“You’re lucky.” Morgan sighed. “You got good news today.”
“I know. I’m really lucky.”
“Maybe I’ll be lucky someday too.”
“I’m sure you will be.”
Morgan sighed again. “I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know if I should go home or what.” She picked at the safety pins on her sweatshirt. Skyler thought that maybe Morgan shouldn’t be alone now, not just yet. Though this was not exactly a happy, stress-free place to be. But still. Maybe it was something. A distraction.
“Well,” Skyler said, pointing to Jason and Alexa, who were watching to see if Morgan was O.K., seeming to not want to return to the fraught conversation they’d just been having with each other. “I’m going to stay until they hear about their parents. Do you want to stay with me?”
Morgan nodded. “Yeah. That sounds . . . I was going to say ‘good,’ but none of this is good. It sounds right, though, I guess.”
“O.K.,” Skyler said. “Good.”
“Thanks.” Morgan sniffled, pulling her sleeves over her hands. “I’m gonna go get something to drink. Do you want something? They give me free sodas and stuff here.”
Skyler shook her head. “No, I’m good. Thank you, though.”
Morgan stood up, looked around the waiting room, this small space where so much happened, every day. She turned to Skyler. “You should talk to them,” she said, gesturing to Jason and Alexa. “You’re, like, calming or something.” She gave Skyler another smile and walked off, Skyler a little amused, or was it amazed, at the idea that she could calm anyone down. But it had seemed to work on Morgan.
So she got out of her chair and went over to Alexa. “Hey,” she said, raising her eyebrows a little, as if to say How crazy, how strange.
“Hey,” Alexa said, arms crossed over her chest, looking rattled and on edge.
“You O.K.?”
“I don’t know,” Alexa said, her mouth crinkling into a frown. “I really don’t know.”
“Who was Kyle?” Skyler asked, noticing Jason, who was now wandering in a little circle near them, bristle. Skyler turned to him. “He was your boyfriend?”
Jason nodded. A little dip of his head, and then a bigger one, his eyes wet with tears. “Yeah. Yes. He was.”
“And he was my best friend,” Alexa added. “Or at least I thought so.”
“He was,” Jason said, turning to his sister, a pleading sound in his voice. “He was,” he repeated, more quietly this time.
“What happened to him?” Skyler asked, hoping she wasn’t pressing too much, but thinking that maybe, if Jason and Alexa just talked about it together, it would help somehow.
“He was in a car accident, last summer,” Jason said, eyes on his sister. “He died. I was supposed to be with him that night, but . . .”
Jason trailed off, looked at the ground, the three of them falling into silence. Skyler wasn’t sure if she should ask anything else. But before she could, Alexa turned to her brother.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Alexa said to Jason, softly, but seeming to mean it. “You didn’t make him drink. You didn’t make him drive. That was him. He did something really stupid. And he did it on his own.”
“But if I’d just been with him!” Jason was getting worked up again, his eyes wide and pained. “If I had just answered the phone and been with him. It wouldn’t have happened. And he’d be alive. He’d have New York. He’d have his five houses. And maybe you wouldn’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” Alexa said. “I just didn’t know. I didn’t know you were so sad when he died. I thought you were just ignoring me. I thought you didn’t care about me. It hurt. I didn’t hate you. I don’t hate you. I was just . . . it hurt.” She was teary now too, her arms pulled tight against her chest, trying to keep herself together.
“I didn’t tell my sister a lot,” Skyler interjected. “I mean, we’re close, but there was a lot . . . happening in my life that I didn’t tell her.” She paused, thinking she should stop talking, but Jason and Alexa were both looking at her, waiting to hear what she had to say.
“Because I was scared to. Because I was embarrassed. Because I thought it might change her opinion of me. She figured out what was going on, eventually, but I wish I’d told her sooner. When I thought she might be dead today, I felt so lost, like the only other person in the world who speaks this . . . whole language was gone, and I’d never get to speak it again. That no one would ever understand me in the same way, for the rest of my life. I’m so lucky that she’s alive. I feel so, so lucky. That I get to talk to her again. That I get to tell her things.”
Skyler felt silly, a little embarrassed, a little cruel, for talking about life and the future when everything around her was death and ruin. “Sorry.”
Jason snorted. “No. That was good. It was good. But Alexa and I don’t exactly speak some secret sibling language.”
“But you have Kyle, right?” Skyler said. “To remember, I mean. That’s something you both have in common. Someone you loved.”
“Maybe,” Alexa muttered, arms still crossed, looking sad and wary, wounded.
“I don’t know.” Skyler sighed. “I don’t know you guys. I don’t mean to butt in. It’s just, if something happens to your par—”
She caught herself, but too late. Jason and Alexa both flinched. “I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I just meant . . .”
“It’s O.K.” Jason shook his head. “It’s fine. You’re right.” He looked at his sister, who wasn’t meeting his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Alexa, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry I shut down after. I just . . . I didn’t know how to be in my head. So I ran from . . . all of it, I guess.”
Alexa ran a hand through her hair. Let out a deep breath. “I mean, I can’t imagine what that must have felt like for you. I just wish . . .” She fell silent.
Jason nodded. “Yeah. Me too.”
Skyler was sure she was intruding now and was about to excuse herself, but then she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around. There was Dr. Lobel, her gray hair spiking off in different directions.
“Ms. Vong?” she asked. Skyler felt a sudden surge of fear. What if something had happened, what if they’d been wrong earlier, what if Kate wasn’t O.K.?
But Dr. Lobel put a hand on Skyler’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “Your sister is awake,” she said. “She asked for you.” Skyler’s heart lifted back up. “Normally we wouldn’t do this, but would you like to go back and see her before we have to prep her for surgery?”
Skyler looked to Jason and Alexa, who both gave her small, encouraging smiles. She waved to them, not sure if it was goodbye or what, and followed Dr. Lobel through the swinging doors and into the hallways of the hospital.
She felt strangely scared. What if things with Kate were different? They were both altered now, weren’t they? What if they couldn’t connect with one another anymore? What if they had nothing to say? Skyler thought about her grandparents, so far away, probably panicking, trying to get back to Boston as quickly as they could. Even though Skyler had told them to stay put, she couldn’t wait for them to get there, for her little family to be back together. For everyone to be in the house again, same as it had been for years.
She thought about her mother, wondered where she might be at that moment. Skyler wondered if maybe her mother had felt something, when Kate was in the accident. People said that parents have an extra sense like that. Maybe Lucy had been in the middle of some desert in California, or on a rocky, lonely beach, and had felt a sudden stab of panic and dread and had missed her daughters just then. Had worried about them. But maybe it didn’t matter, either way. Maybe what Skyler had, what she and Kate had, was enough.
Dr. Lobel guided Skyler around a corner and into a small room. “Kate,” she said, “you have a visitor.” Skyler walked in and saw her siste
r, bruised and bandaged and surrounded by beeping machines. She had so long to go before she was better. Still, as she walked in, she saw that Kate was smiling, looking happy and relieved to see Skyler, to see someone she could count on. To see her sister, crying and scared and grateful all at the same time, there in the room with her, ready to help her through.
Chapter Eighteen
Jason
JASON WATCHED SKYLER leave with the doctor and felt a prickliness, the knowledge that he and Alexa were now alone, and that he’d have to face her again, would have to live with all of his secrets out in the open, the ones he’d held so long and so bitterly. So intensely.
Ambulances were arriving more slowly now, the local anchors on the TV saying that most of the injured victims had been removed from the scene and were at or were on their way to area hospitals. Investigations were under way, the mayor promising that a cause would be determined and if there were parties responsible—he kept saying “negligence”—they would be brought to justice. But still no word on Jason’s parents, if they were just bodies in the rubble or if they were on their way, injured but alive. He and Alexa were among the few people left, waiting for news, for closure, for some bloom of hope.
He looked at Alexa, her eyes still fixed on the door where Skyler had disappeared. She had a lot to think about, he figured. A lot to process. He had hoped he would feel lighter after he told his sister everything, but the space between them only felt heavier, more charged with hurt and confusion. Maybe he had made everything worse, as he always seemed to do, eventually. He and Alexa hadn’t said a word since Skyler left, Alexa staring at the door like she was trying to see through it to something else, Jason watching his sister and trying to figure out what she might do next.
Jason never would have guessed that Alexa would turn to him, her voice even and familiar, and ask, “Do you have any cigarettes?”
Jason blinked at her, not sure he’d heard her right. “Any what?”
“I know you smoke sometimes. Do you have any?”
“I—you don’t smoke.”
“You don’t know everything about me. Sometimes I do.”
“Oh. Well . . . Um, I don’t. Morgan had one of those e-cigarette things. But she’s . . . I don’t know where she went.”
“Maybe she’s outside. Let’s go outside.”
Alexa started walking for the door, and Jason followed her, not sure what had suddenly taken hold in her, but happy that she was talking to him. If she did blame him for Kyle, if she was angry that he’d lied to her for so long, kept his distance and shut her out, at least she wasn’t going to shut him out in return. Alexa was walking quickly, and Jason raced to catch up.
Seeing Alexa move swiftly through the hospital, Jason chasing after her, brought him back to a summer ago, like pretty much everything did these days. They were always with him, those seismic few months. And yet how far away they felt too. Jason thought of a day in early August, just before the heavy dog-days heat set in. Alexa must have noticed that Jason had been using his bike a lot that summer, revisiting that childhood joy, and she suggested that maybe they could go for a ride together. She had an hour before she had to be at work, more than enough time to take a longer route to Grey’s. Jason, happy to be out on the road, and to maybe catch a glimpse of Kyle at work, had agreed, and they set out, brother and sister, like they used to when they were young.
Their route was green and quiet, the occasional car whooshing by, but it was early on a Saturday morning, so for the most part, all Jason heard was the sound of the wind, the pleasing tick of his bicycle wheels, summer cicadas, and songbirds. Alexa rode fast, always more competitive and more athletic than Jason was. On Old Orchard Road, she zoomed around a corner, and when Jason eventually rounded it he couldn’t see her anywhere, though the road ahead was straight and unobstructed. He slowed down, suddenly nervous. He pedaled a little more, then pulled over to the side of the road.
“Alexa?” he called out, unable to hide the panic in his voice. “Alexa?” And then, there she was, jumping out from behind the entrance of the Eastham recycling station. She laughed. “You sounded so worried!”
“Jesus,” Jason said, but he was laughing too. He took a long sigh, made an audible “Whew,” before they hopped on their bikes and pressed on, disappearing down the road.
The little memory stung him, as he made his way out into the cold night. It was sad to think of a time when he and Alexa had been partners. They were only a year apart, and had been, when they were kids, best friends and confidants, with a close, almost telepathic understanding. “You’re so lucky that they’re such pals,” Linda’s friends were always saying to her, as if Jason and Alexa weren’t standing right there, brought around to amuse party guests before they were excused and could go get lost in one of their elaborate, made-up games.
And now Jason was chasing after his sister, whom he may have lost forever, but hoping that something outside, away from the oppressive light of the waiting room, would bring them back together. Now that the truth was out, now that his guilt was laid bare and she could see him for who he really was.
Alexa walked to the end of the driveway and stopped at the curb. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, Jason realizing that she probably hadn’t left the building in hours. He walked up next to her, reveling in the whirling, utterly alive sounds of the city. Boston was always nicest on nights after it rained, he thought, lonely and cozy all at once. It was windy, though, and a chill quickly seeped in through Jason’s clothes. He shivered.
“It’s cold.”
Alexa didn’t look at him, her eyes pointed straight ahead, at the apartment buildings across the street, some windows lit up, making a pattern, an uneven checkerboard of life, little boxes of light each representing people—a family, a couple in love, someone alone. All probably watching the news, to see what the latest word was on this disaster. Jason realized it had likely gripped the city, maybe even the country, this terrifying story. How strange, then, to be there at the middle of it, the story still ongoing, his parents somewhere, still lost in uncertainty.
“Do you think they’re O.K.?” Jason asked her quietly.
She shook her head, stuffed her hands in her pockets. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
They stood in silence, watching the lights of the apartments, seeing silhouettes moving around, people preparing a late dinner, or putting their kids to bed, or maybe just wandering their homes, unsure what to do with themselves.
“Are we going to be O.K.?”
Alexa finally turned to look at him, brushing a strand of hair from her face as she did. She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know that either. Do you want us to be O.K.?”
“Of course. I never meant to—”
“You know what the worst part of it is, besides Kyle being dead, I mean? Besides the lie? It’s that we could have been there for each other, you know? If I had just known. If you had just told me. All this time. This whole year. It could have been so much different, Jason. It could have been so much easier. Or less hard. Or something. I just wish you’d told me. I wish I’d known. Do you have any idea what that feels like? To find out something like this? It’s like the whole world just changed, Jason. Even more than it already had today. I don’t . . . I don’t know where I am anymore.”
“I wanted to tell you. All year. But I thought you’d blame me . . .”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you. It wasn’t your fault. I know you think it was. And I wish you had been with him. Maybe he wouldn’t have . . . But maybe you would have, too. You could be dead too. Did you ever think of that?”
Jason had, more than a few times. At his lowest points, he thought that maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad. If they’d just gone out together. At least then he wouldn’t miss him so much, wouldn’t feel so guilty all the time. It wasn’t quite being suicidal, he didn’t think. It was just wishing that Kyle had taken Jason with hi
m. Wherever he was going. Wherever he went.
“I guess I didn’t,” he lied to Alexa, not wanting to burden her with more of his darkness. “I guess that’s true.”
“It is true,” Alexa said. “It is.” She took her hands out of her pockets, crossed her arms over her chest, her familiar pose, indicating that she was thinking through something. She took a deep breath, exhaled. Looked back at the apartments. “It was my fault, today. Sort of, anyway. They were driving to Northrup. I had a meeting with them and my guidance counselor. I was going to tell them that I don’t want to go to college. Not right away, anyway. So it was my fault that they were on the bridge. They were coming to see me for some stupid thing.”
She looked like she might cry, but she took another deep breath, catching herself. Jason shook his head. “No. No. That’s not your fault. Jesus, Alexa. Is that what you’ve been thinking all day?”
“It’s some of what I’ve been thinking.”
“Well, you shouldn’t. So you had a meeting at school. They had to go to like a million meetings at my school. At my schools. That’s normal. That’s what parents do.”
“I guess.” Alexa sighed, a watery little sound.
“You should have told me,” Jason said, and Alexa laughed.
“That’s my line.”
“So we’re both just . . . not telling each other things, huh.”
“I guess so.”
Jason laughed too, more out of tiredness than anything else. He felt emptied. He’d poured all of himself out and now there was nothing left.
Alexa sighed again, put her hands over her eyes. “Oh Godddd . . . I just need this to be over. I need to know. I need to know.” She ran her hands over her hair, clasping them behind her neck. Jason wasn’t sure what to say, not wanting to disturb the uneasy peace between them.
Alexa bit her lip, looking like she was deciding to say something.
“What did you like about him?”
“What?”
“Kyle. What did you like about him?”
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