Goth Girl Rising (32 page)

"Yeah, OK, Jecca." I'm just glad her clothes are still in order and she doesn't look like anyone's abused her.

She lays her head on my shoulder and sighs a long sigh. We stand there for a million years.

"Will you do me a favor?" she singsongs.

"What?"

She looks around quickly, then leans over to whisper in my ear. She's Drunk Enough, so she misjudges the distance and her lips brush against my ear—they're slick with lip gloss, and for a second I almost turn to intercept them with my own. But I don't.

"Kiss me," she whispers, her lips flicking at my ear.

I'
VE GOT A BOWLING BALL
in my throat. It takes four tries to swallow it down. I've gone rigid and sweat starts to gather in my pits and along the back of my naked skull.

"
What
did you say?" I whisper back. I know damn well what she said, but for some reason I have to pretend I didn't hear it. I have to give her a chance to back out.

"
Kiss
me," she says, a tiny bit louder, almost groaning it in my ear.

"Here? Right here?" We're surrounded by people. No one's really paying attention to us, but it's not like people are
avoiding
looking at us, either. If we kissed right now, someone would see. And point it out to other people and then everyone would see. Everyone would know.

My stomach twists and turns. I can't tell if it's the idea of being seen or the idea of kissing her.

"Yeah," she says, then suddenly pulls away from me. She pouts. "Come on, Kyra." She looks around quickly. "We have to hurry."

"What?"

She smiles at me. "Look. See?"

She points. Brad—
teh HOTTEST junior @ sb!!!
—is standing with a group of guys at the other end of the room. They're all watching us. Brad tips his beer bottle in our direction, like he's saluting.

"Come on, Kyra. He won't wait forever. Kiss me."

"What the hell? What the hell are you talking about?"

But I know. Even as I ask the question, I know.

Still, Jecca's Drunk Enough, and she answers the question in a jumble of endless sentences without breathing:

"It would be better if you still had hair, I think, and maybe if you wore something so your boobs were, I don't know,
out there
a little, but it's OK. It's OK. See, I was hanging out over there and I was totally trying to get Brad to pay attention to me, you know, and he was, like,
not.
Not paying attention. And they were all watching Sim and that sophomore girl and I was like, oh my God, this is my chance, and I said that I could do more than that. They're not even really
touching
each other, right, and I saw you and I said—"

Don't say it, Jecca. Please. Don't say it.

"—that I would go
kiss
a girl and Brad
finally
paid attention to me! He paid attention, Kyra!" She's still smiling and there are tears in her eyes and she drinks from a nearly empty beer bottle. "I've liked him, like, all
year.
Since the summer. And I never thought he'd notice me, but he noticed me when I said that, so come on. Kiss me."

I am...

I am

so

angry

at her in this moment. So angry that I could put my hands around her throat and squeeze, squeeze so hard that her eyes bug out and then
pop
out, squeeze until she chokes, her tongue going all swollen and hanging out of her mouth, squeeze until her head actually
comes off.

The room spins and swims around me. All I hear is a high-pitched whine. I'm still sweating, but now I'm somehow cold, too.

I think I'm gonna pass out.

That would be so weak. That would be
so
weak.

I focus on that. It would be
weak
to pass out. I focus on it and it doesn't happen.

"Come
on,
Kyra. He's still watching." She leans toward me, and oh, God—those lips. I've always loved leaning up into those lips, feeling them against mine, then the soft, wet moment when they part, and her tongue...

I take a step back from her.

"Come on, Kyra!" She glares at me. "I
told
you. I told you, like, a million times. How much I liked him. I e-mailed you. I told you. I didn't tell you on the phone because you never know who's listening at the hospital, but I sent you those e-mails all summer long about how much I liked him. And, like, you never answered me, but that's OK because I know you were away and stuff, but come
on,
Kyra. You
know.
You
know.
"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about. First time I heard about this shit was a couple of days ago."

"What the hell's wrong with you? What's the big deal? We do it all the time."

"But..." I don't know how to explain it to her. No, wait, that's a lie. I
do
know how to explain it to her. Here's the thing—what Jecca and I do ... it's for
us.
Whatever it is, whatever it means or doesn't mean, it's for
us.
It's
about
us. It's not to show off. Or to turn on some jack-ass Ryan Seacrest look-alike.

I step back some more. I'm disgusted. I can't do it. I
won't
do it.

But if I
have to
explain it to her ... then I guess it didn't mean anything at all. I guess it was all just bullshit, like
everything
is bullshit.

I don't know which is worse: the idea that Jecca doesn't take it seriously, or that she
does
and is willing to cheapen it and use it anyway.

"I have to go," I tell her. "I have to go."

"No, wait."

But I've already turned. I'm already going. Her fingers brush my back, trying to grab my shirt and pull me back, but I keep pushing forward through the crowd. I bump against Cal and Drunk Leah and Backpack Boy and other people, but I don't care. I'm out of here. I'm gone. I can't stay here anymore. It was stupid to come in the first place. What was I thinking?

I finally get through to the front hallway and then I get the door open and I'm outside, like being born after labor. It's cold outside, but I don't care. The cold feels good. My sweat could freeze and I could die from the shock, but I don't care.

What is wrong with me? Why is it that everyone I ... uh, everyone I care about, you know,
betrays
me? My mom. My dad. Fanboy. Jecca.

I always thought it was
them.
I thought it
had
to be them. It couldn't be me, right? But maybe it is. Maybe it's been me all along.

And if that's the case...

If that's the case, then maybe I don't belong. Maybe I'll never belong.

If that's the case, then maybe I
should
just check out of this world after all. Maybe in that case, there's no reason for me to stick around.

There's certainly no reason for me to stick around
here.

I
GRAB MY BAG FROM
S
IMONE'S CAR
. There's no way I'm going back in there to ask her to give me a ride home. No way. She would want to know why. Besides, she's not Drunk Enough. She's
drunk.

It's too risky to try to steal one of the many, many cars parked here. Some people are milling around outside, even though it's cold, and I could get caught way too easily.

So I sling the bag over my shoulder and I start to walk.

I walk up the street Vesentine lives on. It connects to another residential street, like a plus sign. I stand at the intersection and try to remember—did we turn on to Vesentine's street or just go straight?

Times like this I wish I said the F-word. Because it would be very appropriate and feel
really
good.

I turn left. I think I remember us making a last right-hand turn.

Roger used to hang out with this guy from work, Dave. They stopped around the time Roger got promoted to manage ment. Anyway, Dave had this expression he used to use:
colder than a witch's tit.
I hated that expression. I still hate it, but I can't help it—it pops into my head and just runs there on an endless loop:
Colder than a witch's tit. Witch's tit. Witch's tit.

And it
is.
It's colder than anything in the whole world out here. It must be a million below zero. With my luck, I made the wrong turn and I'll end up in a cul-de-sac and I'll have to turn around.

Or maybe I wouldn't turn around. Maybe I'll just find a little spot somewhere and sit down and then lie down and curl up in a ball and just ... go to sleep. That's what it's like. I read it somewhere. Freezing to death feels like going to sleep, and apparently you feel real warm right before it happens. That would be nice.

Like I'm a trained dog or something, thinking about suicide immediately makes me think of Kennedy. Ha! I don't have his number with me. And even if I did, I don't have a phone. Sorry, doc. I know I promised to call you if I was going to try to off myself, but I literally
can't
keep that promise. So sorry for you.

When I tried to kill myself the first time (ooh, and Kennedy would be pissed at me for
that
—he always called it "the last time"), I thought I would really do it. But, honestly, it didn't matter if I succeeded or not. That's what I told myself as the blood started to flow and I stared at it in amazement. It didn't really matter because even if I didn't actually
die,
I would at least get to see how people reacted.

But then Fanboy went and ruined that. Because I swear to God, I didn't know that you couldn't kill yourself the way I slashed my wrists. I didn't know. It's sort of humiliating, really. Because I bet people assumed I
did
know. And they all weren't thinking,
Wow, she tried to die!
or
Poor girl
or
Good riddance.
No. They were all thinking,
What a poseur
or
She's looking for attention—how pathetic
or
Gee, look at this—I bet Daddy Couldn't Handle Her.

I sort of feel like I should go and find the emergency room people who took care of me that night. Go to them and say, "Hey! Hey, I really
was
trying to kill myself! I really
did
want to die! I'm not a wannabe! I'm not like the pathetic girls who cut themselves up. I really wanted to die."

Too late. But when they find me frozen to death on the side of the road, they'll...

Ah, shit. They'll figure it was an accident. Right? Because who commits suicide by lying down in the cold?

I guess I should keep going, then.

the room the room the room is rosevomit because
roger left roses and
mom threw up before i came in
perfect timing

("Honey?" she said
In that clouded, confused way.)

cancer had eaten a path to her brain
yum-yum cancer loves brains
like zombies
eat her memory
she has trouble remembering me
remembering the year

(When I was eight years old, I
Had the stomach flu
And threw up in the kitchen
And then in the hallway
And then twice in the bathroom
—Only hitting the sink once)

i should understand.
but I can't
fluvomit does not equal rosevomit

dead already, to me
dead and gone
seventeen months of slow death
of hospitals and
hospices and
doctors and
radiation and
chemotherapy (latin for "poison")

("Honey, come close and let me see you.")

smell of death above the rosevomit
twelve and i had never smelled death before—
—but i knew
(I knew)
I know

this is what death smells like

dead already
why won't this g host leave me alone?
and let me get on with my life?

she touches me
once
on the arm

before her own arm becomes
too tired
and drops to her side

("Be strong,"
She said.)

i want to run
runscreamhide
get away
from the THING
in my mother's bed
the THING
that pretends to be her