him. And I let him. I close my eyes.
“Why do you want me, Christian? I’m hopelessly screwed up.”
“We’re all screwed up. And you look so cute while you’re doing it.”
“Stop.”
The back of my neck feels hot where his breath is touching me, stirring the wisps of my hair that managed to escape my braid. “Thank you,” I say. We sit there for a while, not talking.
An owl hoots in the distance. And suddenly, miraculously, there are tears in my eyes.
“I miss my mom,” I choke out.
Christian’s arms tighten around me. I lean my head onto his shoulder and cry and cry, my body shuddering with sobs. It’s one of those loud, probably unattractive kind of sobfests, the kind where your nose runs and your eyes get all huge and swollen and your whole face becomes this messy pink swampland, but I don’t care. Christian holds me, and I cry. The ache empties itself out on his T-shirt, leaving me lighter, a good emptiness this time, like if I tried I might be light enough to fly.
Chapter 21
High Countries
At graduation all the girls have to wear white robes and the boys wear black. When the band plays “Pomp and Circumstance” we file two by two into the gym at Jackson Hole High School, which is filled with chattering, cheering, frantic-picture-taking friends and relatives. But it’s hard to look up into the bleachers and not see Mom. Or Jeffrey, even. The police showed up at our house the next day to question him. This time they even brought a warrant. But he wasn’t there. All we found in his room were a bunch of clothes and toiletries missing — and here I’d believed that lie he’d fed me as I watched him pack it up that night — and a single yellow Post-it stuck to his window.
He didn’t even take his truck. We’ve been frantically searching for him for days, but there’s not a trace of where he might have gone. He’s just gone.
I spot Dad in the audience next to Billy. He gives me a thumbs-up. I smile, try to look happy. I am graduating, after all. It’s a big deal.
When someone dies in the movies, there’s always that scene where the main character stands in the dead person’s closet and fingers the sleeve of the favorite shirt, the one she remembers from so many happy moments. That was me, this morning. I went into Mom’s closet for this white eyelet dress she used to love. I thought I’d wear it, under my gown. That way, maybe a part of her would be there. Sentimental, I know.
In the movies, the main character always presses her face in to get a whiff of that last, lingering hint of the person’s smell. And then she cries.
I wish I didn’t know this, how real those scenes are, how unbelievable it was in that moment to stand there looking at all the dead can leave behind. How can the shoes still be here? I thought. How can the clothes survive, when the person did not? I found a hair on the shoulder of a flannel shirt and held it gently between my thumb and forefinger, this hair that was once attached to a person I loved so much. I held it for a long time, unsure of what to do with it, and then I finally let it go. I let it float away.
It hurt.
But right now she’s with me, her vanilla perfume rising off the fabric, and somehow it makes me feel stronger.
I consult my trusty program.
Mental groan.
I turn slightly and cast a subtle glance in his direction. He’s sitting a couple rows behind me, right next to Ava Peters. Just down the row from him, Kay Patterson smirks at me.
I know, I know, I think. I’m still looking at him.
He lifts his eyebrows.
One speech ends and it’s time for Angela. The principal announces her as the class valedictorian. One of Jackson Hole High’s best and brightest stars. One of the three students who will be attending Stanford University in the fall.
Applause, applause.
No answer.
