Backlash (19 page)

I don’t.

Christian just messaged me that the world would be a better place without me in it. He’s right.

I wish I knew what I did to make him change his mind about me so suddenly, without any warning. One minute I think he’s about to ask me to his school dance, the next minute he’s posting on my wall that I’m an awful person and a terrible friend. That he would never consider being seen with a loser like me at his school dance.

He didn’t even know me in middle school, before Mom took me to the nutritionist and the shrink and I lost thirty pounds.

Why?
What did I do? I just want to understand. I
need
to understand. If I only understood, then I could change, I could be a different Lara, a nicer Lara, a
better
Lara. A Lara that people didn’t like one minute and then hate the next. A Lara that didn’t make friends, then lose them.

But it doesn’t matter now, I guess. This way is better for everyone.

Mom will freak out if I make a mess, so I take all the pill bottles and line them up on the edge of the bathtub, neatly, like soldiers. I’ve got Mom’s sleeping pills, the ones she pretends she doesn’t take and hides in her bedside table under the latest copy of
Vanity Fair
; the painkillers Dad has for when his back plays up; and the acetaminophen with codeine from when I had my wisdom teeth removed over the summer. I grab the plastic cup that holds my toothbrush and bring it with me as I stand by the bathtub, trying to decide if I should get undressed or be fully clothed. I don’t want to be naked when they find me dead. That would add insult to injury, having policemen taking pictures of me and making comments about how I could lose a few pounds and stuff.

In the end, I strip down to my underwear and T-shirt.

Making the Lake Hills High varsity cheerleading squad is probably the most awesome thing I’ve ever accomplished in my life. It made me feel like I’d finally turned the corner from miserable to happy.

That didn’t last long.

I settle myself in the tub and turn on the water. I thought about doing this in the bedroom, but locking my bedroom door is too out of the norm. This way it’s less obvious.

It feels weird when the water starts to soak into my underwear and T-shirt, and I wonder if I should have just laid on the bathroom floor and pretended to be in the bath, but once I get used to it, the water is warm and comforting. Anyway, wearing clothes in the bathtub isn’t half as weird as thinking that in less than an hour — I think, because I don’t know how long this actually is going to take — that’s not going to matter. Nothing will. I won’t be here anymore.

No more pain.

No more feelings.

No more anything.

No more me.

Fill up the glass from the faucet. Open the first bottle. Don’t even bother to look at what it is. It doesn’t matter anyway. Just pour the pills into my shaking palm, put as many into my mouth as I think I can swallow, and wash them down.

Rinse and repeat.

And repeat.

And repeat.

And repeat.

And keep on repeating.

Turn off the water when I start to feel dizzy.

Because … I don’t … want to … drown … just want to … die …

M
Y SISTER
has had what her shrink calls “a setback” since the police told her there is no Christian DeWitt — and she realized she tried to kill herself over some guy who never even existed. A “setback” is apparently shrinkspeak for saying that after getting a teensy bit better, she’s now as much of a mess as she was before — maybe an even bigger one.

Mom and Dad were discussing if Lara should go back into the psych ward, but she was all, “If you even think about locking me up in that place, I’ll try to kill myself again,” so that plan got nixed. She gets to stay home but is still living under Lara Watch. No closed doors, not even to shower or pee or sleep. No Internet or phone without parental supervision. No privacy, period.

She told me last night that I’m lucky, because I get to close the door when I go to the bathroom.

Seriously, Lara?

“
Luck
has nothing to do with it,” I said. “Mom and Dad just know
I’m
not going to do anything in there except the
normal
things people do in a bathroom.”

She looked like a baby seal who’d just been hit with a club on a frozen beach in the Arctic Circle — wounded, blinking big eyes staring at me, asking how I could be so cruel.

So then I felt bad about hurting her, but at the same time I was mad about feeling bad because I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. I was just telling the truth, stating the obvious. Someone has to do that around here, and it’s pretty clear that someone isn’t going to be either one of my parents.

I’m doing homework on the computer — another thing Lara can be jealous of because I don’t have to have Mom looking over my shoulder — when the doorbell rings.

“Can you get that?” Mom says. “I’m in the middle of something.”

I don’t bother to point out that I am, too. Mom’s got cabin fever from being stuck here babysitting Lara all day, and she’s worrying about how this is affecting her political career. I know this because her campaign manager was here one day when I came home from school and they were talking about it, and then I heard her stressing about it to Dad. And then I heard him getting all pissed about the fact that she was even thinking about politics when Lara was so sick, and she just got mad back because
he’s
not the one who is having to take off from work to keep an eye on a fifteen-year-old 24/7 and … well, it went on from there.

It’s just easier to get up and do it than argue with Mom when all that’s going on.

When I open the door, Mrs. Connors is standing there carrying a foil-covered casserole dish. Since
it
happened, all of our neighbors have been trying to out–Martha Stewart one another. It’s like they’re all competing to bring us the best casseroles as a way of showing their concern. But there’s another reason, too, besides neighborly compassion. It’s also because they want the latest dirt so when they bump into people in line at the supermarket they can say: “Well, I was at the Kelley house today, and I heard …”

“Hi, honey,” Mrs. Connors says, holding out the dish. “I brought you some lasagna so your mom doesn’t have to cook. I’m sure she’s got enough on her plate with … everything that’s going on.”

“Yeah,” I say, taking the dish from her. I remember Mrs. Connors’s lasagna. It’s not as good as Mom’s. But with the mood my mother is in, any edible food is good as far as I’m concerned. “She’s pretty stressed out. Thanks.”

“How’s … Lara doing?”

It’s like she’s afraid to say Lara’s name. It’s like that with everyone who comes by. I want to scream at them to stop whispering her name; that she
didn’t
actually die
. She’s just super messed up, that’s all.

“Okay, I guess.”

“But she’s not back at school yet?”

Doesn’t anyone talk to each other in that house? I mean, Bree must know that Lara hasn’t been in school.

“No, not yet.”

“She’s not feeling up to it?”

What is this, a police interrogation?

“Um, no. Not yet.”

“Well, give her our love,” Mrs. Connors says, which is kind of weird, given that Lara and Bree aren’t really friends anymore. She turns and is halfway down the steps before she calls back over her shoulder, “And give my best to your mom.”

“I will,” I tell her. “Thanks for the lasagna.”

I take the dish into the kitchen, where Mom’s reading city council briefing papers and sipping a glass of chardonnay. There’s no evidence of any dinner preparation in sight.

“Mrs. Connors brought over a lasagna. Should I heat it up for dinner?”

“Sure, throw it in the oven,” Mom says, reaching for the wineglass. “That was nice of Mary Jo.”

“She was asking a lot of questions about Lara.”

Mom drains half of what’s in her wineglass in one gulp. I hope all this stress isn’t turning my mother into a wino.

“
Everyone
who brings over food to help me out so I don’t have to cook asks a lot of questions about Lara,” she says with a sigh. “We’re the talk of the neighborhood. I’m sure everyone is dissecting my mothering skills and judging me on where I went wrong.”

The phone rings, and as Mom answers I realize how much she just sounded like my sister; Mom, too, is worrying about what everyone thinks about her, stressing out about how they are judging her.

“You’re coming by when? Tonight? I don’t know if my daughter … Oh, okay. I understand.”

She hangs up and dials again right away.

“Pete, I need you home. The police are coming. They have a lead and they need to ask us some questions … Half an hour. Okay, bye.”

Mom downs the rest of the wine and starts clearing her papers off the table. After she has stacked them into a precise, neat pile that she puts into her briefcase, she looks out the sliding back door to the patio, where Lara is curled up on a chair in a Snuggie, reading a book, so she can be constantly observed by Mom like a goldfish in a bowl.

“What kind of lead do they have?” I ask.

“They didn’t say. Only that it’s something about who might have created the Christian DeWitt profile,” Mom says, biting her cuticle. She hasn’t had a manicure since The Bathroom Incident and it shows. It was something her campaign manager pointed out, believe it or not. He said it didn’t make for good
visuals
, whatever that’s supposed to mean. “I better tell Lara. I hope it doesn’t set her back even more.”

She goes out the sliding door and closes it behind her. Lara stiffens as Mom walks over, clearly miffed that there’s an interruption in her rare and precious alone time. Mom starts talking and tries to stroke Lara’s hair, but my sister moves her head and Mom’s hand falls on the back of the Adirondack chair. It’s like watching a bad ABC Family special with the sound on mute, but this is
my
family drama and I can’t change the channel or turn off the TV. The only thing I can do is go back and try to finish my homework before the police arrive.

Dad and the police arrive at the same time, which means we don’t have warning that they’ve arrived. Just a “Hi, I’m home!” and the next thing I know my father’s walking in the room with Officer Timm and some other guy in a jacket.

“Mom, the police are here,” I call into the kitchen so she isn’t as surprised as I am.

Dad kisses the top of my head and says, “Hi, sweetheart,” and then tells the police to follow him into the kitchen. I trail in after them. If they have some kind of lead on who was sick enough to do this to my sister, I want to know about it.

Lara is still out on the patio. She’s watching us now: a silent, Snuggie-wrapped observer. Mom opens the door and tells her to come inside. She stands up and shuffles into the house, clutching the Snuggie around her as if she’s trekked across the frozen tundra rather than just taken a few steps across our flagstone patio.

Without saying a word and barely acknowledging the policemen, she sinks into a chair and pulls the Snuggie tighter around her. If she could disappear into it like a turtle into a shell, I bet she would.