At least, I really wanted it not to be my thing. But I was pushing back against a strong—and growing—sense that it was.
“It’s the thing you were trying to find out about.”
“Right,” I said. “That’s true. So what did you hear?”
He leaned back against his garage door. Looked up and squinted into the strong afternoon sun, then looked down at his feet to give his eyes a break.
“A few years ago I remember a lady saying something to my mom about two kids who died. She didn’t say how they died, but it sounded like they were on their way to school. She just said something like, ‘Sure, Pauline, we all want to think our kids are safe. But what about those two poor little souls who never showed up to school that day?’ Those weren’t the exact words, of course. It was a long time ago. But you get the idea.”
“Yeah,” I said. And just stood for a minute. Maybe longer. “So, come on. Let’s finish the game.”
“I forfeit this game,” he said.
He walked across his yard and sat under the big oak tree, leaning his back against the trunk. Right where we’d found that bird’s nest back when we were six or seven. With three tiny blue eggs that had tumbled out of it when it fell. It was just a thing that came flooding back into my brain as he sat.
I put the ball down and joined him under the tree.
I should have considered the fact that he would tire out faster than I would if I pushed him to play basketball. I had been out in the woods running lately. He had been up in his room worrying.
“So you think that’s why she tried to kill herself?” he asked.
It was such a blunt statement. So much more direct than anything I had ever said about it, even in my head. It felt like a knife, just hanging there in the air between us, warning me to be careful not to cut myself on it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I have no idea why somebody would do a thing like that. I mean, it was seventeen years ago, the bus thing. Kind of a weirdly delayed reaction, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think you really get over a thing like that, though.”
“Maybe not. But still.”
“Maybe she got tired of the fact that it wasn’t going away.”
“I don’t know,” I said again. And then I really thought about it. About making a decision like that. And I was just bowled over by how much I couldn’t imagine it. “I can’t even . . . I mean . . . how can a person even do a thing like that? I mean, you’re in bed. And you’re alive. And you have this handful of pills, and suddenly you make this decision that now you’re not going to be alive anymore? I can’t even stretch my brain around it.”
“You don’t know if it was sudden,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter how fast or slow it was. It was her life. I mean, a person’s life. It’s all you’ve got. It’s everything. Without it, you’re . . . well, you’re not. You’re literally not anything. You’re not even . . . I just can’t understand a thing like that at all.”
“Well . . . ,” he began. And I could tell an opposing viewpoint was coming, though I couldn’t imagine where he would find one. “We all think about it.”
“Well, but . . .” Then it hit me. Kind of belatedly like that. “Wait, what?” I whipped my head sideways to look at him. Possibly for the first time that day. I usually didn’t look too directly at Connor. It seemed to make him nervous. So I had learned to use a series of near misses. “You think about it?”
“No,” he said.
“You just said you did.”
“No. I said everybody does.”
“But I don’t. And you’re part of everybody.”
“I’m going in,” he said.
He pushed to his feet, and I followed him.
I followed him into the house. Through the back door. Into the mudroom, where we wiped our feet carefully on a scratchy mat before stepping onto the Persian runner carpet in the dimly lit hallway. Past the kitchen and up the stairs to his bedroom.
“But—” I began.
He whipped his head around and stopped me with a finger to his lips.
I followed him into his room, and closed the door behind us.
“So, seriously, Connor. Anything you want to tell me?”
“No. It was nothing. I was just talking. I wish you’d drop it.”
“How can I drop it? You’re my best friend, and you just said you think about it.”
“Not seriously, though. Not . . . I just think weird thoughts sometimes. Don’t you ever think about weird things like that?”
“I think about weird things,” I said. “But not like that.”
Then neither one of us knew what to say.
I knew he was done with our visit and wanted to be alone. But I wasn’t leaving yet. I didn’t even feel close.
He flopped onto his back on the bed and I just stood there, feeling clumsy and awkward. And thinking about what Zoe Dinsmore had said. About how I’m not the center of the universe and I don’t control things as much as I think I do.
“So . . . ,” I said. Kind of testing the water. “Just one question. And then I promise I’ll go home and get out of your hair.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That would be good.”
It was the closest he’d ever come to saying he didn’t want me around, and it made my face burn. But I talked right through it.
“Are you okay?”
He sat up and looked directly into my face. Which was weirdly rare, to put it mildly. Then he looked down at his bedspread.
“How would I even know that, Lucas? I have no idea if how I feel is what other people would call okay. I’m just the way I’ve always been.”
It was such a blazingly honest—unguardedly honest—answer. It was so direct and so true that even though it didn’t put my mind at ease, I really had no choice but to thank him for it and go home alone.
Now I had
