Mom looks back at me and frowns. “You’re wearing too much eye makeup.”
“Seriously?” All right, so when people say Audrey and I look nothing alike, it’s because she’s the pretty one. Like Mom, Audrey is super cute with her large blue eyes, long eyelashes, and thick dark curls. I’m gangly with thin blond hair to match, and small brown eyes you can barely see without liner.
But that’s not why I’m wearing it. I’m wearing it because it’s my war mask.
“Yeah.” Another glance at Audrey. “You should dress more age-appropriate.”
Now it’s taking all my energy not to flip out. Audrey can’t even wear buttons. The mere thought that the buttons on her coat might not be spaced exactly the same distance apart triggers a panic attack, so Mom can only buy her coats with zippers.
When Audrey gets up and leaves the kitchen, I let out an exasperated breath, letting my eyes roll back in my head. “Are you actually telling me that I have to change so I fit in with Audrey?”
“This has nothing to do with Audrey.”
That was a lie. Everything has to do with Audrey.
“She probably won’t wear makeup until . . . well, ever.”
The moment I say it, I realize how ridiculous I sound. I was implying that she’s immature, but really she’ll never wear it because she doesn’t need it.
“Aaaaghhhhh!” I scream and stomp out of the kitchen.
Upstairs in my room I open up drawers and yank clothes out, drop them on the floor. I’m trying to make a mess for Mom, but if she calls me out I’ll say I was stressed finding a new outfit. I toss the shorts into the corner, then pull on the jeans version of my shorts but with even bigger holes. Ha!
The joke’s on Mom. The joke’s on everyone. Because that girl downstairs, the one who yelled about wanting to be like every teenage girl . . . she doesn’t really exist. She’s a role in the movie of my life. I’ve gotten pretty good at playing her too. But if that version still isn’t good enough for Mom, I might as well show her the real me.
So I change into the clothes I actually want to wear rather than the ones I wear to look like every other girl. I peel off my sheer, sparkly black shirt and replace it with a black zip-up sweatshirt over my tank. Mom hates this sweatshirt. She hated it when Adam wore it, said it made him look like a lowlife. It has a skeleton tree on the back. He gave it to me years ago, after he grew out of it. I wipe the majority of the eyeliner off but slip the pencil in my pocket.
My hands are shaking and I have to ball them into fists as I go back downstairs. I’m so angry. I’ve felt angry for so long, I can’t even remember what it feels like to not feel angry. To not want to break the world around me, rip the sky into pieces and toss them back again. Kyle thinks everything I feel is completely normal. He claims anger is one of the stages of grief and that’s why I’m “laying unwarranted blame on Audrey.” Whatever, dude.
When I enter the kitchen again, Audrey is climbing into the car. Mom pauses halfway out the door, and her eyes widen when she sees me. I grab an apple from the bowl on the counter and take a bite, my eyes locked on hers as I silently dare her to say something about this outfit. If she does, I’ll throw back that nothing will make her happy.
Instead she turns away and says, “Your lunch is on the counter.”
Audrey’s in the front seat and I’m in the back. It’s always like that with the three of us now. When we were little, we used to fight over who had shotgun. Now we climb into our usual seats and no one suggests we do anything different. Mom is probably relieved she doesn’t have to talk to me. I don’t know if the two of them talk either, because I put in my earphones and stare out the window the entire drive.
I suppose I have to get to how it happened. It’s not enough to say Adam died, even though that’s all I’ve been able to tell anyone who asks. If they push, I might be able to add car accident.
A few months before Adam died, the ’rents decided to send Audrey to a shrink. She was always in her head and disrupting class. She wasn’t growing out of the behavior like they’d hoped. Dr. Jackson tossed around a bunch of theories, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder, before deciding he needed to spend more time with Audrey in order to settle on a diagnosis.
Then one day he suggested she try more extracurricular activities. She wasn’t any good at sports, and T-Rex was a better ballerina. She wanted to try karate. So Mom bought her a karate gi and a white belt, and they dropped her off at her first class and went out for dinner. About fifteen minutes into the class, the house phone rang. It was Audrey. The collar of her gi was rubbing the back of her neck. She wanted to come home.
Adam didn’t want to interrupt Mom and Dad’s date night, so he said he’d pick her up. I told him not to and make Audrey deal, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He said he had his new car and was happy for an excuse to drive.
He never made it there.
* * *
The first thing I do when I get to school is go to the bathroom and apply the eyeliner again. Charlotte and Rhiannon stay outside to have a smoke in the courtyard, but Sharon follows me. She leans a hip against the sink beside me, arms crossed over a bra stuffed with gel packs.
“What’s up with your outfit today?” she asks. “Ripped jeans and a sketchy sweatshirt? Really?”
“It was my brother’s.”
“You look emo.”
I laugh darkly and apply the liner to the other eye. “Good.”
“That’s not a compliment.”
I ignore her and step back to study myself. I look badass. Tough. The dark, smoky eyes are in stark contrast to my blond hair with the thick blue streak. All I need is a bunch of piercings and black lipstick, and then Sharon really will have something to complain about.
“I mean it,” Sharon says as we leave the bathroom, “you’re going too far into this ‘I’m depressed and want the whole world to know it’ emo act. It’s making the rest of us depressed.”
Am I really hearing what she’s saying correctly? Because it sounds like she’s saying my mourning phase is bumming her out.
“Seriously,” she continues, “it’s been, like, three months.”
I stop in the middle of the hallway. Directly in front of me is the fire hose wrapped up in its protective glass case. I imagine breaking the glass and wrapping the hose around Sharon’s neck over and over and over again . . .
Instead I turn to face her. “You know ten months isn’t a long time, right? Like in the span of our lives, not just stupid high school?”
She glances around, obviously afraid all the people walking past us in the hall are going to overhear. “I’m not saying you should be over it or anything. But there’s a way to handle stuff like this.”
“Is there?” I hear my voice rising. “And you would know, right? Because you’ve been through it before.”
Sharon’s cheeks turn pink, but she’s not embarrassed. At least not about being a complete ignorant asshat. About the students who are definitely starting to look? Maybe.
“I get it sucks that Audrey might be coming back, and I totally feel for you because that girl is messed, but I’m trying to give you advice. As your friend. The other girls think you’re changing.” The threat is there behind her words: Soon you might not fit in with us.