Scene Two

[Becca’s room]

Mom and Dad are on the back porch stargazing. They’d invited me to join them, but I’d rather relive my night with Max up in my room. I flop into my bed, remembering the way my lips tingled from Max’s kisses. A real kiss feels so much better than I imagined—so much better than any of the writers said. A part of me longs to try to find the words for the way his lips brushed along my jaw like feathers and the zing of powerful energy that coursed through my body when he pressed them to mine.

I don’t know if there are enough words, or the right words, but I crave a way to capture it. Without thinking I pull out my phone and open my messages. I’m about to open a new text message when my fingers freeze.

I was about to text Charlotte.

I want to tell her about my first kiss.

I want her to squeal and be happy for me.

I got a part in a play. I got the meanest girl in drama to be a little less of a bitch—okay so she may have stabbed me in the back, but I think it may have been partially accidental—she did look sort of contrite just before I pushed her in the pool.

I kissed a boy—a beautiful, kind, adorable boy who really seems to like me. Me. Becca Hanson.

Why, Charlotte? Why aren’t you here for any of this?

And then I realize how long it’s been since I’ve missed her. I think about her often, but this sinking, clawing, heart-shredding sensation of missing her has been gone from my life for a few weeks now. What kind of a crappy friend am I? I’m worse than Darby.

I throw the phone at the wall, hoping it’ll shatter into a thousand satisfying pieces. Thanks to the superhero-powered strength of the protective case Charlie got me, it thuds into the wall and flops to the floor.

I’m so tired. So tired of wrestling with this feeling, this grief left over from Charlotte’s death. It’s always there—even when I don’t notice it. Every day. Every hour. Every breath. It’s there for the bad stuff and worse yet, it’s there for the good stuff. It taints everything. It consumes me.

This grief has stolen the happiness right out of the moment. I heave my pillows at my closet, knocking some of the hanging clothes off the rack. Not enough. I want to destroy something the way heartache is destroying me. With great, heaving, sobbing sweeps of my arms, I knock the books off my bookshelf. I rip everything off the stupid bulletin board mocking me with memories of Charlotte. All the while, there is a shrieking in my head, like the wail of a siren. I toss the picture frame from my desk onto the floor and stomp on it with the heel of my shoe, smashing the glass.

The sound of the glass crunching, like the hollow bones of a finch being crushed, stops me. I slowly lift my heel, and a whole new wave of guilt and grief washes over me. I bend to pick up the framed picture from my birthday last year. Charlotte smiles from the middle as Charlie and I flank her, moons to her planet. A shard of glass cuts my hand as I grab the broken frame.

The pain is exquisite. Red, hot, and real, the pain flares and drips over my hand like the blood pooling in my palm. I toss the picture aside and squeeze my hand, gasping as the pain bites deeper. Tears prick at my eyes, but don’t fall.

The cut isn’t deep, but it bleeds, and while it bleeds the screaming in my head gets quiet.

My phone beeps from the floor. A text from Max. I stand over it to read the message.

MAX: Miss you.

As I’m reading, another one comes through.

MAX: That was lame. Sorry. I was just thinking of you and

And what? And what, Max? I grab a wad of tissues, clenching them in my cut hand. I hold it above my head—I’ve read about first aid—and stop to grab my phone.

MAX: Sorry. Again. Meant to delete but hit send instead. I should stop now. I just wanted you to know that I was thinking of you. But not in a creepy way. Just happy thoughts, you know?

He’s having happy thoughts. I look around my room, at my clothes spilling out of my closet and the floor full of books and debris. Why can’t I have happy thoughts?

ME: I know.

I pocket my phone and pick up—carefully—the smashed picture. I wiggle the photo out from under the broken glass. One corner is creased, but otherwise it’s okay. I turn it over and read Charlotte’s loopy script written on the back. “The gang,” it says in blue ink along the bottom right corner.

I look from the picture to my cut, the bleeding already slowing.

I’m struck by how time passes and we’re moved along in its current, sometimes so slowly that we don’t even realize we’re moving until we look around one day and don’t recognize the shore.

My life is repairing itself around the hole where Charlotte was, just as the skin of my hand will seal up my cut. If I’m lucky I’ll have a scar—something to mark the trauma long after it’s gone. But I can’t stop the process of healing. Not if I’m living.

Maybe that’s what Juliet was thinking. Maybe she just really didn’t want any more scars.