The weird thing was, after I said it, he said, ‘I wish I didn’t have to know your answer. I wish I didn’t even want to ask.’ I was like, ‘So why did you?’”
Because he’d needed to know.
Because sometimes, you have to break your own heart.
I know Jack didn’t want to hurt me. But he did, and al the love I’d felt twisted into hate.
I hated Jack, but I hated myself more. I wanted someone to see me—just me—and want me, and I’d seen it wasn’t going to happen. But what had I done? Gone ahead and tried anyway. It was stupid. And I paid for it.
I don’t have to worry about that now. I’ve learned my lesson, and I don’t even want to think about trying anything with anyone again. Ever. I just want to be left alone.
And I am.
toys Cole’s left in the yard.
“Hey,” she says. “Wanna help me pick up this stuff?”
I get off my bike and lean it against her mailbox, then head into her yard.
“Thanks,” she says. “I swear, these things multiply. Oh, and tel your mom I said thanks for the coffee, okay? I got cal ed away before I could say it.
You’d think I was the only person in the whole damn hospital who knows how to empty a bedpan.”
“You had coffee with my mom?” I didn’t know Mom talked to Claire. She sure hadn’t back when Tess stopped talking to Claire because the one time we drove by her house and Mom waved at Claire when Tess was in the car, Tess wouldn’t talk to her for three days.
“Yeah, I ran into her when she and your dad came to see Tess. How’s your dad doing, anyway? He seemed—I don’t know. Real y quiet.”
I shrug, because Dad is a pretty quiet guy, plus talking about the hospital had me thinking about my own earlier misadventures. I stil didn’t get why Eli hadn’t talked more. Don’t good-looking people love to talk about themselves? Tess sure did, even though she had a way of doing it that made you feel like it was something you wanted.
“Why are you so quiet yourself?” Claire says. “Oh, wait. Your plan. Abby, you didn’t real y think it would work, did you?”
“It’s going to work,” I say. “I just—okay, how do you get a guy to talk? What would you ask a guy if you were talking to him? What would Tess ask?”
Claire laughs, but the sound is bitter. “Tess never had to ask—”
“Exactly,” I say. “I just thought … I thought when he saw her, he’d just start talking. But he didn’t, and I don’t—I’m not good with this kind of stuff.”
Claire laughs, for real this time. “You’re ful of it, and you know it. You thought the guy would see Tess and say her name and she’d wake up. I hate to break it to you, Abby, but you’re as much of a believer in that happily ever after, perfect ending stuff as Tess was.”
“Is,” I say automatical y and Claire looks down at the ground. I hand her the toy I’m holding and add, “And I’m not—you know I’m not like Tess.”
Claire takes the toy and lets out a little sigh. “Ask him about himself,” she says. “What he likes to eat, does he have a car, does he play sports, whatever. Just ask lots of questions.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay, I’l try it,” I say, and hand her another toy. “I should go home.”
“Do you ever wonder what she’d think?” Claire says. “About you and me being friends, I mean?”
“Sometimes,” I say, and wave as I get back on my bike.
But I don’t. Tess would be furious, and when Claire waves back, I see she knows that too. I wonder if either of us wil ever be able to do anything without Tess’s shadow looming over us.
That’s a question I can’t answer.
It’s a question I’m afraid to.
watch television in the living room, finishing it as Mom and Dad get in. Dad heads straight upstairs, pausing only to kiss the top of my head and murmur that he loves me.
“What’s wrong with Dad?”
“He’s tired,” Mom says, and gestures at my books. “How’s the homework going?”
I shrug.
“Just like your father,” she says. “He barely had to do anything and he made As. Tess was so much more like me, always having to study, always worrying about her grades …” She trails off, glancing over her shoulder at Tess’s chair at the kitchen table.
“Tess got great grades, Mom.”
“Oh, I know,” she says, turning back to me. “She just … it’s so easy for you.”
“That’s because every decent teacher fled town when the state decided Ferrisvil e High wasn’t meeting even minimum academic standards.”
“And not because you’re smart?” I make a face at her and she touches my hair. “Your father can’t take
