perfection plus an eight-pound shackle. You don’t have to pretend that this”—I gestured at the three of us—“is what you want.”
Dad sat down, the plates he was carrying making a cracking noise as they hit the table. He looked at me like he’d seen something surprising. Maybe even frightening.
Even when he came into the emergency room the night Julia died he hadn’t looked at me like that.
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“It’s true,” he said after a moment, his voice very quiet.
“Your mother and I love each other very much. And it’s true that we—that we didn’t plan on having children. But Amy, it doesn’t mean we didn’t want you. That we don’t love you very much and want to make things better for—”
“Stop,” I said, and looked at Mom. “Please, just stop this. Make Dad stop. Make all of it stop. I saw you the other day. I was there. I made you cry. I know you can’t stand this. That you can’t stand what I did.”
“Amy, that’s not—that’s not why I cried.” She stretched her hands across the table toward me. “I cried because I can’t reach you. I can’t stand to see you so sad, so deter-mined to be alone. Your father and I, we need to be better parents to you, need to—”
I shoved her hands away. “Why are you doing this?
Why are you pretending? You know what I did to Julia.
You know I—”
“Don’t,” Mom said, her voice shaking, and I could see the words she didn’t want to hear written on her face.
“I killed her. You know that. I know that. Why can’t you just—why won’t you just say it?”
“Because you didn’t!” Dad said, pushing away from the table and running a hand through his hair. “How can you even say it? How can you even think it?”
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“How can I not?” I said. “I told her to get in the car!”
“But she chose to do it,” Mom said.
I shook my head, shoving her words away, shoving away her echo of what Laurie had said. Shoving away how those words—from Laurie, and now from Mom—
made me think, hope.
Mom leaned over and grabbed my hands.
“Listen to me,” she said, and when I tried to pull away, she wouldn’t let go. She held on to me. “We all make choices, Amy. Sometimes we make good ones. Sometimes we make bad ones. You made choices that night, but Julia made them too. What happened was terrible, but it isn’t your fault—it isn’t—and you have to stop blaming yourself.”
“I—but if I didn’t do it, then it—”
“It was an accident,” Dad said, and his voice was so gentle. So sure. “A horrible one, one where you lost your best friend, but that’s what it was. What it is.”
“But—” My eyes were burning, all of me was burning, shaking, and Mom said, “Amy, honey, it’s all right,” and then she put her arms around me, she was hugging me.
She hugged me, and I let her. I wanted her to.
“Your father and I want to spend time with you, we want to be here for you,” she said. “We want you to see 255
that Julia’s death isn’t your fault. We want to be a family.
Those are our choices.”
“I —” I pulled away, and looked at her. I looked at her, and then at Dad.
“Try,” Dad said. “Try to see how much we love you, try to see that Julia didn’t die because of you. That’s all we ask. Just . . . try. Please.” He cleared his throat, blinking hard. “Now, do you know what movie you want to watch?”
So I picked a movie, and we watched it. I didn’t know what else to do, and everything else, all the things they said, I . . .
I want to believe them.
I think about what Laurie said, about learning to be happy, and think that maybe—that maybe I can learn how to do that. How to be that.
Maybe.
Julia’s still gone, though. I still have to live with that. I still have to live without her.
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T W E N T Y - F O U R
I WENT TO A PARTY TONIGHT.
There’s six words I never thought I’d say again.
The party was at Mel’s. His parents are in Aruba or something. I wasn’t invited, obviously—Mel hasn’t spoken
