That kiss wasn’t our last. It was just another one of many, or so I’d thought. I think if I’d known Jesse was going to kill himself, I would have locked my arms around him and never let that kiss end. I would have pulled us into the pool together and died like that, his lips on mine, certain that I loved him and that he loved me.
The last thing I posted on Jesse’s SnowFlake page was a picture of a book I wanted to buy the next time we went to Barnes & Noble. Jesse and I spent hours roaming the stacks, paging through books. It was our favorite place to go. Sometimes I wish I could post something new so the last thing I said to Jesse wasn’t about buying Naked Lunch, which I only wrote because Audrey despises the Beat writers, but his profile is locked. I’ve said everything to Jesse I’ll ever say.
When Jesse’s SnowFlake page loaded, I knew something was wrong. Jenny’s lame memorial was still there, as were all the semi-heartfelt good-byes from barely there acquaintances. But staring at me from inside of Jesse’s pictures was an alien face. My alien face. Someone had Photoshopped the image of me on the floor of the locker room into every photo on Jesse’s SnowFlake page. They hadn’t simply vandalized his photos; they’d vandalized my memories. Whoever had done this had practically gone to Jesse’s grave, dug him up, and desecrated his rotting body.
I collapsed in the chair. I couldn’t take any more. January 29 wasn’t soon enough; I needed the pain to end immediately.
Mom kept sleeping pills in her bathroom. One handful, and I could reunite with Jesse.
Beautiful resolve flowed through me. I imagined it was how Jesse had felt when he decided to hang himself. I wasn’t scared; I wasn’t conflicted. This was what I was meant to do. If nobody else was going to play by the rules, then neither was I.
I flung open my bedroom door and nearly bowled Zooey over. She was standing in the doorway with her fist raised like she was about to knock. I stumbled into her, and we fell into the wall. I babbled an apology and tried to get away, but she was talking too, and rubbing her swollen belly.
“I didn’t think anyone was home.”
Zooey smoothed out her long violet shirt. Her face looked fuller, and sometimes her belly resembled a beer gut rather than a baby, but she glowed as if her entire body were bragging to the world that she was growing a life inside of her. “Charlie’s working at the house with my dad, and he asked me to get him his tools, but I don’t know where they are and I thought you might help?”
I nodded and slid past Zooey into Charlie’s room. Clothes were flung everywhere, the blinds were shut, and it smelled like sweaty feet. It was a miracle Zooey could stand to sleep there. Charlie’s toolbox was in his closet. I handed it to her.
“Thanks.” She turned to leave but stopped and stared at me for a moment. It felt like she knew what I’d been on my way to do. Like it was tattooed on my skin that I was a weakling, a loser, that I was planning to give up and die. “I can give you a ride somewhere if you want.”
Zooey and I didn’t know each other well. She was my brother’s girlfriend. I’d seen her sneak from his room to the bathroom in her underthings, and she was carrying his kid, but it’s not like we were friends. “Where?”
“Wherever you want. I’m not in a hurry.”
If I stayed home, I was going to end up swallowing those pills, but the certainty I’d felt minutes earlier was retreating. I’d loaded Jesse’s SnowFlake page because I needed to feel close to him, and they’d taken that away from me, but the need hadn’t abated. I needed Jesse more than ever.
“Can you drive me to the bookstore?”
“Sure.”
I carried the toolbox for her. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s go.”
? ? ?
Zooey drove a little blue Volvo that was so old, it still had a tape deck and crank windows. The inside smelled like vanilla or roses—I couldn’t tell which, maybe both—and her music collection included every terrible power ballad in existence. Worse yet, she knew all the words to every song.
“Are you excited about being an uncle?” Zooey asked after a while. She looked at me until the persistent thump of the road dividers told her she was about to get us killed.
“I guess. Are you excited to become a mom?”
I expected Zooey to answer yes immediately, but she didn’t. She kept her hands on the steering wheel and her eyes on the road. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m fucking scared as hell.”
“Of giving birth or the stuff that comes after?”
“All of it,” Zooey said. “I constantly worry about whether I’m taking enough vitamins or the right kind of vitamins. I worry about whether the pot I smoked before I knew I was pregnant hurt the baby. My older brother has schizophrenia, and I worry it might be genetic and I might pass it to my child. Every action I took in the past and that I’ll take in the future could impact my baby, and that scares the shit out of me.”
Maybe that should have shocked me, but I admired Zooey for admitting those things to me. “You’re going to be a great mother.”
“It helps knowing I won’t have to do it alone. I don’t think I’ve seen Charlie this excited about anything.”