40. Lilah #2
“Then why am I hurting?”
“I’m sure if you—”
“I don’t want to talk about Mason.” I rolled over, facing away from her.
“But, Lilah, he’s—”
“Leave!” I covered my head with a pillow until she did.
Tangled in the web of my despair, my cocoon blocked the outside world.
Later, Eliza appeared with a cup with slowly rising steam escaping.
A rich, brothy smell drifted through the air. My stomach rumbled.
“Can you sit up for me?” She pressed against my shoulder to get me to sit.
Trying to relearn movement, I forced my upper body against the back of the couch, still slumped but less laying down. When I was mostly upright, she handed me the mug.
“It’s chicken noodle with the tiny stars. All you have to do is sip it.”
“I can’t be trusted with a bowl and spoon?” My voice rasped like I hadn’t used it in months.
“You’ve been—I thought this would be easier clean-up.”
A brittle, broken chuckle twisted itself free in my throat. “Nice save.”
My head throbbed and my tear ducts felt like they’d been packed with sand. “How long has it been?”
“Five days.”
I sniffed at my armpit. Seemed about right.
“I stopped by the Guidance Office on Monday and let them know you weren’t feeling well. They said since you’d taken all your AP exams, you didn’t have to go to school for finals.”
“Even if I had to, I’d have probably failed.” At this point, it was hard to feel like anything mattered. Was I even graduating? The grade investigation was probably still happening. My scholarship? Probably gone.
My bloodied, torn dress sat on the living room chair under the window. I cut my gaze away from the ugly, destroyed beading. My reminder of the path of destruction Mason had created in my life. And I’d let him.
“I don’t have to go in.”
“The counselor said not if you’re sick. But you want to go to graduation, right?”
“No.” To walk across the stage with no one in the crowd for me, or worse, all the eyes of everyone who’d been at that party whispering, or even worst of all, Mason there.
Someday, I’d have to see Mason, unless I wanted to be entombed in this house. As the days ticked by, I checked for signs of mummification. That seemed like a better plan than facing him.
Dad had finally remembered to go grocery shopping, so for once there was plenty of food in the house. Or maybe he took the opportunity to do it so he didn’t have to face me.
After a week, during the Hawthorne Prep graduation ceremony, I plugged my hand-me-down phone in and the screen flickered to life.
Messages rolled in again. The angry buzz turned into a muddled single tone, no longer differentiating between different texts and voicemails. Notifications piled on top of each other on my screen.
Going to my messages, I tried to safest one first. Nora.
Nora: Sweetie, Rye’s last two surgeries went well. The doctors are hopeful he’ll play again, but that’s still unclear. He’ll need another later, but I know he’d love to hear from you.
Nora: He told me what happened, or at least his version of what happened. And I can’t believe what a bonehead he was. You’re not to blame, sweetie. I want you to know that.
Not safe at all. A mother’s care. I wiped at my stupidly teary eyes.
Nora: I understand if you don’t want to talk to Rye. I’m here whenever you want to talk.
The next texts were riskier.
Rye: im sorry Lilah
Rye: talk to me
Rye: masons trash and you deserve better
Rye: im going into another surgery soon. I know I messed up. I’m sorry.
Rye: im sure you hate me but let me know you’re okay
Rye: once I can drive I’ll come to you
Rye: I love you
Mason’s accusations burned in my ears. Rye loved me. He’d never said that before. I tried to see the signs, but he’d slept his way through Verona High and had a girlfriend. What the hell? He’d had years to say something, but he decided he wanted me when Mason did?
Did Mason even wanted me? Had I been a challenge? A distraction? He’d slept with someone else. Had he kissed her the way he kissed me? Did he laugh with her about how stupid I’d been thinking he’d follow me to Washington?
This knotted tangle of raw, live-wire feelings was too much after zoning out into the numbness.
I tried to block out the agony. There were more voicemails, one that might’ve been when Rye was still woozy from surgery.
“That wasn’t how I wanted that night to go, Lilah. Please talk to me. You’re my best friend.”
Then a memory fired, now that I could think at more than 10 percent capacity. I’d saved my mom’s voicemail years ago. A backup just in case I ever lost the phone. That offered a trickle of relief, but it meant I had to log in to my tablet. The Hawthorne Prep one.
An angry notification practically glowed like a beacon at the bottom of my screen.
My inbox was overstuffed. My normal 0 unread emails had climbed to 583, but there was only one that mattered.
The one from the Guidance Office stating that no grading irregularities had been found and detailing the processing of my award.
Nothing flared inside my chest. Deadened, numbed, I’d gotten my wish.
I sent an email to Bellevue to see if my spot was still available for the summer program.
Another email sat below that one. One titled “Congratulations!” Sender: Rhode Island Design Institute.
My last-minute application I hadn’t even told Mason about. A test for myself more than anything. I couldn’t open the email. A different life spread out in front of me, where I hadn’t gone to the gala and this email came in.
I selected it and clicked delete.
Three days after the letter reconfirming my spot at Bellevue, I stared at the house I’d called home for a year and tried not to let in the flood of emotions trying to drag me back under the churning waves.