How It Ends Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  How I Spent My Summer Vacation

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Annie

  Jessie

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Catherine Lo

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  www.hmhco.com

  Cover photographs: © Thomas Vogel/Getty Images (paper heart); © Colonel/Getty Images (masking tape)

  Cover design by Cara Llewellyn

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Lo, Cathy, author.

  How it ends / Cathy Lo.

  pages cm

  Summary: Jessica is a good student who hates school because she is bullied by the “cool” girls, and she is startled and grateful when Annie, the new girl in her southern Ontario high school, seeks her out on the first day of tenth grade and defends her from the bullying—it is a friendship that both girls need, but one based on assumptions and misunderstandings that ultimately threaten to drive them apart.

  ISBN 978-0-544-54006-4 (alk. paper)

  1. Best friends—Juvenile fiction. 2. Bullying—Juvenile fiction. 3. Miscommunication—Juvenile fiction. 4. Families—Ontario—Juvenile fiction. 5. Dating (Social customs)—Juvenile fiction. 6. High schools—Ontario—Juvenile fiction. 7. Ontario—Juvenile fiction. [1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Bullying—Fiction. 4. Miscommunication—Fiction. 5. Family life—Ontario—Fiction. 6. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 7. High schools—Fiction. 8. Schools—Fiction. 9. Ontario—Fiction. 10. Canada—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.1.L6Ho 2016

  [Fic]—dc23 2015007154

  eISBN 978-0-544-78767-4

  v1.0616

  For Ernie, Ethan, and Mackenzie.

  ALWAYS

  and

  FOREVER.

  HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION

  By Jessica Lynn Avery

  Recuperating from the disaster that was 9th grade.

  Working in the mailroom at my dad’s law firm, because:

  My dad is a strong believer in learning about the real world, and

  My mom is a strong believer in constant parental supervision.

  Creeping the Facebook pages of my classmates so I could torture myself with evidence of what normal people do all summer.

  Reading everything John Green has ever written.

  Dreading today. The last day of summer. The day before 10th grade begins.

  Jessie

  Here’s what I wish I could say about my summer vacation:

  Working in the city was every bit as glamorous and exciting as I anticipated. My dad and I bonded over executive lunches and spent our train rides to work gossiping about our coworkers. The awkwardness that usually colors our conversations fell away, and my dad was proud of how I blossomed in the workplace, leaving my issues behind and functioning like everyone else. Down in the mailroom, I met the kids of other lawyers, and we engaged in the types of shenanigans you would expect from a bunch of teenagers experiencing their first taste of independence. On our last day, my new friends and I exchanged tearful goodbyes and promises to keep in touch online. I left work feeling ready for the new school year, knowing that the losers who torment me at school are just unsophisticated hicks who lack the intelligence and social graces to behave like decent human beings.

  Here’s how it actually went:

  My father and I rode the train to work in silence. He read the paper or sent emails from his phone while I played Angry Birds on mine. Each morning, we parted at the front doors, where he gave me a heartfelt pep talk along the lines of Work hard and don’t embarrass me. While he headed up to his posh office, I headed down into the bowels of the building, where a bunch of overprivileged kids pretended to work. I was greeted on the first day with about all the instruction I received all summer: do whatever the suits tell you, look busy no matter what, and what happens in the mailroom stays in the mailroom.

  After that, I pretty much spent the summer walking the fine line between working hard enough to look busy but not hard enough to make my coworkers look bad. I’d finish my duties by lunchtime and then spend the afternoon hiding in a back corner of the mailroom, reading and fantasizing about how to transform myself into an Alaska Young or Margo Roth Spiegelman.

  While my dad ate fancy lunches with clients, I snuck out to buy sauerkraut-covered hot dogs, devouring them right there on the street before scurrying back to the mailroom. I don’t know where the other kids went. Most of them were the children of partners, and they looked down on me because my dad is just a regular lawyer. They moved together like a flock of birds, twittering away as they passed my desk each day at lunchtime, carefully avoiding eye contact. I’d watch them go, struggling to fill my lungs with air while the weight of loneliness settled itself on my chest.

  So basically, what I learned about the world of work is that it’s depressingly like high school. There are still cliques, everyone does the least amount of work possible to get by, and the beautiful people are in charge.

  Aren’t I a ray of sunshine?

  The thing is, I know there are people who have it worse than me. I don’t have a terminal illness, I’m not homeless or hungry, my parents are still married after a gazillion years, and I’ve never had to go through losing someone I love.

  I keep reminding myself that things could be worse, but there are shades of gray, you know?

  I do suffer from terminal loneliness, I’m so far from popular that the light from popular would take a million years to reach me, my parents fundamentally disagree about how to parent a kid like me, and I’ve never experienced love, because I’m apparently invisible to boys.

  But on to the current crisis: tomorrow is the first day of school. Tenth grade.

  I hate school. Which is ironic because everyone thinks I love it. I’m a straight-A student (booknerd) who always tops the honor roll (loser) at Sir John A. Macdonald High School (Seventh Circle of Hell) in our quaint little Southern Ontario town (hickville) in the great country of Canada (where everything is more expensive and less cool than in America).

  It’s not the idea of course work that has my stomach aching and my hands shaking. I have my fellow classmates to thank for that. Tomorrow I’ll be thrust back into the same space as Courtney Williams and her pack of wolves. Tomorrow I’ll be Lezzie Longbottom again.

  I bl
ame Vogue magazine and Harry Potter. That’s how it all started.

  It was a Sunday in November of seventh grade, and my mom was caught in the grip of mother-daughter bonding enthusiasm. She’d bought a stack of fashion magazines in a thinly veiled attempt to make me into someone cooler, and we were sitting at the kitchen table flipping through them and brainstorming about a makeover. That’s where I found the picture of Michelle Williams and her Mia Farrow–inspired pixie cut. I was obsessed.

  It took two weeks of pleading and an hour in the stylist’s chair to remove my long brown hair. While my mom’s hairdresser worked her magic, I sat there imagining how sleek and sophisticated I’d look, and how impressed my friends Courtney and Larissa would be when they saw my daring hairdo. But when the stylist turned the chair around for the big reveal, I looked nothing like the adorably feminine Michelle Williams. I looked like a boy with a bad haircut.

  I spent that afternoon in tears, convinced I’d be the laughingstock of my school. I finally called Courtney that night, desperate for reassurance. As I tearfully explained my predicament, I heard laughter and voices in the background. “Do you have people over?”

  “I’m having a sleepover,” she announced, as my heart flopped out of my chest and onto the floor.

  “I didn’t know,” I said lamely.

  I spent Sunday tugging on my hair, willing it to grow even a little bit. I practiced styling it in front of the mirror and putting barrettes in to make it seem more feminine. But no matter what I did, I looked like a pudgy little boy. A vaguely familiar-looking pudgy little boy.

  Which is where Harry Potter comes in. On Monday our teacher went home at lunchtime with a headache, and the staff rushed around trying to find a way to occupy us. Someone found the first Harry Potter movie in the back of our supply cupboard, so we settled in to watch it.

  My humiliation became complete on the train ride to Hogwarts, when Neville Longbottom appeared onscreen. That’s when I realized who I looked like. Sadly, the rest of the class did too.

  Whispers of “Longbottom” started immediately, but it wasn’t until recess that I became Lezzie Longbottom. It was at recess that Courtney declared me a lesbian and said that I’d cried about not being invited to her sleepover because I wanted to see them all naked.

  I’ll never forget the way I burned with shame on the playground. I had nowhere to go and no one to talk to. The girls turned their backs on me and whispered about how I’d looked at them like I was interested, while the boys chanted “Lezzie” and offered me money if I kissed Courtney before recess was over.

  Even now, with hair that’s grown out to shoulder length, teeth aligned through years of orthodontia, and baby fat that’s melted away, I still see Lezzie Longbottom when I look in the mirror.

  If my mother wasn’t such a freak, I’d beg to be homeschooled. I know how well that would go over, though. Mom takes every little thing I tell her and blows it completely out of proportion. Like when I told her about how Courtney teased me after my haircut. Mom made a federal case out of it, and the principal hauled Courtney, her mom, and my parents in for mediation. What a joke. Courtney’s big blue eyes filled with tears, and she told everyone that she hadn’t meant anything by it—it was just a little teasing. The very next day, she dubbed me a snitch and spread the word that anyone who talked to me would become an outcast.

  Is it any wonder I started having panic attacks and refused to leave my room?

  When the hiding out and avoiding human contact devolved into full-on depression, my mom found her new mission in life—fixing me. She’s paraded me through countless doctors’ offices and counselors’ workshops. She buys every parenting book she can get her hands on, and has a new strategy every other day to unlock the normal kid in me. She’s tried signing me up for sports, making me join clubs, taking me for “girls’ days” so we can shop our cares away, and meditation classes to quiet our minds. She throws our digestive systems into turmoil with new diets that promise that the elimination of this or the addition of that will have wondrous effects on our mental health. The only thing she really hasn’t tried is actually talking to me about how I feel and what helps me.

  So I gave up being honest with her a long time ago. I take my Prozac every day and pretend it’s all working. I don’t tell my mom about how I spend my days hovering around the outer edges of the outcasts, pretending to be interested in comic books and video games just so I have people to sit with at lunch. I don’t tell her that I plan my route between classes painstakingly, avoiding certain hallways and coming late to the cafeteria line so I won’t run into Courtney and her friends. And I don’t tell her how lonely I am. Every. Single. Day.

  I keep reminding myself that in three years I’ll be off to university for a brand-new start, while girls like Courtney and Larissa will have the best years of their lives already behind them. There’ll be plenty of time for friendship then. For now, I just need to put my head down, focus on school, and ignore everything else.

  Three more years. I just have to survive for three more years.

  Annie

  The suburbs suck ass.

  This is my mantra as I walk to school. With every step I take, I repeat it to myself. The suburbs suck ass. The suburbs suck ass.

  I hitch up my backpack and glower at the rows of cookie-cutter houses lining the street. If life was fair, I’d be dressed in my kilt and combat boots right now, headed back to Highland Girls Academy to meet up with my friends, the Highland Heretics (or Highland Nonconformists, as we renamed ourselves once the office freaked out. Turns out private Catholic schools are a bit touchy about the word heretic). This was supposed to be the year I’d finally get to take the subway to school on my own. I should be dodging commuters and homeless people at Union Station on my way to campus instead of trekking halfway across this pathetic excuse for a town.

  I get why Madge wanted to move, but I’m still pissed that Dad agreed. According to Madge, there were too many memories at the old place, and we needed a new start as a new family. But those memories are sacred to me. I don’t get how Dad could just sell the only house we ever lived in with Mom like it meant nothing, just to make his new wife happy.

  And our new place. Fucking Madge. Our house in the city was more than a hundred years old. It had heart. Personality. Sure, the basement was full of mice and the fourth stair up from the landing was in danger of cracking open at any moment, but it was a home. Our new place is a plastic replica of a house. It’s all glossy surfaces with nothing underneath. It doesn’t even make noise. That’s just messed up. There are no creaks or groans, the pipes don’t rattle . . . even the dishwasher is absolutely silent. That’s not a house. It’s witchcraft.

  My old English teacher, Mr. Berg, would appreciate the metaphorical significance of this place. A silent pseudo-house for a silent pseudo-family.

  When my alarm went off at six thirty this morning, it was basically mocking me. I was up all night obsessing about what to wear today. It’s crazy—I’d been dying to break free from my school uniform for years, but now that the chance was here, I was paralyzed by too many choices. Should I be Preppy Annie, with skinny jeans and ballet flats? Or Studious Annie, with horn-rimmed glasses and cardigans? What about Cool Annie, with band T-shirts and a stack of cuff bracelets up my arm? I tried on outfit after outfit at the mall this summer, but they all felt false. Like I was trying on costumes.

  So this morning, fueled by the kind of manic energy that comes with lack of sleep, I settled on being Pissed-off Annie, and I dressed all in black. I even layered on the black eyeliner and mascara in protest.

  I was hoping for a reaction. I thought Dad might tell me to get upstairs and scrub off the makeup, or that Madge would disapprove of my angst-ridden appearance. Alas.

  When I strolled into the kitchen, Dad greeted me with a kiss and a wink. “Good morning, little raccoon. Have you seen my daughter?”

  Ha.

  Madge dipped her head to hide a smile, and I fantasized about tipping my plate onto h
er perfectly pressed suit.

  I slumped down into my chair just as Sophie breezed into the room. Her eyes barely touched on me, but that didn’t stop her from commenting. “Halloween isn’t for more than a month, Annie,” she drawled. She daintily selected an apple from the fruit bowl and then looked pointedly at the stack of pancakes on my plate.

  I don’t know how and when our roles got assigned, but I don’t remember ever agreeing to be the messed-up stepsister while Sophie got to be the perfect one.

  It doesn’t help that she’s so goddamned gorgeous. As if my dad didn’t screw me up enough by marrying the Wicked Witch of the West . . . he had to pick a wife with a Barbie doll for a daughter.

  I’m almost at the school when a car horn beeps twice and I nearly jump out of my skin. I whip around to see Sophie waving at me, her car packed with shiny-faced girls. How is it that she has a car full of friends already and I’m stuck walking to school alone? She’s like some kind of social wunderkind.

  I raise my arm in a halfhearted wave, but they’ve passed me already, tires screeching as Sophie careens into the parking lot. I stand there on the sidewalk for a moment, taking in the sight in front of me. Sir John A. Macdonald is by far the ugliest school I’ve ever seen. It’s like a giant concrete bunker plunked in the middle of this carefully constructed suburbia.

  A blight on the landscape.

  Kids are swarming around the entrance like bees. My classmates. I feel lightheaded and strange. Like I’m standing on the edge of a precipice. I have the dizzying feeling that once I walk through those doors, I might never be the same again.

  I give myself a little shake and pull out my phone to text Gemma, my closest friend from the Nonconformists. I snap a picture of the school and then another of the long street of identical homes. Held captive in suburbia, I write. Send help.

  I stare at the screen for a few moments, hoping for a quick reply. She’ll be off the subway by now, probably checking in and getting her class schedule. I fight tears as I imagine strutting through the halls at Highland with my friends instead of slinking into this new school by myself.