She noticed him near the front of the bus.
There was something puritanical about Theodore Sandford, sitting there blessed by the sunlight.
‘I keep thinking of her,’ Mae said, sliding into the seat beside him.
‘Yes.’
His voice was too high, lending itself to falsetto but nothing more. Kids made jokes, but when he sang they sat there as rapt as everyone else.
He pressed himself close to the glass. ‘My grandad lives in White Cove. He doesn’t believe.’
‘In God?’
‘In Selena.’
‘Not believing like that. No telescope. No watching the sky, the news. No posters of constellations. That takes its own kind of commitment.’
He shrugged.
‘You haven’t been to see Abi’s parents.’ She did not know Theodore Sandford well, but she could see he looked nervous.
‘I will.’ He spoke quietly. There was a practised deference to him. His hair was neatly parted to the side, his shirt tucked into his shorts and buttoned to the top. On his finger she noticed he still wore the silver purity ring.
She looked down and saw the skin raw on both his knees, the scratches bloodied and dark.
‘Did you fall?’
He followed her eye. ‘People keep asking you about it. How you found her. What she looked like.’
‘She was dead, Theodore.’
He flinched at the word. A physical reaction.
‘I think her back was broken. Maybe her leg had snapped. There was blood around her head. Her jaw looked wrong, maybe dislocated.’
He closed his eyes and she stopped.
‘Hearing her voice in school … I didn’t sleep after. I used to ask her about the tattoo,’ he said.
The bus eased to a stop. No one got on and no one got off.
‘We were fifteen,’ Mae said.
‘You can get a tattoo at fifteen. You can get alcohol and drugs, and my cousin in the city said his friend has a gun. Do you think maybe Selena is doing the universe a favour?’ He spoke with a sincerity that disarmed her.
‘You were together for a long time but you didn’t sleep together.’
He reached down and turned the band on his finger. ‘Why do people make such a thing about sex? We made a commitment. I don’t expect someone like you to understand.’
Hunter had started the rumour that Mae had been with a line of boys at the beach, summer boys that lined up and used her and high-fived afterward. She’d seen writing in the toilets at school.
Mae Cassidy is a slut.
Mae Cassidy will burn.
‘Most boys wouldn’t wait. Especially now.’
‘I’ve spent my whole life preparing for the next one.’
‘You think she jumped, Theodore?’
‘Yes.’
‘You sound certain.’
‘Death is only hard for the living.’
The bus hit a bump, her knee hit his, he moved further from her, like sin was contagious.
‘The concert, the last Sunday, we each get to choose a song. Most are going with a hymn, “Abide With Me” or something like that.’
‘What did Abi choose?’
‘Something about creeps and weirdos.’
Another time and she might have smiled, might have allowed Abi’s death to colour her memories.
‘Whenever we tried to practise, she’d cry. I mean, she’d cry so much that we had to stop.’
She watched his face as he spoke, the delicate bow of his lips. He was the kind of innocent that could be shattered. Mae couldn’t imagine him with Abi, or with anyone at all. He was to be displayed at the front of a choir, to be projected as a Sacred Heart ideal.
‘Where were you the night she died?’
He smiled sadly. ‘Where I always am on a Sunday night, practising with Sally Sweeny. That’s my life. Sometimes everything is simple. And sometimes nothing makes sense. But most things fall somewhere in between. Was it you … the recordings?’
Mae shook her head.
‘Whoever’s doing it, they need to stop now. They really need to stop before something bad happens.’
‘Something bad already happened, Theodore.’
He pressed the bell as they reached the edge of town. ‘If you’re looking for answers, Mae, you should look to the sky.’
‘I do, only it’s not God I see rushing down towards us.’ She stood to let him pass.
‘Faith is a choice. It’s not thrust upon you. You have to work hard at it. I don’t think Abi ever understood that.’
She saw him as she stepped off the bus.
Behind him, purple cannoned from the water.
He carried flowers, a small bouquet of daisies that looked like they’d been torn from someone’s garden.
She chewed the inside of her cheek.
He held them out.
‘That’s the sorriest bunch of flowers I’ve even seen. Did you steal them?’
‘Yes.’
A group of girls passed and stared and he ignored them.
‘You always dress like you’re going to a funeral?’ she said.
‘I gave all my clothes away.’
The church bell rang loud.
‘You didn’t ask if you could come into my life. Now you’re here.’
She felt his hand on her lower back, his chest against her.
‘I’m not. I’m nowhere,’ she said.
Their lips were close, too close.
‘You’re everything I hate about this town,’ she said.
She walked away, back towards home, carrying her daisies. As she passed the church, she saw Theodore cross himself and head inside.
She stopped by the door.
He cried without shame, small beneath the cross.