Backlash (28 page)

“What do you miss the most about your chats? How did chatting with him make you feel?”

And then I can’t stop the tears again, as I’m once again hit with the emptiness and the loss.

“He … made … me … feel … special,” I sob. “Like … I was actually … worth something.”

She lets me cry without probing further, and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful that I’m allowed to experience these feelings without her making me analyze them anymore. Because right now I’m exhausted just from having them.

“Lara,” she says, and her voice is softer and gentler than it has ever been before. “You
are
worth something. Maybe we need to work on you owning that before you get into more relationships.”

I shake my head. “How do I own something I can’t see?”

“That’s what we’re going to work on,” she says. “Helping you to see your strengths.”

I think it’s a useless exercise because I don’t have any strengths, but she sounds so confident about the possibility of it happening that I feel a tiny whiff of hope, as faint as the breeze from a butterfly wing.

Even that is a step up from the utter despair I’ve felt ever since Christian told me the world would be better off without me in it. Is this progress?

Mom is on her cell in the waiting room when I get out. We walk out of the office, and when I push the elevator button she shakes her head and points to the stairs, gesturing to the phone.

“It’s
Nightline
,” she mouths.

Oh no. Not more TV.

I try to tune out as we walk down the three flights of stairs, but it’s hard to avoid the sound of Mom’s overloud cell-phone voice in the echoey stairwell.

“Yes, it really is sick, and as a parent, one of the most frustrating things is that there’s no adequate legal remedy available,” Mom says. “That’s why I’m planning to work with existing antibullying organizations to lobby for Lara Laws, trying to persuade states to add specific cyberbullying language to their existing bullying statutes.”

I stop so abruptly Mom almost trips over me on the stairs. “What are you talking about, ‘Lara Laws’?” I hiss.

She mutes her phone. “Wait till I’m done,” she says. “I’ll explain everything.”

I don’t want to wait. It’s my name she’s tossing around here. I don’t want my name on a law. I want it all to go away so I can try to forget it ever happened.

“But, Mom —”

She waves her hand at me to be quiet, and I turn and stomp down the rest of the stairs as noisily as I can, making sure to slam the door at the bottom.

The brisk autumn air outside the building does nothing to cool my anger. Neither does the length of time I have to wait by the car as Mom stands in the lobby finishing her phone call. By the time she comes out to the car, I’m fuming.

Mom acts like nothing happened.

I get in the car and slam my door. “So are you going to tell me what these Lara Laws are about, or am I supposed to find out by watching
Nightline
?”

Mom starts the car and backs out of the space like I haven’t even spoken. It strikes me that maybe there’s a good reason I feel like I don’t matter.
Note to Linda …

“Earth to Mother? Why are you using my name without my permission? I have a right to know what this is all about.”

“I’ll tell you what this is all about,” Mom says, her voice calm and even. “It’s about helping you and other kids like you. It’s about making sure that if any adult is as sick as Mary Jo Connors, there are legal ramifications to make sure she ends up behind bars.”

Mom says this is about me, but it isn’t. It’s about her. If it were about me, she would have told me sooner. I would have been a part of it. Instead I’m just the convenient excuse for her next political project.

“Call it something else,” I say. “I don’t want it named after me.”

The only sign Mom gives that I’ve pissed her off is how tightly her hands clench the steering wheel.

“What else would we call it?” she asks.

“How about the Psycho Parents Law?” I suggest.

My mother is not amused.

“I’m doing everything I know how to help you, Lara. It would be nice to have a little appreciation once in a while,” Mom snaps.

“If this is really about helping me, how come you didn’t ask my opinion first?” I say. “Why didn’t you even tell me about it?”

Mom doesn’t respond right away. Her eyes remain on the road ahead; her lips are tightly compressed. In my imagination, I can hear the cogs of her brain working, coming up with the way to frame this that she thinks will play best to the angry-teen-daughter constituent.

“Lara, honey, you’ve been in a fragile state since your … hospitalization. We’ve been trying to protect you. The last thing Daddy or I want to do is cause you more anxiety when you’re in such a delicate state of mind.”

“Really, Mom? You thought that using my name for some new law you want to get passed without asking me about it was going to
help
my
delicate state of mind
?”

“Of course I was going to talk to you about it, Lara,” Mom says.

“Yeah —
after
you talked to freaking
Nightline
and the rest of the country.”

Mom doesn’t say anything for a moment. When she does speak, her voice cracks like she is on the verge of tears.

“I’m doing the best I can here, Lara. You’re my daughter. These people hurt you, so badly that you tried to kill yourself, and the police and the prosecutor are telling us that their hands are tied because of the existing laws. I can’t just sit here and do nothing. And I had to consider your mental health.”

“I might be depressed and confused, Mom, but I’m not a baby,” I tell her. “I don’t want you to use my name. I’m never going to be able to put this behind me if you’re going on nationwide TV talking about Lara Laws, am I?”

“Making sure this doesn’t happen to other people can help you put it behind you, Lara,” Mom says, and now I see a tear rolling down her cheek. But somehow knowing that she’s hurting, too, and it’s my stupidity that made it happen doesn’t make me any less angry. Only more.

“No, Mom. It’ll help
you
put it behind
you
. Not
me
.
You.
Stop pretending this Lara Laws thing has anything to do with me.”

We ride home the rest of the way in silence, the distance between us much wider than the front seats of a car.

I need to escape from Mom when I get home, so I take my book and my Snuggie and go out to the patio, even though it’s cold. I’d rather freeze in solitude than be warm in the house with her. It works for a little while, but then I’m distracted by voices. I look up and see my sister climbing down the ladder from the old tree fort. But she wasn’t up there alone — because following her down the wooden rungs is
Liam Connors
.

Isn’t there a single person in this world I can trust anymore?

He touches her cheek tenderly before they part, and Syd smiles up at him, her face glowing and happy.

It makes me want to throw up.

I grab my Snuggie and book and run up to my room. Why should I care about the stupid rules when everyone else in the world is breaking them? I close the door and throw myself onto the bed, crying into my pillow so no one will hear.

Betrayal is only part of the sadness. The worst part — and it’s painful to admit this, even to myself — is that I’m jealous. I’m jealous that she has what I
thought
I had with Christian. A relationship with a boy who cares about her. For real, not pretend.

I’m crying into my pillow because it’ll never happen to me now because of Liam’s sister and his mom — and because I was stupid enough to think that it could happen to me in the first place.

I wait till we’re all sitting together at the dinner table before I casually mention that Syd was hanging out in the tree fort with Liam earlier.

Dad chokes on his casserole. His face turns reddish purple, and I have to thump him between the shoulder blades to dislodge the food.

“What the heck are you thinking, Sydney?” he explodes when he’s finally able to get air back in his lungs. “What possessed you to talk to the Connors boy after what they did to Lara?”

“
Liam
didn’t do anything,” Syd protests. “He’s just caught up in this mess because of his crazy family. Just like me.”

My parents glance at me to see how I’m taking that, because obviously,
I
have to be the crazy family she’s referring to, right? It couldn’t possibly have
anything
to do with
them
.

“Sydney …,” Dad says in a warning tone, but Syd’s on a roll.

“Why
shouldn’t
I see him? He’s my
friend
. Where’s the rule that says
we
have to stop being friends just because of Lara and Bree?”

“It’s not that,” Mom explains in her diplomatic politician voice. “But … surely you can see it’s awkward …
under the circumstances
.”

“Yeah,
circumstances
that neither Liam or I had anything to do with,” Syd says. “And just like always, we’re supposed to go along with the program, just because you guys say so!” She slams her knife and fork down on the table. “Well,
FORGET THAT!
” she shouts, pushing her chair back and standing up. “Just because you’re all screwed up, why should Liam and I suffer?”

She storms out of the room, crashes up the stairs, and slams her door so hard it rattles the light fixture.

“Pete, you have to talk to her,” Mom says. “She can’t keep associating with Liam. Not now. Can you imagine what would happen if the press got wind of it?”

I remember the look on Syd’s face when I saw her and Liam together earlier.

My sister and Liam are friends, but they’re more than that. And even though I’m jealous, even though what she has highlights everything that I lost when Christian turned on me and I found out he wasn’t real, I don’t want that taken from her.

“No,” I say suddenly. “Syd’s right.”

My parents stare at me. You’d think I’d suddenly grown a third head. Maybe I have, and this time I finally got one with a working brain.

This whole thing has been so messed up for everyone — for me, for Mom, for Dad, for Syd. Maybe until now, until I admitted to missing Christian today, I’ve been so wrapped up in my own misery, how much I am hurting, that it was the only thing I could see. Christian may have been fake, but one thing he said about me was true: I’m not a good friend.

Thinking back, I can start to see what he meant. I don’t want to, but it’s there. Especially with Bree. And it hits me that maybe she tried to tell me, but I just wouldn’t listen. Like, there was this one night when we were in eighth grade, I got back from a really bad day at the therapist, and I was complaining to Bree about how I hated school, my parents, and basically my entire life. She didn’t say anything while I cried about my awful day and even more awful life.

When I finally stopped, she said, “It sucks that you’re going through all this, Lara, but did you ever think of asking me how
my
day went?”

At the time, I just got mad. I thought she didn’t care about me, that she just didn’t understand how bad things were. I was so upset I hung up on her. But now I realize that Bree had a point, the same one that Syd made at dinner. I’ve been wrapped up in my own pain for so long, I haven’t paid much attention to anyone else’s. Even the people who care about me the most … or those who used to.