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  “Way,” Bill drawls, amusing himself now. “I bet that’s it, Ame. She can tell you’re going to be a famous poet someday, and she wants to get a piece of you before you get huge. Hey, what if you got so famous you were the first poet ever to be chased by the paparazzi?”

  “Bill, come on.”

  “What if you were the first poet ever to have your picture in Us Weekly? ‘Poets—They’re Just Like Us!’”

  “Bill, will you please be serious for a second?”

  “Bill, do we have any Corona or is there just the Dos Equis in the cooler?”

  Female voice. Perfectly nice voice. Perfectly nice boring female voice. Aimee feels her heart and stomach get up and shuffle around, trying clumsily to switch places inside her.

  “Aimee,” Bill says, apologetic, “I gotta go. Someone’s . . . I gotta get back to this meeting.”

  “Yeah,” says Aimee, “uh-hunh.”

  She beeps off the phone as fast as she can, before she can hear Bill hang up on her.

  11

  Meghan’s mind is a blank. Meghan’s vision is a tunnel. Meghan’s body moves like an animal’s body through the woods behind Riverglade Estates, following the shortcut she knows by heart along the banks of the trickly Thorn Creek, crashing through the tree branches that hang over the path, stumbling through the pricker bushes that reach out to embrace her, ripping away from them as they cling to her, trying to suck her in. She feels nothing, sees nothing. The sound of nothing is a roar in her ears.

  Not far now to the place she goes to immerse herself completely in nothing.

  She bursts out of the woods and there it is, her sanctuary, the dying barn, floating like a garbage barge in the middle of the cornfield. Meghan makes a lumbering beeline for it, crunching through the yellow knee-high cornstalks. At last she’s there, turns sideways to get through the hole in the wall—three boards missing make a door—and inside it’s cool and dark, dappled with stripes of dusty sunshine slanting through the open slats in the walls. So filthy and so familiar—the sag of the roof in the middle of the space, the shadowy shapes of debris: heaps of rotting timber, piles of tin cans, the old tractor rusting into sculpture in the corner. Dirt floor overgrown with weeds and grass.

  Meghan makes for her spot by the wall, unshoulders her backpack and lets it drop to the ground, sits down with a dusty thud on the scratchy horse blanket she brought here years ago. Breathes in the smell of earth and decay, so thick it’s like the taste of a stew in her mouth. Wills the heaving drumbeat of her heart to slow. Breathes in, out. In, out.

  Like dragons the memories fly up from the dark pit inside her—she tries to bat them away but they circle her, flapping their leathery wings—

  Meghan and Cara, eight years old, fifty feet up in the hemlock tree, giggling—Meghan and Cara, nine years old, pressed against each other on the Tilt-A-Whirl at the town fair, screaming—Meghan’s ten-year-old hands French braiding Cara’s red hair—eleven-year-old Cara grinning through her headgear at Meghan like a puffy-mouthed boxer—

  Feverishly Meghan gropes for her backpack and unzips the front pocket where she keeps her emergency supplies. She plunges her hand in and grabs the first thing she finds, tears open the Snickers bar and bites off more than half of it—its saturated sweetness blooms in her mouth, but it’s not nearly enough—

  Cara’s bedroom, pistachio-ice-cream green with the stenciled pattern of acorns and squirrels around the ceiling—Cara’s seashell collection, Cara’s jewelry box, Cara’s sparkling collection of pierced earrings, the charm bracelet with the hearts and stars Cara’s grandmother gave her—the smell of Cara’s mother’s kitchen, a mixture of milk and onions—the smell of lilacs drifting onto Cara’s screened-in porch during sleepovers in the spring—

  The second half of the Snickers bar is still coming apart in her mouth, and Meghan’s arm is already elbow-deep in the backpack, rummaging around for reinforcements—

  The reading group that Mrs. Jackson made up just for them, because they were the two best readers in fourth grade, so that they got to read chapter books and make dioramas while everyone else was still filling out dumb reading comp sheets about The Life of Amelia Earhart or whatever—the feeling Meghan got every day when it was time for Language Arts and she got to go off with Cara to work in the corner, like they were the only two members of their own special club, and everyone else knew they belonged to each other—the feeling Meghan had that no matter how chubby she was, no matter how gross, no matter how many times other kids asked her when the baby was due or how much her farts weighed, Cara would always make her feel safe, Cara would never leave her place by Meghan’s side—

  Butterfinger bar melting on her tongue, gumming up the crevices in her teeth; the salty sweetness floods her mind like a wave breaking on a beach, but then ebbs, slipping back into the sea, and the memories only come on faster and stronger—

  Summer after sixth grade, when Meghan started ferrying messages between Cara and Jamie Bartlett. . . . Skinny, sandy-haired Jamie Bartlett, who lived two streets down from Meghan and Cara on Vernon Road, with his friendly fluffy white dog named Gwendolyn and his friendly parents named Mike and Elaine and his friendly big sister named Marcie, who once gave Meghan a free box of Girl Scout cookies for no reason. . . . Jamie Bartlett, who shot hoops in his driveway every day from five to six P.M., where Meghan would reliably find him when she emerged from the bushes clutching a message from Cara. . . . Jamie Bartlett, who smiled at her and biffed her shoulder like a buddy and called her “Megster,” as in, “Hiya Megster, whatcha have for me today?” What she had for him today was a little love note, on pink-inked graph paper that Cara had spritzed with her mother’s Shalimar perfume. Two or three times a week Meghan brought them, little love notes written in pink glitter pen, folded into tight little triangles or squares. Little love notes that told Jamie where to meet Cara (in the old toolshed behind the abandoned house on Sunset Avenue, usually) the next afternoon that Cara didn’t have cello or ballet—

  Hostess Cupcakes, two thick gulps, dark sweet empty taste—Hostess Twinkies, two soft gulps, light sweet empty taste—

  The empty feeling that crept through Meghan on those afternoons when Cara didn’t have cello or ballet, when Cara and Jamie holed up together inside the windowless, falling-down shed and Meghan was in charge of watching out for intruders—kids or grown-ups, anyone who might invade their privacy. The way time stretched out while Meghan sat there on the rotting tree stump ten feet away, shoulders slumped, watching the shadows inch across the grass, half wanting to sneak over and press her ear to the shed door, half afraid of what she might hear if she did. And the long, hollow feeling she would get after they emerged (always Cara first—Meghan would see Jamie slip out a second later and disappear off in the other direction), Cara dreamy and happy, not really paying attention to Meghan, not really talking to her all the way home. But still, it was not until seventh grade started—

  And she is eating with both hands now, supply pocket starting to empty out—panicky feeling fluttering in her chest: What if there’s not enough? Smartfood, salty cheesy handfuls, Reese’s Pieces, crunchy melty mouthfuls, and at last Meghan starts to feel the stirrings of anesthesia tingling at the ends of her fingers and toes. Still—

  First day of seventh grade, speechless with terror and fatter than she’d ever been before, Meghan walked into her new homeroom to see Jamie Bartlett, taller than he had been before he went to basketball camp, blonder than he had been before he went to basketball camp, surrounded by a bunch of other guys all wearing the same maroon basketball camp T-shirt he was wearing. They were sitting on top of their desks, forming a solid mass of boy, a block of shoulders and shorts in the corner. Jamie Bartlett looked up at Meghan as she came through the door and made an icy band of eye contact with her, and a threat passed from his eyes to hers, like a fish darting through a pass in the rocks: You don’t speak to me. You don’t look at me. You make like you don’t even know me anymore. And if you ever tell anyone what went on
in that shed . . . Meghan could feel the silent dot dot dot, the promise of punishments too dark to describe. She blinked at him, dropped her eyes to the floor, and went silently to the other side of the room to sit down. And when Ms. Rosenberg took attendance that first morning of seventh grade and said, “Bartlett, James? Is James Bartlett here?” blonder, taller Jamie Bartlett raised his hand and said, “Yo. Call me J-Bar.”

  Quick, then, the rest of it, quick and total—in a matter of weeks her whole life collapsed. Seventh-grade Cara, still trying at first to get Jamie Bartlett to be her boyfriend, not seeing, as Meghan saw, that there was no more Jamie Bartlett, there was only J-Bar, JV Basketball King, who was not about to have a dorky teacher’s pet like Cara for a girlfriend. Seventh-grade Cara, one September afternoon on the bus, looking at Meghan sitting beside her with a cold new disgust, as if she’d been blindfolded all the years of their friendship and only now saw the monster that Meghan really was. Only now saw how Meghan was holding her back. Seventh-grade Cara explaining to Meghan calmly that she wouldn’t be able to hang out with Meghan during school anymore because she was trying to change her image a little, no offense. Then seventh-grade Cara pretending she wasn’t home when Meghan called; seventh-grade Cara pretending she had too much math homework to do to come over. And finally, by October of seventh grade, Cara Roy turning Meghan Ball into the Amazing Vanishing Girl, gazing right through her when Meghan passed her in the halls, as if Meghan had become a ghost, a vapor.

  And then, adrift, abandoned in the halls of the junior high, with no one to watch her back or come to her rescue . . . J-Bar and his crew circling her for the first time in the hallway outside homeroom, the pack of them closing in . . . the falling sensation of becoming prey . . . the words they said to her lost now in memory but their smiling faces unforgettable . . . the blank look on Cara’s face as she passed behind them and caught Meghan’s eye for the fleetingest instant . . .

  Meghan’s memory catches like a glitch on a CD, plays the same moment over and over again:

  Meghan’s mouth opening. Her voice tiny and useless, saying, “Cara.” Saying, “Cara.” Cara seeing her. Cara turning. Cara vanishing in the crowd. The boys pressing in on all sides. Their teeth and claws sinking into her flesh. Then a blank spot, a white flash, over the memory of being devoured.

  Meghan pauses for a second in the barn to catch her breath, which is trapped in little bubbles in between wet wads of Cheetos in her mouth and throat. In, out. In, out. Chewing with her mouth open, wheezing as she chews. The tingling has spread up her arms and legs now—a buzzing blankness, like a staticky TV channel. Soon it will swirl up through her gut, slip up over her heart and lungs like lukewarm water, flood through her throat and mouth and head—drown her in nothingness. Meghan slows down—she can coast to the end now. She takes the last Hershey bar from the backpack half reluctantly, slips a fingertip under its silver flap, wanting both to gobble it down and hurl it away at the same time.

  The fat girl who loses her only friend sees, all at once, how everything works. She sees that all promises are fictions, all friendships are games with winners and losers. The fat girl left alone in the world sees that every human being has a value assigned to them that they are helpless to change no matter what they do, and she sees that people trade each other like baseball cards: three cheap friends for two valuable friends, a whole group of worthless friends for one popular friend. It’s like dying and coming back to life, being a fat girl who loses her only friend; it gives you an insight into the people around you that the average person couldn’t bear to have.

  But if it doesn’t break her, this insight makes the friendless fat girl strong. The fat girl left alone in the world becomes the ultimate outsider, and outsiders always know the insiders’ secrets, because insiders don’t care what’s happening on the outside—they never check to see what the outsiders know. They usually don’t even know who the outsiders are. The person on the bottom sees what’s happening on top, the person at the back sees what’s happening in front, the person on the outside sees what’s happening at the center, and the fat girl who loses her only friend is under, behind, and outside all at once; if she cares to look, she can see everything in every direction. God must be a friendless fat girl, because only friendless fat girls are as omniscient as God.

  The final collapse into oblivion that accompanies the last mouthful. Bursting—the pressure of her gut against the waistband of her pants the only feeling left in her body. Meghan undoes the button of her fly and unzips it, spreads out, feeling the rapture of the deep lapping at her from all sides. Surrounded by the wreckage of the binge, eviscerated wrappers like the husks of dead insects all around her, Meghan leans her head back against the barn wall and blacks out.

  12

  “It gives me great pleasure to announce to you the winner of this year’s Autumn Poetry Competition, sponsored by Photon”—Mr. Handsley pauses a moment to build anticipation—“Miss Cara Roy!”

  The temporary classroom bursts into frenzied applause. Moira Dahlquist clasps her hands together and presses them to her heart like she’s Cara’s proud mother. At first Cara looks startled, then transforms into Cinderella at the ball, lips parted—me? really?—looking down bashfully, shaking her head in amazement.

  Aimee feels a little twig of disappointment snap in her chest, quick and light, at the moment when Mr. Handsley says Cara’s name. But then she looks over at Cara, blushing and shrugging, and feels a genuine rush of happiness for her. Cara works harder than anyone Aimee has ever met, and she’s been the nicest person in the entire school to Aimee. How can Aimee be even a little jealous when Cara has been nothing but generous to her, nothing but encouraging, nothing but incredibly sweet and supportive? Cara deserves to win.

  “In singling out Miss Roy’s work for distinction, the judges commented on its, quote, inventiveness of structure, provocative line breaks, sophisticated use of punctuation, and arresting imagery, unquote.” Cara blushes furiously. Becky Trainer can barely contain herself, claps her hands in front of her chest like a bird fluttering its wings, a little trilly clap. Mr. Handsley continues: “As you all know, the winning poem will be read during morning announcements on Monday, in place of the usual published poem slaughtered—excuse me, read—by the redoubtable Ms. Champoux.” The girls titter nervously and Cara rolls her eyes. “Then the poem will be sent on to Washington, D.C., to be evaluated by a distinguished panel of judges. Ms. Roy, will you do us the favor of reading aloud your winning poem now? A special preview, just for your co-editors?”

  Cara starts to make a fuss about not wanting to take valuable time away from the group.

  “C’mon,” urges Moira.

  “Please?” begs Becky.

  “We want to hear it!” bawls Yael.

  With a show of reluctance Cara gets to her feet and takes the paper with her poem on it from Mr. Handsley. Right before she begins to read, as she opens her mouth to inhale for the first word, Cara shoots a look at Aimee, her eyes alive with the sparkle of intimacy, an only-you-can-really-understand-this look, an it’s-just-you-and-me-against-the-world look. Cara’s look enters Aimee and warms her whole body. Deep in her cold chest, Aimee’s heart light glows.

  “‘Hunger Strike,’” pronounces Cara, “by Cara Roy.”

  The room falls into respectful silence.

  “I am carved like David,

  every line of my body perfectly chiseled.

  Hunger is the blade that has made me smooth.

  I am a statue, yet I am only air at my center.

  I go to hug myself and

  —poof!—

  my arms go right through me

  finding nothing to hold on to.

  My hands meet behind my own back

  in a stone handshake.

  This is not what you were expecting.

  I’m so cold.

  I’m so sharp.

  I’ve been cut, now I’ll cut you.

  Come closer.

  Yes, come closer to me.

/>   I am going to make you see what I see.”

  A moment in which the world tilts to the left, warps, and constricts. Aimee feels herself pressed into its angle, suddenly deaf, all the breath squeezed out of her—stunned.

  Somewhere in the distance: a burst of applause.

  Cara, far away although she’s right across the room, looks up from her paper directly at Aimee, directly at her, and smiles the exact same warm, humble smile she gave her before she started to read, exactly the same as every other smile she’s ever given her. Just as if she hasn’t just ripped off Aimee’s deepest, most private thoughts and passed them off as her own.

  It’s not exactly the same poem. It’s not word for word. But it’s Aimee’s poem. It’s the poem she worked over excruciatingly closely, the only one she ever revised the way Bill told her to. It’s got her poem’s heartbeat, her poem’s fingerprints, at least two-thirds of her poem’s DNA. It’s even wearing her poem’s shoes—that last line!

  Aimee starts trembling. The temporary classroom is chiming with adulation, girls exclaiming to Cara, to each other, how brilliant she is, how brave. From across the room Aimee sees Mr. Handsley eyeing her curiously, arms folded across his chest, head tipped to one side. That’s when she notices that she’s the only one not clapping, the only one silent in a room full of cheer. She knows she has to join in or people will know something is up, but her hands are dead on the desk in front of her, she can’t make them move. And all along the column of her spine she can feel coming like a train speeding toward her, gathering speed and sound and intensity, a reaction like none she has ever had before. With nothing in her mouth to bring it on. The sizzle rises to a roar in her ears and she knows that in less than thirty seconds all five of her senses will be consumed in a silver fire. She has to get out of there before they all see it.

  Aimee gets to her feet and bolts from the room.