Page 113 of Fade into You
“Well, I—I’m bi, but—”
I stop, because Kayla’s shaking her head and smiling, then slowly laughing.
“What?”
“This is just… hilarious.”
“What is?”
“You! Sitting there, passing judgment onme. Acting likeI’mso fucked up andI’msick andI’mmaking bad choices andIneed help andmyrelationships are unhealthy… and you’re withJessa? For fuck’s sake, Jessa of all people!” she shouts, throwing her hands up and letting them crash down in her lap.
I’m on my feet now. “Let me get this right. You’re comparing your eating disorder to me falling in love?”
She stands too, wobbling from weakness as she walks toward me. “You told my parents I needed mental help, and they believed you because you’re supposed to be so goddamn stable and such a good fucking influence,” she screams, then laughs again as she turns to walk away from me. “But look at you. You can’t even decide if you like guys or girls! Un-freaking-believable.”
“Hey!” I shout after her. “That’s not true, and since when do you hate queer people?”
She spins around fast, and she has this look in her eyes—allferal like that day when she flipped out on her parents. “I don’t hatequeerpeople. I just hateyou!”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes I do! You’re a hypocrite. You’re a terrible friend, you always have been, and I hate you! I hate you—you’re the one who’s sick! You’re disgusting,” she adds, losing her voice from the strain.
“No, Kayla. You’re sick. And I honestly don’t even think you believe any of the things you’re saying to me right now.”
“I do too,” she tries to yell, but it’s barely a whisper.
I’m shaking my head and can feel my insides cooling, the hottest parts of my anger melting away. Because I see it. I see what she’s doing. She’s hurting me because hurting me will hurt her. And maybe I see what I’ve been doing too—throwing myself into Kayla’s problems to avoid my own. “All right. I’m not doing this, Kayla. I’m not even mad—I get what this is—but I’m not gonna stand here and take it like your parents do.” I pause to get this last part right. “Let me know when you’re ready for my help. But for now, I’m leaving.”
“You’re leaving? You’re leavingme?” She’s crying and laughing and I feel like this moment has been coming for a lot longer than even this past summer. “Get out, then!” she snaps.
“Okay,” I tell her. And then I do. I go.
At home that night, I sit in my living room after everyone has gone to bed. I wish Charlie was here. I told him I didn’t mind him going on some kind of last-minute ski trip with one of his college friends’ rich family. Can’t blame him for not wanting tobe here; I don’t want to be here either. So I make a packet of hot chocolate in the microwave and wrap myself in a blanket on the couch with my notebook and pen. I want to write myself out of this, but all I feel is numb as I stare at our stupid Christmas tree. I fan the pages of my notebook and find the envelope in the back. I unfold the article about my dad’s restaurant and reread it. And I suddenly wish I was the kind of person who wouldn’t hold back so much, who would take up space, who would get angry and yell and say things I don’t mean. Get angry and yell and say things Idomean.
I look at the fuzzy picture of my dad—a stranger now—and fantasize about screaming at my mom the way Kayla screamed at hers. Make her answer for all this time lost, all these questions I have—the questions Charlie has too. I wish I could run to Jessa right now and say fuck it—fuck all this dumb shit that’s been coming between us—and take her up on her road-trip-to-Boston offer. Get some real answers. Demand them. But I guess I’m just not that kind of person.
JESSA
It’s New Year’s Eve, andI’m hoping Y2K will bring on the apocalypse, so maybe the world will match how I feel inside. I’m going to a show at Touchstone later, a lineup of local alt-rock wannabe bands. But they toast with whiskey instead of champagne at midnight, so it might get interesting. Mom and Dad left earlier, all gussied up for some all-day country club thing Dad gave her as her Christmas present. Mack has retreated to her room.
Not ready to leave yet, I sit in my room with Tori singing to my soul. I think back to the concert, when it all seemed romantic, when the words somehow turned themselves into hope. But the truth, at least ofLittle Earthquakes, is that the album is about pain, disappointment, grief, loss.Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again…
The cramped loneliness of her stories in each song, how even on the cover of the album she’s boxed in, that is me. I am in her space and I want out. I bide the time painting my nails, the polish loud and chemical, black, as always. I getout the makeup kit Mom got me last year and actually use it, dark red-purple lips like a scab, streaked black eyeliner thick and mean. A mask.You’re just an empty cage, girl, if you kill the bird…
Dragging a Slayer shirt over my head, I prepare for war. I pull on my heaviest pair of Doc Martens and drag out the leather jacket I spiked up last winter.
I’m ready to shit-kick and get shit-kicked in the mosh pit. Tonight I want to hurt something and myself. I want to feel something else, be destructive and destroyed, give in to the black hole, and fuck it if what’s inside is crazy. I don’t owe allegiance to anyone anymore.
Downstairs, I’m grabbing my keys and attaching my wallet chain when I hear it. Deep, heavy, racking sobs. Painful in their sound, surely tearing apart Mack’s body as she lets them wash over her. This sound is familiar, like a siren in the distance. Someone is hurt and needs help. This is a bad noise.
Walking down the hall to her room is like a scene in a horror movie. Fear creeps up my body, tightening my jaw, cinching my neck, bringing out goose bumps and a rumble deep in my insides. It’s been a year since I’ve heard her cry like this. Three hundred and sixty-five days, plus or minus some, and all the red never washed out. I used to think Mack was a modern-day Ophelia fromHamlet, going mad. But these days I wonder if I’m turning into a new breed of Ophelia, watching the blood spill as someone else does the crime, but still holding all that guilt.
Is it bad that I selfishly don’t want her to open the door? Iwant to go out and hurt myself in a crowd instead of seeingherhurt again. But if I ignore her, then no one is listening to Mack. She’ll be alone. She won’t be safe.
“Mack?” I ask softly, and the sound ebbs for a moment. I try the handle, her door is locked. “Mack, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
