Reconstructing Amelia (29 page)

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OCTOBER 22

Amelia Baron

“The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.” Virginia Woolf, Monday or Tuesday

Amelia

OCTOBER 22

The texts started coming in the middle of the night. Attached to each was a shot of me in my underwear. I read every single one and looked at each picture. I probably shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it. It was like I couldn’t believe it was really happening. After I looked, I deleted each message right away. Because it was one thing to make myself look at them once. After that, they needed to disappear.

The very last text I got was different from the rest. It was about Sylvia. T
ALK TO
W
OODHOUSE OR ANYBODY ELSE AND
S
YLVIA WILL PAY
. T
HAT SLUT WILL NEVER LIVE DOWN WHAT WE’LL BROADCAST ABOUT HER
.

It was smart. Because even if I decided I could live with the Maggies humiliating me, I knew that Sylvia would never survive it. If things going south with Ian hadn’t sent her reaching for sharp objects again, the Maggies going after her surely would. And she was the only person who was totally innocent in the whole entire situation.

When I got to school the morning after the texts, I saw Dylan in the hall. But she wouldn’t even look at me, and she turned fast in the opposite direction when I headed toward her. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t been counting the minutes until I could forgive her. But it’s a lot harder to forgive someone who’s not looking to apologize.

It wasn’t just Dylan ignoring me either. All the Maggies were whispering and laughing, making sure I knew they were talking about me whenever I walked past. After lunch, somebody wrote the word
lesbo
on my locker in red lipstick. At least that’s what I’d thought it was until I tried to wipe it away, hoping the whole time that the other kids in the crowded hall hadn’t noticed what it said. It wasn’t until it was smeared all over my palm and my locker that I realized it was nail polish, not lipstick.

When I came back to my locker after French, it had been emptied out—the books, notebooks, my field hockey stuff, all gone. In its place were twenty-two little notes that all said “I hate you”—one for each Maggie—and six live crickets. I clamped a hand over my mouth and tried not to scream when one of the crickets jumped out at me. I found my books and notebooks in a garbage can nearby. But it wasn’t until practice was halfway over that I finally found my field hockey stuff. It was spread out on a bench in the gym, with the contents of a sanitary napkin can dumped on top of it.

That night the texts came again, starting and stopping the way they had before, but this time with enough space in between that I’d start to fall asleep, only to get jerked awake a few minutes later by another text. Like the first night, the texts were all insults or threats or whatever with a picture attached. The last one, which came at 3:53 a.m., was for sure from Zadie. Attached was the video she’d shot when she’d walked in on Dylan and me. In it I looked so angry it was kind of scary, even to me.

Zadie had managed to keep Dylan’s face out of every shot. She’d protected her best friend. The video showed only the legs and body of a naked girl, not which girl. I realized now that Zadie had been biding her time for when she’d call a stop to us. She’d known from the start that Dylan would walk out the door whenever she finally said the word. I should have known it, too. I had one of those way-too-close, way-old friendships all of my own. Sylvia got me to do things I’d never have done otherwise. With her it was small things, but I understood how it could happen. And the way Dylan talked about Zadie, their friendship was in a whole other league. From the beginning, I should have known I could never compete.

When I finally got downstairs the next morning, my mom was fully dressed, bag over her shoulder, BlackBerry in hand.

“Hey there,” she said, as she rushed around the kitchen getting her stuff together. She looked stressed. “Good morning.”

I watched her for a second, not saying anything. I wanted to tell her what was going on. I needed to. But where was I going to start? With the Maggies, with Dylan, with Zadie walking in on us? It was all too much. And no one wanted to start up a sex talk with her mom on purpose. That was a thing you avoided. Instead, I stood there trying to figure out how I could tell her some of it, but not all. That was easier said than done. It was such a tangled mess.

I watched my mom grab a banana from the counter and shove her folders into her bag, then her keys.

“Tonight’s going to be a
really
late one. I’m sorry. I know this is ridiculous, but it’s going to end soon. And I was thinking maybe we could go somewhere for the long weekend over Thanksgiving. Someplace like Bermuda or something, maybe,” she said as she rushed over to give me a kiss, then a hard hug.

“What?” I sounded mad. I was. How could she not notice that something was so totally wrong. “Are you serious?”

My whole life, I’d figured that it was okay that my mom wasn’t home all the time, because when I
really
needed her, she’d know it. And she would be there. But now, here I was, really needing her, and she hadn’t even noticed a thing.

“Okay, not exactly the ‘Yeah, Mom!’ I was hoping for, but maybe we can talk about it this weekend.”

She was going to leave any second, I could tell. “Mom, can’t you just stay and listen to me for
one
minute right now?”

My mom took a deep breath and exhaled. “Yes, Amelia, I can listen, for a minute. I’m always here to listen.”

“I want to spend next semester in Paris,” I said.

Paris was Ben’s idea. I didn’t have all the details worked out, but the plan was basically to leave school for a semester. When I came back in the fall, Zadie and Heather and Rachel and a lot of the other Maggies would have already graduated. Not Dylan, she’d have another year. I left that part out when I was talking to Ben. I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea that I was still thinking about her. Even if I was.

Part of me was really asking to go to Paris as, like, an actual legitimate solution to my problems. Part of me was hoping that if I started talking about wanting to be in another
country
for a semester, my mom might, I don’t know, get the hint that something was seriously wrong.

If my mom didn’t agree to the semester away—which I didn’t think she would—my next move was going to be to say that I wanted to change schools. I didn’t want to leave Grace Hall. I’d miss Liv and Sylvia and my field hockey team. But I’d go if I had to.

“Paris?” My mom was looking at me like I was crazy. She looked stressed, too. She was worried about being late for work, I could tell. I’d use that, too, if I had to. She said yes to a lot of stuff when she was late for work. “For a whole
semester
? And Paris is so far away.”

“What does it even matter?” I snapped.
Ask what’s wrong. Ask what’s wrong.
“You’re never here anyway.”

“Amelia, come on, that’s not fair,” my mom said, looking kind of hurt. “And a semester abroad is for college, not high school.”

“It’ll be educational.”

I was leaving out the part about the semester abroad not even being through Grace Hall. It wouldn’t help my case.

“Amelia, I wish I could just blow off my meeting and stay to talk this out. But I honestly can’t. Can we please talk more about it tonight, when I get home?” she asked.

I tried to swallow back the tears bubbling up in my throat. Why wasn’t she asking me what was wrong?

“Just say yes, Mom!” I yelled at her. Because maybe that would work. “It’s really easy, listen: yes. Just like that.”

She blinked a few times, looking all hurt and kind of shocked.

“Amelia, come on,” she said quietly. “I’m not saying no, necessarily. You know I’ll hear you out. I always do.” She was headed for the front door now. “But I can’t do that right this second. Once I know more about the program, maybe I’ll feel differently. That means we need
time
to talk about it.”

“They need an answer today, Mom.”

She turned back at the door. “If they need an answer today, then the answer will have to be no.”

“Great, awesome,” I mumbled. “That’s totally helpful.”

She took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling.

“Are you okay, Amelia?” She asked, her hand on the doorknob. “Because I am stressed about work, and it would be good if I could get there. But I can stay if you need me to. You know that, right?”

I wasn’t actually sure I knew anything anymore. I’d been standing there all mad because my mom wasn’t asking me what was wrong, but now that she had, I didn’t want to tell her anything. Because what could she do to fix it? Nothing. Anything she did would only make it worse. That I was sure about. All I wanted to do was cry. Alone.

“No, whatever, it’s okay,” I said. “School’s just really annoying right now.”

My mom came back across the room and wrapped her arms around me. She squeezed me so tight like she was trying to crush me. Or maybe that was the way I was holding on to her.

Finally, she let me go and headed for the door. She turned back as she opened it.

“Everything will get easier, I promise,” she said. “It always does.”

Dr. Lipton was sitting in a chair in the corner of her office when I knocked on her door. She had a folder open on her lap and was reading the papers inside. Sun was streaming in the window behind her, making her skin look see-through. She twitched up when I knocked. Made me jump, too.

“Sorry,” I said, already having second thoughts about this. I’d never gone to see a guidance counselor, ever. But I needed to talk to somebody, somebody who would keep what I told her a secret. “I just, um . . . Do you want me to come back later?”

“No, no,” she said. But she was looking at me like a stranger who’d just asked for a bite of her sandwich. “Come in. Have a seat.”

She closed her folder and set it delicately on the table next to her.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, reaching behind her for her appointment book. “We didn’t have a session scheduled, did we?” She ran her finger up and down the page. “Amy, is it?”

“Amelia. No, I didn’t have an appointment. Should I make one?” This was a mistake, definitely. “I could come back.”

Dr. Lipton stared at me for a long time, completely motionless, like some kind of lizard. I kept waiting for her tongue to shoot out of her mouth and stick to my cheek.

“Well, you’re here now,” she said finally. “And you certainly seem agitated, that much I can see.”

“Is what we talk about here confidential?” I asked, staying in the doorway.

“Yes,” she said, seeming curious now, “it is. Why don’t you come in and tell me what brings you here, Amelia.”

Finally, I shuffled inside her office. It was pretty and bright, with comfy-looking couches. Too comfy. Like you’d be sucked down into some kind of head-shrinker vortex the second you sat on them.

“Close the door before you sit,” she said, and I did, even though I hated the idea of being locked in there. Finally, I made myself sit. My hands felt ice cold when I folded them in my lap.

“Now, what’s going on?”

I was quiet for a while, until it got so uncomfortable in there I started to feel kind of sick.

“Someone kind of broke up with me, I guess.”

“Kind of?”

“Well, she left, and now she’s not talking to me.”

“Rejection is always difficult,” Dr. Lipton said calmly. She hadn’t batted an eye when I’d said
she
instead of
he
. It had kind of been a test.

“Yeah,” I said.

As I stared at her, the back of my throat started to burn. I really didn’t want to cry in there. Who knew what happened when you cried?

“Do you know
why
she ended the relationship?”

I shook my head again, swallowing over the big ball stuck at the back of my throat.

“She has this best friend who hates me,” I finally got out. “But I don’t even know if that’s what it was. It’s complicated.”

“Relationships often are,” she said. “And uncertainty is never helpful. It allows for too much . . . rumination. Does that make sense?”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“Open questions impede the healing process.”

Healing process. That made it sound like it really was over with Dylan. That I might just have to move on.

“And now a bunch of other kids are messing with me also.”

“This has something to do with this relationship?”

I thought about the question for a minute. It did suck that Dylan wasn’t standing up for me. That she’d walked out of my house when I’d been screaming her name. That she hadn’t tried to contact me since. But Dylan hadn’t sent me any of the texts, at least I was pretty sure she hadn’t. She hadn’t written on my locker or put a bunch of bugs inside it. There was no way. Zadie was responsible for those things. And I knew better than anybody that it wasn’t fair to hold somebody responsible for the things her best friend did.

“It’s separate, and it’s not separate. Some of the people messing with me are her friends, I guess. They’re all in a club together.”

“Ah, a club,” Dr. Lipton said. “Let me guess, the Magpies?”

“Yeah, I was in it for a while,” I said. It was a relief to tell someone finally.

“This is largely the point of the club, to make outsiders feel badly and to constantly threaten insiders with losing their special status. These dynamics are always fraught with danger. I’m not surprised to hear it has gotten out of hand again.”

I shook my head as my eyes filled with tears. “But what they’re doing—it’s so much worse than I ever thought it would be.”

“Harassment is prohibited by the code of conduct, you know.” Dr. Lipton said. “If what these girls are doing rises to that level and they’re doing it on school grounds, they could be expelled. In fact, I’d be obligated to report it to the headmaster.”

I thought about the pictures and the texts and my field hockey uniform covered in blood-soaked waste. I thought about the whispers and the crickets. How the word
dyke
kept popping up everywhere. But did I want them all thrown out of school, if “them all” ended up including Dylan? And what about Sylvia? How would she survive what they’d do to her?