Free The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North Page A

one of her usual dresses, but a white T-shirt and a baggy pair of jeans. Her neck and shoulders were painfully skinny; her scalp was pale.
    “Do you want anything?” I asked. “I have Sprite.”
    She nodded. I was glad I had something I could give her. She popped the can open and drank, and her breath slowed down.
    “I finished the movie,” she said.
    It was such a left turn that I wasn’t sure I’d heard her. “Sorry?”
    “I mean, I still have to edit it. That’ll take a while. But I finished shooting.”
    She sipped again, reached up as if to smooth her hair, found nothing, and brought her hand awkwardly down.
    “Sophie,” I asked again, slower this time, “what happened to your head?”
    She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal,” she said. “I didn’t like my hair that much anyway.”
    I put two and two together, finally. “Did CeCe do this?” I asked.
    Sophie scratched her raw scalp. “I still don’t get why she’s so mad,” she said. “I don’t want anything she wants. I’m not going to stop her from marrying him or whatever.”
    I was still trying to make sense of the logistics.
    “CeCe found you at the party, and she shaved your head?”
    Sophie looked at her Sprite. “More or less,” she said.
    So while Andrea had been telling me what a great brother I was, CeCe had been taking a razor to my sister’s scalp. Or maybe it was earlier, when I was trying to maneuver my way into Andrea’s pants. Or earlier, when I was using my status as Sophie’s helper to ingratiate myself with people. I hadn’t even managed to warn Sophie beforehand, because I was too excited about going to the party. I felt like calling Andrea and asking her to come over. I wanted to punish myself by showing her how useless I was.
    “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I should’ve been there.”
    Sophie shrugged. “She kept saying she warned you. Like that would mean something to me.”
    “She did warn me,” I said. “I could’ve helped you. Instead I was off being a dumb-ass.”
    The fact that I’d failed her because I was hoping to get laid was especially gross to me. I was ashamed of myself, like she’d caught me masturbating.
    But Sophie looked at me sharply, anger in her eyes.
    “I know you think I can’t take care of myself,” she said, “but it’s not your job to protect me.”
    “I know you can take care of yourself,” I said.
    “No,” she said. “You don’t. You’re always trying to run interference for me. What do you think I was doing before you came here? Do you think I was just curled up in a ball somewhere?”
    I thought of what Andrea had said about Sophie snapping at people in class. Wasn’t she nicer now? Didn’t people like her more?
    “No, but—” I started.
    “But what?” she asked. Her bald head made her anger scarier—she looked like a dying person, with a dying person’s feverish eyes. “I’m not crazy, and I’m not retarded. I’m not blind. I don’t need you to be my guide dog.”
    Now I was angry.
    “All I’m trying to say is I feel bad that you got hurt,” I said, “and I wish I’d been there. Sorry if that makes me such an asshole.”
    She sighed. She reached up to touch her scalp; her hand was already learning to expect bare skin there.
    “You’re not an asshole,” she said. “I just don’t want you to think you have to keep me safe. That’s my job.”
    I was still feeling angry, and guilty, and I could tell the second one was only going to get worse. I wanted to push some of the blame off onto Sophie.
    “You’re not very good at it,” I said.
    She just shook her head. “I am,” she said. “It’s just really hard.”
    She drained her Sprite, scratched at her ankle. She was wearing sneakers with no socks. She looked like a twelve-year-old boy. I remembered a kid I’d played with when I was about that age, a scrawny boy who came around when my friends and I were playing tetherball after school. The kid was wearing a plain T-shirt, which marked him