The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee

this thing called PE at River Hills High. T-shirts and shorts, and no exceptions to this rule. In the stark light of the locker room where we change in and out of clothes, the damage to my neck flashes like a Broadway marquee. I know people notice,especially Tasha, who stares longer than anyone else. Luckily, nobody brings it up.
    “You’re going to Homecoming, right?” Lacy asks, adjusting her Wonderbra.
    Meg adds, “Oh, you have to! Aside from prom, it’s the biggest event of the year.”
    I hesitate. “Don’t I need a date?”
    “I don’t have one,” Tasha admits, struggling with a knot in her shoelaces. “Guys suck around here.”
    “You don’t
need
a date,” Meg agrees. “But I’m going with Jared O’Malley. He’s a quarterback on the team.”
    Lacy smiles sweetly at me. “You can ask Nate, Rinn. If no one else snapped him up.”
    I play dumb. “Nate?”
    “Yeah. I heard you guys are, you know”—Lacey wiggles both index fingers—“a
thing
.”
    “We are?”
Gossip at the speed of light.
“I’ll think about it,” I say apathetically.
    “Lacy and I signed up for the decoration committee. Our first meeting’s tomorrow after school. You should come,” Meg begs.
    “Well, I have homework and stuff …”
    “Oh, please,” Lacy drawls. “We all have homework. Don’t be a drag.”
    Stalling, I ask, “Who are
you
going with?”
    “I’m not going with anyone. I’m engaged.” Lacy flaps a tiny diamond ring under my nose. I can’t tell if it’s real.
    Nor do I care. “How can you be engaged when you’re only in high school?”
    “She met him online,” Tasha butts in, oblivious to Lacy’sscowl. “He’s a marine, in Japan. He showed up here last summer, and man, all they did was sneak here, sneak there, and dummy Meg, of course, had to cover for them, and—”
    “Will you
please
stop talking?” Lacy growls. “It’s none of her business. Nothing personal,” she adds to me, not all that sincerely. “But I hardly know you. And I
don’t
want my folks finding out about him yet.”
    I bite back the first cutting reply that comes to mind and instead answer nicely, “Don’t worry, Lacy. Your secret’s safe with me.”
    She looks at me as if trying to decide whether or not I’m being sarcastic—and then someone yells, “Hurry up!” from the huddle of girls waiting at the locker room door. Meg wasn’t kidding when she said nobody goes through that corridor—“the tunnel”— alone. Even though it’s silly, I hurry to join them so I won’t be one of the brave, or stupid, ones left behind.

     
    Before bed, I mention to Mom how I got roped into the decoration committee. “Oh, honey! I’m so happy!”
    I’m shocked she doesn’t launch into backflips. “Why are
you
happy?”
    “Because it’s hard starting a new school, and I was afraid you—” She stops guiltily.
    “Afraid I’d scare everyone off again?”
    “Don’t be silly. I just know how difficult it can be to make new friends.”
    I highly doubt it
. “I’m going to bed.”
    “Are you sleeping all right?” she calls as I drift toward the stairs. “No nightmares?”
    Nightmares about Mrs. Gibbons, she means. I know she wonders if I’m
really
okay with sleeping in the attic, though she won’t ask me right now, she’s too afraid to discuss it, and she might never mention Mrs. Gibbons’s name again. As if simply talking about the old lady might flip me out.
    What Mom still doesn’t get after all these years is that I can flip right out without any help from anyone. After all, nothing “brought on” my bipolar disorder in the first place. No drastic change in my life. No traumatic event. Psychosis can happen out of the blue,
to anyone
, and no one knows why. Not even the best doctors on the planet.
    And
that’s
why Mom is always so afraid. If we don’t know what made me sick in the first place, how can anyone guarantee I
won’t
flip out again?
    Mom hasn’t mentioned Annaliese, either. I’m more