Lessons from a Dead Girl(14)

I think about Paige and her mother driving all the way to Texas in their rusting-out pickup. How they’ll be all squished together with their things. I wonder if it’s Paige’s mother who beats her, or someone else. Maybe her father. Or her mother’s boyfriend.

I realize I don’t really know anything about Paige. I don’t know if she lives with both of her parents or only her mother. She seemed to suddenly come into our lives and then, just as quickly, leave.

I feel afraid for her. I want to find her and ask how I can help. I want to force her to tell someone what’s happening to her. I want to tell someone myself. But I’m afraid. Especially now, when it seems way too late.

I reread Paige’s letter quite a few times that summer. Every time I read it, I feel sadder. Part of me feels a little betrayed. After all, I was there, too. I saw the bruises just as Leah did. I kept her secret, too. Why didn’t she put my name on that letter?

But I know why. Leah went out of her way to invite Paige to the party. I don’t want to admit it, but I know I never would have done that. Leah made sure we kept the bruises a secret. And I know I wouldn’t have done that, either.

We never see Paige again. Leah writes to her once, but the letter comes back, saying there’s no such address. Leah frowns when she shows it to me. She pulls out a tiny scrap of paper Paige had left in her locker.

“I don’t get it,” she says. “I wrote the address exactly the way it is here.”

“Maybe they decided to go someplace else.” Or maybe they’re in hiding, I think. I hope wherever she is, she’s away from the bruise-maker. No thanks to Leah or me.

It’s midsummer and hot, and we’re sitting in Leah’s bedroom waiting for Mrs. Greene to put her swimsuit on so we can go down to the lake.

“I guess we’ll never know,” Leah says quietly, as if she’s going to cry.

I start to move my hand toward her shoulder. I mean to place it there softly, just to let her know — I’m not sure what. That I’m here. That I understand. But as my hand is about to touch her, Leah takes it. She squeezes it so hard it hurts, but I don’t pull away.

It’s been a long time since the doll closet, but now it’s as if we’re back there again. Leah taking my hand.

You’re my wife.

My stomach goes all funny again. But it quickly moves into the back of my throat, and I feel like I’m going to throw up.

Leah lets go of my hand. “I’m sorry,” she says. Then she stands and leaves me there by myself.

I stay where I am, staring at the white spots on my hand until they slowly regain their color and fade away.

I know at this moment that I will never understand Leah Greene. Maybe no one will. But I also know that Leah isn’t the strong, untouchable person I always thought she was. I’ve seen her weak side twice now, and I know that when Leah feels pain, it goes deep into her soul.





The following fall, Leah and I get Mr. Mitchell for freshman English. He is surprisingly beautiful, and all the girls love him. Even Leah acts somewhat goofy in front of him.

He says stuff other teachers don’t. He writes swear words on the board and makes us stare at them until they become meaningless. He tells us stories that make us think. He asks us questions and actually seems to want to hear the answers. Our answers. Not his.

One day, we’re sitting in class, and he asks us what a true friend is. We all raise our hands, but he motions for us to put them down. “I’ll tell you,” he says seriously.

“I have this friend, Jake,” Mr. Mitchell says, sitting on the edge of his desk. “One day, I needed a favor. It wasn’t a big favor, but I called him and told him I needed something. Know what he said?”

We shake our heads.

“He said, ‘Sure.’ Before he even knew what I was going to ask him. You know why?”

We shake our heads again.

“Because he trusted me not to ask him to do something he couldn’t or wouldn’t want to do. He knew that whatever I asked for, he would help me simply because he was my friend and I needed help. That’s true friendship.”

I’m sitting in the second row, staring at his faded jeans and slightly wrinkled white oxford shirt. The top two buttons are undone to show his tan chest. His hair is messy in a nice sort of way. His olive green eyes smile at us. He really is beautiful.

“Do you get it?” he asks us. We all nod silently.

Toward the end of class, Leah passes me a note. I open it carefully.

Lainey, I need to ask you a favor.



There’s a smiley face at the bottom, with one eye a line instead of a dot, to show a wink. I grin and write Sure with another winking smiley face. Then I fold up the note, wait for Mr. Mitchell to turn around, and toss it on the floor near Leah’s foot so she can cover it with her shoe and pick it up.

Leah sits behind and diagonal to me. I hear the paper rustle as she unfolds it, and then the brief quiet as she looks at my response. Somehow I know she’s smiling, and I can’t help feel that I’ve passed a test. Until I start to wonder what she’ll ask me to do.

As I sit there feeling anxious, I think of Mr. Mitchell’s definition. If Leah’s a true friend, she can’t ask me to do anything I wouldn’t want to. That makes me feel better. Slightly. But is she a true friend? There are lots of things Leah has made me do that I didn’t think I wanted to. But somehow, in the end, I always let them happen without a fight.