“Fine. I’ll leave.”
“No! Jules—stop!” She blocks me before I can make it out the door. Her hands fall on my shoulders, gingerly so she doesn’t smudge the polish. “Wait. Okay? Wait. Mom also said you’re always welcome here. Always.” She pauses. “We’re worried about you.”
Rowan and her mother could be sisters. Seriously, people say so all the time. Mary Ann was twenty-two when Rowan was born, and she takes care of herself. You’d think Rowan would rebel by dyeing her hair black and eating Snickers bars for dinner, but she doesn’t. They tell each other everything.
I shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve been talking about me.
I am surprised at how envious I am. It hits me all at once.
“I know he wasn’t trying to hurt me.” I glare at her because this is the first time I realize she doesn’t get it. “That’s the problem. He didn’t even know it would.”
She hesitates.
“Say it.” I harden my voice. “Whatever it is. Say it, Ro.”
“Maybe you should let my mom call him.”
“What? Why?”
“Maybe he needs a little . . . support. So he can help you.”
“Sure.” I can’t even keep the disdain out of my voice. I turn for the door again.
“Come on,” she says, following me down the hallway. “You’re my best friend, Jules. I want to help you.”
“I know. I just—I don’t want it right now.”
“Please stop.”
I do stop, in the foyer. The overhead lights are bright, turning her hair to spun gold, making her blue eyes pop. My hair hangs dark and straight, and I’m wearing a touch of blush and lip gloss only because I’m sick of people telling me I need to get some rest.
“You seem so angry all the time,” she says quietly, carefully.
“I am angry.”
The words are out before I can consider their impact. Maybe she’s right; maybe this is a stage of grief. I feel like I’ve been stuck on anger for a while now, though, and the rut has been dug so deep there’s no escaping it.
In fact, if we stand here much longer, I’m afraid this anger is going to rattle me apart.
“I need to go,” I say quickly, and grab the doorknob.
“Jules—” She stops short and sighs. “I didn’t mean to chase you off.”
“You didn’t.”
“What were you going to ask me about?”
I was going to ask her about the letters, but I can’t now. She wouldn’t understand. She would read our conversations about death and suicide and hopelessness, and she’d get it all wrong.
My father would definitely be getting a call in that case.
I look at her. “It’s nothing. It’s silly. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
She starts to follow me out the door, but I put my hands up. “Enough, Ro. Enough. I just want to drive around for a bit. I’ll be okay.”
“Are you going to the cemetery?”
It’s late, well after dark, and if I tell her yes, she’ll flip out. “No. Not tonight.” I jog down the steps. Rowan didn’t throw me out, but her house doesn’t feel like a refuge anymore. Not with her mother sitting around, waiting to analyze my grief.
“Good night, then,” she calls.
“Good night,” I call back.
I feel like a bad friend, but I can’t help it. I can’t force what I’m feeling to fit between chapters two and six in some handbook dealing with the death of a loved one.
My car is way at the end of the block because someone was having a birthday party after school. Now the street is deserted, and my car sits alone in the shadow of an elm tree. I half expect Rowan to come after me, but she doesn’t. The sidewalk is pitch-dark, and my sneakers whisper against the pavement with every step. Nighttime has stolen the heat from the air, and now a breeze lifts my hair and cools my neck.
I inhale, breathing in cut grass and tree bark and humidity.
A man coughs nearby. I jump a little, startled. I glance around, but I don’t see him.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My hands fumble with the keys.
The lock gives, and I drop into the driver’s seat. The air inside the car clings to my skin, smelling of slightly stale coffee and too-warm upholstery. Anger wars with unease as I press the key into the ignition and turn it.
Nothing happens.
I try again.
Nothing. The accessory lights flicker and die.
I hit the dashboard. “Damn it.”
My voice is loud in the confines of the car, and I wince. Sorry, Mom.
For what it’s worth, I think I agree with Letter Guy. Words are just words.
A flicker of guilt pokes at me, like I’m somehow betraying her memory.
A hand knocks on the window, and I nearly jump out of my skin. A guy is standing there, his face in shadow under a dark hoodie. I can see the edge of a jaw and a slice of longish hair, but that’s it.
“Back off!” My hand finds my phone without my even thinking about it.
I have my finger over the nine, but his hands are up, and he takes a step back. I can’t see him much more clearly, but the frame of a pair of glasses catches the light. He’s tall with broad shoulders. The phrase “built like a brick outhouse” comes to mind. He could probably bench-press my Honda Civic.
He coughs again. “Sorry,” he says, speaking a little more loudly than necessary so I can hear him through the window. “I wanted to see if you needed any help.”
“I’m fine!” Didn’t one of those stupid girl-safety chain emails talk about a gang initiation where they disable your car to trap you? I turn the key again. Flicker-flicker-die.
“Aren’t you Juliet Young?”
I stop and look at him again. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that he knows my name?
He pushes back the hood of his sweatshirt. “I think we had English together last year.”
For a moment, I can’t place him at all. Then my brain decides to work. He’s that freak loner who sits in the back of every class and never talks to anyone. His name is Red or Razz or something. He always wears hoodies or long-sleeved shirts, even when it’s the dead heat of summer.
He looks like a serial killer.