Backlash

“That sucks,” I tell him. It does suck for him about the phone, because it’s a pain to have to change numbers, and I feel bad for Mr. Co

Liam laughs until he realizes that I wasn’t trying to be fu

“And then there’s Mom, who’s desperately trying to figure out how to salvage her election campaign because having an Emotionally Damaged Daughter and a Psycho Husband ruins her Perfect Wife and Mother cred, don’t you think?”

“Do you … think she’ll withdraw?”

I laugh. “Kathy Kelley? Withdraw? As if! My mom doesn’t withdraw. She just figures out a new angle.”

Liam smiles. “I thought I was the World’s Most Cynical Teen, but apparently not. It’s you, Syd.”

I wonder if he’ll kiss me again.

“Do you ever wish you could change your name or be adopted by another family?” I ask. “A normal family? Like one that isn’t in the newspapers or on the national news or doesn’t have to pretend to be perfect because they’re ru

“Or isn’t doing screwed-up things like setting up fake Facebook profiles and almost causing their former best friend to kill herself?”

“Yeah, that kind of family,” I agree. “One that does normal stuff together like have barbecues and build tree forts. Like our families used to do before everything got screwed up.”

“Do you think life can ever get back to normal after this?” Liam asks. “Or will I always be Son of Monster Mom?”

“And will I always be the sister of the girl who tried to kill herself over the fake Facebook guy?” I say. “With all these news stories being online, we can’t even go off to college and escape this now. It’s going to follow us wherever we go.”

“I’m not going to let Bree’s stupidity ruin the rest of my life,” Liam says. “I’m going to do something so amazing that people will remember me for being me, not because I’m her brother.” Then he laughs ruefully. “The problem is, I haven’t figured out what that amazing thing is yet.”

Liam’s so brave and determined that I don’t doubt for a second that he’ll do it.

“You will,” I tell him, taking his hand. “I know you will.”

He smiles at me and shifts over so he’s sitting next to me. Then he puts his arm around my shoulder, and I snuggle next to him, resting my head on his shoulder. We sit looking at the flickering candle flame, just being there in our little tree house of sanity.

I HATE the Gratitude List. I hate Linda’s office. I hate Linda.

Days like today I wish the pills had worked so I wouldn’t be stuck sitting here in this stupid office, talking about the stupid Gratitude List with my stupid therapist.

“I’m sure the last few days haven’t been easy for you, with this being all over the news,” Linda says. “How are you feeling?”

If I were feeling good, would I be forced to come here to see you, Shrink Lady?

“Okay, I guess.”

I don’t want to talk to her today. I don’t want to be in her faux homey room with all the well-worn toys that are supposed to fool messed-up kids into thinking that they’re not being therapized.

But therapists don’t get paid big bucks to give up easily.

“How have things been at home?”

“What, since Dad got cited for disturbing the peace in his pajamas and they had video footage of him on the news? Oh, Mom’s thrilled about that,” I tell her, trying not to sound too bitterly sarcastic because that just convinces her that I’m still messed up and I need even more time in therapy. “It’s done wonders for her election campaign.”

“So your parents are fighting?”

I should have kept my mouth shut. Every time I open my mouth I inadvertently give her more clues about “what is wrong with Lara.”

“Parents fight. There’s nothing abnormal about that.”

She stops writing on her notepad. It worries me when she scribbles notes about the stuff that comes out of my mouth. I’m always wondering what it was I said that was so padworthy.

“Have they been fighting more than they normally do?”

“I guess,” I admit. “Just another thing that’s my fault.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because all the stuff they fight about … none of it would have happened if I hadn’t been stupid enough to talk to Christian. You know … if I wasn’t idiot enough to believe that someone that hot could like someone like me.”

The therapist is scribbling again.

“Lara, can you tell me … what did Christian give you?” Linda asks.

What part of he didn’t even exist doesn’t she understand?

“He didn’t give me anything,” I say. “He was Bree and her mom doing this for whatever messed-up reason they had for doing it. Giving me presents definitely wasn’t one of them.”

Linda takes a deep breath and leans back in her chair. I get the feeling that today, at least, I’m a

“I’m not talking about presents, Lara. I’m asking you to think about what you got from those chats emotionally,” she says. “It must have been something, or you wouldn’t have kept chatting with him over a period of weeks.” She leans forward again, and the tight grip of her fingers around the pen betrays her frustration with me. “So you must have gotten something from your interactions — even if he did turn out to be a fictional friend.”

“We talked about stuff,” I say.

“Like what?” she asks. “What kind of ‘stuff’?”

“I don’t know. School. Our families … Although I guess he … I mean Bree, was lying about his, like everything else, because the people he was describing weren’t the Co

“What was it about Christian that made you feel so attached to him?”

It’s too humiliating to admit, even to just her and these four walls, that I couldn’t believe such a hot guy was interested in me. That was just what made me do something I knew I wasn’t supposed to do — friending someone I didn’t know in real life in the first place. But his looks weren’t what made me feel close to him.

“It was how he listened to me,” I tell her. “He made me feel …”

I miss him.

Without warning, the realization hits me. It’s like a piece of me cracks, and then I’m sobbing. Deep, shuddering sobs that rack my body so hard it hurts my chest. She’s taken her shrinky flashlight and pointed it into the dark corners of my mind, shining a light on the last thing in the world I wanted to think or talk about. By making me even consider for a moment how much I miss Christian, she’s opened the floodgates on all the pain I’ve been trying with every ounce of my being not to feel.

And I hate her even more for doing it.

She gets up from her chair and hands me the box of tissues, even though they’re on the table right next to me. I take one, and then another and then another. Are there enough tissues in that box, in the entire universe, to soak up all the pain I have inside?

Linda is back in her chair, with pen and notepad good to go, waiting for my sobs to slow to sniffles. When I’ve blown my nose into the eleventh tissue, she says, “That brought up some strong emotions. What are you feeling right now?”

I use tissue number twelve to wipe the mascara from under my eyes, which I’m sure are raccoon-like from all the tears. It also gives me a reason to delay answering the question I’ve grown to hate in all its variations — What are you feeling? How are you feeling? Are you feeling okay?