Backlash

Syd’s afraid I’m going to lose it again.

“I’m doing better than Dad,” I say, patting her back.

“No kidding,” Syd says, pulling away from me. “He’s scary.”

And that’s when we hear the commotion in the street. Shouts and screaming.

Syd and I look at each other and run down the stairs, through the door, and out into the street, neither of us caring that we’re in our pj’s and barefoot. The grass is cold and damp beneath my feet, and it sends a chill up my body, but not nearly as much as the scene in front of the Co

Mom is screaming at Dad to calm down and go home. Mr. Co

And then I see Bree, watching the scene from their living room window. She has her cell phone in her hand, and she’s probably recording this whole thing to put on Facebook. Putting my family’s worst moments on Facebook seems to give her pleasure for some screwed-up reason. Why else would she have posted that picture of me on the stretcher?

Up and down the street, people are turning on their outside lights and coming out to check out the source of the noise, to see what the heck is going on.

More shouting.

“Hey, do you mind putting a sock in it? You just woke up my kids!” That’s Mr. Campbell from three doors down.

Mom grabs Dad’s collar so she can pull his head toward her. “Pete, you’re making a scene. We have to leave. NOW.”

People are holding up cell phones. This whole surreal scene is being captured for posterity or YouTube, whichever comes first.

And as none of us Kelleys are ever allowed to forget, Mom is ru

Syd starts crying. “Dad, come inside,” she wails.

I’m hugging her, not sure if I’m giving or seeking comfort. Despite all the tears I’ve shed since the night I took those pills, tonight my eyes are dry. Other than the cold grass under my bare feet and the wind that occasionally blows my hair across my face, I hardly even feel. Because this … this scene I’m a part of now … it’s not real. It can’t be. It’s too surreal. It’s a movie that I’m watching, that’s about my life, with familiar characters acting in unfamiliar ways.

And then we hear the sirens approaching. That’s when Mom loses it, too.

“Pete, get in the house,” she screams. “You’re making things worse.”

“Listen to Kathy, Pete,” Mr. Co

When the police car pulls to a stop in front of the Co

A police officer gets out and walks over to where my parents and the Co

Dad, who has been like an attacking Rottweiler held back by Mom and Mr. Nu

Can something like this even be repaired?

Mom catches sight of Syd and me shivering together on our front lawn and gestures for us to go inside. Syd wipes her tears away with the sleeve of her pajama top.

It’s like being at a sleepover when everyone else wants to watch a horror movie. I’ve seen enough that I don’t really want to watch any more, but I still want to know how it ends. But Mom gestures again, this time mouthing, “Go inside now,” and knowing the kind of mood she’s going to be in after this, it’s better to just go with it.

“Come on, Syd. We have to go in.”

“But what about Dad?”

“Mom says.”

We head back to the house. My sister casts a look back at my parents, and when I look back, too, I notice that Liam’s gaze is focused on us, not at what is going on with our parents and the police.

“My feet are freezing,” Syd complains when we get inside.

“Do you want me to make you some hot chocolate?”

She gives me a strange look. Under the kitchen lights, I can see the dried tear tracks that stain her cheeks, still tinged pink from the chill outside.

“What?” I ask.

Syd opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but closes it and looks down at her bare feet, which have bits of grass still stuck to them. “Nothing,” she mumbles. “Hot chocolate would be nice.”

I know she was going to say something else, but I don’t have the energy for twenty questions. Whatever’s on her mind, Syd’s go

I’ve just finished pouring the boiling water into the mugs when the front door opens and slams shut.

“How could you, Pete?” Mom shouts. “Do you realize you’ve probably single-handedly sunk my reelection campaign?”

“I’m sorry …”

“A citation for disorderly conduct? What kind of example —”

“Seriously, Kathy? That … woman almost killed our daughter and you’re worried about the election and setting examples?”

My former best friend and her mother punked me and I tried to kill myself over a guy who didn’t even exist, my dad’s been cited for disorderly conduct by the police — I’m sure the video of him losing it on our neighbor’s lawn in his pajamas is all over YouTube as we speak — and my mother’s reelection campaign is probably over as of tonight.

Everything is a complete disaster, and it’s all because of me.

Syd grabs my wrist as soon as I put down her mug of hot chocolate.

“Don’t.”

The fierce urgency in her voice shocks me. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t do that thing you do. Don’t go all zombie on me right now.”

Her eyes burn into me, trying to force me out of the numbness I’m trying so desperately to retreat into.

“You always do that. You always disappear when things get hard,” she says. “I’m sick of it. It’s not fair.”

I think, I’m not disappearing. I’m trying to save myself.

I say, “I’m right here, Syd.”

Syd rolls her eyes and blows a raspberry of disgust through her lips. “Sure, Lara. Okay, Lara. Whatever you say.”

She slides out of her chair, taking the mug of hot chocolate with her, and storms out of the kitchen, while I listen to our parents fighting and try my best to slip back into the comforting void, alone.

I THOUGHT when Mr. Kelley went crazy on our lawn in his pajamas and got cited by the police for disorderly conduct, it would take some of the heat off Mom and me.

Well, that’s just another example of how stupid I am.

What actually happened was that it brought more attention to us. There’s a huge front-page spread in the Lake Hills Independent under the headline “Mother-Daughter Bullying Team.”

Mom and me a team? That’s got to be the biggest joke ever. The truth is, she’s the crazy coach and I’m the player who always gets yelled at for no reason.

There were reports on the local news stations with the same “Bullying Team” tagline. Not that the Kelleys got off easy, either, which didn’t make me feel any better. There was video footage of Mr. Kelley ranting on our front lawn in his pj’s. When Mom watched the news yesterday morning during breakfast, she laughed at that.