But I can’t. I can’t speak. And I can’t take Matt’s pain, because I have too much of my own, and I have no place to put his.
As if it’s mimicking my emotions, the afternoon sky clouds over. It smells like rain is on the way. I break from my trance and look to the clouds.
Are you up there? I think to Audrey. Nothing happens.
Because she’s dead.
Dead.
I think of what that really means.
It is not like being gone—like my real parents or the nuns or people in the cities we had to leave—because gone implies that you can come back if you really want to. Contrary to what I may have been taught, there’s no coming back from death. Not really. Someday, I’ll die for good. And then I’ll be like Audrey.
Not gone.
Dead.
I shudder at the thought, and Matt squeezes my hand tighter.
I look back to earth and the gravesite. Only then do I realize that Matt and I are alone. I look at him.
His eyes are on me.
“Hi,” he says, as if he’s seeing me for the first time. He looks down at our clasped hands and smiles, and then moves his gaze back to my eyes.
“Hi,” I say back to the boy I never want to leave.
“I’m really sorry,” Matt says.
“Me, too.”
Eventually, we leave the cemetery. We drive in heavy silence to Matt’s house. Cars are parked everywhere: in the driveway and out front, across the street and around the corner. Matt eases into a small space down the street and as we approach on foot, I try not to look at Audrey’s happy car.
Inside, there are piles of food on every available surface, and every room is crowded with people wearing black and navy blue, talking in hushed, respectful tones as if they’re afraid they’re going to wake the dead. I feel like I have cotton in my ears: When people talk to me, I have to ask them to repeat themselves.
“What?” I ask Mason after he mumbles something to me.
>“You need to get up,” Mason says. He walks across the room and throws open the curtains. He opens the window and the fresh outside air stings my nostrils.
“No,” I mutter.
“You’ll feel better after a shower,” he says.
I laugh bitterly. As if a shower could wash away the pain of losing Audrey. “Not likely.”
“Your choice,” Mason says, moving to the door again. “We’re leaving for her funeral in an hour.”
Of course, I get up.
I stand on shaky legs like a newborn fawn and hobble across the room. I can feel the lack of fuel in my body, but the thought of food makes me want to hurl. I grab clean underwear from the dresser then check my phone, which is charging on the desk. There are several missed calls from Megan; there’s a text waiting from Matt:
Matt: I’m sorry.
Just two words, and yet, they are monumental.
They give me enough kick to move.
I shower and dry my hair, then pin back my curls in the front. I stare at my blue eyes in the mirror for a long time, searching for recognition. My face doesn’t look the same anymore.