He kneels next to me. “Don’t . . .”
“Please leave,” I say.
Hurt flashes in his dark eyes. “You want me to go?”
“Not forever . . .” I hang my head. “I just need a moment.”
When I look up, he’s gone.
“That was a nice trick,” my mother says as I hit the bottom stair.
I flinch. Moving fully into the foyer, I say, “You’re always saying I should take better care of myself.”
She shakes her head and returns to the kitchen where she pulls a tumbler from the open-faced cabinet. Then she reaches for the vodka. “You could start by fixing your hair, if you want a starting point.”
With a scowl, I reach up and run my fingers through my slick hair. A thick blond streak running along the middle of my scalp reveals my natural hair color. The same ash-blond as my mother’s. I’ve been dying it black since the first day of ninth grade, and it doesn’t even look Goth or Emo. I have naturally dark eyebrows and fair skin, and with my strange yellow-green eyes, it just works.
“It wasn’t Leah,” she says. It takes me a second to realize she’s talking about the person I just avoided. This surprises me because Leah is the only one who might bother to come around. Everyone else has moved on, even Tyler’s family. Or what’s left of it.
Mr. Marks is still seeing his girlfriend (I think they’re even engaged now), and they go yachting on the weekends. She helped him through his son’s death, just like she did Shannon’s, his wife. And Holden . . .
“It was Holden,” she adds.
I freeze in the kitchen entryway. Ice forms in my stomach, and my hands tremble. “I’m going for a walk.”
Her mouth parts, like she’s going to say something else, but I turn and head for the front door. I’m sure I’ve just shocked her speechless. Normally, I don’t choose to leave the house. It takes force and a lot of threats about calling my doctor and her “team” to intervene to get me out anywhere other than my sessions.
But I suddenly need fresh air. It’s too closed-in, too stuffy in the house. And I don’t want to take the chance that Holden might come back.
I find the worn path around the pond, the same path I walked daily all my life. The path that leads to Tyler’s house. I’m not going there. It’s the last place I want to see. But the path is familiar. My feet find it without even trying. Habit.
The crickets sing around me, and for a second, I’m confused. I didn’t realize that it was almost night. I stop and glance around, then decide to plant myself right where I am. The pond is dark and placid, static. The sky and pines reflecting on its surface. Like two skies, one on top of the other.
Running my fingers over the long grass, I fall back into a memory.
Five Months Earlier
The smell of gum and wood polish assaults my senses, and slow background music with sad violins fills the air of our community church. Flowers are everywhere. The music lowers as the pastor takes his place at the podium. A blown-up black and white portrait of Tyler is propped next to an altar that holds his urn.
A closed casket was out of the question for Mr. Marks. If his son couldn’t have a proper funeral with a viewing, then he couldn’t stand the thought of burying him that way either.
Mr. Marks said Tyler’s face was beyond repair, the pavement having shattered nearly every bone. It was no longer his son.
I drop my head into my palms, unable to look at the urn anymore. Soon, I’ll have to go up there and talk. Talk about Tyler. And me. About his life, and how it was cut short. How it’s unfair, but how even in death, his memory lives on, encouraging us to live—the way he did.
It’s all written on a tiny piece of paper that my mother tucked into my cardigan pocket. She knew I was unable to write it myself, unable to find any words. She wrote it. Just one more thing I’m indebted to her for.
And I want to say all of it—to honor his memory. But the cruel irony is that he was my strength. My focal point in the chaos. The world is spinning off its axis, and I don’t know how to do any of this without him.
The pastor is talking, but my ears only hear the whoosh of my blood. The jackhammering of my heart. The room tilts, the annoyingly bright glare of the sun-drenched windows a mockery, a direct contrast to the mood within the church. I brace my hands on the pew, preparing to go up. Glancing around, I locate the exit. I don’t remember standing, or walking. But suddenly I’m pushing through the doors.
Running.
I don’t stop until the fire snaking up my calves reaches my chest, and I collapse. Little puffs of white fog leave my mouth as I pant, trying to catch my breath. Crawling toward a bench, I keep my head down. I feel like I’m going to lose my stomach. But then a pair of black combat boots catches my sight and I stop.