“You’re too late. They already questioned me.”
Ryan was always the nicest out of Chace’s friends. Or maybe I should clarify: he’s the only one who actually acknowledged me. In those brief, heady days when I thought we were going to be together, Chace confided in Ryan about us. To my surprise, Ryan didn’t immediately assume it was a joke, or tell Chace he’d be crazy to give up Lana’s exotic beauty for the plainness of me. He actually seemed to…get it. And after my accident, he was one of the very few who didn’t cringe when he came face to face with me and my scar.
“How did you know I’d be here?” I ask Ryan now.
He lowers his eyes.
“Chace told me this was where—”
I nod quickly to stop him from talking. We remain in silence for who knows how long, me lying on the grass with my face tilted up to the cloudy sky, a numb, drugged feeling washing over me, while Ryan sits upright, hugging his arms to his chest.
“I should go home,” I finally say. “Back to Pittsburgh, I mean. I have to get out of here.”
“You can’t,” Ryan says heavily. “There’s Chace’s funeral to figure out, and—”
“As if Lana would ever dream of letting me be involved,” I cut him off.
“You still have to be there,” Ryan insists. And he’s right. Even though it might kill me, I know he’s right.
“After the funeral, then.” I turn onto my side.
“You don’t get it, Nicole.” Ryan looks at me seriously. “You can’t go anywhere until the cops figure out what happened. You’re a person of interest now.”
Person of interest. Of course, I sensed that’s what I was from the moment the detective and the cop started grilling me, but the idea is too ludicrous, too unfair, to be spoken aloud.
“Why are you even here?” I snap. “What do you want, anyway?”
“I’m here because I know how Chace felt,” Ryan says. “So I can only imagine how you feel right now.”
An invisible fist takes my heart and twists it, the words too late, too late taunting in my ear. I was too late to realize he still cared for me, too proud to ask or give us another chance. The photo in his pocket, his best friend’s words, they are proof of my irreparable mistake.
“I spoke to Chace’s parents.” Ryan’s voice is barely above a whisper. A terrible shiver runs through me at the thought of what they’re facing. “They’re flying in from Washington tonight. There’s going to be a candlelight vigil.”
Stop talking. Please stop.
As if he can read my thoughts, Ryan gets to his feet. “I’ll leave you alone. I just needed to—to be around someone who understood.”
I should go with him; I should comfort him. Doesn’t the best friend have more of a right to grief than the illicit non-girlfriend? Doesn’t he deserve to have me asking what I can do to help him, letting him cry on my shoulder?
I’d like to think I will, and soon. But not yet. I need to stay out here, alone in our special place, for as long as I can—before the world rushes in to disturb it.
I lie there past sunset and into the darkening night, staring up at the changing sky. Could he be up there already, one of the stars gazing down from above? Or is he still here, mingling with the air and the wind surrounding me?
My hands are twitching, unaccustomed to going this many hours without playing the violin. It will be a relief to have the Maggini cradled in my arms again, to exhaust my pain into the music, and practice until my muscles ache and my fingers bruise.
Lights flicker in the distance. I hear a pack of footsteps, followed by the sound of mournful singing.
“Well, I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord…”
I recognize the voice. It’s Mandy Taylor, a choral student from the Virtuoso Program. I’ve accompanied her a dozen times before, but tonight she sings alone.
I pick myself up off the grass and cross the little wooden bridge, leaving our special place to follow the singing. This must be the candlelight vigil Ryan told me about. While I couldn’t imagine attending before and sharing my grief with all of them, I’m now frantic at the thought of missing it.
Mandy’s voice, intermingled with the sound of marching footsteps, leads me to the southernmost lawn behind the school. I fall into step with my classmates at the entrance to the soccer field, blending into the crowd. They are a blur of stricken faces and dark clothing, of shaky hands clutching candles and waving signs reading WE LOVE YOU, CHACE and CHACE PORTER, FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS. The sight sends dread churning through my insides all over again.