Look at You Now by Liz Pryor Page B

forgotten to pick me up somewhere, like that day at CCD when Father Joseph scolded her. He’d chuckle and say, “Out of sight, out of mind, sweetheart.” I felt a pit in my stomach, remembering his words. It was like I was quietly disappearing and I didn’t know where to reach to hang on to myself.
    My guitar was leaning up against the bed. I reached for it and started picking. I started singing and playing one of the songs I’d played a thousand times for people,
    I need you ,
    Like the winter needs the spring
    You know I need you
    As the music filled the room, something let up. The walls stopped staring at me; the sun stopped yelling at me; everything felt a little less horrible. I’d paused the war zone that had become my mind. The lyrics had nowhere to land—I had no one to need—but the music knew me, it reminded me who I was, no matter where I was, no matter what was happening. I played song after song, I couldn’t stop; I wanted to stay inside the music forever. It took me away from the facility, and it felt like home. But while right in the middle of Kenny Loggins’s “House at Pooh Corner,” Iheard a loud banging on my door. Louder than loud, with voices behind it. It startled me off the bed. I dropped the guitar on the floor and immediately looked for something to block the door, but the dressers and beds were attached to the walls. The window only opened a foot; there was no way out. I was trapped. What did those girls want? Like a caged animal, I ran around the room looking for something to help me escape. I thought about locking myself in the bathroom. The banging was relentless; I covered my ears and then tripped over my guitar and landed on the floor. I crawled my way into the bathroom.
    â€œYou in there? Open the door .”
    I went up to the door and softly answered, “What do you want?”
    â€œ Open the goddamned door.” That voice—it was for sure the voice of the girl with the big red earrings, the one who told me to stay the fuck away from her. I was certain she wanted to kill me. But the door was not locked, so if she was going to kill me, she probably would have come in and done it already. With my hand shaking like crazy, I opened the door a few inches. There were at least five or six girls standing at my door with the red-earring girl at the front.
    Red-earring girl angrily asked, “You got a radio in there?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYeah, you do, show me your fucking radio.”
    â€œI—I don’t have a radio.”
    â€œWe heard the music.” The olive-on-two-toothpicks girl Tilly was standing in the back of the group. And the big pregnant screamer girl, the one with the boils on her face, was on the side looking at me.
    I said, “Well, I really don’t have a radio or a Walkman or anything. I guess that was me. I don’t have a radio, I honestly don’t.” Red-earring girl scrunched her face up and leaned closer. Her eyes were filled with rage.
    â€œWhy you lie, why do people lie? What do you mean, it was you?”
    â€œI have a guitar. I play the guitar and I—I . . . sing. So that was me I think you’re talking about.”
    â€œNo shit?”
    â€œUm, no.”
    â€œWell, we want to hear it close up then.” All the girls started talking, asking, “Yeah we do, can we?” Red-earring girl scoffed, still skeptical. “That wasn’t her, she’s full-a shit. That was a radio.” She blew past me and into my room, looked all around in the closet, everywhere. And then she saw my guitar on the floor. She looked at me, and then sat down on the empty bed opposite mine. The other girls filed in after her. They sat on the bed and the floor. One of them handed me the guitar off the floor.
    My hands were still shaking; I wasn’t sure I could actually do it. I sat down on my bed, with Henry at the pillow. They were all looking at me, waiting.