Without Merit

by Colleen Hoover

  Sagan disagrees with a shake of his head. "No, he cares. I don't know why he was so adamant about burying the dog with Pastor Brian, but for whatever reason, he wants them together."

  Utah pulls out of the church parking lot and flips on the headlights. "I think Dad has always felt a little guilty for buying Dollar Voss out from under Pastor Brian. Maybe this is his repentance."

  "He's an atheist," Luck says. "I think remorse is a more fitting word."

  Honor has her hand over her nose and mouth. "Someone please roll down a window. That dog smells so bad, I'm about to puke."

  He really does smell. Utah rolls down both front windows but it doesn't help. I cover my nose with my shirt and keep it there until we make it to the cemetery.

  "Which way is Pastor Brian's grave?" Utah asks. Sagan points to a grave not too far from the front gate. Utah follows the circle drive until the van is pointed toward the entryway of the cemetery. When he parks, he tells me and Honor to take the front seats and keep watch for them.

  "I don't want to keep watch," I say as I close the side door to the van. "I want to help you guys bury him."

  Honor walks around to the driver's seat. "I'll keep watch." Utah and Luck walk to the back of the van to get Wolfgang.

  Sagan grabs my hand and squeezes it, looking down at me. "Stay in the van," he says. "It won't take long."

  I shake my head. "I'm not staying alone in that van with Honor. She hates me."

  Sagan looks at me pointedly. "That's exactly why you should stay in the van, Merit. You're the only one who can fix that."

  I huff and fold my arms over my chest. "Fine," I say, agitated. "I'll talk to her but I'm not happy about it."

  He mouths, "Thank you," right before he turns around. I watch the three of them walk across the cemetery to the freshly dug grave. And then I get in the damn van.

  When I close the door, Honor turns up the radio, drowning out any possibility of her hearing me if I tried to speak to her. I lean forward and turn the radio back down.

  She leans forward and turns it up.

  I turn it down.

  She turns it up.

  I reach over and turn off the van. I pull the keys out and the radio cuts off for good.

  "Bitch you," she mutters.

  We both start laughing. Bitch you used to be one of our favorite things to say to each other. She hasn't said it to me in years.

  Utah used to have a friend named Douglas when we were kids. He lived about a mile down the road, so he used to come over all the time when we lived in our old house behind Dollar Voss. The last time Douglas ever came over was the day he accused me of cheating at hopscotch. Who cheats at hopscotch?

  I remember Utah getting so mad at him for accusing me of cheating, he told Douglas to go home. Douglas shot back and yelled, "Bitch you!"

  The insult might have been more damaging to Utah's ego had Douglas used the curse word correctly. I was only eight or nine, but even I knew that bitch you was funny enough to laugh at. That made Douglas even angrier, so he balled up his fists and threatened to hit me.

  What Douglas didn't realize was that our father was standing right behind him.

  "Douglas?" my father said, causing him to jump three feet off the ground. "I think it's best you go home now." Douglas didn't even turn around. He just started walking as fast as he could toward the road. When he was about fifteen feet away, my father called out, "And for future reference, it's fuck you! Not bitch you!"

  Douglas never came back, but bitch you became our new favorite insult. It's been so long since I've heard it, I almost forgot it used to be our thing.

  Honor slides both her hands down the stereo and sighs. "I heard what you said to Dad yesterday." She begins picking at the steering wheel with her fingernail, pulling tiny pieces of leather off.

  "I said a lot of things to Dad yesterday. Which part are you referring to specifically?"

  She leans back in her seat and stares out her window. "You told him I was one heartbeat away from being a necrophiliac."

  I close my eyes and feel a pang of regret that's become all too familiar this week. I didn't know Honor was still there when I said that to my father yesterday.

  "You make it sound like my entire life revolves around death, Merit. It's not an obsession. There have been two guys since Kirk died. Two."

  "Are you counting Colby?"

  Honor rolls her eyes. "No, he's still alive."

  "And Kirk," I point out. "That's actually four. You've been averaging two dead boyfriends a year."

  "Okay," she says, exasperated. "I get your point. But it doesn't make you better than me."

  "I never said it did."

  "You don't have to. I see the way you look at me. You're always judging me."

  I open my mouth to protest, but then I close it because she might be right. I have very strong opinions about my sister. Is that judging? I get so angry when people judge me, but maybe I'm no better.

  I suddenly wish I hadn't turned off the radio. I'm not liking this conversation so far.

  "Do you think you're in love with Sagan?" she asks.

  "That's random."

  "Just humor me. I have a point to make."

  I look out the window and watch as Sagan digs up the same hole he dug up earlier today. "I barely know him," I say to Honor. "But there are things I love about him. I love the way he makes me feel. I love being around him. I love his quiet laugh and his morbid art and how he seems to think in a different way than most people our age. But I haven't known him long enough to be in love with him."

  "Forget about time, Merit. Look at him and tell me you haven't fallen in love with him."

  I sigh. Fallen is an understatement. It was more like collapsed. Plummeted. Crumpled at his feet. Anything but fallen.

  I pull my legs up and turn in my seat to face her. "I feel so stupid saying this because I barely know him, but I felt like I loved him the first moment I laid eyes on him. That's why I've been so cranky lately, because I thought you were dating him, so I did everything I could to stay away from both of you. And now, the more I get to know him, I care about him so much I can't stand it. He's all I think about. All I want to think about. It's so hard to breathe when he's near me, but it's also hard to breathe when he isn't. He makes me want to learn and change and grow and be everything he believes I can be."

  I take a breath after that verbal vomit. Honor laughs and says, "Wow. Okay, then."

  I close my eyes, embarrassed all of that just came out of me. When I open them, Honor is turned toward me in her seat. Her head is resting against the head rest and her eyes are downcast.

  "That's exactly how I felt about Kirk," she says quietly. "I mean, I know I was a kid, but I felt those same things for him. I thought he was my soul mate. I thought we would be together for the rest of our lives." She lifts her eyes to mine. "And then . . . he died. But all the feelings I had for him were still there, with nowhere to go and no one to latch on to. And I worried about him constantly because I couldn't see him or touch him. And I thought maybe, wherever he was, he was just as devastated as me." There's a hint of embarrassment in her voice as she tells me all of this. She shrugs and says, "That's when I started talking to the guys in support groups online. Talking to other kids like Kirk who were dying. And I would tell them all about Kirk. I would make sure they knew how much I loved him so when they got to Heaven and they found him they could say to Kirk, 'Hey, I know your girlfriend. She sure does love you.' "

  She falls back against her seat and kicks her feet up on the dash. "I don't think any of that anymore, but that's what started all this. A few months after Kirk died, Trevor, one of the guys from the Dallas support group, was put in a hospice. I didn't love him like I loved Kirk, but I cared about him. And I knew when Kirk was dying that my presence brought him peace. So when Trevor needed that, I gave it to him. And it was nice. It made me feel good to know that I made his death a little more bearable for him. And then after Trevor, there was Micha. And now . . . Colby. And
I know you think it's this terrible thing, like I'm taking advantage of people, or I'm somehow oddly attracted to guys with terminal illnesses." She looks at me pointedly. "You're wrong, Merit. I do it because I know that in some small way, I help them through the hardest thing anyone should ever have to go through. That's all I'm doing. It makes me feel good to make them feel a little more at peace with their death. But you make it seem so terrible and you constantly talk about how I need therapy. It's . . . mean. You can be really mean sometimes."

  I haven't said a single word the entire time she's been talking. I've just been listening . . . processing. I'm looking at my sister . . . my identical twin sister . . . and she's completely unrecognizable to me in this moment. For the first time in my life, I feel like I'm looking at a complete stranger. Like maybe all the opinions I've held about her all these years have actually been severe misjudgments.

  I look away from her and glance out the window, watching the guys as they work to fill the grave with dirt. I try to imagine how I'd feel if something happened to Sagan. How would I feel if I had to sit by his side and watch him die?

  Not once when Honor was grieving Kirk's death did I ever empathize with that. I didn't understand that kind of love. We were so much younger then and I honestly thought she was being dramatic.

  All these years I've hated Utah for not making an effort to be closer to me, and here I am treating my own twin sister the exact same way.

  I turn and reach across the seat and pull her to me. As soon as I do, I feel her sigh, like all she's needed from me was a simple hug. For so long I've been resenting my family for not hugging me when maybe they've been resenting me for the same thing.

  "I'm sorry, Honor." I sooth my hand over her hair and say the same thing to her that Utah said to me. "I'll be a better sibling. I promise."

  She lets out a quiet sigh of relief, but she doesn't let go of me. We hug for a long time, and it makes me wonder why everyone in this family has been so opposed to honesty and hugging for the past several years. It's actually not so bad. I think we all just got to a point where we were waiting for someone else to initiate it, but no one ever did. Maybe that's the root of a lot of family issues. It isn't actually the issues people are hung up about for so long. It's that no one has the courage to take the first step in talking about the issues.

  Honor eventually pulls away from me and flips the visor down. She wipes beneath her eyes with her fingers, clearing away her mascara. She falls back against her seat and reaches over for my hand. She squeezes it. "I'm really sorry about everything I said to you in the last couple of days. About what happened with Utah. I just . . . I think I was angry at you. For never telling me. Why wouldn't you tell me something like that, Merit? I'm your sister."

  "I don't know. I was scared. And the more I kept it a secret, the more my fear eventually just turned into resentment. Especially seeing how close you and Utah were. I wanted that, too."

  "We're both too stubborn for our own good."

  I agree with her. We both inhale the silence while we stare out the window for a while. The guys are still working, but Sagan has pulled off his shirt. I can't tear my eyes away as he repeatedly bends over and refills the hole. "Is there anything wrong with him? He's so damn perfect."

  "Meh," she says. "Too healthy for me. I like 'em a little more fragile."

  "Oh, you can make jokes about it but I can't?"

  She laughs and then her laughter turns into a smile. "He's really good, Merit," she says with a sigh. "Be good to him, okay?"

  I would if he'd give me the chance. "I'm so glad I was wrong about you two. I don't know if we would have been able to make up as sisters if you were in love with him."

  She laughs. "Bitch you."

  I smile. God, I've missed that.

  After a moment, she says, "Do you think he can tell us apart?"

  I shrug.

  Honor straightens in her seat. Her eyes are full of mischief. "Let's test him."

  We both start grinning. We climb into the back of the van and start swapping clothes. I pull my hair out of my bun and hand her the hair tie. I smooth my fingers through my hair while she pulls hers up.

  "I have to pee," she says, laughing. "Do you ever notice how being sneaky makes you have to pee?"

  "I didn't until now."

  As soon as our clothes are successfully swapped, we climb back up front, this time with me in the driver's seat and her in the passenger seat. Right when we get settled, the guys throw their shovels over their shoulders and start heading our way. My heart starts to beat wildly in my chest because now I'm nervous he won't notice. What would that mean? That everything he said about the first time he saw me was a lie? That he really can't tell a difference between us? He figured it out pretty quick on the couch the other night.

  I'm starting to regret this prank.

  Utah reaches the van first. "I'm driving," he says, motioning for me to get in the backseat. Honor and I climb to the back. I sit in the very backseat and Honor takes one of the middle seats. Sagan is talking to Luck when he climbs inside the van, so he doesn't even look at either of us. He takes the other middle seat and closes the door, just as Utah cranks the van. Sagan slaps the back of Utah's seat. "Hurry," he says, urging Utah on. "I don't want to be arrested twice for the same thing in one day."

  Sagan falls back against his seat and looks over at Honor with a sweet smile. "You hungry?" He looks back at me and says, "What about you?" He faces forward. "Anyone hungry? I'm starving."

  Honor nods, but she doesn't say anything. I don't either. I know we sound alike, but I'm sure if we start talking, it'll be easier for him to figure it out.

  "Let's go to Taco Bell," Luck says.

  "Honor hates Taco Bell," Utah says. "Let's do Arby's."

  Good thing I'm pretending to be Honor because Taco Bell is my favorite. "Taco Bell sounds good, actually. I don't mind if we go there."

  Honor turns around and glares at me.

  "You know what?" Sagan says, turning in his seat to face Honor. He reaches out to her and grabs her hand. Oh, God. What if he finally decides to kiss me again and I'm not even her? He lifts his other hand and touches Honor's cheek. "You look really weird in Merit's clothes."

  "Dammit," Honor mutters. "We thought we had you."

  Oh, hallelujah.

  He immediately releases Honor's face and turns around and climbs over the backseat. He sits next to me and wraps an arm around my shoulders. He presses a quick kiss to the side of my head and whispers, "Thank you."

  I look up at him and he's smiling. I can see in that smile that he's glad Honor and I are pulling pranks on him. It means we made up, which is what he was hoping for.

  "You smell like a dead dog," I say.

  "No, I smell like a hardened criminal."

  "No," Honor says. "All of you smell like death. Roll down the windows!"

  The smell is overwhelming. I pull my shirt up over my mouth and keep my nose covered until we get to Taco Bell.

  By the time we get back, it's after midnight. But despite the time, as soon as we walk in the front door, Honor, Utah, and I all get a group text from our mother. I guess she heard us walking in.

  Can one of you please come down here? I hear something.

  I look up from my phone and Utah and Honor are both looking at me.

  "Whose turn is it?" Utah asks.

  Honor shrugs. "Mine, I guess. I haven't been down in a couple of days."

  "Neither have I," Utah says.

  "Me, neither."

  All three of us head toward the basement. We file down the stairs and our mother is standing on the other side of the room, below the basement window. It looks like she's been asleep. She's wearing pajamas and her hair is a mess. "Do you hear that?" she says, stepping toward us, wide-eyed. "I've been hearing it off and on all day."

  Utah walks to the window, but he glances at Honor and me. We all try to hide what we're feeling, but things are different now. After knowing what our father has known all these years,
I don't know that we will ever look at our mother the same way. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. It's good, actually. I feel more sympathetic toward her right now than I ever have. And there's zero resentment there, now that I'm fully aware of her situation.

  There's suspicion, though. I'm already questioning whether or not she's actually hearing things now that I know what a big role her mental health has on her daily life. We've always known she has issues, but now that our father has finally enlightened us to just how deeply rooted those issues are, we're probably all going to be more suspicious of her erratic behavior. Utah stands beneath the basement window for a moment. We all remain quiet, but we don't hear anything.

  "What is it you're hearing exactly?" Utah asks her.

  She waves toward the window. "It sounds like something is wrong with that dog. It's been crying all day and night and I can't sleep."

  Honor looks at me with a sad expression. Our mother doesn't even realize that Wolfgang has died and has been buried. More than once, actually.

  "Mom," I say. "The dog isn't here anymore." I try to say it in the sincerest way possible, but in my head I'm thinking, You poor thing.

  "No, I'm telling you, there's something near that window." She's so adamant about it, she begins to pace.

  Utah nods and walks toward the stairs. "I'll go check it out," he says, running up the steps.

  Our mother walks over to her bed and sits on the edge of it. Honor sits down next to her and runs her hand soothingly down our mother's hair.

  "Are you hungry?" Honor asks her.

  As soon as she says it, I remember that none of us took her dinner tonight. We got the call that our father was arrested and we immediately left to go deal with that. I didn't even think to grab her anything at Taco Bell.

  "No, Victoria brought me a plate of food. And you girls forget that I have my own refrigerator down here. I won't starve if I don't get a meal."

  Honor and I both look at each other in surprise. "Victoria brought you food?"

  My mother casually stands again like she didn't just throw out there that Victoria was in this basement. I didn't think Victoria had been in this basement since the day my mother moved down here.

  But if I've learned anything this week, it's that I don't know people as well as I think I do.