“Talk to him. Tell him how you feel. And, I know this is hard for you, but tell him how it hurts.”
“I’ll pass,” I mumbled.
“Reggie.” She rolled her chair in front of my knees. Her raspberry perfume settled in the slim space between us. “Our time is almost up, but I can’t let you walk out of here without saying this.” She always said that. “Don’t be afraid to feel emotions. That’s human nature. You feel hurt by what he did to you, but you shouldn’t fear hurt. Fear is the greatest betrayal we commit against ourselves. Be genuine. And once you’ve let yourself feel it all, let it go. Don’t let every bearable thing in life become unbearable.”
I stared at the creases between my fingers, a stupid, unwarranted tear falling to my wrist. “Why don’t you tell me what you really think?”
“And what do I really think?”
“That I’m crazy.”
She cocked her head and frowned with both sides of her mouth instead of just one like she usually did. Then she glanced at the clipboard that was resting on the table beside her. “I want to assign you homework, if that’s all right.”
“Sure,” I mumbled.
“I want you to write,” she said, not at all to my surprise. She tossed up her hand like she knew I’d object. I always did. “And before you say no, I want you to remember that this is for your benefit. I want you to write one page. That’s it. Tell me what crazy means to you.”
I wiped my eyes, smearing tears on the back of my hand. “Is this what you make all your wackjobs do?”
“No. This is what I make people do when I believe in them.” She glanced at the clock. Our time was up. “Will you do this for you?”
It felt like I was doing it more for her, but I nodded anyway because I was shifting from Stage 1 to Stage 2 and wanted to get home before the storm hit.
When I got home, Karen was in the kitchen cooking something that I could only equate to cow dung. I ran upstairs into my ugly yellow room and toppled onto my bed, my ceiling patterned in stripes where the sun filtered through the blinds. I counted the spaces between them. One light. One shadow. Two lights. Two shadows. One mouse. One snake. One dies. One survives.
Stage 2: Emptiness.
I reached to my bedside table, grabbing the bottle of Zoloft. I popped the cap and swallowed a capsule with a swig of water. Laying my head back on the pillow, I mentally chanted crazy crazy crazy as I drifted off.
Vibrations were what finally jolted me awake. I opened my eyes to the darkness, the striped narrative of sun and shadow swapped with dimness and beams of moonlight. A single light interrupted the display. My phone glowed on the nightstand.
With pulsating temples, I grabbed the phone and read the screen.
It was only five words. Five presumptuous words.
I want to see you.
I replied in five words. Five presumptuous words.
You can kiss my ass.
Chapter Six
HE LIVED BY THE POND. SERIOUSLY. That fool lived in a three-story brick house with a rose garden trellis overlooking the enchanted swamp of fish piss. Not only was he a lying sack of crap, he was a rich lying sack of crap. Which made him at least twenty times more unappealing and, frankly, gross. I hadn’t seen him since Monday. He called in sick for work on Wednesday on account of food poisoning, a classic excuse that every depressed person knows is code for “I am not a functioning human today.”
It came to this. My combat boots squishing the welcome mat beneath my feet. It came to me calling Peyton on Wednesday night with a ridiculous cover story, asking for Snake’s address so I could “return his phone.” It came to me reaching for the doorbell and making contact with the button before I had time to change my mind.
Footsteps approached, sounding like someone jumping down a flight of stairs. They were weighty and gawky, and I knew who they belonged to. The door swung open and there Snake (see: big, fat, ugly liar) stood, his unkempt brown hair hiding his uninteresting eyes. A white T-shirt doused in mustard stains stuck to his arms. He pushed his hair back and gave me a good once-over. His eyes widened, and I wanted to punch him in his infuriatingly pretty lips.
“Reggie,” he said, his voice softer than usual. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to sell you Girl Scout cookies, what do you think?”
He grinned with his mouth closed, his infamous I’m-too-cool-to-even-smile-like-a-normal-person grin.
“Do you want to come in?”
“No, Snake. I thought I’d stay out here and water your moms’ flowers.”
“You’ve gotten meaner since the last time I saw you.”
“Side effect of Zoloft, I guess.”
“It’s not supposed to make you mean.”
“The label doesn’t account for dealing with pathological liars.”
He dropped his eyes to the ground with an empty expression, then stepped aside to let me in. His living room was more pristine than a doctor’s office, and just about as miserable as a waiting room. There was even a brown leather couch beside the fireplace just like the ones at therapy. I was tempted to search the magazine table for an evaluation clipboard.
He pointed at the staircase. “You want to go to my room?”
“No.”
“Okay . . .” He motioned to the other couch, also brown leather. “Does this meet your standards?”
I brushed past him and sat down, hugging my arms and legs against my body. He sat too close to me, and I shifted down. When I saw him flinch, I felt vindicated.
“I got your text,” he said, playing with his long fingers. His gray sweats weren’t bulging with Twizzlers. He must have been having withdrawals. “I thought you were just hating me in the good way, but then you ignored me for three days, so I’m guessing you hate me in the bad way.” I didn’t respond. “How did you find out where I live?”
I made him wait an agonizing amount of time for an answer. “I called Peyton. I was going to call Carla Banks, our boss’s daughter, but I wasn’t sure if you’d met her.”
He fiddled with the string of his pants. “Um, maybe. I don’t really remember—”
“Perhaps I can jog your memory,” I interrupted. He reeled because I said it in the bad way. “She’s this preppy, center-of-her-own-imagined-universe daddy’s girl with bright red hair and a baby the size of a squash under her dress.” I knew I had him at squash. He looked at his feet. “Sound familiar?”
He made this weird noise, like an inhale and a groan. “Now I get why you hate me in the bad way.”
“I saw you, idiot!” I yelled. I glanced around to see if either of his mothers was home, but my voice echoed as if the house was empty. “After school in the parking lot.”
“Oh.”