Love You Hate You Miss You (11 page)

130 days

J,

Laurie wants me to come see you, but I—even at the funeral, I couldn’t look at you. Everyone else did, filed by in a snaking line, the church loud with tears and footsteps. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand up, couldn’t join the line. You were lying in a shiny wooden box, and it was so wrong that you were there that I couldn’t move. I just sat there, staring. I wish I hadn’t been able to breathe.

But I was, and I did, and I rode in silence in the back of my parents’ car to the cemetery. I had to leave when they put—when that shiny box was lowered into the ground. I went and sat on the back of the car. I stared at the sun until my eyes hurt, till everything was a bright, painful blur.

Your mother left before the service was over. I know because I could still hear the minister’s voice off in the distance. Off where you were. Your mother was crying, leaning against a woman I knew was your aunt Ellen (she looked just like you described her, right down to the mole on her neck). When she saw me, she stopped crying.

She stopped crying and looked at me. She didn’t tell me I shouldn’t have come. She didn’t have to. She didn’t tell me it was all my fault. She didn’t have to do that either. She just looked at me. I wish she had done something—said something, anything. But she didn’t. She just looked at me, and then she turned away.

I haven’t been to see you because I can’t. I just can’t but…

But Laurie knew, J. She knows how weak I am.

I CLOSED MY NOTEBOOK
and ignored Mom’s glances at it. I knew she wouldn’t ask what I was writing.

And she didn’t. Instead, all the way home I had to answer questions about school. Ever since I fixed Julia’s locker, I get questions from her and Dad all the time.

So I talked.

I said, “Yes, classes are fine.”

I said, “Yes, I’m trying to make friends.” (I don’t know how to. I should have tried at Pinewood, maybe. But I couldn’t. I didn’t deserve to, and besides, without Julia, without alcohol, I was shrunken, silent, back to being that little kid who knew the right words would never come.)

All the way home it was like that, question after question, and I knew that when Mom and I went inside there
would be praise over me doing my homework and putting my dishes in the sink after dinner and maybe even a hug or two. All those things I was once so sure I wanted.

Now all I want is for them to stop, for Mom and Dad to be like they were, happy and in love and me in orbit around them.

They still haven’t said a word about what I told them about Julia the other night. They still won’t say what I did. What I am.

“I want to…I need to go to the cemetery,” I said to Mom as she pulled into the driveway. She looked over at me, and I knew I had to say more.

“Laurie said I should.” I thought that would be enough, the magic words, but she just kept looking at me.

“You can call and ask her, if you want,” I added, and thought about how I used to dream of Mom looking at me like she was now, listening to me. Wanting to hear more. Wanting to hear me.

I never wanted it like this, though.

Mom bit her lip. “Do you want to go?”

“I’ve never been to see her. I…I haven’t even seen her grave. The day of the funeral I couldn’t—”

“Amy,” my mother said gently, so gently, like those three letters were fragile, lovable. I stared down at my hands. They were balled into fists on my lap, and I knew
if I moved they would too. Once upon a time I would have given anything—and I mean anything, even nights out partying with Julia—to hear her talk to me like that.

“You don’t have to do this to yourself,” she said.

I knew if I moved something would happen. I could feel it inside me, in my fists still clenched in my lap. I had to push down a surge of something bitter clawing at my throat and burning behind my eyes.

“Laurie really did say I should do it.”

“I believe you, and I’m sure she has her reasons. But Laurie wasn’t there the day of the funeral. She didn’t see…she didn’t see your face. She didn’t see you in the car, in the church. When your father and I came back to the car after, I thought…I thought, ‘That’s what a ghost looks like.’ You were so—” She broke off suddenly, breath shuddering.

I looked over at her. She was staring straight ahead, blinking hard and fast. The edges of her eyes were red.

“Please take me,” I said, loving and hating how upset she was, loving and hating that I’d caused it.

She did.

When we got there, she agreed to let me go in alone but wouldn’t let me walk back home by myself. “I know it’s not that far, but I’m waiting for you. I won’t leave you.”

I didn’t want those words from her, not like that, not there, but at the same time I wanted them so badly that if I could have plucked them from the air, swallowed them down, and let them swim inside me, I would have.

I got out of the car and walked toward Julia.

I was the only person around, my footsteps the only sound. And then I was there, I saw where Julia was. Is. It was so…it was so bare. It was just ground and a stone, and there were others just like it right next to it, all around it. All around me, everywhere I looked, there was grass and stones and I—

I couldn’t look at it. I couldn’t bear to see the piece of ground that was hers, the stone with her name on it. I turned away and walked through the cemetery, pretended I couldn’t see all those stones or the too neatly trimmed grass. I came out at the other end of the parking lot, Mom’s car out of sight.

I wanted to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. I could feel them, a hot burn stinging my eyes again, but something else, memories of that last night, Julia’s last night, were clawing at me, leaving me standing there frozen.

I don’t know how long I stood there, but after a while a car pulled into the lot. It was bright yellow, driven by an older man. When he got out, he looked as out of place as his car did, stood hesitating like he was waiting for
something. Hoping for something. When he realized I was looking at him, he walked into the cemetery.

Another car pulled into the lot, but I didn’t look. I just kept watching the man. His shoulders slumped and his head bowed as soon as he started walking among the graves. He looked like he belonged then.

“Amy?”

I turned around.

Julia’s mother was there, staring at me like I was a bad dream. It was a weekday, almost evening, and she was supposed to be at work, her hair shellacked into place and her Assistant Store Manager tag clipped onto her smock. I knew her schedule like I knew Julia’s. CostRite Pharmacy owned her now. She wasn’t supposed to be standing just a few feet away from me.

But she was, leaning against her car like it was the only thing holding her up. There was a bunch of plastic-wrapped yellow flowers in her other hand. They had to be for Julia, but they were so wrong.

“Julia hates yellow,” I said.

It’s true—she was convinced it made her look terrible (it didn’t)—but it wasn’t the right thing to say. It wasn’t even what I wanted to say. I hadn’t talked to Julia’s mother since the night I’d taken Julia’s hand and said everything
would be okay. Why didn’t I say what I’d been trying to for so long, what I’d tried to say every time I called Julia’s house?

“She probably hates being dead more,” Julia’s mother said, pushing away from the car.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know exactly what you meant. You knew her better than I did. Are you happy now, Amy? She wouldn’t trust me with anything, even something as stupid as what color she likes, but she trusted you. She trusted you and you—”

“I know I never should have let her drive. We should have…I should have…I swear I never would have done any of it if I’d known what—”

“But you did do it. You let her drive, and now she’s gone. She’ll never turn eighteen, she’ll never finish high school. She’ll never…I’d give everything I’ve ever had or will to hear her voice again, even if it’s to tell me to go to hell. But I’ll never have that, will I?”

“I’ve tried to call, I’ve wanted to say—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, and walked toward me. When she was so close I could see her foundation cracking in the lines around her eyes, see how it didn’t hide the dark circles under them, she stopped and grabbed my
arm. “I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t want to see you. I’ve lost everything because of you. Everything.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and finally, finally it came out. Finally I said it. “I’m so sorry for what I did.”

“You’re sorry?” She dropped my arm like my skin burned her. “You’re sorry? She was my world. Your words, your ‘sorry,’ what does it do? She’s still gone, and you’re still here.” She hit me with the flowers, the plastic smacking my face, petals flying into the air around us. “Keep your words. They aren’t enough. They won’t ever be enough.”

I ran then, turned and stumbled my way across the parking lot, toward Mom’s car and Mom sitting calmly inside, smiling like she was glad to see me. I said I had a headache and lay down in the backseat, pressed my face into it and wished it would swallow me whole.

130 days

I saw you, J.
I saw your mother too, and she…well, what she said to me is true. Sorry is just a word, and a word can’t make things right. It can’t change what I did. It can’t bring you back.

Mom knew something happened, I guess, because when we got home, she came up to my room and checked on me every five minutes till I finally gave up and went downstairs. I floated, numb, through homework and dinner, saying yes, I was fine, when both Mom and Dad asked, and then cried the tears I couldn’t before in bed. I didn’t feel better afterward.

I knew I wouldn’t.

I can’t sleep. I’ve been lying here for hours and hours thinking about the cemetery. About your mother’s face. About what she said. About your grave.

I’m thinking about you. Remember when we went to Splash World? You totally scammed us inside and even got us onto all the best rides without waiting. We bought cotton candy and ate horrible seven-dollar hot dogs. We got our picture taken with Swimmy the Seal.

I still have the picture. I’m smiling in it. You’re standing in front of me. Your face is a blur because you’d turned toward me, the camera capturing you like you were, always in motion. The side of your mouth is open, laughing, and you’re leaning in a bit, like you’re going to rest your head on my shoulder.

You did. You always did that when I made you laugh or when someone else made you sad.

I’ve thought about that day, and about the time we tried to make caramel in your kitchen and had to open all the windows to get rid of the horrible burnt-sugar smell. I’ve thought about all the times I rode to school in your car, digging around on the floor through the pile of CDs you’d burned and how no matter which one I picked there was always at least one stupid love song that you knew all the words to. I’ve thought about all the times I lay on your bed, watching you make faces as you talked on the phone.

I’ve thought about how you would make me knock on the door and pretend to be your mother if it was a guy you
didn’t want to talk to, and the way we’d laugh afterward. I’ve thought about all the times we walked down the hallways at school and you’d whisper, “Amy, you’re model tall. Model! Show it off! I didn’t loan you my T-shirt so you could do the slouchy hiding thing, you know.”

I’ve thought about what Laurie asked me.

That night, the one with the guy with mean eyes and the grain alcohol? You knew. I know that now. I can—I can say it. You knew. You knew everything. You said you were scared afterward. I know what that means. I think maybe I always did. You meant you were sorry.

I think Laurie would say that means something. I think she would say it means something big. I think she would say it means you hurt me.

I think it means you were sorry.

People aren’t just one thing, you know? They aren’t all good or all bad, and what Laurie wants me to see is true—you did hurt me—but it’s only part of the truth.

The truth is that you were strong and fierce and funny. The truth is that you had terrible taste in guys. (And in music too, you and all your love songs.) The truth is that you would loan me anything of yours I wanted—even if you’d just gotten it—and never ask for it back. I still have your “My Broom Is in the Shop” tee in my closet.

I was always afraid to wear it, but I wanted to. And you knew it. Without me ever saying so, you knew it and gave it to me.

The truth is that night, the night I picked up my bottle and swallowed grain alcohol, you knew what I was drinking when I didn’t.

The truth is that when I got sick, when I closed my eyes and faded away, you were there. You took me to the hospital. You didn’t leave me. You were there for me.

Yeah, it’s true that you never told me to stop drinking. And yeah, it’s true that you helped me drink.

But I chose to. Every time—every single time—it was always my choice. Mine. Not yours.

The truth is I’m the one who drank. I’m going to tell Laurie that next time I see her.

Maybe she’ll even listen.

IT FIGURED
that the one time I actually wanted to see Laurie she wasn’t around.

“But you just saw her two days ago,” Dad said when he picked me up after school and I asked if I could see her again.

From the way he was looking at me, I knew he and Mom had already talked to Laurie about my visit to Julia’s grave.

I gritted my teeth and said, “I know, but I need to see her again.”

I was willing to put up with anything to see the look on Laurie’s face when I blew her stupid questions about Julia back in her face.

“All right,” Dad said, but after we got home (and he’d talked to Mom, of course) he called Laurie’s office and
found out that Laurie’s father is sick and she’s gone out of town. So there’s no way I can see her now, plus my appointment for next week has been canceled. It’s weird to think of Laurie having parents. I would have thought she just hatched fully grown with a clicking pen in one hand.

Mom, who was home for the afternoon because she’d given her classes the day off to work on their papers, started to suggest I go see Dr. Marks, the group therapy leader at Pinewood. Apparently he has a private practice. (I can just see it now. Me, him, and the ever-changing parade of food in his mustache.)

I cut her off before she could finish and asked her if she wanted to go to the mall. I knew that would stop her trying to get me to see Mustache Man, and it did.

“This is wonderful,” Mom said, sounding so pleased, and I stared at her until she looked away. Looked at Dad.

Julia’s mother drove her crazy, but she wanted J in her life. She loved her so much. I’ve been thinking about her a lot since I saw her. I know it’s not possible, but I wish I could talk to her. Really talk to her, I mean. Talk to her about Julia. She knows what it’s like to miss her. She knows how wrong a world without Julia in it is and isn’t afraid to say it.

She isn’t afraid to say what’s true.

My parents, however, are.

They still haven’t said anything about what happened—about what I did—and while Mom was getting her purse I wondered if they ever will.

I could ask. I know that. But I don’t.

Mom came back and said, “Ready to go?”

“Ready,” I said, and I don’t ask because I don’t want to hear their answer. I want to pretend I could be a daughter they could want even though I know I’m not. Never have been, never will be.

As soon as we got to the mall, Mom pressed one of her charge cards into my hands and told me to go shopping.

“I know you probably don’t want to run into people from school with your mom around,” she said, a huge smile on her face. “So go have fun, buy yourself some clothes. You must be tired of wearing those outfits we got after you—before you went back to school.”

She smiled again, too wide. “Meet me in the food court in an hour and if you want to stay longer and talk to your friends, that’s fine with me. I told your father we might be late.”

“I’ll be back in thirty,” I said, and took off. I wanted a break from her, from how happy she was that I’d let her
take me somewhere, but there was no way I could spend an hour in the mall. It reminded me too much of Julia, of the way things used to be.

I avoided all the stores we went in, which left me with the stationery store, with its cutesy fake-homemade cards, and the kitchen store. I went in the kitchen store and walked around looking at the pots and pans and twelve dollar jars of salsa. It was very boring, even with a huge candy display at the back of the store, and after what felt like three hours, the cutting-edge and very expensive clock on display said ten minutes had passed. I moved on to looking at vinegars. That took three minutes, and that included reading the back of one of the bottles. (Apparently organic vinegar is necessary if you really want to “taste the flavor” of your food. Go figure.)

I’d saved the candy for last but it was “old-fashioned” stuff involving a lot of dried fruit. There was a ton of it, though, and after a while I found something with chocolate and marshmallows that looked edible. I could almost hear J saying, “Finally! Real food!”

I went through the whole stack of boxes twice before picking one up. It looked like all the others, but choosing that one meant that by the time I was done the clock showed twenty-three minutes had passed.

Then it hit me. What was I going to do with the candy? Buy it? Julia wasn’t there to share it with, to pick off the marshmallow parts and eat them first like she did with s’mores. The store’s cash register froze up as I stood there, and I watched it spit a long trail of receipts into the air.

The salesperson, who was about Julia’s mom’s age and had her color hair, bright bottle blond, looked like she was going to burst into tears. I had to put the candy down and leave then. I don’t know why. It wasn’t because I thought I was going to cry or anything. I just…I felt bad, seeing that woman’s face. Being there, in the mall, without Julia.

I should have run into someone from school then. A big dramatic moment, straight out of one of those crappy movies J used to love to watch. A run-in with mustache girl, maybe. We could have exchanged glances, both of us knowing that shopping alone on a weekday afternoon wasn’t normal. It couldn’t ever pass as normal.

But I didn’t see mustache girl. I didn’t see anyone, and I walked back to Mom. She was talking on her cell when I got to the food court, facing away from me with one arm propped up on a table, head resting on her hand as she talked.

I used to sit like that when I talked to Julia.

“I’m trying,” she said. “It’s just difficult. She still hasn’t said a word to me about visiting Julia’s grave. Has she said anything to—? No, I know you’d tell me if she had. I just…I hoped. Right, I know. All she said was ‘Fine’ on the way here, Colin. No matter what I ask, that’s always her answer. I don’t know what she’s thinking. I look at her and…”

She should have realized I was behind her. Heard me breathing. Seen the shadow I cast. But of course she didn’t. “I don’t know her,” she said. “How can she be such a stranger to me? Why can’t I—? No, honey, I’m fine. I am. I just wish you and I—”

I left the mall. I didn’t want to hear her wishes. I could already guess what they were.

Outside, I went to the bus stop and stood next to two women with elaborate makeup and tired eyes. They discussed work schedules and how to sell moisturizer. They both told me I was lucky to be so tall. I sat behind them on the bus and listened to them all the way to the transfer stop, where they got off. I stayed on, resting my head against the window, and watched the sky turn dark.

Corn Syrup got on the bus my second time through the transfer stop. Her pep squad uniform was poking out
of her bag just so, as if everyone on their way from work would be impressed by the fact that she’s a second-rate cheerleader. She looked washed out under the bleary lights that blinked on as passengers climbed aboard, like a shadow of herself. She paid her fare and sat down on one of the seats that face sideways, the single seats that are supposed to be for old people or pregnant women. I could almost hear Julia laughing at that. We both knew bus etiquette real well.

I missed riding the bus with Julia. I hated it when we did it, couldn’t wait for J to get her car, but now…now I would have given anything to have her sitting next to me.

An angry-looking pregnant woman got on at the commuter rail station and asked Caro, “So when is your baby due?” with a smile that was just bared teeth. Corn Syrup got up, apologizing and tripping over herself, and looked around for a seat. I watched her spot her choices. Next to a fat man sprawled out with the paper, bulk and newsprint spreading over a seat and three-quarters, or next to me.

She picked me. When she sat down, she held her bag close to her chest, biting her lip. Julia would have said, “Hi!” and stared at her until she looked away. I looked out
the window. It was dark enough that I couldn’t see much of anything, and we rode in silence for what felt like a thousand years. (It was probably only nine hundred.)

No one pulled the cord for her stop, so she had to lean across me to do it. She mumbled, “Excuse me,” in a snotty voice, but the effect was totally ruined when the bus hit a pothole and her head smacked into the seat in front of us.

I didn’t laugh. I was going to, probably, but she didn’t give me a chance. Before I could do anything she’d straightened up, hands clenched around her bag again, and said, “You know our group project? For English? We should all meet at the university library this Saturday. They have to let anyone use it because it’s a state school, right?”

I shrugged. She was right about being able to use the library but I didn’t want to encourage conversation, especially since I could guess what was coming.

My silence didn’t stop her.

“I was thinking maybe you could come.”

“Why?”

“It’s a group project.”

“Right. So that’s why, in class, you and Mel spend all your time asking me what I think.”

“We’re all getting graded and we all have to—”

“Sure, that’s it. Come on. You want me there because of Beth.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Please. If just you and Mel meet, Beth will make it so you’ll be stuck eating lunch with people like me.”

She sighed. “Fine. You’re right. Look, I’m—I’m on the bus now because Mel asked me if I wanted to meet up this weekend before practice. Beth heard and told me she couldn’t give me a ride home.”

“And what, that surprised you? I could have told you your ass would be on the bus for talking to Beth’s property without her permission, and I haven’t spoken to her in years.”

Caro was silent for a moment. “Amy, about the other day—”

“What about it? I was bored, I got a meal out of listening to you whine—no big deal.”

“Right,” she said tightly. “So what about Saturday?”

“What about it?”

“I’m begging, okay? I can’t work on our presentation with just Mel.”

She sounded so miserable, and for a second I felt sorry for her. But only for a second. “Patrick will be there.”

“He won’t show up, or if he does, he’ll leave after ten minutes or something. You know he hardly ever does anything, and this certainly isn’t going to be any different. And look, it’s not like group work is optional. We all have to give this presentation. And I can’t deal with what will happen if—” Her voice cracked.

“Fine.” I so didn’t want to go through another round of Caro’s dumb Beth thing. It would just remind me of my stupidity the other day.

“Really?”

“Sure,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. If Patrick could skip out early, I could skip the whole thing. If nothing else, it would bring my A average down to something more familiar.

“Great,” she said, and relaxed her stranglehold on her bag. “So should we meet up at, like, ten? On the library steps?”

“Whatever.”

She was silent for a minute as the bus slowed down and then spoke in a rush as the brakes squealed us to a stop. “I’m going to get breakfast at Blue Moon before. I’ll be there around nine. If you want…you could meet me there.”

She stood up before I could ask her if she was having
an aneurysm. I stared at the bus floor, with its covering of rail ticket stubs and crumpled newspapers, until the bus started moving again. At the next stop, I got off and called home.

Dad and Mom both came to get me. Dad was driving. He kept his head turned away when I got in the car, but as I sat down I got a glimpse of his face in the rearview mirror. His eyes were red and swollen.

Mom said, “I don’t think what you’ve done is something to smile about, Amy.”

I reached up and touched my face. There was a grin stretching across it, so wide and sharp my fingers skimmed across the edges of my gritted teeth.

On the way home she asked where I’d gone and why. I told her about the bus. I didn’t mention Corn Syrup.

“Why did you leave the mall?” Dad asked as we pulled into the driveway. In the dark his eyes looked fine.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Amy, we understand that you need your space, but your mother and I—”

“I left because she was on the phone with you, talking about me. You know, the stranger you two live with. The killer.”

“Amy—” Mom said, but I tossed her credit card at her and got out of the car before I could hear her say anything else. If there’s one thing I know, it’s how little words mean, and right then I didn’t want to hear any more of them.

Right then I knew that I couldn’t.