by Karen Rivers
It’s not exactly cold but it’s rainy and gusty. The rain falls harder, in little bursts.
I stash my board under the front stairs of the building. I have that feeling that I sometimes get when I stop rolling, the feeling that I’m still moving, that I haven’t stopped. I wait a few minutes for it to pass. I sit on the steps.
I try to remember what used to happen when I got to school.
I try to remember who I used to talk to (Charlie). What I’d say (nothing special).
Then I force myself to go through those ugly school doors, past the terrible teddy bears and flowers that don’t ever seem to quit appearing, then inside. Somebody taps me on the shoulder from behind. I’m so tense, my shoulders are up near my ears.
I will not punch anyone in the face, I will not punch anyone in the face, I will not punch anyone in the face, I will not punch anyone in the face.
I turn around.
Fatty.
I clench.
He looks nervous.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and that’s it.
“I’m sorry, too,” I say, surprised to mean it.
“Dude,” he says. “That’s enough. Don’t get emotional.”
I almost, but not quite, start crying. I swallow quickly, three times in a row—Piper’s old cure for hiccups, but it also works for sobbing, I’ve figured out.
“Are you done with punching me?” he says. “You broke three of my freaking teeth, you know.”
“I think I’m done. Yeah, pretty much.”
“Good,” he says. “It’s been a messed-up time.”
“Yep.”
He grins. Then he tips back his head and howls, “Ah aha ha whooooooooo!”
Everyone is staring.
“You are seriously weird,” I say.
“Yep.”
I turn my almost crying into an almost laugh. “Looks like your face healed up,” I manage. “Ugly as ever.”
He belly laughs. “Don’t push it.”
The bell sounds and we start heading for our lockers, just like before, like everything has settled back into normalcy, like Piper’s death was just a flurry, a storm that’s passed.
Is it that easy? I think. Does it just go back to how it was?
Maybe I’ve just overthought it. Maybe none of this has to be so hard.
* * *
I sit through math, staring sideways at Sloane, trying not to lean forward and just breathe her in. Her hair is different again. Reddish brown now, a fading color that’s somehow perfect. It makes me think of some kind of bird, a starling maybe. She’s done it differently. It looks looser. Softer.
Feathery.
I force myself to look away. I’ve missed too much to have a clue what’s going on. I look out the window. The wind is pushing clouds so quickly past the glass that it makes me feel like time has sped up but the class drags on and on and on and it’s just an illusion.
Sloane turns to look out the window and scratches the back of her neck, parting her hair there so I can see the skin. I want to reach out and press my fingers to that spot so bad. I put my head in my hands and force myself to look at my paper. I haven’t written anything.
What does it matter? Everything has already been written, right?
Everything has already been done.
* * *
The color of Sloane’s hair looks like sun shimmering on fall leaves and I’m really far gone because I’m thinking crap like Sloane’s hair looks like sun shimmering on fall leaves.
I take out my phone. I text her, “R U OK? Answer me or I’ll make a scene.”
I see her feeling her phone vibrate. She takes it out, looks at it. Frowns.
She types back, “FINE.” All caps, like that.
“GOOD,” I type back.
Her shoulders shake a little. I hope she’s laughing.
“Later, OK?”
“OK,” I type. Then before I can stop myself, I add a row of smileys. “Later, gator hater.”
I want to take that last part back. That was a mistake.
But she plays along. “While, vile dile,” she types. Then a smiley for good measure.
I feel something inside me relax. I feel something inside me click into place.
A loud bang makes me look up.
“A bird!” someone yells.
“Crow,” says someone else. Someone makes a loud cawing noise. Sloane gets up and runs to the window, where there is a smear of red. The crow’s blood. I don’t have to look; I know it’s dead.
“Gross,” someone says.
Sloane puts her hand against the glass. She stands there for ages, looking down, motionless as a statue. Then, finally, the teacher says, “Calm down, everyone. Please go back to your seat, Sloane. Now let’s go through the problem on the board. Any volunteers?”
I write the problem down and start working it out. It’s only when I look up at the end of class that I realize Sloane’s page is still blank.
SLOANE
After class, I go down and pick up the dead bird.
I’ve never held a dead bird before. They don’t weigh anything. It’s like holding a piece of cloud in your hand. You can see that it’s there, but you can’t feel it. I would have thought a crow would be heavier.
Up close, their details are incredible: dark blue feathers, not black. A shining midnight blue.
I empty my backpack of everything and put the crow in it. It’s still bleeding. Even while I’m doing it, it feels wrong and creepy, but I can’t stop. I carry it around all day and no one knows.
“Piper,” I say to it when the last bell finally rings and I can be alone. “Pipes, are you gone? Was that you?”
She doesn’t answer.
I think she’s gone.
I don’t know whether to be relieved or sad.
There’s a buzz in my ears, white noise in the place where Piper used to be.
“Come back,” I say quietly. “I’m not ready.”
But she doesn’t.
I take the crow home and bury it in the front garden, in among the fading roses. It’s almost October. The flowers are losing their color and the sun is losing its heat and the sea is losing its blueness. I haven’t seen a washed-up jellyfish for days. I think they’re gone.
I think she’s gone.
I’m losing Piper.
I’ve lost her.
I shiver. It’s so cold. I go inside and upstairs and I run a hot bath. I watch as it fills, adding bubbles. I sit on the edge of the tub and think about Piper cutting my hair. I think about how it fell to the tiles, how we stood on it, how slippery it was, how for weeks, I kept finding long hairs stuck to all my socks.
I text Soup.
“Can we talk?”
I’m not going to tell him; I just want to know that I could if I wanted to.
I knew James, I’ll start. I know him.
The air is thick with steam. I let it hide me. I sink into it. Deeper and deeper. The air is like water. A person could drown in all this water. A person could die this way.
My phone chimes.
“Yes. When?”
I type a response and then turn off the phone. I can’t leave it on anymore, because I don’t know if James will text again. Does he have a cell phone in prison? Is that allowed?
“Hello, Sloane,” it will say in a drawl. I fight the scream that wants to erupt from my throat. Instead, I take the phone and I drop it into the bathwater. I watch it sink under the bubbles. I remember, too late, that all my pictures of Piper are in there; I haven’t uploaded them to my computer. But it’s too late. They’re gone. Everything’s gone. I can’t even cry.
“It’s over,” I say. The mirror is steamed up. I can’t even see myself. “But it’s never over.”
I soak in the bath until the water goes cold, the now-useless phone somewhere in there with me, occasionally bumping my leg like an errant bar of soap.
SOUP
“—special tribute to Piper at the Fall Fair,” Mr. Stewart is saying. “It will raise mon
ey for the children’s hospital.”
“Children’s hospital?” Sloane asks. “What does that have to do with Piper?”
“The Asteroids have agreed to play,” says Mr. Stewart. “They graduated from here, did you know that? Back in the eighties.”
“I don’t get it,” I say. “So it’s a fund-raiser for the children’s hospital? And my dad’s—I mean, some band is playing? How is that about Piper?”
“We, as a school,” he intones as though he’s speaking in front of a crowd. He gestures with his hand. “We think it’s important to acknowledge and remember Piper Sullivan.”
I make a snorting sound in my throat.
“Philip?” Mr. Stewart says. “Did you have something to add?”
“I don’t,” I say. “I mean, no.”
“We had to pick a charity. All this kind of thing brings in money. So we picked one that we thought Piper would support.”
Sloane chokes out an inappropriate laugh and covers it up by pretending to cough.
“Excuse you,” I say. Then, “Piper was never in the children’s hospital. She wasn’t sick. I don’t even think she ever knew a kid who was sick.”
“I was sick when I was a kid,” says Sloane.
“Were you?”
“Migraines.” She grins. “Not a tumor.”
“That’s not the point,” Mr. Stewart interrupts. “I know you do art, Philip. We were hoping that you would paint something.”
“It’s Fall Fair in, like, two days,” I point out. “That’s not enough time.”
“Of course it is!” he says, looking surprised. “We’re not asking you to paint the Sistine Chapel! Just a portrait of Piper.”
“Um, I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know if I—”
“There already is one,” says Sloane abruptly. “Piper’s mom must have it. From her birthday. Soup did one for her birthday.”
“How wonderful!” Mr. Stewart claps his hands, as though he can’t even contain his delight. “Thank you, Sloane. I guess you’re off the hook, Philip.”
“Terrific,” I say.
“This is nuts,” Sloane says. “This is totally ridiculous. This isn’t anything to do with Piper. She was murdered! Maybe you should raise money for murder victims! Or maybe you shouldn’t use her death to raise money! It’s disgusting.”
“Hey, hey,” says Mr. Stewart. “Come on now. It’s a memorial. People want to DO something when things like this happen. It’s human nature.”
“A concert by some people she didn’t know to raise money for a cause she wasn’t involved with doesn’t have anything to do with remembering her.”
“I’m sorry?” he says, like he hasn’t heard her, when he clearly has.
“I think she means—” I start to try to explain. “It’s a bit weird. Sir. I’m sorry. It really is, Mr. Stewart.”
Sloane gets up and picks up her bag, slings it over her shoulder. She opens the door calmly and walks out.
My ears are ringing and I have that in-between feeling you have when you first wake up and you’re not sure if you’re still dreaming. Is this for real?
My dad is playing a memorial to my girlfriend.
The portrait I painted for her birthday is now her death celebration.
Life has never made less sense to me than it does at this exact moment.
Mr. Stewart sighs. “Thank you, Soup,” he says. “Or I should say, Philip.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, this has been a really difficult time.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It sure has.”
He leans forward. “Hard for all of us. Hard for everyone.”
“Sure.”
“Anyway, technicalities.” He claps his hands together, this time with a briskness that suggests the meeting is ending. “It would be great if you and Sloane could say a few words about Piper, or maybe even sing with the band.”
“I don’t think she sings,” I say. “I don’t sing. Neither of us sings. We aren’t singers.”
“I see. This has been a difficult time.”
I give him a weird look, which he doesn’t pick up on. I wonder how many times he’s said, “This has been a difficult time,” throwing an emphasis on a different syllable each time. I want to buy a T-shirt, paint that on the front, and anonymously give it to him. I have a hugely inappropriate need to laugh. I haven’t needed to laugh this bad since Old Yeller died when Mrs. Moffat was reading out loud to us in third grade, and that didn’t make sense either. Everyone else was crying, like normal people do when a dog dies.
I grab my stuff. I’m texting Sloane before I’m even out of the office: “He wants you to sing.”
I type a smiley emoji.
She doesn’t answer.
Mr. Stewart is right. This is a difficult time.
I fill a whole screen with laughing emojis and hit send. I might not laugh out loud, but at least I can put it out there, I can give it to Sloane, I can show her how weird I truly am and see if she still wants to have anything to do with me.
Not that she wants anything to do with me now, but still.
SLOANE
Soup catches up with me in the foyer. He looks amused, like he’s about to say something I don’t want to hear.
“Later, okay?” I say.
He winks and nods. “You’ve said that before. This time, for real?”
I make a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan. I remember the text. I was hoping that he didn’t.
“I texted you,” he says. “Just now. You’re not answering anymore?”
“Oh, I dropped my phone. In the bathtub. I just haven’t gotten around to replacing it yet.”
“Did you put it in a bag of rice?”
“I don’t think that really works. That’s an urban legend.”
“It might; doesn’t hurt to try.”
“I don’t even know what happened to it. Elvis probably recycled it.”
We stare at each other.
“Look, I have to get to class,” I say, breaking the silence.
“Oh! Sure. I mean, are you really going? I thought you were leaving. I’m leaving.”
“I’m going to class. I’m here, might as well. And I’m late,” I remind him, but I don’t move. “Have you ever even heard of that dumb band? Where did they dig them up from, 1996? Piper would be rolling her eyes so hard.”
“Oh, yeah.” He clears his throat. “They’re good. I’ve heard of them.” Soup looks shifty. “They’re not super famous. They’re okay.”
“They’re okay? They’re a bunch of fat old middle-aged guys! This is the most messed-up memorial anyone has ever planned, if you ask me.”
“You could come with me?” he says. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”
“No,” I say.
Panic clenches at my throat. I can’t breathe.
I don’t want to go with Soup.
I can’t go with Soup.
If I go with Soup, then Later, okay? will be now and I’ll have to tell him, and I’m not ready to tell him and I don’t know how to tell him. I feel like I’m not breathing. I take a huge deep breath and hold it, like Mom said, until I have to breathe.
He looks at me strangely. The air between us reminds me of when it first starts to freeze in the winter and the water forms a lace of ice.
The ice between us crackles. It shatters on the floor around our feet.
We both pretend not to notice.
“Well, see you ‘later, okay’?” He makes air quotes with his fingers for emphasis, but he’s not laughing. “I’m out of here.”
“Later,” I echo.
“Yeah, so you said,” he says, not turning back, not looking at me.
“Bye,” I say, but I still don’t move. I watch him walk away. He doesn’t look back, not once. Then he calls over his shoulder, “The drummer is pretty good! You should download some of their songs.”
“Not,” I call, but I’m smiling. “Besides, my phone is in the garbage, remember?”
“Get a new one!” he calls, then he�
�s gone.
I shouldn’t be smiling, but I am.
The ice on the floor melts.
The ice on the floor steams.
The ice on the floor evaporates into something I’ve already forgotten.
* * *
I find Soup in the Tube after school.
This is it.
This is Later, okay?
Not having a phone means that I couldn’t exactly ask him to meet me there, but there he is, like he knew, too. He’s painting graffiti on the wall. I watch while he makes a huge arcing streak of orange flames.
“So,” Soup says when he’s done, sitting down beside me, wiping his face on his sleeve.
“So,” I repeat.
There’s too much him in this small space. I’m not sure if I’m breathing properly. I definitely shouldn’t have come. I can’t faint, that would be ridiculous, but I feel woozy. Light-headed. I have to tell him.
He clears his throat. “Hey.”
“So.” I force the word out again, long, drawn out. I can’t look at him, so I don’t. I think about how much actual dialogue consists of the words “hey” and “so.” The whole conversation takes place in the tone. Not so much in movies, but in real life, sometimes those small words say everything.
Our tones match in a harmony.
We are both breathing.
We are both alive.
His arm is touching my arm and my arm is steel and his is a magnet and I don’t have any choice; they can’t untouch. Where they meet, there is a humming that I can feel. This is chemistry, then. This is what they mean. They’ve got it wrong, though. They should have said physics.
Magnets.
Force.
The silence between us stretches like a cat in a beam of sun. Settles in. It’s stopped raining and the quiet makes the echo in the Tube seem loud. He coughs. Once, twice. I breathe too deeply.
I can’t hyperventilate, not here. Not now. I don’t even have a paper bag.
The paint fumes are starting to give me a headache. I press the web between my thumb and my pointer finger, which is supposed to ward migraines off, but it does nothing. I wipe my nose on my sleeve.
“You probably think,” I start to say, “that I’m—”
At the same time, he’s saying, “So I have to tell you that my dad is in the band that Mr. Stewart hired to—”