Remember When #featured #AllStars

Chapter 15

"That's not true."

"Oh, please. Coop has been so hard up the guys are calling him Blue Balls Benedict, for chrissake. The poor guy's standing booty call isn't even picking up the phone anymore and everyone knows it. I'll tell you something else; everyone knows it's because you're too busy panting after Trip, following him around like a stray puppy. Face it, you're hopeless."

"Thanks a lot!"

"Oh, what? Tell me I'm wrong. Go ahead and name the last guy you went out with."

Lisa knew as well as I did that the last guy I could even consider classifying as an ex-boyfriend would be Cooper Benedict. And we had pretty much "broken up" over the summer.

"So, what? You're suddenly some big authority on relationships just because you've got a boyfriend?"

She bounded off the bed just then. "No, not at all. But I am an authority on you. And I'm trying to tell you, as your friend, that your little crush on Trip Wilmington is nothing more than a way for you to self-destruct. I'm trying to stop that from happening. Do I need to bring up The Live-Aid Incident?"

Looked like Lisa was going for the big guns.

"The Live-Aid Incident" was the name we had given to my little breakdown during the summer of 1985. It was a few weeks after my mother had left, and even though my father repeatedly tried his best to explain that she wasn't coming back, I secretly held the belief that at any moment, she'd come walking through the door.

I'd spent endless hours sitting up in the tree in front of our house, waiting with the best view down our street so I'd know the second she was on her way back home to us. I'd started collecting a leaf off that tree for every day that she was gone, storing them in a shoebox under my bed. I thought that if I wished hard enough, if I believed hard enough, she'd eventually come back. That's why, even to this very day, I can't walk by that tree without grabbing a leaf off it. I'd long since given up on thinking it was doing any good, but by then, my OCD had turned the pointless superstition into an obsessive ritual.

It wasn't until Mtv aired the Live-Aid concert that Lisa was able to coax me down from my perch in order to come watch it with her. It was practically a twenty-four-hour event, so I spent the night at her house so we could catch every minute of it.

The following day, the weirdest feeling overtook me like a tidal wave. I suddenly became paralyzed at the thought of going back to my own house. I'd finally begun to comprehend that my mother was really and truly gone, and couldn't bear to think of going back home, knowing she would never be there again.

My father had called over to the DeSantos, but Lisa's mother assured him that she didn't mind having me around and why doesn't he let me stay an extra night?

By the third day, sure that I had worn out my welcome, my father came over to walk me back home. I packed up my sleeping bag and got two steps out the DeSantos' front door when out of nowhere, a scream surged its way out of my throat; an inhuman sound that rocked my lungs and scared the ever-loving hell out of me. Before I knew what was happening, I launched into an uncontrollable temper-tantrum, just screeching bloody murder right there on the DeSantos' porch.

I must have thrown myself down on the ground because the next thing I remember is thrashing about on Lisa's front lawn, just screaming and screaming and screaming at the top of my lungs, my throat running raw from the effort. My poor father didn't know what to do and just wrapped his arms around me, trying to calm me down, saying, "It's all right, Layla! You're all right!" over and over and over again.

A few of the neighbors came out on their front steps, drawn out by the unyielding sound, but I was in such a state that I barely even noticed. Mr. and Mrs. DeSanto came running out to us, but I think I spooked Lisa so bad that she wasn't able to make it past her front door. Mr. DeSanto threw his arms around both my father and me, trying to help Dad get my thrashing under control as he yelled to Mrs. DeSanto, "Steph, call an ambulance!"