Chapter Eleven September 1
Chapter Eleven
There was a full moon on April nineteenth, the night Paulina Hadid Spencer entered this world. All seven pounds, eleven ounces, with jet-black hair, glossy eyes, and an annoyingly cute, dimpled chin.
This tiny human being, who had once seemed like a parasite poisoning my family from within, was so breathtakingly beautiful that I fell in love in an instant. All the jealousy. The spite. The anger. It dissolved the moment my mom placed my niece in my arms.
Instant love.
They say it isn’t real.
And maybe it wasn’t instant.
I had spent nearly nine months trying to get used to the idea of her.
Nothing anyone said helped prepare me for her existence.
Mom’s promise that my room would stay mine.
Dad’s insistence that the house wouldn’t be overrun with toys.
Georgie swearing she wouldn’t ask me to babysit every spare second.
No one’s words were reassuring. No one’s except John’s.
Because he wasn’t reassuring me by promising me things wouldn’t change.
He told me they would, and he showed me that it would still be fine.
Maybe I’m romanticizing Paulie just like I do everything else.
I’m not the one who has to get up every couple of hours at night to feed or change her.
In some ways, my life isn’t that different.
I have the option to hide in my room and close the door.
Georgie doesn’t. And although my parents and I are dealing with Paulie’s birth better than I expected, I’m not sure if I can say the same for my sister.
Her emotions are all over the place. She cries a lot.
But she also smiles a lot. And the tension that existed for nearly nine months has eased, like a slow leak in a king-sized air mattress.
Even Zach and I are getting along. Sort of.
Better than we were. These things, I’m learning, take time.
I’m also learning you can fight with someone and that doesn’t mean it’s the end of your relationship with them.
Maybe it would have meant the end of Zach and Georgie if not for Paulina.
But Zach is showing up. Surprising everyone.
He comes over every day, and sometimes the three of them look just like any other young, happy little family.
Especially when they go on long walks with Paulie in the stroller.
Georgie’s attachment to Zach appears to be deepening.
They’re clearly in this together, and maybe they’ll make it work.
I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing. As long as it makes my sister and Paulie happy, because I want that for them. They deserve it.
My favorite thing to do with Paulie is take her for long walks.
Long, but not far from the house in case there’s a diaper situation.
Just me, Paulie, my headphones, and my thoughts.
Mom is completely obsessed with Paulie and won’t stop talking about her upcoming baptism—I guess she got over worrying what the women at church would say.
And Dad, I can tell he loves Paulie, but he hasn’t fully let himself fall in love with her the way the rest of us have.
Something is stopping him. Maybe he just needs a bit more time.
There’s a knock at my door. I put down the book I’m holding but haven’t yet opened. It feels kind of like a prop. Like I feel at school. Only there to fill a quota. Take up enough space to exist, but not enough to get noticed.
“Come in,” I say.
Georgie enters, freshly showered, looking luminous. It didn’t take long for her to return to her previous self…physically, anyway.
“Where’s Paulie?” I ask.
Georgie smiles. “Having her third nap of the day, like the angel she is. What are you up to this last Friday before school starts?” she asks, sitting on the edge of my bed.
I sit up and pull my knees to my chest. My phone buzzes on my nightstand, and I sigh.
“Andie wants me to go to a party with her.”
“Then go.”
I bite down on my lip, studying my dry knees. I try to follow my sister’s after-shower body butter routine, but I’m kind of lazy. Maybe that’s my problem. I give up too easily.
“I don’t know how to act at these things,” I admit. “Everyone knows who Andie is, and when I’m with her, it’s like I’m invisible.”
“It’s because you make yourself invisible. You started off high school strong. You met Andie. You let her drag you to things. But then you retreated. Somewhere around Christmas. I haven’t seen you go anywhere in months. It’s always Andie coming here. What happened?”
I swallow, wishing I could bury my face in my knees and make Georgie disappear. My entire existence is just so embarrassing, and I don’t want to talk about it. “What happened is what always happens. I misread situations. I come on too strong and I scare people away.”
“I don’t understand. Andie is still around.”
“Not Andie,” I say, as realization appears to dawn on Georgie’s face.
“Oh. That boy. John. The one with the girlfriend.” There’s a beat of silence before Georgie goes on. “Did you tell him how you felt?”
“Feel,” I say quietly, correcting her.
“That was brave,” she says, nodding repeatedly, like she’s searching for a way to make this humiliation I inflicted upon myself a positive thing.
“Yeah, well, brave or not, now all I want to do is avoid him. Which was easy enough to do with the school year ending and then summer, but it’s September, and there’s a good chance I’ll see him if I go to this party with Andie.”
Georgie nods for me to slide over and I do. She takes her spot next to me and places my hand in hers, leaning her head on my shoulder.
“I’m really, really terrible with boys,” I say, tilting my head to hers.
“It takes practice. But also, when it’s the right boy, it won’t be this hard.” She nudges her knee with mine.
“It’s always going to be hard for me,” I say, before gritting my teeth. “And Mom and Dad don’t make things any easier.”
“I’ll take you. We’ll tell Mom and Dad that I’m bringing you with me to Zach’s.”
“I think I’d rather stay home.”
“You’re going to lose Andie if you keep this up. She’s been really patient with you so far, but there’s going to come a point where she stops inviting you to things. And when she does, it will hurt your feelings. Relationships take work. Compromise.”
“And what if I see him?”
“Do you want to see him?”
I shrug.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She grins in that satisfied I know you so well kind of way only sisters can get away with.
I nod ever so slightly at Georgie’s assumption, but really, what more is there to say? Haven’t I already put my heart on the line? Wouldn’t more words just be digging a deeper hole of despair and humiliation?
“I know life sort of feels endless now that you’re fourteen—”
“Almost fifteen,” I interrupt.
Georgie gives me a look. “You’re always almost. Stop thinking about what you aren’t or nearly are.
Focus on the now. It all goes so fast. Having a baby has shown me that.
My childhood is gone, and now every choice I make for my future will have to put Paulie’s needs first. I don’t know when or if I’ll go to college or what I’ll end up doing once Paulie starts school or even if I’ll stay with Zach.
The opportunities are not endless for me anymore. They are for you.”
“Hello. Do you know who our parents are?”
“Stop living your life for them.”
“So you think I should talk to him, or wait for him to come to me, or…?”
“Stop overthinking.” She smacks my knee and gets up. “Wear something cute. Brush your hair. Put on some mascara and get out there. Life is passing you by. Your life,” she reminds me. “Also, I can’t believe you like a guy named John. It’s a little too on the nose, even for you.”
Georgie smiles before closing the door behind her. I sink down into bed, my head resting on my pillow. I stare up at my white ceiling, the crown molding like a cage, trapping me in the four walls. There’s a hairline crack in one. I study it, wondering what caused it.
After an exasperated sigh, I reach for my phone and tell Andie I’ll meet her at the party. She texts me the address with about a million exclamation marks. When I reply asking her whose house it’s at, she simply writes back: Theo Petropolis.
My stomach sinks.
“Just a few more steps,” I say, with my arm wrapped tightly around Andie’s waist. Andie decided to award my being there by spending most of the evening by the makeshift bar. She went from “I can handle my liquor” to “I’m more fun when I drink” to “I think I need to sit down.”
We finally make it to an outdoor sofa. Andie flops onto it and struggles to hold her head up. I prop her legs on the table in front of her and position her body so she can rest without falling over or choking on her vomit. Ninth-grade Health class serving a purpose after all.
I glance at my phone. It’s just after nine. Georgie isn’t coming to get me until ten-thirty. She and Zach plan to drive Paulie around in her car seat in hopes it will put her to sleep.
With Andie seconds away from passing out, the anxiety inside me has gone from simmering to boiling over.
Almost every time I push myself out of my comfort zone, I end up regretting it.
I’m at a party with people I don’t know at the home of a boy I have a complicated relationship with while my best friend is completely wasted.
The old teen movies made parties look like a lot more fun than they actually are.
But then those movies never followed around the autistic girl trying to keep her drunk friend from hurting herself.
Before I’m able to claim my seat next to Andie, two girls swoop in.
“We’ve been drinking,” one says, barely able to hold back a string of obnoxious giggles. “We need this spot more than you.”
The other girl locks eyes with me. Avery. I look away, praying she’s too drunk to recognize me as the girl who pined after her boyfriend all last year…and lost.
“Bug Girl,” she says.
My eyebrows pinch together. “Sorry?”
“You’re the girl named after the bug group. What’re they called again?” She slurs her words as she struggles to snap her fingers.