Free Whatever Doesn't Kill You by Elizabeth Wennick Page A

go downstairs. You were asking about the guy who killed my dad; I want to show you something.”
    I’m feeling oddly nervous as I lead Ashley down the hall to the stairs. I’ve taken Katie down here before, but never anyone else. I feel like a pirate showing the new cabin boy where I’ve stashed the treasure chest.
    I’ve never been in a medieval dungeon, but I imagine it would look a lot like the room in our basement where the storage lockers are. They’re old-school creepy, with slatted wooden doors padlocked shut, packed with piles of musty boxes, artificial Christmas trees and bicycles in varying states of decay. There are a few empty lockers, and I always picture some emaciated guy inside, banging on the slats with a tin cup.
    Ashley looks a little jumpy. “You’re not bringing me down here to lock me in one of these cages to get back at me for being mean to you or something, are you?”
    â€œI hadn’t planned on it.” Hmm. That almost sounded like an apology. “I just thought you might like to see this.”
    I pull Simon’s keys out of my pocket and shuffle through them until I find the little brass key that opens our storage locker. It’s full of stuff from our old house—furniture that wouldn’t fit in the apartment, Rubbermaid containers full of my mom’s old clothes, cardboard banker’s boxes stuffed with old papers. I open up the one on top and pull out a file folder of old newspaper clippings.
    â€œThis is the guy who killed my dad.”
    â€œWow.” Ashley flips through the folder, skims the articles. “That’s pretty amazing. Look at this—your name’s in here, like, a hundred times. You’re famous!”
    â€œYeah, for about six months, when I was born. And look how far it’s gotten me. Besides, having everybody feel sorry for you isn’t the same as being famous.”
    â€œOh, come on. You’re actually pretty all right, you know.”
    â€œThanks. You’re different than I thought you were too.”
    Ashley hands the folder back to me and opens up another box. “What’s in this one?”
    â€œI think that’s Simon’s old yearbooks and stuff.”
    â€œReally? What was he like in high school? I bet he was a hottie.”
    â€œHow would I know? I was hardly even born when he graduated.”
    Ashley pulls out a blue hardcover book with gold embossed lettering and flips through it. “Look at these haircuts. All the girls look like that chick from Friends and the guys look like they’re trying to be George Clooney on ER .”
    I take the book from her and flip through it, looking for a picture of Simon. “Here he is. On the basketball team.”
    â€œOoh, a jock. Let me see. Was he cute?”
    â€œDude, he’s my brother. ”
    Ashley laughs. “I know. Just curious.” She looks over my shoulder. “Wow. He looks so different. Look how skinny he is. I mean, not like he’s fat now, just not as… bony. He looks better now.”
    â€œYou are too weird.” I flip through more pages. I don’t bother to buy the yearbooks at my school. With only three people in my social circle to sign them, it hardly seems worth it. But it looks like Simon was a pretty popular guy: on nearly every page, somebody has proclaimed what a great friend he was, promised to get together over the summer, scribbled the same dirty limericks I still see scrawled on desks and bathroom walls at school now. I guess some art forms are just timeless.
    Suddenly Ashley snatches the book out of my hands and slams it shut.
    â€œYou know what we should do tomorrow?”
    So apparently we’re a we now. “What’s that?” I ask.
    â€œWe should totally cut school and get you a makeover.” She looks me over thoughtfully. “How much money do you have?”
    â€œA little. Why?”
    â€œPerfect. We’re so going shopping. Your