"So we went and got pizza and by the time I was halfway through my second slice, I was already a lot calmer and I was able to figure out what to do."
"That's a nice story, Roger."
"Stop being so sarcastic. I'm trying to explain to you..." He leans forward again. "I miss her, too, Kyra."
"God, I know that! You tell me that all the time!"
"Well, maybe that's because I don't think you believe me. Or understand it. Do you know what it's like for me? You are so. Much. Like. Her. Do you know what that's like?"
I press my lips together real tight, so nothing can slip out.
"It's ... You look like her. Beautiful like her. Your voice ... It's hurts, Kyra. And I shouldn't take it out on you. I know that. I can't help it sometimes. I just can't. And I'm trying. I'm really trying. But it's tough. I don't have all the answers. I can't pretend that I have all the answers. And sometimes ... God. I see you do this stuff to yourself. To your body. The piercings..." He gestures around his face. "Poking holes in your beautiful face. It's like watching your mother get tortured. Shaving your head. Wearing all black. Or all white. Whatever. It's like I'm seeing it happen to you and to her. It's like adding insult to injury. don't you get that?"
Well, hell. What am I supposed to say to that? I touch the stud in my nose, then the little ring in my lip. "I like my piercings."
He groans. "I know that. I'm not saying—"
"No, you don't know that. You think it's just, like, acting out or something. But I like my piercings. They make me me. I got each one for a different reason. I remember what I was thinking and feeling each time. And every time I look at them or feel them or touch them, I remember those times."
He looks surprised. I probably do, too. I've never told him anything like that.
"OK," he says. "I get that. But it's still tough for me. To see you do these things to yourself. Because it's like watching your mom, but it's also you. My daughter. My little girl. So I'm seeing the two women I love most in this world ... I'm watching them fall apart. I'm watching them..." Tears spill down his face. "I'm watching you try to kill yourself. And watching her die. All over again."
"I'm not Mom. I'm me."
"You don't understand. You're too young."
"Stop saying that! You always say that! I'm not a little kid. I was there, too, y'know. I watched her dying, too. You think you're the only one who gets this shit? Huh? You think you're the only one?"
"Some things you just can't understand until you're older—"
"Stop it!" I'm shrieking. "Just stop saying that! I'm sick of it! I was old enough to watch her die, OK? I'm old enough to make my own decisions and shave my head if I want to and wear what I want and look how I want, OK? Stop telling me I'm a goddamn child because I'm not. Not anymore."
"You are a child. You're my child. And you'll be my child when you're forty years old. You'll never not be my child."
I hate it when he says stuff like that. I turn away from him in my chair.
"I will never stop worrying about you. Even if Webber and Kennedy and a whole platoon of shrinks and judges tell me that you're the sanest person on the planet and you would never in a million years ever again dream of trying to hurt yourself. I will still worry, Kyra. Because I'm your dad and you're my child, like it or not. I would worry about you getting hit by a bus or getting your heart broken or getting ... getting cancer. That's how it is, and there's nothing you can do that will make me stop worrying about you or stop loving you."
I hear him get up from the bed. I grip the edge of my desk tight with both hands. Squeeze. My eyes are hot and itchy with tears. I squeeze them, too. I won't let the tears fall. I won't.
Hear his footsteps on the carpet. Right behind me.
Hands on my shoulders.
Hands on my shoulders and I go back in time, just like in a comic book. A panel transition:
Panel 1: We see KYRA from the front, sitting at her desk. She is SIXTEEN in this scene, with a nose stud and a fetching little ring piercing the corner of her mouth. Her head is shaved, not quite smooth because it's been about a day and a half since she last shaved it, and she's wearing one of her old-style all-black Goth Girl outfits. Her eyes are closed tight and her face is screwed up in agony and rage. Standing behind her—visible only from the chest to the waist—is her FATHER, who is resting both hands on her shoulders. He's wearing a dress shirt and a tie that's loosened around his neck.
Panel 2: Same angle, same players, only now it's four years previous, so no piercings and Kyra's hair is brown and long. It's actually sort of pretty. Kyra is standing now, dressed in all black still, but this time it's a dress—she's in mourning, standing at her mother's graveside service. She is NOT crying. She is looking down at the ground, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. DAD is behind her, in a black suit, his hands resting on her shoulders.
PRIEST (off-panel): ... commit our sister, Patricia Katherine, to the hands of God and of Jesus, His only begotten Son...
I freeze up at his touch. Back to the grave. It didn't rain, but it was overcast and people kept talking about how it was a miracle that it didn't rain. Talk, talk, talk. That's all they did. Talk. My mother was dead and all they could do was talk about the goddamn weather. Yeah, a miracle. Big effing miracle. No rain. What a waste of a goddamn miracle. Nice one, God. Let my mom die, but make sure it doesn't rain at her funeral. Where are your effing priorities?
I won't cry. I won't.
"You have to be strong," he said to me when she was dying. "Be strong for her. Don't let her see you upset. That will just make her upset."
So I listened. Because he was Dad and I believed him. I believed him when he said that if I was strong, she would be strong. If I was strong, she would be strong and she would live.
But he lied. Because she wasn't strong. She was weak. She died.
But I will still be strong. I will always be strong. I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
I set my lips in a line. I crunch my eyelids even tighter, willing my tears away.
"Is that why you sent me away?"
His hands shake on my shoulders. "What did you say?"
And there are no tears now. No sadness. No grief. I've chased it away with anger, like I always do. Anger and sadness are like cats and dogs. One runs the other up into a tree and leaves it there.
"I said"—I pull forward and away from him, twisting around to face him—"is that why you sent me away? Because I remind you of her? Because you can't stand to look at me?"
"What? What? How could you even think that?"
"Because you just told me that, Roger. You just told me that. You can't stand seeing her everywhere, so you got rid of me."
He backs up. For the first time, I can't read the expression on his face. How did we get here? I don't care.
"I sent you away because you tried to kill yourself!"
"Really? You know what they called me in the hospital, Roger? DCHH. You know what that means? It means 'Daddy Couldn't Handle Her.' It means some rich phone company guy couldn't be bothered being a parent, so he just locked up his daughter and let a bunch of nurses and orderlies and doctors drug her up and handle her for him."
"Handle you? God, Kyra—no one can handle you! I certainly can't. I'm surprised anyone could! You think it's easy being a single parent?"
"I don't give a shit about how hard it is to be a goddamn single parent! It's your own goddamn fault you're a single parent! You're the one who should have died. I wish you died instead of her!"
"Oh? Oh? Really? Guess what? Guess what. I do, too, Kyra! I do, too! You think I don't know that? don't you think I would trade my life for hers?"
"You should. You should feel that way. You're the one who killed her!"
And that's it. That's the end of it. That's the biggest gun I have, with the biggest possible bullet. We've danced around it for years. We've said everything else for years. That he was the one who should have died. That he was the one who wanted to die. All of it.<
br />
But we both knew the truth all along. We never said it, but we knew it, and it was time for someone to say it out loud—that Dad killed her. She got lung cancer from living with him, from breathing in his smoke every day for the thirteen years they were married and the years before that when they dated. He killed her.
"You killed her." I say it again. It feels wonderful to say it out loud after so long. It feels awful. It tastes like cigarette ash on my tongue.
"Stop it," he whispers.
"You killed her."
"Shut up! Don't you dare say that!"
"It's the truth, Dad! Why can't I tell the truth? You killed her. You killed Mom."
"Shut! Up!" And his hands become fists and I'm pretty sure he's gonna hit me, but I don't care—I keep going:
"You smoked her to death. You killed her. You gave her cancer and killed her."
He spins around and screams, and when he turns back to me, his face is blood red. "Stop it, Kyra! Just stop it!"
He stomps to the door. "You're grounded. You're not going anywhere."
"Oh, yeah?" I jump up. "Oh, yeah? For how long?"
"Until I decide you're not!"
"Great! That's great, Roger. Why not just send me away again?"
"Maybe I will!" he yells, and slams my door on the way out.
Suicide
I'M BLIND WITH ANGER. MY FINGERS are numb with it. I can't even see the computer screen. I can't feel the keyboard.
I don't know how long I sit at my desk. I don't know how much time passes. Roger's bedroom door slammed once, shaking the house, and then silence. It's been just dead silence in the house since.
It was. It was his fault. And he knows it.
And he takes it out on me. His fault. My punishment.
Like everyone else in my life. I tell them the truth, I tell them about themselves, and they punish me for it. Like Fanboy betraying me. Like Miss Powell getting pissed and whining to the Spermling.
I rest my hands on the desk, palms up. My scars shine in the light from the computer screen. Yeah, it hurt when I did it, but it also felt good and true.
Maybe that's my destiny. Maybe that's what I'm meant for. If this world doesn't want to listen to what I have to say, maybe it's time to leave it.
That makes sense, right? doesn't it?
I think maybe that's the secret that suicides know. When people don't leave a note, I mean. you've got some people who do it because they're about to be caught doing something. Or people who do it because they were caught. But I think that all those people who kill themselves for "no reason," all of those people who do it and don't tell us why ... I think it's because they know the truth. They know what I know, which is this:
We don't all fit in this world.
And for those of us who don't, we have a choice. We can stay and suffer, or we can go and meet that perky Goth Girl, Death, and let her take us by the hand and walk us into what Neil called "the sunless lands."
That doesn't sound so bad. Why do people have to make it sound so bad?
Staring down at my scars, I notice Kennedy's business card again.
If you feel like you're going to hurt yourself, I want you to call me. Anytime. I don't care if it's three in the morning on Christmas and you figure I'm busy playing Santa Claus. Call me. I'll answer.
Is this an emergency?
I know what he would say. Do I need to call him if I already know what he would say?
I want you to take some deep breaths, Kyra. Do that for me, will you? Good. And now I want you to do me a favor, OK? I want you to promise me—swear to me—that as long as we're on the phone together, you will not hurt yourself, OK? Will you do that?
And I would. Because it's Dr. Kennedy.
And then he would keep me on the phone. And if this number is a cell, he'd probably get in the car and he'd be talking to me the whole time and I'd be not hurting myself the whole time. And by the time he got here, honestly, he probably would have talked me out of killing myself because he really is pretty good at his job.
You've had arguments with your father before. What made this one worse than usual?
My father doesn't try to deal with me. He just tries to shut me up. And I won't let myself be shut up.
And Kennedy would tell me to chill out. He wouldn't say it that way because he's old, but that would be the point of it all. He would tell me the truths that other adults can't be bothered to tell: that, yeah, the world pretty much sucks most of the time. But the point of life isn't to live in a world that doesn't suck. The point is to try to make it suck a little bit less.
I get it. I really do. I even said to him once, "That's what I do. I tell people shit they need to know."
And he said, "I know that. You're not polite about it, but I know that's what you do. And that's fine. And someday, you'll find someone who appreciates not just what you do, but how you do it."
All the things he's said ... All the things he would say ...
I reach for my cell phone.
Sixty-six
WHERE ARE YOU?
Jecca texts back: on teh way to par-tay!!!!
What am I doing? Dr. Kennedy talked me out of killing myself—for now—without saying a single word or even knowing what was going on. Which—I've decided—is the mark of a totally kick-ass therapist.
The party? I look at the time. Holy shit. It's eleven o'clock! How long was I arguing with Roger? How long was I sitting here like a zombie?
Why did I text her? What the hell is wrong with me?
Ugh. No. Be honest, Kyra. You're honest about other people's screwups. Maybe you should be honest about your own.
So. OK. You texted Jecca because ... because you want to go over to her house. And kiss her. Feel that comfort, that warmth that you never get anywhere else. That makes you feel weak, but it's OK with Jecca because since you never talk about it, it's like it never really happened. Once it's over, it's like it never happened at all.
Now what? She's on her way to the party...
God, I can't stay in this house tonight. I just can't. Not after all that shit. I don't even want to work on Operation: Destroy Fanboy.
Pick me up?
I wait. I wait. What's taking her so long to respond?
My phone chirps.
squee!!!!!!!!!
Good.
Top of street, I tell her. I'm grounded until parole, so I can't just have Sim pull up to the house.
I clean up around my desk, just in case Roger decides to come in here and look for shit. Which he totally would, that bastard.
I lock my door, not that that'll stop him. I stuff the usual bunch of clothes and pillows and shit under the sheets and then I turn out the light and grab my messenger bag and take advantage of living in a rancher and go out the window.
Friggin' fuh-reezing out! Almost Thanksgiving, and the air's like ice on my head, and I wonder what Roger'll get me for Christmas, ha-ha. Maybe a new batch of antidepressants.
I shiver and hug myself to stay warm. Even with the scarf on, my head still feels like a gallon of ice cream.
I walk up to where my street intersects with the main road. There are some house lights on and a big billboard lit up on the main road, so it's not totally dark, just colder than ass. I start dancing from one foot to the other, shivering and thinking that maybe this was a shitty idea because I don't really want to go to a party, but it's better than hanging out at home and not killing myself, right?
After ten friggin' billion years, Simone's car comes over the rise and pulls over to the curb. Jecca's bouncing in the passen ger seat, waving, and when I get in the back, there's music playing so loud that I can barely hear Sim and Jecca shout, "Katherine's baaaaaack!" and then convulse with giggles.
"Turn up the effing heat!" I yell over the music. "I think my ovaries are frozen!"
Sim laughs and cranks up the heat. I lean back, clutching my bag to my chest, and let the hot air blast me back to life.
Jecca twists around to look at me. "What did yo
u bring?"
"What?"
Sim adjusts the rearview so that she can look at me. "Yeah, what's with the bag? Are you camping out tonight? Doing homework at the party?"
I stare at Sim's eyes in the mirror, then move over to Jecca's, wondering what they mean, and then...
And then oh shit!
I'm an idiot! I'm a total effing idiot!
What the hell was I thinking? I grabbed my messenger bag, but not my purse. My house keys, my wallet ... they're back home. So's my cell, still plugged into the charger.
I open my mouth to tell Sim to turn around, but then I shut up. It's too risky to go back. It's one thing to sneak out of the house and then sneak back in. That's two chances to get caught. But sneaking out, then back in, then back out again and then back in again ... I don't like those odds.
Shit again.
I look in the bag, hoping that maybe I tossed something useful in there without thinking about it or remembering it. But no such luck. It's just the stuff that I didn't bother to dump out at the end of the day, which looks like maybe my math book and a copy of our English anthology and something crumpled up at the bottom of the bag.
Shit times three.
"Forget about my bag. Let's just have some fun tonight."
It's like the first time in my life they've ever heard me say that, so they both whoop and holler and we go speeding off into the night.
Sixty-seven
SIMONE IS TOTALLY GETTING LAID TONIGHT. I know this because as we get out of the car at Pete Vesentine's house, she says, "I'm totally getting laid tonight." When it comes to this sort of thing, Simone is rarely, if ever, wrong. She's like her own personal oracle; she's got a crystal ball for sex.
Actually, I'd be sort of surprised if Sim didn't get laid five minutes after walking through the door. She looks like something out of one of Fanboy's superjerk comic books—a total boy fantasy in all white. Probably wearing the white so she'll stand out at the dark party, but also because she just bought it and damn if she won't wear it, even though I've gone back to black (for now). I have to admit—she looks hot. Belly shirt that shows off her little navel ring and her tight abs, along with a plunging neckline. With the help of some Victoria's Secret engineering, her small boobs look enormous, like they're about to spill out of her shirt. Then a very short white skirt and brand-new white fishnets that she's already ripped up. The dragon tattoo threads its way through the net, like it's been caught and caged and is ready to burst free.