Under Rose-Tainted Skies(16)

I screw up the neatly folded note I just found on my doormat and hurl it down the hall. I stare at it, lying in the middle of the floor, a ticking time bomb loaded with perfect handwriting. Then of course I stomp over, snatch it up, and dunk it in the trash, because I can’t handle both impending party and mess stress right now.

I do laps. Walk in circles around our kitchen, being careful not to step on the pale beams of light the mid-morning sun is throwing through the window.

A party. With beer. Next door. This is my hell. We are at DEFCON 1. I can’t think of anything worse. Oh no, wait. Yes, I can. A party with beer next door and me being home alone.

There are going to be people from my former high school fifty yards away. Tons of people. Flooding out of his front yard and into mine. I know my high school career was shorter than the lifespan of a fruit fly, but what if someone remembers me? What if someone remembers this is where I live? What if they want to come over? What if they want me to come out?

My head is about to explode and decorate the kitchen with pieces of petrified brain.

Drunk teens spewing vodka shots in Mom’s rose bushes, trashing the street, probably getting high. The police will come. I saw something like this unfold in a movie once.

‘Norah. Norah!’ A familiar voice infiltrates my cyclone of despair.

‘Mom?’ I look down at the phone receiver in my hand, Mom’s tinny tones still emanating from it.

I don’t even remember dialling.

‘Mom. Mom.’ I jam the phone against my ear. ‘Mom. He’s having a party Friday night. What do I do?’ If she were here, I’d be clinging to her shirt collar.

‘What?’

‘It’s Eric Rhodes. There’s going to be beer.’

‘Sweetheart . . . Eric Rhodes is . . . dead.’

‘What? No.’ Frustration makes me flap. ‘I know that.’ Eric Rhodes, the founder of our small town, has been dead about a billion years. This coming weekend is something we do to celebrate his birthday. No, not we. Not I. Not ever.

My tongue is twisted up, feels ten times too big in my mouth. It’s probable I’m not making much sense. Panicked, not to be confused with intoxicated, though the two often present as something very similar.

I take a breath. ‘The new boy next door,’ I say like a kindergartener learning language. ‘He’s having a party Friday night. He invited me. There will be beer. He said that, wrote it on the invite . . . in perfect handwriting.’

‘You got asked to a party?’ my mom exclaims in a voice that implies she’s going to magnet my invite to the fridge door the second she gets home. She’s completely missed the point.

‘Mom.’

‘Right. Sorry. They’ve got me on some crazy painkillers over here. An hour ago I swear I was floating above my bed.’ She giggles.

Oh. This is so not good. Well, at least not for me. For her it sounds pretty euphoric.

‘Mom, you’ll be home by Friday, right?’ Oh God, please let her tell me she’ll be home by Friday.

Pause. Longer pause. My hair is going grey.

‘The doctor that came to see me this morning – he said I might be here until Monday.’

My nails dig into my palm. I squeeze until the taut flesh on my knuckles feels like it’s going to split. ‘He went on and on and on and on about putting pins in my bone. Said something science-y about my wrist healing wrong,’ Mom slurs, and she either swallows water or slurps back some drool. I jam my fist into my mouth and bite down. I absolutely refuse to whimper into the phone.

My mom is hurt. She does not need me to fall apart. Plus, I don’t want to freak her out. She sounds pretty jazzed, and I remember reading about this girl who had a heart attack and died while she was high. That probably works differently with medical highs. Legal drugs. Pain meds . . . but then, you can get addicted to pain meds. I hope that doesn’t happen—

‘Sweetheart? Are you still there?’

Mind melt. There’s too much to think about.

‘I’m here.’ I slam the heel of my hand into my forehead, the equivalent of spanking my brain for misbehaving. ‘My head’s a mess. I don’t know what to do about the party.’

‘Well, I think the first thing you need to do is take some deep breaths.’ She tries to walk me through what a deep breath should sound like, but all I hear is her hyperventilating. Think Darth Vader in labour. Still, it works because my OCD uses my lungs to correct her off-kilter pace.

‘Remember what Dr Reeves says about being unable to control everything? Norah, honey, my sweet baby girl, I’m afraid this is beyond your control.’

The beyond-your-control speech is my least favourite of all the pep talks. It’s the hardest one to corrupt. It’s immortal, the adamantium of arguments. There is no ‘but . . . but . . . but’–ing my way out of this one. Sometimes, things are going to happen and the only way out is through. Like childbirth; it doesn’t matter how afraid you are, that baby has to be born.

I sit on the kitchen floor. Mom’s voice turns to whale song as she talks me down off this impossibly high life ledge. At least she’s a smart stoner.

We talk for two hours, and she convinces my broken mind that I am safe. Even if the party turns into the hybrid love child of freshers’ week and spring break, it won’t affect me if I just stay locked in my room and ignore it. This is a wave I have to ride, but at least I can do it buried in a blanket fort.