Sister Pact

by Stacie Ramey

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I feel it. And because when I’m with him, I’m myself. I don’t have to keep proving myself. Being me is good enough.”

  I looked at her. Leah feeling like she wasn’t good enough? That thought blew my mind. I felt this immediate gratitude for whoever this guy was whom she loved. The one that Leah let fix her. “Wow. That sounds amazing.”

  “I’m thinking of giving up dancing.”

  I put my hand over my mouth. “Oh my God, Dad is going to freak!”

  She laughed. “I know. But I’m so tired. And I just want to be. You know? I want to be left alone.”

  We walked back to the house.

  “When are you going to tell them?”

  “Maybe this weekend.” She looked nervous but also kind of excited. I remember I thought she was so brave, and I wanted to be like her. “That’s the point.”

  “What is?”

  “I don’t want to end up like they are, with the wrong person. I want to love and be loved and have that be the most important thing. Because this kind of love I’m talking about, it possesses you.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “No, I’m not explaining it right. It’s that nothing matters other than being with this person. Even the things you thought were important aren’t. Every second you aren’t with this person is like being slowly suffocated.”

  She put her hands around my neck and faked-choked me till we both almost fell over laughing.

  I remember thinking my sister really trusted me to tell me this before she told my parents. Even if she didn’t say who, I’d know soon anyway. Everyone would when they saw what she gave up to be with him. Whoever he was.

  When we turned the corner, we saw two extra cars in the driveway. Two was wrong. Even one extra car was. Mom wasn’t supposed to be here till tomorrow.

  Dr. Applegate interrupts again. “You there, Allie? You see how it started?”

  I nod.

  “And you know why you started the plan? What made you?”

  I open my eyes and looked at Dr. Applegate head-on. “Love.”

  Her eyes look at me like she totally gets me. She nods. “Okay, Allie, time’s up.”

  • • •

  Thankfully Mom doesn’t feel the need to fill the ride back from Dr. Applegate’s office with conversation. It isn’t till we pull into the driveway that she asks, “You want Chinese food for dinner? I could run and get you lo mein.” Mom unlocks the front door. “Just let me grab the coupon book.”

  I’m just about to answer when I see him standing there—Dad. In the hallway. When did he get here? And more importantly, why?

  “David?” Mom asks. “Did you tell me you’d be coming over?”

  “I saw what you did in your room.” His face is tight and worn, as if commanding this platoon is killing him. “Come here, Allie. We need to talk.”

  My whole body wants to turn and run out the front door. Sophie stands next to me, not wanting to commit until I do. My little soldier.

  “Let’s find out what this is about.” Mom walks into the living room, allowing him to take a seat in his spot. It burns me that he still gets to have one after he left us. Just like it burns me that he still has a key to the house.

  “We need to talk about the paintings.”

  First pain. Then heat. Then hate. How could he? The paintings are mine. They have no right.

  “I think your paintings are keeping you out of your studio…”

  “They’re not.”

  “Let me finish. We could store them somewhere.”

  “No!”

  “Just until you’re ready to see them again.” He holds his hands in front of him, two twin stop signs like he’s negotiating with a crazy person. Like he’s trying to talk me off the ledge. “Then we’ll bring them back.”

  Playing Dad is like playing poker against the house. I can’t win. He holds all the cards except the ones he deals to me—the losing ones. Then he smiles as he collects his chips. And I sit here, alone, wishing like mad for a little backup. Not the Mom folding her hand so she can get this over with and get back to her pills backup either. I need my sister.

  And then it hits me. Maybe I do hold some of the cards.

  “If you take my paintings, I’ll stop doing art altogether. You can’t make me. If you touch them, I swear, my painting days will be done.”

  Dad turns greenish gray—camo colors. He didn’t have a sound battle plan. I turn and walk up the stairs. They can talk about this all they want. I’m out.

  He can’t make me paint. I’ve finally got him. But in reality it’s not much of a threat. It’s not as if I’m creating much anyway. Just like that, the wind goes out of my sails. I open my backpack and take out my new artillery. My Delsym. Piper said I had to find my art. Leah too. I open the top and take a big gulp. Then another one. Then I close the bottle and put it away.

  As I wait for the cough medicine to kick in, I open my backpack and look at my books. I need to face my homework; it’s building up already.

  Twenty-five minutes later I hear Mom come up the stairs, but I act like I don’t.

  “I’m sorry about that.” She deposits the quart of lo mein and a pair of chopsticks on my desk.

  I don’t look at her. She doesn’t deserve it.

  “Your paintings are safe.” Mom puts the key to my studio on my desk. “But go see for yourself if you like.” She walks away, her steps sounding more confident than she has in years.

  I close my books and look out my window. My studio sits waiting. I know she’s baiting me, egging me on, but also, maybe she’s right. I have to face them someday, don’t I?

  I walk down the stairs. My legs feeling like jelly and the aftereffects of the drugs from earlier are still in my system—maybe fueling my bravery a little. But it’s not like Mom faces things head-on either. I grab a flashlight from the kitchen drawer and play with the pink Converse sneaker on the key chain. The key feels good in my hands, like it’s missed me.

  I open the mudroom door, ignore the chill that hits me, and make my way to my studio. I head down the path, the flashlight shining ahead, though I could walk there with my eyes closed. When I get to the door, I stop. Do I really want to do this?

  I put my key in the lock and jiggle the door. The door swells and sticks when it’s damp, and it’s been a very wet summer. I push the door open. Stale air hits me. The light from the moon shines in the room, making the sheets over the paintings look like ghosts.

  I walk toward one, my hand stopping just short of pulling the sheet off, exposing it for what it is, when I hear Leah.

  “Hey,” she says. She’s behind me, pressed against the wall, dressed in her black skinny jeans and Sean’s school jersey, also black. When she steps in front of the window, the moonlight bounces off her soft, blond hair, making it glow. I can’t help feeling like someone punched the air out of me as I look at her. My fingers go to my mouth. I want to believe she’s really here so badly. I want to. I want to. I want to.

  She puts her arm around me and pulls me away from the paintings. She nods toward the covered canvases. “Maybe we should start with something else first. Something easier. Like the montage on my computer.”

  “The one I’m not in?” I ask, trying to keep my voice from sounding whiny.

  “You’re on my computer,” she says. “It’s not like you’re not on there at all.”

  My eyes trail down her arm that’s draped over me—the one that can’t really be there. I don’t trust my voice, but it’s the only one I have. “It’s not the same.”

  She covers my hand with hers, which is more energy than flesh. She turns my hand over, exposing the screen of my cell phone. I watch as she navigates till she gets on the Internet and her Dropbox. She opens a photo album with her and me in it. Our fingers stretch a photo till it f
ills the face of my phone. We were modeling her clothes and posing. I wore the red mini; she wore the blue one. It was two weeks before the party. She let me try on her life that day and then, at the party, her friends.

  “Remember these?” she asks. Leah looks at me. “You were always with me. Even when I didn’t act like that.”

  I don’t want to argue with her—it doesn’t seem right to argue with a ghost—but she’s wrong. I’m not with her, not the way I wanted to be. I was always in a back file. Never up front—like she was for me.

  “You don’t understand. Everything had to be perfect,” she says. “I was doing what you do, Allie. I was painting a picture. That’s all.”

  “And I messed that up?”

  “No. You just weren’t part of that particular…composition.”

  Since when did she use art terms in conversation? I turn away.

  “Give me your cell again.” She puts her hand out.

  “What?”

  “Just give it to me.”

  Part of me waits for it to drop on the floor—proof that she’s not here with me—but it doesn’t. She pushes the buttons to unlock my phone since she knows the password. Because she set it. She holds up the face for me to see. My wallpaper, a picture of Emery and me on the first day of school. “See, I’m not on yours.”

  “That’s different.”

  “But you’re the wallpaper on my phone. Just the two of us, remember?”

  I do. She took it three days before she killed herself. Three days. I blink back tears. How could everything have been so normal three days before? How could she have been so normal?

  “Remember the picture? Our picture?”

  Of course I remember. I remember every single time Leah decided to be nice to me. It was a close-up of me and her, arms around each other, her telling me something funny, me laughing.

  “Then show me. Where’s your phone?” I ask.

  “I can’t.”

  “You won’t.”

  My phone vibrates in her hands. “Hey, who’s Nick?”

  I put my hand out. Just like her to read my messages. No boundaries. Except when it came to her secrets. Hers were important. Not mine. I shake my head. I am so stupid.

  “I feel so out of your life,” she says.

  She is, because she left it.

  “But I’m back now, and I want to stay as long as I can.”

  As long as she can? She just got here and she’s already talking about leaving? Anger blazes through me. “We had a deal. You were supposed to tell me.”

  “I didn’t want you involved. I wanted you safe. And if you’d kept quiet, if you’d just kept your head, they’d never have known you were supposed to be involved.”

  Is she kidding? I fire my words at her, launch them like missiles. “A pact. It was a suicide pact. That means we agreed we wouldn’t do it without talking with the other one. You were never supposed to do it without me.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Why?”

  She sighs. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You didn’t even try to make me.”

  Leah shakes her head. I can tell she’s trying not to cry. And she’s right. What’s the point of beating this dead horse? She did it. It’s over. There are no do-overs in suicide. I put my hands over my face. I don’t know why, but I don’t want her to see me cry—like she doesn’t deserve to since she left me.

  “Let’s not talk about this,” Leah says. “Let’s talk about the art. You want me to help find your colors? Your concentration?”

  I nod.

  “Okay. Then let’s think. Why don’t you use the paintings? My paintings?”

  “I can’t. It’s too hard…”

  “Okay, then you just have to figure out something else you love that you’d want to paint twelve times. Although, compared to me, they’d all pale, wouldn’t they? Hey, that’s funny…pale…because, you know…”

  I stiffen.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s not funny. You being dead is not funny.”

  “I’m sorry. I was just trying for a little levity. Get it? Levity…”

  I walk to the door, then turn to face her. “Can you tell me why?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “To me it does. It matters a lot.”

  Leah walks over to the wall and looks out the window. She traces a drop of condensation with her finger. “It all seems so stupid now. I was mixed up. It was stupid. I was stupid.”

  “Was it that guy? The secret one?”

  “There’s no secret guy. There used to be when I was stupid and thought love was the only thing that mattered. God, I was an idiot.”

  “What happened to him?”

  She looks at the ceiling. “Nothing happened to him. It’s what happened to me. I changed.”

  “Why?”

  She looks straight at me. “You have to ask? You were there. You saw. Everyone acts as if love fixes all. But that’s bullshit. Love kills more than it saves.”

  My breath leaves me. I don’t want to finish the Cape memory. I don’t want to see how it went down, but I know what she means. I do. “What about Vanessa? Was she why?” I ask.

  Her eyes go to slits. “You’re worried about all the wrong things—why you’re not on my computer, why I did it, if those nasty little rumors are true. I don’t need to answer to you.”

  First pain, then heat—then hate. Just like Dad, she slays me. She storms over to me but stops when she sees my hands. She takes them in hers. Her face softens. She points to my fingernails, now painted Essie Mint Candy Apple. “Awww, pretty Cape colors.”

  I shake my head and let my tears race down my cheeks. Cape colors.

  She moves my hair behind my ears. “Forget about me. Go on with your life.” She shows me her nails, the polish some color I don’t even remember the name of, now peeling. “I’m last year’s colors. And I always will be. I’ll never change.” Tears run down her face, leaving angry red, raised marks in their path. “And now I’m stuck here.” She looks around. “In this dark studio you never even visit anymore.”

  I admit, that makes me feel a little guilty.

  “I don’t want you to go. I want you with me,” I tell her.

  “Find your art. Soon. Or Dad’s going to get rid of me.” Her eyes crawl over the shrouded paintings.

  “I know. I’m trying.”

  Her hands fall on my arms. “Listen, I know you don’t understand why I left you, and I’m sorry about that. But you can save me now. Isn’t that good?”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “You have to try.” Leah puts her face so close to mine, I can smell the cherry Chap on her lips. “It’s the only way.”

  I feel in my pocket—the second pill from my rescue dose already in there.

  “It doesn’t have to be just those. It could be other ones too. Art is something you have to sacrifice for. I did—for dance.”

  I think about the diet pills. And the pills she didn’t take but should have. I think about what Piper said about finding my art. “I’m worried…”

  “Just try it once. See if it works. Then maybe your art will come back on its own.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good. Now let’s get you to sleep.”

  She gets in front of me and takes my hand, leads me through the door, back through the house, and up the stairs to my room. When I get there, Max and Emery are waiting. I think it’s cool they keep showing up together for me.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Where were you?” Max asks.

  “In my studio.”

  “That’s great, Al,” Emery says. “How’d it go?”

  “Good.” I smile.

  Em jumps on my bed, her book for AP lit in hand. “This totally sucks. You’re so lucky you�
��re not taking this.”

  “Yeah, who’s going to write my essays?” Max asks.

  I lower myself onto the bed next to Em and close my eyes.

  “Good night, Allie,” Leah whispers.

  “Good night,” I whisper back—only Max and Em think I’m talking to them.

  Chapter 9

  Art class. I’ve dreaded this all day.

  “Hey,” Nick calls, his hands shoved in his pockets, his gaze fixed on the scene in front of him.

  “What’s up?” I ask, but by the time I make it to the back of the room, I realize what he’s looking at, and then all I’m thinking about are the three easels set up like executioner’s rifles, locked and loaded. I touch the pill I stole from Mom that’s stashed in my pocket.

  “Ugh. We’re doing this now?” I ask.

  “Apparently.” Nick groans. “Piper seems cool with it.”

  I look at her arranging her paints, a smile on her face, and I can’t help but wonder if she indulged a little before class. She turns to face me, as if she read my mind. She winks, and I guess I’ve got my answer. It’s what all the greats do apparently. Who am I to question it?

  “Okay, how are my best students doing?” Mr. Kispert asks as he comes to join us. “I was thinking that today you don’t have to work on your concentration—unless you want to. Feel free to just paint. Sometimes when you’re trying too hard to find your idea, you just need to throw paint on the canvas and get things going.”

  He looks at me when he says this, and once again, I want to disappear.

  I open my backpack and take out my Gatorade. My fingers go into my pocket again, where the Xanax lives—an Indian summer–orange oval. I remember thinking it looked like a malformed SweeTart when I took it out of Mom’s bottle. The one she thinks is so cleverly hidden in her underwear drawer.

  Something screams at me not to do this. Dr. Applegate saying she believed I didn’t want to do it. Mom in the car: Don’t leave me, Allie. Stay. Leah begging me to bring her back. I honestly don’t know who to listen to.

  I look at the paints in front of me, and it’s like I’ve become color illiterate. I dab some red. Yellow. White. Black. Blue. Straight from the tube, they look like fingerpaints—bright and brash and ugly. I take my brush and start to mix them.