The Center of Everything - By Laura Moriarty Page 0,126

made up long, sharp-worded speeches, and I imagine her face flinching when she hears them.

My mother says she feels sorry for both Deena and Travis. She thinks it’s a bad idea for them to get married right now. She told me she doesn’t think it’s right to tether people together before they’re ready. That was her word, “tether.” She feels sorry for Deena because she doesn’t know that Deena wanted to be tethered all along, whether Travis wanted to or not.

I move through my days, stunned, wide-eyed, as if someone has slapped me hard. I have dreams at night about different things being stolen—my favorite shirt, a ten-dollar bill. I set them down, turn away for just a moment, and they’re gone.

Deena stands outside our door, her face pale in the sunlight. “Why haven’t you come over?” She is already crying, her nose running. She wipes her face with her hand. I can’t help but look down at her belly, as if I would be able to see it already, the pregnancy. But except for the crying, she still just looks like a normal fifteen-year-old girl, wearing cut-offs and a T-shirt on a nice day in April.

Behind me, my mother pushes Samuel’s wheelchair by, bell ringing. When she sees Deena, she smiles. “Hi, honey,” she says, reaching forward to squeeze her hand. “It’s good to see you.”

“I’ll be outside,” I say. I step outside, shutting the door behind me. A wasp has built a nest in the crack between our door and the stairs. It emerges quickly, hovering over our heads.

“You know?” she asks. She has the look of someone who has not just started crying recently, but for a long time, days maybe, the skin around her eyes puckered and pink.

I nod. “Mrs. Rowley came over here when she found out. I thought you were on the pill, Deena.”

She looks confused for a moment, not saying anything. “I was. It just doesn’t work sometimes.”

I kick at the dirt on the concrete step. “When doesn’t it work?”

She waits until I look up. “Sometimes.” Her bottom lip is quivering, but I don’t care.

“You guys are getting married?”

She nods. “I think so. His mom is saying no, but that’s what everybody else wants.”

“Everybody?”

She grimaces, blinks, and then, unbelievably, there are even more tears. It is amazing, the amount she can produce. “Why are you so worried about what Travis wants?” She presses one hand to her chest. “What about me, Evelyn? How long have you known, and you haven’t come over to see me?”

I say nothing, watching her.

“You act like I did this all by myself. Well guess what? That’s impossible. Okay? You should know that.” She looks mad when she says this part, but then she just starts crying again, her shoulders shaking. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“I’m Travis’s friend too.” I look at her evenly. “You got pregnant on purpose, Deena. I told you he was going to end it. I’m the one who told you.”

She makes a whimpering sound and pulls her hair so it covers her face, and even crying, she is pretty, her dark eyes looking darker now that her skin is so pale. If this were a made-for-TV movie, Deena would be the star, especially now that she is tragic as well as beautiful, pregnant at fifteen.

I know I am supposed to hug her. I am the supporting actress, the supportive friend. But instead I go back inside, shutting the door behind me, leaving her out there with just the wasp.

On the last day of school, we make cards for Libby. She is out of the hospital now, but Mrs. Geldof says she is still in a world of hurt. She is trying to walk without a walker now, and this summer, for her, will be long and hard.

I make myself think of Libby trying to walk when I feel sorry for myself now, which is pretty much all the time. I imagine her holding onto two side railings in a hospital hallway, stumbling, having to get back up again. I’m lucky, I know. I can at least put one foot in front of the other. And at least I’m not dead in the ground like Adele and Traci.

But I feel like I’m dead sometimes, underground. And it doesn’t matter that I can put one foot in front of the other, because I have nowhere to go. When summer comes, I sit in my room in front of the fan, trying to read. I usually