A Blue So Dark (10 page)

Family members who care for a schizophrenic are at risk of burnout. Especially family members who are probably going to be just as sick, raving, and nuts as their wacked out relative.

om finally, finally falls asleep around dawn, collapsing onto her bed for the first time in what feels like about three centuries. By a quarter to eight, her snores are so rattle-the-whole-house loud, I figure she's out hard enough to maybe sleep through the entire day. I dress and grab the keys, since I don't have time at this point to walk-and I really do need to put in an appearance at school. No, nothing wrong at home, Fritz, nothing, just going through my oh-so-cool rebellious phase. Sorry about running out on you yesterday and skipping all my afternoon classes.

I start to reach for the handle of my canvas bag, stopping short when I realize it's not sitting on the floor beside the kitchen table, but on Jeremy's skateboard. I reach down to touch a rough patch along the edge of the board that maybe got scraped up during some trick. Touch it like I would if it were Jeremy's elbow, wounded in a fall. I close my eyes and let my fingers run along the thick swirls of paint he's smeared across the board, tracing them like the curves and indentions of taut muscles down a stomach. My mind explodes with images I'd paint-if, I remind myself, standing and kicking the board into the back corner of the kitchen, painting wasn't like lying down in the middle of the freaking highway, waiting for a semi to turn me into Aura hash.

The defroster in the Tempo is shot, so I drive with the windows cracked-the extra-bitter Missouri October morning makes the whole car feel like a deep-freeze. My breath comes out in opaque puffs that probably make me look like I'm smoking. And I'm such a ball of nerves, trying to make it seem like I'm an expert driver and not someone who's just slipped behind the wheel for the third time in her entire freaking life, I really wish I were. Smoking, that is. I wish my lungs were full of smoke right now.

Mr. Groce, King of Crestview Security, doesn't exactly smile upon fifteen-year-olds who are driving illegally, so I pass the entrance to the Crestview lot and head for the nearby Kmart. Cut the engine out behind the Tire & Lube.

By the time I park, though, I realize it's taken me longer to drive to school than it usually does to walk. Criminy. I've really got to huff it, past the already empty Circle, all the way across the field and through the Crestview High back door.

And smack into a chest as soft as an overstuffed living room chair.

"Badge," the chest barks at me. It belongs to Mr. Groce, who's wearing his usual eighties-vintage brown plaid jacket, purchased when he was six sizes smaller.

I reach into my hoodie and pull out my laminated ID badge on a bright yellow cord. The faculty acts like they're no big deal, like they're just time cards you'd punch any old day at the mind-numbing office. Nobody has the balls to say what they really are: dog tags. If there's ever a Crestview High massacre, Groce will know who to mail my mutilated body to.

Less paperwork that way, you know. Less money spent on those pesky DNA tests.

He glares at me as I try to make a last-second dip into the ladies' room. Before I can even touch the handle, though, he jingles his keys out of his pocket and slams them into the lock. My shoulders droop. I could tell him, I just have to pee, but who wants to discuss bodily functions with a fifty-yearold male security guard? Reminds me of having to watch the birds 'n bees video with the hairy-knuckled fifth grade gym teacher. Ultra-creepy. Besides, he's obviously made up his mind about me-I'm not a glistening golden, but the bad guy, guilty until proven innocent, a tramp who will light up as soon as I step into the back stall (and probably even start a fire when I toss a still-burning cigarette butt into the trash can). I am just the kind of gypsy scum who will destroy anything her sneaker tread touches-so I don't get to use the cleanest bathroom in the school.

I glare right back as I head for the stairs. I should have known better than to leave the house without using the bathroom. What am I, five?

Ah, well, no time now. I hike the sleeve of my hoodie- 8:05. Damn! And I take the steps two at a time. My feet echo through the dead stairwell.

By midmorning, I'm not sure why I even bothered coming to school at all. It takes the entirety of first period to straighten everything out with the stupid attendance secretaries, and a bomb threat means the entire student body spends second and third periods out in the parking lot, shivering in the October cold. Since it's Vote for Your Homecoming Queen Bullshit of the Century Day, the glistening goldens wander through the parking lot while we wait for the fire department to give the thumbs-up, smiling at all the rest of us as if to say, Why, I never thought you were a gypsy in the first place. Want to share my last stick of juicy Fruit?

Gag.

Across the lot, I see Janny, alone, arms across her chest. And I walk up to her, a smile plastered on my cheeks like a clown's grin. Because every other fight we've had has ended with me showing up at her house like nothing bad had ever been said between us. Ten minutes after ringing her doorbell, we'd be in front of her TV, passing a bowl of popcorn back and forth, and in the last year or so, every time one of my insurance-selling Dad's retarded commercials came on, Janny would put her head on my shoulder. We'd watch my very own dad put his arm around Brandi, who was holding their daughter, the words Auto, Home, Life, Health flashing on the screen with the American Family logo. Janny'd point to my little half-sister and say, "I think Carolyn's a dumb name, anyway."

But now, when I walk up to her, her angry eyes start boring into my forehead. Like a drill bit, you know? Like trepanation. They used to do that to crazies-drill holes right into their skulls to let the demons out.

"What do you want now, Aura?" she asks, annoyed.

"Come on, Janny, you act like I'm Ethan. Like every time you turn around, you have to wipe my ass."

"Frankly, I'm surprised you even remember his name," she spits.

My brain spins. I don't know where this is coming from. "You know, I've got a few things on my mind, Janny. I've got this person at home-remember her? And I don't know what to do, okay? And maybe if somebody helped me out-"

"So go find somebody, creep," she says. "I just came today to clean out my locker."

"Clean out your locker," I repeat.

"I moved out, okay? Of my parents' house, all right? And I got a job, because Ace is gone-"

"Wait, wait," I say, reaching for Janny's arm, but she squirms away.

"Yeah, big surprise, right? One thing's for sure-don't ever trust a guy named Ace to come through for you when you find yourself in a jam. Guys named Ace get in their 1966 El Camino street racers and head for the coast. Any coast. And dumb old Janny Jamison couldn't even figure that one out. And the thing is," Janny blurts, like she's been waiting eons for the chance to tell someone this very thing, "they say it's the woman's prerogative to change her mind. But that's wrong. Guys are the ones who get to say, `You know what? I don't want to be with you after all.' They get to say it after they've sucked all the sweetness out of you, just like those cheap, liquid-filled wax candy things we used to get for Halloween. They leave you a dried up, empty piece of wax, and head off to find somebody else who still has some sweetness inside."

I clutch my chest. "Janny, I didn't know-"

"No," she says, trying to suck the snot back into her nose. "You didn't. And you didn't bother to find out, either. You're not the only person with problems, Aura. Real, shitty, stupid problems. And I'm sorry, but I can't take on any more. Especially not from someone who just thinks I'm whining about a stuffy nose. Leave me alone, okay? Just leave me the hell alone."

As I watch Janny turn to disappear in the crowd, I find out that when my heart shatters, it sounds just like a glass vase splintering into a million pieces on a tile floor.

I hurry over to the side of the building, away from the parking lot. And I feel so rotten and so lost and so scared, I'm actually crying. Tears rolling, just like some weepy little baby-like that stupid douche bag Adam Riley, who cried in the first grade when a substitute teacher showed up, because he wasn't supposed to talk to strangers and there was one in his room and he just had to get out of there, go to his mommy.

Criminy. I'm crying just like that, and while I'm blubbering, of all the stupid rotten luck, Jeremy Barnes is sitting on the sidewalk by the library exit, looking right at me. He's watching me make a complete and total fool of myself. He's standing up, and he's lunging toward me. He's got his fingers wrapped around my wrist like a handcuff.

I start to wrench myself away, but quit because his fingers are warm, and his touch makes a feverish ache explode through me.

"Come here," he insists, loosening his grip to slide his hand down, weave his fingers between mine-God, like I'm some awful girly-girl, the fact that we're holding hands makes me want to squeal. He tugs me forward, and our feet start smacking the parking lot-his Adidas and my old Converse with the paint all over the toe. We race to the Circle, toward a black Firebird with a fender that's been mangled so long, the dents have actually started to rust.

"Is this yours?" I ask dumbly, my voice still sounding teary, which I hate.

Jeremy shakes his head. "Nope," he says as he smacks the back bumper. The trunk creaks open.

I guess I'm looking at him all horrified, because he grins, his Cindy Crawford beauty mark wiggling. "Don't worry," he says. "Guy that owns it gives me a ride every morning. And this," he says, pulling a beat-up board from the trunk, "is mine. As of this morning."

"For the-for the necklaces," I say, wiping at my face with the cuff of my hoodie. Because I want him to know I've been paying attention, too. That maybe I've got my own collection of Jeremy factoids.

Jeremy nods. "Couple of hours ago, I figured the saw was the best place for this thing. But now-I think maybe she's got one more ride in her."

He slams the trunk shut, and he's got my hand againhis skin is something to savor, like a piece of chocolate on my tongue. He's tugging me down the street, to the corner, where the curb dips down into a concrete drainage ditch. Somebody's spray painted Thug Life across the ditch in enormous white letters, and a few brown beer bottles lay scattered in the overgrown grass that separates the curb from the sidewalk.