Die for You

by Amy Fellner Dominy

  He lied to me.

  I’m such a mess—torn and bleeding from a million places, and Jace is a wound that’s untended…festering…but I can’t face it, or him. Not yet.

  Not yet.

  Do I want Tucson?

  New Mexico?

  Mom?

  She’s been calling every day, and yesterday she asked me to consider moving in with her and Henry for the summer. “A change of scenery,” she said. “I know you miss Marissa.” That much is tempting. I can be the friend I should have been…see if that’s even possible. “Think about it,” Mom said.

  So many different ways to go and while it’s my choice, are any of them what I would choose?

  No.

  The answer comes that quickly, that simply. No.

  What would I choose?

  That’s ridiculously easy, too.

  My breath shudders in and out with the first tentative flutter of possibility. And fear. Because if it’s my decision, if I choose…

  Suddenly, the ground slips away. My shoe skids off a jutting rock and I lurch forward. My arms fly out for balance and my feet skip unevenly until the tread of my shoe catches solid ground. My arms prickle with adrenaline, my heart surging in reaction. But I’m fine—I caught myself.

  I slow to a walk. As the fear recedes, a grin builds and widens until my cheeks ache with it. I caught myself.

  Resting my hands on my hips, I wait for my breath to slow and instead feel my heart quicken, impatient. I stretch my arms like wings and circle the trail like an airplane making a U-turn. I know exactly where I’m headed.

  It happens quickly after that. It only takes one email to Mrs. Lyght, and by Wednesday evening I have two letters of recommendation. One from her and the other from Dr. Abella. Both recommending that the American University of Rome accept my late registration. I’d already submitted the initial application along with my transcripts and SAT scores. My essays have been ready since spring break. There’s no internship, but there’s also no reason why I can’t attend a year abroad. Mrs. Lyght offers to help in any way she possibly can. She’s sorry, she writes. She shouldn’t have sent in the application. She blames herself.

  I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t know how to answer the texts from Hannah and Spence. From Jace. Or from Marissa, who heard what happened from my mom, who told her mom. I don’t know what I’ll say at school tomorrow. I suppose I’ll tell everyone it’s okay. And then hope that it will be.

  Somehow, I get through my first day back at school on Thursday. I can’t spend time with Hannah and Spence. They seem to understand. Maybe it’s easier for them that way—their loyalties still lie with Dillon.

  I don’t know what to say to Jace. Or even how to be around him. He must sense that because he keeps his distance. But I’m aware of him, always. Fluttering just out of sight like a mourning dove.

  On Friday, I meet with Mr. Diaz, Dillon’s coach and guidance counselor, who is so nice I almost cry in his office, and would have, but he makes such a production out of fake coughing that I end up smiling instead. He tells me that Dillon is getting treatment and will finish school off campus. I don’t know how Mrs. Hobbs is handling things. I haven’t heard from her, and I doubt that I will. The baseball play-offs will start soon but I won’t be there to watch. I don’t really care one way or the other, and it seems so strange. I think about the girl who jumped up and down on the bleachers less than two months ago. She seems like someone else.

  —

  On Saturday morning, I’m sitting at the kitchen counter in my sleep shirt and shorts, eating a waffle, when the doorbell rings. Dad gives me a wink and goes to open the door.

  Mom is standing there in a T-shirt, jeans, and her sturdy Velcro sandals, which means she’s ready for a day on her feet. “Surprise,” she says. “We’re going shopping.”

  Dad invites her in and he’s not crumbling into a pile of need. The lines around his mouth are a little white, as if the smile is strained, but he seems okay. They’ve spent time together the past few days and it’s been good for them. For Dad. And also, I think, for me.

  “We’re shopping for suitcases,” Mom tells me.

  I set down my fork, my cheeks flushing. “I just found out yesterday. We have until August to buy suitcases.”

  The email came late yesterday. I’ve been accepted to the American University of Rome in the fall. There are more forms to fill out and money to pay, but the admissions office welcomes me. Accoglienza.

  Dad and I celebrated last night with burgers, cupcakes from a mix, and Searching for Bobby Fischer on VHS. Lauren is driving up this afternoon and we’ll all go out somewhere nice tonight. My choice, Dad said, so of course I picked Italian.

  But shopping?

  Mom waves off whatever hesitation she sees on my face. “There’s a great sale at the mall today. And it’ll be fun.”

  I’m not so dumb that I don’t realize why she’s really here. It’s exactly one week since prom, and it’s going to be a hard day after a bunch of hard days. She’s giving me something to do—something else to think about.

  She’s being my mom.

  “I’ll get dressed,” I say, heading toward my room before tears can come.

  —

  The mall smells like pretzels—and we start with one, cinnamon and sugar that we rip off in strips and eat on our way to Dillard’s. It’s strange, sliding back into mom-and-daughter mode after all this time. The past is still the past, but I’ve changed. I understand things in a way I couldn’t before Dillon.

  The luggage department is a zoo. There is a big sale, and I’m swept up in talk of spinners versus rollers and what sizes I’ll need and should I get a backpack with wheels for weekends trekking through the Italian countryside. I’m telling Mom about the walled cities of Tuscany when I turn and see a whole display of suitcases in a beautiful shade of deep blue. And I start crying.

  Even as I shake her off—tell her I’m fine—she leads me away from the crowds to the back corner of the luggage department. She sits me down in the middle of a display of American Tourister cases. It smells funny—musty and plastic—but it’s quieter, and the suitcases are like a wall keeping everything else out.

  She pulls a suitcase down and sits beside me on the platform. “I wish you could have told me,” she says. “I wish I’d been there for you.”

  She hands me a tissue and I press it to my eyes.

  “I never should have left,” she adds, “but I was so unhappy. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t fix it.” She grips my hand between her own. “But I wasn’t choosing Henry over you,” she says. “I need you to know that. I need you to understand.”

  “I do,” I say, wiping my cheeks dry. That’s what I finally figured out in Dillon’s truck. It wasn’t that Henry and his kids mattered more.

  It was that she mattered, too.

  “I’m not okay with what happened,” I say haltingly, searching for the right words. “I don’t know if I can ever be. But I understand now about choices. Impossible choices.”

  “I’m so sorry for that.” She pulls me into a hug and I hug her back. “I love you,” she says.

  Before I can reply, there’s a shriek. I look up to see a gray-haired man clutching at his heart. “What are you people doing?” he says. “You scared me half to death.”

  Mom stands and holds out a hand to me. She pulls me up and straightens her purse. To the man she says indignantly, “We’re shopping, what else?”

  I smile and follow her back to the front. We pick out a set of purple suitcases along with a backpack. When she drops me off at home, I tell her, “Thank you.” And I say, “I’ll come over next weekend.” And I say, “I love you.”

  A week has gone by, and then another. It’s finally May, and if I could make time go by faster, I would.

  I sit at the top of the hill on a Sunday, late in the afternoon, and count it all out in my mind. Finals are in two weeks and then graduation. They’re like mountains up ahead that I have to climb, but then I’ll ha
ve nothing but downhill ahead of me.

  I’ll get through it, day by day, hour by hour. I’ve got projects to finish up and so much to research about Rome and where I’ll be staying. I’ve already pored over the course catalogs, narrowing down my choices. Everything sounds amazing, even the basic core classes. Lauren is sick of hearing about it and Marissa isn’t far behind, though she’s too nice to say so. We’re talking more often now, and the distance is still there between us but so is our history. I’ve come to see that friendship is as much a treasure as anything in this world. Ours might be buried under the weight of the past year, but it’s not lost. I can still dig it up and piece it together. Will there always be cracks? Probably. But there’s no such thing as perfect. I’ve learned that, too.

  When distractions don’t work and it all starts to feel like too much, I have my trail runners and the four-mile loop. But I’ve stopped running in the mornings. I’ve started running at dusk and I like it better. The paths are mostly empty.

  Except for ghosts.

  I’m thinking of Jace, or trying not to think of him, when he finds me.

  —

  Jace is a slow-moving shadow, climbing the small hill where I’m sitting. It’s not the one he and I climbed—that would be too sad. It’s already too sad. My breath is short, my muscles tense. When I think of Jace, it’s like a knot in my gut, one that I don’t want to unravel, afraid of what I’ll find.

  He hikes up the last few steps, hesitant in his green sneakers. I look away, out to the horizon and a spray of clouds as thin as steam.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hi.”

  His voice is tentative. “How are you doing?”

  “Okay.” The clouds shift, pulling apart and reconnecting like strands of lace.

  “I saw you head up here.” I hear his feet shuffle in the dirt. “You don’t have to change your schedule, you know. You can run mornings. I’ve started running streets. I mean, if that’s why you’re running later.” He clears his throat. “Is that why you’re running later?”

  “Jace—”

  “Never mind. Don’t answer that.” He paces toward the edge of the hill and looks out. In a deep voice, he says, “Space, the final frontier.”

  I finally look at him. His eyes are puffy and shadowed. He’s always been on the thin side, but now his face is sharp angles, his lips pale. Even his hair seems straighter and limp. “My mom keeps telling me to give you ‘space,’ ” he says, using air quotes. “That always makes me think of Star Trek, the episodes that start out with William Shatner saying”—he deepens his voice again—‘Space, the final frontier.’ ” He shakes his head at himself. “So I’m walking around all the time with William Shatner in my head and I can’t sleep and I can’t eat and I keep thinking, ‘Is this what Emma needs? Does she really need Star Trek?’ ”

  When his eyes meet mine, a deep well of anger spills open inside of me.

  He reads it—he must. He steps back. “Emma, I’m so sorry.”

  “You lied to me. You went behind my back.”

  “I know.”

  “You were my closest friend. You realize that?” My jaw is tight, every word clipped and edged with fury. “The only one I could talk to. I didn’t even know how close we were, how much I depended on you until these past weeks. Until I wanted to call you, wanted to run with you, and I couldn’t.”

  “You could. You can.”

  “No,” I say. “I can’t. You ruined us, Jace.”

  He crouches low, his hands in his hair. “Please, Emma. What can I say? Tell me what to say?”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing you can say.” I want to stay mad—the anger makes it easier—but I feel it deserting me, leaving me tired and unbearably sad. “You can’t undo what’s been done.”

  “I would, though. It’s all I think about.” His throat works up and down. “Can I sit? Just for a few minutes?”

  I shrug and he sits a few feet away, like I’m a wild animal he doesn’t want to frighten.

  “Have you talked to Dillon?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “I’ve talked to his mom. He’s in a program, he wants to be, and he’s doing okay. Hannah writes him notes, finds him funny cards that she brings to Mrs. Hobbs. Spence writes things, too, but I don’t know what to say. Instead, I’ve been pulling photos out of the old albums. Pictures of him and me at campouts. Playing baseball. Swimming. In zombie Halloween costumes.” He gives me a half-smile. “I think I’m trying to remind him that I was a good friend.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve been too afraid to give them to Hannah yet.”

  The sun is hovering just above the tree line, as if it’s resting there, taking a last look around before giving way to night. He sighs. “I did it for you. You know? Because I wanted you to have the opportunity.”

  “But that’s not the only reason, is it?”

  His voice is barely audible. “No.” He hugs his hands around his knees. “I did it for myself, too. Because I liked you more than I should have.”

  “We were friends, Jace. Just friends.”

  “I know that. I knew you loved Dillon. And Dillon, he’s my best friend. I wanted him to be happy. I wasn’t trying to screw everything up, but I thought…” He takes in a ragged breath. “I thought here’s something I can do. Something I can give Emma that Dillon can’t.”

  When he looks up, his eyes are red and wet. “I screwed up. I know that. I encouraged this thing, even though I could see it was tearing Dillon apart. Even though it was tearing you apart.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and wipe away tears. When I open them, he’s looking into the sky, his face pale and haunted. “The worst part is that I can’t seem to stop being in love with you.”

  I’m breaking apart like the clouds. Adrift. Even my voice sounds faint. “Jace, don’t.”

  “I need to say it. Because I wasn’t honest with you and I should have been. I…I should have been.”

  He dips his head, and for a second I see the boy I met last winter running on the trails. I see the messy hair. The warm brown eyes, squinted against the sun. His gangly stride and the way he smiled at me as we met up all those mornings. I see all the things there are to love about Jace.

  But I also see the shadow of Dillon.

  “I don’t want you to love me, Jace,” I say. “I don’t want anyone to love me or need me like that, not ever again. I don’t want to love anyone like that again.”

  “Emma.”

  His voice is an ache, and I understand. There’s so much pain in loving. Too much. From now on, I’m going to keep my heart safe.

  “I should go,” I tell him. I stand and brush the dirt off my shorts. Jace stands, too. “I’m going to Rome,” I say when my voice feels steady.

  He looks at me, and I see the surprised flare of happiness in his expression. “The internship?”

  “No,” I say. “That’s gone. But I’ve been accepted to the university there.”

  “That’s so good, Emma. Really, really good.”

  “A change of scenery will help.”

  He smiles and something of his old self is there. “I’m going to turn down the Bergen. I’m not sure where I’ll go or what I’m going to do. But for now I’m going to try and be a friend to Dillon.”

  I nod. I don’t know what to say.

  “One day I’d like to be a friend to you, too?” His voice rises on a question.

  I look out over the hills, spotted with green and a few determined wildflowers. “Right now I need some time. I need some Star Trek.” I choke on a half-laugh, half-sob. “But one day, maybe.”

  “Maybe is good. I can live with maybe.”

  And then, even though I shouldn’t, I reach up and hug Jace. He hugs me back, hard. We stay like that for a long moment, the sound of his heart beating in my ear. Both of us holding on…and letting go. When I pull back, my eyes are wet again.

  “Take care of yourself, Emma.”

  “I will,” I say, and I smile because those words me
an something. They mean everything. “You too.”

  Then I turn to face my future. In just a few months, I’m going to Italy. I’m going to fly across an ocean and land in a new world full of discovery and adventure and possibility.

  And I’m going to be okay. Better than okay. I’m going to make history.

  I take my first step down the hill toward Rome.

  AUGUST 25, AD 79

  SECOND HOUR, 8:00 A.M.

  In the tomb of the basement, Anna hears the ceaseless chanting of the gardener and the prayers of the housemaids. It’s what she does not hear that makes her heart race. The fall of pumice and ash has slowed to a trickle.

  She meets Marcus’s eyes. “We must go. Now. This is our chance.”

  “The rock has stopped falling!” he exclaims. “We are safe!”

  Anna shakes her head. “We will be buried alive if we do not go now.”

  Uncertainty flickers across his face. His eyes, which she once thought so beautiful, seem only weak. “Let us wait just a little while longer. To be certain.”

  Anna understands now that she has already waited far too long.

  She gathers the help of the other slaves and together they push at the door. Rubble blocks it from the other side but they strain until a great crash comes from without and the door is shoved open inch by inch. Her heart pounds—but this time with hope. Ash covers piles of rubble but the gardener is strong and with the help of the others, he fights a way aboveground.

  It is not too late! She feels it. Hell is taking one final breath before unleashing itself.

  “Anna!”

  Marcus claws his way up behind her. “Wait!”

  But she is done waiting.

  “Anna!”

  Broken plaster and shattered stone scrape her skin raw and still she presses forward. Inky black stretches above where the roof once was, but the rubble creates an uneven ground, solid enough to hold her weight. Every inch forward is a fight. The air is gone, consumed by smoke that blisters Anna’s nose and throat. Her lungs burn. She will not die!