Empty.

More buzzing. This time the text is from my father.

I"ve proposed to Donna. We"re heading to wine country for the week. Fly out this afternoon. Gotta cancel Sunday. I"ll get you a T-shirt or something.

Proposed? To Donna? The sugary remnants of syrup rebel in my mouth, and I gag. It"s too sweet. I want to vomit. Panting and swallowing help to push the sick back down. I reread the text. It is the official end of my family. My father isn"t coming home. How could he propose to her and tell me in a text? This news is going to send my mother over the edge.

I read the text again, and the words "I proposed to Donna" cut me, through layers of skin and fat, and pierce my soul. My soul is screaming and bleeding and dying in there.

Dad and Donna instantly jump to numbers one and two on my "People I"d Like to Make Disappear" list.

I slam down my phone and punch the table so hard that the syrup bottle falls over and lands on its side. Meggie"s lips quiver, and she bursts into tears.

I feel awful for scaring her. "Oh, baby girl. I"m sorry. Come here." I remove the tray from her high chair, unbuckle the strap, and lift Meggie and her blanket into a hug. "You"re okay now." I kiss the top of her head, and Meggie sniffles.

My father has spent the last two years piling disappointment on disappointment. Cheating on my mother with Donna, leaving my mother before Meggie was born, refusing to keep up with his support payments, forcing us to sell our house and move away from my best friend, canceling so many "father-daughter weekends" that I can count the one that actually happened on a finger, and that was a total catastrophe.

I spent two days at my father"s condo, holed up in the guest rooma"which was about as inviting as a prison cell. It had a c.r.a.ppy single bed with scratchy sheets and a rock-hard pillow. There was a wooden chair in the corner with a lamp sitting on it, no dresser, no nightstand, no mirror. But it did have a small flat-screen TVa"with cablea"hanging on one wall.

I"d never watched more television in my life. When I was younger, my father was always turning off the cartoons and telling me to get outside and practice hitting. That weekend he wouldn"t have noticed if I ate the TV. He spent both days "working," which I quickly realized was code for "spending the weekend with Donna."

Donna Ritch was (and still is) the ticket-taker at the parking garage that"s attached to the building where my dad works. She"s tall, skinny, young, and my baby sister is smarter than she is. Cara and I had lots of fun with her last name. Donna b.i.t.c.h. Donna Witch. Donna Snitch. Donna Ditch.

When the rhyming got old, I named her Donna Dumba.s.s. It works for me.

That father-daughter weekend, Dad had lunch with Donna Dumba.s.s, had dinner with Donna Dumba.s.s, and snuck Donna Dumba.s.s home after dinner. They giggled and shushed each other up the stairs, while I was holed up in the prison-cell guest room. I cranked the volume on a riveting special about how killer whales communicate. It was better than the alternative.

Basically, the man has imploded his role as my father.

Or exploded.

However I look at it, my relationship with my father is brokena"and now he"s getting remarried. There won"t be room for me in his new life. Not even a millimeter. Not that he"s made room for me since he left. The only thing he"s done for me over the past two years is pay for my phone. He pays for my mother"s cell too. To be honest, I think he just forgot to have us kicked off his plan. I definitely wouldn"t have my phone if my mother had to pay for it. She couldn"t afford it.

I was supposed to spend the day with Dad at his condo tomorrow so we could work on my earth science project together. It was my idea. I actually opted not to have a partner so that I could work with my dad. I had cooked up a whole dreamy scenario in my head too. After helping me with my project, my father would realize how much he misses mea"misses his old lifea"and he would come rescue us from our dumpy apartment like a knight in shining armor. Everything would go back to the way it used to be. My mother wouldn"t need her pills. I wouldn"t need my mounds of food. We"d be a family again.

I turn and growl at the brown paper bag filled with project supplies. The white Styrofoam b.a.l.l.s and colorful wires peek out and taunt me.

I plop Meggie in front of her favorite TV show. With a purpose in my step, I head back into the kitchen. I wanted the bag and its contents to be more than they could. I wanted them to help me end the nightmare. The bag full of stuff should"ve given me a moment with my father. My old father. My pre-Donna, pre-selfish father.

I hate that bag and every single thing in it.

Before I can think, my foot launches the bag into the air, sending the contents flying all over the kitchen. Two plastic bottles crack as they land, and the kitchen is splattered with bright yellow and dark gray paint. A foam ball lands in my plate of leftover syrup; another rolls into the living room. The wires skitter across the floor, and that is that.

I pound on the counter a few times and let out a pretty decent yell. Meggie waddles in from the living room, dragging her blanket in one hand and holding the Styrofoam ball that had the good sense to run from my rage, in the other.

"What this?" Meggie asks, holding it up.

Breathless, I look down at her. "Nothing, Megs." She drops the ball and scurries back to her show. I survey the mess I created. That"s when the tears come. I cry for everything I"ve lost. I cry for the bright yellow paint, no longer happy or sunny, now that it"s smeared over the grimy linoleum floor and dingy walls. I cry for the syrup-soaked Styrofoam ball, which is ruined. I cry because my father is never coming home.

I cry for it all.

Then I spend the next hour cleaning up my anger.

The World Whizzes By.

AFTER I PUT MEGGIE DOWN FOR HER NAP, I MAKE myself a bowl of cereal. I use the large metal mixing bowl so I can load the sucker to the top. Each spoonful fills my mouth with sweet crunch and cold milk. I shut my eyes and concentrate on the brittle chomping sound my chewing makes. Every time my teeth clamp down, my heart unclenches a little inside my chest. My tongue moves everything where it needs to go, and I swallow and lick my lips. Over and over again.

My rage slowly fades. The spoon continues on its magical path from bowl to mouth. I"m halfway done, lost in my chewing and swallowing, when it registers: I"m full.

I look down into the bowl. There"s still a fair amount of cereal left. This is the moment that I hatea"when I ignore every signal, receptor message, or what-the-h.e.l.l-ever it is that tells me I"m done. That my stomach is stuffed with food.

I pause and stare at the floating cereal. Like a witch stirs her cauldron, I swirl everything around with my spoon and mutter obscenities under my breath.

In midchurn I notice the drip of yellow paint on the table. It"s the size of a crumb. My hand shakes as I reach over and try to rub it off with my finger. It doesn"t budge. It"s dry now. My fingernail slowly scratches back and forth over the dot of paint while my other hand feeds me the rest of the cereal. I open my mouth and let in every bite until the bowl is empty.

I wash out my bowl and put it away. My mother caught me eating cereal from it once before, and let"s just say it was ugly. As I"m giving the kitchen a final once-over, looking for rogue paint splatters or any other evidence of my meltdown, I can"t comprehend my father actually wanting to marry Donna Dumba.s.s. I pace around the kitchen. How is my mother going to react to this new development? I know it will gouge another hole in her heart.

I realize that I want to p.i.s.s off my father.

I text him back one word, "Whatever." He doesn"t reply. Typical. He"s morphed into a do-horrible-s.h.i.t-and-then-act-like-I-didn"t kind of guy. Don"t get me wrong, he"s not a loser. He is a geniusa"an aeronautical engineer, which means he designs airplanes. It"s a cool job, but he"s not cool. He thinks he is and wears black-frame gla.s.ses and Vans sneakers and expensive jeans. But he also cheated on his wife of fifteen years. He owes my mom a s.h.i.tload in back child support, and he"s making her go to court to get it, which is a total d.i.c.k move. Last year he didn"t call me on my birthday or get me a present because he was in Bermuda with "her." Birthdays were always his thing, too. Decorations, handmade signs, special breakfast place settings. Now there"s none of that. He doesn"t even remember my birthday anymore.

He doesn"t know anything about Meggie, either. I think he"s only seen her twice since she was born. She cried her eyes out the last time he tried to pick her up, and I had to step in to calm her down.

My phone buzzes.

You should be happy for me. Stop beating me up please and just be happy for me.

He"s a piece of work, that man.

I can feel my face getting hot again. What he fails to recognize is how unhappy the rest of us are. It"s like his brain was removed from his skull, dipped in some kind of memory-erasing solution and replanted in his head. And he skipped happily along with Donna Dumba.s.s, leaving my mother and me behind holding crumpled tissues filled with tears and snot and pain.

I go to put the cereal away, but I"ve eaten it all. The whole d.a.m.n box. I give it another shake to be sure, and try to remember if it was a new box. I cringe. I had struggled to rip open the stupid plastic bag just ten minutes ago.

Our old fireplace would come in handy right now. I"d love to watch the box burn, the plastic bag melt, and the evidence of my binge get reduced to dust. Instead, I stamp on the box and fold it into the tiniest square possible, pushing it deep into the bottom of the trash can.

Something else I push downa"trying to understand my father"s actions. I gave up about a month after he left, and I started eating. Turns out food actually does have some magical powers because I feel full, like, un-hollow, after I eat. When I can"t take one more bite, that is when I experience joy. Then I open my mouth again, and I want to punch myself in the face.

My mother"s phone call cheers me up. She tells me that I can go to the movies with Cara. This is exactly what I needed to hear. I keep my father"s proposal to myself. I don"t want to b.u.m my mother out; she sounded happy because she"s getting out of work early.

Work for my mother now involves two jobsa"one at the pharmacy in town and a weekend job at FoodMart. After my father left, my mom couldn"t be a stay-at-home mom anymore. We had to sell our four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house with the big backyard because Dad refused to keep up the payments and Mom couldn"t afford it on her own. We"ve already blown through our share of the money they got for selling the house with living expenses. Turns out my mom"s portiona"twenty-one thousanda"goes pretty quickly with two kids, one of whom is in diapers.

Our two-bedroom apartment is in a multibuilding complex off a major road. It has stained carpets, a permanent ring around the toilet, and you can hear the traffic all day and night. Just outside the door to our building, there"s this tiny patch of gra.s.s that"s usually filled with cigarette b.u.t.ts and chewed guma"that"s our yard.

This is my mother"s new life.

This and her pills. Mom now takes pills to wake up in the morning. She takes pills to help her sleep at night. She takes pills to calm her nerves and pills for her depression. She takes pills to lower her blood pressure and stop her heartburn and deal with her allergies. I think the pharmacy hired my mother because she"s their best customer. She knows her drugs. The pharmacist always jokes that my mom should be filling the prescriptions instead of ringing people up at the register.

I give Meggie a bath, feed her dinner, and am tucking her into bed just as my mother gets in from work. She stands in the doorway, looking wiped out. There are dark circles under her eyes and some sort of blue stain down the front of her yellow FoodMart shirt.

"How"s my Megs?" She smiles at my sister. She turns to me and, in a completely different tone, says, "Don"t you have a better top to wear?" She yawns.

Sometimes I hate my mother. I do. She doesn"t understand my body and how nothing but the c.r.a.p I wear makes me look presentable. I"ve learned to stop arguing with her. It makes our time together less explosive.

A horn honks out front.

"Cara"s here," I say.

Mom stares, obviously waiting for me to address her wardrobe comment.

"Mother, don"t you think I would wear something else if it fit me?" I leave the aggravation out of my tone. I don"t want an argument to erupt while Cara"s waiting.

"Your grandmother bought you extra large. For G.o.d"s sake, those clothes have to fit you."

Why does she refuse to listen to me?

"I don"t know, Mom." I have nothing else to say on the matter. Cara"s honks again. "I likea""

She interrupts. "Don"t tell me you like those T-shirts. I can"t hear it again. I don"t know either, Adele. I don"t know anything anymore."

We look at each other silently. I wonder if my own mother sees me. As with Cara, I don"t think she does. Mom"s eyes are clouded over with exhaustion and whatever concoction of pills she"s on at the moment.

Sadness releases from my chest. Like a snake, it slithers down my legs. I swear I feel its mouth bite into my thigh. Its miserable venom seeps into my bloodstream. I grind my teeth together to stop the sadness from penetrating my brain, my heart . . . my soul.

"Just go, before she honks again and that nut Mr. Xien calls the police."

I walk down the hallway with clenched fists. The anger swirls together with the sadness, creating a perfect storm of awful. After I close the door behind me, I jump up and down a few times on the landing to shake off the unhappiness.

"What did your parents say about you getting cut?" Cara asks as we pull out.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Her face contorts into a scowl. Apparently my answer annoys her.

I shrug.

"You didn"t tell them, did you?"

I don"t really care what either of my parents thinks right now.

"Don"t you think they"ll notice, Dell?"

"Don"t care."

"Huh."

We get quiet because that"s what we do in these situations. These moments are uncomfortable. Sometimes I create this fantasy that our silence is rich with understanding and support. So stupid.

I want Cara to be proud of me for not caring what my parents think and tell me that softball doesn"t matter because we"ve got each other. Maybe she could even look over and smile at me when she says it.

From the corner of my eye, I watch her turn on the radio and tap the steering wheel. I grip the edge of the front seat. She bobs her head to the beat. "I think everyone"s going to be there tonight, Dell."

By "everyone," I suspect she means Taryn"s and Brandon"s crew. But there has never been an "everyone" before. It"s usually just the two of us. "At the movies?"

She huffs. "Yeah, Dell, at the movies."

This is the second time she"s gotten annoyed with me in less than two minutes. It"s some kind of c.r.a.ptastic record. My fingertips press deeper into the seat cushion, and I feel the cloth give a little. I let go. Poking a hole in Cara"s mother"s front seat would definitely infuriate her. I don"t want Cara to be mad at me. I need her.

As we drive in silence the world outside whizzes by in a blur. Inside the car I"m doing my best to act like everything"s normal. I abandon my death grip on the upholstery and tap my thigh to the music. Despite my lighthearted outward appearance, horrible thoughts take up all of the s.p.a.ce in my brain. The most awful? My friendship with Cara just isn"t the same anymore. It doesn"t feel right. Or comfortable.

We sit at the light, waiting to make the left, and I want to tell Cara to turn around and take me home. "Oh, it"s so packed!" Cara exclaims. I can hear the excitement in her voice. The movie theater parking lot is a madhouse. People are everywhere, and Cara slows down to a crawl. "Sydney"s gotta be here," Cara whispers to herself.

We drive up and down the rows, looking for a spot. Cara jams her foot on the brake, and we come to a screeching halt as three girls with matching cheerleading jackets, identical ponytails, and ribbons suddenly appear in front of our car. "G.o.d! Watch where you"rea"" Cara cuts herself off, sticks her head out the open window, and purrs in the most over-the-top chipper voice, "Girls, you look so cuu-uute."

The girls pause. They turn in unison, giving Cara smiles as sugary as her compliment. The one in the middle with the black hair and perfect face says, "Gra.s.sy-a.s.s, bay-bee." She blows Cara a kiss and then folds in half, laughing herself to pieces. Cara starts clapping and giggling. My eyebrows are sewn together in what-the-h.e.l.l-is-going-on-here confusion.

The black-haired beauty straightens herself and holds out her arms. Her friends, as if by magnetic force, link arms with her. They skip through the parking lot like they"re in a field of wildflowers.

"Holy c.r.a.p, Dell, that was Brandon Levitt"s little sister. The pretty one in the middle. Maybe she"ll put in a good word for us."

I can"t look at Cara because my face will show how I feel insidea"nauseated. I keep my gaze straight ahead. "Wow."

We end up having to park really far away from the movie theater. "Bring the map in case we get lost," I joke. I"m trying to snap myself out of how disgusted I feel after watching that phony interaction. Cara doesn"t respond to my attempt at humor. She"s busy studying her face and puckering her lips in the visor mirror. Then she walks the entire way to the theater door on her tippie toes, scanning the rows of cars, obviously looking for "everyone." Remarkably, the only people we see from school are the other freshman cheerleaders. They seriously all have matching ponytails and ribbons. Yeah. I mean, my softball team used to wear our team T-shirts to school on game days, but I"ve never gone out in public, just for fun, dressed the same as someone else.

Standing in the line for food, I stare at the illuminated menu. If I had thirty dollars in my pocket, I could easily spend it: large popcorn, large soda, two boxes of candy, and a hot dog. I only have a ten, though. Small popcorn, a box of candy, no drink. I douse my popcorn in b.u.t.ter. It"s so much better with the b.u.t.ter.

I follow Cara like a puppy dog through the hallway, lost in my own thoughts. Maybe I"ll get a job now that softball doesn"t have a chokehold on my time. Then I could buy whatever the h.e.l.l I wanted at the movies. I could even save for a car. I"d drive and drive and drivea"to get away.

Cara stops suddenly just inside our theater, and I b.u.mp into her. "Dell, G.o.d, watch where you"re going! You made me spill my soda."

"Sorry." I hand her the wad of napkins I"d grabbed for eating my popcorn, and she wipes off her jeans.

For how crazy the parking lot and lobby were, our theater is pretty empty, only a few older couples and those cheerleaders in the back row, and that"s it. "Everyone" must be seeing something else.

Cara squints and mumbles, "Where is everyone?" I follow her up a few stairs and we take our seats. Cara offers me one of her soft-pretzel bites.

I take one and dip it in the warm cheese sauce. As the spicy cheese has its way with my tongue, I wonder why food that isn"t good for you tastes so d.a.m.n delicious. Green beans or cheese sauce? Cheese sauce, please. I"d eat the green beans with the cheese sauce. No doubt.

Those girls in the back row are being obnoxious, laughing too loud, squealing, shouting. "I hope they don"t do that during the movie," I say.

Cara drops her feet from their perch on the seatback in front of her and turns completely around.

"Oh my G.o.d, Cara, don"t say anything," I whisper and shrink down a bit.

Cara"s face lights up, and she starts waving. "Hold this. I"ll be right back." She hands me her pretzel-bite tray, scurries across the aisle, and disappears up the steps. I can"t believe she went to say hi to them.