Come Back to Me (4 page)

I swallowed
over the lump in my throat.  Delayed sympathies.  Another con for holing up in
my room after Katie died.  That and the fact that hiding made it so much easier
to drink.  Although condolences in general didn’t matter seeing as Katie and I weren’t
even friends when she died. So complicated. How did you grieve or accept
sympathy over someone who hated you?

I mumbled thanks
and focused my gaze back on my hair.  Definitely not my normal color.  With winter
and my hibernation during the entire spring of my senior year, my hair was
dark, almost the gray brown of wet pottery.  It needed a little shine.

We have
been friends together in sunshine and shade.

The quote
popped into my mind.  Another poster, one I read in Emily’s office.  I thought
it meant a friendship lasted through the good and the bad times, but that certainly
wasn’t true for Katie and me.  Our friendship exploded the moment we drifted
into the shady parts.

Because of
me. I let the crap happen.  I wasn’t in control at all, especially when I
drank.  My life was like my car rolling down the road without a driver.  The
stupid sign my car smashed into was my friendship with Katie, except in the
case of our friendship, my dad couldn’t write a check to the Bloom Homeowner’s
association to make it all better.

I needed to
stay in the driver’s seat.  Just like with the improv game.  I couldn’t predict
Amanda’s or Casey’s responses, but I was able to kind of turn things around and
send us in a new direction with my own answer.  According to Vivienne, there
was always the
and
part.

The foil
squares in my hair glinted under the bright lights above me.  My complexion
looked a bland pink, like the inside of my elbow.

The decision
to get my hair highlighted was my mom’s response.  But I could add to it.  I
could take the wheel and make it my own.

* * *

I marched
out of the salon, feeling strong, practically triumphant as if the
yes
improv game was some kind of super power.

Well, if
super powers were short hairstyles and side swept, swoop bangs.

We walked
along the sidewalk, me with a little bounce in my step as I waited for her
shock, her disapproval.

She pressed a
button on her key fob, which unlocked the car doors, then glanced at me as she
opened the driver’s door.

“Lovely,
Whitney, just lovely,” she said, ducking into the front seat.

Lovely
.  That was such a generic reaction.

I stood on
the edge of the curb, staring at the car’s roof, mulling over my mom’s comment. 
What would she have said had I not walked away with twelve inches of my hair
cut off?

I blinked as
the sun glinted off the roof and into my eyes.  Then I reached a hand up to touch
my bare neck.  Cutting my hair was a big move, a bold one.  But my mom’s
response felt like a whole lot of nothing.  Once again, denied.

And I had no
idea how to counter that move.

Home was exactly
as I’d left it.

Even my room
looked the same.  The queen-sized bed with my black and white fleur de lis
print comforter, the framed book covers, my antique desk that my mom and I
found during a trip to New York City years ago, and my laptop.  Even the red
accents around the room . . . yeah, everything was as it was.

Maybe I
expected different because I felt different.

My gaze
moved to my closet’s closed double doors.  I walked over and opened them.  Everything
in its place, the unopened box of my stuff Katie’s dad dropped off last month,
and the chocolate brown, suede boots in the back of my closet—the ones where I
used to stash mini vodka bottles.  Only now, the boots were empty.

That was
something different.

I turned
away from the closet.  There was a stack of large, plastic containers in the
corner behind my door.  The lids were red, matching my room.  Not that it
mattered since I would fill them and take them to college.  Again, it was
something different.

Also good.

 I smiled a
little, then picked up my laptop from my desk.  I stepped over the suitcase I’d
left in the middle of my floor and sat on my bed.

I logged
into my e-mail account.  I watched as the total number climbed.  I’d never gone
three weeks without checking my mail.  Even after Katie froze me out, I signed
in, always hoping she’d respond to my apologies.  She never did.  The only e-mails
I got were about school or alerts of condolences posted on my page after Katie
died.

My fingers
tingled with an odd sense of anticipation as I scrolled through my inbox.  A
residual sense of hope had me looking for something personal.

It was three
weeks of spam.  Not one was personal—not even one from my sister, Lauren, because
she’d sent me snail mail the first week at Gosley—unless you counted the e-mails
from Spring Hill retirement home.  I didn’t.

I mean yes,
I signed up for it, but it was for my community service project.  We had to do
one every year at Steeple Academy.  I wrote up my project idea and my plan to
execute it, which was an activity game using familiar nostalgic images—like
Singing
in the Rain
and
Cleopatra
movie poster jigsaw puzzles.  So many of
the residents loved those movies, and I realized how much their older memories
remained in their mind’s grasp.  It was interesting to me to see my grandmother
sing along to old movie musicals but struggle with the simple things like remembering
what she had for breakfast.  Anyway, the e-mail wasn’t personal.  It was work. 
Well, work I never got around to doing.

My finger
hovered over the button to delete it.  Except it was a reminder that my life
was once almost mind numbingly ordinary.  A simple time that mostly consisted
of applying to college, finishing school stuff, and hanging out with Katie and
Kyle—and my brief crush on Brandon Massey at the beginning of senior year. 
Even the crap that went down with my parents wasn’t completely chaotic in
comparison to the void of now.  Sure, I was mad when I found out about my dad’s
cheating last summer, but after they both told me it was none of my business, I
pushed any and all thoughts of my parents away.

The Spring
Hill e-mail was evidence that life could be normal again—and proof that I took
it all for granted.  Back then, I flitted around, going with the flow, not
realizing how easy it could be to ruin it all.

I dropped my
laptop onto the middle of my bed and walked to my closet.  Staring at the boots
tucked into the corner, I swore I smelled leather.  My stomach flopped.  Was
that anticipation?

I slammed
the doors shut.  “Not happening, Denison.”

Clangs and
other kitchen sounds echoed through the air vent near my feet.  I folded my
arms close to me.  It was freezing in the house.

I turned to
my dresser, digging in the middle drawer until I found my Colson University
sweatshirt.  I pulled it over my tank top as I moved out of my room.

“It’s like
twenty degrees colder in here,” I said, coming down the stairs.  My gaze
skimmed the foyer, taking in the chandelier, the credenza, and the shallow
ceramic dish on top that held my mom’s car keys.  I stopped at the bottom of
the staircase, my hand resting on the railing’s smooth wood, then I walked
through the short hallway to the kitchen.  “Are you offering a cryogenics
service or something?”

My mom’s
back was to me as she stood inside the walk-in pantry.  “It’s summer, Whitney. 
Put a sweater on.”

“My point
exactly.  It’s summer, so why should I have to pull out a sweater?”

My mom
ignored me as she reached for an apron.

“Are you
afraid we’ll break a sweat?”

“Just put on
a sweater,” she said in a singsong voice.  I thought I heard her sigh, but that
would’ve meant something rattled her.  Nope, no sigh, probably the air
conditioning pushing through the vents.

I moved
toward the counter bar.  “I’m wearing a sweatshirt, but I think I need one of
those thick, wool sweaters. You know, the kind Irish fishermen wear while out
on the frigid ocean?”

Again, she
ignored me, much like I’d done to her in the car after the salon as she went on
and on about some new cookbooks she ordered.  But I was distracted. I couldn’t
stop reaching for my non-existent ponytail, and her immediate acceptance of my
new look had me annoyed.  How was it she accepted change so easily?

Ugh.  It was
unnatural.

My mom
dropped an apron over her head—it was floral and fancy and, at first glance,
made it seem like she wore a dress over her light gray slacks and silk blouse. 
She tied it behind her, then stepped out of her pantry with two cookbooks.  She
had a floor to ceiling bookshelf in our walk-in pantry. Bug followed at her
heels, the dog’s collar jingling with every tiny step.

Bug didn’t
look one bit cold.  Traitor.

I grabbed a
water bottle from the fridge as my mom cracked an egg into a speckled, blue,
ceramic bowl.  The sameness of my mom’s actions, the house, and my room seeped
into my bones, mixing with the cold.

I rubbed my
arms through my sweatshirt.  Still, my skin tingled or itched. My mother’s
calmness irked me, made me feel restless, and made me want to argue with her. 
Yell at her.  Make some movement, other than the whisking sounds that tapped
against the bowl.  I wanted to toss that freaking whisk across the room.

“I got an e-mail
from Spring Hill,” I said, and my mom finally looked at me.  Even Bug raised
her tiny Shih Tzu/Yorkie/some other breed head from her curled up position next
to my mom’s feet.

I could hear
my own breathing, see my chest rise and fall a little too fast.  Regret flared
hot in my middle, and I shook my head in attempt to minimize the effect of
mentioning my grandmother to get a response out of my mother.  “Don’t worry.  It’s
not about grandma.”

My mom
stared at me, and my shoulders slumped.  “Um, I was just thinking that maybe I
should, um, finish my community project at Spring Hill.”

She blinked. 
It was the only indication I got that I may have ruffled her—other than her
full attention.

“What about
the internship?” she asked, pointing her whisk at me.  “You committed to that.”

“I know, but
I also committed to Spring Hill at one point, too,” I said.  Feeling combative
again, I straightened.  After all, it
was
possible Spring Hill could
contact me first in the case of an emergency.  I visited my grandmother more
than my mom did.

Maybe my mom
thought that, too, because she resumed her whisking, blending her attention
into the mix.

Ugh.  I was
no longer interested in arguing with her. I felt pathetic for wanting to spar
with her in the first place.

I needed to
get a life.  Thankfully, the countdown to leave Bloom was in full effect.  56
and a half days.  The thought brought with it a sensation of relief, even if it
also reminded me of how Katie loved countdowns.

Katie
again.  After three weeks at Gosley with very little reminders of her, suddenly,
it felt like she was everywhere again.

Suddenly, I
had the urge to craft.  Where was a glue room when I needed it?  The craft room
was the one thing I’d miss about Gosley.

I left the
kitchen and paused in the foyer outside the dining room, fixating on the liquor
cabinet’s closed doors. It would’ve been so easy to forget all of my Katie
thoughts.

* * *

“I want
pizza,” Katie had said, untangling herself from Kyle on the opposite end of the
couch.  It was the week before Christmas, and we were watching a movie.

“So order
one.” Kyle drained his beer and leaned over the couch to drop the bottle next
to the others.  Lined up like that, they made me think of bowling pins.

“I don’t
want to wait forty-five minutes,” Katie said.  “There’s one in your freezer.  I’m
going to go upstairs and make it.”

“Won’t that
take just as long to cook?”  Kyle reached for her arm, trying to tuck her back under
his shoulder.

Katie pulled
away and walked behind the couch but not before I caught her rolling her eyes
behind his back.  I thought if she later told me she broke up with him, it
would’ve been a mere formality.  She’d been distancing herself from Kyle for
months.

“Yeah, but
it won’t feel that long if I’m making it,” Katie said to him and glanced at
me.  I smiled because, around that time, I felt compelled to be her chill pill,
except she didn’t smile back.  She wasn’t actually looking at me.  She was just
staring, somewhere else.

Katie turned
and went upstairs to make her pizza, and Kyle’s face drooped into a familiar
mask of defeat. I figured he knew a break-up was in the works, but Katie was
the alpha in their relationship, so he waited.

Katie had
been distracted for weeks.  I thought it was just the stress of waiting to hear
back from MIT, but then she got in, and all was good.  Yet, she still seemed on
edge, and she was impatient with me, like I was always a step behind her.