My eyes crack open to bright light and silence. I grab my phone that still hasn’t been turned back on. My cat clock says I’ve slept till 10:23 a.m. but it still doesn’t feel like enough.
When my phone powers on, it immediately buzzes in my hand. Missed calls and texts from Kallie and Sean pop up like reminders of why my head is throbbing. My eyes are pulled to the window, the sun extending its arms, beckoning, promising a new day.
If only the light were enough. My head sinks back into the pillow and I hug another between my knees. I drift back to sleep, waking in and out of dreams of Maisey pulling the mouse out of her desk, and nightmares splattered with dark images of her limp body, skin paled in blues and grays, hanging from a rope in the halls of Belmont High. My classmates hum the Maisey song, pushing her dangling body out of their way as they rush through the halls. My waking moments are no better, taunting me with what the letter I’ve tucked into my pillowcase might say.
I wake again to Mom, calling because the school’s automated system left her a message saying I was absent this morning. Shit. It’s already quarter to twelve.
“I’m tired, my head hurts, but I’m going.”
“You can forget about school if you want. Go back to sleep and I’ll see you when I get home.”
“I don’t know what I want to do,” I say, almost whining.
“Well, it’s up to you,” she says, like it’s no big deal and says good-bye. The consolation that it’s Friday taps my shoulder and reminds me that I’ve made plans with Sean. I look back out the window and the golden rays win, pulling me out of bed.
Fresh out of the shower, jeans from yesterday and a long-sleeved Jane Eyre T-shirt, I sit back on the bed, reach into my pillowcase and pull out the creased and folded white envelope.
Bree Hughes. The hollow echo of her saying my name in the school bathroom replays in my head, like an encore I didn’t ask for. The way she’d said it. Patronizing. The envelope unfolds itself into my hands, as does the letter. Sloppy wispy script, blatantly screaming that she was tired and didn’t care. I unfold it, letting my eyes drift to the top heading and right back off the page. Again, it’s there. Bree Hughes. Like she’s taunting me. My throat gets rushed by my heart, so hard and so rapid that I just can’t. I flip the letter over, refolding it with swift sloppy hands and stuffing it back into the envelope and my pillowcase. I can’t read this right now. Not today. Not when I’m trying to get to school, to walk through the hallways looking like my shit’s so together I can be a fucking Prom Queen.
FIFTEEN
I get to school at lunchtime and everyone is chirping and buzzing with the news of Maisey. I hear snippets of the tragedy passing each lunch table. I can’t even stand in the lunch line without hearing about it.
“It’s crazy. Everyone treated her like ass.”
“At least she’ll go to heaven because all dogs go to heaven.”
“No, dude, she was a mouse. Where the hell do mice go?”
“The moon?”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure it does, moon’s made of cheese, dipshit.”
I clank my tray back onto the line and shove through the two assholes. “Excuse you.” I grab a bottle of water and walk right to the cashier.
“That’s all you’re getting today?” asks Kendall. “Prom Queen diet, huh?”
“I had a big breakfast.”
“Did you hear what happened?” asks Sam, mouth agape. Kendall leans in, eyes wide, waiting to hear a story she’s obviously heard a hundred times today. “Maisey Morgan committed suicide. Suicide. How sad. Can you believe it?”
I inhale slowly through my nose and as I exhale, I use every ounce of energy I have into fighting the urge to cry. To scream. To run. “Yeah, I can believe it,” I say. “Our class pretty much made her life a living hell. So why not? Maybe she’s in a better place.”
“Well, I’m Christian and I know this sounds wrong, but suicide is a sin. So that means she would be—.”
“Kendall. Don’t even. That is just wrong. You didn’t know her,” Sam says.
“Heaven or hell, either one sounds better than high school. I don’t want to talk about it, okay,” I say. “And none of us knew her, so get over it.”
“Damn,” says Sam holding her hands up. “Sorry.”
“Fine,” says Kendall. “New subject. Bree, what’s up with Prom? You going with us or not? It’s gonna be fun. We’re renting an SUV limo instead of a regular limo. And taking a road trip to Valley Fair the next day, too.”
“Prom: Parties of One is the hottest ticket.” Sam brushes her fingers through the edge of her fro-hawk. “You could even match your corsage to the pink streak I’m putting in my hair. So far we have six of us going … you really should come.”
“Breeeeee!” Someone steps up behind me. “I had no idea. This queen doesn’t have a date?” Justin Conner plants his ass on the seat next to me and hangs his arm on my shoulder. “Neither do I, we should probably go together then.”