The Everafter Read online

The pain of that realization slices through my obsession

  with Gabriel and helps me concentrate on how important

  this really is.

  "I don't want you to leave, Sandra. / want you to stay

  here with your mom, but your mom's . . . well, not quite

  her alone will kill her.

  "But how can I go off with Dad right now and leave her

  by herself? It's like she'd die. Maybe even kill herself."

  Too late—obviously. Mrs. Simpson has already convinced

  Sandra she's responsible for the life and death of her

  mother.

  Still, Sandra's comment shows progress—sort of. Sandra's

  never admitted before that her mom is this kind of

  unstable.

  But a response to the comment is also tricky. I'm not

  sure exactly how to approach this subject, so I sound totally

  stupid as I talk in slow motion. "At least. . . if you go . . .

  now . . . you'll have, well, your dad . . . he'll help vou get up

  the .. . courage . . . to do it. You'll have him . . . reassuring

  you t h a t . . . well, that you need . . . a life, too. And if you . . .

  leave with him . . . won't your grandma . . . I mean . . . can't

  your mom . . . live with her parents? If you weren't here . . .

  maybe she'd . . . maybe she'd move back South . . . with

  them."

  "She says she won't. She's going to stay right here, and

  she wants me to stay with her."

  Great. Just great. It's like Airs. Simpson has already

  anticipated all mv moves and put her game pieces in place

  to defend against them. She's not a woman I ever want to

  plav chess with.

  Yet that seems to be exactly what I'm doing.

  right. You know that. How could you stand to live with her

  without your dad there to help you manage her?"

  There ought to be a law that says parents can't get

  divorced during their kids' senior year of high school. They

  ought to have to stick it out until the kids are gone so they

  don't disrupt the most important year of our lives.

  "But if I stayed," Sandra argues, "it'd only be for the

  rest of this year, right? I mean, in eight months I'll be going

  away to college."

  "Sandra . . . It's hard to figure out how to tell her this.

  She's always been so touchy when it comes to talking about

  her mother. There's a lot about her mom that she just won't

  admit to herself . . . like that her mother's a really sick

  woman—and I'm not talking physically. "I'm not sure that

  you'll go to college if you stav here with your mom."

  "I'm going to college. There's no way I'm not!" she protests.

  "Oh, I know you'll take college classes. But, well, I don't

  think you'll go away to college. I think your mom will manage

  to convince you to stay at home and go to community

  college. Or maybe she'll convince you to go part-time so

  you can commute to a university. B u t . . . " I kick the pinecone

  a little too hard, and it skitters off the path into the

  grass. I track it down but have to kick it a couple times to get

  it back onto the path. "Can you see your mom living alone?"

  I just know Airs. Simpson will convince Sandra that leaving

  In frustration, I kick the pinecone too hard again, but

  I'm so focused on Sandra that I don't pay much attention to

  where it's going. " See? That's what I mean. She'll do that to

  you again next year when it's time for you to go to college.

  Convince you that she'll be all alone if you leave." I want to

  tell her that her mother is seriously crazy, but my credibility

  in the judging-people's-sanity category has plunged to an

  all-time low. Even Sandra thinks it was nuts that I accused

  Dana of killing my cat and trying to kill me. Better that I

  not mention anything related to, well, mental health.

  We're both silent for a moment as I look for the pinecone

  off the path. I don't find it. Sighing, I sit down on

  the grass. Sandra's still standing, and as I gaze up at her, I

  notice that in the past few months she's gained weight. I'm

  surprised. How could I not have noticed until this moment

  that she's put on about fifteen pounds? Have I been that

  absorbed in my own life? She's lost that birdlike fragility

  I've always thought of her as having, and I mourn its loss—

  not because she's less pretty than she used to be, but because

  the difference in her shows me how much everything has

  been changing lately.

  "She thinks you'll try to get me to stay, you know."

  "What do you mean?" I ask, patting the ground next to

  me, encouraging her to sit.

  She does. "Whenever we have this conversation at home,

  she tells me to ask vou what to do. She thinks you'll try to

  m 191

  gel me to stay here with you."

  I can just imagine those scenes. No doubt Sandra's mom

  is crying and pleading. She'll use tuny dirty tactic she can

  to keep Sandra tied to her. I'm glad I've managed to think

  about Sandra's best interests instead of my own for once.

  I know I'm selfish sometimes, but selfish enough to try to

  keep Sandra under the spell of her mother?

  No. Not that selfish. I'd rather lose my best friend and

  have her get the chance to lead a somewhat healthy life than

  keep her near me if it means living with her mother.

  "Don't get me wrong, Sandra. I wish you could stay. I

  wish your dad wouldn't leave. Couldln't he get a job around

  here?"

  She shakes her head sadly. "He says he has to get away

  from her, too. And he wants me to go with him. He thinks,

  like you do, that it'll be bad for me to stay here with Mom.

  But I don't see how he can just walk away from her like that.

  She needs us. She's defenseless without us."

  "Or she wants you to think she is. She doesn't have to

  be." I don't add that her mother is anything but defenseless,

  She's one of the strongest women I know. She uses the

  appearance of weakness to get people to do what she wants

  them to. "Much as I want you to stay here—and I definitely

  do, Sandra—I want even more for you to be happy. And

  you'd never be happy here alone in that house with your

  mom. You know that, don't you?"

  19i

  go away. I only kind of got what she was hinting at, but I got

  it enough to know I was scared and had to go home."

  There's a moment of silence between us. "How often?"

  I finally ask.

  "How often what?"

  "How often does she threaten to kill herself?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Sometimes she'll go a couple years

  without ever threatening to kill herself. Then suddenly she'll

  be threatening her life every day for a couple weeks. Do you

  know how many different ways there are to kill yourself? I

  do. I think my mom's said she was going to use every one.

  The whole thing has always scared me, but not as much as

  it does right now. It's somehow different."

  I doubt it. "How? How is it different?"

  Sandra shakes her head. "I don't know. I can't explain it.

  It just is."

  I put my arm around her and hug her. There's nothing
/>   I can say to make her less afraid. Right now I have to find

  strength I don't think I have to help support her through

  this. Her latest confessions have only made me more convinced

  that she has to go live with her dad in Oregon.

  "C'mon," I say. "Let's go swing."

  She glances over at a row of swings where we used to

  play together when we were little. "Okay," she says.

  We get up slowly and take off toward the swings.

  "Yeah, I do," she admits. "It's just so hard to do what

  I should. I'm terrified that—" She pauses for a moment,

  unsure. Then she plunges ahead. "She's been threatening to

  kill herself. I think she might really . . . this time . . . I mean

  now . . . How do I tell you all this? There's stuff I probably

  should have let you know before."

  There's wore?! I suddenly feel betrayed. I guess J

  shouldn't have assumed I knew everything about Sandra,

  even if she is my best friend, but still I don't like hearint;

  that she's been keeping secrets from me. Especially about

  her mom.

  When Sandra doesn't pick up the thread of her thoughts,

  I prompt her by using my knee to nudge hers.

  "Well, it seems like my whole life she's been threatening

  to kill herself. The first time I remember it, I was in, like,

  first grade, I think. She started waving around a butcher

  knife while she was having some fight with Dad. Told him

  she'd kill herself."

  It's not hard to figure out who won that fight, but I keep

  my mouth shut about it.

  "When I went to camp during fourth grade, remember

  how I had to suddenly go home?"

  "Yeah. Your mom got sick."

  "Well, sort of. She called and told me she had this bottle

  of pills that made her feel better while I was gone, but she

  thought she'd need to take a lot of them to make all the pain

  IV!

  UNCORREC r£D E-PROOf—NOt FOR SAlE

  physics

  age 17

  It's a beautiful fall day. Perfect for sitting outside the school

  to eat lunch. The leaves are all golden and orange, and a

  breeze is teasing them out of their branches so they fall

  swirling around my feet under the picnic table.

  Too bad I can't enjoy the day's beauty. I'm miserable.

  Miserable because I'm feeling lonely without Gabe. We

  still haven't said anything to each other since the fight about

  my car accident.

  Miserable because Sandra didn't even come to school

  today. She must be that overwhelmed by the choice she has

  US

  to make.

  Miserable because I didn't manage to finish my physics

  homework and it's due in twenty minutes.

  Miserable because my sister went into labor this morning,

  but my parents wouldn't let me go to the hospital with

  her. They insisted I should go to school, since first babies

  take such a long time to enter the world.

  Can't say I blame babies for that. Who'd really want to

  enter this messed-up experience called life?

  I'm so intent on all this that I don't realize at first that

  I've been playing with my necklace . . . the one that Gabe

  gave me last summer. It's silver, and in the center, it has

  seven different charms that spell out FOREVKR.

  Yeah. So much for that. We aren't even talking right

  now.

  Tears blur my eyes. Then I'm startled by a soft touch on

  my shoulder. I jump and whirl around, gasping.

  Gabe.

  He holds up his hands in a classic "I'm innocent" gesture.

  "Didn't mean to startle you," he says.

  "You didn't," I say, so desperate to be nice to him that it

  takes me a second to realize how obviously that's not true. "I

  mean," I stutter, "I mean, you did, but I'm glad you did."

  We just gaze at each other for the longest time. T hen

  he finally says, "Did you get number eleven?" He nods his

  head toward my physics homework. "I worked on that one

  to move forward with you, but I don't want to give up my

  past. And even though I know Dana can be a complete pain

  sometimes, I can't believe that I'd spend two years going out

  with someone who's the kind of monster you keep trying to

  convince me Dana is."

  I look down at my physics homework. The wind is catching

  the edge of it, flipping up the bottom half of it. Only

  my cardboard container of uneaten french fries is holding it

  down. At the moment, it's easier to look at that paper than it

  is to meet Gabe's gaze. I feel so much . . . shame. Everything

  he's saying makes sense. But I don't know how to respond to

  it, because I stil 1 feel an intense fear of something, but I don't

  know what is. I'm not imagining bogeymen here. There's a

  real monster out there somewhere, and it's as likely to be

  Dana as anyone else.

  And yet what if she is just a nonnal girl? What if she

  didn't purposefully cause that accident? Then who killed

  my cat?

  "I'm not sure what to say, Gabe. I love you, too. I've

  been miserable without you the last week. I don't want to

  put you in a bad spot."

  He puts his index finger under my chin and lifts it up.

  Then he kisses the corner of my mouth. It's a soft kiss, like

  the fluttering of a butterfly's wings, and I want more. I turn

  to face him and, putting my arms around him, lean in for

  a real kiss. Something greater than either of us seems to

  m

  for about a half hour last night and never did get it to come

  out right."

  Great. Just great. And I have, what, twenty minutes to

  finish the whole assignment? But physics homework isn't

  what I want to be thinking about.

  "I'm sorry. I mean, about that whole . . . fight. I shouldn't

  have thrown that ring at you. I guess I was way shook up by

  that accident." Okay, I don't think that's actually why I did it,

  but hey, I'll use just about any fair excuse right now.

  "I know," he says. "I should have been cooler about the

  whole thing, too. AH my frustration with the thing between

  you and Dana just hit crisis point."

  He straddles the bench next to me, dumping his backpack

  onto the picnic table. "I've been trying for a week now

  to figure out what to say to you."

  "Me too."

  "It's just that . . . Maddy, I love you. I do. And I don't

  understand why you don't know it."

  "Well, it's just that—"

  "Don't," he interrupts. He holds a finger against my lips.

  His touch is so gentle, so cherishing that I know, somehow,

  that everything will be all right. "I know it would be easier

  for you if I just didn't have anything to do with Dana. But

  can't you understand she was a major part of my life for

  two years? I feel like you're asking me to throw away those

  years of my life . . . completely. To write them off. I want

  infuse that kiss with power.

  "I'm sorry, Gabe," I say when we finish kissing. I'm

  being deliberately vague because the truth is, I actually don't

  know what I'm sorrv for. Maybe everything. And nothing.

  At the same ti
me.

  He leans his forehead against mine . 1 like the feel of

  his skin.

  "I hope we don't ever fight again," I sav.

  He smiles wickedly. "The making-up part is pretty

  nice."

  I grin.

  He kisses me again.

  Don't ask me why, but I remember the whole physics

  thing right then. Not that Gabe isn't the kind of kisser who

  can drive mundane thoughts of physics assignments right

  out of my head . . . because he is. But I'm prettv wound

  up today . . . everything from Kristen's baby to Sandra's

  problems are pounding at my consciousness. And for some

  bizarre reason, it's the physics assignment that wins the

  anxiety war.

  "I don't suppose you want to help me with my physics,"

  I say.

  Another wicked grin. "I thought I was helping you with

  physics."

  "Different form of physics. That one doesn't help my

  grade any in Mr. Martin's class."

  •'VI

  He sighs. "Okay." He opens up his backpack and starts

  to pull out his book.

  "Want to come with me after school today to check on

  Sandra?" I ask. I fill him in on how she's been struggling

  the last week to make this important decision. "Her lather

  wants to move by early next week, so she's really stressed

  about what she's going to do."

  Gabe whistles in commiseration. "Sure, I'll go over

  there with you."

  "Oh, and Kristen went into labor this morning," I tell

  him.

  "Hey, well, at least that's good news. Any word?"

  "Not yet. I called my mom at the beginning of lunch,

  and she said the hospital sent Kristen home to wait it out a

  bit more. I heard that some first babies can take more than

  twenty-four hours to arrive, so I guess that means she'll give

  birth in the middle of the night or something."

  "Hmm . . . October thirtieth seems like a good birthday

  to me."

  "Yeah. Or the thirty-first if it's after midnight. Both are

  pretty good."

  "Halloween baby."

  I laugh. "Don't say that. It makes my niece—or nephew—

  sound like Satan's spawn."

  "The ancient Celts believed that during this time of

  year the boundaries between the worlds of the living and

  ,u:

  the dead thinned so that spirits could enter our world. Kind

  of a cool time to be born, actually."

  "Hey," I protest, "you're poaching! Samhain and ancient

  Celtic legend and folklore . . . that's all stuff we cover in AP

  English. That's my area." Okay, so I hadn't actually remembered