Mom: “We also want you seeing a counselor. Mr. Levine or one of the others. No going out for two weeks. School, work, home. That’s it.”
I want to say Two weeks? Ground me for the rest of the year. Ground me from school while you’re at it. Let me stay at home like Mary Katherine Blackwood, like Libby. It will make things so much easier.
I feel all tied up. Hands, legs, feet. Every single part of me. Like they might as well stuff me in a box and leave me there.
I call the Mervises first. And then Tams’s mom. In this dead voice, I apologize. I tell them I’m still reeling from my dad’s cancer, from all the stuff happening at school. I say, “Please don’t punish Dusty for my bad behavior. He’s the best person I know.”
As I hang up the phone, I add a postscript to my prayer. Don’t let anyone hurt him. Including me.
I don’t feel like dancing, but I get out the pink toe shoes and tie them on. I drop onto my bed and lean against the pillows and pull George onto my chest, inhaling a mouthful of musty fur. He starts kicking, so I let him go, and then he does something he’s never done before—he sits beside me, petting me with his sharp, dirty little claws.
I cross my ankles so that I can see my toe shoes as I’m staring at the wall. For a minute, this feels like old times—lying in bed, locked away from everyone. I pretend I’m in my old house, across the street from Dean, Sam, and Castiel, my imaginary friends who were never actually my friends at all.
I’m Libby Strout, America’s Fattest Teen, maybe the World’s Saddest Teen, alone in her room with her cat while outside that room, the rest of the world goes on.
The night is cool and clear after the rain. I inch my way to the edge of the roof until I’m standing where I was standing before, twelve years ago, and I look out over the neighborhood and the house that used to belong to Libby Strout.
Maybe if I fell again, it would jar something back into place in my brain. I might see the world and the people in it in ways I don’t now. I might conjure up a face from my memory or be able to think Mom, and instantly associate the word with a whole, added-up image of eyes, nose, mouth, the way everyone else does.
I stand there for a long time, trying to figure out a way to jump and bang my head in the same exact spot I hit it before. Maybe I should take a rock and hit myself with it instead. But what if I do more damage? What if I get complete and total amnesia?
I sit down and then I lie down, and the roof is damp from the rain. I let the water soak through my shirt as I gaze at the sky and all the stars that look just like all the other stars, and it might as well be a sky full of faces. I tell myself, Libby is one of those stars. I choose one and name it after her and keep my eyes on it as long as I can.
And then I blink.
Stay. Stay. Stay.
Don’t go away.
But she’s gone.
The phone rings, and it’s Jack, the only person I want to talk to.
Something’s wrong.
I can hear it in his voice.
At first, I can’t understand what he’s saying.
“I’m sorry,” he says. He keeps repeating it, until I tell him to stop.
“Why are you sorry? What’s going on?”
“I can’t do this. I thought I could. I wanted to. But I can’t. It’s not fair to you.”
“What’s not—”
“You deserve to be seen, and I’ll never be able to see you, not really. What happens if you lose weight? You’d need to stay large forever, and that’s your identifier, but you’re so much more than weight.”
“What are you saying to me, Jack?”
Even though I know, and my stomach knows, and my bones know, and, most of all, my heart knows. All of me is sinking like a stone.
He says, “I can’t be with you, Libby. We can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
And then he hangs up.
Just like that.
And I sink through the floor and into the yard and from there into the dark, deep core of the earth.
I think of Beatrice in her garden, and how she died for love. And then for some reason I think of another story my mom used to read me, “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” I walk to my bookshelf and search for it. I flip through until I find it—Libby in purple crayon. I wrote it very small, on the skirt of the youngest princess, Elise. She was my favorite, not just because she wins the prince, but because she has the loveliest heart. She is who I wanted to be.
I look at Elise’s perfect hair and face and figure. Of course people love to watch her dance. Of course she marries the prince. I wonder what would have happened if Elise had looked like me.
Before I go to sleep, I write Libby this long apology text, but I end up deleting it because what’s the point? It won’t change the fact that there will always be this part of me that’s searching for her, even if she’s right there.
THE WEEK AFTER
* * *
Even though I don’t expect to make the team, I still go around to Heather Alpern’s office to see if she’s posted the name of the newest Damsel.
And there’s the paper on her door. And there’s the single name listed on that paper: Jesselle Villegas. I tell myself, You shouldn’t be surprised. You shouldn’t be disappointed. What did you think would happen when you talked back to Caroline? But I am surprised. I am disappointed.
I tell myself, You didn’t really want to make the Damsels anyway. Not like that. Not having to dance in formation and carry flags and take orders from Caroline Lushamp. But my heart feels like a deflated balloon.
Bailey and Travis and I wait outside for Mr. Dominguez to pull the car around. Travis’s eyes are closed, and he looks like he’s sleeping standing up.