I sip the macchiato I ordered and wish I’d gotten something different. I like the little cups they come in, and all the foam, but the actual drink is so bitter. I haven’t discovered the right coffee drink yet.
“So, Dylan,” I say. “What do you enjoy?”
Dylan shrugs. “I’m still finding myself,” she says.
Maddy laughs. “She just doesn’t like to brag. She’s crazy smart. Do you know how she spent five straight summers of her life?”
Dylan laughs. “Shut up,” she says to Maddy, but she says it sweetly.
“Physics camp!” Maddy shouts. Then she repeats it, solemnly: “Physics camp.”
It’s hard to believe. All the science geeks at school spend their lunch period in little clusters, talking about acceptance rates at MIT. And rarely is anyone good at both science and English.
Dylan shrugs. “We got to make electromagnets and measure light and stuff. It was fun.”
We sit for a while longer, just talking, and I wonder what it would be like to be really passionate about something. I thought photography was it for me. I thought I loved it and I was good at it. Now it turns out that I only loved it.
“I’ll be right back,” Dylan says. She gets up from the table and Maddy smiles at her retreating figure, all long skinny limbs and shoulder blades and wild hair.
When Dylan’s back inside the café, Maddy says, “I’m glad she found you. She was worried that she wouldn’t find any friends in Los Cerros.”
I fidget in my seat. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s a pretty small school.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your friend.”
I stare, startled, into my macchiato cup. It’s still full and getting colder.
“I’m sorry,” Maddy says. “I know it must seem strange for me to say that. But I wanted to let you know that Dylan lost someone, too. It’s not something she likes to talk about, so please don’t mention anything. But know that she understands what you’re going through. She’s an amazing person. I’m also glad that you found her.”
33
On the way home from the city, I sit next to Maddy in the backseat of Dylan’s mom’s car and wonder how it works when Maddy spends the night. I mean, her mom obviously knows that they’re a couple. Do they both sleep in Dylan’s room?
Dylan twists around in her seat as we pull up to my house. “So, want to hang out at lunch on Monday?” she asks me.
“Yeah,” I say. “Meet me at our lockers?”
“Great,” Dylan says.
I thank her mom for the ride and I’m about to tell Maddy that it was nice to meet her when she unbuckles her seat belt and leans over to hug me. “It was so nice to meet you,” she says. “I really hope we can see each other again soon.”
I hug her back. When we let go, Dylan and her mom are both looking at us, smiling. I want to spend the rest of my life in this car. I want to be frozen in time here, prop my knees up on the back of Dylan’s seat, and just stay. But the lights glow through the curtains of my house, and I open my car door to the night.
“Bye,” I say.
Together, they say good-bye back.
Inside, my parents ask how my day was.
“Good,” I say, beaming. “It was really good.”
They search my face for sarcasm. When they don’t find it, they exchange curious, smiling looks.
As I’m brushing my teeth, I think of Dylan and me, walking in the city with the buildings high all around us. Even the air there seems more awake. I decide that we should go there every day, a few times a week at least. As I turn off my light and burrow under the covers, I imagine myself in the future, lounging under a tree with Dylan’s friends who are now my friends. I look like them, I’m wearing clothes that look great on me. We’re telling stories to someone new.
A minute later, I switch the light back on.
Ingrid.
I get her journal out and read.
My chest is caving in on itself. I never thought I was perfect, I never even thought I was close, but I never knew how terrible I actually was. Now that I do know, regret fills me. Like the times that we would change in the locker room, and Ingrid would stare at herself in the mirror and say, How can you stand to look at me? I am so gross. I wouldn’t even look at her. I hardly heard it. I thought she was just being annoying, or looking for compliments like everyone else. I didn’t know how scared she was and I should have, because that’s what friends do: they notice things. They’re there for each other. They see what parents don’t. If I could do it again, I would stand with her in front of the locker-room mirror and tell her about all the amazing things I saw in her. And all the times when she got all freaked out and quiet, I shouldn’t have left. Instead, I should have put some music on the stereo and sat back against the wall on one side of her room, and hoped that even if I couldn’t get into the dark places in her head, I would at least be there waiting on the outside. And maybe most of all I shouldn’t have turned away from all of the cuts and burns and bruises she gave herself. I should have noticed all of them because they were a part of her. She deserved for someone to see her as clearly as they could. To make that effort to understand.
My best friend is dead, and I could have saved her. It’s so wrong, so completely and painfully wrong, that I walked through my front door tonight smiling.
winter
1
I walk to school as dawn breaks. I’m awake and alert, numb and exhausted. I never knew I could be all these things at the same time, but here I am, headed to school, eyelids heavy, breathing in the cold air.