Where the Staircase Ends(2)

A small voice in the back of my head told me to get off of my ass and fight, but who was I kidding? I wasn’t a fighter. The idea of taking on Sunny suddenly exhausted me to my core. She would win because she always won. I would lose because I was nothing but a chicken shit without her.

I didn’t know how long I stayed crumpled on the blue-and-white tiled floor before I finally found the strength to reach into my bag and pull out my phone.

“Can you come get me? Please?” My mom must have heard something in my voice, because she didn’t ask any questions or give me her usual lecture on how I needed to spend more time studying and less time socializing. I was in her car fifteen minutes later with my face pressed against the passenger side window, watching my high school and my reputation disappear from sight.

Later that night, while I sat on my bed counting the cracks in my bedroom ceiling, the pangs of loss started to jab into my sides and settle into the crooks of my body. There was no one I could call to share in my misery—Sunny had seen to that—and so the only voices I could talk to were the ones in my head that echoed back the horrible names my former friends whispered when my back was turned.

The moon was high and bright outside my bedroom window, reaching with silvery fingers through the slats of my blinds. I wiped the wetness from my cheeks and raised the shade to get a better view of the wheeling lights above. I suddenly felt compelled to say what I was thinking out loud, as if hearing the words would make the pain go away.

“I want to die,” I said to the sky. “I want to disappear.”

The stars were a hundred pairs of eyes, watching and listening.

Three days later, I got my wish.





CHAPTER TWO


WTF HAPPENED TO HEAVEN?




My mom leaned against the front door, watching me as I made my way down the front steps of our house. Her smile was wider than necessary, but I couldn’t blame her for being relieved that I was finally leaving the house. My mood had pretty much been a black crêpe-paper-filled pity party since the non-fight with Sunny a few days before.

“You’ll call if you’re going to be later than six?” she asked, examining me from the doorframe. For a moment I thought she would offer one of her standard commentaries on my appearance, like how yellow wasn’t a flattering color for someone with my fair skin and hair, but she remained blissfully quiet. She didn’t even ask me about my study plans, or hound me about the unopened stack of textbooks on the kitchen table. I must have been a real Debbie Downer the last few days.

“Yes, Mom. I’ll call.” I held up my freshly charged phone as evidence, then gave her a final wave before turning my attention to my iPod.

Across the street, a kid from my school pushed a growling lawnmower down the length of my neighbor’s front yard. I couldn’t remember his name, but I could tell by the way he stared at me that he knew exactly who I was. He quickly averted his eyes when he realized I’d caught him gawking, cutting the lawnmower sharply to the right so he wouldn’t have to face me anymore.

That’s right. I eyed the jutting shoulder blades on his skinny, shirtless back. Turn around you scrawny little nobody.

I tried not to think about how badly I wanted to be a nobody, or the fact that some string bean of a kid now ranked higher than me on the social ladder.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck. Even though it was only April, the heat was already wafting off the pavement in steaming ribbons. The summer was going to be beastly. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand and shielded my eyes from the sun, scolding myself for forgetting to wear sunglasses. Sunny said squinting gave you premature wrinkles.

There were still two seconds ticking down next to the flashing “Don’t Walk” sign when I started across the intersection, which seemed like plenty of time. And the street wasn’t that crowded; it was a lazy Saturday morning like any other. I kept my head down, scrolling through my music for a song with a beat that matched the rhythm of my steps.

The woman and her Beemer came out of nowhere.

By the time my head snapped up, there was just enough time to register the car’s steely blue paintjob and the silent scream of the driver’s yawning mouth, but not enough time to avoid the hunk of metal careening toward me.

Tires screeched. A horn blared. Everything happened at once. I threw my arms in front of my face (like that would actually help) and waited for the inevitable burst of pain that had to follow.

None came.

I lowered my arms, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the afternoon sun, which somehow seemed brighter than it had a moment ago. Sweat prickled at the back of my neck as the scene before me clicked into place.

The woman and her Beemer were gone. Everything was gone—the intersection, the hot spring day, the neighborhood I’d lived in my entire life—all of it vanished, like someone abracadabra-ed it away.

In its place stood a giant stone staircase, clawing upward so the sky split into an endless stack of right angles. I couldn’t see where it ended. It just went on and on, up and up, until my neck couldn’t bend any farther and I lost sight of its climb.

I blinked, then blinked again. My brain didn’t want to accept what my eyes saw, so I crouched into a ball and pressed my fists against my eyes until black-and-red spirals spun into my vision.

This couldn’t be right. This couldn’t be right at all.

When I pulled my hands away, the world pinwheeled back into view.