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downstairs had made her abdomen expand offensively. She started to cry, feeling like she was doing so
far
too often, and lifted up the toilet seat.
Suddenly guessing what was coming, I still felt stunned as she knelt down in front of the toilet and stuck her fingers down her throat until she heaved.
Michelle threw up again and again, her face throbbing with the blood that was rushing to it. She leaned back on her feet, feeling something I’d been feeling a lot recently.
Disgusted with her own behavior.
She wished she wasn’t this way, and wished she could take it back. But then she realized that what she wanted to take back was the junk food she’d been eating. She vowed never to do it again. But she knew it was an empty promise to herself.
She was just vomiting again when the door opened.
A shriek escaped Michelle’s mouth as she saw my shocked face leave the doorway again.
C H A P T E R E L E V E N
I stared at Michelle, who was still f lipping mutely through her notepad on the conference table.
I didn’t know what to say, or what to think. How does someone go about apologizing for contributing to something so dangerous?
Until now, I’d had no idea that Michelle was bulimic.
Though suddenly it seemed so obvious.
Certainly, I thought, I would have been more careful about what I said to her if I had known. If I’d had any idea. But a small voice in my head asked a question: Why weren’t you careful what you said to her just because she’s your friend?
And for that, I had no response.
I turned to Anna. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t.” She said it sincerely. Not sarcasti-cally, like I always meant that phrase. “Do you need to take a moment, or shall we continue on?”
I glanced at Michelle, longing to talk to her and have her hear me. But I knew that it was impossible.
Why was she even friends with me? Sure, after the Kotex event, I’d sworn to her it wasn’t me, and told her the truth—
that I’d been trying to undo what they’d done. I knew there 1 5 4
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had been a brief period in the beginning of high school when I was a good and normal friend, but now…even I could see that I was toxic for her.
“Let’s go,” I said, standing up. Anna pointed down to a pair of dark-brown Steve Madden loafers on the ground.
My gut lurched.
“No, stop.” I stepped away from the shoes.
Anna looked at me. I shook my head.
“I can’t go into Liam’s mind, I know how I was. I was wrong, and I know it.” I stepped toward her. “Please, can’t we just…skip him, or something? I can’t
know
for sure what he thinks of me. It’ll hurt too much.”
I knew that my plea wouldn’t get me anywhere.
Anna smiled composedly.
“We have to. I’m sorry.”
I found myself on the blacktop at my elementary school, walking toward the playground, which was about a hundred yards away. I shuddered as I guessed what day it was.
Liam looked down at his feet, and I noticed that he was wearing his
Jetsons
T-shirt.
He climbed up the slide and headed toward the red tunnel I used to hide in as a kid after such traumas as being the last called for Red Rover. Sure enough, there I was, my face covered in smushed bananas and streaked with tears.
“Hi, Bridget,” Liam said, his voice husky even then.
“Hi,” I said, the word coming out more like a question as I launched into a new set of tears.
“Oh, don’t cry!” He crawled toward me a little bit. He placed an awkward little eight-year-old hand on my shoulder and patted.
“But I’m…so…embarrassed!” I said, my breath catching on every word.
“I know. But it’s okay, they’ll forget about it soon enough.”
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He thought desperately for something comforting to say. “If it helps, they didn’t tell anyone else what they were going to do. I think it just happened.”
“I don’t…even…like…bananas!” I said, still more desperately.
“I know. But hey, at least you know that if there
had
been a banana-eating-contest, you would have won it.”
Little me rolled her eyes, thinking what a small consolation prize that was.
“But I can’t believe that I fell for it. I mean, why did I think they were putting the blindfold on me?”
Liam continued to pat my shoulder comfortingly, imitating the adults he’d seen do the same thing in upsetting situations.
I was impressed to find that Liam didn’t seem to be holding back any laughter. He seemed to think it was just as unfair as I did.
“I have a deck of cards in my cubby. Do you want to play with me?”
I nodded, touched by his willingness to leave recess to play with me. It was, after all, the ultimate sacrifice.
Liam told me to go ahead inside, he had to get something first. He watched as I skipped into the school, and then he walked resolutely toward the sponsors of the banana-eating contest.
“Hey, Tammy, Jenny, come here. I want to talk to you.”
Even the current me felt intimidated watching the girls exchange an amused look and walk toward him. They might as well have been cracking their knuckles or hitting their palms with a baseball bat.
At least he was the same height as they were. That was a luxury most boys didn’t have in elementary school. He didn’t feel frightened at all as they walked over to him. All he felt was contempt.
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“What do you want, Wee-em?” Jenny asked, giving a loud guffaw at the nickname she’d starting using for him three years ago.
“That wasn’t nice what you did to Bridget.”
“Well, we weren’t trying to be nice!” Tammy said, her high voice ringing in his ears.
He felt angry just looking at them. “Still, you shouldn’t have done that and I think you should apologize.”
The two girls laughed boisterously again, and Jenny pulled a banana from the crate on the ground. A teacher had brought the fruit to give as a treat today, since it was Friday. It was a nice idea, but, Liam considered, he should have been outside making sure this kind of thing didn’t happen.
“I didn’t know you wanted some, too.” She f lattened the banana on his face.
Liam pushed her hand away and ignored the other students who were laughing.
“You can put as many bananas as you want in our faces, Jenny, but we could never look as stupid as you do.” Her mouth fell open, and Liam turned on his heel and walked casually inside, f linging the banana from his face to the ground.
Too cool for an eight-year-old.
The ground fell away as soon as he ran in the door. I didn’t need to see it from Liam’s perspective to remember the rest of the day. We’d played Crazy Eights for the rest of recess, and Liam had stood by my side and protected me from Jenny and Tammy for the rest of third grade.
That day should have shown me what real friends were.
Instead it marked the beginning of my quest to be “in” with those girls, so they’d never, ever treat me like that again.
The next place we landed was my patio. I was glad to see that we hadn’t ended up at the scene of the breakup.
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It was clearly late into the night of my last party, and I had a feeling that I was going to come crawling around the corner any second.
Liam was talking on the phone with a voice I recognized as his mother’s.
“Well, just try to drive home anyone you can. I’m disappointed that Meredith allowed drinking at one of Bridget’s parties, but I suppose we have to do what we can to make sure none of them end up out on the road. You didn’t have anything to drink?”
“Nah. And I don’t think Meredith actually knew about the party at all,” Liam said, waving his hand at the suggestion even though she couldn’t see him.
“Good. Well, once again, I’m proud of you, Liam.”
“Thanks, Ma.” He smiled into the phone.
“How’s Bridget doing?”
“Mmm,” he said looking in the window for me. “I’m not sure. She was drinking kind of a lot tonight.”
“I thought she didn’t drink?”
“Yeah, she doesn’t, which is why she’s bound to be sick in the morning.”
His mother chuckled. “I guess we all have to learn the hard way. Did everyone enjoy the party, do you think?”
“Yeah, I think so. I think most of ’em just came to get drunk, but none of them are being rude to her or anything.”
This observation shook me. What did that mean? Did he expect them to be rude to me?
“Well, that’s good. Don’t worry, honey, she’ll settle down soon. She’ll get back to herself one of these days, I’m sure of it.”
Doubt entered his mind. “Hope so.” He looked down at the brown shoes I’d just stepped into and felt another pang of some emotion I couldn’t quite identify. “All right, well, 1 5 8
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you better get to bed. I think I’ll drive a couple of these guys home, and then come home myself.”
“Okay, drive safely, I don’t want anything to happen to you.
You know it’s not that I don’t trust
your
driving, it’s—”
“—other people, I know.” Liam smiled again. He’d heard her say it so many times. “’Bye, don’t wait up.”
“You know I will!”
He shook his head and closed his phone. And then, there I was, crawling on my hands and knees looking for Meredith’s earring. Which, incidentally, I would find on my dresser in the morning. It turned out I’d never put the second one on, which meant not only that I was losing my mind, but also that I’d walked around like a pirate the whole night.
“Bridge?” Liam squinted his eyes into the darkness to see who it was. Judging by the ice-blond hair, he decided it was me.
“Yeah?” I responded after my startled squeal.
“What are you…uh, what are you doin’?” He crouched down, hoping that it wasn’t something he didn’t know how to handle.
“My
earring?”
“Did you lose it?” Liam asked, thinking of all the times he’d looked all over the place for something I’d lost.
It’s probably still
in her room,
he thought. I was taken aback by his accuracy.
“I
did.”
“All right, let’s look for it then. Do you know that it’s out here somewhere?” Liam watched me nod and then try to stand. He was braced for what he was sure was going to turn into a nasty spill. Then, to only my own surprise at the time, I fell. He helped me stand.
“Liam…” I mumbled.
“Y’all right, Bridget? Why don’t you sit down.”
“My
earring—”
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“I know.” He helped me to the seat he’d just vacated.
“It looks like, um…an earring that’s, uh. It’s like a silver, sort of loops around…”
Liam laughed at my vague description, and at the fact that I hadn’t thought to simply show him the other one.
I watched his hand tuck my hair behind my ear to look at the earring. He seemed to be sensing the familiarity that went along with this affectionate touch just as much as I had.
He looked into my eyes. I noticed, with a twinge of mortification, that I didn’t look as cool and collected as I had hoped.
Instead, I looked a lot like a deer in headlights.
I listened to Liam’s internal battle. He cared for me, just as he had for so long. He looked at me, and saw the eight-year-old version of me with banana all over my face, and remembered my embarrassment at the pool after I’d knocked my own tooth out. More recently than that, he envisioned me the moment before we first kissed.
The moment after.
And then the genuinely distraught expression on my face as he’d ended our relationship.
I felt the devil on his shoulder—or maybe it was the angel—
bring up another vision of me.
One in which I’d gone on to become friends with Tammy and Jenny, despite what they’d done to me and how long I’d hated them.
Another, in which I was telling a girl she couldn’t be part of our group in social studies. Another one, where I talked enthusiastically about the f laws of every girl we knew. And another, where I told Michelle that she looked like a slut in the top she was wearing. I’d said that her boobs were too big for it—back when she’d had some—and that a person like her couldn’t get away with that, but that
I
could because my chest was smaller.
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And then another memory, where his friends had reported that I’d been f lirting with them “hardcore” and that they all kind of felt weird about it, and thought he should know.
Wow, that was embarrassing.
The last thought that f litted through his mind was a simple one: She just isn’t the same girl she used to be.
He furrowed his eyebrows and looked down at our hands.
They looked right, in a way, to both of us, but at the same time…it seemed like that era had passed.
“I’m so tired of being like this, Liam.”
Liam froze, trying hard not to misunderstand what I said for the better.
“Like what?” he asked carefully.
“It’s…hard to say, I don’t know. I feel like every day is this struggle to keep my life the way it’s been for however long.
And I think…that it’s so I’m happy. But I’m not really very happy with who I am or whatever. Am I?”
He watched my forehead wrinkle as I labored for the words.
Liam thought about what I’d said, hoping that maybe this was it. Maybe I was having one of those epiphanies. His thumb moved over my cheekbone. He said nothing, not wanting to stop me from having any other realizations that might bring me back to the way I used to be.
“I’m not saying anything right. I think it was the tequila.
I don’t even
like
to drink!”
Liam watched as I gave an open shrug, and remembered the many times I’d done the same gesture in the past. Every time he’d let me win a race, for example, I used to put my hands up in the same way as if I was saying “Sorry, I don’t know
how
I’m so fast!”
“That makes five of us. You, me, Michelle, Jillian and Anna.” He said the names of my friends and Anna. I felt his hope that maybe I’d realize there were people like me.
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