“Caplet. I’m her cousin.”
He checks the list and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, miss, there’s no Rosaline on here.”
“But I’m her cousin,” I say.
“I just follow orders,” he says. “No one not on this list is allowed in.”
I stumble backward, dazed. Inside, women in large sunglasses and black low-cut suits are huddling around each other, clutching their Chanel purses to their hearts like children. These people don’t even know her. But then, neither did I.
I take out my cell phone, planning on calling Charlie, my tail between my legs, when I see my father standing outside. He’s by a tree about three meters from the church, and he’s leaning against it, squinting up into the sunlight.
“Dad?”
He sees me and smiles. “Great minds think alike.”
“I’m sorry they didn’t let you in,” I say.
My dad shakes his head. “It’s okay. I don’t deserve it.”
“Yes, you do. You want to be there.”
“Sometimes, cookie, that’s not enough.” He puts his arm around me, and I lean my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about all of this,” he says. “How are you holding up?”
“Dandy.”
“That’s my girl.”
“I don’t even think it’s hit me yet. I just can’t believe he’s gone.”
“I know,” he says. “Me either. I think about Rob’s father—” He clears his throat. “No one should have to lose a child.”
“People think Juliet killed them, you know. That it was suicide.”
My dad pauses. “And what do you think?”
Then it hits me, the thing I’ve been thinking since that night sitting on my kitchen floor with Juliet. And when the words spring up and form, I know they’re true. “It was an accident. She’d never do anything to hurt him. She loved him.”
My dad nods, then looks at the church. The photographers have settled, and the doors are closed. We stay that way, he with his arm around me, staring ahead, until the first mourners come out. “Sleep sweet,” I whisper as we both, in our own way, try to say good-bye.
Days turn into weeks, and still I don’t feel like time starts again. I go to school, I go to my classes. I nod and smile and say hello, but I’m not really feeling anything. I’m falling, and I know I should stick my hand out, should try to grab on to something and stop myself, but it’s like I can’t see. Not blind, exactly. More like my eyes are closed. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to figure out how to open them.
Nothing helps except music. It’s the only thing that makes me feel like I’m still alive, sitting at the piano after school. While thehouse is still quiet and my parents are out—at work or running errands—I can lose myself. The notes carry me away from here. Not back in time but somewhere else entirely.
I’m comfortable here. Whole. Like nothing’s missing.
Charlie and Olivia come by toting board games and vanilla lattes and bags and bags of Twizzlers. They stay up late and come by early. Sometimes Charlie comes and listens to me play. She thinks I don’t know that she sits on the porch and waits for me to finish, but I hear her the second she arrives. She still slams car doors and jingles her keys. She’s never been an inconspicuous person. Blending in just isn’t her thing.
We don’t talk about what people are saying at school. The murmurs in the bathroom, the hushed whispers when I pass by in the halls. It’s getting quieter, but slowly. I almost fear the day people stop talking. Like a dull fade to black where Rob won’t be seen anymore. Or remembered. I’m not looking forward to the darkness.
“Why don’t we go out?” Olivia says. Today she’s lying in my bed next to me flipping through a magazine she brought over. Charlie is sitting on my floor, stretching.
“Rose?” Charlie mumbles.
“I don’t really feel like it.”
“Come on. You’ve barely left the house in weeks.” Charlie pops up from the floor and catapults herself onto the bed next to us.
“This isn’t like a breakup,” I say. “I don’t need to go get drunk to get over it. I’m never getting over it.”
