You'd Be Home Now (27)

I can feel them, between us, uncomfortable and unmoving.

    Our brothers.

A hand slaps flat on the table in front of Jeremy, startling us both.

Lucy Kerr and two of her friends are standing next to Jeremy. Lucy’s arms are crossed, her hair a straight brown helmet cupping her ears.

Any fight I had left for this day drains away, because I know what’s coming. It always comes, in some shape or form. In books and movies, the richest girl in town is always the most popular and sought after, and sometimes quite mean, but in real life, or at least mine, most of that narrative isn’t true.

“Isn’t it nice,” Lucy Kerr says, her voice dripping with fury, “that in your family, when you get in a car accident and kill someone, you get a brand-new car.”

Joey was right; the shiny new car is a problem. It probably seems callous and uncaring.

Lucy Kerr’s eyes are shining, as though she’s about to cry. Her friends are on either side of her and they each put a hand on her arms.

“She was my best friend,” she says hoarsely. “And now she’s gone because she got in a car with you and your druggie brothers. I was at that party. I was supposed to give her a ride home.”

Please take me home, Candy had said to me in the basement, her eyes glossy with tears.

Kids are staring.

Jeremy says softly, “I’m sorry, Lucy.” He keeps his eyes on the bright orange table.

“Go to hell,” Lucy says. “And if I ever run into your brother, watch out.”

She looks back at me. “Is it great, living in that house? All your money? Jesus Christ, look at you. Who dresses you?”

    “I’m sorry, Lucy. It wasn’t my—”

“Hey, can I sit here? Yeah? Cool.”

Liza Hernandez thunks her backpack on the table and plops down next to Jeremy. She pulls a sandwich wrapped in wax paper out of her backpack and starts peeling it open. Peanut butter and jelly. Like always. She’s been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches since first grade.

She looks at Lucy. “Wait, did I interrupt some classic high school bullying? Goodness, it’s certainly started early this year. The first day! A-plus for effort, Lucy.”

“You shut your—”

Liza holds up a hand. “Listen, Lucy. I know you’re effin heartbroken. I know that. But it isn’t Emory’s fault. She wasn’t drunk or driving. It was a rainy night. A wet road. Driving too fast. It’s all shit. It all sucks.”

I wish Liza would stop talking. I don’t want to think about this at school. In front of Lucy Kerr, of all people. But here it comes.

Rainy night. Slick road. Luther laughing and then getting angry when we kept asking him to drive slower. Candy crying for us to let her out. There was so much rain it was hard to see where we even were. Luther’s hands on the wheel, jerking hard. So much screaming, but not from Joey, because he was passed out, dead to the world.

Luther, stop, I kept saying.

And then we were flying, the world slowing down as it turned and turned and turned and finally stopped.

I squeeze my hands together, hard, under the table, where Liza and Lucy can’t see.

“Dumping on Emory and Jeremy isn’t going to make you feel better,” Liza says. “You think they don’t feel terrible? Emory was in the car, too. How do you think she feels? You’re just adding pain onto pain here. It’s a useless circle of shit. If you want to do something, get Candy’s photo up in the memorial cabinet. It’s not there yet, and it should be. Candy was a cool person, and this isn’t any way she’d want you to act, you know?”

    Lucy Kerr’s mouth trembles.

“Stay out of my way,” she tells me, her voice shaking. “Or I cannot be responsible for my actions.”

As soon as she’s gone, Jeremy lets out a tremendous breath.

“Thanks,” I say softly to Liza. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She shakes her head angrily. “For god’s sake, Emmy. I stuck up for you our whole childhoods, remember that? But back then, it was kind of cute, this meek mouse thing. It’s not anymore. I would tell you to grow a pair of balls, but that’s too patriarchal. I would tell you to grow some tits, but that seems antiwoman.

“So I’ll just tell you this: grow a spine. Grow a goddamn spine or this whole next year is going to suck ass.”

We stare at each other, her face unsmiling and flat and mine flaming red. Liza has always been good at nailing a person or situation down. Maybe because she had to deal with her parents for so long. There isn’t really time for nuance when your parents are constantly high.

And even though I want to hate her right now, she’s right. It’s only the first day and it’s already sucked, and I’m going to have to figure out how to deal with it. If they can make handbooks for bringing addicts home, they should have one for surviving high school life.

Liza turns to Jeremy. “I got the new issue,” she says, in a nice, normal voice now, tugging a comic from her backpack. They spread the pages on the table between them, leaning their heads close, and I’m on the outside, looking in. Liza might have just saved me, but she didn’t make room for me.

    I don’t want to look at them looking at the comic and I’m not hungry anymore, so I raise my head, just a little, to see where he is.