WE SIT OUTSIDE MEG’S HOUSE FOR A LONG TIME, MOM AND ME. SHE KEEPS the car running the whole time; she has to, it’s twenty below. She doesn’t say anything, just waits for me, patiently, to get out of the car. Like she has been since we arrived, which was long enough ago that my knuckles are stiff and uncomfortable from gripping my knees so tightly.
That’s all I have to do—get out of the car. Take a dozen steps down the sidewalk. Knock on Meg’s door. All of which I’ve done multiple times before. Plus, I’m wearing my confidence-inducing pink shirt (not to be confused with my lucky pink shirt). So I should be able to get out of the car.
But thinking of getting out of the car makes me think of facing Meg’s eager excitement, which makes me think of the party, which makes me think of my fear of standing alone and awkward and overwhelmed in a corner while crowds of people jostle me and trap me in and judge me with their piercing eyes because I can’t remember how to do the most basic task of living—breathing. I hate my brain. I hate crowds. I hate people.
I wish that one “party” I went to provided a full explanation for my fear. But I was afraid of parties—afraid of people, really—long before that. I have no excuse. I’m just scared.
I drop my head between my legs, searching for breath somewhere other than my lungs. I can’t find it. One . . . I try to count. One . . . I can’t remember how to count.
“Kat.” Mom puts her hand on my shoulder. She hands me my phone. I’m not sure why she even has it. “Tell Meg you can’t make it.”
Obediently, robotically, I tap out the message. Breathe. Breathe. Head back between my knees. Tires rolling. Somewhere far away a phone is ringing. Somewhere in my head a phone is ringing. I don’t know how to answer it.
I awake Saturday morning to more ringing, though it turns out to be my normal weekend alarm, not the telephone in my head. In fact, my mind is unusually quiet as I get up and have breakfast. After spending some time last night with a paper bag, a hot bath, one of my anxiety pills, and hours of listening to The Velveteen Rabbit on repeat before I finally fell asleep, I feel almost like myself again. Sort of. A heaviness still weighs down my chest, like my lungs have turned to lead.
I need to call Meg, though. I need to explain. I need her to know I tried. I really tried. And I need her to know I’m sorry.
I stare at her name on my phone screen for what feels like an eternity before I finally fill my leaden lungs with air and jab at the call button.
It barely rings before she answers. “Okay, dude,” she says, without even saying hello. “Did someone die or something? Because that’s the only reason I can think of for you standing me up.”
“I . . . no—”
“Then what? Seriously! How could you leave me hanging like that? I had to babysit Kenzie all night.”
“Well, I—”
“Kenzie fell asleep in my bed and peed in it. Peed in it. Have you ever slept on a mattress that smells like pee? Even like a million spritzes of Febreze can’t mask that smell. Ugh. Seriously, ugh. What the heck, Kat?”
“You’re not even giving me a chance to explain,” I snap, more angrily than I mean to.
“Fine. Explain.”
The pause draws out into one second, then three, then five. It is not silence, exactly. I can hear her hurried, angry breaths, and my shaky, shallow ones. The tension builds like radiation around a frog in a microwave in a cruel, psychopathic joke. Each breath counts down to its doom. This is my chance to explain, to make it right. To hit stop and rescue the frog before it—well, before. But what exactly am I supposed to say? I’m sorry that I’m incapable of acting like a normal human being? I’m sorry I’m overwhelmed by crowds and terrified of small talk? I’m sorry I agreed to go to your stupid party in the first place?
“I don’t know,” I mumble moronically.
“Then I don’t know why I’m even bothering to talk to you,” she snaps, then hangs up the phone.
The line is dead.
The frog’s in a million tiny pieces.
Even the air in my lungs turns to lead.
MEG
I AM REDEFINING THE TERM BFF. LYRICALLY. NO, LIMERICKALLY. NO. COME on, what’s the word? The one that means for real, not just for pretend, not exaggerated. Gah, I feel so stupid sometimes. I kick my desk, making my laptop screen shudder. Screw it. Whatever the word is, that’s how I’m doing it.
I bring up the slang site, log in, and enter the definition:
BFF: Big Fat Frog, or Blind Friendly Fish, or Bean Fueled Fart.
Because it definitely doesn’t mean Best Friend Forever. Not for me. I don’t know if I have some kind of built-in people spray—like bug spray, but for people—or what, but no one sticks with me forever. Not best friends, not anybody.
The friendship bracelet girls lasted three months last spring; Lindsey lasted—I count on my fingers—three weeks; I had a boyfriend for just two months; my birth dad only stuck around for four years of my life; Stephen-the-Leaver lasted seven, and those years were obviously for Kenzie and Nolan, and not for me.
I thought Kat could make it at least seven years. I thought Kat would be around forever.
Nope.
Try a whopping . . . one . . . two . . . two months! Not even.
Well, screw you, too, Kat.
Screw you all. Why don’t you all go shove a hive of hornets up your butts?
Oh, and literally. The word is “literally.”
In the laundry room, I practice ollie after ollie, bashing my knee on the washing machine every time I glide over to check my phone. No messages.
I set my phone on the arm of the couch as Nolan curls up beside me to read his dinosaur book. I check it as he reads aloud a page about herbivores. No messages. Nolan notices my distraction and starts the page over from the beginning.
There are no messages as I wrestle with Kenzie, do homework, help Mom cook beans and rice, watch Lorenzo the turtle swim in circles, play dolls with Kenzie, and try to watch a LumberLegs video, then give up because I keep turning to grin at Kat but she’s not there.
No messages when I shower, change, climb into bed.
No messages until I lean over and flick out the light. Then, from out of the new darkness, my phone dings. I flick the light back on.
There’s a message—not in my texts, but online.
Dear Flash,
I looked for you at the party last night, but didn’t see you. Any interest in going for coffee with me sometime? My treat, as a thank you for protecting planet earth.
—Grayson
It’s Grayson, which is, hello, amazing!
But it’s not Kat.
I roll over and press my face into my pillow. No text messages. Not a single one, all day long. I hug the pillow to my chest. Then I roll over again and type a message back to Grayson—because I may be made of people repellent, but I’m not stupid.
KAT
MEG DOESN’T TEXT ME ALL DAY, AND I DON’T BLAME HER. SHE SHOULDN’T have hung up on me, but I probably should have been honest with her about my attacks. But how do I tell Meg that sometimes my heart races and my palms sweat and my lungs completely forget why they exist, all because I can’t handle parties? Because I can’t remember what beans to buy?