People Like Us by Dana Mele

Author:Dana Mele
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2018-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Madd Tea Party

Girl in teacup, shoulder deep

Pour the water, start to steep

There’s nothing wrong with feeling sad

Or going just a little mad

So pop a pill or maybe twenty

There’s room in hell for you, dear, plenty.

I turn to Nola in a panic. “This is bad.”

She frowns. “Is it telling us to commit suicide?”

I shake my head. “The clue is about Maddy, not us. What if it’s a threat? The killer made Jessica’s death look like a suicide, too. Pills, water.”

Nola stands shakily. “Jessica was wrists and water. But this would mean—”

“That Jessica didn’t write the blog. The killer did.” I grab my phone and coat, dialing as I head out the door. “We need to find Maddy.”

My head spins as we race down the stairs. There’s another fear I didn’t mention to Nola. The fear that it might be real. My last conversation with Maddy rushes back to me. I thought she was trying to be there for me, but what if she was asking me to be there for her? She asked me to call her. She told me she felt shut out, completely alone even when she was surrounded by people. Why didn’t I reach out to her after that conversation we had? I should have known after Megan. After Mom. I should be an expert. But I made so many mistakes in the aftermath of Todd’s death, it became my policy to shut up. When my mother overdosed on the sedatives that were supposed to help her navigate the depths of her grief, Dad said mental health is private. No one is supposed to know anything about anyone else’s pain.

Mom spent three months in a hospital in New Jersey. Dad and Aunt Tracy and I drove four hours every weekend to visit her, during which I would listen to music and pretend to sleep and Dad and Aunt Tracy would talk about her wedding plans. At the hospital, we would talk at Mom about all kinds of stupid things she didn’t care about. She would never look up at us, and she would never say anything back. Until the Christmas morning when Aunt Tracy’s fiancé showed up drunk and called her a whore, and Mom suddenly stood from her chair by the window and broke his nose with one clean swing.

Everything shattered back to normal after that. The doctors could see that she wasn’t a danger to herself or others. Just that asshole if he came near Aunt Tracy again. It’s funny how violence to protect a loved one’s honor is so deeply ingrained in our culture, how accepted it is. Also ironic, considering why Mom was in the hospital in the first place. She was suddenly eager to hear about all the soccer games she missed. And school and every stupid detail of my life that even I didn’t particularly care about. And then my parents hatched the perfect solution to all of our problems: sending me away to boarding school.

Outside, the temperature has dropped even further, and light, feathery flakes fall as we hurry along the winding path across the green toward the lake.

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