Sloppy Firsts_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [9]
Quite frankly, I think the reason Heath got high was because he was bored out of his mind. He was a really smart guy, and really smart people in Pineville have it rough. There’s nothing to do here. His death really made me sad (still does) and not only because it ripped me apart to see Hope cry and wonder Why? like everyone else. I had always fantasized that when we got older, Heath would see me as more than his little sister’s playmate. Not that I had a crush on him or anything. He seemed like someone who would understand me. I was looking forward to being his equal. His friend.
However, I can’t seem to get out of the anger stage of my grief. I can’t help but feel like Heath ruined everything, not just between us, but between Hope and me.
It was kind of ironic that I was thinking about all this when Brandi told me about what Scherzer saw on my book cover and asked me if I’ve thought about suicide.
Deep down, I wanted to tell her that I’ve considered killing myself no more than the average almost-sixteen-year-old honor student with no best friend or boyfriend and bigger bumps on her face than in her bra. But there’s no way that Brandi would understand.
Brandi graduated from PHS about fifteen years ago—a fact unearthed by Sara via an uncle who used to "bang" her. (Sara’s verb choice.) We found the yearbook from that year in the library and saw firsthand that our Professional Counselor had swept the most crucial Class Character categories: Best Dressed, Best Looking, and Most Popular. She was Upper Crust all the way—or whatever they called the U.C. then.
I wasn’t about to confide in her because there’s nothing more annoying than an adult who tells me that I will look back on all this and laugh—especially when it comes from an adult who heartily tee-heed all along. This is why I also refuse advice from my mother and my sister.
So I told her that this was all a misunderstanding. "Life Sucks, Then You Die" is not my personal philosophy, no, no, no. Life Sucks, Then You Die (L.S.T.Y.D.) is the name of an indie funk band that I just love, love, love. She not only totally bought it, but started acting like she’s heard of them because she couldn’t stand the idea of not being clued in anymore.
"They had one song that got some airplay," I said.
"Right! They did, didn’t they? What was the name again?" Her peepers were popping right out of her head at this point.
"’Tongue-Kissing Cousins.’"
"Right!" Brandi starts nearly every sentence with that exclamation. It’s a method of positively affirming her mixed-up counselees, something she learned in one of her Professional Counselor classes no doubt. "’Tongue-Kissing Cousins.’ That song rocks."
"It’s a slow jam."
"That’s right! A slow jam."
And so continued our bonding for a minute or two until she deemed me stable enough to let me go with nary a mark on my permanent record.
Then a kind of weird thing happened.
I walked out of her office and nearly tripped over two bare legs covered in scars and scabs. Marcus Flutie was slumped in a chair, stretching his long limbs right in front of the door. Marcus is what we at PHS categorize as a "Dreg." I think he was waiting to meet with his parole officer. Last spring, he got busted for buying or selling or using—I don’t know for sure—as part of the town’s War on Drugs effort that followed Heath’s death. Marcus was four years younger than Heath and his burnout buds, so they made him their marijuana-smoking mascot. (He’s a year older than Hope and me, but he’s on our grade level because he got left back in elementary