by Cecily Wolfe
“Honey, we have something to share with you.”
Share. What a ridiculous word to use when they couldn’t possibly have anything good to share. Didn’t sharing imply something positive? Something the receiver would want?
His parents stood together in the doorway, awkwardly trying not to touch each other, their hands by their sides, then his mother’s crossed in front of her like a shield. Her voice was too high-pitched and he could see that she didn’t want to deliver whatever information she had for him. His father cleared his throat, then sighed.
“I know this is a difficult time for you, but I think you need to sit up, show your mother some respect.”
Paul almost laughed but didn’t move. It didn’t matter if they understood, or if they cared. If they became angry with him because he didn’t respond. He looked at them without blinking for several seconds and watched his father’s expression change several times before the man spoke again, this time to Paul’s mother.
“I don’t know what to do. You wanted me to come, but . . .”
She cringed, visibly, and Paul knew he should feel some sort of pity for her, or maybe annoyance that she wasn’t going to defend herself. She kept her eyes on Paul as she spoke.
“Calling hours. The school guidance counselor called to tell us, to tell you, that they are tomorrow night. The funeral will be Friday morning.”
She shifted her weight from one hip, one foot, to the other.
“And school won’t begin until Tuesday.”
She nodded the slightest bit, as if she had completed her task and was satisfied that it was done. She had never taken his relationship with Kayla seriously. He knew she thought that they were just kids after all, and she always tried to discourage him from thinking about their relationship beyond high school.
She didn’t want him to choose a college simply because Kay was going there, and besides, both of them would probably get athletic scholarships, and what were the odds of them getting ones from the same school? Her points had made sense to his head, but not to his heart. He wasn’t worried about having a long-distance, or any distance, relationship with Kay, because he knew they were meant to be together.
He was pretty sure she felt the same way, but sometimes, she doubted. He wasn’t sure why she doubted, because she wouldn’t talk about it. She just needed time, she would tell him. Just a break. He didn’t know what that meant or why she needed it, but he wanted her to be happy and if time would do that, he would give her time, and would be waiting when she wanted to be with him again.
They never dated anyone else, and he knew that whatever kept her from committing completely to him had nothing to do with another boy.
“Honey?”
Why in the hell were his parents still standing there?
“I think it would be good for you to get out of bed, come downstairs and spend some time with your father. He drove all this way . . .”
As if it was some big favor to Paul.
“We don’t want to push you, but you can’t stay in bed forever.”
Just watch me, Paul thought, turning away from them both and closing his eyes. Just watch me.
The voices were loud and then someone was yelling, and Paul woke from a half-sleep to the insistent cries of someone in his front yard. It was a male voice, calling out his name and sobbing erratically in between, his deep breaths audible and pained. Paul rolled over but didn’t get out of bed.
He could hear better now, but still didn’t care enough to walk over to the window and look out to discover who it could be.
“I didn’t know! You have to know, Paul . . .”
His father’s voice, gentle and consoling, was barely noticeable as Danny’s sobs grew uncontrollable. Now that Paul could hear more clearly, he could tell that it was Danny. He had never had a problem with Danny, who played a different sport than Paul but was still part of some unspoken brotherhood between all of the male athletes at school.
He wasn’t sure if he had a problem with Danny now. Did it matter what Danny knew or didn’t know? Would that knowledge bring Kayla back?
“Paul!”
When his mother appeared in his doorway for the second time that day Paul couldn’t bring himself to focus his gaze on her for the briefest second. She was saying something about Danny, but it didn’t matter. None of it did.
“This poor boy, he obviously feels guilty, and you have to come out and talk to him.”
This poor boy? Oh, she was going into some dangerous territory and he was done. He closed his eyes and wished Kayla was laying on the bed beside him. He had first kissed Kayla on his bed, after they had been working too long on a science report together and had fallen asleep.
They were thirteen, in seventh grade, and while they had been boyfriend and girlfriend since the beginning of the year, which was during the last school year, they had only held hands. They held hands, though, all the time, and sat so close together on the benches at lunch that their thighs touched. He hadn’t been worried about the kissing part, even as his friends asked him again and again if he had kissed her.
He wasn’t sure if he would tell them if he had, really, since it was private between the two of them. Everyone saw them together, but it still felt as if they were in a private world of their own, where nothing could reach them.
“Hey,” he had whispered to her that afternoon, as he blinked away the drowsiness. He wasn’t sure what time it was, or how long they had been asleep. His mother had insisted that he keep his bedroom door open when Kayla was visiting, and since they had nothing to hide, he hadn’t argued with her.
He hadn’t heard his mother in the hall or the bathroom, and knew that even with the door open, they were alone, so when as he watched her eyes flutter open, he leaned into her and pressed his lips to hers. She wasn’t even surprised, he knew, because she responded immediately, as if perhaps she had been dreaming of a kiss, of their first kiss, and she was ready for it to be real. They had kissed a lot after that, but only when they were alone.
There was no need to share what was between them with anyone else, but if anyone caught them in the midst of a kiss, they didn’t try to hide it, either. He thought of the times she had broken up with him, and the make-up kisses they shared, make-up kisses that led further and further each time towards something more. Kayla had died a virgin, though, just as Paul was still. The times they had made up had seemed desperate, both of them for different reasons, and he wished he had known what it was that had caused her doubt each time.
If their relationship had been more steady, would she have been less likely to do . . whatever it was she had done?
Paul wasn’t even sure what she had done. Had someone approached her, or had she been looking for something? Something to take the edge off? No, she couldn’t have. He had never even heard of anyone selling or using heroin in their town before. He hadn’t seen anyone at the party who looked like a dealer, but he wasn’t sure what a dealer looked like. Someone rough, who didn’t fit in, maybe, someone older.
There had been a lot of older guys at the party, and Paul had been worried that one of them might have caught Kayla in a dark corner. Danny’s older brother had friends from college, but after everyone started drinking, anything could happen, and it usually did. Snapchat didn’t lie. He didn’t want Kayla to be a casualty of Danny’s back to school kegger, but his concern hadn’t been about drugs at all.
He was worried that he would find her wrestling one of the older guys off her, and had hoped that if it was the case, that he would get to her in time. She had been so tired all week, and he wasn’t sure she was in any shape to fight anyone for any reason. Her knee was keeping her up at night, even after the surgery, the physical therapy, and the rest these past few months, but after her doctor cut her off the pain meds, she had been miserable.
Her soccer coach had been pushing her to return to practices, but he could tell that her heart wasn’t in it. He understood her love for the sport, for the competition, because his affection
for basketball was the same. He wasn’t sure he would still love it if it had bit him like soccer had bit her, though, but he didn’t remember a time when he hadn’t played for any reason.
What would it be like, to be unable to play, even for fun?
He almost smiled at the idea, because he wasn’t going to do anything from now on, for any reason. He would just stay here in his bed, and wait for Kayla to come back to him.
Day Five
Thursday
The funeral home parking lot was full, and there was nowhere on the street that wasn’t taken. Sarah’s father drove slowly and carefully around the block and Sarah could see that he was becoming tense. He wasn’t very comfortable around funeral homes, and Sarah thought that as much as he had worked through his grief, he would never get over losing her mother.
It was sweet and sad at the same time, and she wondered how often people found a love like that. They hadn’t excluded her from their affection for each other, either, but rather had treated her as part of whatever it was they had had between themselves before she was born.
It felt like a secret club, where they all had each other’s backs. She would catch them staring at each other, or letting go of each other’s hands reluctantly when they had to part, but it wasn’t weird like she heard other kids complain when their parents were demonstrative.
She still missed her mother, but she knew it was different for her father. Her parents had loved each other for a long time before they married and she came into the picture, and there was a history that Sarah’s love and attention couldn’t make up for.
“You can just drop me off, Dad. Cass and her parents are here, so you don’t have to stay.”
Her father shook his head, his eyes focused on the road as he seemed to make a decision. He turned into a strip mall parking lot that had too many potholes and empty storefronts.
“This place needs to come down. Asking for trouble, in this condition.”
It was just something to say, Sarah knew, in the absence of anything that would make sense at the time.
“I know you don’t like to go to these things.”
He was quiet as he eased the car between the faded lines of a parking space, as if he didn’t have the entire pocked pavement to take as much room as he wished. Once the engine was off and he pulled the keys from the ignition, he sat for a few seconds before turning to Sarah.
“You’ve been friends with Kayla for as far back as you can remember, practically.”
She looked away. What did that have to do with her offer to stay with Cass, and give him a break from the reminder of her mother’s death?
“It’s hard now, I know that, but it will get worse. I just want you to be prepared, and to know that I’m here, and eventually . . .”
He sighed and she looked at him sideways, not wanting him to see that she was watching. He shook his head and reached for her hand. She opened it enough to allow his fingers to wrap around hers and curl into her palm.
“Let’s do this, kiddo.”
What in the hell kind of music was being piped into the hallway?
Cass couldn’t tell if it was opera or some sort of Broadway show tune, something like Phantom of the Opera but lower quality, and a lot of whining. Did Kay’s parents have a choice about what songs were played, or did the funeral director choose it?
Why was something like this even an option?
“Does anyone really consider this screeching music?”
One of Kay’s soccer teammates stepped up beside Cassidy, with several girls behind her. Stephanie and Kay hadn’t been close, but they had played well together and Cass knew that Steph had looked up to Kay as a leader and role model.
Everyone on the team respected Kay, but there were a few who envied her as well. Steph wasn’t one of them, so Cass didn’t feel uncomfortable when she suddenly appeared just as the singer wailed something incomprehensible.
“It’s pretty bad,” she offered. She didn’t know what else to say, because that pretty much covered more than the music. Steph had approached her, after all. Cass would have been happy sitting in a corner with Sarah all night, but Sarah wasn’t there yet.
She tucked her hand inside her purse and touched her phone, waiting until Steph spoke again before she planned to take it out to check and see if Sarah had texted her in the two minutes since she had last checked.
“So,” Steph began, looking at the girls who stood a few steps back, their eyes wandering around the hall nervously. They all wore green and white bows on clips in their hair, a nod, Cass knew, to the team. Their high school colors, team solidarity, all that group unity stuff.
It wasn’t Cass’s thing, but she knew how much Kay loved to play and to be part of the team, even when she was injured or tired, even when they lost.
“Failing builds character,” she would say with a false bravado, mimicking her father. Her coach would never have said anything positive about losing; he was as competitive as Kay was and his attitude only fueled her desire to win. The girls who were only in it for fun didn’t last long on the team once they reached high school.
Even those who made the cut after tryouts before ninth grade had a tough time sticking to it if they weren’t in it to be the best, so only those who were willing to knock themselves out kept at it.
“Who knew?”
Cass wasn’t sure which girl had spoken but it didn’t matter. She didn’t like the words, although it wasn’t clear what was meant. Nothing good, Cass thought, that’s what it meant. Steph turned a steely gaze towards a girl with a blonde ponytail tied high up on her head, her hair spilling down around her face in two long, yellow streaks.
She blinked, her eyes wide and questioning.
“What? I’m just saying, she seemed like she had it together.”
Cass took a step forward and pushed her shoulder against Steph without noticing. Steph put her hand on her arm but Cass ignored her touch.
“You’re just saying what, exactly?”
The girl glanced to Steph then tucked her head back away from Cass awkwardly, suddenly aware that she had said something offensive.
“I don’t mean . . .”
Cass raised an index finger to the girl’s face and opened her mouth, but before she made a sound she noticed Kayla’s little sister standing off to the side. Mia must have walked over when she saw Steph and the girls come in, Cass thought.
She lowered her arm and turned her attention to Mia, who looked concerned. Cass didn’t see Kay’s parents anywhere, and wondered why Mia was alone. She pushed around the girl with the big mouth and focused on Mia, who was watching her, her usually pink cheeks pale and her long, dark hair pulled back into a low, tangled ponytail.
Kay would have been upset to see her sister like this, Cass knew, and she reached out and touched the ends of Mia’s hair as she spoke.
“You need some help with this mop, doll?”
Mia closed the space between them, nearly leaping into Cass’s embrace, and Cass took a deep breath to hold off the tears. Mia wasn’t crying, but she was holding on to Cass as if her life depended on it, and Cass kept her arms tight around the small girl, her gaze moving upward to find Sarah and Sarah’s father walking through the automatic doors.
Sarah’s father didn’t look too good.
“Hey, here’s Sarah. Let’s go talk to her.”
Mia let go, and Cass could tell that she was reluctant to move away from her. Cass looked at Sarah before turning her attention to the rest of the hall, wondering, again, where Kay’s parents were and why they would have let Mia walk around by herself.