Authors: James Preller
A voice called and Fergus waved to someone behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see Athena Luikin waiting by the main doors. She stood looking at us, arms crossed below her perfect breasts, long blond hair, mouth tight. I raised my hand, howdy, but she offered no reply. Queen bees don't often greet the drones.
My brain roared like the sound of ocean waves against a rocky shore, a blur of white noise. I was enveloped in fog. Suddenly the sky cleared, the sun came out. I could see how it was going to go.
The plan was set.
We were going to deny everything ⦠and it was all going to be okay.
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Today
I got nothing.
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Remember the activity sheet I took from school? The mental gymnastics that were supposed to help me heal? I guess I shoved that sheet in my desk drawer. I'm staring at the crumpled thing right now, here in my bedroom.
1) The person who died in my life is â¦
a) Um, dead?
b) Morgan Mallen.
c) A girl I kind of knew?
2) The cause of death was â¦
a) The ground.
b) How much time have you got?
c) I don't know why she did it. I mean, depression, I guess, but I can't imagine.
3) I found out about the death when â¦
I got a text.
4) After death, I believe my loved one is â¦
a) Wait, “loved one”?
b) Is this really a question about the afterlife? I guess I don't really see her on a fluffy cloud surrounded by harpists with wings.
c) Relieved it's over.
5) My first feeling was ⦠because â¦
a) Is “shock” a feeling? It felt like a non-feeling to me, no feeling at all. Because: I felt dead too?
b) You know, there's something else, now that I think about it. I was excited. I mean, it was big news, this huge thing that happened, so I started texting like crazy and Twitter exploded. As gross as this sounds, there was an initial thrill to it. I can't tell you how that depresses me to this day.
6) Now I feel ⦠because â¦
a) Like crap because: duh.
b) Angry because: THIS FORM!
7) What makes me feel most angry?
a) How did you know?
b) The phonies all around me.
c) That she did this to herself, that it got to this point, that ⦠next.
8) I worry about ⦠because â¦
a) What happens next, “because” duh.
b) Me, “because” everything completely sucks, like who cares.
9) The hardest thing about school is ⦠because â¦
a) Is this is a trick question? Next!
b) The fake feeling everywhere, the way her locker is now a shrine.
c) The walk from science to band, where I used to always see her.
d) All the things I never said.
10) My friends are â¦
a) Clueless.
b) Guilty too.
c) Kind of scary.
11) The adults in my life tell me â¦
a) I'm sorry, I wasn't listening. What?
b) That filling out forms is a good “mental exercise.”
c) It's best to “move on.”
12) What helps me most is â¦
a) This stupid form. Kidding!
b) Television
=
very helpful.
c) I wish I knew the answer to this one. Truly.
d) Wait! My journal? Those blank pages? Writing?
13) What helps me the least is â¦
a) Pretending I didn't care.
b) All those plastic people pretending they do.
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I heard the talkers talking,
expressing all they knew
& didn't know
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âshe was stupid,
she was sick,
she was selfish, brave,
twisted, stoned, splattered;
she left a note,
she didn't leave a note;
how she jumped off
the water tower at the edge
of the woods, and how
Demarcus joked, “Damn,
she killed that hang-
out spot, but seriously!”
I tried not to speak,
and surely didn't laugh,
just nodded and drifted, drifted, drifted
away like the flicked ash
from somebody's cigarette.
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The color scheme of our school revolves around three basic colors: puke green, urine stain, and variations of beige. Each year, we spent exactly one hundred and eighty days inside that wonderful building. Snow days didn't count, but half days did, even when Mr. Cranston only showed YouTube videos in social studies (true story!). We waited for time to spill, like liquid from a stabbed water balloon or blood from a cut sleeve.
Then we were set free.
In one of our last texts, Morgan wrote that she hated every one of those one hundred and eighty days. She couldn't face the idea of the same dumb day on repeat.
So I guess that's partly why she ended up doing what she did. At least the timing of it.
But still.
There had to be more, right?
And
every single day
? That was harsh. There was not even
one good day
out of one hundred eighty? It was hard to believe, mathematically speaking, considering the odds of it. Every day? Really, Morgan?
She wasn't thinking straight.
(Obviously.)
I didn't want to believe her.
(And it hurt a little too.)
I happen to know otherwise. There were good days, good times. Moments when, you know, she was happy.
(Or seemed to be, or faked it good.)
When I think about what it took for her to step off that water tower, the physical act of stepping out and stepping into emptiness, into the airy sky?
When I think of that, really picture it in my mind, then yeah, she must have meant it. To her, it was truth.
The moment before she fell, at least, she believed.
I'll say this:
Morgan had guts.
I still wonder though. What did she think when she was falling midair, legs kicking, arms pinwheeling? Rag-dolling through the universe? Was there a scream of remorse? Or did she go down like a sack, a silent fall followed by a muffled thud?
These are the things I think about when I'm alone and I turn out the lights. Lately I've been falling asleep with my headphones on, the music paving over my thoughts.
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I didn't do it,
not me â¦
She was sick,
anybody could see â¦
To take things so
seriously.
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A new rumor ran wild through school today. Morgan's shrine had been vandalized over the weekend. Objects that had been leftâballoons, photographs, lousy stuffed teddy bearsâwere destroyed, sympathy cards scattered everywhere. I heard it was a real mess. Somebody spray-painted on the side of the water tower, “BITCH DESERVED IT!”
No one could believe it. I mean, what the hell? More tears, more crying. Everyone acted shocked and horrified and outraged. And I guess we were, some of us.
I'm pretty sure I know who did it.
Athena doesn't even pretend to be upset. “We weren't friends, everybody knows that,” I heard her say.
Hate is an amazing thing. Some days it feels like hate makes the world go round. Other days, hate takes a day offâand stupidity steps in.
My stomach is empty; my brain's spitting exhaust. I feel like I'm on a boat in choppy waters, watching my guts heave over the railing. Food for the sharks.
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The second time I was alone with Morgan it was a couple of weeks past Pumpkin Fest. We were in the open grounds in the far back behind school, which happened to occupy a midpoint between both our houses. I had taken my chocolate lab, Max, and was blasting tennis balls into the stratosphere. Almost eight years old, Max still loved nothing better than chasing after those fuzzy green balls and bringing them back to me. Labs are hardwired that way: retrieve and please, retrieve and please. I wouldn't call Max an intellectual.
I actually enjoyed it, hitting those balls as far as I could and watching Max run and run. With Max and me, there was never any drama. No BS.
Whack,
I sent another ball flying, and Max bounded after it. The ball soared far and bounced high. Max leaped and snagged it on the first hop. I wish I had a mad vertical like that.
Even an athlete like Max gets tired after a while. I checked my phone while Max sniffed and selected a few trees to water.
Bark-bark-bark-bark, bark! Bark-bark, barky-BARKY bark-bark
!
A miniature white mop-like
thing
charged at me like a high-pitched, furry lunatic.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” a voice called out.
I looked and it was her, walking in my direction. Morgan collared the dog, still apologizing. “Sorry, Larry barks at everybody. I keep hoping he'll get over it, but⦔ There was no point finishing the sentence. She let it die there in the grass.
“Larry?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?” There was toughness in her voice. Defenses dialed all the way up.
“Nothing,” I said. “I like it.”
Her expression softened.
Max came over to check out the yappy dog. “Max, meet Larry,” I said, getting the introductions out of the way.
Morgan scratched Max around the neck and head. Max leaned against her legs gratefully, surrendering to the affection. The little mop-freak dog kept jealously
barkBARKbarking
.
I stared at my phone, scrolled.
Morgan pulled her cell out of a coat pocket.
We stood there in awkward proximity, alone on a field, playing games with our phones. Silence drifted over us like clouds.
I pocketed the cell.
“Bye,” I said.
I don't remember if she answered me, but Morgan called to Max, “See ya, boy!”
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I found out she took dance lessons after school. Tuesdays and Thursdays. She loved her dog. But mostly, her parents told the reporters, she liked quiet things. Staying home, playing board gamesâboard games! I didn't know thatâwhich ones, I wonder?âand watching movies.
So maybe not so different after all.
Now that she's gone, I think about those dance lessons. She must have gone to one of those places in town, “Miss Genevieve's” or “The Jazz Experience.” It could be where she first encountered Athena. Hmm. Was that the beginning of the end? I never got the full details. Some fight over a boy. I imagine Morgan all happy and excited in her spandex tutu or whatever she wore, muffin top poking out in lumps. She wasn't a super-pretty girl. A little thick, especially toward the summer, when she gained a lot of weight. Like she stopped caring altogether. But when I picture her now in my memory, moving silently through the halls, arms crossed over her books, head down, not meeting anyone's eyes, I think maybe she did have a certain dancer's grace beneath it all. There were days I found myself following her down the hall. We had the same math class, and both of us had the same long walk to band at the other end of the building.
I'd sometimes settle in behind herânot directly, but more the way a sly detective tails a guy in a carâholding back a few spots, changing lanes, keeping things under my hat. Her shoulders were sloped, roundish, as if she hoped to pull herself into a ball. There were times, though, when maybe she forgot herselfâor forgot everybody else, I guessâand she walked tall, head high, and I could see that she was actually beautiful, no matter what anybody said.
For, you know, a social outcast everyone hated.
We never once spoke in school.
Not once.
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I SEE HER FLYING WITHOUT WINGS
That's when I finally stammer
hello
& she's gone.
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I can't explain Athena's power without stating the obvious.
She was beautiful. I mean,
smoking
. Everybody knew it. You couldn't
not
look at Athena Luikin. The blond hair, the lips, her flawless skin, and tight body. Athena was a legend from the time when five different elementary schools came together in one building.
The guys talked.
“Have you seenâ¦?”
“She's in my English class.”
“Smoking hot.”
She was the original sexy girl in our lives. Athena's outward appearance gave her celebrity and power. It's easy to see now that Athena had issues of her own. Inside that spectacular body there was, I suppose, an ordinary person with the usual assortment of flaws and insecurities. Back in the early days of middle school, she seemed like a gift from Mount Olympus, so the guys were all willing to accept a certain level of elitist behavior. We just naturally assumed she was better than us and, really, on many levels, she just was. To this day, I'm not sure why girls follow her lead, but they do. Maybe everybody gives “pretty” too much credit.
Athena hated (hated,
hated
!) Morgan Mallen and made it her life's mission to make Morgan as miserable as possible. And when it came to dealing out misery, Athena had a natural gift for it. I'm saying she was
good
at it.
Look, that's life. There are always going to be unpopular people in the worldâand everybody knows that girls can be so cruel. Sure, guys can be brutal too. There's some big dummies walking around, knuckles dragging. I once watched Dominick Demeri beat Eddie Santana to a bloody pulp just for cutting his legs out from under him on the basketball court. It wasn't intentional, but Dominick didn't see it that way. He went a little crazy. The next day, life moved on, and after Eddie got out of the hospital, nobody thought about it much. I didn't anyway.
Athena had a different style. With one withering remark, she could shred someone's soul into thin strips. She'd tease the jugular vein out of your throat, sprinkle sugar on it, and suck it down like a raw oyster while you watched.