Thanatophobia

I hated him. Not because he was shipping me off again to start over at another school (I was actually perfectly fine with that) and not because I was moving in with my brother. I liked Nick a hell of a lot better than I liked my parents, that's for sure. No, I hated Lloyd because he was the most ignorant, insufferable idiot I'd ever met.

There was one rule I had for my family, and that was it. I didn't ask much, unlike my parents did (No misbehaving, no drugs, no alcohol, nothing under a 3.8 GPA, no attempting suicide.) to protect my dad's never ending campaign and Sheri's sally-homemaker reputation. All I asked was that no one talk to me about Meghan, and Lloyd broke that rule.

And I made that very clear as Sheri and I packed up all my stuff for the third time in my life.

"I'm not talking to him," I told her while I folded a quilt from my bed.

"You can't ignore your father," she said warily. "Just think how long it'll be until the next time you see him. He's so busy, you know that. He won't be able to make as many visits as I will, and even I'll be busy with the upcoming fundraiser for deprived--"

"Sheri," I interrupted before she could launch into her entire agenda. "I don't care. Nick and I'll be fine."

She gave me a sympathetic look, like I was only saying this to comfort her. "Oh, honey, I know...it's just that--"

"It's fine," I snapped, cutting her off.

I taped another box shut and moved on to the next one, which I emptied the contents of my sock drawer in. Sheri disappeared into my closet and reemerged with an armful of dresses.

I sighed. "Why didn't you tell Lloyd about the boy on the cliff?" I asked abruptly. The question had been dancing around in my head all day, along with thoughts about Meghan. It was weird, I had gotten so used to not thinking about her I almost forgot what it was like having her in my mind again .

She was bent over in a giant box, trying to arrange the dresses she had bought for me to wear to dinners and fundraisers at the bottom. "Oh, you know how your father is about boys. I figured he didn't need the extra stress."

"Yeah, he doesn't need the stress," I said under my breath.

"What?" Sheri asked, springing her head out of the box.

I sat on the bed, looking around at the stripped down room. "I said that's a good plan. Did you know he payed the firemen?"

"The boy?" My goodness, she was dumb.

"No, I'm talking about Lloyd," I said frustratedly.

"Oh," she shrugged. "Well it's understandable. You know, the campaign."

She sat on the edge of the bed with me after taping the last box shut. "So about this boy," she inquired. "What's his name?"

I stood up, not wanting to get too cozy with her. If he were a real boy, you know, one that I actually cared about, this would have been really awkward.

"Patrick," I lied, saying the first name that came to mind.

"And?" She sat up attentively, about to hang on every word. I had to be careful with this.

I hesitated, eying the spotless room corner to corner, free from dust or even the smallest trace of dirt. "He's from Michigan," I started. I couldn't be too detailed; I couldn't risk giving enough information for her to look him up and find that he's not real. "He came to the Shore on spring break, and we met while I was going for a walk one day... I don't really know much else about him."

"And he was there when you..." She left the sentence hanging there, unfinished. After she found out the "incident" was really a suicide attempt, she avoided the subject like she avoided carbs. She refused to come to terms with the fact that I was not, in fact, perfect.

"Yeah," I said quickly. "But I won't see him any more. He's going back to Michigan and I'm moving anyway, so yeah."

"Wait," she stopped me. "Did he know who you were? Did your father pay him, too? Shit, if this gets out..."

"No!" I yelled. She shrunk back and I rolled my eyes. "Sorry. No, he didn't even get my name. You don't have to pay him. Please, just leave it alone."

"Fine," she said. We sat silently for a minute, then Sheri got up. She straightened her skirt and gave me a short hug. "Tom will be here in a minute to move your stuff to the truck. Make sure you're all ready."

"You're not coming?" I asked.

"Sorry, hon, I have to take care of some things," she told me softly. "There's a problem with the caterer for the fundraiser and then I have to fill out some more forms for Lloyd and write a couple of--"

"Okay," I said, interrupting her for the thousandth time in my life. "I'll see you then."

After she left, I helped bring the boxes to the truck and got into the front seat of Tom's standard black BMW. Just like the rest of our drivers.

My driver was my favorite person in our entire house. Tom was the closest thing to family, and he knew me longer than anyone else I'd met, excluding my parents. Nick was a close second, but we never really talked. I guess this was the perfect opportunity to talk, since we'd be living together.

"So Princeton, huh?" Tom said, smiling.

He knew I thought Ivy League schools were a joke. It's where Nick was attending. He lived right outside of Princeton, in a nice, big house surrounded by woods. My parents paid for it all, of course, but that's the prize you get for attending Daddy's favorite school. Nick sucked up to my parents to their faces, played along with their games and all that, but when they were out of his life, he lived by his own standards. That's what I liked about him.

"Shut up," I smirked at him. "It's not like I'm going to the college. It's just the high school."

"Princeton High School," he joked, trying not to laugh. Tom was never serious around me like he was around my parents. He stopped being professional after carting my cheeky little ass around for six years.

"You're such a loser, it's so not the same thing," I said.

He pulled into a winding driveway, shorter than the one at home and with no security booths and fewer cameras. The house was really pretty. It was much smaller than our parents' but still pretty big, with three stories of ivy-spotted brick and a big porch out front. Behind the house was a little pond with a small dock on the side and tall grass growing around it. There was a row boat in the grass beside the dock, turned upside down and looking like it hadn't been used in years. I could picture Nick and his girlfriend, Millie, sitting in it together and talking for hours, just floating around. He was big on cliches. I was not.

Tom leaned over my shoulder and whispered, "Take a picture. I hear it lasts longer."

I laughed and looked away from my new house. "It's cute, that's all," I told him. It occurred to me that I never visited before.

"Yeah, yeah."

The moving truck pulled in moments later and I helped him unload it. "Think you can handle it?" Tom asked sincerely, all of the humor gone from his voice.

I took a deep breath. "Of course."

"You jumped off a cliff a month ago, Shelby," he told me sternly. "I'm serious, can you handle it?"

"Yes," I said.

"Call me if you need anything. Not them- call me first." He put a hand on my shoulder and I pulled him into a hug. "You scared the shit out of me, when I found out," he said into my hair.

"I'm sorry," I said. It was the most sincere thing that had come out of my mouth all month. "I'll be fine."

Minutes later, my only real friend was driving away from me. The farther the BMW got, the less sure I was of myself.