Twenty-Three

I consider calling Ally and telling her that I’m tired and might have food poisoning and need to cancel dinner. The way I feel after seeing Lizzie’s mom, it isn’t stretching the truth.

But something about watching my parents put on their best “we’re pillars of the community” clothes and get ready to go to their charity dinner makes me not want to be alone. And besides, this is Ally. I may feel like crap, but I’m not stupid enough to cancel plans with her.

She’s right on time, which is great except that I fell asleep on the couch and have pillow lines impressed into the right side of my face when I get up to answer the door.

She smiles when she points it out. “You look cute this way,” she says. “Like a little boy.”

I duck into the half-bath downstairs and splash some water on my face. I’ll take the “cute” but I’m not sure how I feel about the “little boy” comment.

We order pizza and as we’re eating, I tell her about my visit to Lizzie’s mom.

“At least you did what you felt was right,” Ally says.

I eat the pepperoni off an extra slice. The grease might just be the best thing I’ve tasted since the accident. “Yeah, but Spencer warned me it would be a bust. I don’t know why I thought Lizzie’s mom would have changed.”

Ally picks at the salad we got as a side to at least fool ourselves into believing we were eating something healthy.

“I still think you’re brave to have gone over there. And what happened would have changed most people, I think. When I was little, after my mom died, my dad and I moved in with my grandmother. One day I came home and found her in the garden with a potted petunia in her hand. She’d died. Just like that. In the garden.”

The empty look on her face makes me shiver. “I’m sorry,” I say. “That must have been hard.”

Ally nods and puts her fork down. “We’d had a fight that morning. Well, I guess I was just being a brat. I was eight.”

I begin to tell her that I’m sorry again, but something in her expression stops me.

“My dad told me that my grandmother had a heart condition and that she’d lived a good life and all. But it was hard. She had a twin sister I was very close to. My aunt Tilly. I kept wanting to say something, but I couldn’t even look at her after that. I’m sure she thought I hated her.”

“How come you couldn’t talk to her?” I ask.

Ally looks up as if she’s surprised by my question. “I just couldn’t go through that again. I mean, what if Aunt Tilly died too? I felt like it was all my fault. All these people I loved dying. It felt easier just not to let myself be close to anyone.”

Aside from Lizzie, no one close to me has ever died. Given how big a piece of me she took with her, I can’t imagine how someone could survive losing so many people.

“Well, everyone dies eventually, right?” I choke out and instantly regret.

“Yeah, I just … ” Finally Ally stops, as if she’s suddenly realized who she’s talking to. “Sorry. You probably think that’s horrible of me. Let’s just talk about something else.”

I don’t know if I think it’s horrible, but I’m all for talking about something else. Thinking of Ally as some magnet for death doesn’t exactly comfort me. She doesn’t have to ask twice.

“Did you want to come upstairs to see the new telescope my parents got me? It’s awesome. I can hook a camera up to it and you can see the planets. Even Pluto. I mean, I know that Pluto isn’t really a planet anymore, but I think it should be and … ”

My nervous rambling works to change the subject, but it’s her smile that shuts me up.

“Cal Ryan, are you inviting me up to your room?”

Lizzie laughs as I sputter, “Um. Yeah, but not like that, I mean … ”

Ally’s smile brightens up her entire face. “Yes.”

The morning sun shines through the slats of the shade, sending lines all around the room that look like the just-mowed outfield grass on opening day.

I roll over and wallow in the vanilla smell on my pillow. Ally. Ally was here. Lying on my bed because we never quite made it to the window. Ally staring at the stick-on stars overhead while I pointed out constellations, explained retrograde, kissed her. Kissed her over and over and over again until I couldn’t catch my breath and until it felt like we were melting together into some new kind of creature. Kissed her until the world went away.

I get out of bed with a smile on my face that not even the realization that I forgot to take my meds last night can change. I know enough not to double my morning dose and figure I’ll call the doctor to see if I can pop by for a quick test this afternoon without my parents finding out. I’ve been perfect up until now, so I’m pretty sure missing that one dose isn’t going to do anything major.

I head to school and between thinking about last night and having Monday lunch with Ally to look forward to, I’m parading from class to class with a rare stupid grin on my face. That is, until I see something that almost brings me to my knees.

I lean against a row of lockers to keep from collapsing. The blood rushes through my ears like the roar of a crowd. It’s deafening and Lizzie is crying and wailing like I’ve never heard her before, not even when things with her mom were at their worst.

My hands are frozen into fists, the only fact keeping me from acting as I watch two of the janitorial crew repainting the inside of Lizzie’s locker. Had I thought about it, I’d have known that they couldn’t possibly leave her locker as it was. But at the same time, I can’t bear to watch three years of her work, probably her best work, being scrubbed away.

Lizzie’s paintings were usually dark and you could tell, from looking at what she was working on, how things were going at home. But this one painting, the one she kept locked behind a metal door where only she could see it, was inspiring and hopeful. Every time she added something to it, it seemed to take her one step closer to being happy in real life.

And now they’re destroying it.

It feels like nothing more or less than them ripping Lizzie’s heart out of my chest.

Stop them, Cal. Stop them.

Lizzie is screaming in my head and I seriously want to pull these workmen off of her locker and shove the paintbrushes they’re holding down their throats. There’s only a tiny kernel in the back of my brain that realizes they’re just doing their job and I try to hold tight onto that little rational cell. But my ears are ringing from Lizzie’s cries and I want to open my mouth and let her scream come out.

It feels like she’s kicking her steel-toed boots against the sides of my head and it’s all I can do to keep from doubling over in pain. I don’t know what to do. Kids are streaming past me on their way to lunch or class. Everyone is pushing and shoving and laughing, but I don’t move. I make them maneuver around me as I stand there like a statue, paying testament to Lizzie’s every last brush stroke.

You can’t let them do this. You can’t …

Only when these guys are done, when they’ve made Lizzie’s locker the same dull gray-brown as the other 1,402 in the school, and they’ve cleaned their brushes, and picked up their drop cloths, only then does it feel like it’s possible for me to move my legs again.

Without thinking about anything except getting as far away as possible from the scene of this destruction, I head outside. The air feels cool on my face and only then do I realize that my face is wet with tears. Before I know it, I’m at the one place at the school that has always made me feel at home: the baseball field.

The ground is wet from the rain so I crawl into the dugout like a kid hiding under the covers in the middle of a nightmare. I know I’m alone, that no one has any reason to be coming to the diamond, so I let it out, all the emotion and pain I’m feeling. I let all of Lizzie’s anger wash over me and fling a stack of bats, one by one, out into the field until my arm is so sore that I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to lift it tomorrow.

My chest is starting to feel twisted, like someone is putting a vise around the muscles and turning it back and forth.

Cal. Cal. Cal.

My name rings through my head. It reminds me of that time that I got hit by a line drive and ended up with a concussion.

I try to slow my breathing, but fail. I always thought I had a high tolerance for pain, but I never had to worry about muscle strain killing me. This pain is freaking me out.

“Lizzie, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” It’s strange to be talking to her out loud, but my chest is really starting to hurt. “Stop. Please. They were just doing their job.”

It was the only thing I had. The only thing I was good at. And you let them take it.

I sink down to the concrete floor and rub at my chest. My hands run across the raised edges of my scar. “I never wanted to hurt you, Lizzie. You know that. You fucking know that. I did everything I could.”

I’m not sure I believe my own words. And when Lizzie whispers, Well, it wasn’t enough, I realize what’s happening. She and her heart are rejecting me.