Chapter Four
Four
Mom insists I spend the weekend resting, which I take as permission to not think about anything stressful and simply cozy up in bed and read.
A few months before Dad died, I researched a list of books everybody needs to read in their lifetimes, and it became the official reading list for the Cartwright Father-Daughter Book Club of Best Books to Read Before You Die.
For more than one reason, I wish we’d picked a different name.
All the way to August, Dad and I spent hours on the phone discussing George Orwell, bell hooks, Emily Bronte, and Dad’s favorite, Zadie Smith.
Dad took it as a personal challenge to argue any point that was opposite to mine, to “make me think.” He was immovable in his opinions and completely obnoxious when he managed to win me over to his side.
He used to say that, at its core, every story was about love.
I think that was true about his story too.
One great big adventure that he incorporated me into whenever I visited him in Portland after the divorce.
He’d take me to all the museums and galleries and bookstores he loved, cherished coffee shops he liked to attempt to write in.
We’d act like tourists and overdose on lobster, go to concerts of Dad’s favorite musicians that he only sometimes had tickets to.
Meet up with his eccentric artist friends and whichever woman he happened to be dating at the time.
We were still doing our book club, smack in the middle of To Kill a Mockingbird, when his heart stopped, but when I got to the end in September, I flipped to the beginning and immediately started again.
Today on my Mom-imposed “me time,” I reach for my twenty-fifth book once again, but I can never do it.
I can’t read another book on our list without Dad.
I go for a walk because my muscles are itching for a run, despite where I’m sore from the crash.
I wear a T-shirt with one of Dad’s favorite bands on it, always funk music.
I didn’t inherit his musical taste, but I saved his T-shirts, his old music records, as many of his books as I could stand to keep.
As I walk, I try to think of only happy things.
So not the book list I will never finish, not the stress of making plans for the future, not the heartache of losing the boy I love.
But it’s pretty much a lost cause.
It turns out, you can’t outrun your life.
* * *
Part of me wishes I could go on “recovering” into the new week, but by Monday, even I’ve exceeded the amount of moping I can tolerate, so I’m back to school.
It turns out there’s only so much BookTok recommendations can do to fix a broken heart.
If I was brave enough, I’d wear my heartache on the outside.
I’d walk around in a flowing all-black lace getup like some grieving Victorian widow, but I realize people get committed for that kind of thing.
So I settle for two black stud earrings, the open secrets no one will notice.
As I enter English class, Mr. Tan hands me the essay I turned in a week early last Monday, with a circled red 98. Before I can ask where I lost two marks, he says, “You hanging in there, Zadie?”
Mr. Tan is in his mid-forties, a perpetual wearer of beige cardigans, and one of Dad’s old friends.
He discovered Dad was M. L. Cartwright, the author of Moon Over Hanover, during a parent-teacher conference, and Dad was never able to shake him again.
Mr. Tan has been giving me sad eyes for a month, since the one-year mark of Dad’s death, reminding me at every turn that there are resources available if I need them.
For the briefest second, I don’t know why, I think he’s talking about Dad, and I almost blurt out that I’m not really hanging in there.
That some days I miss him so much my bones ache.
But then I remember what he’s really asking: the accident, Jason, Jason’s coma.
I just manage to blurt out an “It’s tough, but” before I’m flanked by a bunch of people I’ve gone to school with since kindergarten.
“Oh my God!” Penelope Miller says, throwing her arms around me.
Penny and I aren’t friends exactly. With me hopefully going to Princeton and Penny heading to UMaine, there’s no way we’ll keep in touch once we graduate. Still, she hugs me fiercely now. The kind of hug you give a person you never thought you’d see again.
“Wow, thanks!” My voice is muffled by her shoulder. “I love your haircut.”
“Ugh, thanks,” Penny says. “Caleb hasn’t even noticed.”
Before I’m fully out of Penny’s embrace, somebody else hugs me, and then another person, and then another. “How are you?”
“Oh, you know—”
“I’m so sorry about the accident.”
“I’m so sorry about Jason.”
“We’ve been praying for him.”
“We’ve been praying for you.”
“You should sue that driver!”
“I heard you had a concussion.”
“I heard you broke your neck.”
Their voices blur into a swirl of rumors and well-wishes, the kind of recognition you earn when you’re affiliated with Jason Riddick. Small towns have their stars, and as the soccer captain, Sterlingwood’s answer to a quarterback, Jason is one.
Before Jay and I started dating, I was popular but in a nerdy, friends-with-everybody sort of way. Dating Jason means that the whole school knows exactly who I am. Sometimes I think they know more about me than I do.
Being Jason’s girlfriend made running for VP such a breeze that I occasionally wish I’d thought to challenge Tyler for president instead of running for a smaller role so I could focus on college applications. Lord knows student council would be going more smoothly.
“Okay, everyone, back up,” Mo says with her trademark intensity, pushing people out of the way like she is my bodyguard. She’s been super protective since the accident. Mo might have just moved to Sterlingwood in freshman year, but sometimes it feels like she’s always been here.
Right then, Cristin Lee says something that catches my attention. “God, that sucks about the ring. We went out looking for it last night.”
“You did?” I croak, stopping before Mo can herd me away. Amber truly opened up a can of worms.
“A bunch of us went out to where the accident happened,” Cristin says, all animated, her blond curls bobbing in agreement with everything she says.
“We didn’t find anything?” Jazz King is Cristin’s best friend, and she has the unique talent of making every sentence sound like a question. “We were so sad? Like, it was super disappointing?”
On the one hand, it feels nice that so many people are willing to sacrifice this kind of time and energy for me and Jason. On the other hand, I feel like the worst person in the world for lying.
“We’re doing our own search party tonight. There’s a sign-up online,” someone else chimes in.
“Guys, seriously, you don’t have to do all this—” I’m saying, half hoping the ground opens and swallows me, when Mr. Tan claps his hands to get our attention.
“Okay, friends, time to talk some Wordsworth.”
My heart is weighed down by guilt as I slink into my usual chair next to Mo.
“Mo, people are like hardcore looking for the ring.” I grip her arm. “This is insane.”
She shrugs at me like, hey, to each their own. She’s too focused on her laptop screen, working on her app. Mo is convinced that making a health app, combined with her killer GPA, is her ticket into any premed program she chooses.
“Yo, Mr. Tan,” Holden says, falling into a seat in the back of the classroom, where he’ll proceed to sleep for the next period. “Tell us again why you became an English teacher. I’m really struggling to pick between majors on my college apps.”
A bunch of kids snicker, but Mr. Tan’s entire face lights up.
Soon our English teacher is three-metaphors-deep into his biweekly speech about how he started college as a—you won’t believe it—math major but slowly felt the call of the written word.
It’s a surefire way to derail any lesson with Mr. Tan and today—maybe because it’s Monday, maybe because Jason’s in the hospital, unconscious, instead of across the hall in Ms. Gardner’s class where he should be—it’s exactly what we need.
The embarrassing truth is that I really am struggling to pick a path.
Last night I Googled “best college major,” because I’m that desperate.
It was thirteen-year-old me who decided on New Jersey.
I’ve told exactly one person the full story, which is that I researched the overall best Ivy League college using three different methods, and it was just Princeton that came out on top.
Since then, it’s been my “dream school,” and one of the key things everybody knows about Zadie Cartwright is that she knows where she’s going.
What they don’t know is that I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there.
So I should definitely be taking in some of Mr. Tan’s wisdom right now, but my mind won’t let go of Jason.
I miss being able to text him random thoughts, miss the cute little GIFs he’d send to let me know he was thinking of me.
It occurs to me that whatever the reason a person is gone—whether it’s a shocking, out-of-the-blue breakup, a random crazy coma, or even death—missing someone you love will always feel achy and empty and sad.
It’s just that sometimes the feeling is temporary, and sometimes it’s forever.
For the rest of the day, my brain is so fuzzy I can hardly think. Time moves like a toddler having the hiccups, jerky and inconsistent, and I’m having trouble staying present.
During my second-to-last period, I’m discreetly scrolling through the string of I love yous and good night beautifuls and hey I’m heres between me and Jason when my head starts to really hurt. It’s kept doing that on and off since the accident.