Saturday Morning: April 16th
Everyone was dressed in black. Including me, in a knee-length cotton dress, black tights, and black ankle boots. All covered in my black pea coat. The same jacket I used when I broke into Marisa Foret’s house, and Sarah’s home. Plus there was a black headband perched on top of my head like a gothic cherry on top of a sundae.
Beside me, Maggie stood with her head bowed. She’d kept her hands crossed in front of her during the service, and now she stood with them at her side. She seemed so calm, still; what was going on inside there? For all I knew she’s spent the service reciting the multiplication tables.
Gin was on my other side, and Benji and Paisley were standing across from us. Benji’s arm was around Paisley’s shoulder, whose face was covered by the wide brim of her vintage black hat. From the way her shoulders shook, I knew she was crying.
Between us was a shiny brown coffin above a grave in the cold spring ground. Who designed the contraption that holds the coffin up before slowly lowering it down into the earth? What had people done before, just dropped the coffin into the hole? I flinched and told myself to shut up.
“She was too young,” someone said behind me, echoing a sentiment I’d heard mumbled repeatedly all day. I wanted to scoff at all of them. Snarl. She was old enough; old enough to drive. Old enough to break into Gin’s house and steal his mother’s diamond watch.
Old enough to fall in love with the wrong boy.
The absolutely wrong boy, as it turned out.
My parents were murmuring behind us. I put my arm around Maggie, and Gin put his arm around me, in a sort of three-person domino effect.
A figure caught my eye. Dressed in a dark suit, with navy tie, Alex stood at the back of the gathering. He stepped backward, moving away from the crowd of people. When we made eye contact, he winked at me, and continued retreating from the burial.
I looked away, but my eyes were drawn back to Alex. But he was gone.
***
Sarah’s house smelled like food. My mother carried a glass casserole dish of macaroni and cheese with mixed vegetables. It looked homemade, but really she’d bought food from the hot bar at Whole Foods and dumped it into a dish from our kitchen. Luckily I’d been there to remind her to wash the dust out of the pan first.
“Thanks for coming.” Sarah’s mother hugged all of us. Her red-rimmed eyes were a contrast to her perfectly coiffed brown hair. Sarah would have looked exactly like her mother one day. Same skinny chicken legs. Same slender hands.
“We’re so sorry…” I walked into the kitchen. Several rotisserie chickens sat on the counter, along with three potato casseroles, a plethora of salads, and mounds of desserts. I snagged a chocolate chip cookie, wondering if chocolate can really cure everything.
Or maybe that’s wine. My mother already had a glass in her hand, which my father tried to take, but she weaved her way around a few people, leaving him behind. There were familiar faces from school and soccer in the house, but none of my friends.
“It’s so sad about Sarah,” a woman said behind me. “She was going through a challenging time, and even at sixteen things can look bleak, but who knows what sort of woman she would have turned into?”
I rolled my eyes, and stepped over to the sliding glass door. I recognized the figure with brown hair standing on the patio, just beyond the covered area from the deck above. James. Sarah’s older brother. Maybe twenty years old since he was a grade or two ahead of Daniel.
“Want some company?” I slid the door shut behind me.
“Sure.” He didn’t even look back to see who was joining him.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” The words came automatically to my lips. It’s not like James hadn’t heard this already today at least fifty times. Maybe more. I stepped into the sunshine, although it wasn’t any warmer here than it had been at the funeral.
He turned his head and looked at me. Brown eyes like Sarah’s. He’d been a senior my freshman year, and I remembered hearing him give a speech as student body president. Not that I’d paid attention to anything he’d said. But I remembered him standing behind the microphone, some of the girls on my class listening intently to every word. He’d looked happy. Confident.
Now he looked like he’d been run over by my dad’s Range Rover.
“You and Sarah always had a love-hate relationship,” James said.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said again. Idiot. There had to be something I could say. Do. Maybe say something nice about Sarah? Mention the time she waited for a tow truck with me after practice when I had a flat tire even though she could have driven herself home? Talk about how happy she’d been last fall when she’d been chosen as one of the Students of the Month at school? How she’d been so proud to start the final two soccer games, even if it had been at left fullback instead of midfield, like she preferred? How much fun we’d had when her dad signed us up for the gun safety class a year ago? We’d thought the class was lame but then we’d had fun pretending we were Charlie’s Angels. But safely, of course. After the first warning. Our instructor almost had an aneurism when Sarah held a gun out to the side, in the direction of a classmate, with her hip out in official Angel style, especially since the gun had been loaded.
We stood in silence for a moment as I debated which Sarah factoid to offer up along with the casserole of mac’n’cheese we’d brought.
“So, are you going back to Northwestern soon?” I finally asked. “Or are you sticking around for a while?”
“I’m here this weekend, but Mom and Dad want me to go back to school ASAP. They think it’d be good for me to have something to focus on instead of dwelling on Sarah. As if I can concentrate on anything else.” Bitterness colored all of his words. “Harper, you were Sarah’s best friend. Was she using often? You know the signs.”
The words “not my best friend” halted on my tongue. I swallowed, words swirling through me but none popping out. How would correcting James help? “She wasn’t abusing drugs, not as far as I could tell. I’m not saying she never indulged, but it was just an occasional weekend thing.”
“Like me,” James said. “Although I’m never touching them again.”
“A lot of people use without ODing.” The words sounded lame to me and I glanced at James to see how he’d react to something so dumb.
“Do you think she meant to?” He sounded as if this was the question he’d really wanted to ask. He looked at me. I stared straight back.
“No.” I didn’t even have to think about the question. “No way.”
The door slid open and then shut behind us. I didn’t turn to look behind us, my eyes on James. The grief in the brown eyes that stared at me, searching for answers I couldn’t give. I wished I could. “I wish I could help,” I whispered.
“Here you are.” Gin said as he stopped beside me, glass of something in hand. I grabbed it from him and took a sip. Iced tea.
“Sure, you can have some,” Gin said as I handed it back.
James sat down on a wrought-iron chair in the shade of the deck and leaned over, propping up his head with his hands. None of the chairs had cushions. I wondered if Sarah’s parents would bother uncovering the barbecue set when the weather warmed up, or if it would stay this way all summer. Prepared for cold, for winter. Even it was warm, would summer ever come again for them?
“Hey, everyone.” I spun around at the sound of that cocky voice. How dare he talk to me?
“Hi Alex,” I spit out. He’d entered the backyard through the side gate, skipping the inside of the house.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Be civil, Harper,” he said, the tone of his voice mild. Like we’d just had a minor argument. Versus me knowing he’d killed his girlfriend. I just didn’t know if he’d done it on purpose.
Gin put his hand on the small of my back. “Didn’t know you were here.”
“I had an errand to run, so I’m a little late.” Alex turned to face James. “I’m so sorry. I wish I had known so I could have done something.”
James stood, his face tight. His mouth was drawn in a straight line. “Shove it, Alex. You can’t tell me there weren’t signs she was going to commit suicide. And if she didn’t, you must have provided the drugs. That’s always been your thing. Like when you were a punk freshman trying to making friends with popular kids.”
“I was always a popular kid.” Alex sounded amused.
James turned and stormed inside. I glanced up at Gin, who was staring in James’ direction, and then looked back at Alex. Alex was smiling, like this was a happy occasion. I wanted to say “smug bastard,” but the door slid open again.
“Gordon, can you come in here for a moment?” Gin’s mom asked.
I turned to him. “I’ll come with you—”
“Harper, I need to talk to Gordon alone for a sec. He’ll be back in a minute.”
Gin squeezed my hand, and glanced toward Alex. “I’ll be back soon, or wait a few seconds and follow me inside,” he whispered in my ear before patting my back one last time and stepping away. His mother shut the door behind him.
Alex smirked at me. “Afraid to talk to me without your boyfriend around? Thought we were friends.”
“Yeah, well, I know what you did. You really think I want to be friends with you now?”
He stepped closer to me, and I stood my ground. If my eyes had been lasers they’d have burned holes through him. He stopped about two feet away. My hands closed into fists.
“You know that we should be more than friends,” Alex said.
I snorted. “Whatever.”
“Sarah was just a pale version of you. An imitation,” Alex said. “I’m sad she’s gone, but you’re the prize I want. Her death clears the way.”
He inched closer. I felt like spiders were crawling over my skin.
“Back up. Now. I’m not interested, Alex.”
“Yes, you are.” His smile was sly, as if he knew something I didn’t. “Look for my present.”
“Your present—?”
The swish of the sliding door opening caused me to trail off. “Harper, we’re going.”
Saved by my dad. I looked back at Alex.
“This isn’t over.” My voice was quiet enough so it wouldn’t carry over to the door but it still radiated authority.
“It’s just beginning.” Alex’s voice was equally quiet, and confident.
I backed up a few steps, and then turned my back on Alex. My father had already retreated inside, and I locked the door when I went inside, leaving Alex outside.