“Thanks.” I smile wanly. I wonder if Rob would like the dress, and then I push the thought out. I can’t think about that. I can’t think about anything.
When we arrive at the church, everyone is already sitting. My parents go to the front. They sit right behind Rob’s parents, and I can see my mom with her arms around Rob’s mother’s shoulder. Just the way I would sit with Charlie. I wonder what my parents think. Whether they suspect suicide too. Rob’s little brothers sit beside them, their hands in their laps and their faces blank. I motion for Charlie to slide into the back pew, and she does. She doesn’t ask why I don’t want to move more forward, and she doesn’t suggest something different. She just sits. A few seconds later Olivia sits down next to us.
Everyone is dressed in blacks and grays, and it’s impossible to tell anyone apart. I know that somewhere in here are JohnSusquich and Matt Lester. I know that Lauren is probably here too, and Dorothy Spellor and maybe even Brittany Fesner. I know that Becky Handon will be here, and Taylor too, and probably even Jason. Mr. Davis and Mrs. Barch and Mr. Johnson. But I can’t tell anyone from anyone else. It reminds me of the first morning of school, of sitting in the back of senior seats with Rob and seeing everyone, and noticing how connected we all were. Except no one feels connected here. We’re not a spiderweb, not even close. We’re just tiny particles of anonymous dust drifting past each other in the darkness. We’re lucky to ever even knock each other off course.
The service is nice enough. Jake gets up and says some things. I’m actually surprised at how well he speaks. It’s like he’s a different person up there, and I wonder why he doesn’t act like this all the time. Why usually he peppers all his sentences with so many words that mean absolutely nothing. But maybe it takes something like death to wake someone up.
My mom asked if I wanted to say anything today. I assume Rob’s parents suggested it, but maybe she thought of it on her own, I don’t know. Either way, I told her no. It’s not that I don’t have things to say. I just don’t know which ones to share. Which stories, I mean. I guess I’m not sure how to remember him. Was Rob my best friend or the guy who broke my heart? Was he my boyfriend or the boy next door? I want to get up there and talk about how he was the one, the person I was supposed to spendforever with. But I can’t do that. They died together; they’ll always be remembered together. It’s decided, once and for all. He was hers. The rumors don’t matter; they’ll fade. The circumstances and the details will have no relevance after a year or two. People may remember it was suicide, but my name won’t be attached. It will just be the two lovers, fused together forever. Sitting in the church, listening to Jake talk about Rob, I can’t help but keep asking myself this question: How do you mourn something that never really belonged to you?
I feel Charlie reach for my hand, but I tuck it underneath my leg. I don’t want to be that close to anyone right now. The thought of her squeezing my hand twice makes me inexplicably angry. It was fine when we were just talking about heartbreak or book bags, but those traditions shouldn’t carry over into something this serious. None of our theories apply to death.… Wasn’t she the one who first figured that out?
“That was nice,” Charlie says when we’re outside. It’s sunny today, too sunny for a funeral. Everyone is wearing sunglasses, like we’re at the beach or something. Olivia is off comforting Ben, and it’s just the two of us standing there.
“Nice?” I didn’t mean for it to come out icy, but as soon as it does, I realize I’m not sorry. Everyone is acting like this is so sad, so tragic. No one has said how wrong this is. How it never should have happened.
“I just mean,” Charlie starts, “that Rob would have liked it.”
“It was his funeral,” I shoot back. “I don’t think he would have been so psyched.”
Charlie, oddly, is not wearing her sunglasses, and she squints at me in the sun.
“I didn’t mean that,” she whispers. “I’m just trying to say—”
“Save it.”
We’re standing by the edge of the cemetery at the Cliffs. If I look over my left shoulder, I can see the two boulders hanging over the ocean. The rocks where Rob and I spent so many nights. The rocks where he kissed me. The rocks where he died. For a second I want to go over to them and jump, to hurl my whole body off that cliff too. I was right to be so scared of falling. There are a million things in this world that can end you, that can in one tiny second obliterate the life you work so hard to keep alive. Our entire lives are structured around not dying. Eating, sleeping, looking both ways before you cross the street. It’s all, all of it, to keep us safe from the thing that we know is going to get us anyway. It doesn’t even make sense, if you think about it. It’s the world’s biggest joke. Our entire lives are set up around not dying, knowing all the while that it’s the one thing we can’t avoid.
But death shouldn’t have come so soon.
The one thing I could have done to save Rob, I didn’t do. I could have invited him in. I could have listened when he saidhe missed me. I could have paid attention to the rumors about Juliet. I could have gotten help. Maybe then they wouldn’t have been in the car that night. He wouldn’t have been driving drunk. They wouldn’t be dead.
“This isn’t your fault,” Charlie says beside me. Her arms are crossed around her body, and I can see the goose bumps on her pale, freckled skin. “I don’t care what happened in the car that night or what it had to do with you. It’s not your fault.”
“How the hell would you know?”
Charlie recoils as if I’ve just slapped her, but she doesn’t say anything at first. She just looks down at the grass underneath us and shakes her head. “You think you could have stopped this? That you pull the strings?” She looks at me, hard, and for a minute I’m reminded of the Charlie that I love. The fierce, powerful, won’t-take-crap-from-anyone Charlie.
Maybe it’s because of that that I tell her. “He came back to me.”
She doesn’t look surprised. She doesn’t even uncross her arms. “So what?”
“So what?” I can feel my voice rising. Something in the back of my throat is breaking. Like a guitar string that has just snapped. “He asked to be with me, and I said no. He should have been home in my house that night. He shouldn’t have been driving.”
Charlie shakes her head, but the movement is almost imperceptible, it’s so slight. “It wouldn’t have mattered,” she says.
“Because Juliet grabbed the wheel?” I dare her.
“Not quite.”
“So you don’t believe that? You heard he was in love with me, right? That it drove her to take both their lives?” I’m hissing now, spitting venom. “Why don’t you explain to me how it wasn’t my fault? Because any way you spin this, I could have told him to stay.”
She blinks and glances at the church, then back at me. “Look, you think I like history because I’m fascinated with the possibilities, with how it could have happened, but you’re wrong. I like it because it’s the one thing we actually know in life. The past is the only thing we can count on. The present? The future? They’re anyone’s guess.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that there are some things that are out of our control. Some things that are justsupposedtohappen. We can’t stop them. There’s nothing we can do.”
“We have choice,” I say. I taste the word on my tongue and say it again: “Choice.” Not fate or destiny but free will.
