Ghost Time

do you owe me big time. I know; I know I do, I said, wincing again, sorry again. ’Night, she said, grinning at me, at the end of the hall, before turning off the hall light, opening her bedroom door.
    I sighed, opening Cam’s door again, but I didn’t turn on the light, I just closed the door behind me. Then I sat on the side ofhis bed for a minute. I dumped the bedding on top of his bed, letting my eyes adjust, and then I just looked around at his desk, his bookshelves, all the pictures I’d given him, that we’d hung, together. Everything was there, exactly where he’d left it, but I didn’t feel him. I mean, I felt better there than in my own room, but I couldn’t figure out how Cam managed to take it all with him, his whole spirit.
    I really didn’t want to bother, so I made the bed as fast as I could, and then, very carefully, as if Karen could hear me, I opened up his shirt drawer and pulled out one of his shirts to sleep in. Changing in the dark, it was cold, and I climbed in, thinking, What a week… what a crazy week , realizing I was covering my forehead with my hand, rubbing my cold feet, sawing them together, trying to get warm. I sighed, tired, so tired, but safe, warm, blood flowing in my feet, even, so I pulled the duvet under my chin. I was just about to shut my eyes when I saw it. Looking up, it took a few seconds to register what I was seeing, on the ceiling, and then, one by one, five, ten, twenty, thirty… and I realized what it was: stars: fifty white cloth stars on Cam’s ceiling.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2011
    (SIX WEEKS EARLIER)
    6:34 PM
    Cam was lying on my bed, working on his computer, and I was sitting at my desk, working on another installment of The Lola Crayola Chronicles . So I didn’t notice when he stepped up, behind me, and then, when he put his hands on my shoulders, I screamed, he scared me so badly. After I calmed down, I slapped him, and I go, Don’t do that! You scared me! He goes, You didn’t hear me saying your name, did you? And I said, No, and he said, I’m sorry, Thee, I’ll shout louder next time. What I said was, can I see?
    He meant the drawing I was working on, so I showed it to him. I said, That’s the famous Lola Crayola. She was my best girl. Then I told him the whole story, about how, when I was little, I had a doll. I mean, I had lots of dolls, of course, but my favorite was Lola Crayola. I’d dress her, feed her, pose her in different costumes, and then I’d draw her for hours. She was the best model Iever had, my muse, my best friend. I wrote stories about her and all her adventures—I still do, sometimes.
    When he left, when my dad left us, I threw her away. I threw her out just to prove I could. To show them all, to show the whole world I could always hurt myself worse than it could, worse than anyone could possibly hurt me. So I threw Lola in the kitchen trash, with coffee grounds and gristle. I remember so clearly, stepping on the black piece, the step of the trash can, and its mouth opening, and seeing all that trash, and throwing her in. I can still feel that in my toes, too. That was my first cutting.
    I watched my mother take out the trash the next morning, and I watched as the garbageman threw her into the back of their garbage truck and drove off. Why? Because I can. Because you will never hurt me as much as I can hurt myself, so try all you like , I thought. Still, I had nightmares after that, all the time. And in my nightmares, I heard Lola crying, alone, in the dark. A couple weeks later, right before we moved here, my dad woke me once, hearing me crying for her. He turned on the light and he told me he’d get me another doll, even better than Lola, but that only made waking worse than the nightmare. I started yelling at him: How can you say that? You don’t understand: you’ll never understand! I screamed even louder than before. I was hysterical by that point, so he called my mother at two, three o’clock in the morning, waking her up. He told her it was an emergency; she needed to come and pick me up; there was nothing he could do for me.
    When my dad drove me home, he took me inside, and I heard him whispering, talking to my mom in the other room. Dad saidthey needed to do something, and my mom said exactly what I was thinking, Do something? What should we do? Like what? she said. Dad snapped, Renee, Thea was hysterical—she threw away a doll for god’s sake. It’s not normal, he said, and for the first time in my