The Tragedy of Dane Riley

by Kat Spears

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  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  For George, for saving my life

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The biggest thanks I have to give goes to Sara Goodman, the amazing woman who edited this labor of love. It took the process of writing and publishing three books to learn that the only person who really needs to love my writing, is me … and a really great editor. Sara consistently pushes me to not only write the best story possible, but to really think about who my characters are and what they need to bring to the world. Kind, patient, thoughtful—Sara Goodman is an important name in YA publishing for all of the right reasons.

  Thanks also to Brenna Franzitta, who copyedited this book. The attention to detail was so critical because of timeline changes made during the story editing process, and she caught all of them.

  And thanks to my agent, Moe Ferrara, for waiting patiently for two years, understanding that I needed to love this book.

  Miles of gratitude to my writing community at James River Writers and to Greg Andree and Andrew Rossi for reading early versions of this manuscript to give me feedback. #YNWA. A very special thanks to dear friend and uniquely challenging person to love, Stockport Steve, for providing some critical content for this book. I am forever grateful that you choose to share all of your best stories with me, though I know the fact that I hand you beers and am standing next to a screen with a soccer match on it has a lot to do with it. Thanks to Dave Gershman for enjoying this book, even an early draft of it, and making me feel like the story will be appreciated by at least one person, which is all that really matters.

  I spent a long time working on this manuscript while the main character and I struggled with questions of life and death and the space in between. My dear friend Sarah Grigsby-Reiser was a cheerleader through all of it and she truly appreciated everything there is to celebrate during our short time on this planet. Sarah did not live to see this book become a bound, printed reality, and that is sad for me. At a launch event for this book, I know I would have seen Sarah’s beaming smile enter the room, and she would have stayed to the end of the night to sit with me and rehash all of the excitement and exhaustion. In the midst of a pandemic and the world gone mad, Sarah left us quietly, but her life is a reminder to me that whatever burdens I carry, I don’t carry them alone.

  Thanks to David Avila, dear old friend, for the cultural sensitivity feedback he provided on the Filipino and other characters of Asian descent in this book. Horns up, man. And thanks to David’s daughter, Erin, for giving me insight into the long-forgotten celebrity crushes of a thirteen-year-old girl.

  Thanks to Margaret Woody, for giving me cultural sensitivity feedback on my characters of Korean descent, and for being an amazing character in her own right.

  I am grateful and give thanks for Dane Carberry—a most darling friend, who I always forget is young enough to be my son—for giving me the perfect name to use for a main character. I’m sorry those of you reading this don’t know Dane personally, because he’s one of those unapologetically honest people who can make me laugh aloud just by recalling something funny he once said. He is a character in the book of my life whom I will always treasure.

  Thanks to Aaron Holmes, my BFF, for consistently and unintentionally giving me the most amazing quotes to use in my books. “Her confidence bothers me” is still one of the best things anyone has ever said to me, in or out of context. I love you to the moon and back, my friend.

  Thanks also, in no particular order, to my daughter Josie for inspiring Ophelia’s character—it’s hard to always be the smartest person in the room—you’ve got an uphill battle ahead, and I’m looking forward to watching every minute of it; Ingrid, for being hilarious and generally making life worth living; Jack, for being my rock, and a reminder that I have done a few great things in my life; my mom, for always supporting me, even when I don’t make sensible choices; Caio, dear friend, for giving me some great ideas about Dane’s taste in music; Andrea, for giving me a great idea to use her name in a book, though it wasn’t how she intended it; Jerry, for giving me a great quote to use (go average early); Joel and Sarah, for always being interested in talking about my latest manuscript, even when I’ve been working on it for so long that they are the only people still interested in talking about it; Lydia, for being the best cheerleading squad a girl could ask for; Jason, for introducing me to Aaron, because without him I’d be lost; Burhan, for making me crazy, because life wouldn’t be nearly as interesting without him in it, and because he’s the only person who ever brings me bagels and croissants; Chernes, for being consistently hilarious, and kind, and supportive; Jill, for giving me great story ideas that I am not up to the task of writing; the real-life Extreme Sports Asians who inspired Dane’s friends in this book; Jina, for being a great advocate, friend, and listener; Sara K., for reminding me that you can be smart and angry while also kind; Adilio, Eddie, and Oyuka, for giving me a place to write where I always feel welcome and appreciated.

  XOXO, Kat

  It is not the psychologist’s job to understand things that he in fact does not understand.… Let us state openly that you can’t figure out anything in this world. Only fools and charlatans know and understand everything.

  —ANTON CHEKHOV

  If you knew you were going to die at the age of seventeen, it would impact every decision you made—who you dated, how much time you spent in school or worrying about grades, what risks you would take. Most likely you would take a pass on school altogether, spend all your time partying. Your tombstone would read something like, HE DIDN’T SLEEP WITH EVERY GIRL HE WANTED, BUT HE SLEPT WITH EVERY GIRL WHO WANTED HIM.

  If you knew you were going to die at seventeen you wouldn’t have to worry about career goals, or finding the love of your life, or whether you’d vote Democrat or Republican.

  There would be no anxiety about your endgame: car accident at twenty, colon cancer at forty-eight, a slip in the shower at sixty-five. You’d never have to worry about the biggest worry in life—the worry that eclipses all other worries.

  In some ways, it would mean freedom—absolute freedom.

  This whole idea, knowing the moment of your own death, came from a sci-fi movie I saw once. In the movie, the moment of every person’s death was predetermined, and they all wore countdown timers so they knew exactly how long they had left before the big guy in the sky took them to their final reward. I can’t remember the name of the movie, but the idea has stuck with me.

  I don’t think I spent so much time thinking about death before my dad died. Maybe a long time ago I thought about it, when I was a little kid. Back then sometimes I would lie awake at night, thinking about the death of my parents. Not their actual deaths, because that would be super twisted, but lying there in the dark I would get an image in my mind of a coffin sitting next to a hole in the ground, a group of people gathered around it. At that age I had never been to an actual funeral, so the scene I could picture was what a funera
l looks like in a movie.

  In my imagined funeral, the cemetery is green and bright, sunlight filtering through leafy trees. The mourners, all dressed in nice clothes, stand around a coffin of dark wood. The priest—also an image I only know from movies—is an older guy wearing all black, holding a book and standing at the head of the casket.

  My view in my imagination, as it is in my dreams, is from above, like the perspective of a bird, or a cloud. I am not an actor in my dreams, just a helpless observer. And in that way, my dreams are just like life.

  Those thoughts, about the premature death of my parents, haunted me as a kid, lying awake in bed at night in my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pajamas—purple ones, with Donatello on the shirt. He’s the only Ninja Turtle who isn’t a total washout.

  I would squeeze my eyes shut and try to wipe my mind clean, erase the image of the funeral, like scrubbing a whiteboard with a rag. I would try to think of nothing, just blackness, but even blackness is something, and the image of the funeral would creep back in at the edge of my mental vision.

  And then, one day, those fears went away, and they were replaced by other fears. Fears about whether kids at school would like me. Or that someone else wouldn’t be liked and they would open fire with an assault rifle in the school lunchroom. I had fears about whether I was growing body hair in places that other people weren’t, and that my dick might never grow to a normal adult size. There are so many things to fear, I went years without remembering that my parents might die.

  And then all of my other fears didn’t come true, but the one about my dad dying did. Bam. Out of nowhere. When I hadn’t even worried about it in ages.

  ACT I

  CONSCIENCE MAKES COWARDS OF US ALL

  When I wake, the house feels empty, so I think it’s safe to get out of bed. I try not to interact with other people because interacting with people makes me question who I am and if I’m wrong to be that person. The fear of interacting with the people in my own house makes my room solitary confinement, though not literally, because my room includes a forty-two-inch television and a PlayStation, which I’m pretty sure inmates don’t get in prison.

  Usually it takes a while to work up the courage to leave my room-slash-cell. A pill helps push the worry to the back of my mind. Regular people can do it without the pill. They just think, I’m not going to worry about this right now, and the worry sits obediently in the corner of their mind on time-out.

  My worries are not obedient.

  I think about staying in bed for the rest of the day, but then I think about coffee and whether there are any Toaster Strudels in the freezer. Mom keeps things like Toaster Strudels in the house now because Eric likes them. Mom says sugar is poison, which I think is a bit of an overstatement. She likes to say things like that—that sugar is poison—right as you are trying to enjoy a slice of cake or something. In any case, she never kept sugary snacks in the house until Chuck and Eric inserted themselves into our lives.

  It’s Saturday so, after a quick sniff at my armpits, I head downstairs in the same clothes I wore to school the day before.

  Our house is an epic architectural achievement of glass and stucco, boxy in a way that tells you it is intentionally ugly, set back in a deep lot of carefully arranged trees. Despite the trees, during the day sunlight intrudes from all angles because the house has floor-to-ceiling windows in almost every room on the first floor—acres of glass that are a magnet for birds that have lost the will to live. It’s like living on a stage, or a movie screen, with a higher than average bird mortality rate.

  All of the surfaces in the house are cold—glass and granite and stainless steel—and kept shiny by an ever-changing cleaning person. The fireplace burns gas and has fake logs that have to be dusted during warmer months. The fireplace gives the appearance of warmth, but casts none.

  I open the refrigerator, which doesn’t have any photos or report cards or certificates of achievements on it. As I’m surveying my choices, Mom walks into the kitchen.

  Mom has superpowers. She can hear me opening a can of soda (also poison) from another floor of the house and knows exactly when I don’t want her to knock on my bedroom door. Whenever I come downstairs, I do it with a certain amount of fear, as I know she is just waiting to pounce on me. She still sleeps in the master bedroom on the first floor where Dad died. These days she often sleeps there with Chuck.

  Obviously Mom and Chuck don’t believe in ghosts.

  Even though it’s early on a Saturday, Mom’s hair and makeup are perfect. When Dad was alive she had her morning coffee at the kitchen counter before she brushed her hair or got dressed or put on any makeup. I kind of miss that version of my mom. Now that Chuck is around, she never comes out of her room without looking like she’s ready to pose for a Burberry catalog. The Botox started shortly after Dad died, too. Death is coming for all of us, but for some people, looking good is still important.

  “You’re here,” Mom says.

  “I’m here,” I agree.

  “You’re up.”

  “I’m up.”

  Though we have been distant from each other these past few months, we have reached a new low.

  “Get dressed,” she says. “We have an appointment to see your new therapist today.”

  “Absolutely not.” I help myself to a cup of coffee and add fake sugar, the kind that gives rats cancer.

  “Get dressed,” Mom says again, “or I’ll report the credit card you have linked to every app on your phone as stolen.”

  “I am dressed,” I say. “This is what dressed looks like.”

  Mom suppresses a weary sigh as she eyes my vintage Pink Floyd T-shirt and Adidas sweatpants—neck to ankles, and back again—not even attempting to disguise her judgment of me. My Pink Floyd shirt is real vintage, once my dad’s, which he wore when he was young and still close to the size I am now, the size he only became again when he was close to the end.

  “It wouldn’t kill you to try to be a bit more agreeable, Dane,” she says.

  “I don’t know,” I say as I lean one hip against the counter. “It might.”

  “Well, you’d better pull it together before the party tonight. There will be a lot of important people there and I expect you to at least make the effort.”

  “The effort at what?” I ask.

  “At being a normal, polite person,” Mom says, her voice rising with exasperation. “I don’t want people to think I’m a shitty parent.”

  My pause before replying is just long enough to convey my thoughts on how shitty her parenting is. “I don’t understand why you care so much about what anyone thinks,” I say. “I don’t worry about what other people think.” This is a lie, but I’m an above-average liar.

  “Yeah,” Mom says with a nod. “Your definition of ‘dressed’ makes that obvious.”

  “Very funny.” And, truly, Mom can be kind of funny. She’s very sarcastic. Dad loved that about her, but not everybody does.

  “It’s not as if I enjoy this, either,” Mom says, and it isn’t clear if she’s referring to going to therapy, or being a mother. Possibly both. “This Dr. Lineberger is supposed to be absolutely the best family therapist in town. She helped the Landers with their daughter. You remember the Landers?” Mom says, dropping her voice conspiratorially in that way that parents do when they are getting ready to pass judgment on someone else’s kid. “Their daughter has a lot of problems.”

  “Their daughter has a problem with vomiting,” I say, because Suzie Landers is bulimic and she’s never made a secret of it. I don’t see how Suzie’s bulimia is relevant because vomiting isn’t my problem. I’ve never once vomited on purpose. I’m just sad, which seems like a completely sane response to the world if you ask me, which Mom doesn’t. She never asks me anything, because she thinks she already knows everything.

  The warning look Mom gives me doesn’t even sting. I have been a disappointment to her for my entire adolescence. It is nothing new to me. But I don’t experience the feelings of guilt an
d shame about it like I used to. The medications help with the worries, and the guilt and shame.

  “I heard that Suzie was only eighty-nine pounds when they finally had to put her in residential treatment,” Mom continues, as if I care. “She looks better now.”

  “Well, as long as she looks better.”

  Mom’s eyes go hard as she simmers, but she doesn’t take the bait. “I know you don’t believe me when I say this, but I’m doing this for your own good. You need help, Dane.”

  “I’m going to make a Klonopin smoothie for the road,” I say. “You want one?”

  Mom sighs. I get her sense of humor, but she never seems to get mine.

  * * *

  It turns out that Dr. Lineberger’s office is in the McLean Professional Park off of Old Dominion, the same place my last therapist had an office. It’s just a townhouse complex, and the buildings all have brick facades that make it look old, established, and respectable. The townhouse complex is called a “professional park” because that is code for mental health offices in wealthy neighborhoods.

  The parking lot is discreetly tucked within the courtyard, not visible from the central crossroads of McLean. We all know our neighbors are visiting their own therapists once a week, too, but polite society demands we pretend as if none of us have problems. Feelings are messy things, and McLean is clean. Free of poverty. And litter. And feelings.

  The door to Dr. Lineberger’s townhome office is unlocked. The weather stripping around the outer office door makes a whoosh-scrape noise as we enter the carpeted stairwell, and I wish now that I really had made a Klonopin smoothie before we left the house. Visiting a new therapist means new judgment, new diagnoses.

  As we climb the stairs to the second floor, the smell of plastic wafts on the current of the central air system. “You smell that?” I say to Mom over my shoulder. “It smells like action figures and crayons.”