“Henry—”
A passing family obscured Diego, so I turned my full attention to Audrey. The festering wound split open anew, spewing a geyser of pus. “You didn’t even say good-bye, Audrey. I showed up at your house, and your dad told me you’d gone to stay with family in Switzerland. I thought you’d come back after winter break, but you were gone for three months.” People turned to stare at us, but I couldn’t stop draining the abscess. “Jesse killed himself, and you were the only person I could talk to about it. I needed you, but you didn’t answer my e-mails, my calls, nothing. My boyfriend, your best friend, committed suicide, and you abandoned me. You both abandoned me.”
Tears filled Audrey’s eyes, and I hated myself for causing them. I hated myself for needing her. I wanted to hate her for leaving, but I didn’t, and I hated myself for that too. “You got to see Jesse at his best, but I saw him after he punched a brick wall so hard, he broke his fingers, when he cut his thighs with razor blades, when he put out lit cigarettes on his hands and told you he’d burned himself baking brownies. I was the one who cleaned up his blood and made sure he didn’t drink himself to death. Me, Henry. Not you.”
I didn’t learn about those things until after the funeral. I spent weeks scouring old texts and pictures, looking for the clues I’d missed. Thinking about the times I suspected something was wrong but didn’t push Jesse to talk about it keeps me awake most nights. I failed Jesse. We all failed him. “Why’d you leave, Audrey?”
“I needed space to breathe.”
“So you went skiing?”
Audrey was shaking. I looked for Diego; he was still by the bumper cars. She clenched her fists so tightly, I thought she was going to punch me. “I wasn’t in Switzerland, Henry.”
“What?”
“I don’t have family in Switzerland.” Audrey bit her bottom lip and said, “My parents checked me in to a psychiatric hospital. I spent eight weeks there and then another month with my grandparents in Jersey.”
I was tempted to believe she was lying to gain my sympathy, but going on an extended vacation after the death of her best friend had never seemed like an Audrey thing to do. I’d accepted it as the truth because she’d given me no reason to think she was lying. But this—that she’d been in a hospital—made sense. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Jesse and I had a pact. He swore he’d call me if he were thinking about hurting himself. He called me that night, but I didn’t answer. He was upset all the time and . . . I needed a night off.” She paused. “I thought it was my fault he’d killed himself, and I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t bear for you to blame me too.”
“Instead you ran away, and I blamed myself.” The crowd blocking my view finally moved. Diego was talking to a short girl, perky with pink glasses and a blue stripe in her blond hair. I think she attended our school, but I didn’t know her name. She covered her mouth with her hand when she laughed and kept touching Diego’s arm. Diego hugged the girl and pointed toward me and Audrey. He probably wished he’d come with her and was likely plotting some way to ditch us.
“I needed to leave,” Audrey said. “I was hurting so bad that I wanted to die too. It took me a long time to realize Jesse’s suicide wasn’t my fault. Don’t you know how sorry I am? I don’t know what else you want me to do.”
Diego walked toward us; the crowds parted for him. He waved. I returned it robotically.
“I wish I’d killed myself instead of him.” I kicked at the ground, blinking to keep from crying.
“I wish no one had died,” Audrey said. “I wish Jesse were here, singing and telling bad jokes and going on and on about some stupid book he read.”
“But he’s not,” I said. “And it’s our fault. Yours, mine. It’s everyone’s fault. Or no one’s. Fuck. I don’t know.”
When Diego reached us, he stopped a foot away and said, “What’s going on?”
Audrey wiped her eyes. “Sometimes I hate him, Henry. Mostly I miss him.”
“Yeah.”
“And I miss you.”
I didn’t know what to say. Audrey had been Jesse’s friend first, but I missed her too. My feelings for her were buried under scar tissue built up over 103 lonely nights spent wondering what I’d done to drive away everyone I cared about. My father, Jesse, Audrey—they’d all abandoned me. Audrey had her reasons, and I could see that, but it didn’t erase the pain. Not entirely. I stood there, my arms hanging limply at my sides, unsure what to do next.
Audrey glanced at her phone. “Maybe we should call it a day.”
Diego furrowed his brow. “But we haven’t even gone on the Ferris wheel yet.” His voice was filled with a child’s enthusiasm, a desire for life that Jesse’s suicide had stolen from me and Audrey both.
The suggestion of a smile played on Audrey’s lips. “What do you think, Space Boy?”