Sister Pact (4 page)

“Headache,” I say.

“You wouldn't be holding out on me, would you?” Max's beautiful eyes take me in. I swear he wants to kiss me like that night. His fingers trace my face.

“I…”

Max's eyes shoot to the phone in my hand. “He asked you out in a text? Wow.”

I look down.

I mean Friday night. You want to go out?

“Just be careful, okay? Guys suck. Just saying.” Max gets up and crosses the room.

And just like that, he shuts me out like the week after our park hookup. After I froze up and couldn't give him what he wanted. I remember his hands on me in ways I never thought could feel so good. But then I hesitated and then he stopped. And the next day we were both sober and embarrassed. He could barely look at me as he said the things I'll never forget. The words I don't have to save in my phone, because they are written on my heart.
We're better as friends. I can't lose you. Maybe when we're older and less stupid.
Despite his excuses, I knew it was because I couldn't grow up.

Emery brings me back to the present. “She's almost like a nun these days. She couldn't
be
any more careful. Besides, he's cute. I kind of like redheads.”

Max makes a face.

K
I type back and hit Send.

I push Max out of the way and lie down on my bed. I put the pillow over my face and drown out the sound of Max and Emery's chatter. I close my eyes. God, I'm so tired.

Max lies down next to me, his body sending mine comfort, because our bodies do that. Without the worries about the future and what this means, with just straight-up contact, Max settles me. And even though I wish Max were with me, really with me, he's still my Max.

“Allie, Allie, Allie,” Max whispers. “You need to sleep.”

He's right, I do.

“Sweet dreams.” Max throws his arm around me, and I let myself fall away from my room and the sad that lives here.

The colors come to me when I'm almost totally out—deep, rich blues and foamy greens, beach-washed whites, cedar grays. The colors from my better past surround me till I'm safe and happy and I can let go for a little while.

I'm totally surprised when I find Mom in the kitchen waiting for me in her bathrobe, hair wild and messy, clutching her coffee cup in both hands. I used to tell her that when she drank coffee, she looked like she was praying. Today is definitely one of her hail-coffee-full-of-grace days.

“Morning,” she manages as she brings the cup to her mouth.

“Morning.” I push past her and open the fridge, hoping she remembered to go shopping. That's not always a given with Mom.

Surprisingly, there's a huge amount of food. I grab a Chobani black cherry yogurt for breakfast and a Gatorade for later. I move to the pantry to get the crunchy cereal I like to mix in and lean against the counter. Mom hands me a spoon and a brown bag.

“What's this?”

“Lunch. I packed you lunch.”

I try not to choke.

“Organic peanut butter and jelly, carrot sticks, and a cut-up apple,” she says. “I don't think you're eating right.”

I seriously can't remember the last time she packed a lunch for me. “Thanks” is all I can manage. The yogurt now feels weird in my mouth.

A car beeps. Mom and I both look out the front window. Emery.

“Allie…” Mom says as I turn to go.

“Yeah?”

She hands me a business card with the name of a lab on it.

“What's this?”

She looks down at it, like my stare is way too hard to hold. “Come on, Allie. You know we agreed to this.”

Blood tests. To see if I'm taking my anti-crazy meds. They can't be serious. “I didn't agree to anything.” I'm not doing it. And it's not just because I'm not taking those stupid-ass meds. It's the principle.

I put the paper bag on the counter and with it the card from the lab. I don't need her guilt lunch with a side of accusation.

“We want to be sure—”

“We? Who's we?”

She doesn't answer, just stands there. Her eyes finally find mine. At least she looked me in the eye. Usually she's too impaired to do that.

“Allie, please. Your dad and I are trying to take care of you.”

“How 'bout you guys try to trust me? How 'bout that?”

I feel like a total creep. Like a complete hypocrite. She's right. Hell, he's right too. I am not now nor do I ever intend to take that medicine. They forced me when I was in the hospital. It made me feel numb and stupid, as if I were looking at the world through some kind of gauze.

I look at the card and blink. My head tightens like I'm some kind of gear that's being wound. The appointment is right after school. Mom always waits to give me bad news when I won't have time to argue. She's a pro at this game—sneaky-Mom timing. Hate that shit. I should have known.

“Your father set this up. I wanted to tell you last night, but you fell asleep so early, I didn't have a chance.”

“It's
today
? After school?”

“Yes. I'll pick you up if you want and take you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Allie—”

“I've gotta go.” I walk toward the front door, yank it open, wave to Em, and turn back to Mom. “I'm not doing a stupid blood test and you can't make me.”

“Allie, your father thinks…”

I hold up my hand. I know what Dad thinks. He's told me a hundred times: I'm too obsessed with Leah. I need to have a good year. He's afraid I'm throwing away my life. Like Leah did.

Dad says. Mom delivers. He's such a bully. She's such a victim. I'm so over them both.

• • •

I used to love art class. Now I dread it. It's not just Mr. Kispert's expectations. Or Dad's. Or mine. It's also that Nick is in that class too. And even if I'm not into him like I am Max, I don't want him to see me struggle. The first week of any semester in art is about mixing colors and making choices. That means I'm officially screwed.

Piper Mason is already sitting at the back of the room, looking through art books when I walk in. Piper is a senior who could have gotten into any art school she wanted as a junior. She's this ridiculous phenom I will never be able to equal. Her focus is sculpture. She nods as I approach, and part of me feels honored she's letting me share the same space. I sit on the industrial-green patterned couch across from hers, this part of the room strictly for us AP students, which may just be Nick and Piper and me.

“I'm done with this one.” Piper hands me the book she was looking through. “I'm thinking of doing portraits as my concentration, but I wonder if that's lame.” She grabs another art book. “You know what you're doing?” She looks up at me from behind the bangs that have fallen over her face.

“No idea,” I answer.

“God, I hate this.” She leans forward. “You know what? If this art thing doesn't work out, maybe I'll just be an engineer or something. How hard could
that
be?”

I laugh, amazed she's treating me like her equal, which I am not, and also that she's unsure herself. “Or a heart surgeon,” I suggest.

Her turn to laugh, though she's moved back into her previous position, with legs drawn in and her book balanced on her knees. “Truly.”

The bell rings and Nick trots to the back of the room. “Hey.” He slides his baseball bag off his shoulder and onto the floor. “We ready for the insanity? Although you two have probably solved the whole world peace thing by now.”

“Yeah, but not our concentration topics,” Piper says.

He smiles. “You guys as stuck as I am?”

“It's not due till next week,” I offer.

“Just a stay of execution really.” Nick drags two fingers across his throat, closes his eyes, and sticks his tongue out.

Piper stops her page flipping and faces him. “A little insensitive?”

His face turns bright red. His eyes go to me. “I'm sorry, Allie. I didn't mean—”

“No, it's okay. I know you didn't…” Silence surrounds me, chokes me. My throat swells with the knowledge of what they want from me. How, like everyone, they want me to tell them how it happened. What went down with Leah and me and the pact. “Can we just forget it?”

They go back to perusing the books, but I still feel the heat of their curiosity. I close my eyes and think about how it felt to find her. How it felt afterward. How it felt when I realized I was the one who'd bailed, even though she was the one who forgot to invite me.

I press my fingers into my eyelids and sigh.

Nick gets up and grabs the bathroom pass.

Piper lays the book flat in her lap and looks up at me. I pray she doesn't say anything mean. I don't know her that well, but she doesn't seem the type. Still, right now my world is filled with land mines. “Leah and I had English together last year. She was so cool.”

I don't know what to say.

Piper goes back to flipping through the pages but keeps talking. “Use the pain for your art. Use it to make something real. I know that's what Leah did.”

My head tilts. What is she talking about? How well did she know Leah? Her honesty shocks me. “I'm not sure I can anymore. I feel…”

“Blocked?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“That happens.” Piper talks without looking up. “If your art's a little lost right now, you gotta find it. Find it any way you can. I mean, look at all the greats. Pain fueled them. Pain and maybe some
pain medicine
.” She puts air quotes around the words, then continues. “Andy Warhol, Vincent van Gogh, hell, even Charles Schulz dabbled when the muse was playing hide-and-seek.”

I sit there, mute and dumb in front of the coolest, most talented person I know. She yelled at Nick for being insensitive, but recommending I use the same meds that killed Leah might just take the cake for insensitivity. Doesn't it?

“The point is, find your art, Allie. Anyway you can.”

Nick returns and Piper pulls back into herself, and I wonder if I imagined that entire conversation.

I close my eyes and think about the colors. That's how I used to find my art. The colors.

“I'm so pink.” Leah's voice finds me from when I painted her this summer. I wanted to start on my concentration early, surprise Mr. Kispert. She offered to be my subject. Big surprise. Leah was all in when it was about her.

“It's
innocence
mixed with
reverie.
You look good like that,” I said.

“Is that how you see me?” she asked.

I nodded. I saw her just that way. Perfect. Flawless. Mine.

“I remember when I looked like that,” she said, wistfully.

I didn't know what she meant by that then and now I wish I had asked.

Piper's words loop around my brain.
Use the pain for your art. I know that's what Leah did
. When did Leah use her dancing to get over things? What things? The bell rings before I can get any answers.

• • •

Mom is waiting for me out in front of the school. Part of me is impressed she's sticking to her guns. The other part is panicked. I can't take that blood test.

Emery emerges from the front of the school, surrounded by kids I don't recognize. Probably freshies. Drama kids by the looks of it. Every color hair ever made and a few I've never seen before. I wait for her to make it to where I'm standing. Her eyes scan to Mom's car.

“What's up?”

“Stupid blood test.”

“What for?”

“You know.”

She raises her eyebrows. “I thought you were going to try to take them.”

“I don't need them.”

“She's just worried. Like we all are,” Emery says.

“I don't need your worry. I didn't actually do anything. Remember? I was the one who lived?”

Emery lays her hand on my arm. “I'm sorry. This sucks.”

“Guess there's no getting around it. Wish me luck.”

She nods, and I leave her standing there as I walk toward Mom's car, a silver Mercedes SUV. In case she has to go off-roading. I open the door and have to hold onto the handle to hoist myself up and in.

Mom waits till I've buckled my seat belt before switching the car into drive, and for some reason that totally pisses me off. As if she didn't trust me to do my seat belt. As if I could possibly commit suicide by hard stop. Visions of me flying out the front windshield as Mom gets a little too feisty with the brakes fills my head and I almost laugh out loud.

“You still don't want to do the test?” She adjusts the rearview mirror and pulls out.

“No.”

She uses the red light we're stopped at as an opportunity to look at me. Her eyes are full of tears I know I've put there. That Leah and I have. The light turns green. She nudges the car forward until we are moving in this slow, painful progression toward the thing I don't want to do and the thing she feels compelled to force me to.

“You know the test is pointless,” I say.

“Because you're not taking the meds?”

I don't answer. She checks me with one of those sideways “Mom” looks.

“You need those meds. If Leah had…” She grips the wheel tighter. Her pale hands turn white under the pressure.

I stare at the road in front of us.

Mom brakes at another light. She rotates to face me. “Can you tell me why you don't want to take them?”

I try to talk, but the words are stuck inside me. I want to tell her I don't need them. That maybe Leah did, but I don't. I want to tell her I can't live like she does, pacing out her life from one dose to the next. I want to tell her I'm sorry I've made her life harder and sadder.

“I'm scared, Allie. Really scared…”

“I'm okay. I'm fine.”

She reaches out to pat my hand. “Okay. No test today. But you'll have to do one in two weeks. Two weeks is the time it takes to build it up in your system.” The light turns green.

Gratitude fills me. Then it's replaced by fear. “What about Dad?”

“I'll handle him. Don't worry.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Don't leave me, Allie. Stay.”

My breath catches. I want to tell her I'm trying. I want to tell her I never planned to leave. She doesn't want to hear that. She wants me to promise. “I will,” I say.