Six Feet Under

Chapter 23 //

Liz Casper

5:45 P.M.

    I sat on the floor of my bedroom, and looked at myself in the mirror against the wall. I was head-to-toe in white laces and silks, with little angel wings strapped to my back and a halo soaring from the top of my hair. The doors to the Halloween Dance would open soon, and I'd be walking in alone.

No one had asked me to the dance. Well, besides Camilo Ramos, but I hardly counted him. He was cruel, ruthlessly cruel to others—but oddly nice to me, which made me uncomfortable. I felt that he had been borderline stalking me since freshman year—he begged to be partners with me in every class we shared, he asked me to accompany him to basically any event the school hosted, and every time I said no. And he has still remained unbearably persistent. He spun a finger through my hair once without asking—and I still remember the shiver it sent up my spine.

I had no friends to go with. The only person that had spoken to me about the dance was Joselyn—she had sent me an overwhelming amount of texts the past week, begging for forgiveness. I had found myself hesitant to respond to her, even if I felt guilty that I was leaving such a long-term friend on read. My anger toward Joselyn had melted into a strange, internal confusion that I couldn't quite comprehend—ever since the talk Gail and I had across the fence.

    So I planned to go to the dance alone. I didn't tell my mother, because she would never let me attend—so I planned to sneak out and do the 20 minute walk in the solitude darkness of the night.

    As I sat on the carpet, in the center of a circle of makeup, perfume, and hair accessories, the music from my phone's speakers dulled when a text message rang through. I picked it up, to see a dense text message from Joselyn.

    hi Liz, I know you're probably sick as fuck from getting these texts from me but I figured I'd give it another shot. I can't nearly express enough how sorry I am. I betrayed Valeria's trust and your privacy and you have every right to be pissed at me. but i'll say it over and over again, it wasn't with any malicious intent. i'm not making an excuse for what i did, but i hope you can come to understand that the way i reacted was purely an impulsive method of survival, i didn't know how far Gail would go if i didn't give her what she wanted and i was scared shitless. i'll understand completely if you're mad at me for that for the rest of your life but i hope you can let me show you somehow that i do really respect you and value your friendship. if you'll let me, i'd love to have my mom drive both of us to the halloween dance tonight. please give me a chance to make it up to you. i really hope that gail hasn't harassed you or made you uncomfortable at all since I told her, i'll never forgive myself if she has. xxx joselyn

    I sat there, rereading the last sentence of that text over and over again. I could almost feel Joselyn's genuine fear bubbling inside of me—the fear that Gail was following me around like a predator pursuing her prey. It was a valid fright.

   I flopped on my back and stared at my bedroom ceiling—the memory of the one thing that had happened between Gail and I since Joselyn had told her about Valeria was crawling back.

Everything about Millockford was so oddly beautiful that afternoon. The sky was a blazing, hot blue; the trees behind Gail's backyard were a luscious, fairytale green. Gail's eyes, and when I realized that they weren't that midnight black everyone falsely believed them to be. They were a smoky, warm espresso near her pupils, and they kept blinking at me in my mind's eye. The smiles that shed across her and Ethan's faces when they spotted each other across the yard—they way they played like baby foxes galloping across a meadow. I felt like the narrator of the most beautifully illustrated storybook.