“Oh my god.” I pull her into a hug, but she’s already moving, half hugging me, half dragging me across the parking lot. She says, “It’s okay—Mom is here. I told you I’m fast. It’s okay. It’s all okay,” and in another moment, we’re standing in the headlights of Brainzilla’s mom’s 1998 Corolla. I have never been so happy to see a midsize sedan in my life.
“What’s wrong?” Brainzilla’s mom asks as we climb into the backseat, but my best friend just shakes her head and says, “Please drive, Mom, okay?” Mrs. Sloane does, and she doesn’t ask questions. Brainzilla and her mom are close, so she doesn’t need to ask questions. She knows she’ll get the whole story later.
I lean against my best friend, and something tickles my face. I swipe at it and realize it’s drying blood. Bloom’s blood. I nearly barf, but Katie just pulls me close, and I can smell her familiar smell of coconut shampoo and vanilla body spray—like a macaroon—and I feel a bit better. And she doesn’t say anything like “I told you so” or “See? Bloom’s bad news” as her mom drives home. She just holds my hand as I cry.
It’s only two hours into the new year, and already things are not looking good.
Chapter 27
OPEN A CRACK
I want to go home with Katie, but it’s too late to call Mrs. Morris, and if I’m not there in the morning, she’ll probably call 911 and mount a posse to look for me.
So Brainzilla’s mom drops me off at home. I manage to thank her for the ride in a somewhat normal voice and walk up the front steps.
The moment I hear Mrs. Sloane drive away, this clammy feeling comes over me. It drips from my head, down my neck, all over my body. It’s a clinging ick.
It captures me; I can’t go inside.
I’m not someone who gets feelings. I usually just walk right into stuff. But this time, it’s like there’s a force field around the house.
I hear the television blaring in the living room. It’s a familiar, calming sound. Then I realize something. It’s 3:17 AM. Mrs. Morris is usually asleep by eleven.
Why is the TV on?
Fear hooks into me, painful enough to pull me forward.
She fell down again, I tell myself. She just fell down again, shefelldownagain, SHEFELLDOWNAGAIN, SHEJUSTFELLDOWNAGAIN! My brain is screaming, wailing like an alarm as I fall to my knees beside Mrs. Morris.
She doesn’t wake up when I say her name. I touch her wrist—it’s cold… and I can’t find a pulse.
“Katie!” I scream, and crawl on my knees to the front door, but my best friend and her mother have already driven away. Still, I scream again. “Katie!” echoes down the deserted street.
This isn’t happening, I think as I crawl back toward Mrs. Morris. I’m dreaming. But I know I’m not. My black tights catch on a flooring nail and rip down the shin. The nail scrapes my skin, drawing blood, but I barely feel it.
Morris the Dog is licking Mrs. Morris’s face, and when I start to cry, he comes and licks my tears instead. I didn’t know tears could pour from me so hard and fast. They say that the human body can be as much as 75 percent water, and I feel like it all comes spewing from my eyes and mouth and nose at once. My body just convulses with the weight of that water as I run my fingers over Mrs. Morris’s face and through her hair. I even spill a little drool on her cheek and have to wipe it away with my coat sleeve.
I crawl to the phone and dial 911, and the operator can hardly understand a word I’m saying. It doesn’t matter, though; 911 magic means she knows where I’m calling from, and I’m so hysterical that she says she’ll send an ambulance right away. “You have to breathe, miss,” she says over and over, but I can’t breathe. I feel like someone is sitting on me.
Finally, I manage a raggedy inhale. Then another.
The 911 operator keeps talking softly into my ear, telling me that help is coming and to try to stay calm, but I’m not really listening to her. I sit down to think. It takes me a few minutes to realize that I’m sitting in Mrs. Morris’s wheelchair.
Chapter 28
I STILL DON’T WAKE UP
I sit in the wheelchair and breathe deeply. That’s when I notice that Mrs. Morris’s eyes are still open—and they’re looking at me.
Those dead eyes completely unnerve me. They look like Mrs. Morris’s eyes, but with none of their warmth and energy—no sparkle. I lean forward and try to close them, but it’s not as easy as it looks in the movies—her eyelids spring open again, which makes me let out a little scream. I jump back into the wheelchair, completely freaked.
How long will it take for the ambulance to get here? I wonder. Well, however long it is—that’s too long. The operator is still talking, asking me questions that I don’t even realize I’m murmuring answers to. But I can’t hang out with Mrs. Morris’s dead eyes on me, and I’m not going to just go up to my room and rearrange my bookshelf, either. It isn’t easy to just sit in a room with someone you love who’s now dead.
And before I know what I’m doing, I’ve tossed the phone on to the couch and rolled right through the front door and down the ramp. I don’t even pause to get out of the wheelchair—that’s how freaked out I am.
The air is cold on my face as I wheel down the street. It’s the first day of January, but we haven’t had much snow, so the sidewalks are clear as I race beneath the bare trees. My face stings, and I realize that it’s because my tears are starting to freeze.
A few lights come on, but I keep going.
I circle the block, and by the time I get back, the blue and red ambulance lights are flickering against the front of our house. A police car is there, too.
I roll up the ramp in the wheelchair, and a tall police officer with a big nose tries to stop me. “Sorry, miss,” he says. “There’s been an accident.”
“I know,” I explain. “I’m the one who called 911.”
The officer is really nice then. I follow him into the kitchen while the paramedics take care of Mrs. Morris. Of course, I have to answer a lot of questions. I’m a little muddy brained, but I answer as well as I can. I have to take a lot of breaks, though. I can’t quite catch my breath.
Finally, the short officer says, “You’ll have to come with us to the hospital. There’s a lot of paperwork, I’m afraid.”
“Okay,” I say, standing up.
I don’t think they were expecting that.
Chapter 29
GOOD-BYE TO THE SWEETEST PERSON I KNOW
I stay with Eggy for a couple of days.
Her parents are very sweet to me, but they’re shy. Which is fine. All I want is to be alone.
Eggy is a great friend. She knows how to be quiet, and she is always ready to download ridiculous movies and episodes of bad reality television. We spend a lot of time eating ice cream and watching people make a mess of their lives and/or remodel their kitchens.
The thing about being incredibly sad is that it’s exhausting. I spend a lot of time sleeping. And standing around in the shower, just letting the hot water run over me until it feels like my skin will peel off.
Whitlock Funeral Parlor takes care of everything funeral related, thank God, because I am completely nonfunctional. Mrs. Morris didn’t have much in her savings, so we skip the rhinestones, and I have to say that the result is very tasteful.
All my friends come to the funeral. Brainzilla cries her guts out from the minute we get to the grave site. I’ve cried so much over the past three days that I feel all dried up, like there aren’t any tears left in me.