“You sound surprised.” I had no right to be offended, but I played the part.
“No, it’s sweet.” He held my head in his hands and kissed my forehead, a painfully tender gesture.
“It’s not. Really. I made them last weekend for the janitor for Becca’s Fuck-It List,” I blurted.
“Well, that part’s sweet, I guess. So you brought me week-old janitor cookies?” He hadn’t let go of my head yet, but leaned away to talk. We had never been this close except when we were that close.
“I brought DVDs, too. I didn’t know what you’d feel like doing.”
“Let’s go to my room,” he suggested, and took my hand. He led me upstairs, past even more family photos lining the walls. His parents obviously adored his brother, and the photos of Jason seemed to outnumber Leo three to one. Maybe it was just that Leo wasn’t a part of anything, like Jason was. Fewer photographic opportunities.
Leo’s bedroom was a mess. Not just a guy, throw-dirty-socks-on-the-floor mess, but scraps of paper, books, clothes, and even some car parts were everywhere. The single window was covered with taped-on cardboard.
“What happened?” I pointed at the window as I dropped my backpack on his bed.
“I guess I’m not so good at expressing my feelings,” he said mockingly.
“Looks to me like you’re quite good.”
“My mom would have preferred a nice journal entry. Or if it were my brother, shooting a gun at an appropriate target.”
“Do you want to talk? About your brother?” I said straight from the dead-relative handbook.
“No.” He sat on his bed and pulled me down next to him. It was forceful but not painful. I could feel his need for closeness in the way he grasped my arm. I was glad he didn’t want to talk because neither did I. If we talked, I might have said too much, told him about my dad just to make him feel better about his brother. Told him about Becca so we could both feel alive. But I thought that would change things between us. The more I said, the more we became something together, and I couldn’t do that. So instead of talking, I kissed him. At first, his reciprocation was hesitant. I wondered if a cuddle was all he craved, that maybe sex wasn’t the appropriate way for him to grieve. But soon he was on top of me, aggressively removing my clothes, sucking on my shoulder, squeezing my hips. I let him because I knew it could help, because I wanted the same thing. When we were together, inside and out, there was no death, no cancer, no past, no future. If his parents had been home, I cringed at the thought of what they’d have heard. We came together, so close we hardly moved. When we finished, we stayed wrapped around each other for five minutes. Ten minutes. I slept. I awakened. I slept some more. Only when my leg started tingling did I move. Leo snorted awake and repositioned himself to remain optimally close. I backed myself against him, and he encircled his arms around my stomach. I felt his breathing even again and assumed he was asleep. Then, in a faint voice, his mouth right up to my ear, he told me, “I love you, Alex.”
I jerked upright immediately, as though hit with a jolt of electricity.
“I have to go,” I said, already hunting for my clothes.
“What? No. Stay,” he pleaded, but I moved fast and was soon tying my shoelaces. “What the hell, Alex?” Leo sat up, the blanket covering his lower half. “Because I said I loved you? I thought girls love that shit.”
“You’ve known me, like, a month. And if you really loved me you’d know that I’m not a normal girl.”
“Which is exactly why I feel that way about you.”
“You’re confused. You’re grieving. You just had a massive orgasm. You didn’t mean it.”
“I’ve been thinking it awhile, Alex. Why is it such a big deal? I didn’t expect you to say it back. I knew you wouldn’t. But you don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”
“Fuck you. I’m a bitch because I don’t want you to be in love with me? Well, then you’re an asshole for being in love with a bitch.” I stood up and slung on my backpack.
“You know what, Alex? You’re a pussy. You put up this tough girl act, but you can’t handle anything,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I can’t handle anything? I didn’t break my fucking bedroom window, did I? I’m handling, Leo. A lot. My dad. Becca. Now you? How much more am I supposed to handle?” My voice cracked, my cue to leave. No way was I going to let Leo see me cry. I turned away from him and dug the cookies out of my backpack. “Here.” I threw them onto his bed, not looking at where they landed, and stormed out of his room.
“Alex!” Leo yelled from his room. I didn’t look back. He didn’t follow. I didn’t hesitate to start my car and drive away.
Becca had asked me to be nice. Instead, I was a monster.
CHAPTER
26
MONDAY CAME WITH NO contact from or with Leo. Becca implored that I call him on Sunday, but I had nothing to say. Everything I already said was asinine, and everything I’d say next would probably be worse. Becca started chemo again and was so exhausted and sick from the drugs, the only news I heard from her was a text that said, “Take my head. Please.”
I wasn’t sure if she was trying to be funny or completely delirious, and when I texted her back, “Where should I take it?” she didn’t respond. I was done reading her mom’s sugarcoated anecdotes about Becca in the hospital. The last one I read freaked me out big-time.
Becca is sicker than I had imagined, but I pray each morning and night that God will see her through. He spoke to me, told me to take care of myself, too, so yesterday I had a facial and manicure.…
Did Becca’s mom actually believe God spoke to her? And what was he saying? Go to a spa. It all seemed so backward, talking to God for help, preening, when her daughter was wasting away in her single bed.
I had no interest discussing any of this with the stage-crew lunch table. They didn’t know Becca’s mom at all, and what I really couldn’t stop thinking about was Leo. But seeing as I never told the lunch table about Leo, any talk about him would most certainly be followed by a diatribe from Brandon about the dangers of secret lovers. I could hear his voice proselytizing, “If you couldn’t tell us about him, then there must be something wrong with him.”
Problem was, there was nothing wrong with Leo. I just couldn’t deal with him—or everything that came with him before and after the death of his brother—plus be there for Becca and my family.
That’s what I kept telling myself.
I worked Tuesday after school and pretended it didn’t bother me that Leo hadn’t visited. Wednesday was Leo’s brother’s funeral. Mr. Esrum told me I could go, and as much as I didn’t want to, I knew I had to. I stopped by Mr. Esrum’s office before first period, and he gave me a pass to excuse me for the rest of the morning. My mom could’ve written a note or called in, if she knew what happened.
I didn’t tell her.
Leo was merely a blip of a boy who was a friend on her radar, and I feared adding death to the equation would set her off. One of my brothers’ friends’ uncles died recently, and my mom spent the night locked in her room.
Mr. Esrum suggested creepily that we carpool, but the idea of sitting in a car with a teacher had Lifetime movie written all over it. I thanked him but declined.
I hated my outfit. It was dressier than what I usually wore, involving a long, black skirt, black tights, and black Mary Janes. But the only clean shirt I had to wear was a beat-up black t-shirt. I never went anywhere that required dressing up, and the only dress I owned that was suitable for a funeral was the one I wore to my dad’s. There was no way in hell I was leaving the house in that.
I drove to the church Mr. Esrum so kindly Google-mapped for me. I had never actually been to a church. It wasn’t like my non-Jew friends were asking me to hang out in pews on Sunday mornings. Lining the church driveway were people, possibly veterans, holding American flags. In the distance, I caught sight of an American flag–covered coffin being removed from a hearse, military men and women in their dress uniforms saluting.<
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I parked on the street and watched from my car. I hadn’t expected so many people in uniform. I felt schlubby, inadequate, useless. When the family, black-suit-clad Leo included, followed the coffin into the church, I stayed in my car. When the rest of the funeral-goers were safely inside the building, I still didn’t budge. Who was I to listen to people talk about Jason? I didn’t know him, except for watching him pee. He literally said two words to me his whole life. I felt like an intruder, the little Jewish girl who busted the shit out of Jason’s brother’s heart, attempting some semblance of penance by barely playing dress-up and sitting in my car.
I thought about driving off. Going back to school, or somewhere else until my pass wore off. I tried to remember my dad’s funeral, not so long ago but a painful blur of torment. Did I even notice who was there? Did I once look at the guest book to see who cared and who didn’t?
Yes I did.
And the one glaring omission was Davis, my supposed-to-be boyfriend.
I wasn’t supposed to be Leo’s anything. But I didn’t want to be his glaring omission either.
I waited in my car, deciding I could follow the family to the burial site. Being there would be enough. It had to be enough.
After about a half hour, sweat gathering underneath my skirted knees, people began to file out through the church doors. Another group loaded the flag-adorned coffin back into the hearse. Leo, head lowered, joined his parents in a black car. When other cars began to follow, I drove behind them.
We parked in an orderly fashion along the side of the cemetery road, uncomfortably narrow. People exited their cars onto the grass, high heels and polished shoes sinking into the dirt. I tried to blend, my height hiding me among the other mourners. There were more veterans with flags, more soldiers in dress uniforms, so young they barely looked older than me.
Leo and his family sat under a tent in front of the American coffin. They were tall, but I couldn’t see much more than the backs of heads. A small group of soldiers, two of which were girls, women, held guns and shot them into the air. I had never been that close to real guns. The explosion of sound, then ringing of silence, shook me twenty-one times. Then a lone soldier played taps on a trumpet. I wondered how he got the job, if he was a trumpet player before he went into the military or if they have music school there where the only song they learned was taps. Did they know Jason? Was this their job in the military? Go around to funerals and perform death rituals? It seemed harder than going to war itself.
Together a group of soldiers folded the flag from the coffin. I was terrified for them, that they’d mess it up, there were so many precise steps. I thought about them studying that, too, that being part of the military wasn’t just about going to war but dealing with what happens as a result. Was there any joy in it at all?
Would there ever be joy again?
I watched the back of Leo’s family’s heads. I remembered the feeling of being a family member sitting in the chairs, the special place that was the worst place to be. I wondered who watched me, wanted to see me cry. My mom had sat next to me, sobbing uncontrollably. It had been my job to hand her tissues. No one gave me the job, but I didn’t want my mom to gross people out with the pool of snot under her nose. That’s what I thought about: my mom’s snot. Anything to get through. And there I was at someone else’s funeral, hoping Leo didn’t need a tissue.
As my brain spun with funerals past and present, the end of the service caught me off guard. I awkwardly tried to hide myself behind the Dietz giants and military uniforms. I went to the funeral. Was it necessary for me to be one of the sorry people? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do anything.
As the rest of the mourners milled about, held flags, shook hands, I tried my best to subtly make my way to my car—my head down, not risking the opportunity for a forced, sympathetic look. Not that I wasn’t sympathetic, but a look wasn’t what Leo or his family needed. I breathed out with relief when I got to my car door undetected. I made the mistake of looking up toward the funeral, and in that quick second my eyes led directly to Leo, who was looking right at me. We were far enough away that I didn’t attempt mouthing anything to him, not that I had something to say. All I could offer was a slow nod of my head. Leo did the same. Then someone engulfed him, a blubbery hug, and I made my escape.
Maybe it was enough that I was there. Maybe he knew I cared even if I couldn’t talk to him. Maybe it didn’t matter at all.
I thought about skipping the rest of school that day, but I had a quiz in history that I didn’t want to have to make up. Annoyingly I reached the school building at the same time as Mr. Esrum. He gave me a conspiratorial face, as though we’d just shared something momentous. But we hadn’t shared it. Everyone was alone at a funeral. “Lovely service, wasn’t it?” he asked. Funeral small talk was so gross. I shrugged. “Hopefully Leo will be feeling more up to it second semester.”
“Up to what?” I asked.
“I’m sorry. I assumed he told you. Leo is taking the rest of the semester off to do homebound. It’s very common for kids to need time off when there’s a death in the family.”
I knew that all too well. Even though I didn’t.
“I’m sure you’ll see him, though.” Mr. Esrum was fucking clueless.
“I have to get to class,” I told him, and walked as fast as I could to the book closet. I fumbled with the key and swore repeatedly until I managed to unlock the door. Once inside, I was lost. This tiny space and I was lost. I knocked at a stack of Shakespeare, and it spilled to the ground. That wasn’t enough. I kicked another stack, and down it went. I slipped on books, which made me angrier, and I punched a shelf. Books rained down in every direction as I kicked, hit, shoved at any semblance of neatness and order. When nearly every book lay in a heap on the floor, I collapsed on top of them. Corners jabbed my ribs, my neck, my face, and I welcomed them. Then the tears came. I couldn’t stop them. I imagined I was Alice through the looking glass, filling the floor with my giant tears, the absorbent books sopping them up until the pages floated along like soggy crackers and I floated away with them.
CHAPTER
27
WINTER
BECCA FINISHED HER LAST round of chemo yesterday. She claimed it was at maximum toxicity, and I didn’t doubt it. It seemed like the chemo was meant to kill everything except her. Sometimes she could barely lift the remote, and other times her head hurt so badly all she could do was silently cry.
School and life had been lonely, but not much different than it had been over the summer. I worked, watched movies, helped my mom out. Talked to friends at school, but that was about it. Whenever Becca felt up to it, I went to her house. My mom had taken up making a different casserole for each visit. I don’t think Becca managed to try even one. The smell of her bedroom had evolved. In eighth grade, Becca went through a fragrant phase after her aunt Vicki visited the Caribbean and bought her a perfume called White Witch. Becca thought this was the coolest thing ever, never mind the nose-piercing smell. She managed to collect dozens of bottles and sprayed everything she owned with the scent. Thankfully, she finally moved on to a new smell, one of Britney Spears’s concoctions, but the White Witch bottles still remained in a box in her closet. The White Witch smell hung around too, and I couldn’t be in her room without flashing back to innocent dances and early curfews.
Her room smelled nothing of White Witch anymore. The smell was a combination of disinfectant, Jell-O, and puke. I wondered if Becca could smell it. Or if her nose was immune to it, like how grandparents have an old-person smell that I’m sure they’re not aware of.
Some days the smell in Becca’s room was so bad I almost suggested pulling out the old vile of White Witch and coating the air with it.
I watched helplessly as she dealt with the side effects: constant nausea, puking, not being able to walk, not being able to see, not to mention the tubes and holes and weight loss and not wanting to eat. Why did this happen? To Becca, and to anyone? Why can someone get so sick that the
only way to get better is to make them more sick? It’s like the world’s longest exorcism. It doesn’t make sense that I can chat with someone live on a tiny screen, that governments spend billions of dollars on war and mayhem, that actors make millions of dollars to just look pretty and skinny, yet no one can fucking figure out how to cure cancer without torturing people.
The other day Becca’s mom said, “Thank God” about something. It wasn’t anything important enough to remember or anything big enough to warrant divine intervention, but she felt the need to thank God, something she’d been doing a lot of recently. Becca didn’t hesitate to correct her mom, “I don’t believe in God.”
“What?” Her mom looked shocked, uncomfortable, as if saying she didn’t believe in God would somehow make Becca cursed. If she could be more cursed than she already was.
“I don’t believe in God,” she repeated.
“I suppose that’s understandable, though I’m sure you don’t mean it,” Becca’s mom conceded. “I’m going to believe in Him and keep praying for you.”
“That is just wrong, Mom.” Becca’s mom had hit a nerve. “What kind of god do we have to beg to make us well? What kind of god allows people to get this sick? And not just get sick, but have months of pain and misery? Is it some kind of vengeance? A lesson He’s trying to teach me?”
“God gives what you can handle.”
“So it’s a test? Let’s see how much shit Becca can endure, so she can come out a better person on the other end? Was I that bad a person to begin with?”
“It’s not just what you can handle, Becca. And God doesn’t control everything, but He can help us get through.”
I wondered if Becca’s mom had always been this religious and I hadn’t noticed, or if this was a direct correlation to watching her daughter disintegrate.
“I don’t want to believe in a god who can help me because I can’t believe in a god who would let something like this happen in the first place.”
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