I’m clearly messed up. I’m clearly not capable of taking care of myself in any real way.
Maybe Jemma and Alison and Mrs. Drake were right about what kind of girl I am. I wish I had my phone, so I could check in with LBC. I shouldn’t be out here alone. Not in the cold Vermont night and not in my life.
But it feels like it’s too late to walk home, like I can’t turn around and forget it. My legs hurt, my nose is stinging from the cold, and I can’t stomach the idea that I did this all for nothing. I step onto the lawn, and that step feels bigger than all the little ones that came before it. I take another tiny little step, but nothing clicks into place. Without LBC I’m just a girl on the lawn filled with the worst kind of indecision.
I don’t want to be that girl.
And that is when I decide to go into Jemma’s house.
It goes something like this: When Jemma and I were friends, she was really into photography. Actually, everyone was really into photography. There was a new photography teacher at Circle Community a couple of years ago. He had long hair, which normally could be kind of gross, but he tied it back in this messy-sexy way, and had just enough light-brown stubble, and I liked the way a few hairs would escape his artist ponytail. The other girls liked his forearms and the way he smelled like toxic chemicals and woods. He was young. He let us call him by his first name. He swore sometimes. He called us all artists.
I was one of Jemma’s many subjects. We’d go into the woods behind her house and I’d roll around in the leaves or stare pensively at the sky and she’d tell me to move my head or shift my weight or stop giggling, and she’d take dozens of photos. Sometimes she’d set the self-timer and get us both in there. We’d press our cold cheeks together so we could fit into the frame, and each look in slightly different directions to make it artsy.
Alison hated having her picture taken, so she’d talk about light and shadows and then disappear into the house and come back out with snacks. Like a mom would.
This went on for over a year. Jemma took every class available with Tony. But the photographs were taken almost two years ago now, so I was still slim all over, flat and straight and into worn-in Tshirts and hooded sweatshirts and Dove soap and ChapStick instead of makeup. I was the kind of girl Jemma and Alison approved of.
I want to see that girl now. Cate and Paul aren’t into photographs, so we don’t have albums of nostalgia in the living room or on the computer or anything. I’m sure for the new baby they’ll buy a new camera and plaster the fridge with snapshots and set up a blog to show off her sure-to-be-adorable face, but it wasn’t like that for me. If I want to catch a glimpse of the Life I Used to Have, those black-and-white fake-artsy photos are my best bet.
Jemma’s parents keep their key in a fake rock, like every other family in every other neighborhood in this ridiculous town. It doesn’t take long to figure out which rock is hollow and fake.
The sound of the door unlocking is monstrous in my head. It echoes, and the door screeches, and I’m positive the whole Benson family is going to run down the stairs with flashlights and stricken faces, but nothing happens. I try not to breathe on my walk from the front door to the living room. There are bookcases filled with Jemma’s and Devon’s accomplishments, and there, knee-height, is a leather binder. Label-maker label glued onto the spine. JEMMA. PHOTOGRAPHS. AGE 13–15. Exactly as I knew it would be. Because Jemma and Devon have the kind of parents who label and display every single accomplishment.
Heart pounding, I reach for it. I close my eyes, like that will help me escape the sheer intensity of anxiety in the moment. My fingers twist my thumb ring, something I do when I get nervous. But my hands are so sweaty and my fingers shaking so tremendously that it slips from my knuckle to the ground. It’s a heavy silver thing, and it hits the hardwood floor with a crash. I gasp, and forget to quiet that sound, too. The sounds cause other sounds in the house. A creak upstairs. A shuffling of feet. My own heartbeat’s acceleration.
I’m so scared I can’t move. My arm is stuck in midair, still reaching for the book of photographs, but not actually grabbing it. I tear up but don’t move a muscle. And that is how Devon finds me.
“Hey,” he whispers. He looks confused, but maybe not as stunned as he should be. Which tells me I have been acting pretty weird the last few weeks and people are noticing.
“Yeah. Hi,” I squeak out.
“It’s, uh, late.”
“Oh my God, I know. I know. Yeah.” It’s nice to whisper. Intimate. I manage to get my hand to my side and my back straight so that at least I’m standing upright and facing him head-on.
“Did . . . Jemma . . . invite you?”