Backlash (20 page)

Jacket Guy, who says his name is Detective Souther, and who apparently has been here once before, asks Lara how she’s doing.

She shrugs, avoiding eye contact with him. “Okay.”

Mom is standing behind Lara, shaking her head no and mouthing, “Not good.”

“The reason we wanted to come by is that we may have a lead on the Christian DeWitt profile,” Detective Souther says, tapping his pen against his notebook. He stops suddenly and looks straight at Lara. “Have you had any issues with neighbors?”

“Neighbors?” Mom gasps. “You mean … someone we
know
did this?”

“We’re trying to narrow down our field of inquiry,” the detective says, which doesn’t answer her question.

“Have there been any problems with neighbors?” Officer Timm echoes.

“No,” Mom says. “In fact, all of our neighbors have been so supportive and kind since this happened. I haven’t had to cook dinner once.”

“We’re going to have to buy a new freezer just to hold all the casseroles,” Dad jokes.

I suddenly wonder who decided that casseroles are the currency of support and kindness in a time of crisis? Why didn’t they have the good sense to make it cookies instead? I could really go for some chocolate chip ones right now. Or brownies. Really great fudgy brownies.

“What about you, Lara?” Detective Souther asks. “Any issues with kids on the block?”

Lara has been staring out the window, as if she wasn’t even paying attention. She still won’t give the detective eye contact but looks over his shoulder at the clock on the wall and says no so softly we can barely hear her.

“What about Bree?” I ask.

Lara looks at me as if she’s a resistance fighter I’ve just betrayed to occupying forces. I stare back at her, because seriously, what is the point of pretending anymore?

She looks away first.

“Bree who?” Detective Souther asks.

“Breanna Connors,” I say. “She and Lara were best friends until a year or so ago. Our families were friends. And then Lara and Bree fell out, and now nobody is allowed to be friends.”

“That’s not true, dear,” Mom protests. “Mary Jo brought over the lasagna that’s in the oven for dinner.”

The detective is scribbling as we speak. I imagine his notes.
Neighbor
Mary Jo Connors made a lasagna.

Being a detective must get super, super boring.

“Yeah, but we never hang out with them anymore,” I argue. “And we used to all the time when Lara and Bree were friends.”

“Even if we’ve drifted apart from the Connorses, I can’t see Bree doing something like this,” Dad says. “They’re a good family. Sean Connors and I built that tree fort together, the one you can see out back. Lara and Bree practically lived up there when they were younger, didn’t you, pumpkin?”

Lara Pumpkin is back in zombie land, tuning the rest of us out.

“But Bree posted that picture of Lara the day she …
that day …
on Facebook,” I argue.

“The one on the stretcher?” the detective asks.

“Yeah, and then people made all these sick comments,” I say, glancing at Lara because I’m worried about causing her another “setback” by talking about all of this. But if I don’t, how will they figure out who did it?

“It was disgusting,” Dad says. “I just don’t understand what possesses kids these days. There’s no judgment, no thought —”

“Dad,” I say, “it’s police time, not rant time.”

“Sydney, that’s enough,” Mom snaps.

I shut my mouth and go back to disappearing into the background.

“So you haven’t had problems with any other neighbors, at school or out of school?” the detective tries again, determined to get Lara’s attention.

“Not that I know of,” Lara says, still staring out the window. She laughs, bitterly. “Well, except for all the kids who liked the mean stuff Christian wrote on my wall. I didn’t stop to check if any of them were my neighbors before I … well,
you know
.”

Detective Souther puts down his pad and pen and says Lara’s name gently. She finally looks him in the eye.

“Here’s the thing, Lara. Facebook gave us the information that the person who posted as Christian DeWitt did it from an IP address in this neighborhood. We’ve got the court order for the Internet service provider to tell us more specifically which customer of theirs it was. I was just hoping you might be able to give us a clue to speed things up.”

“You’re saying one of
our neighbors
did this?” Dad is so upset he springs halfway out of his chair, but Mom pulls him back down to seated and glares at him.

Lara opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, and I hold my breath without realizing until she closes it without uttering a word and shakes her head no.

“Are you sure there’s nothing you can think of?” Officer Timm asks.

Lara nods, but she’s done. She’s gone back into zombie mode. I want to slap her. Doesn’t she realize that if she talks, it’ll help find out who did this faster so we can all get on with our lives? Doesn’t she realize that this is messing up
my
life, too?

“Well, thank you for your time,” Detective Souther says, and he and Officer Timm get up to leave. “Please call anytime if you think of anything that might help us with our investigation.”

“Will you arrest them when you find out who it is?” Mom asks.

“It depends on how much of a case we can build,” the detective says.

“But you saw the things this person wrote!” Mom exclaims. “My daughter was tricked into believing that this Christian character cared for her and then he —”

Mom stops as Lara’s chair scrapes back loudly and my sister runs out of the room, leaving the Snuggie behind like a shed snake skin. We hear her footsteps running up the stairs and then her door slam. Lara’s not supposed to be in her room with the door shut, but she’s clearly upset enough that she doesn’t care about breaking the rules.

My mother is torn between following Lara and asking the detective more questions. So guess what happens?

“Sydney — go up and see how your sister is doing,” Mom orders. “And make sure she keeps her door open.”

No
Please
. No
Would you mind, dearest, wonderful,
not screwed-up
daughter?
Just
Do it,
Syd.

I detour to get my schoolbooks from the family room and head upstairs.

Part of me wants to leave Lara alone, to give her some space to cry or punch a hole in the wall or just do whatever she wants to do with the door closed for a few minutes. But I can’t, because what if hearing Mom talking about Christian or realizing that whoever did this might be someone we know has made her upset enough to try to hurt herself again?

If she did that, it would be my fault because I didn’t go to her.

Because I wanted her to have time to be mad.

Because I was mad myself.

So instead I knock on the door, softly. “Lara? It’s Syd. Are you okay?”

She doesn’t answer and my heart starts beating an irregular rhythm in my chest.
Not again.

I try the door handle, praying that she hasn’t locked it.

It turns.

Now that I can breathe again, I push the door open.

“Lara?”

She’s lying on her bed, clutching her stuffed Hedwig to her chest, staring at the ceiling. She doesn’t answer me or even look in my direction as I walk in, put my books on her desk, and sit cross-legged on the end of her bed.

“Mom didn’t mean to,” I say. “It’s just the way she is. If there’s a problem, she has to be the one to fix it.”

That’s when I see the tears rolling silently down Lara’s cheeks.

“I’m the one problem she can’t fix,” she whispers.

I want to say the right thing to her, but I don’t know what it is. I’m not a grown-up. I’m not a shrink. I don’t know the answers. I’ve got my own problems, and if I’m going to be totally honest here, my sister is one of them.

“Maybe … maybe she can’t fix you,” I say.

That definitely wasn’t the right thing. It just makes Lara’s tears flow faster, harder.

“I don’t mean that … like … you’re
unfixable
,” I try to explain, to undo the damage I’ve done. “I guess … what I’m trying to say …”
What am I trying to say? I don’t even know …
“I think what I’m trying to say is that maybe … only
you
can fix you?”

The tears keep coming, and Lara’s eyes are still fixed on the ceiling. Am I making things better or worse?

I hear Dad letting the police guys out the front door, and Mom’s footsteps coming up the stairs. Great. She’s probably going to be mad at me, because I made Lara cry more instead of making her feel better.

“Look, what do I know? I’m just the stupid little sister,” I say, shrugging and sliding off the bed.

I pick up my books from the desk and walk to the door just as Mom enters.

“Lara, honey? Are you okay?”

I look back at my sister. She’s placed Hedwig over her face, as if to shut out the world — or our mom, I’m not sure which.

But that’s not my problem now. It’s hers. I’ve got to finish my homework, if I can even concentrate after all this drama. Honestly, it’s amazing I’m getting halfway decent grades considering how crazy life is here.

My bedroom window faces the street, and I press my nose against it and stare out at the neighbors’ houses, wondering which window conceals the sicko who did this to my sister.

Is it old Mrs. Gorski or Spencer Helman or Bree Connors or maybe one of the Glovers?

Windows reflect back at me, some light, some dark.

I shiver, pulling my head away from the window and yanking my curtains shut so no one can see in. I always thought we lived in a nice neighborhood with good families. Our neighbors have been rallying around us since Lara tried to kill herself, showing support and bringing us casseroles. But the detective said the person who pretended to be Christian lives right here, among us.

Could it be our neighborhood isn’t so nice after all?

A
WEEK
after Lara got taken to the hospital in an ambulance, Mom had me delete the Christian DeWitt Facebook account. I wasn’t all that sad to say good-bye to him. Flirting with Lara had gotten awkward and old. And seriously — I never really thought she’d do it. Try to kill herself, I mean. Mom also made me delete the picture of Lara on the stretcher from Facebook. She was all about “covering tracks” and “not being so obvious.” I was really pissed about that because it’s the most likes I’ve had on any post.

When I complained about deleting the Lara picture, she yelled at me. “
Breanna
, the good Lord gave you brains. Could you use them for a change?”

Her ragging on me for not being the sharpest tool in the Connors shed is nothing new. Mom knows Liam is the smart one. My brother can do no wrong in Mom’s eyes. Me, on the other hand — I can do no right.

Seriously, it’s not like I was the only one posting stuff about Lara’s trip to the ER. Lots of other kids had status updates that night like Did you hear Lara Kelley OD’d? and stuff like that.

At least I didn’t make it sound like she
died
.

I’ve been thinking about what would have happened if Lara had … you know. I hadn’t really thought she’d go as far as trying to commit suicide. I mean, I knew Lara was super insecure and everything, but
killing
herself? That’s so
extreme
. I was really mad at her, but not enough to want her to die. I guess I just wanted her to hurt as much as I did. It didn’t seem fair that she was on top of the world all of a sudden. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to be with us. I was always the leader of our pack. Even when it came to making the rules for the tree fort, I was the one in charge.

And then she’d laughed at me. I just wanted to restore things back to the way they should be.

I saw Liam go out to the tree fort the other night. When the flickering light came on in the tree fort window, I realized, with relief, that it wasn’t a stinky hobo living out there, or some random freak. It was just my stinky, freaky little brother.

He was out there for about an hour. When he finally got back to his room, I went in and asked him why he’d been up there.

“None of your beeswax,” he said, like we were still little kids.

“You’ve been going out there a lot. I’ve seen the light in the window.”

“Maybe I just needed to get away from you,” he said.

“Fine. Be a jerk,” I said, spinning on my heel to leave his room. But at the doorway I turned back, because I had to know. “Are all our posters still up?”

“You mean the stupid boy bands?” Liam said. “Yeah, they’re still there.”

For some reason, that made me happy. It’s not like I even like those bands anymore — at least not that I’d admit to anyone — but even so, I was glad that they were still smiling down from the wooden walls of the tree fort.

I guess maybe it’s because even though I thought everything was so confusing then, I’ve realized that compared to now, it was way, way simpler.