I whirl around. Eddie’s standing in the doorway. “What?” Mom yelps.
“It was part of a memorial at school,” he says, stepping into the room. “Kids left all sorts of stuff. Administration wanted it cleaned up, but I couldn’t stand to throw it all away, so I gave it to Raychel.”
“But why in the world would you choose to give her this?”
He takes it from her hand and gives it to me. I close my fist around it tightly. “Kids smoke,” he says. “But I knew Raychel wouldn’t use it.”
She looks between us, seething, then marches out of the room. He stops to glance over his shoulder at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks,” I say quietly.
He shuts the door and I sit on my bed, holding the pipe for a long time. I open the baggie and breathe in the dank smell of my time with Andrew. I miss him so hard that every bone in my body aches.
This smell, skunky as it is, will fade. So will pictures and memories and even this pain, so everyone says. But I don’t want it to. I want Andrew to always be as loud and bright and painfully great as he was in real life.
And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. He’ll still fade, even if I smoke and drink and play his music and movies … He’ll never see the end of that vampire series, and what a stupid damn thing to make me choke up, but it does.
I wipe my eyes and drop the pipe back in its bag, then put it on a shelf at the top of my closet, in a shoebox full of other memorial detritus Eddie gave me for safekeeping. It seems wrong that I’m the one to keep it all.
It seems wrong that they’re the only things I get to keep.
MATT
I drive to school and back in silence because I can’t stand my own music and I can’t handle Andrew’s. I eat lunch alone in Ms. Moses’s room, while she takes a break in the teachers’ lounge. I quit all my extracurriculars, I only work out when the weight room is empty, and I’ve read through a solid half of the books on our living room shelves. I’ve even finished my Senior Seminar project, which isn’t due until finals week.
Dr. Shin says I should stop “socially isolating” myself, but the truth is that without Raychel and Andrew, I have no friends left in Big Springs.
Mindy gives me sympathetic looks once in a while, but they’re clearly pity, not an invitation. Raychel got custody of Asha in our divorce, which means I should get Spencer, but he claims he’s decided to buckle down and study all the time, when it’s obvious I just make him uncomfortable.
I make myself uncomfortable, and I’m not alone in that. There were the initial sorrys and sympathy hugs, but since then everyone at school seems afraid to talk to me.
Everyone except for Trenton Alexander Montgomery the Third, anyway.
“Ali!” he says, stopping me in the hallway and grabbing my hand like a winning prizefighter as always. He let it rest for about two weeks after the funeral, and then it was back to “You are the greatest!” and “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” It’s the most normal thing that happens to me anymore. “How’s tricks?” he asks.
“Have you ever considered that maybe you were born in the wrong era?” I ask, extricating myself from his grasp.
He nods solemnly. “All the time, man. All. The. Time.” We move so we’re not blocking a doorway. “Speaking of—how do you feel about the eighties?”
“The decade? Or like, geriatrics?”
“The former.” He pulls out a flyer. That frat that wanted to recruit my brother is having an eighties-themed party. I wonder if they know he’s gone. “My band is playing this scene tomorrow,” Trent says. “You should come.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Aw, come on, dude.” He punches me in the arm. “It’ll be fun!”
“No, it won’t. I’ve been to parties there before.” I try not to remember.
He pops his collar. “Trenton Alexander Montgomery the Third will make it a party.”
I can’t help but laugh, just a little. “I’m not sure even Trenton Alexander Montgomery the Third can save that place.”
He leans in, lowering his voice. “Dude. It’s going to be a total bust, okay?” he says, very seriously. “We’re trying to get high school kids to come because we’re going to look like such chumps up there with no crowd.”
Chumps. I’m not sure the crowd is Trent’s real problem. “Any takers?”
“None. I even tried to ask Rosa, but…” He whistles, miming a diving plane and its explosion.
I know that feeling. I pretend to study the flyer for a long time. “Okay,” I say finally. The alternative is another Saturday night in my mausoleum of a house. “But I’m not going to wear a costume.”
“No need, brah.” He gives my clothes the once-over. “You’re totally working that eighties’ emo-goth look anyway. Get you a shirt with The Cure on it and you’re good to go.”
*
At dinner, I try not stare at Andrew’s empty chair and missing plate. I just want to fast-forward my life until it’s time to leave for Memphis. Maybe even a few years past that.
We all pick at leftover takeout from the meal we barely ate last night. At least now that Mom and Dad are back at work, they can have some banal conversation about their days. Then they pretend to care about mine.
I shrug. “It was fine.” I think of Trent popping his collar and force a weak smile. “A friend wants me to see his band play tomorrow night.”
I thought Mom would be against me going, but it’s Dad who’s worried. “Where?”
“At a frat,” I say, grimacing.
“On campus?”
I look at him sideways. “That’s where most frats are.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
I shrug again. The more he bugs me about it, the more determined I’m getting, and I don’t even want to see this show in the first place. “I’ve been to parties there before.”
“You did lots of things … before,” he says, glancing at Mom.
She pretends not to notice. “No drinking. Be home by midnight.”
“Okay,” I agree, surprised at us both.
Dad’s still shaking his head. “It’ll be fine,” she tells him. “He’s been cooped up in the house long enough. And it’s not like he won’t be doing worse next … year.”
We all look back at our plates. The decision’s really been made for weeks, but I’ve been avoiding the discussion because starting a conversation about anything in this house requires some emotional preparation. Last time I tried, I asked if we were going to my grandparents’ house for the holidays and we ended up debating whether or not to celebrate Christmas at all. Mom burst into tears just thinking about hanging Andrew’s stocking, but the thought of not doing it made her cry too, and then Dad left the table so I was stuck there, handing her paper napkins to stanch the flow.
It has to happen, though. The longer I wait, the more I prove that’s Mom’s right about me being an asshole.
I work up the nerve at the end of dinner. Dad picks at a piece of pie, and when Mom goes to clean up, I clear my throat. “I made a decision about college.”