I step in front of Thatcher Sr. “Sorry for your loss.”
I feel the family patriarch’s eyes on me. I glance up, afraid I’ll find him glaring at me, too. But his expression—it’s not anger or anything close to that. He looks like he’s searching for something in my face. I don’t understand it.
Virginia Montgomery’s face is steely as she gives me a stiff nod.
And then there’s no one left to offer condolences to, and we’re at Thatcher’s casket.
It’s open. I don’t want to see him, but I can’t help it.
I knew Seth’s cousin as long as I’ve known Seth, but it’s not like we were ever close. He was three years older than me, but it always seemed like more than that, probably because he was so serious all the time. My memories of Thatcher are of him frowning at his phone, playing chess on the patio with his friend Caleb Jones. Bickering with Kendall, horsing around with Seth, telling Marion he needed to walk her back to the house, it was past her bedtime. Talking to Fiona about ballet, actually seeming interested when she launched into her detailed explanations on the differences between a temps de l’ange and temps de poisson.
Screaming at her, inside his car, last summer.
Lying dead at the bottom of the ravine.
The boy in the casket is too thin under his suit, his skin waxlike and too pale. I glance away as fast as I can, but it’s too late; the image of Thatcher lying there is stamped on my brain. Like the image of Fiona always will be.
Davy still looks dazed. Dad is just behind him, his face blank. I wonder if coming to these things makes him think of Mom. Wonder if he’d feel better if he’d been able to put her to rest instead of wondering where she is.
Suddenly I’m too hot, itchy. The floral stench is choking me. I need to get out of here.
The outer room is crowded, and it slows our way to the door. Someone bumps into me, and I trip over my own feet. Two hands catch me just before I hit the ground.
I whip my head up to see Jeremy Reagan staring back at me.
My ex-boyfriend.
He looks ridiculously good—he always does, but especially now, in a suit and tie. It’s bizarre being this close to him again. His hands are warm on my bare arms. He realizes he’s still touching me and drops his hands, then pushes his moppy brown hair out of his face.
“Addie. Hey.”
Jeremy, Gen, and I used to be best friends. Gen lives in the same trailer park as Jeremy, just a block away, less than a mile from my house. Her dad ran out on her family around the same time my mom left us, and a month later Jeremy’s dad died of lung cancer. It was also the year Fiona’s dance lessons got more intense. Jeremy, Gen, and I would sleep over at each other’s houses at least once a week, talking late into the night, dubbing ourselves the “One-Parent Club,” and trying not to cry. We were nine.
Sophomore year of high school, Jeremy became starting quarterback on the football team. He went from my friend Jeremy to Jeremy Reagan, the hot star athlete raised by his heroic single mother, her just barely able to afford the trailer they lived in on her waitress’s wages, him promising to buy her a big, beautiful house once his pro football career started. It was so Hallmark Movie it sometimes made me cringe, but I couldn’t fault Jeremy for that. There were new friends, and there were girls, so many of them, everywhere.
Of course I was attracted to Jeremy. Everyone was. When, in the spring of junior year, he told me that he liked me—I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to. Finally, here was someone who was right for me. We were from the same town. We had been best friends forever. He wouldn’t want to keep me a secret. Just being with him made me feel better about myself. Like I was worthy of a real relationship. Of real love.
We’d never talked about it directly, but I knew Gen wouldn’t be happy about me and Jeremy. Two of us dating would change everything. But I thought we could survive it. I decided to be honest with her. I told myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
But Gen didn’t see it that way. She screamed at me that I’d messed everything up. Our friendship ended after that. Jeremy stopped talking to her, too, either in solidarity with me or because she wasn’t talking to him, I wasn’t sure. Gen became an open wound; I did my best not to poke at it.
Jeremy and I were together for six months. And we were happy. Until I ruined it.
A little over a month after Fiona died, I confessed to Jeremy what Seth and I had done, giving him an excuse to leave me. When I saw him at school, I always looked the other way. I ate lunch alone in the library. I didn’t go to any more football games.
“Um, hi,” I manage. It’s the first thing I’ve said to him since we broke up.
He runs a hand through his hair, his eyes shifting away, then back to me. “Is it true—”
“Jere, there you—”
And then Gen is standing next to him.
Putting her hand on his arm.
Shock and anger jolt through me.
I didn’t know he and Gen were talking.
Were touching.
Gen looks at me, and her eyes widen. I think I see a faint bloom of color on her tan cheeks. But she doesn’t say anything to me, just leans in to whisper something in Jeremy’s ear.
I can’t think about them right now. About whether or not they’re together. I can’t.
I catch up to Davy, grab his arm, and hurry us the rest of the way out of the funeral home, not caring that I’m bumping into people.
Dad is outside, talking to a woman I don’t recognize. I don’t see anyone else I know. But there’s still a prickling at the back of my neck. I need to get out of here.
“Let’s wait for Dad at the car,” I say to my brother.
He’s looking over his shoulder. “Do you think Marion—”
“She won’t be coming out until after everyone leaves. You can’t talk to her here.” I tug on his arm. “Come on.”
Davy’s shoulders slump, but he stops resisting. Together, we weave our way through the parking lot until we reach Dad’s car. He has the keys, so we just wait there in the gray midmorning, summer heat trapped under the gathering clouds. I wipe my hand across my forehead. I’m sweating. My dress feels heavier than it did when I put it on.
A buzz comes from my dress pocket.