by Cat Patrick
No answer.
Maybe I called a cab; maybe it just showed up. I don’t really remember. I give the driver the McKeans’ address and remind myself to breathe the whole way there. I look down at my lap and realize that I’m wearing a pair of Audrey’s jeans. I fold forward and sob silently for the duration of the ride. Lucky for him, the taxi driver doesn’t look at me or ask whether I’m all right.
The Mini sits in front of the McKeans’ house, smiling and waiting to beep beep around town with Audrey at the wheel. I want to kick the car or drag my key through the paint: It’s too happy.
Matt answers my knock but says nothing. He opens the door wider so I can come in, and I do, even though I’m pretty sure he doesn’t really want me to. I follow him to his bedroom, not caring who’s home or who minds.
“I don’t know why you’re here,” he says when we both sit down on his rumpled bed. This is the first time I’ve ever been in his room.
“I didn’t want to be alone,” I say honestly. I have no filter anymore. “And I wanted to know what happened. Did you do it?”
“Yes.” He’s looking across the room with flat, emotionless eyes.
“And?”
“And nothing,” he says. “I injected it into her IV less than five minutes after they called time of death.”
“And?” I ask again, as gently as I can. Matt’s head snaps in my direction so quickly that it makes me jump.
“And what, Daisy?” he hisses. “What the hell do you think? Does it look like Audrey’s sitting next to me right now?”
His hand is gripping the bedspread like he’s afraid he’ll fall off.
“I’m sorry I came,” I say, standing. “And I’m sorry it didn’t work.”
“I’m sure you are,” Matt mutters. My blood boils and all I want to do is scream at him. Tell him that I loved his sister, that I love him. Shake him and say maybe he did it wrong. Wrap my arms around him and lie on his bed and cry with him.
Instead, I leave.
An hour later, Matt’s on my doorstep. He’s sweaty and I wonder if it’s possible that he ran all the way here. I let him in and we go upstairs to my room. It’s exactly the same as when I went to his house, but in reverse.
Except it isn’t.
We don’t say a word to each other. I walk into my room first and he follows; halfway across the floor, he catches my hand and spins me around. He grabs my face in his hands and kisses me, unsure for a moment, then hard, aggressive, but nothing I don’t want him to do. I feel like I’m drawing out his pain like venom from a rattlesnake bite and, for a few minutes, it makes me forget my own misery.
We fall onto my bed and hold each other so tightly that our hands can’t really move to explore body parts or anything. Besides, this isn’t about moving through the bases. This is so much more than that.
Clothes are somehow undone, and we’re so close to…
Matt abruptly pushes back and stands. His jeans are unbuttoned and his T-shirt is rumpled and stretched out. His hair is wild, covering his left eye completely. I can only see the tears welling up in his right.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says with a voice so pained it burns me. “I don’t know whether to hold you or hate you.”
I’m stunned into silence. Matt turns toward the door. “I have to go.”
And he leaves like that, disheveled, but I don’t say anything. He might run into Mason on the way out—who knows when he’ll be back—or scare mothers pushing babies on the street. But I don’t care what Matt looks like right now, and I know he doesn’t, either. Because when someone dies—dies for real—things like how you look don’t matter anymore.
In fact, what no one ever told me is that nothing does.
thirty-one
I stare at the ceiling of my bedroom, thinking or not thinking, floating or just lying there. I might have been at Matt’s three days or three hours ago: Time passes in odd increments. The lamp on my nightstand buzzes so loudly I want to smash it but I’m numb all over. My arms are glued to the bed. I look at my phone and register the time; the instant I look away, it’s gone from my memory.
Mason’s back.
Cassie’s back.
Someone brings me food that I don’t eat. Instead, I examine it like a fossil, drawing conclusions from the plate’s contents. The dish contains breakfast: It must be morning. There are blueberry pancakes: Mason’s concerned. There’s a vitamin on the tray: He’s really concerned.
The second I start to feel amused by my archaeological approach, I remember that Audrey is dead. I’m sitting here counting the number of grapes on my plate like tree rings and Audrey will never eat breakfast again.
Suddenly blueberry pancakes are an insult.
I shove the tray to the end of my bed. I roll onto my side and clutch my torso and curl into the fetal position because it’s too much. She’s not going to pick me up for school. I’m not going to meet her for lunch. She’s not going to tease me about liking her brother or about my taste in music, or lend me clothes or talk about Bear or Jake or anyone else.
She’s dead.
My phone rings; it’s Megan’s tone. I don’t answer it. I don’t even look at it. Anger rolls through me: I shouldn’t have been in Seattle when Audrey was dying. I should have known something was up. I should have stayed.
My chest caves in; my heart is crushed. I try to psychically ask Matt to come over and lie next to me. But not to kiss me or anything. Just to lie here. I imagine him staring into my eyes like in Kansas City, but all I can see are his tears for his dead sister.
I cover my head with my pillow, but the thoughts are still there.
I wonder if they’ll ever go away.
I stay in bed until nighttime, then wander the house in the dark. For hours, I stare out the living room window at the desolate street, hoping to see Audrey’s ghost there, waving at me. I retreat into my sour, stale room before anyone wakes up in the morning. I listen to showers running. To breakfast being made. My phone buzzes so many times that I turn it off. Mason brings more food; the hunger strike continues.
“You need to get up,” Mason says. He walks across the room and throws open the curtains. He opens the window and the fresh outside air stings my nostrils.
“No,” I mutter.
“You’ll feel better after a shower,” he says.
I laugh bitterly. As if a shower could wash away the pain of losing Audrey. “Not likely.”
“Your choice,” Mason says, moving to the door again. “We’re leaving for her funeral in an hour.”
Of course, I get up.
I stand on shaky legs like a newborn fawn and hobble across the room. I can feel the lack of fuel in my body, but the thought of food makes me want to hurl. I grab clean underwear from the dresser then check my phone, which is charging on the desk. There are several missed calls from Megan; there’s a text waiting from Matt:
Matt: I’m sorry.
Just two words, and yet, they are monumental.
They give me enough kick to move.
I shower and dry my hair, then pin back my curls in the front. I stare at my blue eyes in the mirror for a long time, searching for recognition. My face doesn’t look the same anymore.
I go back into my room and pull on a black skirt of Audrey’s.
It might seem weird to wear a dead girl’s clothes to her funeral, but to me, it feels okay. She was free with her stuff, and half the clothes in my closet are probably hers. And besides that, there’s the note.
Mr. McKean brought it over the night she died. It seemed an odd delivery at the time—why not stay with your family?—but then I realized he probably needed to keep busy so he wouldn’t be forced to sit and think about Audrey. He’s like one of those sharks that will die if they stop moving. So he brought over the note.
I pick it up off the nightstand and run my fingers over Audrey’s straight-up-and-down cursive. It looks so much like her to me. I reread the first half of the letter.
Daisy—
&nb
sp; Promise you’ll do two things for me.
The first is easy: Take my clothes. ALL OF THEM. Even if you throw them away, get them out of our house (but I have pretty good taste—haha!—so you should just keep them).
You’ve seen those people who can’t let go. They sob over old T-shirts that aren’t worth anything. My mom is a pack rat; she’ll obsess. My ugliest pajamas will break her heart. Take them, Daisy. Do it for me (and for your wardrobe ).
There is a knock at the bedroom door.
“Almost ready?” Cassie says quietly. Her tone is less robotic, more like how she acts when we’re in public.
“Yes,” I answer. I fold the letter and put it in my pocket, slip on some flats, and open the door.
“You look nice,” Cassie says.
I don’t care.
For a girl who, according to her brother, didn’t have many friends, Audrey’s funeral service is packed. I can’t help but wonder whether school let out early for attending kids. Then I imagine Audrey’s ghost reading my mind and immediately feel like crap for thinking that.
I inhale a breath of musty old church air. It’s a good turnout, I mentally say to Audrey, as if she can hear me. Everyone loved you.
I’ve never been to a funeral, so I have no basis for saying that this one seems typical. I don’t cry, because when dozens of Audrey’s classmates stand and talk about her, they cry enough for all of us. They sob. They weep. Dramatically, they proclaim to the sky that they will miss their best friend. Meanwhile, I think back to Audrey’s room. I think of the faces in the pictures on her desk. I recognize very few faces here.
Again I feel awful for thinking such thoughts.
After the service, we caravan to a nearby cemetery. The day is bright, like Audrey’s personality. The vibrant orange and red fall trees and the towering monuments look earthy and polished at the same time, just like my friend was. Everyone gathers around her grave; I try to listen and feel something without passing out from the lack of food. It’s only a warm day, not too hot, but I’m sweating just the same, wishing that Audrey were here to make a joke about me forgetting to wear deodorant.
The crowd disperses following the burial, and very quickly the only people left are the preacher, the McKeans, and us. Matt stands apart from his parents, staring at his sister’s grave. Mason and Cassie wait for Mr. and Mrs. McKean to thank the preacher, and then they offer their condolences. I watch Mason put his hand on Cassie’s back like a loving husband and want to scream for him to stop pretending. Because this is real.
I look at Matt and imagine that I can see a halo of pain radiating from him. Despite everything, I know I love him.
Without thinking about it, I walk over, stand beside him, and grab his hand.
My eyes stay on Audrey’s casket. I don’t look to see for sure, but I assume Matt’s do, too. He doesn’t pull away; he holds tight and doesn’t let go. What we both need is each other.
We stand like that, staring, forever. With her brother next to me, without the crying fakers pretending to be her friends, I let myself really feel the loss. I feel it in every part of me: in my hair and in my toes. I feel it like something is rotting deep down in my core, releasing bitterness and anger and pure sadness into my veins.
Standing here, holding Matt’s hand, I want to say so many things to him. I want to tell him that I’m so sorry. I want to say that I feel horrible that Revive didn’t work. I want to say that I love him and that I want to take all of his pain away.
But I can’t. I can’t speak. And I can’t take Matt’s pain, because I have too much of my own, and I have no place to put his.
As if it’s mimicking my emotions, the afternoon sky clouds over. It smells like rain is on the way. I break from my trance and look to the clouds.
Are you up there? I think to Audrey. Nothing happens.
Because she’s dead.
Dead.
I think of what that really means.
It is not like being gone—like my real parents or the nuns or people in the cities we had to leave—because gone implies that you can come back if you really want to. Contrary to what I may have been taught, there’s no coming back from death. Not really. Someday, I’ll die for good. And then I’ll be like Audrey.
Not gone.
Dead.
I shudder at the thought, and Matt squeezes my hand tighter.
I look back to earth and the gravesite. Only then do I realize that Matt and I are alone. I look at him.
His eyes are on me.
“Hi,” he says, as if he’s seeing me for the first time. He looks down at our clasped hands and smiles, and then moves his gaze back to my eyes.
“Hi,” I say back to the boy I never want to leave.
“I’m really sorry,” Matt says.
“Me, too.”
Eventually, we leave the cemetery. We drive in heavy silence to Matt’s house. Cars are parked everywhere: in the driveway and out front, across the street and around the corner. Matt eases into a small space down the street and as we approach on foot, I try not to look at Audrey’s happy car.
Inside, there are piles of food on every available surface, and every room is crowded with people wearing black and navy blue, talking in hushed, respectful tones as if they’re afraid they’re going to wake the dead. I feel like I have cotton in my ears: When people talk to me, I have to ask them to repeat themselves.
“What?” I ask Mason after he mumbles something to me.
“I asked if you’d like some food,” he says, looking at me with concern.
“Oh.”
My thoughts snag on something I don’t remember five seconds after I think it, and when I look back at Mason, he’s not there. I’m not sure whether or not I answered his question. Maybe he’s gone to get food; maybe he’s just gone.
I stand in one spot until I start to feel paralyzed, then I move to make sure I still can. That’s when I realize that Matt and I are never more than a few steps away from each other. After we arrived, we split up, but we never really split apart. Bound by an invisible chain, I move into the kitchen, thirsty, and he’s already there, his nose in the refrigerator. He sits on the sofa and I check out the photos on the living room walls. I lean against the piano, desperate for this day to be done, and he lightly brushes my shoulder as he passes. I realize that we’re giving each other strength using all we’ve got left: our presence.
Matt is sitting on the hearth across the room when Mason walks up and tells me that it’s time to go. I’m beyond exhausted, and it could be eight or midnight: Either would make sense in my new, strange world.
Fifteen feet between us, Matt and I stare at each other, neither of us moving but both of us knowing it’s going to get more difficult before it gets better.
“Okay,” I say, still watching Matt. I’ll see him at school when he comes back. But it will be different. Leaving now feels like saying goodbye to our old selves, to anything light and carefree.
Goodbye, halcyon.
My eyes well up with tears, and they stay locked on Matt’s until I reach the doorway of the room and am forced to turn a corner. Even when I look away, I can feel his stare. I’m not sure how my feet are capable of walking away, but they do, and when I reach the back of the SUV, I collapse on the seat and fall asleep in an instant. Mason zombie-walks me into the house when we arrive, and I sleep in my funeral clothes, even my shoes.
thirty-two
Four days later, I shoot upright in bed at four in the morning. Heart thundering in my chest, I listen for signs of what startled me awake. There is movement downstairs: I hear two pairs of footsteps rushing around the house.
I jump out of bed and run down to the lab to see what’s going on.
“Go back to bed,” Mason says when he sees me. “Everything’s okay.”
“What are you doing?” I ask. My heart sinks when I see him standing beside the black case.
“God wants us to try something,” he says. He looks incredibly uneasy. Cassie shakes her head as she leaf
s through a file.
“Where are those forms?” she asks.
“I’m not sure we’ll need them,” Mason says quietly. “How many vials do you think we should bring?”
“The most we’ll use is three, but bring five to be safe.”
“What are you going to try?” I ask.
“There’s been a car crash,” he says. “A man coming home from a night shift,” he explains in broken sentences like he’s preoccupied. “A janitor. Car’s totaled. God wants us to try to Revive him.”
“But it hasn’t worked on adults,” I say, shocked.
“I know,” he says. “Not yet, but they’ve made improvements.”
Not enough, I think.
“And it’s the middle of the night,” I continue.
“I know.”
“And the test group is only the bus kids, and—”
“I know!” Mason shouts. He flips around and stares at me. He looks angry, but somehow I know it’s not really directed at me. “Don’t you think I know all of this? The program is supposed to be controlled. It’s not supposed to be like this. Now he expects us to…” He stops talking midsentence and takes a deep breath. “It’s going to be fine, Daisy,” he says. “We heard on the scanner that the locals are on the way. If we don’t make it before they do, we won’t be able to try it.”
I watch as Mason goes through the process that opens the Revive case, as his hand moves to choose five vials from the fifty. Wildly, my eyes flit over the vials. Forty-nine of them might save this man; the one filled with water most definitely will not. My temperature rises. I don’t remember which one it was. I think it was somewhere in the—
“Don’t take that one,” I blurt out without thinking. Mason’s hand freezes in midair. Cassie and Mason both turn to face me, their expressions shifting from confusion to shock to anger.
“Why not?” Mason asks.
I don’t speak.
“Why shouldn’t we take that one?” he asks again.