The Unquiet (22 page)

“Man,” Tasha breathes. “This is, like, stalker stuff.”

Instead of reacting, Lacy simply hands over the final paper. “This is from Wednesday. This is the last time I wrote him.”

You asshole! How dare you ignore my e-mails? What are you doing over there, screwing some Japanese slut? Well, FYI I have a NEW boyfriend now and he’s way hotter than you in EVERY WAY! Believe me, I know cuz I’ve been fucking him for YEARS! BTW if you think I’m having any baby by you, think again, freak! I don’t care if I have to jump in front of a train! I wish you were dead! I HATE YOU, YOU BASTARD! Good-bye forever.

Speechless, we all pass it around. Then Meg ventures, “Um, why would you write this?”

“I didn’t! I mean, I know I
wrote
him that night. But I pretty much said what I said in all the others. B-but
this
”—she slaps the paper—“is what he
got
from me.” She draws herself up, rigid with suspicion. “You guys didn’t do it, right? I mean, Meg’s got my password, and—”

Meg gasps. “I’d never! None of us would.”

Lacy slumps back against her pink wicker headboard. “I know. I—I just had to ask. I keep trying to figure out how this happened. But it’s my e-mail address, right? And it’s in my sent mail, so I know I sent it—I just don’t know why! I swear to God I don’t remember
doing
it.” She cries harder, her words barely coherent. “I had a headache that night, the worst one ever. It hurt so bad I just wanted to die! And now I hope I do. Because I
can’t
lose Chad. I’d
rather
be dead!”

“Don’t say that,” Meg pleads. “You have to think about the baby.”

Lacy can’t, or won’t answer. For a minute or two all we hear are her hysterical sobs. I yank a fistful of Kleenex from a pink crocheted box and hand it over.

“You’re right,” she blubbers, mopping her face. “I do love my baby. It’s all I have left.”

“Everything’ll be fine,” Meg soothes. “We’ll even throw you a shower. We’ll babysit and everything!”

Lacy’s eyes shine. “You will?”

“Sure. You just have to, you know, tell your folks about this, Lace.”

“Omigod, they’ll kill me! I’d rather kill
myself.
” She slaps Meg away. “Leave me alone, all of you! Just, just go away …”

Tasha argues, “You can’t say you want to kill yourself and then expect us to go away.”

“Oh yes, I can!” Lacy’s unexpected rage petrifies me. “I guess I’ll just have to wait till you bitches aren’t around.”

Meg ignores that. “You don’t want to die.”

“You don’t,” Tasha echoes. “No dude’s worth that.”

From an unfathomable distance I hear myself say, “Maybe she does.”

Three stunned faces whip in my direction.

“Are you nuts?” Meg cries.

I stare into Lacy’s moist, venomous eyes. “I know you feel like dying. But don’t try it. Because if you screw it up, Lacy, it’ll make everything worse.”

I drag down my turtleneck to display, on purpose, the scar they’re too polite, or too afraid, to ask me about.

“Trust me,” I say quietly. “I know.”

“Open it!” I tried to dodge around Frank to reach the casket myself. “Open it! Please, I have to see her!” I wanted to see for
myself that Nana didn’t burn to death, didn’t lie there screaming while flames devoured her flesh

Frank shoved me away, his eyes filled with hate. Nobody ever looked at me like that before. Nobody’s looked at me like that since. “Get the hell away from her!”

The jolt knocked the fight right out of me. Mom stepped forward with a strangled sound—and that’s when I felt myself reaching that plane. The same plane, I know now, that Cecilia seeks whenever she’s trapped in a closed space with no hope for escape.

Tucked safely up where no one could reach me, I watched the scene play out below. Mom, in a sleeveless black dress and an elegant chignon, dabbing her eyes. Frank, in a suit and tie, his ponytail neat, beard expertly trimmed, looking deceptively like an anguished old man.

I saw myself, too, in shorts and sandals and a grungy tank top, not the dressy black suit Mom brought home from Neiman Marcus. My hair, unwashed for days, reeked of smoke and salt water and glittered with sand.

I saw how people veered around me, embarrassed. Because they already suspected I put Nana in that flower-draped casket? Because they knew of my reputation for being surly and unpredictable? Or because I looked so filthy, and possibly smelled worse than I looked?

I couldn’t distinguish the murmuring of the guests from the Voices in my mind. The good Voice soothed me. The bad ones taunted me.

I moved away from my parents. Like walking on a sponge, my sandals sunk inches into the floor with each awkward step.
People smirked, suspecting I was stoned, but I had to move. Only constant movement kept the worst of the Voices at bay.

I weaved around people, strangely alert though I’d already gone three days without sleep—pretty typical of me. I liked strolling the streets or the beach all night. I knew where the stoners hung out, who’d share a blunt or a beer. I knew who was safe. I also knew who might hurt me.

If the police picked me up for breaking curfew—or worse—Frank usually convinced them to let him take me home, or back to the hospital for another “evaluation.”

I had no boyfriends, only guys I slept with for dope. No girlfriends, either. The last one I lost because I’d picked open her back door and hung out for two days while she and her family were vacationing in the Bahamas. I lost the one before because I hooked up with her boyfriend. I don’t remember
why
I hooked up. I pretty much hated the dude.

To this day I don’t remember a lot of things.

I do remember the beach, and watching the smoke billowing from Nana’s cottage.

I remember asking Frank about the piano, and Frank’s horrific rage.

I remember all the psychiatrists. All the pills I flushed. All the times Mom pleaded with me to
take them, Rinn, please, just take the pills!

But the pills made me too groggy to function. And, like I told Nate, I missed the highs. I missed feeling invincible. Sometimes I even missed the shadow people and the Voices, the only friends I had left when even my teachers learned to keep their distance. If you’re forced to live your life in a lonely stupor, then tell me: What’s the point of living at all?

At Nana’s funeral, I
was
on drugs; Frank made sure of it. Although what he crammed down my throat didn’t stop the Voices, it did make me understand Nana was dead, that her funeral was real, and that I, Corinne Katherine Jacobs, was responsible for it all.

I was drugged on the outside, but wild and frantic inside, like a snake trying to shed a skin made from glass.
I had to get out of there
. I swiped Mom’s cell phone from her purse, hid out in a bathroom stall, and punched 4-1-1 to get the number for a cab. At that precise moment, several ladies walked in.

This was what I heard:

“… they need to lock her up and throw away the key.”

“Monica will never stand for it.”

“Poor Frank. To think he raised her as his own. Did you hear her out there?”

“I’ll bet he’s ready to slash his throat.”

“Or hers.”
Chuckle, chuckle
.

“That girl’s not right. Don’t they have places for kids like that?”

“Sure they do. And Monica better wise up before they
all
end up dead.”

Toilets flushed, water ran, and then the automatic hand dryer drowned everything out. By the time the motor stopped, the women were gone.

Alone again, I dropped the phone in the toilet with a thunk and a splash.

Monica better wise up before they ALL end up dead …

Haunted, bones clanking, I waded off through the invisible sludge, thinking:
This is how they want me to spend my life. Walking in quicksand. Terrified I’ll murder the rest of my family.

Downstairs, caterers darted to and fro, arranging lunch meat and pickles and loaves of bread. The bread knives looked sharp. The Voices raged like the surf on Nana’s beach, the words garbled, yet perfectly clear nonetheless.

I knew what to do. But there was no place private enough to do it.

So I left, and slapped back home in my sandals, sunburned and exhausted by the time I arrived. The cold house smelled unfamiliar, the home of strangers. Halos of color danced around the lights, magnified by my double vision.

The phone rang, scaring the shadow people from the walls.

“It’s okay,” I said to them, and to myself.

At Frank’s desk I printed out a note and propped it next to a picture of me.

The phone rang again, and again, and again. Then stopped.

Calmness descended.

It’s okay. It’s okay.

I cracked open a pack of replacement blades for Frank’s razor. I filled the tub in the master suite and turned on the Jacuzzi. Dying on the beach might’ve been nice. Lying in the sun and tasting the salty wind while your blood seeps away into warm, swirling sand.

Too late for that. I’m already here.

I climbed into the water in my shorts and tank top. People do this naked on TV, but I couldn’t take the chance Frank might find me first.

The razor sparkled in my surprisingly steady hand. Those women from the rest room must’ve followed me home; they circled the foaming tub, repeating the same truthful words:

Poor Frank. And to think he raised her as his own.

I’ll bet he’s ready to slash his throat.

Or hers.

Detached, I whispered to Frank, “I’ll save you the trouble.”

I reached up and dug the razor blade into my neck. It was easier than I’d thought. Kind of like slicing into a not-quite-ripe pear.

You really need to die, Rinn. You really do. It’s okay.

I drew the blade downward. I felt no pain.

Then I tilted my head to one side and watched the water turn red.

“My mom found me, not Frank. She’ll never get over it. I was in a psych ward for a month. My whole family’s screwed up. Is that what you want?” I ask Lacy.

Lacy says nothing, only stares at her lap. Tasha confides, “We wondered how you got that scar. My mom said not to ask you.”

Meg reaches for my hand. “We won’t say a word. Right?”

“Right!” Tasha rests her own hand on Meg’s. “So what are you? I mean, what do they call it?”

“Bipolar,” I admit.

Tasha nods. “Oh, that’s really popular now. Like autism, right?”

Scandalized, Meg huffs, “Do you
ever
think before opening your mouth?”

I smile, anyway. “It’s okay. I’m glad you guys know.”
Though I’m not so sure about Lacy.
“It’s so hard keeping it a secret.”

“Does Nate know?” Meg asks.

“Yes. He still likes me, though.”

“Duh!” Tasha squeals. “Like, nobody can tell?”

My smile expands. They really
don’t
care. But can I trust them not to spread the word around school? What are the chances of my secret staying safe with, say, Lacy?

I peek over. Lacy hasn’t said a word. Is she mad because I hijacked the attention away from her? That wasn’t my plan. I only wanted her to know that killing yourself isn’t as simple as you think.

Lacy sucks in her breath. But instead of speaking, she doubles over, her face contorted. Before any of us can ask what’s wrong, I spy the blood on the quilt under her jeans.