“Are you breaking up with me?” I asked, trying to make a joke out of it. What was happening? My voice sounded high,stressed out, embarrassing. I tried again. “Syd. Seriously. Is something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
Behind us, someone threw another log onto the bonfire. The sparks flew up and crackled; I could hear them, but I didn’t turn to see. I kept my eyes on Syd, on her face in the flickering firelight. Were we okay? Was this going to be okay? I couldn’t lose her, too.
“So didyouever talk to Alex?” I asked. Trying to fill that crackling silence.
She laughed once, bright. When Syd was feeling a lot of emotion, she didn’t get messy or stumble over her words. She became uber-precise, each syllable clipped and careful. “I did. He told me he’s into someone else.”
I felt the air leave my lungs.
“What?” I asked. “Wait.” My heart sank. And then—it soared. Did that mean...
“So,” Syd said conversationally. “That’s fun.”
“Syd,” I said. “I didn’t—I don’t—” My mind was whirling.
She cut me off. “No worries.” She’d turned away. I couldn’t see her well in the dark. Was she crying?
All summer Syd and I had been breaking. But I didn’t know for sure we were fully broken, like, for good, until that night at the lake, when the bonfire licked the sky and the lake licked the shore and everything unraveled.
I missed her. I missed her so much. We used to do everything together. Eat lunch together, go on walks together, see movies together; find each other every minute we were alone so that we were never lonely.
I didn’t know if I missed her or Sam more, in that moment. They both felt so very, very far gone.
“Hey,” I said, and I put my hand on Syd’s arm. She moved so we were no longer touching. She still wasn’t looking at me.
“It doesn’t even matter, you know,” she said.
“What doesn’t?”
“Giving the manifesto to Ella. Everyone still knows she didn’t jump.” There was something smiling and cold in her voice. “Especially Ella.”
She turned on her heel and walked off toward the bonfire, so fast I’d have had to run to catch her. And I was too tired to do it. I was sick of chasing, of running races other people had set for me.
All summer long, we’d been in the water.
Now everything was going up in flames.
143.
now
The backpack bounces between my shoulder blades. The bucket and baseball clunk against each other. The Verity napkin’s likely getting crushed, crumpled. Probably the apple sticker is stuck to something else in there. I hope the cross doesn’t break.
I’ve been missing them for what feels like forever. Carrying them around with me when everyone else was moving on.
Except me.
I’m stuck here.
I have to break free.
Even if it means
that I have to do
this.
