UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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The sun’s low by the time Peter drops me at home, but the house is dark. For a second, I think maybe they’ve gone. The problem wasn’t ever between Mom and Dad. The problem was me, my obnoxious disorders, my selfish insistence on getting my way. Mom’s taken Jordan away to Virginia to move in with Dad. They’ll let me live here to finish high school—a kindness, for old time’s sake—and when I graduate, they’ll shut it down, cut off all ties.
Then I smell incense, musky and sharp, and follow it to the kitchen.
There’s the old statuette of a frog that holds incense cones in its back and exhales smoke from its mouth. Dad hated the smell, so the frog’s been decorating the garden since I was little. There are water stains, bits of moss on its sides.
Mom has the sliding door open so cool air seeps in. She sips tea and watches the frog’s breath swirl its way out the door.
“Mom?”
She looks up at me, calm. “Want some tea?”
“No, thanks.”
She nods. “Have a seat, sweetie.”
“I don’t want to.”
She smiles, so peaceful, so . . . Mom. “Caddie, sit down.”
“What happened?”
“It’s a good thing. It’s going to be really good for all of us.”
My tears burn before she even says it. I knew, of course I knew, this was coming.
“Your father and I had a talk.”
“When?”
“Just a bit ago. I was working, taking pictures for a wedding—the couple looked so happy. I had to pull over on the interstate and call your dad on the way home.”
While I was cowering in the corner of Peter’s truck not touching him. I followed the rules, all the rules. It’s not fair.
“Your dad and I finally admitted that this has been good, for both of us, being apart.”
“He likes being away from us.”
She frowns like I’ve said something mean. “He doesn’t like being apart from you and Jordan.”
“You can’t say that. He doesn’t even answer his phone when I call.”
She says what she’s supposed to say. “He loves you as much as I do, but your dad and I can’t be married any longer. We haven’t felt married for a long time. You don’t have to understand right away,” Mom says. “It’s all right to be angry.”
“I’m not angry. I’m sad.” And I’m sobbing—it scares me how hard.
“Oh, sweetie,” she says, and she starts reaching toward me.
“No.”
I’m up and away, and her face shows she’s hurt, but that’s all right. She should be. If splitting up our family hasn’t hurt her, then something else should.
“Where’s Jordan?”
She looks away. That hurts too. “I asked Connor’s mother to have him over.”
“He doesn’t even like Connor anymore!”
“I wanted to tell you first.”
“So I can show him how well I’m taking it? So I can set a good example?”
She turns back to the frog. “Something like that.”
I laugh, even though it’s mean, even though she looks sadder now than she did when I walked in. I laugh all the way down the hall.
By the time I reach my room, my breath is ragged, my laugh turned to shuddering gasps. I shut my door so Mom won’t hear, fall across my bed and concentrate on breathing.
I count through each inhale and exhale like I learned in middle school, trying to slow things down.
In the dark of my room, I’m not angry at Mom or Dad but at me.
It was foolish, laughable even, to imagine I had control over Mom and Dad’s feelings, their decisions.
I followed the rules the best I could. Maybe it wasn’t good enough—I messed up too many times—or maybe my stupid game never mattered.
Either way, the game’s over. I lost.
I’ve lost Peter, too.
I roll onto my back, peel off my gloves, and hold my hands up to the air, exposed.
When Mom reached for me, my brain said a touch shouldn’t matter anymore, but my body recoiled.
Maybe it’s habit, but without the gloves, my hands feel vulnerable. Potential energy pulses around them in rhythm with my too-fast heart, the threat of a billion-trillion molecules all poised to crash in on me with a pressure inverse to the Big Bang.
It’s stupid, but it’s what I feel. You think a divorce is bad news? Touch another person’s skin, and you and your whole fragile world will implode.
Don’t touch didn’t do any good. When it keeps me from connecting with people, from kissing a guy I like, from letting my mom comfort me, it’s doing harm. So why does it still feel important not to touch?
Anyone. Ever.
It was never only about Mom and Dad. I knew that.
Don’t touch protects me from pain. Like an overzealous bodyguard whose last client died shaking hands. There are so many things in the world that can make you hurt, and people—people do it best. If I can’t touch them, they can’t hurt me.
There’s a flaw in that logic. I hurt now. I want nothing more than to call Mom in here to give me a hug. But my games have never been logical.
I roll back to my side, and the quilt’s damp and cool under my face.
I should work. Ophelia’s the only good thing coming out of all this. She deserves my best. I pull my character journal out from under my pillow and find my list of similarities.
We’re both young.
We are both in love.
That one’s scary, but I think it’s true. I feel something for Peter that’s bigger than other crushes I’ve had. Maybe it’s love, and maybe it’s not, but whatever it is, it feels big.
We both have brothers.
Though I don’t know that Jordan would fight to the death to avenge me.
We’re both crazy.
It’s scary to write that one down, but it feels true. Why else can’t I drop this stupid fear? I’ve heard people say if you think you’re crazy, you’re not, that crazy people always think they’re sane. Maybe I’m not crazy like Ophelia, but I’m something.
Ophelia completely loses her mind before she drowns—she loses all her inhibitions, walks around in her nightgown, sings songs, makes dirty jokes, more or less gives the finger to all the adults around her who don’t understand. It depends how you read it, I know, but I think my Ophelia’s angry, like me, so I write that down too.
We’ve both lost our fathers.
Ophelia’s died; it’s not fair to call that the same, but right now it doesn’t feel so different.
We both wish things could be back how they were.
I hold the pen over the page a long time before writing again. I’m not sure if this one belongs in similarities or differences.
“We both hurt bad enough to do bad things.”
To hurt ourselves, it should say.
I would never really hurt myself. I wouldn’t.
But what if I can’t touch anyone again ever? A person might start feeling so tired of herself, so exhausted with trying to keep it together. . . . I’m starting to understand how that happens to people, how a person could feel bad enough to make Ophelia’s choice.
More than touch, more than anything, that makes my heart flood.
I scratch it out. Scratch it out all the way so I can’t even read it, can’t be reminded I wrote down those words.
It’s one thing I don’t want to share with Ophelia. Don’t even want to understand.