Wild Awake

right,” he says, his hands dropping to his sides in disbelief. “Our dear, sweet, innocent Sukey was hard at work on a lovely painting in her lovely art studio when this random drug dealer just happened to walk in and stab her to death. If that’s true, where’s the painting? Don’t tell me her alcoholic neighbor saved that stupid frog but let this supposed masterpiece get thrown out.”
    “Maybe it got blood on it,” I say, but my mind is already racing to the stains on the quilt. Doug would have saved the painting. Maybe he still has it. Maybe it’s the one thing he couldn’t bear to give away. Or maybe he brought it to an art gallery, just like Sukey was planning.
    I must look distraught, because Denny reaches across the counter and pats my hand.
    “Hey. She was my sister too.”
    I yank my hand away, and Denny shakes his head, his pity giving way to exasperation.
    “Come on, Kiri. If you’re going to make a stink about how nobody told you the truth, you should at least stop lying to yourself.”
    He stalks out of the kitchen. I stay there smoldering, hating Denny, hating our parents, trying to think up the perfect comeback to prove them all wrong.
    But five minutes later, I haven’t come up with one, and I’m still standing in the kitchen alone.

chapter twenty-nine
    The next morning, I can’t stand to be in the house. Denny’s words from the night before are like a stone in my shoe, their truth a grinding presence I can’t ignore. He’s wrong , I tell myself again and again. But there’s a ten-pound weight in the pit of my stomach that says otherwise. The fridge buzzes and tiny spiders crawl out of the flowers I cut from the backyard until there’s nothing I can do but grab my keys and wallet and catch a bus downtown. I tell myself I’m only going to drop in on Doug for a friendly visit, but Sukey’s painting is all I can think about as I hurry to the stop.
    The minute I get on the bus, I start to regret it. It lurches along, hardly traveling six feet before an iguana-faced senior citizen pulls the cord and makes it stop again. A tall, pimply boy sits down next to me, takes out a spiral-bound notebook, a pen, and graphing calculator, and starts working on a long and seemingly impossible math equation, breathing loudly through his mouth. I think of Goth Girl from The Adolescent Depression Workbook . Maybe they should date.
    “Need some help?” I ask in a friendly way, but he just glances at me with a terrified expression and scribbles more numbers down.
    The bus crawls along West Broadway, getting more and more crowded at every stop. It would have been faster to ride my bike, but the front wheel is bent and there are splinters of pain in my kneecaps when I walk, so I can’t imagine trying to pedal. I grit my teeth while people pull the cord and get off at the most mundane and pointless places: the Laundromat, the bank. It seems so petty of them to keep doing that, I can hardly contain my frustration. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go . Math Boy’s shoulder jostles mine, and the old lady sitting behind me unwraps a breath mint that smells like industrial detergent. The only thing that keeps me from flipping out completely is when Skunk texts me WHERE’S MY CRAZY GIRL? and I text back ON A MISSION and he texts me COME OVER LATER? and I text YES YES and he texts OK BEAUTIFUL .
    When I finally get to the Imperial, Doug is sitting on his mattress, his blue fleece blanket gathered around his scrawny legs, beer can plugged into the hollow of his hand. Snoogie’s munching greedily at the cat food I brought for her the other day. I can hear the star-shaped pink pellets cracking between her teeth. I sit down beside her on the dirty floor and break open the pomegranate I bought at MONEY FOOD before coming in. Some days call for strange fruit.
    “My brother wants to know what happened to the painting,” I say, doing my best to sound casual and nonthreatening in case Doug really did keep it for himself or sold it for beer money one day when he got desperate.
    “Whassat?” Doug burps.
    “Sukey’s masterpiece. The one you said she was working on when”—my throat constricts—“when it happened.”
    My voice sounds high and cartoonish, like I just took a hit off a helium balloon. I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. I’ve felt strange inside myself since the night under the piano, rushed and dizzy. My thoughts feel like a TV with the volume all messed up: one moment, everything