“Can you just leave me alone, please? Please?”
“Emmy, talk to me.”
“Dad, no, not right now.”
He closes my door.
I climb onto my bed. I feel empty. Tears just pour down the sides of my face onto the pillow and I let them.
My phone pings several times, one after the other. I lift it up. Check the messages.
Let me know when the pool house opens It’s always the quiet ones
You doing another window peep show 2-night
I turn my phone off and throw it across the room so it lands on the stupid overstuffed recliner I never liked.
Then I bury my head under a pillow and cry myself to sleep.
If I was Joey, I’d be pawing through the house looking for anything, something to dull all this down. Forget I’m even me.
I get it now. I really get it.
* * *
—
At some point in the night, I open my eyes to Joey setting Fuzzy next to me.
I blink. “Stay?” I say.
He hesitates, then nods. He curls up next to me, his cheek swollen, the bruising starting to pop out.
We don’t say anything.
We just fall asleep together.
I dream that Joey is standing far away from me, on the beach in San Diego, telling me he’s sorry, that he always lets everyone down and it won’t ever happen again. The sound of the waves carry his voice to me and I try to call back to him, tell him it’s okay, that everything will be okay, but the waves drown me out.
When I wake up, he’s gone.
30
I WAKE UP TO THE sound of shouting. My mother’s voice, something about grades and disappointment, and then Nana chiming in, “Easy, now. Everyone take a breath.”
And then Joey’s voice, “I’m never enough, am I?”
I scramble out of bed, but before I can get to the door to go downstairs and see what’s up, it flies open.
I brace myself for my mother, but it’s Liza who is standing there.
“Whew,” she says. “Your brother just took off in a hurry. I could hear yelling all the way outside on the sidewalk.”
I sigh. “I guess they were fighting.”
Liza takes one look at the floor and sits right down and begins folding my clothes and straightening up the things my mother threw out of my drawers. She glances briefly at the crumpled Polaroids, smooths them out, stacks them in a pile.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, rubbing my eyes. “You should be in school.”
She shrugs. “My grandmother called in for me. I can miss a day. I haven’t been in your room in so long. When did you become such a slob?”
I sigh. “My mom kind of freaked out and tore my room apart. Somebody sent her…the photos.”
“Oh, wow,” Liza says. “Aye. That’s…not good. I’m kind of impressed, by the way. I didn’t tell you that yesterday. You’re famous. That’s really why I’m here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Damage control. I know how these things work. Where’s your phone?”
I point to the recliner. Liza leans over and picks it up, scrolls through it.
“Wow, a lot of our classmates actually can spell,” she says mildly. “Color me surprised.”
I giggle.
“Did you see all of these?” she asks.
“No. I just kind of went to bed after yelling at my mother about how unloved I felt. It was that kind of night.”
Liza puts the phone down. “You know, Emmy, I was mad at your mom, and you, for a long time. More your mom. If she hadn’t butted in, my parents would still be with me. That’s what I thought, anyway.”
She picks at the cream-colored throw rug on the hardwood floor.
“But if they were still with me, where would I be right now? Would I be getting straight As? Would I still be hiding food from them so they wouldn’t trade it for drugs? Did you know I did that?”
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t know it was that bad. We were kids.”
“Well, there was a lot I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t know how. The truth is, your mom kind of did me a favor, if I look at it in a certain way. By trying to protect you, she might have saved me.”
She folds up a pink cardigan, lays two white socks on top of each other.
“My parents got freaked out by her and left. A neighbor finally called the police. My grandmother came to take care of us, and she does a good job, and I love her. I didn’t know how nice it was to have someone kiss you good night before bed and not just yell at you to go to bed, or even remember you should be in bed. Your mom isn’t all bad. Her execution may be faulty, but her intentions are good.”
She pauses. “I think, anyway.”
She cocks her head at me. “Don’t you have to pee or something? I always have to pee right when I get up. Go pee. Then we’ll get to work.”
* * *
—
In my bathroom, I pee, wash my face, and brush my teeth. My face looks pale and tired in the mirror. From my room, I hear my phone ping again and again and Liza murmurs, Shut up, you. I’ll deal with you miscreants in a minute.
I’m glad she’s here. I’m glad to have her back.
* * *
—
“Okay,” she says when I come back out. “The first rule of Slut Club is to create a diversion.”
“Slut Club?”
“Slut is basically what everyone is calling you. Among other things.”
“Oh.” I sit on the bed and hold a pillow against my stomach, like it’s going to protect me from whatever Liza is about to say.
“But you didn’t do anything wrong.” She pauses. “I wouldn’t have placed bets on you hooking up with Gage Galt, of all people, but the heart wants what it wants. Kudos on the window photography, but it was consensual, yes?”
I nod. “Yeah, but I did ask him to delete them and he didn’t.”
“Do you…do you think he was the one who shared them?”
I think for a long time about that. “No, I don’t. I don’t think he would do that. Principal Patterson said someone turned the phone in to the office and that it was unlocked. Whoever found it probably saw the pictures and shared them.”
“How great it must feel that our principal has seen you naked.”
“Not exactly something I ever thought would happen, no.”
She picks up her backpack and digs out a notebook and pen. “Well, anyway. Teenagers are creatures of the moment. They like to pile on. Half of them don’t even care what happened between you and Gage, or even that his arm is messed up. They just want any excuse to join the crowd if it means they can bring somebody down and feel better about themselves. Not slagging our colleagues, that’s just the way it is. So we have to give them something new to think about.”
“I don’t see where you’re going with this,” I say. “I’m kind of confused.”
“The way I see it, we give too much leeway to boys. Why isn’t anyone calling Gage a slut for hooking up with you? Why was Patty Bailey harassed out of school last year because she got pregnant and decided to keep the baby, but Rick Braverman got to stay? What was all that business about his life being ruined by her poor decision? Remember that?”
I shake my head. “I was kind of busy last year. Trying to keep Joey afloat. I didn’t really keep up with a lot of stuff.”