chapter 33

“So, did you hear that Grace got out of the hospital? Do you want to go see her with me?” Rhiannon asks me a few days later. I’m not sure I heard her right.

Why would she want to go see Grace? I thought Grace had tormented her since they were rugrats together in elementary school.

“Why?”

“Well, you went to the party with her and everything. I thought you were friends. Especially now, after what you went through together.”

“I don’t think getting almost killed together is a real bonding experience. I barely know her. I haven’t talked to her since the accident. I barely talked to her before. Not sure I want to see her now.”

“Oh. Well, I thought she might want to see you. I don’t think she has tons of friends any more. She used to but now mostly she hangs with those guys and they probably won’t come. Well, Tom can’t.” Her voice gets kind of quiet and trails off. We both sit there for a minute thinking about Tom. At least I assume she is. He still can’t walk and isn’t doing much with his arms. No one seems to know if it’s permanent or not. Or they’re not telling us. I guess it’s none of my business, anyway.

“I don’t think she’d want to see me. Or you. I didn’t think you were ever friends.”

“No, we’re pretty much the opposite. But she’s having a terrible time and she might need to see that people care about her. I’ve known her for a long time and I do care what happens to her even though she’s kind of mean most of the time. I know she has her reasons for acting the way she does even if I don’t like it much. I doubt she’ll give me a hard time if I come visit her now when she’s feeling so lousy herself. We can bring flowers or something.”

“Flowers? What would she want with flowers?” Rhiannon laughs at me.

“Sadie, sometimes I think you come from another planet! People like flowers when they don’t feel well. Like the ones sitting on your dresser.” She points to a vase filled with yellow daisies. I did notice it sitting there, but I thought they were Rhiannon’s. It never even occurred to me that someone put them there for me.

“Anyway, I don’t know if I feel OK about going to Grace’s house. I don’t even know where she lives.” As if that’s going to work.

“Oh, I do. She’s lived in the same house her whole life. I know exactly where it is.” Of course Rhiannon knows exactly where Grace lives. She probably knows where everyone in town lives. Doesn’t change the fact that visiting Grace is pretty close to the last thing I want to do.

So why is it that two hours later I find myself wandering down the sidewalk beside Rhiannon, who is marching along like she’s the commander of some kind of army for stupid people who can’t seem to control their own lives? I don’t know how Rhiannon does it. I mean she’s such a mini-person and it seems like she’s filled with nothing but bubbly air made up of happy thoughts, but somehow she manages to be strong enough to push me into doing things I don’t want to do and saying things I don’t want to say. Maybe I’m the one filled with air, only mine wouldn’t be bubbly. It would be the hot kind made up of empty thoughts.

Grace’s house is just a couple of blocks away from the school, so we get there much too fast for my liking. I don’t know if Rhiannon has even called over there first to warn them that we’re invading their space, waging war on their privacy. I don’t want to ask her, because I’m not sure I want to hear the answer. I’ll just go into this ignorant. It’s one of my best qualities, anyway.

Her house is on a street I don’t remember seeing before. The houses are all attached to one another, rows of identical doors and windows lined up in single file. A few of the doors try to break the mold by changing color or adding a wreath of flowers. The front lawns, if you can even call them that, are tiny. Some of the lawns have even tinier gardens stuck in the middle of them, filled with brown plants withering in the cold. Grace’s house is in the middle of the row. There’s no garden here. There is a bucket full of sand sitting beside the cement step with dozens of old cigarette butts in it. There’s also a row of beer bottles sitting along the wall, which I think is a nicer decorating touch than flowers.

“Subsidized housing,” Rhiannon says like she’s explaining something to me.

“What?”

“Oh, I saw you kind of staring at the houses and thought you were wondering about them. This block is where all the subsidized housing units in town are. You know, the houses for people who can’t actually afford a house so they get one with government funding or whatever. Grace’s dad has had something wrong with his back for a long time and can’t work, and her mom has trouble finding a job that pays much so they’ve always lived here.”

“Yeah, I know what subsidized housing is. Lived in a few. Man, do you know this much about everybody in town?” A walking, talking encyclopedia of personal information that people probably don’t want her to know.

Rhiannon’s still marching, so she doesn’t answer. She heads right up to the door without breaking pace. I lag behind, bad little soldier that I am. I’m hoping that no one is home.

“What can I do for you?” The door has opened before I even finish hoping and a woman is standing there, not looking too happy to see us. She has a uniform of some kind on, not sure what it’s for, but she’s obviously either on her way to work or just coming home. Either way she probably isn’t thrilled to find our pathetic little army standing on her doorstep.

“Hi Mrs. Miller. You remember me. I’m Rhiannon Kerry. Grace and I go to school together. This is Sadie. She’s a friend of Grace’s. She was actually there the night of the accident. We’re here to say hi to Grace and to give her these.” She holds out a little bunch of multi-colored flowers that we bought on the way. Grace’s mom looks at them and kind of sniffs, like they smell bad. I’m with her. Flowers are so sickeningly sweet. I thought I was going to keel over in that store. Kind of wish I had. Then I’d be passed out among the posies instead of standing here looking stupid.

“She’s not feeling too hot. Face is a mess. She’s just lying around feeling sorry for herself. I told her she should just get up and figure out what she’s going to do next. She can’t just stay at home all of the time.” She’s talking really loudly as if she’s trying to make sure the neighbors know her business. You wouldn’t have to actually be all that loud around here to share your deepest darkest secrets with the person attached to your wall.

“Can we see her for a few minutes? Maybe seeing friends will help her feel like getting up.” Rhiannon is still smiling sweetly and holding out the flowers. Mrs. Miller looks at her like she’s a fly that she’d like to swat. Rhiannon just keeps on smiling. I’m staying back, ready to run just in case Ms. M has a really big fly swatter hidden anywhere.

“Oh, all right. Grace! There’s people here to see you. Get your sorry ass out of bed and come down here.” She’s yelling up the stairs as we slide into the front hall. Rhiannon slips right on past her.

“It’s OK, we’ll head up. She’s probably tired.” She hustles up the stairs before anyone can say anything. I run up behind her. I’m not staying down here alone. I can take care of myself and all, but Grace’s mom looks like she might try to take me on just for sport. I’m still a little weak from my big trauma and all, so I think I’ll pass on this one.

I get a quick glance around at the house as I chase Rhiannon up the stairs. Messy like the Kerrys’, but in a different way. There aren’t any toys lying around. But there’s pretty much everything else you could imagine. Papers and clothes and food containers and dishes and bottles seem to be decorating every surface that I can see in the thirty seconds I manage to look.

The house smells like dirty socks and cigarettes. The smell gives me a flashback to a house I lived in a few years back, and for just a second I expect to see my ex-pseudomother standing at the top of the stairs, yelling that I’m late home from school.

Rhiannon heads to the second door of the row of three closed doors. Not sure how she knows which one belongs to Grace. At least she knocks.

“Come in.” The voice is faint and doesn’t sound much like Grace. I wonder if we’ve come to the wrong room after all. Rhiannon opens the door carefully and walks in.

“Hi Grace. We just wanted to come and check on you and bring you these.” She holds up the flowers. The room is small and feels warm and stuffy the minute you walk in. There’s a small dresser painted pink and a desk painted black, which looks more like a Grace color. Or is black a non-color? The floor is covered in clothes, like Rhiannon’s side of our room, but there aren’t any books, which is more like my side of our room. There’s a small bed by the window with a blanket-covered lump in the middle of it. The lump moves a little when we walk in, but doesn’t turn around.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Rhiannon. And Sadie’s here, too.” She gestures to me to come closer and kind of points at my mouth like she wants me to talk.

“Hi Grace.”

“Why are you here?” the lump asks, voice muffled by the blankets that are wrapped tight like a cocoon. I look at Rhiannon, who looks back at me and gestures again. My turn again? I just went.

“It’s like she said. We just wanted to check on you. See how you are.” I didn’t want to check on her. I was bullied into it by my drill sergeant. The lump shifts a little more and it looks like she’s trying to roll over. I’m not sure if she’s rolling toward us or away.

“I’m lousy. Now you know. Bye.”

“Oh, Grace. I’m so sorry this happened to you. It must be so hard to deal with all of this. Is there anything we can do for you?” Rhiannon steps into the room a little more.

“You can piss off.”

Sounds like a plan to me. I shrug my shoulders and turn to leave. Rhiannon grabs my arm and pulls me back. She is the only person on earth who could get away with that and still keep her hand. I’m starting to get how tough she really is underneath all those happy thoughts.

“Grace. We’ll go if you want us to. We just wanted you to know that lots of people at school are worried about you and want you to come back.”

The room is quiet for a moment or two. The lump moves around on the bed until it turns into a person. Grace gets up really slowly, her back to us as she pushes herself into a sitting position.

“You don’t want to see me. We’re not even friends. I treat you like crap.”

“That’s true. But I still don’t like that you got hurt and I guess I wanted you to know that. We almost didn’t come because Sadie wasn’t sure coming was the right thing because…. Well, Sadie, you explain it to her.”

Me? Explain what? That someone half my size had managed to force me here against my will?

“I just didn’t want to get in your face. Thought you’d want your privacy.” Lame, but the best I can do under pressure.

“My face? Are you trying to be funny?”

“Funny? No! I’m never funny. I didn’t mean anything by that. I wasn’t thinking about your actual face.” I look at Rhiannon, pleading for help. She doesn’t seem to know what to say, either. For the first time in her life.

“I don’t have an actual face anymore. I have a freaking scar festival where I used to have skin. I’m a monster. They don’t even know how much they can fix because it isn’t all covered by insurance and my parents have no money. Not that they’d pay even if they had it.”

“Grace, you’re not a monster. You had an accident. It wasn’t your fault.”

Grace turns around and looks at us for the first time. Her face looks like she was attacked by a grizzly bear, covered in angry, ugly scratches and cuts. Her one eye is covered by a bandage that reaches down over most of one side of her face. Her other eye is bright red and looks like it would cry tears of blood if you upset her too much. I can’t think of anything to say.

“Oh, Grace. I’m so so sorry. It must be so painful.” Rhiannon goes right over to the bed and sits down beside her, right up close and personal. She looks Grace directly in the “good” eye and holds one of her hands. I wonder if she went to some special school that teaches people the exact right thing to do when someone is upset. I don’t know how she figures it out. I always end up doing the exact wrong thing. Like now. I just stand there, gawking like an idiot, which would be exactly what Grace would be afraid people would do.

“It does really hurt. I’m supposed to have prescription painkillers, but they’re too expensive. Mom says I’m just being weak, and I have to snap out of it. I can’t even get a drink to help take the edge off because dad keeps it all locked away for himself, and I’m too weak to get around him.”

“I wish I could do something to help,” Rhiannon says, still kind of patting her on the hand. This is one of the kids who’s called Rhiannon every name in the book and a few that are probably not in any books. She’s spent years making Rhiannon’s life miserable, and now that her own life is miserable, all Rhiannon can do is try to help her. I don’t get it.

“Sadie?” Grace’s red eye turns to look for me. I step forward a bit.

“Yeah?”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure.” I can’t believe Rhiannon got me into this.

“Can you go see Tom for me and tell him I’m OK. He kind of likes you. Not in a guy-girl way or anything. Not the way he likes me. Liked me, I mean.”

“He still likes you, Grace,” Rhiannon says, looking at me.

“No one will ever like me again with this face. Even if they try to fix it, it won’t be the same.” She closes her eye. I don’t want her to cry. I don’t want to see if it actually leaks blood. Why does she want me to go? Rhiannon would be much better at this than me. I open my mouth to suggest it and Rhiannon punches me in the arm. Actually punches me! She has sharp little knuckles, too. I’m so amazed that she hit me that my mouth snaps shut. When it opens again, Rhiannon seems to have control over me because all of the wrong words come out.

“I guess I can try, but I don’t know if I can. He’s still in the hospital and I don’t know the rules.” Hopefully the rule is that I can’t go. I don’t think I can handle it.

“He can have visitors now. I talked to Jeremy and he told me. He told me to call Tom myself but I’m afraid to.”

“He can’t see you over the phone,” I say helpfully.

“Not that it would matter because he will still like you even if you’re hurt,” Rhiannon says, a lot more helpfully. She glares at me and I step back in case she decides to hit me again. She does it too often, I might have to retaliate. Then I’d be moving out!

“I just don’t think I can talk to him right now. But I just want him to know I’m thinking about him. And that I don’t blame him. And that I hope he gets better. Can you tell him, Sadie?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell him.” I’m pretty sure I’m lying, but it seems like a good time to use that particular skill.

“Thanks. I have to sleep now. My mom is going to be up here soon telling me to get out of bed and clean the house. She tells me that every day, but I haven’t done it yet. One of these days, she’s just going to drag me out though, so I have to be ready. Once I’m out of this bed, I’m right out of this house living somewhere without parents.” She puts her hand to the side of her face and touches it. Then she rolls herself back up into her cocoon and turns back into a lump.

Rhiannon and I go back downstairs. We’re walking this time and can see the house a bit more clearly. I can hear a TV blaring from the living room. A man who must be her dad is flaked out on the couch, sipping on a beer and smoking. Her mom is standing beside him, yelling at him to get up off the couch and help her make supper.

We leave without them noticing us. We walk home, both of us quiet for once, disappearing into our own thoughts. I don’t know what Rhiannon is thinking. I’m not totally sure what I’m thinking, either. Grace has lived with her bioparents her whole life, and they treat her like she shouldn’t be taking the time to get better in her own bed. Even all banged up like that, all she can think about is getting out of her house, away from her parents. I can’t blame her, either.

Bet my mother’s just like Mrs. Miller. My brother’s probably planning to move out first chance he gets.

I look over at Rhiannon, wondering what she thinks about Grace’s parents. Could she find something nice to say about them? Wonder what Rhiannon would think if I told her about my mother. Could she find something nice to say about someone who dumps one kid and keeps the other one?

I don’t ask her, though. I don’t feel like talking. Apparently, and amazingly, she doesn’t, either. I wonder if she knows that she’s still holding Grace’s flowers?