My mother lives in this little peach house with a pink door. The peeling paint looks worse in the glare of the sun. The crystal blue sky. Big and wondrous. Yellow-and-white-striped fabric blocking her yard from the street hangs outside on a twig fence, blowing in the wind. Little pots of cacti and desert plants surround the front of the house.
“It’s very dry, Ali. You have to drink a lot of water.”
“You say this every time, Mom.”
She takes my hand and leads me inside. There are all sorts of pillows strewn about. Silky, cozy-looking pillows. I sit on my knees and then stretch out.
She comes closer and caresses my head. I look up at her. Her soft hair. The way her mouth curls up when she smiles. Her deep-set brown eyes. It’s like a mirror of myself.
47
BLYTHE
In school on Monday with Suki and Cate.
A girl whispers as she passes us. Ali Greenleaf, she whispers. Then another girl next to her, glaring at me. Faces I never noticed before. They’ve always been here but never looked at me like this. Not with such contempt.
Everyone is talking about the article she wrote. You can hear them talking in class. Everyone knows it’s Sean. That Ali and Sean were in the kitchen at that party before they even went upstairs. They all know that I was the girl who tried to persuade her not to tell. That I was the girl who, in a stupid, drunken evening, spray-painted trash in front of her house. No one says a word, but they all know.
I cut drama class and head to Donnie’s locker.
“We messed up. We were too sloppy. They’re all staring at us,” I say.
“They always stare at us, B.”
“Not like this. They’re staring at us now like they want to hurt us. Like they want to attack. Like they hate us.”
“They probably always hated us. This is nothing new.”
Raj comes down the hallway. Coming right for me. His face pinched, his jaw clenched. “How can you live with yourself, Blythe?”
“I was just a friend to her,” I say.
“You weren’t a friend to her. Jesus, is that what you think?” he says. “She went to New Mexico, did you know that? She ran away because she couldn’t be here.”
“Wait a second. To be with her mother? That’s so—that’s not like her.”
“How would you know what anything about her is like, Blythe? You don’t know a thing about Ali.”
“You have it all wrong. It’s more complicated than that,” I say, whispering now. “I knew her. I know her. And what about what she did to me? What about what she wrote in that article. What’s breaking the internet now?”
“You’re pathetic,” he says, and walks away. He turns his back and just goes.
“See? See what I mean?” I say to Donnie.
“How could you not have expected this, Jensen?” she says. “Of course people are going to act like this.” She stares at me hard. “They don’t understand. Why should they? They don’t know what it is to be like us.”
Us. I don’t even know what that means anymore. Who are we together? Destructive and angry and resentful. Like stones. So shut off from emotions that we have no feelings of repercussion? I’ve done so much damage that I’ve pushed Ali to run to her mother. Her mother? The woman in the desert with the crystals and the hot springs and the AA meetings? I look up at the hot fluorescent glow from the ceiling and my eyes well up. Can’t breathe. Like everything has changed right in front of me and I’ve lost control of it.
What have I done? What have I done?
Donnie takes my hands. Her forehead to my head.
“It’s going to be okay, B,” she says.
“No, it’s not,” I say. “The police are going to come after us for our little stunt. They’re going to question me after they read Ali’s article. We’re on a sinking fucking ship. We’re like the Titanic right now. I’m Jack and you’re Rose. Just let me fucking go so I can float away in the icy tundra and die my deserving death.”
She’s got her hands on my shoulders now. Draws me in.
“You are Blythe fucking Jensen. You don’t do self-pity. I’m not going to tell you that you’re Jack. We’re not drowning. We’re not sinking. You’re not floating on a door somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Donnie, there’s probably going to be a team of police officers at my house tonight.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky. Maybe she won’t have even called the police. My guess, from what you told me about Ali, is that she just wanted to write her little story and now she wants to be left alone. My guess is that she’s not going to do a thing because it would have been done by now.”
I take a deep breath. Maybe Donnie’s right. Maybe it would have happened already.
“Now we’re even. She knows now that dragging you into this was wrong. Let’s just leave it at that. It’s over.” She hugs me tight, and it feels so good. Even though her body is so thin and she feels like she’s wasting away, this right now feels like me and her back together again like it was. And for a minute I feel safe.
A woman calls my name. I turn around and it’s Ms. Tapestry, the school social worker. I don’t even know her real name. That’s what everyone calls her.
“Hi, Blythe. I’d like you to come to my office. Can you do that right now?”
“I have science . . .”
“Just tell me which teacher, and I’ll get you a note.”
My mind floats a million miles a minute. Ali Greenleaf sucks cocks.
“I have a science test that I can’t miss,” I say. A lie. More lies. Lies on top of lies.
“Oh—okay, well, then we can do the period after. Fourth period. Sound good?”
I nod. I don’t have a choice.
“I’m going to invite your other friends too, but first I want
