by Leah Scheier
He told me the story then, the one I’d wanted to hear since he disappeared. The story about the lady and the remote cottage with the padlocked door. The story about how he was actually okay. How he was just waiting to come back to us.
It was a wild story, but of course I had to believe it. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith for the ones you love.
“Truth or fiction?” I asked him, just to make sure.
He smiled and brought his face close to mine. So close, I could almost feel his breath on my cheek. I thought he was going to whisper the word “truth” in my ear. But instead, he murmured, “Don’t try to tell anyone, Ellie; I promise they won’t believe you.”
Chapter 27
Deenie wraps a hospital blanket around her shoulders and shrinks deep into its folds. Rae puts her arm out to hug her, but Deenie shakes her off. “No, Rae,” she murmurs. “Thank you. But I have to do this on my own. You’ve protected me long enough.”
I’m still trying to process her admission. I was there that night. It’s my fault—
“What do you mean?” I ask her. “How was it your fault?”
This had to be some kind of exaggerated guilt. Nothing was ever Deenie’s fault. So she was at the party that night. So were a lot of people. How could she blame herself for what happened to Danny?
Deenie takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. Her eyes focus on a corner of my pillow, just shy of my face. She’s quiet for a moment; I wait for her to speak, but nothing comes. Finally, I say her name, and she startles hard and with a great effort shifts her gaze to look at me.
“I was like his sister, remember?” she says suddenly.
I’m not sure how to respond, so I just nod.
“I mean, that’s how he thought of me,” she amends. “I was like his sister. Or a first cousin, maybe.” She shakes her head, and a faint smile dawns. “I scolded him too much for a cousin, though. Maybe I was like an aunt to him? A young aunt?”
I shoot Rae a perplexed look, but she seems as baffled as I am. Is Deenie going to list all the possible ways Danny felt like family?
“Actually, you were more like a sister than I was,” Deenie says, glancing at Rae. “I wanted to be like you, do you know that? I tried to imitate how you two were together. God, I was so jealous of your friendship. It was so easy for you.”
“Deenie, please—”
“It didn’t work,” she hurries on, ignoring Rae’s pained expression. “I tried to imitate you, but of course it didn’t work. How could I have ever hoped it would? You weren’t lying to him, Rae. You were honest; even when you shouted and raged at him, you always told the truth. But I was quiet. And so, so righteous.” Her face wrinkles in disgust. “Oh, I was a real tzaddeket,” she says, using the Hebrew word for “pious woman.” It sounds like a curse word when she says it. “Such a good girl. And the whole time, I was drowning in my own jealousy.”
Rae leans forward and gently takes her hand. “So you’re telling Ellie that you were jealous of me,” she says. It isn’t really a question. Her voice challenges her; her eyes are reproachful. “You were jealous of my friendship with Danny?”
Deenie shrinks farther into her blanket and bows her head. “No. No, I wasn’t.” She sighs and looks back at me. “That’s also a lie.”
She’s struggling to form words now. Her fingers are digging into her knee, turning white. The sentence she gasps out doesn’t make sense. It’s half apology and half denial. But I know what she’s trying to tell me; somehow I think I’ve known forever, though I’ve never dared to admit it. “You weren’t jealous of Rae,” I say quietly. “You were jealous of me.”
She doesn’t respond, but the tears in her eyes are my answer. They stream down her cheeks and land on my hand.
“Because you loved him too,” I finish.
She nods and tries to speak, but a sob cuts her confession short.
I watch her silently for a moment as she cries. I’m not sure how to feel. Am I supposed to resent this revelation? I don’t, not even a little bit. I’m so sorry for her, there’s no room for any other emotion. How can I blame her for loving Danny? She couldn’t control how she felt. And she looks so penitent and miserable, I wish that she’d confided in me sooner. I might have relieved some of her guilt. “It’s okay,” I assure her. “It doesn’t matter now. I realize you couldn’t help falling for him—any more than I could. You don’t have to apologize. I’m glad you told me.”
I wait for the shadow to rise from her face, but there’s no relief in her eyes; her tears flow as heavy as before. I reach out to take her hand, to reassure her that I meant what I said. But as I do, I glance over at Rae, and something about her guarded, fearful expression makes me draw back. There’s more, I realize. Deenie wasn’t just confessing to a feeling. She hasn’t finished her story yet.
But I’m scared to press her for the rest. I know I can forgive her for loving him. But what else will I have to forgive? Will I even have a choice? I’ve just lost my boyfriend forever. I can’t lose Deenie, too.
And there’s a part of her confession that I can’t ignore; I remember it now as I watch her struggle for words. “What were you trying to tell me before?” I ask her finally when she doesn’t speak. “Why did you say it was your fault that he’s gone?”
“Because it is,” she replies. Her voice is hollow and flat, as if she’s cried herself empty. “Because I’m the reason Rae called you that night.”
I still don’t understand what she’s telling me. At that moment I can’t even remember why Rae had called me from the party. Danny had been drinking, she’d told me. Danny had been drinking, and he was really out of it. But there was some reason I needed to talk to him right away. Something that had upset me—
“I was the girl,” Deenie tells me brokenly. “I was the girl sitting next to him.”
It all comes back in a rush. Rae’s urgent whisper: There’s this girl here—She’s kind of attached herself to him—
Then my panicked call to Danny. The sound of relief in his voice. I miss you—
“You were the girl Rae was talking about?” Even as I say it, the words sound incredible to me. Impossible. Not Deenie. Anyone else could have done that. Not my sweet, innocent best friend.
Her shaking has calmed a little, and she takes a deep, shuddering breath, like the first inhale of a person who’s drowning. “Rae knew how I felt about Danny, but she never told anyone,” she says. “Even when she saw me flirting with him, she protected me, though I didn’t deserve it.” She gives Rae a grateful look and then drops her eyes again. “She tried to take me aside at the party, to talk to me—but I just brushed her off. So that’s why she called you.” Deenie doesn’t pause to wait for my response now but rushes ahead, as if desperate to finish her confession. “And that’s when I did it.”
I can’t breathe; I can’t speak.
“Danny and I were sitting in a dark corner away from everyone,” she continues miserably. “But Rae had seen me come in. I never go to parties, and I hadn’t told her or anyone else that I was coming, so she was—confused. Suspicious, I think. When I brushed off her questions, she left us alone, but she kept hovering around, keeping an eye on me. And then suddenly she was gone. Danny was checking his phone—for, like, the hundredth time that night. It wasn’t fair, I told myself. His heart was broken because you didn’t want to be with him anymore. Somehow I convinced myself that he needed to move on, that he deserved to move on. And I just wanted him to look at me the way he used to look at you. I wanted him to stop thinking about you. To think about me just for a moment. So I pushed away his phone—and I kissed him.”
There are no words. I know that she is telling the truth. And yet I can’t believe her.
“That got his attention,” she concludes bitterly. “He was so confused that he didn’t do anything at first. He just sat there. So I kissed him again. I kept kissing him, begging him to look at me, to kiss me back—”
“And did he?” My voice is a strangled whisper.
>
She nods. “Once. But then he stopped and looked at me—just as I hoped he would. But he wasn’t really seeing me. His eyes shifted, like he was ashamed of himself. And he said, “Deenie, I love you… but—”
She stops, drops her head.
“But—what?”
“He never got a chance to finish. I didn’t want to hear the rest, anyway. Thank God he didn’t finish the thought.”
“You thank God?” I drop her hand and look away. “What is there to thank God for?” The bitterness in my voice sounds fake to my ears. I’m actually totally numb, like after the shock of a blow—just before the pain sets in. I’m trying to picture the scene: a crowd of loud partying kids, the bang of music and the smell of beer, Danny in a secluded corner, hunched over his phone, Deenie inching closer to him, smiling—coaxing him to notice her. But that Deenie is a stranger to me. Her face is grotesque, distorted, unrecognizable. I can’t picture the person she’s just described.
“I don’t understand,” I say, looking back at her swollen, pleading eyes. “What did you think was going to happen?”
“I wish I knew,” she whispers. “Do you know how many times I’ve asked myself that question? Deep down, I knew that you still loved each other, Ellie. And I knew that he and I had no future together. I knew all of that, and I did it anyway.”
“What were you thinking?” My voice rises. Next to me, Rae reaches out and places a calming hand on my shoulder. I shake it off. “You were shomer, for God’s sake!” I exclaim. “Were you going to give all that up?” My face flushes and sweat breaks over my brow. And yet, my anger is barely skin-deep. It’s an emotion I’m wearing, but beneath it I’m still frozen in denial. I’m displaying anger for her because that’s what I’m supposed to be feeling; it’s part of the script. But I can’t be angry at Deenie. Not until I understand.
“I don’t know.” Her voice breaks and she clasps her hands together. “I know what I dreamed about. Do you want to hear that?”
“No.” I shudder and close my eyes. But it’s as if I can read her thoughts now, even in the silence. “How far would you have gone?” I whisper. “If he hadn’t stopped you?” The darkness fades, and I see their lips coming together, hear her breath quicken, watch their arms intertwine—
My eyes fly open.
“Deenie, please tell me you wouldn’t have!”
She doesn’t answer me. Her head is bowed before me. “I don’t know,” she says. “I just don’t know how far I would have gone.”
Lie to me! I want to scream at her. You’ve been lying to me for months. Look me in the eye and lie to me now. Tell me that you would have stopped at the kiss. Tell me you cared too much about our friendship. Tell me something, anything that allows me to forgive you.
“All I know is, I’m the reason that he’s gone,” she tells me.
“Deenie, you have to stop saying that—” Rae begins, but I interrupt her.
“Enough,” I say sharply. “Deenie, can you please go?” I can’t look at either of them right now.
“Ellie, do you want me to—” Rae asks hesitantly.
“Both of you.” I slump back against my pillow. “Please. I just really need to be alone.”
She nods, as if she’d been expecting that, and they both leave the room without another word.
WHY SHE STOPPED SINGING
The psychiatrist I was seeing couldn’t explain my sudden improvement after my discharge from the hospital. “Mourning takes time,” she told my parents. “It’s a journey with highs and lows. But I’m not sure what’s going on with Ellie now. She seems almost—chipper.”
The doctor was exaggerating; I wasn’t chipper. I’d simply stopped grieving since Danny showed up in my hospital room. Instead, I waited and hoped. And in the meantime, I could talk to him, whenever I wanted. As long I wasn’t stupid about it.
Problem was, I was sometimes stupid about it. It was hard to remember that I was the only one seeing him, so I slipped up pretty early on. A couple of weeks after my discharge Rae noticed me laughing at something he’d said. And she completely freaked out.
“Ellie is hallucinating!” she told my parents. “She’s talking to a ghost. You have to do something!”
And they tried. They took me to specialists who all had different diagnoses and opinions, ranging from psych ward commitment to vitamin supplements. They chopped down the tree outside my window, as if my ghost required a physical ladder to get into my room. They finally settled on Nina, who assured them that my visions were just a way to cope. Not inherently harmful, as long as they didn’t interfere with my life.
So I set about proving that Danny didn’t interfere. I attended class and kept up my grades. I took up running every morning, at Nina’s suggestion.
And for several months everyone was satisfied. Nina told my parents that I was making progress, and they believed it. Deenie was happy that our group had managed to stay together, even if she couldn’t quite see one of its members.
The only one who didn’t buy any of it was Rae.
“This isn’t right,” I overheard her say to Deenie one evening. They were hanging out in my basement and hadn’t noticed me coming down the stairs. I crouched quietly behind the banister when I heard her say my name. “Ellie isn’t making progress. She’s stuck.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been reading about the five stages of grief,” she explained, pulling out her phone. “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Ellie’s isn’t moving past the first stage.”
“She seems okay to me,” Deenie replied. “She’s not depressed anymore. Maybe she’s reached acceptance—in her own way.”
Rae sighed and shook her head. “And you’re stuck in bargaining,” she told Deenie.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
She laughed shortly. “I’m just wondering what you’re planning to give up this week.”
“I’m not giving things up because of Danny,” she protested.
“Really?” Rae challenged. “You just gave up your own voice. You won’t sing anymore. Tell me that’s not about him.”
“Why would it be about him?” Deenie asked, but her eyes betrayed her.
Rae shrugged. “You’re using religion to kill everything attractive about yourself. Your hair.” She waved her hand at the loose dress that fell to Deenie’s feet. “Your body. And now your voice. As if it will bring him back.”
Deenie shook her head emphatically. “That’s not true. I’ve loved my religion since I was a little girl. But I never needed Judaism to tell me what was right and wrong before. I just knew it, instinctively—and I thought that I could trust myself to always know. But now I realize that I can’t. I can’t even stray a little. So I’m giving all of it up because I don’t have a choice.”
“And you think that will help somehow?”
Deenie dropped her head in defeat. “I don’t know, Rae. Maybe I’m hoping it will help me,” she murmured. “Because no matter what I do, I know I can never bring him back.”
Chapter 28
I’m alone with my thoughts for hours, even though I regret sending my friends away almost as soon as they leave the room. But I don’t have my phone to call them back, so I have to wait until the doctor comes in to discharge me. My parents bustle around packing up my things, the nurse pulls out my IV and hands my mom a stack of papers, and then somehow I’m standing by my front door, wondering how I got there.
To my surprise, Rae is sitting in the living room when we come in. “Is Deenie here too?” I ask her, glancing around the room.
“No, she’s at home. We were going to go visit Mr. Edelstein after you got discharged. So I thought I’d go with you now, and then later with her. Separately.”
My parents give me a puzzled look, but I’m too tired to explain. And the truth is, I don’t really want to explain. I never want them to find out what Deenie did. Somehow, their knowing about her betrayal would make that story too real to me—and too unforgivable. A
nd I desperately want to forgive.
“Text her to come over,” I tell Rae. “We can go together.”
Rae nods silently and pulls out her phone while I settle on the couch next to her. I’m exhausted; every muscle in my body feels raw and leaden. I close my eyes for a moment, and when I reopen them, Deenie is sitting curled up in the armchair opposite me. She’s listening to Rae talk about the funeral arrangements. I watch Deenie silently and wait for the feeling of anger to hit. I’m not numb anymore. I should be furious. But I just don’t feel it.
I can see my friend disappearing in front of me; she’s been slowly drowning herself in thick mourning robes, in rules and rituals and restrictions. She’s stifled her own voice in penance, given up everything she’s ever loved in a vain attempt to quiet the guilt that’s strangling her.
I could turn away from her and nurse my own wounds. I could be resentful—even vengeful, if I wanted. But I could never punish her more harshly than she’s already punished herself.
And what’s more, I don’t want to. I’d shut Danny out when I should have listened to him. I’m not going to repeat that mistake now. I know what he would have wanted me to do.
I sit up and clear my throat to get their attention.
Deenie starts a little and turns to me.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I forgive you.”
She stares at me, her eyes wide with disbelief. “You do? Why?”
I consider the question for a moment before answering. “Because, I think, if you were in my place, you would forgive me.” There’s no doubt in my mind, I realize as I say it. “I’m sure you would.”
She nods. “Except that you would never do what I did. I know you wouldn’t. Ellie—do you think, maybe—do you think he would forgive me too, if I could ask him?”
Rae’s face tenses; she sits up straight and glances around the room. “What do you want Ellie to do?” She’s trying to sound understanding, but her question rings with warning. “You want her to ask Danny to forgive you?”