Chapter 9

GOT A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION? Madison Dahl: Oh, I don’t know. I want to say build up my lats, but that’s so shallow. I guess I want to reconnect with people I’ve lost track of. Make amends. You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

—People.com Between classes at school the next day, I pounded out the script for my next movie.

“I can’t believe you’re already working on that,” Jenna said, peering over my shoulder during lunch as I stuffed my face and scribbled at the same time.

“I had an idea,” I shrugged. “What are you going to do?”

Jenna sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can do another movie with Kelly, so you may have to be my leading lady.”

“What, Kelly won’t do it again?” I could see why she’d take a pass, honestly. Jenna’s short was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but Kelly wasn’t acting in it. That naked pain and all those tears were real.

“No, it’s not that,” Jenna said. “It was just too uncomfortable. It’s not an experience you’d want to have twice, you know?”

I nodded. Kelly was out sick again, but lately even when she’d been at school we hadn’t seen much of her. She’d sit in her car alone at lunch, and then skulk between classes with her head down and her earbuds in so no one could talk to her. And the worst part was I didn’t mind, and I don’t think Jenna did, either.

I handed my script, complete with doodles and cross-outs, to Jenna to read. “Feedback, please.”

I tried not to watch her face as she read, but it was hard. I couldn’t believe how nervous I was, as if I was revealing something totally private even though it was just a movie script. Jenna looked up at me and nodded. “This is good,” she said. “It’s you. It’s real.”

I grinned. “I’m gonna text Mike,” I said, pulling out my cell. “I want him to read it, too.”

Jenna gave me a funny look, and it took a second for me to understand why. “I’ll give it to Jeremy, too,” I argued.

Jenna shrugged innocently. “I didn’t say anything.”

The truth was I hadn’t called Jeremy, though I was pretty sure the message on my voice mail was from him (I was waiting for a good time to listen to it, but for whatever strange reason, that time never seemed to come). I’d tried to block out the fight from the other night, but it was hard.

While Jenna sat next to me writing some old LilHuddy lyrics on the back of her hand in black marker, I texted Mike. And the response came back almost immediately. “Coffee Bean, 3?”

I didn’t hesitate. I sent an OK emoji as fast as my fingers could fly.

***

I shivered sucking down the dregs of my ice blended (which I’ll admit was a pretty stupid choice for November), but it wasn’t just the cold that was getting to me. Mike was reading my pages. And not just reading, but re-reading, flipping back and forth and scanning the pages over and over. After a few minutes, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Something wrong?” I asked, hoping my voice wasn’t as high and squeaky to him as it was to me.

“No! God, no,” he said, finally looking up at me. “This is so good, Erin. I was just impressed with how you made it all come together, how it resonated. I was trying to figure out how you did it without dialogue.”

“Really? You really like it?” Okay, I sounded like a total dimwit, but I didn’t care. I don’t think I’d realized how much Mike’s opinion meant to me. But it meant a lot, clearly.

Maybe that was because I thought, more than anyone else, Mike might really get what I was trying to say. The script was about a girl who’s just arrived in America and speaks no English. In the movie, people try to talk to her, but it all comes across as angry gibberish, and so she goes to a park alone to escape the noise. At the park, a boy sits on the bench next to her. When he realizes they don’t share the same language, he turns on his MP3 player and shares his headphones with her. After that, when she meets people, their gibberish doesn’t sound angry—it sounds like music. I know, it’s not exactly a big action movie. There’s not even much of a plot. But it was my way of trying to understand my mom and Miss Do a little better, if that makes any sense.

“I really do, Erin, I swear.” Mike grinned at me with those amazing dimples, and I couldn’t help it. Without even thinking, just propelled by this feeling I had in my gut for one split second, I did something I shouldn’t have.

I leaned across the table and kissed him.

I think we were both a little shocked. “I’m sorry,” I stammered.

“I’m not,” Mike replied. Leave it to Mike to always be brutally honest with his opinion. I could tell from the look on his face he wasn’t kidding.

And I could also tell he was moving in for another liplock.

So, of course, I completely panicked like an overcaffeinated dork. I grabbed my script pages, folded them into a wad and shoved them in my purse. “I’ve gotta go,” I said, leaping up from my chair and heading for the door.

I heard Mike say, “Erin, wait!” but I was already out the door.

***

At home, I hid in my room, emerging only to gulp down dinner and take a quickie shower. I turned off my cell phone and left it off. Just like the girl in my movie, I needed some quiet time to think. But all I succeeded in doing was driving myself crazy. I loved Jeremy. I really did. So why had I kissed Mike?

I guess I fell asleep at some point, because the next thing I knew my alarm was going off. I felt like I’d been thumped on the head with a concrete block, and I couldn’t stop hitting the snooze bar. By the time I finally staggered out of bed, I was not only running late, but I had this weird crease that went all the way down the side of my face.

I somehow made it to school roughly on time and even managed not to sleep through first period. But I swear I was in a semi-comatose state. And I really, really wish I’d been even a little more awake.

As I stared into my locker like a zombie, wondering why I’d opened it in the first place, Jenna and Kelly walked up to me. Jenna was grinning ear to ear. “Hey,” she chirped. “Look who’s here?”

“Hey, girl,” Kelly said. And then, to my absolute shock, she actually smiled a little.

“Hey,” I replied. “You look really good.”

“And clean,” Jenna said, gazing at Kelly like she was a prize pig at the fair.

Kelly shrugged. “I guess.”

“No, really, you look good. I love that necklace you’re wearing,” Jenna said, pointing to a string of black glass beads around Kelly’s neck.

“These used to be my mom’s, but she gave them to me,” Kelly said, unclasping them in the back. “Here,” she said, handing them to Jenna. “You take them.”

Jenna shook her head. “I couldn’t. They’re yours. They look good on you.”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t need them anymore.” Kelly gazed down at her watch, a Fossil leather strap number she’d designed herself online. “And Erin, I want you to have my watch.”

I gazed at the watch as she put it in my hand. I knew this was weird, but Kelly had been nothing but weird for months now. So, I just smiled and said thank you.

The bell rang, and Kelly headed down the hallway. “Take care, you guys,” she called out over her shoulder. Jenna and I stared at each other.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“Like I know,” Jenna shot back. “Maybe she’s joined a cult or something. But if she has, I guess we should just be glad the leaders encourage showering.”

***

I was still in my dead zone during American history when I heard scuffling and yelling in the hallway. Mr. Weider stopped the class to stick his nose out the door. Everyone watched as he whispered with another teacher for a while, and we scanned his face for answers as he shut the door and turned back to face us. He looked pale and worried. Not good.

“There seems to have been an accident in one of the school bathrooms,” he said. When a few kids laughed and someone muttered “that’s where they’re supposed to happen,” Mr. Weider’s mouth squeezed into a straight line. “This is not a time for joking,” he barked.

“What happened?” Cassie asked, raising her hand in the seat in front of me.

“This is something I’m sure the principal will address with the school as a group,” Mr. Weider said slowly, in that way that teachers have when they’re afraid their students are going to collectively burst into flame.

He tried to get back to the topic of the Kennedy assassination, but no one was listening. “What do you think happened?” Cassie whispered to me.

“No idea,” I whispered back.

“Janitor probably slipped in a puddle or something,” Cassie muttered. “They’re such drama queens at this school.”

I smiled, since Cassie calling anyone else a drama queen seemed kind of funny to me. But that was the last time I’d think anything was funny for a while.

Once class was dismissed, we walked into a hallway seething with rumors. The girls’ bathroom was cordoned off, and it looked like the whole student body was gathered around the entrance, trying to piece together the big mystery.

“I heard someone broke their leg,” a short girl standing next to me said in a hushed tone.

“I heard there was a catfight in there,” a guy in a football jersey replied. “This one girl knifed another one to death. Blood everywhere.”

“Gross!” the jock standing next to him yelled.

The sound of an ambulance siren sliced through the air. “That’s coming here,” someone yelled, and we all made a mad dash for the nearest window.

There, looking out onto the school driveway, we could see the ambulance stop and two paramedics come tumbling out, quickly pulling a gurney from the back of the truck.

“Step away right now!” the art teacher Mrs. Buck screamed, stamping through the crowd. “Go to your assigned classes immediately!”

We all reluctantly turned our backs and walked away. It wouldn’t be until the next class break that the rumors would start to take the shape of fact.

“That Kelly girl overdosed,” a tall, gangly guy announced in a loud voice as I stepped into the hallway. “The cheerleader. My girlfriend found her.”

I felt my legs go weak, tears suddenly blinding me. When I’d blinked them away, I saw Jenna standing in front of me, sobbing.

“It’s true?” I asked. Jenna nodded.

“Is she dead?” someone in the crowd asked.

“Don’t know,” the tall guy said.

“We have to get to the hospital,” Jenna said to me, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me out of the crowd.

“Which one?”

Jenna put her head in her hands. “I don’t know,” she cried. “I don’t know where she is, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!”

“We can call her mom,” I said, trying to calm her down.

“You can do it,” Jenna sniffled. “She hates me.”

Not exactly a call I wanted to make, but I did it once Jenna shakily pulled up the number in her cell. “Hello? Mrs. Bend? It’s me, Erin Kim,” I said, bracing myself.

“This isn’t a good time, Erin,” Mrs. Bend said, her voice sounding raspy.

“Is she… okay?”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Bend sighed. “She’s still with us, I know that.” I could tell Mrs. Bend had started to cry.

“Is there anything we can do?” I asked, the words catching in my throat.

“Just pray for her, Erin,” Mrs. Bend said before the line went dead.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jenna said, heading for the doors. There were two periods left in the school day, but I doubted anyone was checking roll anyway.

“Sure,” I said.

***

We ended up just sitting in my car a few blocks away from school. I was too freaked out to drive, and there was nowhere we wanted to go anyway.

Just a few hours ago I’d thought I had problems, big ones. I felt like an idiot. I’d been treating Kelly like a nuisance, as if she was some depressing monster who’d swallowed up the fun girl I used to know. I’d seen all the signs, sure, but I’d ignored them. I just didn’t have the time. And now it might be too late.

“You should tell Madison,” Jenna said in a quiet, steely voice as she stared out the window at nothing. “She should know.”

“Why? Because you blame her?”

Jenna shrugged. “Maybe.”

“It’s not her fault, Jenna.”

Jenna finally turned to look at me. “Maybe now she’ll apologize. If Kelly lives. We can all apologize.”

I had to believe that Madison would do something for Kelly, maybe send flowers or get her a really great shrink or at the very least forgive her. I had to think Madison couldn’t hold a grudge after this.

I turned on the phone and dialed. “Hey, Madison, I’ve got to tell you something.”

“I was just about to call you!” Madison squealed. “I have big news. I’m dumping the spy movie and doing the Ang Lee one instead! You totally inspired me!”

Any other day I would have been thrilled to hear that Madison had changed her mind. Any day but this one. “Congratulations,” I said. “But, Madison—”

The girl wasn’t taking a breath. “Oh, but first I should tell you that my lawyer has totally found a way to send Miss Do back to Korea, never to return. So good news for you, good news for me!”

“Please, Madison, tell him to stop,” I pleaded.

“Why? You hate her.”

“Just… I’ll explain later, okay? I have some really bad news. Please just listen to me.”

“You and Jeremy broke up? You and Mike are having a torrid love affair? What?” Madison’s giddy good mood made my head hurt.

“Kelly tried to kill herself at school. She overdosed. And I don’t know if she’s going to live.”

Madison was so quiet I wasn’t sure if she was still on the line. “Are you there?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Madison replied, no longer giddy. “Wow. That’s awful.”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t quite sure what to say then.

“Is she at the hospital?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know which one.”

“I’ll have Lila find out. She’s good at that sort of thing.” I wasn’t sure how Madison’s assistant was going to get sensitive information like that, but I wasn’t going to question it. “I’ll send flowers. Or something.”

“Maybe we can all visit,” I suggested.

Another long silence. “Sure,” Madison said, finally. “When I get back from Vegas.”

“You’re in Vegas?” Considering I’d been crying for the last hour, this just made my head hurt.

“Yeah,” Madison said glumly. “That was my big news. Don’t take it personally that you aren’t invited because no one is. Benny and I are getting married.”

***

Of course, you know the rest of the story. Or at least you think you do from reading the tabloids. Anyway, at that very moment I felt like two of my best friends were teetering on the brink of disaster, and one may have already fallen too far to recover. I wanted to help. I wanted to save them.

But sometimes, the only person you can save is yourself.