34

I’VE BEEN STARING AT LIA’S MURAL FOR FOUR MONTHS NOW. There’s a lot I get and a few things I really, really wish I could ask her about.

It’s unfinished. Like her.

Though she’d made heaps of progress on it in just the few short weeks she’d had to work, it takes up most of the wall, a series of circles inside one another. The outermost one is a clock face, more specifically it’s a sundial face, with bright, happy rays extending from its edges. Roman numerals marking the hours form a semicircle around the top three-quarters, and tick marks between each designate the quarter hours. A swirling wave fills the bottom quadrant, and inside it is a compass rose marking north, south, east, and west. Around the outer edge of all of it is a Latin phrase in Lia’s perfect calligraphy script.

It reads: Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice. But for those who love, time is not.

The piece is titled “Only Questions.” It’s subtitled “This Is Not My Masterpiece.”

I am obsessed with it.

Most of the people who’ve walked by this over the past few months—at least on sunny days when the tarp wasn’t protecting it—never thought to step closer, would never have known to look for the tiny images Lia hid among the mandala pattern of the innermost circles. They wouldn’t have noticed the saluting soldier wearing the bottom half of a furry costume or the phrase “false hope” with a line through it or the game controller. Or the word oxyphenbutazone, which I googled and learned was the highest scoring word ever played in Words With Friends.

They never saw the sea witch or the washing machine, both of which make me wonder if I really knew her.

Or the llama that tells me I did.

“Ready?” I whisper to Alex.

“No. But yes.” Alex’s eyes are glued to the mural.

Despite us being vigilant about keeping the tarp in place whenever rain is in the forecast (even if it’s meant trekking back from my dorm at Tufts these last couple weeks) and despite our retracing some of the lines that have flecked away over the weeks, the chalk won’t hold up forever.

It’s time.

Lia’s death was rushed and messy and inelegant. This send-off won’t be, even without her parents here. I wish we’d been able to talk them into it, but they’re not really doing all that well these days. Who could blame them?

At this hour on a Sunday morning the sidewalks are nearly empty, though it’s not so early that the line cooks at Zuzu’s Petals haven’t already clocked in to begin prepping for brunch. They helped us hook up our hose to one of their sinks and propped the back door open enough for us to snake it out to the parking lot.

“Should we say something first?” Alex asks.

“I don’t know. How about just . . . I love you, Lia.”

“Love you, Li,” Alex whispers, closing his eyes briefly.

We catch glances and nod to signal our readiness, then squeeze the trigger together.

A spray of water arcs onto the lower third of the wall and streaks of colored chalk bleed and run in rainbow rivulets down the wall. I thought I could watch, but I can’t. I know it’s just a chalkboard, but it’s my best friend’s heart and soul up there and my tears are salty in my throat. I spin so that my back is to the melting mural, swapping hands to keep one in place next to Alex’s on the trigger.

A second later, Alex’s arm drops, bringing the nozzle and my hand with it. “Sib,” he whispers, wonderstruck.

I pivot to take in what he’s seeing.

The lower half of the mural is gone, the bright colors of the sundial/mandala washed clean. But instead of just a plain black chalkboard beneath, pale letters shimmer where the sun meets water droplets.

Sweet fuck all!

It’s another design entirely.

She hid a complete other design underneath her chalk rendering.

“Lia, you dazzler,” I murmur, allowing my grin to crack my face in two. It’s like she’s reached out from . . . wherever she is . . . and laughed at me. I can hear her too: Sib, you Aussie freak, did you really think you’d get rid of me so easily?

“Oh my god, I’ve heard about this stuff!” Alex says. “There’s this spray you can get that has a chemical in it that repels water. A group in Boston uses it to paint sidewalk poetry that only shows up on rainy days. The stenciled words ‘appear’ because the rest of the concrete darkens when it gets wet, and the part that’s been treated with this stuff stays dry. She must have coated the chalk layer we painted, after we left. Before she started the actual mural design.” He pauses, then adds, “Wow.”

“How long will it last?” I ask.

I thought I was prepared for today, to say this final proper goodbye to Lia, and get back to my private grieving. But now I know I’m not; I need to hear her laughing at me more.

Alex is already punching away at his phone. “Got it! It’s called Rainworks.”

My limbs jiggle with adrenaline as I wait for him to click around the website.

“This’ll fade as soon as the wall dries,” he tells me. “But it says the chemical itself can last for months, maybe even up to a year, which means until then it’ll reappear every time it gets wet.”

The air catches in my lungs and I savor the exhale that follows.

A year. A piece of Lia for a whole year.

I jump into action, scrambling to retrieve the hose. “We have to get the entire wall wet—I need to see the whole thing!”

Alex ducks out of my way so I can point the nozzle again, this time staring intently—and in awe—as the rest of the colored chalk streams away and the wall saturates with water, revealing an artfully stenciled quote against the wet chalkboard backdrop.

“UNANSWERED QUESTIONS LEAVE MORE ROOM FOR POSSIBILITIES.”

—MAYBE/MAYBE NOT DYING GIRL

(WHO GUESSES SHE HAS SOMETHING TO SAY AFTER ALL)

“Lia,” I breathe.

“I know your parents didn’t want to be here, but they’d want to see this, don’t you think?” I tell Alex.

He turns his neck so I can see he already has his phone to his ear. “Mom?”

I step closer to the wall to give him some privacy.

Underneath the parentheses is a row of tiny letters I have to squint at to read: This Isn’t My Masterpiece Either.

I abso-bloody-lutely love this girl. She is a masterpiece.

She was a badass and chickenshit and fierce and flawed and perfect and messy.

She was real.

She just wasn’t invincible.

Lia’s dying changed everything for me. I no longer believe in the concept of “fair.” I no longer believe being a good person guarantees you a happy ending. I no longer believe any of us are invincible. I no longer believe I’m invincible.

A woman in yoga pants and a yellow jacket rounds the corner, juggling a coffee cup in one hand and her dog’s leash in the other. She pauses in a patch of early morning sun to squint up at the still-dripping wall and I hesitate for only a second, glancing at Alex to confirm he’s still on the phone with his parents. I cross the lot and offer the woman a friendly smile as I wordlessly ask permission to pet her corgi. She nods and I squat down to scratch the pup between his ears before venturing, “Do you reckon I could ask you a question that’ll come off as a bit random?”

Her smile is slow to form, but it’s there. “Well, now you have me curious, so I guess I have no choice but to say yes.” She lifts her chin to gesture to Lia’s quote. “Though I’m not sure if I should answer you or leave room for possibilities.”

I grin in response. “Cheers. Don’t worry—in this case the right answer leaves room for those too. I was just wondering, are you registered as an organ donor?”

Despite all the assurances Lia’s death stole from me, it also left behind one shiny new one. Because now I understand that if I’m forced to accept the positively worst things imaginable can actually happen . . . it means I have no choice but to also believe the best possible things can.

And I am here for those. We all are.