Please Don't Tell - Laura Tims Page 0,43
tell me something.” He twists his earring. “I was hoping he’d tell me at the funeral, but he looked so fake, all made up. You were the only real thing there.”
“Is that a compliment?” It feels like one.
“I guess it is.”
“Okay. Sorry. Keep going.”
“So I got up and I came down here in the dark. But I didn’t feel him here. Dunno why I thought I would.”
That’s because he’s not haunting the quarry. He’s haunting Grace’s dreams and I haven’t been doing anything about it. You can’t kill a ghost.
“The quarry itself, though,” he says. “That gave me a weird feeling.”
“It’s a thing about heights,” I venture. “One time when we were kids, my sister and I hiked this mountain with our parents. We had this dare to see how close we could get to the edge. It was the only time she was braver than me about something.”
“It’s like an impulse,” he agrees. “Like . . . a suicidal impulse.”
“She’s not suicidal. Jesus.”
“I didn’t say she was.”
I catch my breath. My head pounds. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. That was dark. I was, like, hmm, how could I make my relationship with this girl weirder? I know! Bring up the universal self-destructive impulses of humanity. Brilliant.”
I’m so tired. I remember how Grace almost plunged into the darkness, how the fear skinned the roof of my mouth. “At night it looks so much worse. You can’t see the bottom.”
He shrugs. “There’s nothing scarier than what you can’t see.”
We’re silent for a few minutes while the breeze throws itself over the edge. I kick a pebble, then another. The clatter’s so faint.
“I don’t like living here,” he says quietly.
“Stay after school,” I say. “Or hang out with Pres and me. We waste tons of time at his house.”
“You are the nicest person in the world,” he remarks, echoing what he said when we first met.
I wince. “You can only hang out with us if you don’t call me that.”
“You are the meanest girl in the world. The worst.”
“Levi, if you hate it here, can’t you go back to your mom’s?”
“Nuh-huh.” The silence draws itself out. “Not yet,” he adds unhelpfully. “Besides, I can’t leave before I’ve gotten to reap the full benefits of posing as the half brother of the deceased. I can wring at least two more casseroles out of this.”
“You’re not posing.”
He snorts. “I didn’t even know Adam. I suck for showing up and acting like my sadness is special because of genetics. I don’t have a right to that.”
“You don’t need a right to sadness,” I tell him. “Sadness just happens.”
“I never nailed down the trick of sadness. I’m the positive guy, you know? You can’t help people when you’re bummed out. People like Advice Levi best.”
“What other Levis are there?”
“I dunno. Bad Jokes Levi. Idealizes People Levi. Fucks Up Badly When Talking to Pretty Girls Levi.”
“That must be hard to write on name tags.”
“Bad Jokes Joy. Nice to meet you.”
I’m going to laugh and it reminds me of how much I shouldn’t be here.
“What other Joys are there?” he asks.
“There used to be only one Joy.” I look at the ground. “Now I don’t know what Joys there are.”
“Which Joy was that?”
“Protects Sister Joy,” I whisper like an idiot.
“She sounds cool. I look forward to meeting her.”
“She’s not around anymore.”
“Something happen with you and your sister?”
I bite the inside of my cheek.
“I bet there’s more to you than your sister,” he says.
“It’s like . . .” My head is fuzzy. “You know how you think there’s one thing you’re good at? Even if the rest of you sucks, it’s okay, because you’re good at that one thing? Until realize you aren’t. You never were. And there’s nothing left anymore to balance out all the bad stuff you do. There’s no point to you.”
“Whoa.” Levi looks straight at me. “There’s a point to you.”
“I don’t know what it is anymore.” Stop talking.
“Man,” he says. “Why does there need to be a point to anybody? People aren’t parts in a robot with little functions or whatever. You’re alive—who said that was contingent on being good at some big thing? Or maybe there’s a lot of little reasons for you being around, like you helping me with my dad, and like watering your houseplants.”
I scrape my hand across my eyes. “Advice Levi wasn’t gone for long.”
“That wasn’t Advice Levi, that was Ramble Levi. Normally I only bring him out for final papers.”
“He says some cool stuff, I guess.”
“I just consulted him and