I think I’ve run out of tears. And when it seems like things can get any worse, it’s time to go to his funeral.
I sit somewhere in the middle and listen as his family and friends speak about a person I don't seem to know. They talk about a loud, boisterous boy who never had a care in the world until something inside him seemed to justbreakas they called it.
They talk about his anxiety and depression like they're talking about what kind of car he drove—like it was something everyone could see.
Andy wasn't broken. You can see when something breaks. There are cracks and pieces falling off. Andy was never broken, he was just bending and stretching himself until one day he snapped.
Did I cause that snap?
My stomach rolls at the thought.
The nausea starts at the reception. I've been asked who I am by at least a dozen people, but when Andy’s mother asks if I was one of his classmates while Andy’s ex-girlfriend—whose name I had never heard before that day, holds her hand—something inside me ruptures.
I excuse myself and run to the bathroom. There wasn't much in my stomach to begin with, and I puke until there is nothing left.
Mel comes to find me and takes me home, trying to reassure me for the thousandth time that this wasn’t my fault. She reminds me that Andy loved me. That I was important to him, even if he never talked about me to anyone, that I was the most important person in his world. He just didn’t want to share me with anyone who knew how much he was hurting.
I wish I could believe those words.
My parents insist I see a therapist.
I insist on moving to New York sooner than planned because I can't stand being the girl with the dead boyfriend any longer.
The way people look at me with their eyes full of pity makes me want to run away from this place, from this summer, from anything that reminds me of how empty my heart is.
In the end, we compromise and instead of staying at home, I stay with my dad at the apartment he keeps in Cambridge. As a faculty member at MIT, he's kept his place there and though itwas normally rented out to students, he wanted to freshen it up and renovate it this year, so there are no tenants.
I get a few weeks with my dad away from the drama of small-town Marblehead, Massachusetts and he gets to make sure I'm attending my twice-a-week appointments with my therapist, eating more than a single granola bar per day and sleeping long enough to function.
By the time I need to move into my dorm at NYU, I've convinced my parents that I can handle myself. I’ve met with my New York therapist and my academic advisor is well-versed in mysituation. I'm due to move in with twin sisters who moved from England to attend NYU.
I fall in love with those two weirdos so dearly for all the ways they’re exactly the same and the many, many ways they’re complete opposites. They pick me up when I finally open up about Andy. They put me back together in a way I didn’t think would ever be possible. Life wouldn’t be the same without Maeve’s sweet laughter or without Charlie’s quiet reassurances.
I lost Andy, but I gained two sisters to see me through a journey of self-discovery and opening myself back up to love again. One day.
