“She died right here, you know,” Melissa says, her voice wooden. “She was trying to get to her car.”
The car stands there patiently, waiting for me to answer, the red paint pulsing under the foreboding sky.
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
Because I am. Sorry. Sorry for her, sorry for me—sorry for us all. Not that it does anyone any good.
Her head whips around. Her long dark hair blows into her eyes and she brushes it away impatiently with her fingertips. “You’re sorry? That’s all you have to say?”
“I don’t know,” I mutter, looking away from her cold eyes. Something inside me wants to run, to turn abruptly and take off, feet sliding on the wet grass. But I stay. “What do you want me to say?”
She takes a step toward me, her expression distorted in anger, her face red and strained, the veins in her neck clearly visible beneath the skin.
“What do I want you to say?”
Everything is moving fast, too fast, and I take a step back, then another, my shoes hitting the curb, my arms reaching out into the air frantically before regaining my balance.
“What do I want you to say?” she repeats, grabbing my arm. Her touch burns like a naked flame. “I want to know why—why the fuck did he do it? Why?”
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?
She is shaking me, hands on my shoulders, my teeth banging together. I can’t move. Her eyes stare into mine, full of hatred, her spittle hitting my cheeks. I go limp in her grasp, my limbs collapsing in on themselves. Do it, I think. Tear me to pieces.
“You’re gonna let her get away with that?” Luke’s hot breath, a tickling like tiny ants crawling over my skin. I close my eyes, gritting my teeth to block him out, the scent of rotting flowers filling my throat.
“I don’t know,” I hear myself finally whisper. “I don’t know why.”
She stops, her face still close to mine, so close that I can see the tiny dots of sweat on her upper lip, the smeared black eyeliner on the left corner of her eyelid. She is breathing hard, and all at once she lets me go, releasing her hands from my shoulders and backing away. She looks down at her hands, holding them out from her body as if they don’t quite belong to her, as if she’s never seen them before.
“What the hell is going on?”
It’s Ben, even more beautiful than I remember. His dark hair is pushed back from his face, and his sudden, forceful intensity burns through the gloom in the sky above, vanquishing it. It is everything I can do not to sink to my knees at the very sight of him. I try to open my mouth but I cannot speak, can’t move. “It’s okay,” I manage to say, even though what’s going on at this moment is clearly pretty fucking far from anything that could even vaguely be considered okay.
“You’re going to stick up for her? Is that it? After what he did? Her piece-of-shit brother?” She crosses her arms over her breasts, her bottom lip pushed out in a sullen pout. Even exhausted, even with her dark clothes and lack of sleep, she is still beautiful standing there beneath the falling sky, her eyes like green leaves coated in dew, and I wonder if Ben notices, if he sees her the way I do right now, at this very moment. Beautiful. Tragic. Defiant.
“What he did,” Ben yells, stepping closer to her. “Not her!”
“Same difference,” Melissa scoffs.
“It is not, and you know it. Or if you don’t, you really should.” Ben points a finger at her chest, his jaw so tense that I can see the muscles working under the skin.
“I can’t believe that after what that murderer did to your family, you’re going to take her side.” Melissa shakes her head slowly, in disgust. “That’s just really pathetic.”
“I’m not taking sides,” Ben says, breathing deep. The tone is the one he always uses when he’s trying to get a grip on himself, rein in his emotions. “I’m just trying to move on. Just like you. Just like Alys—just like everyone else here.”
He grabs me by the hand, and at the touch of his skin, I almost cry out. The feel of his hand in mine is like climbing into a warm bed on a cold night, like diving off the end of a pier on a hot summer day and knowing for certain that the water will rise up to meet you, the cool, soft liquid cushioning your fall.
“C’mon,” he says, pulling me along with him. I follow him blindly as a child, one step behind.
We walk behind the school, Ben pulling me around the corner. No one follows us, for which I’m grateful. The back parking lot is full of cars, and for the first time I notice how cold I am, my cheeks frozen and numb from the wind that rakes across campus, the gale like millions of tiny needles hitting my skin. He leans against the brick wall, exhaling loudly, and drops my hand, our connection severed. He props one Converse sneaker up against the brick, shoving his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. I want to touch him, but I’m unsure. I want to pull his jacket apart and push my hands beneath the soft blue shirt he wears until I reach bare skin, slide my palms over the heat of his chest, kiss him until we don’t know where we are or what has happened, the world falling away.
But looking at the way he stares out over the parking lot, avoiding my face, I know that I can’t. That he won’t. That if I try, he will push me away, and it will hurt.
“Are you okay?” He doesn’t wait for my answer before continuing. “She was totally out of line.”
I am silent. Listening to my own heart beating under my clothes, the relentless thrum of it.
He turns his head to look at me sharply.
“You know she was, Alys.”
Now it’s my turn to look away. I am melting under the directness of his stare, those eyes so richly fringed with lashes that I’d often asked him jokingly if he was wearing mascara.
“I’m not so sure.” My voice wavers, and I brace myself to keep from crying, tensing the muscles in my body one by one.
“Nothing that happened was your fault.”
He says this forcefully, as if he really believes it, and I wonder how he can be so sure about me, about anything at all. Especially since Katie . . .
(Oh, Katie)
“I’m so sorry about . . .” I cannot finish. I cannot say her name aloud, in front of him. It seems obscene. “About everything.”
Ben sighs, shuffling his feet. “You don’t need to apologize, Alys. You didn’t do anything wrong. I told you.”
We watch as a car pulls into the parking lot, and the slamming of car doors echoes in the air. I watch as a flock of birds fly overhead, darting and dancing, their bodies aligned in a V.
“Then why can’t we . . .” My voice falls off, and in the quiet between us I’m aware of how silly my words sound, how shallow.
“Look, I’m just trying to get through the day, the next hour, the next five minutes. Every time I think about her, the way she . . .” He looks at me again, and this time I let him, even though it feels like a sword piercing my heart.
(died)
“I can’t take it. I break down all over again. It’s endless, you know? There’s no bottom.”
His eyes shimmer with tears, and I realize that in all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen Ben cry. Not even when he fell off his bike when he was eight, shattering his arm in two places, and Luke and I had to carry him home. Not even then.
I nod, my hand reaching out to touch his face, my fingers stopping inches from his skin and pulling back as if I’ve been burned. I cannot touch him. I know this. But the ache is there, taunting me like a phantom limb.
“We can’t . . . be like we were.” He says this slowly, the words precise. Exacting.
“Why not?”
Even though I know the answer, can predict what he will say, I have to ask, to hear him say it out loud. I close my eyes for a second before opening them again, waiting for the words that will lacerate what’s left of my heart.
“We j
ust can’t.” He shrugs his shoulders as if the question is too ridiculous to contemplate seriously. “I don’t blame you for anything—really, I don’t. But I can’t go back.”
I bite my lip and look up at the sky, willing myself not to cry. My chest throbs so intensely that I wonder for a second if I’m having a heart attack.
“I don’t want things to be like this,” I whisper, sniffing loudly, my lips swollen, my nose beginning to run in the cold air.
“I don’t either.”
“Then let’s not,” I say, my hands working without my permission as I finally reach out and pull him to me, my lips finding his. All I want is him, and for just this once, the need overpowers my fear. For a split second, his mouth opens, his tongue touching mine with a groan that seems to come all the way from the deep recesses of his body before he shoves me away, wiping his mouth roughly on the sleeve of his jacket. And with that one action, something stops dead in me and hardens, crystallizing.
Just like that, he wipes me away.
“Goddammit, Alys, what did I just say? We can’t do this anymore. I can’t. It has to end. My sister is dead. She’s dead and she’s never coming back. And Luke . . .” He breaks off, unable to go on. Tears fall from the corners of his eyes onto his jacket, and he drops his head. I want to put my arms around him and hold on tight, but I can’t. His body, so familiar, is now off-limits. Contraband.
“His loss,” Luke whispers, a smug satisfaction coloring his voice. “I always thought you could do a lot better . . .”
I ignore him and force myself to stay in the moment, here with Ben.
“I’m sorry,” I say for what feels like the millionth time. I know, even as my mouth forms the words, that I will say them for the rest of my life. Forever. That there will never be a time when I am not, in some small way, apologizing for the damage my brother has wrought. Luke is dead too, like Katie, I know, but this makes no difference. My grief will always be less important.
We stand there as the first bell rings, signaling that the day has officially begun, listening to the shuffling of feet as people make their way inside the building, the creaking of the front door of the school as it opens and shuts, my eyes focused on the clouds beginning to break up and dissipate on the horizon. Ben and I stand together, side by side, so close we could reach out and touch each other easily—so easily. An uncharted vista of barren tundra stands between us, patiently waiting, our hearts stranded miles apart.
FOUR
Somehow, I make it through the first two tracks of the day, ducking into the girls’ bathroom between classes to hide in the stalls, leaning my forehead against the blessedly cool metal wall, Ben’s anguished face filling my mind each time I shut my eyes, his hands pushing me away roughly. I can still feel his touch on my skin, and I rub my arms distractedly, pretending they are his hands, his fingers curled around my bones.
At lunch, I stand awkwardly in the cafeteria, balancing a Coke and a bag of pretzels on an orange tray, unsure of where to go or who to sit with. It feels strange not to be sitting with Delilah on the steps outside in the quad, tilting our faces up to the sunlight, talking so fast that we run out of air, inhaling in deep gasps between sentences. Practicing in the music room, deserted at lunchtime, the violin warm in my hands, almost alive, breathing in time with the notes that fall from my fingers. Sneaking off campus with Ben, popping French fries into his open mouth in between kisses. My stomach hurts, remembering these things, and the air in the cafeteria smells of the slightly rancid stink of hot dogs and baked beans. People stare at me as I stand there, and I try to act like I don’t care, my face impassive. Finally, I ditch the stupid tray and just carry the soda and pretzels in my hands and walk out of the cafeteria, stopping at the stairwell next to the gym, sitting down on the cold steps. Even though I’m thirsty, I don’t open the can. I just sit there in the quiet of the stairwell, listening to the clatter of the cafeteria just beyond, my stomach gnawing and churning in a way that is anything but gentle. I know I need to eat, but I cannot bring myself to tear open the bag, imagining the pretzels turning to dust on my tongue, sticking to my molars like a strange, bready adhesive.
“Hey.”
A voice reverberates from somewhere behind me, and I twist around, craning my neck. A boy stands at the top of the stairs, looming over me, his hair outlined in a golden glow from the light coming through the window behind him, a backpack slung over one shoulder. He makes his way down, his long legs moving quickly.
“What’s up?” Riley sits next to me, folding his lanky body like an accordion.
“Oh, you know,” I say, reaching over and finally opening my Coke. “The usual: math and history—followed by lunch and total social annihilation.”
Riley laughs, reaching into his backpack and pulling out a sandwich. I picture his mother in the kitchen early this morning, carefully mitigating the thick spread with rivers of deep grape jelly, the sky still shimmering with the last flicker of stars.
“Yeah,” he says, pulling the plastic wrap aside and taking a huge bite. “Things haven’t been that great on my end either.”
“Like how?” I pick up the bag of pretzels and think for a minute about opening it, then put it down again.
“Either people won’t talk to me at all, or if they do—”
“They just want to know if you knew anything, right?” I finish the thought before the words can leave his lips. “If you saw it coming.”
Riley nods, his mouth full and sticky. He reaches over and grabs my Coke, swigging a mouthful of fizzy liquid. He wipes his lips on the back of his hand, and I can see that his sandwich is already almost a memory. Guess all the drama isn’t hurting his appetite any.
“And Janelle broke up with me last night, in a fucking text, so there’s that.”
Janelle and Riley have been dating since the middle of their junior year. All I know about Janelle is that she’s some kind of insanely talented gymnast. Whenever I see her, the word severe comes to mind—she walks through the halls with extreme concentration, as if she’s perched high up on a balance beam competing for the gold. I want to ask what happened, but something in his face tells me not to. He crumples up the plastic wrap and shoves it into his bag, removing a small package of cookies.
“Whatever,” he says, shrugging and pulling the cookies open. “We’re graduating soon anyway.”
Whatever that means. In boy-speak it probably works out to a combination of I’m hungry and I’m going to pretend I don’t give a crap.
“What about college?” I ask, changing the subject.
“What about it?” he answers with a snort, slightly defensive. He reaches in and grabs a cookie, looking at it for a minute, turning it over in his hand before taking a bite.
“Are you excited?” Riley doesn’t answer, just chews as if he wants to pulverize the cookie completely, the muscles in his jaw tensed beneath his skin.
Riley won a basketball scholarship to Penn State in November, full ride all four years. I remember the day he found out, how I’d opened the front door to find him standing there, waving the acceptance e-mail he’d printed out like a flag. I can still hear the whoop Luke let out as he bounded down the stairs, pushing me out of the way, the hard slapping sounds of their hands against each other’s backs.
“It all just seems like such bullshit now—after everything that’s happened. I mean, what’s the point?” Riley swallows the cookie, having inhaled it in two bites. “So I go to college, play ball, get a good job when I get out so I can move up in the world?” His tone is full of mocking condescension. “Marry some chick I can’t stand the sight of after a few years, and watch as she pops out a couple of kids I never see ’cause I’m working all the time—just like my dad. Then, after about twenty years, they’ll give me a gold watch and I’ll retire, drop dead of a heart attack as I’m dragging the trash to the curb one morning.” He stops, looking me in the face. “What’s the fucking p
oint of it all, anyway?”
I’ve never seen Riley this angry. Riley is always, if nothing else, easygoing. If I had to use one phrase to describe him, it would probably be laid-back.
“I mean, Luke got into MIT,” he continues, the plastic bag crinkling in his hands loudly, echoing in the stairwell, “and where did it get him?” He looks at me almost accusingly, waiting for some kind of answer.
“You’re not Luke, Riley,” I say quietly, dropping my eyes to the floor.
There is silence as I try to think of what to say next, coming up as empty as the white wall behind me.
“You doing okay?” He keeps his eyes forward as he asks the question, his tone nonchalant—deliberately so. “You never texted me back.”
“I guess,” I say as he holds out the bag of cookies to me. I reach in and take one. “Not really. Not at all, actually. Melissa Anderson cornered me in the parking lot earlier, demanding some kind of answer. Like I have one.”
The cookie is chocolate chip. It lies, small, dry, and crunchy, in the palm of my hand. Its brownness is reassuring somehow, the chips studding the surface like tiny moles. It smells of comfort, of family, of Luke and I fighting over cookie dough on late Sunday afternoons when we were little, a yellow ceramic bowl between us, sugar crystals spilled over the counter.
“Seriously?” Riley shoots me a look of incredulity laced with irritation.
I nod, biting into the cookie, which breaks apart like sawdust on my tongue.
“Well, that was pretty screwed up,” he muses, licking the crumbs from his lips.
“I don’t know,” I say slowly. “I’m not so sure.”
(—Kitty Ellison sprawled on the asphalt, the back of her blond head a star shot out—)
Riley swallows hard, his Adam’s apple moving fluidly.
“I’m not even gonna dignify that with a response,” he says finally, pushing the bag over to me, the plastic rustling like fire. “You should eat something.” I ignore it and we sit there mutely for a while, his body so close to mine that I can smell soap mixed with the sharp tang of sweat.
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