My Life After Now

12

On My Own




“You’re home early,” Dad said cheerfully.

I was? It felt like years since I’d been home.

“Did rehearsal let out early today?”

Oh yeah. Rehearsal. That’s where I should be right now if the world made sense.

He looked at me curiously. “Are you feeling okay?” He placed a hand on my forehead.

No. I’m not, Dad, I wanted to say.

“Answer me, Lucy. Are you sick?”

Ha. Am I sick? That’s funny.

It took a while to for me to realize that I was actually laughing. Out loud. Hysterically. Manically.

Dad got on the phone. “Seth, are you on your way home yet? Something’s wrong with Lucy…No, I don’t know…She came home early and she’s acting strangely and she’s really pale…I don’t know…Okay…Okay, bye.”

Dad placed a glass of water in front of me. “Drink,” he ordered.

I was still laughing. I didn’t want to be. But I couldn’t stop. I felt possessed. Dad physically put the glass in my hand and guided it to my mouth. “Drink,” he said again.

I managed to gulp down a mouthful of the water. It was cold and I felt it travel down down down through my body.

My body. My poisoned, tainted body.

The lingering giggles transformed into huge, heaving sobs.

“Lucy, please talk to me. What’s going on?” Dad pleaded.

I swallowed and, through chattering teeth, attempted speech. “I…I’m…” I began. But what was I going to say?

Positive. I couldn’t say the word out loud.

“I…think I have the flu,” I managed. “I need to go to bed.”

“You must have a fever—you’re delirious,” Dad said. “I’m going to call the doctor, see if she can see you tonight.”

I shook my head fiercely. “No, no doctor! I’ll be fine.” I booked it upstairs to my room before he could argue.

You are nothing but a stupid, spoiled child, I told myself over and over again.

I knew now that there was no one to blame but me. I’d made excuses for running off with Lee, blaming Lisa and Ty and Elyse for messing with my head, and messing with my life. But no one had forced me into his bed that night. This was my fault.

I’d had everything. And then a few things didn’t go my way and I ran away and threw a tantrum like a two-year-old. Of course I was being punished. That’s what happens to kids who act out.

• • •

I shut myself off from the world. Tuesday and Wednesday came and went without me ever seeing the sun. I didn’t go to school; I didn’t go to rehearsal; I didn’t return Evan or Andre or Max or Courtney’s barrage of calls. I didn’t listen to music; I didn’t put on the TV; I didn’t do any schoolwork. I didn’t shower. I barely ate.

I didn’t sleep much, either; my head was teeming with answerless questions:

Will I get AIDS?

Will I die?

Will my dads hate me?

Will my friends abandon me?

Will I ever be able to have sex again?

Will I ever be able to have a baby?

Will I ever be able to be on Broadway?

Will I have to go on medication?

Will anyone ever love me?

• • •

I don’t know what day it was, maybe late Tuesday. But it was definitely the middle of the night. The house was quiet and dark.

I got out of bed and flipped on every light in my room. Then I stripped off my pajamas and stood, naked and illuminated, in front of my full-length mirror. The person staring back was not me. She was a near-perfect copy, right down to the tiny mole on my left hip bone and the thin scar on my left hand that I never could remember getting.

But her skin was like tracing paper, and the light made her transparent.

And on the inside, she was all wrong.

• • •

Wednesday afternoon, Max and Courtney came by my house. It was quiet, and I was able to hear everything that was said downstairs.

“Hey, guys, come on in,” Dad said.

“Is Lucy here? She’s been MIA all week,” Max said, sounding worried.

“And she hasn’t been answering her phone,” Courtney added.

“She’s been home sick,” Dad replied, and then lowered his voice an ineffective smidge. “Between us, though, I think there might be something else going on. Do either of you know if anything happened that would make her not want to go to school? Something with Ty or Evan, maybe?”

“I can’t think of anything,” Courtney said.

“Me either,” said Max.

“Hang on—you said all week? She wasn’t in school Monday?” Dad asked.

“Nope,” Max said.

There was a moment where I couldn’t hear anything. Maybe they were talking too low, or maybe they weren’t talking at all. Dad must have been putting the pieces together that I hadn’t been in school the day I came home all messed up. It didn’t matter. What was he going to do, ground me?

“Can we see her?” Courtney asked.

There was a pause, and then Dad said, “Let me check and see if she’s up for having company.”

A few seconds later, there was a knock on my door and Dad came in. “Max and Court are here for you.”

I rolled over in my bed so my back was to him. “No visitors,” I mumbled.

“Honey, they’re worried about you. It might make you feel better to see your friends.”

“No visitors,” I repeated, and covered my face with a pillow, shutting out the light.

Dad stood there for a moment and then left. I didn’t bother listening to whatever excuse he gave my friends.

• • •

If I told my family and my friends the truth, everything would change. They would look at me differently, treat me differently. Of course they would—I was different. But right now I was the only one who knew it. And that was the safest place to be. Because if the world outside me became as unrecognizable as the world inside me had, I honestly wouldn’t know what to do.

On the other hand, if no one knew, they would still be expecting me to be the same old Lucy. But how do you play the role of yourself when “yourself” no longer exists?

• • •

Because I adamantly refused to go see the doctor, my dads assumed there wasn’t anything really wrong with me and made me go back to school after two days.

Thursday morning, I pulled into my usual parking spot to find Max waiting for me, leaning against his car, ankles and arms crossed. He didn’t move as I turned off the engine and got out of the car. He just watched me, his eyes hidden behind his retro, mirrored sunglasses.

“Hey,” I said lifelessly.

“Really? That’s all you have to say?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you disappeared, Luce. No calls, no texts, not even a Facebook status update to let the world know you were alive. The only reason I knew you were coming back today was because I talked to your dads. What the hell is going on with you?” he said.

“I was sick,” I said.

“You were so sick that you couldn’t even pick up the phone to let one of us know that you wouldn’t be in rehearsal? Since when is that how you treat your friends? We were worried about you.”

“I’m sorry, okay? It won’t happen again.”

Max sighed and dropped his arms. “Is this about Lisa being back?” His voice was a little softer now.

“No.”

“So what’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, okay?” I began to walk toward the school’s entrance. “Now let’s go, we’re gonna be late.”

• • •

The moment we walked into the drama club homeroom, a hush fell over the room. Time stopped, and I stood there like an animal at the zoo. Like a freak on display.

They can see it, the voice in my head whispered. They can see through your skin. They know.

I had to get out of there.

In slow motion, I twirled back toward the door. All I had to do was get down the hall and out of the school and into my car and away from the prying eyes. Home schooling couldn’t be that bad—

Then suddenly, as if on cue, everyone started talking at once. “Oh my god, how are you feeling?” “Where have you been?” “That wasn’t cool, Lucy; you don’t even have an understudy!”

Wait…maybe they didn’t know.

“Some of us were pretty sure you were dead,” Elyse said, not sounding particularly concerned.

My head scrambled to keep up. They were acting like this just because I was away for a few days? But that was so ridiculous! Kids stayed home sick and took mental health days all the time. Just because I’d gotten the perfect attendance award every year since eighth grade didn’t mean I wasn’t entitled to a break.

But they really couldn’t tell. They didn’t know. I was so relieved.

Courtney watched me from across the room. I couldn’t read her expression—it was something between scowling and questioning—but before I could go over and talk to her, I was sidetracked.

Ty appeared in front of me and spoke to me for the first time since we’d broken up. “Welcome back,” he said. “Everyone really missed you.”

“Not everyone,” I said, nodding in Elyse’s direction.

“Okay, almost everyone,” he admitted with an apologetic grin. “I mean it, though—it hasn’t been the same without you.”

His dark eyes burned into mine, and for the smallest moment I wondered if maybe he was talking about more than just the play. But then a warm hand clasped around my wrist, and I was being pulled out into the hallway.

“Are you okay?” Evan whispered once we were alone.

I nodded weakly.

He took a deep breath. “So look…if you don’t like me anymore, you can just tell me. I can handle it.”

I blinked, uncomprehending.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I’m talking about what happened last weekend in your room. Things ended weird that night, and then you fell off the face of the planet for nearly a week.”

“Wait—you think I was avoiding you?” I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“Weren’t you?” he said, less sure now.

“No, of course not.”

“So what was it?”

“I was sick.”

He waited for more of an explanation, but I was overwhelmed and trying to keep it together and that was the best I could do.

“So you…still like me?”

“I still like you,” I said, and it was the truth.

But as soon as the words passed through my lips, I knew I should have lied.