Then he began to sob, the sounds reverberating through his chest like they were going to tear him apart.
Someone else might have tried to comfort him, but I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t have any room in me to try to take on his sorrow, his rage. He had kept the truth—the part he knew—hidden. Hadn’t told me or anyone what had happened. He didn’t deserve anything from me right now.
But I did believe him.
Believed that he was sorry.
Believed that he’d thought he’d known his best friend.
IN THE END, I TOLD my parents the truth.
Most of it.
I told them about Anna and Charlie. About how both Lily and Charlie had, in their own way, been angry with her, and how Charlie had drugged her. Told her to fly.
I told them about Nick too. That she was going to see him, that his house was where it happened. That he knew nothing about it, though, and I wanted it to stay that way if possible. Because I didn’t know what you could do with that, knowing that someone died trying to get to you. Some things only hurt to learn about, and they don’t change anything.
I didn’t tell them about the bar, the birth control, or the photo. She wouldn’t have wanted them to know any of that—and they didn’t need to have what happened between her and Charlie spelled out in bold type or to know exactly how lost and trapped she’d felt. I didn’t think it was like the box, hiding stuff they had a right to see, hiding it because I wanted to keep it for my own. This was different. This was something I was doing for them. And for Anna.
—
I’D THOUGHT FINDING OUT WHO Anna was going to see that night, finding out what happened, would give me a way to understand what had happened between the two of us—how a chasm had opened without my realizing it. Instead, what I found was Charlie and Nick. Charlie, who only saw her as someone to control—and Nick, who’d wanted to know her but never really had the chance.
She’d put on the dress, put on the perfume, for Nick. The birth control had been for Charlie. And her poem…I didn’t know. Maybe she’d thought she loved Charlie at one point, or maybe it had simply been a poem about no one in particular—just some pretty words on a page.
All I knew for certain was that there should’ve been a different ending to that night. And now I knew how it actually should’ve gone.
I could imagine it; I could see it clearly:
Anna in her purple dress, all the buttons attached, getting out of the car—arriving exactly when Nick was expecting Brian to show up. She is clear-eyed and calm. She stands outside Nick’s house and looks up, up to his window. She finds a stone and throws it gently. And then she waits. Waits beneath his window, sure that soon he’ll open it and smile down at her, surprised but happy. That he’ll mouth for her to wait right there, that he’ll be right down.
That was how I pictured it. That was how it would have been.
AT SCHOOL, MANY DIFFERENT STORIES circulated. Some of the ones about what happened in the parking lot were so far off they were almost funny—like the one where Charlie pulled a gun on me and Mona swooped in like an avenging angel and karate-chopped him on the neck. The ones about what happened the night Anna died tended to be more somber and murky. Most of them centered on Charlie, although I did hear one that mentioned Lily’s role in it all, including how she’d finally broken down when the police called and confirmed everything.
Even that version didn’t include the aftermath, how after Lily talked to the police she’d fallen apart completely—crying and shaking until her dad checked her into some kind of treatment center in Tampa. She’d texted me from there, a long, rambling text alternating between asking for my forgiveness and telling me that it wasn’t really her fault, that she hadn’t understood what was happening. I’d deleted the text and blocked her number.
There were so many stories about what had happened, but so far I hadn’t heard Nick mentioned in any of them. I really hoped it could stay that way.
Nick.
I’d been avoiding him. I knew I needed to talk to him, needed to say something about why I wasn’t showing up for our runs anymore, why we’d never go on that date. I knew I couldn’t avoid him forever—in a school of three hundred students that simply wasn’t possible—and I kept telling myself I was holding off on talking to him until I could get it right. Deep down, though, I knew I was just a coward.
When it finally happened, I was in the stairwell, late for practice. I turned the corner to go down the final flight and saw Nick heading up toward me. My first impulse was to run right back up, to stay squarely in the flight end of the continuum. It took everything I had to make myself stay put.
When he saw me, he slowed down but kept on coming until he was two steps below me.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I replied. It was a start.
“I tried to visit you at the hospital,” he said. “I guess you were sleeping, though.”
I nodded, despite knowing that in all likelihood I’d been awake. After Brian left, I’d told the nurse not to let anyone but family in. There wasn’t anyone else I could handle seeing, including—especially—him.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I’m okay,” I said. White lies, they serve a purpose sometimes.
“Okay, good.” He stood there looking at me. “I think you’ve been avoiding me,” he said. “You haven’t really been subtle about
