What to Say Next(14)

My friendship with Annie and Violet has always worked because we balance each other out. Annie’s clashing prints and crazy jumpsuits, clothes perfectly aligned with her personality. Without her, I’m pretty sure we would spend every Saturday night in Violet’s basement eating Oreos and vicariously party-going via Instagram. Annie makes us live bigger lives, which of course are still of Mapleview dimensions, which is to say very, very small. But, you know, still bigger than they would be otherwise.

“You guys, this whole lunch thing doesn’t rise to the level of needing a ‘talk.’ I’ve just been a little MIA,” I say, and use this opportunity to shift my backpack to the other shoulder, a way to dislodge Violet’s arm without being rude. “I’ve just been busy.”

Annie’s been the source of my entire social life since elementary school. She’s the reason we spend most afternoons at the Pizza Palace as satellites to planets Justin and Gabriel; she’s the reason we have front-of-the-caf seating; she’s the reason we get invited to actual parties. In my world, there’s no such thing as busy without her.

“WTF?” Annie asks. She sometimes speaks in Text, a habit I just can’t get behind.

In my head, I respond in kind: OMG FML TTYL.

“Annie, chill,” Violet says.

“Sorry, I don’t mean it that way,” Annie says, giving me another one of those winces, as if she’s doing something painful, like getting her eyebrows waxed. “I’m worried about you, Kit. You should talk to us. We’re your best friends.”

“I just need a little space,” I say. “It’s obviously not you guys, it’s me.”

“Why are you talking like you’re breaking up with us? It’s not you, it’s me. I need space.” Annie laughs, trying to lighten the mood. As if she can turn my words into a joke, and we can giggle our way out of this one.

I almost say: OTT.

I almost say: Laughs need to be earned now.

I almost say: Please just stop.

I almost say: I’m sorry.

“It’s so not a big deal. It’s lunch,” I say.

“Kit means she’s having a tough time. Because of everything,” Violet says. I shake off my irrational annoyance at her euphemism. Everything is obviously my dad being dead. Why can’t she just say that instead?

Even when the doctor came out of the emergency room to break the news to my mom and me, he used what my English teacher likes to call “purple prose.” We’ve lost him, he said. He’s gone. Like my dad was a credit card left behind at the supermarket or a puppy that slipped out the front door.

Yesterday, David just said the words right out loud. The unvarnished, ugly truth.

“Duh. That’s why you have friends in the first place. So we can help you,” Annie says. I look at her, wonder how she defines helping. Probably by trying to revive the old Kit. The pre-everything Kit. But that’s impossible. The old Kit is as dead as my father.

We lost her, I think. She’s gone.

“This isn’t healthy. The way you’re shutting us out,” Annie says.

“Healthy,” I repeat back in a flat tone, because suddenly I don’t know what that word means. What does healthy have to do with how I’m feeling? The sort of unimaginable pain that makes it hard for me to get from one moment to the next? I know we’ve only been standing here for minutes, but it feels like hours or days. Time has turned interminable and impenetrable, something to be endured and passed through, however possible. Health isn’t a factor. This can’t be fixed with talking or green juice. Everything will not be fixed by a forty-eight-hour cleanse.

I wish I could say all this out loud, but I can’t. I don’t know how.

“Girls!” Mr. Galto, the newspaper adviser, calls to us from inside the classroom, sighing the sigh of teachers immemorial. As if we are difficult inmates instead of AP honors students. “If you want a chance at editor in chief, you better get yourselves in here.”

Since I’m not gifted athletically or musically or anything -ically, I’ve been gunning for the EIC position for forever. Violet and Annie both want it too. It’s how girls like us pad our college applications without having to sweat or join marching band. Today is the day we officially put ourselves up for nomination. I’ve missed a few deadlines lately, but I’m hoping my get-out-of-jail-free card extends to extracurriculars.

“Please,” I say to Annie and Violet, which is the worst word I could have used, because that look is back. Real pity this time. I can see it through my grief haze.

“Please what?” Annie asks, her voice so gentle that it almost breaks me. Annie is not supposed to be gentle. Annie is supposed to be aggressive and sometimes a little mean because she’s the only one of us who takes risks and gets shit done.

Annie is supposed to tell me to get over it and stop wallowing, and maybe we could have a fight about that—about how little she understands what’s going on with me right now—since anything would be better than this.

My lower lip starts to quiver, and I realize that if I stand here for one more second I will burst into tears, right in the hallway. Just after the last bell. When there’s maximum foot traffic.

Nope. Not going to cry here. Not going to happen.

“Last chance!” Mr. Galto calls from inside the room.