Empty (5 page)

We look at each other silently. I wonder if my own mother sees me. As with Cara, I don’t think she does. Mom’s eyes are clouded over with exhaustion and whatever concoction of pills she’s on at the moment.

Sadness releases from my chest. Like a snake, it slithers down my legs. I swear I feel its mouth bite into my thigh. Its miserable venom seeps into my bloodstream. I grind my teeth together to stop the sadness from penetrating my brain, my heart . . . my soul.

“Just go, before she honks again and that nut Mr. Xien calls the police.”

I walk down the hallway with clenched fists. The anger swirls together with the sadness, creating a perfect storm of awful. After I close the door behind me, I jump up and down a few times on the landing to shake off the unhappiness.

“What did your parents say about you getting cut?” Cara asks as we pull out.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Her face contorts into a scowl. Apparently my answer annoys her.

I shrug.

“You didn’t tell them, did you?”

I don’t really care what either of my parents thinks right now.

“Don’t you think they’ll notice, Dell?”

“Don’t care.”

“Huh.”

We get quiet because that’s what we do in these situations. These moments are uncomfortable. Sometimes I create this fantasy that our silence is rich with understanding and support. So stupid.

I want Cara to be proud of me for not caring what my parents think and tell me that softball doesn’t matter because we’ve got each other. Maybe she could even look over and smile at me when she says it.

From the corner of my eye, I watch her turn on the radio and tap the steering wheel. I grip the edge of the front seat. She bobs her head to the beat. “I think everyone’s going to be there tonight, Dell.”

By “everyone,” I suspect she means Taryn’s and Brandon’s crew. But there has never been an “everyone” before. It’s usually just the two of us. “At the movies?”

She huffs. “Yeah, Dell, at the movies.”

This is the second time she’s gotten annoyed with me in less than two minutes. It’s some kind of craptastic record. My fingertips press deeper into the seat cushion, and I feel the cloth give a little. I let go. Poking a hole in Cara’s mother’s front seat would definitely infuriate her. I don’t want Cara to be mad at me. I need her.

As we drive in silence the world outside whizzes by in a blur. Inside the car I’m doing my best to act like everything’s normal. I abandon my death grip on the upholstery and tap my thigh to the music. Despite my lighthearted outward appearance, horrible thoughts take up all of the space in my brain. The most awful? My friendship with Cara just isn’t the same anymore. It doesn’t feel right. Or comfortable.

We sit at the light, waiting to make the left, and I want to tell Cara to turn around and take me home. “Oh, it’s so packed!” Cara exclaims. I can hear the excitement in her voice. The movie theater parking lot
is
a madhouse. People are everywhere, and Cara slows down to a crawl. “Sydney’s gotta be here,” Cara whispers to herself.

We drive up and down the rows, looking for a spot. Cara jams her foot on the brake, and we come to a screeching halt as three girls with matching cheerleading jackets, identical ponytails, and ribbons suddenly appear in front of our car. “God! Watch where you’re—” Cara cuts herself off, sticks her
head out the open window, and purrs in the most over-the-top chipper voice, “Girls, you look so cuu-uute.”

The girls pause. They turn in unison, giving Cara smiles as sugary as her compliment. The one in the middle with the black hair and perfect face says, “Grassy-ass, bay-bee.” She blows Cara a kiss and then folds in half, laughing herself to pieces. Cara starts clapping and giggling. My eyebrows are sewn together in what-the-hell-is-going-on-here confusion.

The black-haired beauty straightens herself and holds out her arms. Her friends, as if by magnetic force, link arms with her. They skip through the parking lot like they’re in a field of wildflowers.

“Holy crap, Dell, that was Brandon Levitt’s little sister. The pretty one in the middle. Maybe she’ll put in a good word for us.”

I can’t look at Cara because my face will show how I feel inside—nauseated. I keep my gaze straight ahead. “Wow.”

We end up having to park really far away from the movie theater. “Bring the map in case we get lost,” I joke. I’m trying to snap myself out of how disgusted I feel after watching that phony interaction. Cara doesn’t respond to my attempt at humor. She’s busy studying her face and puckering her lips in the visor mirror. Then she walks the entire way to the theater door on her tippie toes, scanning the rows of cars, obviously
looking for “everyone.” Remarkably, the only people we see from school are the other freshman cheerleaders. They seriously all have matching ponytails and ribbons. Yeah. I mean, my softball team used to wear our team T-shirts to school on game days, but I’ve never gone out in public, just for fun, dressed the same as someone else.

Standing in the line for food, I stare at the illuminated menu. If I had thirty dollars in my pocket, I could easily spend it: large popcorn, large soda, two boxes of candy, and a hot dog. I only have a ten, though. Small popcorn, a box of candy, no drink. I douse my popcorn in butter. It’s so much better with the butter.

I follow Cara like a puppy dog through the hallway, lost in my own thoughts. Maybe I’ll get a job now that softball doesn’t have a chokehold on my time. Then I could buy whatever the hell I wanted at the movies. I could even save for a car. I’d drive and drive and drive—to get away.

Cara stops suddenly just inside our theater, and I bump into her. “Dell, God, watch where you’re going! You made me spill my soda.”

“Sorry.” I hand her the wad of napkins I’d grabbed for eating my popcorn, and she wipes off her jeans.

For how crazy the parking lot and lobby were, our theater is pretty empty, only a few older couples and those cheerleaders
in the back row, and that’s it. “Everyone” must be seeing something else.

Cara squints and mumbles, “Where is everyone?” I follow her up a few stairs and we take our seats. Cara offers me one of her soft-pretzel bites.

I take one and dip it in the warm cheese sauce. As the spicy cheese has its way with my tongue, I wonder why food that isn’t good for you tastes so damn delicious. Green beans or cheese sauce? Cheese sauce, please. I’d eat the green beans
with
the cheese sauce. No doubt.

Those girls in the back row are being obnoxious, laughing too loud, squealing, shouting. “I hope they don’t do that during the movie,” I say.

Cara drops her feet from their perch on the seatback in front of her and turns completely around.

“Oh my God, Cara, don’t say anything,” I whisper and shrink down a bit.

Cara’s face lights up, and she starts waving. “Hold this. I’ll be right back.” She hands me her pretzel-bite tray, scurries across the aisle, and disappears up the steps. I can’t believe she went to say hi to them.

Her pretzels gaze up at me, each piece of salt a sympathetic eye—staring, feeling deeply sorry for me. I think these pretzels understand me more than Cara ever has.

A few minutes pass.
Has Cara abandoned me?
Her laugh reaches their volume, and I slide farther down in my seat. The advertisement for Rocco’s Italian Palace taunts me from the screen. The mounds of lasagna and garlic bread, displayed on a red-and-white checkered tablecloth, look so good I can almost taste the garlic. I eat one of Cara’s pretzels instead and listen to the girls’ voices. Despite how loud they are back there, I can’t make out much of what they are saying. I’m midchew when one word slices through the noise:
fat
. My whole body freezes and I hyperfocus. More uproarious laughter, and then there it is again:
fat
. My stomach drops, and I cringe as I swallow the dough and salt.

Now the salt-eyes can see me from the inside. The private me. The real me. Will they still be sympathetic?

I drop my chin and stare into my boobs. I am a freak. One of the older women in the back tries to shush them. A girl shouts, “It’s a free country, lay-dee!” I’m pretty sure that was Brandon’s little sister.

Cara returns, skipping across our row of seats toward me.
Shit, she’s a skipper now.
I look down at Cara’s tray. “Great,” I announce. I’ve eaten all but two of her pretzel bites. She notices as soon as she sits down.

“Geez, Dell. I asked you to hold them, not eat them.”

I hold out my popcorn.

“No. I don’t want that. Whatever.” She checks her phone
and then shoves it back into her pocket. “You saved me the calories anyway.”

I’m waiting for her to tell me why she went up there, to tell me what they said. Maybe even apologize for not inviting me up and introducing me.

She doesn’t.

“I applied for a summer internship at West Chester University last night. My dad helped me with my essay.” Cara shoves a drippy pretzel bite into her mouth, leans over, and whispers, “He wro tha whole thin.” She swallows. “He wrote the whole thing,” she clarifies. I eat a handful of butter-soaked popcorn.

The last pretzel bite finds its way to her mouth. She nods and says, “He’s awesome.”

“Nice.” My father wouldn’t write an essay
with
me, let alone
for
me. I crunch on more popcorn.

“I wonder where everyone is. Sydney said they were seeing this movie too.”

The theater goes dark, so I don’t have to hide my disappointment. Right now would be the ideal time for some magical intervention—presto, I’m gone.

Cara is slipping away from me. I’m starting to feel like I’m a nuisance, Cara’s annoying fat friend who just won’t shrivel up and go away. Instead, I get bigger and bigger.

I lick the greasy butter from each finger and crumple the
popcorn bag. I’m still hungry. Small portions are unsatisfyingly frustrating. Like when I was a kid in the sandbox, and I’d packed the bucket with dry sand, pushing it down real tight, then turned it over, expecting to see a sand castle, but it collapsed into nothing. I used to hate when that happened.

As gunfire explodes on-screen, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I jump a little. It’s a text from my father. He has used all caps. He’s pissed. I excuse myself and tell Cara I have to go to the bathroom. I refuse to read the text until I’m in the privacy of a stall. Whatever he has texted will infuriate me.

Apparently the people who design bathrooms are skinny, because I can barely maneuver my body inside to close the door. No one else is around, which is good, and I slam the door and the entire row of stalls shakes. I don’t actually have to go to the bathroom, so I stand in the stall. It is a damn tight squeeze. I feel like the wicked stepsister’s foot crammed into the glass slipper. I’m already breathing heavily, mostly out of frustration. “God!” I yell.

I read the stupid text from my stupid father:

I CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU REFUSE TO BE HAPPY FOR ME AFTER ALL I’VE DONE FOR YOU. CALL ME!

Yeah.

I wipe hot tears from my cheeks and sniffle. How can I be happy for him when he announced that he was getting remarried in a text message? He didn’t consider me or how I’d feel. Other than hating her, I don’t know Donna—and now she’s going to be married to my father. My family will never be whole again. We will be broken forever.

I make this choking/coughing sound as I sob into my bent elbow.

I don’t want to call him. In fact, I’d prefer he and DD sneak off to go live in their fairy-tale land instead of shoving his happiness down my throat. Maybe the wicked stepmother could put a curse on them. Or a dragon could eat them both.

I grab a handful of toilet paper and blow my nose. I can feel the sweat on the back of my neck. I have to get out of this sausage stall. I walk straight outside to the sidewalk because I’m suffocating. Once I catch my breath I text him back:

I quit softball.

After I hit send, my heart races. That is going to piss him off more than my “Whatever.” I want my lie to make him go nuts. It would be satisfying to hear the way Dad’s voice slides down an octave when he’s furious. I want to hurt him as much
as he has hurt me. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I want to talk to him. Maybe it’ll make me feel alive. I dial his number. After a few rings, he picks up.

Dad shouts, “What do you mean
you quit
?”

“I mean, I quit.”

Heavy, exasperated breathing fills my ear.

I whisper, “You’re marrying her?”

“This isn’t a good time. Donna and I are about to get massages.”

I swear to God he says this.

Now it’s my turn to huff in
his
ear.

“Adele, I don’t know why that coach didn’t cut you last season. You aren’t in shape. Congratulations on blowing any chance you had for a college scholarship.”

I repeat my one-word eff-you, “Whatever.” Him exploding right now would be the perfect vindication.

“I’m allowed to be happy!” he yells. “Do you hear me? I’m allowed to be happy, damnit!”