Page 85 of We Were Liars

I SLEEP FOR what might be days. I can’t get up.

I open my eyes, it’s light out.

I open my eyes, it’s dark.

Finally I stand. In the bathroom mirror, my hair is no longer black. It has faded to a rusty brown, with blond roots. My skin is freckled and my lips are sunburnt.

I am not sure who that girl in the mirror is.

Bosh, Grendel, and Poppy follow me out of the house, panting and wagging their tails. In the New Clairmont kitchen, the aunties are making sandwiches for a picnic lunch. Ginny is cleaning out the refrigerator. Ed is putting bottles of lemonade and ginger ale into a cooler.

Ed.

Hello, Ed.

He waves at me. Opens a bottle of ginger ale and gives it to Carrie. Rummages in the freezer for another bag of ice.

Bonnie is reading and Liberty is slicing tomatoes. Two cakes, one marked chocolate and one vanilla , rest in bakery boxes on the counter. I tell the twins happy birthday.

Bonnie looks up from her Collective Apparitions book. “Are you feeling better?” she asks me.

“I am.”

“You don’t look much better.”

“Shut up.”

“Bonnie is a wench and there’s nothing to do about it,” says Liberty. “But we’re going tubing tomorrow morning if you want to come.”

“Okay,” I say.

“You can’t drive. We’re driving.”

“Yeah.”

Mummy gives me a hug, one of her long, concerned hugs, but I don’t speak to her about anything.

Not yet. Not for a while, maybe.

Anyway, she knows I remember.

She knew when she came to my door, I could tell.

I let her give me a scone she’s saved from breakfast and get myself some orange juice from the fridge.

I find a Sharpie and write on my hands.

Left: Be a little . Right: Kinder .

Outside, Taft and Will are goofing around in the Japanese garden. They are looking for unusual stones. I look with them. They tell me to search for glittery ones and also ones that could be arrowheads.

When Taft gives me a purple one he’s found, because he remembers I like purple rocks, I put it in my pocket.