Contents
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Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Hindsight
One Week After
Chapter One
Seventeen Months Before
Chapter Two
Ten Days Before
Chapter Three
One Week After
Chapter Four
Three Weeks Before
Chapter Five
Two Weeks Before
Chapter Six
Seven Months Before
Chapter Seven
Two Years Before
Chapter Eight
Eight Months Before
Chapter Nine
Eighteen Months Before
Chapter Ten
Four Days Before
Chapter Eleven
One Year Before
Chapter Twelve
Three Months Before
Chapter Thirteen
One Year Before
Chapter Fourteen
Sixteen Months Before
Chapter Fifteen
Two and a Half Years Before
Chapter Sixteen
Three Months Before
Chapter Seventeen
Nine Days Before
Chapter Eighteen
Ten Hours After
Chapter Nineteen
Eight Years Before
Chapter Twenty
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Acknowledgments
A Thousand Faces Trilogy
Boyless
Long Dark Night
Giftchild
Skipped
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About the author
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Everything's Fine
Kindle Edition
© 2014 Janci Patterson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Kristina Kugler
Cover by Melody Fender
Cover image from istock.com
Author Photo by Michelle D. Argyle
For Kristy—
I love you
Fifty million billion—
And for Melody—
Who knows just how complicated
Friendships can be. Love you.
Without the hard work of these two,
You wouldn't be holding this book.
Hindsight
Everyone wants to know what happened to Haylee. One day she was here, and the next she wasn't. It's easy to blame me. I was her best friend. I should have seen this coming. And I get that. Believe me, I do.
But here's the thing you have to understand. Haylee never used the word suicide. She never told me she wanted to die. Not once.
Except.
There was one thing she used to say, when things were getting better. After the days of hiding her face, she'd throw her arms open to the sky and spin round and round, like she'd just discovered the world and wanted to drink it all in.
She'd turn to me, then, her face glowing, and ask: "Will you miss me, when I make my exit?"
I thought she was talking about running away. She'd told me the story over and over, each time a little different. She was going to hitchhike down to LA and sleep with whichever directors she had to. When she was a famous movie star who got paid millions per picture, she'd retire to the stage, which was her one true love.
"I'll come with you," I used to tell her. "You'll need a manager." Even though what did I know about Hollywood? Nothing. And Haylee always gave me this sad look, which I thought meant she knew we'd never go. It's the only clue Haylee gave me, the only road sign for what was coming. So tell me, would you have understood what she meant? Would you have been able to stop her?
There was one more thing, three months ago. I'd walked over during the first rainstorm of fall. It was only sprinkling when I left my house, but in four short blocks, the rain pounded down on me, and I jogged the rest of the way with my hood stretched tight over my face, drawstring drawn, so that only my eyes and nose poked out. Haylee's mom let me in, and I shed my sopping hoodie in their entryway and pounded up the stairs in my squelching sneakers.
I knocked on Haylee's door, and when she didn't answer, I opened it.
I can still see her standing in front of the window of her room, screen cast aside on the floor, stretching her arms out, catching the thick drops of rain as they plunged out of her tree. She wore a pair of tight black leggings and a loose, gauzy pink shirt that blew backward in the wind, entangled in her lace curtains. Her long, blond hair was divided into two spiral braids that twisted down her back. She spun around, holding her wet arms out for me to see, and her braids hit the window frame with two smacks.
I stood in her doorway, unsure if I should step in or out. Hurricane Haylee could blow stronger than the wind, pound harder than the rain, and I couldn't tell if it was coming or going.
But she smiled, though her eyes and cheeks were as red and puffy as the new scratches on her arms, though the old ones had faded to scattered shades of pink and white.
I knew where she got those. Everyone knew about that.
She turned her wet wrists so droplets drizzled onto the white carpet.
One of them was tinged pink.
"Amazing," Haylee said. She turned back to the window, watching the branches outside bowing in the wind. "I'm going to miss this."
And like an idiot, I thought she was talking about the tree.
One Week After
My mom drove us from the church to the graveyard on the day of Haylee's funeral. I'd never noticed how many crumbs had embedded themselves into the carpet of the car, and I tried to identify them one by one. The half of the pretzel was easy. A chunk of the white crumbs was still shaped like the ridged edge of a saltine. Some dark, runny substance had glued itself to the edge of the carpet just below the weather stripping. I was almost glad I couldn't tell what that was.
A Christmas wreath hung on the automatic gate. If I'd stretched my arms wide, I don't think I could have touched both edges of it, and the bow at the bottom was bigger than some of the dresses I'd seen at school dances. Mom inched the car forward as the gate crawled open.
"Are you okay?" Mom asked.
"Sure," I said. "Peachy." Any other day, Mom would have told me to stop being snotty. This time she just stared out the window, letting it slide. Apparently even my school psychologist mother couldn't find words for today.
A crowd had beat us to the graveside. Mom parked down the little stone drive and I climbed out. The air was cold enough to show my breath, and I huddled down inside my jacket and tried not to breathe, because Haylee wasn't breathing, and her body wasn't warm enough to turn the air into steam, and it would never do that again. I pinched my arm, because that was a stupid thing to be thinking; who, on the day of their funeral, would actually miss the way their breath clouded up in the air?
Haylee. That's who.
And then we were standing at the back of the crowd of people, though I didn't remember entirely how I'd gotten there.
And then the minister's voice was still, and I looked up from the lint spot on the coat of the person in front of me, and I found a line forming. The casket had already been lowered into the grave, and everyone filed by, throwing in their handful of dirt. My mother nudged me forward, but my knees locked. My new black heels sank slowly into the mud.
Mom stepped around me and joined the line, and I stood alone while the others behind us did the same. A shadow spread over me, shielding me entirely from the sun. I looked up to find Haylee's cousin Nick standing over me. Nick was a junior at my school—a year and a half older than Haylee and me. He was a good foot taller than I was, and he had the same sandy-blond hair as Haylee, only his always hung in his eyes. He wore a white collared shirt and a tie. I'd never seen him wear anything but a T-shirt in all the years I'd known him.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," I said back.
And I searched for something to say that didn't sound stupid or false, but my breath just kept sliding in and out of my lungs and I couldn't help but think, without Haylee to fish words out of me, would I ever speak to anyone again?
His fingertips brushed mine, and I thought for a moment that he was going to take my hand and lead me to the line, and if he had I would have let him, because even today I wouldn't be able to let go of Nick Harbourne's hand if it was finally—miraculously—holding mine.
But instead he put a hand on my shoulder, soft and tentative, and squeezed it once. Then he stepped around me and joined the line.
And when I looked up to watch him, my eyes met Haylee's father's across the grave.
Aaron was my pitching coach, and my softball sponsor. We spent almost as much time together as I spent with Haylee, and more time together than he spent with her. If he noticed he was staring at me, he didn't react. He held my gaze, his face entirely blank. Shadows darkened his cheeks, and his eyes looked like they'd physically sunk back into his head. When he looked at me, I wondered if he saw all those hours he should have been spending with her. I wondered if he regretted it, now.
If he'd made a different choice, would we be standing here at all?
People pressed around me again. The line had wrapped around behind me, so I now stood near the front of the group instead of the back. Mom came and stood directly beside me, so close that her sleeve pressed against mine. I looked down at our feet, close together in the mud. I waited, to see if Nick would come back, but he must have gone somewhere behind me. I thought about turning to look, but my neck stayed frozen in place.
Only Aaron and I didn't toss any dirt. As the last of the line shuffled by, he stared down into the hole that had swallowed his daughter.
I wanted to tell him that Haylee wasn't in the ground, not really. She was gone days before, when she climbed out of her skin and wandered away. Tossing her into the hole was only a ritual. A distraction from the cold, hard truth.
Shut in her bedroom, Haylee finally made her exit.
And she left me here. Alone.
Chapter One
At the reception after Haylee's funeral, I stood in the corner of Haylee's kitchen, wedged between the pantry door and the corner of the refrigerator, slurping Jell-O. Something about Jell-O's texture bothers me, the way you can't drink it, but you can't chew it, either. But Haylee's aunt had handed me a plateful of it, so I poked at it until I caught Nick's younger sister staring at me. Then I shoveled a sporkful into my mouth.
People filled Haylee's house, standing in the halls, sitting on couch arms and in fold-up chairs. I wondered what they would have been doing on a Sunday afternoon if they weren't here. They'd all come with only a few days notice. Friends had canceled plans; family had flown in from out of town. Mom displaced her grocery shopping; Haylee's mom canceled her weekly massage. If you'd asked me a week ago what I'd be doing today, I would have told you I'd be lounging on Haylee's bed, eating peach rings and making excuses not to go home.
When I'd finished all the Jell-O I could manage, I dragged the tines across the Styrofoam, raking little lines like the ones on Haylee's arms. Regardless of where we had meant to be, here we were, in an after-school special. This week, Kira loses her best friend. Tune in to see how she copes.
If this was the end of a movie, I'd give it failing marks for foreshadowing. Haylee knew everything about me—every fight I'd had with my mother, every reason I wished I was born into her family instead of mine. She knew every word Nick had spoken to me over the last seven years, every time he touched me, or nearly did, or just plain didn't. I didn't have to worry about her judging me; however crazy I was, Haylee was always crazier. I knew everything about her, and she knew everything about me, and we still liked each other, which was the real miracle.
But here I was, in a sea of people asking why, with no better answers than they had.
I tilted my plate, letting what remained of my Jell-O slide along the lip of my plate, trying to decide what I would put on the chemistry test if Mr. Ivers asked if it was a liquid or a solid. I'd probably put down solquid, and hope for partial credit.
I had my mouth full of solquid when Haylee's mom, Hazel, came up and put her arm around me. Her skin was pale, but she had on bright lipstick so she looked like Snow White, or maybe Snow White's mother. She had to press her butt against the refrigerator to stand that close to me, and a magnet Haylee had painted in fifth grade fell to the floor. It smiled up at me—a wooden sunshine wearing huge sunglasses.
"Thank you for coming," Hazel said to me. I'd heard her say that to fifteen people, at least. She had her mantra; I had my Jell-O.
"Where's Aaron?" I asked.
"I think he went upstairs for a minute," she said. "He's taking this hard."
That seemed like a stupid thing to say. Their daughter had died. How else was he supposed to take it? But I hadn't heard anyone say a helpful thing yet, so maybe stupid words were our only options. For my part, I chose the least stupid words I could think of.
"I miss her," I said. I'd gone more than a week without talking to her before. But I couldn't remember a time when I couldn't call her.
Hazel squeezed her arm around my waist. "I know you do," she said.
"I'm sorry," I said. Everyone seemed to be saying that, but it was true. There were so many things to be sorry for.
Hazel hesitated, chewing on her lip in the same way Haylee did—the way that meant she wanted to say something difficult, but didn't know how.
Hazel's lips were the same shape as Haylee's—full and soft—only Hazel's had sharp wrinkles at the corners of her mouth, from frowning, not from smiling. If she'd been Haylee, I would have badgered it out of her. Come on, I'd say. You know you're going to spill it eventually.
But Hazel wasn't Haylee.
I waited.
Hazel's arm squeezed me tighter, like a boa constrictor. "I've been looking for Haylee's journal," she said. "You know, the one her therapist asked her to keep."
The journal. With those things that Haylee wrote about me.
My hands went cold, and I disentangled myself from her and dropped my plate in the garbage, watching the Jell-O slide onto the black plastic bag.
"I don't know where it is," I said.
I half expected her to call me on the lie. Of course I knew where it was. I knew everything about Haylee.
Except we were standing in the middle of the evidence that I didn't.
"I'm only trying to understand what happened," she said. "If you have any idea where she kept it—"
"I don't," I said. "I'm sorry."
Then I looked Hazel in the eye for the first time that day. Under her makeup her eyelids were puffy. She looked like s
he had more wrinkles than usual, and her skin had gone gray. I hated myself for not helping her, but this was the way it had to be.
I'd never kept a journal. I couldn't be honest in one and then leave it lying around for Mom to nose through. Besides, I had Haylee. But Haylee's shrink made her keep one. Write down everything, she said. You can sort out what's important later.
I didn't want anyone reading the things I told to Haylee. But worse—far worse—were the things that weren't true, the ones that existed only in Haylee's mind. It wasn't her fault, really. She had a knack for telling lies and then believing them. Once she did, no one could talk her out of them. Not even me. Usually the lies were about herself. She got a B on a pop quiz; obviously she was stupid. She got picked last for volleyball when I got picked first; obviously everyone hated her. Her dad spent an afternoon helping me perfect my dropball; obviously he didn't love her.
But sometimes. Sometimes the lies she made up were about me. And if someone read those, they'd have no way to sort the truth from the lies. There was a sort of a weight to words that were written down—it was so much easier to believe them. Haylee's therapist, her mother, my mother . . . they'd think every word was true.
Hazel was still talking. "If you remember anything," she said, "even if it's just an idea, please let me know."
"Okay," I said. The journal was hidden, but not that well. They'd have to clean out Haylee's room. They'd find it eventually. "I need to go to the bathroom." I turned and pushed my way to the hall, and Hazel didn't stop me.
The downstairs bathroom was occupied, which gave me the perfect excuse to sneak upstairs. Frames lined the hallway, filled with pictures of Haylee and her cousins. I stopped in front of a photo of the two of us outside a theater in San Francisco—the only picture of me in the hall. We were wearing these matching skirts that were stupidly short, but it was okay because we were nine years old with twiggy thighs and no hips. Haylee hit puberty the next year. It took me another four years to catch up in the hip department, and to this day I was flat as could be.
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