Love You Hate You Miss You

Mom: Are you working on homework?

YT: Yeah.

Mom: Are you—how is it going? I know it must seem like a lot of work. Not that I don’t think you can’t handle the work, but—

YT: It’s fi ne.

Mom [visibly relieved]: Oh, good. I feel like a snack.

Do you want a bologna sandwich? I’m going to have one.

[stands up]

YT: I’m a vegetarian. Have been since I was thirteen.

Mom: Oh . . . I didn’t . . . I’ve seen you pick pep-peroni off pizza but I didn’t think it meant anything—

I mean, I didn’t realize you were so committed. I think that’s great, really, and—

YT: Thanks. I’m just going to grab my stuff and go upstairs.

43

I did, and the thing is, Mom looked so sad, standing there in the kitchen all alone. Like she . . . I don’t know. Wanted me to stay and talk to her? But if that was true, why didn’t she just say it? I think you know why she didn’t. She felt bad for the mess she and Dad made. It wasn’t really about me at all.

But still, J. That look. It made me feel horrible. It made me feel something else too, something that left a bitter taste in my mouth and cramped my hands into fi sts.

See, now everything I do is worth noticing. Now the things I do mean something to them. Now, when what I’ve done is all I can see when I look at myself in the mirror.

Then there’s school. As long as I avoid your locker, it’s okay. Sort of.

Okay, not really. It sucks. Obviously, I’m not hanging out with the people we used to. Just looking at them makes me think of you and, well, I can’t handle it.

Plus . . . J, they avoid me. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t talk to any of them after what happened or even at your funeral. I went to Pinewood this summer, not parties. I was there when you died.

I’m the reason you’re gone.

44

So no old friends. And no new ones among my dumb-ass honors classmates either, which, frankly, is fi ne with me, as I’m not interested in hanging out with people who have poles shoved up their butts. However—and I know you’ll find this amusing—Corn Syrup Caro has actually spoken to me! We were sitting in our groups in English class when someone across the room mentioned your name, and I just . . . I zoned out or something.

Freaked out, I guess. My brain just kinda went pzzzt, and my face got all hot, and it was like I couldn’t hear or think or anything. I was dimly aware of Mel glancing at me and then at Patrick (who, as always, was staring at his desk, though I think he might have looked at me). But Caro actually said something. She said, “Amy, are you okay? Do you need some water or—” but then Beth Emory sneered at me and Corn Syrup shut up. She hasn’t spoken to me since.

You remember Beth Emory, right? Another middle school nightmare. She’s still exactly the same. Gorgeous, mean, and able to say things that make her friends act like frightened little sheep. Baaaaa. Of course Caro still hangs out with her.

There is actually one person who does talk to me. It’s that guy, Mel. In English class, when we’re stuck in that 45

stupid group, he’s always asking me questions. “What’s your favorite color?” or “How come you dropped psychology to take environmental science?” Stuff like that.

It’s weird, because while he seems to know an awful lot about me—like my schedule, for instance—and is always asking stuff, he doesn’t seem all that interested in the answers. I can’t figure him out, but since I don’t care it works out fi ne.

You know what my biggest problem with school is?

Lunch. I didn’t expect that. In Pinewood we had to do a lot of role-playing (I know!), and I was always fi ne with

“learning to be by myself.” But at school it’s different.

Who sits where, with whom, and why, matters. It matters a lot, and the fact that I don’t have anyone to sit with—

well, you know what that makes me.

There’s a couple of other kids who eat by themselves, but I’m in no mood for a very special episode moment, and even if I was it still wouldn’t be enough to make me sit with the girl who needs to be told to bleach her mustache or the guy who always wears a suit and tie. I suppose he’s making a real fashion statement, but this is high school. You’re not supposed to be real. You’re supposed to be enough like everyone else to get through and out into the waiting world.

46

F I V E

SCHOOL STARTED OFF normally enough; annoying classes, annoying people. The usual. And then came lunch.

It was the same as always at first. I bought fries and a soda, and then grabbed a seat at the far end of the freshman reject table. The rejects—all pimples and desperation—gawked at me. I heard one of them whisper