Dad’s in the den reading. He frowns when he sees me standing awkwardly in the doorway. “Kerm?”
“My friend Matt almost died today,” I blurt out.
Dad closes his book and sits up. “What happened?”
“He—” The words won’t come. “He—”
“Come here,” Dad says, and I do. We sit on the couch and he puts one hand on my shoulder and I lean into him, because if not now, when?
Dad calls for Mom. Gently, so as not to alarm her. All of a sudden, I’m shaking. Speechless. Mom squeezes onto the loveseat. All three of us in a line. “Baby,” she says, clutching me. “What happened?”
“Was there an accident?” Dad asks. A fear that is close to the surface, always.
“No, he tried to—” Why can’t I say it? That’s the whole problem, isn’t it? All the things we can’t say.
I breathe. Push it all out fast. A version of it, anyway. The cliff, us racing to find him, the ambulance. Without mentioning the club by name. Definitely without mentioning the kiss. “He was depressed and hiding it from everyone.”
My eyes are dry, but my whole body is shaking. Dad keeps his arm around me. “You two seem to be getting close,” he says. “That must’ve been scary.”
“Yeah. He’s … a really, really good friend,” I say. “His mom died a while back, so he’s been helping me. About Sheila.”
The easy thing would be to rest in Dad’s arms, but I push away. Mom clings to my arm. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to say, but it’s in me, like a rock, and if I don’t say it, maybe all of me will become a rock. Maybe I’ll start to feel nothing, for real, instead of only pretending. Like Matt.
“I don’t want what happened to him to happen to me. I—” I swallow hard. “I mean, don’t worry, I’m not—I don’t want to—” God, I’m making a mess of this. “Maybe I could use a little bit of help?”