The Illusion of Annabella (8 page)

Cece: I don’t care what u say. We’ve been friends since we were in kindergarten and I’m not going to let you just throw it away. Please, just talk to me. After school maybe?

I can’t even figure out a reply, so I shut my phone off. Cece catches my gaze, and her eyes water, as if she’s about to cry. I feel like crying, too, but like the last six months, my eyes remain dry.

I cower in my chair and study the cracks in the desk until I can no longer feel Cece staring at me. When I peek over at her again, she’s laughing at something with Ben and Cadence, who’s taken the position of Cece’s best friend.

I observe how she laughs, how happy she looks. I long for the days when I’d be right by her side, looking just as happy, which only makes me want to swallow more pills.

Cece doesn’t look at me or text me during class. When the bell rings, she rushes past me with her head down.

I’m sorry,
I almost say, but bite down on my tongue and bury the grief down, allowing the pain pills to suffocate my emotions.

A House Infested with Glitter

The week feels long, mostly because almost everyone at school got word of my arrest. Gossip flutters up and down the hallways, and people gawk at me more than usual.

Friday, Mr. Dalcbee, the school guidance counselor who likes to wear a lot of smiley face ties, calls me in for a visit to chat about my grades and try to pry into my life, something he does once a month.

“You’re barely passing your classes,” he says. “This isn’t good, Anna.”

“I know,” I reply, picking at the chips in the wooden armrests of the chair I’m sitting in.

He grows annoyed with each question he asks me. “I know you can do better than this. You used to be a straight A student.”

“I don’t know what the big deal is,” I say. “I’m not failing any of my classes.”

“The big deal is that you have the potential to be a great student, and right now, I’m not seeing that potential. Look, I know things have been difficult for you, but I really would like to see you focus on school again and maybe apply to some different colleges, maybe ones you haven’t looked into yet.”

I know where the conversation is heading, and my back stiffens.

One of the many downfalls of living in a small town is everyone knows everyone. Mr. Daclebee has known me since I was four. His wife used to attend the same book club as my mom, and they’d go shopping and wine tasting on the weekends while he and my dad would hang out in their man cave, aka, the basement.

I hate that he thinks he knows my story because he occasionally drank beer and played pool with my dad. He doesn’t know anything. No one really does when it comes to my family, not even my family. My brothers and sisters, they don’t know the truth about everything. Sometimes I get so angry that I’m the only one that knows about my mom, which only makes me hate myself even more for becoming such a cruel person that I want other people to suffer with me.

“Can I go?” I rise from the chair. “I don’t want to be late for math or my grade’s going to drop even more.”

Those seem to be the magic words.

“Fine, we’ll talk later,” he says, stuffing my folder back into the file cabinet. “And, Anna. If you need anything, you can always come to me. Even if it’s just to talk about your parents.”

“Yeah, sure.” My skin dampens as I grasp the doorknob.

When I exit his office, I lean back, my head banging against the wooden door. “Goddammit, this sucks.”

Miss Manerton, the receptionist, glares at me from behind her wire-framed spectacles. “Watch your language, Annabella, or I’ll write you up.”

I utter an apology then limp out into the crammed hallway. The whispers instantly funnel around me, like gnats. The calm, drug-induced haze from the pill I popped this morning is wearing off, so snubbing the gossipers takes more effort. Deciding to cut out early, I sneak out the back doors and head home. It’s only a three-mile walk, but it takes me forever, and my leg feels like it’s been cut open all over again. But that’s okay. Pain is easier. Pain is simple. It’s everything else that sucks.

When I make it to my house, I go straight up to my room, crawl into bed and pass out, sleeping all the way into the next morning.

Thankfully its Saturday so no school and no stares. I consider not getting up, just lying in bed until the sun goes down and falling right back into a dreamless sleep again. But someone knocks on my door, and the idea dries up like the rain.

“Are you awake?” Loki sounds calmer than he was the past few days.  “I need to talk to you about skipping out on the last half of school yesterday.” When I don’t answer, he gently shakes my shoulder. “I know you’re not asleep.”

I open my eyes and scowl at him. “I was until you woke me up.”

“Don’t act like that.” He yanks the blankets off me. “Get up. You’re coming to the store with me.”

Shaking my head, I crawl my way up to the pillow. “No way. I’m not going there.”

“Yes, you are. In fact, you’re going to start coming with me every weekend. And you might as well prepare yourself to spend a hell of a lot of a lot of time at the store, because that’s where you’re going to spend every night. And when Christmas break starts, you can count on spending the days there, too.”

I cover my head with the pillow. “I can’t do it, Loki. Don’t make me do it.”

He snatches the pillow, tosses it on the floor, then flips on the lights and tugs open the blinds, blinding me with sunlight.  “I’ve been talking to Laretta, and we both kind of agree that I’ve been too easy on you. You need discipline and something to focus on, and the store’s a great place to start. It’ll keep you busy and hopefully keep you out of trouble until you can figure out what you want to do with your life.”

What I want to do with my life? I used to have some answers. Dancing. Being happy. Going to college. Eventually getting married. When I looked into my future, I saw so much happiness and sunlight. Now all I can see is an empty path that leads to nothing.

I glare at him. “Why were you talking to the neighbors about me?”

“Because I need someone to talk to.” He looks so lonely, so very unlike the old Loki I used to know. We’ve all changed so much. Does everyone else see an empty path like I do now? Or are they stronger than me? “And Laretta’s nice. Plus, she used to be really good friends with Mom. Besides, she went through something similar with her son.”  He rounds the foot of the bed. “You remember Steve, right?”

“Vaguely,” I say through a yawn, stretching my arms above my head. “But I’m not like him.”

“You’re going to be if you keep going down the road you’re headed on.”

“You’re overreacting.” But really, Loki could be right. I could be like Steve. I don’t know myself enough to validly argue that point, but I still try because I really, really can’t go to my dad’s store. “I’m not even close to being like Steve yet. So what if I got busted for breaking and entering. I haven’t done anything major yet, so chill out.”

“Haven’t done anything major yet?” he laughs sharply. “You were arrested for the third time the other night, and you’re only seventeen. You have your second court hearing on Thursday.” He shakes his head in bafflement.  “Take a look around you. You’re ruining your life.”

My guilt builds, vining and gnawing inside my stomach. No matter how hard I fight it, I can’t seem to make it vanish. “It could be worse. I could be doing drugs.”

“Could be worse?” He throws his hands into the air exasperatedly. “No one can even recognize you anymore. I wouldn’t even be surprised if you are doing drugs.” He pauses, waiting for me to protest. I should just lie to him—I do it all the time—but the words won’t come out of my mouth. His shoulders sag. “You’re going to the store with me, and you’re going to start going to physical therapy again. I’m not going to let you waste your life away, so get your ass up and get dressed in something that won’t scare the customers away.” He storms out of my room.

Anger, guilt, and frustration explode to the surface. I haven’t been to my father’s store since the accident. Too many memories live there in the shelves and books that fill the building, and if I relive them, I might lose it. All that guilt I fight to feel—everything I fight to feel—might become too much.

I pound my fist into the pillow until I compose myself. Dragging my butt out of bed, I hobble over to the window and peer down at the grass and sidewalk below. How bad would it hurt if I tried to jump out? Probably not as bad as when my leg was crushed by the car.

I unlatch the window, glide it open, and stick my head out.

“What are you doing?” someone asks.

I raise my gaze and find Luca standing on the strip of grass behind the fence line. He’s sporting a plaid shirt, jeans, and his glasses, and looks adorable in that cute, nerdy sort of way.

I remember when I used to dream about a cute guy showing up below my window and tossing pebbles at the glass. I’d sneak down and kiss him, and we’d keep kissing all the way until the sun rose. But like my dreams of dancing on stage, that dream was shelved six months ago.

“Looking out the window.” I sit down on the windowsill. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

He crosses his arms on top of the fence. “It looked like you were thinking about jumping.”

“That’d be a pretty stupid thing to do since the fall would probably break my leg.” I pretend the idea is appalling, when only moments ago I was contemplating it.

“I don’t know . . . It depends on why you were jumping. I mean, if it was for a good reason, like say to escape something, then yeah, I’d say that was totally justifiable. Everybody needs to escape sometimes, right? And the fall isn’t that far. You might fuck up your ankle or something, but nothing too major.”

I don’t like that he’s looking at me with insinuation, as if he understands me. Whether he’s found out about the accident or not, he doesn’t get me.

“I’m not trying to escape anything,” I feel the need to say.

“I never said you were.” His knowing smile bugs me.

“Why are you watching me?” I ask indignantly.

“I wasn’t watching you,” he replies, unfazed by my feistiness. “I was actually just talking to your sister and was about to head in when I saw you staring at the ground, thinking about jumping.” He smiles when I glare at him. “I’m just kidding. I promise I don’t think you’re going to jump. I just have a weird sense of humor.”

I don’t know what to make of him, know I shouldn’t make anything of him at all, but I find myself asking, “Which of my sisters were you talking to?”

“I have no idea. She never said her name, but she did look a lot like you. You seem really happy in comparison to her.”

I wrestle back a grin, sucking my bottom lip between my teeth. “That was probably Alexis.”

“Well, she seemed lovely,” he says flatly. “Especially when she told me she’d rather stab out her eye than talk to me.”

My mouth pleads to smile. But smiling seems so . . . wrong in the shambles of my life. No one else seems to smile, other than Zhara, but hers are fake. And my dad, the last smile he ever had was when he got in that car that rainy day, thinking his life was so great.

“Don’t take it personally,” I say to Luca. “She’s not much of a talker.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that.” He thoughtfully muses over something with his head tipped to the side, strands of his hair dangling in his eyes. “But you didn’t seem like much of a talker when I first met you either, and look at us now, sitting here, talking to each other like we’re almost friends.”

Another smile creeps up on me at his utter adorableness. Damn him. “We’re not talking because we’re almost friends. I just got distracted.”

“By what exactly? My good looks or my awesome personality?”

I bite down on my lip hard.
No laughing, Annabella
. “Are you like this all the time?”

He taps his finger against his lip. “You’ll have to be more specific. I’ve been told I’m a lot of things all the time.”

I flick my wrist, waving my hand in his direction. “All arrogant and sure of yourself.”

His mouth opens as he feigns shock. “You make me sound like a cocky douche bag.”

“Are you?”

“That all depends.”

“On what?”

“If you’re into cocky douche bags,” he says with a clever grin. I almost lose it, right then and there, a smile creeping up on my lips. Thankfully, for my sake, he ruins it. “I’m guessing no, though, since you don’t really look like the kind of girl who would be.”

Is that how he sees me? As some girl who’s into nice, sweet guys like him? That’s not who I am anymore. Or am I? I mean, I am sitting here talking to him, on the verge of smiling.

Panicking, I duck back inside my room. “I have to go.” And I slide the window shut before he can say anything else.

Desperate to run away from my thoughts, I crank up some music. “Habits (Stay High)” by Tove Lo comes on, but I immediately shut it off as the urge to dance pulsates through me. I crank up some From Autumn to Ashes and dig through my closet until I find the perfect outfit; a baggy black sweater, skin-tight black jeans, and black boots that lace up to my knees. I top off the outfit with a leather jacket and kohl eyeliner. I leave my hair the way it is, letting it run down my back in a tangled mess. I figure my appearance might be just enough over the top that it’ll get me out of going to the store on weekends.