I slow down and jog over to an empty spot in the lot. I lie down on the cold asphalt, and I feel unmoored, like I’m a ship, and the black concrete around me is the sea. While I wait for my pulse to slow, I stare up at the seagulls circling the lot—maybe they think it’s a body of water. Sasha was my lighthouse, my north star, so I search for a sign of her in the dark.
Some people visit their loved ones’ graves to talk to them, but for some reason, I like talking to my sister at the hospital. Maybe because this was the last place I saw her alive.
“Mom’s worried about me,” I say out loud. “But I don’t really know why.”
It’s Momma, Sasha says inside my head. She worries about everything.
“Yeah, but I’m a pretty good kid,” I say.
You are, but she must know something else is going on.
I shake my head. “She doesn’t know about me staying out late.”
Because she’s never there.
“Right. She knows I go to shows all the time, but she has no idea about the smoking. And I guess my grades could be better,” I say. Sasha doesn’t answer, but I know she agrees.
I turn my head, almost expecting to see my sister beside me, because we would lie in bed all the time and have talks like this. She always stayed quiet when I talked about school because she hadn’t been in one for almost a year. I close my eyes so I can picture her as clearly as I can summon her voice.
What about the running? Sasha asks.
“Track?”
No, the flipping out. The running away? I’m sure that worries her, too.
I open my eyes and look up again. “She’s never seen it happen, though.”
I’m sure she wouldn’t be happy if she knew about it. And it’s Momma. She probably knows about it.
“I hope not.”
I think of Mom’s words tonight: I just want her to be okay. And it’s funny because I just want her to be okay. She shouldn’t be worrying about me after she spent the last five years worrying about Sasha. She deserves a little peace.
I should go home right now. I never should have left. It’s late, and I’m not stupid—I know I shouldn’t be out by myself, running recklessly through the dark. But I think I’ve decided this is my last night doing things that would worry Mom if she knew about them, and I want to enjoy it.
I stand up, turn on the loudest song on my phone, and run in the direction of the beach. The wheels in my head are turning, and since I wouldn’t mind being less like myself right about now, I hatch a plan to become the kind of kid Mom won’t have to worry about.
JAN. 17, 3:19 A.M.
My mom said I have to go back to school on Monday, so I’m not talking to her.
Tavia may not be on Hangouts right now. She’ll see your messages later.
From: [email protected]
Sent: Jan. 20, 1:41 a.m.
Subject: <none>
Alexa was crying when I saw her in the hall my first day back, and seeing her crumpled against her locker made me want to run to her. But when I got a little closer, she wiped her face really fast and pulled out her phone, and tried to seem surprised when I tapped her on the shoulder.
Because Alexa never wears makeup, she can look almost normal after crying. Her nose is all pink, and her brown eyelashes are pinched together because they’re still a little wet, but no mascara is running.
It makes me remember how you’d attack her with liquid liner before we went to parties. How you’d send me links to your favorite Asian vloggers’ makeup tutorials, hoping I’d follow the instructions to make my own eyes “pop.” And I’m seconds away from bringing up your makeup obsession with Alexa. But then I realize she’s pretending that she wasn’t crying. She wants me to think everything is fine, and I don’t really want to upset her again. So I try to stop thinking about makeup—about how much lip gloss and bronzer you owned—and I bump her shoulder. She smiles a little, and neither of us says a thing about you.
We walk to class together, and Margo and Faye join us on the second floor, but the balance of the way we take up space is off. Faye is supposed to be in front—walking backward telling a story, or facing forward, like we’re a ship and she’s at the helm. Margo and Alexa should be in the middle, and Alexa should be turning her head to tell me everything Faye is saying. Margo should be adding her own commentary to make us laugh. Your arm is supposed to be threaded through mine—the fifth point in our star.
Instead, Faye is next to me. She says, “How was your weekend?” But she doesn’t sound normal. Her voice comes out a little higher pitched than it should be, and her eyes are too wide and wet-looking. Her head is tilted slightly, like I’m a small child or a puppy, and I know she means well, but I hate when people talk to me using their Sympathy Voice.
I don’t say anything at first. But the truth is, I want to tell her everything: that my weekend was terrible, that I’ve been sleeping at your house, that being back here is harder than I thought it would be. That it took me twenty minutes to find something clean to wear and that everything with Dante is weird and complicated now. But telling her things that I can’t tell you first feels strange.
Eventually, I say, “Weekend was fine, I guess.” But still Faye stays beside me, looking concerned. Margo has her arm around Alexa’s shoulders, and she hasn’t said anything funny at all. Alexa hasn’t looked at me since we were at her locker, and no one’s really talking when usually, we don’t shut up. I can tell Faye wants to say something else or wants me to, but when I stay quiet, so does she. She waves to some guy she knows and then touches my shoulder before she goes over to talk to him instead of me. I already want to go home.
I keep pretending everything is normal, even though nothing is normal, because I’m not sure what else to do. I roll my eyes when a teacher makes a dumb joke in homeroom, and I try to ignore the gaping hole your empty chair carves right through me. I compliment Margo’s shoes before our next class, and she tells me where she got them, but her explanation is way shorter than it would ordinarily be. I even laugh when we watch an embarrassing video in health class, but when Faye looks at me as if I’ve done something wrong, I bite my lip. I feel like I have.
Between periods, a few people hug me or touch my shoulders as they tell me they’re sorry that you’re gone. They talk to me in their everyday voices, and it’s a relief to hear them saying your name. I hug them back and say thank you. For some reason, it’s easier for me to talk to random people than it is for me to say anything to our friends.