Dirty Little Secrets - C. J. Omololu [56]
“Phil, I need your help. Right now. I need you to come home.”
“Did . . . apply . . . summer . . .” His phone started to cut out.
“Phil?” I said loudly into the phone, but he was gone. I felt my entire body deflate. For the first time since he moved out, I felt like he was really and truly gone. He had successfully navigated Mom’s house for his full sentence of eighteen years, and now that he was free, he didn’t want to get dragged back into it. Not that I really blamed him. I’d probably do the same thing. Probably.
I sat staring at the phone until the light went out on the screen and the call ended. A year and a half. It wasn’t that long if you were just trying to get through high school like a normal person. It would be a hell of a long time for someone called Garbage Girl who had no friends at all. The thought of Josh laughing at me along with everyone else was worst of all. I’d gotten so close to actually having what I wanted, but now all the good stuff was fading away.
I spent the next hour shoving trash into black plastic bags, but all of the optimism I’d felt earlier was gone. Who was I kidding? Sara was coming back in just a few short hours, and there was no way she was going to leave here without talking to Mom. The threat of puke had put her off this time, but it wasn’t going to work forever. Everyone in town would know our secret by this time tomorrow.
My mind raced, picking up different scenarios for how my life was going to go. Maybe when Sara called the police, they wouldn’t think the place was any big deal. Maybe nobody at school would even find out about the way we live and stare at me in the halls like the smell of rotting garbage billowed out behind me when I walked. Maybe Josh and Kaylie wouldn’t care, and I’d get to have a best friend and a boyfriend at the same time. Maybe I was completely delusional.
I opened the dining room window and added several more bags to the growing pile. Mrs. Raj had her antennae up about the trash and would definitely come over to investigate. I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that she was the least of my problems at this point.
As I piled stuff into the big trash bags, I started to think about right after. After everyone knew Mom was gone, there would probably be a funeral. All the old ladies at church loved her for holding the rummage sale every year and organizing their senior meals. They would want to come. And the people at work would be there, Nadine for sure. Maybe even some of the families of “her people.” But would they come once they’d found out the truth? Would the little old ladies and the friends from work be too horrified to show their faces at a memorial for Mom once she stopped being Joanna Tompkins and became that freaky garbage lady? I wondered if Dad would come, or if there were too many bad years between them for him to really care. I tried to picture the funeral with the casket and flowers, and me and Sara and Phil sitting in the front row all dressed up and looking sad.
The thing was, I didn’t feel sad like I was supposed to. As I shoveled bags of clothes, work memos, and food wrappers into heavy-duty garbage bags, I felt a lot of things, but sad wasn’t one of them. Angry, irritated, annoyed, lonely, and maybe even a little guilty. But not sad. Maybe after, I could be sad. But not now.
I might be able to survive senior year alone, but it would be so hard to watch Kaylie and Josh live their lives without me. I could just see myself in art class, sitting alone because nobody would want to come close enough to be my partner. Maybe I could graduate early, or do a home study until graduation. I could get a part-time job and live here with Phil until I could go away to college.
My phone was in my pocket, so I reached in to check the time. Seven fifteen. Depending on how late Sara stayed out tonight and how annoyed