Page 19 of Punishing Penelope
No one is guilty of a young girl losing her life. No one is to blame for her broken family.
Except we all know we are the guilty ones. We snuck in there. We did it. It’s on us.
We put Savannah Wilder in the ground.
Half our school shows up at the funeral, Savannah’s huge family, a few neighbors, and… us.
Penelope avoids our gazes, staring at nothing. Her mom cries nonstop. Her dad sits between them like a statue, his arms around Pen and her mom. The first two rows are filled with cousins, grandparents, uncles, and aunts.
There are speeches. A priest goes on and on about a bright young life, about God having a new angel by his side. His words are accompanied by loud sobs. Then the principal, her teacher, an uncle, and more. She was loved, intelligent, had a future.
“I can’t.” Cole stands and sneaks off. Lexi holds Liam’s and Sandra’s hands so hard, her knuckles are white.
Summer passes. There are no more cliff dives, no spontaneous road trips, no four hours of nurturing one cup of coffee at our favorite cafe. Everyone keeps their heads down, hurrying between work and home.
She never calls me. I call her a few times, because how can I not, but she’s distant. I know I’ve lost her. Lost us. It hurts more than I even want to admit to myself. The raw agony, the jagged hole inside—it’s not only the memory of a dead Savanna Wilder. I miss Penelope so fucking much. She’s there, but she isn’t. I want to make her come back to me, but I can’t do shit, and it feels like I die a little more each day.
Our last summer break comes to an end, and the seven of us haven’t been together since that night.
Penelope is a shadow of her former self, silent and thorny. Every break, she sits with a book, and she disappears as soon as school’s out for the day. Lexi sticks to Liam, and sometimes, she and Sandra hang. Cole works every weekend as if he needs to get away. I envy him the distraction. I have nothing except homework, and for the first time, I do really fucking well in school. Go figure. Our senior year is one long, endless sprint at a snail's pace toward the end, toward when we can all finally be free.
We haven’t been together again, her and me. I’m as pulled to her as when she was that cute, silly girl with a big smile and adventure in her eyes. This new Penelope is darker, with an aura of danger, and it awakens something in me. A new Peter. The boy is gone. I think the child in all of us disappeared that night.
And there’s the anger.
There is so much anger in her when we speak on rare occasions. The topics are always the same—gun laws, gun violence, gun ownership. I try to be patient, but it’s hard when I never reach through her hating.
“How the fuck is it even allowed?” Penelope paces back and forth in front of me in the school hall, our lockers to the left, the glass wall to the cafeteria to the right. Her blonde hair is dyedblack, and it’s shorter, spikier. She has a grungy Joan Jett look going for her. It’s sexy as fuck, and watching her makes me ache with need and frustration.
“What is?”
“Guns. Like, you can just shoot someone dead. What is this? The Wild West?” She throws up her hands, then shoves them in her jeans pockets and leans against her locker.
Pretty much. I think it, but don’t say it.
“It’s in the constitution.”
“Fuck constitution!” She pushes off and goes back to the pacing.
“But—”
Penelope stops before me, her eyes flame, like dark fire, and a sneer on her lips.
“Which side are you on?”
“If you wanna fuck the constitution, you probably need to engage yourself in—”
“Oh, I plan to. Trust me! Don’t you think it should be changed? Like, stricter gun laws? Accountability?”
I already know she won’t be down with this, but I trust in the American way, and nothing can make me change that. Not even her.
“I believe in defending yourself and your property. ‘Sides, Cali’s already got like the strictest gun laws in the country.”
Little red dots of anger cover her cheeks, and her nostrils flare.
“Then you’re part of the problem.”
She has changed so much, her whole demeanor, the way she speaks and acts. It makes me hurt even worse—she’s locked me out of this new world of hers, no matter how sucky it is.