Connecticut
Winter, Sophomore Year
“Kelsey, please eat something.”
David held a spoonful of chicken soup over the bowl my mother had brought to my room on a snack tray. The tray stretched across my legs, which were buried beneath the blue and green flowers of my comforter.
“I’m not hungry. I’m . . .”
“You’re what?”
My chest constricted. “Humiliated.”
That morning my mother had gotten out of bed and gone to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. She’d heard my cell phone ringing in the study and, seeing it was David, picked it up. As she walked by the bathroom, she saw the door ajar and the medicine cabinet mirror wide open. That was when she found me, dead asleep on the bathroom floor with a bloody towel in my lap and a pair of scissors at my feet.
If she hadn’t been holding the phone, and if she hadn’t started screaming, everything would’ve been fine.
David put the spoon back in the bowl and put his hand on my arm. “Listen. Isabel isn’t going to tell anyone. She could hear your mom through the phone, and I had to explain why I couldn’t stay.”
“You could’ve stayed,” I said flatly. He’d slept at her house after the dance. Granted, so had a bunch of other people, but the knowledge still sat like a brick in my stomach.
“I felt bad enough that I missed your messages because my piece of crap phone didn’t have service at the dance. So, no, I couldn’t have stayed. I needed to make sure you were okay.”
“You didn’t have to tell her I tried to hurt myself, David!” Hot tears spilled over my cheeks and I turned away from him. “The whole school is going be talking about me now!”
He squeezed my arm. “All I said was that I thought you’d tried to hurt yourself. I’m sorry I even said that much. I swear I’ll make sure she knows what really happened.”
I shook my head. “Don’t say a word to Isabel or anyone else. Except that I’m fine.”
My mother crept into the room then. “You will be fine, no matter what. Understand?”
I grabbed the soupspoon and swirled it through the broth and noodles, not wanting to look at either one of them. I didn’t have to look to know they exchanged a glance.
“Are you going to eat that or play with it all afternoon?” my mother asked.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Crawford; I’m not leaving until she eats it,” David promised. “I’ll pour it down her throat if I have to.”
Mom smiled. “You’re a good friend, David. Let me know if you need me to hold her head.” With that, she left the room.
David shifted on the bed. “Speaking of friends. I know you and Maddie aren’t close anymore, but she doesn’t hate you, Kelse. She just wishes you’d try new things and not be so quick to judge, that’s all.”
“Is that all?” I rolled my eyes and folded my arms across my chest. I had zero interest in continuing this conversation.
“You are pretty stubborn, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Yep. So if you’re not leaving until I eat, then I guess you’re sleeping here.” It took me a second to realize what I’d said. “Isabel won’t like that.”
“C’mon, Kelse. What do I have to do to make you eat a few spoonfuls?” His eyes fell on Wilma, whose tail and hind legs were sticking out from my comforter. He grabbed her. “Do I have to make out with your cat?” He squished her plastic nose against his mouth and closed his eyes. “Mmm, Wilma.” Then he twisted her back and forth like they were having the world’s most frenzied make-out session. “Mmm, Wilma, you sexy beast!”
A laugh bubbled up inside my chest. When he pretended to slip her the tongue, I had no hope of containing it.
“All right, all right,” I said through a fit of giggles, snatching my poor, defiled cat away from him. “You’re ridiculous. I’ll eat!”
David let me slurp in peace for a minute, grinning like he’d accomplished something way more impressive than getting a few spoonfuls of soup into my stomach. Once I started eating, I realized I was starving. But I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of admitting it.
“Happy now?” I said as I swallowed some noodles.
David’s eyes grew darker and his mouth settled into a serious line. “No, I’m not happy. You scared the shit out of me, Kelse. And your family, too.”
I dropped my spoon and twisted my hands in my lap. “I know,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“What were you doing on the bathroom floor? What were you thinking?”
A lump formed in my throat again, and I wished I’d had more sleep so I could switch off this annoying weepy Kelsey and locate my backbone. “That I was scared. That I didn’t want my life controlled by some illness, and I didn’t want to be the Sick Girl. That I wanted that damn hospital bracelet off my wrist. That—” I was dangerously close to crying now, so I tried to divert the onslaught by taking a breath and making a joke. “That I didn’t want to die a virgin.”
David laughed, a nervous laugh/cough combination that told me I’d succeeded in lightening the moment, and also in making him slightly uncomfortable. “Wow. That’s, uh, that’s deep, Kelse.”
I shoveled more soup into my mouth for the sheer purpose of having something to do. Something told me he wanted to stay far away from this topic. So, naturally, I had to pursue it.
“Wouldn’t you think about it? If you thought you might be—” My breath caught in my throat, and I had to fight to push the rest of my sentence out. “Seriously ill? If you thought you might . . . never get to?”
He ran his hand back and forth over his hair and cleared his throat. “I guess.”
That’s when everything clicked into place. His fidgeting, his sudden change in demeanor, the guilty look on his face. David didn’t have to wonder what it would be like to die a virgin.
He wasn’t one.
Suddenly a huge chasm opened between us, like we’d been sucked into the postcard that hung beside my bed, staring at each other from opposite sides of a massive canyon filled to the brim with awkward.
I blinked. “Oh,” I said softly. It must have been the only word in my vocabulary at that moment, because I said it again. David’s ears turned bright red and he looked at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at me. I concentrated on breaking up a piece of chicken with my spoon, wondering if it had been Amy Heffernan who’d done the honors, or Isabel Rose, or some other girl I didn’t even know about. I wasn’t going to ask him. It was none of my business, and knowing wouldn’t have made me feel any less betrayed. I knew it was a stupid thing to feel, but it spread through my body like wildfire nonetheless.
My mind flashed back to the night before, when I’d thought about kissing him. I slouched over my soup bowl, afraid he’d somehow read my thoughts if I looked at him.
Don’t think about it, I told myself. You don’t feel that way about him. It was the crazy talking, that’s all. Now for God’s sake, say something!
Nothing came out.
The strained silence between us probably would have stretched on a lot longer if it hadn’t been for the sound of my parents’ voices approaching my door.
“Kevin, I think you should wait,” my mother pleaded.
My father appeared at my door then, pushing it open slightly before he turned back to my mother. “Amanda, she can handle it. I want her to have something to think about, something to look forward to.”
All three of them came into my room then: my father, my mother, and my sister. My father shook David’s hand before pulling my desk chair over to my bedside. My mother stood behind him, her hands on Miranda’s shoulders and a worried look on her face.
“How are you feeling today, baby girl?” my father asked, smoothing my hair.
“I’m fine, Daddy. I’m sorry.” I’d said it a million times already, but I couldn’t say it enough.
“Your mom and I aren’t going to let anything happen to you. You know that, right?”
I nodded, but I knew my face betrayed my confusion. “What’s going on, Dad?”
My father shot a quick glance back at my mother. She gave a slight shrug, as if to say, Why are you looking at me when you’re going to do what you want anyway? My father turned back to me, smiling. “I have some good news. Or I hope you’ll think it’s good news. You girls know that I’ve been looking for work for some time. And while I have my book deal and that’s fantastic, I really need something full-time because, well, I have two growing young ladies in my care and higher education isn’t cheap.”
I shuddered. Medical treatments had to be expensive too.
“I’ve been looking for work all over Connecticut, but nothing has panned out. Then, late last week, I got a call from another school system I’d applied to. Your mother and I have discussed it at length, and we think it could be a great opportunity.”
“What other school system?” I asked suspiciously.
My father could barely contain his excitement. “Riverdale Junior High, in Rhode Island. Right outside of Newport.”
Miranda gasped. I sat up straighter in bed and stared down at my father. “You were offered a job in Rhode Island?”
“Yes. But I haven’t accepted yet. They don’t need me until next school year, and we wanted to discuss it as a family first.” He looked over at David. “You’re family too, David.”
I’d forgotten David was still there. If he’d seemed uncomfortable a second ago, it was nothing compared to the way he looked now.
“But, Daddy, what if—”
I was going to say, What if I’m sick, but my father cut me off. “Kelsey, honey, I know you’re going to be fine. But, if there’s a chance you need some sort of treatment, we’d be better equipped to handle it if I have a real job lined up. And you and Miranda have always loved Rhode Island. I think this might be what’s best for all of us.”
“But this is home,” Miranda said quietly. She looked shell-shocked.
“We’re not making any decisions today,” my mother cut in. She motioned for my father to get up. The clipped tone of her voice told me the silent treatment would be in his immediate future. “Your father wanted you girls to be aware, and now you are. We’re not discussing it again until we hear about Kelsey’s results. She has enough on her mind.”
I had plenty on my mind. Plenty of reasons why this was the best thing that could have happened.
I didn’t love Norwood. I’d lived there my whole life, but I didn’t think of it as home the way Miranda obviously did. To me it was a place where I didn’t quite fit in anymore, where everything about me would always be second best. Where I’d always be itching to be somewhere else.
On top of it, I now had the added bonus of not knowing if my health was about to go through the gauntlet the same way my reputation had. Everyone who’d been at Isabel’s house that morning thought I’d tried to hurt myself. What if word of my little bathroom incident wound up all over school? I knew firsthand that teenagers weren’t the most sympathetic species, and I’d had enough of people throwing things at my locker and looking down their noses at me.
Starting over somewhere new sounded like a gift.
Especially in the place where, for two weeks every summer, I felt like I was exactly where I belonged. Nothing made me happier than trading our tiny house and the claustrophobic overgrowth of our neighborhood for the manicured openness of Uncle Tommy’s cabin. The ocean air brought me to life the minute it filled my lungs. I closed my eyes for a second, thinking about staring out at the sea, leaning against the sun-warmed railing of the Cliff Walk, or strolling through Thames Street with the breeze from the harbor whispering in my ear. Telling me it wanted me there as much as I wanted to be there.
Trying new things didn’t sound like such a bad idea after all. I couldn’t think of a single reason why I didn’t want to move to Rhode Island permanently.
Until I saw the look on David’s face.