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wanted to protect yourself. You never cared how it made us feel.
I reach back to grab hold of the metal chair, reeling from his words. He s wrong, but he s right. I hurt
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them, because I liked them and didn t want to lose them. I was only thinking of myself, because I
assumed they d be fine. I never thought I could make that much of a difference in anyone s life.
 You might as well stay with Miles, Jack goes on, his eyes hardening.  You re just as shallow and
selfish as those guys.
I start crying again, but this time it s different. It s worse. I m not crying because I hurt. I m crying
because I hurt them.  Please& I m so sorry, I mumble, gasping and blubbering. I don t care that my
face is a snotty mess. I just want to make things better.
Jack s face goes cold.  You need to leave.Now,  he says loudly and firmly.  You don t belong here,
and you know it. Then he too turns away from me.
That s it. There s nothing I can do. Everyone hates me and I deserve it. I literally asked for it.
I leave my chair and walk shakily back outside. Even though it s sunny and warm, it seems like I ve just
gone through a terrible storm. I feel all battered and blasted apart. I don t know what to do. I don t even
know what to think.
I ve made so many mistakes. Mistakes upon mistakes. Mistakes inside mistakes. My whole stay in
Austin has been nothing but one big mistakefest. And I can never make it right.
And the worst part is now we aren t leaving. I m going to have to live with it.
Chapter Fourteen: Stop-Motion
TIP: Cry in front of two thousand people.
Tell the scary, embarrassing truth.
I ve just hadthe worst day ever. I m talking Greek-tragedy bad. The kind that, if I went on a talk show
and told the whole world about it, would make millions of people gasp and say,  Man! I d really hate to
be you.
So after I trudge all the way back to our apartment, who s the first person I see? Norm, of course.
I mount the last step and turn into the apartment and see him standing in the corridor outside the kitchen.
 Hello, moon child, he says, revealing multicolored teeth as he grins.  I brought something for you. He
hands me a small package wrapped in a piece of brown grocery bag and tied up with a dingy string.
I m too wrecked to protest, so I snatch it and say,  Thanks.
Just then, Les and Rosie step out from the kitchen and tentatively walk up beside him.
 You okay, Sugar? Les asks.
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I can only shake my head.
 I should leave, Norm says.  Thanks for the parfait.
I stay rooted to my spot as my parents walk Norm to the stairwell, mumbling about star charts and
sustainable foods. After a while I hear the downstairs door shut, and Rosie and Les come at me from
both sides.
 Sit down, Rosie says, pulling me toward the kitchen table.
 Drink this, Les commands, setting a lime-colored frothy liquid in front of me. Probably a green tea
frappé.
For a long time they just sit close and watch me sip my liquid. They don t ask where I ve been or what
I ve been doing. It s not their style anyway, but considering I ran out of here hours ago, screaming and
babbling in my pajamas, I was sort of expecting a mini cross-examination.
After I left the bingo hall, I roamed the streets, thinking about everything I d lost. The Helping Hands,
Jack, Penny, probably the water-aerobics bunch too. No doubt I also lost Mrs. Pratt s faith in me, which
means no letter of recommendation and little chance of getting accepted to a top university. So I lost my
future plans as well.
But the thing is I wasn t feeling sorry forme. Not really. I realize that I brought this on myself. All these
weeks I ve been completely self-obsessed. I ve used other people as part of some grand scheme,
without thinking about how it would affect them. I m just as bad as Caitlyn worse, even. I don t
deserve any friends. Not even the Bippies.
After two hours of wandering, my feet were blistered and bleeding where the straps of the flip-flops had
rubbed against the skin. So I decided to go back home.
I slurp my frappé and toy with the string of Norm s gift, trying to figure out what to say to my parents,
but I m too drained. At least the drink seems to be helping. I can feel it seeping through me, refilling my
energy stores and quenching the hunger pangs in my gut.
Oh yeah. That s something else I lost. The Stabbies. They re gone only I m not sure why or how.
Maybe they ve disappeared for good. Or maybe they ve just grown so much they ve completely taken
me over and I m now one giant walking Stabby.
 Doodlebug& we need to talk to you about something, Rosie says.
She seems tired. The corners of her smile have drooped several millimeters and that flicker of light in her
eyes has switched to a lower wattage. She looks older somehow. Les too. There are lines around his
eyes that I haven t noticed before, and his hair and beard have new streaks of gray. Did that just happen
today?
 We want to apologize to you, Rosie continues.  We re sorry we took you away from so many places
when you didn t want to go.
 We just didn t see it your way, Les chimes in.  You saw it as leaving somewhere, but we always saw
it as going somewhere.
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Rosie reaches for my hand and squeezes it.  We never minded saying goodbye to a place. We felt that [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]