“So, did he buy it?” Seth asked, lighting a clove cigarette the moment they turned out of the neighborhood.
“Yeah, he bought it.”
Lilah grimaced at the tall, frost-covered oaks passing by, their thick branches bending beneath a heavy layer of residual snow after last week’s blizzard. She didn’t like lying to her father, who literally risked his life to put food on the table for the two of them. Lilah’s mother had passed away when she was just eleven months old. Stanley never talked about his late wife and would clam up whenever Lilah pressed. Within a year of her death, all of her mementos had been carefully locked away in boxes that were exiled to the attic. Only a handful of photos of her were even allowed in the house, one of which was set in a small, oval frame that collected dust on the far corner of Stanley’s nightstand. Sometimes, when he was at the station, Lilah would sneak into his room and sit on his checkered comforter, gazing at the mother she couldn’t remember. There were times when she’d stare at the photo for the better part of an hour, looking for a similarity that they might have shared. But where Lilah’s long hair was auburn-red – the color of changing oak leaves in the fall – with waves that turned to curls in humidity, her mother’s shoulder-length hair was jet-black and bone straight. Lilah’s round hazel eyes met chestnut-colored almond-shaped eyes, and her small plump mouth frowned at her mother’s wide, lovely lips. But she found comfort in the woman’s smile, and sometimes, when she smiled at herself in the mirror, she saw glimpses of her mother there.
Lilah leaned back in the passenger seat and sighed, wondering if she should have just told her father the truth. Who knows? Maybe he would have said yes.
… And maybe pigs would have flown out of my butt, she grimaced.
“So-o? Is that what you’re wearing tonight?” Seth asked, jarring Lilah from her thoughts.
She looked down at her green sweater self-consciously. “Yes?”
Seth shook his head in exasperation, coughing on the drag of cigarette he had just taken as they turned onto Main Street. Lilah bit her lip; ever since Benny had broken up with him – very publicly, in the middle of the cafeteria, just days after Seth had used the “L” word – Seth had been acting… differently. Goofy, light-hearted jokes had been replaced by snarky comments. His denim jacket, which he and Lilah had spent hours ironing nerdy patches onto, was ditched in place of a studded leather jacket. And, much to Lilah’s dismay, the packs of sour gummy worms that he used to always carry in his pockets had been swapped out for clove cigarettes, the second-hand smoke of which made both of their clothes smell awful by the time they got to school each morning.
“Well, lucky for you, I figured you’d wear something lame, so I got you a little something at the mall last night.” He tilted his head toward the black shopping bag in the backseat.
Lilah gave him a puzzled look as she reached behind his seat to grab the bag. Inside was a very short black denim dress, with holes intentionally worn into the sides and safety pins haphazardly holding the fraying fabric together. Besides the fact that it was nothing like anything she would ever even consider wearing in public, she stared at the dress in awe, fingering the outrageous price tag.
“Seth, how on earth did you afford this?”
“It’s easy to break off the security tag when the fabric is already bla-a-ack,” he answered in a sing-songy voice. “I bet you can’t even tell where the ink exploded! Just don’t wash it with the rest of your laundry or you might find yourself sitting at the goth table for the rest of the year.”
“Wait… you stole this?” she asked incredulously, fingering the holes in the fabric. “What were you thinking? What if you’d been caught?”
“Um, okay? I think you mean, ‘Gee, thank you so much, Seth, for getting me this amazing dress and helping me look like a hottie for my first ever rock concert’? You’re welcome, by the way. Or have you forgotten that Jace will be there tonight?”
Lilah felt her face flush. “I didn’t forget,” she muttered, just as the alarm on her watch started beeping. She took the container of pills from her pocket, started to unscrew the lid, then groaned. “Crap, I forgot my water bottle at home. Do you have anything to drink? Where’s that grape slushie I left in here yesterday?” She twisted around to check the cup holder in the backseat.
“Dumped it. Thanks for leaving your trash in my car, by the way.”
“I’ll just run to the water fountain before homeroom,” she muttered to herself, glancing at the old analog watch her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday.
“Don’t you think it’s kind of weird that your dad makes you take pills for something you don’t have?” Seth asked, eyeing Lilah sideways as he turned into the school parking lot.
“What do you mean?” Lilah shifted in her seat uncomfortably. She was antsy to get out of his car and into class, where she could get away from his gross-smelling cigarettes and his increasingly petulant mood – for a few hours, at least.
Seth put his cigarette out in an old McDonald’s cup that had been repurposed as an ashtray. “I mean, my cousin Rick has actual epilepsy, and he walks around his college campus with a foam helmet because he blacks out at least twice a week. It’s not like you ever black out. All you ever do is complain about headaches.”
Lilah picked at one of her green fingernails self-consciously. “My dad says I used to have seizures as a baby. The medicine prevents them from happening now. It doesn’t always work for certain kinds of epilepsy so Dr. Kreuter says I’m really lucky that the medicine works so well – otherwise I would be walking around town with a foam helmet. Can we go to class now?” she asked, pulling her backpack strap onto her shoulder. Without waiting for a response, she stepped out of the car, being especially careful not to slam the door after Seth had yelled at her about it last week, and started walking briskly toward the front doors. With noticeably few students loitering about the snow-covered lawn, Lilah couldn’t help but groan. First period would be starting in less than a minute and she had already racked up enough tardies this semester. One more and Mrs. Cameron would be stringing her up by her toes – something she had publicly threatened to do the last time Lilah skidded into class, nearly ten minutes late.
Seth jogged beside her, already out of breath despite the short distance they’d traveled. “I’m just saying, have you ever tried not taking them? Just to see what happens?”
“As much fun as it sounds – you know, walking around with protective head gear and randomly keeling over in the cafeteria – I think I’ll pass,” Lilah replied dryly.
For the first time all week, Seth grinned at her widely, and the spray of freckles splashed across his cheeks caught a beam of sunlight poking through the early morning clouds. For a moment, he looked like the best friend Lilah had known since third grade, the sweet boy who was always laughing and joking and offering heartfelt hugs. But it was only a very brief moment.
“I mean, look at it this way: Worst-case scenario, if you pass out in the middle of class, Jace might finally notice you.”
Lilah rolled her eyes, just as the warning bell chimed. “Nice. I gotta go. See you at lunch!”
Before Seth could reply with a likely-sarcastic comment, Lilah ran into the old brick building, not bothering to stop at a water fountain on the way to class. Even if she didn’t actually string Lilah up by her toes, Mrs. Cameron had all but promised her detention if she showed up late one more time that week. And even though it was Seth’s fault that she was about to be tardy yet again, he’d kill her if she had to bail on their concert plans later because she was stuck at the school cleaning whiteboards. Besides, she’d taken her pill an hour late in the past and nothing bad had ever happened.
Maybe Seth’s right, she couldn’t help but think to herself as she raced through the nearly empty hallway. Maybe I should skip a day or two, just to see how I feel. Even Dr. Kreuter said that plenty of kids outgrow childhood epilepsy as they get older.
The thought seemed reasonable enough. If she skipped a dose and didn’t feel well, at least she’d know for sure that she hadn’t outgrown it. And if she really didn’t need her medicine after all, it would mean that she could finally do all the things that everyone else in her grade got to do – like drive herself to school. Her mind made up, Lilah felt a surge of exhilaration – choosing not to take her medicine provided her with a small taste of the independence that she had always wanted. And the risk seemed small enough; after all, it was just a day or two without pills. She smiled to herself as she pulled the door open to her classroom.
What’s the worst that could happen?