“So you’re friends now?” he said, his tone irate.
I glared at him. “I’m allowed to have friends, Duck.”
“Sure, next time I’m at a party, I’ll just leave with some random girl and make her my new friend.”
“It wasn’t a party,” I said, my voice rising. “It was a funeral.”
“What’s the difference?” he challenged.
“It’s just different.”
“How?”
“Oh, forget it. You wouldn’t understand.”
“And I suppose he does?”
I stood up. “What’s the matter with you?” I said angrily. “We just hung out; it’s not a big deal. His girlfriend just died, and I think that would be the only thing on his mind.”
“Right,” said Duck, with a shrug of his shoulders. He looked away. “Whatever.”
“Look, you’re just sick and feeling like shit. I get it. But you don’t have to be jealous of Rad.”
“So, he has a name.”
“Can you stop?”
“Stop what?” He looked defiant.
“Stop being a jerk about this whole thing. I did nothing wrong, and you know it.”
He looked at me for a few moments, a blank expression on his face. Then, he sighed and said in a resigned voice, “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I said tightly.
“It’s just that I’ve been stuck in my room all day, and I hear all this stuff about my girlfriend going off with some guy. How do you expect me to feel?”
“It’s not like I planned it, you know. It just happened that way.” I threw my hands in the air and sat back down on the edge of Duck’s bed.
He picked up the PlayStation controller and began playing his game again. “So how is he doing, anyway?”
“He’s okay, I suppose. I’m sure he and Ana were really close. I mean, I can’t imagine how I would feel if I were in his shoes.”
“Me neither,” said Duck quietly. He glanced up at me. “You know, I still can’t get my head around what happened to Ana. She was there last week. She lent me a pen in English class. How can someone go from lending a pen to being dead?” I felt the room spin a little, and I clutched the sky-blue comforter on Duck’s bed. “Do you ever think about not existing?” he continued, missing my sudden bout of anxiety. “I mean, doesn’t the concept terrify you?”
“Of course it does.”
“I remember when I was twelve. My dad was talking about someone’s kid at work who choked on a piece of apple and died. I think it traumatized me. I mean, I kept obsessing about death after that. To the point where I was sick about it. Like, imagine that. Not being anything.”
“It’s a scary thought,” I agreed.
“It’s like The NeverEnding Story. You know, how the Nothing starts to take over.”
I nodded, thinking back to the day at the lake, my unconscious body settling down among the moss-covered rocks, an audience of tiny fish darting anxiously to and fro. How long would it have taken for my life to ebb away? What if Duck didn’t find me on the second dive down? What if it had been the third, the fourth? Would it have been too late? If Duck hadn’t saved me that day, would Ana still be here?
I looked at Duck, his eyes fixed to the screen. Sirens and radio static boomed from the television set. A car chase was under way. I tried to imagine how I would feel if the shoe was on the other foot and Duck had left Ana’s funeral with another girl. I felt nothing—not even a pang of jealousy. Was it because he never gave me reason to doubt his feelings for me? Why was he always doubting mine?
“So,” he said, casting a sidelong glance at me, “are you going to keep hanging out with this new friend of yours?”
I stood up, my fists clenched tightly at my sides. “Look, stop trying to pick a fight with me, okay? I’ve been having a rough time lately; you know that.”
“Audrey, you were never that close to Ana,” he pointed out. “I mean, Candela seems to be handling this better than you, and they were really close.”
“Hey,” I said defensively. “Some kid you didn’t even know died from choking on a piece of fruit, and it messed you up, so maybe this is the same thing for me.”
He was quiet for a few moments.
“I guess,” he said finally.
“Anyway, I should head back before it gets dark.”
“Okay.”
“Are you going to school tomorrow?” Duck and I were both in our final term at Barrett, one of the few co-ed private schools in North Sydney. It was a short bus ride from Three Oaks and where most families in our town sent their kids.
“I think I’ll be fine by tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Later that night, I was lying in bed when I overheard a conversation between my parents.
“I think it’s time we send her to see someone.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“Well, she’s barely eating and those mood swings . . .”
“I don’t know what has gotten into her . . .”
“For Chrissake, Edwina, her friend just slit her wrists.”
“They weren’t exactly close.”
“They’ve known each other since they were kids. Ana’s been around here plenty.”
The conversation continued, but it began to rain and their words were lost to the soft drumming sound on the roof. I sighed and reached over to turn on my reading lamp. I propped myself up with some pillows and took the half-read copy of My Sweet Audrina from the nightstand.
A few hours later, I was on the final chapter when my phone beeped with a text message. It was Rad.
Are you up?
I texted back. Yeah
Can’t sleep?
No
Me too. Want to go for a drive?
I checked the time. It was almost two in the morning.
Now?
Yeah.
I thought about it. My parents would murder me if they knew, but it wasn’t the first time I had snuck out in the middle of the night. “Screw it,” I muttered under my breath. I felt a small, unexpected thrill at the thought of seeing him again.
Okay, I texted back.
See you outside your house in 10.
Rad was parked outside when I closed the front door as quietly as I could and made my way quickly to his car.
“Hey,” he said, as I slid into the passenger seat.
“Hey.”
He pulled away from the curb and turned into the next street.
“Where are we going?”
“Actually, there is something I need to do, and I was hoping you could help me.”
“What is it?”
“Ana had this gold necklace she was really attached to. It was a gift from her parents . . .”
Rad shifted gears and pulled over onto the side of the road. He dug into his jean pocket and drew out a gold chain with a heart-shaped locket attached. I recognized it at once. I was sitting at my desk in class one day, with the teacher droning on about algebra, when a glimmer of light caught my eye. Outside, a ray of sunlight had pierced through the clouds, briefly illuminating a gold necklace around Ana’s neck like a wink. With lazy curiosity, I had noticed a dent at the center of the heart-shaped locket.