I don’t know what I’m doing here. I haven’t been down the arts hallway since she died. Tagboard-framed black-and-white photographs line the wall across the hall from him. One is magnificent, a shot of a man on a park bench, his skin weathered, a hat pulled low over his eyes. Despair pours out of the picture. Two are decent, but nothing special. The rest are crap.
A bowl of fruit, seriously?
I look back at Mr. Gerardi. “I was on my way to lunch. I didn’t mean to come down this way.”
He gives me a funny look. “Are you sure?”
The arts wing is an addition to the original school, so it’s not really “on the way” to anywhere. The location made it easy to avoid anything related to photography after she died. It made it doubly easy to avoid Mr. Gerardi’s attempts to get me to re-enroll in honors photography.
“You know, there’s still time to change your schedule,” he says. “But not much.”
See?
I shake my head quickly. “No. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? Brandon doesn’t have much competition anymore.”
Brandon Cho. He’s probably the one who took the photograph of the guy on the park bench. We used to have a friendly rivalry for who could get more space in the school paper and the yearbook. Rowan always said that we would have made a cute couple, what with the cameras and all, but he’s a little too pleased with himself to be right for me.
I almost roll my eyes. “I’m pretty sure Brandon is getting by just fine.” Then I realize what he said when I walked up. “What’s perfect timing?”
“I need a favor, and you’re the perfect person to do it.”
Mr. Gerardi is the school’s only photography teacher, and when he needs a favor, it usually involves taking a picture of something.
“No,” I say.
He frowns. “You didn’t even let me say what I needed.”
“Does it require a camera?”
He hesitates. “Yes.”
“Then no.” I turn and walk away. “I didn’t mean to walk down here. I was distracted.”
“It might be good for you to pick up a camera again,” he said. “You’ll never know if you don’t try.”
I keep walking.
He calls after me. “It’ll only take an hour. And you’ll get a volunteer credit.”
I keep walking. I can barely hear him. Like I give a crap about volunteer credits right now.
He shouts, “You can use my Leica.”
I can’t help it. My feet stop, just for a second. It’s an automatic reaction. Mr. Gerardi has an amazing Leica M digital camera. We all used to drool over it. He rarely lets a student use it, though he let me help shoot prom last year, so I’m familiar with it. It’s as nice as Mom’s field camera, which she never let me touch. She practically kept it on an altar when she wasn’t working.
Right now it’s sitting in a stained bag in the corner of my room.
My palms are suddenly sweating. I can’t do this. I start walking again, turning the corner as quickly as I can.
I’m late for lunch, and the line is obscene. I have no appetite anyway. I see Rowan in our back corner, sitting at the end of the table.
I fling my bag under the table and all but collapse across from her.
She stops chewing her sandwich and raises an eyebrow. “You’re not eating?”
“No.” But I fish under the table for my water bottle.
“Why not?”
I don’t meet her eyes. “It’s not important.”
“It kinda looks like it’s important.”
I heave a sigh, and it leaves my mouth with an edge. “Ro—”
But then I stop.
Sometimes you get to a point where it hurts too much, and you’ll do anything to get rid of the pain. Even if it means doing something that hurts someone else.
He’s talking about my father, but it makes me think of Rowan. Have I been doing that to her?
I fiddle with my water bottle and think about it. This is not a good feeling.
Rowan pulls open a bag of potato chips. “Does it have anything to do with Mr. Gerardi?”
My eyes flick to hers. “What?”
She nods toward the hallway. “Because he’s heading over here.”
I almost fall off the bench whipping around to see what she’s talking about. He followed me?
For an instant, I cling to the naive hope that he’s here to grab a soda or harass someone else. But no, Mr. Gerardi walks directly over and looks down at me. “At least let me ask you the favor.”
My brain is already twisted up, thinking about how I’ve been treating Rowan. A sharp reply dies in my throat. I shrug and poke at a stained spot on the tabletop.
“I need yearbook photos for the Fall Festival,” he says. “Spend an hour, take some pictures, and call it a day.”
“That’s tomorrow.”
“I know.”
It seems ridiculous to have a Fall Festival when it’s still eighty degrees outside. We’re barely into October. But it’s a school tradition: Fall Festival and Homecoming game on Thursday, big dance on Friday.
“I wasn’t going to go,” I say. I wasn’t going to go to any of it.
Rowan takes a sip of her soda and doesn’t say anything.
Mr. Gerardi drops to straddle the bench beside me. “It’s your senior year,” he says quietly. “You won’t get another chance to be a senior in high school.”
I snort. “You think I’ll somehow regret not taking pictures of football players getting whipped cream smashed in their faces?”
“Maybe.” He pauses. “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought of picking up a camera again.”
Declan Murphy comes to mind. The strip of light over his eyes as he surveyed my car, making him look like an inverse superhero. His expression in the hallway after I spilled the coffee, all aggression and fury—and something approaching vulnerability.
“You have,” says Mr. Gerardi. “I know you have. You have too much talent to throw it away forever, Juliet.”
I don’t respond.
“Do you think your mom would have wanted that?”
“Don’t talk about my mother.” I slap my hand on the table, so hard that people nearby fall silent and tune in to our conversation.
He doesn’t flinch. “Do you?”
No. She wouldn’t want this. She’d probably be ashamed of me.
Oh, Juliet, she’d say, shaking her head. Haven’t I raised you to have some courage?
The words don’t inspire me. Instead, they make me want to shrink further into myself.
“You could probably find some freshman to do it,” Rowan says.
“It’s the yearbook,” I snap without thinking. “Not Insta- gram.”
She smiles and takes a drink of her soda. “Then you do it.”
My hands are sweating again, and I roll my water bottle between them. I don’t know what my problem is. It’s a stupid camera. A stupid hour of time. A bunch of stupid pictures that won’t matter after everyone has looked at them once or twice.
I think about dishes sitting smashed at the bottom of a Dumpster.
Mr. Gerardi is still waiting patiently. I look at him. “I can use your camera?” Because I sure can’t use my mother’s.
His expression doesn’t change. I like that about him. “Yep.”
“I only have to shoot for an hour?”
“Yes. All candid. Whatever you want.”
I take a deep breath. I feel as though I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, and everyone is urging me to jump, including my mother. They’re all telling me I’ll be safe, but all I see is a gaping chasm.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
I expect him to pressure me more, but he doesn’t. He rises from the bench. “Sleep on it,” he says. “Come see me before homeroom and let me know what you decide.”
Sleep on it.
That, I can do.
My father brings home Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner. I’m not really one for fast food, b
ut I didn’t eat lunch and my stomach is screaming at me to do something about the situation. The fried chicken smells so good that I have plates out of the cabinet before he’s even set the bag on the table.
I start tearing into the plastic bag, shoving a biscuit into my mouth while I separate the sides. Mashed potatoes. Gravy. Macaroni and cheese. Everything is a varying shade of beige. Nothing colorful, not even green beans.
I can’t make myself care. I break open the box of potato wedges and throw some on each plate.
Then I realize he’s staring at me.
“What?” I say around the biscuit.
“One, you’re home.” He clears his throat. “And two, you’re eating.”
“I always eat.”
“No, Juliet. You don’t.”
I look at him. He’s so perfectly average it makes me wonder what my mother ever saw in him. She was vibrant in every way. She’d walk into a room and you couldn’t help but be affected by her light.
He’s completely unremarkable. Average skin, brown hair and eyes, stocky build. Like the food, there’s a lot of beige. He’s a nice-enough guy, I guess. We were close when I was little, but I think he was mystified by my first period and the resulting mood swings and decided to keep his distance after that.
“What changed?” he says.
“Nothing changed,” I say evenly. “I didn’t eat lunch. I’m hungry.”
“Okay.” He hesitates. “Want me to get drinks?”
“Sure.”
He helps himself to a beer and places a glass of milk in front of me, which makes me roll my eyes. Milk. Like I’m six. I’m surprised there’s not a straw.
I’m tempted to take a sip of the beer, just to see what he’d do. I’ve used up my courage for today, however.
We sit there and eat silently for a little while. I was excited by the smell of the chicken, but the skin feels slimy between my fingers, and I pull it all off. I slice into the meat.
“Did you finish all your homework?” he says.
He hasn’t asked me about homework since the day school started. I glance at him. “I have a little left.”
“Anything giving you trouble?”
I cut another piece of chicken. “School is fine.”
He goes silent again, but I can feel his attention. I’m tempted to take my plate and go upstairs with it, but I’m thinking of the day he was going to get rid of her gear and the way I treated him. Maybe it hurts him to keep everything here.
Maybe it’s hurting me and I don’t realize it.
I have to clear my throat and keep my eyes fixed on my food. My voice comes out smaller than I’d like. “You can sell her stuff.”
He draws a quick breath. “I don’t need to do that, Juliet—”
“It’s okay. I overreacted. It’s stupid to keep it here.”
He reaches across the table and puts his hand over mine. “It’s not stupid.”
I can’t remember the last time he touched me. My eyes fill before I’m ready for it. I like the feel of his hand, the connection, the warmth. I didn’t realize I’d been so far adrift until he grabbed hold of me.
I have to pull my hand away. He lets me go, but his hand stays there.
I press my fingertips against my eyes. “I was stupid. You probably thought I was being a hateful daughter.”
“Never,” he says quietly.
My shoulders are shaking. I can’t look at him or I’m going to completely lose it. I’m curling into myself so hard that my elbows are jabbing into my stomach.
His arm comes around me, and it must be like holding on to a rock. I didn’t even hear him come around the table.
Half-broken breaths are coming out of me in short bursts.
“You’re not hateful,” he says, stroking a hand over my hair.
“I miss her so much,” I say, and my voice breaks on the last word. “I just wanted her to come home.”
“I did, too.”
I want to fall into him. I want to let someone else carry this weight, even if it’s just for a little bit. But it’s been too long. He’s been too distant. I’d fall and he’d step back, leaving me to hit the dirt.
I sit there and shake. He sits there and strokes my hair.
Once I can speak without a hitching voice, I push a damp tendril of hair back from my face. “I meant it. You can sell her things back to Ian.”
“Well.” He sits back, but not too far. “Maybe we’ll wait a bit before making that decision.”
“They’re just taking up room on my floor.”
“They’re not hurting anything.”
I don’t say anything, and after a moment, he says, “If you don’t want them in your room, you can put them in the . . .” His voice falters, just a bit. “My room,” he finishes. “Not the basement anymore. I’ll watch out for them if you don’t want to.”
He doesn’t want them there. I can hear it in his voice. He never liked her occupation while she was alive; there’s no reason he should be head over heels for it now.
I straighten and pull away from him fully. “No. I’ll keep them.”
Suddenly, my appetite is gone. I can’t reconcile the doting father with the absent one.
My plate slides across the table. Only half my chicken is gone, and I’ve barely touched the mashed potatoes. “I’m done.”
“Are you sure—”
“I’m sure.” I bolt for the stairs, sure he’s going to try to follow me.
He doesn’t. My door closes with a whisper, and I’m alone in my room.
Her things are there in the corner, a pile of bags and equipment and gear. I don’t want to touch it, but a small part of me is glad that he doesn’t want to get rid of it yet, either.
Like in the letter from The Dark, my father was ready to smash the plates, but now he’s not.
I wonder what happened. What changed.
And what it has to do with me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
From: Cemetery Girl
To: The Dark
Date: Thursday, October 3 3:28:00 AM
Subject: Can’t sleep
I told my father he could sell my mother’s things.
He’s not going to do it, but I told him he could.
I didn’t realize that the cameras and equipment might be his version of plates full of cheesy crusts and roaming ants.
Maybe they’re mine. I’m not ready to throw them in the proverbial Dumpster.
Yet.
Do you believe in fate? Sometimes I want to. I want to believe that we all walk some path toward . . . something, and our paths intertwine for a reason. Like this, the way we’ve found each other. The way you told me the right story when I so desperately needed to hear it.
But that would mean my mother’s path was predestined to end in that cab on the way home from the airport. Or your sister’s path was predestined to end with your father. One simple change in direction might have led down a completely different path.
Or maybe one simple change of direction is what led them down the path they followed.
I begged my mother to come home early. She did. I know I didn’t wreck that car, but she wouldn’t have been in it if not for me.
I set her on that path. Me.
If I can’t blame fate, who else is left?
I’m blinking sleep out of my eyes, and it takes me a minute to realize that’s the end of her message. Like an idiot, I sit there swiping at the screen, hoping it will keep scrolling, but that’s all she wrote.
If I can’t blame fate, who else is left?
I know a lot about blaming myself.
I know what I did last May when I couldn’t take it anymore.
I swing my legs out of bed like I have somewhere to go. I don’t know her name. I can’t call her. I don’t even know where to find her for at least another ninety minutes—but even if I were reading this at school, there’d be over two thousand students to filter through. It’s only ten after six anyway.
<
br /> I know this kind of desperation. It’s terrifying to sense it in her.
She’s asking me about fate yanking people apart, and I can’t help but wonder if this is fate’s way of doing exactly that.
I tap at my phone until I get back to the main part of the app.
A little green circle sits beside her name. She’s online. She’s alive.
The air rushes out of my lungs, and I flop back onto my pillows.
Then I roll over and start typing.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
From: The Dark
To: Cemetery Girl
Date: Thursday, October 3 6:16:48 AM
Subject: Don’t do that
If you’re going to write to me at 3:30 a.m., you can’t end it like that.
I’m not ready for fate to tear this apart, okay?
Now write back and tell me you’re all right.
My heart is beating fast, a light, unusual fluttering that’s almost painful in its strangeness. I didn’t realize how heavy my late-night email had gotten.
I can’t look away from that last line.
Now write back and tell me you’re all right.
He cares. About me.
My heart keeps fluttering, a butterfly trapped between cupped palms. Now that I think about it, I don’t mind it one bit.
In fact, I quite enjoy the change.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
From: Cemetery Girl
To: The Dark
Date: Thursday, October 3 6:20:10 AM
Subject: I’m okay
I didn’t mean to scare you. I wasn’t in a good place last night. I feel like everyone is waiting for me to get over her death. My own best friend started quoting a book about the stages of grief last week, like I should be on some kind of schedule.
In a way, I know she’s right. I’m stuck in this rut of anger and pain and loss, but the more people try to drag me out of it, the more I feel determined to dig my heels in and cling to the grooves in the dirt.
You never answered my question about fate. I sometimes wonder if we’re coming at this from different sides. You could have stopped your sister’s death, while I contributed to my mother’s.