Tragedy Girl - Christine Hurley Deriso Page 0,5

“What was wrong?” I ask. Then the lightbulb goes off over my head. This is the guy Melanie was telling me about yesterday … the guy whose girlfriend died over the summer.

“Just … kind of a panic attack,” he explains, still averting his eyes. “It wasn’t as dramatic as it sounds; I just felt really claustrophobic all of a sudden and needed some air. I was okay after lying down a few minutes.”

I nod. “I know the feeling. Your friend didn’t seem very sympathetic.”

Blake’s eyebrows knit together. “Oh, you mean Jamie? Nah, he didn’t mean anything by that.”

“Well. Nice to meet you.”

He nods, his eyes still doleful.

I take a few steps down the hall, then suddenly pivot and face him again. “Hey, Blake?”

He glances up.

“Feel better … okay?”

He gives me a thumbs-up sign as his deep-set eyes turn warm.

Warm … but so incredibly sad.

“So, that guy you were mentioning yesterday—how did you say his girlfriend died?”

Melanie forks a piece of lettuce and pops it in her mouth. “Drowned. In the ocean.”

Her friend, Lauren, leans closer into our lunch table. “You know Blake?” she asks me.

I shake my head. “Not really. I met him at my locker this morning, and Melanie mentioned yesterday that his girlfriend died over the summer.”

“Natalie informed Anne yesterday that Blake is off limits,” Melanie tells Lauren conspiratorially, and they share a knowing smile.

“Natalie’s like a narc,” Lauren says to me. “Only instead of sniffing out druggies, she sniffs out hot new girls so she can put them on notice: no sucking up her oxygen! She’s got dibs on all the studs, even though none of them give her the time of day.”

The girls study my reaction, then grin. “You’re blushing!” Melanie tells me, and I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head.

“Sorry; you’re the hot new girl whether you like it or not,” Lauren says. “The word is out. I’ve even heard some numbers bandied about. I think the consensus is you’re a solid eleven. And this is on a ten-point scale, mind you.”

I cringe. “Please.”

“You truly can’t handle attention,” Melanie says.

“Change of subject?” I plead, and the girls laugh good-naturedly at my mortification. Why, oh why, did I bring up Blake in the first place? That’s what started all this, which probably made me look like some kind of boy-crazy twit. I just can’t get his sad eyes off my mind …

“Okay, new subject,” Melanie says. “Why did you move here? Somebody’s job? What do your parents do?”

I smile wanly. “Not much. They’re dead.”

The girls gasp.

“Dead?” Lauren says. “Both of them?”

I nod. “They died in a car crash last spring. I moved here to live with my aunt and uncle.”

“Oh god,” Melanie says. “How do you … what do you … ?”

I’m used to this kind of shocked-speechless response, but I know what she means: How do you go on without your parents? What steps are involved in moving on with your life when your foundation has been ripped from underneath you? I offer the answer I’ve learned from experience: “You remind yourself to breathe,” I say.

And I mean it. When I have absolutely no idea how to go on, I talk myself through the process of inhaling, then exhaling. Somehow, one breath leads to another, and another, then another … Inhale, exhale, repeat. If Melanie is looking for any cosmic wisdom or helpful platitudes, she won’t learn them from me. I don’t know how to make sense from nonsense, or order from chaos, or happiness from misery. I haven’t learned any of those lessons yet, and I kind of doubt I ever will. I’ve just learned to remind myself to breathe.

“I’m so sorry … ” Lauren says in barely a whisper.

“Thanks. But I’m okay. Truly.”

An awkward moment hangs in the air, and then Melanie says, “No wonder you and Blake connected.”

Connected? Did my offhand comment earlier insinuate that we connected? Did we connect? I feel excruciatingly transparent.

“Hey, he’s a really nice guy,” Melanie adds, seeming to intuit my self-consciousness. “In fact, I heard he was going to the bonfire Friday night, that he’s finally ready to start getting out again. We should go. I’ve got a semi-major crush on his best friend. Speaking of whom … ”

Our eyes follow Melanie’s as Blake walks into the cafeteria with the guy who demanded his notes back when I met him at our lockers.

“That’s his best friend?” I ask.

“Mmmmmm,” Melanie replies, her eyes still on the two of them. “Jamie Stuart.”

“He didn’t seem very friendly this