DISCLAIMER: This is mostly John Neufield's dialogue and James E. Reily's characters, I'm just put the two together for everyone's enjoyment.
Kay next began to stay home. She wouldn't got out with Miguel if other people were going to be around. Even in school you got the feeling that she wished we would all disappear.
This was miserably hard on Miguel. He and Kay were the couple in school: bright, popular, organized. They did things. He was captain of the hockey team. She was always at his side when he wanted her, helping and cheering or just standing there smiling with her arm through his. Before. Now, Miguel found himself alone too much of the time.
He talked to Simone about it, but she couldn't really do anything. Since Kay hadn't mentioned illness to her again, Simone decided she couldn't mention it to Miguel. And although Simone tried once or twice to get her to speak of her fears, Kay said nothing. She still saw a few people in her room at home, but with the shades drawn and one tiny light on only. When she was in school, we began being able to tell when Kay was having a black day, as we began to call them, and when she was having a fairly good bright day.
For she jumped from side to side for a while. Sometimes she would be her old self: confident, clever, open with everyone. Other times, she would withdraw, speak in a whisper, avoid meeting people in the hall or at lunch.
It got to the point where by her clothes you could tell her frame of mind. On good days, she was beautiful. She carried herself well and moved like an older woman who knew what moving one particular way could do to someone watching. On bad days, she wore dark clothing that only pointed out how pale she was, stopped over, with her shoulders hunched in toward her chest and her head down.
And all the time, Miguel was going out of his mind, naturally. He couldn't figure out what, if anything, he had done. What any of us had done, or what we were supposed to have been doing, which seemed more likely. Kay decided she didn't even like going to hockey games with him. Then, when she would go, Miguel was so nervous he played terribly. He never knew when she would decide to disappear, which she began doing a lot, or to suddenly arrive when he wasn't expecting her. He couldn't accept invitations to parties because he never knew whether Kay would go with him and he didn't want to go alone, and he was afraid to find out what she would say if he did. It go so bad he once made a sort of pass at Simone.
"It's absolutely true!" Simone said. "He was just standing there, pawing the ground like an indecisive horse, and he asked me, just like that."
"Well," I said, "what did you say? Just tell me, for heaven's sake."
"I said no, of course. 'Oh Miguel,' I said, 'Kay is one of my best friends. I couldn't even think of going out with you. I'd die if she ever found out. Besides, her friendship means a lot to me.' "
"What did he say?"
"He said he knew I'd say that, but he couldn't think of anyone else to ask Kay might not hate automatically."
"That's a point."
"Still and all," said Simone.
"What?"
"Well, it seems to me that if he really lover Kay, he would stand by. He could wait. It's not as though this can go on forever, is it?"
"If you're asking me," I said, "you've got the wrong person. I'm not even sure Kay knows what's going on. Though I'm just guessing, of course."
"Yes, you are," Simone reminded me. I didn't need reminding.
I felt very sorry for Miguel. Especially so a few weeks later. Simone told me he had broken up with Kay. I suppose I should have felt sorry for her. After all, Miguel Lopez is the hottest guy in our class, and to lose him would kill any girl. But I felt worse for him than for Kay.
I knew he hadn't wanted to stop seeing her. I guess maybe he felt he couldn't go on without having his own black days, and maybe even the same kind of trouble, whatever it was. It was something he knew he had to do, instinctively, even though it must have hurt very badly.
None of this touched Kay. She came to school on good days and gad, and behaved accordingly. On good days she was cheerful and funny and would talk to Simone about Miguel as just a step in growing up, something that after all no one could have expect to have lasted forever, and from which she had learned a great, great deal. On bad days, she said nothing to anyone, answering questions in class only with great effort and then almost inaudibly.
About this time I noticed something that Simone hadn't. On her bad days, after she and Miguel split, Kay would walk from class to class with Charity Standish. Not with her, exactly, but at her side. She never spoke to Charity, and Charity hardly ever spoke to her. They just walked through the halls together, Charity saying "hi" to people she knew and Kay hiding behind her, saying nothing. As a matter of fact, it occurred to me that Charity hardly even looked at Kay as they walked. And if she spoke to her at all, Charity did it out of the side of her mouth, as though the words were being slipped out secretly in case anyone were listening. It was sort of weird.
And then, one day, we got down to the nitty-gritty.
It was one of Kay's good days. She had been happy all morning, and nearly brilliant in English class, using words even Simone hadn't yet discovered. Her face, which is hard to picture because it can change so fast, was lit up, and her cheeks were flushed so that she looked like an Ivory Soap baby at sixteen--simple, clean, and unbelievably beautiful.
After English class, we all went to social sciences, which I might say, is perhaps the major waste of our time each day. It was a day on which we were supposed to have (and did have) a test, so I rushed on alone to take a few last-minute looks at my notes.
After five minutes or so, everyone was in class and ready to begin except Kay and Simone. Our teacher passed out blue books and then fiddled around a minute, waiting for the two of them to show up. They didn't. So she passed out the test, face down, and held us up a minute more, still hoping to see Bennett and Russell arrive.
"Theresa," she finally said, "you're near the door. Will you walk back and see what, if anything, is holding up those two girls?"
I stood up, frantically trying to find a way to garb my notes to cram with in the hall. No go.
It was natural to go back to where we'd been the hour before. I knew Mr. Milnes had a break and wouldn't be around. So it stood to reason that Simone and Kay might still be in his room, fooling around and probably exchanging their notes at the last minute.
I opened Mr. Milne's door and looked in. I saw Simone right away at Mr. Milne's desk, and I started to laugh. Simone looked up at me, and I knew instantly I shouldn't.
Simone had been bent over as I came in, with her head sort of under the desk altogether, doing something I couldn't see. When she heard me, she looked up terrified, and motioned me to be quiet. I was. Then I moved forward a little.
"Stop!" Simone whispered hard. "Just don't come any closer!"
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Never mind," Simone hissed. "Just get out of here and get the nurse, fast!"
"But what--"
"Will you please just do what I tell you!" Simone nearly screamed.
Being curious and a little stubborn, I wasn't going to go until I knew what was happening. I walked on my tiptoes to Mr. Milne's desk and looked under it.
There was Kay, on her hands and knees, doubled over, busily poking a pin into her wrist--neatly, rhythically, precisely, watching tiny drops of blood peep out each hole she punched. And Simone, bent down, not saying a word, kept handing her fesh pieces of tissue that Kay took wuth a sort of smile to dab at the blood. She would put the tissue to the wound for a second, throw it behind her, and jab again with the pin. She didn't flinch. She didn't even say "ouch!" or anything. Just huddled there, busy stabbing and staunching, stabbing and staunching, and Simone powerless to do anything but watch and play her own awful part in the horrible thing.
I turned away and ran for the door.