When Zoe found a speech she liked, she watched it on her laptop until she’d memorized every word and gesture, every pause and hand movement. Then she delivered them. The funny thing was, when she spoke to her wall, her voice held power. Her heart didn’t race. Her hands didn’t tremble. She felt the absence of her fear as strongly as if it were a presence. A balloon of air, a feeling of fullness, pushing out the blackness that she always felt. In her bedroom, the silence was people on tenterhooks for her next word, the looks were of admiration. And she wanted, for once, to be noticed.
As far as vices went, it could have been worse. And yet, in a way, it was a form of self-harm. Like the kid in the wheelchair who dreamed of being an Olympic high jumper, the mute who dreamed of being an opera singer—she was dreaming about something that would never be possible for her. Which meant the best she could hope for was delivering speeches to a wall.
*
On Monday morning, Zoe’s walk to school was long. It was always long—almost forty minutes’ walk—but she preferred it to the world of potential horror that existed inside the bus. The side of the road in Atherton was never busy because most people drove. The people Zoe did pass—bringing their garbage out, or returning from walking the dog—were friendly enough, but despite talk of Atherton’s strong sense of community, no one chatted over the fences. They couldn’t; the fences were too high. It made Zoe wonder how many people were actually like her—wanting to be surrounded by people, but needing to shut them out.
At six that morning Zoe had felt her mom’s lips brush her cheek before she’d headed off to the hospital. Zoe had kept her eyes closed, wanting to linger in that not-quite-awake bliss where the terror of the day hadn’t crashed in on her yet, but now she wondered when she had done that. Her mom was probably lying on an operating table somewhere right now and Zoe hadn’t even bothered to wake up and say good-bye? What did that say about her?
Keyhole surgery, a Web site had said when she’d Googled the gallstones operation over breakfast. Very safe. Patients should be able to return to normal activities after a week. It seemed reassuring, Zoe thought, until she scrolled down to “Risks.” Infection of an incision. Internal bleeding. Bile leaking into the abdominal cavity. The liver being cut. Death.
Death.
As she thought about it, her mind brought up an image, a B-grade-film-type image, of her being called into Mrs. Hunt’s office that morning and told the news. “We’re very sorry, Zoe, but your mom, she didn’t make it.”
And Zoe hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye.
She could feel herself spiraling then, picturing it all in minute detail. The casket and eulogies, the outfit she’d wear to the funeral, herself crying on a pew that was empty apart from herself. She wouldn’t have to go to school for a few days, or even a few weeks. Emily would forgive her—because what friend held a grudge against someone whose mother had just died?—and she’d spend a few weeks holed up in her apartment, eating frozen meals that had been left on her doorstep by one of her mom’s clients. It played out almost like a fantasy, a horrible fantasy, and yet it soothed her somehow. Which went to show that she was a truly horrible person who didn’t deserve her mom, or anything else.
At the gate a senior guy bumped into her (heavily) and, after taking a quick glance, exclaimed, “Watch it, would you?”
She jumped back, horrified. If there had been a hole to jump into, Zoe would have jumped. And she would have stayed in that hole all day, safe from people’s eyes. Safe, even, from her best friend’s eyes.
Zoe hadn’t heard anything from Emily since the movies, despite sending several texts. She’d thought about calling, but the phone was terrifying to Zoe at the best of times—the pauses, the silences, the inability to read facial cues—and this time there were just too many uncertainties. What if she doesn’t answer? What if she screams at me? What if she is screening the call and laughing? In the end Zoe had just put her phone in a drawer and hadn’t looked at it until this morning. There was still nothing from Em.
Zoe had known Emily would be mad, but the silence was not like her. It worried her. What had happened with Cameron? Had he been a jerk to her? Or had it all worked out and she’d spent the whole weekend in loved-up bliss, too busy to check her messages? Whatever it was, Zoe was fairly sure it wasn’t good news.
When she arrived at her locker, she twisted in the code and shuffled books around unnecessarily until she noticed Emily. There were a few people around—Jessie Lee crouched at her lower locker next to Emily’s, looking typically weird in big bullet-style earrings and a red T-shirt with giant slashes over a black bustier and black lace-up boots. Lucy Barker was also there, talking to no one in particular about her haircut, which she hated. But this was probably the best opportunity Zoe would get. She steeled herself and came up behind Emily.
“Em?”
Emily kept her back to her. “Maybe your bangs are a little short,” she said to Lucy, who was now looking in the mirror on her locker door. “But otherwise I’d say your hair is totally on trend.”
Zoe glanced at Lucy’s hair. Lucy was one of those people who on first glance looked really pretty, but on closer inspection she had a strangely equine look about her that had meant the majority of the student body, Emily included, called her Seabiscuit behind her back. Her hair, now cut into a short, shaggy style, only made her look horsier.
Zoe waited, but Emily didn’t turn around. Had she heard? Lucy looked away from the mirror and right at Zoe, making it clear that she had heard.
“Em?” Zoe tried to look casual, but her facial muscles were too tense. “Can I talk to you? In private?”
“Emily?” Jessie Lee said, from her locker. “Zoe is talking to you.”
The silence that followed was as long and uncomfortable as any Zoe had ever experienced. Emily stiffened but she didn’t turn or acknowledge Zoe. She didn’t even acknowledge Jessie Lee.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said to Lucy finally. “Hair grows! I mean, there’s just two weeks between a good haircut and a bad haircut, right?”
A second later the bell rang and Emily shut her locker. “Okay,” she said, “time for math.”
And she was gone. Zoe stood there for a moment, shame and horror ballooning inside her. All around, people headed off to class in twos or threes, chewing gum and laughing and being normal. Zoe longed to run to the bathroom and hide out for the rest of the day, or even just crawl inside her locker and shut the door. Instead, she went to class.
During math, Emily didn’t once look in her direction. Seth and Cameron sat in the back row snickering, and though Zoe kept her eyes forward, she was sure they were laughing at her. Harry Lynch, once again, sat in the seat right in front of Zoe, and Zoe spent most of the time staring at his giant football-playing shoulders—actually, now that she looked at them, they weren’t as giant as she remembered—but even that came to an end when he got up in the middle of class and walked out. Harry did that every now and again. They’d be in the middle of class when, bang, he’d just get up and leave. The teachers rarely asked where he was going, and if they did, his answer was always “Fishin’.” It was weird.
Science was next, then history, and Emily wasn’t in those classes.