Lessons from a Dead Girl

Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles





Leah Greene is dead.

Before my mother even answers the ringing telephone downstairs, I know.

“Hello?” I hear my mother say politely. “Yes? Yes, this is Laine’s mother.”

There is a long, quiet pause.

“Yes? A party? Drinking? Oh … well —”

Another pause.

“Leah Greene? What? Oh, my God! Are you sure? How?”

As I listen to her panicked voice, I feel the tiny bricks that have walled away certain memories continue to crumble. I squeeze my eyes shut and cover my ears. But the sound of my mother’s cries downstairs pushes against the wall and loosens the mortar. All I see behind my eyelids is Leah. Leah with her red-glossed lips. Leah standing above me. Leah telling our secret to a crowded room of strangers and my only friends in the world. Leah walking away, leaving me in the rubble of my ruined life.

I hate you! I wish you were dead!

I had screamed the words inside my head, as if I were seven and not seventeen. Somehow, I think she must have heard me.

Through my bedroom window, the sky is clear blue and the sun shines a warm spot on my bed, already taken by my cat, Jack. He calmly cleans his belly, his back paw bent behind his head. As he licks, I see a flash of him dressed in baby-doll clothes. Leah is holding him under his front legs and making him dance. And I see me, laughing, even though I want her to stop.

Jack closes his eyes when he finishes licking and settles his head against my foot through the covers. The fur around his eyes looks gray, and his coat is full of dandruff where he can’t reach anymore.

“Good kitty,” I whisper, rubbing his head through the covers with my toe. He purrs back.

My bedroom door is open. I watch it, waiting for my mother to appear.

Her steps are slow and heavy on the stairs, as if she’s carrying something large inside her. She hesitates in the doorway, looking in at me safe in my bed.

“Something’s happened,” she says, carefully stepping into my room. Her voice is quiet. I don’t move. The cat shifts and starts licking again.

My mother sits on the bed next to me and touches my shoulder. “There was an accident,” she says.

I turn my head away from her.

She moves closer and tries again. “There was a”— she pauses —“a terrible accident.”

She doesn’t tell me what kind of accident. Maybe she doesn’t want me to know the details. But it’s too late for that.

Her hand presses hard against my shoulder. “Lainey?”

I should be crying or asking what happened. I should look more surprised. But all I feel is this overwhelming sense of guilt and fear, and they’re fighting each other inside my chest.

It can’t be true. But it is. It’s over. And it’s my fault.

My mother waits for me to reply, but I stay silent. I look away from her and wait for her to go.

When she finally gets up to leave, she asks if I’ll be OK. I nod and roll over.

She goes back downstairs and gets on the phone again. She talks in a low, nervous voice. Terrible accident. Terrible. Terrible.

The thoughts in my head echo her words. It’s over. Over.

Each time she says Leah’s name, I get pulled back there, to the time when Leah and I were still best friends. The feelings come rushing into my chest. I try to shake my head. Swallow. Push them back down. Strengthen the mortar and rebuild my wall. But I see us anyway. One scene after another. Leah, always the leader, teaching me the complicated rules about trust and secrets and what it means to be her best friend. There were so many hard lessons. But what good are they now? What good are lessons from a dead girl?





Leah and I are in the fifth grade. We’re at recess when Leah motions me to the far side of the playground, where the boys usually play kickball, only this day it’s too muddy even for them. I look around to make sure it’s really me she’s pointing to.

“Come on, Lainey!” she calls. Until this moment, we’ve only been “outside of school” friends, if you could call it that. Our sisters are friends, so they’re convinced we should be, too. Every so often they try to get us to spend time together. But whenever Leah comes over or I go to her house, I can tell she wishes I was more like my sister, Christi. Or more like herself.

Christi pretends not to notice the obvious reasons Leah and I don’t become close, but you would have to be blind not to see them. Leah is popular and I’m not. Leah is also beautiful. Everyone wants to be Leah’s best friend. But me? Most people don’t even know who I am. Christi doesn’t get that people like Leah don’t want to be friends with people like me.

“Lai-ney,” Leah sings to me from across the playground. She gestures at me with her hand again.

I run to her obediently. Who wouldn’t want to be seen hanging out with Leah Greene? She’s smart, so the teachers love her. She’s beautiful, so the boys love her. Even the boys who still say they don’t like girls. And because all the boys and all the teachers love her, all the girls want to be her friend — and learn how to be just like her.

As we trudge along toward the field, our shoes sink into the mud and make a slurping sound with each step. The teacher on recess duty calls to us to stay out of the mud. Leah sings back in her sweet voice, “We wi-ill!” But we’re already well into it. I keep following her until we’re far enough out to be alone, even though we’re in the open.