I pick up her camera and throw it at the door as hard as I can. Glass and plastic explode and tinkle across the floor.
How could she? Her bag is sitting open in front of me, and the smell of her lotion mixes with the chemicals. How could she do this to him?
I grab the lotion and throw it after the camera. I’m sobbing. I hate her. I hate her.
I seize her tissues. I press the pack to my eyes and then fling it. I hate her.
I grab the boarding pass, wanting to tear it into shreds, crumpling it. The folded corners press into my skin. I want to slice into all of my skin if it will take the edge off this pain.
She was cheating.
I feel like she was cheating on me, too. Her love was supposed to be for us. Not someone else.
“How could she?” I whisper.
I stand there and sob into my hands. Mr. Gerardi is going to find me like this, sobbing into her boarding pass.
The thought is enough to jerk me back to the present. Shards of glass and plastic litter the floor, glittering in the red lights. Chemicals have splashed everywhere. Mr. Gerardi is going to freak. I smooth out the thick paper, as if that will somehow put everything back the way it was. The boarding pass is a wet mess, but the date is in huge letters, right in the middle.
WEDS MAY 22
Wait.
There’s no mistaking it, though. The characters are almost an inch high.
WEDS MAY 22
I blink a few times, as if my tears could have somehow turned “SAT” into “WEDS” or “25” into “22.”
My breathing stops again.
I flatten the boarding pass again and press it against the edge of the table. There must be some mistake. This must be an old one. This must be for some kind of connecting flight.
It’s not an old one. This was her flight home.
Three days earlier than we expected her. Three days before she died.
All of a sudden, Brandon Cho’s voice echoes in my head.
Hammonds Ferry Road isn’t on the way to the airport.
She came home early, exactly like I’d begged her to do. She came home three days early.
Just not to be with us.
CHAPTER FORTY
From: Elaine Hillard - HAMILTON ENGLISH <[email protected]> To: Murphy, Declan <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, October 9 03:11:53 PM
Subject: Invictus
Declan:
I’ve had a chance to read your in-class essay regarding “Invictus,” and I’d like to discuss it. Would you have time to stop by my classroom tomorrow morning before homeroom? I’ll be in my classroom by 6:30 a.m.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Hillard
I read the email while mowing, because Frank will go off at me if I stop. Then again, after yesterday, maybe not. But after weeks of emails from Cemetery Girl, this one is kind of a downer. Nothing says awesome day like meeting with an English teacher at six thirty in the morning.
I shove the phone back in my pocket and slide my hand into my glove.
For the twenty-fifth time today, I wish I could return to that moment in the cafeteria. I wish I could tell Juliet. I wish I could hold her and whisper the truth.
Instead, I’m stuck on a mower, unsure if she’ll ever speak to me again.
Unsure if I’ll ever sleep at home again.
Rev said that Geoff and Kristin will let me sleep there for a few nights, but they think we should all sit down with Mom and Alan and talk things out.
The thought makes me want to avoid Rev’s house almost as much as my own.
I apologized. I apologized, and my mother said nothing.
That put a vise around my chest that refuses to loosen.
The sky is overcast, bringing a light drizzle to the cemetery, but I don’t mind the rain trickling down into my shirt. The weather keeps people away, making my job easier. Music pours into my headphones, deafening me as effectively as the mower.
A flash of motion to my right draws my attention, and I look up from the monotony of grass and gray granite. A girl is running across the cemetery.
Juliet.
Panic flashes through me. She must have figured it out. She’s coming to confront me.
But no. She skids in the wet grass and falls in front of her mother’s grave. She’s across the field, but even from here, I can see her face is a mask of anguish and pain.
She’s screaming.
She’s punching the gravestone.
I turn the key and kill the mower. And then I run.
By the time I get to Juliet, her fingers are bleeding and swollen. Tears streak her face, and her voice has gone hoarse. I can’t understand what she’s saying through her sobs, but she barely recognizes I’m there. She slams her hand into the gravestone again.
I grab her and wrestle her back, pulling her against me. “Juliet. Juliet, stop.”
Her rage is so pure I expect her to struggle and fight to get back to her assault on the gravestone. Instead, she collapses against me, sobbing into my chest. Her hands clutch my shirt like it’s a lifeline.
“It’s okay,” I say, even though it’s so obviously not. I hold her tight, whispering against her hair. I pull my work gloves off with my teeth and stroke her back. “It’s okay.”
Cold rain has formed a mist through the cemetery, offering us the illusion of privacy. The scent of cut grass hangs thick in the air, mixed with the scent of Juliet, cinnamon and vanilla or something warm.
When the worst of her tears seems to subside, I lower my head to speak along her temple. “Do you want to sit down?”
She sniffs and shakes her head fiercely. “Not near her.”
“Okay. Here, then.” I pull her back a few yards, to an older gravestone that’s never seen a visitor in the time I’ve been here. We sit and lean against the back of the stone.
She hasn’t stopped clutching me. Even when we sit, she leans against me, a warm weight against my side. Light rain trickles through the clouds to chill my face and mix with her tears.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I say.
“No.” She swipes at her face.