Two months later, June caught her precious Tyler macking on some skanky freshman cheerleader at a car wash fundraiser meant to raise money for the band geeks. The only thing really raised was the bar for most indiscreet and stupidest way to get caught cheating on your girlfriend. Tyler was quite the class act.
A month after that disaster, our parents’ divorce was finalized.
June and I never really talked about either of those things. It wasn’t like when we were kids; we weren’t best friends anymore. Hadn’t been in years.
Now, even looking at the ring makes me want to throw up. I all but fling it at Tyler in my haste to not have it in my possession. “No. I don’t want it. It’s yours.”
“It should’ve been hers,” he insists, snatching my hand to try and force it back. “We would’ve gotten back together. I know we would have. It should’ve been hers. Keep it.”
What is he doing? I want to scream, or kick him in the stomach, or something. Anything to get him away from me.
“I don’t want it.” My voice arches into near hysteria. What makes him think this is appropriate? It is not appropriate. It is so far from appropriate. “Okay? I don’t want it. I don’t.”
Our reverse tug-of-war is interrupted by the approach of a stout, so-gray-it’s-blue-haired woman, who pushes in front of Tyler and tugs me to her chest in a smothering embrace. She has that weird smell all old ladies seem to possess, must and cat litter and pungent perfume, and when she releases me from her death grip, holding me at arm’s length, my eyes focus enough for a better look. Her clown-red lipstick and pink blush contrast sharply with her papery white skin. It’s like a department store makeup counter threw up on her face.
I have no idea who she is, but I’m not surprised. An event like this in a town as small as ours has all kinds of people coming out of the woodwork. This isn’t the first time today I’ve been cornered and accosted by someone I’ve never met acting like we’re old friends.
“It’s such a tragedy,” the woman is saying now. “She was so young.”
“Yes,” I agree. I feel suddenly dizzy, the blood between my temples pounding at a dull roar.
“So gifted!”
“Yes,” I say again.
“She was a lovely girl. You would never think …” As she trails off, the wrinkles around her mouth deepen. “The Lord does work in mysterious ways. My deepest sympathies, sweetheart.”
The edges of my vision go white. “Thank you.”
I can’t do this. I can’t do this. It feels like there’s an elephant sitting on my chest.
“There you are.”
I expect to see another stranger making a beeline for me, but instead it’s my best friend, Laney. She has on a dress I’ve never seen before, black with a severe pencil skirt, paired with skinny heels and a silver necklace that dips low into her cleavage. Her thick blond hair, which usually hangs to the middle of her back, is twisted and pinned to the back of her head. I wonder how she managed to take so much hair and cram it into such a neat bun.
She strides forward, her heels clicking on the linoleum, and only meets my eyes briefly before turning her attention to Tyler.
“Your mom’s looking for you,” she says, her hand on his arm. From the outside it would look like a friendly gesture, unless you knew, like I do, that Laney can’t stand Tyler, that she thinks he’s an insufferable dick.
“She is?” Tyler glances from me to Laney uncertainly, like he’s weighing the odds of whether it’d be a more productive use of time to find his mother or to stay here and see if he can convince me to take the stupid ring as some token of his atonement, or whatever he thinks such an exchange would mean.
“Of course she is,” Laney says glibly, drawing him toward the doorway to the dining room. She’s definitely lying; I can tell by the mannered, lofty tilt in her speech. That’s the voice she uses with her father—one that takes extra care to be as articulate and practiced as possible. It’s completely different from her normal tone.
As soon as Laney and Tyler disappear from sight, the woman, whom I still can’t place, starts up her nattering again with renewed vigor. “Tell me, how is the family coping? Oh, your poor mother—”
And just like that, Laney’s back, sans Tyler. She sets a hand on the woman’s elbow, steers her toward the doorway.
“You should go talk to her,” she suggests with a feigned earnestness most Emmy winners can only dream of.
The woman considers. “Do you think?”
“Absolutely. She’d love to see you. In fact, I’ll come with you.”
This is why I love Laney: she always has my back. We’ve been best friends since we were alphabetically seated next to each other in second grade. Scott and Sterling. She’s the coolest person I know; she wears vintage clothes all the time and can quote lines from old fifties-era screwball romantic comedies and just about any rap song by heart, and she doesn’t care what anyone thinks. The best thing about her is that she thinks I’m awesome, too. It’s harder than you think, to find someone who truly believes in your unequivocal, unconditional awesomeness, especially when you’re like me: unspectacular in every way.
As they walk away arm in arm, Laney glances over her shoulder at me, and I shoot her the most grateful look I can manage. She returns it with a strained smile and hurries herself and the woman into the crowded dining room, where I hear muted conversation and the clatter of dinnerware. If I follow, I’ll be mobbed by scores of relatives and acquaintances and total strangers, all pressing to exchange pleasantries and share their condolences. And I’ll have to look them in the eye and say thank you and silently wonder how many of them blame me for not seeing the signs.
“The signs.” It makes it sound like June walked around with the words I Am Going to Kill Myself written over her head in bright buzzing neon. If only. Maybe then—
No. I cut off that train of thought before it can go any further. Another wave of panic rises in my chest, so I lean my hands heavily against the kitchen counter to stop it, press into the edge until it cuts angry red lines into my palms. If I can just get through this hour, this afternoon, this horrible, horrible day, then maybe … maybe I can fall apart then. Later. But not now.
Air. What I need is air. This house, all of these people, they’re suffocating. Before anyone else can come into the kitchen and trap me in another conversation, I slip out the back door leading to the yard and close it behind me as quietly as possible.
I sit down on the porch steps, my black dress tangling around my legs, and drop my head into my hands. I’ve never felt so exhausted in my life, which I suppose isn’t such a shock considering I can’t have slept more than ten hours in the past five days. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, and then another, and then hold the next one until my chest burns so badly I think it might burst.
When I inhale again, I breathe in the humid early-summer air, dirt and dew and—something else. A hint of smoke. My eyes open, and when I turn my head slightly to my left, I see someone, a boy, standing against the side of the house.
Apparently getting a moment to myself just isn’t in the cards today.
I scratch at my itchy calves as I give him a cool onceover. He’s taller than me by a good half a head, and he looks lean and hard. Compact. His messy, light brown hair sticks out in all directions, like he’s hacked at it on his own with a pair of scissors. In the dark. He’s got a lit cigarette in one hand and the other stuck in the front pocket of his baggy black jeans. Unlike every other male I’ve seen today, he’s not wearing a suit—just the jeans and a button-down, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a crooked tie in a shade of black that doesn’t quite match his shirt.
I notice his eyes, partly because they’re a startling green,