The house was empty as I fled through it. Flo passed me up the stairs and told me that I would get a break from the kids because Marty and Katie took them out for dinner and ice cream. I was thankful for this because I feel myself coming to a breaking point. I needed time alone, time to think, time to cry, time to write. I think Flo thought I was sick because of the way I was breathing heavily and the moisture on my face from tears and sweat, but I fled to my room before she could see me for a moment longer.
When I got to my room, I shut the door and slammed my back against it, tears flying fast down my face. I hated harsh words. I hated them. What is it about people that they forget other people have feelings too? What is this innate, narcissistic, vile trait in humans? I would have rather broken all the bones in my body than to hear one more harsh word in that moment. My chest felt cut right open, and I hated myself for being so sensitive. I was always a sensitive child. Any infraction no matter how small was enough to make me cry. The number of times that I had sincerely cried over spilled milk as a child was too many to count, but Mama consoled me every time.
Mama.
How I desperately needed to talk to her. I nearly fell as I ran to the phone on the desk. I needed to hear her voice, to hear her laugh. I wanted to cry to her and have her tell me that everything was alright, to talk optimistically in her way of avoiding any negative truth. I wanted her to tell me that story about how Daddy flew to the sun.
The room was spinning fast. My clammy hand squeezed the handle of the phone but stopped.
Mama told me before I left that I would come crying back to her. She told me that I was going willingly into the world and that it would chew me up and spit me out, and that I was going to come crying back to her like a child. And she told me she wouldn't be there. She said that. She said that to me, her only child. Her Becky, she spoke that way to. She eliminated herself as an option or a consolation for me. Without her, I had no one.
For a moment, I pretended that there were other people I knew. I didn't try to think of names. I only thought of numbers. What number could I call? Should I call the Prytania theater and ask them what they were showing tonight? Should I call my old boss at the candy shop and ask him if there are any kids who took Greg and I's place in stealing from him? Should I call Mrs. Foreman and ask her who will be taking my place in the dorm? Should I call Dr. Marlar and tell him that this isn't for me, that I can't do this, that I have failed him, and that I am a worthless, naïve little girl who is close to becoming an orphan?
No, I had no one.
A small sob left my body as I placed my hands over my head and started spinning around the room. Maybe if I spun fast enough, I could spring right up and burst through this roof, out of this house, and fly straight up into the sun. Maybe Daddy would be there.
God, how sensitive and childish I was.
Losing my breath and balance, I stopped spinning and stumbled over to my underwear drawer, tugging out the fabrics until I found that picture of Greg.
Him and I, on our bikes, arms slung around each other. We were smiling and cringing from the sun in our eyes. It soothed me a little, but my face was throbbing and my shoulders shaking. I wish he was here. He would be reading some science journal, laying on my bed with his legs crossed. He would be talking about things I actually was interested in. He would hopelessly try to speak French, only for me to correct him. He would hug me tight, as if he was scared of losing me. I wished I had hugged him tighter.
I wondered what would have happened if I had disapproved of Greg and Roger. What if I screamed at him, told him it wasn't natural, that he needed to stop or else I would tell everyone. Maybe he would've listened to me, with as much as he looked up to me like a big sister. He would've stopped seeing Roger. He would have never gone to the park with him that day. He wouldn't have gotten brutally beaten. His body wouldn't have been dumped into the pond as if he was just the carcass of a dead animal.
My stomach was up to my throat, and I rushed to the bathroom to puke. I puked for a long time until there was nothing left. I cleaned myself up a bit, took a shower, brushed my teeth, and got into bed. It was still light outside, and even with the curtains drawn, the room was still sunny. That was such a twisted thing. The sun is lovely when you're happy. When you're sad, it's a cruel mockery.
Curled into a fetus position with my knees tucked tightly against my stomach, I squeezed a pillow to my chest and looked at the picture of Greg. I stared at it for a long time until all of the maddening thoughts faded, and all I thought and saw and breathed was Greg. The sun outside faded, and I fell asleep.
I'm not sure how long it was until I woke up, but it must have been quite a while because the room was completely dark. I woke to the feeling of something moving in my bed, and when I opened my eyes and only saw the dark figure of someone on my bed, I gasped and got up, reaching for the bedside lamp and turning it on.
Jo was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. She was sitting on the side of my bed, slumped over a little. She was still wearing her jean shorts and her white blouse which had dried. Her hair was messy and wavier, and she looked tired from the darkness under her eyes.
"Jo," I breathed, noticing that she was looking down. She gave a little laugh and held up the picture of Greg that had been in my hands as I fell asleep, wiggling it between her fingers.
"Is this your boyfriend?" she grinned.
"No!" I yelled louder than I meant, snatching the picture from her. She only looked amusedly at me as I held the picture against my chest as if I was hiding something very scandalous from her.
"Who is it then?" she asked, leaning back on my bed, her hands brushing my legs that were under the sheets.
I looked down. "He's... a friend."
"He lives in New Orleans?"
I nodded numbly. I wasn't necessarily lying, but I was purposefully not mentioning that he was dead. I'm not sure why I didn't. Maybe a part of me thought that I could pretend he was alive in California. It was impossible to do that at home, with his gravestone at the cemetery, his mother living in the empty house across the street, the memorial they made for him at the high school. Maybe here I could pretend hard enough until I believed it, and then I wouldn't live with his pain anymore.
Jo nodded, noticing the way I still held the picture tight against me.
"What are you doing here?" I asked her, glancing at the clock and seeing that it was past midnight.
"Have you been crying?" she asked blatantly, sewing her eyebrows together as she analyzed my face. "Your face is puffy and red."
"That's none of your damn business," I snarled, and it took her aback. She looked amused at first, her pink lips smirking and her eyebrows raising, but then they softened when they realized she was probably the reason I was crying.
There were a few moments of silence where she looked down at her shoes. I could tell that she was trying to muster up the courage to apologize to me. I realized how weird it probably was that my boss's daughter was here in my room, sitting on my bed in the middle of the night.
She moved her mouth around and sucked the inside of her cheek, and I noticed that she was breathing differently. I waited, breath bated, curious as to what she was going to say.
"You like to write?" she asked, and it took me off guard. In the few silent moments, I had already prepared what I was going to say when she apologized. She looked over at my desk, and I saw that my journals and papers were open, scattered on the desk.
"You looked through my stuff?!" I exclaimed, sitting up in the bed as the sheets moved off my body. Jo's eyes flickered downwards but quickly up to my eyes again.
"I didn't read anything. I just glanced at them." She shrugged, and I laughed angrily. She was a spoiled brat. She was a rich kid who had rich parents and grew up in a rich household, and she had quite the ego and thought she could just control everything around her, even her friends. I didn't say that though.
"What do you write?" she asked casually, as if we were two friends at brunch having a friendly conversation, and not sitting on my bed alone in the middle of the night.
"Nothing," I snapped.
She inhaled and sighed, her eyes dancing across the room. "Look, I didn't read your stuff, but I saw some papers that looked like a story or something."
"So, you read my stuff?"
"No, no, I didn't really read it. I just glanced."
"How would you know it was a story if you just glanced at the paper and didn't read what is written on it?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
She sighed, exasperated, and ran her hand through her hair again. "Look, I'm just curious what you write."
I rolled my eyes, bringing my hands to rub my pounding forehead. "They're just stories."
"About what?"
"I'm not telling you."
She didn't say anything back. She just nodded, giving it up with a sigh. I waited for her to say something else, or to leave, since it was her who had approached me so impolitely. She was just looking around bored until her eyes landed on my dresser. She raised a finger and pointed. "Your delicates are on the floor."
Confused, I looked over and saw that my underwear drawer was still open from when I had grabbed Greg's picture in my furious, sobbing state, some of my underwear scattered on the floor. I blushed and looked back at her. "Can you please leave?"
"I wanna talk."
"But we're not friends," I hissed, and for a moment I was afraid that I was being too defensive, too mean, that she would get pissed and just hate me even more. She only laughed, and even in my anger I noticed how her laugh sounded like bells ringing, and how her hair and skin glowed even in the dim light.
"Okay. We're not friends. Shake on it?" She stuck her hand out. "We will never, ever be friends. Not in a million years. No matter what."
My eyes glanced down at her hand. It was big like Marty's, but svelte and elegant in the way I imagined Katie's was.
"Fine." I grabbed her hand, and she shook mine furiously in the same way Marty had shaken my hand when I first arrived. "Never, ever, not in a million years, no matter what, will we ever be friends."
She grinned and nodded, her green eyes sparkling in the golden light of my bedside lamp. "It's a deal. Spit on it?"
My lip curled in disgust. "No."
She laughed again, letting herself go a little. She kept giggling, covering her mouth with her other hand. I started to question if she was drunk, but the way her laughter kept unraveling made my lips twitch. She looked at me and saw that I was holding back a smile, and it made her laugh more. I started to chuckle, and I kept going, and she kept going, and I thought about how crazy I had felt earlier and the way I had puked in the bathroom and fell asleep crying, and I kept laughing. It was all funny, to be honest. I never thought it was all funny before, but the way Jo kept giggling like a kid made it the most hilarious thing I had ever thought of.