I shake my head. Cate touches her belly with my sister inside, and Paul follows suit.
“We’re going to be okay,” she says. “Sometimes things get worse before they get better. Sometimes you have to do really hard things, really terrible things, to come out on the other side.” I guess she’s talking about leaving Paul for a few days, or maybe she’s talking about Paul giving me drugs and being a totally terrible father for a second there. Or maybe she’s talking in general, about the nosedive my life has taken.
But she sounds like Zed.
“The only way through is . . . through,” Cate says. She wrinkles her nose and furrows her brow. “That’s not quite the saying,” she says. “But you get the point.”
“The only way through is through,” I repeat.
BITTY: They’re not your secrets to tell.
Twenty-Six.
The next morning:
Cate’s prepregnancy, post-thirtieth-birthday gold dress.
A rhinestone headband.
A list of all my secrets, as many as Cate and Paul and I could think up.
Caramel-colored cowboy boots.
Hair out in beachy waves.
Purple eye shadow. No eyeliner.
I am ready to go. Paul and Cate said it was okay. That the only way through is through.
Headmaster Brownser has on his tweed jacket and a tired expression, like he is obviously going to retire before most of us graduate and his making-a-difference days are more or less over.
It’s a Thursday assembly, a long one, but just as planned, his guest (Cate’s friend who was scheduled to give us a lecture on organic farming) has canceled last minute and he’s left with an hour to fill. He stands at the mic with a thermos of green tea (we know because he smells like it) and asks if anyone has any announcements.
I let the hockey team remind everyone to come to their game, and the charity club remind everyone that today is the last day to bring any mitten donations.
“I have something,” I call out when they’ve finished. When I raise my hand, my beaded bracelets clatter together and meet around my elbow. Sasha Cotton turns around in her seat, and Joe’s hand slips from her shoulder to his own waist.
“Yes?” Headmaster Brownser says, shielding his eyes to see who is speaking out from the crowd.
“Can I come up?” I say.
Shit. I wasn’t supposed to ask. When I planned this with Cate and Paul, they reminded me not to ask for permission. “If you don’t ask for permission, no one can turn you down,” Paul said, and Cate nodded vigorously. She is really into Paul’s new therapist, who supplies him with excellent insights like that one.
“That’s not usually—”
“I’m coming up!” I say, and I pump my arm in a horrible awkward way that would bother me if I weren’t going up there to completely destroy what is left of my reputation.
The aisle up to the stage is long and slippery, and cowboy boots don’t have any traction, so I keep almost slipping and then barely catching myself. But I get up there, and Headmaster Brownser is so old or so confused that he just steps aside and gives me the stage, clearing his throat and nodding his head first.
I’ve been on the stage only a few times, during misguided attempts at musical theater and band, neither of which went anywhere. But the lights are even more blinding than I remember, and that’s actually okay, since it blocks out most of the faces in the crowd. The whole school—three hundred kids—is out there, but I can only see the first few rows and hear their breathing and shifting and sighing.
“Hi,” I say. I smile. It hurts and the rest of me is trembling and nothing about that smile could have looked believable as an expression of friendliness or joy or warmth. “I have some things to say. Because I got myself into a pickle, and, um, I have to do this because I’m, like, in charge of my own destiny and stuff.” Headmaster Brownser, standing off to the side with his head cocked, nods, but I don’t know if anyone else does. I just used the word pickle in front of my entire school, so I’m hating myself a little. “Like The Odyssey?” I try. Headmaster Brownser really likes The Odyssey. And I feel like we talked about destiny and fate when we studied it, so I’m hoping that’s relevant.
Deep breath.
I could leave the stage right now. No one’s holding me hostage in the bright lights. I could leave the stage and let Sasha Cotton do what she’s going to do, and go crying to Zed after. I could let everyone else make these decisions for me. It would be easier. Cate and Paul say the last two years of high school go pretty fast anyway, and that in college no one will care.
I could power through another two years and let it all pass me by.
But I won’t. Because I don’t trust Zed anymore, but he’s right, that you only live once.
Someone in the back of the auditorium blows their nose. Then the whispering starts. First soft explosions of voices from identifiable areas in the audience, and then a more general mumble that turns to white noise. I am the person standing between them and the rest of their lives.