i'm sorry | ethan dolan

depressed

chapter fifty four
——mackenzie's pov
april 2nd, 2020

i felt like i was slogging through fog. everything around me was hazy and shapeless. i could spend entire class periods staring at the leaves on the trees outside, watching them tossing around in the breeze, focusing and unfocusing my eyes. at lunch, veronica and david and marshall, who was now celia free, just let me be. every day i ate quickly, then went outside to the courtyard to read. suddenly i couldn't stop reading. every weekend i was at the bookstore picking up the latest new releases in the teen section. anything with a romantic cover. anything about being star crossed or forbidden or on again off again. i didn't know why, but i couldn't stop myself. if i was awake, my face was pretty much buried in a book.

and then there was ethan. always talking to some new girl, always smiling at some adorable freshman face, always messing around with his friends. it was like he didn't miss me one bit. it was like i'd never even existed. i didn't get how he could do that. how he could pretend that everything we'd been through together was nothing.

the thing was, nothing in my world seemed to matter. not my mom's wedding, not the upcoming prom, not graduation. everything seemed so dull. so ordinary. i couldn't look forward to any of it.

"i think i'm depressed," i said while rain pelted the windows of the cafeteria. i'd been sitting quietly at our lunch table for ten minutes, not eating, not reading, just dipping my straw in and out of my soda can. david, veronica, and marshall all looked up, surprised, like until that moment they'd thought i'd lost the power of speech.

"well, yeah," veronica said, pushing her laptop aside and looking at me.
"what? you think so too?" i asked, sitting up straight.
"let's see. you walk around school like a zombie, you never talk to anyone, and no one's seen you eat a non carb in a month," marshall said, glancing at my tray full of mashed potatoes and gravy. "it's pretty obvious."
"agreed," david said, popping a chocolate chip cookie into his mouth.
"good to know i'm so transparent," i said, miffed.

"you want to spill?" veronica asked, leaning into the table. "because we already have, like, five good plans to snap you out of it." marshall and david nodded in this sort of disturbingly eager way. suddenly my face began to burn.
"you guys have been talking about me?"
their gaze darted this way and that. at least they had the decency to look guilty about it.
"cookie?" david offered, opening the famous amos bag toward me. i narrowed my eyes at him and took one.

"okay, plan number one, the sugar high," veronica said, holding up a pinkie. "we go into the city and snag passes to the candy expo, pretend we're up and coming confectioners, and just go to town sampling everything. plan number two, shopping spree, on john, in his car, on fifth avenue. plan number three, the kidnap plot. we snag ethan dolan out of the locker room after lacrosse practice and—"

"hi, guys!" faith dropped into an empty chair at the very end of our table. she was wearing a frilly pink top, and her brown hair was back in a ponytail that she'd somehow styled into one very long curl down her back. veronica's mouth snapped shut. marshall and david shifted warily in their seats, as if an alien had just crash landed in our midst. "kenzie, i have the hugest favor to ask you."

i blinked. ever since ethan and i had broken up and kylie had had the baby and faith had snagged the lead in the spring musical, we'd barely spoken. just seeing her right now seemed out of context. like part of some former life gate crashing this one.

"what kind of favor?" i asked.
"you have to join prom committee," she said, lowering her chin, the better to give me a stare. all four of us cracked up laughing.
"yeah, that was not one of our plans," veronica said, reaching for her lemonade.
"talk about depressing," david added.
i took my first bite of food. eating that famous amos cookie had made me hungry. or maybe it was simply laughing that had made me feel better. "thanks, but no thanks."