The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door (19 page)

That’s when I started learning how to be Dark. I glowered at teachers and classmates and wouldn’t raise my hand in class. When people laughed at me or whispered about the Book, I pretended I didn’t hear them. I pulled my hood up whenever possible and wore my hair down around my face.

The only teacher who seemed to notice was Ms. Green. “Could you stay after class please, Celia?” she asked a week after I got the notebook. She waited until everyone had cleared out and then sat down at a student desk next to mine. “You haven’t been participating in class like you used to. You’ve seemed a little sad or something, so I gave a call home yesterday. Your mom told me about the separation. Atlanta’s a long way away, huh?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” I said, not actually knowing how far away it was.

“I wanted to give you this.” She stood up and got a package from her desk wrapped in brown paper and handed it to me. “I was trying to think of something that might help.” I opened it and found a blue journal with blank, creamy pages and the word
Poetry
written in bold letters on the spine. “Creative writing can be a great way to work through your sadness,” she said, resting her hand gently on my arm. “You can get out what’s inside of you.”

I tried several times over the next two weeks to write a poem. I took the journal with me to lunch and the library. Sometimes I sat in front of it, thinking how clean and lovely the pages were. None of my ideas seemed important enough to vandalize them. Other times, I would think of a phrase or line, but then it would seem stupid, or cliché, something I’d heard a hundred times before. What if I tried to put my feelings on the page and they were pathetic? That would feel worse than being sad. Ms. Green must have been wrong about me.

Finally, in mid June, eighth grade ended, and I hoped I would be able to breathe again. Then, in mid July, my dad left for Atlanta. During the month in between, I tried ignoring my parents, yelling at them, asking politely, and finally begging. I begged that we would all move to Atlanta together. When that didn’t work, I begged that I be allowed to go with my dad. They were unrelenting. My mom insisted on staying in Hershey, and she insisted that I stay with her. Through it all, I never cried, even when the car came to take him to the airport and he hugged me and said, “Turtle, I’m leaving Hershey, but I’m not leaving you. I’ve got a great job down there, and I’m going to make things better for us. I love you.”

Even one tear might crumble the new cement that was hardening between me and the world. I just said, “Bye.”

Summer never came that year. I’m sure it got hot like it always does in Pennsylvania, but in my memory, June and July were cold. I spent a lot of time staring at the Book that my classmates made. I didn’t open it again, but the words written in it bounced around my head like an echo through a canyon. Especially the phrase, “I would just kill myself.” Everywhere I went, that phrase followed me. It started to sound like a viable alternative to everything. Like, “I could take a shower, or I could just kill myself,” or “I could go make breakfast, or I could just kill myself.” The crack that had formed inside of me widened. The color drained out of everything. I stopped going outside, I stopped going to the library. I stopped emailing Dorathea. Then I stopped reading.

My mom noticed, but she would just say things like, “I know, June Bug, it’s hard for me having your dad gone, too, but it is necessary. Things will get better.” She started seeing a therapist and reading self-help books.

Then, on July 20, the day before my fourteenth birthday, I finally gave up. My childhood was over. My dad had moved, middle school was done with, and everyone hated me. High school would just be more of the same. I decided the book was right. I decided I should probably kill myself.

It was a Tuesday, and my mom was working a double shift, morning and swing. I spent the day thinking about how I would do it. People used sleeping pills I had heard, so that seemed like an option. But we didn’t have any in the house. We had no garage, so I couldn’t go for carbon monoxide poisoning, and my mom’s car wasn’t there anyway. We didn’t own a gun, and the thought of hanging terrified me. I decided I would do it with a razor blade in the tub.

I started by collecting everything I would need into the bathroom. The only candles I could find were the little ones you put on a birthday cake, so I stuffed them down into the soil of an aloe plant. I found a new razor blade in my mom’s shaving kit and some bubble bath under the sink. I got the clock radio from my room and put it in the bathroom so I could play music. I thought something classical would be nice.

I put on a bathrobe and left my clothes in my bedroom. I didn’t exactly feel sad or excited, I felt relieved. I was relieved that I wasn’t going to have to face anything anymore, relieved that I would never have to go back to school, relieved that I wouldn’t have to watch my family break apart. I started the water in the tub and put in the bubble bath. I wanted everything to be clean.

Sitting on the edge of the tub and staring into it, something struck me. It had to do with the way the light was hitting the razor blade. It wasn’t a conscious thought; it was more of a feeling coming to me in words. I couldn’t shake a phrase out of my head, “The razor reflected the sky like a mirror.”

I figured I might as well go write it down. After all, I wouldn’t have another chance. In my room, I looked for paper and then remembered the poetry journal from Ms. Green. I had to search through my bookshelf and desk, but I finally found it stashed in the bottom drawer, still blank. I opened the cover and wrote the first stanza of my first poem.

When I felt good about the lines, I went back to check on my bathwater. I had spent so much time finding the journal and writing in it, the water was lukewarm. Something struck me again. I went back to my room and kept writing. When I finished the poem, I added a title.

THE DAY I ALMOST KILLED MYSELF

It was afternoon and the razor

reflected the sky like a mirror. The bath towels

were white like the bathtub and my wrists

were white like the towels.

The bathwater got lukewarm.

The afternoon turned into late

afternoon and I was still pulling ropes of air

into my lungs like a sailor. The razor reflected

the sunset. The bathwater got cold.

The bath towels were white like the bathtub

and my wrists were white like the towels.

I pulled the plug on the tub and ended up taking a shower. That night, I thought about the title of the book Mandy and Sandy had given me,
Things Celia Needs to Change.
I decided that there
were
some things I needed to change before high school. I also decided that I would be the one to decide what those things were going to be.

The next day I woke up, turned fourteen, and became Dark.

Celia the Dark.

CHAPTER

31

Drake sat there with his hands folded together in a prayer position, and his pointer fingers pressed against his lips. He didn’t say anything for a minute.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked gently without moving his fingers from his lips.

“I was worried that you wouldn’t like me if you knew how much of an outcast I was.”

“But I already knew about the Book,” said Drake.

“What?”

“Sandy told me about it in Spanish class during
conversación
the second week of school, but didn’t admit that she was behind it. Actually, she acted like she felt sorry for you because you didn’t have any friends. She had seen us hanging out and wanted to warn me that befriending you would be
social death
for me at Hershey,” said Drake, rolling his eyes dramatically.

“But you never asked me about it.”

“I figured that you would tell me when you were ready, and I kept waiting. I was surprised that it took you this long to trust me.”

I had kept a terrible secret from my best friend, and it turned out he had known it all along. “I wouldn’t have guessed about the other part,” said Drake. “The . . . bathtub.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at the polished wood of the bench. It was so hard letting him know I had considered doing something terrible to myself. The black hole was open in my chest, but it wasn’t getting any wider. I felt like Drake could see it now, too.

We met each other’s eyes. His were brown and tender, like a picnic on a warm day. I was looking at him when something over his left shoulder caught my eye. A woman was walking toward us.

And she wasn’t just walking, she was also waving. She became more visible with each step, the way a Polaroid picture develops while you are looking at it. I had never seen the woman before, but she was definitely moving in our direction. She was elegantly dressed in brown pants, a black coat, and high heels. She had a mass of long, dark hair framing her face and falling over her shoulders. She was pulling a suitcase behind her like it was a reluctant dog.

I twisted around to look over my shoulder, thinking that she must have been waving at someone else sitting nearby. Drake turned to see what had my interest, and in an astonished voice, he said, “Mom?”

Drake stood up off the bench and swung around toward the lady.
Busted!
We were caught and we hadn’t even made it out of Pennsylvania. How did she find out? I had never met Drake’s mom, but knowing parents, I braced for yelling.

She took a few more quick steps and released her bag. “Hi, honey,” she said, grabbing Drake and putting her arms around him while he hung limp as a cotton doll. “Are you okay? Does it hurt? Let me see your eye.” She put her hand around his chin to get a look at Drake’s bruise. “Probably a week to heal; I was afraid it would be worse.” She turned away from us. “David.” She motioned toward a man in a pair of jeans and button-down shirt who was holding a large, leather bag in one hand. “Over here.”

“I told your grandmother we would get a rental car.” She turned back to us and then reached out her arms to hug me. “This must be Celia. I’m happy to meet you. Shouldn’t you be in school today? Where is your grandmother, Drake?” Drake’s mom looked right and left at the other commuters as the man in the button-down shirt walked over to us.

“Hey, kid,” he said to Drake warmly, wrapping him in a hug. “Sorry to get you out of bed so early. We told Mom not to come pick us up, so you guys could sleep in.” Again, Drake was stiff, not hugging the man back. “Celia, I’m guessing. Hello,” he said cordially, extending a hand to shake mine, “I’m Drake’s dad.”

Neither Drake nor I said a word. We were like two rabbits in the grass with a snake moving nearby. Frozen.

“Honey, is Gran waiting in the car?” Drake’s mother asked him, starting to sound concerned. Then, she looked at him more closely and said, “What’s wrong?”

I saw the realization pass over Drake’s face at the same time it occurred to me. They didn’t know they were catching us. “You were supposed to come in at ten.” Drake sounded like a person waking up from a faint.

His dad said, “All the other trains were sold out until this evening, and we needed to get here early enough to meet with your principal. Gran must have told you that.”

“Where is your grandmother?” Drake’s mom asked again, more forcefully.

“I have to be in New York this weekend,” said Drake quietly, as if he was talking to himself.

“What are you talking about?” his dad asked calmly. “We told you we were coming here instead.”

“I’m still going, with or without you.” Drake started to seem mildly hysterical. He took a few steps away from them.

“Why do you need to go to New York?” his father continued in a calm tone, taking a step closer to Drake.

“Japhy was supposed to come over. I need to talk to him,” Drake said, sounding like he might be close to tears.

“Honey,” his mom said gently, “they said
no
for this weekend even if we were going to be there. Japhy’s mother had a performance, and Japhy is going out of town with his girlfriend’s family.”

In old Road Runner cartoons, Wile E. Coyote is always getting an Acme anvil dropped on his head when he tries to concoct a complicated plan to catch Road Runner. Drake and I were coyotes, eyes spinning and birds flying around our skulls.

“Girlfriend.” Drake’s voice was just above a whisper.

“Drake, what is going on here?” his father asked forcefully. “We didn’t expect you and Gran to meet us here. We reserved a rental car.”

“Where is your gran?” Drake’s mom asked for the third time.

“She’s not here.” Drake sounded defeated. “Celia and I were going to New York.”

“Alone?” barked Drake’s dad. “She would never allow that. What the hell is going on?”

“I was coming to New York to see Japhy.” Drake’s arms hung lifeless at his side like garden hoses. “I’m in love with him.”

Everyone was speechless. Drake’s parents stared at him with so much concern on their faces, they could have hardened into theatre masks. Then they looked at each other. It was a slow movement as his mother embraced Drake, and his father hugged them both. Then they melted together, one hugging lump with Drake at the center. Drake’s mom and dad both said some muffled words to him while they huddled, but I couldn’t hear them.

When they finally pulled apart, they all looked redder around the eyes. “Well, let’s go get the rental,” Drake’s father said when everyone had collected themselves, “and get back to Hershey.”