CHAPTER 24

Me: You were right about Jessa

Seeley: I figured

Me: How’s your mom?

Seeley: Hangin in there

Me: . . .

Seeley: Why is your front door locked?

A grin stretches out across my face. I didn’t think I’d be seeing Seeley for a couple days with everything going on. I race down the stairs, smashing into my dad and spilling his soda all over both of us.

“Elouise!” he yelps.

“Sorry,” I say as I bolt past him, flipping the lock on the door and whipping it open. I’m just in time to see Seeley smoosh a giant mosquito on her arm, leaving a smattering of blood and wings in its wake. I can relate, Mr. Mosquito—it’s been that kind of day for me too.

Seeley leans around me to peek at my very wet, very annoyed father. “What’d I miss?”

I step outside, shutting the door behind us. “He locked the door on you.” I smirk. “He can handle a little soda on his shirt. Wanna go for a walk?”

She nods, shoving her hair out of her face. It’s a dark brown color now, instead of purple, and I wonder if her mom made her dye it back for the funeral or if she did it all on her own. I touch it without thinking, and she smiles. We hop down off the front porch and out onto the deserted street. It’s almost nine o’clock, which means everybody in my neighborhood is either inside for the night or working on it. I glance over at her, our feet falling into step as our sneakers thump the pavement.

“You okay?” I’ve been wrestling with cleverer, nicer ways to ask her that since we started walking, but none of them seemed right.

“Yes? No? Maybe?” She twists her lips up into a sad little smile.

I nod and go back to studying the ground as we walk. I’ve never known anybody firsthand who has died before now. When my mom left, her whole side of the family basically disappeared along with her. My dad’s an only, and his parents died when I was a baby, so that really didn’t leave anybody else.

“I think it’s okay not to know.” It feels like the right thing to say, and also I know it’s true because sometimes I don’t know how I feel about my mom. I can get how stuff like loss and love can be really complicated, how it can tie a person up in knots.

We follow the street as it meanders past all the houses, turning into a little cul-de-sac with a park at the end. I climb onto the bright red merry-go-round thing and lie down, staring up at the stars as the cool metal presses into the fabric of my tank top. Seeley grabs one of the handles and runs around, getting a good spin going before jumping on right next to me.

Some of my hair gets stuck under her knee, but I don’t say anything. I know she’ll move soon enough. And she does, lying down to watch the stars shine above our heads, a sleepy smile fixed on her lips.

“I don’t think I’m sad enough.” She waits until the world has stopped turning, or maybe until we have, to say this. I can’t be positive, distracted as I am by the way the moonlight glints off her eyes as she’s trying not to cry.

I inch closer to her. “It’s not a contest.”

“Shouldn’t I feel really bad? Like really, really sad?”

“You’re crying now.” I don’t think she even realizes it. She paws at her cheeks and looks back at the sky.

“I’m only crying because I’m not sad.” Her breath hitches, and then the tears start coming in earnest; big, fat, ugly tears rolling down her cheeks, complete with snuffling breaths and boogers.

I let her be until she starts to slip deeper into it, and then I climb over the bar between us and wrap my arms around her, holding her tight until she melts against me. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” I rub my hand over her back as she sobs into my shoulder.

“It’s not okay!” she shouts. A tiny stream of snot drips down her lip, and she inhales hard before wiping at it. “It’s not okay, Lou. Nothing is okay.”

“I know,” I say quietly. “I only meant you can feel sad, or not feel sad, or even feel sad about not feeling sad; anything you want. It’s all okay, I swear. It’s all totally in the realm of like a normal reaction.” But she shakes her head, and I know I’m not getting through.

“I just.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t know either, okay? But I want to help. If you need someone to hug or scream at or, I don’t know, punch or something, I want to help.” I pause, biting my lip and wishing I didn’t suck so bad at this. “But please don’t really punch me. I was only trying to be dramatic and you know I bleed easily.”

Seeley’s lips, once pinched tight against a frown, break into a smile as she starts laughing. I know this is all part of it, probably, this roller coaster of emotions she’s on. But I can’t help but feel, if she can laugh like that, she’s gonna be okay.

She wipes at her nose and takes a shuddering breath. “Does my makeup look okay?”

I rub a finger under her eye, but it’s no use. “You look like a raccoon after a three-day bender.”

“You be nice to me, Elouise Parker, or I’ll tell.” And now it’s my turn to smile, like I did when we were little and she threatened me with that on the daily.

I grab her hand and pull her up. “Please don’t tell.”