laughing and watching fireworks,” he says. “This is what I want my funeral to be like.”
Funeral? My fingers stop working and my fork falls from my hand, crashing onto the plate and making a noise louder than the fireworks. Everyone turns and stares at me.
All of the sound is suddenly gone. It’s like someone pushed the mute button on the world and I can’t hear and I can’t breathe and I can’t think and I have to get out of here.
“Tommy.” My mom is whispering, but it sounds like she’s screaming. “Now’s not the time.”
Of course now isn’t the time. Never is the time. There never is and there never will be a time. I look over at my dad, who doesn’t even look like my dad anymore.
He reaches for me, this hollowed-out shell of the dad he used to be. The only part of him that looks the same is his eyes, except right now, the blue one and the brown one both look scared. And that’s something I’ve never seen before—not even when we lied to Mom and said we weren’t going to watch scary movies on Halloween but we did anyway.
The empty feeling is back in the pit of my stomach and I scoot my chair away from his outstretched hand.
“I need to get some air.”
“We’re already outside,” Beau says. I know he’s trying to be funny, but I don’t need funny right now. I need my dad to be okay.
Dad reaches for his oxygen bag and slips the little tubes back in place, breathing slow and steady. I can’t look at him like this, and I don’t want to see the concerned looks on everyone else’s faces.
“I’m going for a walk.”
“CeCe,” Mom says.
I turn and give her a look, daring her to try to stop me.
“Let her go,” Dad says.
Everyone looks at him and then at me, and now I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave him, but I already said I was going, so I run around the side of the house and push through the white picket fence, letting the gate slam closed behind me.
“I’ll go with her,” I hear Beau say.
But I don’t want that, either. I want to be alone—not with him, not with anyone. Standing on the street, I look in both directions. He probably thinks I’ll go left toward the beach. Or maybe he thinks I’ll head right toward my house. I look up, knowing my time is running out.
Then I see it. The McKeens’ house. The For Sale sign is still out front, so I bet no one’s there. I run across the street and crouch in a corner of their front porch where it’s dark. Just in time, too, because I see Beau standing in front of his house.
He looks to the right and then to the left, just like I had done moments before. He looks straight ahead and I think he might see me. But then he looks toward the left again and starts walking toward the beach.
He’s right. That’s where I would have gone.
I could still go. I could run after him and let him help me forget. But that would be too easy, and this shouldn’t be easy. I have to be brave and strong and feel every feeling. Even when it hurts.
And right now, it really hurts.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Alexis
It used to be I was the one who fell asleep first. But lately, Tommy can barely keep his eyes open by the time we crawl into bed. Tonight, he had to stop and catch his breath three times on his way up the stairs. Between that and all the excitement at dinner, he was asleep before I turned off the lights.
After CeCe and Beau ran off, Lou excused herself, saying she had to get up early for work the next morning. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Not that I could blame her. I couldn’t wait to escape all the sad faces and uncomfortable glances, either.
It’s hard enough to hear Tommy making light of everything that’s happening, but when he said the word “funeral.” It was like I could see her heart shattering in a million pieces, right before my eyes.
Thank goodness Tommy said he’d talk to her in the morning. I wouldn’t know where to start, but he’s always had a special way with CeCe. Even when she was a baby, he was the one who knew the difference between her cries—when she was hungry or tired or needed