by E. Lockhart
His lungs filled with smoke. He has nothing to prove now. There is nothing to run for.
He wanted to own a car and eat fancy cakes he saw in bakery widows. He wanted to laugh big and own art and wear beautifully made clothes. Sweaters, scarves, wooly items with stripes. He wanted to make a tuna fish of Lego and hang it like a piece of taxidermy. He refused to be serious, he was infuriatingly unserious, but he was as committed to the things that mattered to him as anyone could possibly be. The running. Will and Carrie. The Liars. His sense of what was right. He gave up his college fund without a second thought, to stand up for his principles.
I think of Johnny’s strong arms, the stripe of white sun block on his nose, the time we were sick together from poison ivy and lay next to each other in the hammock, scratching. The time he built me and Mirren a dollhouse of cardboard and stones he’d found on the beach.
Jonathan Sinclair Dennis, you would have been a light in the dark for so many people.
You have been one. You have.
And I have let you down the worst possible way.
I cry for Mirren, who wanted to see the Congo. She didn’t know how she wanted to live or what she believed yet; she was searching and knew she was drawn to that place. It will never be real to her now, never anything more than photographs and films and stories published for people’s entertainment.
Mirren talked a lot about sexual intercourse but never had it. When we were younger, she and I would stay up late, sleeping together on the Windemere porch in sleeping bags, laughing and eating fudge. We fought over Barbie dolls and did each other’s makeup and dreamed of love. Mirren will never have a wedding with yellow roses or a groom who loves her enough to wear a stupid yellow cummerbund.
She was irritable. And bossy. But always funny about it. It was easy to make her mad, and she was nearly always cross with Bess and annoyed with the twins—but then she’d fill with regret, moaning in agony over her own sharp tongue. She did love her family, loved all of them, and would read them books or help them make ice cream or give them pretty shells she had found.
She cannot make amends anymore.
She did not want to be like her mother. Not a princess, no. An explorer, a businesswoman, a Good Samaritan, an ice cream maker—something.
Something she will never be, because of me.
Mirren, I can’t even say sorry. There is not even a Scrabble word for how bad I feel.
And Gat, my Gat.
He will never go to college. He had that hungry mind, constantly turning things over, looking not for answers but for understanding. He will never satisfy his curiosity, never finish the hundred best novels ever written, never be the great man he might have been.
He wanted to stop evil. He wanted to express his anger. He lived big, my brave Gat. He didn’t shut up when people wanted him to, he made them listen—and then he listened in return. He refused to take things lightly, though he was always quick to laugh.
Oh, he made me laugh. And made me think, even when I didn’t feel like thinking, even when I was too lazy to pay attention.
Gat let me bleed on him and bleed on him and bleed on him. He never minded. He wanted to know why I was bleeding. He wondered what he could do to heal the wound.
He will never eat chocolate again.
I loved him. I love him. As best I could. But he was right. I did not know him all the way. I will never see his apartment, eat his mother’s cooking, meet his friends from school. I will never see the bedspread on his bed or the posters on his walls. I’ll never know the diner where he got egg sandwiches in the morning or the corner where he double-locked his bike.
I don’t even know if he bought egg sandwiches or hung posters. I don’t know if he owned a bike or had a bedspread. I am only imagining the corner bike racks and the double locks, because I never went home with him, never saw his life, never knew that person Gat was when not on Beechwood Island.
His room must be empty by now. He has been dead two years.
We might have been.
We might have been.
I have lost you, Gat, because of how desperately, desperately I fell in love.
I think of my Liars burning, in their last few minutes, breathing smoke, their skin alight. How much it must have hurt.
Mirren’s hair in flames. Johnny’s body on the floor. Gat’s hands, his fingertips burnt, his arms shriveling with fire.
On the backs of his hands, words. Left: Gat. Right: Cadence.
My handwriting.
I cry because I am the only one of us still alive. Because I will have to go through life without the Liars. Because they will have to go through whatever awaits them, without me.
Me, Gat, Johnny, and Mirren.
Mirren, Gat, Johnny, and me.
We have been here, this summer.
And we have not been here.
Yes, and no.
It is my fault, my fault, my fault—and yet they love me anyway. Despite the poor dogs, despite my stupidity and grandiosity, despite our crime. Despite my selfishness, despite my whining, despite my stupid dumb luck in being the only one left and my inability to appreciate it, when they—they have nothing. Nothing, anymore, but this last summer together.
They have said they love me.
I have felt it in Gat’s kiss.
In Johnny’s laugh.
Mirren shouted it across the sea, even.
I guess that is why they’ve been here.
I needed them.
83
Mummy bangs on my door and calls my name.
I do not answer.
An hour later, she bangs again.
“Let me in, won’t you?”
“Go away.”
“Is it a migraine? Just tell me that.”
“It isn’t a migraine,” I say. “It’s something else.”
“I love you, Cady,” she says.
She says it all the time since I got sick, but only now do I see that what Mummy means is,
I love you in spite of my grief. Even though you are crazy.
I love you in spite of what I suspect you have done.
“You know we all love you, right?” she calls through the door. “Aunt Bess and Aunt Carrie and Granddad and everyone? Bess is making the blueberry pie you like. It’ll be out in half an hour. You could have it for breakfast. I asked her.”
I stand. Go to the door and open it a crack. “Tell Bess I say thank you,” I say. “I just can’t come right now.”
“You’ve been crying,” Mummy says.
“A little.”
“I see.”
“Sorry. I know you want me at the house for breakfast.”
“You don’t need to say you’re sorry,” Mummy tells me. “Really, you don’t ever have to say it, Cady.”
84
As usual, no one is visible at Cuddledown until my feet make sounds on the steps. Then Johnny appears at the door, stepping gingerly over the crushed glass. When he sees my face, he stops.
“You’ve remembered,” he says.
I nod.
“You’ve remembered everything?”
“I didn’t know if you would still be here,” I say.
He reaches out to hold my hand. He feels warm and substantial, though he looks pale, washed out, bags under his eyes. And young.
He is only fifteen.
“We can’t stay much longer,” Johnny says. “It’s getting harder and harder.”
I nod.
“Mirren’s got it the worst, but Gat and I are feeling it, too.”
“Where will you go?”
“When we leave?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Same place as when you’re not here. Same place as we’ve been. It’s like—” Johnny pauses, scratches his head. “It’s like a rest. It’s like nothing, in a way. And honestly, Ca
dy, I love you, but I’m fucking tired. I just want to lie down and be done. All this happened a very long time ago, for me.”
I look at him. “I’m so, so sorry, my dear old Johnny,” I say, feeling the tears well behind my eyes.
“Not your fault,” says Johnny. “I mean, we all did it, we all went crazy, we have to take responsibility. You shouldn’t carry the weight of it,” he says. “Be sad, be sorry—but don’t shoulder it.”
We go into the house and Mirren comes out of her bedroom. I realize she probably wasn’t there until moments before I walked through the door. She hugs me. Her honey hair is dim and the edges of her mouth look dry and cracked. “I’m sorry I didn’t do all of this better, Cady,” she says. “I got one chance to be here, and I don’t know, I drew it out, told so many lies.”
“It’s all right.”
“I want to be an accepting person, but I am so full of leftover rage. I imagined I’d be saintly and wise, but instead I’ve been jealous of you, mad at the rest of my family. It’s just messed up and now it’s done,” she says, burying her face in my shoulder.
I put my arms around her. “You were yourself, Mirren,” I say. “I don’t want anything else.”
“I have to go now,” she says. “I can’t be here any longer. I’m going down to the sea.”
No. Please.
Don’t go. Don’t leave me, Mirren, Mirren.
I need you.
That is what I want to say, to shout. But I do not.
And part of me wants to bleed across the great room floor or melt into a puddle of grief.
But I do not do that, either. I do not complain or ask for pity.
I cry instead. I cry and squeeze Mirren and kiss her on her warm cheek and try to memorize her face.
We hold hands as the three of us walk down to the tiny beach.
Gat is there, waiting for us. His profile against the lit sky. I will see it forever like that. He turns and smiles at me. Runs and picks me up, swinging me around as if there’s something to celebrate. As if we are a happy couple, in love on the beach.
I am not sobbing anymore, but tears stream from my eyes without cease. Johnny takes off his button-down and hands it to me. “Wipe your snotface,” he says kindly.
Mirren strips off her sundress and stands there in a bathing suit. “I can’t believe you put on a bikini for this,” says Gat, his arms still around me.
“Certifiable,” adds Johnny.
“I love this bikini,” says Mirren. “I got it in Edgartown, summer fifteen. Do you remember, Cady?”
And I find that I do.
We were desperately bored; the littles had rented bikes to go on this scenic ride to Oak Bluffs and we had no idea when they’d return. We had to wait and bring them back on the boat. So, whatever, we’d shopped for fudge, we’d looked at wind socks, and finally we went into a tourist shop and tried on the tackiest bathing suits we could find.
“It says The Vineyard Is for Lovers on the butt,” I tell Johnny.
Mirren turns around, and indeed it does. “Blaze of glory and all that,” she says, not without bitterness.
She walks over, kisses me on the cheek, and says, “Be a little kinder than you have to, Cady, and things will be all right.”
“And never eat anything bigger than your ass!” yells Johnny. He gives me a quick hug and kicks off his shoes. The two of them wade into the sea.
I turn to Gat. “You going, too?”
He nods.
“I am so sorry, Gat,” I say. “I am so, so sorry, and I will never be able to make it up to you.”
He kisses me, and I can feel him shaking, and I wrap my arms around him like I could stop him from disappearing, like I could make this moment last, but his skin is cold and damp with tears and I know he is leaving.
It is good to be loved, even though it will not last.
It is good to know that once upon a time, there was Gat and me.
Then he takes off, and I cannot bear to be separate from him, and I think, this cannot be the end. It can’t be true we won’t ever be together again, not when our love is so real. The story is supposed to have a happy ending.
But no.
He is leaving me.
He is dead already, of course.
The story ended a long time ago.
Gat runs into the sea without looking back, plunging in, in all his clothes, diving underneath the small waves.
The Liars swim out, past the edge of the cove and into the open ocean. The sun is high in the sky and glints of the water, so bright, so bright. And then they dive—
or something—
or something—
and they are gone.
I am left, there on the southern tip of Beechwood Island. I am on the tiny beach, alone.
85
I sleep for what might be days. I can’t get up.
I open my eyes, it’s light out.
I open my eyes, it’s dark.
Finally I stand. In the bathroom mirror, my hair is no longer black. It has faded to a rusty brown, with blond roots. My skin is freckled and my lips are sunburnt.
I am not sure who that girl the mirror is.
Bosh, Grendel, and Poppy follow me out of the house, panting and wagging their tails. In the New Clairmont kitchen, the aunties are making sandwiches for a picnic lunch. Ginny is cleaning out the refrigerator. Ed is putting bottles of lemonade and ginger ale into a cooler.
Ed.
Hello, Ed.
He waves at me. Opens a bottle of ginger ale and gives it to Carrie. Rummages in the freezer for another bag of ice.
Bonnie is reading and Liberty is slicing tomatoes. Two cakes, one marked chocolate and one vanilla, rest in bakery boxes on the counter. I tell the twins happy birthday.
Bonnie looks up from her Collective Apparitions book. “Are you feeling better?” she asks me.
“I am.”
“You don’t look much better.”
“Shut up.”
“Bonnie is a wench and there’s nothing to do about it,” says Liberty. “But we’re going tubing tomorrow morning if you want to come.”
“Okay,” I say.
“You can’t drive. We’re driving.”
“Yeah.”
Mummy gives me a hug, one of her long, concerned hugs, but I don’t speak to her about anything.
Not yet. Not for a while, maybe.
Anyway, she knows I remember.
She knew when she came to my door, I could tell.
I let her give me a scone she’s saved from breakfast and get myself some orange juice from the fridge.
I find a Sharpie and write on my hands.
Left: Be a little. Right: Kinder.
Outside, Taft and Will are goofing around in the Japanese garden. They are looking for unusual stones. I look with them. They tell me to search for glittery ones and also ones that could be arrowheads.
When Taft gives me a purple one he’s found, because he remembers I like purple rocks, I put it in my pocket.
86
Granddad and I go to Edgartown that afternoon. Bess insists on driving us, but she goes off by herself while we go shopping. I find pretty fabric shoulder bags for the twins and Granddad insists on buying me a book of fairy tales at the Edgartown bookshop.
“I see Ed’s back,” I say as we wait at the register.
“Um-hm.”
“You don’t like him.”
“Not that much.”
“But he’s here.”
“Yes.”
“With Carrie.”
“Yes, he is.” Granddad wrinkles his brow. “Now stop bothering me. Let’s go to the fudge shop,” he says. And so we do.
It is a good outing. He only calls me Mirren once.
The birthday is celebrated at suppertime with cake and prese
nts. Taft gets hopped up on sugar and scrapes his knee falling off a big rock in the garden. I take him into the bathroom to find a Band-Aid. “Mirren used to always do my Band-Aids,” he tells me. “I mean, when I was little.”
I squeeze his arm. “Do you want me to do your Band-Aids now?”
“Shut up,” he says. “I’m ten already.”
The next day I go to Cuddledown and look under the kitchen sink.
There are sponges there, and spray cleaner that smells like lemons. Paper towels. A jug of bleach.
I sweep away the crushed glass and tangled ribbons. I fill bags with empty bottles. I vacuum crushed potato chips. I scrub the sticky floor of the kitchen. Wash the quilts.
I wipe grime from windows and put the board games in the closet and clean the garbage from the bedrooms.
I leave the furniture as Mirren liked it.
On impulse, I take a pad of sketch paper and a ballpoint from Will’s room and begin to draw. They are barely more than stick figures, but you can tell they are my Liars.
Gat, with his dramatic nose, sits cross-legged, reading a book.
Mirren wears a bikini and dances.
Johnny sports a snorkeling mask and holds a crab in one hand.
When it’s done, I stick the picture on the fridge next to the old crayon drawings of Dad, Gran, and the goldens.
87
Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. These daughters grew to be women, and the women had children, beautiful children, so many, many children, only something bad happened,
something stupid,
criminal,
terrible,
something avoidable,
something that never should have happened,
and yet something that could, eventually, be forgiven.
The children died in a fire—all except one.
Only one was left, and she—
No, that’s not right.
The children died in a fire, all except three girls and two boys.
There were three girls and two boys left.
