“I’m not sure what I know,” I say.
And then he gets this expression on his face, an expression of such pure hurt. I wonder, for a moment, if I’m making a terrible mistake.
He stands up. “I can’t believe you don’t trust me.” He shakes his head. He looks like he is starting to panic. I’ve never seen him panic before. “I have to go. . . . I . . . I can’t be here anymore . . .” He turns then and heads for the door. I follow Ryan out of his room and stop at the top of the stairs. He walks down slowly, as though he’s waiting for me to come after him. But I just stand there until I hear the quiet thunk of the back door closing.
The wet meat of my heart is flinging itself against the walls of my rib cage. I don’t know what to do now. But I know that I am finally choosing her, choosing Delia the way I should have back then, even though she is not here to choose anymore. I feel the strings that always held us together holding me now. I can feel my insides tied to hers, even though hers are nothing but smoke and ash.
Ryan’s mother is in the kitchen. I wonder how much she’s heard. I’m walking toward the door, toward my car. When she sees me, she smiles.
“Oh, good. You can be my taste tester.” She motions toward the big blender on the countertop. It’s half full of chopped mango. “I’m trying out something new. You know, New Year’s Resolution, blah-blah, all that. You can tell me if it’s awful.” She turns her back to me as she goes to the fridge. She pulls out a container of blueberries, some raspberries, a bag of spinach. “I want you to feel comfortable here, like part of the family.” She tosses things into the blender as she talks. “You know, with me, with Ryan’s dad. We all think . . . think you are wonderful.” She turns back and smiles again. She presses a button on the base of the blender. And then says, over the whirr, without turning, “I couldn’t help hearing your fight.”
I look at the door. I want to run.
The blender stops. “I mean, not the words, but that you were fighting. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop.” She pulls glasses from the cabinet, and fills each with smoothie. She pushes one toward me. “I know that having relationships is hard, and sometimes the person you’re with might act like a jerk. I mean, goodness, Ryan’s father certainly does!” She lets out a little laugh. “And I am sure I do too. But I know how much Ryan cares about you—I guess that’s what I wanted to say. Ryan would kill me for meddling but . . .” She lowers her voice. “I know how serious he must be about you, so I hope he tells you that sometimes. He wouldn’t come home early for just anyone.”
“Sorry?”
“Oh, you don’t need to apologize. We missed him, but of course we understood. And we’ve had sixteen New Years with the kid, so what’s one without, right? ”
“Wait,” I say. “I . . .”
“Please don’t be mad at him for saying anything. He didn’t tell us any details. All he said was that the two of you had some things you needed to discuss, and he wanted to do it before the new year began. Honestly, that’s it.” She pauses. “Maybe next year all of us will be together.”
“Ryan came back . . .”
“And that’s the thing, he wouldn’t do that for someone who wasn’t very special to him!” She nods, as though I’m finally getting the point. “To things working out,” she says. My hand is shaking as our glasses clink together.
Ryan came back from vacation early. He told his parents it was to see me. But he didn’t.
So what the hell was he doing?
“You know, Ryan’s father and I got together when we were only in high school. Sounds crazy, but it’s true!”
I nod weakly. “I’m sorry, I’m suddenly not feeling very well. Do you mind if I go to Ryan’s room?” And I don’t even wait for an answer.
Back upstairs, I take my phone out of my pocket. I scroll to “FUCKER” and hit talk. The ringing starts on my end, but my heart is so loud in my ears I can barely hear it.
It rings once, twice . . .
For a few seconds Ryan’s room is silent. And what I am terrified might happen hasn’t happened yet. Then I hear the muffled buzz of a phone on vibrate.
And I tear his room apart.
It’s not in the bed, not the nightstand, not the desk . . . the ringing stops, voice mail. I dial again. I search the top drawers of his dresser, full of sweaters, T-shirts, underwear. I make my way down. I’m closer now. Dial again. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. I yank open the bottom drawer. I shove my hand into a pile of jeans, and all the way at the back I hit hard plastic. I pull out a little old-school flip phone, black. My own number flashes on the screen.
I open the phone and scroll to the call-log: There are the missed calls from me, and then nothing but calls to her, texts to her. And two calls received and answered: from Delia on December 29, and one more the day before she died.
I hear another buzz. But this time it’s coming from my own phone. I look down. Texts from Ryan, two in a row: I’m sorry for blowing up. I was upset htat you don’t trust me . . . but I know how much you’ve been going through. Want to meet at the diner? I could go for some pancakes . . .
I put his phone back into his drawer. And then I am running down the stairs. I am running toward the front door. “June? Are you okay?” I can hear Ryan’s mom calling out behind me. I keep going. Down the front steps. Hands shaking, I unlock the car, throw myself into it, and start to drive.
And then, finally, I let out a silent scream, as what’s deep in my brain, the thoughts I’m scared of even having, start working their way forward.
Chapter 22
1 year, 2 months, 6 days earlier
“Say cheeeese,” Ryan said.
“Not so fast, fucko,” said Delia. She leaped up and made a grab for his phone. Ryan held it behind his back. The two of them tussled, and June watched from the couch, her entire body filled with warmth.
“What are you smiling about, smiler?” Ryan said.
June touched her mouth, which was all curled up on the sides, and realized he must be talking to her. She hadn’t even known she was smiling! She guessed it must be because of how well all of this was going, because of how happy that made her. (Also, possibly a little tiny bit because of the alcohol.)
They’d made the plan weeks ago once they found out Ryan’s parents would be out of town. It was supposed to be four of them: June and Ryan, who Delia had never really hung out with before, and Delia with her new boyfriend, who June had never even met. His name was Sloan and he was the drummer in a band that Delia liked. Delia had met him after one of his shows. The first thing he ever said to her was, “If there are an infinite number of parallel universes, then in at least one of them we’re already fucking.”
“I was into it,” Delia had told June. “Obviously. I mean, that’s a hot line right there. Turns out he stole it from a much smarter friend.” But Delia said he was so sexy it didn’t even matter. “Being interesting is not what he’s here for.”
June had seen many pictures of him, including a picture of his dick, because Delia would do things like that, show you a bunch of normal pictures with a penis thrown in like it was nothing. “And there’s Sloan’s dog, and there’s his roommate whose beard has fleas, I think, and there’s a naked Sloan peen.” She was so good at being completely deadpan about it, as though she didn’t even know that what she was doing was out of the ordinary at all. So yeah, June had hoped she would forget about seeing Sloan’s crotch by the time she met him, because, y’know . . . But then, well, it turned out she never would meet him, because an hour and a half ago instead of arriving with Sloan, Delia showed up with a half-filled jug of cheap vodka, a jar of maraschino cherries, and a story about how she’d dumped that snoozy loser on the car ride over (but not before, because he was giving her a ride). “More vodka for us,” Delia had said with a wink, and then toasted the air and took a long chug right there on the front steps.
But as June had watched Delia, standing alone, po
uring vodka into herself, June had gotten a feeling of deep dread down in her gut. The feeling like something bad was going to happen that night.
Lately, when it was her and June alone together, and Delia was drinking—which she was doing an awful lot now—Delia got dark. They’d always looked at the world as us-against-them, but while it used to be in a because-no-one-else-quite-gets-it sort of way, now it was because-everyone-else-and-the-rest-of-the-world-is-shit. Alcohol was the fuel that powered the Delia rocket down-down-down to the pitch-blackness. June didn’t want to see everything like that, but Delia’s feelings wrapped around her and slid under her skin until they were indistinguishable from her own.
When they originally planned the night, June had hoped, assumed even, that with Sloan there, Delia would be her sparkling, fun, charismatic self. Being around guys she was currently having sex with or might one day want to have sex with usually kept her on her best behavior. But without him, who knew what would happen? What would it be like, just the three of them?
At first the answer to that question was: very awkward. Ryan was being uncharacteristically quiet, and Delia was talking a lot, the way she sometimes did when she’d been drinking. June was glad that Delia hadn’t immediately sunk into a pit of blackness, but Delia kept bringing up private jokes between her and June, things they hadn’t even talked about in years. It was like she wanted to make sure that Ryan knew how close she and June were, that if there was going to be a third wheel, she wouldn’t be it. Then Delia started saying how boring Sloan was, but how she was going to miss certain things about him, and then she looked at June meaningfully and winked. “June knows what I mean,” Delia had said. And June felt embarrassed, since it was obvious what Delia was talking about, and she hoped Ryan wouldn’t then assume she’d told Delia very, very private things about him, which actually wasn’t true. Though if it had been a few months ago, she would have told Delia everything. But because things had been changing, she hadn’t. She was, in that moment, oddly grateful for that.
So things started out very awkward. But then what happened on that crisp clear night in early October was that June, who never drank at all, decided she would, just this once, because, dear Lord, was this hard. And because Delia was already half drunk, and Ryan had started too.
“Hit me, barkeep,” June had said then. And if Delia was surprised—which she must have been, how could she not have been?—she didn’t show it in front of Ryan.
The first shot burned and made her cough, and Delia gave her some of the syrup that came in the jar of maraschino cherries to chase the shot with, which didn’t make it much better. But right away June felt a warming in her belly and up the back of her neck. And the second shot wasn’t nearly as bad. And a few minutes later things didn’t feel quite so awkward anymore; that impending doom feeling had vanished. After the next shot she wondered why she’d ever been concerned at all—about Delia and her darkness and the weirdness that had worked its way into their friendship, about Ryan and whether he’d leave her, about her mother, school, life. About anything, really.
And now, watching Delia playfully try to steal the phone from Ryan, watching Ryan smiling at her, June felt a rush of pure joyful pleasure and realized that actually, it was much better this way with just the three of them. And that everything that was happening right then was better than anything else that had ever happened. This was maybe the happiest moment of her life so far. Which, come to think of it, was sort of ridiculous.
June giggled.
“She’s laughing at how her best friend is so much slicker than her boyfriend,” Delia said to Ryan. And then Delia yanked the phone out of his hands, threw it on the couch, and sat on it.
“Something like that,” June said. And she smiled even wider at her two favorite people on this entire planet. June leaned back, and Delia started pouring more vodka into the mugs they were using as shot glasses.
“I don’t know if I . . . ,” June started to say. She felt perfect right now; she didn’t want to ruin it. Actually, maybe her head was already spinning a little.
“Shh, shh, shh,” Delia said. “Listen to your father.” She pointed at WORLD’S BEST DAD printed on her mug. Then handed VERMONTER! to June.
June drank her shot. It didn’t even taste like anything at all.
Ryan was standing up at the end of the couch, sipping from the beer that had somehow appeared in his hand. And for a second June wondered if maybe he felt left out, and she thought about going over to give him a hug or to tell him to come and sit with them. June started to stand up. Delia grabbed her arm and pulled her back down.
“Okay, NOW take a picture,” Delia said. June looked up at Ryan. He wasn’t the sort of person who could be commanded. She’d heard how annoyed he got when his younger sister Marissa tried to tell him what to do. But right then Ryan only smiled and nodded. Delia tossed him her phone, then pressed herself right up against June. She grabbed a chunk of June’s long blond hair, pulling it across her own forehead and behind her own ear. “How do I look as a blonde?” she said. She was using this funny accent she only ever did when they were alone. In the accent, “blonde” sounded like “blow-nd.” Delia’s cheek was warm against hers and her elbow was digging into June’s chest, but June could barely feel it.
June took a fistful of Delia’s curls and held them behind her own ear. Trying on each other’s hair was something they’d been doing for years.
“CLICK,” Ryan said loudly. And he snapped the picture. Then he put the phone back on the table.
“You girls are like kids playing hair salon,” Ryan said. And June realized she and Delia were still squashed together. They were so touchy, her and Delia. It was nice, to be like that with a friend, to cuddle up together when watching a movie, or walk with your arms around each other. “You don’t get hugged ever at home,” Delia had said a few years before. “And whenever I get hugged, it’s creepy. But there’s a chemical that has a name that I can’t remember, and it explains why hugging is so good to do with someone you love.”
June had forgotten that Ryan had never seen her and Delia together before, really. She felt, for a second, the tiniest bit embarrassed, or like maybe he would feel awkward about the whole thing because he was the one who was supposed to be her boyfriend.
But when she looked up at Ryan, he was grinning. She thought about how sexy his grin was. He didn’t usually grin, he smiled. He was sweet and acted like the boyfriends—the nice ones—on TV shows and in movies, which was not unwelcome and always made her think how different he was than other boys who’d liked her, how different she felt around him. But this, this grin, it was not something she’d seen before. Maybe his face looked this way because he was drunk. Or maybe because she was.
Things went on like that for a while, the drinking, laughing, every moment melting into the next one. At some point Delia sat straight up, stretched her arms up over her head, and said, as though it had just occurred to her, “Hey, I know a better game we could play.”
Later June would think about this, the casualness with which Delia had suggested this. She’d wonder how drunk Delia had been and if she’d known what might happen next. June might go back and forth forever, but she wouldn’t figure it out. You could never be sure, that was a thing June had learned. You could just never be sure about anything.
“So how do we do it?” Ryan said.
“Well,” said Delia. “First we all sit down, and then everyone has to get a pillow. And then . . . Do you have some cards and also some dice?”
Ryan nodded and went into the drawer under the TV where his family kept games, because they were the type of family who had a drawer for that.
“Great,” Delia said. “Now, everyone”—June thought it was funny that Delia kept saying “everyone” like there were many more of them—“needs to have somewhere between four and six cards, which is to say five cards, since that’s the only number in the middle. Unless you want
to tear the cards up. Do you?” She turned toward June and held up her hand, then whispered loudly, as a joke, so that Ryan could hear, “I’m making this up as I go along. Help me out, babycakes.”
“Oh wait,” June said, trying to sound serious and sober, which was actually really hard right about then. “Delia, you forgot the part about the shoes.”
“The shoes?” Delia said. “Oh right, how silly of me.”
“Ryan,” June said, “you sit down on the couch and take off your shoes and then . . .” And she couldn’t think of anything funny to say, because her brain was moving so slowly, with the alcohol that was in it, so instead she said, “And take a shot!” She pointed at him. “You there! Sir! Take! A! Shot!” She was yelling now for no reason. Did she even want him to take a shot? He was looking at her, seemed amused, maybe. And then he did it. And afterward he winked at her, which he’d never done before. She didn’t even know he could wink. He was good at it!
And . . . the game started to evolve. Later June would try very hard to figure out which one of them had made it go in the particular direction it went.
They decided it was a drinking game, kind of like truth or dare and spin the bottle and strip poker all combined, with some other stuff from other games in there too. None of them were entirely clear on the rules. Or if there even were any.
They tossed cards into the center of the table and everyone had to drink, and then Ryan danced like a stripper and took off his shirt while Delia laughed hysterically.
“You’re right,” Delia said loudly. She wiped laugh-tears off her cheeks. “He isn’t boring.”
Ryan pretended to look offended. “You were right,” he said to June about Delia. “She’s not a complete freak.”
Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls Page 9
