The Initial Insult - Mindy McGinnis Page 0,30

night before I ran to Tress’s house—nobody likes a smart-ass.

But I hear Jackson Troyer really likes yours.

That’s what Dad had said, right before there was another sound that wasn’t a slap but something harder, something I didn’t want to know more about, so I ran. Went down the road and across the bridge and out into the night, like Tress and I used to sing—

Over the river and through the woods to my best friend’s house I go . . .

“Yes,” Mom says calmly now, eyeing me. “Of course I remember Tress. I didn’t realize that you’d invited her. I’m just wondering if it’s a good idea for you to see her. Won’t that be . . .”

“Difficult?” I fill in for her, using the word my therapist applies to just about everything.

Is it difficult for you to move past that night?

Do you have difficulties remembering because of the trauma?

How difficult is it to manage your panic attacks recently?

Would you say that your relationship with Tress is difficult now?

No. I’d say it’s gone, over, done with. And that’s not okay with me. I don’t know what happened to the Montors that night, but I know that my mom wants to pretend that it was nothing. That nothing happened and Tress never existed. But she did, and she still does, and she’s my friend, and I want her at my birthday party. Even if my mom doesn’t.

I stick my chin out. That’s Dad’s move and I know Mom doesn’t like it, but we’re past the part where we pretend to be polite.

“Yes, difficult is a good word,” Mom says, reaching to take my hand. I let her have it, but I don’t squeeze back. I just let my hand lie in hers, because difficult is not a good word.

“It won’t be,” I say. “Tress is my friend. Why shouldn’t she be at my party?”

It’s a dumb question. I know why. Because I was with her parents in their car the night they disappeared, and I haven’t hung out with Tress since then, even though it’s been months. Mom and Dad said we couldn’t really talk to each other because there was an open investigation, and we were both witnesses. Everybody wanted to make sure our stories were kept straight, that we didn’t end up “muddying the waters” by conferring with each other.

But, like the investigator who talked to Mom explained, I’m a witness, but only kind of. Technically I was there when something happened to the Montors, but whatever it was, I seized right before it happened. I was there . . . but not there. I was in the car, and then I was on the bank by the river, my nightgown covered in mud and pee, crying because someone carried me there but then they left. I was alone, and I was cold, and I was scared.

But I wasn’t a witness. I had hoped that meant I could talk to Tress, but really it just meant that I go to therapy more often. And that the officer who I told about the seizures gets a big box of doughnuts delivered to his desk every Monday morning.

“Honey.” Mom is being careful with me now, using the voice that she uses when I’m coming up from a seizure, when she thinks I’m having trouble understanding English. I don’t. Not then, and not now.

“I just thought it might be uncomfortable for you, to be reminded of . . . everything.”

I pull my hand back, out of hers. “I can’t be reminded of something I can’t remember.”

“Okay.” The blank face is back on. I’m starting to understand why it makes Dad fucking insane. “But what about the other girls? Won’t it be awkward for them?”

“No,” I say, even though I know it probably will. Mom knows it, too, and she can hear it in my voice.

“Well.” Mom reaches out, rubs my arm since I won’t give her my hand back. “It’s your birthday party, Felicity. If you want Tress to come, then she comes. I just want it to be fun. It’s a party. Everyone should be able to have fun.”

She slides past me through the door, clicking it shut behind her and leaving me on the deck with Dad. He shakes his head, raises his beer to me in a salute, and downs the rest of it. Just like the car salesman . . . sometimes we don’t know what just hit us.

“So then Jackie said that she heard David Evans was