by E. E. Cooper
“I’m not hiding anything.” My face flushed, leaving both of us knowing it was a lie.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The polite distance that the reporters knew to keep outside the funeral apparently didn’t apply to the reception. As soon as we arrived at the country club, a group of people bore down on me, shouting questions and shoving microphones in my face.
I shielded myself with my hand as Zach wrapped his arm around my waist and maneuvered us through the crowd. “No comment,” he said firmly as they called out question after question about where I thought Beth had gone to, and if I blamed her or Jason more for Britney’s death. Apparently they’d gotten ahold of the suicide note. Brit’s suicide made an even better story when there was a beautiful, missing best friend to blame it on.
Let Beth come back and set the story straight herself. I wasn’t going to defend her.
Zach pulled me forward and finally we were at the entrance of the reception hall, where someone waved us in before closing the door, leaving the journalists outside.
I stood blinking in the foyer.
“Are you okay?” Zach looked freaked out himself. “They’re just trying to come up with a story. Don’t let them upset you.”
I nodded, still not trusting myself to speak. It had been like being chased by bees, each of them darting in to sting. I noticed a group of sophomore girls standing in the corner of the foyer whispering and watching us. The excitement over a possible scandal came off of them in waves. I breathed in to a count of six and told myself to remain calm. They wanted a reaction, something they could talk about with the journalists outside to get themselves some camera time. I wished I had Brit’s talent for shutting people up with a single dismissive glance.
Zach ran his hands through his hair to pull himself together and led me into the reception room. I stood in the back while he went to get the two of us something to drink.
I pulled the Queen of Hearts out of my pocked and flipped the card between my fingers like a magician. If only I had some actual magical ability, I’d wave my wand and make Beth and Brit come back, and everyone and everything else disappear. But there wasn’t a magical bone in my body. Brit was dead, Beth was gone, and I was stuck in the magician’s box with my heart sawed in half.
I watched Brit’s parents at the front of the room looking shell-shocked. They shook hands and accepted hugs and condolences from the long line of people filing past them to pay their respects.
I had no idea what to say to them. Sorry your daughter killed herself? Sorry I didn’t say anything even though I knew stuff was seriously messed up? I loved Brit but at the same time I’m so mad at her for doing this? Their perfectly ordered world had just blown up in their faces. They didn’t need to deal with my grief on top of it.
The sound of Beth’s name pulled my attention to the conversation of some girls at a table nearby. “I heard it was blackmail,” one of them said. “She was involved in some really heavy stuff with, like, a married guy and this major drug trafficking thing. That’s why she didn’t come to the funeral. There’s basically a price on her head.”
“Don’t be stupid.” The other girl lowered her voice. “She didn’t come to the funeral because it’s her fault Britney’s dead. Beth was screwing Jason. Everyone knows that.”
“No, I know, but I heard there’s drugs and blackmail in it too. That’s how she bankrolled her escape. You know her family’s dirt poor and her dad spends any money they have on booze.”
I closed my eyes and silently willed them to shut the fuck up.
“So I guess this means Jason’s single now?” Another girl said. She let out a high-pitched giggle. I wished I had the energy to strangle them all.
Zach returned with a glass of sparkling water for me. “Come here,” he said, pulling me toward the small upholstered bench against the wall.
“There isn’t room,” I protested even as I sank down to join him.
Zach positioned his legs so I could lean into him, my back resting against his chest. He wrapped both arms around me, put his face into the back of my neck, and inhaled.
We sat in silence together. Our heartbeats fell into sync. “You’re going to be okay,” he said.
“I hope so,” I whispered.
Zach kissed the top of my head.
I tried not to look over, a few feet away, to where Jason stood, surrounded by a group of friends. My jaw clenched. How nice for him to be comforted and treated like he was some kind of victim in all of this. Things seemed to be turning out just fine for him. He could be with Sara or whoever else he wanted now and not have to worry about Brit. Jason saw me and made his way over.
“Do you guys want to join us? We have a table over there,” he said, motioning to the far side of the room.
“I don’t really feel like making this into a social event,” I snapped.
Jason flinched and I felt flooded with shame. Despite my mean thoughts, I knew this wasn’t easy for him either. I wondered what questions the reporters had asked him on the way in. Even avoiding the media reports and trying not to listen to hallway gossip, I knew he’d been dubbed “The High School Heartbreaker” by one of the twenty-four-hour news channels, which were all dragging his reputation through the mud. It didn’t seem to be changing how people at Northside saw him, but I could only imagine what it would be like for him, already being known for this when he started college next year.
My feelings about Jason were complicated. I felt badly for him, I knew he was hurting. At the same time I hated him, and I hoped he got the comeuppance Brit had intended.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m just not ready to talk to people.”
“We’ll stay here for now,” Zach said.
Jason shoved his hands in his pockets. “I understand. If you change your mind you know where to find us.” I watched him walk away.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I sat up so I could turn to face Zach. “You can’t tell anyone.” I didn’t want to be the only one who knew anymore.
Zach nodded, his face serious.
“Jason was cheating, but it wasn’t with Beth. He’s hooking up with Sara Green.”
Zach’s eyebrows shot up. “Whoa.” He shook his head slowly. “That’s seriously fucked up.”
It was a relief, finally telling someone. I nestled into Zach’s chest, pulling his arm around me.
“So why isn’t Beth here, then?” Zach said. I stiffened slightly when he said her name. “You’d think she’d want to be at her best friend’s funeral. And to clear her own name.”
I shrugged so I wouldn’t have to open my mouth. I had no idea what might spill out.
Zach’s arms tightened around me. “For the record, I think Beth was stupid to leave you behind.”
I had the crazy urge to tell him everything. About how Beth and I were more than friends. How her touch made me feel electric and alive and how her kisses were intoxicating. Being with her was almost like being drunk. I felt dizzy in her presence and then when we were apart, it felt almost like something that had happened to someone else. I wanted to tell him how her leaving me hurt, but what almost hurt more was the feeling that I must not have known her at all. The anger I was left with. And how sick and sorry I was about the whole thing.
“You know, you can always count on me to be here,” Zach said.
“I know,” I said. “You’re one of the good guys.”
I pulled away from Zach. As much as I wanted to crawl into his arms and not come out, this wasn’t the time or place. “I’m going to say hi to Brit’s parents and then we can go.”
“You want me to come with you?”
“No. It’s okay. I’ll be back soon.” I walked around the edge of the reception hall. I spotted a cluster of our field hockey teammates hugging and crying, with Melissa at the center of the huddle. I knew I should join them. They would surround me in an instant and do whatever they could to make me feel better. We might not be close friends, but they were my teammates. I stood there trying to force my f
eet forward, but I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t ready to feel better. I didn’t deserve it. And all I had left was the pain.
At the front of the hall, Britney’s dad tapped on a microphone. It let out a squeal that made everyone wince and stop talking. Dr. Matson cleared his throat.
“We want to thank everyone for coming today,” he said, his voice cracking. “As you can imagine, this has been the most difficult week of our lives. There are no words to describe the pain of losing a child. Britney was an amazing young woman filled with promise and beauty, and we will regret every day that she won’t have the opportunity to live up to all that potential.” Brit’s dad put his arm around her mom. “We wanted to do something that would allow us to mourn Britney in a positive way, in a way that ensures her memory will live forever.”
Brit’s mom leaned forward to speak into the mic. “We are proud to announce the establishment of the Britney Matson Foundation. The foundation will be dedicated to expanding counseling services in low-income high schools so that teenagers everywhere will always have someone ready and able to listen.” Dr. Ryerson pulled a loose drape off of a framed poster that said THE BRITNEY MATSON FOUNDATION in thick red script.
There was polite applause and Brit’s parents posed next to the framed poster for a photograph. I knew they were trying to do a nice thing, but they’d done it all wrong. If they wanted to honor and remember Brit, they should have chosen something that mattered to her. If Brit were going to have a foundation, she would want it to support female athletes, or aspiring fashionistas, or even shelters for homeless cats. But instead they had chosen something important to them and their careers. They hadn’t even put Brit’s photo on the poster.
It was just like Brit had told me when she was alive: her parents were always putting what they wanted above her. Now she was dead and they were still doing it.
The room was feeling too warm for me. I needed some air.
I dodged down the hall past the coatroom. Everywhere I turned there seemed to be more people. I couldn’t go outside in case the journalists were still there, waiting to tear the flesh off me, strip by strip. I tried a random door and found an empty reception room with chairs stacked against the wall and giant windows that looked out over the bay. It was a nicer room than the one the party was in. But I guessed that a water view would have been in poor taste, given how Brit had died.
I watched the waves march in. When I closed my eyes I could imagine Brit’s body floating faceup, bumping along the shoreline, her mouth slightly open, her eyes blank. A second later, the image morphed and it was Beth’s corpse I saw, her hair mixed with seaweed, her stare unforgiving. I shook both images out of my head.
I sat down on the floor, half hiding in the thick dark blue velvet curtains, in case anyone peeked in. It reminded me of the blanket forts Nadir and I used to build as kids. Cozy. Safe. Eventually I’d have to go back into the party and find Zach, but I needed a few minutes of silence here first.
I pulled out my phone and stared at the screen. I must have checked it a zillion times in the past few weeks. I’d done everything I could think of to make Beth reach out to me—I’d made all sorts of deals with fate—but other than that one text a few days after she left, she’d stayed silent. That meant either she couldn’t call me, or she was choosing not to.
A tear ran down my cheek and I wiped it away. All I wanted was to know that she was okay.
No, that wasn’t true. I wanted to go back to the moment when she offered to take me with her, and this time I wouldn’t say no. But that wasn’t going to happen.
I kept acting like she owed me an answer, but the truth was she didn’t owe me anything. It was time to face the fact that whatever I felt, she clearly didn’t feel the same. Sometimes, as Nadir tried to tell me, no message is a message. I thought of one of the lines that Beth had underlined in her copy of Alice: “If everybody minded their own business, the world would go round a great deal faster than it does.”
It was time to let go. If Brit were still alive, that’s what she would have told me. Beth would come back only if and when she felt like it.
I pulled the Queen of Hearts card back out of my pocket. It had come to a point where I was finding trash in parking lots and deciding that it was supposed to be some kind of message. Talk about seeing things that weren’t there. At this rate I was going to end up wandering around in a tinfoil hat, trying to receive messages from the beyond.
I pulled up my email and typed a quick message.
Beth—
Sorry if I’ve been a nag. I hope things with you are good and that you find everything you want in life. Take care.
Kalah
I read it over once, making sure there weren’t any extra guilt strings, and hit SEND.
With the swooshing sound of the mail flying off, my chest loosened. I stood. I would go back and find Zach, and we’d get out of here. It was time I stopped wishing things were different. Britney was dead. Beth wasn’t coming back. I’d been left on my own, but I didn’t have to stay in place. I could choose to move forward.
I tore the Queen of Hearts in half and dropped the pieces in the trash as I walked out of the room.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The cafeteria table where the three of us had always sat was empty. It wasn’t draped in half-dead flowers, molding teddy bears, and notes, like one of those roadside memorials, but no one wanted to sit there either. People avoided it like it was haunted or infected with bad luck. Or like they still knew they couldn’t sit there without an invitation from Beth or Brit. Its emptiness stood out as I scanned the busy room.
A few of my teammates sat together at a table near the soda machines. Amy Chan waved to me and pointed to an empty seat next to her. I held up my history textbook and shrugged. I wasn’t really going to study, but the thought of being around anyone besides Zach made me want to crawl out of my skin, and Zach didn’t have lunch this period. I could feel the entire group watching me as I walked across the room toward Brit’s old table.
Yesterday, Melissa and Amy had approached me in the halls to suggest we resume our Monday field hockey practices, “like Brit would have wanted.” As next year’s captain, running the practices should fall to me, but I couldn’t imagine playing on that field without Beth or Brit. “Be my guest,” I’d told them. I knew Melissa felt she should have been tapped as a co-captain anyway. As far as I was concerned, she could have it.
I plopped down at the table and opened my book to a random page. I could pretend to read so people would leave me alone, but I wasn’t taking in the words. They just swam in front of my eyes. Ever since Brit’s death, studying had proven impossible.
I knew everyone thought it was weird I sat by myself. It wasn’t just Amy—a bunch of people had tried to let me know I was welcome at their table. Just because Beth and Brit were gone didn’t mean I’d lost the status their approval had given me. But I couldn’t fathom listening to people talk about their plans for prom, the test in biology, or whatever inane stuff was going on. For most other people, normal life had continued, but I wasn’t ready to join in. It was easier to be alone.
I’d promised Zach we would go out tonight, though. He said I could pick anything I wanted to do, but he wanted to go out. He kept telling me that it wasn’t a betrayal of Brit to have some fun. I’d agreed to at least try.
I pulled out my lunch bag and a folded piece of paper fell out. It was a Far Side cartoon my dad had downloaded and printed off for me. He’d scribbled at the bottom, Love you! The Tupperware contained my mom’s famous mango quinoa salad. She knew it was one my favorites. Both of my parents kept going out of their way to be extra-nice to me while trying to act like they weren’t doing anything different. There was a constant undercurrent of “Please be okay” that ran through every interaction I had with them. Pretending to be normal was exhausting.
I stabbed a cucumber slice and made myself chew it. Nothing tasted right since Brit’s death. The food actually felt wrong in my mouth—foreign, like chewing
Styrofoam peanuts—and it was hard to swallow. A few times I’d spit things back out into a napkin because there was no way to get them down. I knew my mom was getting worried. If I got any thinner she would make me see our family doctor or go back to Dr. Sherman. I didn’t want that. I forced down two more bites of salad.
A memory came to me in a flash. Brit had loved this salad too. She’d even asked for the recipe once. We laughed about it because she never cooked, but she insisted someday she would start. Now she never would.
I put the fork down. My life was a minefield of memories of Brit and Beth, and I never knew when one would pop out of nowhere and blow up in my face. I took a long, slow breath, in and out, trying to calm myself.
My fingers ran over the scarf I’d tied around my neck. It was Brit’s. Her parents had given it to me after the funeral. If I held it up to my nose, I could smell a faint hint of Brit’s perfume. I knew the scent would eventually fade, but for now it was nice. It made me feel less alone.
A tray plopped down on the table, startling me out of my thoughts. It was Sara.
“Mind if I join you?” She sat without waiting for an answer. “I’m Sara.” She jammed her hair behind her ears, her movements jerky and awkward.
I blinked, shocked that someone had broken the bubble of space around me. It was clear I wanted to be by myself. “I know who you are,” I said.
Sara flushed. I looked down at my book and hoped she’d take the hint to leave.
“I, um, just wanted to say I’m sorry. About everything that’s happened.” Sara folded and refolded the paper napkin on her tray.
I felt the fog I’d been in start to clear. It was replaced by sharp, clear anger. “I’m not really the one you should be apologizing to,” I said. “That person’s dead. And isn’t it a little late for you to be making amends?” I knew I sounded bitchy, but I wanted her out of my face.
Sara’s hands were shaking slightly as she played with her fork. “I just, I see how Jason’s suffering, and I know this must be really hard for you too. I thought I should say something.”
