by Kim Purcell
He whispers something away from the mic and she nods. Very serious. What are they talking about? The audience is quiet.
I grip my hands into tight balls so that my fingernails, short as they are, bite into my palms. “Mrs. Kirk has called the school and asked us to hold his diploma for her.” He bows his head. What’s happening? A hum builds in the audience. I look back, real fast. Josh is sitting with his mouth open. People in the audience are looking at their phones.
Principal Pesh speaks into the mic: “Chris’s mom is asking me to invite you all to his funeral tomorrow afternoon at the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall. Now, I’d like to have a moment of silence for Chris Kirk.”
Everyone bows their heads. There’s sniffling. But I’m not crying anymore. I’m frozen. We don’t know if you’re dead. Not for sure. It’s just a fake funeral.
Steph reaches forward, pinches hard on my shoulder. I grip her hand tight, nearly squeeze it right off.
“Thank you,” Principal Pesh says, looking over at us graduates. “Congratulations, everyone. You’ve graduated.”
It’s good we don’t have caps and gowns at our school because I’m pretty sure nobody would be throwing their caps in the air. The audience claps, a couple parents yell out, halfheartedly, Principal Pesh tells parents to stay seated until all students have exited the auditorium, and we file out in the orderly way everyone else practiced.
I walk down the aisle, numb, gripping my dress. The audience is buzzing. I hear your name.
Out in the foyer, people cheer, not as many as if your funeral hadn’t been announced, but it doesn’t wreck everyone’s day. I’m the twenty-first person out. Samuel Donaldson stands next to me, shifting from one foot to the other, not saying a word.
Where’s Steph?
Parents fill the lobby now. People are looking at their phones with sad faces. A group of girls are crying around a phone. One of them looks up at me, like she’s scared. What is happening? Mom has my phone in her purse. I need it! Where is Steph? Where are my parents? I turn, searching. I feel dizzy. Panicked.
Josh finds me before Steph. His face is a mess of emotion. He pulls me into a hug, and sobs.
Oh my god. “What happened?”
Josh chokes out, “They found his body.”
“Where?”
“In the river,” Josh says.
No.
And then the hard, dirty floor is grabbing at me and I’m clawing away from it and then I’m running out of the building and down the street.
your house
Your mom opens the door. Behind her, the house is crowded with church people. Her best friend, Winona, slides up beside her, frowning at me, but your mom waves her back and steps outside.
I’m bawling.
“I’m sorry,” I cry. “I’m so sorry.”
Your mom just stares at me. “Why are you sorry?” I want one of her hugs, but she crosses her arms.
“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”
Her jaw stiffens. “It is not your fault. You shouldn’t think—”
I’m hysterical. “It is. If I didn’t go on this break, if I didn’t fight with him, if I wasn’t such an awful human being…”
“Stop it, Jessie!” she yells.
I’ve never heard your mom yell. My head is pounding and I feel confused and unfocused and half out of my mind, but her voice is like getting splashed with cold water. I blink at her.
“You need to stop it,” she says, shaking her finger at me. “Right now. I’ve had enough, girl. Are you really this self-centered? Do you really think you have that kind of power? To make my boy kill himself?” Her voice breaks.
I step back.
But she’s not done. Her eyes are filled with stormy passion. “You do not have that power. You’re just a girl. That’s it. He dated other girls before you. He had a whole life before you. He has a family and friends who love him. Who are you to say that you are that important? He had all kinds of trials in his life and he made it through. He would have made it through you, too. You do not have the right to claim that kind of power, do you understand?”
I nod, and move numbly backward, down the steps, but she follows me. My vision is all blurry. A scream is building up inside of me.
“He had a mental illness,” she says.
I cry, “But if I hadn’t—”
“Jessie!” Her hands are clenched, and she bangs them now against the sides of her pants. “I don’t want to hear about how sorry you are or how it’s your fault.”
Tears and snot are cascading down my face, and I’m sobbing even though I hear what she’s saying, I do.
She presses her hand over her eyes. “Jessie…I know you lost him too.”
The front door swings open. Your dad steps onto the stoop, and Raffa eases out behind him. He moves slowly down the stairs and wraps his arms so gently around your mom, it reminds me of you.
“Come on, baby,” he says. “Come inside.”
“Jessie, you should go home now,” your mom says, softer.
I turn and walk slowly toward home.
middle of the night, my bedroom
Cold metal. Thick handle. A switch on the side. All I need to do is flick it and the blade will slide out. My X-Acto knife. Which I used to cut the pictures on our dream collage. Dreams that are impossible now, without you.
I imagine what it will feel like, that sharp metal in my arm. I’ve never been a cutter. Don’t much like blood. But there wouldn’t be any cleanup. Just a mattress to throw away. My vision would blur and I’d fade. Like steam drifting out of a person’s mouth on a cold day.
I do feel responsible, even though I know your mom is right. I mean, why would I be the reason? You had so much to live for. It doesn’t have to make sense.
But still, this world feels totally empty without you. I don’t know if I want to live this life anymore.
If I die, will I see you again?
Bleeding to death doesn’t seem so hard. Not like the panic of drowning. Unless you hit your head first. Oh god, I hope that’s what happened. I hope you didn’t suffer.
two weeks later, my bedroom
Hello? Chris? Are you there? It’s been a while. I want you to know I understand. I’ve been listening to all the music you loved, and I want you to know, I get it.
There just aren’t enough sad songs.
I gaze at the light drifting through my window, catching on the dust dancing through the air. It’s kind of beautiful. Can you see it? Are you here?
The neighborhood kids are skateboarding up and down the street. They’re laughing. A skateboard crashes.
Mom knocks softly on my bedroom door. “Can I come in?”
She carries in a tray with French toast, sliced strawberries, fresh whipped cream. She’s cut the toast into little bites. Maybe she thinks I’m going to choke to death. (That’s a joke. Ha-ha.)
Every day, she’s been making my favorite meals and in the back of my mind, two questions have arisen: How is she cooking in that kitchen? And who is buying the food? I haven’t asked.
She squints at me, worried. I think she gets it. Maybe you have to go through it to know. Now I get it too.
It’s a heavy black cloud that feels like it will never go away. Did that happen to you? Is that why you got more desperate? Did you think I could push it away for you? Only I couldn’t, no matter what I did.
I finish half of the plate while she watches. “Thanks,” I say. “I’m full.”
“You’re looking better today,” she says. “You think you can get up?”
“I don’t know.”
“I have something I’d like to show you.”
I close my eyes in answer and she leaves. I drift off to sleep. Weird thing is I’ve been sleeping a ton. It’s the only way to forget.
Steph yanks the quilt off my body. “Get up!” she says. “It’s ten in the morning. You can’t lie in bed every day.”
I open my eyes. She looks good. Her hair is done, long and wavy down her back like she’s just curled it.
She’s wearing a navy-blue dress suit for her new assistant manager job at the Steakhouse, like a real grown-up.
“I’m not just lying in bed.” I’m counting pieces of dust in the air. I’m counting breaths. I’m counting the number of times I blink in a minute.
She bends down and speaks into my face. Her breath smells of coffee.
“Please, Jessie, you have to see something.” Her hair falls across my face, smells of her lavender shampoo. Meanwhile, I smell of two weeks of BO.
I’m not ready to leave this room.
Steph tugs at my arm. Her hand pinches my skin like the snakebites we used to do on each other when we were kids, twisting the skin until the other person yelled uncle.
“Ow.” I pull my arm back. “Stop it.”
I plunk my head back down, but then, she yanks on my pillow. I grab at it because if she sees the X-Acto knife, she’ll flip out.
It’s too late. It clatters to the floor. She jumps back, bends down, slowly, and picks it up.
“What is this?” She waves it in front of my face, holding its thick steel handle, like she’s going to slide the blade out and slit my neck herself.
I don’t answer.
“Why do you have a knife under your pillow?” she asks.
“It’s not a knife,” I say, finally.
“Are you thinking of hurting yourself?”
“No.” I look away. The important thing is I didn’t do it. I decided to wait a day. And then I waited another day. And another. It just makes me feel better to have it so close. It’s weirdly comforting.
Steph looks sick. Her eyelashes, coated with thick mascara, flutter shut like butterfly wings. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you,” she says. “You’re all I have.”
“You have Pete.”
“It’s not the same.”
I look away.
“He’s dead, Jessie,” she says, softly. “It doesn’t mean you are.”
“I know that,” I whisper.
She walks over to our dream collage. “What about this?” she says, clapping her hand flat on the wall. The sound startles me. “Do you still want to do these things?”
Before you, I never thought of dreams. You taught me to want more. To be more. “I don’t know,” I murmur. “Maybe.”
“Then get up.” Her voice shakes, like she’s honestly scared for me. She marches across my room, opens my dresser, and tosses my cutoffs and black T-shirt next to me. “Put these on. You stink.”
Her cell buzzes and she looks down at it. “Better hurry up,” she says. “I’m warning you.”
She lifts her chin up at me, like when we were kids and she jumped off the high diving board and she was daring me to do it too. That’s how we’ve always been. One of us steps ahead and pulls the other forward.
I swing my feet over the bed and sit up.
the basement
Mom thumps down the stairs and hurries past my bedroom. “I’ll get it,” she calls out, like it’s normal for her to get any door. She’s moving fast. How is she going so fast in our house?
“Who is it?” I hiss at Steph.
“Josh,” she says. “He’s coming in.”
I yell out, “Tell him I’m sleeping.”
“I don’t think so,” Steph says.
“What’s going on?” I say.
Her jaw is fixed. “You’re getting dressed, that’s what’s happening.”
The back door is opening. Crap.
“Oh hi, Josh.” Mom is all bright and cheery. “Come on in. She’s in her room with Steph.”
Come on in? As if we are a normal family. As if people walk into our house all the time. As if he’s ever been inside.
My old instincts kick in and I yell out, “No!” Oh my god. Josh is coming into my house. He’s going to see how we live.
“Just go into her room,” Mom says, in a loud voice, as if she doesn’t hear.
“No, wait,” I scream. “I’m naked. I have to get dressed.” I jump out of bed, feel dizzy from standing up so quickly, and I grip Steph’s arm. “I’m going to kill you,” I say to her, and then it hits me, what I’ve just said. “Oh.”
“Come on, J,” she says, lightly. “It’s okay.”
Josh and Mom are talking. I wait for her to excuse the mess, claim it’s temporary, say we’re getting ready for a garage sale, but she says nothing. Maybe he’s by the back steps and sound is traveling.
I pick up the cutoffs, which are now on the floor, and pull them over my underwear. They slide down my hips. I run a hand through my greasy hair. I haven’t had a shower since graduation. It’s pretty nasty. I put on a bra and my T-shirt, and I stumble out of my bedroom, intending to create a human wall between Josh and my house.
I let out one of my horror-movie gasps.
The piles are gone. The concrete floor is clear. The coffee table gleams. The old brown sofa has two new pretty cushions, white with red flowers. The rug with the triangle pattern, which I haven’t seen in its entirety for ages, has been shaken out, maybe even vacuumed. How did I miss the sound of a vacuum?
The pictures on the walls are straight. There are two watercolors my mom did when she was younger as well as the posters of van Gogh’s Haystacks and Monet’s Water Lilies.
On top of the washing machine, a laundry basket is full of my own clean, folded clothing. And there’s the extra remote! It’s placed neatly, next to the TV.
Mom’s clenching her hands at the sides of her long white shirt, in anticipation, and Steph has a grin on her face. Josh never saw my house before, but he seems to be getting it.
“Holy shit,” I say.
Steph laughs. “Your mom and I have been working on this for the last week. This is what I wanted to show you.”
Mom smiles. Remember how you said that her eyes were green, just like mine, only dulled with sadness? Today her eyes are bright emeralds.
“I found a new therapist,” she said. “It’s helping.”
“I didn’t know you were leaving the house,” I say, looking around. “How come I didn’t see this?”
“We just finished the hallway.”
I shake my head. “Wow.”
“Your mom did most of it,” Steph says.
They share a look. I remember how Steph used to love coming over and baking with my mom back when the house was just messy, not crazy-person messy. She used to be jealous of my mom, if you can believe it.
I rub my eyes. Feel like I’ve awoken from a hundred-year sleep and everything has changed. “Upstairs?” I ask Mom.
She makes a face. “Got rid of those garbage bags. Didn’t even look in them. Steph took them to Sally Ann’s. But the rest—” She sighs.
It would take a day for the mess to make its way downstairs.
“Could you and Steph help me?” she asks.
Whoa. That’s new. “I can get rid of stuff?” I say.
“Anything you want. I’ll close my eyes.”
“No fights?”
“Promise. I want upstairs to look like this.”
Josh is looking between my mom and me, as if he doesn’t know what to do with my crazy-ass family. His hair is cut. It looks like maybe he’s slept, but he’s still too skinny, and his eyes are so sad.
“Well,” Mom declares, like a normal person, “I’ll leave you kids alone.” She heads down the hall toward the stairs.
“Mom?” I say.
She looks back, her hand on the doorknob to the stairwell.
“Thanks.”
“Sure, honey.” Then she hobbles back, wraps her thick arms around me, and kisses me on the cheek. I don’t think she’s kissed me for years. “I’m glad you’re up.” It’s another normal mom moment. Then she heads upstairs.
Josh opens his arms and raises his eyebrows, hopeful. I step forward and hug his warm, thin body. Steph and I gaze at each other over his shoulder. I didn’t know how worried she was about me until this moment. I take in my spotless basement and think about all the hours she must have spent, cleaning it with
my mom. I wave her into our hug and she lets out one of her snort-laughs and wraps her arms around us.
Finally, we all step back and look at one another in this weirdly clean space. For once, three people can all sit on the sofa together. And it actually smells better, like roses, due to one of those air freshener thingies you plug in the wall.
“I got something to show you,” Josh says, “when you’re ready.”
“Oh yeah?” That sounds serious. “I’m ready.”
Steph squints at me, like she’s worried. “Jessie—”
I glare. “You can’t just say something like that and not show me. Yeah, I’m ready. Hit me with it.”
“You need to sit down,” she says.
I sit. Josh drops down on one side of me, and Steph drops down on the other. Josh slides something skinny and black out of his pocket.
It’s your phone. Your initials on the back of the case. Just like I ordered.
“His mom gave me this to give you.” Josh licks his lips and sniffs. And then he breaks the news. “It has a message for you.”
My breath pauses halfway into my chest.
“Are you sure you’re ready to read it?”
I gaze into his watery blue eyes. “I’m okay now.” My voice is odd. Definitely, I don’t sound okay. “I need to see it.”
He hands it over. Its surface feels cool in my hand.
I press my fingerprint to open it. My fingerprint still works. My stomach tightens. I haven’t even seen the damn message and I want to wail over this one fact. You didn’t erase my fingerprint.
“It’s in the notes,” he says.
I open it. Your message pops up on the screen.
Dear Tangerine Girl,
I’m sorry. I’ll love you forever.
Your Loverboy, Chris.
The period at the end of your name. It’s so final. You always did that, wrote a period. The date on the note is last Friday. Forever? What does forever mean when you’re dead?
A sob builds inside of me and Josh wraps his arm around me and I bury my face in his shoulder. It’s different when you know, like, absolutely and for sure, when you hear a good-bye from your boyfriend, in the only way he would say it.