avoid David Ecchles at all costs. We all did. He had gotten in trouble sophomore year for a poem he wrote in English about Columbine—it ended up getting him suspended from school. Everyone knew he was strange—scary, even. Then, at the beginning of junior year, my AP History teacher, Mr. Taylor, asked me to tutor him. I didn’t have much of a choice—there was no real reason why I couldn’t. And it wasn’t terrible; I was surprised by how he knew a ton about the battles of World War II, about what weapons were used when and where. He was awful at writing papers, though.
After about a month of tutoring, he asked me out twice, and of course I said no because I was dating Miles, and because David was David, and after that he got weird. Really weird. I started seeing him around school in places he shouldn’t have been. I finally told Mr. Taylor I couldn’t help him anymore—I made up a lie about being too busy with band stuff—and after that the only place I remember seeing him was in class.
Until, at least according to that asshole Miles, that night at Adam’s party.
* * *
—
That weekend before the shooting was like any other back then. Lucy and I got into an argument about whether I should go to Adam’s party. I told her to stop being such a fucking judgmental old lady, that she wasn’t any fun.
Later that night, when I was about to leave the house to meet Miles, my mom stopped me in the kitchen, a frown on her face. Why isn’t Jordan going with you? You two never hang out anymore. You used to be so close. What’s going on with you guys?
And suddenly, I needed a drink more than anything. Suddenly, all I wanted was five hundred drinks, enough to drown out her voice, enough to drown myself in.
Jordan was upstairs in his room listening to music, this M83 song he was obsessed with, and the absolute last thing I wanted was to go invite him to come with me and have him watch me like a hawk at the party, be judged for drinking too much, and be forced to leave early because he was bored.
I couldn’t stand the thought of it. Of his face the next morning in the hallway outside the bathroom we shared, looking like it always did after nights like that, his expression asking me What is happening to you, May? Who are you?
A hard, mean pebble formed in my gut, and I growled at my mother, I’m going alone. All by myself. I’m allowed to have my own life—my own friends. I’m sick and tired of my loser brother always coming everywhere with me.
In response, her eyes widened, but they were trained on something behind me in the doorway. I whipped around and there he was, watching us. His eyes locked on mine and I tried to form words, to squeak out an apology, but before I could, he turned around and left the room, and then I left the house, and three days later, he was dead.
* * *
—
In my bedroom, on my bed, in the present, a sound splits the silence, and I realize that it’s coming out of me, that I’m screaming.
I run into the bathroom, and everything I’ve eaten today spills out of me into the toilet.
After I’m empty, I drag myself back into my bedroom and see the letter lying on my bed, taunting me.
There’s so much I can’t remember, so much I don’t know. All the questions I’ve pushed out of my head over the past year swarm in at once: Did I see David at that party? Did we really talk? Did Jordan call out my name before he died? Why didn’t I leave the closet to save him? Did he forgive me for how I’d treated him? The thought of David’s knowing something about Jordan that I don’t makes me feel like he’s stolen another piece of my brother from me. He’s already taken too much.
I reach for my phone and go to my favorites. I call my top