“Yes, sir.” I look him straight in the eye this time. Then I enter the bus, grateful to be welcomed in by its warmth and loudness.
The lights are off, shrouding my rowdy teammates in shadows. I scan the seats for Jenny and sigh heavily when I can’t find her. I’m jonesing for my Dr. Pepper. “Jenny!” I think I see her head in the back when Lea pulls me into a seat next to her. The windows are fogged from all the breathing. I drop Jenny’s bag and zip out of my heavy jacket.
“Oh my God. We almost got killed!” Lea says, being her overly dramatic self.
“¡Eres una reina del drama!” I say.
“What? English, por favor.”
“I said you’re such a drama queen. ¡Ay, Dios mío!” I throw my head back and place a hand over my heart.
“Well, I do like telenovelas.” She blows a super large bubble in my face, and I pop it with my finger. “Hey!” She sucks it off her lips.
I laugh and glance around the bus for Jenny. She’s certainly taking her time.
Amber sits across the aisle, eating pretzels. “Awesome playing tonight.”
“You too,” I say, lying. It wasn’t one of her best games. “Hey, do you know where Jenny is?”
Amber points to the rear of the bus, where the noise is even louder. “I think she’s back there.”
I look, but I still don’t see Jenny. Instead, my eyes land on a few sophomores who sit in the middle seats sharing potato chips and drinking sodas. I get lost watching them. This will be the last year I ride in this crazy, fun-filled bus. Don’t get sad, I tell myself. A loud pop grabs my attention. It sounds like fireworks.
“Was that a gun shot?” someone asks.
All eyes turn toward the fogged windows. I wipe at the glass and see a shadow of a car speed away from the store. I wonder why its headlights are off.
“Quiet!” Coach Prudenti yells as he also looks out the window.
Lea asks me a question.
I don’t hear her. I move into the aisle. “Where’s Jenny?”
The bus driver enters from the outside. He exchanges a few words with Coach Sheehan. Again, my eyes frantically search the bus.
Lea watches me. “What’s wrong?”
“Jenny… she’s not on the bus.” My hand pinches the leather seat, and with each face I look at that is not Jenny’s, the air becomes harder and harder to breathe. I start to panic. “Has anyone seen my sister?”
I spin around, push to the front of the bus, and Coach Prudenti stops me from exiting. “Let go of me!” I fight like an animal until finally I’m able to break free of his grasp. I run out of the bus and sprint across the street, insane with fear. The store is a small brick building with a dirt parking lot.
“Alex! Alex!” Coach Prudenti chases after me.
I don’t slow down. I burst open the heavy glass door. Please, God! Please! Let Jenny be okay! I scream inside my head. A male body, in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, is face down on the floor, arms spread to the sides, a pool of blood spreading out from underneath his cocked head. Coach Prudenti enters behind me.
“Call 9-1-1!” I yell.
He tries to hold onto me. “Alex!”
I throw his hand aside. Cigarettes and candy litter the floor. I race down an aisle. “Jenny!” I scream. Boxes of household items surround and suffocate me. I beg Jenny to answer. Please, God! Please!
I turn the corner, and my heart stops. Jenny lies on the ground, looking right at me with a petrified stare. And that’s when I see it—a blossoming circle of red on the front of her white jacket. I bolt toward her.
“I’m here! I got you!” I kneel down beside Jenny. She grips my arm, and her hands are covered in blood. “It’s okay! I got you!” I gently remove the plugs of her iPod, which are still trapped in her ears. I hear Coach on his phone, yelling out our location. “Hurry!” I scream. Jenny’s skin is pale and cold. She is clearly in shock. Coach hangs up the call and carefully opens Jenny’s jacket. Her game shirt is drenched in blood.
“An ambulance is on the way. You’re gonna be okay,” he says in a shaky voice. He pulls off his sweatshirt and holds it over her wound. Jenny screams in pain and cries as Coach tries to keep the blood from escaping.
I hold her hands. “You’re gonna be fine!” I promise her. But Jenny’s frightened eyes make me doubt my words. She looks so small and scared.
“You’re doing great, baby. Hang in there,” Coach says.
Please, God. Help my sister!
“Alex…” she whispers, fighting to breathe.
I hold her eyes. “I’m here. You’re gonna be okay. I promise.” I force my lips into a smile and choke back my tears, trying to keep the fear from registering on my face. I start to babble, hoping it will keep Jenny calm. “You played so great tonight. We wouldn’t have won if it weren’t for you. It wasn’t Lea’s big ass that made me get that ball. It was you.”
She almost laughs, and I see the faintest smile emerge on her lips.
“One of your best games. And next year… next year you’re a starter… no doubt.”
On the ground is a Dr. Pepper bottle, and I hate myself for it.
“You’re doing great, Jenny,” Coach repeats.
But she isn’t. She looks like chalk. Like a ghost. Her clothes are covered in blood. I wonder where the hell the ambulance is. What is taking so long? But only a minute or two has passed. I kiss Jenny’s head. “I love you.”
Then Jenny shivers in pain and struggles to breathe. Her gaze holds onto mine.
I cry. “Jenny, you fight! You fight!”
She grips my hands, desperate. Her eyes beg me to do something, but there is nothing I can do. I feel so helpless. So fucking helpless!
“Jenny, please don’t leave me! You fight… hang on.” I cradle her in my arms like I did when she was two and I was four, pretending she was my own child. I kiss her cheek. “Love you, mean it…” I say those words over and over. “Love you, mean it…”
Tears drip from my eyes. Chin. Mouth. They drown me. I shake my head no. I pretend this is not happening. But Jenny’s body remains still, and for what seems like forever, I stare into my sister’s beautiful blue eyes. I feel Coach’s hand on my back. A strangled cry rises from my throat. I scream a horrific “No!”
There will not be a next year.
Chapter 3
My iPhone alarm goes off, and I open my eyes, already dreading the day. I try to ignore the endlessly chirpy sound until, a minute later, I surrender and sit up in bed. I silence the alarm with a swipe of my finger. I hate mornings. Mornings are the absolute worst. I think mornings are the worst for anyone, but add a dead sister, and they become ruthlessly unbearable.
I squirm to the edge of my bed, and as soon as my bare feet touch the hardwood floor, I’m paralyzed. A tingle of icy air blows onto my unpolished toes from an open vent a few feet away. Whether it’s fatigue or depression, I’m tired, so I take a moment to rest. I’m surrounded by purple, a color I regretted picking out as soon as the paint hit the walls. Above my head is a fish net. Other than that, my room is pretty bare. I stare at a photo of Jenny and me on a dresser. She’s smiling as if to say, “You idiot.” I sigh and remain in place until the thoughts in my head get so punishing that the only way to escape them is to move.
I push off the bed and get moving, but it does little to help me escape the feelings buried inside me: pain and sadness—two unwanted guests that follow me everywhere I go. To the bathroom. To school. To where I’m crowded by others. Or when I’m alone. They never leave, and I desperately want them to leave. I desperately want Jenny to be alive. But she is gone. And I am here. And here hurts.
It’s been six months since Jenny died. She was shot with a .22 caliber gun. The store clerk was killed with a different gun. His name was Jose Gutierrez, and he was married and had two small children. Their deaths were ruled homicides during a robbery.
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I grab a bottle of Zoloft off a dresser and pop open the lid. I’ve missed most of the second half of the school year and have been on antidepressants since Jenny’s death. I swallow one of the little blue pills without water. I don’t think these antidepressants help because each step I take feels like a thousand pounds.
I walk past my parents’ closed bedroom door and step into the bathroom. Things are so much different than they used to be. Before, when I woke up, Jenny would already be in the shower, door locked, music blasting. I’d have to pound on the door for what felt like forever before she’d open up to let me in to pee. Our mother, who probably won’t get out of bed any earlier than noon today, would’ve already had coffee with my dad, sent him off to catch his train into the city, and made our lunches for the day. Then ten minutes before Jenny and I needed to leave for school, Mom would start yelling up to us from the kitchen that we were going to be late. Now the house is painfully quiet without even the smell of coffee to keep me company.
I wash my face, brush my teeth, and in less than five minutes, I’m wearing my usual school uniform—jeans and a white tee. I head straight from my bedroom, down the stairs, and out the front door. It isn’t until I’m driving away in my Jeep Wrangler that I realize I’m wearing two different Converse sneakers.
I arrive in the school’s parking lot, and every spot is taken, except for a narrow one at the very end of the first row, facing the football field. It’s too tight for anyone, except if you drive a Jeep, so I wheel over the curb and park halfway in the spot. I grab my backpack and head toward the entrance door closest to my first-period class.
Another kid running late tosses open the glass door, and I trail in behind him. I pass rows of lockers. Hanging above my head is a huge white banner with orange lettering, which reads Congratulations, Seniors—You’ve Made It! I turn the corner, and a herd of faces rushes past me. I’m surrounded by voices and laughter. A gym teacher smiles and asks me how I am.
“Good.”
My token answer is always “good.” I am anything but good.
A bell rings, and I’m seated in my Advanced Spanish class. The teachers have been taking it easy on me since Jenny’s death. Sometimes I complete my homework, and sometimes I don’t. They politely ask me to finish. But I never do, and they never ask again.
I pay mild attention as our Spanish teacher, Mr. Reddick, scribbles a bunch of numbers and words onto the blackboard in perfect alignment. He wears a bright-red button-down shirt with a tie and shiny loafers. Finished, he places the chalk on his desk and addresses the class. It’s a semi-privileged bunch of seniors. Most own iPhones, iPads, and expensive handbags and drive cars that their parents paid for. Some have jobs, others don’t, but everyone, with the exception of maybe me, is going away to college.
Jay is in this class with me. He’s a big guy with broad shoulders, and he used to bargain shop at T.J.Maxx. It closed, and now he shops at Marshalls. He hates to pay full price, but mostly it’s because, unlike every other spoiled kid in this class, Jay’s parents don’t pay for anything—car, phone, nothing. The poor guy even has to fork over his own dough to buy himself lunch. He rubs his kneecap and stretches out his ginormous leg. Jay was the starting shortstop of our high school baseball team until he tore his ACL. I see him watching me. He knows I’m depressed and wants to help. But he can’t save me. No one can.
Mr. Reddick tells the class that the final exam will be in two weeks. “Chapters Eleven through Fifteen and everything from the first half of the year,” he says in Spanish. Moans follow.
Tyler O’Connor, a ridiculously smart stoner with tats, speaks up from the back row in English. “Aw, come on, can’t you give us a break?”
Mr. Reddick smiles. “No one’s going to give you a break in college, now are they, Mr. O’Connor?”
Tyler responds with a roll of his eyes. You’d never know it by looking at Tyler, but he got into Yale.
Forty-five minutes later, the bell rings. The class rises and hurries to exit. I’m still sitting at my desk, slowly gathering my books. Jay waits for me by the door.
“Jay, you coming or what?” His best friend, Reed, a guy he’s known since he was eight years old, yells at him.
I take my time, grateful when I see Jay follow Reed. Moments later, I walk out of the classroom and into a less-crowded hallway. Carly Williams, one of the more popular band geeks, hammers away on her iPhone, head down, while others I don’t recognize scroll through Instagram and Twitter. The thought of going on either one makes my stomach turn.
I keep walking, and the hallway empties. A few pounding feet carry students into classrooms. I approach the room I’m supposed to be in—Advanced Chem. My teacher, Mrs. Cohen, stands outside the door. “How are you, Alex?”
“Good.” I walk past her and take my seat.
I ditch school an hour early and speed out of the parking lot, dreading what awaits me at home. My mother has gotten drunk every day since Jenny’s death. Her drinking was never unusual, but it was reserved for weekends. Now, I can’t remember the last time my mother took a sober breath.
I drive down Monmouth Road, a pretty, tree-lined street, passing modest homes, a few white-steeple churches, and a quaint little post office. Middletown isn’t a wealthy town, but it’s a respectable place to live. My favorite part about it is that the nearest beach is only fifteen minutes away, and it only takes an hour to get into New York City by train. My mother used to say it’s a place where you can leave your doors unlocked at night, even though we never did.
Most of the time growing up, I found Middletown boring. I suffered from what I like to call “anywhere but here” syndrome. I often fantasized about escaping Middletown by flying away on my bicycle and traveling through the clouds and landing somewhere exciting like the mountains of Alaska or on a horse ranch in Montana, someplace vastly different from this ordinary suburban town—unless, of course, I was playing sports. I never wanted to escape then, maybe because sports occupied my mind so well or maybe because they made me feel good about myself. Either way, if I really think about it, I’m not too sure Middletown was ever the problem.
I turn off Monmouth and onto Harmony Road. Soon, I am driving down our street. I’m grateful none of our neighbors are outside their homes as I pull into our driveway and park directly in front of the basketball pole. My dad put it up when I was in the sixth grade and Jenny was in fourth. It reminds me of Jenny, but then again, everything reminds me of her.
Our house is like all the others on our block: double-storied with three pillars. However, unlike most of our neighbors, we have an in-ground pool in the backyard, and our lawn is immaculate. There is not a weed to be found or a shrub untrimmed. My father is relentless in the yard. I think it’s his way of escaping—to keep moving, to keep fixing things. The roof. The hedges. The lawn. The pool. Anything that keeps his mind occupied.
I enter the house and drop my keys in a ceramic bowl. Above the bowl are little wooden signs that read Welcome and Home is Where the Heart Is.
My mother likes country prints and potpourri in the bathrooms, everything I hate. My mother and I couldn’t be more opposite in our tastes. She conceded to my father, Jenny, and me and allowed a large plasma screen TV in the living room. She called it her reading room. However, three against one won out, and the den became her reading room. As I pass through the living room, I try not to look at the walls covered with family photos.
I escape into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of tap water. Our kitchen is spacious and gets lots of sunlight. It’s painted pale yellow and filled with gaudy country knickknacks. A large island takes up the center. It’s cluttered with unopened mail and small prescription bottles—a mixture of painkillers, sleeping pills, and antidepressants—all labeled with my mother’s name: Mary Campbell. My mother never so much as took three Advil in a day. Now, she is a middle-class suburban junkie.
As I drink the water, I wander towa
rd the refrigerator. It’s covered in papers, reminder notes, magnets, and more family photos. One of Jenny and me holds my attention, taken from last Halloween. We’re dressed as pregnant nuns. Jenny wears a goofy smile, pretending to be drunk, while I hold a large makeshift joint in my hand and pretend to be stoned. I try not to slide deeper into depression as I stare at the picture. But it swallows me. The depression, the sadness, they drown me. My eyes land on a basketball schedule. Ws are marked all throughout. And one L. We lost against Manalapan High School. I was sick that day. There are check marks along the games we played. Toward the bottom, I see “Cantor High School East—Away.” It is unmarked.
I want to rip the schedule off the refrigerator and tear it into a million pieces, but I don’t dare. My mother would explode in a fit of rage. Nothing has been touched since Jenny’s death. I hear the jingle of metal tags and see Duke heading my way. He must’ve been sleeping upstairs.
His big, handsome German-shepherd face makes me smile. I drop to the ground. “Hey, buddy. Hey, handsome.” He mopes over to me, tail wagging. “How are you, my beautiful, handsome boy?” I cuddle up into his strong furry body and smother his snout with kisses. We got him at the pound when he was a little over a year old. How anyone could have abandoned him, I’ll never know. He’s the sweetest dog. “You’re so handsome. Yes, you are.” He plops down on the floor, his big paws sprawled across my legs. I run my hand across his soft, furry head. God, I love this dog.
For weeks after Jenny’s death, Duke wandered aimlessly in and out of her bedroom. I felt so sad for him. How do you explain to a dog someone he loved died? He used to sleep in Jenny’s bedroom, but after growing tired of searching for her, he started sleeping in mine. Last night, he was suspiciously missing. I think my mother forgot to let him back in after she let him out to pee.
“You wanna treat?” I move his big paws aside and stand up. I open a pantry closet, which seems very empty compared to how it once looked. The shelves used to be stocked with cans of green beans, corn, peas, tomato paste, tomato soup. You name the can, we had it. My mother, much like Jay, was a bargain shopper, and every time ShopRite had a “can-can” sale I had to go with her to lug several cases of cans into the back of her Lexus SUV. But now, the empty closet seems as hollow I am.
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