Текст книги "Backlash"
Автор книги: Sarah Darer Littman
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Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 15 страниц)
In memory of my father, Stanley Paul Darer, who taught me to observe and, more importantly, to care about the world around me
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
PART ONE: NOW
LARA
SYDNEY
BREE
SYDNEY
LIAM
BREE
LARA
SYDNEY
BREE
LARA
LIAM
SYDNEY
LIAM
LARA
PART TWO: TWO MONTHS EARLIER
LIAM
LARA
BREE
LIAM
LARA
BREE
LARA
LIAM
BREE
SYDNEY
BREE
LIAM
LARA
BREE
LARA
PART THREE: NOW
SYDNEY
BREE
LIAM
LARA
BREE
SYDNEY
LARA
SYDNEY
LIAM
BREE
SYDNEY
BREE
EPILOGUE: TWELVE MONTHS LATER
LARA
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY SARAH DARER LITTMAN
COPYRIGHT
THE WORDS on the screen don’t make sense. They can’t.
He says: You’re an awful person.
He says: You’re a terrible friend.
He says: I know you’ve been checking out dresses for the homecoming dance.
He says: What makes you think I’d ever ask you out?
He says: I’d never be caught dead at the school dance with a loser like you.
He doesn’t say it in a private message. He posts it publicly, on my Facebook wall, where everyone can see. Twenty-five people have already liked what he wrote. Even people I thought were my friends. Why would anyone like something that mean?
A few people have posted defending me, saying that I’m not a loser, that he’s a jerk for posting that.
But my eyes keep going back to Christian’s words. I don’t understand. I thought we were friends. I thought we were more than friends.
Wasn’t he flirting with me? Did I get that wrong, too?
My fingers tremble on the keyboard as I IM him.
What did I do wrong? I don’t understand.
I wait for him to answer, so numb with hurt and panic that I can’t even cry.
When the answer comes, I wish it hadn’t.
He says: You’re a loser. The world would be a better place without you in it. GOOD-BYE, LOSER!!!
My lungs feel paralyzed. I can’t breathe. Why is he saying this? What changed from yesterday to today?
Tears roll down my cheeks as I type back.
Why? WHY?!!!!?????????
But when I press Return, it won’t let me send it. He’s blocked me.
I hit the keyboard in frustration, shaking my head. No, no, no.
I can’t ask him why. I can’t ask anyone why.
The only person left to ask is me.
LARA’S HOGGING the bathroom – again. I swear it’s like this every single night. She gets in there first, takes forever, and uses up all the hot water. She better leave me some tonight because I have to wash my hair. I’ve got auditions tomorrow for Beauty and the Beast, the eighth-grade musical. Maddie, Cara, and I have spent, like, forever practicing our audition pieces, and the last thing I want is for Ms. Brandt to be distracted from my acting and singing talent by gross hair.
I knock on the door for the second time. Okay, this time I’m banging more than knocking. “Lara, come on! Hurry up! You’ve been in there for forty minutes!”
Tonight she’s even more annoying than usual. She doesn’t even respond with Go away. I’ll be out in a minute! or something typically charming and Lara-like. There’s just dead silence, which makes me even more angry and frustrated. I give one last loud bang with my fist and stomp down the stairs to complain to Mom.
My mother is in that post-dinner “I’m finally sitting down and reading my boring political papers so don’t bother me with your arguments” kind of mood.
“Mom. I swear, if I have to take another cold shower —”
“Sydney, I have been sitting down for all of” – she checks her watch – “three minutes. I am not getting involved until I’ve had at least ten minutes to unwind.”
“But, Mom …”
“Ten minutes, Syd,” she says, giving me her palm and going back to whatever deathly dull papers she’s reading for her position on the city council. She’s muttering something about budget cuts as I walk away.
Maybe if I started acting all moody and depressed like Lara, Mom would give me a pass on being a jerk, too. Even now that Lara’s doing better, my parents let her get away with stuff because she was so depressed before.
If I were into all that stupid cheerleading like Lara, I’d make them do this cheer:
2-4-6-8
Who’s the girl that’s REALLY great?
Sydney! Sydney!
HELLO?!!
I stomp back upstairs and bang on the door again. “LARA! GET OUT OF THERE! I need to take a shower!”
Silence. No running water. No splashing. No snarky reply. Nothing.
That’s when I get the first tingle of unease, the feeling that something is different tonight. I try turning the door handle, but it’s locked. It’s not the locked door that freaks me out. Lara always locks the door when she’s in the bathroom. It’s the silence. It’s the fact that she’s not yelling back at me through the door.
“Lara?” I call, concern starting to nudge out anger. “Are you okay?”
Nothing. Not even the tiniest movement of water. Panic rises to the back of my throat as I run downstairs, almost tripping on the last three steps.
“Mom – I think something’s wrong with Lara!”
That’s what it takes to get Mom’s attention away from her paperwork.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s locked in the bathroom, and she’s not answering when I bang on the door.”
Mom’s face pales. She throws the papers on the table and runs for the stairs, taking them two at a time. I follow her, feeling more scared as I climb each step.
“Lara! Open the door! NOW!” Mom shouts, knocking on the door with both fists.
Nothing. Still nothing.
Mom rattles the handle and shakes the door, like that’s going to magically make it open.
“Do you hear me, Lara? Open the door!” she yells.
More nothing. Scary omigodwhatishappeninginthere nothing.
Mom turns to me.
“Call nine-one-one,” she says. “And Dad.”
I stand there, shocked, staring at her. 911? That means …
“NOW, Sydney!”
I race into my parents’ bedroom, grab the phone, and dial 911.
“What’s the nature of your emergency?” the dispatcher asks.
“My sister’s locked in the bathroom and she won’t answer. And she’s been in there for a really long time.”
“What’s your location?”
I give her the address, expecting her to send an ambulance, but she’s got more questions.
“How old is your sister?”
“She’s fifteen,” I tell her.
“Are you sure she’s in there?”
“Yes!”
“What gives you reason to think this is an emergency?”
“Because she’s not answering!” I shout, feeling my throat start to close up.
“Do you have any reason to believe she’s come to harm?”
“Yes! That’s why I’m calling you!”
“Why do you think she might have come to harm?”
No one in my family wants to admit this publicly but … “She had depression and saw a shrink and stuff.”
“Has she made any suicidal comments?”
“Not recently, at least that I know of, but she did a few years ago.”
“Okay,” the dispatcher says. “Ambulance and police are on their way to you.”
I slam the phone in the cradle and run back into the hallway. Mom’s jamming at the lock with some weird metal pin thing.
“What’s that?”
“It’s supposed to be the key to unlock the door from this side,” Mom says from between gritted teeth. “Except it’s not working.”
That’s when I realize I forgot to call Dad. As our resident handyman, he would have had the lock open by now for sure.
I slip into my bedroom and call him on my cell. “What’s up, sugarplum?” he asks.
“Come home,” I tell him. “It’s Lara.”
“What happened?”
He’s suddenly brusque. Lara’s crises do that to our parents.
“She’s in the bathroom with the door locked and won’t answer. Mom’s trying to get the door open. I called nine-one-one,” I say in a rush.
Just then the sirens, which had been faint in the distance, start getting loud down the street. I hear him curse under his breath.
“Tell Mom I’m on my way,” he says before hanging up on me.
Mom’s still struggling unsuccessfully with the lock and is mumbling her own angry curses.
The sirens are now earsplittingly loud – the ambulance must be right outside.
“I’ll go let them in,” I say just as the doorbell rings.
It’s not the ambulance. It’s the police. A policewoman, uniformed, with a gun at her hip.
She flashes me her badge.
“Officer Hall, Lake Hills PD. I have a report of a fifteen-year-old female with a psychiatric history who is nonresponsive and locked in a bathroom?”
I nod. “My sister.”
“Where?” she asks.
I point up the stairs, and she goes up without asking me any more questions. I hear Mom talking to her, starting to cry, frustrated; she still hasn’t been able to get the door open and “Why isn’t the stupid key working?” Explaining how Dad got it in case Lara locked herself in and tried to do something stupid.
The police lady says she’ll take over with the key thing, speaking in a low, steady voice to calm Mom down.
So my parents expected something like this to happen? Am I the only one who didn’t?
I start wondering why I’m always the last to know about stuff that ends up affecting my life, but my brain is too busy being blown into a million shards by a new round of sirens – this time the ambulance. I let the EMTs in and point them up the stairs. This time I follow. By the time we get up there the bathroom door is open, and I glimpse the pill bottles lined up on the edge of the bathtub like birds on a telephone wire.
Oh, Lara. Why?
The EMTs ask Mom to leave the bathroom so they have room to work on Lara. The policewoman leads my mother out into the hallway. Mom is crying. She tries to look back into the bathroom, but the EMT guy shuts the door.
Work on her. I guess that means Lara’s still alive. For now at least.
I can’t say how many times I’ve wished that I were an only child. But now I’m whispering frantic prayers, over and over, that I won’t be.
AS SOON as I hear the sirens coming down our street, I know. They’re coming for Lara. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do. I mean, she’s been messed up for a while. Since we were in middle school. Not everyone knows that, because her parents tried to keep it hush-hush, with her mom being a politician and all. But I know, because we used to be best friends. Her being so messed up is part of the reason we’re not anymore.
I pick up my cell and call Mom, who’s still at work.
“Hi,” she says when she picks up. “I’ve got an important showing in two minutes, so make it snappy.”
I look out the window. “There’s a police car out front of the Kelleys’ house. They came down the streets with lights and sirens.”
“That’s not good,” Mom says, stating the obvious.
Just then I hear more sirens. “I think an ambulance is coming, too,” I tell her.
“I hear them,” she says. “Listen, my clients just pulled up. I’ve got to go. Just hang tight and stay inside so you don’t get in the way. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“Do you think she’s —”
“I don’t know, Bree. I’ve got to go. This could be a huge commission. Just stay in the house.”
And the line is dead silent.
“What’s going on?” my brother, Liam, asks. His freckled face shows only typical eighth-grade-boy curiosity as he comes to the window. He is alternately red and blue from the flashing lights on the police car.
“Something’s going on at the Kelleys’,” I say.
“Wow, I never would have guessed that by the police car that’s parked out front. Thanks, Captain Obvious.”
Liam can be such a snot. And him being smarter than me is something my mother never fails to point out.
“So figure it out yourself, Einstein!” I retort.
We can hear the sirens getting closer. I see curtains twitch across the way. Everyone is wondering what is going on.
And then they get louder and louder, and we see the ambulance turn onto our street. Liam sticks his fingers in his ears as sirens scream deafeningly outside the window. Then they stop, with a weird hiccup, as the ambulance screeches to a halt behind the police car.
We watch, our noses pressed to the glass, siren lights still flashing as the medics run to the Kelleys’ front door. Curious neighbors have started gathering outside.
“I’m going to go out and see what’s happening,” Liam says.
“No!”
He stares at me, shocked by my sudden, vehement command.
“Mom said to stay inside till she gets home.”
“Why?” Liam asks.
My brother was born asking that question. It’s like he’s wired to refuse to take no for an answer.
“Because Mom said so, okay? Why can’t you just listen to her for once?”
“ ’Cause she didn’t tell me,” the little brat says over his shoulder as he heads toward the front door. “And because the Kelleys are our friends.”
“Liam. Mom said to stay inside.”
He opens the door, ignoring me. Why does he always have to be such a pain? Especially now.
“I’m going to tell Mom —”
The door slams on my threat.
The Kelleys are our friends.
Were our friends, is more like it.
I watch him drift toward the gathering crowd by the ambulance, sidling up to Spencer Helman from down the street and talking to him. I want to go out, too. I pick up my cell and decide to ignore Mom’s instructions. If she gives me a hard time, I’ll tell her the truth, which is that Liam left the house first.
As I walk up to the crowd, one of the EMTs comes out of the Kelleys’ house with the policewoman. He opens the back of the ambulance and takes out a stretcher.
My stomach turns over. A stretcher could mean anything from a corpse to a sick person going to the hospital, right?
“What happened?” It’s one of our neighbors, Mrs. Gorski. She’s an old busybody, always looking out her window to see what’s happening on our street. A few years ago, Josie Stern skipped school and came home with a bunch of friends while her parents were at work. Guess who called her parents and told on her so she got grounded for a month? You guessed it – Mrs. G.
“We can’t release any information at this time,” the policewoman says.
The two of them wheel the stretcher back into the house.
“I hope Syd’s okay,” Liam mutters. He’s strangely pale beneath his freckles.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” I tell him. Because I know this has to be about Lara.
“Maybe Mr. Kelley had a heart attack,” he says.
I check the driveway.
“He’s not even home,” I observe. “See, his car’s not here. Besides, Mr. Kelley is in pretty good shape. He’s not the heart attack kind of guy.”
Unlike my father, who needs to lose weight, as Mom never stops reminding him. Dad has the physique of a middle-aged teddy bear.
“I bet it’s the older girl,” Mrs. Gorski says, wagging one of her liver-spotted bony fingers for emphasis. “Laura. That one’s been giving them trouble for years.”
How does she know? Does she, like, hide in the bushes and listen to conversations through open windows? Seriously, she can’t even get Lara’s name right.
It’s not like she was Lara’s best friend for years. It’s not like she had to listen when Lara was depressed and kept talking about how she hated life and hated herself and hated her body and why did she have to be so fat – for hours. Not exaggerating. One time we were video chatting and it was 176 minutes of her complaining about life. I timed it. I finally lied and said I had to go, because I couldn’t take it anymore.
High school was such a relief. Bigger place, new people. Made it easy to escape, to hang out with other girls.
We were best friends. Then we weren’t. It happens all the time. Just read any teen-magazine advice column. There’s nothing unusual about our story.
Except now there’s a police car and an ambulance parked outside Lara’s house.
The front door opens and I hold my breath, waiting to see if Lara is alive or in a body bag.
Two EMTs are wheeling out the stretcher … and … Lara’s strapped to it, with an oxygen mask over her face and an IV in her arm. She’s alive.
I can breathe again. Just barely.
But Mrs. Kelley is walking next to her unconscious daughter, holding her hand and sobbing. What does that mean? Does it mean there’s a chance she won’t make it?
Sydney shuts the door behind everyone and walks to her mother’s car, her arms wrapped around herself like she’s eaten something bad and got a terrible pain in her stomach.
This is so unreal. What did Lara do? Marci won’t believe this. I can barely believe it.
But Marci doesn’t know yet. So I take out my cell and surreptitiously snap a picture of Lara’s pale face as they wheel her by on the stretcher.
“What are you doing?” Liam asks, grabbing my arm and staring at me, horrified. “That’s sick!”
“Shut up!”
He doesn’t. “Bree, what’s the matter with you? You better not post that!”
I shake him off and snap more pictures as they slide the stretcher into the ambulance and slam the doors shut. I have to send this to Marci right away, otherwise she’s not going to believe me when I tell her. This is just so … crazy.
Mrs. Kelley sobs her way over to her car and gets in, obviously planning to follow after the ambulance with Sydney.
Then the siren starts up with a near-deafening whoop. Liam puts his fingers in his ears, and I take some video of the ambulance driving away, lights flashing and sirens blaring.
“Bree, stop it!” Liam shouts over the siren noise. “What is your problem?”
“What’s your problem?” I shout back. “Just go inside and mind your own business.”
“You kids with your smartphones and your Facebooks and what’s it called … YouTubes,” Mrs. Gorski complains, shaking her head as she turns back to her house once the siren noise fades down the street. “No trees fall in your forest unless you’ve put it online. Everyone has to know everyone’s business.”
I think the woman is starting to lose it. What is she talking about? And seriously, Mrs. Gorski wouldn’t know minding her own business if it stood in front of her and did a kick line like the Rockettes at Radio City.
When I finish taking the video of the ambulance, I head back home. Everything is posted on Facebook before I even walk back in the front door of our house. Now everybody knows.
LARA’S STILL unconscious. What happens if she doesn’t wake up? What happens if she does and she’s, like, a vegetable or something? The doctors say they can’t give us a prognosis. They say we have to wait and see, something that none of us are that good at doing.
Dad ended up meeting us at the ER. They kept us out of the room while they intubated Lara, which means sticking a tube into her windpipe, and while they inserted a urinary catheter, which sounds totally gross. They took blood and some of her urine (out of that catheter thing) so they could do tests. The ER doctors gave her something called activated charcoal through another tube they’d stuck down her throat into her stomach. It’s supposed to help eliminate the drugs she took from her system.
Since they allowed us back into the room, we’ve been doing what they told us to: talking to her in case she hears us, watching the machines that are tracking her vitals, listening to the slowed beeps of her heart, and most of all, sitting here waiting, hoping and praying that she’ll pull through. But the one question we keep asking one another and ourselves in between prayers and hopes is why? Why now?
Mom sits on one side of Lara, Dad on the other, each of them holding one of her limp hands. Mom alternates between crying, praying, and begging Lara to wake up and come back to us. Dad is a silent, angry rock. He doesn’t understand.
“Why would she do this when things were going so much better for her?” he asked Mom right after he got there.
Mom just shook her head and cried harder. Dad comforted her, but he’s been asking the doctors and the nurses and the janitor and anyone who walks by the same hurt, angry question.
I can’t blame him, because I don’t get it, either. Back when she was in middle school and everyone was making fun of her for being fat, Mom arranged for Lara to see a nutritionist so she could lose weight. We all ended up having to change the way we ate – which meant no more cookies for me, even though I wasn’t overweight. How was that fair? Lara and Dad went to the gym together on the weekends, and then he’d take her for low-fat frozen yogurt at Yoglicious. It was their “special time.”
And now Lara had just made varsity cheerleading. All she could talk about was her new friend Ashley from cheerleading and how great it was to hang out with her and the rest of the girls from the team.
So why, Lara? I didn’t get frozen yogurt treats or “special time” with Dad. But am I the one lying unconscious in an ER bed, freaking out my entire family?
Our Lara vigil is interrupted when a policeman comes into the little room.
“Sorry to intrude, but we need to ask you some questions,” he says. “Maybe we should step outside?”
Mom glances at Dad. I can tell she doesn’t want to leave Lara’s side for a second, like her presence alone is what’s going to keep my sister alive, more than all the beeping machines. He nods toward the door, and reluctantly she lets go of Lara’s hand, kissing it before she lays it back on the bed.
There are two chairs outside the room. Mom sits in one but Dad wants to stand, so I take the other.
“I’m sorry to have to bother you at a time like this,” the police officer says. “I’m Officer Timm. This is Officer Hall,” he says, pointing to the policewoman, who I recognize from the house.
“Why are you here?” Dad asks. “Can’t you see our daughter is …”
Dad trails off, because he can’t say the words.
“Just the usual follow-up questions in this kind of situation,” Officer Hall says in a calm but firm voice.
Mom looks to where Lara is lying on the bed, pale and still.
“Had your daughter appeared depressed recently?” Officer Timm asks.
“No, she was doing really well,” Dad says. “That’s why I can’t understand … why she would …”
“She made the cheerleading squad,” Mom adds. “She was making new friends.”
“Did you notice any changes recently in her behavior, or her grades?” Officer Timm asks.
“No,” Mom says. “If anything, she seemed happier than usual. Not depressed.”
“Has Lara had any history of mental illness?” the policeman asks.
There’s that slight hesitation. My parents don’t look at each other. They don’t need to. They’ve already got this.
“She got a little down in middle school. Some of the other girls were teasing her about her weight,” Dad says.
“But she’s fine now,” Mom assures them.
We’re in the emergency room and Lara is unconscious on a bed, attached to beeping machines while the police are interviewing us. Mom might not be aware of the irony, but Officer Timm exchanges a sideways look with Officer Hall.
They’re doing it again. My parents are pretending that we’re this perfect family with two perfect parents and two perfect daughters. Problems? Not us Kelleys! We’re totally electable.
I can’t help the loud, exasperated sigh that escapes my lips.
“Sydney, why don’t you and I take a walk to stretch our legs while Officer Timm speaks with your parents?” Officer Hall says. “I bet it’s tough for you to sit for so long.”
“Okay. Sure.”
I’m grateful for the chance to get away from the constant beeping of the monitors, from Lara’s still, pale face, from my parents, who keep pretending everything is just awesome, despite all the evidence that it isn’t. Do they really think they’re fooling anyone beside themselves?
As we walk down the hallway, Officer Hall’s thick rubber-soled shoes make annoying squeaky noises on the vinyl floor tiles with every step she takes.
“Guess I wouldn’t be able to sneak up on a suspect in this place, would I?” she says, giving me a rueful smile.
I wonder if she could read the annoyance on my face or if the sound bugs her, too.
“No. You’d squeak up on a suspect.”
She laughs. “Can I treat you to a bottle of something?” she says, gesturing to the vending machine a little ways down the hall.
“Sure.”
I can’t decide between vitaminwater (Mom would approve) or Gatorade (might keep me going for what is obviously going to be a long night). Since I’m mad at Mom, I pick the Gatorade. Officer Hall gets herself a Diet Coke, and we find a couple of chairs in one of the small family waiting rooms located off this hallway in strategic locations.
The Gatorade is cold, sweet, and refreshing. After taking a long swig, I already feel a little better. Or maybe it’s just the relief of having a few minutes away from my parents and the desperate, beeping Lara Watch.
“So I’m getting the impression things weren’t as rosy with your sister as your parents were making them out to be,” Officer Hall says, putting her soda can down on the table between out-of-date copies of People magazine and Car and Driver. “Am I right?”
“Yeah. My parents are pretending that everything was fine, because that’s what they always do, but she was a total mess.”
“Do you mind if I take some notes?” Officer Hall asks.
“No. I mean, I guess it’s fine.”
“When you say ‘a total mess,’ in what way?”
I pick at the label of the Gatorade.
“Well … Lara used to be kind of … She wasn’t always as … thin … as she is now. And in middle school, the other girls gave her a really hard time. Like, instead of Lara, they called her Lardo and Lardosaurus. You know, stuff like that.”
Officer Hall frowns, her lips a thin, grim line.
“Yes, I do know, unfortunately. And how did Lara take that?”
“Badly. She was crying in her room a lot. And then Mom would nag her about stuff she was eating, because she thought if Lara lost weight, kids wouldn’t tease her, but then Lara would sneak food into her room, and then Mom would scream at her when she found the food. It was pretty … ugly.”
“I can imagine,” Officer Hall says, scribbling in her little notebook.
I wonder if she really can imagine what it’s like to be in your room, curled up on the bed, clutching the teddy bear you tell your friends you don’t sleep with anymore for comfort because the sound of your mom screaming and your sister sobbing scares you. Wishing that they would all just be okay, that Lara would be happy and Mom would be calm and things would be normal like they were in other people’s houses.
“Why did you become a cop?” I ask her, curious suddenly.
She puts the notebook down in her lap and fidgets with the pen. “Runs in the family,” she says. “My dad’s a cop. His dad was a cop. My older brother, too.”
“My dad’s an engineer,” I tell her. “But I don’t want to be one. No way.”
“What do you want to do?” she asks me.
“How am I supposed to know? I’m in eighth grade.”
She laughs. “Good point. Just because my future was mapped out, it doesn’t mean that everyone else’s is.” Picking up the notebook, she gets back to Lara – because it’s always really about Lara, never about me. “Tell me about the depression … When did that start?”
“I can’t remember exactly. I think it was when she was in seventh grade? She got mad at me because I asked in front of Mom and Dad why she was crying every night in her room. That’s what made my parents send her to a shrink, finally.”
“What about friends? Does Lara have many friends?”
“Some. There’s Julisa and Luis Cotto – they’re twins. And she just made the cheerleading team, and she’s been hanging out with this girl Ashley a lot.”
“Do you know Ashley’s last name?”
“Something beginning with T … Tra-something.”
“Anyone else?”
“Not that I can think of. I mean, she used to be best friends with Bree Connors, who lives next door, but they don’t hang out so much anymore.”
“Your parents said Lara was doing better. Has she ever shown any suicidal tendencies?”
Immediately, I think of all those nights listening through the wall to Lara sobbing. Hearing her long, tearful video chats with Bree, where she’d say how she couldn’t stand another day at school, how she wished she were dead. I’d be lying in bed scared that it might happen, but sometimes wondering what it would be like to be an only child. Hoping God would forgive me, because I hated myself for wondering that.
“Yeah. When she was in middle school – when things were really bad – she used to talk about stuff like that. But not recently. She’s been in a good mood lately. That’s why this is all so messed up. It doesn’t make sense.”
“A young person trying to take her own life never makes sense to me.” Officer Hall sighs, closing her notebook.
“I guess I should get back,” I say, even though the thought of going back to Lara’s bedside with my parents’ desperation and the slow beeping of the machines makes my stomach clench.
“Sure. I’ll walk with you,” Officer Hall says.
She squeaks back down the hall next to me to where Officer Timm is waiting outside Lara’s room. My parents are back in position on either side of Lara, holding her hands. There’s no obvious place for me.
“Thanks for speaking with me, Sydney,” Officer Hall says.
“Thanks for the Gatorade.”
I have to force myself to go back into the room to join the vigil. I’m too amped from the Gatorade to sit down, so I slouch in the corner, moving my weight from one foot to the other, wishing I could go home and take that shower for my audition.
Mom is reciting the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t know what to do, so I just keep thinking, Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup.
And then, almost as if she’s heard me, Lara’s eyelids start to flutter.
“Pete! I think she’s coming to!” Mom half whispers, half sobs.
“Lara … Lara, sweetheart, can you hear me? It’s Dad,” my father says, squeezing my sister’s hand so hard I’m surprised she doesn’t wake up just to tell him to stop breaking her fingers.
She groans. The machines start beeping faster.
“Syd, go get the nurse!” Dad orders.
By the time I get to the door, the nurse in panda-print scrubs is already on her way in. She races to Lara’s side, eyeing the monitors.
“Lara, open your eyes for me,” the nurse says. “Your parents are here, and your sister. They want to see you.”
She tells Mom and Dad to keep talking to Lara.
“Wake up, darling,” Mom says. “We love you.”
“Come on, honey, you can do it,” Dad urges.
“Lara! Wake up!” I shout suddenly, fed up with the waiting, with Lara, with everything and everyone. Mad that it looks like I’m going to miss auditions tomorrow because of my sister and her never-ending drama.
She groans and tosses her head back and forth on the pillow. Dad turns to me angrily and is about to open his mouth to tell me to be quiet or something, but Mom gasps because Lara’s eyes have fluttered open.
“Welcome back,” the nurse says.
“Thank goodness!” Dad says, grabbing Lara’s hand and kissing it.
Mom sobs with relief.
Lara is trying to pull at the tube in her throat.
“Leave that, honey,” the nurse says. “We have to wait for the doctor to come to make sure it’s okay to take it out.”
Lara looks scared and confused, her eyes blinking from the brightness of the lights.
