That night, I find myself in a circle of girls. At first I think it’s just some kind of school function, but then one of them tells me this is an intervention.
I wonder if my mom’s there, but no. She hasn’t managed to be responsible enough to make it into my dream.
“I just wish Chris had the guts to actually stay in touch with someone,” Poe says to me.
I notice that since she’s moved, she’s become even darker, like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo dark.
“I just wish Chris knew what he wanted when it came to girls,” Kelsey says.
She’s got gigantic glasses on and one of those contraptions for braces that I’ve only seen in movies, the kind where it looks like you’re in a neck brace and have wires all around your head.
“I just wish Chris had gotten to me in time,” Jocelyn says. “We all know that record he set in hurdles wasn’t really a record at all.”
Jocelyn doesn’t look like herself at all.
That’s ’cause you’re forgetting what she looked like. Isn’t that right, Chris?
“Why are you all talking about him in the third person?” Lily says, standing up and taking my hand. “Come on, Chris. Let me take you out of here.”
“All Chris ever does is ignore me,” a permanently smiling mannequin says to me as I stand up.
Suddenly I hear a Lady Gaga tune blaring.
What was in that burger I had at lunch?
Then I see my mom’s aunt Alice next to the mannequin. She looks puzzled as she says, “Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!”
As I take Lily’s hand, I wake up and find myself no longer stuck in a bad romance.
It’s just me and my crazy mind and my narrow bed and the window I’m so used to seeing right next to it.