Just Listen

"Yes, it does," Kirsten replied. "For me, it does."

Under different circumstances, maybe my parents would have pushed to discuss this further. But they were tired, and while Kirsten might have been known best for her directness, her stubbor

Whitney stayed at the treatment center for thirty days, during which time she gained ten pounds. She wanted to return to

New York once she was released, but my parents insisted she move back home instead, as the doctors felt strongly a return to modeling would risk any progress she'd made, or would make. That was in January, and since then she'd been going to an outpatient program, seeing an additional therapist twice a week, and sulking around the house. Meanwhile, Kirsten had kept to her word, enrolling in some classes at a New York college while juggling her other two jobs. Surprisingly, given her high-school experience, she loved school, calling each weekend happy and bubbling over with details about her classes and what she was studying. Again, my sisters were at extremes and yet similar at the same time: Each was starting over, but only one by choice.

There were some weeks when it seemed like Whitney was really getting better, gaining weight, clearly on her way. And then there were others when she'd refuse to eat breakfast, or get caught doing forbidden crunches in her room late at night, and only the threat of having to go back into the hospital and be force-fed was enough to make her get back in line. Through it all, one thing remained constant: She would not talk to Kirsten.

Not when she called. Not even when she came home for a weekend in the spring. At first Kirsten was hurt, then angry, before finally retaliating with her own silence. The rest of us were stuck in the middle, filling the awkward pauses with chatter that always fell short. Since then, while my mom and dad had both traveled up to see her at various times, she'd made a point of not coming back home.

It was weird. As a kid, I'd always hated it when my sisters fought, but them not talking at all was worse. Their complete and total lack of communication, now going on nine months, was scary in how permanent it felt.

The changes in my sisters over the last year were both evident and sensory. One you could spot on sight, while the other you heard about the moment you were in earshot, whether you wanted to or not. As for me, I found myself where I'd always been, stuck somewhere in the middle.

But I had changed, too, even if only I could tell. I was different. As different as my family was that night it all began from what we appeared to be—the five of us, a happy family, sharing a meal in our glass house—to anyone in a car passing by on the road outside, looking in.

Chapter Four

For the first week of school, Sophie ignored me completely. Which was hard. But when she did begin to speak to me, I quickly realized I much preferred the silence.

"Whore."

It was always just one word. One word, said clearly and with enough spite to sting. Sometimes it came from behind me, floating over my shoulder when I wasn't expecting it. Other times, I could see her coming, and took it right in the face. The one thing that was always the same was that her timing was impeccable. The moment I started to feel a little better or have a half-decent moment in an okay day, she was right there to make sure it didn't last.

This time, she was walking by as I sat on the wall during lunch. Emily was with her—Emily was always with her, these days—and I didn't look at them, instead just focusing on the notebook in my lap and the history paper I was working on. I'd just written the word occupation, and I kept my pen to the page, making both o's darker and darker, until Emily and Sophie passed.

There was a karmic aspect to this, although I didn't like to think about it. The truth was, it hadn't been that long ago that I'd been the one who walked alongside Sophie while she did her dirty work, when I was the person who, while not taking part in the slur, didn't stop it, either. Like with Clarke.

Thinking this, I looked up, glancing around the courtyard until I found her sitting at one of the picnic tables with a few of her friends. She was at the end of the bench, a textbook open in front of her, half listening to the conversation between the girls next to her as she flipped through the pages. Clearly, sitting alone on that first day for her had been optional. She hadn't come anywhere near the wall, or me, since.

But Owen Armstrong remained. Other people came and went from our wall, some in groups, some by themselves, but only he and I were there every single day. We always kept an understood distance between us—about six feet, give or take a few inches—that whoever arrived second was always sure to honor when they sat down. There were other constants, too. He never ate, that I saw; I always had a full lunch, courtesy of my mother. He seemed completely unaware, and uncaring, of what anyone else was doing, while I spent the hour convinced everyone was staring at and discussing me. I did homework; he listened to music. And we never, ever spoke.

Maybe it was because I was spending so much time alone. Or the fact that there were only so many minutes of my lunch hour I could spend doing homework. Whatever the reason, I'd become somewhat fascinated with Owen Armstrong. Every day, I made it a point to take a few sideways glances at him, cataloging something else about his appearance or habits. So far, I'd garnered quite a bit of information.

For instance, the earphones. He never seemed to take them off. Clearly, he loved music, and his iPod was always either in his pocket, his hand, or lying on the wall beside him. I'd also noticed that his reactions when he was listening varied. Usually he sat totally still except for his head bobbing, slowly and almost imperceptibly. Occasionally he drummed his fingers on his knee, and in very rare instances, he hummed along, barely loud enough for me to hear, and then only when no one was passing or talking nearby. Those were the times I wondered most what he was listening to, although I imagined it to be just like him, dark and angry and loud.

Then there was his appearance. His size, of course, you saw first: the height, the big wrists, the enormity of his mere presence. But there were little things, too, like his dark eyes, which were either green or brown, and the two identical rings—each flat, wide, and silver—he wore on the middle finger of each hand.

Now, as I glanced over at him, he was sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back on his palms. A swath of sunlight was falling across his face, and his earphones were on, his head bobbing slightly, eyes closed. A girl carrying a piece of poster board walked past me, then slowed as she approached him, and I watched her as she carefully stepped over his feet, like Jack from "Jack in the Beanstalk" creeping past the sleeping giant. Owen didn't stir, and she scurried on.

I'd once felt this same way about Owen as well, of course. Everyone did. But there was something about our daily proximity that had made me relax, or at least not jump every time he looked my way. These days I was more worried about Sophie, who was a credible threat, or even Clarke, who had made it clear that yes, she still hated me.

It seemed odd that Owen Armstrong could seem somehow safer than the only two best friends I'd ever had. I was begi