Backlash

“Can you just listen to me before you start with the drama?” Mom says.

Oh, I’m the one with the drama? Wow, Mom.

“Lara will be seeing a therapist regularly, and I have to keep her under constant observation,” Mom continues. “That means she has to keep her bedroom door open and even the bathroom door has to be kept cracked open when she’s inside.”

“What, even when she’s, you know, going?”

“Yes, even then,” Mom says, her face grim.

“That’s kind of creepy,” I say.

“It’s a whole lot less creepy than finding her unconscious in the bathtub surrounded by pill bottles,” Mom says.

I have to admit she has a point there.

“Wait — those rules don’t apply to me, though, do they?”

Mom looks confused.

“No. Why would they apply to you?”

“Because last time, when Lara was trying to lose weight, you made me stop eating cookies, too.”

The look on Mom’s face would be comical if it wasn’t my life we were talking about. It was like this was some huge revelation to her, when she was the one who made the freaking policy.

“I didn’t do that!” she protests.

“What do you mean, you didn’t do that? Of course you did! You don’t buy cookies anymore. You don’t make any. This house has been a Cookie-Free Zone since Lara was in middle school.”

“But … that was because I was trying to create a supportive environment for Lara to lose weight,” Mom protests. She looks down at her fingers and fidgets with her engagement ring. “I never intended it to feel like a punishment for you, sweetheart.”

“Sure doesn’t feel that way.”

“I’m sorry.”

She says it so softly I think I’ve misheard. I’ve never heard Mom say those words to me before. Apologies are a one-way street in our house, a street that goes in the parental direction. Until now.

But when I look at Mom her eyes are glistening. There’s no Paranormal Smile. I think this is the real deal.

“I’m doing the best I can, Syd. I try, but I don’t always get it right,” she says, an unfamiliar wobble in her voice.

I’m not used to seeing her like this. Hearing her admit that she’s not right all the time, that she’s sorry, that she’s not the Paranormal Queen of Perfection, is what makes me get up and hug her, even though I’m still mad.

“It’s okay, Mom. Nobody’s perfect.”

She hugs me back, and I breathe in the scent of the perfume she always wears and the smell of her shampoo. So what if Lara is falling to pieces — Mom still puts on makeup and dresses like she’s on a photo shoot. Maybe that’s the glue she uses to hold herself together.

Mom releases me and sighs heavily.

“I don’t have to tell you how having to be here to watch Lara constantly is going to impact my campaign,” she says.

And that’s when our little “moment” ends with a thud.

“Maybe you can get Lara to apologize for the poor timing of her suicide attempt,” I say before taking my backpack and stomping upstairs, ignoring the stricken look on my mother’s face.

“DID YOU hear? Sydney Kelley’s sister got let out of the hospital.”

“You mean the girl who tried to kill herself?”

“Yeah. My sister said some dude dumped her on Facebook and that’s what made her do it.”

That’s the kind of buzz going around the cafeteria at lunch.

I see Sydney walk in with her friend Cara. She stands in line to get her food. At first she’s chatting with Cara. But then I watch as her back tenses up and her hands clutch the tray tighter. As she starts hearing what people around her are saying. Then she says something to Cara and rushes out of the cafeteria, leaving her tray.

“Yo, Liam — you zoning out or what?”

Oliver waves his hand in front of my face to get my attention.

“What?” I ask.

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

“You asked me if I was zoning out.”

He gives me an “Are you kidding me?” look.

“Duh. Before that.”

“Uh, no.”

“Are you going to debate club after school?”

“Yeah,” I tell him, but my mind isn’t on debate. Or on the fantasy football league, which is what the other guys at the table are talking about. I’m wondering where Syd is and if she’s okay. I want to find her and ask, but I’m afraid she’ll think I’m weird if I do. So instead I pretend I just got a text, and under the pretext of replying, I send one to Sydney.

Hey, saw you rush out of the caf. You okay?

She doesn’t answer right away. I start to think she isn’t going to, so I force myself to join in the fantasy football league discussion and act like I care.

And then my phone vibrates.

Not really.

Anything I can do?

Tell everyone to shut up about Lara? Make the world go away?

I wish I could do that. But I can just see me standing up in the middle of the cafeteria and shouting, “Could you all just shut up about Lara Kelley? And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming …” That would only make people talk about it more — and then they’d be talking about me, too, and how crazy I am.

Wish there was something that I could ACTUALLY do, I text back, before saying, “Are you serious? I can’t believe you played the Bills ru

As Roger Cohen launches into his reply, Syd texts back.

There’s nothing anyone can do. That’s the worst part of it.

My fingers tighten around my phone. I feel like throwing it at the wall. Someone should be able to do something. I want to do something. But I don’t know what to do or how to do it.

So I just type, Hang in there, Syd, and go back to talking about fantasy football.

THE ONLY time I’ve been out of the house since they released me from the hospital is to go to see Linda, my therapist, which I have to do every few days until she decides I’m sane enough to reenter society and, more importantly, go back to school. Part of me hopes that’s never. Every time my parents bring up the subject of if I want to go back to Lake Hills or transfer somewhere else it makes me want to take more pills. Like that’s even a possibility. Anything that might resemble a pill is under lock and key in our house. The next time I get my period, I’m going to have to ask Mom’s permission to even take Midol. She’s probably going to ration my use of tampons in case I try to make a noose out of the strings.

The problem is the alternative is staying home, bored out of my head, under Mom’s watchful eye. On the therapist’s advice, I’m not allowed to use the computer or my cell phone “until my emotional state is more stabilized,” so even if someone did care — like, say, if Christian changed his mind after he heard I tried to kill myself — no one can contact me. Mom turns off the router when I have assignments so I can’t get online. The only thing I can use is Microsoft Word. If I need to look anything up online to get my schoolwork done, Mom stands over me, breathing down my neck till I’m done. I’m not sure which of us hates the new arrangement more.