Backlash (2 page)

Oh, Lara. Why?

The EMTs ask Mom to leave the bathroom so they have room to work on Lara. The policewoman leads my mother out into the hallway. Mom is crying. She tries to look back into the bathroom, but the EMT guy shuts the door.

Work on her.
I guess that means Lara’s still alive. For now at least.

I can’t say how many times I’ve wished that I were an only child. But now I’m whispering frantic prayers, over and over, that I won’t be.

A
S SOON
as I hear the sirens coming down our street, I know. They’re coming for Lara. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do. I mean, she’s been messed up for a while. Since we were in middle school. Not everyone knows that, because her parents tried to keep it hush-hush, with her mom being a politician and all. But I know, because we used to be best friends. Her being so messed up is part of the reason we’re not anymore.

I pick up my cell and call Mom, who’s still at work.

“Hi,” she says when she picks up. “I’ve got an important showing in two minutes, so make it snappy.”

I look out the window. “There’s a police car out front of the Kelleys’ house. They came down the streets with lights and sirens.”

“That’s not good,” Mom says, stating the obvious.

Just then I hear more sirens. “I think an ambulance is coming, too,” I tell her.

“I hear them,” she says. “Listen, my clients just pulled up. I’ve got to go. Just hang tight and stay inside so you don’t get in the way. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“Do you think she’s —”

“I don’t know, Bree. I’ve got to go. This could be a huge commission. Just stay in the house.”

And the line is dead silent.

“What’s going on?” my brother, Liam, asks. His freckled face shows only typical eighth-grade-boy curiosity as he comes to the window. He is alternately red and blue from the flashing lights on the police car.

“Something’s going on at the Kelleys’,” I say.

“Wow, I never would have guessed that by the
police car
that’s parked out front. Thanks, Captain Obvious.”

Liam can be such a snot. And him being smarter than me is something my mother never fails to point out.

“So figure it out yourself, Einstein!” I retort.

We can hear the sirens getting closer. I see curtains twitch across the way. Everyone is wondering what is going on.

And then they get louder and louder, and we see the ambulance turn onto our street. Liam sticks his fingers in his ears as sirens scream deafeningly outside the window. Then they stop, with a weird hiccup, as the ambulance screeches to a halt behind the police car.

We watch, our noses pressed to the glass, siren lights still flashing as the medics run to the Kelleys’ front door. Curious neighbors have started gathering outside.

“I’m going to go out and see what’s happening,” Liam says.

“No!”

He stares at me, shocked by my sudden, vehement command.

“Mom said to stay inside till she gets home.”

“Why?” Liam asks.

My brother was born asking that question. It’s like he’s wired to refuse to take no for an answer.

“Because Mom said so, okay? Why can’t you just listen to her for once?”

“ ’Cause she didn’t tell
me
,” the little brat says over his shoulder as he heads toward the front door. “And because the Kelleys are our friends.”

“
Liam.
Mom said to stay inside.”

He opens the door, ignoring me. Why does he always have to be such a pain? Especially now.

“I’m going to tell Mom —”

The door slams on my threat.

The Kelleys are our friends.

Were
our friends, is more like it.

I watch him drift toward the gathering crowd by the ambulance, sidling up to Spencer Helman from down the street and talking to him. I want to go out, too. I pick up my cell and decide to ignore Mom’s instructions. If she gives me a hard time, I’ll tell her the truth, which is that Liam left the house first.

As I walk up to the crowd, one of the EMTs comes out of the Kelleys’ house with the policewoman. He opens the back of the ambulance and takes out a stretcher.

My stomach turns over. A stretcher could mean anything from a corpse to a sick person going to the hospital, right?

“What happened?” It’s one of our neighbors, Mrs. Gorski. She’s an old busybody, always looking out her window to see what’s happening on our street. A few years ago, Josie Stern skipped school and came home with a bunch of friends while her parents were at work. Guess who called her parents and told on her so she got grounded for a month? You guessed it — Mrs. G.

“We can’t release any information at this time,” the policewoman says.

The two of them wheel the stretcher back into the house.

“I hope Syd’s okay,” Liam mutters. He’s strangely pale beneath his freckles.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” I tell him. Because I know this has to be about Lara.

“Maybe Mr. Kelley had a heart attack,” he says.

I check the driveway.

“He’s not even home,” I observe. “See, his car’s not here. Besides, Mr. Kelley is in pretty good shape. He’s not the heart attack kind of guy.”

Unlike my father, who needs to lose weight, as Mom never stops reminding him. Dad has the physique of a middle-aged teddy bear.

“I bet it’s the older girl,” Mrs. Gorski says, wagging one of her liver-spotted bony fingers for emphasis. “Laura. That one’s been giving them trouble for years.”

How does
she
know? Does she, like, hide in the bushes and listen to conversations through open windows? Seriously, she can’t even get Lara’s name right.

It’s not like she was Lara’s best friend for years. It’s not like she had to listen when Lara was depressed and kept talking about how she hated life and hated herself and hated her body and why did she have to be so fat — for
hours
. Not exaggerating. One time we were video chatting and it was 176 minutes of her complaining about life. I timed it. I finally lied and said I had to go, because I couldn’t take it anymore.

High school was such a relief. Bigger place, new people. Made it easy to escape, to hang out with other girls.

We were best friends. Then we weren’t. It happens all the time. Just read any teen-magazine advice column. There’s nothing unusual about our story.

Except now there’s a police car and an ambulance parked outside Lara’s house.

The front door opens and I hold my breath, waiting to see if Lara is alive or in a body bag.

Two EMTs are wheeling out the stretcher … and … Lara’s strapped to it, with an oxygen mask over her face and an IV in her arm. She’s alive.

I can breathe again. Just barely.

But Mrs. Kelley is walking next to her unconscious daughter, holding her hand and sobbing. What does that mean? Does it mean there’s a chance she won’t make it?

Sydney shuts the door behind everyone and walks to her mother’s car, her arms wrapped around herself like she’s eaten something bad and got a terrible pain in her stomach.

This is so unreal. What did Lara
do
? Marci won’t believe this.
I
can barely believe it.

But Marci doesn’t know yet. So I take out my cell and surreptitiously snap a picture of Lara’s pale face as they wheel her by on the stretcher.

“What are you doing?” Liam asks, grabbing my arm and staring at me, horrified. “That’s sick!”

“Shut up!”

He doesn’t. “Bree, what’s the matter with you? You better not post that!”

I shake him off and snap more pictures as they slide the stretcher into the ambulance and slam the doors shut. I have to send this to Marci right away, otherwise she’s not going to believe me when I tell her. This is just so … crazy.

Mrs. Kelley sobs her way over to her car and gets in, obviously planning to follow after the ambulance with Sydney.

Then the siren starts up with a near-deafening whoop. Liam puts his fingers in his ears, and I take some video of the ambulance driving away, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

“Bree, stop it!” Liam shouts over the siren noise. “What is your problem?”

“What’s
your
problem?” I shout back. “Just go inside and mind your own business.”

“You kids with your smartphones and your Facebooks and what’s it called … YouTubes,” Mrs. Gorski complains, shaking her head as she turns back to her house once the siren noise fades down the street. “No trees fall in your forest unless you’ve put it online. Everyone has to know everyone’s business.”

I think the woman is starting to lose it. What is she talking about? And seriously, Mrs. Gorski wouldn’t know minding her own business if it stood in front of her and did a kick line like the Rockettes at Radio City.

When I finish taking the video of the ambulance, I head back home. Everything is posted on Facebook before I even walk back in the front door of our house. Now everybody knows.

L
ARA’S STILL
unconscious. What happens if she doesn’t wake up? What happens if she does and she’s, like, a vegetable or something? The doctors say they can’t give us a prognosis. They say we have to wait and see, something that none of us are that good at doing.

Dad ended up meeting us at the ER. They kept us out of the room while they intubated Lara, which means sticking a tube into her windpipe, and while they inserted a urinary catheter, which sounds totally gross. They took blood and some of her urine (out of that catheter thing) so they could do tests. The ER doctors gave her something called activated charcoal through another tube they’d stuck down her throat into her stomach. It’s supposed to help eliminate the drugs she took from her system.

Since they allowed us back into the room, we’ve been doing what they told us to: talking to her in case she hears us, watching the machines that are tracking her vitals, listening to the slowed beeps of her heart, and most of all, sitting here waiting, hoping and praying that she’ll pull through. But the one question we keep asking one another and ourselves in between prayers and hopes is
why?
Why
now
?

Mom sits on one side of Lara, Dad on the other, each of them holding one of her limp hands. Mom alternates between crying, praying, and begging Lara to wake up and come back to us. Dad is a silent, angry rock. He doesn’t understand.

“Why would she do this when things were going so much better for her?” he asked Mom right after he got there.

Mom just shook her head and cried harder. Dad comforted her, but he’s been asking the doctors and the nurses and the janitor and anyone who walks by the same hurt, angry question.

I can’t blame him, because I don’t get it, either. Back when she was in middle school and everyone was making fun of her for being fat, Mom arranged for Lara to see a nutritionist so she could lose weight. We all ended up having to change the way we ate — which meant no more cookies for me, even though
I
wasn’t overweight. How was
that
fair? Lara and Dad went to the gym together on the weekends, and then he’d take her for low-fat frozen yogurt at Yoglicious. It was their “special time.”

And now Lara had just made varsity cheerleading. All she could talk about was her new friend Ashley from cheerleading and how great it was to hang out with her and the rest of the girls from the team.

So why, Lara? I didn’t get frozen yogurt treats or “special time” with Dad. But am
I
the one lying unconscious in an ER bed, freaking out my entire family?

Our Lara vigil is interrupted when a policeman comes into the little room.

“Sorry to intrude, but we need to ask you some questions,” he says. “Maybe we should step outside?”

Mom glances at Dad. I can tell she doesn’t want to leave Lara’s side for a second, like her presence alone is what’s going to keep my sister alive, more than all the beeping machines. He nods toward the door, and reluctantly she lets go of Lara’s hand, kissing it before she lays it back on the bed.

There are two chairs outside the room. Mom sits in one but Dad wants to stand, so I take the other.

“I’m sorry to have to bother you at a time like this,” the police officer says. “I’m Officer Timm. This is Officer Hall,” he says, pointing to the policewoman, who I recognize from the house.