who nobody really knows,
nobody hugs.
Then I notice two girls whispering,
pointing at me,
not with their fingers,
but with their eyes.
I turn and run
down the hall
and don’t stop
until I get
home.
CHLOE
“Before Ghosting and After Ghosting”
Bad:
Twenty stitches
and a foot I can’t walk on
for a week.
No more Anil.
(His parents
won’t let him see
me,
or any of us
who were there
that night.)
My mother freaking out
all over me,
all the time.
At first I wanted her
warm, comforting hugs,
but by the second week,
oh my god.
Reporters,
especially the one
with the flippy,
fake blonde hair
who asked if I felt guilty
because I suggested ghosting
in the first place.
Mom stepped in then
and blasted her.
And one more thing:
Nightmares.
Every night.
Good:
Dad flew in from California.
Yeah, without his new little family.
That was a hug
I’ll remember for
a long time.
Teachers are a lot nicer.
Mr. Chandler even gave me
an A I didn’t deserve
on the first paper I wrote
after ghosting.
Oh, and Josh called.
A lot.
FAITH
The doctors
say I lost
a dangerous
amount
of blood.
That I
should
have died.
I sleep
most of
the time.
And when
I wake up
Mom or
Dad or
a nurse is
usually
there,
but once
no one
is there
and panic
flutters
in my chest
like it’s
suddenly
filled with
those
white birds.
But then
I look
over at
the tray
table
next to
me, and
someone
has set
a small
folded
paper
crane,
a gleaming
white one,
right there
beside me.
The fluttery
feeling
eases and
I smile.
Then
another
time when
I wake up,
I open my
eyes to see
not just the
one white
paper crane
but dozens
of them,
all over
the room.
My mom
tells me
that my
friends from
school made
them and
that each
one has
a poem
folded inside.
I’m grateful
and astounded
that my
friends
somehow
knew about
the white birds
even though
I haven’t
told a
single
soul.
Sunday, September 19
ANIL
1. It has been three weeks
since that night
and today my mother
has spent the whole day
in the kitchen.
She is preparing a
traditional Indian feast.
She says it’s in honor of
Ganesh Chaturthi,
the celebration of the
birthday of Lord Ganesha,
son of Shiva and Parvati,
whose head was sliced off
by Shiva during a fierce
battle of the gods
and replaced with
a baby elephant’s.
Ganesha is the god of
wisdom, prosperity,
and good fortune.
I looked online and
discovered that
Ganesh Chaturthi was
a week ago.
I think my mother is
worried that I am not
eating enough.
2. The smell of the food
fills the house,
stirring my appetite,
and when I speak on the
phone with Viraj, who has been
calling more often than usual,
he claims he can even smell it
in Boston. And he makes a gagging sound.
But I love the deep rich smell of
Indian cooking.
It is pungent and tangible and I
welcome the distraction
and comfort of it.
3. My mother made my favorite,
red lentils and rice,
but there are
also kudumulu,
steamed rice flour dumplings
with coconut stuffing.
She also prepared six varieties
of naivedyam,
my favorite of which is
balehannu rasayana,
a banana fruit salad.
My mother even dug up
a plaster of paris statue of
the potbellied,
elephant-headed Ganesha,
which she put in the center
of the table.
4. After dinner I lie on my bed,
stomach full,
looking up at those
glow-in-the-dark stars.
And then,
not for the first time,
or the last,
I think about
CHLOE
“The Break”
After that night
the seven of us who were there
all spin off in different directions.
It reminds me of the “break” in billiards,
which I learned about from Josh,
who plays a lot of pool.
Like the “break”
this is how we all spun off:
Brendan disappears.
Felix is in a coma.
Emma is always away somewhere for surgery.
Maxie no one ever sees, like she’s exiled herself.
Anil’s parents don’t let him hang out with any of us, especially me.
And I guess that makes
the kid with the gun,
Walter Smith,
the cue ball.
Tuesday, September 21
MAXIE
This strange thing
starts to happen.
I hear little whispers of it
here and there,
but then it picks up steam.
The best way I can
describe it is that
a “cult of Chloe”
begins to form.
It starts after Anil writes
the article for the school paper
about
that night.
I heard he did it
because he was
fed up
with all the
half-truths
and the
controve
rsy.
And it was good he did.
Because the stories that had been
swirling around
were freakish, scary.
Not that what happened
wasn’t
freakish.
Scary.
It was.
But not:
that we came upon
Walter Smith eviscerating
a dead crow,
or
that he stuck a gun in Emma’s
mouth and made her beg
for her life.
But when everyone learns
how Chloe got the shooter
to give her
the gun,
well, that did it.
The story spread like wildfire
and Chloe was all anyone could
talk about.
ANIL
1. There were a lot of rumors
going around,
so I decided to tell
what really happened,
the truth, as I saw it,
which is:
2. We were in the SUV,
Chloe and Maxie and I,
with Felix,
who had lost
consciousness.
I had taken over from Chloe,
keeping up the
pressure on the
makeshift, blood-soaked bandage
and Maxie was holding Felix’s hand,
telling him to hang on
and that he’d be all right.
Then some noise or movement
from outside the car
made all three of us
look up at the same time,
and we saw, and heard,
the final gunshot,
saw Brendan and Emma go down.
There was a horrible moment
of silence, then Maxie
let out a gasping sound
and a stricken whispered oh no please God.
We stared out at the shooter,
who was still holding the rifle,
standing very still,
gazing down at the bodies
lying on the ground.
I remember thinking how small
he looked. Like a boy.
Chloe let out a sigh.
She slid through the half-open car door
and hobbled across the grass,
her right foot slipping around
in her bloody sandal.
The shooter didn’t move,
just watched her
coming toward him.
3. She stopped a couple of feet
away from him
and held out her hand.
I swear she looked like some
unearthly angel-madonna.
After a few seconds,
the shooter handed her
the rifle.
Just like that.
She looked down at the gun,
like she didn’t know
what to do with it.
Then she threw it away.
The rifle skittered
across the sidewalk
with a harsh, clattering sound,
then came to a stop.
4. Sirens were getting louder
and the shooter,
the small kid in a baggy green sweatshirt,
suddenly sat down
on the curb
and started to cry.
Chloe crossed over
and sat next to him.
When the first ambulance arrived,
with a police car right behind it,
she was still there.
Sitting beside him.
CHLOE
“Reasons We Do Things”
I don’t really know
why I did it.
He just looked so pathetic,
this skinny little guy
who’d hurt all these people
and didn’t seem to understand
any of it.
And all of a sudden
I got fed up.
Someone needed
to take that stupid gun
away from him
before anyone
else got shot.
I guess he could have shot me, too,
but I didn’t really think about it,
not then.
Which was dumb.
Except this time
it turns out
I was dumb
and
I was smart.
Wednesday, September 29
POLICE CHIEF AUBREY DELAFIELD
Walter Smith was denied bail,
which was no surprise.
I attended the hearing
and the kid looked like a ghost,
paste-white pale,
and like he had no clue
where he was.
When I realized he was headed for
Cook County Jail, I knew Walter Smith
would be eaten alive.
So I put in a word,
to see if there was any way
to keep him sequestered.
Turned out he was on suicide watch
so they put him in solitary.
And kept him there.
Even now, a month later,
gawkers still drive by the house,
but there’s nothing to see.
The house is deserted.
A distant cousin came
and put Adeline in an assisted-care facility.
We had the photos printed up,
the ones Maxine Kalman took that night.
There’s one of those two girls,
their smiling faces lit up
by the light of their cell phones.
And when I think of what came after,
the sidewalk slick with blood,
the ambulances,
the havoc done to so many lives,
the memory of those smiling faces
knocks me flat.
It’s an image
that will stay burned
in my mind.
Forever.