ABOUT HER: a NOVEL by Mary Mattingly

ABOUT HER:

A NOVEL

Mary Mattingly

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Fine Arts

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, FL

May 2019

ii ABOUT HER:

A NOVEL

Mary Mattingly

This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate's thesis advisor, Dr. Becka McKay, Department of English, and has been approved by all members of the supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts.

SUPERVISORY COMMITIEE:

Eric Berlatsky, Ph.D. Chair, English Department

Michael J. Hors , Ph.D. Dean, Dorothy . Sclunidt College of Arts and Letters

Khaled Sobhan, Ph.D. Interim Dean, Graduate College

111 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to express her most fervent gratitude toward her chair, Dr.

Becka McKay, for her support and guidance throughout the process of writing this thesis.

She also extends her thanks to the members of her committee, Papatya Bucak and Jason

Schwartz, for their time and dedication in reviewing this piece. She also thanks her peers and other mentors she met along the way, both from FAU and the Prague Summer

Program for Writers. She is grateful to have been able to create in such stimulating and supportive environments.

iv ABSTRACT

Author: Mary Mattingly

Title: About Her: A Novel

Institution: Florida Atlantic University

Thesis Advisor: Becka McKay, Ph.D.

Degree: Master of Fine Arts

Year: 2019

About Her is a story of grief, regret, and the lengths some of us will go to avoid confronting and healing from trauma. Charlotte Day is a twenty-year-old college student embarking on her senior year of college when her younger sister Abby dies in a botched fake suicide attempt. In the wake of said tragedy, Charlotte is left behind with her loving, well-intentioned father and sedated, increasingly distant mother. As Charlotte attempts to cling to normalcy, her efforts fail once she returns to school, seeking out a path of unhealthy relationships and partying, which culminates in the former honors student dropping out of her senior year. A coming-of-age story at its core, About Her explores the dysfunctional ways one young woman navigates grief and fractured relationships while learning to forgive herself along the way.

ABOUT HER:

A NOVEL

PICK UP YOUR PHONE - PART I ...... 1

DRESSING ...... 11

IT’S NOT HER ...... 18

THE ROAST OF ABBY LEIGH DAY ...... 24

SCAMS ...... 31

ONE NIGHT BEFORE...... 39

ONE MORE YEAR ...... 50

FOURTEEN TEXT MESSAGES...... 56

PICK UP YOUR PHONE – PART II ...... 57

WELCOME BACK, FACULTY AND STAFF! ...... 61

YOU’RE NOT YOU ANYMORE ...... 64

EMAIL EXCHANGE ...... 79

MOVING ON UP ...... 83

OBITUARIES ...... 88

THE DEATH OF CHARLOTTE DAY WILSON’S CAREER ...... 89

CHRISTMAS FUCKUP ...... 99

ESCALATION ...... 119

SPIRALING ...... 126

WANTED ...... 138

vi THE SEX SCENE...... 139

DEAR KRIS1.DOCX ...... 146

WALK...... 149

ANSWER ...... 161

THE CARE AND KEEPING OF CHARLOTTE ...... 178

THERE WILL BE REST ...... 180

A GUIDE TO MINDFULNESS ...... 191

WHO YOU REALLY ARE...... 193

SAVE ME ...... 205

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, 2015/2016 ...... 211

GARAGE SALE ...... 224

ALMOST THERE ...... 225

DEAR ABBY...... 232

DRIVE ...... 234

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 238

vii

PICK UP YOUR PHONE - PART I

I woke up to twenty-three missed calls the morning After.

I’d been dreaming I was lost in a hotel, tripping through all-white hallways searching for exits that weren’t there, all the while trying to escape a steadily building noise. I was on the hunt for silence, somewhere familiar that belonged to me and me alone. I had finally found a door, wrapped my fingers around the knob, when my eyelids fluttered open. I could still feel the cool brass of that doorknob, its slippery promise of independence.

I blinked in irritation. I was awake, but I wasn’t free.

My bedroom door, too small for its frame, shook with each insistent rap, those hollow thuds reverberating across the room and boring into my brain. I longed to disappear back into the hallways. I may have been lost there, but at least it had been quiet. And I had been alone.

“Charlotte!”

My mother.

Locked out, she furiously yanked on the door handle I’d snicked shut the night before. No matter how hard I tried to keep my family out, they hammered and hollered until I was forced to let them in. I groaned and flipped over to the other side of my bed.

Whenever I was home, it always seemed that I spent most mornings waking up when they wanted me to rather than when I wanted to.

I couldn’t fully make out what she was saying at first - the bleary fog of sleep still wrapped around my head. I was resentful of the fact that our house was a hornet's nest for women who had decided that whoever was loudest won whatever argument was being held. I looked forward to heading back to college in a month to get away from my mother and sister’s constant bickering, the neverending slamming of doors, and my father’s whiskery sighs as he ditched our estrogen-dominated household for the corner bar or to tinker with something in the garage.

Things at home had become especially deafening once my younger sister Abby had finally been dumped once and for all by her boyfriend Kris one month prior. Fed up with her suffocating jealousy, her mood swings, and manipulative guilt trips, he’d unceremoniously ended their four-year relationship via text message. I knew this fact because immediately upon receiving that final text, Abby had rushed into my bedroom and desperately shoved the phone in my face, narrowly missing my nose.

“What the fuck. Are you reading that? He couldn’t say it to my face?” she cried, tunneling into my unmade bed, shoes on and all. I sat at my desk and looked at her shuddering form, her phone clasped in my palm. “We’ve been together four years - he told me he loves me - and this is how he ends it with me?”

“Can you at least take your shoes off if you’re gonna do that? This isn’t a barn,” I side-stepped her cries, annoyed. I was surfing the internet and didn’t feel like abandoning

Reddit to attend to Abby’s latest crisis.

“Charlotte.”

Her voice was small.

“Did you read it?”

I suppressed a sigh and briefly glanced at the blocks of blue bubbles floating on her iPhone screen.

“Well, I had a hard time with your phone floating two inches in front of my face, but yeah, I got the gist of it.”

“I love him,” she continued, her voice muffled underneath the covers. Slowly, she shucked her shoes off one by one. They fell in soft thunks onto my bedroom carpet. “I don’t get it. We’re going to State together in the fall. We had plans.”

I stayed silent, leaned back in my chair. When Abby was like this, it was best to just let her cry it out.

“Four years! He’s been my whole world for four years,” she said, her voice thick.

I scanned my room for the box of tissues I had labeled Abby. “Why am I never enough for anyone?”

I shrugged then.

Now my family’s evenings were spent tip toeing around Abby, who occupied her own days calling Kris in her bedroom and Googling ways to “Get him back with this one easy trick!” When she did venture out, she’d migrate to her seat at the kitchen table and refuse food, her head slumped. This was my mother’s cue to sit next to her and fold her youngest daughter into her arms, murmuring words of encouragement.

“Do you really think that’s what she needs to hear?” I asked once when I overheard my mother’s latest prophecy, uttered as she swept Abby’s tears away and smoothed her curly hair away from her forehead. I was tired of hearing, “He’ll come back, sweetie. He’ll realize what a mistake he made. They always do” on repeat.

My mother glared at me in return and motioned for me to exit. I obliged, knocking over a stack of newspapers teetering on the counter as I strode out.

“Charlotte!”

I snapped back to the present and rolled my eyes at the memories I’d been chewing over. My back to the shuddering door hinges, I reached over and checked the phone plugged in next to my bed.

I unlocked it and squinted my eyes.

Twenty-three missed calls.

Fourteen text messages.

All from my sister.

That number was a little higher than average.

It wasn’t unusual for me to ignore phone calls. My phone was always on silent so

I’d have the excuse I hadn’t heard it ring. I used to groan whenever the screen lit up, then flip it over. If it’s important, I would reason with myself, they’ll text me. And if it was really important, they’d leave me a voicemail.

Abby knew that. My parents knew that. And still, to my neverending irritation, they would call.

“So you’ll answer your sister’s calls whenever you hear from her, but somehow you can’t extend that same courtesy to your father and me?” my mother would nag whenever I had ignored yet another call but sailed through the front door in time for dinner.

Then I’d have to deal with the sound of your voice, the bratty teenage part of me would want to say. “Sorry,” I would mumble out loud instead. Even I had the tact to acknowledge there simply wasn’t enough room in our family for three drama queens.

Besides, phone calls are an entry into uncertainty. You never know who might be trying to get a hold of you. Debt collectors. Grandparents checking in. Boyfriends breaking up with you. Plus, talking on the phone is a challenge. You have to focus, really hone in on what the other person is saying. Then, as if that’s not enough, you’re expected to respond, all the while nursing any cramping it causes in your wrist and occasionally rubbing the feeling back into your numb ear. Who has that kind of attention span?

But Abby always used to call anyway. Usually when she was driving. I used to wonder if she only called me when it was convenient for her. After I had gone to college and she remained at home, trapped in the monotony of high school, she started to call more. There would be weeks where I would get a call from her every few days, and then she’d go silent for a month or so. We’d spend those weeks in between missed calls playing phone tag, all the while texting about her petty dramas, whatever white, dreadlocks-wearing artsy loser I happened to be dating, and exchanging stupid GIFs.

In the months After, I used to listen to the voicemails she left me over and over.

Sometimes daily.

Charlotte, you’re not answering your phone and it’s...it’s… it’s bullshit. You’re bullshit. Call me back, I have a funny story to tell you.

Big surprise, you didn’t answer again but today in Trigonometry Mr. Mathews called on me and I totally owned that proof in front of the whole class.

Hey Charlie, it’s me, your sister, your most favoritest person in the whole world.

Call me back. It’s Abby.

“Charlotte! Get your ass up!” my mother continued to yell, pulling me out of my head.

I rolled back on my side, phone still clenched in my hand. Instead of stirring, I watched the door shake. My mother continued to shout, her words foggy to my ear. Any chances I had of falling back asleep vanished with each insistent slap. I sighed. The sooner I faced her and figured out what the hell she wanted, the sooner she’d go away.

“Can you hold on? I’m coming!” I yelled. Just one ten minute conversation with my mother, I coached myself, apologizing for whatever chore I’d forgotten to finish, whatever dish I’d left in the sink, and she’d leave me alone.

Reluctantly, I kicked off my comforter and planted my bare feet on the floor, one at a time.

What would I tell that girl now, the one heading toward the door with an ignorant, outstretched hand?

Left foot forward. A sister is becoming an only child.

Right foot follows. You will repeat ‘sorry’ until you no longer recognize the shape of the word.

Left foot forward. It isn’t your fault.

Right foot follows. You hate your sister, but you loved her.

You love her.

I grasped the doorknob, turned it, and with a whoosh stood face-to-face with my mother. My stomach clenched uncomfortably. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d

been this close. The whites of Mom’s eyes were red, her usually made-up face was pale, and her hand was outstretched toward me, palm facing skyward.

I realized then I had done all my chores. I hadn’t left any dishes in the sink. And my parents had returned early from their weekend trip to Chicago.

We stared at each other for several seconds, until she motioned for me to give her my phone. I wasn’t even aware I was holding it. I’m not even sure how she knew to check it. Half-awake, half-aware, I complied.

Thirty-seven missed notifications in all. Her eyes widened as she scrolled through them.

“What’s going on?”

This time, it was my mother’s turn not to answer.

MICHIGAN WOMAN, 18, FOUND DEAD IN LOCAL PARK

SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. — The body of a Michigan teenager has been found in Stoney Creek Metropark.

Abigail Leigh Day, 18, left her home on Saturday, July 4, after telling her parents she was attending a Fourth of July barbecue at a friend’s house in nearby Sterling

Heights.

Her parents grew concerned after receiving several alarming text messages from the teen, prompting them to return early from a weekend visit to Chicago. After discovering the young woman had never returned home, they called the Warren Police

Department.

Her body was found slumped against a tree the following evening at Stoney Creek

Metropark, which is located roughly twelve miles from her home in Warren. The park is popular for its variety of recreational activities, including a disc golf course, two lakes, and a multitude of hiking trails. Sadly, the discovery of the teen’s body is not the park’s first brush with violence. Stoney Creek Metropark made national news in 2007 after a

Macomb County man, Stephen Grant, strangled his wife, Tara, dismembered her, and scattered pieces of her body in the park. It is unknown at the time of this report whether or not Stoney Creek will ever be able to regain its “family-friendly” reputation.

Day had recently been dumped by a former boyfriend and in a dramatic attempt to recover his attention, decided to fake a suicide attempt. While it has been surmised by family members that the teen struggled with a history of mental illness, an official diagnosis never was made. Unfortunately, her dumb ass overestimated how many pills she could handle when she mixed them with alcohol. Burnett’s, to be specific. Really classy.

Maybe it was because she was white or maybe it was because she was young, but once news of the teen’s death broke, the local community rallied around the Day family in a transparent show of support that had more to do with their morbid curiosity in the aforementioned death than an actual willingness to provide support. Elder sister Charlotte was particularly bothered by her house’s altered dynamic, characterized by the crowds of people always standing around the kitchen table or holding a vigil in the family room. In addition to the unceasing attention from neighbors, the Days also were inundated with requests for interviews from everyone from local news stations to pop culture trash websites like Buzzfeed.

“Why the fuck do you people keep coming back here?"' Charlotte exclaimed after her house was visited for the third time in two days by Detroit television stations looking to boost their ratings. “How often do we need to tell you ‘no comment?’”

A source revealed young Abigail had attempted to get help before succumbing to the lethal dose of alcohol and prescription drugs by first calling and text messaging

Charlotte. Unable to reach her elder sister, someone she was supposed to be able to rely on, the teen then left several messages on her mother’s phone. Unfortunately, both Marcy and Greg Day had gone to Chicago that weekend to visit Mrs. Day’s sister and were

unable to assist their daughter in her time of need. The following morning, after Mr. and

Mrs. Day rushed home, driving overnight to try to prevent a death that had already happened, a physical altercation between mother and daughter occurred roughly at nine in the morning.

The two women are currently not speaking.

“Charlotte is always on her phone,” Marcy, 46, said. “She really wants me to believe she didn’t see those texts? Or hear those phone calls? My younger daughter is dead now all due to the fact Charlotte chose to ignore her because she didn’t want to be inconvenienced. After she told me not to worry, she would have everything under control while we were gone for the weekend. What unbelievable bullshit. If you ask me, I lost the wrong daughter.”

Charlotte could not be reached for comment.

The funeral will be held on Thursday, July 9, 2015 at Carnegie Funeral Home,

2600 Crooks Road in Troy. Monetary donations (to Charlotte) in Abby’s memory are appreciated.

DRESSING

According to her autopsy report, Abby died early Sunday morning. We held her funeral the following Thursday.

Everything changed in one week. We went from a family of four to a family of three. We stopped making preparations for her freshman year and started arranging her funeral instead. The Friday before she died, my father had been nagging Abby to make a list of all of the items she would need to take with her to Michigan State University, the school that had somehow accepted her despite her lack of community service, her lack of school spirit, and her lack of stellar grades. I can still hear his voice in our living room steamrolling over her murmured protests, saying, “Ab, have you even sat down and thought about this yet? You leave for school in a month and a half. That might seem like a long time but it’s not. You don’t want to be scrambling at the last minute.”

One of the silver linings of the After? We’d no longer be burdened by Abby’s tendency to procrastinate.

After my mother had realized Abby was missing, after the police found her in the park, after my father identified her remains at the morgue, there was no time for stillness.

We needed to choose the view that would be Abby’s final resting place.

Suddenly, we were selecting a funeral home, organizing a wake, and planning a reception to follow. We only had a few days until we dropped Abby’s body into her closed casket and showed her off to an adoring legion of fans she would never see.

Instead of calling Fratelli’s, Abby’s favorite dusty Italian restaurant, and making a reservation for her going-away dinner, my father called all the local funeral homes and was met with a frustrating no at most of the places he called. Somehow they had all been booked up. What can I say? It had been a hot summer. There must have been a lot of old people who collapsed from the heat while browsing the Detroit Zoo or gentrifying the

Eastern Market and understandably, they needed the space. So many dead Baby

Boomers. Instead of clearing the way for the next generation, they welcomed one of its own into their fold.

We finally settled on a Carnegie Funeral Home, one of the nationwide chain’s many locations. I was resentful. Spiteful, actually. Abby did not deserve the singular attention of a family-owned establishment, the special and specific atmosphere it would afford her. Not that it mattered. Her body was going to be there, but it wasn’t like Abby was actually going to be in attendance.

My mother refused to help with any of the planning. Instead, she spent the week laying in Abby’s still-unmade bed like she was treating herself to a weekend getaway, an all-inclusive spa. Any lingering scent of Abby was replaced by Jergen’s hand lotion, room temperature Pinot Grigio, and some sourness I couldn’t identify whenever I lifted

Abby’s pillow to my face and inhaled in the rare moments my mother left the bedroom.

So, I straightened up and took over when my father’s sighs started to get too deep.

I began to read signs of his succumbing to pressure in those short-but-long days. It was like learning a new language. My father would hang up his cell phone too abruptly after a conversation with a caterer, a florist, a pastor, sometimes slamming it on the counter.

That is how its screen cracked. I would then find him vacantly staring straight ahead. I’d tap his shoulder and try to gently ease him out of whichever his mind’s corners he was visiting.

“Dad, do you need to take a break?”

He’d squeeze my hand in response, avoiding my eyes.

“Dad, I can take over. Who were you just calling?”

Carefully, voice steady, he’d efficiently grab a pad of paper and lay out what he needed, the people who still needed to be contacted. Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, he would retreat to the bedroom in which he now lived alone.

I’d watch his retreating back and wonder what he was thinking. My dad had always been the provider. He was the one who had organized our family vacations, he had earned the paycheck that kept the family going, and he had taken on two jobs during the recession when he lost his job at Chrysler as a plant manager.

Maybe he didn’t want to admit burying his youngest was the one thing he couldn’t do.

Selfishly, everything I did that week was a preventative measure. Anytime I saw tears clouding his eyes, I stepped in. Anytime I saw his shoulders slump, I stepped in. I couldn’t stop mentally replaying the moment he’d walked through our front door and we learned where Abby had been hiding. The way he sank to his knees, her cardboard box of belongings the police had given him tumbling from his loose grip.

When a parent cries, that’s how you know. It’s not a prank - your sister isn’t going to jump out from behind your father and apologize for scaring everyone.

So I began the process of following up with the caterers, booking the banquet hall where we would hold the reception that followed her funeral, confirming with Father

Anthony at St. Andrew’s that yes, we would be holding the service there, and swallowing when he expressed his condolences in hearing the news about Abby, how he remembered her as a bubbly and enthusiastic young girl in Catechism. How she’d always had a special spark about her.

At first, it was hard. Then, like everything else in the After, it became autopilot. I told myself I was acting in a play, just repeating my lines, interpreting someone else’s story. I imagined I was an unknown Hollywood actress making her debut and how the critics might praise my performance.

Newcomer Charlotte Day gives a passionate and vulnerable performance as an elder daughter trying to keep her family together after an unimaginable tragedy.

I couldn’t look away. Two and a half hours passed and I realized at the film’s conclusion I had been holding my breath the whole time. Ms. Day is a wonder.

Oscar buzz certainly will abound after academy voters view Day’s performance.

Heartwrenching, heartbreaking … walk, no, run to your nearest theater and see this film!

Our house morphed into a shrine and landmark. WXYZ - we’re on your side! - aired a story about Abby’s death because how could they not? Dead white girls are always good for ratings. After the story aired (despite a lack of comments from my father, mother, and me), our neighbors traveled to the house in droves. The constant cycling in and out of our living room aggravated me, but not my mother. The doorbell would chime and only then would she leave Abby’s room to step into the spotlight and accept the role of Publicly Grieving Mother. I would come home from an errand and be immediately sent back out to the nearby Kroger to pick up a cheese plate or bottle of wine. Our house became a Social Hour - the hottest Social Hour in Metro Detroit.

Slowly, I fell silent. I began to ignore the vigil of neighborhood moms crowded around my mother in the living room, the fake way they gazed sympathetically at her tear-soaked face, their hands wound around her bony ones, grateful they weren’t attending their own kid’s wake.

Our pantry stood empty. The prior week, my mother had been meaning to go shopping and then Abby had to go ahead and die. So, I began to look for sustenance in the overflowing baskets of food the Mom Club brought by and piled onto our kitchen table. Flaky plates of pastries from Gino’s, vacuum-sealed sausages, homemade casseroles. It really was kind of them. But I refused to acknowledge any of their gestures

- the food, the unwanted hugs, the eyes that couldn’t meet my own.

When I got tired of maternal sympathy, I fielded off requests concerning my wellbeing from my own social circle. While I had already decided this wouldn’t be a topic I’d discuss with my college friends, my high school friends had heard what had happened. How could they not? They’d grown up alongside me. They’d watched me

slam the door on a toddling Abby who just wanted to play Barbies with us or later witnessed me sneak a beer for her during neighborhood block parties.

They meant well. But I turned my phone off after the seventeenth condolences text.

Nevertheless, they persisted. My friends, to their credit, made an effort at first.

They invited me out of the house, but I had too much to do planning the funeral. They resorted to stopping by unannounced. They marched in and out of my living room, a suburban pilgrimage. I remember some faces- Stacey, Kevin, Andrew - while others contacted me over social media to tell me how sorry they were to hear “the news.”

My chest began to harden against the dreaded question, How are you doing? I resisted responding. My tongue, my lips, simply wouldn’t form the words that would make reality real. I couldn’t look my friends in the eye anymore so I decided the best preventative measure was not to look at them at all.

People - me - get awkward after something unimaginable happens. I began to panic that my friends were looking at me differently. The conversations they might have after they left my parents’ house. I hallucinated whispers as I padded through familiar rooms crowded with sympathetic faces, hushed voices.

I heard she’s fucked up too.

I heard it was her fault.

I heard she’s just putting on a front.

I heard.

I was a headline. I was the girl with the dead sister found in the park. And I wasn’t sure how to keep that simple fact from forever defining me.

So, I did the only logical thing. I turned my back on all of them. I ducked conversations, left friends on read. People I had known since we were kindergartners. My first kiss, my two best girlfriends, fellow members of our high school’s volleyball team, go eagles!

When Thursday - Funeral Day - finally arrived, it almost was a relief. The worst was soon going to be over.

IT’S NOT HER

One of the first things to happen to a recently deceased body is rigor mortis.

Everyone knows that or at least has heard that term before, thanks to the public’s morbid curiosity with CSI-type crime shows. Rigor mortis causes muscle stiffening, a process driven by tiny blisters filled with hungry fluid that begins appearing on internal organs and on the skin’s surface. Once those blisters rupture, the body will appear to shine and the skin’s top layer will begin to loosen. The body might appear angelic, otherworldly, at peace.

It isn’t.

No matter what you do, do not touch the body. She will not feel the same as she did when she was alive. The body’s skin won’t be as pliant. Its rubbery texture will tell you that. Any mark you leave on it will be permanent now.

That thing lying in the casket might look like your sister, might even match the way she slept with her smooth forehead lines and relaxed big lips, but it’s an imposter.

Remember how Mom used to comment on what a good sleeper Abby was when she was a baby? Remember how jealous you were because it seemed like no effort for her to fall asleep and stay that way? The thing in front of you could be her, save for the way it lies absolutely still. It’s not her.

Keep that in mind.

Do not touch the body. You could catch something from it, contract whatever sickness led to her being laid out in front of you.

Do not touch the body. You could realize that’s all it is.

BODY DECOMPOSITION TIMELINE

24 to 72 hours after death — the internal organs decompose. At first glance, she might seem familiar, but don’t lean in too closely. You don’t want a waft of liquefying insides brushing up against your nostrils. It’s summer, so that process has begun even more earnestly, her inner organs stewing together in a soup — fetid, chunky, and warm.

3 to 5 days after death — the body starts to bloat and bloody foam leaks from the mouth and nose. The family will be spared this development. It’s something that happens behind the morgue’s closed doors. You won’t tell anyone you learned about this step.

You’re just thankful the undertaker wiped away all visible fluids away before the viewing.

8 to 10 days after death — the body turns from green to red as the blood decomposes and the organs in the abdomen accumulate gas. You’ll be grateful it’ll be buried by this point. You are unable to imagine the smell of rot accompanying this stage, but you dream about it anyway.

Several weeks after death — nails and teeth fall out, one by one, then all at once.

You’ll recall how after she got dumped, you took her out for a manicure, “my treat.” She chose black. You told her she was being dramatic. You try not to think of her greening, slimy body, framed by dehydrated, flaking black nails and peeled-back nail beds.

1 month after death — the body starts to liquify, melting down into a pool of sludge in a box underneath a layer of concrete. Grass regrows over that spot. The

cemetery where the body lies in a neat row alongside nameless others is misleadingly tranquil. People will tramp down well worn paths in between the jutting tombstones.

Some might pause at the site, remark on how young this girl was when she passed.

They’ll be unable to sense all of the activity happening below their tennis shoes and sandals, all of the ravenous, eyeless grubs, worms, and bacteria fighting for their piece of the pie.

You’ll go there once with your parents, lay down some flowers. Yellow roses you purchased at Meijer for fifteen dollars. Dry sprigs of baby’s breath. Physically burying the body is one thing. Forgetting it is another.

WHAT ARE THE FOUR STAGES OF HUMAN DECOMPOSITION?

Human decomposition begins around four minutes after a person dies and follows four stages: autolysis, bloat, active decay, and skeletonization. You regret Googling what happens to a body during the decomposition process. You’re unsure of why you thought the knowledge might help you cope. You were wrong, but you’ve fallen down the rabbithole now.

Stage One: Autolysis

The first stage of human decay is autolysis. Simply put, self-digestion. Her body began to feed on itself immediately after she died. As soon as blood circulation and respiration stopped, the body had no way of getting oxygen or removing waste. She wasn’t breathing anymore, you’d think she wouldn’t have an appetite anymore. But even though she was gone, the microorganisms propping her up while she was alive stayed hungry. Excess carbon dioxide caused an acidic environment and her cell membranes

began to rupture. Those membranes then released enzymes that started consuming her cells from the inside out.

You hope she tasted good. You hope her body ate its fill. Maybe that was the problem in the first place - she was always hungry, but didn’t know what she wanted to eat.

Stage Two: Bloat

Do you want to know what happens next? You’re the one who clicked on this page, stupid, you’re not going to pussy out and navigate away from it now, are you?

Leaked enzymes from the first stage begin producing gases and the sulfur-containing compounds released by the bacteria cause skin discoloration. Thanks to the gases, the human body can double in size. It doesn’t matter how thin and long-legged Abby was in life and it doesn’t matter how much she complained to you she was fat and doing her best to stick to anorexia (she couldn’t stomach throwing up after each meal). She’ll bloat like the marshmallow man from Ghostbusters.

Another fun detail? Insect activity can be present at this stage. Not that she will feel them. But you’ll watch the days tick by and know it’s happening.

Putrefaction - the odor produced by rot - is caused by microorganisms and bacteria. You’ll kick yourself for spending ninety dollars on Marc Jacobs perfume for her at Christmas. She’ll never smell that way again, but you resolve to spritz her body’s remains with the perfume’s remains before they seal her in her casket. You’ll hold your nose while you do this, afraid to smell something alien, something foreign. It makes sense. Abby has become something alien, something foreign.

Stage Three: Active Decay

Active decay is signified by fluids released through a body’s orifices - its nostrils, its ears, its mouth. Organs, muscles, and skin all become liquefied. All of her face masks, all of the money Mom spent on her ballet lessons - what a waste. She’s a fucking waste.

When all of the body’s soft tissue decomposes, hair, bones, cartilage, and other byproducts of decay remain. According to this blog you sat on for hours, silently reading with bloodshot eyes, the cadaver loses the most mass during this stage. You think about where she will be a few short weeks after the funeral takes place. How her shiny brown hair she was so proud of while alive will fall out in clumps and sit around her head like an undeserved halo.

You wonder - if she knew this was going to happen, would Abby have avoided her midnight trip to the park that night?

Don’t be stupid. She still would have gone.

Stage Four: Skeletonization

Because the skeleton has a decomposition rate based on the loss of organic and inorganic components, there is no set timeframe when skeletonization occurs. Someday, maybe years from now, she’ll be a skeleton. I’ll be a skeleton. He, she, it will be a skeleton. She’s not special after all.

HOW CAN THE STAGES OF HUMAN DECOMPOSITION AFFECT THE

SITE OF A SUICIDE?

The police found her in the woods in Stoney Creek Metropark slumped in front of a tree. She visited that spot with you on her eighteenth birthday. A park where the two of you used to swim has become a place you’ll never visit again.

After a body is properly removed, a professional trauma and crime scene cleanup company should always be called to clean and disinfect the site. You guess that’s unnecessary since she died in the woods like nature intended. According to this blog - and this line you write down - “while an unattended death could lead to exposure to dangerous bloodborne pathogens, decomposition itself is a perfectly natural process.”

Abby’s body will fall apart physically now. Your family’s decomposition process will quickly follow suit.

THE ROAST OF ABBY LEIGH DAY

A Transcript

Father Andrew: And now a few words from Abigail’s older sister, the beautiful and wickedly talented, Charlotte Day.

I dry my eyes and rise from my front row seat amidst enthusiastic applause. I shake hands with Father Andrew, who motions for me to step behind the podium. I arrange my speech in front of me and then look up at the audience with a small smile. I take a deep breath and begin.

We are gathered here today to lay to rest a beautiful soul, a kind soul, one of the purest souls to walk this earth. Thank you, everyone, for coming to the roast of Abby

Leigh Day.

Awkward silence from the audience. I shuffle my papers nervously and clear my throat.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Charlotte, Abby’s beloved older sister.

Abby first came into the world in the year of our Lord, 1997. To be honest, I thought she was a little ugly when she first popped out of my mom. Kinda looked like a slice of uncooked ham. Apparently, I told my mom exactly what I thought. I know this because my mother used to bring it up each year on Abby’s birthday like she was trying to pit us against each other. What can I say? She was all red, and crinkly, and bald. Luckily for her, she got a lot cuter as she grew up. Our mother spent our formative years dressing us identically before she identified which sister she liked more. You can guess who that was.

Silence from audience

It’s so nice to see everyone gathered here now and I hope all of you are getting great candid shots for your Instagram accounts. If you’re savvy, you’ve got some simpering, stupid ass caption to tag whatever you post, like a few lines from that Robert

Frost poem, “Nothing gold can stay.” I’m looking at you, Melanie Sandwas.

Melanie Sandwas looks up, startled.

Yeah, everyone, Melanie’s here. You know, I don’t think I ever heard Abby mention your name once so can we give a round of applause to the ladder climber? Some titters from the audience. Yeah bitch, I saw how you checked your phone during Abby’s entire service and later posted a picture of Abby’s memorial wreath with a misspelled caption. Melanie would only attract the amount of attention she is seeking if she found herself in a Hostel-type situation where someone pulls off her designer fingernails one by one during a Facebook livestream. It would hurt, but I bet you anything Melanie would find it to be a valuable networking opportunity.

Chuckles from audience.

Thank - THANK YOU, the crowd is finally showing signs of life, damn. Who else is in attendance at the first-and-final roast of Abby Leigh Day? Let’s see - hey,

Grandma Day! You managed to drag your dried out husk of a walking corpse to this shindig. Or rather, my aunt and uncles most likely roused you and told you to change outta that housedress you’ve been wearing since 1975 and into something a little more funeral-appropriate. Good to see you here. Covers mic with hand. Does she...does she know I’m talking to her? Uncovers mic. I highly doubt you know where you are since

you were diagnosed with dementia a few years back and frequently forgot Abby existed the few years she was alive, though that was a great change of pace for me.

Laughter from audience.

Kristof, do we have a Kristof in attendance? Scans crowd, finally stopping on hair-gelled kid in the back who hasn’t stopped crying since the service started. Hey Kris - hey buddy! Yeah, I see you there. Now folks, my family has known Kris for awhile.

Don’t slouch back Kris, let everyone see your pretty face. We first met Kris when he and

Abby started dating four years ago. They’re not together anymore for obvious reasons.

Laughter from audience. Wow, four years though! I can’t even get someone to stand my company for longer than four minutes. Laughter from audience. I remember how excited

Abby was when Kris first asked her out. She ran home from the bus and immediately started talking my ear off about how cute he was, how all the girls in her grade had a crush on him, and how he was gonna take her to the movies. They saw Saw, I think.

Yeah, Abby was head over heels for Kris even though his defining personality traits are he still quotes the movie Borat like it’s a substitute for a personality, claims to have read the entirety of Infinite Jest, and plays keyboard really, really poorly. We get it bro, Bob

Dylan is a huge influence on you and the Beatles changed your life. But hey, ladies, we can all relate, right? We’ve all dimmed our shine to date someone lesser than us, right?

No, just my sister and me? Huh. Must be those stellar genetics passed onto us by our mother.

Audience laughs.

Oh, Dad, you’re great though. Man, Abby lived and died for Kris. He became her identity in a sense, which I guess isn’t Kris’ fault. Definitely not healthy, though. Kris,

you wanna tell them how you ended things, buddy? Silence - Kris flaps his hands anxiously, signaling no. Don’t worry, I got this part covered. Now, this motherfucker had to put up with a lot from my sister, I’ll admit. Everyone who knew Abby can attest to the fact she was a little jealous, a little prone to jumping to conclusions, a little prone to flying into a rage the second she suspected he was cheating on her or not paying enough attention to her, which was all the time.

Audience laughs.

Yet, they loved each other. They loved each other the way high schoolers do - with late night phone calls, by tagging each other in their profile pictures on Facebook, by sneaking out when either one was grounded to spend time together. It’s just too bad

Kris didn’t have enough of a spine to admit to Abby’s face he couldn’t do it anymore.

Kris, all you had to say was, “I’m headed off to college in a few months and I want to have unprotected sex with as many passed-out sorority girls as I can, guilt-free.”

Audience laughs.

But don’t worry Kris, you knew I was going to be there to pick up the pieces, didn’t you? So, in a way, her dying is kinda your fault, don’t you think? Not mine, right

Mom?

Audience laughs.

Speaking of which, Mom, Dad, glad you could make it. Mom, I know we’re still not talking and I look forward to this silence as the beginning of a beautiful new relationship for us. Honestly, one of the best things to come out of Abby killing herself is

I don’t have to listen to your banshee shriek of a voice any longer.

Audience laughs.

Dad, thanks for taking the whole ‘Abby called me begging me to save her and I accidentally-on-purpose ignored it because I figured she was just being dramatic like she always was’ thing in stride. Seriously, that was my bad.

Audience laughs.

Which brings me to the rest of you. Whoops and hollers from the audience. What, you thought you all were going to get off scot-free? I look at this crowd of...well, to be fair a lot of rich white kids, and all I can think about is the fact you all knew her. You knew her. I can say the generic things, right? Abby was a special person. Abby had a kind heart. Abby was...well frankly, Abby was difficult to like, let alone love, sometimes.

What can I say? Come on guys, help me out.

Audience falls silent.

Here’s what I know. None of you deserve to be here. None of you. Now that she’s gone, you want to pretend you’re sad? You want to write your contrived social media memorial posts and cry photogenically as a way to say, “don’t leave me behind. I knew her too.”

What a sad bunch of phonies we have here. And who’s here, exactly? I scan the crowd. How about you, Jennifer Lundy? The night Kris dumped Abby, she called you and you told her, and I quote, “what did she expect from being such a crazy bitch all of the time?” I guess you were going for a tough love approach, but your delivery was off.

Which is hilarious. Jennifer is so desperate for attention from the opposite sex she once drove four hours to some guy’s house and he never answered the door. You were still salty Abby told everyone about that little incident, huh?

Or how about you, Karen Preovitch? Abby told me how you told everyone at school that Kris dumped her because he was really after your pasty ass. Pitting women against women. The feminists should be ashamed of you. In reality, we all know High

School Carousel Karen’s pussy is so infested with STDs, AIDs has been trying to find a cure for her since she was born. Lindsay with an ‘s,’ Lyndzie with a ‘z,’ Desiree,

Christopher, Evan, other insignificant people whose names I have forgotten. You all claimed to be Abby’s friends, but only when times were good for her. And I get it. Abby had a way of making you feel like you were the only person in the room when she was a in a good mood. She was fun and she was spontaneous and her energy was contagious.

But when she was having a bad time? Forget it. You all scattered. You couldn’t handle it.

Bunch of bitch ass babies.

It always had to be me. I always had to be the one to save her, from herself. And guess what? I wasn’t enough. She reached out to all of you and all of you, one way or another, let her down. And that knowledge is what I want you to take home after this service wraps up and we’ve had our fill of cake and coffee. My sister is dead because no one wanted to take the time to help her. I want you to see her face when you try to fall asleep at night. I want you to remember on your miserable first days of college she isn’t there because of you. When you eventually get married, when you get divorced, if you’re ever lucky enough to squeeze out equally awful children, I want her memory with you every step of the way. She won’t get to have any of those things. Because of you.

Not me.

Audience is silent.

Which brings me to the woman of the hour - Abby Leigh Day.

I gesture to the coffin.

Oh, sweetheart, I’m sure you’re either watching from Heaven, popcorn in hand, or

Hell, your body entombed within a tree, feasted upon by harpies for eternity. Don’t worry darling, I haven’t forgotten about you. Let’s talk about this bitch. This fucking bitch.

Abby’s so stupid she couldn’t even plan out a proper suicide. This dumb whore’s grand master plan to get back at her ex-boyfriend was to drive herself into the woods, post up against a tree, poison herself with vicodin and vodka and … what, exactly? She thought the act would beam some kind of a bat signal into the air, Kris would see it and come flying to her rescue? Or I’d come get her dumb ass, call 911, and she’d wake up reclining on hospital blankets, a breathing tube shoved down her throat, her adoring family and ex standing worriedly around her? Abby was so mentally deranged she couldn’t even come up with a proper revenge plan. Most girls get dumped, they go to the gym or dye their hair. Not Abby. Only the most dramatic, selfish, ‘look-at-me’ gesture would have sufficed. So, in a way, she kind of got what she deserved, didn’t she?

The room is silent.

Anyway, that’s all I have. Uh, thanks for coming today everyone. I know my family - the remaining three of us - appreciated it.

I violently knock over the podium as I exit the stage.

SCAMS

About two weeks after Abby’s funeral, my mother began subscribing to life coaching podcasts.

Life coaches. Of all the worthless con people. And they are cons. They have to be.

How can someone coach you to a better life despite never meeting you personally or knowing your situation? I’m really supposed to buy the idea that some positive life affirmations and hollow advice can break me of a raging meth addiction or dig me out of a pile of debt?

Please.

There will always be some well-dressed predator looking to capitalize on the fact that everyone’s lost and looking for someone to fix them. I’d see those lost souls begging on street corners with cardboard signs that promised they weren’t drunks, had just fallen on hard times, some of them were vets, anything you could spare was the most welcome gift, God bless you. I’d pass by them in my car and wonder which categories they fell into: suburban kids who drove south to drug houses off Fullerton for heroin, arriving in well-tended cars that cycled in and out of makeshift drivethroughs on Detroit’s east side?

Middle-aged men who used to work for the Big Three and were ousted from their jobs as line workers and plant supervisors after the auto industry crisis hit in 2008? Just your regular, garden-variety, crazy homeless alcoholics?

Maybe if those people had life coaches, they might get their acts together. I doubted it though. One thing I could guarantee was their pockets would be significantly lighter.

There was one guy Mom refused to turn off, a bald man from Sweden. I especially hated him.

When she wasn’t playing his podcasts at top volume in Abby’s room, my mother would relocate her long-standing vigil into our family room, ignoring the fact there were two other people in the house who might have liked to sit in that room in peace. Even when she got up to use the bathroom, she spent enough time in the family room that the couch was always dented from her shape, thick woolen blankets pooled around the memory of her body, cutting out her absence. Whenever I passed by that spot on the couch - sans Mom - it filled my throat with a panic I couldn’t identify. At that point, I hated my mother but I was afraid of losing yet another family member.

One Friday morning, I woke up early to noise that had become normal. Abby had been in a box for several weeks and yet her empty seat at the kitchen table still surprised me. I usually slept late in preparation for my night shifts at the local banquet hall, a serving job I had returned to despite the stares, the whispers, and the inability of my coworkers to say anything truly comforting. Somehow, that atmosphere was preferable to home, the House of Death. My late nights spent working - sometimes until five or six a.m. - were supposed to knock me out entirely. And yet, this faint coo of a voice wound its way up the stairs of our four bedroom colonial, paused to sniff and then creep under my door, worming its way into my ear canals.

I can show you your dream life … what is it that you want? You were meant for a better purpose and I can guide you to it.

The assertion was bold, and the slithery way he said it shocked me out of my light sleep. I had gone to bed at four a.m. and yet the voice and all of its promises worked. I needed to see who it was and what he was doing in our house. I needed to know what it would take to get him to leave.

I slumped down the stairs to see Mom sitting at the rolly chair in front of the home computer my parents kept in the den. Why we still had a desktop computer, I’ll never know. She was watching a shoddily put together PowerPoint, rife with typos and halos. Gates and angels. As the slides clicked by, this silky businessman spun his tales.

I couldn’t see the man who was talking and would later look him up. Once I located his picture, it made sense. Head oval like an egg, blue eyes and skim-white skin.

His voice was smooth, like the rainbows you see floating in an oil slick on the street.

Peter Nilsson. Professional life coach, according to his website. It advertised a promise to turn every other person who signed up for a “conversation” with Peter into a life coach like him, who could “transform the lives of thousands, even millions.”

My mother sat there rapt. Even the presentation’s lack of moving pictures didn’t deter her.

“You are needed,” Nilsson continued to coo, his phantom voice floating out of the screen. “Right now, there is someone praying for you. There is someone in desperation who is waiting for you to show up in their life. You can be that person. Transform them into their true potential and reap handsome rewards in the process.”

The stair my foot rested on creaked. My mother snapped out of her reverie, cocked her head in my direction. I hadn’t seen her move that quickly in weeks. I flinched and half-turned, my fight-or-flight senses urging me to scamper back up the stairs but it was too late. I was caught.

“You’re up early, Baby Doll,” Mom cooed, evoking my childhood nickname and turning her attention back to the screen. I didn’t like her tone. It was too warm, too syrupy for our new relationship. And usually when I heard that nickname, it was accompanied by a nod to my sister, herself called Little Bit. Now there’d be no reason for

“Little Bit” to follow.

An excuse for disturbing her peace tumbled out of my open mouth.

“I couldn’t sleep any longer,” I said. I tried to mask my anxiety by pretending to stifle a yawn behind my cracked, red hands.“What are you watching?”

“I’m sorry - I didn’t mean to wake you,” my mother said over her shoulder. She was being so polite. I didn’t like this side of her. “Jan - you know Rachel Swicki’s mom,

Jan - anyway, she told me about this guy and he had a webinar today and so I signed up and … wow. His message really is something.”

I re-channeled my energy into the kitchen, striding over to the pantry and rifling around for something to eat. There wasn’t much - we still hadn’t made it to the grocery store. I settled on a years-old cardboard cylinder of Quaker Oats.

My mother continued talking.

“This man, Baby Doll, he’s really something,” she told me over his litany of promises, streaming out of the computer as delicately as a lullaby. “I thought people like

him were all a crock of bull but wow - he seems to really want to make the world a better place.”

I wanted out of this conversation, maybe try to go back to sleep so I could retreat to a space where I could be sure my mother was not.

“He’s talking about the secrets of the heart,” Mom rattled on. “He helps people achieve their full potential.”

As if on cue, the man on the screen cooed, “That is a big misconception about coaching - that you need to be an expert in all fields. I can show people, without being an expert in fitness for example - I actually coached Norway’s national championship in fitness to a gold medal. I helped her by coaching her inner state, what was going on inside. Also, I can help people with weight loss even though I never had a weight loss problem myself. I can coach someone from obesity to being slender. Also I can coach people from all walks of life from their life circumstances because I know the keys.”

I suppressed an eye roll. My heartbeat didn’t break its quick pace.

“You know, Jan was telling me,” my mother’s voice cut over Nilsson’s, it shaking from lack of coffee or lack of something else. “She said, ‘You know, Marcy, people open up to you. They just do. You’d be terrific at this.’”

I snorted.

“Coaching? Like softball coaching?”

My mother waved her hand dismissively. “Honey, people live their lives wrong.

You know, your father and I … we weren’t the best role models to you girls about living with our hearts open, which is what Peter is talking about in this webinar.”

“What does that even mean, ‘living with our hearts open?” My foot already was perched on the first step of the staircase, one hand cupping the bowl of my lukewarms oats, of which I would eat just three and a half tiny bites.

“We never donated to charity. We never encouraged you to volunteer or pay it forward,” my mother said, her voice was thickening. “Maybe Abby would still be here if she understood the value of helping others.”

A guffaw escaped my throat before I recognized it in time to try to haul it back in.

I hadn’t realized my mother was a stand-up comedian.

“Mom, that seems like a leap of logic,” I said slowly. “That’s not the reason she’s gone.”

My mother began to cry. A wave of bitterness, smoky and nutty, rose at the back of my throat.

“We raised you girls to be so selfish,” she sobbed. “We raised you to only think about yourselves. We prioritized the wrong things. That’s how she got the way she got.”

My hand gripping the bowl shook. I wanted to toss it against the wall, make a mess, give her something to do. Just two weeks ago, she stood taller than I was, she made me look up at her. Now our roles were reversed. The only difference was that I didn’t like standing in the power role. She shouldn’t have been allowed to step down so quickly.

My mother’s shoulders continued to shake. I didn’t want to be there, in that room, with her. Why was it my job to comfort the woman who carried me in her belly, who was supposed to set an example for how I was supposed to move through the world?

Nilsson the Con Man continued to speak.

Emboldened, I walked over to the computer and unplugged it. A sharp noise emitted from my mother, a shriek.

“Turn it back on! Have you lost your mind? Do you know what I could be missing?”

“Mom, you don’t need to listen to this guy,” I pleaded. She knocked the bowl out of my hands. It was an accident, I think.

“Such selfish girls,” she said to the computer and not directly to me but loudly enough so I could hear it. At least the tears had stopped. “I raised such selfish girls.”

She got to her knees, fumbled around on the floor. She grabbed the computer wire and plugged it back in. The machine winked, hummed, prepared to give way to life again.

She looked up at me triumphantly.

“Was there something you needed? Mom needs to focus her attention on this, sweetie,” she murmured. “I couldn’t help Abby, but I can help other people. And I don’t appreciate you being so dismissive of your mother’s ability to help.”

She grabbed my arm then, yanked me down to the floor next to her. I looked at the white bony fingers clenching my arm and I froze, breathing through an open mouth.

“I was a good mother, wasn’t I?”

I stared into her blue eyes, this woman who used to be my mother, who used to never take no for an answer. This wasn’t the time for honesty. I just nodded.

“Look at me,” she demanded even though I already was. “You’ll never do to me what Abby did.”

I nodded again. Her request surprised me. I glanced down at her fingers digging into my forearm. I knew how strong she was - that no longer surprised me. I waited for

whatever was going to come next and knew I could handle it. Hitting was something children did to express their frustration over the things they could not control.

I was the adult now.

She resumed crying, fingers sliding off my arm and curling against the floor. I looked down at her, puzzled. I decided then I would never be that weak. No one would ever see me like my mother, rocking back and forth on the floor, hands pressed over her eyes.

If I was a better daughter, I would have hugged her. If I was a better daughter, I would have put my arm around her and explained Abby had problems and my mom had done her best. I would have reassured her that Abby was gone, but she still had me. For whatever that was worth.

But I didn’t do any of those things. I just watched Mom cry.

ONE NIGHT BEFORE

The Friday night before Abby died, she Facetimed me. Several times. At first - surprise, surprise - I ignored it. The entire month of June had been packed with weekend after weekend of closing shifts at the banquet hall and I was taking advantage of a rare

Friday night off for some self care. As such, I was drowsy from previously stepping outside to smoke a bowl, enjoying a quiet house and the absence of my parents, who had left earlier that morning on a weekend trip to visit my mother’s sister in Chicago. It had been about a month since the Great Breakup of 2015 and my mother had pulled me aside as she and my father loaded the car in preparation for the six hour trip

“Keep an eye on her,” Mom said. She didn’t have to specify who “her” was.

I rolled my eyes. “Mom, what do you think Abby’s going to do? Kill herself?”

“That’s not funny,” my mother snapped, her eyes flicking between my face and the open door of our house. “You know, she’s been better the past few weeks, but I still worry. You know how she is. One week she seems like she’s okay, then the smallest thing sets her off...”

I cut in, unable to let my mother finish that thought. “Mom, everything is going to be fine. Have fun in Chicago. Tell Aunt Lucy I said hi. Abby will be here when you get back.”

The car trunk slammed.

“Marcy, we need to get on the road! You wanna get stuck in rush hour?”

As if one cue, Abby finally scampered through the front door. Her clothes were loose. My mother had to practically beg her to join us for dinner, then plead with her to lift forkfuls of meatloaf and mashed potatoes to her mouth. I wasn’t sure which I was more annoyed with - my mother’s babying of Abby or Abby’s need to be a baby. That morning, she bounded through the door with more energy she’d had than the previous few weeks combined. Her hair was barely contained in a messy low bun. Her green eyes were wide. She was electric. She pulled both my parents into hugs, gave them sloppy kisses, made a request for them to bring her back a tub of cheddar and caramel Garrett’s

Popcorn. My dad’s eyes crinkled as he smiled back down at her, his youngest. I don’t think she ever aged past a chubby baby in his eyes.

She did a good job of fooling them that morning.

My dad looked again at his watch, implored my mother to get going. Mom finally conceded, reminded me that trash day was Monday morning, reminded me to remind

Abby to take her antidepressants, and blew kisses at both of us as the car pulled out of the driveway. Just like that, they were gone.

My sister and I waved silently at the retreating car. The sun had just begun to rise, pink mingling with gold. I rarely was awake for them, but early mornings always were my favorite time of the day.

“Guess what,” Abby said slyly, her voice taking on a hue I never liked hearing.

Whenever her voice was low, whenever she spoke in slow whispers, it meant she was up to something.

My stomach began to clench, but I tried not to play into it. Couldn’t I have one night to myself?

I sighed. “You’re going to tell me anyway, so, what?”

We headed back inside the house.

“I saw on Facebook that Kris is going to be at Ragg’s tonight. He RSVPed yes to some event thing.”

I groaned. “Of course you’re still stalking his social media.”

Ragg’s. The only dive bar in Warren that let in minors who wanted to dance the night away high on illegal drugs they bought from older siblings and the only bar in town that looked the other way when those same overmedicated teens started sneaking drinks from the twenty one and up kids among them. Truly, a classy place.

Abby pointed her nose in the air and strode past me into the kitchen, poured herself a bowl of cereal. She settled into her usual spot at the table. I remembered when she used to sit there in a high chair. Now, at eighteen years old, her legs were so long it was easy for her to kick me at dinnertime whenever I made a snide remark she didn’t like.

“Anyway, me and Desi are going to go there at, like, nine. I just, like -” Her eyes widened, the spoon frozen in midair. She refused to look at me. “I just, like, I know Kris is dating someone else. That is the only reason he ended it with me so out of the blue, and like I saw that he’s been liking this girl in our grade’s stuff on Instagram and, like, I just have to know. I have to know what’s going on behind my back. He’s making me look like a fool. I bet everyone already knows and here I am thinking that we could get back together -”

She trailed off.

“I have to know, Sissy. I need to know. Maybe then I can begin to move on,” she finished quietly.

I sat across from her and peeled a banana I’d grabbed from our chipped fruit bowl, a bowl that had been pristine until the fateful day my mother hadn’t allowed a preteen Abby to join her friends at the roller rink. When Abby was wronged, she made sure you remembered.

“Abby, social media isn’t telling you the whole story. You can’t just make assumptions.”

She cut in, hurriedly, “Desi looked at the pictures too. The ones Kris is liking.

They’re all selfies. She agreed with me. It’s all super suspicious.”

“So, what? You go to Ragg’s and you see him dancing with some chick? And then what? How does that help?”

She sat there silently. She didn’t like hearing logic. I looked at her not looking at me.

“Look, you can do whatever you want. But, I think it’d be better if you just let this one go. Plus, is this how you wanna come off to people? As Kris’ crazy ex that stalked him to the club?”

I regretted the ‘C’ word as soon as it left my mouth. Her eyes flashed.

“Oh, I’m crazy? I’m the crazy one? Yeah, sure, he’s the one fucking some girl behind my back and I don’t have a right to know? He was telling me he loved me up until a month ago and now I don’t have a right to confirm what I always suspected to be true?

Fine. I’ll be crazy. That’s fine.”

“Think about it this way - maybe instead of letting what he does get to you, you can just let it go. Like, you’re still hurting and that’s okay. It’s only been a month. But don’t give him the satisfaction of following him to Ragg’s. Don’t let him have the upper hand of knowing you’re still so hung up you’re willing to spend your Friday night spying on him when you could be doing literally anything else.”

She stared straight ahead. Her jaw moved in circles like she was grinding her teeth. We both sat at the table in silence.

Finally, she spoke.

“You really think I’ll look crazy if I go?”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding in.

“Yes. One thousand percent.”

I realized I was being harsh. I softened my tone.

“I know you’re hurting. I know you still love him. But I promise you - promise you - if this is how he’s acting, he isn’t worth it. Plus, you’ll be at State soon. You’ll meet an even better guy and forget all about that asshole.”

She took her still full cereal bowl to the kitchen sink and dumped it. Ran the garbage disposal. I flinched at the grating metal blades. Her shoulders shuddered.

“Well? Are you going to go still?”

She looked at me then. Tears leaked out of her eyes. She didn’t wipe them away.

“How could he have moved on so quickly? Did he never love me after all? Was it all in my head?”

I softened my features and walked over to her, tried to hug her. She stepped away and my hand settled on her forearm instead. I tried to think of something to say.

“It’s not that you didn’t mean anything to him,” I said, grasping at straws. “It’s just...he’s stupid. He’s an asshole. He’s being an asshole.”

Really shot it out of the park with that one.

“So? Are you still going to go to Ragg’s?”

Abby looked away from me then. “I guess not,” she answered, smearing the back of her palm against her cheek.

I didn’t believe her. But I let it go.

The first Facetime call should have been a hint. It took me a minute to realize

Abby wasn’t Facetiming me because she was in her bedroom where I’d passed her earlier that night. She was Facetiming me because she’d left the house.

Fuck.

I thought back to my mother’s request. I had one job - keep an eye on Abby - and

I’d blown it. She must have left after I told her I was going to bed. Stupid me, not foreseeing she’d pull a stunt like this one. Hurriedly, I grabbed the phone and answered.

Abby’s bleary eyes filled the screen. She was in a dimly lit bathroom. I could see the back of her reflection in one of the chipped and grimy mirrors behind her. The video kept pausing - the WiFi connection must have been weak.

“He fucking deleted them all, oh my god,” she repeated over and over. “That’s four years. That’s four years he deleted. I can’t get them back!”

Her voice cut in and out, and the video paused on a cut up image of her tear- streaked face like the world’s most pathetic Picasso painting.

“What?” I kept saying, rolling over onto my stomach. My annoyance simmered at the surface, but I didn’t let that irritation creep into my voice. If Abby got any hint about

how she was bugging me, she’d hang up, and I wouldn’t be able to reach her again.

Knowing her snitch ass, her next move would be to call our parents. “I can’t hear you.

What?”

Abby had just turned eighteen in May. We went out to dinner for her birthday at the nearest Olive Garden, her eyes shining as the staff surrounded her singing Buon compleanno, a te. Kris was there; they hadn’t broken up yet. He sat alongside our family, distant, checking his phone every two minutes. Abby would later scream at him for his lack of attention that night in our backyard. The rest of our family would pretend not to hear it. That was how they communicated, we reasoned. Ah, the follies of young love.

I was thinking about her birthday shrieking as I examined the tear-spotted face now taking up space on my screen. When she brushed her hair out of her eyes, I could see her skinny wrist was looped with a neon green paper bracelet. The backs of her hands were marred with black X’s. That confirmed it - she was at Raggs.

Fuckity fuck.

I stared at my phone screen as Abby’s face swam in and out of focus. Judging from her sobs, she’d gotten confirmation on the rumor she had so desperately wanted to be false. It sounded like Kris aimed to cut her out of his life entirely. I felt bad for her, but also weary.

This Abby was totally different from the sister I’d spent the previous weekend with. We had taken a road trip to the opposite side of the state to have a beach day on

Lake Michigan. I thought it would be a good distraction, get her away from all of the Kris drama. She awoke early, giddily, bounced on my bed at four a.m.

“Up, Sissy, time to get up!” My sister sucked up all the energy from the room when she was happy, but also when she was sad. “I want to get there in time to see the sun rise!”

I jerked awake, gasping at the interruption, having only gone to bed two hours prior. I was already rolling away from her, turning over to face the wall rather than this brunette streak of white lightning that was pounding on the edge of my bed.

“Dude, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west,” I barked at her, finally. “It doesn’t matter what time we get there. We’re gonna miss the sunrise.”

She was undeterred, already fluttering around the room. “The sunset. I want to see the sunset. It takes three hours to get there! We need to leave soon, we need to get a good spot. Did you pack already?”

I was a planner then. Did she even have to ask? My beach bag sat tidily in the corner of my organized and uncluttered room, piled with two striped beach blankets that hid a bottle of prosecco I had stolen from my parents’ liquor cabinet, a change of clothes for each of us, and sunscreen. I also packed a frisbee for when Abby inevitably would get bored of lying on the blankets and drying out under the sun. My dad printed instructions from Mapquest for us the night before, “in case you lose connection with your GPS. You know the connection gets spotty in that part of the state. It’s because of all of the trees.”

I gave in and reluctantly got up to start wiping the sleep from my eyes. Even though Abby was the youngest, she was always calling the shots.

We left the house before the sun rose and drove the three hours along freeways that cut through flat farmlands. I was taking us to my favorite spot near my school in

West Michigan, a buried lush entry on the dunes called Rosy Mound. As we passed East

Lansing, I nudged Abby - “That’s the exit you’ll take when you go to State next year.”

Her energy had receded about a half hour into the drive and she merely shrugged as we passed Haslett. I inwardly cringed - I hadn’t meant to remind her of her failed future with

Kris.

We got to the coastal town of Grand Haven at nine a.m. and stopped at a little family-run diner off M-45 before making our way to the beach. The little restaurant was bordered by tall Michigan pines threaded with soft needles that blanketed the sandy dirt beneath them. It didn’t have a parking lot as much as it had a dirt lot where vacationing out-of-towners parked haphazardly. We were seated at a little booth by the window overlooking the highway. A tired but friendly middle aged woman served us coffee, took our orders. I wondered if she owned the establishment or was related to whomever did. I ordered a three cheese omelette while Abby greedily eyed a stack of pancakes on the shiny laminated menu that stuck to the booth’s sticky countertop.

“Those pancakes are bigger than your face,” I observed as I dumped hot sauce all over my omelette. The cheese was so thick it hung in strings as I lifted a bite with a fork.

Abby laughed, whisked the top pancake off the stack and held it against her head.

“Not true. Are they really?”

I told her not to move, to hold that pose while I grabbed my phone out of my purse and snapped a shot of her red-faced and grinning in a safe part of the state. I posted it on Instagram with the caption, Sisters go to Lake Michigan but first eat their weight at a greasy spoon. #lakemichigan #sistrip. I think it only got, like, eighteen likes.

The Abby in that picture is smiling, flashing straight white teeth, and framed by the Up North-themed kitsch crowding the walls behind her - pots and pans, boat paddles.

After I took the picture, she slid pats of butter between each fluffy, perfectly browned pancake. There was no talk about counting calories that day - instead, we both ate to our heart’s content and were confident our walk to the beach would take care of any damage inflicted. We spent the day with the waves.

She didn’t bring Kris up once. I had wanted that feeling to stick with her.

The Abby I stared at a week later on the phone screen was snotfaced, moaning, and crying, not caring who might be around her to witness her display. Girls loudly shuffled about in the background. The Instagram post from our day at the beach was her camera face. The Facetime call was the part of her I was confident she’d grow out of one day. Her hair was sweaty and she was so strung out on whatever she had taken she wasn’t answering me as I directed her to, “just stay there, don’t move, you’re at Raggs, right?”

No answers, just the shaking of the phone screen and her sobs advancing and retreating like the waves of Lake Michigan. I knew that bathroom. I threw up there on my twentieth birthday. I remembered the awful fluorescent lighting and the pounding of the bass that would surge and recede as drunken girls banged through the heavy door to share turns in the stalls. I remembered wanting to leave. I told myself this was what Abby was feeling as well.

“Just stay there,” I said into the phone. “I’m coming to get you.”

I shook sleep and a weed haze from my head as I pushed back my comforter and started putting on acceptable clothes to retrieve my fucked up little sister. I wasn’t sure what she meant by “he deleted all of them” and was annoyed that in the next half hour, I was sure to find out. My relaxing Friday night faded into oblivion as I made my way downstairs.

I held the phone in my hand and her blubbering wafted through the air as I backed out of our driveway. It took twelve minutes to get to Raggs. I wanted Lake Michigan back. I wanted that late morning when we first settled our towels on the beach and slathered sunscreen on each other’s backs. I wanted its warm waters flowing around us after we drained the prosecco, passing the bottle back and forth until it was empty.

Letting ourselves float on land and in the warm lake. The blue cloudless sky. Abby’s easy laughter.

She made it so hard to love her sometimes. But I did. That’s one of the things she never understood - everyone loved her. And when she was happy, she was easy to love.

And when she wasn’t, she wasn’t. But it didn’t mean we ever stopped.

ONE MORE YEAR

“We want you to feel normal,” my father told me as I loaded up my car. The day had finally come for me to head back to school. We’d buried Abby barely a month previously. I needed to leave. The House of Death had swelled to a suffocating presence.

I woke up more nights than not from bad dreams. My dad handed me a crumbled hundred dollar bill with his eyes lowered, his shoulders slouching. I jerked my thumb toward the house and asked him, did she approve of this cash exchange? My father sighed and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, leaving a thumbprint on the right lens.

Cut your mother some slack, he said. She’s been through a lot, he said.

My father. Forever the diplomat. I guess that’s where I got it from.

What about me, I wanted to say. Haven’t I been through enough too? My mother had begun to exist on another planet entirely. She didn’t seem to care I was there, that I was a living, breathing part of her. I would sit next to her at the kitchen table and she would stare straight ahead. I was invisible. I was the survivor and I could still be saved, but she didn’t seem interested.

“Please keep paying my phone bill,” I told him as I opened the car door and got behind the steering wheel.

My dad chuckled.

“That’s your final request?”

We both stopped laughing suddenly and paused at the implication of final and request right next to each other in the same sentence.

My dad leaned over and folded me into a hug. It made me uncomfortable. I squirmed away from him. He let me go quickly, sensitive about being the overbearing parent. With my sister gone, we didn’t have a family brat anymore. I had graciously stepped in.

“Will you take care of yourself?” he asked as I settled into the front seat of my car.

I slammed the door shut and buckled my seatbelt, rolling down the driver’s seat window. I smiled sweetly up at him, sliding my sunglasses over my eyes.

“Of course, Dad,” I told him quietly and confidently. “I only have one year left.”

I should have known I was becoming too comfortable with lies.

I didn’t know it then, but entering the After had changed me. It had seeped into my genetic code and quietly rewired the way I refused to process my emotions. I didn’t know it then, but already, the way I smiled had started to change - I stopped using my teeth, and the small, tight way I would twist my lips upward would vanish just as quickly as it would happen. I stopped moving through the world with the ease and innocence the way I did when I still was an older sister. Instead, I peered around corners. I eyed everything with suspicion. I doubted good intentions. The ellipses of incoming iMessages catapulted me into anxiety.

I rolled up the window, shifted the car into reverse, and carefully backed out of our driveway. I had two and a half hours before I got to Grand Rapids, a mid-size city on

Michigan’s west side, about three hours northeast of Chicago. Up to that point, I had been counting down the minutes until I returned to college. Those last few days of preparation had helped me ease back into something resembling a normal routine. My mother was

once again refusing to come out of Abby’s room? No problem, I was online shopping for all of the books I would need for classes, classes I had signed up for so foolishly when I didn’t know how drastically one’s life could change in the span of one weekend. My mother and father had once again started the day with a hushed argument and I could hear my father’s pleas floating through our house’s 1980’s ventilation system? I wasn’t concerned, I was neatly rolling up all of the clothes I’d be taking back with me to college and stuffing them into boxes.

My car was packed a week before I was scheduled to go back. I’d peer out through pinched blinds at it, squirming in the suffocating House of Death.

I breathed a sigh of relief as my car coasted toward I-696 East, swerving to miss the potholes that too often ate through Michigan’s shitty roadways, a result of icy winters and neglect.

As I drove, the relief I had been anticipating all week refused to announce itself.

My heart pattered quickly as I passed familiar roadmarks. The hideous mirrored cylinder signifying Roseville’s National Coney Island, the purply-blue Detroit Zoo water tower, and the tall Soviet-looking concrete office buildings of Metro Detroit gave way to open fields as I left behind the urban sprawl of southeastern Michigan. It was a humid afternoon. In happier times, I would have driven with the window open and music on full blast, enjoying the emptiness of the freeway, speculating on what my life could have been had I been raised on a farm, somewhere quiet and out in the country. Two and a half hours was exactly the right amount of time I needed to clear my head and leave behind who I was when I was home and who I wanted to be when I arrived at college.

Things were different on this drive.

A pit hardened in my stomach as I inched closer toward my destination. I stopped breathing when I passed the exit that led to Michigan State University.

I wanted to cry. But after watching my mother do nothing but cry, I had decided it accomplished nothing, unless what you wanted to accomplish was publicly garnering other people’s sympathy.

I was still me. Abby was still gone. Did I really think distance was going to change that fact?

I shook my head. Of course it could, I told myself. And yet, I unwillingly ran my tongue over a list of questions I dreaded hearing from well-meaning friends and professors:

How was your summer?

Get up to anything fun?

Haven’t heard from you in awhile - things going okay?

It had only been four months. Yet, I couldn’t face any of the people who had met me as a freshman with unflattering bangs, and later watched me morph into a carefree bohemian hippy wannabe who lit incense, brought pot to parties, and only shopped at the

Salvation Army warehouse downtown. What was I supposed to tell them after they relayed their predictable summers of internships, service jobs, and afternoons at the lake?

Give them the down-low on the soap opera that had become my life?

I’d also have to face the reason why, after July, I had cut off contact entirely.

It’s not like they ever wanted anything terribly inappropriate. At that point, my phone had a list of eighty two texts I simply couldn’t look at. As they built up, unanswered, my anxiety increased. It became more work to acknowledge my friends as

the texts rolled in. What had I been thinking? It was going to look even weirder I hadn’t spoken to anyone all summer. My college roommate, Amanda, a supremely positive bookworm and photographer I’d known since our freshman year. Study friends from my communications classes - Megan, Haley, Andrea. Old boyfriends, Greg, Pieter, who still came sniffing around once in awhile and when I was drunk enough, miraculously answered my u up? texts.

They’d all reached out over the summer. A miraculous group of friends and yet I couldn’t be bothered to hit any of them back. How could I? They had all met Abby the few times she visited, remembered her as my tall, energetic, talkative younger sister.

She’d even stayed the night some weekends, drinking boxed wine with Amanda and me.

We had overexposed Polaroids of the three of us hanging on our refrigerator. Even worse,

Amanda had a younger sister too. Each year, my parents would coordinate with her parents to bring both girls to school to visit us. It hit me, gripping the steering wheel, that

I had no one to visit me during Siblings Weekend that year.

I ground my teeth as I drove. I had been so stupid. I had better have a good story when I rolled back into town. What was it, my phone broke? For two months? My parents grounded me? I had gotten lost in the desert, had been wandering for forty days and forty nights, and had only just made it back?

The open sky gave way to the meager skyline of Grand Rapids. Normally, the sight was welcoming. Instead, my trepidation grew as my car traversed the winding freeway through the city, passing its few tall buildings, soaring over the Grand River.

I didn’t have any ideas, but one thing was for sure - whatever story I came up with, none of my college friends were going to know how my summer had truly been. I was tired of people looking at me with sad eyes, of feeling like a headline.

It was just one year. I could handle one year back at school. One year and out.

Then, no more House of Death. No more College Apartment. I would get a job and move far away to somewhere no one knew me.

After one year, I would truly start over.

FOURTEEN TEXT MESSAGES iMessage, Sat, Jun 11, 10:48 p.m. Hey Sissy guess where im at

The woods. crazy right?

Our favorite park. I told mom and dad im sleeping over at Desiree’s hah and they believed me

Wanna know what im doing

I just got here and i brought some supplied with me. Im gonna get kris back. He needs to realize how much he loves me and if i do this he;; feel bad and he’ll have to take me abck. Like not really do it but enough ya know?

Sun, Jun 12, 12:01 a.m.

Why tf arent u answering i thought u always answer ur texts u stupid bitch

Sissy can u answer my calls plz

Sissy

Im scared its really dark here

I dont feel good i think i fuckned up

U and kris both suck

Can u comeds get me sissy

I fucking hate u

PICK UP YOUR PHONE – PART II

My mother scrolled through my phone. I watched her scrolling through my phone.

Normally I would have demanded it back, but something felt different this time.

Something was wrong.

My mother looked up at me watching her. Her eyes were red. We were almost chest to chest in the narrow corridor of our hallway. I could see how her fine hair had started thinning at her temples. I looked up past her, at the family pictures lining the wall behind her. My first birthday. Abby’s newborn baby pictures. Family portraits from the early two thousands, before we knew something was wrong with Abby, with me, with all of us.

“What’s going on?”

She didn’t answer my question. My heart pounding, I spoke up, my voice small.

“You’re back...from Chicago? Is it..it’s Monday?” I paused and swallowed.

Rubbed my left eye. A small crystal of realization formed within the cavity of my chest, hardening into the knowledge I could barely make out, but wasn’t ready to learn yet.

“Where’s Abby?”

My mother slapped me then. She hadn’t hit me since I was a kid. I’d sassed her in the parking lot of a Kroger, I think. I staggered back, fully awake now, but frozen in surprise.

My mother slapped me again. I yelped, raised my arms out of impulse.

She should have stopped. She didn’t stop. She kept hitting me, her hair falling out of its overnight bun, using one of her hands to squeeze my forearms together in a vicelike grip while the other continued striking any part of me she could reach.

“Why- do you never - answer - your phone?”

I fell to the floor, backwards into my bedroom. I scooted on my ass, desperate to get away from her. She finally stopped then, falling back against the wall, sliding down like a rag doll that had been tossed against it. She was sobbing. My mother never sobbed.

She prided herself on her stoicism, said it set her apart from other, more emotional women.

Heavy footsteps thudded up the stairs. My father appeared in my doorway then, stepping over my mother and sweeping me up onto my feet. He was still wearing his beat-up tennis shoes. They must have just gotten in. He looked at my red face and back down at his wife.

“Marcy - MARCY - what are you doing? What did you do?”

He was yelling. My mother continued crying, pointed one finger at me.

It was not even ten in the morning.

My shock began to wear off. Feeling was coming into my face. Fuck, she could hit hard. I started to sniffle and my dad pulled me to my feet. I pressed my face into his chest.

“Can I see my phone? Mom won’t give me my phone,” I said into his flannel shirt.

My dad had his arm protectively wrapped around my shoulder. My mother looked up at us then, her eyes in slits.

“You want the phone?” She hissed. The thing on the floor wasn’t my mother anymore. She whipped it at me, striking me in the leg. I yelled.

“Look at it!” She kept yelling as my wails continued. “Look at your phone for once! Look at what you’ve done!”

That wall of noise from earlier? It wasn’t in my dream anymore.

My dad, red in the face, shoved me behind him and leaned over and shook his shellshocked wife.

My parents never fought. Never even raised their voices to one another. My mother could be dominating, could be demanding, but they had a decent partnership.

They taught Abby and I as kids, it’s not okay to hit. Use your words. If you feel yourself getting angry, take a deep breath and count to ten. I watched the scene in front of me from a faraway place. I could comprehend what was happening. I just didn’t want to.

So much noise. I needed to get away from all the noise. I wanted to get back in bed and start over but the day had begun. And it was going to continue.

I sank to the floor and clamped my hands over my ears, crossed my legs in front of me. Why were they being so loud? My family always held off on screaming matches until the late afternoon, the evening, occasionally when the moon was up.

My phone rested next to me. As my parents’ voices continued to rise, a cacophony of animal sounds, shrieks, the clapping of open palms against foreheads, I finally grabbed it, unlocked it, and navigated to the last text message I had received. And there they were. The missed calls. The text messages. All from Abby.

I looked at my mother. She and my dad had finally stopped struggling and she was glaring at me through his arms, which he’d wrapped around her to keep her from coming after me.

“Now do you see what you’ve done?”

WELCOME BACK, FACULTY AND STAFF!

I hope you had a pleasant summer and that you spent some time relaxing. It’s an exciting new year for our Pleasant Valley State University academic family and I look forward to a productive year for all.

Construction on the new library continues to be underway and I am happy to report a lot of excellent progress was made on this building over the summer. We look forward to unveiling a brand new facility at the end of the 2016 winter semester. This state-of-the-art library will feature four floors, Mac computers, vending machines that distribute Adderall to hungover students (included in your tuition!), and other tools that will keep our students marching toward success.

We are also excited to unveil a complete reworking of our institutional goals and strategic actions in the coming years. One of the cornerstones of this plan is the Mind

Your Business goal. We ask all students, faculty, and staff respect one another’s privacy and refrain from asking each other exactly how their summers were. By adhering to these new guidelines, I am confident the PVSU community will stand together to foster a safe and inclusive environment for students, faculty, and staff, regardless of how badly they want to pry into each other’s business.

In other news, the football season is fast approaching. Now, I know we haven’t made it to the big leagues yet, but who says our Division II football team isn’t worth the drunken fervor our students put into it? We know all of you rabid sports fans wanted so desperately to get into a school like the University of Michigan where football actually

counts. Sadly, judging from your binge drinking habits, we’re going to guess you weren’t focused on developing the other skillsets that would have qualified you to make an ass out of yourself in a school that actually ranked in the Big Ten. I mean, our games aren’t even broadcast on ESPN. Regardless, I hope you will come out to the PVSU Stadium this fall to support our student-athletes. The Pioneers play their home opener against Hillsdale

College on Sept. 1.

One last reminder - the Center for Mental Health is included in your tuition. We know students have a lot to deal with when it comes to college. College is stressful, after all. If you feel the need to book an appointment with a therapist to whine about how your parent-funded education is distracting you from spreading HPV throughout our student body, please remember to make an appointment. We want to ensure all of our students have access to the most average mental health counseling we offer. Remember, we most likely will recommend group therapy, where you can hear your peers cry about boyfriends breaking up with them, roommate quibbles, and other insignificant quirrels.

Remember, a lot of your classmates haven’t actually gone through something traumatic.

Don’t be sad or scared when they avert their eyes when you bring up your dead sister.

Don’t forget to feel alienated and alone and quit going after one session.

An exciting year lies ahead as we guide our students on their educational journeys. Professors, be sure to continue doing the fine job of failing as many students as possible - particularly the ones who are outwardly struggling. No second chances! Thank you for all you’re doing to keep PVSU one of the most mediocre liberal arts school in the state.

Go Pioneers!

Sincerely,

Charlotte Day, Self-Appointed President

YOU’RE NOT YOU ANYMORE

It had started with a missed call. It progressed from there.

I quietly returned to college, barely greeting Amanda when I walked through the door to our apartment. I silently unpacked while she flitted around my room, flopping onto the bed I hadn’t slept in all summer to tell me about how she’d spent the last three months waitressing and working on building her photography portfolio. I dug my nails into my palms as she spoke with her hands. Whenever she tried to ask me how my summer was, I gracefully excused myself to go outside.

I had only just started smoking then, adopting my father’s response to stress.

After twenty years of successfully quitting, he had picked up the habit again merely by walking into a 7-11 empty-handed and leaving with a pack of Marlboro Reds. Smoking cigarettes in the garage became our grief routine. What a one-eighty it was from the man who had found a broken cigarette in my purse when I was seventeen and tried to make me smoke a pack in front of him to “teach me a lesson.” I always coughed as smoke hollowed out my virgin lungs, but I stuck with it. How were people going to know I was troubled if I didn’t smoke?

I played a game with the world outside my head, one where I was the only who knew the rules. I refused to tell my friends what was going on with me, why I was so withdrawn, yet expected them to pick up on little crumbs of clues that, to me, screamed I am not okay. Then, I was disappointed when no one was able to pick up on hints that weren’t hints at all.

How easily my problems that year would have been solved had I just opened my mouth and said what I needed to say. But grief, that slippery little kitten, she doesn’t work that way.

It was a relief when the school semester officially started. I woke up the first

Monday of classes early, my lunch pre-packed. I told myself, I got this. And for a minute, it felt like everything was going to be okay.

I had always been a good student. I showed up on time that first week, dutifully collected my syllabi. I was in the final year of my advertising major and my upper level courses all contained project-based classes that threatened to become overwhelming if I didn’t stay on top of them.

And I would stay on top of them, I told myself.

I did everything right that first month. I made a calendar. I grabbed the campus bus home after each class, made lunch, prepared a snack, then quietly completed homework in my room. My door was always closed.

I made Amanda uncomfortable. That was her punishment, see, for not playing my game, for not being able to read the rules I decided were plainly written on the wall.

Whereas I used to be bubbly, now I was cold, distant. I wanted to be nice to her, but I’d look at her dull eyes, her lank hair in its low ponytail, her unflattering glasses, and put myself above her. She might have her family still intact, but at least I could make the case that she was ugly. I began tersely turning down her invitations to do work in coffee shops, attend board game nights with the on-campus Christian group she hung out with despite not being religious herself.

One of the quirks that had initially drawn me to her - her unwavering optimism - became grating. No matter the situation, she had this irritating habit of keeping her head above water. Why should she, or anyone else for that matter, ever be upset? She had a cure for everything. She had her naturopathic essential oils, her commitment to recycling, and statistics on how pessimism contributed to heart disease and diabetes.

Her need to comment on everything began to eat away at me.

I complained to my father over the phone that I suspected my birth control pills were causing me to gain weight?

“That’s why I don’t take pills!” Her sunny voice rang out from her room, where her door was always open.

I fried bacon on our stovetop?

Major Amanda side eye and a Book of Mormon routine, her handing me a pamphlet that read, Have you considered becoming a vegan?

I may have made that last example up.

She commented on my dour mood once.

“So,” she said, sighing before she spoke. I was sitting at the kitchen table, silent per my new usual. Trying to digest a piece of toast. Opening and closing apps on my phone. I knew what sighs meant. Sighs meant, uh oh, we need to have a talk. I would have rather been hit by a bus.

She settled into the seat across from me. My eyes flicked up at her then back down to my phone. It was a futile effort. Silence was never enough to freeze Amanda out.

I knew it had been a mistake to eat out in the open.

“How are your classes going?” Amanda maintained eye contact with me, propping up her side ponytailed head with her arm.

I set my crusty toast back onto my plate. Folded my hands in front of me.

“I mean, the semester started...what, two weeks, ago? So, fine. I guess.”

Amanda nodded slowly, her head bobbing up and down on her propped arm like a marionette. The polite thing would have been to return the question. But I didn’t care how her classes were going.

“What are you taking again?”

My nostrils flared. “I don’t know. The usual stuff, you know, that an advertising major would take when they’re about to finish up. So, like, senior courses. Advertising courses.”

Amanda shifted slightly. I suppressed an eye roll.

“I just couldn’t help but notice - you’ve just been in your room a lot since you got back and I don’t know if school is already stressing you out, but if you need to talk about it, you know. I’m here. If you want to.”

“Thanks. But everything’s fine.”

Amanda reached across the table, lightly grasped my forearm in what her yoga teacher must have taught her was a soothing gesture. Instinctively, I jerked my arm away.

I looked down and not into her hurt eyes. “Come on, Charlotte. Something’s off with you and like, we’ve noticed. I’ve noticed. Can you just talk to me?”

I wet my fingertip and began sponging up the blackened crumbs from the toast I’d been nibbling on. My appetite was ruined.

“You just - I’m a little worried about you. You used to be so chipper and like, are you sure you’re taking care of yourself? Like, how much coffee are you drinking? Are you even eating?”

I snorted. “Clearly.” I gestured to the plate in front of me. “What do you think this is?”

She looked back at me, dismayed. Cleared her throat and continued.

“It’s just - it’s our senior year and we made so many great plans last year!

Remember when we said we’d try to go camping in Ludington before the weather got too cold? Or we’d do a weekend in Chicago, take the train down there?”

I stuck my toast-encrusted fingers in my mouth.

“This is the last year we’re gonna live together. Before we graduate and real life, you know, starts. Don’t you wanna make the most of it?”

I twisted in my chair and felt my spine pop. I looked at her, then gathered my plate with the half-eaten bit of toast. I marched it over to the trash, and emptied it where it sat sadly amongst sandwich wrappers, bottle caps, and unopened mail that had been trying to find the apartment’s previous tenants.

“Of course I do,” I said, my back turned to her, foot still on the lever that propelled the garbage pan’s lid open. I began spinning words. It wasn’t her fault every word that came out of her mouth made me want to beat her to death with a hammer.

“I guess I’ve just been really stressed out with, like, the end of college coming up and like, I don’t know what happens after this, you know? All we’ve been doing is going to class the last four years of our lives and now we gotta actually think about a future. It’s stressful, you know?”

I was never a good actress, but anyone can come up with a story as basic as that one in two seconds.

“I hear you! I totally hear you,” Amanda said behind me. She sounded relieved.

She hesitated, then asked, her voice small, “It’s not me, is it? Did I do something?

Because if I did, I think we should talk about it.”

I took my foot off the garbage can lever. The lid closed with a snap.

She bravely pressed on. “I don’t want us to start the year off on the wrong foot or anything.”

I suppressed a sigh.

“No, of course not. It’s me. I’m sorry I’ve been so weird. School is just… it’s just getting to me.”

Her voice sounded rosier at this small validation.

“I’m sorry you’ve been so stressed! Is there anything I can do to help?”

I spun around quickly.

“Nope! Oh no, no, you’ve got your own shit. I got it under control,” I said, my words staccato. I grimaced. My new smile. “But we should plan that camping trip soon, like, really nail it down.”

She brightened. My smile hardened.

“That would be fun! I would love that.”

“Yeah, of course. Same.”

We stayed like that in the kitchen for a moment, me standing near the trash like the trash I was, Amanda primly seated at the table, gazing up at me. I began to walk past her and she got up suddenly. Wrapped her arms around me. I stiffened.

“If you need anything - anything at all - don’t hesitate to ask me,” she said into my hair.

“Oh, believe me. I won’t.”

I mentally counted to ten, then leaned away from her. I wanted to hurt her, yield my indifference as a shiv. It was so quiet. I could hear cars from the highway that cut near our apartment whirring in the distance.

“I need a cig.”

I moved to leave her in the kitchen with her good intentions hovering in the air.

She’d tried to build a bridge and I laid the foundation for a wall instead. It was small, but it was a start.

Her smile fell as I fished around in my purse for my lighter and beat-up pack of

Marlboros. “Oh, okay. You know, cigarettes are really -”

I let our front door slam on the end of her sentence.

What can I say? Hurt people hurt people.

I cut out a lot that semester. I didn't sign up for the intramural volleyball team I’d joined my freshman year after my friend Carrie asked me over text how my summer was.

I began to avoid the dining hall when Cameron, a former hallmate, spotted me in line with a sparse tray, cheerfully waved me over and invited me to join him. Class became enemy territory after my third week when my one of my favorite professors asked how my summer internship went. I didn’t want to admit to her that after Abby died, I had stopped going, citing “health issues.” It was unpaid, so after I ghosted them, aside from sending me a terse email, they made no other attempts to follow up.

And then I met Angie .

You never know from just meeting a person how big a part of your life they’re going to be. I wish some people came with warning bells, though knowing me back then,

I would have taken those as an invitation. I first met her in a class we shared. An elective,

I think. I didn’t pay her much attention at the beginning; my eyes were glazed over and my ears were already hardening against whatever lecture the faceless teacher started the semester off with.

We were midway through some PowerPoint presentation - about newspapers, the economy, how puppies were made, who fucking knows - when there was a loud bang. I looked up, startled. A girl in an oversize green army jacket and long black hair twisted into a braid rushed in and frantically looked around for an open seat, finally settling into the one right in front of me. The professor was annoyed.

“Excuse me?”

The class was suddenly interested, glazed over eyes turning away from laptops to witness whatever disruption was about to unfold. The girl was still getting situated in her seat. A whiff of her drifted over to me. Coconut… and something else.

“Are you in the right classroom?”

The girl was bent over and grabbing stuff out of her backpack - pens, wrinkled sheets of notebook paper. The professor waited for her to answer. The class watched the professor waiting for her to answer. The girl didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she fished a giant Dell laptop out of her backpack, smacked it onto her desktop, and opened it up.

Finally, she looked up at the professor.

“Did you hear my question? We’re halfway through today’s lecture and you’re being very disruptive.”

The girl looked taken aback. Something about her utter ease up until that point told me she was used to getting her own way. Controlling the room.

“Oh - wow - I - sorry. I’m so sorry for my tardiness.”

The professor switched tabs on the screen and scrolled through her attendance list.

“Are you registered for this class? Are you sure you’re in the right spot?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

“Angie. Angie Enriquez.”

The professor scrolled through her attendance list and there it was: Enriquez,

Angie. The girl, Angie, spoke up hurriedly.

“I’m so sorry for being late, professor - I live downtown and well, I realized on my drive here I started my period.”

There were titters from the class; one girl’s mouth hung open in shock. Angie pressed on. I was impressed with either her sheer lack of self-awareness or the fact she couldn’t be bothered to be coy.

“So, unfortunately, I had to turn around and grab some tampons. You know how expensive they are -”

The professor waved her hands. Angie fell silent.

“Ms. Enriquez, we don’t need to know why you were late today. Your late arrival has already wasted ten minutes of our class time.”

The teacher hesitated. The class waited. What was the verdict?

“I’ll give you a pass, but make sure you’re on time for all future courses.”

Angie bowed her head. I couldn’t see her face, but she looked like she was tipping forward in mock apology.

“Won’t happen again. My apologies for the disruption.”

Except, of course it did. Each week, Angie would get to class late. I memorized her routine. At fifteen minutes past, she would enter the classroom, quietly shut the door behind her (as opposed to the first day), then scan the room for an open seat. I had taken to sitting further and further in the back as my motivation to do well in the class waned and I always made sure there was an open seat near me. Whenever Angie would enter the room, I’d hold my breath, and watch her out of the corner of my eye. The Former Me had been a rules-following person but Angie’s consistent inability to do what authority figures told her to - this was an attitude I could get behind.

The seeds for our friendship were sown the way most college friendships start - through an in-class group activity. Instead of contributing to whatever stupid exercise we had been assigned, Angie held court. I was her only willing participant. Starry-eyed, I listened as she told me how she liked to write poetry, her stuff was really quality, she could add me on Facebook so I could see what she was working on, she was just coming back to college, she fucked up her freshman year, was in the honors college and everything but blew off classes in favor of bumps of cocaine and twelve hour acid trips.

Our other two group members began to avoid her eyes after hearing that story.

You had to be in the right mood to talk to Angie - otherwise, she’d verbally steamroll you.

She had just been fired from her hostessing job at Applebee’s when we started hanging out. She had simply stopped going. She was a marvel to me. A girl who casually

took each day as it came and never asked herself, “Where am I headed? Who will I be next year?”

I wanted to be like her. Or at least, learn the art of not giving a shit from her.

I began spending more and more time with her at her prompting. She asked me to grab a beer after class one night. I told her I was only twenty and she waved her hand dismissively.

“Bro, I know people,” she said. “I’ve been going out to these bars downtown since I was seventeen. I know all of the places we can get a drink and no one’s going to hassle us.”

She floored me. It wasn’t long before we were hanging out constantly. Angie always led and I followed. We built a friendship off giggling in diners at midnight, spending afternoons in local breweries, or on our hangover days, drinking PBR by the

Grand River in the bitter autumn afternoons before tossing in the crumpled up cans, promising to do community service or something in the future to make up for our laziness. And not once did I feel it necessary to specify I was in the After.

Being with her distracted me from the ways my anxiety had started to come out.

Me digging craters in my face, trying to extract some blackhead that wasn’t there. Me posting on social media for the likes, only to take down badly posed and pouty selfies minutes later.

To make an attempt to escape my obsessive thoughts, I liked asking people what they feared. I thought it made me come off as smart. Edgy. Not the young adult with the headline plastered across her forehead. For Angie, the answer was easy.

“Waking up in a box, no memory of how I got there,” she told me over truffle fries, chewing with her mouth open, fixing me in the spotlight of her intense, non- blinking stare. It was October. We had officially been friends for a month, not that it mattered. Rather than focusing on my schoolwork, I had begun to funnel my energy into becoming Angie’s go-to friend. As a result, the days blended together and stretched on endlessly as class slowly became less of a priority. “It’s dark and I slowly suffocate to death over the course of a few days. Like, being buried alive. Basically.”

“Hm,” I returned, trying to look thoughtful. Truthfully, I didn’t know where I wanted this conversation to go. Abby was always better at this sort of fake intellectualism than I was.

“Why do you ask me the most ridiculous questions?” Angie’s voice cut through my internal reverie like a straight line cut by a straw to a shard of glass mirror. “You think you’re some kind of smartypants?”

“I just wanna get to know your mind, baby,” I wheezed, trying to imitate the old bent-over busboy who always cleared our table at this diner. Instead of meeting her eyes,

I worked on chopping my plastic straw around the ice cubes stacked in my green cloudy

Coke glass that held Diet Pepsi. It was two a.m. on a Wednesday morning and we were sitting in this particular diner because it still was open and the servers mostly left us alone. I had class at eight a.m. but at that point I hadn’t been in two weeks. I was still convinced I could make it up later. Plus, I liked feeling free. Feeling like an outlaw.

Angie snorted, dug a cold wilted fry into a paper carton of ketchup. Her black eyes bored into mine until I had to look away. I was always afraid Angie could actually hear what I was thinking and maybe that was why she never asked me about myself.

I shrugged, looking up and smiling in what I deemed a polite way as the server set two milkshakes in front of us, one vanilla and one chocolate. Waxy cherries sat in beds of canned whipped cream.

Angie grinned as she reached over, snatched the chocolate shake and stuck the cherry in her mouth.

“When’s the last time you had sex?” she asked loudly on purpose. I told her to shut the fuck up, where was she raised, a barn? talking even more loudly to compensate for the blush rising in my cheeks. For as tough as I talked, I was an easily embarrassed prude.

“What are you, a virgin? You don’t have to be embarrassed, Charlotte Full of

Grace.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m being serious, you know,” she continued. “You’ve seem stressed. Only one cure for that. Trust me.”

“And what do you prescribe, doctor?” I scoffed, pouring the mini bottle of vodka

I had tucked inside my downy coat into the vanilla milkshake now sitting in front of me, folding the syrupy Heaven Hill into the shake. Angie was the one that taught me it was okay to drink all day, everyday. We were young. Our livers could handle it. “You gonna stage an intervention for me? Line up a row of dudes and let me take my pick?”

Angie’s phone buzzed. She snatched it off the table and swiped the lock screen open with her thumb. I waited. I didn’t have to ask, but I knew who it was from the way she giggled.

“I know,” she snorted after she sent a text. “I’ll lend you Matt. God knows he’s always looking for a way to cheat on me that I’d approve.”

She said it lightly, but her joke fell flat. She never could look me in the eyes when she was telling the truth.

“Wow, look who we have here - the queen of generosity,” I wadded up my straw wrapper and threw it at her to distract her from another blush rising in my cheeks. The wrapper bounced off her nose and she cackled a little too loudly. Matt. Her boyfriend of six years, with whom she had lived for five in a house he owned on Grand Rapids’ north side. I’d only met him a few times, but each time I did I had to mentally check how much

I giggled at the things he said, how much attention I paid to the inflated, overblown wisdom he was so fond of spouting. Criticism of the government or whatever.

“Oh yeah, I could see Matt going for that. He’s greedy though - he’d probably want us both.”

“Put him in the middle, we’ll give him a real show.”

Angie threw her head back and laughed. “The middle? What does that even mean?”

We continued to trade barbs as the server dropped off our bills. We left crumpled bills and various coins on the table and stood up, wrapping ourselves in too-long scarves and knit caps. We might have forgotten to tip. We squealed as we opened the door and were smacked in the face by icy winds. Angie gave me a hug as she walked to her car.

“Take it easy, girl. I’ll text you tomorrow.”

I waved to her and began my trek home. I had lied, told her I only lived a few blocks away. In reality, it would take more like two hours to trudge up Lake Michigan

Drive back to my shitty cinderblock apartment. I preferred it, though. I liked the punishment of walking at night, under the cold eye of the full, low-hanging moon.

As I walked, I thought of all the ways I wanted to be like Angie. I wanted to become her, absorb her problems and try them on. Surely they were better than mine.

EMAIL EXCHANGE

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: October 26, 2015

Subject Line: Regarding Midterms

Dear Charlotte,

I noticed you have stopped coming to class this semester. Is everything alright?

We recently held our midterm exam and since you missed that examination, your grade has fallen to a 38.7%. I am afraid that without making a real effort to catch up, you may fail this class. I know this is your final year and I do want to remind you this class is a requirement for graduation. Please reach out to me if you have any questions. I would like to get you back on the right track, but I need you to put in effort as well.

Best,

Professor Galvin

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: October 26, 2015

Subject Line: RE: Regarding Midterms

Dear Professor Galvin,

Thank you so much for reaching out. I am so sorry about missing the midterm examination. I have been dealing with some personal issues at home and completely mixed up when we were holding the exam. If there is any chance I could make it up, I would be so, so grateful.

Thank you for your time.

Best,

Charlotte Day

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: October 26, 2015

Subject Line: RE:RE: Regarding Midterms

Hi Charlotte,

Glad to hear from you. Of course you can make up the exam. I would hate to see such a high-achieving student fail this class. We can reschedule your exam during my office hours. Can you come in this Thursday, Oct. 29?

Warmly,

Professor Galvin

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: October 26, 2015

Subject Line: RE:RE:RE: Regarding Midterms

Dear Professor Galvin,

Thank you so much for your understanding of my situation. I really appreciate it. I will see you on Thursday!

Best,

Charlotte

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: October 29, 2015

Subject Line: RE:RE:RE:RE: Regarding Midterms

Hi Charlotte,

Just a reminder that you will be taking your midterm exam in my office today!

Remember, my office hours are from 1-3 p.m. in SU 303.

See you soon,

Professor Galvin

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: October 29, 2015

Subject Line: RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: Regarding Midterms

Hi Charlotte,

It is now 2 p.m. I haven’t heard from you yet today. Have you forgotten you were scheduled to retake your exam?

I will be here until 3 p.m., but I cannot stay after that time.

Professor Galvin

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: October 29, 2015

Subject Line: RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: Regarding Midterms

Charlotte,

You disappoint me.

Regards,

Professor Galvin

MOVING ON UP

After I failed to attend or make up any of my class midterms, Angie and I decided

I should move into her and Matt’s house.

Halloween had just passed and we’d gone as the twins from The Shining.

Everyone we met loved our costumes. I loved the fact that we were required to always hold one another’s hands so everyone would know I was with her. In the circles Angie ran in, people were beginning to learn my name.

And Angie knew so many people.

There was the crowd from The Pink Flamingo, where we sang karaoke on

Thursday nights. Old grizzled men crowded around the bar drinking PBR who told us what beautiful girls we were, could they buy us a drink? Then there was the twentysomething crowd from Ionia Street, a few of whom we’d see every night we went out. Bartenders with thick tattooed arms who would sneak us shots. Thin cocktail waitresses in pushup bras who had memorized our drink orders: for Angie, a double seven-and-seven. For me, a diet Coke and rum. Angie had opened me up to a world where you never had to be alone. There was always something going on, I realized. You just had to know the right people.

That day in early November, we were lying on the floor in Matt and Angie’s living room in stale sweatpants, whining about our headaches. It was five o’clock in the afternoon.

The conversation went something like this:

My phone buzzed. I turned my head slightly to see who was texting and groaned.

“Fucking Amanda.”

“Who?” Angie continued to stare skyward, her face shrouded thanks to the fading

autumn sun. Their house was a mess - their bathroom reeked of alcohol-infused bile,

which we dealt with by closing the door. Clean laundry intermingled with dirty laundry

on the hardwood floor where we lay and complained. We had draped our hungover

bodies over the scattered clothing rather than lay on the couch or the bed.

I threw a wadded up sock at her. Dirty or clean, I couldn’t tell. “You know who.

My fucking roommate. I can’t fucking stand her, I honestly think I’ve had it up to here.”

“What’s she doing that’s so annoying?”

“I don’t know. Talking to me? At all? Like, I wish she’d leave me the fuck

alone.”

Angie giggled. She’d met Amanda once when she and I had stopped by my

apartment to pick up the weed I’d left there one night. I’d greeted the couchbound

Amanda tersely, as I had become accustomed to doing, and strode right by her, leaving

Angie standing in the doorway. In that moment, I was embarrassed. Here was my cool

new friend crossing paths with the dorky vestige of a former life I was doing my best to

shed. I didn’t bother to introduce them. At that point, it had become rare for me even to

spend the night at my apartment. Amanda continued to text me, though. And I began to

ignore her.

Hey! Are u coming home tonight?

Hey, I noticed we’re running low on almond milk and I’m at the store. Do you

need me to pick anything else up?

Charlotte!!!!! I haven’t heard from u in a week. Are u ok?

Each text message was a Dahmer-like drill into my skull. She meant well. But we’d never ended up going on that Ludington camping trip.

“That girl sucked,” Angie offered. “I know I only met her for twenty minutes, but

I could just tell. She definitely seemed uptight.”

I nodded, flipping my phone over. I no longer felt any guilt talking shit about

Amanda. She deserved it, that simpering, controlling, faux-sympathetic bitch.

“We’re supposed to renew the lease soon and I, like, really don’t want to,” I continued. “If I get one more comment from her like, ‘how was class?’ or ‘you seem like you’ve been getting drunk a lot lately. Is that really a good idea with finals and everything coming up?’ I will go fucking bananas. I will punch a wall.”

Angie snorted. Encouraged, I continued.

“I will push her into traffic. I will push myself into traffic. I will kill myself and take her with me. I’d rather live in a cardboard box covered in piss from homeless people than live with her again.”

Angie sat up suddenly, knocking over the glass of water next to her. I yelped and scooted sideways to avoid the slow-forming puddle.

“You should move in here! Like, you’re here all the time anyway. You basically live here.”

I laughed dismissively, but inside, my heart leapt. Angie was fun. Angie was cool, cooler than I’d ever be. Angie ensured I stayed sedated enough to keep thoughts of Abby at bay. Was it really an option?

I looked around their small house. Technically it had two bedrooms, but the second room was crowded with exercise equipment and a desk piled high with even more clothes.

Angie answered the question I hadn’t yet vocalized.

“I know this place is small, but like, we can figure it out. We can take all that shit out of the office room and, like, put your bed in there and stuff. Let’s ask Matt when he gets home and see what he thinks!”

I continued to lie on the floor, acting as though I was still considering her proposal when I’d already made up my mind.

She poked me with her toe. “Well, Ms. Charlotte? What are you thinking?”

My phone buzzed then. I flipped it over. This time, it was a text from my father. I flipped the phone back over and looked up at Angie.

“I think that is a radical solution.”

She clapped her hands, staggered to her feet and skipped over to the kitchen.

“Time for a celebration beer!”

I groaned and rolled over on my side.

“Please...I beg of you. I don’t know if my liver can handle it.”

Unbidden, I mused, They’re not benders anymore when they last entire months. I swallowed the thought back down.

“Nope! You live here now, you abide by our rules.”

I rolled over on my stomach and pushed myself up to my knees. I obediently followed Angie to the kitchen. “You really think I can move in here?”

Angie’s back was to me as she bent over and rooted around in the refrigerator.

She straightened and shut the door, tossing me a tall can of Steel Reserve. “Yeah, why not? You can like help out with rent - or honestly, you don’t have to. Matt makes enough money to pay for this place anyway. You’re paying rent in….hanging out with me.

Two months later, I moved out of my apartment and onto Matt and Angie’s couch.

OBITUARIES

CHARLOTTE Day, The College Career Of. The College Career of Charlotte Day, age

3 ½, passed away in Grand Rapids, Mich. on Friday, Dec. 11, 2015, surrounded by beer cans, yellowed roaches in crowded ashtrays, and a crumpled suspension letter from

Pleasant Valley State University.

The college career was born on a bright August morning in 2011. It enjoyed many successes throughout its brief life, including earning a 3.899 grade point average and gaining recognition from the Dean’s List each semester. Unfortunately, the career began to falter in its fourth year once someone close to it lost the chance to make her own college career a reality. As a result, classes were missed. Assignments were forgotten.

Professors were ignored.

The College Career of Charlotte Day is survived by its more successful counterparts, careers uninterrupted by trauma, grief, and loss.

There will be no burial. There will be no ceremony. Family and friends are unaware of the college career’s expiration at this time.

THE DEATH OF CHARLOTTE DAY WILSON’S CAREER OFFICE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER MICHIGAN, DISTRICT 61 KENT COUNTY 180 OTTAWA NW GRAND RAPIDS MI 49503 MEDICAL EXAMINER REPORT

Name: The College Career of Charlotte Day Medical Examiner #: 05-15- 666 Date of Birth: August 28, 2011 Date of Death: December 11, 2015 Age: Three and a half years County: Kent Date of Exam: December 12, 2015 Time of Exam: 1030 Hours

CAUSE OF DEATH: A gradual decline in Charlotte’s motivation to finish her second-to-last semester of college.

CONTRIBUTORY FACTOR: Unconfronted grief, daily hangovers, and a brain that refused to shut off no matter how hard she tried.

MANNER OF DEATH: Accidental self sabotaging.

“Accredited by the National Association of Bullshit Medical Examiners”

SUMMARY OF CLINICAL HISTORY:

The deceased is the college career of a twenty-one year old Caucasian female who attended a liberal arts university located among acres of swaying Midwest cornfields. The college career itself had no past history of complications. In fact, judging from its documentation on social media until late 2015, it seemed that the female behind the college career, a young woman named Charlotte, was thriving and enjoying her newfound independence from a suffocating yet supportive set of parents. Throughout the first three years of its life, Charlotte’s college career survived despite many attempts to derail it, including weekend-long partying benders at other universities, entire weekdays eaten up by paper sheets of hallucinogens, and too much attention funneled into failed romantic relationships. In fact, it thrived due to Charlotte’s steady 3.899 grade point average, activity in the college’s volleyball club, and therapy appointments once a week for assistance with anxiety attacks.

Once in awhile, Charlotte broke down due to stress. Too many essays, projects, and time commitments on her plate. But that’s to be expected. Most college students falter once in awhile.

During the fall semester of 2015, the college career experienced its first rupture when

Charlotte reported to a new friend she was experiencing symptoms one might associate with a heart attack, including tachypnoea and an elevated heart rate. This anxiety likely was driven by her newfound inability to attend her classes or submit assigned work.

Charlotte was alerted several times by email throughout the semester her grades were slipping and thT if her GPA dipped below 2.0, she would be put on academic probation,

ejected from the honors college, and potentially suspended from the university. Despite these outside stressors, her motivation continued to drop. Upon receiving the final warning notification in November of 2015, Charlotte experienced tachypnoea at 40 breaths per minute with an oxygen saturation of ninety percent. The email was accompanied by a request for a meeting with the dean of the honors college, who attempted to discern the reason(s) for Charlotte’s lack of interest in her final year of college. Charlotte begrudgingly attended the meeting and refused to make eye contact with the dean despite her many attempts to engage Charlotte. Upon leaving the meeting,

Charlotte’s motivation to finish school dropped drastically as Charlotte began to give up more intensely.

Two weeks after the meeting, the college career became unresponsive. Upon receiving the formal letter that she had been suspended from the university due to her poor academic transcript, Charlotte’s heart smacked against her ribcage so hard she thought she felt her chest cracking in two. After the episode passed, she swore to herself she would not tell her parents what had happened and this setback was fixable; she could and would raise her grades the following semester. She then immediately turned on The

Bachelor while rubbing feeling back into the part of her chest where her heart used to be full. Two days later, crumpled suspension letter sitting next to her laptop, Charlotte called the university’s office of tuition and billing services and formally dropped out.

The college career of Charlotte Day was pronounced dead on December 11, 2015.

DESCRIPTION OF GROSS LESIONS: 91

EXTERNAL EXAMINATION: A college career in good health most notably features a healthy GPA and consistent, high-achieving academic track record. An examination of

Charlotte’s transcript shows that while her first four years averaged in the B and A range, in her second-to-last semester, four black, final F’s were stamped for each of the four classes she was taking:

CAS 841 - Social Media Storytelling

ADV 475 - Advertising and Society

ADV 450 - Portfolio Presentation

CAS 110 - Creative Thinking

Though given the option to apply for incomplete grades so the suddenly low GPA would not affect her future semesters at PVSU, Charlotte failed to follow through on the minimal paperwork needed. Despite dropping out, Charlotte earned these F’s on her record fair and square by completely vanishing from all four classes after midterm examinations were completed.

INTERNAL EXAMINATION (BODY CAVITIES):

MOTIVATION TO DO WELL: Charlotte’s academic motivation shows signs of strain - potentially a result of constant anxiety and an abuse of chemical substances. Though once one of her defining characteristics and a major influence on the past success of the college career, recent events severely impacted the motivation, ultimately destabilizing its ability to survive.

SOCIAL LIFE: The once active social life of Charlotte attracted countless friends.

Charlotte used to take initiative in arranging late night study groups and always had a

hard time staying still and eating on campus as a result of the many people she knew and enjoyed joking with. This report concludes that during the fatal semester, her circle shrunk to one person, a reckless and impulsive girl named Angie. Though Charlotte takes great delight in seeing the world through Angie’s eyes, her involvement with Angie directly led to the loss of her other friends. Rather than relying on college friends to hold her accountable and push her to attend her classes, Charlotte instead turned her back on all of them.

PHYSICAL WELLNESS: Studies show that while the stress of school can be detrimental to the survival of college careers, maintaining an active lifestyle can be crucial in providing students with a healthy way to manage stress. A once-active member at the on-campus gym, records show that Charlotte did not make one visit to the weight room or exercise room as soon as school started again. Surprisingly, our examination showed thaqt Charlotte’s lung parenchyma is pink despite her fondness for Marlboro

Menthols, which she bought for $5.46 a pack from the 7-11 that sits kitty corner to the friends’ house where Charlotte spent most of her time. She used to smoke at the picnic table in their backyard, where she sat silently encased in a thin polyester blanket tugged from the living room. The bronchi are irritated and explain Charlotte’s recent brush with and recovery from a month-and-a-half-long battle with bronchitis. A once-healthy eater,

Charlotte’s stomach contains approximately 600 ml of recently digested pizza and the remains of what might optimistically be called beer, which had until recently been sloshing around inside tall grey cans of Steel Reserve, purchased from the aforementioned 7-11. Charlotte’s irritated stomach lining shows signs of having

constantly been churning, either from her nutritiously deficient diet or from anxiety.

Regardless, both resulted in her need to make frequent trips to the bathroom, where she sat for hours while scrolling through her phone, often through the college classes she was supposed to attend. The liver appears to have been functioning normally, but had to process a lot more alcoholic beverages this year than in years past. What cannot be discerned from a physical examination was how long Charlotte planned on continuing to abuse her body in this way. However, results clearly show that Charlotte’s inability to care for her physical body counts as one of the factors behind the expiration of her college career.

ATTENDANCE RECORD: Judging from Charlotte’s attendance records, while she was able to push herself to attend the first month and a half consistently, she all but disappeared from campus by midterms. Confused, professors dutifully marked her absent with each session she failed to attend, though did attempt to check in with her. Their emails were never opened by Charlotte and professors were forced to fail her for her attendance grades.

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS: Similar to her attendance record, Charlotte was able to consistently turn in assignments her first month and a half back at school. Indeed, trips to the library were initially an excuse to avoid the legitimately concerned roommate,

Amanda. However, as Charlotte began to trade in studying for partying, her ability to turn in her work started to suffer. Once Charlotte failed to make up her midterm exams, her ability to turn in assignments similarly expired.

STUDY HABITS: Charlotte’s study habits began to wane in favor of trying to complete homework she was assigned in front of the television. Initially excited for her Portfolio

Presentation class, where she would work on a campaign of her design all semester,

Charlotte began to procrastinate until it was clear she would never finish her project in time (indeed, she never started). When she could get her hands on study aides like

Adderall, Charlotte instead channeled that newfound focus into paint-by-numbers kits or deep cleaning her kitchen as her bemused roommate watched from the doorway.

Charlotte often complained she was tired, which likely was due to the fact the endocrine system was not producing melatonin. As the semester wore on, Charlotte always was able to find an excuse to put off studying, culminating in repeatedly talking herself out of the futility of trying to cram for exams in the hours that led up to them.

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: While this report would like to be generous and allow that going out to the bars daily can be a successful networking activity, an inability to continue with extracurricular activities made college a less fun place to be. Instead of maintaining toned arms by participating in the volleyball club, Charlotte’s fingernails are chipped due to the days she spent flicking through television channels with a remote or aimlessly tapping through various phone apps. In fact, Charlotte withdrew from all social activities this year without warning. They were the first to go.

TOXICOLOGY REPORT: Charlotte tested positive for the following substances: alcohol, nicotine, Nyquil, marijuana, and cocaine. With the exception of Adderall, it can be inferred the combination of these substances heavily influenced Charlotte’s lack of

motivation, ultimately contributing to her failure to finish her final year of her undergraduate degree.

WORK/LIFE BALANCE: Judging from Charlotte’s social media streams, it appears this year her attention to school has fallen by the wayside in favor of constant partying.

However, when compared to images taken at a cranial CT scan several years before, the brain has changed. Now, there are fault lines that suggest fixation. Obsession. The ways

Charlotte views the world and her place in it has altered entirely. Though once cheerful and optimistic, the loss she has suffered has changed the way her brain processes emotions. The amygdala, the part of the brain that controls anxiety, shows signs of frequent activity. The hypothalamus, once successful in allowing Charlotte to access to emotions like love began to trap her in frustration, anger, and bitterness. Unwarranted fears pervaded Charlotte’s mind as a result. Her brain became so overcrowded with these negative emotions, there was no room for dedication to school.

CLINICOPATHOLOGIC CORRELATION

Charlotte’s college career died as soon as it became clear that school could not be a priority in the wake of her summer of loss. The most significant finding on the autopsy report was the presence of an initial willingness to try to complete classes. However, no concrete follow-through plan was enacted. Instead, those good intentions fell apart like lined paper bleeding into a puddle of melted snow (Charlotte, in a fit of rage at herself one November night, threw all of her school supplies into the muddy front yard of her friend’s house while Angie laughed). Therefore, the fatal event was caused not by

Charlotte’s lack of intelligence but rather Charlotte’s inability to admit she still was grieving a burial that had only taken place a few months prior. This created a high pressure situation her college career could not handle, resulting in its expiration. It is unclear at this time if this complication is a temporary setback or a permanent, life- altering event.

In summary, Charlotte’s college career died as a result of a disease that mimics the symptoms of the phenomena “broken heart syndrome.” The chest pain she experienced throughout the semester was most likely caused by a temporary disruption of her heart's normal pumping function, caused by the heart's reaction to a surge of stress hormones.

The examination of Charlotte’s physical body, her academic transcript, and her college social life suggest she was stuck in the fourth stage: depression.

SUMMARY AND REFLECTION:

While it is not possible for someone to die of a broken heart, it is entirely possible for them to let the things that once kept them going die around them until they have nothing left to hold onto. Charlotte found it doesn’t happen all at once. First, it was going to the first few weeks of class with the best intentions, pushing away that internal whisper timidly requesting time alone to process one’s feelings. This is called denial. Then it was looking at assignments on the computer before snapping it shut and shaking her head.

These missed assignments became ‘zeroes.’ Charlotte resurfaced from grief around midterms to realize for the first time in her life, she might actually fail something. This

epiphany culminated in an initial frenzy of frantic emails to overburdened college professors, begging them to let her make up those assignments. This is called anxiety.

Some professors acquiesced while others held their ground. As the end of the semester loomed, Charlotte’s bed and bars on Ionia Street became preferable to the classroom. The once-promising student began to scare herself. She made excuses. How was she expected to focus amongst these other students, with their clean ponytails, Apple computers, and student organization affiliations? Her chest continued to harden as the semester pressed forward and her throat mercilessly constricted. Some mornings she lay in bed for several hours, willing her heart palpitations to slow. Charlotte began to learn what it was like to drown on dry land. She considered going to the school’s therapist, but canceled appointment after appointment. This is called unmooring. It all resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy: I cannot go on.

This report concludes that unless she regains her motivation in a healthy way, Charlotte does not deserve a chance for redemption. Until that point, there will be no revival of her academic future. There will be no resuscitation.

CHRISTMAS FUCKUP

Ah, the holidays. Typically a time where most college students look forward to sleepwalking through their finals week, partying their faces off for a few days after they wrap up said half-assed finals, then heading home to their respective hometowns for several weeks, and getting spoiled by Mom and Dad for a job well done in dodging

Minor-in-Possession charges and maintaining C averages.

I used to love Christmas. There was nothing more satisfying than finishing my exams, attending the final end-of-the-semester blowout in whatever off-campus apartment complex was relevant at the time, and knowing I’d be going to my parents’ house with their full refrigerator and cable television.

This year, I had been dreading the inevitable visit to the House of Death all semester. And now that I had officially dropped out, I wasn’t sure how I was going to deflect any questions about how school was going.

2015 had been a year of firsts. The first time I had failed at something. The first time I’d severed all connections with people who actually cared about me. The first

Christmas we were going to celebrate without my sister. I guess that was the big one.

I reflected on my year in the Flamingo Lounge, where I sat with Angie. We drank

Bud Light from cloudy beer glasses. Matt was playing a show and Angie had made it clear that if I missed the show, we were no longer friends. So I had gotten there early, kicking open the front door and shaking out the snow from my hair as I settled at a cheap red table in front of the bar’s tiny stage.

Angie sat across from me, her palms warm in her fingerless gloves. She ate the peanuts in front of her with no consideration over how long they might have been sitting out. I tried not to stare at the twinkling holiday lights that wrapped around the bar, framing her in a halo.

“Earth to Charlotte.”

I flinched as Angie threw a peanut at me. I tried to dodge it, but I felt it plink against my cheek. I picked it off the table and ate it.

“Throwing peanuts? I’m not a circus freak.”

She grinned, chiding, “You’re not even here right now. I was trying to tell you about what that bitch Christa said to me at work.”

I folded my arms, the sleeves of my oversized thrift store sweater puffing out.

“I was listening.”

She rolled her eyes.

“You just live in your own little world, don’t you?”

I changed the subject then, annoyed. Sure, Angie had no problem ignoring me when we were out and there were plenty of people around to listen to her hold court, but the second she didn’t have my undivided attention, she had to call me out on it. I swallowed. Abby had been the same way.

“What are you gonna do without me the next two weeks while I’m home? You’re gonna go crazy with nothing to do.”

She sighed. “Another boring Christmas. We’ll spend Christmas Eve at Matt’s mom’s house up north - it’s this tiny town, Brethren. By Manistee. It’s, like, the one time a year we see her. It’s always weird. I fuckin’ hate it up there. It’s one of those shithole

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places where everyone knows everyone and if you’re not from there, you stick out like a sore thumb.”

“That’s lame.”

“Then I’ll probably hear from my dad on Christmas. He usually calls. I’ll have to thank him for whatever bullshit he sent me as a gift. Then, that’s it. We never have anything to talk about beyond that.”

“That sucks.”

She cocked her head then, as though she were probing me. I began to tap my foot nervously.

“You’re lucky, you know. Your dad calls you all the time.”

I settled back in my chair. I was genuinely surprised Angie was making an observation about something that wasn’t about her.

“You’ve been looking at my phone?” I tried to say it lightly. I didn’t want to drive her away with my irritation. She was the only person I ever called anymore.

She took a swig from her beer and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Angie was the only person I knew who could do something like that and still look cute. I could see why boys were always tripping over themselves around her.

“Oh, chill out, Char. I mean, you always announce when he’s calling you anyway.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.”

We laughed, chuckles cracking under the bleary effect the rounds of beer were having on us. I could feel myself relaxing as the alcohol took over, my anxieties flowing away.

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“It’s just nice he calls, you know? Not just once in awhile. And you guys actually have stuff to talk about. I don’t know, I just think it’s sweet.”

I nodded, avoided her eyes. Angie had spent the majority of her childhood unaware of who her father even was. When he finally called to meet her when she was ten, he’d revealed that he had been living a few streets over from her mom’s house the entire time. By the time she was a teenager though, she’d lost both parents - her mother to a heroin overdose and her father to Bogota, his hometown in Colombia.

She was right. I was lucky. My father and I had kept in contact all semester, though I returned his calls sporadically. He persisted and his texts only occurred more frequently as I pulled away. He was the only reason I was going home at all. In the weeks leading up to the holiday break, he’d tried to get a hold of me almost every day. I think he just wanted me to have a nice time.

Mom and I are excited to see you. Is there anything you’d like me to pick up from

Meijer?

You never told us what you want for Christmas. Time is running out!

When are your finals done? When can we expect you home tomorrow night?

I opened my mouth to tell Angie I was sorry about being an unrepentant asshole just as the lights dimmed. The show. The whole reason we were here in the first place.

Matt and his bandmates trumped onstage to applause and some scattered hollers from the crowd, Matt leading the way. That is, after all, what the lead guitarist does.

Angie stuck her two fingers in her mouth and whistled, something she did at each of their shows. I saw a small smile form on Matt’s lips, knew he recognized the whistle as hers.

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They ran through their set list, all black hair and oversized hoodies and more swagger than four mediocre white guys in their mid-twenties were entitled to. Some psych rock shit, propelled by a pedal board Matt operated with his foot, sustaining notes, looping melodies, and altering the pitch of the guitar. Sometimes when I came over to their house, I could hear Matt playing guitar in their bedroom, his fingers punching out the beginnings of solos, punctuated by the snap of a lighter and the bubbling of his bong.

When Matt was in the room, I never knew how to position my hands, what I could say so

I didn’t come off as a complete dork.

Angie watched him onstage with absolute adoration, like no one else in the world existed. I could have told her about Abby then and she wouldn’t have heard a word. I watched her watching Matt, her hands folded under her chin, and my chest tightened in envy. Yes, my loneliness stemmed from self-imposed isolation, but I was growing weary of it. What I wouldn’t give to be held, to lie on someone’s chest, for someone to stroke my hair without saying anything.

After the show, we walked up to the stage and Angie went to throw her arms around Matt, who stopped her saying, “wait a minute, babe, I gotta put my gear away.” I noted the signs of disappointment from some of the girls in the room as they mentally jotted down that the cute guitarist was taken.

He chatted with us as he packed up his guitar and board, the drummer in the background putting away his cymbals into flat black zippered bags.

“Babe, you guys were so good tonight!” Angie squealed over and over. Beer had a way of giving her temporary memory loss, requiring her to repeat everything she said.

Matt was bent over, unplugging his board.

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“It went okay tonight. I fucked up the solo in ‘Magneto’ though, which everybody probably heard.”

He looked up at us for verification. We both shook our heads frantically, declaring we had no idea what he was talking about, what mistake? He smiled bashfully.

I blushed, grateful for the dark lighting.

I was thoroughly drunk and a walk was in order. I squeezed Angie’s arm, told her

I was going to take off.

She hugged me. “Man, what am I gonna do for the next two weeks? Do you really have to go?”

I laughed, promised I’d make it back as soon as I could. My chest warmed at the thought of being missed.

“You guys were great, Matt,” I squeaked out, hoping neither he nor Angie picked up on how my voice shook. He nodded curtly.

“Thanks for coming.”

I tramped through the bar’s front door, skidding in the snow piled on the sidewalk. In less than twelves hours, I’d be heading back home. To what, exactly, I had no idea.

The next morning, I stumbled to my car, my head a throbbing ache and my eyes squinting against the chilly, blindingly sunny morning. I shoved a few overnight bags into my backseat and scraped ice off the window of a vehicle I had barely driven all semester (being drunk 24/7 makes the bus system an attractive and necessary option).

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I got behind the driver’s seat, started the car. I shivered as heat blasted through the vents, at first coming out in icy gusts. I rubbed my hands together until the car finally thawed. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed to the freeway.

I only had to endure fourteen days at the House of Death. It wouldn’t be that bad,

I tried to encourage myself. It would be over before I knew it.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that Christmas was canceled at our house that year.

And yet, any hope I had of spending the holidays normally sank when my car crunched onto our gravel driveway. Our house was flanked by a Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer display to its left, and on the right, a combination manger display in the yard and menorah in the window, courtesy of our interfaith neighbors. Our darkened house looked abandoned. Without glittery, optimistic holiday lights, our house was a gap tooth in the smile that was our cul-de-sac.

I couldn’t help but think about how much had changed in a year. One year ago, I was still enrolled in classes, for one thing. One year ago, Abby had answered the door then, excitedly pulling me inside and carrying my bags upstairs unprompted. The house had been warm, ablaze with light. Dinner was on the table after I got settled in my childhood room: creamy lasagna, steamed greens, and red wine from Trader Joe’s. Abby had been in a good mood. There were no arguments at the table. Instead, my parents had asked how my classes were going and were delighted to hear I’d once again pulled off straight A’s.

“That’s excellent, Char, really excellent,” my father had said, spooning a heap of steaming pasta onto my plate. My mother had refilled my wine glass and smiled at me.

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After dinner, Abby had excitedly pulled me aside to tell me how she and Kris had both gotten into Michigan State. Now they would never have to be apart.

I had rolled my eyes but smiled. It had been nice to be home. I had missed them.

I struggled to recall the peals of Abby’s laughter as I tripped up the dilapidated walkway to our porch. The house was falling apart. It was clear the bushes that lined the walkway hadn’t been trimmed since the summer and one of the shutters had fallen off completely, still resting on the porch.

I knocked on the door. And waited. And waited.

Minutes passed. It was cold. Frustrated, I began banging on the door. Finally, it flew open.

My mother. We hadn’t spoken in months at this point. I didn’t know how I was supposed to act around her, what I was supposed to say. She squinted, like she was trying to figure out who was standing on her doorstep in the middle of the day. She looked thinner than the last time I had seen her, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

She opened her slender arms.

“Hi, honey,” she said.

Uneasily, I shifted the bags I was carrying and leaned into the hug.

“Hi, Mom.”

I shuffled past her into our front room and she shut the door behind me. And immediately went back upstairs.

I looked around, squinting in the dimness of the foyer. The house was cold.

Literally freezing - money was tight since my mother had quit her job without giving notice in August and, well, funerals are expensive. Over the next few days, I learned that

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lights were never turned on during the day to save on the electricity bill. I decided against asking my father about the thermostat set at sixty four degrees. Instead, I piled on sweaters and extra layers of leggings.

All of our Christmas decorations still slept in dusty boxes in our basement. My father and I frequently ate together those two weeks, but my mother’s appearances at the kitchen table were rare. I discovered I wasn’t the only one finding solace in a bottle; our recycling bin outside featured a small mountain of frostbitten wine bottles.

Christmas Eve arrived without ceremony. This year, there would be no visiting with my father’s parents and my cousins, and no attending Mass at St. Andrew’s. No meeting up with old high school friends to compare how our senior years were going.

There would be no A Christmas Story marathon on TBS, no leaving out cookies for Santa

(Abby always insisted), no candles lit on the table. I decided not to bring up the subject of presents, mainly because I hadn’t gotten my parents anything.

On Christmas morning, I descended the stairs half-expecting Santa had visited in the middle of the night. Maybe a Christmas miracle had happened while the three remaining members of my family slept. Maybe I would get to the bottom of those stairs and my family would still be intact. Instead, I sat at the kitchen table looking through my phone until my father came downstairs.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” he said, squeezing my shoulder on his way to the

Keurig machine. He popped a small coffee pod into the canister, pumped the lever. The machine whirred. I shivered.

His mug full, my father placed an envelope on the table and sat across from me.

He gestured to the envelope while raising his coffee to his lips.

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I opened it silently and pulled out two hundred dollar bills. I looked up at him wordlessly.

“Your present. From your mother and me.”

I bit my lip.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“I know Christmas hasn’t been...the same this year.”

I bristled. A better daughter would have brushed it off, leaned over and hugged her father for the gift.

“Yeah. Do I even have a mother anymore?”

My dad sighed. “You know, it’s been…” He stopped. “We’re both really proud of you for, you know. Going back to school. After what happened.”

A lump rose in my throat.

“I don’t hear from you that much. I hope it’s going well.”

I swallowed.

“You’ve always been so smart, Char,” my dad continued. “I know this year hasn’t been easy on you. It hasn’t been easy on any of us. But Abby would be so proud of you right now.”

I coughed, then laughed. Snot shot out of my nose. I wiped it on the back of my sleeve. I had to deflect, get away from the whole subject of school.

“Dad. Why the fuck would Abby care about me being at school?”

My dad leaned back in his chair. Despite everything that had happened, I still had never sworn in front of him. I didn’t look him in the eye.

“Charlotte -”

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“Newsflash, Dad - Abby isn’t thinking anything right now. Nada. Zip.”

My voice was shaking. I could feel my face heating up like my mother had pressed an iron to it.

“If she was, if Abby was thinking anything at all right now, I would hope that she’d be thinking about how satisfied she is that she’s reduced us all to this. She finally got what she wanted! Bravo to the drama queen. She always needed everyone’s attention and you know what, I have to commend her - she’s found a way to make sure she’ll always be at the center. Everything from here on out is about her. Actually, everything will be about how we’re without her.”

My dad sat there silently.

“It doesn’t matter what I do,” my voice kept rising. “I’m always going to be second best to the memory of her.”

“Is that what this is, Charlotte? A competition?”

“That’s what Mom’s decided, right?”

I was crying now. Four months of a stopped-up well soaking my shirt.

“Where’s Mom? Why won’t she talk to me? Why won’t she look at me? Why can’t she forgive me? I said I was sorry. I’m tired of feeling sorry. It’s not enough for her.”

I began to shout that last part at the ceiling, aiming for where my mother no doubt was lying in Abby’s bed.

My dad rose to his feet then then, his words sharp as flint. He was on the verge of breaking, of slapping me or hurling his cup at the wall, but he kept it together. My dad wasn’t a child. I will always love him for that.

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“Listen. Little girl.”

I stared at the floor, but shrank in my chair, bringing my elbows close to my sides.

“You think you’re alone in this? While you’ve been doing God-knows-what at college, ignoring your mother and me, we have had to figure out how to keep this house going with one child, not two. We’ve had to rethink what we first visualized as our family. We used to have two futures to plan for, keep an eye on, but now that we only have one that doesn’t make it any easier. We - I - we feel that hole that Abby left behind every day. Every day. And now you choose to have a temper tantrum? You want to feel special, you want all our attention? Too bad. You can’t have it right now. You need to wait.”

My dad never yelled. Even then, his voice barely broke the sound barrier. His speech done, he waited for me to say something. He sat back down. His eyes softened, remorse that he’d lost his temper.

“Char -”

I shrugged.

“You’re the man of the house. The man of the house has spoken.”

My dad ground his folded hands into his eyes.

“I wanted to try to have a nice Christmas. Despite everything.”

“Well, I’m sorry I got in the way of that very admirable goal,” I said, rising. “I need to get out of here. I need some air.”

My dad didn’t look up as I left the kitchen. Father and daughter retreated to opposite sides of the house to smoke.

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The rest of the day, my father and I ate cold deli sandwiches made from scraps in the refrigerator, sat in the living room, sipped Schnapps and watched forgettable holiday movies playing on AMC. I could have strangled the Grinch. I could have stolen the little drummer boy’s instrument and punted him off a bridge. I could have held a pillow over

Baby Jesus’ face. We didn’t speak about our argument. Instead, I glowered. I could tell my father felt bad about losing his temper earlier, but I refused to forgive him. Someone had to pay. I didn’t want it to be me.

But, I’d done it. I’d gotten their younger daughter killed. Then, I’d made it all about myself. Christmas was ruined. I left for Grand Rapids that night, silently, under the cover of the moon.

The morning after Christmas, I started packing up my apartment, taking advantage of the fact that Amanda was at home in Rockford, probably still unwrapping

Christmas presents, exchanging hugs with her siblings, and telling her parents she loved them. We’d once been so close and now she was so far away I couldn’t even make sense of how she got up at eight a.m. each morning, how she put food into her mouth and actually swallowed it.

I’d texted Angie the second I rolled into Grand Rapids and she immediately answered. It was three a.m. Of course she was awake.

Let me know if u need anything girl! I don’t work tomorrow so I can help you move some of ur stuff to our place.

The next morning, Angie excitedly bobbed around me like a golden retriever as I pulled one of my larger suitcases into her place, her arms piled high with cardboard boxes. I didn’t have much, having sold everything to the guy who was taking my spot at

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my old apartment, an awkward glasses-wearing skater named Todd. To say Amanda was not thrilled with me was an understatement, but I had taken advantage of the fact that she was nonconfrontational.

We’d lived together for three years at that point and I had initially been nervous to tell her I was leaving. I’d anticipated her questions and even practiced deflections in the event she might try to change my mind. I’d distanced myself so much from her by then I don’t know what I was worried about. In fact, I ended up breaking the news to her over an email I sent her. While drunk.

Subject line: On the subject of our lease

Sent: 4:42 a.m.

Heyyyyyy so Im gonna be moving out at the end of the month. Sry to drop

this on u out of nowhere but I wanna live downtown and like so I think this is a

good move for me. But don’t worry I found u a new roommate he’s really cool his

name is todd :)

I had meant for the emoji to lighten up the email. See how much fun we’re having, kids? I could tell by her lack of a response Amanda was angry I was dropping this on her out of nowhere – angrier still that I’d arranged for a roommate, a male one at that, without consulting her first. I began to avoid the apartment even more. I was practically already living at Matt and Angie’s and now I could pocket the money my dad gave me to pay rent. It seemed like the perfect setup. When I was at my old apartment, the icy silence between Amanda and I could have frozen me shut had I had any shame left.

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Todd the Skater wasn’t due to move in until January 15th. I needed to stay busy.

As I packed, I realized I hadn’t thought through anything logically. While my clothes and kitchenware were fairly easy to pack, I didn’t want to deal with the expenses of moving furniture. Todd paid me a cool one hundred and fifty dollars I promptly turned into acid, alcohol, and cocaine.

I barely had anything to my name now. It was getting easier and easier to erase myself from the minds of friends and family, erase myself from the earth. My line of thinking was to shrink my footprint so much that I could run at the drop of a hat.

I officially moved into Matt and Angie’s on New Year’s Eve. I used to love that holiday. I had always looked forward to the hollow promise a new year could bring. Plus,

I craved any opportunity to dress up in something shiny. Angie had promised she would make it up to me, but she was tapped to work that night since it was one of the biggest bar nights of the year, and so couldn’t ring it in with me.

I said it was fine. And it was.

Angie had recently taken on a much-coveted bartending position at the city’s most popular destination, Founder’s Brewing Company, and for once liked the place enough not to fuck her job up. I’d never seen her this focused. I realized I’d be splitting my time between Angie and Matt, as Matt worked first shift during the week, getting home around four p.m. while Angie worked most weekend nights. She said that whenever she was working, she could always slip me a beer. I loved her for that.

Matt. By the time I moved onto his couch, we’d had maybe six conversations.

And now I was going to be living at his house, the one he bought and paid for with his own money. After the last of my boxes were unloaded, I stood awkwardly in the kitchen

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while Angie left to catch the bus to get to her shift at in time. In contrast, I wasn’t working and I didn’t really plan on it. Angie had quietly confirmed that Matt paid for everything; he’d worked his way up at one of the local factories, an auto supplies place, and now was a manager. He made pretty good money, she’d said, her voice warm and proud of her man, her provider. She didn’t need to tell me this, I would soon realize –

Matt was constantly bragging about it.

I stood in the kitchen and flicked through my phone, checking out all my former friends’ Instagram posts about prepping for the New Year. That could have been me in those pictures. I watched it from a place far inside my head. I wasn’t jealous. I was preoccupied. My heart beat at a rapid rate. What was I supposed to do when Matt got here? Play checkers? Hide in his house’s extra room, the one I was allegedly going to take over?

As I pondered my options, I heard the sound I was dreading – the raising of the garage door. I was nervous. While Angie and I spent all of our time together, my interactions with Matt had been limited. I’d seen his band play several times and whenever he wasn’t at work, he was with his bros. While Angie knew a lot of people, I had realized by then I was her closest friend. Matt, on the other hand, seemed to have a never-ending supply of people to call.

I moved to the table, where I sat with my hands wrapped around a glass of water to keep my nervous fingers from twitching too noticeably. The door into the garage cracked and stalled as though the person on the other side was juggling a lot of items in his hands. I half-rose, seized with the need to be polite, and help him in. A second later the door flew open and in strode Matt, having kicked it open with his heavy boots. I was

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right, his arms were full – a twenty four pack of Budweiser and a stiff paper bag of groceries. He looked over at me sitting at the table, maintaining eye contact as he strode over to the island and set down his items. I realized we’d never been alone together in the same room. I swallowed.

“Hey,” he said, his voice low and nasal like he talked while pinching his nose shut. “I’ll be right back.”

“Do you need help with anything?”

“Nah, I got it. Thanks, though. Help yourself to one of those beers. It’s almost the

New Year, right?”

He turned on his heel back into the garage. I helped myself to one of those beers, cracking it open with a stray bottle opener. I returned to my spot at the table as he carried in the rest of the groceries he’d picked up on his way home from work. He began unpacking them, whisking open cupboard doors and throwing packs of ramen, boxes of macaroni and cheese, and other sodium-infused meal prep items inside.

I opened my mouth. “Do you-“

He cut me off, grinning as he smiled back at me over his shoulder. I watched his skinny arms flex inside his heavy coat as he moved each item from bag to counter.

“Thanks, but it’s all good. You just got here, take a breather.”

I smiled thinly in what I hope he knew to be thanks. He made me nervous.

“So, Angie says you’re gonna be crashing here for awhile?”

I took a pull from my beer – already half empty – and set it down on the table in front of me. I thought they’d discussed it more, the subject of me moving in. I hadn’t realized how little input Matt had had on the situation.

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“Yeah. My old roommate was driving me crazy. I just needed to get out of there.

So, like, thank you for letting me stay.”

“No problem. No problem at all.”

He finished unpacking the last of the groceries, then stuffed all of the plastic bags into a small wastebasket underneath the kitchen sink. He pulled one of the Budweisers out of the pack, cracked it, and took a seat at the table across from me. He stretched his long legs underneath the table, accidentally bumping my bare foot with his boot. I flushed and subconsciously drew my foot away. He smiled.

“Whoops. Sorry about that,” His lips open revealed slightly crowded front teeth. I could see why Angie got nervous when he was around other girls. “Relax. I’m not gonna bite ya.”

I giggled in that stupid way some women do when they want to flirt but don’t know what to say. That didn’t matter. Matt was never someone who ran out of things to say. He was most comfortable when he was dominating the conversation, either with

Angie hanging on to whatever word he said or when he was surrounded by local fans of his band. He removed his coat then and hung it on the back of his chair. I stared at the tattoos threading up his arms, disappearing inside his black t-shirt. Cosmic formations, a skull with shakes jutting out its mouth. Nothing terribly original, but I was entranced. I nodded as he told me about his band and the music he was listening to right now, his job at the plant, and how long he’d worked there. I was flush with admiration for him. A real self-made man who was able to still be successful even though his father was an abusive alcoholic.

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“That’s why when I met Angie I just knew I had to look out for her, you know, because it was clear that no one else was going to,” he said four beers later. “Like, no one was ever checking up on me when my old man was beating the shit outta me. I left home when I was eighteen and started working at the plant a year later. Figured out how to pay rent and my own bills and stuff. Never looked back.”

I drained my beer. I’d been trying to keep pace with him and while I had been successful, my words were slightly more slurred, my cheeks slightly more flushed.

“Wow. Do you still, like, talk to your dad?”

Matt drained his beer, burped, and crumpled the can in his fist. I watched his eyes track how mine followed his bicep flex. “Nah,” he said simply. “Not for four years now.”

I clicked my tongue in sympathy. He laughed, reached over and grabbed my beer and replaced it with a new one before I even asked. I liked that. It felt nice to be taken care of.

He looked up at the clock suddenly. It was nine p.m. We’d been talking for three hours. I hadn’t realized the time, spellbound as I was by a cool older cool guy giving me the time of day. “Shit. I didn’t realize it was so late. I gotta go, I got band practice tonight.”

“On New Year’s Eve?”

I tried not to look so crestfallen.

He started gathering up the empty cans and sweeping them into the blue recycling bin next to the trash can. I continued sitting at the kitchen table as if I needed Matt’s permission to get up.

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“Yeah. The music doesn’t wait on anybody. We’ve got some new tracks, I’ll play them for you sometime soon,” he said with a crinkle-eyed smile, disappearing from the kitchen. I smiled back even though my heart was sinking. I had wanted to spend New

Year’s alone but then Matt came home. And now he was leaving.

“You’ve been here enough that you know your way around,” he called from the other room where their bedroom was. He came back through the kitchen door clutching a battered black guitar case stuck with stickers. He grabbed the remaining beer cans and made for the door. “Just get unpacked, tv’s all yours. See you later. Oh - Happy New

Year.”

He left. Matt spoke in a voice that was used to ordering people around. But, it didn’t matter to me - on the contrary, it was what I was looking for.

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ESCALATION

New year, new me? No, not quite.

The world kept turning, leaving me behind. I actively ignored the beginning of

January, getting blackout drunk on January 8th, the days classes resumed at PVSU. I unfollowed Amanda and all my old college friends on social media. Eventually, like my high school friends, they stopped texting me. It seemed my hair was never brushed and I started to avoid looking directly into mirrors, ignoring the newly-formed shadows under my eyes, my pink, splotchy skin.

Living at Matt and Angie’s quickly became less than an ideal situation. I was a housecat. My stuff remained piled in the spare office room and I swore I’d get off the couch, but the task of actually clearing the office room and making it my own seemed impossible to surmount. Mundane tasks filled me with panic. I let them stack up and tried to refocus my attention on anything else.

Matt was always there.

He worked a lot. But, that started to change. I still held my breath whenever Matt was home, nervous he’d ask about me paying rent, nervous he’d notice my eyes couldn’t meet his. Angie was still attending god-knows-what classes and working, so most nights I found myself alone. My dad continued to send me money, which I liquidated into booze and pills.

Gradually though, I became comfortable. How could I not?

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Matt began to come home early. Angie had always complained he spent most weeknights working late at the plant, but when she was at class, he came home earlier. At first, I paid it no mind. I was too busy thumbing through my phone for Uber at three p.m. so I could get to Ionia Street in time for Happy Hour. Even I wasn’t stupid enough to try to walk in below zero weather to go get drunk.

One day, about two weeks after I moved in, I heard the key turning in the lock in the early afternoon. I stiffened, frozen on the couch as I was. Was someone breaking in?

The door opened and Matt strode in. Home early from work. I don’t know why I was surprised.

It was a Thursday. Angie was always occupied, going straight from campus to her job at Founder’s. I hated Thursdays. These were my Sulk-Days. Thursdays meant I had to be alone.

Matt strode through the door, set down an eighteen pack of Busch on the counter.

“Hey,” he said, ripping open the top of the cardboard pack and pulling out a beer.

“What’s going on?”

I laughed nervously, a whitetail deer caught in the headlights. I had no make up on (not that I ever did at that point), was wearing an oversized t-shirt and yoga pants. I immediately wanted time to stop so I could dash in the other room and change into something cute before he noticed.

“You’re home already,” I said, trying to seem like I was making an offhand observation. My palms were sweating. “Did the plant shut down early or something?”

He laughed and cracked the beer.

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“Nah. I just get tired of being there sometimes, you know? I have tomorrow off already, so I decided I was gonna take the rest of the afternoon off too.”

“You do seem to work a lot,” I acknowledged, not copping to the fact I lived at his house rent-free.

He shrugged. “You do what you gotta do. Where’s Angie?”

My eyebrows pressed together before I could stop them. A small tick of annoyance that reminded me of their relationship.

“I think she’s working. She usually has class on Thursdays and then she has to go to Founder’s immediately after.”

He shuddered. “Damn, I never know how she can work in the evenings. I gotta get work done as soon as I get up or else I’d never work.”

He laughed then, took a swig. “So what have you been up to today?”

I suppressed a laugh. Was he serious? Why would I, the shiftless layabout who crashed at his house, actually have activities to do? I struggled to come up with an answer. Something satisfactory. Something that didn’t scream, I am a huge loser.

“Oh, you know. Looked at jobs. Looked at reapplying to school. The usual.”

He nodded.

“You know, I went to PVSU for a semester.”

I raised my eyebrows. He had never struck me as the academic type. “Did you really?”

He laughed then. “What, did you think I was too stupid to go to college?”

I began to apologize, tripping over myself. “No, I just - you seem so settled at the plant. I didn’t realize you were a PVSU - a PVSU -”

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He finished for me. “A PVSU dropout?”

I smirked then. I felt my heart rate slowing. I was ready then to volley with Matt.

“You said it, not me.”

He slid a beer over to me. I caught it just in time, having almost allowed it to slide off the table.

“I don’t know, I thought it was a bunch of bullshit. Just a bunch of stupid requirements I had no interest in. And look at me, I dropped out and I’m doing just fine.”

I snorted.

“What?”

I tried to think of something clever. “I mean, yeah. Sure.”

He looked at me, his face cloudy like he was weighing what to say next. He straightened suddenly.

“Feel like doing shots?”

He was already pouring them, Absolut vodka into clear shot glasses. He slid one my way. I picked it up, compliant. I was confused, and a little nervous.

“To...new friendships,” he said, toasting me. Looking me straight in the eye.

Matt was safe. He hadn’t asked me about myself or tried to get to the bottom of why I was crashing with them.

I tapped the shot glass against his and threw it back.

An hour later, Matt and I trekked to Ionia Street. He rode in the front seat of the

Uber, opened my door for me as soon as we were dropped off. I flushed. What a gentleman. We played darts at the bar. Matt ordered shot after shot, paying for everything. I couldn’t help but wonder how I looked to him, my wild hair, my skinny

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legs. I hadn’t made an effort to change before we left the house. I watched him watch me out of the corner of my eye as I tried to line up my darts to the bullseye. I kept missing.

“Your stance is wrong,” Matt told me, beers upon beers later.

I laughed, throwing my head back. “It’s just darts.”

He moved behind me then, grasping my shoulders lightly and straightening them.

“You need to think of your body as a tool. Everything needs to be aligned to land the shot.”

He guided my hand then, all the way to when I released the dart. It hit closer to the bullseye than my previous attempts.

He smirked.

“See?”

I tossed my hair over my shoulder.

“Beginner’s luck.”

We played a few more rounds. Matt tripped, some of his whiskey sloshing out of its glass.

“How long is it going to take until you start hating me?” he blurted suddenly, his eyes bleary.

I looked at him hard.

“Do you want me to start hating you?”

He didn’t answer, just threw his last dart at the board. He missed. I laughed.

“That’s the way the game goes sometimes,” he said, pushing out a sigh. Defeated.

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He settled into the bar stool then at one of the bar’s circular high tops. I followed, sat across from him. He tipped the rest of the glass’ contents back into his throat, rubbed his eyes with his fingers.

“You’re easy aren’t you?”

I stared back at him.

He saw my glance, waved his hands in a no, not like that gesture.

“Shit, Charlotte, that’s not what I - you know Angie. She’s so high maintenance. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells around her sometimes. All the time. I never know what’s gonna set her off. She can be a little crazy, you know?”

I didn’t want to agree, but I knew what he was talking about. Angie was particular, liked things a certain way. It wasn’t unlike her to yell at seven in the morning if her favorite mug wasn’t in its spot on the counter. Matt showed me his phone, texts from Angie accusing him of spending too much time at work, too much time with other women. I shrugged, unwilling to actively throw Angie under the bus. Jealousy was something I was familiar with. Abby used to do the same shit.

I just nodded along as he talked about her, laid out his list of complaints. I was complicit.

We took an Uber back to their house before Angie got home, our thighs touching in the backseat of the car. We didn’t say anything. I watched the passing streetlights, the bells of the lights blanketed in snow. My head spun and my fingers twitched.

Thursdays became our new routine. I began to wait expectantly for Matt and each week, he’d come home early. All those nights, Angie was away. All those nights, Matt was there.

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Angie began to notice. She never said anything, but her nostrils would flare every time

Matt got a drink from the refrigerator and replenished mine without asking. I wouldn’t look at her as I accepted it. They started having sex late into the night, most nights, me cramming a pillow over my head in an attempt to block out Angie’s exaggerated moans as they floated through the door and into the common room I occupied with the eternally- on television. Her grip on him became more concrete, her fingers a vise clutching his forearm. I would look away when she did that. But it wasn’t just my fault.

It was both of our faults.

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SPIRALING

By February of 2016, I was averaging five walks a week, roughly three to four hours at a time. Usually, around nine or ten p.m. when my circular thought patterns seemed like they were looping around me and lashing me to the couch in my living room,

I’d find myself threading my arms into a knee-length downy jacket to shield myself from the icy West Michigan winds.

My mother would have been furious to see the heavy door slam behind me, not that she was bothering to check in. Before, Mom would have scolded, shrieked, “What the hell are you doing? Walking around at night alone? That’s how you get raped. I bet you’re not even paying attention during your little walks - anyone could be following you and you’d have no idea.” After, Mom never called, so she didn’t know what I was up to. I suppose I was grateful for the space, but I also wanted someone to care.

The previous semester, I had walked and walked as the months faded from summer to fall, etching itemized lists on the inside of my mind. Everything my sister was wearing the last time I saw her. The number of arguments we had gotten into the months leading up to the summer of 2015. The times that she succeeded when I failed.

Want to see one of the lists I memorized? It goes like this:

The Things You’re Missing

1. My birthday last year

2. My birthday this year

3. My birthday next year (duh)

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4. Your nineteenth birthday

5. The first snowfall

6. The frost on skeletal winter trees

7. Jack White’s kick off tour at the Van Andel arena. (I ended up selling our tickets

for beer money).

8. Your first year of college

9. Valentine’s Day

10. Mom’s mood swings

The numbered items always changed each time I’d come up with a new list.

Something new to help me keep the time. Cataloging information became how I measured my weeks. For instance, my second week of school I obsessed over that last missed call from her. In January, I couldn’t stop replaying the memory of us giving each other haircuts when we were four and six years old, respectively. The way Mom screamed at us, despaired over my newly crooked bangs, and how hard Abby laughed.

That was one of her bad habits. Always laughing at the worst times.

The first week of February, I was trying to walk away from the day I realized that my family didn’t deserve a return to normalcy. Maybe we never had that in the first place. As I left Matt’s house, my scuffed combat boots kicked through piles of soggy, snow-covered leaves settled on its stoop. My fingers stiffened in the thin cotton gloves I always had shoved in my coat’s pockets. I lifted my face to the streetlights that illuminated the otherwise shadowy walk outside Matt’s house. I passed quiet Victorian houses segmented into duplexes, wondering what kinds of lives those rented places watched over.

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Fuck, it was cold. It would take me two hours to get to my favorite bench along the Grand River, away from Grand Rapids’ small homeless community and the drunks stumbling home from the bars that lined Ionia Street. I concentrated on summer heat to distract myself from the chill of the silent night air, pressing my headphones into my ears and turning up the volume to intensify the twang of mournful electric guitar. I had been listening to Kurt Vile around the time of Abby’s funeral, his voice whining about not knowing the man in the mirror. I liked knowing that someone else felt that way too. I walked forward as my thoughts pressed backwards to the end of the summer.

It was the middle of August. It was hot, the humidity pressing down on my eyelids and coaxing me to sleep in a little later each day than I should. The semester was due to pick back up in a week and I was looking forward to escaping the House of Death.

The funeral had taken place a little over a month ago and I only found myself talking to

Abby when I was trying to fall asleep.

My thoughts were organized into very focused lists. If I stayed busy, I didn’t have time to wallow in the permanence of After. I had just abandoned my summer internship and was working weekend evenings at the banquet hall, vacuuming and setting tablecloth-swathed wooden tables with white china until five a.m. on Fridays and

Saturdays. Never Sunday nights though. Sunday nights I got to go to bed like a normal ass person in a normal ass life. And now it was Monday. I woke up in the early afternoon and I was well rested. Nothing too heavy was clinging to those shoulders of mine.

I couldn’t tell you what my parents were thinking at that point. They barely spoke to each other anymore. Mom was married to Abby’s empty room and dad was married to the garage, but I still had some adrenaline left to keep pushing me toward normalcy. I had

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already packed up everything I was taking back with me to college and thought I’d help my mother out, run to the grocery store to fill the empty shelves that lined the refrigerator. I was going to start screaming if we spent another night wordlessly chewing runny pizza from the gas station on the corner or ordering speared meat and vegetables from Royal Kebob in Hamtramck. Someone had to be an adult around here. I was energized enough to decide it was me.

I felt very proud, very proper, as I pulled the laces of my Converse tennis shoes - a relic from high school - tight and tiptoed downstairs to the pile of blankets in the living room that was my mother. I prodded the pile with my index finger. The blue light of the television brimmed quietly. Maury was about to reveal paternity test results to a scathingly jeering crowd. At least she had stopped listening to those fucking life coach podcasts.

“Hey Mom,” I said loudly, the dutiful eldest daughter, the only daughter now, voice biting at the state of catatonia I saw all around me, but which I was better than. I rose above it. “Mom, there’s nothing to eat, so I’m going to head to the store. What should I get?”

Silence. The pile didn’t stir. So I answered for her.

“You’re right, Charlotte, that would be such a help if you could take care of that for me. My credit card is in my purse on the counter.”

I moved over to the speckled formica counter that was piled high with unopened bills, cards from sympathetic well-wishers, dried bouquets of flowers and plastic trays of cracker crumbs, moldy pastries and other spoiled food items people had dropped off that we had picked through the past few weeks. My mom always hated that formica. Before

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we had known we would need to spend money on a funeral, she’d been begging my father to seriously consider remodeling the kitchen to make the house more valuable for when they would eventually decide to downsize.

As I rifled through her purse, a mess of gum wrappers, tubes of lipstick, and receipts, finally locating her wallet, I continued my conversation with myself.

“Go ahead and take my car too, Charlotte. The keys are in the side pocket.”

I stuck my hand in the pocket lining the outside of her purse, swept around looking for the keys. No dice. A flare of anger surged within me. We all didn’t get the luxury of lying around and willing the world stop. I dropped the charade.

“Mom, where are your keys?” My voice was brittle. My irritation wanted to buck and snap at the pile of blankets that used to be my mother but now was fine with letting me starve, then not even thanking me when I stepped in to do what always traditionally was her job.

The pile finally stirred and rose slowly, a skinny arm sweeping aside the thick knit woolen blanket that was Abby’s college colors, green and white. My grandmother had made it for her when she first got into Michigan State. The blanket, unfortunately, would never make it to East Lansing. At least it was getting some use now.

“Oh look, it’s alive,” I said sarcastically, striding over to the small metal hooks screwed into a wooden ledge that hung next to the door that led into the garage.

“Charlotte, you’re not funny,” my mom mumbled through thick lips, propping herself up on her forearms. I realized that the wine glass sitting next to her was three quarters empty. Next to that, an orange bottle of pills. When I returned home after my errand, I would examine the fraying label to discover the half-filled bottle held the

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leftovers from a script of Vicodin. She must have dug up it out of the medicine cabinet, still sitting patiently as a result of the surgery my father had had to restring a tendon in his damaged shoulder one year previously. “You always thought you were so witty. Ever since you were little. Never knew when to quit.”

I flinched. Even though the insult was weak, I still wasn’t used to my mother being outwardly hostile. Passive aggressive, yes, judgmental, yes, but never outwardly spiteful. Since the funeral, her tone of voice had changed, taking on a serrated edge like a steak knife. Sentences thumped out of her like a slap. But I wanted her to like me. She was my mother and I still loved her. Despite everything.

“Okay, Mom,” I said, my tone bouncy, trying to keep things light. “Whatever you say.”

She was still mumbling, “Abby always knew when. She knew when to say when.”

“Mom, can you please just tell me what we need from the grocery store?” I said, looking past her. My mother was the only person who could get me to beg. “I’m trying to help,” I added quietly. Abby always said I never had guts.

Acquiescing, she slowly dictated the grocery list to me from the couch - the usuals, eggs, bacon, frozen chicken, microwave popcorn. She paused and I knew she was remembering the items Abby would always demand. Lucky Charms cereal. A puppy.

Abby’s the one who thought she was funny, Mom, not me. At least we could get meat now that the one vegetarian in the family wasn’t going to be around to bitch at us for picking on poor defenseless creatures. They have rights too. Just because you’re all thinking sentient beings does not give you the right to put yourself at the top of the food chain.

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Excuse me, you wear leather, was usually an adequate retort. As she got older, she learned how to argue better. Faux leather, she would counter. Faux fur. Faux alligator skin.

I left my mother nodding on the couch, sat myself in her car and headed out. I heard a stifled sob rise as I slammed the door into the garage harder than necessary and settled myself into my mother’s car. She’d probably be passed out by the time I got home. I took a deep breath before I put the keys into the ignition. I remembered a technique one of Abby’s therapists had taught her to help her deal with her anxiety spirals.

List five things you see, four things you hear, three things you’re touching, two things you smell and one thing you taste.

I focused, pulling my attention away from the parental resentment I was nursing and concentrated on my surroundings: Leather worn steering wheel, torn screen door, shovel, wheelbarrow, and grass stained tennis shoes my father wore when he mowed the lawn; the distant whine of a lawnmower, shouts from kids playing in the cul de sac, the beating of my heart in my ears, and the sound the garage door made after I opened it; aforementioned steering wheel, my butt in the driver’s seat, my back resting against that same seat; gasoline fumes and trash heated by the afternoon sun; breakfast coffee, whose uninspired flavor still was stuck to my tongue.

I relaxed. That would do for now. I started the car and backed out of the garage.

Ten minutes later, I pulled into the Meijer parking lot and coasted into a spot near the front of the store that had recently been vacated. On the drive there, I had been

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keeping track of good things. I did my best to stay grounded, stay present. What was good about today?

1. The sun is shining and the sun only shines when things are good.

2. I saw a mother pushing her baby in a stroller. Or maybe that wasn’t the baby’s

mother, what if I witnessed a perfectly finessed kidnapping? Stay focused, stay

focused.

3. My cat crawled into my lap this morning. Wait, I don’t have a cat. I’m mixing up

memories - that was yesterday with the neighbor’s outdoor cat.

4. Cats have the most perfect leather paws. I want to wear one around my neck like a

rabbit’s foot. For luck.

5. I can go to sleep in exactly thirteen hours, forty seven minutes, and thirty three

seconds.

My walk through Meijer was carefully plotted. I put in my earbuds to ward off any well-meaning conversation from my fellow shoppers, not that there were many.

Nobody’s business but mine what I was doing here on a Monday afternoon. I paid attention to how lightly I stepped, how effortlessly my cart could glide through the aisles, passing the occasional senior citizen examining a box of cereal or scrutinizing powdered milk.

Things were going great. Things were going so great. Eggs? Got ‘em. This was easy, I was a natural at this task, grocery shopping. There’s a serenity that comes with doing a mundane errand well. See, I’m not so hopeless. I’m a grown up. I can keep everyone and everything together. After filling up the cart, I headed to the checkout line.

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I picked at my fake nails as I waited in line, some sad Sally Hansen press on kit that I thought could make me look sophisticated but instead made me look like a thirteen year old who still shopped at the teen retailer Limited Too. I winced as the glue pulled at my thin nails that a nail technician once told me were very oily. That’s why they were so weak and prone to ripping.

The cashier smiled at me as I approached. Nothing to see here, just a responsible twenty year old getting groceries for her family. I smiled back, eager to make a good impression on this otherwise forgettable white woman. See ma’am, I always try to help out when I can. We go to church every Sunday, the four of us. Two story house, three and a half baths. Quiet cul de sac living.

The cashier’s mouth moved. I took one earbud out of my ear to hear her. I won’t tell you what I was listening to (it was Lana Del Rey).

“I’m sorry, what was that?” I said, lips curved in what could have been a smile or a very poor imitation of it. See, I’m very pleasant - I squinted my eyes at her cheery name tag - Brenda.

“Beautiful weather, we’re having, aren’t we, dear?” she said, nasally accent bleeding through her spread consonants, most notably through the way she pronounced having, putting emphasis on the haah.

“Boy, it’s hot outside though, eh? How’s your day goin’?”

I opened my mouth to answer, then stopped. It sure is, I coached myself internally. I’m well. But I couldn’t do it. The weather? She wanted to talk about the weather?

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I stared at her, frozen. She already wasn’t looking back, her attention focused on the conveyor belt of All-American food items I had so proudly and carefully picked out moments earlier. Exchanging pleasantries, making unassuming observations - these are things polite people do. But Brenda didn’t actually care about the answers I gave. She didn’t care if I was from a nice family, two story house with a two car garage and two and a half bath. She didn’t care that we used to be a family of four and now it was just we three kings of orient are.

I watched her scan my groceries.

“Brenda, how are you just scanning groceries right now?” I wanted to ask. “How are you going about your day when we buried my sister a month ago? How did you not hear about that? Doesn’t everyone know? Everyone has to know. Are you fucking with me? Don’t lie to me Brenda.”

But, the truth was I didn’t care about Brenda either. I didn’t care if she was a single mother, working sixty hours a week to make up for the lack of child support from her deadbeat ex or if she was someone’s rich wife and merely worked at the grocery store to pass the time. I didn’t care if she was a proud Detroiter or if her accent hinted at an origin in Windsor or Ontario. But I needed her to care about me. She had asked how my day was - maybe she wanted an honest answer. She could be maternal, actually maternal, not like someone who laid on the couch and lashed out at family members because of the implied forgiveness imbued within blood ties. We always forgive our mothers, don’t we?

Or at least we are supposed to.

The world had kept going, I realized. Abby was dead, sunken cheeks and serrated nails in a box in the cemetery and there were people who would never know her. Her

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flesh would melt away and she would disintegrate and eventually all of the people who loved her would die too. It would be like she never existed at all. Someday I might be unable to remember the birthmark on her shoulder or exactly how much she used to piss me off on a daily basis. How could I let myself do that? How could I dishonor her by forgetting her, by living my life like fucking Brenda in the red vest and middle-aged wrinkles and short hair that curled around her multi-pierced ears?

Brenda continued to swipe groceries along the belt, the machine chirping as each item was scanned. She didn’t seem to mind I hadn’t answered her, hadn’t continued our asinine conversation about the weather, the fact it was a hot one, eh. I wasn’t going to eat any of this, I realized. And I really didn’t care if my parents did either. I was the child.

They were the adults.

“That’ll be $165.32,” she said, looking up at me pleasantly. “Do you have any coupons?”

My mouth opened, closed. Opened, closed. I coughed and smiled as sweat suddenly rushed down my back, causing my t-shirt to stick to it.

“Um,” I answered. “I … yeah. Could you hold on one second, please? I forgot my

- my money. My money on the card. Credit card.”

I laughed too loudly. Were people staring?

“The coupons, they’re in the car,” I squeezed past the cart I had shoved in front of me that now was filled with unpaid-for groceries, from the fresh produce and family sized portions of frozen meals that promised a return to normalcy I hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve.

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I left Meijer abruptly, still making excuses under my breath, eyes focused on the floor, certain I’d made a scene and everyone was watching. Behind me, Brenda, cheery and confused Brenda with her chubby pale arms, called out after me, “Sweetie! Do you want me to hold these for you? Are you coming back?”

I drove home, parking the car in the garage. Quietly let myself into the house, swiping the unfinished bottle of wine and four of the Vicodin sitting next to my snoring, open-mouthed mother on the couch. Poured it into a plastic coffee tumbler and took my first walk, stopping at the creek that ran by the bike path, which cut through my neighborhood. I stared at the swimming and struggling minnows until it got too dark to tell them apart from the water’s streaming weeds.

I had taken more than one hundred walks since then.

In Grand Rapids, I knew it wasn’t summer anymore. It was February and my sister was even further away. The wind stabbed me through my jeans, poking through the layer of tights I had pulled on to try to doubly protect myself from the cold. I was glad; the wind knew I wasn’t allowed to be comfortable anymore.

When I finally reached the Grand River and settled onto the empty wooden bench,

I realized my mother had never asked what happened to the groceries. I think she knew, deep down, we didn’t deserve them.

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WANTED

Name: Charlotte Day

For Acts Of: Flirting with the boyfriend of her best friend. Fantasizing about him daily.

Imagining scenarios where aforementioned best friend is deported to Colombia (even though she’s a U.S. citizen), leaving Charlotte no choice but to take her place.

Physical Description: Tangled black hair, small boobs, sad bloodshot eyes from the weed she often smokes with said boyfriend when her best friend is at work.

Personality Traits: A propensity for getting into arguments, her voice getting louder with each drink she has. Yet, an inability to be confrontational. She’s a consistent liar.

Don’t believe anything she says.

Specific Acts Include: Making puppy dog eyes at Matt while Angie is in the room.

Interpreting any attention she receives from Matt as a come-on. Letting Matt get closer to her physically, hugging her good night the times Angie isn’t there, brushing past her when she stands by the kitchen table.

Favorite Hangout(s): The Flamingo Lounge, the couch in Matt and Angie’s living room, sitting across the kitchen table from Matt.

If found, please: beat her ass immediately. Forgive the boyfriend for allowing himself to be seduced by this slut. Throw her out of the house onto the street. Block her on all forms of social media.

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THE SEX SCENE

By the time I stopped mistakenly writing down 2015 in place of 2016, my routine had solidified. After every nighttime binge at my favorite bar on Ionia Street - Stella’s, known by locals as the best burger joint in Grand Rapids though I always just ordered whiskey on ice and played old pinball machines until I could feel my wrists cultivating carpal tunnel - I’d call myself an Uber and set myself on the path for my new home. Matt didn’t like to go out with us, but he liked telling Angie and I when he expected us home.

At first, I didn’t notice how Angie and I structured our days around Matt’s schedule.

Sometimes I’d go out alone, sometimes with Angie, sometimes with Angie first and then home alone after Angie headed to work at Founder’s. I never gave myself time to be hungover. On those nights (most nights), I’d drink until I couldn’t see straight and then tramp back to the house. I think I was daring the world to do something to me. Push me into the river, jump me with a homeless person, shove me into a dumpster. Just let it end. I longed for warmer weather, when it would be easier to walk along the cobblestones of Ionia Street without slipping and falling on my ass nine times out of ten.

At least, that’s what happened to me that night.

I had become accustomed to the fact that whenever I came home, no matter the time, if Matt wasn’t with his friends, he’d be up waiting. And most nights, I arrived home alone. I wasn’t interested in bringing home guys - there was nowhere to take them. And on the days I didn’t go home, having spent the night at some rando’s house, who didn’t

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know how to use his fingers or lube, it became Matt’s texts, not Angie’s, that would bring me back to their house. On the nights I did come home, Matt began to learn I’d be hungry because I never realized I was hungry until I would walk through their front door. Then, I sat expectantly behind the counter in the kitchen and watched him crack a crusty roll in half, the bits of bread crinkling onto the floor. Matt never bothered to sweep it up, just let the crumbs collect on the linoleum panels.

The house was old, the roof sloped above the kitchen. Matt almost had to duck as he traveled the short distance between the counter and the stovetop, long palms wrapped around a plastic bag of rolls. I could never stop watching his hands. I’m a sucker for musicians. Everytime Angie and I went to one of his band’s concerts, his playing mesmerized me, the way his fingers skipped up and down the fretboard.

As he prepped the burger he’d made me, I’d watch him spread mayo on the insides of the roll. How delicately his fingers cupped the bread. He’d bring his thumbs to his lips and nibble at the bits of crumbs and mayo that stuck to it before he browned the rolls in the frying pan. When he would hand me a homemade hamburger on a plastic plate, the ground beef molded between his palms, I would think, this is love.

I knew what I was doing, even the first night it happened. Never let me try to convince you I’m innocent.

I had been getting too comfortable at Matt and Angie’s. New year, new me, new place, no past. Matt and Angie had left it up to me to clear out the side office and make myself a bed in there. Instead, after precariously arranging my few bags of belongings off to the side of the small room in a series of teetering towers, I’d taken up residence on their very public couch in the living room. I began to swap out pajamas the nights when

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Angie was working late and Matt was home. My leggings would become short shorts, my long white legs goosebumped from the draftiness of their house in the dead of West

Michigan winter.

I was on the hunt for eyes. It was the reason I walked alone at night or went to the bars by myself. There was nothing better than glancing up and making eye contact with whichever stranger was staring at me. I felt the same way at my new home. The rare nights we’d order a pizza, the three of us, Angie would yammer on about something and

I’d feel my chest puffing up every time I could sense Matt’s gaze sweep over my knees, glance up my skirt, and bury itself between my legs while he pretended to be engrossed in his pepperoni slice.

I’d hide my smile in a napkin.

I told myself I was regaining my confidence. I told myself I deserved it. Matt’s attention was better than grief counseling. This was the long-term help I needed.

That night, I slipped and fell on my way to my Uber. Cursing, I picked myself up out of the snow, soggy and embarrassed. I mumbled an I’m fine to the driver as I staggered up the short walkway to the porch. Ten minutes later, I was on Matt’s doorstep, hammering on the front door. For as long as I lived with them, I never had a key.

It was only eleven. The night was young.

Matt opened the door. Of course he did. I knew Angie wouldn’t be home anyway.

Her serving gig at Founder’s ate up her time more often than not.

“Jesus, you can stop banging on the door,” he said, rubbing his eyes. He looked stoned. “Get in here before our neighbors call the police.”

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He barely moved aside to let me in. I squeezed past him, my heartrate starting to speed up. He shut the door behind me as I shucked off my boots in the small hallway that led to the living room. Barefoot, I then settled onto their couch/my bed, coat and all. He walked past me and into the kitchen. I heard a splash of water in the sink and he came back into the living room with a glass of water.

He sat next to me on the couch. Our knees were touching. He handed me the glass.

“I was about to send a search party after your ass. You were out for a long time.”

He was joking, right? There were nights I had stayed out until the sunlight chased away the starry sky. I grabbed the glass, my fingertips briefly meeting his. I blushed and my eyes flitted away. The room spun at the edges of my vision. I was so drunk.

“It’s like, what? Nine?”

He rolled his eyes. I couldn’t stand the silence - I needed to say something.

“I fell. In the street,” I blurted out.

Nice recovery.

“You what?”

“In the street. I fell.” I giggled then, clapping my hand over my mouth. My hand muffled my lips as I tried to speak. My fingers were still icy from the cold. “That’s why

I’m so wet.”

I was talking about my clothes. I couldn’t stop giggling. Matt and I rarely sat this close before. I knew by now this thing, whatever it was, was a secret.

Matt’s lips stretched into the smallest of smirks. He was looking at me in a way that excited me, which I hadn’t felt since the previous summer. I hadn’t been able to flirt

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since it happened. I didn’t remember how to do this. I didn’t know the right person to do this with.

“What was that? I can’t understand you.”

I glanced at him, my hands still clenched over my mouth. I understood. We were playing a game. Still speaking through my fingers, I said,

“Myclothesarewetifelldowninthestreet.”

Matt rolled his eyes.

“Are you going to take your hands off your mouth so I can understand you? You speak English?”

I looked away and then back at him, my eyes squinting through my laughter. Matt smirked and I watched his fingers stretch out toward my own, still pressed over my lips.

I didn’t think about the fact that Matt was my friend’s boyfriend and that he was someone she was desperately, dangerously, in love with and dependent on. I didn’t think about the fact that I was crashing with people I had known for less than a year. I didn’t think about the fact I just wanted to go home but there was no home to return to. I didn’t think about anything at all except how I must look to him - attractive, a little wild, irresistible maybe. Definitely not a sloppy drunk with half-open eyes and tangled, unwashed hair.

He pulled my fingers away from my mouth. I could feel his other arm, which had been lazily draped across the back of the couch, migrating a short distance, then carefully resting on my shoulders. He pressed my hand down on his knee.

I wasn’t thinking about Angie. I wasn’t thinking about Abby. I was thinking I was in control.

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His long arm slid down the back of the couch, resting on my lower back. We were nose and nose. My giggles had stopped by this point though my smile still was frozen in place. My chest thrummed as my heart anxiously beat at the inside of my ribcage.

“We get along, don’t we?” Matt said softly, turning his gaze down to the hand, my hand, he’d placed on his leg moments before. I said nothing. “You like hanging out with me, right?”

I didn’t say anything.

Then he was closing the gap between us, and the room continued to spin but that didn’t matter because I’d been spinning for so long because now Matt was grounding me, he was crawling on top of me and I didn’t think about Angie, or Abby, my parents, no one but what I wanted and what I wanted in that moment was this guy telling me how cute I was, how special I was, how he’d wanted to fuck me from the moment he saw me, he’d had to restrain himself, and how much it meant to me that he’d felt that way. He was rocking me, and in that moment, I had it all.

I had it all.

Later, after he retrieved a condom from him and Angie’s room, after he’d peeled off my wet clothes and directed my hands to do the same for him, he was shuddering on top of me and kissing my neck. The rocking stopped. We were still in the living room. I tried to tell myself I had liked it, but truthfully, it hadn’t really felt like anything.

He kissed me again. That felt nice, at least.

“We can’t tell Angie, okay?”

I nodded.

“You know how she gets.”

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I nodded again, even more frantically.

“She won’t understand, you know? Like, I love her. We’ve been together for years. But I just don’t think humans are made for monogamy, you know? And I think you and I have a different kind of connection.”

I didn’t say anything.

“She just won’t get it,” Matt said again.

“Yeah. Totally,” I squeaked out finally, my voice hoarse.

He kissed my hand then. I leaned my head against his chest.

Normal me would have thunked myself in the head. A friend’s boyfriend? Really,

Charlotte? Not that it mattered anymore. I had lost every part of myself, but in that moment?

My heartrate had finally slowed.

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DEAR KRIS1.DOCX

Dear Kris,

I was always a better writer than speaker. I want to explain to you why I’ve felt so hurt at the discovery that you’ve moved on, because I don’t think you understand. Since you and I broke up, you’ve thoroughly demonstrated that I’m not worth your time. And

I’m not waiting until next week to tell you what I need to say, I’m through being patient with you. If that was even going to happen anyway, who knows, maybe you were just placating your crazy ex-girlfriend. It’s funny, for such a direct person, you are horrible at confrontation. And I don’t know if it’s you not caring to put up with me crying, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Because now I realize that anything I have to say to you would take five minutes and God knows, you don’t have five minutes to devote to me anymore.

You said you still wanted to be friends this morning, though I doubt that’s the case anymore. That was noble of you. But emotions are complicated. I would like to call your attention to a conversation that took place a few weeks ago. One in which you stated, and I quote,

“Let’s be friends, see how this month goes. If I meet anyone, I’ll tell you. If you meet anyone, you tell me.”

I’m paraphrasing, of course. You knew I was going to throw that back in your face, didn’t you?

I’ll admit that when you texted me Monday, I was sad. Because you ended it with me, and because you did not even bother to say it to my face. But I didn’t make a big fuss

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of it, because I was tired. Tired of fighting, tired of waiting. I just wanted to be done.

You’re right, we had grown apart. Because I can barely remember what it was like to be with you and obviously, you feel the same. Because I’ve been wondering for the past few weeks if we even have enough in common to date. Because everything was always on your terms, and after dating me for years, you still barely know anything about me.

Because I finally had to come to the realization that if you wanted to be with me, you’d be with me. Your personal hang ups wouldn’t have mattered, the fact that we had one fight wouldn’t have broken us up. It’s not like you ever tried to fix anything anyway. But,

I digress.

But then I’m on Twitter and lo and behold. Tweets about another girl. Sappy ones, the kind you never bothered with when we first started dating.

I appreciate the fact that you “officially” ended it with me before I found out about her. And you were honest…to an extent. I know you said you didn’t tell me because you knew I would hate you, but I really mean so little to you that you’d rather I find out through social media? If you had taken the time to sit down with me to explain the situation, yes it would have hurt, but it wouldn’t be the knife in my gut that it is now.

You’ve caused me a lot of pain over the last month: ignoring me, blowing me off. But withholding information that you once acknowledged was my business? You weren’t honest. You don’t deserve my friendship.

So that’s it. I guess this is goodbye. You were good to me once, but you’ve played more games with me than I have the stomach for. I can’t even look at you. While I hope this letter properly communicated my thoughts to you and that it matters to you, I won’t kid myself. And don’t you dare play the victim; you created this.

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Good luck.

Abby

Note found at scene of Abigail Leigh Day’s suicide

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WALK

“Let’s go out.”

I looked up, startled out of my weed nap. I roughly rubbed my eyes and could feel the crunch reverberate throughout my brain. I stared back at Matt accusingly, trying to hide the grin that swept across my face at the sight of him.

“How long have you been in here?”

Matt smirked. “Long enough to figure out you snore while you’re sleeping.”

I let my head fall back on the pillow and groaned.

“What time is it?”

“Eh, only like six p.m. Do you have any plans tonight?”

I raised an eyebrow. We both knew the answer to that question.

He walked over to the couch. I began to shift my legs so he could sit down, but he just grabbed them and settled them over his lap, draping his arms across them. I shrugged off the nagging feeling in my belly that reminded me he only ever touched me when

Angie wasn’t around.

He absentmindedly rubbed my left foot as he talked.

“Come on, let’s do something different. Want to see my favorite place in Grand

Rapids?”

I tried to contain my excitement. I shrugged.

“Well, let me check my schedule…” I exaggeratedly reached over to my phone, pretended to tap around the calendar app. He grabbed it and held it out of my reach.

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“Hey!” I squealed, throwing myself across his lap. We wrestled a bit, me hardly protesting. I probably could have beaten his skinny ass if I wasn’t so hellbent on maintaining his interest.

Sneaking around was fun. It became the only thing I looked forward to in my day- to-day life. Matt smacking my ass when Angie was in the bathroom. Him pressing me against the wall in the hallway and kissing me hard on the mouth as soon as the garage door lowered, signaling Angie had left. I clung to his attention like monkey bars. And he laid it on pretty thick in the beginning. It was almost like having a someone who was invested, who cared.

Matt and I drove through the quiet snowy roads of downtown Grand Rapids. His rusty blue pickup truck pushed through the snowdrifts with ease. I always wondered how his side mirror stayed attached to the truck, loosely secured as it was by strips of hot pink duct tape.

“Where are we going?”

Matt grinned, stuck two cigarettes in his mouth, lit them, and rolled down the window despite it being only twenty degrees outside. He offered me one and I took it, cracking my own window. I gasped as the first slap of cold wind struck my face and nestled into the seat as my cheeks fell numb.

“That’s a surprise. But I highly doubt you’ve ever been to it before.”

I shrugged. I exhaled smoke and vapor.

We parked on a quiet side street, snow lightly falling in the shadow of the streetlights. I stepped out into a snowbank, squealing at the powder suddenly filling my boots, and rising past my knees.

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“Fuck! This place better be close,” I shouted at Matt over his guffaws. “You couldn’t park somewhere that was actually clear?”

Matt didn’t answer. He was already several long steps ahead of me.

We wandered through ballrooms in the Amway Grand Plaza, traversing the long and regal halls. It had been easy to slip past the concierge at the front desk as it seemed the hotel was stuffed with guests in town for some sort of conference. At first, I thought we’d stick out due to our lack of nametags and the black folders everyone else was carrying, but no one looked at us twice.

“This way,” Matt grinned at me, clasping my hand, still in its glove. I let myself be jerked forward.

We toured the second-floor ballrooms, all with grand names - Pantlind, Imperial,

Gerald Ford - similar in their drippy decadence yet distinctly unique. I giggled as Matt tested the door handles of each room, looking side to side for approaching staff before gesturing to me to follow him. We used our phones as flashlights to see in the dim rooms with their crowded tables and chairs stacked against the walls.

“Wedding season, this place is packed,” Matt observed, his light reflecting off the long mirrors in the Gerald Ford Ballroom, named for the only president to hail from the midsize city. “Winter is really the only time you can get away with sneaking around here.

My buddies and I came here all the time in high school. We got kicked out for skateboarding in … not this ballroom, but I think the one next to it.”

I giggled. I was invested in any story he told me.

“Come on,” he jerked his head at me. “We’ve still got a ways to walk.”

I pretended to whine.

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“How much further?”

Matt chuckled. “Not that far.”

Matt led me out of the ballrooms and across the website-designated “climate- controlled skywalk” to the DeVos Place Convention Center. We wandered through ambient lighting and modern jazz wafting lazily from hidden speakers. Plush carpet gave way to concrete and soon we were in another conjoined hotel. We passed dignified businessmen and moms with sensible haircuts, looking quite out of place in our ripped jeans and long coats. I watched Matt closely as I followed him, feeling the light and air thrumming through my fingertips. Eventually, we found an echoey flight of stairs and he banged through the heavy door. Once again, we found ourselves in a swanky lounge area.

It was empty and filled with warm light. A bowl of wasabi peas sat on a coffee table. I know they were wasabi because Matt dared me to slap a handful into my mouth, guffawing as I immediately choked and spat them back into my hand.

“What the hell, man?”

“Who even knows how long those were sitting out? Nice one, Char.”

He dodged the spit-soaked bits and pieces I tossed back at him in response.

“Are we going to get in trouble up here?”

I tried not to sound nervous but I was too sober to be embarrassingly escorted from the hotel by one of the uniformed security guards we had passed on our way to this room.

Matt plopped down on a sofa, put his feet up.

“Nah. One of my buddies works security downstairs anyway and he’s pretty chill about letting me up here.”

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The room glowed with dim lamps and windows framed by velvety drapes. I walked to one of the open windows and looked out on the city. It was so dark outside and yet I could see the moon hanging in the distance. I pressed my hand flat against the icy glass and wondered how cold it would be to be outdoors at the height we were. Black water churned below me. Was it possible to jump from this height, land in the river, and survive?

“Well, Ms. Charlotte, what do you think of my secret clubhouse?”

I turned on my heel, pretended to give the room an appraising glance.

“Well, you certainly could do worse for yourself,” I began, adopting a prissy half- posh, half-British accent. Something I imagined someone who went to Vanderbilt and never spoke in contractions might sound like. “I mean, this room, darling, is terribly outdated.”

Matt raised an eyebrow.

“Indeed, madam? Why, you can see the whole city from here. We’re totally voyeurs and utterly alone. What makes you criticize it so?”

I turned up my nose, imitated a scoff.

“I mean, look at it, dear. This decor is terribly outdated. Velvet drapes? Who knows how much dust they might hold-” I gave the curtains a shake and recoiled. “And these portraits. I mean, who are these people? Members of your family or unfortunates you found at a garage sale? Dreadful, really.”

Matt stood then, walked over to a portrait of what I presumed to be a husband and wife, presiding over their son sitting in a high-backed chair in a Victorian parlor.

Underneath it, a nameplate read Amway Founder Richard DeVos with wife, child.

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Matt slapped the side of the portrait.

“Madam, I am offended. Can’t you see this is my esteemed family? I mean, really, where are your manners? I take you to my clubhouse downtown and this is how you treat me. You should be thanking me. I’ve never brought anyone else up here.”

I ignored him and continued to stalk the length of the windows.

“And who, pray tell, are those dusty old dinosaurs? They’re looking down on me and I must say, I don’t appreciate it.”

“Why madam, the entire town owes their livelihood to this family. These are the ones that started it all. A good Christian woman such as yourself certainly must see they are the Second Coming.”

I feigned outrage.

“The Second Coming? Those scoundrels? My good sir, you must be smoking the devil’s reefer.” I was running out of ideas. I hadn’t had much exposure to posh people outside of occasionally watching episodes of Downton Abbey.

“Indeed, madam. You insult their memory merely by questioning their presence.”

Matt came over by the window next to me.

“You see? Everything the light - well, this time of the night, the dark - touches, belongs to them. And by extension, me.”

“Sure,” I laughed, snorting. Matt smirked, squeezed my shoulder before turning back to the couch.

“You know, you have the cutest goddamn laugh.”

I blushed. “Shut up. I know it’s annoying.”

“No, it’s not. I like it. I don’t hear it enough.”

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I allowed myself to smile then.

“Seriously though, I used to come here a lot actually.”

I looked back through the window. Grand Rapids seemed fairly large until you were above it.

“It’s got a good view.”

“Yeah...during the day, it’s better. You can actually see the city. This goddamn tiny city. I think I know every part of it by now.”

Matt trailed off. He wandered back to the couch. I stayed at the window in a meek attempt to not follow him everywhere he went.

“Do you want to stay here forever?”

He paused. “I don’t know. This and up north is all I’ve ever known. When I was younger, I really felt antsy to get out of GR. But then, you know, life got in the way. I guess.”

I murmured in agreement, feeling slightly superior. I had at least gotten out of

Warren, for whatever that was worth.

“After my dad died, I used to come up here a lot,” Matt said suddenly. Quickly.

Like it was a secret he’d been holding onto for so long, he needed to offer it up before it burst.

I turned and looked at him.

“I thought you said you guys don’t talk?”

Matt chuckled softly. “I did, dumb ass. And... that’s the reason we don’t talk.”

I smarted at the barb. He patted the seat next to him but I turned away, grinding my teeth.

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“Don’t call me that,” I said, emboldened, my voice low.

“Come on, it was just a joke.”

Sure, it was just a joke. I continued to stare out the window at the blinking lights below. It was just a joke. I dropped out of college as a joke. I lost my scholarships as a joke. I ruined relationships with professors who formerly thought highly of me as a joke.

My stomach churned as I glared at cars parked at stop lights. Bare branches of trees. It looked like a miniature village from up here. No birds anywhere. They’d all gone south for the winter.

I felt Matt shift behind me.

“Don’t call me names I’m not.”

I continued to glare out the window. Words caught on my lips as they tumbled out, but I needed to try.

“Like, I might not be in school right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m a dumb ass,”

I said in a rush. “I’m not stupid. Unlike some people in this room, I actually liked school.

I was a really good student before -”

I broke off then. I couldn’t say it out loud. I faced away from Matt again. Silence stretched between us.

“You know, you’re really an asshole sometimes.” I didn’t say anything else.

There was a whoosh of air and then Matt had circled his arms around my waist.

I stood there, my throat swollen. Don’t cry, no one likes a crier.

“I’m sorry, Charlotte. Hey. Hey. Look at me.”

I leaned away from him, my body tense.

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“I really didn’t mean to - it was just a joke. You know I don’t think you’re stupid.”

He sighed then.

“I just get pissed off whenever I’m reminded of my dad.”

“You’re the one who brought him up,” I said defensively.

“I know. I’m sorry. I guess I’m still a little fucked up over him dad dying.” He paused. “Okay, a lot fucked up. It’s been four years and I hated him while he was alive but I wasn’t ready for him to die.”

I relaxed. Threaded my clammy fingers through his warm ones. He let me.

“I still look at my phone sometimes to see if he called. When it’s his birthday, I don’t really know what to do - celebrate it? Ignore it? I guess I just thought we had time.”

We both stood silently, a witness to the seething black beneath us. I always hated this time of year. No holidays, nothing to look forward too. Just ice and air too cold to breathe in, sun that set by six p.m.

“How’d he die?” I finally asked.

I felt Matt tense behind me. “The way all dedicated alcoholics do. Cirrhosis.” He swallowed but his voice stayed steady. “The timing was funny. We hadn’t spoken since I left home and then he reaches out. I was so surprised to see he was calling me. I didn’t know when I picked up the phone I was gonna learn that my dad was dying.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. Matt cleared his throat.

“Our relationship was never good but I always assumed we’d fix it at some point.

Come on, let’s sit,” he said abruptly. He spun me around and led me back to the couch.

Our legs buckled and his strung his arm across my shoulder. We still didn’t look at each

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other. “Like, I always thought he’d be around if I ever needed help with the house or advice on which truck to buy, how to tell if the dealer is swindling you. Twenty two sounds old ‘til you’re that age and then you realize you’re all on your own and you have to figure it out for yourself. I never wanted to be on my own, man. Who the fuck wants to be a teenager trying to figure out how to afford rent or how much cell phones are going to cost each month? I mean, that’s all shit that happened before he died, but still. I get so angry at the memory of him and then I remember him in his hospice bed.”

He snorted, wiped the back of his mouth with his hand. I held his hand in my lap, stroked his fingers.

“The last few days he was alive, he was in and out. Sometimes he’d wake up and hallucinate, other times he was all there.” Matt chuckled huskily. “You know the last thing he said to me? It was the afternoon before he went into a coma. He was all bloated - he looked horrible. I was the only family he had and I spent every day and night with him in his room. My boss gave me time off, which was really cool of him. But anyway, we’re sitting in this room and he’s propped up on all of these pillows and just the smell, dude, was disgusting. Piss and antibacterial-smelling stuff. He woke up and he saw me sitting there and he waved me over, so I pulled up my chair next to him. And he mutters something and I can’t really hear him because he’s gotten really weak at this point. So

I’m like, ‘what, Dad?’ And he goes, ‘son, let’s start over someplace else.’”

Matt stopped. I didn’t say anything. Just let him speak.

“Like, maybe it hadn’t sunk in yet that there was no starting over, that he was at the end of his rope. And I still don’t know what he meant by ‘start over.’ Like, from the very beginning? Or just take what we knew in the moment and uproot and go somewhere

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where people didn’t know our history? I don’t know, man. I think about it, him, what he said, all the time.”

I wasn’t sure what to say then. I felt my mouth go dry. I struggled to find the words. What didn’t I want to hear when Abby died?

“Have you ever stopped missing him?”

Matt shook his head. “Never.”

He stopped. I waited.

“He’s the first person I think about when I wake up each day. Something good happens to me at work, I want to run home and tell him. ‘Hey, old man, you always said I was never gonna amount to shit and look at me now!’ But … if we’d had time to fix things, maybe he would have had it in him to be the dad I needed when I was growing up.”

Matt kept talking. A broken dam.

“We could never go backwards, but we could have gone forwards. He could have quit drinking. He could have gotten remarried, maybe found a woman who didn’t give him the runaround like my own mom did. He could have stopped being so angry. I could have finished school and gotten my diploma and he could have attended my graduation.

He could have been there the first time I shot a deer, showed me how to clean it. But we didn’t get to do any of that shit. At the end of the day, he only had regrets because he was dying. So, who knows what I lost. My actual father or the idea of my father.”

Matt looked at me then. “Charlotte, I don’t know if you’ve ever lost anybody, but it hurts like hell. It never stops hurting. That’s my biggest fear - it’s never going to stop.”

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Tears silently dripped down my face. I didn’t realize I had started crying. I couldn’t look Matt in the eye. He bent over, set his head in my lap. I stroked his hair, not bothering to wipe my eyes.

“Char - I don’t know what you’re running from. It’s none of my business. But the day you want to tell me, I’m here.”

We didn’t say anything then. I thought back to all of the boys I had dated over the years, before Abby died. No one had ever stuck around longer than a few months. There had been so many I had lost count. I usually only felt arms around me when they wanted something else. I was so tired of living in my pain alone.

Matt and I didn’t fuck. We just sat.

Later, Matt held my hand in the truck as we quietly drove home, for once skipping the bars lining Ionia Street. I stared out the window and pretended he was my boyfriend and that it was me he was in love with. As we got closer to our street, he visibly tensed, cleared his throat. Loosened his grip until he gently peeled his hand away from mine. We pulled into the driveway and he shut the car off, closed the garage door. I didn’t want Angie to be home. I looked at him.

“You know, you can always start over.”

Matt smiled weakly.

“Always good to know. Thanks, Char.”

He opened the car door and traipsed into the house. I sat in the passenger seat.

Eventually, it got too cold in the garage and I gave up, heading inside.

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ANSWER

Mid-way through that second semester, the one I had already dropped out from, I started going to Angie’s classes with her. In part, I was jealous of her freedom - Angie’s dad said he was proud that she had re-enrolled in college and didn’t even ask what she was taking, just paid the bill. And so, Angie’s schedule was packed with electives.

Screenwriting, intro to music theory, sculpture, intro to psychology - it was the ideal schedule for two misguided fuck-ups on the hunt for the opposite of discipline. We would pregame each of Angie’s classes by smoking two or three bowls of whatever shitty weed

Matt had lying around and then head to campus.

She never asked why I wasn’t going to my own classes. I honestly don’t think she noticed that I had dropped out.

Sadly, I only got away with this stunt a few times before Angie’s professors noticed I wasn’t enrolled in their respective courses and asked me to leave, “before we need to get the school involved.” Only the T.A. for her screenwriting class didn’t seem to care, as long as I was quiet and sat in the back. Which I did.

One night after class, in late March, she and I skipped back to the house she and

Matt shared with her latest assignment, eagerly tossing back and forth ideas. That week, we were going to write drafts for a scene in which a character learned something that changed the course of their “journey,” whatever that meant. I was on a mission for distractions, latching onto anything that beckoned me out of my own head, no matter how short-lived that vacation was.

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That Saturday, very seriously, we set up shop in her living room. We had the house to ourselves as Matt had picked up an extra shift at the factory “to support both of my girls,” he told us, affectionately. I giggled, drained my Irish coffee, and hoped Angie didn’t read into it.

Armed with caffeine, Bailey’s Irish Cream, red bull, cigarettes, Adderall and the loud, probing jazz music Angie loved, we both got to work on our masterpieces. We were going to write something amazing, something avant garde, something brave and daring, we assured each other, spectacular spec scripts to sell to the highest bidder, and then move to Los Angeles and become the Hollywood It Girls we were meant to be.

Maybe that was the Addy talking.

However, it wasn’t long before we both fell into a silent workflow, keyboards clacking, only moving to step outside to smoke, to refill our glasses, or pace the way we imagined famous writers did when they were working through an idea.

Five hours later, I breathlessly shoved my laptop over to Angie, imploring her to read it and give me feedback. She squinted at the first page and wrinkled her nose in concentration.

“Ignore those comments,” I told her, referring to the author’s notes that dotted the right side of my screen. “Those are just my notes for possible redrafts.”

She shrugged.

“Or you could read them,” I added, rushed, through clenched teeth. I had a headache. “Whatever you wanna do.”

She didn’t answer and I snuck a glance at her computer. A game of online chess.

She was losing.

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I fell silent as her eyes began to dart over the words I’d painfully pried out of my brain and onto the page.

Answer (Draft One)

FADE IN:

EXT. WHITE FAMILY’S TWO STORY SUBURBAN HOUSE - 3 A.M. ON A

SATURDAY MORNING

In the heart of the Midwest, a two story house rests in a quiet cul-de-sac. The orange brick is striped with white concrete adhesive and the long white porch is tackily decorated with red, white and blue garlands, leftover from the family’s patriotic display for the Fourth of July. On the door hangs similarly patriotic wreath and a wood-burned slat of driftwood that reads, “The Judges Welcome You.” The house glows softly in the moonlight and one streetlight stands brightly on a corner opposite it.

DISSOLVE

TO:

INT: Inside, a dim living room holds the essentials of every fifties-era American household: a boxy television set beset with circular dials and sitting on four spindly legs, its antennas bent at opposite angles, a matching tidy couch and armchair set draped with an afghan, and an area rug. On the mantle above the fireplace sit family portraits - two parents, two daughters in neat sweaters and ponytails posed prettily for the camera. One of the last landline-connected rotary telephones sitting on a side table rings because our 163

heroine’s stubborn ass parents refuse to shut it off even though everyone has cell phones and really, they’d save a lot of money if they’d disconnect the fucking landline, but hey, that’s just me.

Comment by Charlotte Day, 2:22 p.m: i forgot that i’m setting this scene in the

1950s, so actually it makes sense that the house wouldnt have cell phones. whatever, we can fix it in post.

The phone rings.

It rings.

Comment by Charlotte Day, 3:02 p.m.: gotta let the phone ring to build tension. this phone call is the parents’ Golden Globe-worthy moment & the chance for them to buy the love from onlookers that they have lost for each other.

The audience hears thumps and bumps from the upstairs, and muffled arguing over who is going to stumble downstairs to answer the phone in the dark. The slightest chuckles are heard from the LAUGH TRACK as the arguing continues. FATHER makes the muffled case to “just leave it, Marcy, if it’s important, they’ll leave a message” and MOTHER retorts by swinging her legs out of bed, threading on a gauzy bathrobe with fur cuffs on

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the sleeves, and insisting, “it’s the middle of the night, Fred, who calls in the middle of the night? It must be important.”

Comment by Charlotte Day, 3:07 p.m.: in a later scene, MOTHER can claim that she knew in her heart from the phone’s first high-pitched ring that something was wrong.

The phone sounded urgent, she’ll tell OLDER DAUGHTER after she stumbles downstairs to see what MOTHER’S latest temper tantrum is about. “The mama always knows,” MOTHER will insist, her eyes bleary maybe from tears, maybe from the empty bottles of wine in the recycling bin.

Comment by Charlotte Day, 3:08 p.m.: this mom has to be like a totally oblivious person. Like Mom that time Abby stole her car to come see me at my college and Mom didn’t even realize her car was gone until I called her to ask wtf my kid sister was doing on my campus on a Wednesday night. LOL.

Comment by Charlotte Day, 3:09 p.m.: The audience needs to understand that this mom is full of shit. she’s pretending like after it was too late, her gaze turned from her reflection in the mirror and inward to her intuition. like she felt the tiniest snip in the umbilical cord unfurling through the air to one of her daughters out in the world and gasped when she felt it go lax. yeah, okay, mom.

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MOTHER comes downstairs in a bathrobe, tying the belt around her narrow waist. She wears a green face mask and soft foam rollers curled up in a hairnet, a lace, floor-length nightgown underneath the aforementioned robe.

Comment by Charlotte Day, 3:11 p.m. she fuckin wishes she was that skinny lmao

MOTHER answers phone.

Hello?

Comment by Charlotte Day, 3:12 p.m.: can’t start too loud, gotta start this scene quietly to build the ~tension.~ MOTHER’S a little tired but otherwise calm and collected, not at all questioning why someone is calling the house in the middle of the night. nothing strange about this at all, she’s probably thinking. you can do anything to this woman and she’ll just let you.

A distorted voice choking on static is heard on the line.

PHONE VOICE

Is this Mrs. Day?

MOTHER

It is. May I ask who’s calling?

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Comment by Charlotte Day, 3:15 p.m.: so reasonable. so friendly. always keeping up appearances.

PHONE VOICE

Ma’am this is Detective Kolowski of the Rochester Police Department. I

apologize for calling so late, but there was a disturbance downtown that one of

your family members might have been involved in.

Upon hearing this news, MOTHER becomes visibly tense. She wraps the phone cord

around her right index finger as she talks.

MOTHER

Oh dear - this isn’t the first time we’ve had one of these calls, Mr. - what did you say

your name was? You know how kids are. Actually, while I have you on the phone, I’ve been meaning to call about a - well, I guess you could call them a gang - a group of kids

we’ve seen hanging around the neighborhood. You can just tell they’re definitely not

from this area. Do you know what I mean?

(LAUGH TRACK)

KOLOWSKI

Ma’am, are you related to an Abigail Leigh Judge?

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At the sound of her daughter’s name, MOTHER’S pulse begins to pick up. She rolls her

eyes and snorts.

MOTHER

(somewhat breathlessly)

Yes, Abigail - Abby - is our youngest, but I’m not sure why you’d need to speak with

her. She’s upstairs sleeping; I said good night to her myself several hours ago. Is this a

crank call?

(LAUGH TRACK)

CUT TO a dimly lit bedroom upstairs: at this point, FATHER has stirred and realized that something might be wrong due to the fact that his wife’s side of the bed has started to grow cold. The LAUGH TRACK sounds in the background as he awkwardly tries to jam his feet into the pair of silk slippers that match his striped pajamas, bumping his shin on the side of the wooden bed frame, and cursing, “gosh darnit.” He shambles out the bedroom door.

CUT TO the living room with FATHER resting in the background of the shot, out of focus, one foot resting on the bottom step, his right hand reaching up under his shirt to scratch a protruding hairy belly.

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Meanwhile, scenarios tumble out of MOTHER. She doesn’t give KOLOWSKI any chance to interject, just lambasts him with guesses like knowing what news is coming will soften the blow upon hearing it. She perches on the overstuffed arm of the armchair now, legs worriedly crossed. One curler has come unpinned from her netted nightcap and she continuously brushes it away from her forehead, only to have it come swinging back in front of her face each time.

MOTHER (breathlessly):

Come on, officer, out with it. Is Abby in the hospital? Was it drugs? (LAUGH TRACK)

Abby doesn’t do drugs herself, mind you, but she does have this particularly bad influence of a friend, Desiree. Did she run away? Stab somebody? Do I need to wake her

up for this?

(LAUGH TRACK intensifies)

MOTHER begins to call over her shoulder:

Abigail Leigh Judge, you get downstairs this instant! Henry, can you go wake Abby up,

the sheriff’s department is calling about her for crying out loud.

(LAUGH TRACK)

FATHER mutters under his breath and begins lumbering up the stairs, ready to give his

youngest hell for giving both of them a scare.

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KOLOWSKI

Ma’am, when was the last time you spoke with your daughter?

MOTHER

(voice raising)

I already told you, she’s upstairs! (continues to call over shoulder) Abigail, I’m not

joking around! Downstairs, now! The police are on the phone! I swear -

(LAUGH TRACK)

(Beat)

MOTHER

(irritably shaking head)

Officer, you still haven’t told me what this call is about.

(Beat. KOLOWSKI clears his throat).

KOLOWSKI:

Are you sure your daughter’s upstairs?

MOTHER

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(frustrated)

Officer, I can assure you she’s upstairs.

KOLOWSKI:

I’d double check if I were you.

(LAUGH TRACK)

MOTHER

(her features twist into confusion)

Where did you say my daughter is right now?

KOLOWSKI

(cool, calm, collected)

She’s downtown.

(LAUGH TRACK)

KOLOWSKI

(clears throat)

She stopped twitching about an hour ago. (LAUGH TRACK - audience whistles and

hollers)

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Is there any way you or your husband could come to the scene? We need you to

make an I.D. on the body.

(LAUGH TRACK - titters from the audience)

MOTHER

(shrieking)

You have some nerve calling me in the middle of the night and making up this

nonsense. You think this is funny? I’m hanging up.

LAUGH TRACK plays as FATHER staggers down the stairs in the background,

wheezing when he gets to the bottom step.

FATHER

Marcy, Abby’s not in her bed. Was she sleeping over at her friend’s tonight?

What’s-her-name, Dani?

LAUGH TRACK

MOTHER stares at him slack-jawed.

KOLOWSKI

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Like I was saying, a body was found downtown. A young woman’s body. The remains are fresh but … it’s been a hot summer, you understand. The warm nights tend to

speed up the decomposition process. (his tone is gentle, like he’s lovingly stroking the

body’s hair as he tells MOTHER this news) She’s already stiffening up.

(LAUGH TRACK)

Comment by Charlotte Day, 4:32 p.m. goddamn i am so fucking good at screenplays, this is genius. the audience wont see this twist coming.

The camera slowly zooms in on MOTHER’s stunned reaction.

KOLOWSKI

Your daughter's wallet was found… in it. (beat. He laughs) I mean, in the body’s pocket. (beat) It’s funny, I didn’t know she had a family at first. She didn’t mention you

people at all. She gave a fake name when I offered to give her a ride. You should have

kept a better eye on her.

(LAUGH TRACK)

MOTHER is shocked. She brushes off attempts from FATHER to grab the phone.

She never mentioned going out tonight...

KOLOWSKI

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(interrupting her)

Do you wanna know what her last words were? Do you wanna know the fears she had? Did you really know, what was her name, Abby? Did you know she didn’t love you

at all? I think I got to know her better than you ever did and I only knew her for a few hours. Our time together was brief, but she sure was fun. So you should be proud of that.

You raised a pretty fun kid. Feisty, I might say. She’s got a mouth on her. Or, she did.

(beat)

KOLOWSKI

I left her in a dumpster at the corner of Main and Fourth. You might want to pick

her up before the sun rises. You know how quickly news gets around.

THE LINE GOES DEAD.

MOTHER and FATHER stare at the phone like it’s bitten them. The scene

gradually fades to black over the sudden slap of noise driven by MOTHER frantically

dialing 9-1-1 and FATHER racing up the stairs to change out of his pajamas and into

something decent in which to greet the actual police.

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Comment by Charlotte Day, 4:51 p.m.: the characters will later find out that there is no Officer Kolowski at the Rochester Police Department. note to self - is it protocol to make a death announcement at 3 a.m. over the phone? need to google this

Comment by Charlotte Day, 5 p.m.: Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. If this story was a movie, the plot would get a C for a lack of originality. Roger Ebert would come back from the dead to rip it apart and give it a one and a half star.

Comment by Charlotte Day, 5:02 p.m. Of course the story is a cliche about a dead white girl in a dumpster. Of course the killer calls her vacant parents, taunting them like a rip-off of Scream. Of course the family falls apart after the body is discovered. Of course i can’t think about anything else but abby. Of course i cant write anything else. Of course.

I anxiously watched Angie’s expression as she read the screenplay, looking for a raise of the eyebrows or a wry chuckle. After ten minutes, she looked up at me.

“So,” I queried nervously, red sweeping my cheeks. “What did you think?”

Angie yawned, her eyes flicking back to the screen.

I waited. Maybe she would noticed how unconnected the characters were, how superficial their relationships were. Maybe after reading what I had written, she would think to ask once in a while, hey man, you seem down. What’s going on? Maybe we wouldn’t even need to crack a beer to have that conversation.

“Well?” I poked her with a stockinged foot.

“It’s okay, man. Like, it works for the assignment, for sure.”

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She paused. Angie only ever paused when she was carefully parsing out her thoughts. Or when she wanted something.

“Actually, do you mind if I just turn it in as my screenplay?” she said, her eyes avoiding mine. “You’re not even in that class, so like, it’s not like you’re gonna do anything with it anyway.”

She paused again. I heard her swallow.

“And I couldn’t focus on writing, so, like, I didn’t actually write anything.”

That wry chuckle that was missing earlier finally bubbled up from her throat. My own throat went dry.

My heartbeat began to work overtime as Angie turned back to her own laptop, pushing mine back to me. Give Angie the screenplay? Give her the bits and pieces I’d stripped from the deterioration of my family and buried in that screenplay, give her the past she’d never had to live and had never asked about?

For the first time in our friendship, resentment flickered in my chest. Angie had her own problems, sure. She’d invited me into her world, where I lived as decoration, and was something to distract her from the fact that Matt openly pursued other girls

(including me) in front of her while she constantly switched majors at school, unable to make up her mind when it came to her life trajectory.

But would she ever care how after Abby died, my mom began to love an imaginary person more than she ever did the actual Abby? Would Angie ever understand how creepy it was to hear my mother, despite having never previously high expectations for Abby’s future, begin to wonder what Abby could have been if she had lived? My mother becoming fixated on Abby’s ‘couldas,’ how she had been planning on going to

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college (she would’ve dropped out the first semester), how she was always so generous and loving (she was a bitch to my mom most of the time), and how she didn’t know how to face the future without her sweet daughter at her side (she was more sour than sweet most of the time).

I finally admitted to myself that Angie and I were merely diversions for each other. She never asked about my family, didn’t know I had a younger sister once, and wouldn’t have cared to know how she actually died. I could never tell her about my bad dreams. The many nights filled with nightmares about calls from the police station and the difference in anticipating bad news and finally receiving it. Picturing what summer humidity does to a body that’s been voluntarily propped up against a tree overnight and later buried under dirt. I couldn’t tell Angie that I woke up every morning around three a.m., sweat spotting my collar, and that I worried my bagged eyes were becoming grotesque, that my hair was falling out.

Angie was my funtime friend. Angie was my drink all night, sleep all day friend.

Angie was my love-me-and-only-me-or-else friend. It didn’t matter that I had become her unofficial roommate. Angie and I could spend days, weeks, months together and she’d never reach me. She’d never try. She’d rather sip our six packs alone than have to feign interest in someone other than herself.

My pulse slowed as I began to make peace with this new reality. I’d never have to admit to Angie what I was really thinking. I’d never have to face it. There was security in that. I small-smiled and turned back to my screen, silencing the quiet despair wrapping its hand around my throat and sealing my tear ducts shut.

“Sure, man. No problem.”

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THE CARE AND KEEPING OF CHARLOTTE (ACCORDING TO MATT) A HOW-TO GUIDE

Do’s

 Keep the fridge fully stocked with beer.

 Loudly take note of how many times Charlotte goes to the bar alone, making her

self conscious and thereby encouraging her to decrease her trips there. Tell her

you’re doing this “for her own good.” Still continue to take her out whenever

Angie is at work.

 Offer to drive her to the grocery store, the bank, etc. to make her subconsciously

dependant on you. Buy tampons for her when it’s her time of the month. Come

home with sporadic surprises - her favorite candy bar or a movie she wants to see

that happened to be available at the local RedBox.

 Lend her money before she asks for it. Offer to pay for her groceries, her nights

out (when you permit them).

 Divulge tragic personal information during late nights to build her trust in you.

 If she ever gets snippy or asks about Angie, remind her she’s the fucked up one

for sleeping with a guy who’s already in a relationship.

 Name drop Angie frequently to keep Charlotte from getting too invested.

 Freeze Charlotte out, sometimes for days, by not acknowledging when she’s in

the room if she does something that pisses you off.

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 Frequently mention how it’s hard for you to connect emotionally with people.

Leave it up to her to fret over if this statement means she’s one of the special ones

or if you’ll never reciprocate any feelings for her.

 Bail on plans sporadically. Get visibly frustrated whenever Charlotte tries to do

the same.

 Talk about the crazy girls you’ve dated, mentioning their similarities to her

without explicitly saying this is what you’re doing.

 Be apologetic, but vaguely so.

Don’ts

 Talk about your relationship with Angie (unless one of the do’s applies).

 Ask Charlotte any questions about herself, but remind yourself to tell her you’re

“here if she wants to talk” so you don’t seem too disinterested.

 Message her back too quickly. Leave her on read for hours.

 Come up with nicknames for her that she visibly hates. Always reassure her

you’re kidding and she’s too sensitive.

 Bring her around your friends.

 Point out that she doesn’t have any friends aside from you and Angie.

 Satisfy her sexually.

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THERE WILL BE REST

I sat on the couch between Matt and Angie, our faces obscure in the shadows given off by the flickering television set. Our multiple nights a week spent binge drinking had parted ways for a quieter weekday routine, which was preferable for my empty wallet. They hadn’t followed up about the rent I had promised them and for that I was grateful. I didn’t have the money. Where was I supposed to get it from? My father had stopped sending me money consistently, now only occasionally wiring me small increments of hundreds, but it wasn’t enough to pay my bills. I never pressed the issue. I knew I was lucky to be getting anything from him at all. And what was I supposed to do, get a job?

I was listless. I was aimless. I would hang around the house while Matt and Angie were at work under the guise I was researching how to re-enroll in school. At least that wasn’t a lie when I first started living there. My victim’s complex appealed to Matt - he always liked playing the hero, I now realized. Why else was he sheltering two lost young women and asking for nothing but sex in return? He had no other way of filling up the emptiness he felt, that lack of connection with other people by proving that he was worth loving by taking care of poor, defenseless me. I both loved and was repulsed by him.

My favorite days happened when I had the house to myself but even that would get lonely. I’d sit on the couch in my pajamas until one p.m. ignoring whatever show I had pulled up on Matt’s Netflix account or pad circles around the neighborhood until the late afternoon when all the office workers returned home to their full houses. Sometimes

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Angie would blow off whatever serving job she was going to quit anyway - turns out the

Founder’s job wasn’t so permanent after all - and stay home with me. Sometimes that would make me happy. We’d get high and watch old cartoons - “Foster’s Home for

Imaginary Kids,” “Regular Show” - or she’d offer me drugs, weed, a handful of mushrooms she’d bought off some rando she’d met at the gas station. He was legit, though, she said. She’d gotten his number and he’d said to hit her up whenever she wanted to buy more.

Angie was that type of person. People were always enabling her because she was fun to be around. She’d seduce you with a knowing lean of her shoulders, the way she threw her head back when she laughed. I always envied that about her. She made being liked look so easy.

Angie’s head rested on my shoulder, her neck gone slack from how much weed we’d smoked. Her black hair smelled like the shampoo she used, some organic shit she couldn’t afford that Matt bought for her. Vanilla or almonds or whatever. I read once that cyanide smells like almonds. We were high as shit and I focused on breathing, warding off the heart attack I was sure was headed my way. Focused on the surprisingly heavy feel of Angie’s skull digging into my collarbone. Angie craved closeness, I think that’s why she liked having me there - to fill the void that Matt often didn’t occupy.

If nothing else, ignoring the fact that I was fucking one of them, it was interesting to watch and analyze this couple’s relationship from afar. They’d been together for a long time - since Angie was sixteen and Matt was nineteen. I thought back to the night Angie and I had one of our “deep” conversations, which were mostly comprised of Angie oversharing and me listening. We’d taken a walk by the Grand River and were passing a

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pipe back and forth. At that point, Matt and I had been sleeping together for two weeks and I was so attached, I felt my anxiety rise as soon as he’d leave the house to go to work.

“Thanks again for letting me crash, dude,” I said, my breathing coming out in short, white puffs of air.

Angie took a hit, exhaled, and passed the pipe back to me. I fumbled with the lighter in my gloved hands.

“Don’t thank me, thank Matt,” she answered. “It’s cool you’re living with us though. It’s nice having another girl around. He gets so annoying sometimes.”

I laughed, my palms sweating. I concentrated on the lighter to try to hide the fact my hands had started shaking.

“So, like, how long have you guys been together?”

Our steps slowed as we reached our favorite bench and settled in, Angie squealing as the shocking cold burnt through her jeans.

“Lemme think. Well, I was fifteen and I was getting in trouble a lot. I was failing out of high school and I knew it. That was right before my mom died.”

I looked over at her in surprise. I said nothing. A sorry seemed useless.

“That sucks, dude,” I offered after a minute of silence. Angie shrugged.

“Yeah, I mean she was a junkie. She was a really shitty mother. She used to leave me alone all the time when I was little to go out and party. We were always moving and I remember at one place our neighbors called Child Protective Services on her. I don’t know why she ever even had me. I was an accident and she was pretty young when I was born. Like I said, she was a shitty mom. But my dad bailed while she was still pregnant with me, so she was all I had.”

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Angie petered off. We both stared into the churning grey waters of the river. A streetlight next to us flickered on in the twilight.

“Anyway, my mom was so busy wrapped up in her own shit that she never paid attention to where I was or what I was doing. I started going out a lot when I was twelve - we lived in a sketchy apartment complex off Division Avenue and trust me, you do not want to be caught walking around by yourself at night there. I made some friends who were a little older than me and they started inviting me out with them.”

I passed her the pipe and her story paused as she took a hit.

“Fuck dude, that sucks. I’m sorry you grew up that way.”

She shrugged, exhaled. “Could have been worse. I guess. I don’t think I ever would have met Matt if I’d grown up somewhere like you. He’s pretty much all I have at this point.”

I stared straight ahead. Guilt began to whine inside my head like a saw. I took the bowl from her and took too big of a hit, collapsed in a coughing fit. Angie thumped me on the back as she continued.

“I started going to shows a lot because that’s all these older kids ever did. They were in high school, I think. I don’t talk to any of them anymore. But we’d just get high and shit-faced then go to, like, The Intersection and see whatever stupid show was happening there. I wasn’t supposed to be allowed in, but they knew one of the bouncers. I didn’t even like the music - it was just something to do.”

“So Matt was one of the musicians you saw play, right?”

She smiled, her eyes misted over.

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“Yeah. All my friends all had a crush on him. How could they not? He was so gorgeous and just had this, like, swagger about him. He could have had anybody.”

She grinned at me sideways as she said this. Proud.

“He just became, like, my best friend. My mom never gave a shit about me and all those older kids weren’t the greatest friends anyway. There was always so much drama with them - drinking, and drugs, and people cheating on each other. Dumb shit. But I always felt like I could tell Matt anything. He was with me when I found my mom passed out in our bathroom and called 911 for me while I was freaking out, trying to get her to wake up. She’d overdosed. She was dead by the time she got to the hospital.”

She said this without emotion. Like a story she was bored of telling over and over.

Some people have real problems, I thought.

“I moved in with Matt the next day, partly because I had nowhere else to go and partly because I was so head over heels for him. I probably would have moved in with him even if my mom didn’t OD. He’s the only person in my life who’s truly cared about me one hundred percent. I’d be lost without him.”

I was thinking about that story as I sat next to Matt and Angie on the couch. I felt guilty, but not enough to stop doing what I was doing. I peered at both of them out of the corners of my eyes. Their gazes were fixed firmly ahead at the television set in front of them. I wondered how long Angie would have Matt on a pedestal. I wasn’t sure sometimes he was even interested in actually helping her or just wanted to keep her reliant on him.

Matt had a thing for lost girls, I think. How else would I have ended up in his house on the couch? He had this chip on his shoulder - he wasn’t enough for himself and

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he filled that void by trying to take care of people who seemed, to him, lost. I thought back to our conversation at the Amway, how close I felt to him. How special I felt he was confiding in me. Since then, it seemed he’d started to build a wall around me. Now, instead of offering me his truck whenever I wanted to run to Meijer, he’d insist on driving me. If I pointed out one of his insecurities, he’d pout or ignore me for days until I begged him for forgiveness. I could feel my heart being worn thin from its constant pounding, brought on by Matt, my parents, the drugs I was doing around the clock. I could never sleep a full night.

Matt flicked through his phone, ignoring the ginger-haired comedian we’d put on, his thigh pressed against mine. I felt suffocated and at the same time oddly comforted. I thought back to earlier in the day when Angie had made a rare solo trip to the grocery store and within ten minutes of the door slamming he had pulled me on top of him. We’d never made it to their bedroom, just defiled the couch the three of us currently sat on.

He’d wound his fingers in the hair that took root at the back of my head and made me look into his eyes while our hips ground into each other. I’d stared back and swallowed my revulsion at the way the skin crinkled around his eyes, one brown, one blue. I wanted to feel wanted, but it was losing its luster. I eventually wormed my way out of his grasp by tilting my head back, trying to draw his eyes to my chest so we wouldn’t have to engage in this disconcerting staring contest.

He got off anyway. I called it paying rent.

We sat at the couch and a bag of salt-and-vinegar kettle chips lay in my lap.

Angie and Matt’s separate hands dipped into it silently, never at the same time, the bag crinkling each time they withdrew their hands. Occasionally, I’d straighten out the bag so

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it wouldn’t give when their eager, slender fingers went in rooting around for a chip. I liked to be helpful.

And I tried to be helpful. I wasn’t paying rent, but I always turned off each light after I left the room. Both of them yelled at me to stop doing that even though I insisted I was just trying to keep the electric bill down. I was trying to save the world by minimizing our carbon footprint, couldn’t they be a little more fucking grateful?

“That’s great that you wanna save the world, but I stubbed my fucking toe,”

Angie yelled. “Stop turning the fucking lights off!”

I said I was sorry. Then turned the lights off before I left the room.

The TV blared and my eyelids drooped. I wanted Angie and Matt to go to bed so I could have the room to myself, but that wasn’t how ‘not paying rent’ worked. I still wasn’t sleeping in their spare room and so the couch was where I laid my head each night. I tried to push down that surging feeling again, of being trapped. I didn’t have the energy to change it. You could always go home I would think until I remembered my parents didn’t feel like home anymore.

I didn’t like stewing like this and yet here we were. Maybe it was the weather. I missed the beginning of October, when the sunlight hardened in the afternoon and the sun began sinking lower earlier and earlier each night. Now the neighborhood was spotted in snow and I would slip sometimes on my walks. I knew these streets now like the back of my hand - when the school bus for the local elementary school kids arrived and later dropped them off at 3:03 p.m. I knew an old widow lived across the street, her white hair shining against her brown skin. Sometimes I waved to her when I went out to get Matt and Angie’s mail. I realized then how rarely I left the confines of this neighborhood. My

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bravado from earlier that year, which had pushed me to go to bars alone, had faded. Now the thought of leaving gave me anxiety. What, go out there? To the grocery store or some place equally terrifying? I could get hit by a bus. A homeless man could ask me for a dollar. You never knew what evil was lurking around the corner.

I settled for their backyard. The cold clear nights were my favorite. Tonight was cloudy and still. I thought back to a poem I loved by Sara Teasdale, which promised one day, there would be rest. One day when I was dead.

Some nights like this on the couch were better. Usually after I’d swallowed whatever painkillers Angie had procured from her dealer, I felt filled to the brim with a rosy optimism. In moments like that, I might be gripped with the impulse to call my mother or father, tell them I loved them and how grateful I was for them. How it wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t any of our faults.

I never would actually dial their numbers, though.

Angie shifted next to me, laced her fingers into mine. I squeezed her bony, brittle hand and didn’t feel anything.

There will be rest

Angie’s cat Ernie lumbered into the room, gazed at us dismissively and began preening in front of the television, his outline aglow in the shadowy room. A fat, orange, six-toed beast, Angie had gotten him as a kitten after a neighbor’s cat’s swollen belly finally burst. I loved his paws, grabbing them when he would let me and gently squeezing so that his claws would softly expand. After this intrusion, he’d usually yowl and run away to the corner where he’d look back at me reproachfully, licking between his toes.

Erasing the memory of me.

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There will be rest.

My phone buzzed. I grabbed it a little too quickly, turned it over. Just a Twitter notification. I set it back down, my heart doing jumping jacks inside my ribcage.

Angie talked over the special. Silence made her uncomfortable. Right now, she was reacting to the comedian’s jokes, annunciating her consonants a little too hard for my liking. She was hurting my ears.

“I can’t believe he went there man,” she was laughing, turning her head to nuzzle my shoulder. My body leaned into her. I wanted to make her feel welcome. “That’s fucked up, man. Didn’t this guy, like, jerk off in front of some people?”

I opened my mouth to respond but Matt was quicker, his remark cutting through the air like scissors gliding through wrapping paper. “That’s just a rumor, Ang. I doubt he actually did that. Just some fucking women who are jealous of him accusing him. It’ll die down in a month, I guarantee it. Just some feminazi bullshit.”

For some reason, it always surprised me that in a house full of women Matt still felt comfortable making these types of statements. Then again, he’d never claimed to be an ally. Instead, he paid the mortgage and was especially proud of the fact that he’d been able to buy this house last year at the age of twenty four in a time when most millenials were stuck renting well into their thirties. I closed my mouth and stayed silent. Just turned away from him and leaned my head on top of Angie, the scent of her hair flooding my nostrils.

I wanted to enjoy being here. But here didn’t matter. It could be Angie and Matt’s couch, it could be my parents’ House of Death, it could be staring out at the Grand River

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and smashing a beer bottle into the cracked concrete next to it, staring at the million glittering pieces left behind, some still held together by the stubborn, sticky label.

I thought about what I wanted and couldn’t make up my mind. I wanted escape, but how?

A straight narrow road in the desert. Gliding along in a powder blue convertible, the top down, a la Natural Born Killers or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. High on something, anything, heading toward a concrete destination that was pregnant with possibility. My sister in the passenger seat next to me.

My imagination left the dry heat of the desert and I coughed in the brittle wintry house. My lungs asked for humidity. I craved a cigarette in my backyard, not Matt and

Angie’s, some place that was mine. I wanted to be able to look upon a roomful of people with love, not through some distant kind of lens. I wanted to watch the sun set, ribbons of light threading through spools of clouds. Florida, I decided, was especially beautiful when the sun set. I could drive to the end of the road, get to Key West, and relax among the retirees with their protruding leathery bellies. I wanted to hear Abby’s laughter again.

My head hurt. I actually needed a cigarette. I squeezed Angie’s hand and quietly excused myself, Angie so high and sleepy she fell sideways onto Matt. I knew when I came back in later, she’d be asleep, wrapped in his arms while he had shifted to the side to stare listlessly at his phone. She always forgave him no matter what bullshit he put her through. Girls I knew always chose their boyfriends over everyone else.

I silently grabbed my cigarettes and my blanket, headed to their backyard. I chewed on the thought that it was entirely possible to be far away while sitting in a room full of people. Stared up at the stars. Wondered when I’d have a home again.

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No more House of Death.

No more House of Rent.

Something far away.

One day I’d fly away.

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A GUIDE TO MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness allows practitioners to separate themselves from their emotions, thereby controlling their responses to potential triggers in their environments. Need help getting out of your own head? Try this trick - name five things you see, four things you hear, three things you touch, two things you smell, and one thing you taste. Making lists like these allows you to take stock of your present circumstances, allowing you to live more fully within them.

1. I see the green carpet lining the walkway outside my room at my parents’ house,

the bland white walls of that same hallway, the bright red on my leg that later will

form a purplish-green bruise (which I will hide under funeral-appropriate dress

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pants), a family portrait with all of us clad in denim, Abby’s hair in pigtails, and

the crack in my iPhone screen.

2. I hear the shrieking of my mother downstairs as my father talks to the police on

the phone, the slamming of the front door, the smashing of a bottle on the floor,

and my mother’s wracking sobs.

3. I am touching the rough carpet blanketing the hallway, the bumpy walls as I run

my fingers along them while walking down the hall to the top of the stairs, and

the creaking of the first step of our staircase.

4. I smell the rot of the unemptied trash can in the kitchen, which has been knocked

over, and red wine from the bottle that was smashed.

5. I taste blood.

There you have it. Mindfulness. As with most lifestyle changes, adopting this attitude takes practice. Use this method to ground yourself in the present or continue to relive one of the worst moments of your life. The work is to just keep doing it. Results will accrue.

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WHO YOU REALLY ARE

It was spring. Easter had just passed and it was the first year my parents hadn’t sent me a basket piled high with chocolate bunnies and jelly beans. Abby had been gone for nine months at this point. I didn’t want to keep track of her absence, but I couldn’t stop counting the empty days. Missing her had become a part of my routine; the memory of that fatal Sunday was the first thing I thought about when I woke up each morning.

She was the underlying current of my life.

I smoked in the backyard in a thin sweater. The sky was ravenously blue and the bare trees were starting to bud. I knocked some ash from my cigarette into the overflowing ashtray and exhaled. I wanted to spoil the fresh spring air.

Every morning was the same. Like clockwork, the stay-at-home moms who lived in the neighborhood rounded the corner, pushing prams lined with chubby babies who had their whole lives ahead of them. Squirrels would skitter across the electric power lines strung through the yard. I’d focus on mindfulness tricks to try and keep my thoughts

Abby-free. They rarely worked. Each day was the goddamn same.

I heard the door squeak behind me, jumped. Matt stood there, chest bare in the warmth of the early sunshine.

“Smoking this early, Ms. Charlotte? Haven’t you heard those things will kill you?”

I chuckled as my chest relaxed, then tightened. Matt and I had gotten into a tiff on

Friday. I couldn’t remember what I said but it was enough to make him ignore me all

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weekend. Apparently, I was annoying enough to drive him to take Angie to an elaborate dinner date on Saturday. I loathed when he was like that. I paced the bare floors as soon as they left, wondering what I had done to make Matt once again treat me like a piece of furniture, a pet he could leave tied up outside of a store. Me sitting silently as Angie happily recounted the details of their date the next day - the restaurant downtown, the red wine, their walk along the Grand River afterward. Bile rose in my throat at the end of her story and I had run to the bathroom to gag.

Matt settled in the chair next to me, reached for the pack I had left sitting on the chipped patio table. I feigned annoyance to hide my pleasure that he was talking to me again.

“Hey! Those are pretty expensive,” I said quickly, quoting a line from one of our favorite television shows. Something he introduced me to.

He smiled, inhaled. We sat in silence for a bit. His shoulders relaxed as my heart pounded.

“Can’t believe it’s already spring. Seems like it snowed only the other week -”

“So, did you have a good weekend?” I talked over him, unable to hold in my frustration. I was tired of being walked over. “You and Angie have fun?”

He frowned.

“Come on, Char, it’s too early for that bullshit. Come on inside and have breakfast with me.”

I looked back at him.

“I’m a person too! Fuck. Do you even care how-”

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It was Matt’s turn to interrupt me. “Will you keep your voice down? Jesus, I can’t stand it when you bitch at me. Look, we’ll talk about this later.”

He slammed through the side door. I knew later would never come. And now that

I had pissed Matt off further, he’d either go cuddle up to Angie or pick a fight with her. I was getting antsy staying at their house. Matt and Angie were so accustomed to me being there that it was like they forgot about me sometimes. I had front row seats to their spectacular fights and sometimes felt like a kid watching the impending divorce of her parents.

It always was the same thing. Angie would yell at Matt that he was always working and never home. He’d stoke her paranoia by dismissing the multiple times she’d accused him of cheating on her. She’d cry or scream back or slam her feet on the floor as she stomped back to their room, slamming the door briskly behind her. It was performance art at this point.

Sometimes Matt would want to have sex after they fought. I think it was the adrenaline that got him going, doing it right under Angie’s nose as she cried behind a closed door. Sometimes, depending on how much I hated myself that day, I indulged him.

Other times, I’d give him what I meant to be a highly dismissive look and step onto their back porch for a cigarette, shutting him, her, my new ridiculous life out for a few precious minutes of silence to myself. If I was feeling extra generous, I’d check on Angie and make sure she was okay.

I was tired of being on top of them. But I lived in total isolation and any former friends I’d had gave up on calling me when they knew those calls were going to go to voicemail. The only other option was to go home.

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Constant irritation became my everyday state. As the spring buds continued to poke their heads through melting snow, Angie’s neediness began to intensify and I found myself siding with Matt more often than not, shutting her out.

I began leaving my phone in random places around the house - on top of the tank behind the toilet, inside the cupboards in the kitchen, once on the porch outside. I needed a viable excuse to not answer. More often than not, when I picked it up it would be littered with messages from Angie.

Wyd

Wanna pick up some PBR and meet me by the Grand River? :)

Omg the craziest thing happened at work today, what r u up to

I was getting exhausted by the persistence of her pleas. I was beginning to understand why I had never met any of Angie’s other friends. She didn’t have any.

“She’s just a really intense person and I think she tends to scare people off,” Matt told me one afternoon as I lay next to him in their bed. Angie was at work, her second restaurant that year. She rarely lasted more than a few months at each job. She’d either quit because she had decided they were taking advantage of her or she would be fired for backtalk, calling her managers sons of bitches. Once she stole ninety dollars from a bar’s cash register and got caught. She was lucky they didn’t call the cops on her. That was a fight for the ages when she got home and offhandedly remarked to Matt what she had done.

I could still hear Matt yelling at her.

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“Are you fucking kidding me, Angie? How fucking old are you? What, you wanna be a fucking criminal now? That’s real nice, playing into the stereotype. Be some fucking crazy Mexican girl? You wanna be loca?”

His words hit her harder than a slap. He never bothered to get her ethnicity right.

Some arguments, Angie fought back. This was one of those fights. She’d responded by throwing a sealed water bottle at him. I watched it thump on the floor. Matt had then crossed the room faster than I comprehended and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her to their room. The door slammed behind them. I pressed my ear to it, though I didn’t need to - their screams were loud enough to wake the dead. Fucking cunt and I fucking hate you’s floated through the door until, suddenly, there was silence. Just as I was wondering if I should call the cops, Angie had emerged, her eyes puffy. Her arm bloomed with red where Matt had grabbed her.

I didn’t like to admit he scared me sometimes.

At first, I wondered why Angie stayed. Matt wasn’t the guy she’d made him out to be in her head. But I was realizing now that Angie wasn’t just dating Matt - she depended on him like a daughter would a father.

“Does she even have, like, any friends?” I asked once, trying not to flinch as I felt

Matt stroke his fingers down my arm. I stayed perfectly still. I did not have the energy or enough lubrication to go again. Some days, I needed to be drunk or high to even let him near me.

But I still let him near me.

“Sure she does,” he murmured into my shoulder. “She has us.” I slid away from him, mumbling that I needed to pee.

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With me around, Matt got to take a break from Angie’s obsessive need to always be wanted, to feel wanted. At first, I was drawn to her because she was always down to get into trouble. Did I want to set off firecrackers at three a.m. down the street? Angie would already be rifling through her sock drawer, swearing she had some leftover from the last Fourth of July. Did I want to start drinking at 8 a.m. and weave my way toward

Ionia Street to celebrate Sunday Funday on a Tuesday? Angie was already on the phone, getting fired from her job for calling in sick on short notice or she was quitting. Her energy was admirable. Opportunities were endless, particularly in the bar industry, she told me once. Something else would always come along.

And she had her good qualities. The girl was just as broke as I was but she was always trying to pick up the tab. She gave homeless people money without hesitation.

Her relationship with her father was frayed but he always wired her money from

Colombia when she needed it, maybe to make up for what a piece of shit he had been during Angie’s formative years.

These days, though, I was wondering if that trade-off was worth it. I was trapped in that house, trapped between Matt and Angie, and my nerves were frayed..

One of the biggest fights Matt and Angie ever had was over broken plates. I could see why Matt was pissed - he came home at eight p.m. from working overtime at the plant to a kitchen that was a mess. Angie and I had been drinking and doing coke since four p.m. as she’d finally found a reliable hookup through one of her work friends. After venturing into one of the sketchier parts downtown and coming out unscathed, we’d decided we had earned a Wednesday night off. We stopped at Meijer to pick up ingredients to make pizza.

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“Not any old pizza,” Angie said, her eyes shining as her head leaned back. The drip from the coke burned the back of my throat. “We’re not picking up some kind of freezer shit.”

I shook my head no in agreement. “Are we getting take out? I think there’s a Papa

Johns in this plaza.”

Angie looked at me like I was crazy. “Take out? In this economy?” She laughed, parsing open the bag of little white powder, and dipping her key into it. She did another bump right there in the driver’s seat of the supermarket parking lot like it was the most natural thing in the world, not caring who saw. We were free in that moment. We didn’t answer to anyone. Our youth protected us. “We’re gonna make it. Look up a recipe.”

I complied, pulling up Pinterest on my phone. Tapped the first recipe I saw. We practically ran into the grocery store, not caring who thought we looked a little odd, our high-pitched, mile-a-minute voices, our lips and teeth stained from red wine.

We probably shouldn’t have been driving.

And so, Matt came home to a kitchen that was a disaster, a burned pizza, and

Angie and I sitting in the midst of the wreckage. Our Betty Crocker moment had passed and now we were playing a drinking game, willing away the mess until the next morning.

We heard the garage door and Angie’s eyes got wide as she surveyed the mess around us. “Oh my God, Matt is gonna kill us,” she exclaimed, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles.

“Us? No way, girl. This isn’t an ‘us’ situation,” I choked out between my ground teeth, my eyes crinkled from laughing and cocaine. It was nice to finally have a fun night that punctuated the dreary sameness of my day-to-day. “This was your idea!”

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We heard the distant honk of a horn as Matt locked his car. The door next to the garage swung open and I could hear the heavy thud of his boots as he hit the floor. I felt each step reverberate through me. I swallowed as something resembling panic began to rise.

Angie and I sat in pregnant silence, our giggles suddenly extinguished. After all, the man of the house was home, tired, and probably hungry. He might not have been expecting a home-cooked meal, but definitely was not expecting complete chaos. I could see from the way his spine straightened and the annoyed way he rolled back his shoulders as he surveyed the room he wasn’t happy.

“Ladies,” he greeted us curtly as he walked by the kitchen table, ripping open the refrigerator door and rooting around inside for a beer. The bottle hissed as he cracked it open and he spun slowly to face us. “And what kind of project do we have going on here?”

I could see the tension in the lines of his face, his annoyance laid out plainly in the hard set of his mouth. Angie giggled, brightened, blissfully ignorant. She leapt to her feet and pushed him over to the oven, pressing the button that lit it. “We’re making a pizza.

See?”

Matt followed her lead, taking a swig from the bottle. “I see.”

Angie clasped his arm, hugging it. I watched from the kitchen table. She never could feel tension thicken and stretch like a rubber band. She never learned when she needed to walk on eggshells. Her survival instinct was broken, I guess. She began rattling off all of the ingredients we’d put on the pizza - five different kinds of cheeses, onions, pepperoni, sausage, oregano. She waved her hands excitedly as she talked.

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Her hands flapped dangerously close to a stack of plates we had set on the counter a little too close to the edge. We were hungry at this point and wanted to serve the pizza as soon as it was done. I watched as Angie’s hand sailed through the hair and hit the stack, sending the plates smashing to the floor. The three of us followed their trajectory as they transformed from whole into jagged little pieces, spraying Matt’s shoes with slivers of porcelain.

Matt’s calm demeanor cracked.

“God DAMMIT, Angie,” he roared in a voice that sucked all the air from the room. She stopped giggling and took a step back. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”

Angie’s smile shrank. “I didn’t mean to,” she said, already trying to make amends. “I’ll clean it up.”

“You’re goddamn right you’ll clean it up,” he shouted over his shoulder as he headed to the small pantry they had, grabbing the broom and tossing it in her direction.

She ducked and the broom clattered to the floor. The three of us stared at it in what felt like forever but really was only a few seconds.

“Well? Are you just going to keep staring at it like an idiot?” Matt asked, taking on the condescending air I had grown to hate about him. Angie’s eyes were on the floor.

She bent to her knees and reached for the handle.

“That’s right,” Matt coaxed her condescendingly. She ignored him and grabbed the broom, straightening up.

“Now, you remember how these things work, right?” Matt asked her, his tone mocking. I wanted to throw a plate at his head but couldn’t muster the energy or find another place to sleep. He narrated each of her actions as she slowly swept the jagged bits

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into a pile, the shards loudly dragging on the floor. “That’s right, sweep, sweep, sweep, good. Now, what do you do with that pile?”

Angie didn’t answer and Matt dropped the condescending act, strode over to her and grabbed her arm. I rose to my feet, an unconscious reaction, but still, I hung back.

What can I say? I was a coward.

Matt held her arm until she looked up at him. “I said, what do you do with the pile? You speak English?” This barb he said directly into her right ear, loudly.

She looked up at him, her eyes wet and and furious and hard and helpless. “I throw it away.”

He let go of her arm. “That’s right. You know, babe, you’re not as stupid as you act sometimes.”

He didn’t look at me when he said this. Not out of shame - it was just like he forgot I was in the room.

“You’re so unattractive when you play dumb,” he continued. “You know I fucking hate that shit.”

Angie didn’t answer, just kept her eyes on the floor as she swept. The glass from the plates had gotten everywhere. The kitchen resembled the aftermath of a gunshot wound, as though someone made of porcelain had been shot. Matt admonished her as she worked.

“Dumb ass Angie. No wonder every place you’ve ever worked at has fired you.

You probably broke all of their plates too. Cost them a fortune,” his words slapped at her, steamrolling her meek attempts to stand up for herself. Finally, Angie had gathered up all of the glass and carefully emptied the now-full dustbin into the trash can.

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“Take the trash outside while you’re at it,” Matt said, watching her work, sipping from his beer. He placed the empty bottle on the counter.

“I’m gonna go change. I’m fucking exhausted,” he said, now to me. I stared back and did my best not to flinch, kept my back straight. “Some of us actually worked today.

Save me two slices.”

We left him his slices on the pan. Angie shakily returned to her jovial persona after Matt retreated to their bedroom, trying to laugh off their argument. “I can’t believe I hit those plates. Oh my god, I broke so many! Is there more coke?”

I helped her clean the kitchen, wiping down the surfaces, and giving the floor a final once-over with the broom. The last thing we needed was for Matt to accidentally step on a sliver.

Matt strode back into the kitchen and grabbed the two slices of pizza left, loaded them onto one of the still-intact plates. He headed to the living room and I heard him flick the television on.

“Ang, The Voice is on,” he called. The kitchen now sparkling, she brightened at his new tone of voice. I knew later she’d be tugging him into the kitchen, happily showing off the fruits of our efforts. The storm was over. For now, at least. She skipped to the living room to bounce onto the couch next to him.

“Watch it babe, I got this plate here,” I heard him gently admonish her, the anger completely sapped from his voice. He was two people - the Matt who could spend hours telling Angie how helpless she was, how stupid she was and Matt the Provider. Angie giggled in response, murmured her apologies.

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“Charlotte, are you coming? My favorite singer is about to go on!” Angie called out to me.

And just like that, their fight was forgotten. I grabbed a beer and went to the living room, stretching out on the rug in front of them. Angie settled her feet on my back

- “you’re like the world’s cutest, what are they called, the rugs with the bears?”

“A bearskin rug,” Matt filled in for her - and we sat there like one happy family.

I realized I wouldn't know a happy family if it hit me over the head with a metal folding chair.

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SAVE ME

“I don’t need you to save me.”

I said it calmly, steadily. Matt looked back at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

Being unemployed with no direction except vaguely forward had been fun for a few months. But now, it was spring, a time for rebirth, and I was stuck. I was still sleeping on the exact same couch I had first passed out on in January. Rather than re- enroll in college, or I don’t know, call my parents and go to therapy, I preferred starting the day with a fight. Matt and Angie got in enough of them - now it was my turn. Maybe

I thought if I was loud enough, my mother might hear me.

Angie had noticed my mood swings, but only when my snappy tone was in reference to her.

“Jesus Christ, Charlotte, what the fuck is wrong with you?” she’d snort. “All you’ve been doing lately is moping around the house.”

“Did you smoke all my pot?”

“Since when are you such a psycho bitch?”

I would lay on the couch, massaging my temples. Lately, I had started snapping back at her.

“I’m not moping.”

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“Not all of it - I left some in the bowl for you.”

“Takes one to know one.”

I ignored the hurt that welled in Angie’s eyes any time I was impatient with her.

She just wanted a friend. I realized I wanted to be left alone.

Angie was still at work that morning. She had found a job at a vegan bakery of all places, which required her to show up for shifts at five a.m. I complemented Matt and

Angie in ways they couldn’t complement each other. When Angie wanted to get drunk on a weeknight, I was there to crack a beer with her while pouring boxed red wine and the good parts of moldy oranges into a pitcher to make sangria. When Matt wanted to get philosophical about his place in the world like he was the only person in it, I was there to listen, potent with booze.

It was a two way street. When I got sick of Angie’s mood swings and propensity for substance/me abuse, Matt was there to hold my head against his skinny chest. When I got irritated with Matt’s overinflated ego, Angie was already walking out the front door ahead of me.

The world, I had decided, was a bad, bad place. I didn’t need to see anymore of it.

I channeled my frustration at Matt. He was an easy target. He toed a fine line with me, didn’t want me spilling to Angie what we’d been up to under her nose all of these months I had been living with them. I became irritated with his bouts of freezing me out and began cornering him whenever I was angry.

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Matt stood silently as I continued to berate him. He didn’t look me in the eye, just stared straight ahead, which only pissed me off further.

“You’re sick. You have White Knight Syndrome.”

His face reddened. I felt my shoulders relax. Finally I was getting some sign of life out of him.

Matt. What a fucking idiot. Boys, at least the boys I attracted, felt the only way to make themselves relevant and be a Real Man was to be the savior. Then they expected you to thank them. Thanks for that help I never asked for. That’s what I was telling Matt this morning.

“I don’t need you to save me,” I said, my voice rising, peaking before the sun came up as he packed a lunch for work. It didn’t matter what time it was anymore. I never kept normal hours. I’d been awake for twenty four hours at that point. “I can figure that out. You’re suffocating me!”

Some mornings Matt would just ignore me. This morning, he was feisty, slamming his open palm against the cupboard in front of him. It shook with a hollow thunk. Finally, he turned to face me. I flinched.

“Yeah? I’m saving you? How the fuck am I saving you? Please, clue me in, I wanna know.”

He took a step toward me. I sputtered, my confidence draining.

“You condescending - you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

All the nights when Angie was gone and he lay with me and told me he could sense I was broken, I could open up to him if I needed someone to talk to. All the times when he spoke for me, when he decided what we were doing that night, what shows we

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would watch on television. I realized how much I let him call the shots. Yet, he’d earned it. He paid for my entire living situation.

“You’re such a big girl, huh? Tell me something, who pays the fucking mortgage here?” He said as if I’d verbalized my train of thought.

“Anybody can get a job and buy a house!” I screamed, shedding my vocal cords in the progress. “Don’t sit on your high horse and preach to me about money.”

He slammed a cupboard door and turned to face me, his fingers twitching. I liked that it was because of me.

“You dropped out of college, you don’t work, you just get drunk and high all of the time,” Matt’s words hissed out between clenched teeth. “Oh wait, let me correct myself - you basically failed out. You think you can handle the real world? You’d be homeless or back in Warren living with Mommy and Daddy if it wasn’t for me.”

I hadn’t spoken to my parents in months. My father, slowly but surely, had stopped calling. I was truly cut off. Who was going to pay attention to me if not Matt?

“I’ll tell you what, you hate living here so bad? He strode to the front door and kicked it open. It may have been spring, but the mornings still started with a damp chill.

“I’ve got some great news for you.”

“You won’t kick me out. You need me,” I laughed nastily, feeling brazen at biting the hand that fed me. “How are you gonna feel needed if you don’t have me? How you gonna feel like a person who matters if you’re not taking care of me? Sure, you’ll still have Angie but I’m the real charity case.”

He didn’t flinch. That bugged me.

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“Why would anyone love you unless you were doing things for them? Why bother?” I glared at him. “You disgust me. Your need for validation is repulsive.”

I think I wanted him to scream in my face. I wanted to face consequences. I was so tired of skating by on someone else’s dime but I didn’t have it in me to take responsibility for myself.

He strode back into the kitchen and grabbed his lunch.

“I wasn’t sure how to bring this up, but since you’re already yelling, this seems like as good a time as any.” He glanced at the clock. 6:21 a.m. “Angie and I are moving.

I’m putting up the house - the house you say was so easy to buy - for sale. I got a job offer in Chicago and I’m going to take it.”

I deflated, my entitled rage leaving me in an instant. I said nothing.

“We’re leaving. I would invite you to come with us, but it’s clear you’ve decided you’re better off on your own. After everything we’ve done for you. You fucking ungrateful brat.”

I had wanted the power and now I would never have any of it. He made for the door, then paused, pivoting on his bootheel.

“And don’t even think that tattling to Angie about what’s been going on between us is going to help you. Angie loves me. She’d never believe a word you say.”

I blanched. Admit to Angie I’d been betraying her this entire time? I’d rather set myself on fire.

“You think I’m trying to save you?” Matt continued as he pulled out his phone and checked the time. “I love Angie and I pay for her shit and I put up with her nonsense because I love her. I could never love you. You’re a lazy piece of shit and an insane bitch

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on top of that. You could walk out the door right now and I wouldn’t blink. In fact, I fucking hope you do. Have a nice day doing fuck all around the house. You might wanna start looking at apartments.”

My meal ticket then walked out the door. It shut with a slam. The house was so quiet, my eardrums were ringing.

I sank to my seat at the kitchen table. I’d finally done it. I’d pushed both Matt and

Angie so far away, I wasn’t even sure how to rope them back into my life. There was no one left who cared about me. On top of that, I didn’t have an apartment to return to. I’d deleted all of my social media in an effort to disappear and now I might disappear for real. At least I had finally succeeded at something.

I was jerked out of my reverie by a buzzing sound on the table. I stared at the phone as a name flashed across the screen.

Mom.

I stared at the screen until it went blank.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, 2015/2016

2015

The morning Abby turned eighteen, she wanted porn, cigarettes, and a lottery ticket.

“Can’t you get your porn on the internet? Like a normal person?” I asked her from my bed. She stood in the doorway, already dressed. I was in my pajamas, trying to go back to sleep even though it was clear Abby wasn’t going to let that happen. I spoke with one eye open, trying to keep myself from becoming fully awake.

“Happy birthday, by the way. You have a driver’s license. Go get them yourself.”

She sighed.

She settled on the foot of my bed and turned to me with doe eyes. Her bottom lip popped out. Pouting.

“That look isn't going to work on me. Do I look like Mom and Dad? Or Kris?”

She grabbed my foot from under the covers and attempted to shake it. I pulled away.

“Why you gotta be so difficult?” she whined. “Come on, now that I am of legal age, I want to be able to indulge in all the luxuries denied to me due to my previous status as a minor. You only turn eighteen once.”

I groaned.

“Okay, birthday hoe. You’re driving, though.”

She smacked my still-covered leg.

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“Deal.”

At 11 a.m., the corner convenience store had already attracted a winding line of impatient customers. Construction workers, office serfs on their lunch break, and local teens lined up, their arms crowded with all of the nutritional prospects the store had to offer - day-old hot dogs, rubbery nacho cheese and stale chips, sugary donuts with too much frosting. I headed to the back to grab a Vitamin Water, leaving Abby at the counter to ponder the availability of her birthday goods. I walked up behind her and pinched her elbow.

“You look like you’re deep in thought.”

She didn’t look at me, just continued squinting at the counter.

“Looks like they’re missing your porn.”

“Fuck.”

She sounded relieved. She talked a big game, but I would have loved to see her actually stutter through her demand for a porno mag in front of a line of middle aged customers. In place of her magazine, she bought a pack of Marlboro Menthols and a lotto ticket, practically glowing when the clerk checked her ID and wished her a happy birthday.

After leaving some money on the counter - exact change - we dinged through the store’s front door.

We settled on the curb outside.

The rough concrete of the step dug into the backs of my legs. Abby pulled the cigarettes out of the bag first and unwrapped them, wadding up the plastic wrapper in her fist. She looked around for a proper receptacle in which she could toss them. I opened my

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palm and she silently handed the garbage over. I staggered to my feet and dropped the wrapper into the trash can near me.

She stared at the cigarettes.

“I forgot to buy a lighter.”

“I have one in my car,” I said. “Instead of smoking those here, let’s go for a little drive.”

Abby lolled in the passenger seat as I drove, scrubbing away at her lotto ticket with a quarter.

“Well? Is it a winner?”

“I can’t tell yet. You keep swerving and it’s making me nauseous. No wonder you failed your first road trip.”

“God, you’re whiny.”

“Where are we going anyway? Are you kidnapping me and selling me into human trafficking?”

“If that was my plan, you wouldn’t know until you were being loaded into a van and shipped off to Serbia.”

“All I’m saying is that you better not make me miss my birthday dinner.”

“Oh, and miss the fabulous cuisine Olive Garden has to offer? Not a chance.”

The car soared along the winding roads that cut through Stoney Creek Metropark, a place Abby and I had been going since we were kids. It was May and green, fat leaves had finally fully sprouted on the trees. We passed families taking advantage of the warm weather, stretching their legs on roadside jogging trails after a winter of being cooped up indoors. I stopped at a nature trail in the back of the park and turned the car off.

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“This trail is where I had my first legal cigarette. And so, I pass the torch onto you. It’s a bit of a hike though.”

We both got out of the car. Abby let out her breath in a huff.

“I didn’t sign up for a hike today.”

Yet, she let the car door slam.

We headed toward the trail, passing an anti-smoking sign. I palmed the lighter from my pocket and passed it to Abby. She looked nervous.

“Are we allowed to do this here?”

“This is part of the initiation. We’re standing up to The Man. Now, give me one.

Sharing is caring.”

We walked, tripping over roots and stones, finally going off the trail and stopping at the base of a tall oak tree. I sat beneath it and gestured to her to do the same. Abby complied, back leaning against the tree. She lit her cigarette, didn’t cough, and passed me the lighter and the pack.

“So, you’re gonna be a smoker now, huh?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Nah. I don’t wanna die of lung cancer or anything. I just wanted to feel like a grown up. Besides, I think MSU is an anti-smoking campus.”

I exhaled, suppressing a cough. “They must have just passed that rule. I don’t remember seeing anti-smoking signs the last time I went there. Man, how times have changed.”

We had left our phones in the car.

“Eighteen years old. You feel old yet?”

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She shrugged.

“Nah. I just gotta wait three years ‘til I can buy alcohol and then I’ll be a fully functioning adult.”

I let out a low whistle.

“Can’t believe you’re already getting this old, baby sis.”

Abby exhaled, finally sputtering on the rancid smoke leaking between her lips.

“Yup. Soon I’ll be an old bag. Wrinkles and everything. Like you, sis.”

I laughed huskily.

“Luckily for you, you have plenty of years to turn into an old bag.”

She smiled. We were so far from the path we only distantly heard the murmurs of late morning hikers. If I had had been practicing mindfulness then, it would have been easy. The air was still and warm. The sky was clear and blue. The grass was soft. And I was satisfied.

2016

The morning of what would have been Abby’s nineteenth birthday, I slept in until two p.m. It was no easy feat – Matt started thumping around the kitchen at six to prep for his shift and Angie had insisted upon sleeping on the couch with me, both of us hanging half off of it. I barely stirred when she finally moved from the couch to her room.

Matt and I hadn’t spoken about me moving out since our argument, though the next day he’d wordlessly thunked a For Sale sign in their front yard. Angie hadn’t brought it up either, just awkwardly danced around the subject and suggested we go out drinking more.

Things were more or less the same.

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It was the sunlight that finally woke me up. I’d been dreading this day, Abby’s empty birthday, for weeks, but I had done plenty of prep work ahead of time. My plan was to sleep through the day, which I had hoped to achieve by eating a potent edible the night before. Some dusty brownie.

I glanced at the clock. My heart sank. My mission had failed.

My phone sat next to me silently. Whereas my routine typically called for me to check it immediately upon waking, I’d been avoiding it ever since my mother had called.

I still wasn’t sure what she wanted or what she wanted me to say. She’d left a voicemail.

I stared at the little red notification, but couldn’t bring myself to listen to it.

I heard the creak of the door and my shoulders twitched in annoyance. Angie came trailing out of her and Matt’s dark, musty bedroom that I had stopped visiting under her nose. She strolled past me on the couch, yawning, and into the kitchen.

I heard the suctioned door of the refrigerator give and the hollow thump of the

Brita pitcher as she set it on the counter. A whiny creak indicated that she had opened the dishwasher, the tinks and thuds of glasses and mugs as she rifled through it.

I flipped my phone over and left it on the couch. I joined Angie in the kitchen.

“Those edibles were something, huh,” I said, my voice cracked and sore.“We musta been out for what, eighteen hours?”

She didn’t look up at me then, just poured water into her cup.

“Yeah, man. I feel groggy as fuck.”

I took a seat across from her. Angie and Abby didn’t look alike, but I realized then they sat the same the way. Leaning back in their chair, long legs splayed out in front of them, taking up the space women are usually told not to occupy. I shook my head. I

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needed to stay present. I could see black hair. Chipped kitchen table. Angie’s skinny fingers.

“What do you wanna get up to today?” I asked.

Angie poured the water down her throat, got herself another glass. “Honestly, man, I’m kinda beat. Those edibles took it out of me, a lot more than I thought they would. I think I just wanna chill here today.”

My heart slammed. Angie couldn’t pussy out on me today of all days.

“No! Come on, we’re just getting started,” I said in a high voice, edging on a plea.

“Come on, there’s that Festival of the Arts thing going on downtown. Live bands, art booths. You love that kinda shit. And it’s free for the most part.”

She continued to stare into her water glass.

“I don’t know man…I’m not trying to be lame. I’m just really tired.”

I wasn’t paying attention to how her tone of voice had changed. How she refused to look me in the eye.

I stood up abruptly, more briskly than I meant to. My thighs bumped the table, scooting it slightly away from me. Angie looked up at me then. I tried to laugh it off.

“It’s cool dude. I’m gonna go, though. I need to get out of the house.”

I strode out of the room.

Angie stayed where she was.

I gathered some clean clothes from the pile I left in their side room and showered.

I had all of the time in the world, but I felt like I was running a race against the clock. For once, after months of self-imposed agoraphobia, the thought of staying trapped in the house with my thoughts was scarier than whatever could befall me outside. I was going to

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make Angie sorry that she didn’t come. I was going to have fun, with or without her. I was going to make myself forget.

I slammed through the front door and strode over to my car. The sun was hot on my scalp. If I had been able to appreciate it, it would have been a perfectly lovely day.

Usually when I had plans to go get shitfaced, I would have taken the bus downtown, but I didn’t feel like waiting. I knew where all the lots were where I could leave my car overnight and not get ticketed. PVSU had a downtown campus and thus far, my parking pass still was valid.

I threw the car into drive a little more roughly than I intended and pulled out of my spot in front of the house. I was grateful it even turned out, seeing how I hadn’t driven it in months. My goal was Ionia Street, but instead of turning right out of the neighborhood, I abruptly turned left, the cars’ tires squealing in protest. I pointed the nose of the car west rather than east, toward Lake Michigan Drive. My body drove.

Lake Michigan Drive - also known as M-45 - allows motorists to pass from country to city to country again. I kept both hands on the steering wheel as my car passed shopping complexes and the Meijer where I always used to go when I still was enrolled in school. I forced myself to look when I passed my old apartment. Amanda’s car was parked in front. She still was there. My breathing slowed as a wave of regret thrummed through my arms. She was home and I wasn’t.

I kept driving.

As I passed PVSU, the road dipped low - the college was named after a valley for a reason. I kept driving. The college setting gave way to open fields as I drove, then sandy pine trees began to creep up on either side of the two-lane highway. After forty

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minutes, I reached US -31. I stopped at the gas station Abby and I had run into the previous summer, topped off my tank. I picked up a cheap bottle of white wine inscribed with a little flip flop - the gas station didn’t carry Prosecco.

As I drove, my anxieties subsided. I knew where I was going now. When I finally got to Rosy Mound, I silently coasted into the nearest available spot. I got out of the car and slammed the door shut. The air hummed with humidity and if I stood still, I could hear the faint crashing of Lake Michigan’s waves. Something I hadn’t been listening for the last time I was here. Abby’s squeal of a voice had taken center stage then.

I hadn’t brought a blanket with me. Instead, I sat my ass in the sand, warm from the overhead sun. I looked up and down the beach at its other occupants - out-of-towners from Chicago, bikini-clad teens with high pitched-laughter playing chicken in the water, retired couples under umbrellas thumbing through paperback novels. No one looked my way. I sat quietly, far from the edge of the lake. Less conspicuous that way, I reasoned with myself.

I had left my phone in the car. I cracked the wine and raised it to my lips, ignoring the “alcohol prohibited” sign. For the first time that year, I wasn’t drinking to get drunk. I was drinking to honor a memory, of her, of the two of us.

I watched as the sun rose overhead higher and higher until it began to sink. I shucked off my shoes and walked to the water’s edge - it was still warm as bathwater.

I wished I was in a Hallmark movie. That the shade of my sister would take shape in the distance, become clearer as she padded toward me. We wouldn’t have to speak.

She would shimmer around the edges as she reached for my hand, would clasp it in mine and I would feel how warm she still was. In life, she’d always had slightly sweaty hands.

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She would smile and I’d peep the small front canine that twisted slightly to the left, something years of braces hadn’t been able to fix. Then I would know she was okay, that she still existed somewhere. The all that was her could exist simultaneously in a box and in front of me. Maybe she would give me a sign that she was waiting for me, wherever she was.

I swallowed the last of the bottle and dug it into the sand next to me. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t conjure the image of her in front of me. I pressed my senses outward and tried to feel her on the beach. I came up empty. Wherever Abby was, she wasn’t next to me. She would never again recline in the spot by me, our legs touching, or kick sand on my back after I’d applied sunscreen, laughing as she did so. I swallowed, my throat jagged with bitter disappointment.

But what would she do on earth as a shade of her former self? Shake her head at my near-constant blackouts, my pathetic attraction toward Matt, my couch-bed? If Abby was in Hell, that’s where she would be - stuck right next to me in this spiral. I sighed.

Maybe with relief. She wasn’t here. She had moved on.

“Happy birthday, sis,” I said softly. “Wherever you are.”

Hours later, after the chill of the evening air chased me away from the waves and back into my car, I pulled into my spot outside Matt and Angie’s. I blinked. Something was wrong. All of the house’s lights were on. I squinted through my passenger side window as I shut the car off. Suddenly, the front door flew open and a skinny figure with long hair barreled through it, half dragging a pile of clothes. She threw the pile into the front yard and turned on her heel.

Angie.

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I slowly gathered my purse. She and Matt must have really gotten into it while I was gone. I silently walked up their short front walk. Just as I reached the front steps,

Angie appeared in the doorway again. She was carrying a plastic box this time. Matt didn’t have any stuff in boxes.

That box was mine.

She stopped abruptly as she saw me at the edge of the steps. She dropped my stuff then.

I opened my mouth. Before I could say anything, Angie was in my face, screaming at me while shoving me away from the house.

“Wrong! No! You don’t live here anymore, bitch! You’re officially out!”

I stammered, frozen in her headlights. My mouth went dry. She knew.

“I know. I know everything,” she confirmed, her voice a low, serrated growl.

“Matt told me while you were out tonight. I told him I was gonna invite you to move with us to Chicago. I can’t fucking believe it. I knew he wasn’t being himself. It was you the whole time.”

Tears crowded my eyes. Any peace I had soaked up from the beach evaporated.

“Matt told me everything. How you kept coming onto him. You took advantage of him while he was drunk. You’re really fucking sick, Charlotte. You’re a fucking cunt.

You’re lucky I don’t call the cops.”

“Angie,” I squeaked. “Just slow down, please? I can explain. I never meant to hurt you. You don’t have the full story.”

My hands reached out to her, a plea. She slapped them away.

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“Who do you think I’m going to believe? Some backstabbing slut or my boyfriend, my best friend, of six years?”

I cracked my neck then. My filter snapped. The silent barrier under which I had been living broke.

I laughed.

“Really, Angie? You think Matt loves you? Tell me, do guys who love their girlfriends fuck someone else behind their back?”

“Shut up,” she screamed back, spit flying from her mouth. Lights at the neighbor’s house flickered on. “You better quit while you’re ahead or you’re not going to like what happens next.”

A deluge of details flew out of me. I spoke without thinking. I wanted her to hear the full story. Or the parts that would hurt her the most.

“You wanna know about me and Matt? You wanna open that can of worms? Let’s do it, then. For starters, we did it everywhere in the house. Everywhere. The kitchen, the shower, your bed-”

I saw her fist flying through the air a split second before she hit the side of my head. I stumbled, shook slightly. She wasn’t strong, but she had caught me off guard. I grabbed both of her arms with one hand, raised my hand. I continued my improvised speech.

“Yup, right in your bed. And he would complain about you all the time, how crazy you are, how stupid you are. You’re so self-absorbed, you didn’t notice what was happening under your nose the whole time. We had this joke, me and him. Anytime we referred to ‘that dumb ass bitch’ we were talking about you.”

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Angie’s mouth was open, but she wasn’t saying anything. Her eyes were furious and wet.

“Yup, you dumb ass bitch. So selfish and stupid, you’ll be a teenager forever. You wanna hear the things he said to me, Angie? That I give him things you never could and he’s been thinking about leaving you for years now but he couldn’t bring himself to do it because he know you’d do something stupid. You can’t do anything right though and you’d probably fuck that up anyway and just end up paralyzing yourself after jumping off

-”

Suddenly, I was flying through the air. My chin hit the wet grass of their front lawn with a thwack. I rolled onto my back, looked up at the night sky in a daze. My head was spinning.

“Charlotte,” I heard Matt shout over Angie’s sobs. Porch lights flickered on around us as people peeked out their windows at the Flavor of Love-esque drama unfolding on our front lawn.

“That’s enough, Charlotte. Take your shit. You’re out of here. Tonight.”

I continued to stare up at the stars.

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GARAGE SALE

6/20/2016 - Midnight to 3 a.m. 5467 Leonard Street NW Grand Rapids, MI Items for sale: Various articles of clothing spotted in mud after being lobbed onto the front lawn; half-used tubes of lipstick and foundation-spotted makeup sponges; brush with dark hair wound around its bristles; duffel bags overflowing with unwashed clothes; a broken bowl; Charlotte Day’s dignity. ALL PROCEEDS BENEFIT RESTORING THE PREVIOUSLY IMMACULATE RELATIONSHIP SHARED BETWEEN MATT AND ANGIE. NO, REALLY, THAT RELATIONSHIP NEVER HAD ANY ISSUES BEFORE CHARLOTTE SHOWED UP. MATT WASN’T A COMPLETE PIECE OF SHIT AND I GUARANTEE YOU HE WILL NEVER CHEAT ON ANGIE AGAIN. SOLID MOVE, STICKING WITH THAT ONE, ANGIE.

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ALMOST THERE

“I haven’t been completely honest with you about a few things. About Abby.”

I was telling Amanda this. We were sitting in the living room we used to share.

Todd the Skater had moved out by then - Amanda had graduated and was able to afford our two bedroom apartment on her own. She had answered my cries when I’d showed up around in the wee hours of the morning, opened the door, her mouth in a round O of surprise.

She didn’t owe me anything. And yet, she let me in.

Now I was sitting on the couch, my hands wrapped around a warm mug of tea.

Amanda sat next to me, our knees touching. Her brow was wrinkled with concern.

“Is she okay?” Amanda quietly asked. “Did you guys have a fight or something?”

I examined the coffee table. Everything in the room belonged to Amanda. It was like I had never lived here at all. We sat in silence. Who had I become? The itching feeling in my arms, which I couldn’t get rid of? It was guilt. Nagging guilt, like an allergy. I had done bad things the past year. I couldn’t breathe as deeply as I used to and I couldn’t look Amanda in the eye.

“No,” I started, my voice cracking. I cleared my throat. “We didn’t have a fight.”

I paused, thought about the multitude of answers I could give instead of the truth.

Cancer, kidnapping, murder. I threw a dart at a board of possibilities, landed on the truth.

“Abby died last summer. She killed herself.”

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I continued the study the room - anywhere that wasn’t Amanda. She gasped, a slow jerk of the shoulders. Her hand, which had reached over to grasp mine supportingly, tightened. My back stiffened as I remembered all the ways Amanda had tried to reach me the previous semester.

“You don’t have to say anything.”

She was quiet. We both were quiet. Almost a year had elapsed since Abby didn’t come home that night and my mother had knocked on my door the morning After, demanding my phone. I had spent a year trying to wipe the image from my head. My mother’s frenetic hands tapping 9-1-1 on my phone, dropping it multiple times. My father, a big bear of a man who used to chase my sister and I around the house when we were small, falling heavily to his knees after he came home from the morgue, his face red and tears sinking into his mustache. Me just watching.

Watch. That’s all I did. All I ever did was watch.

Last year at this time, my family was in our garage celebrating Abby’s high school graduation. My parents and I didn’t know what the next month would bring. Abby didn’t, either. Instead, she had reluctantly composed a posterboard of pictures that depicted her growing up, underneath a timeline of each of her school pictures. She morphed from a cherubic girl with pigtails to an acne-spotted middle schooler in braces, to finally, the young woman with curly long hair who she briefly was. My mother had placed her formal senior photo on the white linen table draped with the colors of MSU, green and white. Go Spartans.

“Charlotte,” Amanda said tentatively. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” She paused. “Charlotte, I’m so sorry.”

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I shook my head. It wobbled on my shoulders.

“I don’t know. You knew her. I couldn’t stand the thought of you asking about

Abby, of having to acknowledge what happened - I’m sorry, Amanda. I was so shitty to you.” My voice broke. “I’m so sorry,” I repeated, my voice small.

Amanda’s hand continued to clasp mine. I allowed my fingers to loosen, then felt her thread her fingers through my own. I didn’t pull away.

“The thing is, I know she didn’t actually want to die. Truly. I fucking hate her,” I had started hesitantly, but spat the second half of that sentence into the continued silence, trying to fill the awkward gap. “I fucking hate her for what she did. I just … I miss her so much too. She broke me. I’m broken now. I fucked up my whole life because of her.”

My nostrils flared as I exhaled

“I hate her. But I still miss her.”

Abby’s eyes. Her teddy bear, Teddy, with whom she had still been sleeping every night. The promise of her future. It was far away and still the underlying current of my day-to-day life.

I felt Amanda beside me. Her grip had tightened around my hand. She was so still. She was taking little breaths, like breathing too deeply was going to set me off.

“Did you, like, know it was coming?” Amanda asked softly.

I concentrated on the racing cars over the freeway. We could always hear them in this living room, the walls were so thin. Saying these words was expulsion, me inserting pliars into my mouth, grasping the nearest rotten canine and pulling. Ignoring the stubborn give of my gums, just twisting and twisting until each tooth broke free, trailing

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bloody threads of flesh. Those words, were teeth decaying inside my head. They stubbornly didn’t want to go.

“I don’t know, dude,” I said. “I mean, no. But like, when I realized she was missing, I knew she was dead. Everything just felt different, you know? The air was like...hollow,” I swallowed. “She had problems.”

Another stretch of silence.

“She took pills. Pills and booze. That’s what they found in her system or whatever. I don’t know where she got them from, but she knew people so it couldn’t have been hard for her. She left a note blaming her boyfriend for breaking up with her. But I still have the texts in my phone when she realized she’d made a mistake. She texted me asking her to come get her and I didn’t fucking answer. She knew I stopped looking at my phone at night. Maybe she did it on purpose. I don’t know anymore.”

Amanda didn’t say anything. I thought back to the red mark that rose on my cheek after my mother realized Abby had texted me and I hadn’t seen it.

“When they found her, Abby, she’d thrown up all over herself. Like she was trying to throw it all up, whatever she took,” I stopped, drew in a breath. Let it out. “I don’t think I can ever have hope again.”

Silence stretched between us.

“I just …” I let go of Amanda’s hand, laced my fingers together, and held them tightly in front of my face like a web. I pressed them to my eyes. I could have started crying, but I didn’t have anything left. I was tapped. “She was only eighteen. How can you look at suicide like it’s teaching someone a lesson? She was so smart and yet so stupid. I don’t even know...why she was like that to begin with. Where her emotional

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bullshit came from. It’s not like our parents were awful. We weren’t abused. She was just, I don’t know. She was fucked up. In the head. Her wires got crossed or maybe they were never connected to begin with.”

I stared directly ahead, past Amanda. Yellow street light streamed through the plastic blinds that came with the apartment. My chest felt empty, like it had been carved out. Amanda continued to stay silent and just let me talk.

“I never knew how to help her,” I concluded, my voice steady. “I tried. But I guess I wasn’t the right fit. She’s been dead for over a year now. I hate when people say that she passed away. Just fucking say it. She killed herself, she’s dead, and trying to make it sound nicer doesn’t change that fucking fact.”

The year-long dam had broken.

“My parents tried everything. They tried everything, dude. They put her in therapy. They put her on medication. What if her fucked-upness, whatever she had, what if it runs in my family?” My voice wobbled. “I don’t know how to finish college. I don’t know how to stop drinking. I don’t know how to want a future. I can’t sleep and when I do I wake up at four a.m. everyday, just, like, sweaty and my heart won’t stop beating. When the day starts, I can’t wait for it to end. I hate the world, society, whatever

- the thing that failed her. I hate it all so much that I can’t picture myself being a part of it sometimes. But I couldn’t do that to my parents. I mean, two dead kids? But I’m so fucking angry - at her, at my parents. They couldn’t help Abby so why the fuck should I help them? She was so stupid. All over a boy. So stupid.”

I felt Amanda shift next to me. I hadn’t seen her in months, showed up wildly at her front door in the middle of the night, and completely sucked all the energy from the

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room with my problems. Any second now, she’d take her out, get up, tell me the couch was all mine, and retreat to her room, away from my nightmare of her life. My face went hot with shame. I needed to leave, stop bothering her, and -

“Hey,” Amanda said finally, cutting into my reverie. “Charlotte. People make mistakes.”

I grimaced. Felt my eyes heat, my eyelids flutter. I didn’t bother to wipe my hand across my face, just let the front of my shirt grow soggy.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. To you, to Abby - I’m sorry to everyone,” I sputtered, my head in my hands. Amanda put her arm around me then.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “But I also am so tired of everyone feeling sorry for me.

That’s what it was like back home. After the funeral. I was the girl whose sister killed herself in the woods. Fuck. It fucking sucks.”

Amanda carefully studied my face. She chose her words carefully.

“I know you were living downtown, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but where are you living now? Do you need a place to stay? I made your room into an office, but you could always come back on the lease. If you want.”

I paused, my breaths coming out in shuddering sighs. No matter where I went, the scent of Abby was going to cling to me. No matter how far I avoided the House of Death, she was the thread tying me to my parents, my childhood home, this confusing period of my life that almost buried me. But I was still here. I didn’t want to be, I’d done everything I could to take myself out of the equation of life and yet. I survived.

Amanda continued to talk, offering up solutions. Having let go of my hand, she told me I was in luck, her office was hiring interns for the fall, I could always apply and

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get back on track to school. I didn’t have to let this year be the one that determined the course of my entire future.

I held up my hand. She stopped mid-sentence, looking at me questioningly. I realized that I’d never interrupted her - or anyone - since Abby’s death.

“Well?” Amanda asked. “I mean, it’s whatever you want to do. Just know I’m here for you.”

I smiled then - it was the closest to a real smile I’d had in more than a year. I checked my phone. The notification from my mother’s voicemail was still there.

I looked back at Amanda, directly this time.

“Thanks for listening, Amanda. Really.” I sighed and relaxed my shoulders. I stood then. Amanda looked up at me in surprise. She opened her mouth but I cut her off.

“I’m sorry about … all of this. I really appreciate you - I gotta go. But I’ll text you when I get there. Thank you again, really. For everything.”

I closed the door on her then. I refused to go backwards anymore.

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DEAR ABBY

DEAR ABBY: I am a twenty one year old college dropout with no prospects and no future in sight. I used to have everything worked out but wouldn’t you know it, my idiot sister accidentally killed herself and I’ve been in a hole since then. I’ve hurt people and I can’t stop thinking about her. How do I get past this? -- COLLEGE FUCKUP WHO

JUST WANTS HER SISTER AND HER LIFE BACK

DEAR COLLEGE FUCKUP: Firstly, I’m sorry for your loss. At this point in your life, you should only be worried about graduation, obtaining that first job out of school, and learning how to be an adult. Unfortunately, sometimes life has other lessons in store for us. And when we lose control, it can be deeply upsetting and feel impossible to pick ourselves up out of our misery.

However, I only have this advice for you - girl, you just do. You will find, my dear, in this life, there are no such things as coincidences. As much as you’d like to blame your unstable mother, your spineless father, your dipshit of a dead sister, none of them have been making decisions for you. You are the root cause of each and every one of your problems. It’s been your fingers popping open cans of beer, your nose snorting lines of

Adderall, your eyes inviting in faceless men, and letting them treat you like an option.

You can spend the rest of your life lying on your back and letting things happen to you or you can actually stand up and fight for control.

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It won’t happen overnight. You’ve seen that already through the flashes of optimism you’ve experienced over the year, those fleeting moments of resolve that caused you to attempt to complete homework assignments or engage your roommate in pleasant conversation. Look, I get it. You are allowed to be sad. You are allowed to get lost.

However, you are not allowed to wallow.

As for your sister Abby, she is what you make of her. You can live your life in a transparent ploy to honor her memory, but would she really want that? If she had survived the suicide attempt, let’s be real, she wouldn’t have lived life with you at the forefront of her mind. She would have been busy making her own mistakes at college.

She was many things and immature, for lack of a better word, was one of them. But she did want you to be happy. As flawed as she was, she wanted you to be happy. She loved you just as much as you loved her and maybe she’s sorry about the way things turned out.

And maybe she would have matured into that realization, but that’s not for you to decide.

Why waste the energy?

You need to put your life back together for yourself. Focus on the little things and The

End of this chapter of your life will come. You can survive anything now.

You know what to do next. I’m rooting for you.

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DRIVE

It ended with a drive. Amanda’s protests echoed in my ears as I made my way to my car, started the engine. It was so quiet outside. All in all, it was a beautiful

Midwestern night/morning and I wished I could take it in on a park bench somewhere downtown. Not drinking, not smoking. Just sitting comfortable in the silence that wasn’t really silence, but the muffled sounds of a party going on underneath Amanda’s apartment, the whine of the streetlights, and the buzz of cicadas.

It was going to be a long drive for someone with too much to think about. But I was ready to make it.

I reached into the crowded backseat, piled high with my few boxes, my loose items. I rifled around, finally finding my phone charger. I needed some tuneage. I scrolled through the apps on my phone, found a playlist I had made in 2011, back when I first was accepted to PVSU.

I coasted back down Lake Michigan Drive, passed the shade of myself who headed to college in the backseat of her parents’ van with her annoying younger sister, surrounded by odd bits of furniture that threatened to crush both of them to death if the car stopped too suddenly.

Grand Rapids - once such an impressive skyline to me - came alive with a flash of artificial light as I groped along the dark highway. I stared straight ahead as I passed the exit that led to Matt and Angie’s house. I rolled down the window and blew them a kiss as I drove by. I didn’t stop for gas. I kept the windows down and turned up the music,

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blasting Modest Mouse and Mazzy Star and Johnny Cash, swoopy voices and guitar distortion the soundtrack to my foot on the accelerator.

My world had been so small for so long. I couldn’t recall what it felt like to leave

Grand Rapids behind, with its rich Dutch descendants and Christian condemners, the junkies on Division Street, and the college hipsters in Eastown.

I didn’t need any of it. No more packed house parties in too-crowded Victorian homes with hollow wood floors, no more slipping on ice on Ionia Street after closing time, no more laying my head on a couch that was never mine, in a life that was never mine.

The steel guard rails that lined the freeway streamed by me as I cautiously made my way in the dark. No one else was out this late. Occasionally, I would pass another pair of headlights. I wanted to honk at them, assume things about their lives and scream at them.

“Fuck you and your nine to five lives! Your double tire pickup trucks and no sex before marriage pacts!”

Come to think of it, I had begun to outgrow Grand Rapids right before Abby died.

I’d had dreams, once, of getting out. This goddamn state was so flat. The drive across its belly never entertained. I didn’t want to stay here. There was a world outside of the cornfields, the bits of city that grew like oases in the midst of the endless country.

I reached the fork that took me to I-696. The sun had begun to rise and the area around me was bathed in an early morning grey. I pulled off on my exit, rolled up the windows, and turned down the music.

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Hello to the Kroger where I held my first job bagging groceries for seven dollars an hour. Good morning to the diner where I had my first hungover breakfast with high school friends. Greetings to my high school, where I never fit in and consistently made bids for attention only to withdraw when people began to notice. Traffic began to pick up around me as normal people woke up, poured coffee into aluminum travel mugs, and headed off to work. Maybe they were lucky enough to kiss the heads of intact families as they walked out the door. I shut the thought down. Who cared what other people did.

None of my business.

I turned off the cracked road into my neighborhood. My parents’ neighborhood. I hadn’t lived here in what felt like a decade. I didn’t know if I still had a room, a bed. I pushed my anxieties away. If I wasn’t careful, I would talk myself out of this.

I pulled into the driveway, killed the engine. My phone was fully charged by then.

I unlocked the home screen. The notification from my mother’s voicemail still glared at me.

I felt my adrenaline deflate. But I wasn’t done fighting. I had survived my sister’s birthday, Matt and Angie, Amanda. What was one more confrontation?

I stared at the silent house. It was just past eight in the morning and my father should have been awake, bumbling around the kitchen in preparation for the workday.

My parents had neglected to turn on the porch light but someone had cleaned up the overgrown bushes. The trash cans still sat at the end of the driveway, but newspapers no longer sat piled up on the driveway’s edge.

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My finger hovered over the voicemail. I could listen to a weeks-old message or I could hear what she had to say in real time. I pushed air through my nose and tapped my mother’s name. Held the phone to the side of my face. Listened as it began to ring.

And ring. And ring. And then -

The fumble of someone answering, then dropping the phone. Sliding and tumbling. Then connection, her pressing the phone to her own face.

“Charlotte?”

Her voice was quiet, tentative. Not flat and emotionless. Not hard and angry.

I grimaced, thought about tossing the phone into the backseat. I wondered where my father was. He wouldn’t be able to protect me this time. I didn’t have to do this. I didn’t owe her anything. I could hang up the phone and throw the car into reverse, take my chances with Metro Detroit’s rush hour. Speed back to Grand Rapids, trade Matt and

Angie’s couch for Amanda’s. Be right back where I started.

I sighed. Squared my shoulders. I was tired of running. Plus, I was out of gas.

“Hey, Mom.”

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Getting Started with Mindfulness.” Mindful, Foundation for a Mindful Society, 2018,

www.mindful.org/meditation/mindfulness-getting-started/.

“What Are the Four Stages of Human Decomposition?” Aftermath, Aftermath Services,

2018, www.aftermath.com/content/human-decomposition/.

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