Backlash (31 page)

“Well, what are
you
doing hanging around with Sydney Kelley?” I ask. “I saw you two coming down from the tree fort together last night. How sick is that when Mom had to call the cops on her dad, and her parents want to put Mom and me in jail?”

I know this came as a total shock to Dad based on his expression as he turns to my brother and asks, “Is this true, Liam? Have you been hanging out with Sydney? Do you realize how inappropriate that is?”

If I thought Liam was mad before, that was just the warm-up. Dad’s question is the spark that ignites the serious fireworks.

“
I’m
the one making things inappropriate? Because I’m hanging out with Sydney?” he shouts at Dad, and it’s gross because he’s literally spitting with rage. “I didn’t ask to be part of this freak show. But I had no choice. I am stuck smack in the middle of it.”

“It’s not easy for anyone right now —” Dad says, but Liam’s not in the mood for excuses.

“You know what they call me at school?
Son of Monster Mom
.
Bullying Bree’s Brother
. I hate every … single … minute. If I had enough money …”

He gives a bitter laugh, which ends up sounding like a sob. “Forget that — if I had the
courage
, I’d run away and change my name so no one would know I was related to you.”

He says the last part looking straight at me, with such disgust and loathing that I can’t believe he’s the little brother I’ve grown up with and lived with my whole life.

I can’t face him anymore. I can’t face the world anymore. It’s bad enough that everyone at school hates me. It’s bad enough that all these people who don’t even know me hate me.

I run to my room and throw myself on the bed, crying, wondering if this is all I can look forward to in the future — if I’ll always be hated because I’m Bullying Bree, the Monster Spawn of Monster Mom, pariah of Lake Hills.

“Didn’t you ever stop, for just one minute, to think about the consequences of what you were doing?” Dad had asked me last night when he came to kiss me good night and found me crying.

“I d-don’t k-know,” I sniffed.

“It’s a simple yes or no question, Breanna,” he said, smoothing the hair back from my hot, damp cheek.

What Dad doesn’t get is that nothing is “simple” anymore. Especially not that.

“Did you ask Mom that?” I asked him. “Because she did it, too.”

I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

What would have happened if Mom had acted differently when she caught me pretending to be Christian?

What if she had punished me instead of joining in?

What if she hadn’t just grounded me, but she’d called Mrs. Kelley and told her what was going on and made sure they broke things to Lara gently because of her history?

Would Lara have tried to kill herself?

Would we be getting death threats?

Would Liam hate me?

Would I hate myself?

But here’s the question I ask myself most of all, especially at night when I stare up at the ceiling, trying to get to sleep: Should I have been the one to take all those pills instead of Lara?

M
OM WON
reelection to the city council by a “comfortable margin” despite Dad’s televised pajama rant. Her opponent tried to bring up her parenting skills in a debate and was booed down by the audience. Over a celebratory dinner at home tonight, Mom says that even if he hadn’t been, she’d been prepared. After discussing it with her campaign manager, she’d decided that the best way to deal with the issue was to face it head-on so she could “frame” it to her advantage. Lara and I secretly roll our eyes at each other.

After dinner, I follow Lara to her room and ask her how she feels about being an “issue” to be “framed.”

To my amazement, she actually puts her hands around her face like she’s making a picture frame and
laughs
.

“It’s just never-ending fun and giggles,” she says in a comically bright voice.

But then she puts her hands down and shrugs, the smile fading from her eyes. “Whatever … it’s Mom. She deals with life her way. I have to learn how to deal with it in mine.”

“But … what if her way makes your way … I mean, what if she makes you crazy?”

“I have to try to talk to her about it. Like I’m doing about this Lara Laws thing. I get that passing a law is her way of trying to help. But we’re trying to get her to understand that naming it after me is going to stop me from moving on.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” I ask.

“Linda,” Lara says. “She’s not as bad I as thought she was in the beginning. She says I can go back to school soon.”

“Wow. That’ll make Mom happy,” I say. Mom has made no secret of how difficult it was making it for her to campaign when she had to babysit Lara all day. She’d started dragging Lara around with her when she went door-to-door. “But what about you?”

“I don’t know,” Lara replies. “Part of me is relieved I won’t be stuck at home with Mom watching my every move anymore.”

“At least you can pee and shower with the door closed now,” I remind her. She’d been allowed that privilege back the previous week.

“Oh yeah! And I won’t miss having to go door-to-door canvassing with Mom,” Lara says. “Although, I have to admit, it made me see a different side of her.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I guess to me it always seemed like this political stuff was all about her, because of the way it affects
our
lives,” Lara says.

“What, like having to pretend we’re the Perfect Family of Perfect Town all the time?” I say with a heavy dose of snark.

“Yeah, that,” Lara says. “But when I was campaigning with her, I heard people thanking her for the things she’d done to help them and their families. I realized she really
does
want to try to make people’s lives better. I mean, it doesn’t make it any less annoying about the Perfect Family stuff, but at least I started to see something good that comes from all her politicking instead of hating every single thing about it.”

“Or maybe you’re just starting to understand where all Mom’s crazy stuff comes from,” I say.

Lara laughs for a second time. Which makes me think she’s finding herself again, gradually, but a stronger, better version. I’ve missed that Lara.

“Definitely,” she says. “But maybe understanding where the crazy comes from makes it a little easier to deal with.”

I pick up Hedwig and make her pretend fly around my knees. “So are you scared? About going back to school?”

“Of course I am,” Lara says, looking at me like I’m an idiot. “I’m terrified. Scared to face the stares and the whispers. You know,
That’s the girl who tried to kill herself over some guy who turned out to be her next-door neighbor pretending.
Wouldn’t you be?”

“Totally. But at least you won’t have to face Bree now that she’s transferred.”

“I know. That’s a big relief. It would be even harder to go to school if she were still there.” Lara wraps her arms around her knees. “It’s going to be hard enough facing everyone else.”

“Do you wish you could go to a different school, instead of going back to Lake Hills High?”

“We talked about that,” Lara says. “But even though there are bad things about going back to Lake Hills — like dealing with the people who I thought were friends and weren’t — at least I’ll still be with the people who really
are
friends, rather than starting over totally.”

She sighs. “Do you want to know the worst part of going back to Lake Hills?”

“What?” I ask.

“Dad,” she says, grimacing.

“Don’t tell me he’s still on you about The Spreadsheet.”

“He’s totally insane!” Lara exclaims. “
You need to know who these jerks are so you can be wary of them when you go back to school
.”

Lara’s imitation of Dad makes me giggle, but her expression sobers me up quickly.

“I take it you still don’t want to look at it,” I say, remembering the scene that night in the hospital when Dad tried to force her to do it.

Lara shakes her head no. “It’s too painful. I remember a few names of people who liked Christian’s post from that night before I took the pills, but believe me, it’s not because I want to.”

I don’t want to disagree with her now that we’re finally getting along and she seems to be doing so much better. But I kind of agree with Dad on the list thing.

“But if you don’t … like, if you just try to forget it all, then how will you know who to trust?” I ask her. “I mean, if they were that mean to you once, what’s to stop them from doing it again?”

“I know, I know,” Lara says, dropping her head to her knees. “I’ve heard it all a million times from Dad.
Forewarned is forearmed, Lara. You need to know to protect yourself
.”

She raises her head and looks me in the eye. “Syd — the names I
do
remember … they might not have been my best friends, but they were people who I thought at least
liked
me. Why would they do something like that?
Why?
”

I don’t have an answer for Lara then. None of us do. And that’s what’s so hard for everyone — especially my sister.

Liam and I keep meeting up in the tree fort, despite the objections of our parents.

“It makes me feel like we’re Romeo and Juliet,” I tell Liam as we snuggle together in the candlelight.

“That’s cool — as long as I don’t end up poisoned and you don’t stab yourself,” Liam says with a wry smile.

“Okay, like Romeo and Juliet but with a happy ending,” I say.

“That would be a story with a different title, I think,” Liam says.

“Liam and Sydney, then.”

“I hope that one has a happy ending.” Liam sighs.

“Is everything okay?” I ask him. “I mean, I know everything isn’t okay, but … you seem upset.”

He runs the hand that isn’t around my shoulder through his hair. “I’m just sick of taking crap for what Bree did. How much more of this do I have to put up with?”

I don’t have any more answers for him than I do for Lara.

“Haven’t a clue.” I sigh.

“I wish I had a Time-Turner or a TARDIS so I could go back in time and tell Bree to think it through before she made that stupid profile,” Liam says. “Dad says I have to find a way to forgive her, but I’m still way too mad.”

“I’ll bet,” I say. I can’t find it in my heart to forgive Bree yet, either. I mean, I feel bad about the death threats and stuff, but I’m glad she had to change schools. Glad for Lara’s sake and, if I have to admit it, glad that she has to suffer in some way because of what she did.

“Mom’s business has crashed to a grinding halt,” Liam says. “So much for being the real estate queen of Lake Hills. No one wants to list property with Monster Mom. Dad’s business is suffering, too. And it’s not like he had anything to do with it.”

No wonder Liam has a hard time forgiving his sister.

“I keep wondering if it makes me a bad person,” Liam says. “Dad says she’s my sister, and family is so important, and we have to support each other, especially because she’s getting so much grief from the outside.”

I feel all his muscles tense with anger.

“But so am I,” he says. “And it’s not like
I
did anything wrong. And that’s not all. We have to cut to basic cable because we can’t afford the movie channels anymore, and Dad’s talking about all these other ‘sacrifices’ we have to make. All because of Bree.”

As bad as things have been for our family, at least we’re slowly starting to heal. Lara’s back at school and Mom got reelected. And maybe I didn’t get to audition for the fall musical, but I’m going to be first in line to audition for the spring talent showcase.

“You’re not a bad person, Liam. I’d be mad, too.”

I kiss his cheek. It’s soft and chilly from the autumn cold. “It’ll get better eventually,” I tell him. “Remember when the press people were here? At least they’re gone.”

They were camped outside our houses for almost a week until some politician sent an “inappropriate” photo of himself to a woman who wasn’t his wife, knocking “Monster Mom” and “Mother-Daughter Bullying Team” off the front page.

“I hope you’re right,” he says. “And I just hope
eventually
comes soon.”