Twisted Fate(3)

“You’re seventeen, Ally. You really should stop calling Liz Mommy.”

“And you should not call Mom Liz,” I told her. “It’s disrespectful.”

“Whatever.” She shut her book and took a bite of the muffin and smiled in spite of herself.

I sat down on the bed and thought I could smell cigarette smoke on her clothes, or worse, pot. Great, I thought, just great. I needed to get her out of the house for a while so she wouldn’t embarrass Mom or say something weird to Ginny.

“C’mon, smarty,” I said, poking her in the sides a little to make her jump. “Let’s go pick some berries.”

She groaned and made a big show of getting up and putting on her shorts.

Syd can be really difficult sometimes but I’ve found that if you get her used to an idea there will be less fighting later on. I hated fighting with her. Honestly, I love her too much and don’t really have the heart for it. Unlike Syd I’ve never really been much of a fighter. I remember seeing her when Mom brought her back from the hospital. Her hands already balled into tiny fists. But her birth was a blessing in so many ways. The year she was born was the year I learned how to say no. And that’s an important skill for a girl to have.

I dragged her out of the room that morning and we went down the back stairs and rummaged in the pantry for baskets and then headed for the wooded edge of our property. Movers were coming and going from the house next door and Syd wanted to spy and see who our new neighbors would be. I left her by the big old pine and went to pick berries by myself. At least she was out of the house.

The next thing I knew she was shouting. I looked up and saw a tall, sweet-looking kid walking out of the garage across the driveway, cleaning his hands on a rag and carrying a neat little tool kit. He was handsome, his neat blond hair parted on the side and swept across his forehead. He had broad shoulders and you could see his muscles and ribs beneath his shirt. He had that same faraway look Syd gets when she’s reading.

“Hey, loser,” Sydney called to him. “Nice haircut. You know most Justin Bieber wannabes are twelve years old, right?”

I could see she’d hurt his feelings, that he was a sensitive boy. He started heading for his house, cleaning what must have been the rest of the engine grease off his hands as he walked between the two fancy cars that were parked in his driveway.

“Wait,” I called. “Wanna come over here and eat some blueberries? We just picked them.”

He stopped and smiled tentatively, tucked the rag into the back pocket of his jeans, and came into our front yard. He smelled clean, like citrus and laundry detergent, and the air around him was cool, as if he had just come out of an air-conditioned room.

Sydney stood close to him, her arms folded across her chest, sizing him up. The sun shone between the needles of our giant pine, creating a beautiful pattern of light across the ground, dappling their faces with sunshine.

“I’m Tate,” she said, in her tough, abrupt way.

He looked at us and then laughed shyly. “I’m Graham,” he told us.

“What books do you read?” she asked him, her chin pointed up defiantly. Just like that. Like it’s all she cared about. And if you weren’t one of her friends—Declan or Becky or some other weird angry brainiac—this could really put you off.

He tossed a handful of blueberries into his mouth and seemed to think about it for a while, too timid to talk. I could tell he was cautious for a reason but I didn’t know what that reason might be.

“Anything about art or movies. Anything cars or driving,” he said finally. “Or ancient cultures . . .” He looked like he was thinking of more subjects and she smiled faintly at him, gave just the tiniest nod of approval.

Apparently, he wasn’t put off at all. It turned out to be the right question. These two will have something to talk about, I thought. I like school but I’m not so interested in heavy reading. I could tell right away he was like Syd. She was the smartest girl in her grade. And the absolute worst for discipline. It was embarrassing for me because they were always calling her down to the office on the PA. I mean rarely a day would go by when there wasn’t some trouble Ms. Tate was getting into. Maybe this kid was going to be a good influence on her, be her friend, I thought as I went back inside and left them talking. I was happy that Sydney was out of the house and out of Mom’s hair and that the shy boy seemed to be okay.

But I know now that this was a mistake. I know that thinking things were fine was the biggest mistake I ever made. It’s hard for me to talk about all this now after what happened. I feel guilty even remembering. Thinking about how I didn’t listen to her. How I ignored everything she said. I guess I was like everyone else, her teachers and her little group of friends at the skate park, Declan and Becky. Everyone thought she was so strong and so smart that she didn’t need anything or anyone. People blamed Graham but they should have blamed me. I should have loved her better. Nothing should have come between us.

Especially not a boy.





4:15—Outside of school playground

7:56—Euclid Avenue parking lot

19:32—Beachfront, slips

23:20—From roof of shed



Dear Lined Piece of Paper,

If I didn’t have this journal I wouldn’t really talk to anyone, so I guess a lined piece of paper is better than nothing. Dr. Adams says anything is better than nothing, but he has yet to convince me. I’ll do my own reading on these subjects.