When the Light Went Out

by Bridget Morrissey

  My editor, Annie Berger, you helped me see this story in a different light, pushing me to make it stronger. Thank you so much for believing in this book and in my ability to complete it. Immense gratitude to the entire Sourcebooks Fire crew: editorial assistant Sarah Kasman; production editor Cassie Gutman; copy editor Christa Desir; art director Nicole Hower, for my striking cover; and everyone else involved in the production and distribution of this book.

  Mom, while I was growing up, you gave me space to find my voice and embrace my passions. The older I get, the more grateful I am for that freedom. Thank you for your art and your unending love. Dad, you are the perfect calm to my storm. You listen without judgment and you remember everything that matters. You keep me going, #40. My siblings, you’ve made me the luckiest youngest child ever. I got everything. A hilarious, protective older brother in John. A second mom in Liz. A cool, confident inspiration in Raina. And a mortal enemy turned best friend in Rose. I love you all so much. I am also the proudest aunt in the world. Major embarrassing auntie hugs to Deklin, Brielle, Caleb, Brannon, Lily, Emma, and Sophie.

  My writerly people: Bree Barton, Dana Davis, Jilly Gagnon, Britta Lundin, Maura Milan, Farrah Penn, Lana Popovic, Aminah Mae Safi (a.k.a. the friend I dreamed up in What You Left Me come to life), Chelsea Sedoti, Austin Siegemund-Broka, Lisa Super, Emily Wibberley, and all the other Electric Eighteens I know and love—not only are all of you extreme talents, you’re all unfathomably generous. I’d be lost without the support, feedback, critiques, advice, laughs, joys, and woes we’ve shared. And the snacks. I love when we share snacks.

  My sweet, nonwriterly friends: bless you all for the pictures, reading updates, and general cheerleading I’ve received. Seeing all of you interact with my work really touches my heart. Major hugs to Ryan S., Brittany, Jake, Brian, my mom, and my sisters Liz and Rose for the very early reads on this story. Full-volume shout-out to Oak Forest, Illinois, for the enduring support. To the Grease Ten-Year Reunion cast, that iconic performance brings a full-wattage smile to my face every single day. The Class of ’08 is forever. My extended Morrissey clan, few people do it as large, loud, and loyal as the South Side Irish. I am four-leaf-clover lucky to call all of you family. To the 2018 Chicago Cubs, I watched your games nearly every time I sat down to edit this book. Play by play and page by page, we both got through it. You’ll get ’em next year.

  Mrs. Donna Tyrka, my third-grade teacher, you surprised me at my hometown book event, showing up with an old class picture in hand. We cried as we hugged each other. You taught me everything from cursive to creative writing to being a good person. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again—educators are superheroes, and you, Mrs. Tyrka, are one of the best.

  My gymnasts, who always manage to make me believe again, right when I’m at my lowest—over and over, you girls prove to me that courage defeats fear. That is a greater lesson than any gymnastics skill I could ever teach you. May you never lose your heart and determination.

  My childhood friends, from the neighborhood group to the Arbor Park kids—this story is not our story, but it exists because of all of you. I carry deep affection for every person I’ve befriended along the way. Bianca Reyes, specifically, asking you to be my friend during kindergarten nap time might be the best proposition I’ve ever made. Distance and time can do nothing to tarnish your impact on my life. I will always love you as much as we inexplicably loved CoverGirl makeup our freshman year of high school. Thank you for the secret languages, the late nights telling ghost stories, the way your whole family always welcomed me with open arms, and all the other memories we know by heart.

  And finally, Elizabeth O’Connor, the kindest, gentlest, smartest girl in any room—since you left this world, not a day has passed that I don’t marvel at the picture of you and me on my wall. You’re smiling, looking off in the distance at something I can’t see. It so perfectly captures your essence. Bright. Mysterious. Curious. Beautiful. Warm. Unforgettable. Lizzy, you are forever loved and missed beyond measure. I wrote this book years before you passed, but revising it after you were gone taught me something invaluable: the light you gave the world will never go out.

  DON’T MISS BRIDGET MORRISSEY’S

  “A tragic, suspenseful, and inspiring novel.”

  —Publisher’s Weekly, Starred Review

  Friday, June 8

  Right here in the middle, with 867 other sweaty kids herded like cattle around me, I want to die. End it all on the football field. Burn up into ash and leave behind this hideous robe. There’s no way I’m spending my afterlife wearing yellow polyester.

  The first thing I did when I walked out here today was make an official announcement to everyone in my general vicinity. “In this gown, I am a disgrace to the McGee family name,” I said.

  I can’t have my classmates thinking I don’t know how ridiculous I look. I know, okay?

  I know.

  I’m not the most ridiculous person here though. That award goes to our valedictorian, Steve Taggart. There’s no refund on the six minutes of my life I’m currently donating to his speech about how we’re all birds taking flight. Dude, I’m not a bird. I’m Martin McGee. I’m hot, I’m bored, and I don’t have anyone to talk to right now. Forgive me while my eyes glaze over as I drift off into oblivion.

  If I counted, and I mean if I got really specific, I’d say I know about four hundred of the people graduating today. That’s including, like, the drug dealer who sits at my study hall table, that super tall blond who has a cross-­country picture on the wall by the main entrance, and the girl who threw up before picture day in first grade. I don’t see any of them right now. Based on the amount of random people around me, this could straight up be my first day of school.

  Okay, maybe I don’t want to die, but I could go for teleportation. I’d find Spits and talk him out of our bet. When this is all over, I’ll need my ten bucks for a celebratory meal. It’s the only money I have to my name, and, well, high school will be done.

  That calls for a sandwich.

  * * *

  Oh, Steve Taggart. Sweat has painted circles through his yellow robe. The random smattering of claps that follow his final sentence must be more for his underarm artwork than his terrible speech. My personal applause is for the end of Steve Taggart’s reign as smartest kid in school. See you in hell, Steve Taggart! Or at Notre Dame, but maybe the universe will grant me one kindness and make it so we never cross paths there.

  At the rate I’m going, it won’t be a problem.

  Steve walks back to his spot, smug and sweat-­drenched, and settles into the innermost aisle seat of the front row. The rest of the top ten sit alongside him in order of class rank. The chosen ones.

  I’m in the miserable middle, plain old Petra McGowan of the M section, sandwiched between my alphabetical neighbors. Three different middle schools merged into our high school, and while there are faces nearby that I’ve known my whole life, there are also faces I swear I’ve never seen before. Like the two complete strangers on either side of me. For four years, we’ve coexisted, sharing walls and desks and hall passes and gossip without ever managing to cross paths. When you try hard to be good at this whole school thing, you end up with the same group of people in every class. As the years tick by, the numbers dwindle. No one ever randomly decides to take an AP course. This is the first and only time we’ve all been united; a bunch of squirming and vibrating cells being observed by the microscope that is the high-­noon sun, waiting for this pomp and circumstance to end.

  Steve Taggart’s speech marks the end of one part of the ceremony and the beginning of the next—­the ever-­important receipt of the diploma. It begins with the parade of our most intelligent: Valedictorian Steve, Salutatorian Marissa Huang, third in the class Jay Cattaro, and then, my favorite mouthful of a name, Cameron Catherine Elizabeth Hannafin-­Bower.

  Cameron’s wiry auburn hair engulfs her profile until she becomes nothing
but a moving ball of energy, all warm colors and excited twitches. She turns to face the crowd and flashes her most vibrant gap-­toothed smile at me. Or in my general vicinity. I’m not sure she can see this far back. Rank eleventh like me, and there is no fanfare. You’re deep among the plebeians, permanently imprinting your lower half into a foldout plastic chair while waiting for your spot in the alphabet.

  At least I was blessed with McGowan for a last name, not Prabhu or Stetson. Poor Aminah and Daniel. It’ll be hours before they get to graduate. P and S may not seem very far from me, but I’m almost positive a third of our graduating glass has an M last name.

  Mister tenth in the class—­the last of the spots that could have been mine if things had been different—­walks across the stage, ending the stream of academic overachievers getting their only moment of priority over the athletes.

  How nice it would’ve been to get that single candle flicker of justice.

  The march of the mundane begins with Alex Abraham. His mom breaks the rules and uses a blow horn when his name is called, sending a much-­needed jolt of energy through our class. The boy next to me jumps out of his seat.

  * * *

  Alex Abraham’s mom uses a blow horn. I jump out of my seat.

  “Aw, c’mon,” I say to myself. And kind of to the girl next to me. She turns a little, brushing a piece of her hair out of her eyes to see me, so I keep going. “Alex Abraham’s gotta be angling for some kind of last-­ditch recognition as a rebel or something. I swear I’ve never heard that kid say more than five words in my whole life. Now he’s got the family bringing out blow horns? Let it go, kid. It’s over.”

  The girl does something halfway between laughing and shrugging. We aren’t supposed to talk, but it’s a rule without consequence. It’s not like they’ll take away our diplomas now.

  I pass time by trying to list every Cubs manager I can recall, in reverse chronological order. I’m all the way back to Leo Durocher (1966–­1972), when I catch sight of Spits shuffling into his seat. He’s arrived right in between the graduations of Bryant Carpenter and Eduardo Carrera, and he’s causing a tiny commotion while making his way down his row. The other graduates yelp as he trips over their feet. Spits just laughs.

  “He’s such a loser,” I mutter, half ­laughing to myself.

  “I’ll say,” the girl next to me quips back.

  I’m stunned. I shoot her a look, but she’s got her eyes right back on her hands, the smallest trace of a smile hanging on her lips.

  A paper airplane crashes into the lap of the dude on my other side, who has somehow managed to stay asleep through the horn blowing. Good for him. I look around for a culprit—­it’s Spits of course, his metal mouth on full display, grinning like he took a hit seconds before and is riding the high. Classic. He points to the airplane.

  bet you can’t get that girl next to you to come tonight.

  also get my ten bucks ready.

  —­spitty

  “Wanna hear something funny?” I ask the girl. Might as well make one last friend before I dance across the stage, grab my damn diploma, and keg stand my way into a victorious summer. “My buddy, uh, Spencer, bet me ten bucks that my mom will yell out Marty McFly when they call my name.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Because my name’s Martin McGee.”

  “Then who is Marty McFly?”

  “You have to know who Marty McFly is.”

  “A sports guy?”

  My laugh is the blow horn now. It scares her. “Come to my party tonight,” I say. “I’ll lend you Back to the Future.”

  “Where’s it at?” she asks. It looks like one of her cheeks gets red, but it’s hard to tell when she’s facing the other direction. Her hair’s curled in that way all girls seem to do for special occasions, pieces of it twisted like coiled ribbons around her head. She wraps one strand around her finger until it becomes a perfect brown spiral.

  “My place,” I tell the girl. “Mama Dorothy lets me use our basement for parties. Everyone has to put their car keys in a bowl and promise to spend the night if they drink. I live right behind the school.” I point toward the trees beyond the field. “Ugly orange house with a basketball hoop in the driveway. You can’t miss it.”

  “Cool,” she says. She puts her hands in her lap and starts chipping off the sparkly stuff on her nails.

  * * *

  This whole ordeal is supposed to be my last punishment, closing up shop on the era that will someday be known as the time Petra just graduated. Emphasis on the word just, as if plain graduation is a disease to be contracted, because there isn’t anything to follow it with, such as in the top ten, like my sister Jessica, or even better, as the valedictorian, like my sister Caroline.

  Just graduated.

  But here’s Martin McGee. Interrupting me.

  “Gotta kill the time,” he says, “or this thing is gonna kill me.” He has the delivery of a stand-­up comedian, every word crackling with extra flair so that no sentence sounds ordinary.

  “I hear you,” I respond, wiping away the newest beads of sweat forming along my hairline. I spent half an hour curling my hair just right, and the heat has been trying its hardest to undo all my work.

  Our principal cuts in front of the man reciting the names. “In the interest of time, we ask that everyone refrain from making any noises for the remainder of the ceremony. Thank you.”

  Someone boos in an act of defiance.

  “Wow. Gotta love this town,” Martin mutters under his breath.

  I’ve never understood why you’re supposed to feel this unfounded disdain for where you come from, as if it is the unclassiest, most smothering place that ever existed. “I like it just fine,” I say to him.

  “You might be the first.”

  We go quiet again.

  * * *

  Spits makes faces at me. You failed, he mouths, smiling of course, and pointing to the girl, who’s kind of pretending to ignore me by leaning forward and staring at the grass. I wad up the note and try to throw it at Spits, but it bounces off the head of someone who doesn’t even react.

  “My friend over there told me to invite you to my party. He thinks I failed,” I say to the girl.

  “How? You already invited me.”

  “Failing would be you not showing up.”

  “How does he know that I won’t go?”

  “Exactly. Orange house. Basketball hoop. Ten o’clock.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Who are you?”

  “The name next to yours in the yearbook,” she says.

  I try to get a good look at her, but the sun’s so bright she becomes her own kind of light. Her eyes are all I can make out. They’re brown, but a shiny kind, like maple syrup glistening on a pancake.

  Man, I’m hungry.

  “Guess I need to pay better attention to the yearbook,” I say.

  “Same,” she whispers.

  * * *

  When I open my mouth to speak, my voice crackles with Martin’s style of speech, one so easy to fall into, I do it without even realizing. My dress may as well be made of concrete. It blocks my exasperated air from releasing, shoving it into space around my rib cage.

  “We’ve got a whole list of things to do,” he says. “Number one, watch Back to the Future. I can’t sleep until you’ve met the real Marty McFly.”

  “You know I can stream it, right?”

  “You can?” His tone isn’t mocking, just playful. “My copy is special though. It’s the Marty ‘Fly’ McGee platinum edition. Extremely rare. Actually, one of a kind.”

  “Wow. What an honor.”

  “Please, please. It’s not a big deal. I don’t like to make a fuss. At the end of the day, I’m just a regular guy.”

  We share a laugh. As it tapers out, there’s a pause, like in the space
between words, something has shifted. It’s almost awkward.

  Martin swoops back in to save the moment. “All right, back to my list. Number two, look at our yearbook. If I’ve missed you, my alphabetical neighbor I’ve never been put next to at any other school thing, who knows what else might be in there?” He pauses to smile at me. Mouth open, molars visible, so lacking in self-­consciousness that I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from smiling too big in return. “Number three, I’m gonna need you to show me what there is to love about this place.” He takes out his phone. “So, Graduation Girl, how about a phone number for your new friend Marty McGee?”

  I shake my head no, because if there is one lesson I will take away from my four years here, one definitive thing I have learned, the hard way, it is to beware the smiling sweet talker.

  Stop while you’re ahead, Petra.

  You have more important things to accomplish this weekend.

  * * *

  Graduation Girl’s got her own set of tricks. No name. Won’t give me her number. Smells like that fancy soap store in the mall where all the girls get their bath bombs. “Seriously though, how have we never met?” I ask her.

  Ms. Hornsby, resident terrifying math teacher, walks by to shush us. Graduation Girl gets all flustered, which makes me laugh. “What can she do to us for talking?” GG doesn’t answer. “I’ve got a lot of bucket list items to cross off with you,” I say, trying to puff out my voice so it sounds bigger. More confident.

  “Martin!” Ms. Hornsby scolds. “Be quiet!”

  “Yeah, Martin,” GG jokes, “be quiet.” She plays it like she’s kidding, but I can tell she means it. Her chipped-­off nail polish is all over the lap of her gown, and she’s going to town on the little that is left on her nails.

  My mind runs through all the ways I could get her to notice me again. There’s always flicking her arm. Eh. Being annoying doesn’t seem like the right move. I look around for another idea and accidentally make hard eye contact with Hornsby, which makes me sweat, which makes me overcompensate, which makes me start humming, which is actually the perfect solution. It’s not talking. It’s fair game.