twist. In some ways, I do that too. Wood Valley sometimes feels like my pretend life.
Dri: Liam doesn’t have a sister.
Me: See.
Dri: I don’t know. I still think Liam is SN. And yes, I’ll admit it. I’m totally jealous.
Me: Please. Don’t. Be.
Dri: Fine. Love you anyway. Going to go listen to “The Girl No One Knows” on repeat and feel sorry for myself.
• • •
Theo: WHAT THE WHAT? Liam broke up with Gem to be with you?
Me: Who told you that?
Theo: EVERYONE. Liam’s H-O-T. How’d you pull that one off?
Me: I didn’t pull anything off.
Theo: Girl, you are full of surprises.
Me: Not really.
Theo: He’s telling everyone you’re “like a breath of fresh air.”
Me: That’s sweet of him, but it kind of makes me sound like a deodorant.
Theo: By the way, your dad is making me pick you up from the airport, so you better not check any bags. Don’t keep me waiting.
• • •
Me: Three things. (1) I don’t know who you are. I wish I did, and Scar has her theories, but I just don’t know. I thought you were someone else, but now I know I was wrong. (2) I’ve never lied to you, I don’t think. Well, except that first day, when I said I have a black belt in karate. I’ve never done karate. I’m a crappy liar. I think it’s easy for me to talk to you, because I don’t know who you are. I guess it’s different for you? (3) I don’t know where home is anymore.
SN: Maybe home doesn’t have to be a place.
Me: Maybe not.
CHAPTER 30
Back in the air. This time it’s Chicago that slips away, gets smaller and smaller, until I can’t see the city at all, my home vanished just like that, and now there are only big swaths of green and brown, a patchwork quilt of earth. Again, my PSAT book sits on my lap, opened but not read, and I stare out the window, trying to decide which way I’d rather be flying: east, back to Scar, who has her own life now and less room for me, or west, back to Rachel’s house and my distracted dad, where scary things await. Facing Liam, and, if he doesn’t back out, SN. As for my father, I’ve ignored his calls and texts for the past week. Our silence is getting too loud, my sulk having crossed over into something tangible and hard and malignant.
I wait until the fasten seat belt light goes off to take out the envelope Scar slipped to me just as I was leaving. A parting gift, she said. I flip it around in my hand, nervous to open it. I hope there are words of wisdom here, the sort of prescient advice Scar has always been able to freely share. When my mom died, Scar and I sat on my bed, and before she started the full-time job of distracting me from the pain—which she performed admirably and with such skill I never even noticed how much work she must have put into it—she said the only thing that made sense at the time, maybe the only thing that has made any sense since: Just so you know, I realize that what happened is not in any way okay, but I think we’re going to have to pretend like it is.
Because it wasn’t okay and never will be. We will power through it; I will continue to power through it—all the stagnant, soul-crushing grief—but it will never be okay that my mom is not here. That she will not be at my high school graduation; that she will never give me the lecture, and I won’t be able to play along and pretend to be embarrassed and say, Come on, Mom; that she will not be there when I open my college acceptance letters (or rejections); that she will never see who I grow up to be—that great mystery of who I am and who I am meant to be—finally asked and answered. I will march forth into the great unknown alone.
I open the envelope and out slips a new laptop tattoo, bigger than the other ones Scar’s made for me. This image in black-and-white. A ninja wielding a samurai sword, his eyes wide and blank and fierce. Attached is a small note: I wanted you to see yourself the way I see you: as a fighter. Strong and stealthy. Totally kick-ass. Completely and utterly your mother’s daughter. Love you, Scar.