I remember the exact moment when I realized that I loved Wil Hines. We were in the eighth grade. Even then, I knew school wasn’t important to him the way it was to me. School was something he did out of routine, like brushing his teeth. So when I volunteered to be his partner for a science project, not because he made good grades in science but because I had recently come to understand that his hair was a whole new color under the splintered light of the workshop, I knew. We spent long hours working on the project at his dad’s worktable and I tried not to touch Wil’s hair while he read out loud about the moon, about how its gravitational pull was so strong that it controlled the tides.
It freaked me out, knowing that something so mysterious and far away could control us. I told Wil that’s why I didn’t want to believe in God, exactly. He said something stupid, like how he’d been thinking of taking up surfing, and I thought, Oh my God, I accidentally love you. I didn’t tell him I liked him out loud for several months after that. I wanted Wil to say it to me first. He almost did.
For a few nights in a row now, the idea of sleep drifts out my open bedroom window while I watch that same moon tug shadows across the floor and over my bed. And I can’t stop any of them: Micah and Emilie, Wilson’s death, the new strangeness between Wil and me. I can try to catch them, but they’ll just bleed between my fingers. I’m powerless to stop them.
When the Friday moon turns into the Saturday sun, I stand outside Wil’s front door and stare through the familiar decorative glass in an unfamiliar pattern. I thought the gold curlicues were shaped like flowers, but these look more like clouds. I feel sick when I remember: The old door shattered the night Wilson died. This is a new door, a door that shouldn’t be here.
I balance a cardboard tray of coffees and a box from Anastasia’s in one hand, and I trace the design with another. The glass is cold despite the warm morning, and a sour taste rises in the back of my throat. Wilson fought for his last breath here. His eyes dulled here. His heart stopped here.
I suck in a surprised breath when Henney’s fragmented face appears on the other side of the glass. She opens the door just a crack. She’s tucked into a cotton-candy robe that overwhelms her frame. Her dark, salt-streaked hair is wild around her face.
“Bridget?”
“Mrs. Hines! You scared me.” Then I remember. I’m the one on her stoop. She’s the one who will never feel safe in this house again.
Henney opens the door a little wider. The muscles around her mouth twitch, as if she’s attempting a smile. “If I’d have known you were coming, I would have changed.”
“Oh. It’s no big deal. Believe me, when you’ve seen my mom in the morning—” I force a laugh. “Um, Wil didn’t tell you I was coming?” A few drops of coffee slide down one of the cups and I bite my hand. I lean in a little to hug Henney. I haven’t seen her up close since the funeral. She stays perfectly still, and I’m left swaying back and forth in her doorway, an odd dance.
She shakes her head. “No. But—please.” She opens the door a little wider. Not wide enough for me to move past her.
I hold up the bag. “I brought coffee. And cream and sugar. I don’t know how you drink it.”
“Isn’t that sweet?” Henney mouth-smiles at me. That’s the way I described it to my mother when I met Henney for the first time. Henney had chaperoned our fourth-grade trip to the aquarium, and by then I’d spent almost every afternoon for weeks in the shop with Wil. I expected her whole face to warm when she saw me. But she just mouth-smiled, her irises dim, the skin around her eyes smooth. She said, Nice to finally meet you, honey, and that was it.
“I just wanted to say that the service was really beautiful,” I blurt, instantly making her eyes wet and red.
“You know, a lot of people have said so. Thanks. Thank you.” She swallows and pulls the door open the rest of the way, guiding me into the tiled hallway. It’s gray inside, and there are boxes stacked in the hallway. The air in here is old and sad.
“Bridge?” Wil appears where the hallway meets the kitchen and the breakfast room, wearing jeans and an old HINES T-shirt. His hair is still wet from the shower. His eyes are red and glassy. Something twists inside me.
“Hey.” I lift the coffee tray in a little wave, and he takes it from me and sets it on the kitchen table. “Is this still—do you still need help?” I choose my words carefully. I don’t talk about our walk to the beach the other day or how Wil scrambled for the water faster than I’d ever seen him run. I don’t mention our silent walk home or how he’s avoided me at school for the last few days.
“Only if you want.”
“Of course. Of course,” I say stiffly.
Henney slides her arm over Wil’s shoulder and squeezes hard. It feels like there are a million things being said between them, all in a foreign language I can’t decode. This is crazy, I want to tell them. I’ve slept in a tent in your backyard. I’ve puked up Halloween candy in your kitchen sink when Wilson couldn’t carry me all the way to the bathroom. It’s just me.
“Anastasia’s,” Henney observes.
“Actually, Mr. Hines once told me that he brought you these doughnuts on your first date.” My cheeks catch fire. Now that I’ve said it out loud, it seems all wrong, me bringing this box here. It’s a personal, intimate detail that belongs only to them. I might as well have started rifling through her underwear drawer.
“We did have Anastasia’s on our first date.” Henney clears her throat. “Well. I’ve got to get ready for group. Good to see you, Bridget. Really.” She pulls Wil in close, murmurs something I can’t hear, something in their private grief code. His head dips and I think I hear, “I won’t,” but it could be something else entirely.
“It’s really good to see you, too.” I dig my nails into the doughnut box, wishing I could fast-forward this and us. While I’m wishing, I wish I could rewind.
Henney disappears into her bedroom.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Wil says, taking a few steps toward me. The smell of his boy soap tilts me. “Sorry if that was weird. She’s still—it’s hard.”
“Yeah. Sure.” I extend the doughnut box, but he motions for me to put the box on the table. “So what kind of group is your mom in?”
“Huh?” Wil pops the plastic top off one of the coffee cups and empties all the sugar packets inside.
“Group. She said she was going to group.”
“It’s nothing.” He chugs half the cup and wipes toffee-colored film from his lips with the back of his hand. “This support group at the church where we had Dad’s service.”
“Your mom has never really seemed like the therapy type to me,” I say carefully.
“Yeah, well. It’s not therapy.” His eyebrows jump.