The Words We Keep
: Chapter 8

I replace her in the kitchen, sitting on a bar stool, arched over a bowl of cereal. Her hair is short. Boy short.

It stops just below her ears, with the buzzed base coming to a small point like an arrow down the nape of her neck. Without her bigger-than-life hair, she’s barely recognizable. It’s still curly, but less wild. Tamed somehow. Her clothes are less, too. Less loud. Less colorful.

Less Alice.

She’s reading the Lucky Charms box in front of her. How do I play this? Big, teary welcome-home hoopla? Oh, how I missed you! Casual, no big deal? Hey, girl, haven’t seen you since you lost your mind. How are things?

I’m still debating when she turns abruptly and spots me standing there like the socially awkward idiot I am.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

Nailed it.

I get some milk from the fridge, where I see a one-page tip sheet called After Treatment Care: A Family Guide under a cheesy magnet that says, we may not have it all together, but together, we have it all. I pause long enough to see the top tip: Everyone moves at their own pace. Give your child time to adjust.

“Just some light reading Staci put up,” Alice says. “How to Feed and Care for Your Psychotic Daughter.”

I don’t know if I’m supposed to laugh or what, but I smile because Alice kind of, sort of does. Not a real Alice smile. Her lips move but her eyes don’t change. Definitely not the best smile in the senior class.

From her drab clothes to her short hair to her lackluster smile, she’s just—less.

She watches me pull a bowl from the cabinet and pour myself some cereal. For a second, our eyes meet, and I’m back on that night, her eyes begging me to help her.

I look away. “When’d you get back?”

“ ’Bout an hour ago.”

“Good to be home?”

She munches a mouthful while contemplating my question as if I’ve asked her the meaning of life.

“What’s up with the furniture?” she asks.

“Staci.”

She nods like this explains it.

“She got to the pantry, too.” I point to the Lucky Charms. “Only allowed those in because they’re your favorite. And don’t even get me started on the handmade soap situation,” I continue, because I’m not sure what else to talk about. “I swear they are made of straight-up forest mulch. Yesterday, in the shower, I literally cut my thigh on a twig.”

The second I say it, it’s all I can hear—cut, cut, cut. The sharp sound of it fills the air, and to make it a billion times worse, I look at her arms. She’s wearing long sleeves even though it’s already warm for March in Southern Cali. When she sees me eyeing her wrists, she pulls her sleeves down farther.

You should have stopped her.

I shake off the thought. For all I know, her skin is healed, pink and soft and new. Perhaps people, like skin, regenerate.

She stares at the soggifying little shapes disintegrating in her milk.

“Since when do you eat Lucky Charms with a spoon?” I ask. She always picks out the marshmallows straight from the box, eating only the brightly colored pieces and leaving the dregs for the rest of us. It was always pretty obnoxious, actually, but kind of her signature move.

She studies the cereal like it’s a riddle. “Since now, I guess.”

The sound of her chewing fills the air.

“I like your hair,” I say, even though I don’t. I liked her old hair.

With one hand, she pulls at the short, springy ends. “I wanted something different.”

“It’s cute.”

She half laughs, but her eyes still aren’t in it. “You’ve always been a terrible liar.”

“No, really,” I protest. “It’s—”

not you at all

“—fun.”

“Well, Dad hates it,” she says. “I could tell because he kept complimenting it.”

She goes back to chewing, and my mind goes blank. I’ve never had trouble talking to her before. This is Alice, for crying out loud. My sister who I’ve slept with a million times. The girl who taught me how to curl my hair and use tampons (not at the same time, FYI). The girl who has shared my room and my secrets my whole life.

Seriously, Lily.

Say something.

Anything!

But it feels off. We feel off.

Even the silence feels wrong. Like we’re both trying to sidestep a land mine between us.

You should have visited her.

Should have been there for her.

If I could just make her smile or laugh her big, deep Alice ha-ha that could fill any room, any space, maybe we could be us again. Normal. Isn’t that what Dad promised?

But the space between us is filled only with heavy silence, weighed down by the words we keep.

I’m sorry.

I missed you.

Are you still…. you?

I’m picking the scab on my neck again, and when I force my hand away, I see the Winnie-the-Pooh sketch.

“I met a friend of yours from Fairview,” I say in desperation. “We’re partners on this project. Micah?”

She pauses midchew like she might actually talk to me.

“I don’t want to talk about Fairview.” She keeps eating, her eyes fixed on the back of the cereal box like it’s the Holy Grail of cardboard, a secret message hiding somewhere between the riboflavin and high-fructose corn syrup. Finally, when the silence has grown so big I can taste it, I blurt out something just to fill the void.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come visit. I’ve been really bus—”

She pushes back on her stool abruptly, screeching the legs against the floor. She rinses her dish in the sink and turns to me, arms folded. “Let’s not do this.”

“Do what?”

“This.” She gestures to the space between us. “Whatever this is.”

“I just wanted you to know,” I say. “It’s not like I didn’t want to come.”

“Well, I’m home now,” she says. “You’re off the hook.”

You blew it.

You totally blew it.

I make one last-ditch effort to salvage this conversation—salvage the us we used to be—as she walks away. “I’m glad you’re back.”

The words feel small.

So do I.

She stops and turns to me, a forced smile on her lips beneath dull eyes.

“Seriously, Lily. Lying is just not your thing.”

LogoLily’s Word of the Day

essombra (n) When someone you once knew disappears. Not dead, still breathing, and yet…gone.

From Latin esse (to exist) + Spanish sombra (shadow)