Ripple

Chapter Ten

By the time I enter Seaside Cemetery that Friday, I’m more confused than ever.

I thought I had everything under control this year. My entire plan rested solely on one thing: solitude. If no one is close to me, no one gets hurt, not even me. If I don’t get wrapped up in other people’s lives, no one is in danger.

And, yeah, maybe part of it is about punishing myself. I killed a boy who didn’t deserve it, and I will pay for it. Forever. I just have to make it through high school. Then I can move on to college, leave this town, and go somewhere where people don’t know me, don’t look at me with accusation in their eyes. I won’t make friends with anyone. I’ll forever be alone, but that’s what I deserve.

I sigh as reality hits me. There are so many holes in my plan—it’s as if I wrote it all down on Swiss cheese. I can’t leave my grandmother, not with her health failing. I can’t afford to pay for classes. I can’t move away from my hidden lake. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. But the mirage in the distance—the idea of a world where my troubles disappear—is all that I cling to these days, because reality is getting harder and harder to handle.

I walk the familiar path to Steven’s grave. I stick to the walkways, because if I stepped on the grass, there would be a groove worn into it by now. The turf would give away what the cement doesn’t, namely the hundreds of times I’ve visited Steven.

I shove my hands into my pockets as a breeze picks up. The salty air reminds me of the ocean, which, in turn, reminds me that I need to be in the water in under an hour. I drop to my knees in the grass. Steven’s headstone is surrounded by flowers, left behind by people on the anniversary of his death. There are mounds of them. It’s like a visual representation of how many people I hurt.

“Hey, Steven.” I rock back on my heels, settling in for the next ten or so minutes I’ll spend with him, my only confidant.

The Hot Wheels Chevelle is gone. I wonder who took it. Probably the landscapers. They have a lot of picky rules about what you can leave at the graves, because it makes the maintenance harder. It doesn’t matter. I still have mine, sitting on the windowsill in my room. I stare at it sometimes, when I’m sitting at my desk, trying to do homework.

I take in a slow breath and close my eyes. I don’t know where to start. “I’ve been talking to Sienna lately. Not a lot . . . but more than before. I don’t deserve her friendship, but I still miss her, you know? We were so close before. I guess I’m glad she hates me so much. If she didn’t, it would be so tempting to try and get what we had back.”

I reach down and pick up a blade of grass, twisting it around in my fingers. “It’s really hard to be around her sometimes. I can’t even look at her without thinking of you.”

“She misses you, you know. She’d never admit it because she doesn’t like to show weakness, but I know her too well to fall for the charade.”

I heave a long sigh. I don’t want to talk about Sienna right now. “Cole is the only one who doesn’t hate me.” I feel a little pang, saying his name to Steven.

I look up at the sky. The dark clouds that have been rolling in all afternoon thicken, hanging closer and closer to land. “He’s different than he was when you were around. I didn’t even notice at first. He used to be more like you, you know? Laughing and joking and chasing girls. He’s quieter now, kind of intense.”

“He keeps trying to get me to talk to him, and it’s so hard to resist. I mean he looks at me, and it’s like, I could tell him everything. Everything, Steven. What am I supposed to do with that?”

I look down at the grass again, grass that makes it look as if he’s not there at all. It erases him, turns him into another piece of earth.

The landscapers must have mowed today because I can smell the grass every time the breeze picks up.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, huh? It’s not really fair. You told me your secrets, and I never had the chance to tell you mine; and now I want to tell them to him when it was supposed to be you. It was always you.”

Steven’s sandy hair—and light, playful eyes—are burned into my memory, where they never leave me alone. He was the sort of life of the party that everyone notices when it’s gone. Everything’s been quieter without him.

My eyes lose focus, and I let the blades of grass blur into one green blob. “What do I do? Should I trust Cole? Or should I just . . . I don’t know, find a way to make him hate me, like everyone else? Besides, it’s not fair to you if I let him in.” I look up and touch the granite. “I wish you could tell me if it’s okay to move on.”

I hear a dull thud behind me, so unexpected that I whirl around and end up falling backward, onto my butt, almost knocking my head into the granite.

Sienna’s standing there in dark blue jeans and a buttoned-up black peacoat, and the contrast between her dark clothes and pale skin is startling. She’s positively ashen as she stares at me, her jaw unhinged, her eyes wide and unblinking. Her platinum hair billows out around her in the breeze.

The thud must have been her dropping a bouquet of crimson roses, because they’re sitting there by her feet. Why didn’t she come on the anniversary of his death, like everyone else?

She clenches her hands at her side. “You . . . you . . .”

She can’t seem to speak, and I’m so thrown off I can’t get my limbs to move. We just sit there, frozen, the moment stretching on for all eternity. I finally blink and scramble to my feet.

“I’m sorry. I’ll go.” I rush past her, and that’s when she finds her voice.

“Wait.”

The bite in her voice makes me stop, but I don’t turn around. I just stare at the willow tree beyond the path and watch as the breeze picks up the leaves. They float away from us, silently landing among the granite headstones.

“How long have you . . .” Her voice cracks. She sounds nothing like her usual self. “How often do you come here?”

I swallow. Maybe I should have just kept walking.

“Look at me,” she says.

I close my eyes and seconds pass. I can’t decide how to respond, so I do as she says and turn around. I see a hundred things in her eyes, but the most frightening of all is the one thing missing: hostility.

“Tell me.”

I purse my lips and swallow. I could lie. I should lie. But the words slip out, so quietly I’m only half sure she’ll hear them. “Every day.”

Her eyes tear away from me, and she looks down at her black flats. Her chest is sort of heaving, as if she ran three miles to get here. She balls her hands into fists and then stares up at the dark, cloudfilled sky and lets loose with an animalistic scream. I’m so shocked she would let go of her precious control that I actually recoil.

For once, the pain is written all over her face. Pain she’s hidden so well for the last two years. And I know how much of it I caused.

When she finally looks up at me again, her eyes glisten and her perfect facade is gone. Suddenly, she’s the same girl I knew, the girl I left behind that day I slipped out the backdoor during my party. The only difference is that now she’s a little more broken.

My lungs climb into my throat, and my heart lands at my feet.

The first tear rolls down her cheek as her bottom lip trembles. “All this time I thought you were some cold, distant bitch. I thought you didn’t even care that he was gone. I blamed you because you were there when he died and you didn’t even seem to care. But you were just—” Her voice cuts off, and she looks back at his grave. “Did you love him?”

I don’t even know I’m crying until the first tear lands on my hand.

I nod.

“Damn it, Lexi! Why didn’t you tell me?” She’s screaming. Her air of control has completely disappeared.

“I’m sorry, okay! I thought it was easier if you just hated me!” I throw my hands up, struggling not to just scream the words like she did.

She steps closer to me, shaking her head. Every so often she opens her mouth to speak, but then she snaps it shut. Eventually, she musters up the words. “I would have understood.”

I shiver.

The silence between us stretches on for so long that the clouds open up. At last, she speaks, so quietly I can hardly hear her over the pitter patter of the rain. “Can we talk about this? Get out of here and get some coffee?”

Her voice is so hopeful I want to say yes. The girl standing in front of me right now is the girl who was my best friend, the one who knew all my secrets—except one.

But that one secret is enough to keep us apart forever.

I shake my head. “I have to go. I’m sorry. For everything, I mean.” I whirl around and hurry down the path, my ears straining to hear if she’s following me.

But there’s only the wind and the pounding of my heart.