“Oh.” He forced himself to look up at me. “I wasn’t trying to act weird,” he said then. “I just don’t know what to say. I mean, I’ve never known someone who—whose family—” He stopped, unable to finish his sentence.
“Someone whose family died?” It was the first time I’d said it out loud to any of the boys.
“Yeah, that.” He held my eyes for a moment before looking away again.
“Most people just say they’re sorry,” I said, trying to get him to relax. It was a strange feeling. Normally everyone tried to comfort me when my family came up, not the other way around.
“That’s a strange custom, don’t you think?” Alex asked, which wasn’t what I was expecting him to say. He pulled himself into a sitting position and leaned back against the wall.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s say, for example, that it was an accident,” he said, and by “it” I presumed he meant death. “Then there’s no reason to apologize since it technically isn’t your fault, right? Saying you feel bad makes more sense, but nobody really wants to hear that, do they? Besides, I’m sure not everyone actually feels bad. What if you don’t really know the person who died, but you just feel like you have to say something? That’s not really genuine.”
Alex was in full-on ramble mode.
“Alex,” I said, trying to get his attention.
“Maybe people should just give hugs. Physical contact says a lot without actually saying anything, but I guess people give hugs at funerals anyway. And I’d feel awkward giving you a hug since we barely know each other.”
“Alex!” I shouted this time and clapped my hands together for emphasis.
“Huh?” he said, shaking his head. When he noticed me staring at him, he blushed. “Sorry, I tend to talk when I’m nervous.”
“I can see that,” I said, a small grin curling on my lips. It was honestly the worst condolence someone had ever given me, and yet somehow it worked. “Thanks.”
When he saw that I wasn’t upset, he smiled back. “No problem.”
I turned serious again. “You want to know one of the worst things?” I asked, but I didn’t wait for him to respond. “When people treat me differently, like I’m going to break or something. For a second there, I was afraid you were going to get all weird on me.”
“I’m sorry, Jackie,” he said then, since there was nothing more he could say.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, more to myself than to him. “Me too.”
We were quiet for a while, both lost in thought, until I finally worked up the courage to speak again. “So what are you doing up here?”
This question seemed to make Alex more uncomfortable then talking about my family, and I felt him tense up again, his hands balling into fists at his side. When I looked at him, I realized that something was wrong. There were dark purple marks under Alex’s eyes, like he hadn’t slept all weekend.
“Hey,” I asked, “what’s wrong?”
His gaze flickered to the left, and when I followed him with my eyes, I spotted something discarded on the floor—a piece of paper or something. Alex didn’t move, so I slowly reached for it, watching him the whole time to make sure it was okay, but he didn’t indicate that I should stop. When I picked it up, I realized that it was a folded-up photograph, and I carefully smoothed out the crease. I recognized the people in it immediately. There was Alex, grinning at the camera, his arm wrapped around a girl with blond ringlets—the girl from our anatomy class.
“Her name’s Mary Black,” Alex said without waiting for me to ask. “She’s my ex-girlfriend. We broke up three weeks ago.”
“I take it you miss her?” I knew it was a lame thing to say. Of course he missed her, but I didn’t know how to properly comfort him. It explained the longing look he gave Mary on my first day of class. Alex nodded his head.
“Do you think you guys will get back together?” I asked, trying to be positive.
“I’ve had a crush on her since elementary school,” Alex said instead. “The first time I saw her was in third grade, and I remember holding my breath as she walked by me on the playground. She was wearing this little pink jumper and her hair was hanging down her back in two braids. She couldn’t’ve cared less that all the boys stopped playing kickball just to watch her skip rope with her friends.” The words were spilling out of Alex’s mouth now, so I let him go on without interrupting.
“I’ll be the first to admit, after that day, I think I was in love, but I never did anything about it. Mary was the type of girl that seemed so unobtainable, and I knew I didn’t stand a chance. I dated a few girls in junior high, nothing serious, and then at the beginning of this year, she sat next to me in English. On the first day of class, she just popped down next to me and started talking to me like we were good friends, like I hadn’t been crushing on her since forever. After a few weeks, I worked up the courage to ask her to Homecoming, and then we started dating.”
“So what happened?”