I cry into my pillow all night. I cry as hard as Ethan used to when he was a newborn. That hopeless, helpless wailing. My cell’s been ringing off and on, so finally I check the ID. It’s an unknown number. I can’t talk to anyone right now.
I don’t even bother getting up for school. Mom doesn’t make a big deal out of it, the way she usually does. She even asks if I want her to stay home with me. I tell her no. She has her job, her babies. She’s a doctor in the neonatal center at St. Anthony where she keeps preemies alive.
Why? I wonder. So they can live until they’re seventeen and then drop dead?
I cry. I must cry myself to sleep.
I’m awakened by a knock on my door. I roll over to see Mom stick her head in. “Joss is here to see you.”
I want to say, Tell her to go away. I want to say, Can she bring back Swanee?
I feel a tear trickle out of the corner of my eye. It’s 2:32. AM? PM? What day?
Joss plops on the edge of my bed. Her face is impassive, but I can tell she’s struggling to maintain control. She and Swanee are only two years apart, and they’re more like best friends than sisters.
A wave of resentment rises up inside me. All those years Joss had with Swanee, and I only got six weeks. Joss knows her better than I ever will. How fair is that?
She’s dressed in black. She always dresses in black. Joss is one of those invisible moles no one ever notices. So unlike Swanee, who is bright and fun and lively.
Is. Was. I’m stuck in present tense.
Joss asks, “Why?”
Like I have the answer.
I wish she’d go. I can’t engage with anyone right now, especially her.
“What are we going to do?” she says.
We? I know what I’m going to do. Lie here and die.
Swanee’s only been dead for three and a half days. She could still come back, right? People can be resuscitated. People’s hearts have stopped before, and doctors were able to restart them.
My mother could do it—if she wanted to.
Joss gets up, shuffles over to my dresser, and picks up my ski goggles.
GO! I want to shout. I want to push her out the door. I tuck my knees into my chest and turn over.
After about a year, she clues in. When she’s gone, I just start bawling.
We met on a ski trip the Wednesday after Christmas. My BFF Betheny and I were in ski club at the time and had planned to go to Winter Park, but Betheny called that morning with bad cramps. Even though we’d already bought the lift tickets, I considered not going, since I hate doing things alone. Ethan was home from the hospital, and I should’ve asked Mom and Dad if they needed me to stay and help out. With chores. Not with Ethan. He scares me. He seems so fragile I’m constantly afraid I’ll drop him or do something hideously wrong that’ll damage him forever.
In the end, selfish me decided I deserved a break from the crying and coughing and sleep deprivation.
The ski bus was packed by the time I boarded. There was only one empty row, so I snatched it up. Most people from ski club I knew enough to smile and say hi to, but I sort of rode on Betheny’s wings. She’d always been the popular one. She made the cheer squad this year, and even though we’d been friends since elementary, I sometimes felt totally outside her new flock of friends.
It wasn’t her fault. I’m just insecure, I guess.
As I was digging out my nano, I heard, “Is this seat taken?”
I looked up and saw Swanee. My stomach did a double flip. Of course I knew who she was. Superathlete. Most out lesbian in school. I think every other gay and bi girl lusted after her from afar. At the beginning of the year she was with this girl Rachel Carter? Carver? Then I heard through the Gay/Straight Alliance grapevine that Rachel had moved. I didn’t know if they were still together or not.
“Hello?” Swanee said. “Sprekken zee Anglaise?”
“Huh? Oh, no. I mean, yes.” Shit, I thought. Could I sound more dense? I moved my pack off the empty seat.
“You’re Alix, right?”
She slid her pack under the seat in front of us while my mouth gaped open. “I’m Swanee,” she said.
She knew my name. It nearly took a force of nature for me to breathe out, “Hi.”
“A friend was going to come with me today, but she sprained her ankle,” Swanee said. “Did we meet at Rainbow Alley?”
Rainbow Alley is Denver’s LGBTQI Center. “I don’t think so. I haven’t been there in a while.”
“Me neither. Oh, I know.” She aimed an index finger at me. “You’re in the GSA at school.”
“Yeah.” Even though I hadn’t attended many meetings this year, since Betheny was always so busy and I still felt uncomfortable going alone.
“And you hang with the cheers.” She sort of wrinkled her nose.
“Just one,” I said. “Betheny. My best friend.”
Swanee’s eyebrows rose. “Is that all she is? Because everyone assumes…” The sentence dangled.
“What?” Everyone who?
She shrugged.
I might’ve let out a snort. Like a boar. “Betheny’s not gay.”
“You sure of that?”
“A hundred percent,” I said. “She would’ve told me when I came out to her.” In seventh grade. She was fine with it. In fact, she said she’d suspected as much.
Swanee held my eyes. Hers were so crystalline clear I felt like I was looking all the way to the bottom of the sea. “But do you like her that way?”
“No.” I hoped the heat in my cheeks didn’t register on the hot tamale scale. I’d wondered myself, and even fantasized about kissing Betheny. But it was only because I wanted so badly to find someone to love.
The bus rumbled off and Swanee sighed. I remember I couldn’t stop peering at her in my peripheral vision. She had this long strawberry-blond hair with a streak of blue down my side. I’d asked Mom if I could highlight my hair, since it’s this unremarkable shade of “dishwater” blond, sort of like splash back on your windshield after a snowmelt, and she said absolutely not, that I already had beautiful auburn highlights. I don’t know where she was looking, but it wasn’t in my mirror.
We weren’t even to I-70 before Swanee sighed again and said, “I really hate skiing alone. Want to—”
“Yes.” I cut her off.
She laughed and I about died of embarrassment.
We fell into an easy conversation, and by the time we were riding home, we were snuggling under a blanket and giggling our heads off.
I have to beg Mom—beg her—to let me stay home from school the rest of the week. Reluctantly, she agrees, but then makes it conditional on me babysitting Ethan if Dad has to go to the office. Dad’s a Web consultant, so he works from home most of the time. I tell Mom, “No way.” We have a stare-down and I win because I break into tears. I know Mom thinks it’s all about Swanee, but it’s more: What if Ethan realizes he’s home alone with me?
“I only have one meeting with a client all week and it’s today,” Dad says, coming out of his office, “so I’ll drop Ethan off at day care and leave the stroller.”
I want to hug Dad. We don’t hug in our family. “Thank you,” I tell him.
He adds, “You’ll need to walk over and pick him up by five. Can you do that?”
I sniffle and nod. He’ll screech all the way home. I’ll bring my nano.
Dad takes Ethan upstairs to pack diapers and stuff, and then they all leave. My stomach grumbles, reminding me I haven’t eaten much since… I can’t keep anything down. I toast a couple of frozen waffles and sit at the kitchen table. I think I’ll call Swanee and—
I press my fingertips against my eyes and choke back a deluge of tears. How could she go and leave me like this? Without warning. No last words. What were the last words we exchanged? Friday night after school she had a track team meeting. She kissed me at my locker and said she’d see me in the morning for snowboarding.
That hardly counts. We talked more on Thursday, when we went to an open mic night. I was at her house, in her room, sitting on her bed cross-legged, watching her put on a shoulder-length, neon-blue wig and an all-black outfit like Joss would wear. Even though the shirt was oversize, I could see Swan’s breasts and nipples. Sexy as hell. “How do I look?” Swan asked me.
I got off the bed to go to her and kiss her my answer. “Good enough to eat.” I pretended to bite her neck and she went, “Ummm.”
Joss muttered, “I’ll meet you pervs downstairs,” and left.
I said, “You could wear those ebony button earrings I made you.”
Swanee sighed. “I would if I could find them.”
Her room was worse than a hoarder’s nest. Even though I bought her a jewelry box, she could never remember to put my earrings into it. If she could even find the box.
Swan said, “Anyway, I’m saving them for a special occasion.” She ran her hands through my hair and, with that twinkle in her eye, murmured, “We’ll play vamps later.”
It was almost ten. Three bands were left to play, and I had to be home by eleven. Swanee said, “You’re the only person in the world with a curfew that early,” and Joss said, “What is a curfew?” They both howled.
My parents’ rules and regs were so archaic.
Since she was a senior and I was a junior, Swanee and I didn’t have any classes together, but we did eat during the same lunch period. For the life of me, I can’t remember what we talked about on Friday. Trivia. Now I wish I had a recording of every word she ever said every moment of every day.
Saturday, I know, she got up early to run, the same way she does every morning. Did.
I feel myself losing it, so I slog up to bed, hoping to go to sleep for however long the grieving process takes. Forever?
My bedroom door flies open and Mom says, “Where’s Ethan?”
Oh my God. I sit up and my brain slips a gear. “He’s at day care.”
She checks her watch. “They closed half an hour ago.”
The door opens downstairs and I hear Ethan making his cranky/hungry sound.
“Thank heavens.” Mom presses a hand against her chest. Dad clomps up the stairs and Mom takes Ethan from him.
Dad fills the doorway.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I fell asleep.…”
He looks at me just long enough to pierce my heart.
No. He has no right.
Swanee was like a psychic when it came to reading people, and she said she didn’t like coming to my house because my parents always reeked of hater vibes around her.