Backlash

These days we smile at each other on the bus and when we see each other in the halls, but since our families stopped hanging out, we don’t see each other as much as we used to. I suddenly find myself wondering why. It’s not like we ever had a problem with each other. I guess we were used to our friendship just happening. Or maybe he got embarrassed about hanging around with a girl because his friends were teasing him. I swear, the minute I started wearing a bra, some of the guys at school started acting all weird.

I glance inside. Lara’s still on the computer. She’s still got eighteen minutes, according to the time on my cell, so I figure, what the heck? I walk over to the bottom of the big old oak, hoping I don’t scare Liam with the sound of my feet crunching through the leaves.

As I start climbing up the wooden rungs, I whistle so he knows someone is coming up. His head pops out of the doorway, and he shines the flashlight app on his cell down in my face, almost blinding me.

“Do you mind?” I complain.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says. “I was afraid it was Bree.”

I climb up the rest of the way and crawl in to join him. The tree house seems so much smaller than I remember. A spiderweb catches in my hair as I lean against the wall, breathing in the must and mold of disuse. Liam lights a candle, and it glows, flickering, showing the boy-band posters my sister and Bree had tacked up on the wall back when they were into that kind of thing. Back when they were still friends.

“So what brings you up here?” Liam asks.

“I had to get away from Lara,” I say. “And I saw you climbing up so …”

“Fu

“Remember how they always used to keep us out of here, even though it was supposed to be for all of us?”

“Oh yeah,” Liam says. “And we’d be stuck down below complaining about how not fair it was, but not knowing how to do anything about it.”

“How did they get away with being so mean to us?”

“ ’Cause they’re the older sisters?” Liam suggests. “Because that’s the way it is in families?”

“I guess. So is Bree still mean to you?”

“Not mean. Just … a

“It looks like no one’s been up here. It’s gross. You should clean the place up if you’re pla

He laughs, the candlelight reflecting on the whiteness of his teeth.

“Wow. You’re such a girl, Syd.”

“Duh, really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Some guys get all weird when I joke around with them. But not Liam. Even though we hadn’t hung out in a while, he definitely gets my humor. We used to play Mad Libs and do silly stuff like try to make all the words have to do with farts and poop. It made us laugh so hard our stomachs hurt. Our parents called us the little hyenas, because we were always cracking up about something.

“Why did we stop getting together as families just because Lara and Bree got all teenage girl and fell out?” Liam bursts out suddenly. “Does the whole freaking world revolve around my sister?”

Yes! It’s as if the candle’s glow has reached to the very deepest part of me, the part that I don’t want to let people see because I’m afraid it makes me an awful person. But suddenly, the person I’m so afraid of, Deepest Darkest Syd, realizes she’s not alone.

“Tell me about it,” I say. “When you’re normal in my house, you might as well be invisible.”

“How … is … Lara?” he asks.

“Oh, she’s fine and being totally a

“ ‘Totally a

We sit, watching the flickering candle, enjoying a moment of silent younger-sibling solidarity.

“Why didn’t our moms stay friends?” he asks. “Or our dads?”

He doesn’t say, “Or us?” but it’s there, hanging unspoken like a ripe fruit unpicked, and now that I’m sitting here with him in the candlelight, I wonder, too. Because unlike all my other friends, Liam gets it.

“Mom got all caught up in the city council stuff, I guess.”

“Yeah, she’s, like, a big politician these days, huh?”

“Ugh, I know.”

“And my mom’s determined to be the real estate queen of Lake Hills,” Liam said. “You can’t go past a bus shelter without seeing her face.”

“Tell me the truth … Have you ever felt like drawing a mustache on her poster with a Sharpie when you’ve been really mad at her?”

Liam bursts out laughing. “How did you know? That was the one secret I thought I was taking to the grave.”

“Probably because I’ve felt like defacing Mom’s campaign posters once or twice,” I admit. “But at least I only have to deal with that every two years. You have to see your mom on the bus shelter all the time.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. I mean I love Mom and all, but … ‘Everything I touch turns to sold’? Cringe!”

“Well, what about my mom? ‘Kathy Kelley — Putting the public in public service.’ As long as she doesn’t have to admit that there’s anything the matter with our family in public, that is.”

Speaking of things wrong with our family, I check the time on my cell. It’s been more than twenty minutes.

“I’ve got to go. I told Lara she had to get off the computer in twenty minutes so I could do my homework, and her time is past being up.”

“Wait,” Liam says. “I … it’s just … even if our families aren’t friends anymore, do you think you and I could maybe still … you know, hang out sometime?”

Even in the candlelight, I can see him blushing through his freckles. He means like friends, right?

“Yeah,” I say, hoping that’s what he means, because I’m not sure how I’d feel about anything more. “See you in school. G’night.”

“Careful going down. I’ll shine the light for you.”

I climb down the slat ladder bathed in the light from his flashlight app. We call good night to each other again when I reach the bottom. I crunch through the dead leaves back to my house. When I let myself in through the sliding door, my cold fingers and cheeks tingle from the warmth.

When I get into the living room, though, it’s my temper that flares when I realize Lara is still on the computer, giggling and typing and so obviously not doing homework.

“Lara, get off! It’s my turn.”

“Just give me two more minutes,” she says.

“I’m calling Mom,” I say, pressing her number in Favorites.

Lara’s still typing.

My mom picks up and she’s not happy.

“Sydney, I’m in the middle of a council meeting. What is it?”

“Lara won’t get off the computer, and I need it to do my homework. She’s not even doing work, she’s chatting.”

“You interrupted me at a meeting —”

“Mom, I need to do my homework!”

“Put her on.”

I hand Lara my phone. “Mom wants to talk to you.”

I can hear Mom yelling at Lara, furious that we interrupted her while she’s busy doing oh-so-important city council business at her meeting. Lara’s typing as she’s listening, but she finally says, “Okay, FINE!,” hangs up, logs off, throws my phone onto the table, and storms upstairs.

I’m fuming with anger and frustration as I start my homework.

But then I think about hanging out with Liam earlier and how that was the best part of the day. At least Lara can’t ruin that.