Come Back to Me (6 page)

We stared at
each other, but something tinged like a faraway doorbell in my mind, forcing me
to remember . . .
something
.  I felt undone, especially when his face
shifted.

Was that sympathy? 
I swear he almost looked like he felt sorry for me.

Maybe he’d
heard about the pathetic girl who got so drunk she let her car roll down Dogwood
Road. Bloom’s gated communities weren’t that big, and juicy gossip travelled
fast.  Had someone pointed me out as the girl who became a hermit after her
best friend dumped her?  The girl who lost her best friend to a random
accident?

It was a
stretch.  There were stories that were far more interesting.  Besides Katie and
I had been friends for so long that not many even realized she’d banished me from
her life.  There wasn’t enough time for any rumors to take hold before Katie’s
accident.

In fact, in
the glitter aisle at the craft store, I ran into the girl who sat behind me in
chemistry class.  April.  She’d said hi.  No shifty eyes.  She didn’t look away
or study me as if I were some sensational object of gossip.  It was all my own
paranoia.  I was the only one not forgetting what I’d done.  I guess that
wouldn’t happen until I went away to Colson.  55
days.

“Hey, are
you okay?” The guy took a step in my direction.  We were now only two car
lengths apart.

Oh, crap.  I
did
know him.

Sort of.

Evan Foster.
The guy who delivered my drunk ass to my parents in the middle of the night
after graduation, which prompted my parents to then deliver me to Gosley the
next day.  I didn’t even know him, other than his name, which my parents’ had
told me so I could send him a polite thank you note.  Seriously.  What Emily
Post etiquette book covered that kind of note? 
Gratitude for the Excessive
Imbiber
? 
Essential Manners for the Wasted
?

I wished Evan
Foster would’ve minded his own business.  If he had, I could’ve stayed at
Jake’s house and driven home in the morning.  Maybe if he hadn’t been so quick
to drive me home, I would’ve found my car before it rolled into the sign.

Thanks,
Evan
.

I moved to
leave, but first pulled my hand out of my pocket to signal I would be moving
along and to answer—no, wave away, his question.  Even if I wasn’t okay, I
didn’t need his help.

Except my
hand still gripped the vodka bottle.  With it out in the open, I felt a sudden
burst of heat up my face.  I shoved my hand back into my pocket, realizing I’d
been so wrong about my choice of talisman.  Earlier, it had made me feel
strong, like I was superman retaining his powers while holding kryptonite or
something.  Now, I felt stupid and delusional, because I looked like a total loser. 
Carrying vodka around the shopping mall?  Total alcoholic, right?

I thought of
my counselor at Gosley—Emily.  She never said I was an alcoholic.  She always
acted as if I had the key to that big secret, as if the answer was just three
ruby slipper taps away.

The vodka
weighed heavy in my pocket.  I was a nut job, and it was a ridiculous plan.  Emily
said I needed goals and things to remind me of my goals, but I felt pathetic
about my choice to hold on to them.  Add it to my “loser” list, along with being
afraid to look out my bedroom window last night.

“Whitney?” 
I heard Evan say, but I suddenly remembered another quote from Gosley—one
stitched onto a pillow on the couch in Emily’s office: 
Do the work, and you
will go far.

I needed to
go.

And far.

Ignoring
Evan, I turned and ran across the parking lot, down the middle (away from both
Kiki and Evan) weaving through two lines of cars and ducking into the nearest
hideout, the Porta Potty near the construction site.

In the dark,
my right hand gripped the bottle.  The cap dug into my skin.  I wanted to drink
it.  I imagined taking a sip, a burst of heat burning its way down my throat,
numbing me from the inside out.

It was never
going to be enough.

I closed my
eyes and dropped my head back, while my breath pulled in the stagnant air
around me.  It felt like someone else’s old air, and the warmed antiseptic
smell reminded me of alcohol on its way back up.

I coughed.  I
wasn’t going to drink.  I couldn’t.

I wanted
normal.  I didn’t want to be a hermit in my room, or worse, hallucinate.  I
couldn’t take any more reminders or ghostly confrontations about my pathetic,
bitchy existence.  I needed to clear my mind, to think of absolutely nothing.

My lips moved
in a prayer for emptiness, but it was no match for the memories.

* * *

“You’re a
bitch,” Katie had said to me on the Monday morning after winter break.  Those
were the first words she’d spoken to me since the accidental kiss.

I was at my
locker, my body a bit shaky from nausea.  I was hungover, and I wanted to take
a swig of vodka to fix all the raggedy edges. But since Katie didn’t pick me up
that morning, and I had to drive myself, I abstained.  I had
some
boundaries.

Katie stood
over me, her extra four inches towered.

I wanted to
explain.  I’d thought about it almost non-stop since it happened, but the only
words I had were, “Katie, I’m sorry.”

And I was. 
I really was.  Kissing Kyle wasn’t on my radar, not at all.  Not ever.  However
stupid the excuse sounded, it truly was an accident, with an alcohol assist.  I
had no intentions, hidden or otherwise, of ever kissing Kyle.  I wanted to tell
her I didn’t like Kyle like that, but every time I heard myself say those words,
I thought about my parents.  I thought of what my dad said at that dinner.  He
had explained his cheating away as if it had nothing to do with our family. 
How could I say that me kissing Kyle didn’t affect our friendship?  How could I
ask Katie to forgive
me,
the cheater?

“You always
wanted him--”

“Not at
all.  I’m serious, Katie, I didn’t--”

“Shut up. 
You’re a loser, and so is he.  Match made in Hell.  He’s all yours now.”

I held the
edge of my open locker door, but my fingers shook, partly from my hangover and
partly out of fear.

Katie
noticed, and she smirked.  “You two deserve each other. Neither of you can get
your acts straight.  You’re both pathetic.”

“But I don’t
want--”

Her eyebrows
shot up.  “I don’t care what you want any more.”

Later, I
realized the look she’d been sporting for the last few months, the odd one,
that distracted look, it was gone, and replaced by a new one:  resolve.  She appeared
as though she had everything figured out, almost as if she expected everything
that happened.  Maybe not the kissing part, but the part where she cut us out
of her life.  Because as she walked away, she was calm, as if dumping our
friendship was another step in her life plan.  She just woke up that morning
and crossed me off her list, as if erasing me from her life was her New Year’s
resolution.

Once home, I
found myself in front of the liquor cabinet again.  I kept imagining the fiery
liquid at the back of my throat, warming my insides.  I felt like one of
Pavlov’s dogs, salivating at the automatic need.

I only
wanted to stop thinking.  Stop remembering.

I took a
step closer and stopped, peering over my shoulder as if I were going to be
caught.  The house was still empty.  Everything was in its place—the fresh
flowers on the dining room table, the gold runner on the sideboard, and the
carefully arranged frames on the piano behind me.

The frames
were gold accented and well dusted, but something was different.  Where was the
stupid picture of me at my sister’s wedding—the one where my twelve-year-old
self was in the middle of Lauren’s twenty-something-year-old friends?  We were
her bridesmaids, dressed alike, although my age and height, mixed with their
model-like tendencies had me looking like a baby manatee wrapped in mauve satin. 
I hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet.

Not my
favorite photo, but I got used to it.  It was a staple, right next to a decade
old family photo, a picture of Lauren and me at my kindergarten graduation, and
one of Lauren in a cap and gown snapped after her graduation from Brown.  Did
my mom get rid of the wedding photo after Lauren’s divorce?

I focused on
her graduation photo.  Lauren was smiling, but she wasn’t happy then.  How
could she have been when she completely changed everything about her life in
the next couple of years?

My shoulders
drooped, and I tapped a finger on the frame’s gilded edge.  I was surprised
there were any left of my sister at all. Although what
was
left, made a
statement—my parents wouldn’t acknowledge anything that happened after Brown.

Either you
lived a life they of which they approved, or you were invisible.

I turned
back to the cabinet.  I figured my parents never considered where I’d been
getting my alcohol.  They’d even replenished the mini airline-sized bottles,
which were what I once stocked in my boots.

Except it
wasn’t about them figuring me out.  My parents weren’t concerned with me
drinking their liquor stash.  The same rules that locked out Lauren applied.
You did what was expected, or you didn’t.  The Denison strings.  They wanted a
dutiful Pinocchio, and in a way, they got one, because I didn’t know how not to
feel all hollowed out and wooden.

55 days.

What if
Colson isn’t the answer?

I ignored
the thought and continued to face the cabinet, the bottles shifting into pairs
as my vision glazed over.

A tiny
frisson of cold moved from my heel and up my spine to prickle at my scalp.  I
pictured my newly short hair standing on end, like hundreds of tiny spikes framing
a carrot-orange cartoon sun.

I froze,
avoiding my reflection in the mirror-backed wall of the cabinet.  The tingling
returned. Was someone behind me?

I dropped my
head.  My heart pounded under my chin.  My bangs curtained my face, but I took
in my shoes, the floor, the craft store bag, fur . . . wait, fur?

I turned
around and sighed.  “Bug.”

She stared
at me, still, as if she too saw a ghost.  Her fur stood up in tufts and shocks
around her head, but that was just Bug.  Imperfect breed, imperfect hair.  Not
that Bug knew that.  According to her, she was a purebred.  She didn’t seem to
know that the pretty auburn and dark brown coat around her head faded to an
almost dirty white on her back and legs, or that her slim build didn’t match
her squashed up face, or that she had a funny name, or that she was the result
of a full pedigree/mutt hook up.  She’d never believe any of it.

I shook my
head, pushing my fingertips into my eyebrows.

“What are
you doing, Bug?” My mom wasn’t home. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen
her without my mom.

Bug walked
to the craft bag and sniffed.  She sat down in front of it.

“There’s
nothing for you in there.”  I picked up the bag and headed for the stairs.  Bug’s
tiny but imperious steps followed.

I turned
around.  “Do you need to go outside?”

If a dog
could roll her eyes, she would’ve.  I swore she looked insulted, as if she
didn’t have a paper-lined crate in the laundry room.

“Are you
hungry?”

Bug ignored
me, pushing her nose into my bag.  She wouldn’t come to me for food anyway.  My
mom’s culinary skills were what turned her from my shelter rescue into my mom’s
sidekick.  Whatever.  Glitter was the only thing on my agenda right now.

The air
conditioning turned on, and I jumped, catching my reflection in the mirror
again. I frowned and moved to close the liquor cabinet doors.

A crazy but
funny idea popped into my head—me covering all the bottles with glue and glitter. 
I looked at Bug.  As if she could read my mind, she cocked her head.  “I’m just
saying it would be hilarious to see their reaction.”

I imagined
my dad pouring himself a drink out of a sparkly, fuchsia Jameson bottle—right into
a matching bejeweled highball glass.  Except the enjoyment would only last for
a split second, just like the first hit of alcohol.  Yes, I wanted that initial
sense of relief, the momentary lapse in emptiness.

Until
tomorrow, when I’d have to start all over again.

I swallowed. 
Glitter.  I shifted all my focus to glitter.

Bug followed
me to my room.  She curled up on the carpet in front of my closet doors.  I
stared at her a moment.  Fickle little dog.  I shrugged and went about lining up
all my craft supplies on my desk.  Fabric glue.  Glitter jars in every color (I
couldn’t decide).  Paint brushes.  Painter’s tape.  Jewel studs to create the
faux steel toe look.  My old Converse.

I rubbed a
finger on the grass stain.  I remembered getting grass stains on many things
when I was a kid.  Katie and I loved to be outside, on the swing, and later, in
the tree house my dad built for us.  We went camping when we were in Brownies, we
rode bikes, and we both lived in houses on the edge of a very big, very green
golf course.  Grass stains were par for the course.  I pushed the memories
aside.