“Hmmmm,” she’d said, clicking her damn pen, and that was the end of that. No drugs for me, just lots of talking. If I’d known things would have ended up like this, I would have stayed on the vomit pills.
“Did any of the things that have happened to you at school have to do with Julia?”
She knew they did. She knew. I could practically hear her itching to ask more questions and click her stupid pen.
“No,” I said, and we sat in silence after that. I wanted to get my notebook out and write to Julia but I knew she’d be all over that and I didn’t want her ruining it with her questions.
When forty-seven of our fifty minutes were up, she said, “About the notebook you carry. Is it a journal?”
I ignored her, because I knew better than to say, “No, it’s letters to Julia.” The amount of pen clicking that would produce—it made my head hurt just thinking about it.
“Amy, before you go, let’s talk about choices for just a second.”
Too bad I knew she wasn’t going to be asking me if I wanted to choose to stop seeing her.
“Have you been to Julia’s grave since the funeral?” she said in a totally mild voice, like she was asking about the weather or something. I looked at her then, and I…
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to. The only thing that would have come out would have been a scream.
“Maybe you should think about going sometime, or consider why you haven’t,” she said, and then told me she’d see me next week.
How did she know I haven’t been? How?
130 days
J,
Laurie wants me to come see you, but I—even at the funeral, I couldn’t look at you. Everyone else did, filed by in a snaking line, the church loud with tears and footsteps. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand up, couldn’t join the line. You were lying in a shiny wooden box, and it was so wrong that you were there that I couldn’t move. I just sat there, staring. I wish I hadn’t been able to breathe.
But I was, and I did, and I rode in silence in the back of my parents’ car to the cemetery. I had to leave when they put—when that shiny box was lowered into the ground. I went and sat on the back of the car. I stared at the sun until my eyes hurt, till everything was a bright, painful blur.
Your mother left before the service was over. I know because I could still hear the minister’s voice off in the distance. Off where you were. Your mother was crying, leaning against a woman I knew was your aunt Ellen (she looked just like you described her, right down to the mole on her neck). When she saw me, she stopped crying.
She stopped crying and looked at me. She didn’t tell me I shouldn’t have come. She didn’t have to. She didn’t tell me it was all my fault. She didn’t have to do that either. She just looked at me. I wish she had done something—said something, anything. But she didn’t. She just looked at me, and then she turned away.
I haven’t been to see you because I can’t. I just can’t but…
But Laurie knew, J. She knows how weak I am.
SIXTEEN
I CLOSED MY NOTEBOOK and ignored Mom’s glances at it. I knew she wouldn’t ask what I was writing.
And she didn’t. Instead, all the way home I had to answer questions about school. Ever since I fixed Julia’s locker, I get questions from her and Dad all the time.
So I talked.
I said, “Yes, classes are fine.”
I said, “Yes, I’m trying to make friends.” (I don’t know how to. I should have tried at Pinewood, maybe. But I couldn’t. I didn’t deserve to, and besides, without Julia, without alcohol, I was shrunken, silent, back to being that little kid who knew the right words would never come.)
All the way home it was like that, question after question, and I knew that when Mom and I went inside there would be praise over me doing my homework and putting my dishes in the sink after dinner and maybe even a hug or two. All those things I was once so sure I wanted.
Now all I want is for them to stop, for Mom and Dad to be like they were, happy and in love and me in orbit around them.
They still haven’t said a word about what I told them about Julia the other night. They still won’t say what I did. What I am.
“I want to…I need to go to the cemetery,” I said to Mom as she pulled into the driveway. She looked over at me, and I knew I had to say more.
“Laurie said I should.” I thought that would be enough, the magic words, but she just kept looking at me.
“You can call and ask her, if you want,” I added, and thought about how I used to dream of Mom looking at me like she was now, listening to me. Wanting to hear more. Wanting to hear me.
I never wanted it like this, though.
Mom bit her lip. “Do you want to go?”
“I’ve never been to see her. I…I haven’t even seen her grave. The day of the funeral I couldn’t—”
“Amy,” my mother said gently, so gently, like those three letters were fragile, lovable. I stared down at my hands. They were balled into fists on my lap, and I knew if I moved they would too. Once upon a time I would have given anything—and I mean anything, even nights out partying with Julia—to hear her talk to me like that.
“You don’t have to do this to yourself,” she said.
I knew if I moved something would happen. I could feel it inside me, in my fists still clenched in my lap. I had to push down a surge of something bitter clawing at my throat and burning behind my eyes.
“Laurie really did say I should do it.”
“I believe you, and I’m sure she has her reasons. But Laurie wasn’t there the day of the funeral. She didn’t see…she didn’t see your face. She didn’t see you in the car, in the church. When your father and I came back to the car after, I thought…I thought, ‘That’s what a ghost looks like.’ You were so—” She broke off suddenly, breath shuddering.
I looked over at her. She was staring straight ahead, blinking hard and fast. The edges of her eyes were red.
“Please take me,” I said, loving and hating how upset she was, loving and hating that I’d caused it.
She did.
When we got there, she agreed to let me go in alone but wouldn’t let me walk back home by myself. “I know it’s not that far, but I’m waiting for you. I won’t leave you.”
I didn’t want those words from her, not like that, not there, but at the same time I wanted them so badly that if I could have plucked them from the air, swallowed them down, and let them swim inside me, I would have.
I got out of the car and walked toward Julia.
I was the only person around, my footsteps the only sound. And then I was there, I saw where Julia was. Is. It was so…it was so bare. It was just ground and a stone, and there were others just like it right next to it, all around it. All around me, everywhere I looked, there was grass and stones and I—
I couldn’t look at it. I couldn’t bear to see the piece of ground that was hers, the stone with her name on it. I turned away and walked through the cemetery, pretended I couldn’t see all those stones or the too neatly trimmed grass. I came out at the other end of the parking lot, Mom’s car out of sight.
I wanted to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. I could feel them, a hot burn stinging my eyes again, but something else, memories of that last night, Julia’s last night, were clawing at me, leaving me standing there frozen.
I don’t know how long I stood there, but after a while a car pulled into the lot. It was bright yellow, driven by an older man. When he got out, he looked as out of place as his car did, stood hesitating like he was waiting for something. Hoping for something. When he realized I was looking at him, he walked into the cemetery.
Another car pulled into the lot, but I didn’t look. I just kept watching the man. His shoulders slumped and his head bowed as soon as he started walking among the graves. He looked like he belonged then.
“Amy?”
I turned around.
Julia’s mother was there, staring
at me like I was a bad dream. It was a weekday, almost evening, and she was supposed to be at work, her hair shellacked into place and her Assistant Store Manager tag clipped onto her smock. I knew her schedule like I knew Julia’s. CostRite Pharmacy owned her now. She wasn’t supposed to be standing just a few feet away from me.
But she was, leaning against her car like it was the only thing holding her up. There was a bunch of plastic-wrapped yellow flowers in her other hand. They had to be for Julia, but they were so wrong.
“Julia hates yellow,” I said.
It’s true—she was convinced it made her look terrible (it didn’t)—but it wasn’t the right thing to say. It wasn’t even what I wanted to say. I hadn’t talked to Julia’s mother since the night I’d taken Julia’s hand and said everything would be okay. Why didn’t I say what I’d been trying to for so long, what I’d tried to say every time I called Julia’s house?
“She probably hates being dead more,” Julia’s mother said, pushing away from the car.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know exactly what you meant. You knew her better than I did. Are you happy now, Amy? She wouldn’t trust me with anything, even something as stupid as what color she likes, but she trusted you. She trusted you and you—”
“I know I never should have let her drive. We should have…I should have…I swear I never would have done any of it if I’d known what—”
“But you did do it. You let her drive, and now she’s gone. She’ll never turn eighteen, she’ll never finish high school. She’ll never…I’d give everything I’ve ever had or will to hear her voice again, even if it’s to tell me to go to hell. But I’ll never have that, will I?”
“I’ve tried to call, I’ve wanted to say—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, and walked toward me. When she was so close I could see her foundation cracking in the lines around her eyes, see how it didn’t hide the dark circles under them, she stopped and grabbed my arm. “I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t want to see you. I’ve lost everything because of you. Everything.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and finally, finally it came out. Finally I said it. “I’m so sorry for what I did.”
“You’re sorry?” She dropped my arm like my skin burned her. “You’re sorry? She was my world. Your words, your ‘sorry,’ what does it do? She’s still gone, and you’re still here.” She hit me with the flowers, the plastic smacking my face, petals flying into the air around us. “Keep your words. They aren’t enough. They won’t ever be enough.”
I ran then, turned and stumbled my way across the parking lot, toward Mom’s car and Mom sitting calmly inside, smiling like she was glad to see me. I said I had a headache and lay down in the backseat, pressed my face into it and wished it would swallow me whole.
130 days
I saw you, J. I saw your mother too, and she…well, what she said to me is true. Sorry is just a word, and a word can’t make things right. It can’t change what I did. It can’t bring you back.
Mom knew something happened, I guess, because when we got home, she came up to my room and checked on me every five minutes till I finally gave up and went downstairs. I floated, numb, through homework and dinner, saying yes, I was fine, when both Mom and Dad asked, and then cried the tears I couldn’t before in bed. I didn’t feel better afterward.
I knew I wouldn’t.
I can’t sleep. I’ve been lying here for hours and hours thinking about the cemetery. About your mother’s face. About what she said. About your grave.
I’m thinking about you. Remember when we went to Splash World? You totally scammed us inside and even got us onto all the best rides without waiting. We bought cotton candy and ate horrible seven-dollar hot dogs. We got our picture taken with Swimmy the Seal.
I still have the picture. I’m smiling in it. You’re standing in front of me. Your face is a blur because you’d turned toward me, the camera capturing you like you were, always in motion. The side of your mouth is open, laughing, and you’re leaning in a bit, like you’re going to rest your head on my shoulder.
You did. You always did that when I made you laugh or when someone else made you sad.
I’ve thought about that day, and about the time we tried to make caramel in your kitchen and had to open all the windows to get rid of the horrible burnt-sugar smell. I’ve thought about all the times I rode to school in your car, digging around on the floor through the pile of CDs you’d burned and how no matter which one I picked there was always at least one stupid love song that you knew all the words to. I’ve thought about all the times I lay on your bed, watching you make faces as you talked on the phone.
I’ve thought about how you would make me knock on the door and pretend to be your mother if it was a guy you didn’t want to talk to, and the way we’d laugh afterward. I’ve thought about all the times we walked down the hallways at school and you’d whisper, “Amy, you’re model tall. Model! Show it off! I didn’t loan you my T-shirt so you could do the slouchy hiding thing, you know.”
I’ve thought about what Laurie asked me.
That night, the one with the guy with mean eyes and the grain alcohol? You knew. I know that now. I can—I can say it. You knew. You knew everything. You said you were scared afterward. I know what that means. I think maybe I always did. You meant you were sorry.
I think Laurie would say that means something. I think she would say it means something big. I think she would say it means you hurt me.
I think it means you were sorry.
People aren’t just one thing, you know? They aren’t all good or all bad, and what Laurie wants me to see is true—you did hurt me—but it’s only part of the truth.
The truth is that you were strong and fierce and funny. The truth is that you had terrible taste in guys. (And in music too, you and all your love songs.) The truth is that you would loan me anything of yours I wanted—even if you’d just gotten it—and never ask for it back. I still have your “My Broom Is in the Shop” tee in my closet.
I was always afraid to wear it, but I wanted to. And you knew it. Without me ever saying so, you knew it and gave it to me.
The truth is that night, the night I picked up my bottle and swallowed grain alcohol, you knew what I was drinking when I didn’t.
The truth is that when I got sick, when I closed my eyes and faded away, you were there. You took me to the hospital. You didn’t leave me. You were there for me.
Yeah, it’s true that you never told me to stop drinking. And yeah, it’s true that you helped me drink.
But I chose to. Every time—every single time—it was always my choice. Mine. Not yours.
The truth is I’m the one who drank. I’m going to tell Laurie that next time I see her.
Maybe she’ll even listen.
SEVENTEEN
IT FIGURED that the one time I actually wanted to see Laurie she wasn’t around.
“But you just saw her two days ago,” Dad said when he picked me up after school and I asked if I could see her again.
From the way he was looking at me, I knew he and Mom had already talked to Laurie about my visit to Julia’s grave.
I gritted my teeth and said, “I know, but I need to see her again.”
I was willing to put up with anything to see the look on Laurie’s face when I blew her stupid questions about Julia back in her face.
“All right,” Dad said, but after we got home (and he’d talked to Mom, of course) he called Laurie’s office and found out that Laurie’s father is sick and she’s gone out of town. So there’s no way I can see her now, plus my appointment for next week has been canceled. It’s weird to think of Laurie having parents. I would have thought she just hatched fully grown with a clicking pen in one hand.
Mom, who was home for the afternoon because she’d given her classes the day off to work on their papers, started to suggest I go see Dr. Marks, the group therapy leader at Pinewood. Apparently he has a private practice. (I can just see it
now. Me, him, and the ever-changing parade of food in his mustache.)
I cut her off before she could finish and asked her if she wanted to go to the mall. I knew that would stop her trying to get me to see Mustache Man, and it did.
“This is wonderful,” Mom said, sounding so pleased, and I stared at her until she looked away. Looked at Dad.
Julia’s mother drove her crazy, but she wanted J in her life. She loved her so much. I’ve been thinking about her a lot since I saw her. I know it’s not possible, but I wish I could talk to her. Really talk to her, I mean. Talk to her about Julia. She knows what it’s like to miss her. She knows how wrong a world without Julia in it is and isn’t afraid to say it.
She isn’t afraid to say what’s true.
My parents, however, are.
They still haven’t said anything about what happened—about what I did—and while Mom was getting her purse I wondered if they ever will.
I could ask. I know that. But I don’t.
Mom came back and said, “Ready to go?”
“Ready,” I said, and I don’t ask because I don’t want to hear their answer. I want to pretend I could be a daughter they could want even though I know I’m not. Never have been, never will be.
As soon as we got to the mall, Mom pressed one of her charge cards into my hands and told me to go shopping.
“I know you probably don’t want to run into people from school with your mom around,” she said, a huge smile on her face. “So go have fun, buy yourself some clothes. You must be tired of wearing those outfits we got after you—before you went back to school.”
She smiled again, too wide. “Meet me in the food court in an hour and if you want to stay longer and talk to your friends, that’s fine with me. I told your father we might be late.”