see my neighbour’s newspaper and it says Tuesday. I had lost track of days and nights. The next morning, I feel like hell. I’m sick at home for four days solid. Is that what seventy-two hours of partying will do to you? I throw up all over my bedspread. 3006. I am too sick even to watch TV— the light pains my eyes. So I lie in the dark, drifting in and out of sleep.
My mom, who looks like more of a wreck than me, doesn’t ask questions. I just tell her I have the flu and she brings me chicken soup from a package, and fizz-less Sprite, lays it on the floor on a tray. I tell her if I die, I’d like my body cremated and flung off the Eiffel Tower.
“That would be expensive to fly there,” she jokes. “How about the CN Tower?”
“Don’t make me laugh,” I groan. “It hurts my skin.”
Even when I feel better, I don’t want to get out of bed, so I fake being sick for two more days. I don’t want to go to school. Or eat. Or bullshit smile at bullshit people. I don’t want to get high. I don’t want to fuck. I don’t want to meet Ally after school. I don’t want to wear my ugly clothes or brush my ugly hair or look at my ugly face in the mirror.
Forty-Nine
I feel like I’m slipping away from my body. I can barely eat. I just want to fade away. My mom stops talking to me again. Ally and Jess are mad at me because I don’t return their phone calls. Fortune is long, long gone, probably moved on to screwing some other stupid girl who believes his lies.
I almost wish the police had come to take me away. I figure Rachel is having some family meetings to plan my capture, so I just have to be patient. Besides, I have more important things to worry about. Since Scott is gone and my mom stopped working and I got fired, there is no money to pay the rent. Even Freestyle has conveniently disappeared, the way he always does when my mom is in trouble. And since we no longer get a break from Giovanni, I’m sure we’re soon going to be evicted. I see the unopened bills on the kitchen table. I hear my mom crying on the phone to Crystal. We don’t even have one single Christmas decoration up in the apartment.
For some sick reason, I keep threatening my mom that I’m going to move into a group home. It’s cruel, I know. I don’t know why I do it. I get some cruel satisfaction out of seeing her squirm, even when she’s already down and out. It’s hard to admit, but I like having that power over her. In retaliation, she’s stopped talking to me, like she’s trying to give me a taste of what it’s like to not have her in my life anymore.
I keep asking her to make up with Giovanni, but it’s hopeless. She believes Scott will come back and pay for everything, and she doesn’t want to be screwing Giovanni when he does. But I know better. We need Giovanni. I find him in the underground garage, cleaning the air vents. He looks better than he used to. I think he’s lost weight. I sit on an overturned garbage bin and make small talk. Then I tell him that my mom misses him, that he should stop by.
“Don’t tell me shit,” he says. But I know he’s hurt, because I can see it in his eyes. She broke his heart, I’m sure. But he won’t ever admit it because of his male pride. It’s all so stupid. And we are going to end up in a shelter because of it. Someone needs to be the adult in all of this.
Fifty
I’m in the boat now, drifting down the river, staring at the blue, blue sky. I imagine myself floating like one of the white lilies that brush against the bow with a constant shooosh shoosh sound. I lean to the side and slip one foot up over the edge, bringing the boat’s rim close to the water. My stillness steadies the rocking, rocking. I stare into the murkiness. I long to disappear into the deep, deep dark, but the rippling reflection of the golden willows wavering in the breeze pulls my gaze back from the black depth. Then I see the reflection of my own