Vanishing Girls(27)

3. I’m grateful for Perkins, my little walking ball of fluffy.

4. I’m grateful that Margot Lesalle started that stupid rumor about what Aaron and I were doing in the boiler room at the Founders’ Day Ball. Thank God for Margot. She always goes for the most obvious rumors.

And:

5. I’m super, extra, mega grateful that no one knows what really happened. That no one will ever know. They say that you’re supposed to tell the truth. Dr. Lichme says that, anyway.

But don’t they also say that what you don’t know can’t hurt you?





BEFORE





FEBRUARY 15


Nick


“Dara!” I paw through the pile of clean laundry on my bed, cursing under my breath. The stuffed cat Aaron gave me for Valentine’s Day—You’re puuurrfect, it says in a creepy high voice when you squeeze it—is perched between my pillows, watching me with glittering glass eyes. “Dara? Have you seen my blue sweater?”

No answer from above: no footsteps, no signs of life. Christ. It’s already after seven o’clock. No way can I be late to homeroom again, not after Mr. Arendale threatened me with detention.

From my closet, I grab a broom—or what was a broom, anyway, before Perkins clawed out most of the bristles—and thump the ceiling with the handle, a method of communication (I’ve found) far more effective than screaming or calling or even texting, which Dara has been known to do when she’s really hung over. (Can u bring up some water? Pleeeeeeease?)

“I know you can hear me!” I shout, punctuating every word with a thwack.

Still nothing. Cursing again—out loud, this time—I shove my phone in my pocket, grab my bag, and take the stairs up to the attic, two at a time. Dara pretends everything I own is too boring for her to borrow, but recently my favorite sweaters and T-shirts have been disappearing and reappearing strangely altered, reeking of cigarettes and pot, sporting new stains and holes.

Dara hates that her door has no lock and militantly insists that we knock before entering, which is why I swing the door open with no warning, hoping it will annoy her.

“What the hell?” I say. She’s sitting up in bed, facing away from me, still wearing her sleep shirt, her hair ratty with knots. “I’ve been calling you for like twenty—”

Then she turns around and I can’t finish my sentence.

Her eyes are swollen and her skin is splotchy and bloated in places, like overripe fruit. Her bangs are plastered to her damp forehead. Her cheeks are streaked with mascara, as if she fell asleep without washing her face and has been crying all night long.

“Jesus.” As always, Dara’s room looks as if it’s been the recent victim of a small and concentrated tsunami. I almost trip three times moving toward the bed. The radiators are going overtime; her room is stifling hot, heavily scented with cinnamon and saline and clove smoke and, just faintly, sweat. “What happened?”

I sit down next to her and try to put an arm around her shoulder, but she pulls away. Even from a distance, I can feel heat radiating from her skin.

She takes a shuddering breath, but when she speaks her voice is dull, monotone. “Parker dumped me. Again.” She mashes a fist into her eye as if she’s trying to physically press back tears. “Happy f*cking Valentine’s Day.”

I count to three in my head so I don’t say anything dumb. Since they started hooking up or going out or whatever they’re doing, Dara and Parker have broken up three times that I know about. And Dara always cries and freaks and tells me she’ll never talk to him again, and a week later I see her in school with her arms wrapped around his waist, stretching onto tiptoe to whisper something. “I’m really sorry, Dara,” I say carefully.

“Oh, please.” She whirls around to face me. “No, you’re not. You’re happy. You always told me it wouldn’t last.”

“I never said that,” I say, feeling a quick flare of anger. “I never said that.”

“But you thought it.” After crying, Dara’s eyes go from green to practically yellow. “You always thought it was a bad idea. You didn’t have to say so.”

I keep my mouth shut because she’s right, and there’s no point trying to deny it.

Dara draws her knees to her chest and puts her head between them. “I hate him,” she says, in a muffled voice. “I feel like such an idiot.” Then, even quieter: “Why doesn’t he think I’m good enough?”

“Come on, Dara.” I’m losing patience with her performance; I’ve heard the whole monologue before. “You know that’s not true.”

“It is true,” she says, her voice small now. There’s a beat of silence. Then she says, even quieter, “Why doesn’t anyone love me?”

That’s the essence of Dara: she’ll annoy the shit out of you and then break your heart a second later. I reach out to touch her and then think better of it. “D-bar, you know that’s not true,” I say. “I love you. Mom loves you. Dad loves you.”

“That doesn’t count,” she says. “You guys have to love me. It’s practically illegal not to. You probably just love me so you won’t go to jail.”

I can’t help it; I laugh. Dara lifts her head up just long enough to glare at me before retreating again, like an injured turtle. “Come on, Dara,” I say. I unsling my bag and set it down. No point in rushing now. There’s no way I’ll make it to homeroom at all, much less on time. “You have more friends than anyone I know.”