Laurie Faria Stolarz - Blue Is For Nightmares 04 - Red is for Remembrance.pdf - po angielsku - Lilciak

Red Is for Remembrance

Laurie Faria Stolarz

In loving memory of my grandmother

Anne M. Anderson

Acknowledgments

A great big thank-you to Lara Zeises, my friend and critique partner, who's been a constant

source of encouragement. These books would not be nearly as rewarding to write-- or read-- if it

were not for her cheering me on, chapter by chapter.

A special thank-you goes to my husband Ed, who's read every word of all my books, who's

always there to offer encouragement, support, and a sense of humor whenever I need it.

A huge thank-you goes to Megan Atwood who, four books later, is more than a fabulous editor

to me-- she's more like a fabulous friend.

Thanks to my brother Mark for checking bookstores for copies of my books and for leaving

reader copies in the lunchroom where he works.

Thanks to fabulous Llewellyn editors Rebecca Zins and Rhiannon Ross for their patience, critical

suggestions, and careful attention to detail-- this book would not have been the same without

every bit of it.

Thanks to all the friends and family members who continue to cheer me on-- you know who you

are.

Huge, huge thanks to all the fans who continue to support me by buying and recommending my

books, by e-mailing me, sending me letters of support and gratitude, and coming to my events. It

means more than you know.

Lastly, a great big thank-you goes to my biggest fan, my mother, who, as we grow older and get

better, has become even more of an invaluable friend and source of support.

Jacob may have drowned that night, but I'm the dead man floating.

-- SB (from a transcript with her therapist)

1 Stacey

I want to go home.

While Amber and I unpack our stuff, Janie, our new roommate, prattles on about how her pinks

will clash with my reds, and how Amber's rainbow of colors really belong in a room all their

own.

What am I doing here?

"Do you love it?" Janie asks me. She's talking about her bedspread. It's cotton-candy pink with

swirls of white going

xiv

2 through it. She's got the matching bed linens, too, as well as a cloud-covered poster of a bubbly

pink heart with big butterfly wings.

"Love it," I say flatly, turning away. "Don't mind Stacey," Amber tells our cheery friend. "She's

had a rough couple of months."

"You too?" Janie asks, clutching her pink teddy bear. "Well, if it was anything like my last

semester, then you deserve a sticker." She pulls a sheet of smiling fruit stickers from her

backpack and smacks a happy watermelon on my hand. She does the same to her own hand, only

she chooses a laughing kiwi for herself.

"Um, are you okay?" Amber asks her. "Somebody's jealous," Janie sings. "O-kay, you can have

one too." She goes to stick a cheery bunch of grapes to Amber's cheek, but Amber intercepts.

"Unless it's laced with whatever you're obviously taking, I'm all set," Amber says.

Janie's freckly face bunches up. She goes to tuck her nut- brown curls behind her ears, out of

nervousness maybe, but the length of her hair is way too short. Instead, she readjusts the skinny

peach-colored headband that peeks out across her crown.

"She's kidding," I say to Janie, in an effort to play nice. "Not really," Amber mumbles.

Amber's one to talk. She's a freshman in college, but she still carries around a Hello Kitty

lunchbox for a purse, she still wears her hair in a bunch of mini-pigtails, and she still sports

Wonder Woman garb on occasion.

3 At the moment, she's tucking her life-size Spider-Man blow-up doll into bed. She kisses his

cheek and then nestles in beside him.

"What's that all about?" Janie asks.

"Getting in a little cuddle time before dinner," Amber explains. "Nothing like a little PDA before

PB & J."

"Excuse me?"

"I used to sleep with Superman," Amber continues, "but I ended up being too much woman for

him. He exploded last summer. Don't you hate it when that happens?"

Janie's face drops and Amber feeds into her appall, whispering in Spider-Man's ear and licking

down the length of his cheek. "Who's jealous now?" Amber growls.

It almost makes me laugh. Amber's been trying to get me to laugh for the past four-and-a-half

months, but I'm not even sure I remember how. Sometimes I stretch my mouth open to try, but I

only want to scream-- to wail at the top of my lungs. Nothing seems funny anymore. Nothing

even seems remotely interesting. So why did I even come here? How can I even think about

studying topics like philosophy and humanity when those things don't even seem real anymore?

"Do you guys have real boyfriends?" Janie asks.

"Just Spidey here," Amber says. "My last serious non-inflatable relationship was with this guy

named PJ, and it was beyond fizzle city-- no challenge, you know The guy would call me all the

time, write me cute little love poems, want to be with me constantly, want to walk me to

class . . ."

"Sounds pretty nice."

xvi

4 "It was hell," Amber clarifies. "I mean, at least blow me off a couple times."

"How about you?" Janie asks, turning toward me.

I shrug.

"Ix-nay on the boyfriend-bay questions," Amber whispers to her. "Sort of a sore spot."

"Oh, sorry," Janie says.

I shrug again and unzip the side compartment of my suitcase. I look down at the bottle of pills

I've been prescribed, the ones my doctor said would "help take the edge off."

Are you okay?" Amber asks me. "Do you want to go down to the cafeteria and get some

overcooked pasta? Maybe some lamp-heated mac and cheese?"

I shake my head and palm the bottle of pills. "You guys go. I'm just gonna stay here and lie

down. I'm not really that hungry."

"You sure?" Amber narrows her eyes on me.

"Come on, Stacey," Janie pipes up. "It wouldn't be the same if you didn't eat with us our first

night as roommates. It's like some unwritten freshman rule or something-- roommates eat

together the first night."

"She does have a point," Amber says.

"Plus," Janie continues, "I can tell you all about my first semester and how they made me room

with this psycho Goth chick."

"You rooming with a Goth chick." Amber says. "Now this I have to hear."

xvii

5 I wipe the moisture from my eyes and do my best to look interested, hoping Janie's

cheerfulness will be enough to take Amber's attention off me.

"Be-ware," Janie says. "Her name is Sage and she still lives on this floor. She's basically this

psycho Goth girl who does all kinds of witch stuff. Like, last semester, just after midterms, she

got arrested for breaking into a cemetery at night and trying to rob one of the graves."

"Rob it of what?" Amber asks.

Janie shrugs and makes a grimace. "Death stuff . . . you know."

"That obviously isn't true," I say, pausing a moment from my bottle of pills.

"Is so. Rumor has it she was trying to collect some decayed fragments for one of her spells. She

also stole the plot flowers."

I roll my eyes at how ridiculous the story sounds, at how I feel like I'm in high school all over

again.

"A couple weeks after that happened," Janie continues, "some freshman was making fun of her

by wearing a string of garlic around his neck to ward her off. Word is she put a hex on him that

messed up his brain. He ended up getting all spacey and flunking out because of it."

"Maybe his brain was messed up on something stronger than garlic," Amber suggests.

"I doubt it. He was a really nice kid."

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