Alice Alone by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Author:Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, GR
ISBN: 9781439132296
Goodreads: 15800273
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

9

Pain

I didn’t want anyone to pity me, though. I didn’t want to feel like “poor, rejected Alice.” I was pretty sure Elizabeth wouldn’t tell anyone until I said she could, but it turned out that Jill asked Patrick if he was taking me to the Snow Ball, and he said, “Probably not.”

That’s when Jill told Karen and Karen told Pamela and Pamela cornered me outside the cafeteria and said, “Alice, what happened?”

“It was by mutual consent,” I said.

“Was it Penny?” she asked.

“It was everything,” I said, starting to move away before the bell. Before I started crying.

“I’ll be over after school,” Pamela called after me, and disappeared down the corridor.

How do you look cheerful when you’re crying inside? How do you act interested in friends’ conversations when all you can think about is what you said to Patrick and Patrick said to you and how he looked when he said it? How do you keep your mind on the blackboard and tomorrow’s assignment when tomorrow seems about as bleak and colorless as a tomorrow ever seemed?

It’s weird, but I was almost more depressed about breaking up with Patrick than I remember being over my mom dying, I think, because I was too young to understand what dying meant. That it was final. Forever. I remember everyone else crying at the funeral, but I kept thinking, “But when she’s better, she’ll come back!” The breakup with Patrick seemed pretty final to me because—even if we got back together sometime, how could it ever be the same? How could I ever feel that Patrick liked—loved—me best of all?

“Alice? Up here, please,” my history teacher said, tapping the pointer against a wall map. “You can’t see China out the window.”

At lunchtime, I noticed Penny studying me warily from the end of the long table where we ate, but I avoided looking at her. I found myself laughing a little too readily at Mark’s jokes, being flirtatious and silly with Brian, teasing Justin Collier. It was sickening. Exhausting. Pretending can wear you out, and so, about halfway through, I just stopped talking and concentrated on my chicken salad sandwich.

Patrick wasn’t on the bus going home. The band had left for a state competition that afternoon, and I was glad of that. Pamela got off at the stop with Elizabeth and me, and we walked the block and a half to my house. I held up pretty well until we got up in my room, and then I lay down on my bed and started crying.

Pamela sat on one side of me, Elizabeth on the other. Pamela was stroking my hair, Elizabeth rubbing my back.

“Alice, it wasn’t about ‘everything,’” Pamela said. “Nothing is about ‘everything.’ It had to be more specific than that.”

“We just … we had a big fight,” I said. “He came over last night, and we argued and … and he left. I said some things … he said some things … and … it’s over. We just … just grew apart, I guess.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.