41. August
Swee’s nails are poking my side, but he looks so comfy I hate to disturb him.
“Today sucks,” I tell Swee, who snores in response.
My phone buzzes, and I grab it off the bedside table so fast that I drop my book and lose my page. Swee stares at me, bleary eyed and indignant. But it’s just a text from Mom.
Mom
Hey honey, could I ask you to do me a big favor and bring my set of detailing brushes to the Kellermans’? They’re on the kitchen table.
I stare at the screen, a queasy feeling rising in my throat at the thought of going to the Kellermans’. While I’m grateful Mom has work this summer and I don’t mind supporting her doing it, she’s also an adult—if she forgot her brushes, she should just come home and get them.
Instead of texting Mom back, I open the thread with Tiny.
Me
You around? Need help with something.
I figure I’ll drive and Tiny can run the brushes onto the porch. Two minutes and done. When Tiny doesn’t respond, I look out the window to discover her Jeep isn’t in her driveway. But our station wagon is in ours, which means Mom walked to work this morning.
“Damn,” I say to no one and get up. Because as much as I’d like to tell Mom no, I know I won’t.
* * *
The Kellermans’ white colonial house looks just as buttoned up and snobby as it always did with its wraparound porch and manicured garden. And while Mom’s obviously made progress with repainting, I can’t help but wonder if it was actually necessary or if it was just a pity hire.
I sit in our old Volvo calling her cell for the third time, but she’s not answering. I push against the steering wheel. “Come on, Mom.”
I stare at the Kellermans’ front door and weigh my options. There’s no way of knowing if Kyle’s home, if he has some dumb sports car in an obnoxious color parked in the bay of their garage. A car like the one he took Tiny and me for a drive in on my fifteenth birthday, doing donuts in the supermarket parking lot while we laughed in the back seat and clung to the upholstery. A car like the one he used to race on the dead-end street by the town soccer fields. A car like the one that killed my sister.
I hit the steering wheel as a punctuation of frustration and make the flash decision to get out. I walk brusquely up the too-long brick walkway, my heart pounding so hard that I pull at my shirt. Three steps up the porch and I place the brushes on a small table with a clunk. I specifically don’t look in the windows.
But just as I turn around, a car pulls in the driveway right near where I’m parked. And as a pile-on to my already crap day, Kyle gets out of the passenger door.
Panic and anger surge so violently inside my chest that I almost miss the bottom porch step, my footing momentarily faltering.
Don’t look at him, I command myself.
I pick up my pace, but it’s not fast enough. Kyle’s already said goodbye to his friend and is stepping onto the same brick pathway I’m on.
I look past him at my dinged-up station wagon, with every intention of ignoring the fact that he exists. But he stops in his tracks, right in front of my car.
“August?” he says, my name sounding foreign and uncomfortable in his mouth.
I held on to the caution tape so hard that my nonexistent fingernails cut straight into the palms of my hands. I stared unmoving at the bright-yellow car, whose hood was crushed against a tree in front of the town soccer field, the mangled doors flung open and the windows shattered. I didn’t know how long I’d been here. Hours? Minutes?
“August,” Kyle said, using my actual name, something I couldn’t ever remember him doing—he always called me “Little Mariani.” His voice was drained and heavy. “August, I’m sorry,” he said. And I instantly hated him for it. For using my name. For owning that car. For existing.
He touched my shoulder, and then I did move. What gave him the right?
“Listen,” he tried again, and I could hear the admission of guilt in his tone. “I just wanted to say—”
“No.” My voice was quiet but weighted, stopping him midsentence before he could give me an apology I wouldn’t accept. “I heard you. Earlier. In Des’s room. I know this is your fault.”
He swallowed and looked away, but before he could get the nerve to speak again, Tiny was there, grabbing me in a forceful hug.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, August. I’m so sorry,” she said on repeat between sobs, pressing her wet cheek against my shirt.
But I didn’t cry. I didn’t speak. And I definitely didn’t accept. I was frozen in place, all the warmth of Des sucked out of the world. The wrongness of it pulsing through me and upending the idea that things would ever be okay.
Suddenly I’m sweating and angry, like a hose-drenched yellow jacket. Everything I’ve ever wanted to say to him explodes in my thoughts. My eyes flit up, but I force them down again, my hands clenching.
I walk around Kyle, but as I do, he does the unthinkable. He says my name and grabs my arm. My anger buzzes so loudly that I see spots.
Before I can make a decision, before I can tell him that he’s not worth it, I find myself turning to face him, my shoulders tense, my already fisted hand moving through the air. And I deck him. Right in the face. Hard.
He stumbles backward, his hand moving to his cheek. “What the shit, dude?” he says, staring at me from his unpunched eye.
For a split second, I feel better. Good. He deserves it and so much more. But the moment that follows isn’t good. I feel dumb and vulnerable, like I’m standing at that caution tape all over again, watching them wheel away my sister in a body bag, helpless as the most important person in my world disappears.
I look away from Kyle, my cheeks hot and my eyes stinging, and I get in my car. I drive all the way home with my hands strangling the steering wheel, my breath caught high in my throat.
“Stop,” I command my brain. “Leave me the hell alone!”
But it’s no use. A sketch appears and with it comes memories—not anger and destruction, something I could vent over, but gentle things: the rosebush Des planted with Mom when I was born, the sound of her laugh, the salt water dripping off her hair on a hot summer evening by the dock. My chest aches, and my lips part with words I don’t know how to speak. I need you, Des. How could you leave me?