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I liked projects where I could take things apart and figure out exactly how they worked. The problem is, you can’t do that with people.
Even though it had been months since my last big project, my parents were still accustomed to them. So when I asked my father for DJ equipment, he didn’t ask why.
Because Dad works at a music store, he was able to get me turntables and a mixer for cheap. He brought them home for me on Friday evening, and I immediately ran up to my room and spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how to work the equipment. I didn’t even go downstairs for di
That’s one of the nice things about my dad’s house: there is no official Di
The problem with my dad’s house, of course, is that it’s miles and miles away from Start. Which meant I had to come up with a way out of there for next Thursday night. Already some of the shininess I’d felt was disappearing from memory, my sparkle flaking off me like chipped nail polish. Friday morning, six hours after I’d left Start, I strode into Glendale High like no one could touch me. I saw Amelia Kindl looking at me out of the corner of her eye all through English class, and I didn’t even flinch. I thought about that moment of power, playing “Ca
That was the morning. But by noon, my armor had already started to wear away. At lunch, Emily Wallace paused at my table next to the bathroom and said, “You know you’re wearing my vest, right?”
I said, “Excuse me?”
She smirked and pointed. “That vest. It’s mine. I donated it to Goodwill last year.”
“Oh,” I said. I looked down and touched the buttons on my vest, which had looked so pretty and normal when I put it on earlier. I wanted to say to Emily, So what? I tried to call upon the power of Start, to remind myself of that moment when it was just me and the music and a roomful of people loving me and the music.
But that seemed so far away from me and Emily in this fluorescent-lit cafeteria right now. So I said only, “Oh,” while my friends, Chava and Sally, stared at their celery sticks and said nothing at all.
So, no, I couldn’t wait to go to Start again.
On Wednesday evening, as I prepared myself a mug of hot chocolate, I asked my father, “Is it okay for me to spend tomorrow night at Mom’s this week?”
Dad looked up from his newspaper. “Why?”
I’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask why. I didn’t mind lying by omission. Like how I’d just never gotten around to mentioning that I spent hours every night roaming the streets of Glendale. But I preferred not to lie directly.
“Because I have a big history project that I need to finish working on and hand in on Friday,” I answered. “It’s at Mom’s, and it would be a huge hassle to bring it over here.” Dad didn’t respond for a moment. “It’s a diorama,” I offered.
Dad nodded at that. He knows from experience how big my dioramas can get. “All right,” he said. “I hope Mr. Hendricks appreciates it.” He pulled out his phone and switched the dates on the Elise Calendar, and that was that.
And it’s a good thing he did, too, because Thursday … Thursday was bad. Thursday, I really needed Start.
6
Sometimes you just have those days. When you know, from the moment you wake up, that everything you touch you will break, so the less you touch, the better.
Thursday was one of those days.
My alarm didn’t go off, so I didn’t have time to shower before school. Dad was in a grumpy mood because his band’s show the next week had been canceled, and then he was in an even grumpier mood after I missed the bus and he had to drive me all the way to school. In Chem I realized I had forgotten my lab report, even though I had been working on it until midnight, so that was an automatic ten-point deduction. And then we had scoliosis testing.
For scoliosis testing, all the girls had to line up in the gym and then go behind a screen, one by one. It was unclear what happened once you went behind the screen. Presumably the nurse checked you for scoliosis, but it was equally possible that she made you recite the alphabet backward or perform an interpretive dance.
I wound up standing in the scoliosis line directly in front of Amelia Kindl. I could hear her sighing over and over, even though I didn’t look at her. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, so I put on my iPod headphones, but I could still feel her sighing.
I was prepared to ignore Amelia for the entirety of fourth period, but Amelia, apparently, had other ideas, and eventually she tapped me on the shoulder.
I took off my headphones and turned around. “Yes, Amelia?”
“Why are you doing this to me?” she demanded.
I stared at her. The last conversation that Amelia and I had had was on the phone, the night after the first day of school. Over the past seven and a half months, I had imagined her saying many things to me. All of them started with sorry. Sorry I made you clean up our lunch table and possibly drove you to self-mutilation would have worked. Sorry I freaked out and told 911 that you tried to kill yourself also would have done the trick. Sorry I couldn’t be the friend that you wanted me to be was what I was really holding out for. Why are you doing this to me? was not actually an option.
“Why am I doing what to you?” I asked.
“Acting like I’m some sort of criminal,” Amelia replied.
“I’m not,” I said.
Amelia played with the ends of her honey-brown hair and adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose. She took a deep breath and went on. “You’ve spent the entire year ignoring me or glaring at me like I’m a serial killer.”
I thought, for the zillionth time, about what a nice girl Amelia was. She was a nice girl with a nice life, so people were nice to her. In Amelia’s world, nobody ever ignores you or glares at you just for kicks.
If Amelia had to be me for even one day, I think she would just fall to pieces.
“And, you know, if that’s how you want to act, well, that’s fine. But now this?” she said. “Don’t do this to me, Elise.”
“I don’t know what this is,” I told her honestly.
“Oh, please.” Her voice cracked. I had no idea what I’d done to hurt her. Part of me felt bad about it, whatever it was, but then another part of me said, very smugly, Good. She cleared her throat and continued, “If you want to give me mean looks all through English class and cross to the other side of the hallway whenever you see me coming, that’s, you know, whatever. But stop spreading rumors about me.”
“I’m not spreading rumors about you,” I said, as the line moved forward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I don’t actually care. Because you, Amelia … you betrayed me.”
I thought that this might be it—this might be the moment when Amelia said sorry—but instead she said, “That’s not true. We weren’t even friends; I can’t have betrayed you. I saved your life.”
I flashed back in time, and all of a sudden it was like I was right back in my bedroom in my dad’s house, “Hallelujah” playing on my computer, my left arm bandaged and pulled in close to my chest as I dialed Amelia’s phone number for the first and only time in my life.
I saved your life, she had said, and she kept looking at me now, blinking her soft brown eyes nervously.