Author's Note: This story now has a soundtrack! Available on my tumblr page in the fanfiction link.
(Tumblr: .com)
This is the last chapter. There will be one more update after this, the epilogue to close out the story.
I.
He had a confusing dream – there was a bird and a flying boat, and he was swimming towards them, through an ocean so light it's almost green. Dallas paddled through the current, but couldn't feel the water around him, so it was like he was swimming through open sky.
He needed to get to the bird. But the harder he swam, the farther it flew, the more it sailed away from him, and the more Dallas was chasing its red tail through the sky, like chasing a comet across the atmosphere.
He kept swimming towards it, the bird always above him, always too far, and he kept trying to catch it but he was tired, and his eyes kept closing, but the bird was still there –
And when he wakes up, he's still wearing his shoes, and Vanessa is curled around Jayden on the bed beside him. Jayden sleeps unevenly, his breathing jerky like he's being thrown around.
The curtains hadn't been drawn all the way. Dallas peeks through the little opening. It's so late that even the sky looks like it's fallen asleep – the stars turned in, the moon given up.
He stares out the window, hand pressed to the cold glass.
Were you scared? he wonders.
He looks at Vanessa, fast asleep on her bed, protecting Jayden even in her sleep. She's curled around him like a shell, her arms wrapped around his middle. One look at the two of them, and he knows she'd never actually let him go.
That's probably why she came here, he thinks. From the start, he always knew Vanessa couldn't do it, and really, she didn't come here for him. She came here so she could have someone tell her what to do. He'd only seen Jayden a handful of times in the last year and a half, and she probably figured he'd sign the papers and make everything easier for her.
She couldn't make the choice herself, so she tried to get him to do it for her.
Well, she sure as shit picked the worst possible time, Dallas thinks bitterly.
Somehow, Vanessa missed the memo that Mike Dallas has officially stopped making decisions that affect anybody else. Seeing as how it went SO well the last time.
Jayden curls into himself when he's asleep, Dallas notices. He's got his thumb corked in his mouth, a trail of drool puddling on the pillow, his legs tucked into his chest.
Dallas closes his eyes and leans back on the comforter. He listens to Jayden breathe. Outside, night will turn into day. Another one, and then another one, and then another one.
Dallas will keep getting older. Jayden will keep getting older. Soon he'll be tall and strong and the same age Dallas is now, and he'll have been alive more years on earth than Cam was.
Soon, Cam will be dead more years than he was ever alive. Everyone will get older, but he'll always stay young, and he'll always be so sad.
He squeezes his eyes shut, and wonders if Maya Matlin will be okay. Tries to remember the dream he had, but it's already fading from his memory.
II.
When she opens her eyes again, she's still in the bed, her arms strapped down in cuffs and IVs and needles. Katie and Zig and Jake are gone, in school for the day, but her parents are still here, talking to her nurses and trying to get her set up with the same rehab center that Katie went to.
Both Matlin girls there in the space of one year. They must think her family has real promise.
Maya doesn't remember ending up in the ER, but then again, she doesn't remember getting any alcohol poisoning, either. When she tries to think back to the last thing she remembers, all that comes to mind is studying for a history test, maybe Wednesday or Thursday morning. She thinks.
A night turns into two, and they remove the breathing tube. She coughs and struggles even though they tell her not to, because it fucking hurts. Katie and Zig each hold one of her hands as they pull it out.
He's there every day with her, and even comes to visit on his lunch hour.
Whatever holes she can't fill, Zig does the heavy lifting. Haltingly, he tells her about the party, about how she was so drunk she couldn't stand, couldn't talk. About how she blacked out, Mike Dallas called an ambulance, and by the time they arrived everyone had cleared out of the house, including Skye. Zig rode with her in the ambulance.
Maya remembers none of it. The clearest memory she has of the last…week, or so, is studying for that history test. Her memory feels like someone cut massive holes in it, like those kindergarten projects where they cut paper to make snowflakes.
Unfortunately, she remembers everything of the few days she's in the ER, and none of that gets any less clear. Her parents' stricken faces, looking at her with a mix of horror and disbelief. Katie refusing to leave her side, and clutching her hand so tightly her fingers turn white. Tori and Tristan coming to see her after school, Tristan trying to engage them in gossip and failing miserably while Tori tries not to cry and fails equally miserably.
Skye doesn't come to see her. He doesn't call, text, tweet, or message her on Facerange. He just drops out of her orbit, sucking all those unknown days away from her like some giant black hole.
Maya doesn't care one way or the other.
She's told how lucky she is to have survived what happened, how lucky she was that her friends called 911 immediately and got her help right away. How lucky she is that she doesn't have any permanent brain damage, that her heart never stopped, that this or that didn't happen – bottom line, she's alive, and she almost wasn't.
Jake stops by every now and then. One day he brings her something – a packet of seeds for marigolds – and says that she should let him make spaghetti for her sometime. He's been growing the tomatoes and spices for homemade sauce; he and Katie have been making it and testing it themselves.
He brings her something else, too. He hands it to her with cupped, safe hands – an orchid in a little clay pot. He grew it himself.
It's the perfect gift.
She leaves it on the table by her bedside, so it's the first thing she sees when she wakes up.
III.
As much as he remembers every vivid detail of That Day, there are whole weeks After that he can't remember. It feels to him, sometimes, as if someone haphazardly cut his memories away, a toddler chopping off his own hair with chubby, unsure fingers.
The strongest memory he has of those lost few weeks isn't the funeral, or the bus ride home from the funeral, or the fight he had with Luke on the way to the funeral because Luke wouldn't put on the red tie, and Dalton had to keep Dallas from strangling Luke with it to make him put the damn thing on. It was of a dinner. The night Mrs. Torres cooked celery.
He sat at the table, pushing the limp celery around on the plate. It was touching the edges of his roasted pork, and some of it was in his sweet potatoes. He tried to segregate the offending damp vegetable from the rest of his food, but it was too late; the damage was done.
He pushed the plate away, and Mrs. Torres zeroed in on him.
"You not hungry, Dallas?"
Drew and Adam stared at their own plates. Dallas opened his mouth then closed it again, then said, "I don't like celery."
It sounded rude, and Mrs. Torres must have registered it, but she covered it up gracefully.
"It's okay," she said smoothly, reaching for his plate. "I can get you a new one."
"No," he blurted, sounding angry for some reason. "I don't, I don't need a…it's okay, I just don't like my food touching so…I don't need a new plate, I'm being…I don't need it…"
Mrs. Torres set the plate down carefully, then reached over and touched his arm.
"Dallas?" she said quietly. "Are you okay?"
Dallas stared at the table. The celery was still touching his pork and potatoes, and he didn't want another plate, but he needed another plate, and –
"I don't –" he took a rough gasp for air – "I just, I don't need another plate, I just hate celery, sorry…"
He turned and left the table without asking to be excused, and hurried out the back kitchen door. Started running, even when he heard Mrs. Torres calling him from the mail box. Kept running until he reached the pool behind the River Hill apartment complex, the one where he took Alli just a few weeks ago.
He climbed the fence in one swift motion, then tore his shirt off and kicked his shoes aside. He stood at the water's neon edge for a moment, watching the ripples glimmer off the glowing green surface, shaking and numb. Then he leaped in, letting himself sink to the bottom and opening his eyes to a world full of darkness.
There was nothing above or below him, just a stinging view of a warm underwater world, where he floated and drifted and hovered, suspended in a soft darkness that bat in his ears like a heartbeat. The water moved around him like dark silk, and he put his hand out, moving it around, watching it twist and float, buoyed like a limb not fully grown, like it was still trying to figure out how to become an arm.
His eyes stung from the chlorine, and blackness sparked behind them, his chest on fire from lack of air. But he stayed anchored to the bottom like he was being held down, and remembered –
Running. Running in the pouring rain, freezing rain, empty field at night. Coach is screaming and they keep running, jogging around the cones, keeping in formation, shirts off and rain like needles at their backs. Cam is next to him, and Dallas can hear him laboring, struggling to keep up with them.
"Come on, Rookie," Dallas says, slapping him between the shoulders. "Keep it going, one in front of the other, keep it up."
"Caaaaaan't," Cam wheezes, his head hanging down. He's barely keeping up, Dallas can tell.
"Come on, Cam," Dallas urges. "Don't do this. Don't quit on me now, man. Come on, one foot in front of the other. Step, step, step, come on man, just keep going, don't stop…"
Cam's response is to choke on his breath, coughing and doubling over as he tries to catch his breath.
Dallas peers over his shoulder, but Coach doesn't seem to have seen them come to a stop. Dallas turns to Cam and bends to his eye level, putting a hand on the smaller boy's shoulder.
"Cam." The rain pours around them, wild and freezing. "Come on, man. I need you to just keep going. Just a little bit longer."
Cam stays doubled over, hands on his hips. Dallas can feel him shaking, and not just from the cold.
"I can't," he repeats.
"You have to!" Dallas pushes him a little. "It's not that much farther."
Cam still looks at the torn-up ground, his clothes spattered with mud and his face red.
Dallas meets his eyes.
"Let's go, Rookie," he says. "It's just a few more steps – "
Just keep going –I never meant to – how could you do it? How did it get like this – why didn't I – Why did you have to – this is all my fault – why did you – stupid son of a bitch, why didn't you tell anybody? Why didn't you ever get help? Why didn't you just TELL me? It's my fault, it will always be my fault, I made this…I made this happen, and you never talked, and now you never will, you just left, and you don't get that I'll always have this – I'll always know I lost you, I'll always have you and lose you, have you and lose you –
Then he broke the surface. Air flooded his lungs, and he coughed, sputtering. His lungs felt newborn, thin as tissue, and his eyes blurred from the pool and salty tears. Shaking, he paddled to the side of the pool, pulling herself up on the rung of the ladder and shuddering until he remembered knowing how to breathe. It felt like something he hadn't done in ages.
The water dripped from his eyelashes. The taste of salt was on his lips, bitter and stinging, and he wiped it away, staring at the water. He breathed and tasted the bitterness on his tongue, dripping salty regret, feeling hollow and dark as the empty, glowing water below him.
He feels the same way now as he sits on the edge of the pool, staring at the water and remembering that night. Cherry blossoms have fallen in from the surrounding trees, the petals floating on the surface, and he watches them cluster by the drains. Dallas sits on the concrete and stares at the still water, the reflection of the sun sparkling on the glassy surface, and the shadows creeping over the city as night chases the daylight away. He stares at the water, and remembers that freezing silver night, watching Cam fight for breath in the darkness, the ground crumbling under their feet. The way he told Cam to keep going, just a few more steps. Dallas can't remember if he made it or not.
IV.
They release her from the hospital on Thursday morning. Her parents drive in silence occasionally punctured by non-sequitor observations and telling Maya about what's coming next.
"I tried getting an earlier appointment," her mother says, "but next Wednesday was as early as I could get in. But the hospital left me the names and numbers of other counselors, if you want to talk to someone earlier."
"Dr. Marling is really great," Katie urges. "She helped me a lot when I was in rehab. She makes you feel so comfortable and safe, like you can tell her anything and she'll never judge you. She's amazing, Maya. You'll like her, I promise."
Maya nods when she's meant to, and murmurs something that sounds appropriate when a response is necessary. Rain is crawling over the city, dark clouds hovering over the highway like bad dreams.
When they get home, Katie helps her into the house. Maya tries to protest, then realizes she doesn't have legs when she nearly falls getting out of the car. Katie even has to unbuckle her from the seat, because the effort is too much. Maya blushes to the roots of her hair; this almost ranks up there with her chicken boob falling out at Whisperhug auditions, or kissing Cam's ear during their garden date.
At the memory of that pasta salad-and-earlobe kiss, Maya looks away, staring out the window. The air smells like rain, and the deep blue sky above them is just about to break.
Katie takes her by the shoulders and half-carries her inside.
"Hold on a sec, Maya," she says, as they stop at the couch. Maya sinks against it in relief – the ten feet from the car to the door seemed a lifetime. "Let me get Mom's spare wheelchair."
"I don't -" Maya says, breathless, then takes a breath. "I don't need a wheelchair."
Katie frowns. "Uhh, you look like an old lady. I think it would be best."
Maya shakes her head, willing herself to stand up straight.
"Just," she gasps, trying to breathe normally, "give me a minute."
Katie looks skeptical, but sighs.
"Okay," she says. "I'm gonna get your overnight bag from the car. Can you not fall over?"
Maya waves her hand in her sister's face. "Go."
When she hears Katie head towards the garage, Maya uses all the strength she has left in her scrawny arms. They feel like limp noodles under her weight, but she bites her lip and forces herself upright, gripping the edge of the couch as she straightens her back and stands up for the first time since entering the hospital.
There's a mirror across the room from her. Maya hasn't looked in one since she was admitted in the ER. She knows she looks gross, but she's morbidly curious, and can't keep her eyes from drifting that way. She turns, and gets the first good look at herself she's gotten since before she ended up in the hospital.
It's not a pretty sight, and at first she blinks like she's not sure it's really her. But it is, because the drawn, pale, matted thing in the mirror is definitely blinking back. She's so thin that her skin looks like a balloon, widened and stretched over bones that jut out and make her face a slope of lines and edges. There are bruises dotting all over her arms from the IVs and medicines she's had stabbed into her, making her arms look like a smeared watercolor. Her hair looks two shades darker from grease, and hangs in unwashed tangles to her shoulders.
But it's her eyes that scare her the most. Huge and round in the center of her skeleton face, they're ringed with black and bagged with sunken circles that seem to pull her entire face inward. The color seems to be washed out of them, so they just stare back at her with stark white emptiness, drained of any spark or thought or recognition.
They look lifeless.
She doesn't know who this girl is, and it scares her.
Maya stares at the reflection in the mirror until her eyes begin to tear, until she can't even make out what she's looking at anymore. She turns away from the reflection of the girl she doesn't know, the skeleton with dead eyes, gutted and hollow as a Halloween pumpkin.
"Maya?"
Katie reaches out to her and puts an arm around her shoulder.
"You should rest," she says. She has a pair of their mom's old crutches with her, and hands them to Maya. "Come on."
Katie helps her limp to her room, pulling back the (newly changed and washed, Maya notices, for the first time since Cam died) bedcovers and helps her in. She pulls the covers over her, smoothing them out just like Mom used to, and even brushes some gnarly, greasy hair out of Maya's drooping eyes.
"Ewwww," Katie says, making a face at her when she pulls her hand away from the mop that is Maya's hair. "Okay, first up on the agenda after you get some rest, you need to shower before a bird starts nesting in that thing."
Maya attempts a grin. "What, you don't think dreads are a good look for me?"
Katie looks mildly alarmed, so Maya says, "that WAS a joke, Katie."
Her sister smiles, or tries to.
"Just, try and rest, okay?" she murmurs. She turns off the lamp on Maya's bedside, and smooths the covers over her one more time before getting up to leave. Katie hovers in her doorway for a moment, watching her, before closing the door behind her.
Maya lies back and takes a deep breath. As great as it feels to be home and NOT in a hospital bed attached to a breathing tube, she was in bed for almost a week. She wishes she could just go for a walk outside, or at least sit in the backyard. But the longer Maya lies there under the smooth, lavender-scented covers, the more she feels the pull of sleep.
She nestles under her blankets and stares up at her ceiling. Stares at the stars. Their shorted formation barely glows in the dim twilight. She never noticed it before, but the shape they make could vaguely resemble a grin.
For a moment, she looks to the empty space in the formation – the space where that lost star used to be. Maya can't see the glue still clinging to her ceiling, but knows it's still there, the missing piece of her galaxy.
She wonders if she'll ever figure out what happened to that little fallen star. If it's gone forever, or if she'll come across it one day – one day, of course, after she's stopped looking for a while. Someday, years later, after she thinks she's forgotten about it. Then she'll come across that dusty piece of plastic, and remember its plunge from her universe.
For now, though, the remaining ones glow down from their spots in her sky. In darkness they mimic the glimmer and purpose of navigation, of constellations that could tell myths and legends, could whisper fates and wishes to the world below. Maps to guide, fireflies to capture and call Tinkerbell, candles to guide home. If you didn't know any better, you couldn't tell there's something missing from that dark expanse.
But she'll always know.
She closes her eyes, too tired to pull her knees to her chest. Even the effort of pulling the comforter over her aching body seems too hard a job, and when she yanks it up to her chin she feels like she just sprinted an entire marathon. Exhausted, she closes her eyes and lets herself sink into the mattress, feeling heavy enough to fall through the earth.
A knock on the door, and Katie pokes her head in without waiting for an invite.
"You need anything?" she says. "Water, a snack, another blanket?"
It's a Herculean effort to open her eyes. "Sleep," she mutters, turning over and pulling the blanket over her eyes.
Katie steps inside and sits on the edge of her bed. She smiles down at her, and Maya smiles back. She's about drift off when she turns her head, and realizes she almost missed it: the little bulb rests on her bedside table right next to her lamp and alarm clock, practically waving at her from its watchful perch.
"You brought home my flower?" she asks.
"Well, yeah." Katie says. "What, did you think I was gonna let it die?"
Maya's too astonished to comment. Just lies back down eyes closing, as the bright flower keeps watch over her, gulping in the light and reaching upward, looking strong and healthy and whole.
V.
"My sister left home last night."
Owen's head snaps up to Luke. "The Barbie? What happened?"
Luke takes a swig of his beer, then stares at the rim of the can. "She got into it with my dad, and then got picked up by one of her friends."
"What'd they fight about?" Owen asks.
Instead of answering, Luke swishes the remainder of the drink in his hands. "You know my dad's a pastor, right?"
When no one replies, he says, "He said some stuff Becky didn't like, and they got into it."
"Is it about the Torres kid again?" Dalton asks.
"Your sister's still dating that freak?" says Cody.
Luke shakes his head. "No, not him."
"Then what kind of stuff?" Owen crumples the can in his palm. Reaches for another. "Come on, dude, the suspense is killing me."
Silence. No one's eyes move, but the heat in the room turns to Dallas, sitting on an overturned crate, still on his first beer. He takes a long drink of it, downing the rest in a single gulp.
Owen pops his top. "So," he says, ignoring the tense silence. "What did he say?"
Luke shrugs one shoulder. "It was last night. My dad's Bible Study. Becky was hoping he could do a reading or…something, I don't know the whole story, really. But she wanted to talk about…" he shuffles his feet, "like, stuff about him, and my dad wouldn't let her."
Luke doesn't have to clarify which him he's talking about.
"Just because he wouldn't read?" Owen asks.
Luke nods. For a moment, the only sounds are the whimpering fizzles of beer, and the too-loud gulps trying to drain the silence like venom from a wound.
"Why wouldn't he do it?" Owen finally says. "Doesn't your dad do…like, funerals and stuff?" His voice doesn't hitch on funerals and he pretends it didn't almost.
"Sometimes," Luke replies.
"So…" Cody says. "What's the problem?"
Luke pulls his knees up on the couch. He rests them underneath, folding into himself. He looks at the dingy walls, the insulation falling out of the rips and tears, and his eyes trail an electrical cord that climbs up to the ceiling.
"He says the Bible's clear," he says.
"About what?" Dalton asked.
Luke's eyes are now fixed on the ceiling.
"About…" He closes them, opens, back to the ceiling again. "You know."
No. Yes. Know.
"What did your sister say?" Dallas asks, finally.
Nobody turns to look at him. Luke is still looking at the ceiling, like he has the answers written up there. He takes another sip, though Dallas would bet there's nothing left in the can.
"She said…" He grips the can in his palm. "She said, uh, she said if there was a God, He'd, you know…have mercy. He'd just want him to be at peace."
Dallas looks at the ceiling himself, and just like he already knew, there were no answers there. Still, he keeps his head tilted upward, looking straight into the fluorescent lights until he can't stand it anymore, and blinks with bright flashes sparking behind his eyes.
He takes another sip. You think someone who was that unhappy would get some kind of pay-off, he thinks.
Then, on the heels of that: yeah, well, since when is anything fair. Ever.
V.
"What's the main emotion you think of when you remember Campbell Saunders?"
Maya looks across the room at Dr. Marling. She doesn't look like a shrink – or at least, what Maya pictured a shrink would look like. She doesn't have a clipboard, she doesn't have one of those long couches to lay on, she doesn't adjust her glasses every two seconds and say, "how does that make you feel?". She doesn't even wear glasses. She wears a pair of slacks and a blouse, and very little make-up. She looks almost preppy, and young. Maya can see why Katie liked her, why she found it so easy to confide in her.
Not that Maya's into doing the same.
"Anger," she says, after a moment. "At first. I was angry." She stares at her hands in her lap, chips at the fresh teal nail polish Katie put on the other night. "I AM angry. Still."
"At Campbell."
Maya stares at her thumbnail. She's taken off most of the polish there.
"At myself," she says.
Dr. Marling leans forward. "Why do you feel angry at yourself?"
Maya chips off a particularly big piece of nail polish. The chipping falls into her lap.
"Because," she says. "Why shouldn't I?"
Dr. Marling watches her for a moment.
"Maya," she says, "I'm not sure I understand."
Maya sighs. "The night before…the day before he – died – " she has to pause at the word, "Cam spent the night at my house. My parents weren't home, and he spent the night on my couch. With me. And we…"
There's a little decorative box on the table beside her. Maya takes it, and opens it, finds nothing inside except a fake red velvet lining. She runs her fingers over it.
"Nothing happened," she says quickly. "But we…it was the best night of my life. And he said so, too."
She pulls her phone out of her pocket, and clicks to the video Cam left her that morning. She gives it to Dr. Marling, then presses play:
"Gooooood morning, Maya Matlin! So, I am now in your bathroom – or rather, the guest bathroom, which, for the record, smells FANTASTIC, thanks to this Glade plug-in thingy…I would compliment your mom on this, but that would involve telling your parents that I slept here, and that would be awkward. Unquestionably so, I believe. Anywhosers, I'm brushing my teeth with your sister's toothpaste…HI KATIE! DON'T KILL ME! – and it occurs to me that I basically had the best night pretty much of all time, ever. So….yeah. Thank you for that. I want to take you out for lunch to celebrate. So, um, if you want to meet me on the steps outside, I will take you someplace special…it's a surprise, so don't bother trying to get it out of me! I will NEVER GIVE THIS UP!"
She's watched this video so many times that she can remember the exact moment his face changes. He will tilt his neck back, open his mouth, and let loose a mad scientist-like cackle, hooting maniacally.
"Yeah," he says, and Maya remembers his face returning to its sweet smile, bed-headed and sleepy-eyed, the happiness in his face. Twelve hours before. "So, anyway. Stairs. Lunch. SURPRISE. It's top-secret. And I will see you there!"
The video ends. Twelve hours to go.
"That was…" Maya clears her throat. "That was the last time I saw him. That day. That video. So how could he have done that and then…"
Dr. Marling hands her the phone back.
"Maya," she says gently, "you weren't responsible for what happened to Campbell. And neither was Campbell. What happened…it's something that he probably struggled with for years. You couldn't have solved it."
"But he looked happy in that video!" Maya argues. "He looked happy, he WAS happy, and he planned to take me out to lunch. He looked happy, and then he just…left! He left me!"
Maya put her hands over her face.
"Why did he leave me?" she whispers. "Why did I make him leave?"
Dr. Marling touches her back.
"You didn't," she says. "This had nothing to do with you, Maya, nothing."
Maya bites her lip.
"It kinda is," she says.
Dr. Marling cocks an eyebrow. "Why? She asks.
It doesn't sound like an accusation. She sounds genuinely curious.
Maya closes the box, turning it over in her hands. She almost tells her about everything – Zig, Tori, the pageant, Battle of the Bands, the charm bracelet – but instead turns and stares at the window, the light peeking in through the curtains.
"You know what I hate?" she says. "People telling me he's in a better place. Like, I don't want him to be in a better place! I want him here, with me! Drinking root beer and watching Criminal Minds and doing English homework.
"They probably don't know what else to say to you," Dr. Marling says. "They're dealing with a trauma, same as you. They're just trying to help you out."
"Yeah, well, they suck at it," she snaps.
Maya looks out the window, watches the cars go by on the street outside. She wonders what the lives of the people inside those cars are like.
How did people live like this? People everywhere survived with beds not slept in, clothes unworn, not needing to buy that brand of shampoo or this type of cereal; the extra seat at the dinner table, the empty bedroom, one less plate in the sink. How the hell could words like death, grief, suicide, why even fit in somebody's mouth?
Did the cashier at the grocery story live with this kind of agony? The school janitor? The receptionist at her orthodontist's office? How did they live like this?
"Why don't you give yourself a break?" Dr. Marling says. "You should. It's okay to give yourself a breather every now and then."
Maya stares at the carpet, at her scuffed-up Converse. On a whim, she had drawn OBEY MY SHOES across the toes, and checker-boarded the sides with red and black Sharpies. Tristan threatened to throw the shoes out when she wasn't looking. That had been at the start of the year, during a study hall. Before Cam.
What was his family doing? His parents, brothers, his sister…would they ever get past this? Would anyone?
"I don't," is all she says.
VI.
Dallas's phone buzzes in the locker room, right before he's about to change for practice.
On my way home.
At first, Dallas thinks that she means the hotel. C U tonite?
After a moment, Vanessa texts back.
No. We're going home.
He stares at the screen for a moment, then realizes what she really means.
I need to say bye to J, he replies.
We needed 2 leave, she says. Then, after a moment, thank u for signing the papers.
He gave them to her yesterday, when he went over there during his lunch break. But he never thought that meant she would disappear back home to Guelph without a word to him about it.
What about J? he replies.
Im not making a choice yet, she says. But thank you for the papers.
Dallas keeps waiting for her to say something else, long after it's clear she's done answering.
"Dallas!" Coach yells. "Get off your damn phone! You're not even suited up!"
Dallas glances over at him, then back to the glowing screen.
How could she disappear like that with Jayden? Why doesn't he get to see him, one last time?
Why doesn't he get to say goodbye?
VII.
Tori shows up the next day with all the homework she missed.
"Really, Tor?" Maya rolls her eyes. "You couldn't bring chocolate?"
Tori hands Maya her history and biology binders, as well as her French vocab workbook. Maya tries not to look at it, and slides it to the bottom of the stack.
"Tris and I spent the weekend doing all your assignments," she says. "All you have to do is sign your name."
Maya grins at her. "Chocolate? What's that?"
Tori reaches in for a hug, and Maya wraps her bruised, spindly arms around her.
"So," Tori says. "How do you feel? Can you come back to school yet?"
Maya shrugs. "The doctor says I should be okay by Monday." She looks away. "Not sure if I want to face everybody."
Tori takes a seat on the bed beside her.
"What are they all saying?" Maya murmurs. "How stupid I am, or just what a slut I am for hooking up with another guy, like, two seconds after Cam?"
Tori touches her shoulder.
"Nobody's saying anything," she says.
Maya shakes her head. "You're lying. Everybody's been talking about me for weeks. At least now, it's because of stuff I did."
Maya finds herself sniffling, wiping something away she didn't even know was there.
"You're a good friend to lie, though," she says.
Tori squeezes her shoulder. "It's the truth, Maya."
"You've been such a good friend through this whole thing," Maya says. She looks away, focusing on a spot on the floor. "And I'm such a total bitch. I don't…I'm sorry I was, like, the worst friend ever. You didn't deserve it."
"You're not a bitch, Maya," Tori urges, slipping an arm around her and squeezing her tightly. "I should say sorry. I kept bugging you to do stuff all the time when you didn't want, and I never tried talking to you about anything."
"I wasn't really in the mood for talking," she mutters.
Tori hugged her. "I could have tried harder, though." She shakes her head. "I never wanted to just keep saying, 'oh, you'll move on someday' or 'it's okay, he's in a better place'… because I didn't think you wanted to hear that. But I didn't want you to stop living. To stop feeling like living."
Tori stares at the floor. "But I guess movies and girls nights and sushi were just like saying, 'oh, go ahead and forget all about him'."
"No, they weren't," Maya says. "You were trying to help. Even after…" Maya sighs. "I was a horrible friend, and you were only trying to help me."
"You're not a horrible friend," Tori replies.
Maya snorts. "Really? I kissed your boyfriend, then lied to you about it. Think that makes me a pretty horrible friend."
Tori shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. That was a long time ago. Or, at least, it feels like it is. Okay?"
She just shakes her head. "If I were you," Maya mutters, "I'd never speak to me again."
"Well, good thing you're not me," Tori says gently.
When Maya looks away, Tori says, "Maya, look, it doesn't matter, okay? You need to stop punishing yourself for it –"
Before she can stop herself, Maya doubles over into sobs, gasping and half-screaming into her hands as her face crumples and collapses. Her chest heaving, she lays down on the bed and nearly falls off as she shakes, gulping in air between sobs radiating through her entire body.
Tori looks alarmed, and her lip trembles, close to tears herself. She touches Maya's shoulder and tries to look at her, but Maya can't look at her, can barely move.
"You should," she wails. "I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm so bad, I'm bad, I'm sorry, it's all my fault."
She keeps repeating that last part over and over again, between hiccups and shudders and ragged, choking breaths. Tears pour down as she tucks her knees to her chest, keeping her head down as she howls into the soaking wet comforter.
Tori keeps a hand on her shoulder, and rests the other one on the top of her head. Gently, she pushes Maya's damp hair away.
"Maya, no," she whispers, her voice shaky.
Maya ignores her.
"I'm bad," she repeats, over and over. "I'm bad, I'm sorry, I ruined everything, it's my fault. It's my fault, my fault, I'm sorry, I'm so, so, so sorry, it's all my fault!"
Tori doesn't say anything, just keeps holding onto her. While Maya cries, cries, cries, wanting to melt into her lavender comforter and remembering the smell of ice and toothpaste and sweat and laundry detergent that stuck to Cam, how soft and warm and real He was next to her on the couch, the smell and the feel and the aliveness of Him and now there's nothing, her hand in His and her head resting against His beating heart and "I want to take you out for lunch to celebrate" video, but no, no lunch, no hands, no heart, just a sack of bones rotting below the ground under a red brick church. She'd never see Him again, never ever EVER. Forever.
She let Him get away from her, and he did.