Big Fat Disaster (34 page)

I gasp; realize that I’ve been holding my breath.

Becca runs her hands over her face to wipe away the tears. She looks me so deep in the eyes, it’s like she can see my soul. “Ever since that day, I’ve been hearing about what a hero you are. I went to Ryan’s memorial service, thinking you would let people know who the hero really was.”

Her words are harsh, but her voice is soft. She uses her index finger to trace the edges of a photo in her clear plastic binder cover. She holds it up for me to see a girl who looks very much like her, but with long, straight hair. She’s wearing a shiny pink fringed western shirt, white cowboy hat, and a
Rodeo Princess
sash.

Becca chokes out, “This is my cousin, Kimmie Schuler. Jared Moore raped her, then sent out photos and videos of…” She loses control of herself and can’t seem to catch her breath.

I step to her, put my hand on her shoulder, and say softly, “I’m sorry about your—”

She shakes her head rapidly; holds up a finger for me to wait. It seems like it takes a long time, but it’s probably not even a minute later when she sobs, “
Your
cousin
, Ryan, is the
only
person who had the guts to turn him in to the police!”

I struggle for an answer. “I’m really sorry that that happened to Kimmie, Becca…but me telling the truth about Ryan’s death isn’t going to do anything to bring him back.” I turn toward the gym doors.

She blasts, “Nobody else took up for Kimmie, but Ryan did! If it weren’t for him—”

I whirl on her and plead, “You made your point, okay? Now just drop it!”

She shakes her head rapidly. “I
can’t
leave it alone. Ryan didn’t kill himself, and it’s not fair to his mama for everybody to think he did.”

My voice is squeaky-high. “Are you going to tell what you saw?”

Becca covers Kimmie’s photo with her palm and looks up at me. “That depends. Are
you
going to tell the truth?”

“I…You don’t understand, Becca. If you…Everyone will
hate
me if they know it’s my fault that Ryan died!”

Becca stands and squares her shoulders. “Kimmie is my best friend in the world. She blames
herself
for what happened to her, and that’s wrong. All summer, she was in and out of the hospital—the kind for people who are in so much pain that they don’t even want to live anymore. The only thing that’s giving her hope is the fact that Jared Moore is locked up and he’s going to be tried for what he did to her. If it weren’t for Ryan, Jared would have gotten away with it.”

She comes so close to me that I can see the flecks of gold in her green eyes. Her voice is flat, and she’s a far cry from the girl who wouldn’t meet my eyes the first day of school. “Ryan is the
only
reason that rotten piece of shit is in jail. I’m giving you until 5:00
P.M.
tomorrow to set the record straight.” She gives me a long, hard look. “Do the right thing, Colby, or
I will
. I owe it to Ryan.”

She moves around me into the gym. I practically fall onto the bench and stare at the doors until the end-of-the-day bell rings.

The bus drops Drew and me off at Sugar’s. Drew gets right to work on her homework at a table in the dining room. I grab a handful of broken cookies from the sample box on the counter and cram them in my mouth, then go to the kitchen and look around for other stuff to eat. Mom’s running the mixer with her back to me, and Leah’s in her office with the door closed. There’s a fire truck–shaped chocolate cake cooling on the rack and a fresh bowl of bright red cake icing next to it. I fill a four-cup measure with it, fluff the remaining icing with the spatula to try to hide the fact that I stole roughly half of it, and slip into the bathroom. I lock the door, lower the lid on the toilet, and sit down—then realize that I forgot a spoon.
Shit.

I move to the door and listen; the mixer has stopped. Leah and Mom are discussing a birthday cake order.

If I open the door, Mom’s going to bombard me with questions about how the day went, and I’ll have to see Leah, too. I can’t deal with the empty sadness in her eyes right now. I look around, but not surprisingly, there are no spoons in the bathroom. I think about hiding the icing until I can come back to it later, but where? Plus…I want it now. Scratch that: I
need
it now.

I sit down with the measuring cup between my knees and dig in with my fingers. Once I set my hand to “shovel,” I don’t think about how messy and sticky the icing is. I don’t feel anything, and I don’t see Ryan’s bloody blue eyes watching me.

The second the measuring cup is empty, I feel two things: shame at having wolfed down four cups of cake icing, and an overwhelming need for more of it. At that moment, if I had to choose between my mother being proud of me and eating more cake icing, Mom would lose big time. The rest of those broken cookies would work, too. Any cookies will do. They don’t have to be broken.

I lean back against the toilet tank and try to breathe in deeply, let it out. My head is swimming, and I feel a numbness that is similar to what I felt from my little yellow pills. I jump a foot when somebody bangs on the bathroom door.

Mom calls, “Colby? Are you in there? I didn’t even realize that you and Drew got off the bus.”

I jump up, and the plastic measuring cup clatters on the floor. I run my hand around my mouth and look in the mirror above the sink. There’s dried icing all over my cheeks, chin, and a little on my neck. I run the water, rinsing my face again and again, but I can only use one hand, so it’s not very effective. I grab a paper towel and dry off, then realize with horror that the red icing has stained my skin. I turn back to try using soap this time, but Mom’s pounding on the door. She sounds freaked out. “Are you okay, Colby? Did you have a bad day?”

“I’m…coming…” I look down: There’s still dried red icing under my fingernails; on my forearm, shirt, and jeans. My God, I don’t remember being that sloppy with it. I don’t remember much of eating it at all.

I unlock the door and it pops open. Mom’s face practically melts off her skull when she sees me. “Oh, my God, Colby!” She runs to me and grabs my right forearm. “Did you cut yourself?” She flips my arm over and runs her finger from my wrist to my elbow. Her eyes register confusion; then she spies the empty icing cup on the floor. Her lips curl, and I see Kara’s ugly sneer.

“What are you
doing
in here?” She examines my hair. “What
is
this…?” She yanks out a wad of dried frosting, along with several strands of hair.

“Ouch!”

“What are you…?” She steps past me and snatches the icing cup off the floor. She whirls on me and shakes it accusingly, but all I can see is the revulsion on her face. “Cake icing?…What are you…Are you
eating
in the bathroom? That’s disgusting!”

I’ve never been caught sticky-handed before; I’d perfected the art of being sneaky. At least I thought I had. I feel two inches tall and two thousand pounds heavy.

I’ve seen those old TV shows before where a character feels like she’s falling into a spinning black-and-white hole. I always thought,
“What a cheesy special effect. No one would ever really experience that.”

I was wrong.

Mom drags me out of the bathroom. She yells, “Why are you doing this to yourself? Are you trying to have a heart attack? Can’t you see how
huge
you are?”

“I…just—”

Mom throws up a hand. “No! No excuses! There is
no excuse
for eating the way you do! And”—she shakes the empty measuring cup at me—“where did you even
get
all that icing?” She throws the measuring cup into the sink full of suds, sending a geyser of bubbles into the air.

“From the looks of it, she took it from here.” Leah holds the icing bowl at an angle to show that half of it is gone. She sighs. “Now I have to make more, and the order’s supposed to be ready at six. Hope I can get the tint just right again.” She turns away and starts pulling ingredients off the shelf.

I drag my eyes back to my mother. Her arms are wrapped tightly across her chest like they were when I was on the ground after Ryan got hit. She’s radiating anger. Or maybe it’s just the usual disappointment, times a thousand. She yanks off her apron, grabs her purse, and growls, “Get in the car.”

On our way home, Drew does her scratched CD routine, asking a million questions. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Are you mad at Colby? What’d she do?”

Mom ignores her.

I burp loudly. I
really
want to throw up. I think about doing it and wonder how Tina got to the point of vomiting to lose weight. Did she start out throwing up after eating too much, and it became a habit?

Trucks line the road in front of José’s house. The crooked bleachers are filled with men of all ages. Two men inside the chain link cage are boxing, but they don’t have gloves. One of the men’s faces is covered in blood. I squeeze my eyes closed as Ryan’s death stare fills my head.