Here Lies Bridget (21 page)

Memories rushed back. Ones I’d blocked out and replaced with fond ones. I remembered asking her to look at my art project, and her rolling her eyes and saying something like, 1 7 9

“Great.” Tugging on her pajamas in the morning, and telling her I felt sick, then her telling me to be quiet and let her sleep.

To get ready for school.

The days she’d sent me to school without lunch or lunch money.

When I’d told her my shoes didn’t fit anymore, and she’d told me to deal with it.

The day she’d gotten mad at me for having another glass of chocolate milk without asking, and she’d yelled at me that I’d been a mistake.

My father hadn’t had any time for me. He’d been gone. He used to spend time with me when he
was
home, but then I’d pushed him away. I don’t know why. I’d stopped laughing at his jokes and rolled my eyes every time he said anything to me.

I reveled in self-torture for a moment longer, and then eventually felt my weeping begin to subside. But then the other things that I’d just seen hit me like bullets.

Because of me, Brett got in trouble for cheating on the test, and has a suspension on his record.

Because of me, Mr. Ezhno was fired. Not fired from just any job, but from a job he’d been so passionate about.

Because of me, or at very, very least
partially
because of me, Michelle gagged herself after every meal.

Because of me, Liam had lost his best friend. Me. I’d spent so long thinking he was a jerk for dumping me out of the blue, after such a long history. But I could see now that I had changed.

A new wave of stomach-f lexing tears came at me again. I could suddenly see myself as the nice girl I’d been. I’d been eager to please as a child, and I’d cared about things. I was quiet, and kind, and was perfectly content to play with a toy 1 8 0

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by myself. I didn’t need anyone else, but I still liked when friends and family were around.

It’s a shame, I thought, it’s a waste. The grown-up equiva-lents of the things I’d done in my childhood were not measuring out equally. I had been happy with the toys I had, the books and movies and pretend games. I’d watch
Cinderella
over and over all day long, and love it every time. But when it came time to being happy with my car, my friends, my very existence, I had to either show it off or complain about it not being good enough. Or turn it bulimic.

Because of me, my father had stopped trying.

Because of me, my mother had left.

I thought of what Meredith had said, that it wasn’t my fault she left. And maybe it wasn’t entirely. Considering the way I thought of my mother now—as a stranger—there was every chance that she wasn’t the angel I’d thought. But what I hadn’t realized was that Meredith
had
been there. Even if my mother
had
died, Meredith had done a huge thing, coming into my family the way she had and being so optimistic about everything.

That
was the worst thing I’d done. I’d wronged Meredith.

It wasn’t that Anna showed me that my mother had left to simply make me feel bad about myself. It was to show me that Meredith was the real saint. And she deserved better.

And for the first time that I could remember, I felt really remorseful. Not just guilty because I got caught doing something, or because it ultimately ended up screwing me over in the end. I felt the weight of
everything
I had done. I could suddenly see the grenade effect of my own actions.

It was like Anna had said, I was important. My actions mattered. But I was realizing something…I wasn’t
more
important.

It’s not that I ever consciously thought it mattered more 1 8 1

if I was happy than if someone else was happy. I don’t think.

Only that I didn’t think that something I said in passing might affect someone so much.

My tears subsided again, and I was shocked to realize that I felt okay. Well maybe not
okay…
I felt repentant, like I finally realized that I had done a lot of wrong. I felt like I had been, well, a total bitch.

And

often.

But I also felt like I was ready to spring into action. I knew what I’d done wrong, and I really wanted to fix it. I finally felt like the kind of grown-up version of little me—which is how it’s supposed to be. I felt like I was finally open to being okay with myself, and that meant that I was finally going to be able to just…fix it.

But was that possible?

I lifted my head from my lap, my face hot and wet. I coughed, feeling sheepish after my sobfest, and lifted myself off the ground to sit down in the chair behind me. I cleared my throat again.

“So.” I looked up to Anna, and realized that all six of the people in front of me were now looking at me. It was disconcerting. Like statues turning to look at you.

“They’re only here to help deliberate. They won’t hear you.”

I kept my eyes on them, unsure what to think. They were here, but…they weren’t. It was like seeing someone in a casket—they’re still there, and that’s a weird feeling, but there’s something vital missing. Not vital like a heartbeat…but a kind of spirit.

“I don’t…really know what to say. I know what I’ve done…

and I want to fix things. But I don’t know what happens now.”

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P A I G E H A R B I S O N

“Well, now you’ve seen why you’re here. You should have seen, at least, an explanation for what has landed you here.”

“Where is ‘here?’” I knew I sounded desperate.

Anna shrugged. “Nowhere, everywhere, take your pick.

It doesn’t really have a name.” She gave a small laugh that I didn’t understand.

“Is it like limbo or something?” My heart skipped a beat as I remembered when my father had told me that the real meaning behind J. M. Barrie’s story of
Peter Pan
was that Neverland was purgatory. I’d always hated that thought. I liked it much better when it was just an adventure.

“In a way.”

“Please just tell me what I have to worry about.”

Anna considered me for a moment. “We’re deciding whether you’re going to go back to that life—” she tilted her head and smiled knowingly “—or not.”

My heart sank. They were deciding whether I was going to live or die. The scenes that had f lashed through my mind during those last few moments in the car were back.

The news of my demise.

The

funeral.

The headstone. It would have my name, and the years in which I’d been alive. The brief elapsed time that encompassed my entire existence. The drama, the friends, the makeup, Liam…

“Please, just wait!” The grenade was on the verge of exploding. “Anna, please, I think I know what might…happen here. And I just…I have to do something.”

“Tell me what you mean.” Anna sat back in her chair and waited for me to respond.

I scrambled to think of what I could do.

“Just…let me go back.”

Anna raised her eyebrows. I shook my head.

“Not, like, permanently or whatever. Just…I can’t leave all 1 8 3

of these people…” I looked at them “…all of you…them…to think this way. It’s not fair to them. I can’t take it all back, or undo what I did, but there must be something I
can
do.”

Anna paused. She looked slightly more intimidating than I’d originally thought her to be. “Why should we believe that you’d be able to do anything at all?”

“I—” My heartbeat quickened as I realized that I really might not get a second chance. I didn’t just get my way anymore. “Well, take Meredith, for example. She doesn’t think she’d be a good mother anymore, and that’s because of me.

Even if it was just a f leeting thought, she’s already been dis-couraged because of all the failed attempts. If I die—” my voice caught on the word. Death had always seemed such a foreign thing “—If I die and this is how we left things…I don’t know, I think she’d feel even worse. Maybe she’d even think that it was partially her fault. She managed to think the rest of it was, and it just wasn’t. It was all mine.”

I thought, with a stab of guilt, of my last thoughts behind the wheel. Part of me had actually
hoped
that Meredith would feel partially responsible.

Anna narrowed her eyes.

“What if she feels relieved?”

Her frankness felt like a cheap shot.

“She might.” I knew it was true. There was every chance that Meredith would feel less stress with me gone. I looked down to my lap. “But I have to try. With all of them. Closure, and all that.”

“And if we allow this…breach, you’ll fix what you can, and then come quietly?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“We’ll have to discuss it.” She and the others stood swiftly, leaving their pads on the table, and walked into a room I was sure hadn’t been there before.

I don’t know how long they were gone, but it felt like a 1 8 4

P A I G E H A R B I S O N

very long time. I didn’t look at the pads, which were filled in now with a lot of things I couldn’t fully read from my seat. I saw my name, and yearned to see what Liam had written.

But I was acting with a conscience now. And I wouldn’t go read them.

Instead, I replayed everything I’d just seen in my mind. Tried to remember why I’d thought my actions were
not
entirely inconsiderate. Worried desperately about the things they were saying behind the door that had, once again, disappeared.

It was that feeling that happens at night when you’re trying to fall asleep but all you can think about is all of the things you need to do. You can’t do anything about them yet, and it helps nothing to think obsessively about it. Yet you can’t stop and relax.

When the six of them finally emerged from the room, my heart seemed to jump into my throat. I tried to look kind and as remorseful as I felt, though I was sure that the decision was made and that I couldn’t do anything about it.

They took their seats, and Anna looked at me.

“You have until midnight, at which point you will either have completed your task or not. You don’t get any help from…

elsewhere. The consequences of your actions are, as you’ve probably imagined, irrevocable. Do you understand?”

Yes, I understood. And I didn’t care what happened to me anymore. I just had to fix what I’d done to everyone else.

“Midnight,” she repeated firmly. “Then it’s over. Time’s up. Got it?”

I nodded at Anna, and the second I did so, I felt like I’d been hit in the head with a frying pan. My eyes shut, and I felt like my whole body was being squeezed through some sort of wringer.

C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N

The next thing I knew, I was in the bed at the nurse’s office.

I looked around me, and there was no one there. The clock on the wall said it was 12:45. I had eleven hours and fifteen minutes until midnight.

I got up from the leather bed and walked up to the front of the office.

“Ah, Miss Duke, better already?”

“Yes, I’m better.”

“Let’s get you on to class then. I’ll fill out a pass.”

I watched as she filled out the lines on the pink slip of paper.

When she finished, she handed it to me. “Here you go.”

“I’m sorry for all of the times I’ve come in here.”

“Excuse me?” She looked puzzled.

“Just…I’ve come in a lot, and I’m sorry. It’s annoying, I’m sure.”

I closed the door on her puzzled expression and ran to gym class, to the girls’ locker room. Once there, I made a beeline toward Michelle’s and my lockers.

I was only a few minutes late.

I took a deep breath before walking over to her. I didn’t know exactly how to go about this.

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“Hey,

Michelle!”

She turned, and looked tiredly at me.

“Hey.”

This was going to take work. “So,” I started, “we should do something this weekend. I haven’t really seen you one on one too much lately.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay.” She opened her locker and pulled out her gym shorts, looking warily at them as she did so. I pulled out mine, too.

“Did you know that my gym shorts are size extra large?”

I said, dialing the combination to my lock.

Michelle looked at me, and I nodded. “Yep. Last pair left.

And you know what’s bad? I’m able to wear them! But I mean, the gym clothes here run really small anyway.”

“You think?” Michelle’s voice sounded hesitantly hopeful.

I really hoped she kept being this easy to convince.

“Of course, yeah. Size small might as well read ‘six to eight months,’ it’s so tiny. But I mean, you probably didn’t notice that, you’re what, like a size triple zero?”

“Size two.” She said it sadly, like she was telling me that no, in fact, she wore size circus tent.

I cringed at the idea that I’d contributed to that unhealthy attitude. “Same thing,” I said, my tone casual.

I wanted to wait a few minutes before starting my apology.

I wanted to be sure it didn’t look like what I’d said about the shorts was just a prelude to making myself feel better. Because, really, it wasn’t. The shorts really were ridiculously small for the most part.

We headed out to the track, where we were on our third week of running around it. There were different classes you could sign up for to qualify for a gym credit. This one had been called Dance but so far all we’d done was “become 1 8 7

strong young women, who will have the fortitude to become dancers.” The teacher had then reminded all of us that if we had really been interested in dance, we would have started in our early childhoods, and that we were too late anyway.

Michelle and I ambled behind the rest of the class at our usual pace.

“Hey, so, by the way,” I started, my heart beating hard, “I wanted to apologize to you.”

I looked straight ahead, but I could feel Michelle’s eyes shift to me.

“For

what?”

“Well, I was a bitch the other day when you tried to talk to me. I’m really bad with being told I’m wrong about things.”

“I didn’t say you were wrong about anything.”

“But I was, Michelle, I shouldn’t have ever made you feel bad about yourself. There’s nothing to feel bad about, for one thing, and for another…that’s crappy friend behavior on my part.”