Why can't this -- life, living -- come easier to me? My parents and their insane fragility scare the c.r.a.p out of me, all of this looming possibility that seems beyond my reach, the idea that I'm not good enough, the notion of being lonely and alone for the rest of my life, and this grief -- this crushing, breath-sucking grief. It's too much.

"I need to have some fun," I tell Helena as we stroll past the fluorescent-lit shops that look like candy-colored daisies lined up in a plastic garden. "I'm so sick of being morose, of everyone treating me like I'm going to break down all the time. Over it. Done."

Secretly, I'm reveling in breaking Rule #5, although I've been breaking Rules #3 and #4 for the past five months. Guilt and elation make a funny c.o.c.ktail.

189.

"Okay, fun ..." Helena says thoughtfully, tapping her finger to her lips. "I've got it!" she exclaims, her eyes shiny in the glow of the extra-bright mall lighting. "Come on!"

She takes my hand and pulls me down the polished beige stone tile path, weaving between shoppers and bulky bags and kiosks and baby strollers.

"Where are we going?" I ask, trying to catch my breath and keep up. Helena sprints and darts like an elf.

"You'll see," she says, a wicked grin spreading over her face.

An instant later, Helena comes to an abrupt halt in front of Tricia's Trinkets, a tiny boutique that sells cheap earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and so on. She stops so quickly that I walk right into her with a gasp.

"Sorry," I mutter, catching her arm before she falls over.

"Cora, I have the antidote to your gloominess. We're making jewelry," Helena announces.

"You mean buying it," I correct her.

"No, making it. You know, taking everything apart and redesigning it?"

"Oh," I say to Helena. "That sounds cool."

"Good enough," she says. "Come on, let's buy some stuff. Then we'll take it apart and put it back together even better." She looks so excited, I feel something lift inside of me.

Yeah, fun. Remember how this used to feel? I ask myself.

"Let's go," I say and put my hand through her arm. We step inside, grab a basket, and begin filling it with beaded necklaces 190.

and bracelets, modeling feathered earrings for each other, and giggling. Suddenly, I hear a familiar voice and some of the weight bears back down on me.

"These look just like the ones Macie was wearing the other day. They're cute, don't you think?" Rachel's voice resonates through the shop, echoing off mirrors and glittering headbands. My stomach clenches. We still haven't spoken since Homecoming, and that was more than a month ago.

"Totally," Elizabeth Tillson's unmistakable, shrill voice replies. Another Nasties Hanger on.

How can I avoid them? There is nowhere to hide in this stuff-filled, idiotic place. As I'm wheeling around the rack I'm hiding behind, hoping to take cover behind another, I spin right into Rachel's path.

"Oh," she says, a note of surprise catching in her throat. "Urn, hi." She clearly has no idea how she's supposed to act.

"Hi," I say back, offering a smile but not much more. I don't know how I'm supposed to act, either.

"What are you doing here?" she asks. "You hate this place." A hood has come down over her eyes. I can't see my old friend. Elizabeth comes to stand just behind her, as though she were coming to be Rachel's second in a duel.

"I'm just, um, picking up some stuff." It's very strange to be speaking in such a strained, awful way like this with Rachel, who's been my best friend for as long as I can remember. Then, Helena comes up beside me. Rachel's eyes switch 191.

over to Helena's face and give her a long once-over. It is not friendly.

"Oh. Well, see you around," Rachel says stiffly, then gives me a searching look, the hood rising a millimeter, and I could swear I see the same hint of regret behind her eyes that chisels at my chest. Then she turns and marches away, Elizabeth hovering at her side.

"What a freak." Elizabeth's voice wafts over to us. "I can't believe you were friends with her."

"Ugh, I can't believe you were ever friends with her," Helena whispers to me.

"It wasn't always this way. She wasn't always this way," I tell her. It's so strange how so much has changed, how Rachel and I seem to have grown out of each other, grown out of our friendship. Does that always happen? Does it have to happen? Does it mean that all ten years of our history are meaningless? Blown away, like dust?

"Hey, come on." Helena breaks into my thoughts. "Let's pay and go back to my house." She looks at me with big, earnest eyes.

The truth hits me: Helena is my friend. I am not alone, and whatever happens between Rachel and me, Helena is my friend. Maybe I know how to be a friend because of Rachel. I don't know.... Now I'm getting corny in a way I don't think I want to carry on pursuing.

192.

Helena lives on Elm Street, on the other side of the county road, a quick walk from the mall. As she strides down the sidewalk, she bounces on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet, a funny, rolling, cheerful gait, and when we arrive, her mother, who also has a mane of blond curls, welcomes us warmly. She is wearing an ap.r.o.n tied around her waist, and the whole house smells deliciously sweet, of cookies or m.u.f.fins. I'm struck by how normal everything here seems. Like one of those old sitcoms -- but not in a bad way.

"Hey, Mom, this is my friend Cora from school," Helena trills as we walk into the kitchen, heading for Helena's father's bas.e.m.e.nt workshop.

"Oh, Cora, it's so nice to meet you!" Her mother plants herself right in Helenas path and beams at us so widely, she looks a bit like a satellite dish. "I'll call you girls when the cookies are ready," she says, still smiling as we duck around her and head for the stairs.

Helena looks at me and rolls her eyes. "Sorry about that," she whispers.

"What do you mean? Your mom seems really nice," I reply.

"Well, she is nice. That's the problem. She's too nice, and she just takes the c.r.a.p my dad dishes out to her. It's pathetic," Helena sneers, but her voice is soft and sad.

"I guess even when things seem perfect, they never are," I murmur.

"I guess so," Helena responds, shaking her head.

193.

As I'm mulling this over, a flash of inspiration strikes, and I look up as though a bolt of lightning has touched my head. That's it.., the last piece of the map. I know what it should be.

My home.

We get to the bottom of the stairs where a long workbench of two plywood planks resting across three sawhorses stretches along the far wall. All kinds of tools are hung up on display, and shelves with little containers of nails and screws and bolts and washers fill the back side of the workbench.

"Here we are!" Helena announces. "The shop. Come on, let's empty out all our loot and see what we've got."

We dump the contents of our shopping bags out onto the rough surface and spread all the pieces around.

My eyes catch a fake amethyst pendant. "Ooh, I love this color," I say, and hold up the stone against the leather cord from another necklace.

"Let's get to work," Helena says.

We begin cutting and pulling apart all of the jewelry we bought, separating beads and chains and stones and sh.e.l.ls and cords into piles, then rearranging and putting them back together again.

"Who says making your own stuff isn't better than buying designer stuff?" Helena asks out loud, waving a pair of pliers as if punctuating her point. She cuts some lengths of thread and fishing line and hands me a needle and scissors.

194.

"This is amazing," I reply. "Making exactly what I want, how I want it."

"And it's relaxing, too," Helena adds.

"Yes, not exactly retail therapy, but therapeutic all the same." It's true -- working with my hands like this, designing, being creative feels invigorating, liberating somehow.

"So, what's up with you and Damian?" Helena asks.

"What do you mean?" I can feel the heat of a blush coloring my cheeks. I can't ever seem to not show how I feel. It's becoming pretty annoying.

"What do you mean?" Helena repeats, mocking me with a grin. "Come on. I know you like him, and you've been spending a lot of time together. So, what's going on?"

"Nothing is going on," I stammer, my cheeks growing hotter.

"But you do like him, right?"

It feels like all the air in my lungs is spiraling out of me in this bubbling rush, and suddenly, talking like this feels good.

"Yes, I like him!" I shout, louder than I intended. "Satisfied?"

"Yes!" Helena yelps gleefully. "I knew it! So, what are we going to do about it?" Her conspiratorial we makes my insides feel even fizzier.

"I don't know. I don't think there's anything I can do. He was my brother's best friend. He was in the car with Nate when he died. It's a little weird, isn't it? I'm sure Damian, let alone everyone else in this tiny town, would think so -- 195.

would think I'm totally creepy for even considering liking him that way."

"I think you're looking at this all wrong," Helena begins. "I mean, the fact that Damian was Nate's best friend means that he and you share this special bond, this closeness and connection that he can't have with anyone else. Except, maybe, your parents."

"Who hate him," I break in.

"Right. Well, anyway, what I was saying is that you need to look at this tie between the two of you as a good thing."

I pause and let Helena's words sink in. Maybe she has a point. What if I've been so freaked out by the idea of the very thing that has actually brought Damian and me together:1 "So what do I do?" I ask her.

Her brow crinkles up as she contemplates my question. "This I need to think on," she tells me. "But we'll come up with a plan." She pauses. "Hey, whatever happened with the London thing?"

"Oh," I say, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. "I sent off the application. I should hear in the next couple of weeks."

"Your mom finally gave in, huh?" she asks, smiling. "See, I told you! It always works out in the end."

Yeah right, I think. But I nod in pretend agreement and force a grin to my face.

By the time I have to leave, we have gorged ourselves on chocolate chip cookies, and Helena has a new pair of 196.

feather-and-beaded earrings. I leave with a leather cuff bracelet with the purple stone and some sh.e.l.ls st.i.tched around it and a somewhat hopeful feeling. Helena and I have agreed to meet at the diner tomorrow afternoon to talk about the art show. I'm supposed to call Damian when I get home and ask him to come, too. Helena says that when she sees us together, she'll be able to get a better read on the situation and come up with a strategy. We'll see. The whole idea of, well, any of this makes my stomach turn cartwheels and kick like an angry gymnast.

As I reach my house, I meet the mailman at the foot of the driveway. Accepting the small bundle of letters, I thank him, and walk my bike into the garage. I'm thumbing through the envelopes, mostly bills for my parents and junk mail, when I see a yellow envelope poking up from the bottom of the stack. There's a strange blue stamp with a lady in profile on it.

"What's this?" I mutter aloud.

I slide the envelope to the top and my heart skips a whole lot of beats when I see my name printed on it. And a London, United Kingdom, return address. It feels as though a whole garden of b.u.t.terflies has been released into my gut. Could it be from the art school? Already? It's early. Hungrily, I tear open the envelope and pull out the small sheaf of papers tucked inside.

The letter begins: 197.

Dear Ms. Bradley, We are pleased to offer you a place in the King's School of Art Summer Program.

Oh my gosh. I got in. I freaking got in! I fall back against my dad's Volkswagen. I can't believe it. I can't believe they thought my drawings were good enough and let me in. My eyes fall down across the rest of the letter. And the engines on the jet I was about to fly to the moon, to London, to wherever, flicker and die as I read the last line: Kindly include the enclosed permission form signed by a parent or legal guardian with requisite registration materials.

Crash-landing. A signed permission form. How am I supposed to achieve that? It would take nothing less than sheer magic. I wonder if Ms. Calico could sign it for me. No, the note says it must be signed by a parent or legal guardian. Suddenly, I feel like a deflated balloon. The registration forms are due back by March 15. That leaves me about two months to figure this one out. I fold up the letter and place it back inside the envelope, and when I get upstairs to my bedroom, I place the envelope at the bottom of my backpack.

"Rest safely," I whisper. "I'll figure out how to get to London. Promise."

198.

Helena and I are seated on one side of the red Formica table, across from Damian, He's twisting a straw wrapper around his finger, over and over, and not looking at either of us. I'll admit it, I took care this afternoon as I got ready to come to the diner. I put cream in my hair to flatten the frizzy flya ways, I brushed it until it was glossy and smooth. I dabbed some lip gloss onto my lips and I chose my favorite blue jeans and the ocean blue sweater with the delicate navy embroidery around the neck. I wanted to look good. Here we are, though, and Damian won't even make eye contact. Very glad I went to all that effort.

"So, I thought we should figure out how we're going to pull off this art show party, how to get permission to enter Nate's stuff, and how to advertise it," Helena begins brightly.

Damian is silent, sullen.

"Well, I was thinking you could ask Ms. Calico, Helena," I say, "and I'll ask Mrs. Brown." The princ.i.p.al of LGHS is infamous for saying no to student-organized activities, and she was certainly no fan of my brother's. I'm going to have to figure out a way to appeal to her soft side. If she has one.

"That sounds like a good plan," Helena replies, looking uncertainly at Damian. Still he says nothing. "So, Damian, what do you think?"

"I don't know," he grumbles. "Do whatever you want."

"Well, I would love to know what you think," Helena continues, c.o.c.king her head like a bird examining a juicy-looking 199.

worm. "I mean, you worked with Nate, and besides, your paintings will be such an important part of the show, you should have a voice in this."

Damian looks up and squints, as though he's trying to see inside of Helena. Then he looks at me. "Okay," he starts slowly. "I was thinking that maybe we could ask Ms. Calico if we could do it on February eighth."

"The anniversary," I say softly. Damian nods and looks at me, his gray eyes piercing. I return his nod. "That's it. I'll ask first thing tomorrow."

"Wait, the anniversary of what?" Helena asks, confused.

"Of the day Nate died," I tell her gently.

"Oh ... I'm sorry," she mumbles.

"No, it's fine," I rea.s.sure her.

"Great. Then we'll just have to make posters calling for submissions and advertising the date."

Damian and I both start at Helena's words. "Call for submissions?" I ask.