“I’m sure,” I said. Then she and Decker exchanged a long look. We walked into the warmth of the lobby with them, and they continued on into the funeral home. I shrugged out of my red jacket, inappropriate for the occasion, and saw an empty closet to the side.
“Be right back,” I said. Decker strode across the room toward our friends. Kevin and Justin sat on a bench, bent forward, scanning the foyer in disbelief. Even from across the room, it looked like none of them had slept since Carson’s death. I hung my jacket on a stray hanger and headed toward Decker. Justin’s forearms rested on his legs and his head hung down. He raised his head when Decker sat next to him and patted him on the back. Then his eyes caught sight of me, and he tensed.
Then Kevin looked up. They both stared at me, mouths pressed tight, eyes narrowed, jaws clenched. Decker looked from them to me and ran his hand through his messy hair. He stood and opened his mouth to speak, but then Janna walked out from the interior of the funeral home, into the lobby.
She wore a long, billowy black dress, and her hair was pulled and pinned into a tight bun. Nothing escaped. Tara was the first to greet her. She used that move she had pulled on me—gripping her tight, rocking her side to side. Only Janna didn’t puke. She put her arms around Tara and hugged her back. Then Janna moved on and gripped Justin’s sleeve. And while Justin held Janna, Tara let out a choked sob, and Decker hung an arm over her shoulder.
Now that Janna was there, surely the guys would stop shooting daggers in my direction. I failed at CPR. I didn’t bring him back. But I tried. I was the only one who tried. I touched Janna’s sleeve, and she raised her teary eyes to meet mine.
And then she tensed, like Justin had done on the bench. I stepped back, confused. She raised one finger and shoved it in my face. “You,” she said, seething. “You don’t get to come in here looking all sad.” Justin held her other arm but didn’t pull her back. “You don’t get to breathe goddamn water for eleven fucking minutes and stand here all fine at my brother’s funeral.” She sobbed and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “You don’t get to stand there all perfect like nothing happened when you were—” She groaned. “Where the fuck were you two going? I told you not to touch him. I told you.”
I wasn’t breathing. The edges of my vision started to go fuzzy from lack of oxygen. I remember Decker’s hands on the sides of my arms and his voice to Janna, saying, “Okay, okay,” and him pulling me out into the air. And I remember everyone staring. I remember Decker getting my bright red coat and hanging it over my shoulders and everyone staring some more as I slid my way down the steps, fresh blood on old snow.
Decker opened the passenger door and pushed me inside. “Is this why you didn’t want me to come?” I said once I found my voice. “You knew?” They had all saved my life, and I hadn’t saved his. Like Decker thought, it was a trade. It was a trade that no one else would’ve agreed to.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He leaned across me to turn on the car and crank up the heat, and I resisted the urge to reach out and touch him. To ask him to stay with me. He stood at my open door, one hand on the hood of the car, and looked back and forth between me and the funeral home. He sighed and shut the door.
While everyone grieved together inside, I thought of all the things I should’ve done but didn’t do. I should’ve told Carson flat out. I should’ve called for help before we got in the car. I should’ve continued on to Kevin’s house, where everyone could’ve tried to help. Where everyone could’ve shared the blame. Would any of it have made a difference?
This was why my parents hadn’t come. They weren’t busy. They weren’t selfish. They knew. It should’ve been them grieving. It should’ve been them accepting condolences. It should’ve been them with the dead child in the casket.
I opened Decker’s emergency cooler because it was an emergency. I tossed bags of food and bars of chocolate onto the empty seats, and I hurled a can of soda at the back window. Something in the trunk punctured the aluminum, and a long, steady hiss of air escaped. I tossed the roadside flares aside and found my nearly forgotten vial of pain medication. I popped the top and swallowed a pill dry, feeling the slow path it took down my esophagus.
I waited for it to work, which it didn’t. Which it wouldn’t. This wasn’t a cracked rib or a massive headache or a burn on my palm.
Troy was right. I couldn’t save them. The best I could hope for was to ease their suffering.
So I slid across the emergency cooler, readjusted Decker’s seat, and tore out of the parking lot.
I drove out of town and into the valley again, where I’d felt that pull, where I’d seen that old woman. I drove down the narrow street to the yellow house with the white curtains. I pulled to a stop and stepped outside. I was going to ease her suffering.
I crossed the street and smelled fresh asphalt. I walked up the rotting wooden steps to the wraparound porch, hearing my steps echo in the hollow space underneath. The rocking chairs were still, even though there was a breeze. Like the ghosts were leaning forward in their chairs, watching me.
The white curtains were pulled shut. There was no hollow face at the window, watching me. Something was wrong. I didn’t feel anything coming from the house. I stood in front of the brown door, my hands pressed flat against it. Then I pressed my finger to the doorbell and listened to its electrical buzz resonate through the house, knowing there’d be no answer.
Then I squeezed my eyes shut because someone was walking up the steps behind me, and I knew exactly who it was.
“They came for her a half hour ago,” Troy said.
I spun around and clenched my fists at my sides. “What did you do?” I said through my teeth.
Troy hunched his shoulders forward as a stiff breeze blew across the porch. “Does it matter?” Then he cocked his head to the side and said, “What are you doing here, Delaney? What were you planning to do?” His eyes looked even bluer, like he was seeing something. Hope, maybe. But then I realized that all he was hoping for was that I was becoming exactly like him. And I didn’t know how to explain what I was going to do—what I had hoped to do.
So I said, “I was planning to stop you,” and pushed past him, ran down the rickety steps, and took off. But instead of going home, I circled the block, parked behind the house, and watched. Something still called to me. So I sat and I watched, but nothing happened. And eventually I only felt the emptiness. Everything about it was dead.
The sun was setting when I made it back to Decker’s house. I pulled his car back into his driveway and tried to adjust the seat for his height. Then I crawled into the backseat and began to clean the mess. Soda had leaked all along the floor of the trunk and dribbled down the back window. I was collecting the trash from the floor when Decker slid open the side door.
I froze, candy bar in one hand, dented soda can in the other.
“You stole my car.”
I shoved the candy and empty can into my coat pockets. I didn’t want to talk about the funeral. “Stop calling it a car. It’s a minivan. You’re in denial.”
He tried not to smile, but he did, I saw it. “And you trashed it.”
“How can you even tell? When’s the last time you cleaned this piece of crap?”
We waited, not sure what to say or whether to say it. “So,” I said, “get some paper towels and Windex and give me a hand already.” And Decker, whether relieved or disappointed by our lack of conversation, listened.
He sprayed, I rubbed. He even laughed when I chucked the dirty paper towel in his face.
“So listen,” I said. “What I said yesterday?”
“You don’t have to do this.”
Except I did. I just couldn’t figure out how to undo it. How to cancel it out. How to tell him how I felt. And as I was thinking, Decker said, “I’m fine, Delaney.”
And there it was. He was fine being with Tara. Fine with us the way we were. He was going to be fine without me.