“Yeah,” I say, “I’m happy I could stay too.”
Truthfully, I’d been desperately trying to convince myself I didn’t have to go to the benefit, while driving myself insane with the thought that, very likely, Beau would be there, if in another universe. Even standing on the other side of an impassable veil from him sounds better than the last couple of days without him. When I hang up with Joyce, I slip out the back of Megan’s room onto the patio. The air is cooler than I expected, and dark clouds hang in low clumps over the pond and the woods. Everything’s completely distorted by fog, but I set out anyway, taking my phone with me. I try to get ahold of Beau again, but the call won’t go through, and I’m left trudging aimlessly through the forest, straining my mind in an attempt to open his world again.
My phone starts buzzing in my hand, and I nearly drop it before accepting the call and planting it against my face just as I process the name onscreen.
“Rachel?”
“Well, hello to you too,” Rachel says, apparently indignant at my surprise.
I sigh. “Is there a reason you’re calling, Rachel?”
She lets out an even longer sigh. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened between me and Matt. He was wasted, and I guess I was . . . curious.”
“It’s fine,” I say sharply. “Is that all?”
“God, Natalie, I’m trying to apologize.”
“You don’t need to.” The anger in my voice makes my words unconvincing, even though I honestly don’t know who I’m upset with anymore.
“Fine, whatever,” Rachel says. “I was just calling—I just wanted to know if you wanted to ride together to Madness tonight.”
“Why?” I say, genuinely confused.
“Because no one else gets it,” she replies fiercely. “Because I don’t want to spend another freaking second listening to Molly Haines sobbing like she knew him. I don’t even want to go tonight, but now that it’s for Matty . . . I just thought if you went . . .”
She trails off, and I’m so surprised I don’t know how to answer.
“Hello?”
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay what?”
“We can ride together. I don’t really get why, but fine.”
“Fine,” she says. “You can pick me up at nine. I don’t want to be there all night.”
“Wow, really? Thank you so much.”
“And people think I’m the bitch,” she retorts.
Rachel lives in a trailer park out past Derek Dillhorn’s McMansion neighborhood, like the city planners thought it might be a good idea to remind poor people they were poor and rich people they were rich. It’s a complete grab bag as far as upkeep. Rachel’s house is one of the nicest, with a neat yard she’s probably responsible for tending since both her mom and sister work night shifts and sleep mostly during the day.
When we were kids, we loved to have slumber parties over there on nights Janelle, her sister, was in charge because there were no rules. As we got older, though, the invitations to Rachel’s house stopped coming, and it’s been ages since I’ve been here.
She’s waiting out in the yard, another thing she used to do when we came over, to make sure no one knocked or rang the doorbell while Mrs. Hanson was sleeping. Watching her walk up to the Jeep, I feel an ache of regret. Not that I feel bad for her—I don’t—but I remember all the reasons I love her. All the reasons we used to be friends. She may be a bitch, but she’s a genuine bitch with heart. She’s a fighter, keeping everything together for her family, and working hard to graduate, despite the fact that Mrs. Hanson’s been telling her she was pretty enough not to have to since we were ten years old.
“Never thought I’d see an Ivy League girl in my driveway,” Rachel says as she plops into the passenger seat. “So, what made you decide to stick around in the boonies for the rest of summer?”
“Stuff,” I offer.
She runs her hands through her hair. “Sounds important.”
We lapse into silence as I pull out of the neighborhood and turn back toward the school. We’re still ten minutes off when Rachel’s eyes snap to the passenger window. “Pull over,” she says anxiously.
“What—why?”
“That’s it, the memorial!”
“Memorial?” I say, scouring the side of the road up near the next intersection. “For Matt? He’s not dead.”
“Shrine, vigil, whatever you want to call it—just pull over.”
I slow down and rumble to a stop beside the poster stapled to the telephone pole that reads PRAY FOR MATT KINCAID #4. Teddy bears and notes and flowers and jerseys sit in piles around the sign, and Rachel jumps out and runs to them before I’ve turned the car off. I step out and follow to where she’s kneeling in the gravelly shoulder, two fingers pressed to the sign.
“What are we doing here?” I ask softly as I approach.