Read Online Slide by Jill Hathaway - Free Book Online

into the kitchen and force the phone into his hands and make him call the police.
    But then what?
    I’ve been down that road. I know what will happen.
    No one will believe me. I’ll have to start going to the shrink again. They’ll probably heap some new meds on me, ones that make me into a robot, ones that make me dead inside.
    No. I have to figure this out myself.
    “Can I be excused?”
    He studies my face, then nods. “Sure, hon.”
    For just a moment, I glimpse the father I used to know—the one who killed the spiders and checked for monsters under my bed and made everything better with just a Band-Aid and a kiss. He looks like his old self. As I grab my plate and head for the kitchen, I try to remember the last time he looked like that. If I had to give an exact date, I would say it was before the day I tried to tell him what happens when I slide.
    The day he didn’t believe me.

 
     
    T he fluorescent light in the bathroom shines on my crime. I slide the mirror to the left, reach past an almost-full bottle of Provigil, and grab a small plastic bottle. My dad hides the Ambien way in the back of the cabinet, for when his mind is full of broken babies and he can’t sleep. I mean, I get it. If it were only me standing between a six-day-old and death, the stress would get to me, too.
    I shake two of the little white pills into my hand, pretty little saviors, and stick them in my pocket before filling a paper cup with water and heading toward my sister’s room.
    The only parts of her I can see are her fuchsia toenails. She’s a lump in the bed, a mountain of blankets.
    “Mattie?”
    I can tell she’s awake from the way the comforter wiggles. A muffled “Mmmmmph?” emerges from beneath the blanket.
    “I brought you something.”
    She pushes down the covers and stares at me blankly. I’ve never seen her this way. All our lives, she was the one who cared if her hair was brushed, if her shoes and purse matched. Now, her hair is matted in clumps. She still hasn’t washed the dried mascara from her cheeks.
    I sit down on the bed next to her and hold out my hand with the pills. She takes them without a word, places them in her mouth, and washes them down with the water I offer. She looks at me, and her eyes are dead.
    “She won’t be at school on Monday.” It’s as if this fact has just occurred to her.
    “No.”
    “We were supposed to present our Spanish projects.”
    Mattie’s face crumples, and the tears start to come. She leans toward me and buries her face in the space between my head and shoulder, making my T-shirt wet. I pat Mattie’s back, feeling awkward. There’s nothing to say, but I’m hoping just being here is enough.
    Minutes go by, maybe even an hour.
    Finally, she speaks. “It’s my fault.”
    “No. It’s not.” I can’t explain how I know this, but I can’t let her carry around this guilt that does not belong to her. Though she’s done a lot of stupid things in her life, she is not responsible for this, this thing that is bigger than both of us.
    “We did something to her,” she whispers, so softly I can barely hear her.
    “What?” I lean closer.
    “Amber and me. We did something really mean.”
    I remember Sophie’s mother saying a true friend would never do what they did.
    “What is it, Mattie?” I ask gently.
    Mattie swallows a sob. “Last year Amber and I slept over at Sophie’s house. We were making ice-cream sundaes, and we had a food fight. Just being dumb. Amber squirted chocolate syrup all over Sophie’s hair.”
    “Yeah?” I prod. That doesn’t sound so bad.
    “While Sophie was taking a shower, Amber snuck into the bathroom and took a picture with her phone. I told her to erase it. I thought she did. Until yesterday. Amber came up with this plan to get back at Sophie for screwing around with Scotch. And I . . . I went along with it.”
    There’s this ball of dread growing in my stomach. I don’t want her to go on, but I have to hear the rest. I have