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  This had to be killing him. He was doing all of this for me, but he had to be dying inside. He shouldn’t have been the one to have to say it.

  “We…Mom, Dad…Franny’s…she’s gone,” I choked out, renewed tears falling freely from my lids.

  I didn’t know if they understood me, but neither one of them questioned it. Whether they knew the details or not, they knew it was bad. So they did what they needed to. My mom came directly to me, going to work on my hands. My dad threw his arm around Blane and said, “Let’s take a seat right in the living room, okay? Nice and close, but you and I can have a chat.”

  Gram chose that moment to emerge from the basement, a bag of chips and jar of salsa in hand.

  But she didn’t make a flip remark. She took one look at me and my mom, and she blanched. She put the jar of salsa away in the refrigerator, rolled the chips and clipped them on the counter, and then made her way to me, taking a seat on the stool beside me.

  Her hand came to my shoulder, settling in the crook between it and my neck. We sat there in silence as my mom carefully took out each and every piece of shimmery glass from my small hands.

  Eventually, Blane and my dad came back into the room, and when they did, everyone else left.

  Blane came over to me, no hesitation, no awkward avoidance, and pulled me directly into his arms.

  Immediately, I felt guilty.

  Because I had wanted this so badly. The physical intimacy my friendship with Blane had always provided. The steadfast sureness of his fondness for me.

  But I hated the way I got it. I hated it with a ferocity the likes of which I had never experienced.

  My friend was gone. Forever. And as a direct result, I was seeing glimpses of the other friend I’d lost.

  What a twisted way to mess with my head.

  BLANE HELD ME FOR WHAT felt like forever.

  He hadn’t said a word, and neither had I. But I’d felt like he'd said more to me in that hug than he had in all the words he’d spoken in the last three months.

  The police came and went, taking a simple statement from both of us. Though mine was full of tears.

  And then he’d eased his way out of my house. He’d made sure to explain that he’d be back, that his mom had heard the news by now and would no doubt be worried about him.

  Which I imagined wasn’t far from the truth. She’d lost enough in the last year. She didn’t need to be worrying about more than the emotional state of her son, worrying that his unknown whereabouts were a sign of physical distress.

  He smelled like himself, and he held me like he used to. It was one of the strangest mixes of something I wanted so badly and something that I would never ever wish on anyone.

  After he left, I wasn’t up for much conversation, and my parents tried. They talked at me when I wouldn’t talk back and did a good job of pretending it didn’t phase them.

  And, hey, maybe it hadn’t. After all, their daughter was still alive, if not completely well, and on a day like today that was all they could really hope for.

  But eventually I’d tired of it, retiring to the semi-sanctuary of my bedroom. The warmth of my bed warmed my weary bones, and the quiet of the basement left me alone to listen to the whoosh of my heartbeat.

  I’d been lying in my bed for an hour when I felt the other side dip, and my grandmother snuggled up close behind me.

  She didn’t say a word, something that was so unlike her, it rattled me.

  But it didn’t take long to understand as the words started to pour out of me.

  She knew what it was like to lose someone. Someone that she loved beyond reason.

  My grandfather.

  “I actually resented her, Gram. Thought to myself that she should pick herself up a little faster, think about someone else for a change. God, what kind of a horrible person am I?”

  I dove right in. I didn’t need to go over the details. She already knew them from my statement.

  “You are human, Whitney. And you are young. It’s not often our immature minds can think past the needs and wants of ourselves, even if we want desperately to be better. Hell, I’m sixty years your senior, and I still think mostly of only myself.”

  She stroked my hair rhythmically, the gentle lull acting as a guide for the beat of my heart. “But you fought that instinct. You tried desperately to be there for your friend, and you never made her feel any of your bitterness. You gave her love and patience, and you would have continued to do it for as long as it was necessary.”

  “I want her back. I want her to come back and tell me how selfish I am. I want her to make me beg her for forgiveness.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Make her come back.”

  Her silky voice shook. “I can’t.”

  “Why couldn’t we save her?” I choked out, my question being posed to the universe as much as it was to my Grandmother.

  Only one of them answered.

  “For most of us, sadness is only a part of a tunnel—dark and desolate but indisputably finite. But for some, like Franny, that tunnel twists and turns so much that finding the light at the end seems like an impossibility. You and Blane tried your best to guide her, but the pain made her blind.”

  “I just can’t seem to make sense of any of it.”

  “Suicide is a senseless act. You’re not supposed to understand it.”

  “But I understood her sadness, Gram. I could see it even through the illusion she tried to paint these last few weeks. I just feel like I should have been able to do more.”

  “You’ll probably never feel differently.”

  “What do I do now?” I asked, the stream of questions in my jumbled head never-ending. “Where do we go from here?”

  I couldn’t even seem to take a breath between questions, the need to have answers to their assault urgent in a way I’d never experienced.

  “Well, sweetheart, the first step isn’t easy. And truthfully, neither is the second.” She softly kissed the crown of my forehead with her wrinkly lips. “First, you cry your eyes out. You let yourself grieve, and you let yourself be angry. Every toxic emotion you feel, just let it out. And your Gram will be here to hold you while you do.”

  Tears spilled over my cheeks with renewed vigor, and I squeezed my eyes tight to keep myself from fighting them.

  “And then what do I do?”

  “Then you say goodbye. And you need to say it because you won’t get another chance. Death is unquestionably finite regardless of its timing.”

  “That much I understand,” I replied, the shake in my voice mirroring the quiver in my raw bottom lip. I’d been chewing it constantly. “I know we can’t go back.”

  “Nobody really wants to rewind anyway,” Gram teased in an attempt to lift my spirits even just a little.

  “I do,” I argued, wishing I could take this whole day back.

  “You can’t see it now, baby, but this world is a big interwoven place, and everything in it happens for some cosmic reason. Franny made a choice. And none of us are comfortable with it. So do what you can. Make a different one. She chose to die, but you can choose to live. Go after life. Do it every day, every minute, every single moment. Don’t hold anything back.”

  It all sounded so good when she said it like that. The conviction in her voice made me want to live that way. But I didn’t think it really worked like that. At least, I’d never known it to. “I wish it were that easy.”

  “One day, it will be.”

  It’s hard to love a day where love is lost.

  It’s even harder to keep yourself from hating it.

  Swaddled in the arms of my grandmother, I knew that I had more love in that one hug than other people had in a lifetime. It surrounded me, bathed me, walked with me on a day to day basis. Because when I didn’t have this, I had the people upstairs.

  That’s partly what made me feel so hopeless.

  I had all of that, all of this, all of the kindness Blane had given me despite his own turmoil, and still, I found room to hate it.

>   God, I loathed that I couldn’t help but hate it.

  “IT IS WITH HEAVY HEARTS that we gather here today to pay tribute to the life of a loved one that was cut far too short…” the Reverend projected to the mass of people gathered at the gravesite. Umbrellas stretched well beyond the back edge of the tent, the crowd of people much too large to be accommodated by such a small structure. The rain came down in droves, and I was convinced that it was the world’s way of weeping at her loss.

  The wake had been yesterday evening, and the turnout had been nothing short of spectacular. People who knew Franny on a personal level and those who didn’t, both standing in the weaving line for hours in order to pay tribute to her now childless parents.

  Their hearts were broken, and her father wept openly. No kind words helped, but the absence of them would have hurt. I tried my best to stand strong, to be a shoulder for not only Franny’s parents, but Blane as well.

  So far, they hadn’t used me for support, but if they needed me, I had resolved to be there.

  That didn’t mean I hadn’t broken down. I had. Several times in fact. The DePlunzios had gone with an open casket, something I personally loathed. Franny was shy, but she was full of energy—so full of life—that the picture of her completely motionless seemed like a mockery. It in no way paid tribute to who she was, who she would always be to me.

  But I gritted my teeth. What did what I thought matter? It didn’t. Not even a little bit.

  As I’d tucked her perfectly styled hair behind her ear, I saw a little bit more of her, if only on a completely superficial level.

  Unfortunately, to my left, having already moved away from the casket, I heard two elderly women whispering to one another.

  “She looks good, doesn’t she?”

  “Beautiful. Her makeup looks spectacular.”

  Tears welled in my eyes, and I fought the urge to throw a very public tantrum.

  She didn’t look good. She didn’t look beautiful. And she didn’t look spectacular.

  She looked fucking dead.

  My hand shook as I touched hers once more, swallowing down the bile rising in my throat.

  “Sleep soundly, my sweet Franny girl,” I choked out whisper soft, tears finally brimming outside of the lids attempting to contain them. “I will miss you so much.”

  A hand settled on my shoulder, and I knew who it was without turning around.

  Blane.

  I didn’t say anything, and neither did he.

  Now we were shoulder to shoulder, and our best friend’s body was being lowered into its eternal resting place. I hoped fiercely that that’s all it was. A place holder. A spot for loved ones to come and grieve.

  But her beautiful soul should be free. Free to travel and continue experiencing all of the things her body hadn’t gotten to.

  I wasn’t extremely spiritual by nature, but today, I prayed hard, and I did it openly.

  For the peace she was seeking. And the chance to feel it for myself throughout the rest of my lifetime. I wanted a light to flicker when I entered a room or a perfect song to come on the radio. I wanted to feel her everywhere, and I wanted that feeling to be happiness.

  I looked away from the haunted glare of the simple rectangular hole and up to the ticking jaw of Blane as he stood strong next to me. His shoulders sat higher than they normally did, half of his neck eaten away by the tension, the fight to stand there resolute in his every feature.

  He wanted to turn and run. He wanted to be anywhere but here, and I didn’t blame him. I felt exactly the same, as if something were inside me, living and breathing and clawing its way to freedom, its claws scratching at the casing of my heart.

  I felt wounded and raw, and I knew he had to be feeling it double.

  So I took a page from my grandmother’s unconventional book, screwed the standard procedure, and pulled him, forcefully, into my arms.

  I used his bicep to guide him, and because I’d surprised him, he came easily. His chest was to mine, my arms weaved around his neck, and I let the monster from within out. I let it breathe, the sob previously imprisoned in my throat, bursting into the hinge of his jaw, his warm skin absorbing and vibrating as it did. And when another sob broke free I didn’t try to stop it, my hiccuping cry filling not only the junction of Blane’s neck, but the entirety of the tent.

  His arms squeezed me tight, lifting me up and shouldering most of my weight so he didn’t have to stoop.

  Gram had told me to let it all out. So I did.

  It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t even well-timed. But neither was Franny’s death, damn it.

  None of us were ready, and when something is fucking sad, you’re allowed to fucking cry.

  And because of some stupid attempt at holding onto our class and dignity none of us were.

  But I was now.

  And as I lifted my eyes from the haven of Blane’s neck briefly, I saw that I wasn’t the only one.

  In fact, every face I spied wept openly. Even Blane.

  Of course, his was way more manly and a ton more composed. But his face was moist, and tears ran down into the collar of his shirt uninhibited (when my head didn’t get in the way).

  Our souls cried for the loss of hers. I prayed that she could see it. That she could feel our love all the way from her favorite people-watching corner in heaven.

  I hoped she could see that we hated the way she left, but we loved the girl she’d been.

  I liked to think that the pouring rain was her contribution. Her way of showing that she was there. That she accepted both our anger and our love.

  Because there were both.

  Tons of anger.

  And even more love.

  My sobs ebbed on their own, given the time and freedom to escape at will, and I managed to free some space in my aching heart. That was the whole point of letting it out. You had to make room for it to fill all the way up again.

  Thankfully though, even as they quieted completely and the formal part of the service concluded, Blane didn’t set me away. He didn’t lean back or breathe heavily or do anything that would signal that he was ready to move on, ready to let me go and get the hell out of here.

  A certain comfort seemed to blanket us, standing there in the tent, the silence brought on by the disappearance of the crowd making way for the gentle lull of rain drops splattering on the surface above us and trickling their way down.

  Our hearts alternated, the thump of his mimicking mine each time, marking the same amount of time a half beat apart. His lips moved to my forehead, and the absence of his long hair on my face felt foreign. He’d tied it back in a low ponytail and twisted it into a haphazard bun.

  I’d noticed immediately, the heart-stopping power of his magnificent blue eyes completely unhindered and unhidden. The long hair made sense, aiding in keeping all of us female folk on our feet, breathing under our own power, the thought of them being open and expressive, available for all to see at all times completely overwhelming.

  “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you here with me,” I admitted softly into his neck.

  His answering sigh rumbled from his chest to mine, transferring not only the vibration but the emotion that went with it.

  “I was just gonna say the same thing to you.”

  I hugged him tighter, and before I knew it, he was doing the same, breathing the same rhythm as me and tucking my head even further under his chin.

  I took a deep breath in at his neck and rested my lips on the thrumming pulse of his vein.

  Our hearts weren’t alternating anymore. Now they were beating together.

  We stood that way for hours, literally, just breathing each other in and exchanging strengths and weaknesses.

  When we separated, it was because of two words.

  “Happy Birthday.”

  His hand reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin silver chain, a slender chain link hanging off of it as the charm. He didn’t offer an explanation, and stupidly, I didn’t ask for one
as he clasped it around my neck.

  I should have stayed there even longer. Because when I looked back at this moment later, I’d hate it.

  I would hate that it was short-lived.

  And I would hate that, following the separation afterward, it felt like nothing but a lie.

  THE INSIDE OF MY MIND was an extremely vulnerable place. With no outside conversation to walk its haunted halls, all of my self-deprecating thoughts morphed and expanded, filling every void with their darkness.

  I’d created this situation.

  I’d pushed for more from a friend than he was ready to give, and his solution was to relieve the pressure.

  Exit me.

  Or, looking even deeper, I’d pushed away people so much that when I lost two friends, I was left with no one.

  Logic suggested that it was just the loneliness talking. But being that I was still meters deep, wading through the slog-filled trenches, I couldn’t sort the truth from convenient, yet contrived, fiction.

  But all the evidence was stacked against me. Blane was someone I didn’t know. Withdrawn, he hardly ever acknowledged my existence, let alone had an actual conversation with me.

  His persona went from looking like a bad boy to actually being one, often leaving the school building during the day to smoke a cigarette.

  I knew because I watched. Every move he made, I saw it. And the more I saw, the more I hated.

  I could feel the lack of control on both of our parts, his to care and mine to save him.

  Not to mention, he rode his motorcycle fast and stupid, two things he’d never done in the entire time he’d had it. Granted he hadn’t been riding one for that long, only seniors in high school, but things were different, and it wasn’t because he had more experience. He was reckless, and he was stupid.

  And as a result, a churn set up residence in my gut permanently.

  January 2002

  THE FIRST TIME I SAW Blane after Franny’s funeral was January seventh, two thousand and two.

  It was his birthday.

  The irony of his birthday being after mine when he was practically full grown in the womb wasn’t lost on me, but it wasn’t like it was years. In fact, it was less than a month. In the scheme of things, I didn’t really think that actually amounted to anything.