I WAKE UP SATURDAY AT ELEVEN, GROGGY AND OUT OF IT, to the sounds of the homecoming parade a few blocks over. The marching band is its usual loud, flute-heavy self. I haven't slept this late in years. Normally I'd be home from practice, showered, and on my second strawberry smoothie by now.
The brass and drum sections take over for a second, a fast, erratic, rat-a-tachycardia, and the band moves into the distance until it disappears completely. I try to stretch under the covers, but my leg muscles are killing me. At first I think it must be from sparring class yesterday, but that doesn't make sense because I didn't go to sparring class yesterday—Oh.
It's from crouching under the table at the diner, every fiber of my body tense and shaking.
There's a knock on my door, but I don't know why they bother because a second later, Hunter and Mom plow inside without waiting for me to say "Come in."
They're carrying trays of food. It's like a parody of hotel room service. Orange juice, pancakes, milk, yogurt, fresh fruit, and muesli. Usually these are my favorites, but today the juice hurts my eyes and the food looks nauseating.
"Dad's making omelets, too, but we weren't sure if you felt like coming downstairs yet," says Mom. "So whatever you want to do is fine."
"How'd you sleep?" Hunter asks.
I didn't dream, if that's what he means. Probably 'cause of the sedative. But being knocked out isn't the same as sleeping. It's not restful. It's just time you don't remember.
Hunter looks exhausted. We have similar features, but they came out wrong on me, like secondhand clothes. If his short curly hair is a buttery-golden sunflower, my straight thick tresses are the color of dandelions—nourished with acid rain. If his eyes are the clear aquamarine of a thirst-quenching mirage, mine are a dry, hazel-colored chalk and the boring sidewalk beneath it. He struts around the high school winking at people, but if I try to wink, people think I should get that tic checked out by a doctor.
"I thought you were supposed to be on the lacrosse float," I say flatly.
"The other guys can do it. Do you want anything else to drink? We've got cranberry juice, too, I think, and grapefruit."
Two sets of wide, hopeful eyes urge me to react, but I can't muster a response.
It's easy to see how Mom had a son like Hunter. They're both bright and upbeat, a matched set of silverware in a catalog, and I'm the replacement knife thrown in at dinner because the other ones were in the dishwasher.
Mom is tall with a soft, round face and curly, chin-length hair, a wide mouth, and thin lips that never have to reach far for a smile. Everything about her is soft, from her faded flannel shirt with tiny beige buttons, tucked into her dark-wash jeans, to her rolled white socks and worn, creased loafers. She used to dye her hair, but now she lets it stay gray, and it's even softer now, not loaded down with chemicals. Her nails are filed round, not painted talons like some kids' moms'. Her softness is at a remove, though. There are no edges or solid surfaces to delineate her from her surroundings. When someone's that soft, what do you hold on to?
At my belt tests, she used to gasp and wince and cover her eyes whenever I got thrown; it made Grandmaster Huan laugh. I know it's because she loves me and didn't want to see me hurt, but if she'd been watching, she would've seen how I always bounced back, that it was all part of the process. The fact that she didn't acknowledge my abilities hurt me worse than falling on my butt a hundred times.
Hunter could never do anything to make her cover her eyes. He wouldn't know how.
"Thanks, but … I'm not really hungry. Sorry." They probably ran to the store this morning, made a list, spent an hour cooking. I feel like a jerk.
"That's okay. That's fine, sweetie. We'll just set this here in case you change your mind," says Mom.
But they don't leave.
"I think I'm gonna go back to sleep," I mumble, pulling the covers up.
"Gretchen called," Hunter says, perching on the corner of my bed. I fight the urge to nudge him with my foot, make him move. Despite his cry fest last night and our temporary truce, we're not supposed to be speaking, and he's still not allowed in my room. "If you want to call her back, I can grab her number."
I don't respond, and they still don't leave.
"I'll call you on the intercom if I need anything," I add. We don't live in a fancy house, by the way; the intercom's for my dad, who's been in a wheelchair the past year.
"We'll be right downstairs," says Mom, pausing to stroke my face and kiss my forehead.
I try not to flinch.
I wonder if I should try to find him or something, my friend from under the table. We never got a chance to say anything to each other, and I'd like to talk to him, see if he's okay. See if he remembers things the way I do. But the cops split us up right away for questioning, to "independently corroborate our stories."
"It's just protocol," they said. "We want to hear separately from you both about what happened so we can fill out an accurate account."
I couldn't form sentences, though, so they didn't keep me long.
Hannah and DJ stop by around four o'clock, still in their band uniforms.
Mom spies them coming up the walk and asks if I want to see them. I tell her it's fine, and I open the door just before DJ rings the bell. It's warm for mid-September, and marching plus polyester has made them sweat. DJ's hair is stuck to her neck.
Hannah plays second-chair trumpet, and DJ is a baton twirler. They're my backup best friends, the understudies to Shelly Eppes, who ditched me for Hunter three weeks ago.
Shelly didn't "lose" her virginity to him; she threw it at him like a hand grenade. Not that he minded. I'm the one whose life exploded.
If she hadn't chosen him over me, I never would've been at the diner. Until recently, Shelly and I spent every Friday night at the gym, warming up for our respective classes: ballet for her, Tae Kwon Do for me. You wouldn't think dance and martial arts have much in common, but we were always finding ways they overlapped. I helped her with confidence and strength training, and she helped me with stretching exercises and flexibility. She taught me that you have to tear the muscle down before you can build it back up again. We were each other's secret weapons.
Hannah and DJ bubble over with gossip. We won the homecoming game, apparently, but that's not their big news.
"There was no kissage. Can you believe it?" Hannah asks.
I nod blankly. I have no idea what they're talking about.
"With Philip," DJ adds.
That's right, she and Philip had their first date last night, and Hannah tagged along. Deepti Ajarajollamon (hence the nickname DJ) comes from an old-school East Indian family that's forbidden her from dating without a chaperone. They asked me to go, too, but I opted out, and then I felt depressed warming up for class without Shelly. When Gretchen invited me to the diner, I grasped at her invite as if it were a life preserver. It was the first sparring class I've missed in years.
"We dropped off Hannah, and I'm—can we come in? Why are you in your pajamas? How come you weren't at the game?" DJ asks.
I realize I'm blocking them from getting in the door.
"Sorry. I think I'm coming down with something," I say. This is not a phrase I would ever, ever use. "So it's probably better if you go." I tap my fingers anxiously along the doorframe.
"Is that why you weren't there?"
"Uh-huh," I say.
"What's wrong? You look … kinda trashed," says Hannah, using one of her hands to flick her long blond hair behind her shoulders.
I look at my friends and I don't know them anymore. They're fresh and clean and normal, flushed from the day's activities, dressed in Abercrombie school colors. DJ's thick black hair has orange ribbons braided through it, and Hannah wears an orange headband to hold her bangs in place and frame her small forehead. They're always together. Hannah&DJ. DJ&Hannah. A gossiping, two-headed Abercrom-beast. It didn't bother me before, when I still had Shelly as my best friend and Hannah&DJ as the background, but now it does. I'm different from them, especially now; I'm set apart, and not in a good way.
"The diner was held up last night," I mumble.
They freak out simultaneously.
"Oh my God, Imogen. Oh my God. The diner where you were at?"
No, DJ, some random other diner in another state.
"Are you okay?" they sputter.
My mouth forms the words before I even think about it. "I didn't see anything," I say with a shrug. "I was in the bathroom. I called the cops on my cell phone."
The lie is so easy and smooth it feels true.
"Oh my God. You're like a hero," Hannah says.
"No big deal," I say, with another shrug. "I just gotta go lie down."
"Yeah, go, we'll call you later?" DJ says.
I make a mental note to turn off my cell. Forever.
"Yeah, talk to you later. Sorry I can't hang out."
"Oh my God, don't apologize," says Hannah.
"You have nothing to be sorry about," DJ adds. "Get some rest, okay?"
I know the lie I told them won't make me feel better. It's not even the lie I should have told. If I'd had time to formulate a better one, I would have. All I know is they can never find out the truth because they'll never be able to look at me the same way.
I wait till the middle of the night and then I sneak downstairs to Dad's office, my arms filled with belt certificates. Until I pulled them off my wall, I hadn't realized they were the only things up there.
It's not just belt certificates, though; it's awards: Best Attendance, Most Improved, Student of the Month, Best Tae Kwon Do Spirit, and Best Demo Team Performance. I've gotten each of them at least three times.
The awards on my wall have defined me for so long there's never been room for anything else. With the exception of the pink-and-white-striped bedspread with lace trim and a teddy bear (wearing a black belt), my room doesn't even look like the room of a teenage girl. In the closet there's a secret poster of Hayden Christensen in Jumper that I used to kiss, but that's about it.
I'm able to get a lot of things through Dad's shredder before it starts making grinding noises. The problem is, there are so many things to destroy. Monthly schedules. Teaching sign-up sheets. Thick, dog-eared spiral notebooks filled with progress reports and diagrams of forms and techniques. Printouts. Binders.
How do you shred an entire life?
The next thing I know Mom's there in her robe, yelling and unplugging the machine and trying to pull my hands away from it. I want to elbow her in the solar plexus, but if I actually hurt her I don't think I'll ever forgive myself, so I just go limp and let her pull me away from the machine.
"Why are you doing this?" Mom cries. As usual, I'm incomprehensible to her.
She picks up one of the certificates I haven't shredded yet. She's got large bags under her eyes. The rest of her face is pale and pasty, and her hair is wild. "You worked so hard to get these."
"They didn't do any good," I whisper. He died right there … so much blood … and I didn't do any good.
I don't know why I'm whispering; I've obviously already woken her up. I guess I feel bad about it, 'cause she has to catch the train to work in a few hours, even though it's Sunday. She tries to hold me. She's soft and warm and smells like face moisturizer, comforting, but I don't close my eyes or sink into her embrace. I remain alert, poised to flee, my heartbeat a panicked stampede.
"It's okay," she murmurs. "Let it out."
Can't she tell I have nothing to give her?
Dad wheels in and turns on the light. The switches on the first floor have all been lowered so they're within his reach. The thought "Not my dad" slips into my mind like a drop of red dye in a bowl of water, staining it instantly.
When he showed up at the police station, I didn't recognize him because I was expecting someone six feet tall to come racing through the doors and scoop me into his arms. That was the vision I had in my head, sure to manifest any second, so I sat on the bench by the pay phone, next to the female officer who cut me out of my clothes, and I watched a stranger in a baseball cap roll up the ramp and through the automatic doors at the other end of the hall. I watched him disappear around the corner and wheel back in again, peering in doors, and the whole time I was thinking, Where's my dad? I want my dad.
"Go back to bed," I say.
"She broke the machine," Mom explains. "I'll pick up a new one Monday."
"What's going on?" asks Dad, his breathing labored.
I know I should feel guilty that I woke him up, too—guiltier, in fact, than I feel for waking Mom, because it takes a lot of effort for him to use the bars and hoist his plump body up into the wheelchair—but I don't feel much of anything because I'm still waiting for my real dad to come racing through the doors.
"Go back to bed, hon," he says gently to Mom, giving her hand a squeeze. "I'll talk to her."
I can't stop the mantra in my head; it comforts me with its rhythms and pacing, blocking out everything that's actually happening. Not my dad. Not my dad. Not my dad.
He removes his glasses and regards me. I think of football games and family hikes through the Old School Forest Preserve, of sitting on his shoulders as a kid, reaching up to brush the leaves of the branches above me as we went by, my legs dangling to and fro.
Not my dad.
"Imogen, no one expected you to …"
But it's easy to escape him.
All I have to do is walk upstairs.
