Free Backlash by Sarah Littman Page A

detective.
    “Lara!” Mom exclaims. “Calm down!”
    She grabs my wrist and tries to pull me back into my chair.
    “Why should I?!” I shout at her, trying to pull my arm out of her grasp.
    Don’t I have a right to be mad? Why does she always shut me down?
    “Maybe this was too much, too soon,” she explains to the police, pasting on a warped version of her Politician Smile. Even Mom can’t manage full-watt fakery right now.
    “This must be incredibly painful for you, Lara, and I understand that our questions feel intrusive,” Officer Hall says in a calm, gentle voice. “But we want to help you find answers.”
    I still.
    It’s the hope, however unlikely it might be, of finding an answer that makes me slump back into my seat and answer the question. Trying to understand why Christian turned on me is an obsession.
    “Yeah. He sent me that message. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what I did wrong, why he suddenly changed like that. He went from being so sweet to …”
    This is why I don’t want to let any kind of feeling start — because I have no control over the size of it, or how to control it or stop it if it gets too much. Emotion pours over me like a tidal wave, drowning me with primitive force. I lay my head down on my arms on the table and sob until the sleeves of my T-shirt are wet.
    Mom flutters around me, panicked by the force of my grief, stroking my back, trying to give me tissues, telling me everything is going to be okay, which I know isn’t true. I know full well it’s a lie, because how can things ever be okay after what’s happened?
    When my sobs have slowed to sniffles, Mom sits holding my hand, and I face Detective Souther and Officer Hall with red, swollen eyes.
    “Lara, you didn’t do anything wrong to make Christian turn,” Officer Hall says. “The thing is …”
    She glances at Detective Souther. He takes over.
    “What we’ve learned from our investigation, Lara, is that there is no Christian DeWitt. The profile was deleted a week after you were hospitalized. According to the administration at East River High, there is no student of that name registered. No family by the name of DeWitt lives in the town of East River. And we cross-checked the few profile pictures — they are all of a young man named Adam Bernard who models for Abercrombie and Fitch, the clothing store. We contacted Mr. Bernard and he has no knowledge of anyone named Christian DeWitt.”
    I stare at his mouth as the words come out, my mind unable to believe what he is telling me can be true. It can’t be.
    This is a dream. A really bad dream. The worst dream ever. I’ll wake up and it won’t be true, just like the one I had where I went to the dance with Christian in the limo and we ended up at my middle school with everyone calling me Lardo.
    I start pinching my leg, hard, with my left hand, over and over to try to wake myself up. Mom sees me and takes my hand.
    “Lara, stop. You’re going to bruise yourself,” she says, thinking that I care.
    And that’s when I know beyond all shadow of a doubt, this isn’t a dream. The horror of this is that I’m awake, and it’s all too real. Even worse, it’s not going to go away.
    I thought my world had already shattered when Christian sent me that message, but I realize now that was only the appetizer, the prelude to this moment, which is the main course.
    Because Christian isn’t even real. He’s fake. I tried to kill myself over a boy who doesn’t even exist. It’s official. I am the stupidest person alive.
    And I wish, even more now, that I were dead.



E VER SINCE I can remember we’ve had a Sunday afternoon family football-watching ritual. If Mom makes appointments to show a house during game time, Dad gets mad because he says it’s supposed to be our “sacred time” or whatever. Mom’s a bigger believer in the sacred principle of making money and paying the bills — at least that’s what she says whenever they fight about it,