Love You Hate You Miss You

smiles, and I can’t stand it. I want them to stop acting like . . . I want them to stop acting like they want to be around me. I want to tell them I haven’t forgotten what I told them about what I did to you and I know they haven’t either. I want to ask 156

them why they won’t mention it. I want to scream at them to call me what I know I am and get it over with.

I just called your house. A fake female voice answered, the phone company politely telling me, sorry, the number I was trying to reach had been changed. The new number wasn’t given.

Before, when I called, at least I knew the phone would be answered, you know? I’d hear your mother’s voice. I could pretend. Now I don’t even have that.

I want to go downstairs and stand in front of my parents as they sit nestled together on the sofa. Why can’t they be like normal parents and drift through a room without noticing the other person is there? Why do they always have to be so together? Why is it when they look at me I want to scream until my voice is gone?

I want to force their mouths open, make them say the word murderer.

Why won’t they say it? Why can’t they just get it out there? I keep thinking about that. The why. Why they won’t say what we all know is true. Why I did what I did.

Why I thought getting you to see Kevin cheating on you was a good idea. Why, when you got so upset, I thought getting in your car and leaving was a good idea. Why I 157

took your hand and smiled at you, said that everything would be okay. Why did I do it? Why?

I don’t know, J. I don’t. All I know is this: You never should have been my friend.

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F O U R T E E N

TODAY STARTED OFF OKAY—for it being a school day, for it being 125 days without Julia—but in English, things started sucking because Beth smushed herself into our group. She must have given the teacher, Ms. Gladwell, some crap story—I wasn’t listening—but when I looked up from my copy of Huckleberry Finn (way less boring than The Scarlet Letter) she was there, grinning at Mel and saying, “Caro, can you squeeze a desk in for me?”

It had better not be a permanent thing, because what followed was pure torture. Beth giggled. She swished her hair around. She whispered to Mel. She whispered to Caro. She did the “we have mysterious hand gestures that make us giggle” thing.

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She has a brain in that rotten head of hers—whenever Mrs. Gladwell came around to check on our discussion, Beth would say something about the book that was pretty smart. That’s the nicest thing I can say about her. She’s evil, but she isn’t stupid.

Beth should have some redeeming characteristics. At least one, anyway, because she is theoretically human. But there isn’t a single good thing about her. If anything, she’s even more of a troll than I remembered. For instance, every time Mel said something to Caro, she’d give Caro a look, an “I can ruin you in thirty seconds if I want or if I’m bored” smile.

So of course Caro never did more than mumble, “I don’t know” or “I haven’t really thought about that part of the book yet.”

After a while, Mel gave up and tried to talk to me and Patrick. I said I hadn’t done the reading even though I had (no way did I want to get sucked into a conversation with Beth). Of course it didn’t work because Beth said,

“Amy, you didn’t do any of the reading?” really loudly so Gladwell would hear and which got me a “Stay after class, please.” Patrick just laughed when Mel asked him, which I wished had been my answer.

Hearing Patrick laugh was strange. Aside from that night in the basement, I’ve never seen him look anything 160

but tense or angry. It’s like he’s always on edge.

And the laugh itself? It sounded like . . . well, it sounded like he’d forgotten how to laugh.

Naturally, Beth made a face at him, and then she and Caro whispered to each other, which meant Beth looked at Patrick and me and said “Freak” loud enough for us all to hear. Corn Syrup blushed but nodded along like some sort of stupid puppet.

I wished the ground would open up and swallow them both, and looked over at Mel.

He was giving Patrick a look. A look kind of like one of Julia’s, actually. The “Amy, don’t start in on Guy X

because I’m getting some and I like it and you’re always PMSing about love anyway” one. (Except, obviously, guys don’t PMS about love. And, for that matter, neither do I. Julia was the one who did, who’d get mad whenever I tried to explain that love isn’t something anyone should want.)

Anyway, even though I thought Mel was a jackass for being with Beth, I couldn’t help but smile. That look just reminded me so much of Julia. Plus, it was nice to know he wasn’t completely oblivious of Beth’s inherent trollness.

After class, Gladwell “talked” to me about “staying the course” and “working to my potential.” It’s like every 161

teacher I have has some sort of “ ” manual to use when talking to me. She finished with, “You have so much going for you,” which was the dumbest thing anyone, even Laurie, has ever said to me. I knew it was a sign the day was only going to get worse.

Naturally, it did. First, Gladwell’s lecture hadn’t taken long enough, and I still had to deal with part of my lunch period. I went to the cafeteria, grabbed a veggie wrap, and waited in line to pay even though my usual seat at the reject table had already been taken by mustache girl. Her seat had been taken by suit boy, who’d lost his seat to an overflow of ninth-grade girls who’d gotten invited to the jock table and were being leered at by the seniors. Fresh