She tried to picture sleeping over at Trent's-him sprawled across a too-little bed, snores bouncing against concrete walls. She imagined their comingled body heat in a small, stuffy room; how they'd groggily maneuver around each other the next morning.
"I'm not a hermit," she said.
She heard more muffled in-and-out sounds, like he was pulling on a shirt. "When's the last time you left the house?"
"I leave the house all the time. I've got class."
"To do something social?"
Fi didn't answer. Did the funeral count as a social event?
After another round of bangs and shouts, he said, "Right. Really gotta go now."
"Have fun."
"Seriously, think about it." And then he hung up.
Fi tossed her phone on the bedside table. She slouched down, bringing Panda with her, and swallowed back the need to cry.
Before he left for school, Trent felt almost like a place to her-the only place she could just be. They watched TV or played Wii or sat around eating popcorn. If she happened to crack a joke or act like an otherwise-normal person, he didn't fake-smile at her and say, "See, it's all going to be okay."
He just let the moment be the moment. Then, when she remembered that everything was terrible and her heart was broken and her life wasn't anywhere near where it was supposed to be, he went along with that, too.
Now, he had a new life-without her. And she had what? A school she didn't really want? Helicopter parents? Wallowing?
What the hell was she doing?
Fi was an Otherlands regular now. She'd spend her free afternoons there, drinking black coffee-and hiding from her parents-while apathetically studying. Today wasn't so bad, though. Another creative writing assignment.
At first, the assignments seemed bizarre: Write five hundred words from the perspective of an old lady who's lost her cat, but don't mention the cat. Describe the color blue. Write a conversation where one person talks, and the other only thinks. But they were fun-and she was sort of good at it.
She pulled the latest topic from her bag. Write five hundred words around the following statement: I should have known better than to let you go alone. Use the second person and present tense.
Well, this one might be depressing.
"Hey."
She looked up. Jackson stood awkwardly on the other side of her table. He pointed to the chair in front of him. "Can I sit?"
Fi hesitated a moment. Looking up at him, she saw just the littlest bit of Marcus floating around in that doubtful expression and hunch of broad shoulders.
She nodded, and Jackson screeched the chair backward and sat, putting his mug and a bowl of fruit in front of him. He pointed to the papers in front of Fi, one eyebrow up.
She answered the question he didn't ask. "Creative writing assignment."
He nodded. "How's school?"
"All right, I guess." She shrugged. "I've never been much of a school person, really."
"I like it," Jackson said between bites. "Liked it. Well, the math and science parts. Probably wouldn't have been great with creative writing."
What was happening here? Were she and Jackson small-talking?
Fi was even on the verge of confessing her failure with calculus before she stopped herself. She didn't want him to think she wanted tutoring or anything. As much as she hated getting help from Ryan, getting it from Jackson would be twenty times worse.
"Liked it?" she asked instead.
He shrugged. "Homeschool didn't really cut it-kind of a waste. I mean, Ellen King as high school teacher? I don't know which is her bigger weakness-teaching or cooking."
Despite herself Fi smiled, picturing Mrs. King elbow-deep in that battered enamel pot, boiling up some monstrous concoction. Marcus called it the Voodoo Pot. "But you got into Northwestern."
"Good SATs," he said. "The my-brother-is-dying essay probably didn't hurt either."
They looked each other in the eyes then-a steady gaze, with none of the awkward spaces that came when people didn't understand.
"Why aren't you there now?" she asked.
"I deferred."
"Right, but . . . well, there's no reason to anymore."
"I don't know," he said with a frown. "You tell me. You're here, too."
Fi's eyes narrowed. "I go to school here, Jackson. I never applied to Northwestern."
Jackson-surprisingly-didn't seem inclined to argue. "I figured I wouldn't be good for much. Maybe next year."
"You think it'll feel better by then?"
"I hope so." She could tell by the way his lower lip dipped in that he was chewing the inside of his cheek. Marcus did that, too. "I don't think I'll have much choice, though. Mom already threatened to rent out my room if I don't go."
"She wants you to leave?"
"Yes and no. She and Dad, they're both a mess. When I leave-Jesus, I can't imagine, how quiet everything will be. The two of them alone in that big house? But they say I need to get on with it."
"With what?"
"Life."
"Sounds familiar," she said, feeling the scratch in the back of her throat, the sting in her eyes. She supposed this was an improvement, since a month ago, she'd have burst into tears the second Jackson walked up to her table.
He spun his mug where it rested, absently staring into it. "It's surreal to think about. Like I might wake up one day and not think about him till lunch or something. Because right now, he's everywhere." He looked up, gesturing vaguely to the tables behind Fi. "I can't even look at people without making some kind of Marcus observation. That guy's about as fair as he was. The girl's reading a book I checked out of the library for him last year. That fat guy with the cane, would Marcus have been able to beat him up the stairs?"
Fi wiped a tear from her cheek, looked over her shoulder, and studied the people Jackson listed.
"And it gets grimmer," he went on. "Like, who got his organs-or the ones that worked, at least? Who's wearing his clothes that Mom donated to Goodwill?"
Envisioning all these people carrying around bits and pieces of Marcus, Fi lost it.
Jackson's mouth had been open, like he was preparing to say something else. He closed it slowly. "Sorry."
She shook her head, wiping away the tears. She had become nothing but a pathetic lump of wallowing sorrow. "Is this ever going to end?"
She wasn't expecting a response. And Jackson didn't give one.
NOVEMBER
FIONA
"I heard it snowed in May last year," Jackson said. He leaned across the cafeteria table and stabbed her fruit onto his fork.
"Mom has a friend who used to live up here," Fiona said. "She told me a Memphis winter might be gray, but at least it wouldn't kill you. I thought she was joking."
They'd been here nearly an hour, prolonging breakfast and hiding from the weather. Ever since the eavesdropping, they'd done this a few times a week. Because of different class schedules, their paths didn't cross often-but when they did run into each other, they'd wind up grabbing lunch or some coffee. She'd started scanning the first floor common room, hoping to run into him accidentally-on-purpose.
They could talk for hours, about everything. Yet somehow, they'd avoided crossing that invisible border into the land of personal information. Just how she liked it.
"Man, I miss greasy southern food," Jackson said, going for her banana muffin. "When I get back for Christmas, I'm eating my weight in Gus's Fried Chicken."
Dark, wavy hair dipped over one eye. Fiona wanted so, so badly to reach out and touch it.
"I know," she said. "I'm in barbecue withdrawal. Dad's taking me to Corky's on the way from the airport."
"Central's better."
Then followed the "best barbecue" argument, which happened all the time in Memphis-and never ended in agreement. "Okay, best record store then," Fiona said.
"That vinyl place on Madison. Shangri-La."
Her heart might melt. She loved that place. "Best tourist spot," she said.
"Best? Like as a joke?"
"No. Really the best."
"I've got no idea. I've only been to Graceland ironically." He frowned at his empty fork before pointing it at her. "My brother got me this horrible sequined cape there-a replica of the Vegas concert one. I think it's still in my room somewhere."
"How do you not know if there's a sequined-wait, I didn't know you have a brother."
"Had," he said. "He died this past summer."
And just like that, they crossed into the land of personal information. "Oh. I'm so sorry."