But I always refused. Seeing Dad’s grave made it real. I wasn’t delusional; I knew he was dead. But sometimes I could still wake up in the morning, and for those foggy few seconds before reality dawned, I’d have a fleeting instant of wondering what Dad was going to make for breakfast.
I loved those moments. And I had the feeling that there would be fewer of them—or that they would disappear entirely—if I started visiting his grave. I didn’t want to remember him as a cold piece of stone or an eight-by-four patch of green grass.
I took a deep breath and scrambled out of the car. “I don’t want to be here,” I announced, walking over to Kelsi, who was fiddling with her pack of cigarettes.
She leaned back against her car door and drew in a deep breath of smoke, which she exhaled suddenly with a sharp cough, leading me to wonder if she was really the experienced smoker she seemed to want me to think she was.
“You want one?” she offered, holding the pack out.
“I don’t smoke.”
Kelsi rolled her eyes. “Neither did I,” she said. “Things change.”
We stood there in silence for a minute. I was trying very hard to forget where we were. I felt cold inside. I swallowed hard a few times, a weird pang in my chest.
“Give me one,” I blurted out, surprising myself with the desperation in my voice. Kelsi looked at me with mild interest, then handed me the pack of cigarettes.
“You have to shake it,” she said, smiling at my hesitation, “to get one out.”
I nodded, feeling silly, and did as she said until a cigarette dropped into my hand. I had never smoked before. I’d had it drilled into me from an early age that smoking would kill you. But then again, so would driving in your own neighborhood on a Saturday morning with your kids.
I tentatively put the cigarette between my lips and Kelsi took a step closer. She flicked the lighter a few times until it lit and held it to the tip of my cigarette. “Inhale,” she commanded.
I did, watching as the cigarette ignited with the force of my breath. All of a sudden, my lungs filled with smoke—sharp, dark, itchy smoke—and I began to cough, hard at first and then even harder, unable to control myself. I dropped the cigarette and Kelsi quickly stubbed it out while I doubled over, coughing some more. It felt like I couldn’t get the smoke out of my lungs. I gasped for air.
Kelsi shook her head. “You suck at this.” I coughed some more and glared at her. “Shut up.” Kelsi watched me hacking up my lungs, and to my surprise, she started to giggle, slowly at first and then harder. I looked down at my stubbed-out cigarette and lifted a hand to my cheek, which I knew was red from all the coughing. In a dark, weird way, I had to admit, it was a funny scenario.
Kelsi’s laughter was contagious, and soon, I was giggling and then laughing too. Here we were, two Goody Two-shoes, smoking in the cemetery parking lot during school hours. The Plymouth East gossip mill would never have believed it.
In that moment, I felt closer to Kelsi than I had to anyone—even Logan or Jennica or my mom—in ten months. After all, Kelsi knew exactly how I felt, in a way that few people did.
It was also the first time I could remember laughing—really laughing—in a long time. I had to admit, it felt good.
Then, I realized that the sound of Kelsi’s laughter had changed. The giggles were coming in gasps, and they trembled on their way out.
She was crying. Hard. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. I had never seen anyone laugh and sob hysterically at the exact same time. I knew I was supposed to do something, but I didn’t know what.
“Kelsi?” I asked tentatively. I watched, feeling totally helpless, as she leaned back hard against her car and slid slowly down it, eventually collapsing to the ground, a puddle of limp limbs, still crying. The laughter was gone now, having given way to pure sobs that racked her whole body. My heart ached.
Slowly, uncomfortably, I knelt down, intending to pull her into a hug, because it was all I could think to do. But when my fingertips touched her upper arm, she jerked angrily away, as if I had burned her with the tip of one of her cigarettes.
“Leave me alone!” she barked. “Just go away!”
She drew her knees up to her chest and put her face down on them, working herself into a little ball. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat down beside her, feeling miserable.
Eventually, Kelsi’s sobbing slowed. I tentatively put my hand on her arm again, and when she didn’t shake me off, I slipped it loosely around her back in a sort of half-hug, the best I could manage side by side on the ground. We sat like that for a while as Kelsi wiped at her eyes.
“It gets better,” I said.
Kelsi shook my hand off her shoulders. “Oh yeah?
When?”
I didn’t have an answer. Did it get better? Sure, I wasn’t the crying mess that I was for the first few weeks after Dad’s death. I was fine now. I never cried anymore. But there was still an emptiness inside me that wouldn’t go away. And sometimes, I was sure that the empty space was growing bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow me whole.
“So, do you want to go see your mom’s grave or something?” I asked.
“No,” she snapped.