Without Merit

Merit: What do you mean?

Honor: Sagan just texted me and told me to be careful coming home. WHY does he know I’m not home?

Merit: Well . . . he’s very hard to lie to. Besides, what’s it matter? He’s not even your boyfriend.

Honor: It matters because I lied to him and thanks to you, he’s now aware of that. Remind me not to ask you to cover for me in the future!

Merit: Okay. Don’t ask me to cover for you in the future.

Is it normal for a person to hate their own family this much?

I find the bottle of tequila but it’s still empty. That doesn’t help me much because I still feel things. I stumble my way into the kitchen and open every single cabinet, but I can’t find more alcohol. I open the refrigerator and the only thing that might help me numb what’s happening in my chest right now are three beers. I grab all of the cans and take them to my bedroom. I slide back to the floor and pop open one of the beers. I stare at the letter I wrote.

Should I give it to them?

Probably not. It would only give them more reason to hate me. They wouldn’t feel sorry for me after reading it, they’d be mad at me for telling all their secrets.

I down the first beer and my stomach already hurts, but it still doesn’t help the pressure in my chest. You know what this feels like? It feels just like the day I decided to stop going to school. I was walking into the cafeteria when Melissa Cassidy grabbed my arm and said, “Honor, come here. You won’t believe what I found out!” She dragged me about five feet to her table, where Honor was already sitting. She glanced back at me and then at Honor and she said, “Oh. Sorry. I thought you were Honor.” She let go of my arm and walked back to the table and started whispering in Honor’s ear.

I just stood there, staring at Honor. Everyone liked her, despite the fact that she was a Voss. Everyone wanted to hang out with her and be her friend and I was simply a by-product. The identical twin sister with less to offer. There wasn’t a single girl at that table who would rather be friends with me than Honor.

Nothing terrible happened that made me want to drop out that day. I was never bullied at school, despite everyone having their unsavory opinions about our family. I was just . . . there. When I kept to myself, everyone was okay with that. No one bothered me. When I decided to join in on conversations with Honor and her friends, everyone was okay with that, too. I was Honor’s twin sister, they weren’t going to be rude to me. What they were was indifferent. And I think their indifference bothered me more than if they would have hated me.

It was like seventeen years of denial smacked me in the face right there in the cafeteria. The whole school would notice if Honor stopped showing up. But if I stopped showing up, life would go on. With or without Merit.

In fact, I’ve had two texts from friends in my class, asking why I haven’t been at school for two weeks.

Two.

That’s it.

And that’s another reason why I’ve stayed home. But for some reason I thought I would like staying at the house more than going to a school where I didn’t matter, but I don’t. I hate it here, too. I don’t matter here, either. If I dropped out of life, just like I dropped out of school, everyone’s lives would go on.

With or without Merit.

I down the second beer and as soon as it’s empty, I toss the can at my bedroom door. “Without Merit,” I whisper to no one. “That’ll show ’em.”

And then I do what I do best. I react without thinking. My spontaneity will be the only thing I miss about myself. I crawl to the closet and grab the black boot. I pull out the bottle of stolen pills and I open the lid. I reach for the third beer and my hands are shaking so bad, it takes me three tries to pop it open.

I look down at the beer in my left hand and the bottle of pills in my right. I don’t even give it a second thought. I pour some of the pills in my mouth and then try to swallow. I pour a few too many so I end up spitting them back out in my hand. I relax my throat and then try it again. They go down this time, so I pour a few more and then swallow. I can’t get but about three or four down at a time, so it takes me the entire beer to wash them all down.

I toss the empty beer can aside and then grab all seven stacks of pages. I grab a pen and go through each stack and add the word Without to my name. Sincerely, Without Merit. That’s more like it. I start with Sagan’s room, since his is closest. I slide one set of the stapled pages beneath his door. Then I continue down the hallway until Utah, Luck, and Honor have been covered. I don’t even bother sliding the pages beneath the basement door. I open the door and throw my mother’s stack down the stairs. If they stayed at the top of the stairs, she’d never see them. I make my way to Quarter Three and shove the last set of pages beneath my father and Victoria’s bedroom door.

On my way back through Quarter One, I notice a sheet of paper on the couch that wasn’t there earlier. Between pretending to be Honor and kissing Sagan, I would have noticed I was sitting on a sheet of paper.

It’s upside down but I can already tell it’s a sketch. I snatch it up and walk to my bedroom. I close the door and sit down on my bed. I don’t know what he drew, but on the bottom of the back page he wrote,

“Heart < Carcass.”

I cover my mouth as I flip over the sketch. My fingers are trembling against my lips as I work up the courage to look at what he’s drawn.




I shudder when I see it. I wrap my arm tightly around my stomach. Two hearts on either end of a couch. One of them whole, one of them cut in half.

Which one is mine?

I feel sick. I drop the drawing and watch it float to my bedroom floor. It lands on top of the empty bottle of pills. I stare at the word carcass.

Carcass. Death. Dead.

I roll over and bring my knees to my chest and hug them. I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to let it all sink in.

Don’t let it sink in.

The tears begin to slip out of my eyes, no matter how tightly I have them closed. My bottom lip begins to tremble worse than my hands.

I don’t want to die.

I grip myself even tighter.

I don’t know what happens next. What if it’s worse than this?

My fearful cry turns into a sob. I clamp my hand over my mouth.

“No, no, no, no, no.” My voice is full of panic when the reality of what I’ve done begins to hit. If I lie here one second longer, I might not be able to do anything about it. I pull myself up into a sitting position. I grip my mattress and try to stop the room from spinning long enough to make it to my bedroom door.

What have I done?

I fall to my knees as soon as my bedroom door is open. I’m not sure I can stand up again, so I crawl. I crawl to the bathroom. I reach up and open the door and I crawl to the toilet. I shove my fingers down my throat.