ruary and said she’d plan it.
“I live for this stuff,” she said.
She left the meeting. Angeline was sitting right outside the door reading. Maggie told her to wait there while she ran to check under the stairs for any messages from Micah. Her hope ballooned, but the underbelly of the steps was bare. He didn’t have a chance today. Cal was with him all day. He’s thinking of the perfect thing to say. Her heart hammered, her mind swirled.
On the way home, Maggie let Angeline talk about her book and her evil classmate Viki while she focused on making her lungs work. She got home and lay down on her bed. She didn’t move for hours. When her mother tried to get her to come down for dinner, she said she was sick and she was. She took down all her mirrors.
Every day for the rest of the week, she walked to the freshman stairway and deflated. She talked to no one. At homeroom, she stood as far away from the Tannenbaum twins as she could. In between classes, she shivered in the bathroom. She started thinking about suicide in a new, aggressive way. It was her great horizon. It was the thing she couldn’t choose because of her family and friends. But it was feeling more and more like she might, she might. She couldn’t but she might have to. She was scorched and dehydrated and alone.
The third person in the junior class who was hospitalized that year was Cal. During February break, he hung a noose in his garage. Without a word to Maggie, Gigi, or Micah, he stood on a chair and he drank a bottle of Nyquil. He threw up on his sneakers and wilted. Mr. Tannenbaum found him with a pulse and his legs half bent. Cal survived and wept when he woke up. Maggie found out from Micah, who messaged her and told her what happened.
dont tell anyone, ok? he doesnt want anyone to know.
She was iced through. All her blood cells turned into needles. Her body was soaked with acidic desperation. She asked when she could
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