of Wise Choices. I’m sure it’s only for her college applications—or to throw her parents off her boozehound trail. She’s been drinking wine coolers since middle school.
“We on for tonight?” Rollins stuffs the remaining zines into his backpack and zips it up, looking at me expectantly.
“Damn straight,” I say, trying to hide the surprise in my voice. It’s been our tradition to watch horror movies and order pizza on Friday nights, but he hasn’t made it the last two weeks. “It’s Friday Night Fright, isn’t it?”
I’m trying to decide what I’m in the mood for—The Ring or The Exorcist—when I remember that Mattie’s invited Amber over tonight. Shit. I’m so not in the mood to babysit a couple of cheerleaders.
“Hey, Amber Prescott is spending the night at my place tonight. Can we go to your house instead?” I mentally cross my fingers, already knowing what his answer will be, but hoping I’m wrong.
Panic rolls over Rollins’s face, then disappears, so quickly I’m not even sure I saw it. “Uh, my mom’s . . . painting the living room. The place is a mess. Drop cloths everywhere. Sorry.”
Since I’ve known him, Rollins has never asked me over to his house. Every time I suggest a visit, he makes up some excuse about his mom redoing the bathroom or putting in new cabinets or something. By now, his house must be a freaking palace, with all the remodeling they’ve done. I’m pretty sure his mom is really an alkie or a hoarder or something.
I shrug. “That’s okay. We’ll just banish Mattie to her room.”
His lips curl into a grin. “I’ll see you tonight then.” He slings his backpack over one shoulder and walks away.
After transferring my textbooks to my backpack, I slam my locker door and spin the knob. A couple of girls I used to be friends with pass me, whispering and giggling. They’re not laughing at me, though. They don’t even look my way. It’s like I’m a ghost to them, like I don’t even exist. I watch them hurry away, probably to cheerleading practice. Sighing, I head in the opposite direction.
When I walk by Mr. Golden’s room, I see something strange. A girl is sitting on a couch, and Mr. Golden is leaning over her. I can’t see her face—only a bit of long, black hair. It sounds like she’s sobbing. He looks over his shoulder and catches me peeking. Embarrassed, I look at the floor and bolt away.
I rush toward the exit, staring at my shoes and wondering what a crying girl is doing in Mr. Golden’s room after school hours.
As I push open the door, I plow into someone entering the school. At first, all I see is green T-shirt. My cheeks become warm as I realize who I’ve almost knocked over on my mission to put distance between myself and Mr. Golden.
Zane beams down at me. “In a rush to start the weekend, eh?”
I return his smile. “Isn’t everyone?”
“God, yes. My friends from Chicago are coming to see my new house, and we’re going to a show. You doing anything fun this weekend?”
“Oh, you know, the usual—cow tipping,” I say.
“Nice. Have fun with that. And try not to run anyone else over.” He winks.
“Just try to stay out of my way,” I toss back, grinning, and step out into the fading afternoon sunlight. The air smells of burning leaves. Only a few cars are left in the student parking lot. I wonder which car is Zane’s as I pop my headphones into my ears and trudge toward the sidewalk.
As I walk home, my mind keeps returning to the scene in Mr. Golden’s room. I wonder who that girl on the couch was and what happened to her to make her cry so hard.
A curious piece of paper is taped to our front door, flapping in the wind. As I get closer, I realize it’s a little square from a desk calendar. I rip it off the door and carry it inside to examine more closely. The date is circled several times in red marker.
October 19—today’s date.
Weird.
I remember Sophie in the bathroom earlier, saying Mattie must have forgotten her birthday. Is this Sophie’s attempt to remind Mattie? It seems out of character, but the desperate way Sophie was talking makes me think she’s not in the best frame of mind.
I stuff the paper into my back pocket. Sophie doesn’t need to give Mattie and Amber any more ammunition. If she just leaves them alone for a little while, I know it’ll all blow over. They’ll find something else to fixate on. They’ll all be friends again in a week.
I just stand there for a while, feeling the emptiness of the house down to my bones. Shadows stretch long across the floor. I hear nothing but the steady tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the living room. I am totally alone.
Mattie’s at cheerleading practice. Dad’s at the hospital. Mom is . . . Well, Mom hasn’t been here for a long, long time.
Everything about our house is pretty much the same as it was five years ago, when my mom died of cancer. Same faded curtains with little red cherries on them. Same old yellow wallpaper. Same cherry hardwood floor covered by an ancient red-and-gold rug. Same ornate silver mirror opposite the front door.
I step closer to the mirror. The girl I see looks wild with her bright-pink hair—rebellious and free. I wish I felt that way inside. I dyed my hair because I needed a drastic change from pale blond—my natural hair color is exactly the same shade as my mother’s. I was tired of looking in the mirror every day and seeing her, missing her.
Dyeing my hair couldn’t disguise the other parts of her that lived on in me, though. The way my laughter borders on cackling when I find something hilarious, just like hers did. The way my skin refuses to tan, no matter how many hours I spend in the sun.
And I know she had narcolepsy, too. I’ve inherited that unfortunate gene from her. I remember her falling asleep sometimes while watching television or during dinner. When she woke up, she’d have the strangest little smile. I’d give anything to know what happened to her while she was asleep. If she was like me. If she slid.
I don’t remember the first time it happened, but it was after my mother’s death. My father told me about walking into my room when I was twelve years old and finding me on the floor, unconscious. I was barely breathing. He couldn’t wake me up. He rushed me to the emergency room, but no one could figure out what was wrong with me. Eventually, I just woke up and was fine, like nothing happened.
The doctors conducted test after test. Eventually, with a lack of any better explanation for my periodic bouts of unconsciousness, they diagnosed me with narcolepsy—apparently it can start around puberty. When I tried to tell my father what was really happening to me, he started sending me to a shrink—a woman with bright-red hair named Mrs. Moran. She said I was dealing with the pain of my mother’s death by making up stories. Crying out for attention. My father thought that made sense.
So that’s when I started lying.
As time went on, I just got used to it. And I started to learn the rules. Like one time during a field trip when I was thirteen. I’d worn Miss Ryan’s sweater because the air had suddenly turned cold and I hadn’t brought a jacket to school that day. She warned me to not spill anything on it because her grandmother had knitted it for her. One minute, I was walking through the museum, studying the paintings on the wall,
