Backlash

1. Luis remembered I like tulips and brought me some.

2. Mom was so busy with work that she didn’t bother me for an entire hour and a half. I got to be alone, even if she could watch me out of the kitchen window.

I’d gone outside to read — luckily the visual problems I had after the overdose turned out to be temporary — but instead I ended up just listening to the leaves rustling, as the breeze blew them from the branches to meet their fallen comrades below, and to the geese honking as they flew south from Canada in a perfect V. I also listened to the thoughts in my head, the whats and the whys and the hows and the whos, and even though they made me sad and mad, at least I could just sit there with them and have them go through my head without anyone trying to “process” them. They were just there.

But I’m stuck on the third thing. My life is very limited at the moment. I go from home to Linda’s office and back home again. I’m not allowed on the Internet, except to do the schoolwork my teachers send home, and when I do that, Mom is in the same room and constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure I’m not on Facebook or chatting with anyone. What she doesn’t understand is that now that I know that Christian wasn’t real, I’m afraid to start all that up again. Because what if I make the same mistake again?

I miss my cell phone more than Facebook or Instagram or anything else. My parents haven’t even let me have that back yet, because I might go online with it, so I can’t even text my friends. I said they could turn the data off, but they said there’s always Wi-Fi and, besides, I have to “earn the privilege.”

I’m a lab specimen under constant observation. It’s as irritating for Mom as it is for me. She’s really resentful about how time keeping an eye on me is taking away from her work and the campaign. She’s trying to be a good mom so she doesn’t come straight out and say it, but it comes out in lots of little ways.

Sometimes, she takes me for a walk around the neighborhood to “get some fresh air,” but really so I get some exercise. I’ve already done enough damage to her campaign by being mentally unstable. I can’t compound it by getting fat again.

I wonder if Mom will ever stop thinking of me as her “problem child.”

I wonder if I’ll ever stop being one.

When I hear the phone ring so late, I’m afraid that someone is in the hospital. Or worse, has died. That’s what those calls usually mean. Late-night calls are never about good news.

My stomach clenches. Is it Grandpa, who has angina, or Nana, whose cancer has been in remission? Please don’t let Nana’s cancer have come back. There’s enough bad stuff going on right now. Pleasepleasepleaseplease!

Dad’s angry shout of “WHAT?” so loud that I hear Syd stir in her sleep next door tells me the call isn’t about death or illness. It’s something else. For once I’m glad about my “open door” restriction, because I can hear what’s going on.

Finally!

3. Open Door Policy helps me eavesdrop better.

“WHERE DID YOU HEAR THIS?” Dad yells.

I hear Mom telling him to stop shouting, because he’ll “wake the girls.”

Um … a little late for that, Mom.

Syd stands in my doorway, bleary-eyed and bed-headed.

“What’s Dad shouting about?”

“Haven’t a clue,” I tell her.

She comes in and collapses in a huddle on the end of my bed, her head resting on my stuffed Hedwig.

“What kind of sick —”

“What is it, Pete?” Mom interrupts him. “Who’s on the phone?”

“A reporter from the Lake Hills Independent,” Dad tells her, then recommences his rant.

“PETE! Tell them no comment and hang up, now!” Mom hisses at Dad.

“No comment! Good-bye.”

Syd and I look at each other as we hear the phone slam back in the cradle.

“I’m going over there right now and I’m going to rip them to pieces with my bare hands!”

I’ve heard my father angry before, but I’ve never, ever heard him like this.

“Who’s he going to rip to pieces?” Syd asks. “What’s he so mad about?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But he’s really starting to freak me out.”

“Me too,” Syd says, cuddling Hedwig.

I slide my toes under her for warmth, and she doesn’t protest. She encircles my ankle with the hand that’s not holding my stuffed owl.

Mom is telling Dad to calm down, that he can’t take things into his own hands.

Dad comes stomping down the hallway, with Mom on his heels.

“Pete, you have to let the police deal with this,” she pleads. “It won’t do anyone any good if you go vigilante.”

That’s when I know that this is about me.

Pulling my feet from under Syd, I jump up from the bed, and run out into the hall.

“What happened? What was that phone call about?”

Mom’s hand flies to her mouth. She looks paralyzed with fear.

Dad turns to me. He’s in his tartan pj bottoms and a faded Chicago Bulls T-shirt and slippers. Is he pla

“You want to know what that phone call was about? It was a reporter from the Independent. She wanted to know my reaction to the news that it was our neighbors and former friends who’d set up that fake account.”

Neighbors and former friends?

No … It can’t be. He can’t mean … No way. Bree would never do that to me. Not Bree. Never. Christian couldn’t be Bree … He flirted with me.

I feel sick.

“Wait … you mean …”

It’s too hard to process, much less say the words I’m thinking.

“Yes,” Dad snaps. “I mean the Co

Christian … who used the L word …

Then told me the world would be a better place without me in it … was really … Bree.

My best friend, Bree.

My former best friend, Bree.

And her MOM.

Did they sit there laughing at me while they did it? Was messing with my head all some big joke to them?

I almost killed myself because of Bree and Mary Jo Co

How … can … this … be … real?

The dizziness comes over me so suddenly I have to put my hand on the wall to stay upright.

“I’m going over there right now,” Dad says.

“You can’t, Pete. It’s eleven-thirty at night,” Mom tells him, gripping his arm. “You’ll wake up the entire neighborhood.”

“You think I care?” Dad shouts, pulling his arm free of her grasp. “What kind of neighborhood is this when you can’t even trust the people you thought were friends? Huh, Kathy? Answer that for me.”

He turns on his heel and stomps down the stairs. A few seconds later we hear the front door slam so hard, the framed school pictures of Syd and me lining the wall of the stairway rattle against the wall.

Mom heads toward her bedroom. “I better go out there before he gets himself arrested,” she says in a voice clipped with anger.

Why does it seem like she’s angrier with Dad than with the Co