’s a pain. She talks about me being a lurker, but I have absolutely no privacy.
fifty-seven
I spend every minute with yo
u. I’ve given up everything for you.
I’m not enough. You always want more. You’re too attached to this life.
That’s not true.
Prove it.
How?
Madeline exposes her scars. Not the ones on her wrists. The ones over her heart that form our initials, just like on the ultrasound. A vague memory starts to congeal and then is lost. I think I remember. But barely. What I remember is the absence of pain. She wants to do it again, to me. But what about Rad? What if we ever get that far, how will I explain?
You don’t have to worry about that.
Why? Never mind. Do it. Just do it.
fifty-eight
Thanksgiving’s got to be the lamest holiday ever, right up there with Easter and New Year’s Day. There’s nowhere to go. Nothing’s open. There’s nothing to do. I hate the parade, but my mom puts it on anyway, even though she’s in the kitchen for most of it. I hate the floats. I hate the bands. I hate the corny announcers with their dorky banter, talking about the weather and what they’re going to eat for dinner (like anyone cares), and the way they keep building up what’s coming next and then cut to commercial right before something I want to see.
I feel like crap. I spent the night in the attic searching for my father’s dumb hat, the one that looks like a roast turkey. And my chest hurts, too. It stings like a paper cut, only a million times worse. I should change the bandage again, but I have to hide the bloody gauze at the bottom of the garbage because my mother is that nosy. She’s always in my space. She thinks the babies pressing on her bladder give her the right to barge in while I’m in the shower. But this morning I’d just gotten out and was drying off, and I had to jump in the tub and hide behind the curtain. The bandage is a problem because you can see the white square through a T-shirt, so I had to put on a sweatshirt, and it’s a thousand degrees in our house with the oven running. I’m drowning in my own sweat.
Technically, my suspension ended today, but since it’s a holiday weekend, I’m off until Monday. I’m still grounded, but I got to talk to Autumn when she came to our door because her mother was with her—they needed more sugar for their cranberries. Living in a bubble the last week—without phone, without Internet—you’d think I’d be starved for news, but I’m not. I don’t want to know what everyone’s thinking, what everyone’s saying. I don’t care that everybody’s taking my side, saying I have a right to protect myself. They’re making me out to be some kind of vigilante or something. It’s Rad’s fault that anybody even knows about the threat. Some girls were talking about me, starting rumors that I was going to try to kill myself again, and Rad went and set everybody straight. Somehow he feels responsible, like if he’d only taken it seriously I wouldn’t have stolen the knife and been suspended. So now I’m the rebel, the dark-haired maverick in killer silver boots. But that’s not me. I’m not into self-defense. My answer to everything is to curl into a ball and wait for the world to end.
It’s just one more layer to put on every day. This costume is getting too heavy.
It was dark by the time dinner was ready. It was weird watching my mom wrestle with the turkey. That was always my dad’s job. It was just the two of us, but she made a huge dinner anyway: dressing and two kinds of potatoes and green beans and rutabaga and cranberry sauce and pie. Ever since I can remember, we always went around the table and said what we were thankful for, but this year there’s nothing. My mother must’ve been thinking the same thing because she skipped over that part and said, “Everything looks tasty!” and “Save room for pie!” Then we just started filling our plates, and soon I was filling my stomach, trying to fill the hole that kept getting bigger and bigger even as I ate.
“Slow down,” Mom said. “It’s not a race.” But it was a race, a race to finish before the tears started. I probably would’ve made it through dinner, but Madeline came in wearing my father’s hat, plunking down in the chair that would’ve been his. For the first time ever, she didn’t make me feel better. I felt worse. I could feel it welling up inside. There was something hard in my chest, like I’d swallowed a bone, and then my chin started trembling and everything went blurry. Trying to keep it inside only made it worse. My head filled up and then my lungs. I was drowning. Running upstairs for tissues, I thought, I should’ve just stayed dead. We should’ve all died.
Looking at my reflection, I hardly recognized the girl with bloodshot eyes staring back. She was vacant and pasty, one of those they rescue from some creep’s basement after ten years. You see them on the news, ruined and stringy, standing there stiffly, not knowing how to hug their own mother. I understand how it feels when the familiar is strange and the strange is familiar. I have too many secrets. I don’t know how to cope with all this sadness. It sneaks up like a dark shadow, twisting, squeezing the breath out of me.
It’s always been my job to help with clean-up, but my mother made me tea and made the couch into a bed like she does when I’m sick. But I’m not sick. Not physically. My heart is broken. Hers, too. I felt bad she had to wash all those dishes alone, but that’s how she deals, by doing. She wouldn’t let me help. When she was done, she melted into the recliner and put her swollen feet up, checking the channel guide for something good to watch. She breathed deeply through her nose and let it out. She was settling in, winding down, and when I looked over I knew by the funny way her eyes were squinched that she was thinking what I was thinking: If my father was here, this was when he’d be bugging for a sandwich.
He did it every year, every Thanksgiving, right after Mom and I got everything washed and dried and put away. “Who’s ready for a sandwich?” he’d say. And then he’d be up, poking through the fridge, dirtying dishes. Mom and I always groaned and complained. How could he be hungry again? But he was. And every year he’d shout from the kitchen, “Want one? I’ll make you one.” And every year we’d be like, “Ugh!” and “No way!” and “Don’t make a mess!” And then we’d be like, “Yeah … okay … make me one, too.”
Not this year. Tonight, nobody did anything with the leftovers. We never even ate our pie.
I didn’t mean all that stuff I wrote in the beginning, about hating Thanksgiving.
I just hate this one.
fifty-nine
3 Easy Steps to a New You!
Step 1—Wake up thinking today is the day you will get him to kiss you. Wear your shortest skirt, your highest heels. Pay special attention to makeup and hair. Wait for him at his locker. Tell him you need to speak to him in private. Arrange a time and place to meet—lunch, say, in the woods behind the school. Spend the next three hours worrying about your breath and chapped lips. Get to the woods early. Apply cherry-flavored balm. Chew a piece of gum. When he arrives, act like you just got there. Pretend you’re not freezing and swallow your gum. Get close. Tell him how much you’ve missed him, and how the last week has been the worst week of your life, and how you never want to go that long without seeing or talking to him again. Let him apologize for not taking the threat against your life seriously. Don’t let him go on too long about it, though. Make sure he understands that you do not blame him. Let him know that you know he would never let anyone hurt you.
At this point he may start talking sports, about the meet you missed last week and some guy who broke a school record. Don’t be distracted. Get closer. He will go, “What?” and look at you funny, like he’s afraid he has dandruff. He will start drumming his fingers on his leg. Tell him you want him to kiss you. If he laughs nervously, wonder if your sister was right and ask him again. Wait for it. It’s coming. He may look like he’s about to bolt, but he won’t. He will pitch forward and grind his mouth against your mouth. His kiss will feel like a fist. Don’t pull back, even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts. Notice every detail: his teeth nicking your gums; his tongue like a slug in your mouth; the way your tears slide sideways and tickle your frostbitten ears.
Step 2—Get drunk. If your mother doesn’t keep alcohol in the house because she is pregnant, call up the girl do
wn the road and invite yourself over. Make small talk with the grandma while the girl sneaks wine coolers up to her room. The wine coolers will taste better than vodka. They will taste like punch, making is easier to chug one down like water at the end of a race. The girl will gawk in amazement and ask if everything’s okay. This is your chance to tell her about your humiliation and pain. Show her your lips, still raw and sore. Tell her your teeth hurt, too. The girl will offer you her wine cooler and say it’s not your fault—you are the boy’s first real girlfriend. There was Tara somebody in seventh grade, but that doesn’t count because it only lasted three days. Say something funny. Come up with a nickname for the boy, Hoover or Lizard. Apoco-Lips. Laughing will make you feel better. Reach for the wine cooler and act surprised that it’s gone. If the girl isn’t afraid of getting caught, she will go downstairs for more.
While she is away, use the opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of friends. Think about how the girl risking everything to get you another wine cooler meets all of the qualifications. Think about how you should be home, working on your process essay. Wonder if your sister is writing it for you. Stumble around the room, examining the girl’s possessions: posters of wizards and dragons; ceramic angels, their hands folded in prayer; a jar of colored rocks; a mirror covered in lipstick kisses. Think about how this girl would do anything to be your best friend. Remember how rejection feels, how it felt being alone. Give in to your sorrow.
The In-Between Page 11
