with that shit for as long as I have? What sort of person am I, letting them try to make me feel like I’m nothing? He was supposed to be my friend.” I stop talking, hands shaking, insides turning. It’s a new feeling. It’s a feeling. “All those people at school, they were supposed to be my friends. May was supposed to be my friend. My mom was supposed to be…” My voice breaks. I stop speaking.
We’re silent for a while, sitting there on the hood of my car, staring into the blackness of the yard, and then Conor reaches into the bag and pulls out another beer. He hands it to me without turning my way, and I take it and bump his shoulder in thanks.
My parents let me go straight to bed when we get home from the assembly. I’m in no condition to talk. No condition to hear about what I did wrong, because I already know—I did everything wrong.
Everything.
* * *
—
I wake up the next morning early, because my body and my brain won’t let me sleep. I don’t want to open my eyes. I don’t want to breathe. I don’t want to be here anymore.
I lie in bed, unmoving, under the heavy covers, until the sun starts to peek through the curtains. Until my bladder won’t let me anymore.
So I get out of bed.
* * *
—
I stumble into the hall and toward the bathroom, trying my hardest to be quiet. I don’t know if both my parents stayed here last night. I don’t know what they’re thinking. The car ride home with my mom was awful. She wouldn’t look at me. She drove silent, crying the whole way.
When I get out of the bathroom, the door to their bedroom is open. My breath catches. Some tiny part of my brain recognizes that I haven’t seen that door open in months. It’s always shut tight, just like Jordan’s.
“May.”
My dad’s voice floats out the open doorway. He’s here, for once, not wherever he’s been for the past year at night. I don’t even know if my parents are together still. I don’t know anything, and I haven’t had the mental capacity to ask.
A sudden sharp pain in my stomach almost bowls me over.
“Can you come here, please?”
I want to say no. I want to leave. I want to run.
Instead, I walk toward their door, because I have nowhere else to go. No one to call to my rescue this time.
Lucy is gone.
Zach is gone.
Jordan is gone.
A whimper escapes from my mouth.
Inside their room, my mom sits on the bed. My dad paces back and forth in front of the fireplace on the far side of the room. Neither of them looks like they’ve slept. They’re wearing the same clothes they had on yesterday.
My dad looks over at me, and I swear to god he doesn’t recognize me at first. For a second, it’s like he’s seen a ghost. His face pales and then he coughs, and the moment is gone. His expression snaps shut and his eyes narrow.
“May.” My name sounds like a curse coming from his mouth. “What the hell was that about yesterday?” He’s talking low; his voice is tight. “What were you thinking, hiding those letters from us for so long? Telling those people that you killed your brother? The prosecutor is furious.” He runs a hand through his hair, and when he speaks his voice has softened. “Why didn’t you tell us about the letters? We could have done something. We could have stopped it.” His voice cracks. He stops pacing for a moment. Clears his throat. Turns toward the fireplace and grips the mantel. After a few seconds he turns back to me. “Instead you just let him do this to you? Why would you do that? Why would—?”
“I don’t know.” My voice explodes out of my mouth before I can stop it. “I don’t know, all right? I don’t know.” The tears have already started. Fucking traitorous tears. I bite the