Chapter 35 Bird
BIRD
I skipped school to spend the past three days tending to Kayla. The first day she just cried nonstop until she fell asleep. She assumed Emmanuel had spread the rumors. He kind of did, so I let her believe it and I pretended to be as clueless as she was about the creator of the zine.
“Like, who would hate me that much to spend all that time making that thing?” she sobbed.
I shook my head like it was a mystery. I have gotten good at secrets… and lying.
“I’m never going back,” she said.
“To school?” I asked. “How?”
But she didn’t answer me.
When her parents came home from work, I told them she wasn’t feeling well.
I crept into my house that night and tried not to be around too much.
I thought maybe the school would’ve called home and left a message or called my mom at work to confirm my absence and I’d get in trouble, but they didn’t.
So I left my house the second morning and went straight to Kayla’s.
She didn’t say much the second day. Mostly just stared into space.
We watched TV and I tried to get her to eat, but she said she couldn’t. She looked bad. She looked sick. I was so angry with Jessa I could barely think of anything else.
That afternoon I found a can of soup in the kitchen and made it for her.
She took a few bites and I started to think maybe this really was the thing that was going to turn her life back around. But five minutes later she was holding her stomach and running to the bathroom. I could hear her throwing up through the door.
When I get to her house the third day it’s pretty much a repeat, except Kayla’s hair is greasier and her skin is even paler. She actually asks me to make her soup again. But the same thing happens. She races off to throw up. This time I follow her, figure I can at least hold her stringy hair back.
I try not to look in the toilet because that would only set me off, but when she reaches for the handle to flush, I catch sight of the blood.
“Holy shit, Kayla. You’re throwing up blood. Should I call your mom?”
“No! It’s just ’cause my throat is so sore from crying,” she tells me, and I don’t know why I pretend to believe her.
That evening when her parents come home, I tell them she’s been throwing up. Her parents exchange a look, like this news isn’t surprising. “Maybe she should go to a doctor or something?” I try.
God, why are everyone’s parents like this? They’d rather watch their daughter wither away than admit she might have an eating disorder. Jessa’s parents are just as bad. And mine would like me to magically forget I ever had a father.
“But what do I know?” I snap at them. “You’re the parents. I’m just a kid, right?”
When I get home that night, Liv is in our room, like she’s been waiting for me.
“Where the hell have you been?” she asks.
“Like you care?”
“I don’t care. Just… what, are you not coming to school anymore? I mean, your mom’s gonna find out.”
“Well, I guess I don’t care.”
“All right. I’m just going to come out and ask….”
“Ask what?”
“Did Jessa kiss you the other day at school?” I look at her, and her mouth is suspended between a grin and a grimace. “ ’Cause people are saying she did.”
“Since when did you start taking an interest in my personal life?”
“Uh, since people are asking me if my sister is dating the resident weirdo lesbian of our class. It’s embarrassing.”
“What if we were dating, what would you do?”
She crosses her arms and rolls her eyes. “I’d tell you that’s disgusting and you should get your head examined.”
“Right. Well. Good to know you’d have my back, sis.” I turn to leave the room, and she calls after me.
“You better be at school tomorrow, because everyone thinks you’re staying away because of what people are saying about you and Jessa being… whatever, being gay together.”
“Oh no, not people,” I mutter as I take a few steps down the hall.
I hear her walking up behind me. “Hey. Believe it or not, I do have your back. Just start dating someone, okay? Like literally anyone. I know you had a boyfriend at your dork camp, so just tell people that.”
I start laughing. “I guess having my back means something different to you than it does to me.”
“It’s not funny, Bird.”
“No, it’s not,” I agree, but I don’t think she’s getting any of my subtleties. “I’ll be at school tomorrow, okay?”