I’m sitting in Josh’s cabin on his flowery sofa that sags in the middle. Next to me, the lamp flickers. The crickets outside are making a racket.
Josh is pacing, his hands twitching by his sides, like he’s had too many of those caffeine drinks. “Jessie, I think he jumped.”
“He didn’t.” My voice doesn’t sound so certain, though.
He continues pacing. “I told you about the rig, but I didn’t tell you this…on the side of the road that day, he told me he wanted to die.”
“What?” I breathe.
“I laughed at him. I said, you don’t want to die. I punched him in the arm, treated it like some joke. I just wanted him to cheer up. Then, it worked. I mean, he smiled at me. He said I was right, he was fine. And we kept running.
“The next day, when I was driving to Seattle with my dad, I kept thinking about it, how he looked, what he said. I wish I’d told my dad to turn around. I was worried about him all day. Lamed out on my race.
“During dinner, I almost told my dad that we had to go back. But then, I got Chris’s call and I listened to the voicemail. He sounded great. So I called him back and even though he didn’t answer, I figured he was fine and I went to sleep. But then his mom called in the night—” His face falls.
He runs his finger under his eye. “I just knew. Dad drove me back. He kept trying to reassure me that Chris was okay. I didn’t tell him what I knew. I kind of tried to forget about it, you know? I tried to convince myself he was okay.”
I speak up. “Josh, if he did something to himself, it’s my fault.” I blink, but tears are coming anyway.
He stops pacing and sits down beside me on his old sofa. “No, Jessie. Even if you had broken up with him, it’s not your fault. On Friday, you guys were waving at each other. He was smiling. It was all good, you know? You couldn’t have guessed.”
You did seem fine.
“If you’re going to blame yourself, I have to blame myself, and I’m not going to.” He closes his eyes tight and then opens them, gazing at me with this fierce intensity. “You hear me, Jessie?”
But he doesn’t know what you said to me.