Very few of the faces look familiar, even though a lot of the partygoers appear to be my age. I see a couple of girls from my school sitting on a counter with their heads tilted toward each other, laughing. One of them lifts her chin and smiles at me when I pass, but we don’t exchange any words.
For the most part, I can float around like a ghost and no one notices the former dead girl haunting their party. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that I’m resurrected. Now I don’t know where to turn. Should I go live in a commune? Do I need to change my name to Blossom or Karma or Rainbow Bright? None of that feels like me, but I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel anymore.
I wish to be anywhere but here, and then I tell myself not to wish for anything. The full moon is tomorrow, but still no invitation has arrived with the location of the final destination in my birthday scavenger hunt.
I take a seat on one of the lawn chairs next to the pizza boxes. There’s a slice of pepperoni left over, but I don’t have any appetite for it.
I rock in place. I don’t want to be here, don’t want to see this, want to leave, leave, leave. I want Will here so that he could scream his head off at Jeremy for letting something like this happen. But there’s only me.
Then I’m scanning the party for my brother when Jeremy walks by. I jump to my feet and snatch his wrist. “Hey!” I say. He stumbles from the force of my grasp. “What do you think you’re doing?” I ask.
“Going to get a drink,” he says with his typical drawl. His T-shirt is wrinkled and his hair looks predictably slept on.
“With my brother, you idiot.” So much for diplomacy. “Who do you think you are?”
He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Look, Lake, I think you just need to chill for a second.”
“Chill? Chill? That’s your big advice? Chill. God, you’re an even bigger slacker than Will thought you were.” Jeremy doesn’t look particularly offended. “Who asked you to get involved, anyway?” I continue.
“Matt did.”
People are starting to take notice of us now. Probably wondering why I’m freaking out.
“I think that’s the guy’s sister,” I hear one onlooker murmur.
I lower my voice and step closer in to Jeremy. “You realize what this means for Will, don’t you? What the point of all this is?”
Jeremy shifts his weight and scratches the stubble on his cheek. “I realize that Matt was a good friend before all this, and that he should have some control over how or whether he lives his life. I don’t know what you’re going to do, Lake.” His eyes are clear when he says this. There’s no red in the whites, no sign that he’s been smoking. He looks the most together that I’ve seen him in years. “That’s up to you. But your brother has made it clear that he’s finished living like this no matter what. I believe in self-destiny. I didn’t try hard enough to be there for him before.” He shrugs. “I guess I just want to make up for it.” He gives me a pointed look and then he slopes off in the direction of the keg.
I stand there, numb, while whispers gather around me. This moment is surreal. My brother will be a spectacle. The entertainment of the night. The disabled boy who wants to die. And everyone will watch.
This place, this party, it’s all the things my brother has grown to hate, but he’s willing to be here because he wants out of his body that badly. He’ll even risk never coming back. The craziest part is that I thought things were changing for us. The past few weeks, was it only my imagination or were things really getting better? I could swear I’ve seen glimpses of my brother, the one who read to me, hiding behind the boy who felt trapped in his own body. I know I have.
My throat clenches until it’s nearly sealed shut. I don’t want to miss him anymore. Just as I was starting to get him back. This has nothing to do with what I choose and everything to do with Matt and what it means to die like this. This will change him, not fix him, and I’m scared—terrified—that I’m witnessing the last few minutes of knowing the boy I grew up with.
I need a drink, so I make my way into the kitchen, where I find bottles of liquor lined up on the countertop. I grab onto the neck of the vodka bottle and pour some into a plastic cup. I don’t bother with a mixer before I knock back the clear liquid in one gulp.
The alcohol burns my throat. I cough and sputter, once again drawing the attention of the people around me, some of whom snicker at me for not being able to take a shot. I don’t mind. The burn helps. I like the way that I can trace it all the way down to the pit of my stomach, where it seems to take at least some of the spark out of my short-circuiting nerves. I pour myself another. And then one more, this one slightly bigger, so that it takes me two swallows to finish the whole thing.
By the fourth, I don’t cough when the vodka goes down. The burn has transformed into a warmth that coats my insides.
“There he is.” One of the girls who laughed at my alcoholic ineptitude points subtly for the benefit of her friend with too-black hair and a nose ring. The comment’s not directed at me, but I look anyway.
Matt. My heart squeezes. Jeremy is positioned at the back of his wheelchair, pushing him toward the outside patio. I check my watch. It’s 10:30 p.m. My brother’s hair has been cut, washed, and combed. The skin around his chin is just a tiny bit pink from a fresh shave. He has let Dad dress him in one of his button-down shirts with a tie looped through the collar. Long dress pants cover the pair of emaciated legs that dangle onto the wheelchair stirrups.
My first step is uneven and I find myself focusing to resume a straight line. I swish open the sliding glass doors to meet my brother.
“Matt,” I say.
He cocks his head in that appraising way that he has, but there’s a slight tug of amusement at the inside corners of his eyes. His signature scorn is gone. “Already celebrating my untimely demise, I see.”
I realize I’m still holding the bottle of vodka. I set it slowly down next to me.
“Not funny.” I try to focus on the warmth in my belly to keep the nausea at bay. “Matt, I have something to say to you and I want you to listen.” Matt opens his mouth, but I hold my hand up and he stops himself. “What happened to you is balls.”
“What?” He squints up at me.
“What happened to you is balls. Balls!” I say more loudly. “I mean,” I say, remembering the words that had helped me, “like it really, truly sucks. World’s largest Hoover-vac suckage. Universe’s biggest black hole. A giant deep-sea octopus with a million bazillion tentacle suckers. That kind of suckitude.” I thought I’d run out of tears. Boy, was I wrong. “In all this time, I haven’t once told you how cosmically unfair your life is and I’m so, so sorry.” I’m choking on sobs and thick, syrupy mucus unleashed by the vodka.
Matt stares at me, mouth agape.