Craig

Craig didn't hear the knock on the door, but he heard Joey calling to him.

"Craig! You've got company!"

He had been in his room, trying not to think about things. Trying not to feel like shit about Manny and Ashley. Not succeeding.

Down the stairs, half hoping it was one of the girls willing to give him a second chance.

"J.T.?" It was J.T. alright, standing on the snow covered stoop, his longish hair covered by a wool cap.

"Craig, can I come in?" Craig always thought J.T. said his name weird, the a sound all flattened out.

"Uh, yeah. Sure," He stepped aside so J.T. could come in. He stamped the snow from his boots on the thick mat b y the door for that purpose.

It was weird, J.T. being here. He hadn't really talked to him since Spike and Snake's wedding, had no real reason to talk to him.

"Listen, I have to tell you something," J.T. said, but looked around at Joey and Angela and then back at Craig, and his look said he couldn't tell whatever it was in front of them. Angela was all bundled up in a sweater, she was coloring, kneeling down in front of the coffee table. There was a mug of hot chocolate by her hand, the whip cream all melted away. Joey was looking at bills on the kitchen table.

"Let's go up to my room," Craig said, and headed up. J.T. followed, shrugged out of his heavy winter coat and hung it on the post of Craig's bed.

Craig waited, lips pressed together, glancing outside, everything covered in that blue white snow, a hard glaze of it over everything. J.T. took some deep breaths, touched the cases of the CD's that were scattered on the top of his bureau. He licked his lips, paced a little, wouldn't look at him.

"J.T., what is it?"

"Okay. Listen. You better sit,"

"What? Why?" Craig's tone was sliding toward anger.

"Because it's bad news. So sit,"

He sat down hard on the bed, his patience wearing thin. J.T. was a dorky freshman, and he'd had to deal with him enough at Ashley's hanging out with her dorky step-brother.

"I don't know how to tell you this,"

"Jesus, J.T., just tell me,"

"Okay. It's about Ashley. Last night she, she-"

Craig waited, getting nervous. J.T.'s somber tone making him nervous. He cleared his throat.

"Okay, Craig. Ashley killed herself last night," he said it like it was poison and he had to get the words out fast.

"What? What do you mean?" Craig's eyes were wide, his voice soft, the same way he sounded when Joey told him his father didn't make it.

"She killed herself. She slit her wrists when nobody was home, and by the time they got there it was too late,"

There was nothing to say. There was nothing he could say. J.T. had been right about sitting, he might have fell to the floor. He felt light headed.

J.T. was still standing, still running the pad of his index finger over the smooth surfaces of his CD cases, and still talking.

"Toby found her, I mean, he said the room looked like a slaughter house, and he was like literally frozen for 10 minutes, just staring at the whole mess. They had to give Kate some drugs, she's hysterical. She might even be in a hospital, I don't know. Toby said she freaked out pretty bad, and who wouldn't?"

J.T. kept talking but Craig couldn't really hear him. His lips were moving without sound. Just like when his father died, Joey talking with the volume on mute, and Craig just shaking his head.

Why did people keep dying on him? He swallowed hard, looked at J.T. and his colorless light brown hair, wavy now that it was longer. Everyone died on him, his mother, father, now Ashley?

But Ashley, this suicide, it seemed pretty clear that he was to blame.