I rolled over and watched him. Max was flat on his back, hands squeezed into fists, eyes locked on the ceiling. He didn’t blink. Didn’t move.
“What do you mean?” I asked, and flopped on my back. Above me, a pattern of glow-in-the-dark star stickers shone. I focused in on them and listened.
Anger, and maybe . . . guilt, crept into Max’s tone. “Like, there are pieces of him I didn’t know or understand. We shared a frickin’ bedroom wall. How did I miss . . .” He exhaled, but it was a beginning rather than an end. “When did he build that Lego temple-thing on the desk? Who gave him the card he kept between his mattress and box spring? Gina? Was it her? Was it you? Someone else? They loved him, whoever it was.”
I didn’t dare interrupt, but I inched my hand closer to him.
He continued. “What happened to his YOLO paddle? Where did he get that black leather jacket? We live in Florida, for God’s sake. When would he need a leather jacket? And those damn tennis shoes with the toes in them, when did he stop wearing Scotts? Did you know he kept a journal? And did you know he ripped out more than half of it? Why? What was in there? God, I shouldn’t have even looked at it.”
Max had so many questions that his voice dissolved into scratching sounds rather than words. He rarely spoke in paragraphs, opting for clipped answers that saved his voice. I pieced together the last thing he said before he went silent. “He would bust my ass if he knew I went through his stuff.”
I nodded a yes at the last comment, but really, I nodded at all of the questions. I knew some of the answers, but letting Max know I knew, when he didn’t know, felt cruel. Still, I offered him the only truth I understood.
“I think maybe everyone is a mystery. Even the people we know really well. If I died”—he turned toward me, fear splashed across his reddened face, and latched our pinkies together—“and you went through my stuff, you’d have the same type of questions. Why I kept one thing but not another. What I was hiding and telling and hoping and believing. We all have that stuff, and it’ll drive you crazy if you fixate on it. I know. In a different way, I’ve been doing the same thing with Gina and Gray. Acting as if answers will change feelings. I’m not sure it works that way.”
“Sadie?”
“Yeah.”
His face relaxed into a near-smile. “Tell me something you’ve never told me.”
I laced my hands behind my head and relaxed.
“I made Trent that Lego temple-thing as a thank-you for helping me study for the SAT. It’s supposed to be Machu Picchu. We were planning a trip someday.”
Max nodded. “Yeah, he loved explorers. Even the brutal ones like Ponce.”
“He didn’t love Ponce for Ponce. He loved Ponce because he loved the Fountain of Youth. And he loved the Fountain of Youth because”—my eyes swelled with tears and I ground my teeth into my final words—“he was scared of dying.”
Max pulled me to his chest and found the strength for a few more words. “I’ll tell you something I’ve never told you. In the end, he wasn’t scared.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was there.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We took a long nap and I woke up around ten. When I opened my eyes, I gave Max a lazy look and he threw a thumb toward the window, toward our dock. “You . . . want to sit out—”
I wondered how long he’d been awake.
“Yeah. Let me check in with Mom and Dad first. They’ll be worried,” I said, thinking I really wanted to brush the nap-fur off my teeth.
Max’s cheek quivered. An almost-smile that I almost missed. For all the hard stuff we’d talked about today, that smile was like an eraser. I loved it. We walked to my deck together, and he took a seat on the edge of an Adirondack chair as if to say, I’ll wait right here.
I waved. My attempt at a wordless I’ll be right back.
He nodded.
After all those emails, we could speak without words.
The door was unlocked and lights were on in the kitchen. I stopped by and found Mom and Dad in some sort of hug.