Cage of Bone

  I sat down at the table across from Katherine and noticed that her wrists were bare. No sign of stitches or slashes. She looked like she was doing okay. Better than I was.

  “Mom’s a big girl, Ronnie, she can take care of herself. You can’t wear yourself out trying to keep her in line. Fuck, you’re the kid here, not her.”

  “I’m sixteen. Hardly a kid”, I said.

  “You really need to get your own life and forget about her.”

  “I do have my own life,” I interrupted. “I was at a party tonight and everything. God, Shelly Russell is such a bitch. What did you ever do to piss her off so much?”

  Katherine waved her hand in dismissal. “Don’t worry about her. She’s nothing.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, she’s not ragging on you every two seconds. If she comes near me again, I’ll kick the shit out of her.”

  “Stop talking like that,” Katherine said, her eyes flashing. “I don’t even know you anymore.”

  Katherine’s room drew me in. I couldn’t stay away. Even when the rest of my life was falling to pieces, I could come in here and pretend that everything was back to normal. Sometimes, when I first got up in the morning and wasn’t quite awake, I would stumble in here and ask her what I should wear that day or what the weather was supposed to be like and then I would notice the perfectly-made bed and the air of emptiness and it would hit me all over again. She’d been gone for three months now. How long would it take for me to accept that dead was forever?

  I had to get a grip and move on. Everybody else had. The only person at school who even mentioned Katherine’s name to me was that psycho bitch Shelly Russell. Nobody who mattered seemed to even care anymore. All it took was a few weeks and a person’s whole existence could be forgotten, just like that.

  I sat down at Katherine’s desk and started rummaging through her papers. I found her English essay on sibling rivalry in Shakespearean drama, 15 pages held together with a paperclip. Her handwriting was big and round and bold, all loops and whirls.

  I started to read the essay. Seeing her thoughts down on paper made me feel close to her again but the words began to dance in front of my eyes and I could barely keep my head up.

  My arms were too heavy, I couldn’t move. The shore was so far away. I’d never make it. Swim, swim, my mind was screaming but my body didn’t listen. I was sinking, the depths swallowing me whole, my mouth filling with the bitter taste of iron. I spat it out.

  I was surrounded by blood, ripples of it spilling out in all directions. Katherine appeared as I began to sink. She walked across the surface with her wrists opened, filling the lake with each beat of her heart. Stop it, I screamed at her but the blood came anyway. There was nothing I could do.

 

  Chapter Eight

  “Thanks a lot for abandoning me at the party Saturday,” Danielle said. “Some friend you are.” She had been waiting at my locker Monday morning, looking all pissed off at me.

  “Sorry. Something happened and I had to leave suddenly.” I struggled with my lock and finally got it open on the third try.

  “Hmmph,” said Danielle, crossing her arms.

  “Look, I really didn’t mean to leave you high and dry. Blame Shelly Russell. That stupid bitch started bugging me and I had to deck her.”

  “Oh my God,” Danielle gasped. “What happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s over now.” I pulled down my binder and my textbooks and slammed my locker shut. “That’s why I don’t go to parties. I should’ve just stayed at home.”

  My apology had apparently done the trick with Danielle and she was back to her usual hyper self.

  “Don’t say that. The next one will be better, you’ll see. I hear Pete Stephens is having one this Friday night. We should go.”

  “No way. I’m not going through that hell again. We’ll have to bond some other way.”

  I had almost made it to the cafeteria at lunchtime when I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. One of Shelly’s little groupies was leaning up against the door to the cafeteria. No doubt she was waiting for me.

  “Hey Ronnie,” she sneered. “Shelly’s going to kick your ass. You’d better lay low if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Or what? Shelly’s going to break my knees? I don’t know what her problem but she needs to leave me the fuck alone.”

  The girl blocked the door and wouldn’t let me past. “Is it true that you’re a slut too, like your sister?”

  “If you don’t stop spreading these lies about my sister, I will kick the shit out of you.”

  “Ooh, you’re so tough. I’m shaking.” She held up her hand and pretended to be quivering.

  “Okay, you’re so smart. Tell me what the deal is with Shelly. If I’m going to be hated I at least deserve to know why.”

  “Maybe your sister should have thought twice before stealing guys away from other girls. Especially from Shelly. She was so pissed off when Jamie Holloway dumped her.”

  I bought a hamburger and a large fry from the cafeteria and sat down at an empty table. To be honest, the burger was more soy than beef but it tasted okay. Anything tastes good if you smother it with mustard. Between news of the fight and my usual fuck off and die uniform, I was guaranteed to be left alone during the whole lunch period. Today I was wearing my Ramones T-shirt and a multi-zippered denim jacket with my schoolgirl kilt and my combat boots.

  At least now I knew why Shelly had such a hate on for Katherine, if what the little groupie snitch had said was true. I found it a little hard to believe though because Katherine never had a problem finding boyfriends, so it sounded pretty unlikely that she had stolen this guy away from Shelly. She didn’t need Shelly’s leftovers.

  “Hi Ronnie,” Griffin said. “Can I sit here? If you want me to leave you alone, that’s okay.”

  It took me a second to pull myself from my thoughts. I hadn’t even noticed him standing there. “Oh hi,” I said. “Sit down. I’m almost done though.”

  Griffin took a seat and started munching on a hot dog, ketchup dripping with every bite. “Word is that Shelly’s nose is broken. She didn’t come to school today because of the swelling. You sure did a number on her.”

  “She deserved it. But I didn’t hit her that hard.”

  “Whatever she said sure set you off.”

  I let out a long sigh and crumpled up my hamburger wrapper. I did not want to get into this with Griffin but he wasn’t going to give me any peace until I opened up and shared all the gory details. “Shelly was insulting my sister so I set her straight.”

  “Danielle told me about what happened to Katherine. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to say anything because you never mentioned it first. I figured you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “I didn’t. I still don’t. I just wish people would shut up about it and mind their own business. Some things are private.”

  Mom was working the late shift at the restaurant tonight so I was home alone, every light in the place blazing and the TV blaring. I was lonely but I couldn’t exactly pick up the phone and ask Danielle over. If she visited now, when I was alone, she’d soon expect to come over when my Mom was home too. All I needed was the whole world to know about Mom’s drinking problem, on top of all the rumors about Katherine. If I couldn’t call Danielle, I could at least try to find the mystery guy from the photo.

  There were three Holloways in the phone book. All I had to do was call up each of them and find this Jamie guy. It should be simple but my palms were all sweaty when I picked up the receiver.

  The first call was a dud but I got lucky on the second. I reached Jamie’s grandmother and she told me his number was unlisted but when I explained that I was a friend of his from school and I had some questions about our homework assignment, she opened right up and gave me the number. Thanks, Grandma!

  It took a few jumping jacks and half a dozen chocolate chip cookies for me to get up the courage to call him. He agreed to meet me at M
cDonalds in an hour. I gave my hair a quick douse of hairspray and headed out the door.

  I recognized him as soon as he walked in the restaurant and he was definitely Katherine’s type: tall, blonde and quarterback-like. A blue leather West Hill Secondary School jacket was straining across his very broad shoulders. No wonder I didn’t know him already.

  I waved him over and he sat down across from me. He had to scrunch his six-foot, three-inch body into a booth built for someone much smaller.

  “I can see the resemblance,” he said. “You look a lot like your sister.”

  “Really?” I replied, feeling my face heat up in embarrassment.

  “You mentioned you had some questions about Katherine.”

  I took a deep breath and wiped my palms on my thighs. “Somebody told me she stole you away from Shelly Russell. Is that true?”

  Jamie laughed. “Who told you that crap? I dumped Shelly three weeks before I started dating Katherine. She had nothing to do with it.”

  “Maybe you should clear that up with Shelly,” I replied. “She’s making my life a living hell, calling Katherine names and being a bitch about the whole thing. I had to punch her out last weekend because she wouldn’t shut up. I might have broken her nose.”

  “Wow, that would really piss her off even more. Looks are the most important thing to her. Shelly didn’t like Katherine because she was pretty.”

  I had so many questions. “Did you date Katherine for very long? I have a strip of photos of the two of you from the machine at the mall. You looked happy.”

  “We were for a few months,” he said, his mood darkening. “Then one day things just changed. I was working late one Saturday night at the Roxy Theatre and had to do clean up after the movie. It must have been about the start of April. Katherine was going to a party with her friends but she promised to meet me at midnight but she never showed. I called her the next day but she wouldn’t come to the phone.”

  “Did she ever tell you what happened?”

  “No, that’s the weird thing. After that night she wouldn’t let me touch her or kiss her or anything. It’s like something just snapped. We went out a few more times but then it just fizzled out.

  “So you only wanted to date her if she put out?”

  “No, it wasn’t like that. I guess I didn’t explain it right. Katherine changed all of a sudden. She didn’t return my calls, she hardly ever wanted to see me and if I tried to touch her, she totally freaked out. Crying and slapping me and yelling at me to leave her alone. She finally dumped me completely.”

  “Maybe she had met someone else and was trying to let you down nicely.”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve had girls break up with me before but this was different. Something weird was going on with her.”

 

  Chapter Nine

  Mr. Tanner must have been undergoing psychoanalysis. That’s the only explanation I had for his sudden need for the whole class to start journal writing. Or the school board actually thought we would be better citizens of the world if we wrote about our lives. Like thirty tenth graders talking about what they ate for lunch was going to prove anything.

  I stared at my journal. All brand spanking new, not a mark in it. And it was going to stay that way. I had nothing to write about.

  Mr. Tanner wandered the classroom, practically salivating at the prospect of all these innermost thoughts on the page. I looked at everyone scribbling their little hearts out as if their lives actually meant something.

  Of course there would be hell to pay come Friday when I handed in an empty notebook. Tanner would be heartbroken. For some reason he thought I had something valuable to share with the world.

  “Ronnie, what’s the matter?” Mr. Tanner had reached my desk. “You haven’t written a thing and the period’s almost over.”

  I shrugged. “Nothing to say, I guess.”

  “Write about anything,” he exclaimed. “What are your plans for the future? What are your dreams?”

  Okay. Now I knew he was nuts. Next we’d be joining hands and singing folk songs. Gag me with a spoon, fer sure, fer sure.

  Katherine’s friend Jessica was standing at my locker when I went to switch my books for the next period. Jessica was now the head cheerleader and took her duties very seriously. The girl really needed to get a life because she was so excited to see me, like we were long lost buddies.

  “Oh my God, Ronnie,” she squealed, bouncing up and down on her toes. “You look totally cool. How do you get your hair to stand up like that? You should be in a music video.”

  Okay, something was definitely going on. “Hi Jess, what’s up?”

  “We have a vacancy on the cheerleading squad that needs to be filled. Now I can’t just automatically put you on the team, even though it would be totally awesome to have you, but I wanted to personally invite you to tryouts next week. I can fit you for a uniform right there.”

  “All I have to do is show up for the auditions and I’m in?”

  Jessica nodded. “Well, you should have a routine ready. But I’m sure you know tons of moves already, just from watching Katherine, right?”

  “I guess I can remember a few. But what makes you think I want to be a cheerleader?”

  Jessica stared at me in shock. “What girl doesn’t want to be a cheerleader?”

  Danielle didn’t believe me when I told her about Jessica’s offer. We were sitting in the cafeteria eating fries when I dropped the bomb.

  “You’re not seriously considering becoming a cheerleader, are you?” Danielle exclaimed.

  I grabbed another fry, dipped it in gravy and considered her disbelief. “What, you don’t think I’d do a good job?”

  Danielle shook her head. “Not to be mean or anything but you are so not the cheerleader type. You hate people, you hate socializing and come off it, you just don’t look the part at all.”

  “I don’t know if I like that assessment. It may be true that I am not a social butterfly but I have been known to get excited about a few things.”

  “Yeah, at pissing off people.” Danielle took a swig of her drink and continued. “It’s not like you’re all hot for football. And you can’t stand airheads. You’d strangle most of those girls within a week.”

  I pushed the fries away and sighed. It would be nice to be close to Katherine’s friends. And being on the squad might help me find out what was going on in Katherine’s life. “I probably won’t do it but it would be nice to fuck with people’s heads. I mean, come on, me a cheerleader? What kind of statement would that make?"

  The day went from weird to worse. I had just stepped out of the front doors after the final bell when I noticed my dad’s truck idling at the curb. It was pointless to try and ignore him so I walked over to the driver’s side and tapped on the window. Dad was leaning back against the headrest with his eyes closed, a fine web of lines lacing their way across his forehead. He looked like hell. My knocks startled him and he awoke with a jerk.

  “Ronnie,” he said, giving his head a little shake. “Must have dozed off there.”

  “Whatever”. I rolled my eyes and dropped my duffel bag to the road. My shoulder was already aching from lugging around twenty pounds of textbooks. “What do you want?”

  “Meg’s family is having a baby shower for her this Sunday at our place. It would mean a lot to me if you would come. It would be special for Meg too. She really wants to get to know you.”

  I sighed and picked up my bag, ready to escape. “I don’t think it’s very fair to Mom if I start being all buddy-buddy with Meg. Just because she’s a part of your life doesn’t mean she has to be a part of mine.”

  “So that’s it, end of story?” Dad’s eyes flashed with anger. “You’re never going to give me a chance, are you?”

  “Give you a chance? Give me a break,” I laughed. “You made your choice, remember? And you didn’t pick me.”

  If I really was going to try out for the cheerleading squad, I needed to wrap my head around the wh
ole concept. Yes, I had watched Katherine practice countless times but I never memorized any cheers.

  My hands trembled a bit as I pulled the uniform off the hanger and smoothed it out on Katherine’s bed. A short black pleated skirt and a red V-neck sweater with the O.S.C.V.I. crest stitched to the front. The school slogan mocked me in Latin. Dum Vivimus Vivamus. As we live, let us live.

  There was no living now, that’s for sure. That black weight of grief still pressed upon my chest as heavy as ever, each breath a gasp like I was drowning.

  I pulled off my ratty punk T-shirt and slipped on the sweater, gazing at my reflection in Katherine’s full-length mirror. The sweater fit me, the fine knit accenting what little I had in the line of breasts.

  I could feel Katherine eye’s upon me, sensing her in the room before I even turned around. “How long have you been watching me?” I demanded. “I feel like a goof.”

  “You look good,” Katherine said, her eyes raking me from head to toe. Her long, blonde hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, which swayed from side to side as she spoke. “If only you’d lose that ridiculous hairstyle. Get over yourself and just be normal.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair. “What’s your problem? My hair is great.”

  “Yeah, if you’re some big rock star maybe but you’re just a kid from the middle of nowhere. What are you trying to prove?”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be ‘normal’. What the hell good did it do you?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Ronnie. Don’t go there.” Katherine paced around her room, agitation tightening her face into a mask.

  “I’ll never know, will I?” I tugged off the uniform sweater and whipped it against the mirror. “Because it’s all a big secret. Why won’t you tell me what happened?” But she didn’t answer me and when I turned around, I was alone.

 

  Chapter Ten

  Ronnie, are you up?” Mom shook me awake, yanking off my warm, cocoon of blankets in the process. From the stink of booze seeping out of her pores, I knew she was drunk.