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.
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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.
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S E V E N T E E N
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 offi ce and 187
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.
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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.”
