Ophelia Study No. 1

Chapter Ten

A few days after her expulsion was when Emily was kicked out of her own home.

There was no dramatic scene, no shouting matches, and no sexy outfits like in the Pat Benetar video. For Christ's sake, there wasn't even a dance number. There were locked doors and unanswered phone calls. When she called me to ask to stay over, she was sure that it would all blow off, that it was a mistake.

A week later and her parents still weren't returning her calls. She started to get nervous, even if she liked to pretend she wasn't. She started smoking more and more; the stench of her hair was unbearable. I'd gotten used to her smelling like smoke all the time, but now my own room was gaining the odor just from her being in it all the time.

It had been over a week since Emily was expelled, seven days after her parents kicked her out, and who knows how long since she felt at home. The closest thing she had was my room, which she was stuck in as long as my mother was home. She had no idea Emily had been staying at our place, and it was surprisingly simple to keep it from her.

Despite our success, I told Emily that hiding her was becoming ridiculous. After a lot of persuasion and reassurance, she agreed to me telling my mom she was homeless. When I told my mom about Emily's situation, and she was actually willing to have her around.

I had been leaving the room when my mom called, "Hey. I knew the entire time." With a wink, she'd waltzed into the living room, leaving me standing by the dining room table, dumbfounded. I had to give her credit; she wasn't anywhere near unintelligent, and she was crafty in her own ways. I don't know how she managed to find out about Emily living there, but she had, and she was actually able to maintain normal behavior until I came forward about the whole thing. For the first time in a while, I admired her.

Although my mother did agree to have Emily stay with us, it was under one condition, which was to enroll her back in school. We figured that sending her to school with me was the most achievable option, even though Emily had a general defiance toward the mere thought of public school.

I drove her on her first day. She hadn't known what to wear; she'd gone prestigious prep schools with uniform clad students all her life. She'd never had a choice. So, I figured the right thing to do would be to give her a choice, to not direct her in any sort of way. Emily had the rare opportunity of being able to start over, something I was never given. She had gone down in ashes, and then it was time to rise out stronger.

She ended up wearing a skirt and a button up. I was confident that her style would develop into something more appropriate for her age. At that time, she dressed like a nun. And I'm sure more kids gave her shit about it than she let on.

I know one group of girls in particular really gave it to her. I found her after school crying in the girls' locker room. She was almost inconsolable, and it was wearisome to pull the truth out of her. I'm still unsure about the truth of her story, and not because I think she lied to me, but because it's easy to exaggerate.

Heather Denman and her friends had been making fun of her.

They walked right up to her locker, believe it or not. Emily had initiated the conversation, resulting in a snide comment from Heather. What I took from the whole thing was that Heather and her friends called her ugly and a goody two shoes.

"I don't want to be a goody-goody," she'd sobbed. "I want to be normal. I want to be like you."

She was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, and so I had to crouch down to her level to look her in the eye. "You're anything but a goody-goody." I glanced down, admitting, "And I'm not exactly the most desirable character."

She had giggled, and I helped her to her feet, assuring, "If you want clothes, we can get clothes. Anything for you."

It was through thrift stores and my mom's closet that we pieced together Emily's wardrobe from practically nothing. She came to school the next day wearing skinny jeans and fuck me pumps. I could tell everyone was impressed by the sudden change; I received nods and murmurings of approval from fellow boys just by walking in with her. Quite a few of them ended up asking me if she was single, and when I'd tell them she was my girlfriend, they'd laugh and call me a lucky bastard.

And for the first time since the beginning of our relationship, I really did believe I was lucky to be with Emily. I was happy being with her, hell, I was happy looking at her. Being around her began to give me euphoria of a sort, elation almost to the point of nausea. We were around each other just as much as we had been three weeks ago, but the difference was that the silences, the stare downs, and the quiet sense of resentment were gone, gone to the point that it was almost impossible to tell they ever existed. She still reeked of cigarettes and her bones ached with an incurable sadness, and I would do anything I could to mitigate that. I was finally assuming responsibility.

It was through a heightened ecstasy that I was blinded, totally unaware of the severity of her condition. Again, the red flags waved furiously, apparent as ever, and I was too self-absorbed, too immune to their efforts to notice. Going back, I can name almost all of the signs, the weight loss, the drug abuse, the sleeping habits, the eating patterns, everything she did and all that she was screamed the truth at me. The glaring symptoms had flown over my head, and it wasn't until a foggy afternoon that the urgency of the situation really hit me.

It was a foggy afternoon, I was wearing a blue sweatshirt, I had a long math assignment, Cody DeMarco broke a beaker in science, and Emily was home sick. That day sticks with me to the degree that I could write a novel about the color of the sky at any given time if asked.

That was the day when Emily tried to kill herself.