Page 130 of The Glass Girl

Everyboooooooddddy

As if in slow motion, I turn toward the vision of myself on Charlotte’s phone, slopping around in front of Lemon’s camera, my face slack, my makeup smeared. My breast hanging out, fleshy and pale.

Josh’s face is unreadable. Brandy covers her mouth. Billy steps away from us.

“Charlotte,” Phil says. “My god.”

“The internet,” Charlotte says, “is a glorious place where things live forever, unlike the real world. Which Gideon was trying to leave. Maybe now, O dear overlords, you should tell everyone, now that they’re already upset, that Holly’s dead.”

Tracy opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She looks helpless.

That’s how I know it’s true.

Phil drops his eyes. “They found her in a house a few days ago—”

“We all need to take a moment—” Tracy starts.

Brandy starts crying.

Charlotte is still holding up her phone. She muted it, but I’m replaying over and over on her screen.

“Holly was never going to make it anyway,” she mutters.

I grab the phone and throw it as far as I can into the desert.

And then, even with my heavy backpack on, I deck her.

I hit her for Holly, and for Gideon, and for the video, and for everything, everything, everything, until someone pulls me off her.

Day Twenty-Two

I’m two and ahalf deaths down in my lifetime and locked in a room with a futon and a beanbag.

Holly and my grandmother are fulls. Gideon is the half.

I’m in Seg.

If I had a whole bottle of vodka right now, I would drink it down as fast as I could.

I wouldn’t even need the Sprite.

Anything to obliterate myself.

They say that you’ll get better here.

You don’t.

I shut myself down.

Day Twenty-Three

Day Twenty-Four

There’s a knock atthe Seg door.

I don’t get up as it opens. Janet walks across the room and stands over me, a phone in her hand.

“Bella,” she says. “There’s someone on the phone for you.”

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