hundred and six …” Despite the intense cold, I was sweating.
“Tara!” Her voice didn’t sound mocking this time. She sounded
angry.
I got angry too. It felt as if my body fluids were starting to boil. I silently begged God to make her go away. “A hundred and seven, a hundred and eight …”
“Taarraa!” She was definitely pissed.
Beads of boiling sweat were snowplowing down my back. “A hundred and nine, a hundred and ten …”
“Taaarrraaa!”
She was as stubborn as I was possessed. “A hundred and eleven, a hundred and twelve, a hundred and thirteen, a hundred and fourteen, a hundred and fifteen …”
“Ta—”
“What!” My
response was furious. I was furious. My heart was beating so fast and so loud that I instinctively grabbed at my chest as I looked up to see my friend Keesha standing before me, frowning.
“Girrll, we are so sick of you!”
“Go away!”
“And if I don’t?”
“Please leave me alone, Keesha!” I was amazed at how much I was hating my old friend.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why, Keesha? Why can’t you just leave me alone! Huh?”
Keesha looked at me for a long time. “I did leave you alone. We all did. But you didn’t get better. You didn’t stop. You’re still doin’ all your weird shit. And I think it’s time to stop.”
“You think it’s time to stop!” I exploded, and lunged at her with my hands outstretched. I pushed her real hard. She almost fell down. “
I
don’t care what time
you
think it is!”
I screamed. “Do you think I want to do this! Do you think I like it?”
“You pushed me!”
“Yeah. So what?”
“You’re so afraid of being interrupted that you pushed me!”
“I’m not scared of being interrupted, you jerk! I’m … I’m scared … I’m scared of
being”
I crumpled into a ball and sat down where I was standing. I sat on a crack. Unevenly.
“Who are you anymore, Tara?”
Tears spilled over my frozen lashes and disappeared across my cheekbones. I had never felt so defeated. “I don’t know.”
Keesha leaned in toward me, but I held back. “Please,” I begged. “Leave me alone.”
“Okay.” Her face was a mask of resigned sorrow and confusion. “I will.” It was almost a whisper. And with that she turned around and started to walk away. “We thought you’d get over this …”
We who? Over this!
I felt like fainting. Instead, I screamed so loudly that Keesha froze on the spot.
“Well
…
I’m
…
not!
I’m not over it! In fact … I don’t even know what
it
is!”
“I’m sorry, Tara,” Keesha said kindly. “I just miss you. We all do.”
“I miss you too
…
and I-I miss … I miss me … I miss
me!” The icy sidewalk beneath me felt good in contrast to the heat coming out of my pores. In a fetal position, I rocked myself like a sad baby in a cold white crib. I had no language to describe my pain. I had no company in my pain. I just had pain. Isolating, solitary pain. And loneliness. And humiliation.
Keesha dropped down beside me and held me, cradling my head in her lap. “I’m sorry, Tara. I didn’t mean to make you cry! I just wanted to walk to school with you.”
I sobbed more loudly.
“Shhh. Hey, girl … it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” she said softly.
If my
eyes
hadn’t been swollen shut, I still wouldn’t have been able to look her in the face. Her kindness dissolved my very last resistance against hysteria. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to walk to school with her or anybody else ever again. I missed the way we all used to be, so badly that I felt sick. But the only thing I could do was wail. Breathless, heartbroken, frightened sobs.
10
Bad to Worse
B etween March and June, several horrible things happened almost simultaneously. First and worst was my father’s heart attack.
“Is he going to die?” my sister asked in a tiny, hollow voice as we watched our father being taken away in the ambulance with my mother at his side.
Pain ripped through my
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