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“Well, thank you for your time,” Detective Souther says, and he and Officer Timm get up to leave. “Please call anytime if you think of anything that might help us with our investigation.”
“Will you arrest them when you find out who it is?” Mom asks.
“It depends on how much of a case we can build,” the detective says.
“But you saw the things this person wrote!” Mom exclaims. “My daughter was tricked into believing that this Christian character cared for her and then he —”
Mom stops as Lara’s chair scrapes back loudly and my sister runs out of the room, leaving the Snuggie behind like a shed snake skin. We hear her footsteps ru
My mother is torn between following Lara and asking the detective more questions. So guess what happens?
“Sydney — go up and see how your sister is doing,” Mom orders. “And make sure she keeps her door open.”
No Please. No Would you mind, dearest, wonderful, not screwed-up daughter? Just Do it, Syd.
I detour to get my schoolbooks from the family room and head upstairs.
Part of me wants to leave Lara alone, to give her some space to cry or punch a hole in the wall or just do whatever she wants to do with the door closed for a few minutes. But I can’t, because what if hearing Mom talking about Christian or realizing that whoever did this might be someone we know has made her upset enough to try to hurt herself again?
If she did that, it would be my fault because I didn’t go to her.
Because I wanted her to have time to be mad.
Because I was mad myself.
So instead I knock on the door, softly. “Lara? It’s Syd. Are you okay?”
She doesn’t answer and my heart starts beating an irregular rhythm in my chest. Not again.
I try the door handle, praying that she hasn’t locked it.
It turns.
Now that I can breathe again, I push the door open.
“Lara?”
She’s lying on her bed, clutching her stuffed Hedwig to her chest, staring at the ceiling. She doesn’t answer me or even look in my direction as I walk in, put my books on her desk, and sit cross-legged on the end of her bed.
“Mom didn’t mean to,” I say. “It’s just the way she is. If there’s a problem, she has to be the one to fix it.”
That’s when I see the tears rolling silently down Lara’s cheeks.
“I’m the one problem she can’t fix,” she whispers.
I want to say the right thing to her, but I don’t know what it is. I’m not a grown-up. I’m not a shrink. I don’t know the answers. I’ve got my own problems, and if I’m going to be totally honest here, my sister is one of them.
“Maybe … maybe she can’t fix you,” I say.
That definitely wasn’t the right thing. It just makes Lara’s tears flow faster, harder.
“I don’t mean that … like … you’re unfixable,” I try to explain, to undo the damage I’ve done. “I guess … what I’m trying to say …” What am I trying to say? I don’t even know … “I think what I’m trying to say is that maybe … only you can fix you?”
The tears keep coming, and Lara’s eyes are still fixed on the ceiling. Am I making things better or worse?
I hear Dad letting the police guys out the front door, and Mom’s footsteps coming up the stairs. Great. She’s probably going to be mad at me, because I made Lara cry more instead of making her feel better.
“Look, what do I know? I’m just the stupid little sister,” I say, shrugging and sliding off the bed.
I pick up my books from the desk and walk to the door just as Mom enters.
“Lara, honey? Are you okay?”
I look back at my sister. She’s placed Hedwig over her face, as if to shut out the world — or our mom, I’m not sure which.
But that’s not my problem now. It’s hers. I’ve got to finish my homework, if I can even concentrate after all this drama. Honestly, it’s amazing I’m getting halfway decent grades considering how crazy life is here.
My bedroom window faces the street, and I press my nose against it and stare out at the neighbors’ houses, wondering which window conceals the sicko who did this to my sister.
Is it old Mrs. Gorski or Spencer Helman or Bree Co
Windows reflect back at me, some light, some dark.
I shiver, pulling my head away from the window and yanking my curtains shut so no one can see in. I always thought we lived in a nice neighborhood with good families. Our neighbors have been rallying around us since Lara tried to kill herself, showing support and bringing us casseroles. But the detective said the person who pretended to be Christian lives right here, among us.
Could it be our neighborhood isn’t so nice after all?
A WEEK after Lara got taken to the hospital in an ambulance, Mom had me delete the Christian DeWitt Facebook account. I wasn’t all that sad to say good-bye to him. Flirting with Lara had gotten awkward and old. And seriously — I never really thought she’d do it. Try to kill herself, I mean. Mom also made me delete the picture of Lara on the stretcher from Facebook. She was all about “covering tracks” and “not being so obvious.” I was really pissed about that because it’s the most likes I’ve had on any post.
When I complained about deleting the Lara picture, she yelled at me. “Brea
Her ragging on me for not being the sharpest tool in the Co
Seriously, it’s not like I was the only one posting stuff about Lara’s trip to the ER. Lots of other kids had status updates that night like Did you hear Lara Kelley OD’d? and stuff like that.
At least I didn’t make it sound like she died.
I’ve been thinking about what would have happened if Lara had … you know. I hadn’t really thought she’d go as far as trying to commit suicide. I mean, I knew Lara was super insecure and everything, but killing herself? That’s so extreme. I was really mad at her, but not enough to want her to die. I guess I just wanted her to hurt as much as I did. It didn’t seem fair that she was on top of the world all of a sudden. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to be with us. I was always the leader of our pack. Even when it came to making the rules for the tree fort, I was the one in charge.
And then she’d laughed at me. I just wanted to restore things back to the way they should be.
I saw Liam go out to the tree fort the other night. When the flickering light came on in the tree fort window, I realized, with relief, that it wasn’t a stinky hobo living out there, or some random freak. It was just my stinky, freaky little brother.
He was out there for about an hour. When he finally got back to his room, I went in and asked him why he’d been up there.
“None of your beeswax,” he said, like we were still little kids.
“You’ve been going out there a lot. I’ve seen the light in the window.”
“Maybe I just needed to get away from you,” he said.
“Fine. Be a jerk,” I said, spi
“You mean the stupid boy bands?” Liam said. “Yeah, they’re still there.”
For some reason, that made me happy. It’s not like I even like those bands anymore — at least not that I’d admit to anyone — but even so, I was glad that they were still smiling down from the wooden walls of the tree fort.