Page 25 of The Glass Girl

Blanking out,Amber said.

A little bit of last night flashes across my brain. Me saying I was all capitals. Too much. That’s it. Like Ricci said.

And I am, I am, I am.

“I…” I swallow, trying to force out more words, something, but there aren’t any. I feel hot and cold all at once. I bite my bottom lip, hard, to keep the swell of tears from erupting behind my eyes.

“Sorry,” Amber says. “I’m tired. I should just go.”

She scoops up her pile of green nail polish shavings and napkin pieces and slides them in her pocket. That’s Amber: clean and neat, never leaving a mess for someone else to clean up. She pulls her hoodie over her head and looks at her sneakers.

“Amber.” My voice is small. “Can’t you just be nice to me? I’m just…Stuff is really hard right now.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault?Nice.” Her voice cracks. It’s just as tiny as mine. She shakes her head. “See you, Bella.”

I watch her walk out the door, the bell jingling as she leaves.

Problem­toomuchproblem­toomuchproblem­toomuch.So many letters jumbled together in my brain it’s hard to focus, until I feel a hard elbow against my arm. A customer, squeezing by me to get to a booth.

Across the diner, Lonnie and Deb and Patty are standing by the grill, staring at me.

I put my head down and start moving, grab a bus tub, pick up dirty plates and stained glasses, vow to keep busy the rest of my shift so I don’t disintegrate into a thousand pieces.

—

My dad is ten minutes late picking me up. He pushes the car door open for me from the inside. “Hey, kid. Long day in the trenches?”

I climb into the car. “Yeah. Pretty busy.”

“You want me to spring for a late dinner? You hungry? I can swing by Sonic on the way home.”

“Whatever.”

“I just need to make a quick stop first, okay?”

He pulls into the bright orange Quik-Mart around the corner. “Be right back,” he says, hopping out of the car.

I watch him through the glass windows of the store. He goes to the beer cooler.

When he gets back into the car, he dumps a twelve-pack in the back seat. “Gonna drop you off and head over to Hoyt’s after. My turn for the libations.” He winks and starts the car.

I hug my backpack to my chest. I can feel the extra bottle of Sprodka inside.

My dad and I are in a car and we both have alcohol, only one of us doesn’t know about the other’s.

He makes a left, honks at someone taking too long in the crosswalk.

Amber said I looked like shit this morning. I knew I looked like shit. I tried to fix myself up. It didn’t work, I guess. I chew my fingernail. My head still hurts, even though I took more ibuprofen at work after the dinner rush. As my dad drives, I try to get a fix on all the things running through my head.Memories. Or…thenotmemories. The things that got away from me, like Carter’s party and that blank space between Amber’s car and holding the plastic bag and then waking up the next morning with my head feeling like someone had stomped on it. Luis’s party…That was…Seeing Dylan and Willow and the room shifting, spinning, and my cup always full and then…a bathroom? Crying in Luis’s bathroom in the bathtub is how Cherie and Kristen found me. That’s what they told me later. I had my knees up to my chest, people pounding on the door, and then

And then

And then

I don’t remember what then.

Just that somehow I was in the tub and they were pulling at me and then suddenly I was in my room. Somewhere in the middle I lost an hour, two, maybe three. Poof. Down the drain. Gone forever.

I remember the laptop on my lap as I lay in bed in my room and seeing something Dylan posted in his Stories and then her, lanky Willow with her pretty hair, in a photo and the laptop…

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