No One Here Is Lonely

by Sarah Everett

  “I don’t think so,” I say, after several moments have passed. “Thanks, though.”

  Oliver keeps watching me, tugs on one of the springy curls at the back of his head.

  Silence spools out like a ball of yarn between us, and I feel a pang of regret at rejecting his offer. It’s true that there’s nothing he can do, but maybe I’d feel better not being the only one holding this gigantic secret.

  “More for Less,” I say, pointing at the blue polo Oliver is wearing. “You’re working there all summer?”

  Oliver nods. “They’re hiring, if you’re interested,” he says. “I know you and Lace were supposed to go to Rowan.”

  “I’m working at my dad’s for the summer,” I say.

  We both turn to look out onto the street again. This time, the silence is softer, less tense.

  “You should stay for dinner,” he says. “I’m making this turkey chili.”

  “You cook?”

  Oliver pretends to be wounded by the surprise in my voice. “Your tone is very hurtful,” he says, but almost immediately he’s grinning at me. “Of course I cook. Not well, necessarily. Just…you know, I do it to help Mom out sometimes.”

  He plays with a feather resting against the tiling on the roof.

  All of a sudden, my mind flashes years back, to the days soon after Lacey and Oliver’s father left. Lacey and I spent every waking moment at my house, because their house was bleak and Mrs. Murdoch was prone to bursting into tears at any given moment. Later, she wouldn’t get out of bed at all. I remember how their house seemed to have tilted, like one half of it was on level ground and the other had sunk into sadness. We liked being at my house better because it was still upright. My parents were still laughing at each other’s jokes and checking out each other’s butts and the one thing I never had to worry about was them, because they were solid and because of that we were solid.

  I was solid.

  For all the time we spent avoiding their house, Oliver never did, preferring to stay close to Mrs. Murdoch, to make sure nothing happened to her.

  He still hasn’t changed very much.

  “So, dinner?” Oliver asks, cutting into my thoughts.

  Before I can answer, though, a gray car turns onto their street.

  “She’s here,” I say, and Oliver glances up to confirm this, which means we both see what happens next. Lacey’s car pulls only halfway into the driveway before it stops, then begins to back up onto the road.

  “Where’s she going?” I ask as her car pulls back out onto the street, then disappears from view. I can see my car from here, parked by the curb next to her house, and she has to have seen it, so why would she leave without saying anything if she knows I’m inside?

  The pieces rearrange in slow motion in my head, and suddenly everything from the last few weeks—the unanswered texts, the way she blew off her Camp Rowan interview, how much time she’s been spending with Hail and Co.—it all makes sense.

  But just in case it didn’t, a phone vibrates between us. Oliver reaches into his pocket and pulls it out. I can see the exact moment he regrets doing so. There’s a split-second frown on his face and then he looks up at me, but I already understand.

  “That’s Lacey, isn’t it?”

  She saw my car.

  She’s seen my texts.

  She’s asking him for a favor—to get rid of me, or lie for her, or tell her when the coast is clear—and even as everything inside me seems to explode, everything is finally making sense.

  “Eden—” Oliver says, trying to explain, even though he can see in my expression that it’s too late.

  I know what’s going on.

  “Listen, she’s being weird. I don’t know what—”

  “It’s okay,” I say, cutting him off, and I’m already standing, moving around him to climb back into Lacey’s room.

  My body is warm with humiliation.

  Lacey is avoiding me.

  “I’m going to go,” I say, a calm I don’t feel taking over my voice, even as the refrain from earlier, in Mom’s parking lot, overtakes my mind. No. No no no.

  I climb back into Lacey’s room, and a second later, Oliver is back inside too.

  “Could you do me a favor?” I ask, anger superseding every other emotion.

  Oliver is still trying to defend her, to make me feel better. “She’s being weird with everyone, Eden.”

  “Tell Lacey,” I say, the edge in my voice making me feel powerful. “Tell your sister to go and fuck herself.”

  I think my voice cracks on the last word, but it doesn’t matter. I’m already racing out of their house, and if Oliver says anything else, I don’t hear.

  By the time I reach my car, hot tears are starting to blur my vision, but I force them back.

  I get into my car and drive to the last place I want to be.

  I drive home.

  THEY’RE IN THE middle of dinner when I get inside. Sitting around the dining table, talking and laughing just like normal.

  So she’s really doing it.

  She’s really going to pretend she hasn’t just fucked over my dad.

  “Eden!” Dad says. “Your mom just tried calling you. She said you didn’t mention you were meeting Lacey?”

  I’m storming past them, head fixed straight forward, because I can’t see her face. I think I would actually explode if I had to look at her.

  “Where are you going?” Mom asks me.

  I don’t answer, just keep moving forward, my messenger bag slapping at my thigh with every aggressive step.

  “Eden?” Mom calls again.

  The sound of cutlery clanging against plates grows irregular, my sisters probably slowing their eating to gape at me.

  “I’m not hungry,” I snap, still not stopping to look at her.

  “Eden, come on, that’s disrespectful. Your mom is having a conversation with you,” I hear Dad say, standing, as I reach the stairs and start to take them two at a time. It makes my stomach roil to hear him defending her.

  I’ve just reached my bedroom and slammed the door shut behind me when there’s a knock on the other side of it.

  Dad pokes his head in, and he’s frowning.

  “What was all that about?” he asks, sounding disappointed.

  I look away from him, move some stuff around on my desk so I don’t have to make eye contact. There’s nothing worse than Dad’s disappointment. It is all big, sorrowful eyes and a gentle voice, meant to make you feel like absolute crap if you didn’t already.

  “I ate at Lacey’s,” I lie.

  “Then you should have let us know you were doing that. And the way you acted down there just now? Unacceptable. You owe your mother an apology.”

  He never once raises his voice as he speaks, and it takes everything I have not to tell him that I never intend on speaking to her again. Not if I can help it.

  “Your mother didn’t get the envelope you delivered. You didn’t tell me you didn’t see her,” he says.

  I think fast. “I slipped it under her door. Maybe someone took it or something.” The lies are just spilling out of me tonight.

  Then I remember that no matter how many lies I tell, I can’t be as bad as Mom, and that makes me feel the slightest bit better.

  “Oh,” Dad says. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

  I nod.

  “Sorry about the letter,” I say.

  “That’s fine,” he says, coming over and giving me a hug. “Apparently I just need a more reliable courier service next time.”

  I force a laugh, wait until the door has shut behind him to have my full meltdown.

  How can she sit there and eat with them?

  How can she let my dad hold her hand and brag on her in front of his friends and pinch her butt at dinner parties, and the whole tim
e she’s just playing a stupid game?

  She’s just…I can’t even wrap my head around it.

  That my mom, who writes books and speeches and stands on stages around the country, telling people they can have the perfect life she has, is doing the one thing she can do to fuck it up.

  How long has she been doing it?

  How damn stupid are we, the four of us, worshipping at her feet and believing that she is something she is not? What about everything she says about how all our actions reflect on our family?

  There is something that feels so patently unfair about the timing of all this. The fact that it’s happening just after Dad’s TIA. The fact that I’m heading to college in a couple of months and everything is changing and the one thing that isn’t supposed to change is my family, my home.

  How could she do this?

  My parents got the fairy tale, the happily ever after. They’re not supposed to be broken and fucked up like everyone else is.

  I get into bed fully clothed, pull the covers over my head.

  I stay curled up that way for what feels like hours and then there is a knock on my door. I hear it swing open before I even have the chance to answer.

  “Honey, is everything okay?” Her voice betrays nothing that would suggest she knows that she’s why I’m not okay. With the sheets still covering me, she can’t see my face, so it’s easier to talk to her, to lie to her.

  “Upset stomach,” I say, because it’s the only thing I can think of.

  She takes a few steps into my room and then I can feel the weight of her knee pressed into my mattress while she places her hand on my body. The urge to jerk from her touch makes me realize that I’ve said exactly the wrong thing.

  “Do you want to try some Pepto? What did you have for dinner?”

  “I’m fine. I think I just need to sleep it off.”

  I feel her hesitation, but, thankfully, she doesn’t argue with me. “Okay. But I don’t think I have to tell you that no matter how you’re feeling, taking it out on us is not the way to deal with things. You were really rude tonight.”

  I’m not apologizing.

  There is no way in hell I’m going to apologize to her, when what she has done is so much worse. I stay frozen, burritoed in my sheets. She thinks she can wait me out. One, two, three minutes, but I can wait forever.

  Finally she says, “Did you…When you came by today, was it before or after lunch?”

  I immediately understand what she’s asking: Was I there when Serg was? Could I have seen anything suspicious?

  “After,” I lie. I swear I hear her exhale in relief. “Why?”

  I’m daring her to tell me the truth.

  She won’t.

  Of course she won’t.

  But I give her the chance anyway.

  “I stepped out before lunch,” she says. “I just wondered if you came by when I was out.”

  I didn’t know how much her answer, her honesty, would mean until she lied.

  “So you came by in the afternoon?” she asks again, double-checking, reassuring herself that she’s safe. It’s such weak reassurance. She could easily find out the truth by asking Dad when I left for her office, but she won’t. It’s easier to believe what she wants, to believe what I’m telling her.

  “Yep,” I say. It’s all I can manage without my voice breaking.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” she asks. “You don’t want something for your stomach?”

  I don’t answer. I refuse to give her anything by crying in her presence.

  After a couple of minutes, she sighs, rises and heads out of my room. Hopefully she thinks I’ve fallen asleep.

  I lie there, replaying everything over and over again, seething at Mom, at Lacey, mostly at Mom. In some ways, they are exactly the same, breaking something solid for no apparent reason. Lacey is Mom, abandoning the person who trusts her the most. Mom is Lacey, proving how little I matter, how little Dad matters.

  My mother is a liar.

  I think what hurts the most is that what I saw makes everything invalid. The way she rallied around Dad when he was sick, eyes swollen, face free of makeup. Every word she’s ever said about how to conduct yourself, live your life, find your happiness. Everything she says about her family being the thing she most values.

  She doesn’t give a fuck about us. She cares about selling some picture of perfection, fooling us into playing the correct roles without us knowing we’re doing it.

  The urge to scream and throw something is gone now, and all that’s left is this burning need to talk to someone. To tell someone what I saw.

  I consider crossing the hall and going to Mia, but if there’s one person it would devastate almost as much as Dad, it’s Mia.

  She thinks the world of Mom.

  I have to figure out what to do, how to handle this on my own.

  I reach for my phone, and of course there are no messages or calls from Lacey.

  Of their own accord, my fingers start to dial her number, and then it’s ringing and I’m listening to her tell me to leave a message and I’ve never wanted to talk to my best friend more in my life.

  And she doesn’t want to talk to me.

  I feel a physical pain in my chest, like something breaking.

  I sit there for a long time, desperate to hear a voice I recognize, someone I can trust. I’m mentally going through the names of people I know.

  New Age Lauren.

  Megan Tomey.

  Alex Reynolds.

  But the truth is, I don’t know them nearly well enough for a conversation like this. The fact that Lacey and I floated from group to group in high school has come back to haunt me. It means I know a little bit about a lot of people, but not a lot about any of them.

  Lacey used to feel like enough.

  And then it hits me.

  Will.

  He’s dead, the voice in my head tells me.

  I remember standing at his mother’s door, handing her his jacket like a peace offering. The number she gave me in return.

  He’s dead.

  But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk to him.

  “EDEN!” He says my name the way you say an old friend’s, a familiarity and warmth in his voice that make me instantly feel a little better. And he sounds so much like himself, so much like the Will I knew, that it makes me want to cry. “I hoped you’d call again. How have you been?”

  The first word that comes to mind is horrible, but I don’t want to start the conversation off on a bad note, so I make a noncommittal noise.

  I scoot backward on my bed till I’m leaning against the wall, then I bring my knees up to my chest.

  “Tell me something good,” I whisper, desperate to flush every bad thing today has brought out of my mind. My mother, Serg, Lacey.

  “Let’s see,” Will says, sounding like he is actually thinking about it. “Oh! The Bruins beat the Cavs last night. Last game of the season.”

  A smile starts to stretch across my face, because he definitely still sounds like himself. He still sounds like the boy I loved for all of high school.

  But almost immediately, the warm feeling of recognition is replaced by something else.

  “How do you know that?” I ask, voice low.

  “I have my ways,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

  “No, seriously. How do you know that?”

  “The same way anybody knows anything,” Will quips. “The internet.”

  “You can get on the internet?” I ask, my mind spinning at the thought. It occurs to me that I know practically nothing about how this whole Companion thing works. It’s a computer program, right? Full of information about the Cognitive Donor—about Will. So it makes sense that it would be interested in lacrosse.

  “I get updates,” he says. �
�It all gets uploaded to the old memory.”

  “Oh,” I say, and a strange sense overtakes me. Like maybe calling Will tonight—or ever—wasn’t a good idea. Like maybe I’m in over my head.

  I mean, I’m talking to a program. A program designed to be exactly like Will, but a program all the same.

  He gets updates.

  How fucked up is that?

  Neither of us is speaking, so I pull up the internet on my phone and check the results of the game the Bruins played against the Cavs.

  “So what was the score?” I hear myself asking. It’s not that I don’t believe him, exactly. I just need to hear it from him for some reason, to feel like we are existing in the same universe, not some parallel world in which Will is still alive.

  “Seventeen to ten,” he says without missing a beat. Then, almost like he can see me, can sense my disbelief, he adds, “Hilson scored twice in the last quarter, and Jerry had an unbelievable save in the third or the Cavs would have gone up on us. Any further questions?”

  I don’t know if any of what he’s said is true, but he’s right about the score and, therefore, probably everything else too.

  “Um, no,” I say. “No further questions.”

  He laughs. That deep, full laugh that always sent tingles down my spine.

  “So you’re fine with it?” I ask. “Following the Bruins, despite…” I hesitate. “Everything.”

  Despite being dead.

  Despite never getting to play for them, like he always wanted to.

  I swear I can feel him shrug through the phone. “I don’t know, Eden,” he says. “I have to be, right?”

  And of all the things that have caught me off guard since the first time I spoke to Will on the phone, it is this that shocks me the most.

  He sounds…wistful. Like there are things he misses about being alive, things he remembers, things he wants.

  And yet he’s a program. A series of zeros and ones on a computer somewhere.

  “Do you remember me?” I ask now, my voice small, and I hold my breath for his answer. Him remembering me would mean that I meant something to him, that all our interactions were more than just flirting and joking around, that what happened between us on the night he died mattered.