Danielle
Any news involving McDreamy
always travels fast at Livingstone.
Rachel, for one, seems delirious with joy
about my brother and Julianne breaking up.
“I’ll bake him mint brownies,” she says to me.
“I’ll bring them over tonight.
They’re my specialty.”
How totally dumb.
Mint brownies aren’t going to help anything
no matter whose specialty they are.
My first thought
is the same one I always have.
Is Rachel my friend because of Parker?
My second thought is that
I’m ashamed by my first thought.
I wish I could pretend I never had it.
But it rips up my insides.
28 days before
Parker
I go to her locker at the end of the day. She looks up at me with pink-rimmed eyes.
“I wish it had worked out,” she whispers. “Really.”
“Please, Julianne,” I beg, my voice cracking. “Give me another chance.”
Would it help if I got down on my knees? Because I’d do it in a minute.
“I gave you so many chances,” she says, sniffling. “I think … deep inside … you just don’t want me.”
“No. No,” I say fiercely, taking her hands. “That isn’t true. It’s … It’s … ”
She takes a step toward me. “It’s what, Parker? Why can’t you tell me?”
I lower my eyes. Neither of us moves. Then she pulls her hands out of mine and walks away.
27 days before
Danielle
Even though it’s not my place,
I tell Mom about Parker.
“His girlfriend, Julianne,” I say.
“I think she dumped him.
I think he’s really upset about it.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Mom says,
rushing from one end of the bedroom
to the other, looking for her sensible brown shoes.
“I can’t talk right now. I have to pick
up your father at the cancer center.
I’m late.”
Mom’s distracted.
Everyone’s distracted.
Everyone’s always distracted.
Dear Parker,
I’m starting to understand
a little.
How does a person get attention?
By doing something big
dramatic
show-stopping.
Sometimes
it’s the only way
to count.
At least
above
nothing.
Love,
Danielle
26 days before
Parker
I go to her house after school.
“Please,” I say, putting my hand on her waist. “If you just knew … ”
“If I just knew what?” she says. “What is it?”
I take a step closer. “I love you, Julianne.”
“I don’t think you really do,” she says. “I don’t think you ever did.”
She closes the door in my face.
25 days before
Danielle
Mom and Dad are getting ready to go
to the Denim and Diamonds Gala
for Pony Power Therapies
even though Dad’s lying in bed
in his black tuxedo and black cowboy boots
with his eyes closed
while Mom fixes her hair
under her tan-and-teal cowboy hat.
“Why don’t you just stay home?” I ask them.
“We go every year,” Dad answers faintly.
“People will wonder.”
“So what?” I ask, my voice sounding impatient.
Dad doesn’t answer.
Mom doesn’t answer.
I gaze at Dad’s hand
resting along the brim of his cowboy hat
next to him on the bed.
It’s looks like an old man’s hand.
Pale and blue-veined.
I get up and go to Parker’s room.
“This family needs help,” I say,
but stop myself abruptly in his doorway,
because Parker’s lying on his bed
exactly like Dad
with his eyes closed, too.
“Why am I the only person around here
who thinks anything’s wrong?” I ask,
plopping down next to him on the bed.
Parker opens one eye.
“Because you’re smart, Danielle,” he says.
“You see what other people don’t see.”
“Your teeth, Parker,” I whisper.
“They’re so gray.”
Parker shuts his mouth
and his eyes
and himself.
24 days before
Parker
I do something I’ve never done before.
I vomit in the school bathroom after Key Club and before National Honor Society.
And I know, from now on, it’s going to be twice a day.
23 days before
Danielle
What am I supposed to do?
Who am I supposed to talk to?
What am I supposed to say?
You can call 911 when you hurt yourself.
But who do you call
when your family’s hurting itself?
Is there an ambulance?
An emergency room?
A pill to pop?
I’m confused.
And scared.
If someone would just tell me
what to do
I would do it.
I want to help.
I just don’t know how.
Dear Parker,
You’re so smart.
Please tell me what I should do.
Love,
Danielle
22 days before
Parker
After our laps today, Coach lines us up like soldiers and walks up and down the line yelling at us.
“Lay off the Krispy Kremes, Grossman.”
“Yessir.”
“Getting paunchy around the middle.”
“Yessir.”
“How do you expect to win carrying that tire around?”
“Yessir.”
“Stay away from fryers.”
“Yessir.”
“I want you to do extra laps for me.”
“Yessir.”
My hands start to sweat.
Am I going to be next? Is Coach going to ream me out for being fat?
Coach stops right in front of me. He looks me up and down, then frowns.
Why can’t I lose weight?
When will I stop being a failure?
That’s it. I need to stop screwing around.
When I get home, I run around our block again and again, over and over, one lap after another, until I’m panting, until I can hardly breathe, until I feel dizzy.
I limp home, I barely make it up the stairs, and I collapse into bed.
The room is spinning wildly.
I wish it would stop.
I want to cry, because I feel so bad.
21 days before
Danielle
I try to talk to Rachel about things
one afternoon
when we’re working
on our poems for The
Cellar.
“Has your brother lost weight?”
she asks.
“He looks skinny.”
“I don’t know,” I say.
I close my mouth,
then open it,
then close and open it again.
I ask, “Do you ever wonder
what people are hiding?”
she snaps.
“Nothing,” I say.
“We have to work on our poems,” she says.
So we do.
Here’s mine:
Secrets
Some secrets are good.
Some are bad.
They aren’t easy to keep
but they’re even harder
to tell.
20 days before
Parker
I heard Dad vomiting in the bathroom today. It must be his treatments.
I peeked inside and saw Mom standing behind him, telling him it would be okay, stroking his hair.
Like me.
And not like me.
19 days before
Danielle
Parker and I are on our own for dinner.
We order an extra-large pizza called
“Everything But the Kitchen Sink”
from The Tomato Pie Factory.
It has cheese, olives, sausage, peppers, onions,
mushrooms, eggplant, chicken, pepperoni,
pineapple, and maraschino cherries.
Parker has five slices.
“Wish I could eat that much,” I say.
“I need to lose a few pounds,” he says.
“Get real,” I say.
“I’m fat,” he says.
Something hot and cold—both at the same time—smack me in the forehead
like a burning-icy-headache.
Parker gets up.
“Parker?” I call.
He doesn’t answer.
He goes to the bathroom.
He closes the door and locks it.
I hear water
running fiercely in the sink,
and
gagging.
It can’t be.
Is that …
Is he …
“Parker!”
I bang on the door.
“Parker!”
After what seems like an eternity,
Parker opens the door.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m not doing anything,” he says, walking away from me.
I grab the back of his shirt. “But why are you doing that?”
He peels my hand off. “Don’t worry about me, Danielle. It’s nothing.”
18 days before
Parker
I go to a party tonight with Foxy and Spaz, even though I want to stay home. I feel so tired.
It’s while we’re driving over that I start feeling like I want to tell them. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.
“Do you guys ever do … anything … when you’re upset … about something?”
I’m not sure this is the right way to begin, but I can’t think of any other way.
“I eat chocolate,” Spaz says.
“I eat babes,” Foxy says.
“Chocolate?”
“Yeah, I’m just like a girl,” Spaz says. “Food is my comfort, dude.”
I’m sorry I brought it up. But I force myself to go on.
“Do you ever eat … a lot? Like … a whole lot?”
Spaz lets out a laugh. “Are you kidding? You’re looking at Porky Pig over here. I’m no slacker when it comes to binging.”
Binging?
I don’t know how to respond. I’m not even sure I should respond. But, before I can make up my mind what to say, we arrive at the party. Well, it was a dumb idea, anyway.
All the popular kids from my school, and some really hot girls from Schechter, are lounging around the living room listening to music. I sit down in a corner by myself. Spaz sits across from me, next to Amber, and they start kissing, and it makes me think of Julianne and how much I miss her, and I stare at them fiercely, but they’re so wrapped up in their kiss they don’t even notice.
I’m invisible.
The conversation turns to “last meals.”
“My last meal would be a soft, warm, chocolate-chip cookie with a cold glass of milk,” says Amber.
“Mine would be steak,” says Foxy.
“Pizza,” says Tina.
“How about you, Parker?” Spaz asks.
I feel like every meal is my last. Before I can come up with an answer, someone says, “Parker’s last meal would be a crumb.”
“Well,” one of the hot girls puts in, and I realize it’s the same girl from the Teen Tzedakah Project. “Maybe that’s why he’s got a great body.” She looks right at me. I look back at her, then away.
“Leave the guy alone,” Foxy snaps.
I wish I could tell him. Or even Spaz. Why can’t I? Why can’t I ask for help?
The conversation shifts again, and I stare at Spaz and Amber again, only this time he catches me looking at him.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Do I have a sign around my neck that says
This Loser Needs Your Immediate Attention!
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No.”
By the end of the night, the hot girl who said I had a great body winds up in my lap. Turns out her name is Chelsea Levine. We’ve been making out pretty vigorously for the past fifteen minutes, but it isn’t me she’s making out with, because I’m not really here.
17 days before
Danielle
I don’t know what to do about Parker.
What’s happening to him?
I make a list of all the people I could ask for help:
1. Rabbi Goldwasser (but I haven’t talked to him since my bat mitzvah)
2. Aaron Rosenthal (but he gives me the creeps)
3. My homeroom teacher (but I don’t think that’s gonna work)
4. The school principal (but I’ve never even seen her)
5. The school nurse (but I don’t even know where her office is)
6. Parker’s track coach (but he gives me the creeps even more than Aaron Rosenthal)
7. Rachel’s mom (but she’s just like Rachel, only worse)
I study my list for a long time
and then I add:
8. Mom
9. Dad
Then I tear it into small pieces
and throw it in the garbage.
16 days before
Parker
“Parker?”
It’s Danielle standing in my doorway. I tell her to come in. She sits down on the bed next to me and stares at my face. I look away quickly.
“Your eyes,” she murmurs. “They’re so … sunken.” She touches my cheek. “And your face is so thin.” Her eyes fill with tears. “What are you doing to yourself? Whatever it is, Parker, please stop it.”
“I’m not doing anything,” I say, and it comes out so hoarse I sound like the Godfather.
Danielle gets a desperate look in her eyes. “I’ll tell them,” she whispers.
I barely have the energy to keep my eyes open, but I sit up and seize her arm. Hard. My fingers leave a red mark on her skin.
“Don’t you dare, Danielle, don’t you dare tell anyone.”
“You know I’ll never tell,” she sobs. “But please stop it, Parker, just s
top it.”
I can’t.
15 days before
Danielle
Rachel wants to watch a movie after school
in our home-theater room.
I give her the list Mom made
of all the movies we own.
“Is Singin’ in the Rain any good?”
she asks.
“Yeah, it’s good,” I say.
“It’s happy and there’s a lot of dancing.”
“How about The Band Wagon?”
“Same.”
“Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?”
“Same.”
“The Music Man?”
“They’re all the same!
They’re all happy and
… unrealistic!”
Rachel rolls her eyes. “What’s your problem?”
I look away. “Just pick the stupid movie.
It doesn’t matter.
It totally doesn’t matter.”
Dear Parker,
Remember when we watched The Music Man together?
Are we going to do that again?
You were still with Julianne.
Dad was still okay.
My biggest problem was
not playing paintball.
Are
you
ever
coming
back?
Love,
Danielle
14 days before
Parker
I have to lose weight. That will bring Julianne back to me.
I get up in the middle of the night and drive to a twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart in the next county.
It’s close to three o’clock in the morning and the aisles are empty. I walk up and down the pharmacy section, then stop in front of the laxatives display.
But I have no money. I spent everything on my food last week.
I grab a few boxes off the shelf, stuff them into my jacket, and quickly walk out of the store.
13 days before
Danielle
I see Julianne in the hall
right before lunch
and I almost want to run up to her
and tell her
but where would I start?
Beginning 1