By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead (5 page)

— 16 DAYS —

There’s chorus rehearsal before school at 7:30 a.m. I’d circled it on Mom’s schedule of events. The visual emptiness of my life, as it draws to a close.

“I don’t get why you signed up for choral performance,” she says as she backs out of the carport and into the street. “I wish you could explain that to me. There are so many other clubs and activities. Are you trying to draw attention to your—” She stops.

Failure? Abnormality? No, Mom. You do that for me by making me go to doctor after doctor and school after school.

It’s just a joke, okay? Call it a tribute to Dad.

I keep my eyes on the road. Eyes on the road, Mom.

She gulps a breath, like she’s losing it. God, don’t cry. You see what good that does.

I’m sorry you don’t get it, Mom. Sometimes I don’t get why I do the things I do. I just know I wake up every morning and wish I was dead.

In chorus, standing there pretending to belong is part of my punishment. The other girls stare at me. I hear what they call me—the weird girl. The freak. They don’t even bother to wait until I’m out of earshot to tell Mr. Hyatt they think it’s ridiculous to let a mute girl sing in chorus.

They’re right. But I want them—I want everyone—to see what they’ve reduced me to. A sick joke.

“She doesn’t even mouth the words,” JenniferJessica says. She’s that mean girl from the restroom. Mr. Hyatt mumbles something about electives. Acceptance of everyone.

JenniferJessica goes, “Couldn’t you at least put her in the back row?”

I’d laugh at that if I could. I’m short, so I have to stand in front. Factoid, JenniferJessica. It’s not about you.

We’re singing Bach’s Minuet in G, which Mr. Hyatt arranged himself for our May Day concert. It’s one of my favorite songs. I close my ears and block it out.

He’s there, sitting on the bench, in my spot.

Waiting for me.

I know what it means when they wait for you.

Sixteen days, then the waiting is over.

I could stand inside the gate and hope he leaves. Or go back to the restroom. I hate the girls’ restroom. I hate every second in school.

Irritated with myself, with my weakness, I push on the gate. He twists his head and smiles. “The beautiful mystery girl returns.”

What a line. If he thinks I don’t know what he’s doing, he’s dumber than I thought. I take out my notebook and write on the back cover, “Get off my bench.”

He says, “Excuse me?”

I shove the notebook in his face. He grabs it and my pen. He writes, “I’ll have you know this is
my
bench. I saw it first.”

I take back the notebook. He’s so juvenile. I don’t know what to say, or do. I give him my dead zone gaze.

He says, “But I’m willing to share.” He scoots over. Not far enough.

His teasing eyes hold no allure. Except now my stomach feels all fluttery. STOP. I stand a minute, sort of unsteady. Then my knees fail me. My skin, bones, nerves. Betrayal. For a fleeting instant, I wish I was still fat. I’d slam down on the bench and the repercussion would send him soaring.

Maybe he’d land on his thick head.

“Hervé wanted to come, but he’s grieving. He’s having a hard time getting over the death of his brother. Have a seat.” He sweeps his hand above the bench corner, over my spot.

I swallow and it hurts my throat. The operation to repair my esophagus was a nightmare. I wish I didn’t have to wear the brace, but I need it, especially now, to remind me of my mission.

“It was a natural death. Old age. Hervé’s actually beating the odds.” He’s inched away from my corner while talking.

Thank you.

“Which gives me hope,” he adds.

Whatever that means.

Despite my instincts and my better judgment, my determination and iron will, I lower myself to perch on the bench. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out my book. Handing it to me, he says, “An enjoyable read. I want to know what happens in the first two hundred pages, though. Why are you tearing them out?”

I don’t take the book, and I don’t answer.

“All right,” he goes. “I won’t ruin the ending for you except to say Maggie Louise makes her choice. With an excessive amount of bosom heaving, of course.”

The book is ruined now. He touched it. No telling where his hands have been. I’ve read it twice before anyway.

“She doesn’t exactly redeem herself at the end,” he adds. “I mean, she doesn’t even apologize to Charles.”

Why should she? I think. Charles deserves everything he gets.

I write in my notebook on a blank page, “There
IS
no redemption.” I hold it up for him to read.

“For her?” he says. “Or him?”

I pull down the notebook and write, “For any of us.”

He frowns. “You think?”

I write, “Therefore, I am.”

He laughs. He has a rumbling laugh, like thunder.

Now I’m mad at myself for engaging him. He’ll think I like him, and I
don’t
.

He scoots closer and I edge away. He stops, scoots back, and sets my book between us on the bench. I reach into my book bag, which I’m keeping on my lap just in case I need to make a sudden and welcome departure. I pull out
Desire on the Moor
.

His head swoops down and around on his giraffe-like neck to check out the title. “Ah,” he says. “The saga continues.”

I open the book and start to read chapter one. He slides all the way over to the opposite end of the bench and falls off.

I almost smile, then catch myself.
Chapter one. Magnolia Louise Delacroix awoke with a start. Would she find her Camelot today?

Behind me, he goes, “Beautiful mystery girl on the bench, reading.”

He’s shallow if he believes I’ll buy that line, or any line, or that I’m reading these books because I resemble Maggie Louise in any way. Maggie Louise is the one who’s beautiful and mysterious. She’s powerful and strong.
She always felt her Camelot was Charles, but lately he’d been preoccupied. And not with her.

Boy sighs. Coming around the bench, he drops to the grass in front of me, rests an arm across one bent knee and says, “Since you asked, no, I don’t go to school. I’ve been homeschooled all my life. I graduated early. Now I’m taking some time off, doing a pre-law course online. Everything you need to know can be accessed, digested, downloaded, podcast, and open sourced. Do you Wiki?”

When you Wiki suicide methods, your parents find out. They search your Google history and shut you down. Right now they could be tracing my access to Through-the-Light. I’m worried.

Homeschooled. How lucky. I wonder if it was his choice or his parents’. He’s a combination nerd, geek, and dork. Plus, his ears stick out. Was he teased mercilessly and his parents were more sensitive, more sympathetic than mine?

He goes, “I hacked into the national weather service, but if you really want a mind freak, check out the patents at the U.S. Patent Office. I’ll send you the link, if you have a computer.”

I force myself to read.

“Do you? I pretty much spend all my time online.”

That makes me glance up. He’s a cyber mole, like me.

He leans back on both elbows and extends his legs. “Do you know there are 4,014 patents for different types of toilets? My favorite is the unisex activewear garment with fly flap.”

Fly flap?

“That’s right. Fly flap.”

Stop reading my mind.

There’s something about his voice I can’t block out. His long, lean legs. I pinch my own nerve endings to numb all sensation and read,
Fog rolling in off the moor sent a chill up Maggie Louise’s spine. She closed the shutters and scurried back to bed. Charles stirred, then rolled over and drew her into his arms.

“Maybe we could IM.”

I shrivel inside like a raisin. I’ll never IM
anyone
again.

“My screen name is—”

Mom’s here. I pack my bag.

“Wait.” He scrabbles to stand and chases me to the curb.

I fling open the door.

He catches the strap on my book bag and I yank on it. But he only lifts the flap in front and inserts my book. My fouled
Desire in the Mist
.

His arm nearly decapitates me as he extends it through the window, across my face, and close to Mom. “We haven’t formally met. I’m Santana Girard. The Second.”

Mom has no choice but to shake his hand. The hair on his arm tickles my nose, and heat rises up my neck.

“I’m . . . Mrs. Rice. Daelyn’s mother.”

I bite my tongue. Bleed. BLEED.

“A pleasure to meet you.” He retracts his arm. Then smiles at me.

He has a nice smile. No, he doesn’t. And now he knows my name.

“Your daughter is a woman of few words.”

Mom betrays me again. “She can’t speak. She’s—”

I press the automatic window to SHUT. HER. UP.

We drive away. I see the smug look on his face through the side-view mirror. He’s jerking me around. Boys are jerks. Sex fiends. Why would I think he’d be different? If he thinks I don’t know what he’s doing by talking me up, lying about how beautiful and mysterious I am—

“He seems nice.” Mom slows at the corner. “I prejudged him by his looks. That white hair, I guess.” She pauses. “You don’t need my approval to choose your friends. You know that, right?”

Breaking news, Mom. I don’t choose friends. Which works out great because they don’t choose me.

— 15 DAYS —

Friends is not a topic on the Final Forum. No one’s here to make friends. In fourth grade this girl in school invited me to her birthday party and I was so excited because I’d never been to a birthday party. I got her a gift and wrapped it myself. Mom bought me a new dress. When we got there, no one was home. “Are you sure this is the house?” Mom asked. I showed her the address the girl had printed on a sheet of notebook paper. “Are you sure the party’s today?” Saturday, the girl said. This Saturday at one o’clock. Across the street I saw a curtain move, then a face, two faces in the upstairs window. Behind the window a bunch of girls were pointing and laughing at me. I said to Mom, “I made a mistake. Let’s go.” She said, “Maybe I could find her number and call.”

“Just go!” I cried.

The closest I came to having a real friend was this one time in middle school. She was new, this girl, and so was I. I never learned her name. I’d know her face if I saw her again, and I still hear her voice. She plunked down at my lunch table, said hi, and just started talking and eating a cold, fried, white cheese sandwich and checking out all the cute guys, and I was stunned and shocked because no one, not one person ever sat with me or talked to me at lunch, and finally she said in this strange accent, “Wat wid you? Why you look like dat?”

She meant dumbfounded. Or ugly. I couldn’t speak. I mean, I could’ve, back then. I had functional vocal cords.

She shrugged.

She ate her whole lunch there, gabbing away at me, not even caring that I was this close to tears for sharing her company.

Kim and Chip are “having words.” I hear them through the thin wall separating the bathroom and kitchen. I decided overnight it was time to begin detachment procedures. First step, refer to your parents by their first names.

Kim raises her voice. “How do you know she . . . ?” Her voice muffles and Chip garbles, “. . . saw the account . . .”

Are they talking about the computer? Damn. DAMN. They have no right to invade my privacy.

I sit on the side of the tub with my ear pressed to the wall. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Kim snaps.

“I knew it’d upset you,” Chip says.

“Of
course
I’m upset. I don’t want collection agencies showing up at our door.”

I lean away breathing a sigh of relief. They’re only fighting about money—again. Why did they buy me this new computer? The old one was fine. They don’t have to pay for a therapist or send me to private school, where I’m even more different from everyone else because I’m not rich. Rich girls are even meaner than regular ones, I’m finding out.

My eyes sweep the bathroom. Claustrophobic. Smaller than the last one, the third or fourth condo we lived in. We move a lot. Kim thinks changing schools is the answer to my suicidal urges. News, Kim. It only makes them stronger.

This bathtub is standard size. I guess they all are. I wish I’d known about a hot bath hurrying the process along. I didn’t cut deep enough and I stalled too long mustering the courage. Then Kim came home.

Timing is everything. And method. When and how.

This bathroom, this toilet and tub, are basically mine, since Kim and Chip have the upstairs master suite. Kim bought me a battery-powered shaver, which is worthless on my leg and underarm hair. I can’t have razors or electric appliances in the bathroom.

She even put a safety plug on the outlet. Kim, I want to tell her. Overkill.

The argument’s over. They’re sitting there, all quiet, when I trudge into the kitchen.

“Morning, honey.” Kim forces a smile.

Chip says, “What can I get my girl for breakfast?” He pulls out my chair as he stands and passes behind me. His hand on my shoulder makes me wince.

He doesn’t seem to sense it.

Smoothing the pleated skirt under my butt, I lower to the seat. Even though I’ve lost weight, I still feel squished and bulbous. I fold my hands in my lap.

Chip sets a glass of water at my place with two pills. I sigh inwardly. He and Kim watch and wait.

Today I’ll take the pink pill first. My throat closes in anticipation. It still hurts to swallow them whole. Chip wanted to crush them for me, but the doctor told him they were time-release tablets, less effective if cut or crushed.

It goes down like gravel.

The white pill is my antidepressant. I hate to tell Chip and Kim no antidepressant in the world is going to change the past. I know medication is supposed to make me feel more hopeful and happy. What I need are performance enhancing drugs. Yeah, steroids. To make me powerful and strong.

Chip says, “So. Breakfast. Oatmeal or oatmeal?”

He’s a real comedian.

Kim cracks a smile, though. She still loves him, I think. I haven’t ruined that—yet.

A bowl of diluted oatmeal appears in front of me. It makes me want to heave. I can’t eat another bowl of oatmeal. I never liked it before—

“Aren’t you eating?” Kim says.

I try not to gag in her face.

“Don’t you feel well?” She reaches over to palm my forehead. I try not to flinch at her touch.

She stares at me. Into me, as far as she can get. “Don’t tell me you’ve stopped eating!” Her voice goes shrill. “You’re not becoming anorexic, are you?”

Chill, Mom. I mean, Kim. Starving myself to death is way too slow.

Chip presses forward on his elbows. “You have to eat.”

Or what? I’ll die?

Okay. I sigh. One more bowl of oatmeal won’t kill me. Unfortunately.

As I’m retrieving my book bag from the rocking chair in my bedroom, I take a quick inventory. There are six books left in the bookcase. I’ve spread them around to fool Kim. No problem reading six books in two weeks. These books are the only thing keeping me sane. Two piles of trash in the closet for two weekly trash pickups, which, hopefully, Kim won’t mistake for laundry.

The computer. Fake posters on the wall. My rocking chair. I’ve had this chair since I was a baby. It’s not really mine; it’s Kim’s. She rocked me to sleep singing Minuet in G. “How gentle is the rain . . .”

My throat catches. Kim, you can have the chair back.

She must’ve loved me once. My dad too. Everybody loves a chubby baby, right? Then you become a fat, ugly child who everybody bullies.

I have a test in econ today. Since my school days are numbered, I’ve renounced the act of studying. It’s not like my GPA is crucial. Numbers are crucial. Everything is numbered. Fifteen days. The last bell, the twelfth bell of the day. When it rings, I count my steps to the exit. Thirty-three steps exactly.

He’s there. What is his damage? Doesn’t he have friends? Why doesn’t he go IM his friends?

He’s wearing a light-blue sleeveless sports jersey with the number 77.

“Ah,” he says, “the beautiful mystery girl returns. She sits on the bench, daintily.”

That’s almost funny, since I just plopped down.

He hands me a wedge of paper, folded into a triangle. Actually, he sets it on the bench between us. He motions to it.

I want to, but . . .

I retrieve
Desire on the Moor
.

With his fingertips, he inches the note toward me.

I’m not watching.

Another inch.

Snatching up the note, I unfold it.

“I’m sorry,” he’s printed in green pen. “I didn’t know you couldn’t talk. I just figured you had amazing self-control.” A down arrow.

I flip to the back, “You’d have to, to spurn my advances.” I knew it! Sex is the only thing boys want. He says out loud, “I learned that expression from Emilio.”

I lift my bag and take out my pen. I write on his paper, “Emilio does not speak English.” I want to add, Jerk. I pass the note to him.

He reads it and goes, “Duh. I’m fluent in Portuguese.”

Really? Do my eyes widen? He’s lying.

He holds up an index finger. Whipping out a notepad he brought with him, he clicks a pen and starts scratching away.

I don’t want to appear interested. I force myself to read from my book:
Maggie Louise felt Charles’s manhood rise to the occasion. She smiled inwardly at her power over him.

If only I knew where Maggie Louise got her power, her confidence. The only power I have over people is to leave them behind. And spurn advances.

He rips out the page and sets it on the bench.

I pay no attention.

End of page 32. I tear the page out of the book.

Page 33.
. . . marveled at the outline of Charles’s muscled arms and back. “Are you sure you don’t want to go on the fox hunt today?” he asked.

Boy taps the paper.

“Quite,” she said. They’d only been at Longshead two days and already she was speaking like a proper Brit. “I thought I might go into Wiltshire for a bit.”

“A bit of what?” Charles asked. Maggie Louise laughed. Charles wasn’t laughing. What was that tone in his voice?

Boy slaps the note against the page I’m reading and jostles my book. He’d printed in block letters,
you’re only making me more determined
.

That’s your problem, I think. I refuse to touch anything he’s touched, so I shake the note off my book.

He sighs. “Did you get the message Hervé left in your book?”

What message? I keep my eyes on the page. Now I’ve lost my place.

“He has the hots for you.”

I hate that expression. How many times have I heard, “Blah blah has the hots for you,” when people are making fun of me? No one has the “hots” for me or ever will. Not even a rat.

Ever since Emilio . . .
I skip to the last paragraph. Ever since . . . No. She and Charles had moved beyond the affair. Charles had said, “We’ll never speak of it again.” Even though Maggie Louise had promised, vowed, pledged her heart and soul to Charles, a sliver of doubt . . . No. She wouldn’t allow herself—

He’s written a new note and he slides it over my page.

Quit it! My eyes flicker across and down.

how do you spell your name? check one:

___dalen

___daylyn

___da-ln

___dateline

___dareling, dakon, defcon, downtown, downwind, am i getting close?

I wish I had a memory zapper so I could make him forget my name. Before I can remove the note, he takes it back and writes more.

fill in the blank. hi, i’m the beautiful mystery girl on the bench. sitting daintily. reading. my name is______________. would you go out with me?

My face flares. He’s baiting me. Am I asking
him
out? Get real.

A pen dangles in front of my face.

I use my own pen and fill in an X for my name. And
no
at the end.

“I knew that was too easy.” Shifting, he sticks out his legs in front. He’s wearing baggy camo shorts with the sleeveless football jersey. Those long, skinny legs. Stick-out ears. If he has muscles anywhere, I don’t see them. I’m not looking.

He raises his arms and flexes his fingers over his head. “Okay, Daelyn, however you spell it. Here’s the deal.” He has fuzzy pits.

“The deal is this. If you want me to leave and never speak to you again, blink once.”

I blink.

“If you’re playing hard to get, blink once.”

I blink. WAIT.

“If you’ve been rendered speechless by my incredible masculine physique, my charming wit, my magnetic personality,” he flexes his fingers in front of him, “my wide array of interests and talents, my apparent intellect, charisma, and irresistible way with women . . . blink once.”

I can’t stop my blink.