“Mom,” I said curtly. “No one in that movie is under eighty years old. Please.”
Sarah laughed, but agreed to just about anything as we went through the options, saying, “Oh yeah, that sounds good.” It was strange to see, through her eyes, all the movie titles of the past four years—the big releases and the bombs—that she had missed. The huge teen blockbuster that she had never heard of, the dark romantic comedy that had won all the awards. She was open to anything.
When the pizza came, I watched in the darkened den as she took a slice of pepperoni, her eyes glued to the screen. That’s a bunch of leftover pig parts, you know, and so is bacon, Sarah used to say. Gross. They put the snout and the tail and everything in there. Of course Nico eats it, she’ll eat anything. So disgusting.
Sarah grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and spread it over her own lap and mine, keeping her eyes on the screen as she thoughtfully tucked it down around me. My mind went to the bag under her desk upstairs, to the money and checks. I tried to picture Sarah packing them, folding the checks, sneaking them from the checkbook. But I couldn’t connect those hidden things, those stolen things, to this girl sitting beside me—my sister.
SARAH
I NEVER SAW HIM again after that, after the burns. And she said, “Things are gonna change around here.” And she meant it too. Things did change. First she put a special lotion on my back where he burned me. Those round dots got better in two or three days and I could even sleep on my back again after a week, with no bandages.
When it was a little bit better, she put me into the tub and washed me all over, telling me she was so sorry he had ever touched me but she was washing it off now. “It’s like it never happened, okay? This soap is magic and washes away bad men like him.” I believed her.
My hair hadn’t been washed in a long, long time and I had sores on my head so she had to put on some special shampoo and comb it out. That hurt almost worse than the burns. I felt like big chunks of my head were coming off.
“Let’s do this in front of the TV,” she said, and let me wrap up in her robe. It was white and fluffy and sizes too big for me, like a huge marshmallow. I sat on the floor while she sat on the couch with the special comb and we watched an old movie as she worked on my hair. It hurt, but I liked being out of the room and watching a movie about a funny little man with a bushy mustache, even if it was in black and white.
CHAPTER 17
MONDAY I WENT BACK to school. The first day was no joke, with the expected stares and whispers, a required visit to the counselor in the morning to check in.
“Nico, have a seat.” Dr. Weir welcomed me into her office. I glanced at the inspirational posters she had on the wall. One showed a picture of a juicy hamburger and asked, “Are you hungry to learn?” Another had an image of a ballerina on a stage and the words: “If you can DREAM it, you can DO it!” I stared at those words while Dr. Weir slid into the chair and paged through a file on her desk.
After we talked for a few minutes about Sarah and what had been going on for the past week, Dr. Weir said it seemed like I was handling things remarkably well and that made me feel pretty good. “If you need to talk about anything—anything at all, please know my door is always open and I’m here for you.” She quickly signed the form that would allow me back into class and handed it to me.
I got up to go, grabbing my book bag and slinging it over my shoulder, but I stood in the doorway for a moment.
“Is there something else, Nico?”
I nodded, feeling tears well up in my eyes. I had not cried once since Sarah had been back, but now I felt like a wall was coming down, like I was finally ready to tell someone everything. Dr. Weir motioned for me to sit again and handed me a box of tissues. She waited quietly while tears streamed down my face.
I had spent a lot of hours in Dr. Weir’s office. I used to see her once a week, a regular thing—my parents wanted me to have someone to talk to. After a few months of weekly meetings, you get comfortable with a person. I had cried in this office so many times, mostly about my parents—about Mom and how sad she was. About how it ate me up inside to see her suffer and feel powerless to help her. About how hard I had to work to be perfect, perfect, perfect and not ever give them any reason to worry. How I had to be different from Sarah, so different in every way.
I was totally honest about all of that. But I couldn’t tell Dr. Weir everything. I never told her that, after years of cruelty from my sister, I sort of secretly liked being the only child. That I didn’t really miss Sarah. I had never told anyone that. I almost couldn’t think it, I knew how wrong it was. Like the thoughts I was having now. I just shook my head.