“I got this.” I set my detention slip on the counter and push it toward her.
She looks up at me. Sticks her fingers beneath her reading glasses and rubs her eyelids before peering at me. “What is it?”
“I have detention tomorrow.”
Her expression is flat. “What did you do?”
“Nothing. I was in the yearbook office during lunch and Mrs. Coughlin wrote me up for not having a pass. It’s stupid.”
My mother ignores the detention slip and turns back to her booster form. “I’ll call her after dinner and get you out of it.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?” She takes off her glasses and sets them on the counter. “You’re going to miss practice if you’re in detention.”
And so will Ginny. “I don’t care. Coach is ready to cut me from the competition team anyway.”
I wait for her to yell. But she just sighs. “Fine. No computer or cell phone until the weekend.”
Now I feel a flutter of panic. “You can’t take my computer. I have to write a paper for English tonight.”
She pushes her stool away from the counter, jolting me. She storms down the hall off the kitchen, making a right into Tom’s office. A beat later, Petey shouts from the living room: “HEY! Who turned the Wi-Fi off?”
My mother steps out of Tom’s office and zeroes in on me. “There. You don’t need the Internet for an English paper.”
“This is such bullshit.”
“Do you need to see Dr. Feit?”
My stomach starts pumping acid. Dr. Feit is her therapist; my sister saw him once after Juliana and Susan were killed. I don’t know how my mother can stand the sight of him.
“Are you seriously threatening to send me to a shrink?”
“I don’t know what else to do, Monica. I’m tired of watching you turn into someone else.” Her cheeks flush. “If you keep acting like this, you’re eventually going to do something Tom and I can’t fix for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to fix anything,” I say.
She turns away from me and I scream inside my head, Don’t fucking cry.
“Do you realize that you didn’t even hug me?” I ask. “After Dr. Bob’s. You wouldn’t even touch me.”
My mother flinches at “Dr. Bob’s.” Cranes her neck to the living room, obviously worried that Petey heard, like my little brother has any idea what she’s talking about.
“I took care of you. Everything I do is for you and your brother.”
“You hug him,” I say. “You won’t come near me. Do I really remind you of her that much?”
“Go upstairs, Monica. I’m tired of talking about this.”
“Talking about what? Jen? You won’t talk about her. That’s the point.” I’m about to erupt. I’m tired of keeping this shit to myself and I’m sick of my mother acting like my sister’s name is a forbidden word in this house.
“No, I do not want to talk about her.” My mother looks as livid as I am. “I don’t want to think about the worst day of my life and every way I could have stopped it. I couldn’t protect her, and I can’t protect you.”
I don’t know what to say. I spin on my heels, because I don’t even want to look at her anymore.
“Monica. Wait.”
I turn around. My mother’s hand is outstretched. “Give me your phone.”
I pat my pocket and flinch. I totally forgot to stop by Mr. Franken’s office and get my phone back from him.
“My chem teacher took it away,” I say. “I don’t even have it.”
“Wonderful. Upstairs. We’re eating in an hour.” She shakes her head and all it does is infuriate me, because it’s like at this point she’s expecting me to screw up every day.
I stomp out of the kitchen and up the stairs. It’s not until I’m shut in my room that I silently thank God Mr. Franken has my phone and that my mother can’t go through four weeks’ worth of texts between Ginny and me.
* * *
—
The sky is cornflower blue and cloudless in the morning. Rachel and Alexa don’t say much on the ride to school, casting furtive glances toward me whenever there’s a beat of silence. I don’t have the energy to ask why they’re treating me with kid gloves.
When we get to school and see the white lilies resting against the flagpole outside the gym, I understand their awkwardness. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Bethany’s and Colleen’s deaths, and today is the memorial.
After homeroom, Mrs. Barnes’s voice comes over the loudspeaker, instructing all students to report to the courtyard for a special ceremony. A freshman science class pours out into the hall after the announcement, some of the kids whooping and hollering. No first period! Sweet, I have gym!
I can’t do this. Even with Rachel beside me, I can’t go out there and deal with the stares from my classmates. I don’t want to be the suicide girl’s sister today.
The tightness in my chest gets worse when we reach the crowd funneling through the double doors leading out to the courtyard. Mrs. Coughlin swoops by, holding a bouquet of pink balloons.
I feel my free hand curl into a fist. “What the hell are those for?”
Rach fiddles with one of her pearl earrings. “I heard someone say they’re doing a balloon release.”
“A balloon release? Seriously?”
Rach looks over her shoulder. “Jesus, Mon, calm down.”
“Do they know how bad that is for the environment? Balloons kill birds. They eat the balloons and they die.”
“Mrs. Coughlin wanted to do it,” Rach says. “Cut her some slack. Her daughter died.”
I picture Mrs. Coughlin’s face yesterday when she gave me detention, how gleeful she looked. As if nothing pleased her more in that moment than to screw me over.
Heat crawls up my back as bodies press against mine, angling for the door. “I can’t do this,” I say. Before Rachel can call out to me, I pivot and head for the exit at the end of the hall, away from the courtyard.
No one notices me slip out of the building, toward the parking lot. I make a break for the fence lining the soccer field, hoping to duck behind it before I get caught. I don’t know where I’m going, but I can’t be in that goddamn building a second longer. I’ll walk all the way home if I have to.
“Monica.”
I halt in my tracks, ready to break out into a run, but when I turn I spot Brandon. He’s heading in the opposite direction, toward the school.
He hikes his backpack up his shoulder. He looks like he could be a student, with his Sunnybrook High Cross-Country warm-up jacket. His face is shaved, a small nick blooming on his neck. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Are you going to tell on me?”
Brandon’s mouth forms half a smile. “I don’t think that would be very wise of me.” He jerks a hand toward the school. “Are you sure you want to miss the ceremony?”
“I can’t—” I start, and suck in a breath. “I just can’t handle it.”
Brandon’s at my side, putting a hand on the small of my back, so lightly he’s barely touching me. “Security is going to see you if you just stand here. Come on.”
I let him guide me past the staff section of the lot. His Jeep is parked at the very end of the row, by the tennis courts.
Brandon unlocks the car and opens the passenger side for me. I duck in and shut the door, even though we’re far away from the school and no one can see me.
As I’m wiping my eyes, his voice sounds next to me. He’s climbed into the driver’s seat, shutting us both in. “You can stay in here as long as you need. But you shouldn’t cut the rest of the day.”
I hate that I’m crying in front of him. Brandon takes my hand. “Hey. You’re going to be okay.”
He laces his fingers through mine. Or maybe I started it, I don’t know. But my lips wind up on his and then he’s kissing me back. Even though we’re so far back in the lot and no one can see us, it’s so stupid—
Brandon rests a hand on my shoulder. Pushes me away gently. “This is a really bad idea.”
“I know.” I swipe a finger under my eye; a smear of mascara comes away on my skin. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“There are so many reasons this can’t happen anymore, especially—”
“Now that you have a girlfriend. I get it.”
“I don’t want to be that guy,” he says.
I nod. “You don’t have to explain.”