How to Save a Life(11)

I shot a glance at the table of popular kids, the jocks and the cheerleaders, the pep squad and the 4H rancher boys. On the surface, Evan Salinger belonged with them. I could easily imagine him talking and laughing in their ranks, his arm slung around some girl. Both of them likely to be nominated for Prom King and Queen.

It just didn’t make sense he was cast adrift from the islands of safety known in high school cafeterias all across the country as the lunch tables. Evan had no island. Even the geeks shunned him. My people, the misfits, shunned him. If anyone was going to take him under their wing, it should be us, if for no other reason than to give the finger to everyone else. But Marnie warned me I’d be S.O.L. to throw him a life preserver.

I wondered idly if it were worth it.

At my table, Adam talked about The Voice and who he thought was going to be voted off that night. Marnie chatted about prom and how f*cking stupid it was, but of course she was going to go. We all knew she was secretly excited about it ever since Logan Greenway asked her to go with him.

I tuned them out, consumed by Evan Salinger. I wanted to know what he was reading. I tried to get a glimpse of the book’s spine, but I was too far away. Then Evan looked up as if someone had called his name. I froze while he looked around, some stupid part of me clamoring for him to look my way.

Then he did.

And he smiled.

My damn heart stopped beating. I felt hot all over, and was trapped by Evan’s smile, by his eyes that watched me with a gentle curiosity. A “Hi, how are you?” kind of look that would have put me at perfect ease if it hadn’t turned me completely inside out first.

I stared back for a good three seconds, wrapped in the warmth of his attention, then broke free with a flinch. I looked away, hiding behind my hair. When the heat flush drained out of me, I glanced through my wall of hair to where Evan had been sitting.

He was gone. The beam of light was empty and all that remained were dust motes, dancing.





I’d made plans with Jared to meet him after school behind the bleachers. And by “made plans with” I meant he shot me a questioning glance in Study Hall, and I nodded. But when the time came, I wasn’t feeling it.

“Sorry, I’m not in the mood today.”

And Jared, bless his little heart, looked at me all perplexed-like, as if he couldn’t fathom what possible difference my interest made. But he wasn’t all bad. He was cheating on his girlfriend and he was evil to Evan Salinger, but he backed off when I told him no.

He sighed and adjusted his crotch. “This was a giant waste of time. I could’ve been out with the guys at Spinelli’s.”

“Sorry.”

He cocked his head and a mop of unruly brown hair fell over his eyes in a way most girls at Wilson found adorably scruffy. He looked at me hard, probably for the first time since we’d started meeting out there.

“You know, you’re sort of lucky I’m even giving you the time of day.”

I arched my visible eyebrow. “Is that a fact?”

“I mean, you’re really pretty. The one side of your face? You’d be so hot without that scar. What happened, anyway?”

I spun the Wheel of Tragedy. It landed on Earthquake.

“I was visiting family in San Francisco. Earthquake country. I was standing by a huge window when a 6.5 hit, and the window shattered all over me. Wrong place at the wrong time.”

Jared whistled low between his teeth. “Damn. That sucks.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It totally did.”





Once again, talking about my scar dredged up the horrific memories of how it got there. Jasper, the screw I dragged down my skin, his arrest, and then my mother.

I was the one who found her in the bathtub. My cheek, bandaged now and tight with itchy pain, woke me up in the middle of the night. I shuffled out of my room toward the bathroom to pee. I was holding my favorite stuffed blue whale even though I was too old for stuffed animals, and sleepily pushed open the bathroom door.

I couldn’t see her all at once. Not as a whole. Only flashes, like blood splatter on a white tile. My brain broke it down, reorganized it into a few words reminiscent of a poem we’d been studying in school that month.



So much depends upon

her

eyes glazed by vacancy

And white skin

submerged

in red water



A snapshot of sixteen words. Words, poetry…they would forever be my coping mechanism when counseling was sporadic or nonexistent. A consolation prize: to find my artistic passion at the hands of terrible tragedy. My mother’s death cleaved my life in half. The chasm left behind was so deep and wide, I couldn’t even see the shore of my past. Shrouded in black and gray mist, it was lost to me. She was lost to me, and so were all of our happy memories, before Jasper. They were trapped there on the other side.

I could’ve jumped into that chasm with my mother, but I chose to keep walking.

I can’t say it always felt like the right choice.

I got dressed, laced up my boots, grabbed my notebook and slipped out the window. I knew it was safe to sneak out. It would be a frosty day in hell before Gerry even thought about coming into my bedroom to check on me at night. He was probably snoring on his chair in front of the TV, another bucket of KFC tipping out of his lap.

I headed east toward the edge of town, where the new water park had been built. The night was sticky and thick. The streetlamps pushed the dark away in halos of pale yellow. Moths battered themselves against the bulbs. The cacophony of locusts or crickets or whatever bugs infested this part of the county at the tail end of spring was relentless. But they were the only sound. No cars drove by. It was only nine o’clock but Planerville had gone to sleep.