Brynna breathed deeply, feeling the butterflies flapping madly in her stomach. “I want to be there,” she said, not sure if she meant it.
Her parents tried to make conversation as they passed the Point Lobos sign. They asked trivia questions and her dad sang badly to Beyoncé, which should have mortified Brynna, but she was too busy studying every inch of the passing landscape to notice.
It seemed like something should be different now that Erica had been found. But nothing was. Chow Foo’s heavy red and gold embossed doors still stood out among the clapboard shops and swinging glass doors; street signs still looked like they sprang out of the little piles of sand at their bases; tourists with chubby-cheeked toddlers still looked each way while crossing the street, dragging a string of Donald Duck rafts behind them. There was a line at the ice cream shop, and Brynna narrowed her eyes, recognizing a few kids from Lincoln High and wondering, with a growing heat, if one of them was playing with her, pretending to be Erica.
Her heart started to slam against her rib cage as her father steered the car through the big iron gates of the Point Lobos Cemetery. The place should have been calming with its gently sloping green hills and carefully manicured bushes with the last of the fall flowers, but Brynna was on edge, clenching her fists so hard that her nails dug little half moons into her palms.
Her father steered them to a tiny road that was suddenly lined with cars, and Brynna watched people walking from all directions. They spun as the car crept by, squinting to see inside. Brynna shrunk.
I shouldn’t be here.
She sucked in deep breaths but it did nothing for the trembling.
Erica’s death was an accident, she said to herself.
Everyone is looking at you.
The Shaws walked up at the same time the Chases did, and Brynna was glad for that. All eyes went to Mrs. Shaw and hands went out to Mr. Shaw. Brynna was steering her parents toward a group of folding chairs half obscured by the weeping willow when she heard, “Oh, Brynna, you look so wonderful.”
Brynna turned and blinked at Mrs. Shaw. She was an older version of Erica, her shoulder-length black hair more gray than Brynna remembered, but still with a mix of that stunning blue-black that Erica had. Staring at Mrs. Shaw was both comforting and unnerving, knowing what Erica would have looked like, knowing that sentence always ended with, “had she lived.”
Brynna leaned into Mrs. Shaw’s hug and held her tight, silently trying to convey her apologies.
“I like your dress,” she said, nodding at Brynna’s black sheath. “You know Erica would have hated it.” Mrs. Shaw smiled and Brynna smiled back.
“Anything born before 1990,” Brynna said, remembering Erica’s distaste for anything vintage.
“You and your parents will come sit with us.”
Mrs. Shaw pulled Brynna through the crowd, and the whispers started scratching at her skin.
“Can you believe Brynna’s back?”
“I heard she went to jail.”
“I heard she went crazy.”
None of Dr. Rother’s exercises could stave off the looks, the hands cupped over mouths and heads leaning in. Nothing that Dr. Rother taught her could quell the guilt and the sadness that welled up inside her.
Mrs. Shaw shuffled Brynna and her parents down the aisle then took a seat.
Brynna nodded and tucked her hands in her pockets as people took their seats. She started when she felt her phone vibrate. She glanced down, seeing the little tweeting bird. Her breath hitched and her stomach plummeted when she swiped the screen.
@EricaNShaw has a message for you!
Finger trembling, Brynna swiped the screen.
Lovely day for a memorial. What do you remember, Bryn?
Brynna gritted her teeth and pushed out the keyboard on her phone.
I know this is u, Darcy. I talked to Steve.
There was no response by the time the service started, and Brynna felt stung. She hoped that Darcy would at least acknowledge what she’d done, at least own up to what she put Brynna through.
Everyone assembled stood when the priest asked them to, and Brynna started when she saw the casket in front of her. She had noticed it when she and her family came to the site, of course, but now, with a priest at the head, flowers draped on top, and a smiling picture of Erica at the foot, it became real to Brynna, unmistakable evidence that Erica was never coming back.
A sob lodged in her chest, and she was not only overcome with guilt for being the one to survive, but for knowing that Erica had been out there, somewhere, all this time while Brynna was jumping at her own shadow, thinking horrible things about her best friend.
How could I have thought that she hated me?
Mrs. Shaw’s hand found Brynna’s. She squeezed, and the last several months crashed over Brynna in an aching wave and every inch of her was filled with sorrow. She sat back on one of the metal chairs, crying huge, body-wracking sobs over Erica.