The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried(33)

“You always did like to toot your own horn.”

And then July loses it too, and we’re laughing together, really laughing. Tears are running down my eyes and my face is hot, and July would look the same way if she had tears or a working circulatory system.

“That was a terrible joke, Dino.” She manages to get control of herself. “The smell was the worst, though. It was like—”

“You’re literally rotting from the inside out?” I finish, holding the stitch in my side from laughing.

July nods. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“You’re not dead.”

“You were right, though; I’m not alive, either. This is a real thing that’s happening.” She holds up her thumb. “This wasn’t some fluke, was it? More of my skin might come off. And I couldn’t have farted seeing as I don’t have a stomach. That was decomposition gasses forcing their way out of me.”

Finally, I see the full realization of her situation reflected in her eyes, and I wish I didn’t. July didn’t deserve to die, but she doesn’t deserve this either. “Come on,” I say. “We’ll figure out what’s happening to you. I promise.”

“Everyone heard it,” July says. “Everyone smelled it. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life, and the only way you’re getting me out of this bathroom is through the window.”

Seeing as the only window is over the tub and about six-inches square, I doubt that plan’s workable. “Sixth grade,” I say.

“You’ll have to be more specific. A lot of shit went down in sixth grade, most of which I’ve tried to forget.”

“Pumpkin Pie July?”

July’s hand flies to her mouth and her eyes shoot wide open. “You swore you’d never mention that.”

“I’m not,” I say. “But that was way worse than this, and you survived it.”

“Barely.”

“So what if you farted in front of them?”

“It was the unholiest of smells, Dino.”

I shrug. “I held Kandis’s hair on New Year’s Eve while she sat in the bushes and puked ramen for an hour and tried to convince me that watching movies with Nicholas Cage in them contributes to swimming pool drowning deaths.”

“Obviously,” July mutters.

“Besides, they don’t know you. To them, you’re my random cousin whom they’ll never see again.”

“What if this doesn’t end?”

“The gas?”

She motions at herself. “Me. Being not-dead.”

“Oh. I don’t know.” She deserves a better answer, but the only thing I’ve learned for certain since July sat up on the gurney earlier tonight is that she is definitely still decomposing. So if this is a miracle, it’s a pretty crappy one.

July stands and walks to the sink and looks at herself in the mirror. I wish I knew what she saw in her reflection. Mirrors are liars. They never show us what’s truly there. They show us what we expect to see. I have no idea what July or Rafi see when they look at me, but when I look into a mirror, I see a boy who’s not quite enough. Not quite tall enough, not quite muscular enough, not quite tan enough, not quite good-looking enough. And I wonder, now, what July sees reflected.

“You wanted to figure this shit out,” she says. “And I should’ve listened to you.”

“It’s not important—”

“Yeah, I think it is.”

“Why?”

July stares into the mirror for another second, and then turns around. “I can’t stay like this. We have to find a way to end it.”

“Or fix it?”

“I don’t think we can fix it. I think all we can do is end it.”





JULY

IT’S NOT DINO’S TRIP DOWN Embarrassment Lane that gets me out of the bathroom. It’s looking at my reflection and seeing nothing. Not the July who used to stand in front of the mirror every day and tell herself she looked damn good. Not a beautiful corpse. Just nothing. And Dino was right. These people don’t know me. When they tell this story to their other friends, it won’t be about the time Dino’s dead best friend, July Cooper, dealt the foulest smelling gas ever dealt; they’ll tell the story of how Dino’s cousin, Roxy, farted. For them, Roxy is more real than July ever was.

I’ve been kidding myself thinking it matters how long this lasts. I’m rotting. The way I am at this moment is as good as it’s going to get, and it’s already not great. I stink, I’m falling apart, and my organs are in a bag in my stomach. There’s no way I can inflict the pain on my parents seeing me would cause. I can’t slip into to my old life, and no matter where I try to start a new one I’ll still be a freak. A thing to be stared at and laughed at and pitied.

This is no life, and I need to figure out what it is and end it.

Everyone’s in the living room when we come downstairs. Jamal starts clapping when he sees me, and everyone else joins in. Rafi tries to tell them to stop, but whatever. I take a bow and continue down the stairs.

“Thanks for coming to the show,” I say. “Good night!” And then I head toward the door.

Dino motions for Rafi to walk us out.

“You really have to go?” he says when we’re standing outside. “If it’s the gas problem, I have pills you can take.”