All the Bright Places

by Jennifer Niven

  I don’t bother going back to school, because the damage is done. Because Mom won’t expect me home yet, I sneak over to the parking lot, unlock Leroy, and ride to the east side of town. I cruise up and down the streets until I find the two-story brick colonial. FINCH, it says on the mailbox.

  I knock on the door, and a girl with long black hair answers. “Hey,” she says to me, like she’s not surprised I’m there. “So you must be Violet. I’m Kate.”

  I’m always fascinated by how the same genes rearrange themselves across brothers and sisters. People thought Eleanor and I were twins, even though her cheeks were narrower and her hair was lighter. Kate looks like Finch, but not. Same coloring, different features, except for the eyes. It’s strange seeing his eyes in someone else’s face.

  “Is he here?”

  “I’m sure he’s up there somewhere. I’m guessing you know where his room is.” She smirks a little, but in a nice way, and I wonder what he’s told her about me.

  Upstairs, I knock on his door. “Finch?” I knock again. “It’s Violet.” There’s no answer. I try the door, which is locked. I knock again.

  I tell myself he must be sleeping or have his headphones on. I knock again and again. I reach into my pocket for the bobby pin I carry with me, just in case, and bend down to examine the lock. The first one I ever picked was to the closet in my mom’s office. Eleanor put me up to it because that’s where our parents hid the Christmas presents. I discovered lock picking was a skill that comes in handy when you want to disappear during gym class or when you just need some peace and quiet.

  I give the knob a shake and then put the bobby pin away. I could probably pick this lock, but I won’t. If Finch wanted to let me in, he would.

  When I get back downstairs, Kate is standing at the sink smoking a cigarette out the kitchen window, her hand dangling over the sill. “Was he in there?” When I say no, she throws her cigarette down the garbage disposal. “Huh. Well, maybe he’s asleep. Or he could have gone running.”

  “He runs?”

  “About fifteen times a day.”

  It’s my turn to say, “Huh.”

  “You never can tell what that boy’s going to do.”

  FINCH

  Day 27 (I am still here)

  I stand at the window and watch her climb onto her bike. Afterward, I sit on the shower floor, the water beating down on my head, for a good twenty minutes. I can’t even look at myself in the mirror.

  I turn on the computer because it’s a connection to the world, and maybe that’s what I need right now. The brightness of the screen hurts my eyes, and so I dim it way down until the shapes and letters are near shadows. This is better. I sign onto Facebook, which belongs only to Violet and me. I start at the beginning of our message chain and read every word, but the words don’t make sense unless I hold my head and repeat them out loud.

  I try to read my downloaded version of The Waves, and when that isn’t any better, I think, It’s the computer. It’s not me. And I find a regular book and thumb through it, but the lines dance across the page like they’re trying to get away from me.

  I will stay awake.

  I will not sleep.

  I think of ringing up ol’ Embryo. I go so far as to fish his number out from the bottom of my backpack and punch it into my phone. I don’t press Call.

  I can go downstairs right now and let my mom know how I’m feeling—if she’s even home—but she’ll tell me to help myself to the Advil in her purse and that I need to relax and stop getting myself worked up, because in this house there’s no such thing as being sick unless you can measure it with a thermometer under the tongue. Things fall into categories of black and white—bad mood, bad temper, loses control, feels sad, feels blue.

  You’re always so sensitive, Theodore. Ever since you were a little boy. Do you remember the cardinal? The one that kept flying into the glass doors off the living room? Over and over, he knocked himself out, and you said, “Bring him in to live with us so he won’t do that anymore.” Remember? And then one day we came home and he was lying on the patio, and he’d flown into the door one too many times, and you called his grave a mud nest and said, “None of this would have happened if you’d let him come in.”

  I don’t want to hear about the cardinal again. Because the thing of it is, that cardinal was dead either way, whether he came inside or not. Maybe he knew it, and maybe that’s why he decided to crash into the glass a little harder than normal that day. He would have died in here, only slower, because that’s what happens when you’re a Finch. The marriage dies. The love dies. The people fade away.

  I put on my sneakers and bypass Kate in the kitchen. She says, “Your girlfriend was just here looking for you.”

  “I must have had my headphones on.”

  “What happened to your lip and your eye? Please tell me she didn’t do that.”

  “I ran into a door.”

  She stares hard at me. “Everything okay with you?”

  “Yeah. Super. I’m just going for a run.”

  When I get back, the white of my bedroom ceiling is too bright, and so I turn it blue with what’s left of the paint.

  VIOLET

  133 days to go

  Six o’clock. Living room of my house. My parents sit across from me, their brows creased and unhappy. It seems Principal Wertz called my mother when I failed to come back for the rest of third period, or show up for my fourth-, fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-period classes.

  My dad is still dressed in the suit he wore to work. He does most of the talking. “Where were you?”

  “Technically, just across the street from school.”

  “Where across the street?”

  “The river.”

  “What in the hell were you doing at the river during school, during winter?”

  In her even, calm voice, Mom says, “James.”

  “There was a fire alarm, and we were all outside, and Finch wanted me to see this rare Asian crane …”

  “Finch?”

  “The boy I’m doing the project with. You met him.”

  “How much is left to do on this project?”

  “We have to visit one more place and then we need to put everything together.”

  Mom says, “Violet, we’re very disappointed.” This is like a knife in my stomach. My parents have never believed in grounding us or taking away our phones or computers, all the things Amanda’s parents do to her when she gets caught breaking the rules. Instead, they talk to us and tell us how disappointed they are.

  Me, I mean. They talk to me.

  “This isn’t like you.” Mom shakes her head.

  Dad says, “You can’t use losing your sister as an excuse to act out.” I wish, just once, they’d send me to my room.

  “I wasn’t acting out. That wasn’t what it was. It’s just—I don’t cheer anymore. I quit student council. I suck at orchestra. I don’t have any friends or a boyfriend, because it’s not like the rest of the world stops, you know?” My voice is getting louder, and I can’t seem to do anything about it. “Everyone goes on with their lives, and maybe I can’t keep up. Maybe I don’t want to. The one thing I’m good at I can’t do anymore. I didn’t even want to work on this project, but it’s kind of the only thing I have going on.”

  And then, because they won’t do it, I send myself to my room. I walk away from them just as my dad is saying, “First of all, kiddo, you are good at many things, not just one.…”

  * * *

  We eat dinner in almost-silence, and afterward my mother comes up to my bedroom and studies the bulletin board above my desk. She says, “What happened to EleanorandViolet.com?”

  “I let it go. There wasn’t any point in keeping it.”

  “I guess not.” Her voice is quiet, and when I look up, her eyes are red. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it,” she says, and then she sighs, and I’ve never heard anything like it. It’s a sigh full of pain and loss. She clears her throat and taps the paper that reads N
ew Nameless Web Magazine. “So talk to me about this.”

  “I might create another magazine. Or I might not. I think my brain just naturally went there because of EleanorandViolet.”

  “You liked working on it.”

  “I did, but if I started another one, I’d want it to be different. Not just the silly stuff, but also real thoughts, real writing, real life.”

  She taps Lit, Love, Life. “And these?”

  “I don’t know. They might be categories.”

  She brings a chair over and sits next to me. And then she starts asking questions: Would this be for girls my age, or high school and beyond? Would I want to write all the content or work with contributors? What would be the purpose—why do I want to start another magazine to begin with? Because people my age need somewhere they can go for advice or help or fun or just to be without anyone worrying about them. Somewhere they can be unlimited and fearless and safe, like in their own rooms.

  I haven’t thought most of this out, and so I answer, “I don’t know.” And maybe the whole thing is stupid. “If I do anything, I have to start over, but all I have is fragments of ideas. Just pieces.” I wave at the computer, then at the wall. “Like a germ of an idea for this, and a germ of an idea for that. Nothing whole or concrete.”

  “ ‘Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.’ Pearl S. Buck. Maybe a germ is enough. Maybe it’s all you need.” She props her chin in her hand and nods at the computer screen. “We can start small. Open up a new document or pull out a blank piece of paper. We’ll make it our canvas. Remember what Michelangelo said about the sculpture being in the stone—it was there from the beginning, and his job was to bring it out. Your words are in there too.”

  For the next two hours we brainstorm and make notes, and at the end of it all, I have a very rough outline of a webzine and a very rough sketch of regular columns falling under the categories of Lit, Love, and Life.

  It’s nearly ten when she tells me good night. Mom lingers in the doorway and says, “Can you trust this boy, V?”

  I turn in my chair. “Finch?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think so. Right now, he’s pretty much the only friend I have.” I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.

  After she goes, I curl up on my bed, computer on my lap. There’s no way I’ll be able to create all the content. I write down a couple of names, including Brenda Shank-Kravitz, Jordan Gripenwaldt, and Kate Finch with a question mark beside it.

  Germ. I do a search, and it’s available—www.germmagazine.com. Five minutes later, it’s purchased and registered. My stone.

  I switch to Facebook and send Finch a message: I hope you’re okay. Came by to see you earlier, but you weren’t there. My parents found out about skipping school and aren’t happy. I think this may mark the end of our wandering.

  My light is off and my eyes are closed when I realize that for the first time I’ve forgotten to cross off the day on my calendar. I get up, feet hitting the cool wood floor, and walk over to my closet door. I pick up the black marker that I always leave within reach, uncap it, hold it up. And then my hand freezes in midair. I look at all the days laid out until graduation and freedom and I feel a strange clutching in my chest. They are only a collection of days, less than half a year, and then who knows where I go and what I do?

  I cap the marker and grab one corner of the calendar and rip it down. I fold it up and shove it into the back of my closet, tossing the pen in after it. Then I slip out of my room and down the hall.

  Eleanor’s door is closed. I push it open and go inside. The walls are yellow and covered in pictures of Eleanor and her Indiana friends, Eleanor and her California friends. The California state flag hangs above her bed. Her art supplies are piled in a corner. My parents have been working in here, slowly organizing her things.

  I set her glasses down on her dresser. “Thanks for the loan,” I say. “But they make my head hurt. And they’re ugly.” I can almost hear her laughing.

  VIOLET

  Saturday

  The next morning when I come downstairs, Theodore Finch is sitting at the dining-room table with my parents. His red cap is hooked on the back of his chair and he’s drinking orange juice, an empty plate in front of him. His lip is split and there’s a bruise on his cheek.

  “You look better without the glasses,” he says.

  “What are you doing here?” I stare at him, at my parents.

  “I’m eating breakfast. The most important meal of the day. But the real reason I came is that I wanted to explain about yesterday. I told your parents it was my idea and that you didn’t want to cut class. How you were only trying to keep me from getting in trouble by talking me into going back.” Finch helps himself to more fruit and another waffle.

  My dad says, “We also discussed some ground rules for this project of yours.”

  “So I can still work on it?”

  “Theodore and I have an understanding, don’t we?” Dad serves me a waffle and passes my plate down.

  “Yes, sir.” Finch winks at me.

  My dad fixes him with a look. “An understanding not to be taken lightly.”

  Finch composes himself. “No, sir.”

  Mom says, “We told him we’re putting our trust in him. We appreciate that he’s gotten you back in the car again. We want you to have fun, within reason. Just be safe, and go to class.”

  “Okay.” I feel like I’m in a daze. “Thank you.”

  My father turns to Finch. “We’ll need your phone number and contact info for your parents.”

  “Whatever you need, sir.”

  “Is your father the Finch of Finch Storage?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ted Finch, former hockey player?”

  “That’s the one. But we haven’t spoken in years. He left when I was ten.”

  I’m staring at him as my mom says, “I’m so sorry.”

  “At the end of the day, we’re better off without him, but thank you.” He gives my mom a sad and wounded smile, and unlike the story he’s telling her, the smile is real. “My mother works at Broome Real Estate and Bookmarks. She isn’t home much, but if you have a pen, I’ll give you her number.”

  I’m the one who brings him the pen and the paper, setting it down beside him, trying to catch his eye, but his dark head is bent over the notepad and he’s writing in straight block letters: Linda Finch, followed by all her numbers, work, home, and cell, and then Theodore Finch, Jr., followed by his own cell. The letters and numbers are neat and careful, like they were drawn by a child expecting to be graded. As I hand the paper to my dad, I want to say, That’s another lie. That’s not even his real handwriting. There is nothing about this boy that is neat and careful.

  My mom smiles at my dad, and it’s a smile that means “time to lighten up.” She says to Finch, “So what are your college plans?” And the conversation turns chatty. When she asks Finch if he’s thought about what he wants to do beyond college, as in with his life, I pay attention because I actually don’t know the answer.

  “It changes every day. I’m sure you’ve read For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

  Mom answers yes for both of them.

  “Well, Robert Jordan knows he’s going to die. ‘There is only now,’ he says, ‘and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion.’ None of us knows how long we have, maybe another month, maybe another fifty years—I like living as if I only have that two days.” I’m watching my parents as Finch talks. He is speaking matter-of-factly but quietly, and I know this is out of respect for the dead, for Eleanor, who didn’t have very long.

  My dad takes a drink of coffee and leans back, getting comfortable. “The early Hindus believed in living life to the fullest. Instead of aspiring to immortality, they aspired to living a healthy, full life.…” He wraps up a good fifteen minutes later, with their earliest concept of the afterlife, which is that the dead reunite with Mother Nature to continue on earth in anothe
r form. He quotes an ancient Vedic hymn: “ ‘May your eye go to the Sun, To the wind your soul …’ ”

  “ ‘Or go to the waters if it suits thee there,’ ” Finch finishes.

  My dad’s eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline, and I can see him trying to figure this kid out.

  Finch says, “I kind of have this thing about water.”

  My father stands, reaches for the waffles, and drops two onto Finch’s plate. Inwardly, I let out a sigh of relief. Mom asks about our “Wander Indiana” project, and for the rest of breakfast, Finch and I talk about some of the places we’ve been so far, and some of the places we’re planning to go. By the time we’re done eating, my parents have become “Call me James” and “Call me Sheryl,” instead of Mr. and Mrs. Markey. I half expect us to sit there all day with them, but then Finch turns to me, blue eyes dancing. “Ultraviolet, time’s a-wastin’. We need to get this show on the road.”

  Outside, I say, “Why did you do that? Lie to my parents?”

  He smooths the hair out of his eyes and pulls on the red cap. “Because it’s not a lie if it’s how you feel.”

  “What does that mean? Even your handwriting was lying.” For some reason, this makes me maddest. If he’s not real with them, maybe he’s not real with me. I want to say, What else is a lie?

  He leans on the open passenger door, the sun behind him so I can’t see his face. “Sometimes, Ultraviolet, things feel true to us even if they’re not.”

  FINCH

  Day 28

  John Ivers is a polite, soft-spoken grandfather with a white baseball cap and a mustache. He and the missus live on a large farm way out in the Indiana countryside. Thanks to a website called Unusual Indiana, I have his telephone number. I’ve called ahead, just like the site said to do, and John is in the yard waiting for us. He waves and walks forward, shaking hands and apologizing that Sharon’s gone off to the market.

  He leads us to the roller coaster he’s built in his backyard—actually there are two: the Blue Flash and the Blue Too. Each seats one person, which is the only disappointing thing about it, but otherwise it’s really damn cool. John says, “I’m not engineer educated, but I am an adrenaline junkie. Demolition derbies, drag racing, driving fast—when I gave them up, I tried to think of something I could do to replace them, something that would give me that rush. I love the thrill of impending, weightless doom, so I built something to give me those feelings all the time.”