Chan
.
.
It isn't raining at Tzuyu's funeral, but it should be.
This is the first funeral I've been to. It should be my second. I should've been there for Tallie's funeral, when Rosé buried her in the woods. It was so dark that night that Lisa never saw Tallie. She only saw the blood covering Tzuyu, and panicked. She rode away with her in the ambulance.
Rosé and I noticed, though. But I ran, terrified by it all. Sometimes, if I close my eyes, I can still hear Rosé shouting "Coward!" after me.
I look at Rosé's face now. She's standing away from the rest of the crowd gathered around the coffin on the grass. She's practically hiding in the shadows of a tree, to the very end ashamed of what she'd done to Tzuyu.
As she should be. As I should be.
There are so many shoulds—things we didn't do and can't do, anymore. Regrets hang heavy over all of us at Tzuyu's funeral.
Jennie stands solemn, next to Naomi—Tzuyu's nurse—and Lisa's mother. It's a small funeral; all of Tzuyu's family is dead, and her friends few. The priest drones Bible verse after Bible verse. Jennie meets my eyes, her own wet and miserable. Her every emotion is written on her face.
I turn my eyes to Lisa and see the exact opposite. Her expression is blank, completely devoid of any feeling at all. It's like looking at an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper. There should be something, anything, even the slightest splash of color, but there isn't. She's always been cold, but this is…unnatural. If I look at her too long, I feel a shiver coming on. A human being shouldn't look like that, unless she's totally and completely lifeless. Her mother clutches her elbow, sobbing, and yet she doesn't move an inch, watching the casket with a steady gaze.
Rosé is crying, too, but silently. She's afraid she'll draw Lisa's attention, I'm sure. Ever since that night, she's always been afraid of Lisa. After what she did, I'm sure Lisa wanted to make her life a living hell, but something stopped her. If I had to guess, it was Tzuyu, calming her down as she always did so expertly.
And now she's gone.
Lisa's lost a part of herself—anyone can see that. Jennie's brown eyes skitter over to her every so often, lingering on the hard lines of her face, her slack hands at her sides. Jennie looks like she wants to go over and comfort her but she doesn't know how. She looks like she's unsure if she's even allowed to touch her in her grief.
It's obvious Jennie likes her. And for a while, it was obvious Lisa liked her. But now? Whatever the two of them were beginning to feel for each other is over. It has to be. Tzuyu's death leveled us all, all the friendships we'd been building, all the relationships. I confronted Lisa earlier this month, something like respect blossoming between us again, but I know that's gone now. I've even been pushing Jisoo away, embracing fully the gray cloak of sadness around me. Do I even deserve to be happy with someone, after what I did to Tzuyu? Do any of us?
The priest finishes his prayers, and the pallbearers lower the coffin and begin to shovel dirt on it. Naomi collapses at the pit's side, wailing and reaching for her. She'd taken care of Tzuyu for so long—she was the closest thing Tzuyu had to a mother. Naomi knew better than any of us that Tzuyu was going to die, but not like this. Not by her own hand, out of despair, or tiredness.
That's the worst part—that we'll never know why she did it. There was no note, not a single clue left behind as to why. When Jennie and I first saw each other in the graveyard parking lot, she walked over and shook her head.
"I'm sorry, Chan. It's my fault."
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"I should've seen the signs." She clutched her head. "I was the one who hung out with her the most—she told me. She told me she was going to do it in a thousand different ways, but I was too stupid to see them. Too naive. I should've known. I should've known and I'm sorry. God I'm sorry—"
She started to cry. I offered her a hug, and she took it, clutching at me like I was a lifesaver thrown overboard to a drowning person.
I tried to say 'it'll be okay,' but the words got caught in my throat. There's a chance things will never be okay again. They'll never be the same, no matter how much I want them to be.
I watch Tzuyu as they lower her into the ground and feel a wave of sick heat wash over me. She's gone, forever. It hits me just then—I'm never going to see her again. I'm never going to get the chance to apologize to her. I spent years working up the courage and failed. I failed her. I betrayed her friendship; all those years spent as kids together, growing up together, all forgotten just because I was afraid of Rosé.
Jennie starts crying as the last dirt goes on the coffin. Unlike Naomi, she cries completely silently, tears streaming down her face.
Lisa doesn't shed a tear.
After the funeral, my mom picks me up from the graveyard. She leaves me alone, thankfully, not asking a single question. Emotionally exhausted, I collapse into bed.
My phone won't leave me alone; a text message blares on the screen. It's from Jisoo.
Hey you, it reads. How are you doing?
Tired, I text back. It was awful.
Jisoo's grandmother had fallen down some stairs, and her mother rushed her out to the East Coast to see her, just in case. She'd tried to get out of it to come to Tzuyu's funeral and support Jennie and me, but her mother had an iron fist—family first, friends second.
I'm sorry, she says. I'll be home in two days, and then we can talk about it.
Yeah. I'm looking forward to that.
Stay strong! -smiley emoji-
Somehow, the cartoonish smiley faces make me feel a little better. Jisoo in general makes me feel better—something I've always known but never told anyone. Since that night at Rosé's party when Rosé locked the two of us inside the room, Jisoo and I have gotten closer. It started with me trying to calm her down that night, and then grew to walking to class together, bonding over our shared experiences of how horrible Rosé was to us. Soon, she was asking me to help her with her math homework, and offered me rides home in exchange.
She's gorgeous, and much smarter than anyone gives her credit for. She doesn't have the razor wit of Jennie or Lisa, and she's a little naive, but that only makes me like her more.
But I haven't told her.
I've asked her out to prom, and somehow, beyond belief, she said yes. But now? Now I don't know how to go to prom. I don't know how to wake up tomorrow. What should I say? What should I do? Do I show my sadness, or hide it away where no one can see? I have to pretend I'm okay, for my family and Jisoo. I can't make them worry more than they already are.
"I'm sorry, Tzuyu," I murmur into my pillow, the tears finally coming to me, far too late. Only in the quiet privacy does my numbness wear off. The sorrow grabs at me, deep and aching.
..
The sun sets, thick clouds lashing rain against my window, as if the world is crying with me.
In the midst of the storm, Jisoo texts once more.
I just talked to Jennie. I'm worried. Will things be okay? Will you guys ever be okay again?
It takes me a moment to sit up and wipe my eyes enough to see her words. My own hiccups sound so pathetic. But at least I can still cry. At least I'm alive to keep crying. Tzuyu doesn't have that luxury anymore.
Whatever she was feeling, killing herself wasn't the answer. Even if it was what she wanted, it wasn't what she needed. She needed time. She needed more life, not death. That's all I know for sure anymore.
I don't know, I text back finally, my fingers shaking. But I'm going to try.
The next morning, I hike up to Rosé's cabin by Lake Galonagah. Tallie's cross is right where we left it that night. I haven't seen it since I was thirteen.
Someone stands in front of the grave, someone wearing a stylish jacket and jeans, her red hair dancing like flames as the wind teases it. It's her first time up here since that night, too.
I pull air into my lungs and use it like courage. Like iron.
I walk up to the girl, and the grave, for the first time in five years.
"Hello, Tallie," I say to the cross. Rosé is quiet, staring at the little patch of dirt that holds our greatest regret, and then she echoes me softly.
"Hello, Tallie."
..
..
Jennie —3 Years, 43 Weeks, 2 Days
It seems to me that old people really like to tell you to enjoy your life while you're young. Said people are usually forty-nine hundred years old and drive Volvos. Not that there's anything wrong with Volvos. But there is definitely something wrong with being forty-nine hundred years old. This is primarily because having too much experience makes you boring and flat as week-old soda.
Exhibit A: Lalisa Manoban.
Exhibit B: Immortal vampires, probably.
Exhibit C: Grandparents.
My grandma is the one and only exception to this rule in the entire world. My grandma is tremendous. When I was two months old she took me for a ride in the basket attached to her Harley-Davidson. I'm slightly positive this experience full of wind and exhaust and bawling crafted me into the dashing heroine I am today. Mom and Dad sent her to an old people's home, since I guess taking your infant granddaughter for a spin with your bike gang is the first sign of dementia or something. But now that I'm in Georgia, we are reunited at last. There were tears. And snotty tissues. That lasted for roughly five minutes. Now there's mostly a lot of insanity.
"I'm not one to question the validity of doing neat things," I say as I hand Gran another fistful of fireworks, "but if I were the sort of person to do that, you know, someone really boring and lame and definitely not me, my question would be along the lines of, 'what the hell are we doing on this roof at four in the morning, question mark.' At least four question marks go after that. And like, a very concerned emoji."
Gran makes a tut-tut noise and stuffs the rest of the fireworks into the chimney's mouth. There are so many that I can't see the dark brick inside anymore. We ran a fuse up through the chimney an hour ago, and now Gran ties it to the huge combined fuse of all the fireworks. She sits back on her heels and wipes wispy dyed-green hair from her eyes, flashing a wicked grin at me.
"As chairman of the Greeting and Farewell Committee of Silverlake Home for the Elderly, it's my duty to give the girls and guys here a proper sendoff. None of this funeral-procession, boring-priest nonsense. Viola was a good woman, with a lot of love for life. She'd never want a dull sendoff, but her kids are forcing that on her. Even after she's dead!"
"The horror!" I gasp in sync with her.
"Exactly." Gran points at me. Her eyes are the same as mine, reddish-brown. Dad's reddish-brown. "Horrible. The things people do these days to disrespect the dead are just awful. So we're going to respect my dead friend properly."
"By stuffing the chimney full of fireworks."
"By stuffing the chimney full of fireworks," she agrees. "When the nurse comes by in the morning and starts the fire, she'll light this whole damn place up! Viola would've gotten a good laugh out of that."
I smile and help Gran down the fire escape. She's tall and in shape for a seventy-year-old, but she's still thin, her fingers tiny. When we're back on solid ground and walking across the lawn to her building, Gran throws an arm around my neck.
"What about your funeral, eh?" she asks.
"You mean the one that is never going to happen ever because I am going to gather the seven Dragon Balls and wish for eternal life?"
She laughs. "Yeah, that one. What would you want for it?"
I muse it over for all of six and a half seconds. "Make-outs. Naked dancing. Maybe a cake."
Gran smirks at me as we walk up the whitewashed stairs.
"What? What is it? Why are you giving me That One Look?"
"Oh, nothing. You've grown so much, is all. You said 'make-out' without turning five shades of purple."
"Yes, well, now I am an extremely mature, responsible adult, and I can do things like discuss the trials and tribulations of adolescence calmly."
"Uh-huh," Gran says expectantly.
"Such as making out. I did actually make out with someone."
Gran waits.
"I mean, I punched her before I made out with her. But it was a mature punch."
Gran laughs, full and loud. I point at her as she opens the door to her room and sits on her bed.
"Don't you dare start naming stuff you want at your funeral. Because I know from movies that when old people say stuff it usually comes true, and if you die I will be exceptionally bummed out."
"It comes true because we're wise, dear."
"It comes true because you guys have freaky awesome brain powers that seem to do everything but grant you immortality. And teeth."
Gran laughs, easing out of her slippers and lying back on the bed. "Come here."
I lumber over to the bed and sit on it. She takes my hand and pets it, slowly, looking me right in the eyes.
"A lot of people in your life are going to tell you how they think you should live. Some might not say it outright at all. Some of them might just convince you without saying anything that you need to live a certain way."
She looks out the dark window dotted with stars, smiles, and then looks back to me.
"Listen to me carefully, sweet girl. Don't live any other way than the way that makes you happy. If you aren't happy, leave your lover. If you aren't happy, quit the job. If you aren't happy, do more to make yourself happy. Because you are the only one who can make yourself truly happy in this life."
I open my mouth to argue, but she hushes me.
"I know. I know other things and other people will make you feel happy. But they won't make you happy. That comes from you. That comes from your own heart. Letting happiness grow in you—that all comes from inside. Some people never learn that. Some people never let happiness in, or they let it in too late. Some people never let it in because they're afraid. But that's the worst thing you can do to yourself. That's punishing yourself. Lots of folks don't even know they do it. So. I want you to know. I want you to try to be happy, for yourself."
I feel my eyes watering. If I cry now, I might never stop.
"There was a girl," I say. "A-A friend. Sort of. She never—she never let it in. She was sick. Really sick."
"And where is she now?" Gran asks patiently.
"She…" I tighten my grip on Gran's hand. "She killed herself. And I was the last one—I w-was the last one to talk to her, Gran, and I—"
Gran's strong, thin arms engulf me, the smell of lilacs and musty linens wafting up from her.
"I could've—I should've seen it, I should've—"
"There was nothing you could've done." Gran's voice is iron.
"But I—I was with her, and I knew her, and I knew how sad she was—"
"She must have been very unhappy."
"We all knew that! B-But…but we thought—"
"And what about now? Do you think she's still unhappy?"
"She's…dead."
"Wherever she is now, she's happier than when she was here."
I pull away. "She's not! She's just dead. She can't feel anything. If she…if she'd kept living, she could have had the chance to be happy again, here, with everyone—"
Gran's eyes are somber, but they glint. "That sounds an awful lot like someone else telling a girl how to live her life."
My mouth gapes with a retort, but I close it. She's right. Who am I to tell people Tzuyu would've been happier if she'd kept holding on to life? It's not my place. Gran moves her arms and hugs me closer, drawing my head to her chest, and I let her. It's like coming home.
"Cry for her, sweet girl, not for what you did or didn't do. And then get up. Find what makes you happy," she murmurs. "Life is too long to be so sad. I'm sure she'd want you to be happy."
All of Tzuyu's twisted, angry faces compound in my mind.
"I don't think so," I say.
"But you said she was your friend."
"Yeah, but—I hurt her. I did things to hurt her."
"On purpose?"
My breath catches before I can say yes. I mull over my kiss with Lisa. Our war. The laughter and the righteous anger and the tender, soft moments. The memories sting, like lemon juice in a paper cut.
"N-No. I was trying…to help?"
Gran raises a thin eyebrow. I shake my head.
"That's how it was at first. I was trying to help another friend, Jisoo. But then…but then I started to really like her. I was hurting Tzuyu by liking her. Every second I liked her was more hurt to Tzuyu. S-So. I take it back. I wasn't trying to help. I was being selfish."
"It sounds like you were trying to be happy with this girl."
I scoff. "But that hurt Tzuyu. Us, we hurt her a lot. I got between them. I— She probably felt like she had nothing left, with Lisa moving on. So she…she…"
The white dress on the green lawn flashes in my mind. Tzuyu's blue eyes, empty, her hair like a banner of corn silk and moonlight, caked with blood where her head met the ground. The tiny silver bracelet that said Tallie glinting back at me.
She'd lost everything. And I took the last person in her life from her. I did it without even thinking, without even considering how it might hurt her. I just barreled ahead and did what I wanted to because I was selfish. Because I wanted to be happy.
Because I wanted love when I knew I didn't deserve it.
And now, I'll never deserve it.
I am the evil thing.
I am the darkest dragon who ate the saddest princess.
My thoughts are rudely interrupted by Gran's finger flicking my forehead.
"I can hear the cogs in your brain turning. Don't go down that road. That's arrogant. You think too much of yourself and your effect on people. If she went and killed herself, she did it because her life was miserable and she'd thought about it for ages, not because you did one little thing."
"But I contributed. I—"
Gran leans back in her bed and huffs, pulling the cover over her. "I'm not gonna argue with you when you're all wrapped up in self-pity, you hear? Come back when you're thinking clearly. I wanna talk to my granddaughter, not a silly martyr who's trying to take all the blame."
I go quiet. Gran must realize how rare an occasion this is, because she sighs.
"I'm sorry, kiddo. I know it's hard. But you're making it harder on yourself." She leans up and kisses me on the cheek. "Come back at nine. The nurse lights the fire then."
A small, grim smile tugs at my lips.
..
The drive home is all dark roads and a pale, gold-white gibbous moon lurking on the horizon. The same color as Tzuyu's hair. I hear her voice clearly in my head.
You tried to help. You tried to help, and for that I can never thank you enough.
I drive back to the nursing home at eight in the morning, and Gran and I park our butts in lawn chairs, with sunglasses and lemonade, and wait for nine o'clock.
Then nine comes, and the chimney spews fireworks—oranges and blues and greens incinerating the clouds. Gran laughs and toasts the sky, toasts her dead friend. I lean back in the chair and do the same with a soft, quiet nod.
..
..
When I was nine, Dad packed up and left. It was clear and sunny. I was wearing overalls, and the air smelled like blackberries, and I watched him until he got in the cab and it sped away. I tried to run after him, but my legs were too short.
He taught me something really important that day.
When things get hard, people leave. Not that I blame them. Hard things are real tough to deal with, and they sap your energy and time and attention. So people leave because it's easier, and they can use that time and energy elsewhere, on something that isn't so difficult. Dad left because Mom was nagging too much—because she was stressed about raising me, and they were constantly short on money because they were raising me. It was stressful for him, and her. But that was because of me. Mostly it was my fault. They would have been happy if they didn't have me. I've never worked up the guts to say sorry to either of them.
But now I'm going off to college. I'm older. I don't need them quite as much anymore. I'm different from the little girl who tried to run after the cab.
The sun tries to choke my eyeballs. Waking up at two in the afternoon every day means I'm a rock star. Or a zombie. Possibly both. Rock stars do cocaine, and cocaine is basically zombie dust, right? Right. I know so much about drugs. I'm going to college and I know so much about drugs. I'll be fine.
"Jennie?" There's a knock on my door, and Dad's voice filters in. "Why are you mumbling about drugs?"
I'm talking aloud again, aren't I? I jump out of bed, throw on a pair of jean shorts, and smooth out my sleep-crumpled T-shirt, then fling open the door. Dad's disapproving face stares down at me, hair dark and streaked with silver, his eyes the same warm brown as mine.
"That's a great question, Dad, and here's the answer: I've been practicing saying no," I announce. "To drugs. In my sleep."
Dad's face remains unamused. I hug him and prance downstairs, past dozens of family portraits. The walls are clean and white and the carpets plush. The banisters are shiny cherrywood, and the flight of stairs leading down is massive, like something out of a fairy tale.
"There you are, Jennie! Good morning."
"And there's the wicked stepmother," I mumble. She is not actually wicked. On a scale of Angelic to Wicked, she is definitely a four, which is, like, Absently Selfish or something. The same level as substitute teachers and guys who blast their car bass way too loud when you're trying to sleep. I just call her wicked because it makes me feel good. Wicked good.
Kelly looks up from the entrance hall, blond and blue-eyed, with wrists thinner than a stork's legs and enough makeup to choke a magazine model. I've never seen her undone and messy, not even at night and not even on Sundays. She's nearly ten months pregnant, but even so she looks like she walked straight out of a Sears ad —wholesome pastel sweaters and all. She has twins and yet doesn't even look slightly ruffled. I have a sneaking suspicion she's an android, but I haven't found her battery charger yet.
"There're croissants for breakfast, and I made your favorite—whipped-cream pancakes!" Kelly smiles. "That's your favorite, right? Your father said it was."
"Yup. I loved those. When I was, uh, four." I grin until it becomes awkward. Dad doesn't know anything about who I am now, and that's painfully clear. "Look, thanks a bunch for going through all that Martha Stewartian effort! But I've got other breakfast plans."
"No you don't," she says lightly.
"Uh, yes, I do. With friends."
"Which friends? You don't have friends here in Georgia."
"I'll have you know I have friends all over the space-time continuum. And some of them have telepathy. And, like, fireball-making powers. Do you like fireballs? I hope so. Because they don't especially like people calling me friendless."
Kelly's perfect porcelain face hardens. It's familiar, since I've been here two weeks and she makes that face every single freaking time something comes out of my mouth. She hates what I say and who I am. I can tell. I don't fit into her perfect mold of what a teenage girl should be. She wants to tell me I'm ridiculous, or over the top, but she wants me to like her, first and foremost. I brush past her and grab my purse and keys from the table in the hall.
"How about some shopping?" Kelly offers when I'm halfway out the door. "You and I could go wherever you'd like! There's a great place downtown—"
"How about some no?" I say. "With a side of no thanks?"
"That's too bad." Kelly forces a smile. "We should spend some one-on-one time together. I'd really like to get to know you."
"You really wanna know me? You wanna know, what, that I peed my pants in third grade? That I like bad pop music and merry-go-rounds and the color orange?"
"That's a great place to start!" she says.
"You want me to like you. You don't care about who I am; you just want me to like you. But it doesn't work like that. It doesn't happen overnight."
"What's going on down here?" Dad asks, coming into view over the stairs. "And why are you using that tone of voice with Kelly, Jennie?"
"What tone?" I half laugh, half scoff.
"There it is again. Don't use that tone with me, I'm your father."
A hot knot works its way into my throat.
"Sorry," I mumble. "It's kind of hard to remember that when you haven't been around for eight years."
I slam the door behind me. Gravel crunches under my furious steps. Kelly unwisely gave me free use of her "old" black BMW that's practically pristine. She has three of them, all in different colors and with different drop-tops and pimped-out tires. I get in and slam the door, starting it and pulling away from the landscaped lawn and palm trees in stately rows. Even the kids' playhouse out back is made of marble, with its own tiny working fountain. The twins wave at me as I pull out, and I wave back. They're fine. They're young and naive, and I can't fault them for either of those. They're just kids.
Like I was, once.
This is the lap of luxury, and I'm sitting in it like a whiny kid on a mall Santa.
It takes the entire drive to the beach to calm my raging nerves. I agreed to come for the summer because Dad sounded like he genuinely missed me and wanted to see me off before college, and only because Mom seemed to be doing so much better. Somewhere in the vast and fabulous labyrinth that is my head, a game-show buzzer goes off. Bzzzt! Wrong. Dad just wanted me here because he feels guilty, and he's trying to make up for a huge amount of lost time. But he can't. Unlike Mom, he never came back for me.
Kelly hasn't changed—I have. I can't stand her anymore. I'm a different person now. Two years ago, when I last visited, I was quiet. I was sad. I didn't fight or argue. I was in the middle of dealing with Nameless. The last time I came here, it was right before—
I shake my head.
The last time I came here, I was pure. And simple. And clean.
Dad still thinks I'm that little girl of two summers ago, and so he treats me like her. Like I should respect him. Like I should care about what he says.
But I don't.
Because he left me. Twice.
Can't ever say that to his face, though. That'd mess up what little family dynamics I have left. Dropping the news I wasn't going to Stanford didn't help improve his view of me, either. He'd already gotten a stupid my kid goes to Stanford T-shirt and everything. Who gets those, anyway? Tourists and people with no fashion sense. Dad wouldn't know fashion if it bit him in his history professor ass, and he was definitely a tourist—staying in my life for only a few weeks at a time.
I heave a sigh and park. Goldfield Beach is tiny, dune grasses swaying between gentle swells of gray sand. The water is choppy and dark today, like a really pissed-off witch is making a brew that doth kill many dudes. It's the Atlantic—the Atlantic I grew up on in Florida. The smell of salt and sunbaked stones fills my nose. Seagulls politely scream at each other over pieces of crab. The ocean is big and doesn't really care what tone of voice I use, or whether I go shopping or choose Ohio State over Stanford.
I kick my shoes off and run. Running and I got a divorce after I lost enough weight. But right now, running is the best. Even the BMW's got Kelly's stench all over it. Running is the only way I can truly leave the bullshit behind.
Running on the beach is a fun and unique experience. There's a lot of sand. I trip on a rock and stub my toe so hard I possibly now have weird, deformed hobbit feet. I'm so out of breath I feel like vomiting. A seagull almost poops on my arm.
"It's okay, buddy!" I shade my eyes and look up at the sky. "Luckily for you, I am both stunningly good-looking and benevolent. I forgive you!"
He drops a fat deuce on my shoulder in gratitude.
I sigh. It could be worse. I could be surrounded by people. On the moon. And one of those people could be Lisa Manoban.
My stomach twists like a yoga prodigy. Icicle eyes fill my mind, frost over my heart, and I summon what's left of my fire to melt them away. Not now.
Never again.
I'm far away from the car. Its fancy German headlights can't watch me contemplate life in the incredibly-wistful-yet-also-somehow-sexy manner I am famous for. Infamous for. Am I even gonna be infamous anymore? At East Summit High I left my mark, but at Ohio State I'll be nothing. I'll be the gum on a busy New York lady's shoe. Less than that! I'll be that one piece of bread no one eats because it only has one open face and is sort of always stale no matter when you buy it!
With everything that happened after Tzuyu's death, I hadn't given myself time to worry about a new school. But now that it's less than a week away, I'm starting to freak. I'm almost a goddamn college freshman! I'll have a dorm and a roommate and actual classes where grades actually matter! They'll define the rest of my career-slash-life-slash future prospects with Tom Hiddleston. I have to start taking things mildly seriously now! Ugh! Just thinking about that word sends shivers down my spine. Serious. Seeeerious. Cereal-ous. Trix are for kids. College is not for kids. College is for grown-ups.
I don't feel like a grown-up.
I'm more worried about Mom than anything, but she and I planned every-other-weekend visits. Even her therapist says my mom's doing better, especially since her horrible ex-boyfriend's imprisonment. I'm glad Liam's in jail—not just because he threw me against a wall and cracked my head open and nearly killed me–slash–made me temporarily forget Lisa, but because bad dudes should be in jail, period.
In the Columbus airport when Mom saw me off, the color in her cheeks was back, and she'd smiled more in a week than I'd seen in my whole life.
Or maybe she was just trying extra hard for me.
I pick up a flat, smooth rock and try to skip it across the water. It drowns instead.
East Summit High School sort of wilted after Tzuyu died.
Nobody would come out and say that, of course, except me. Queen Bee Rosé, the most popular girl in school and my begrudging half friend, came to school less and less, and finally stopped altogether. We learned a few weeks before graduation she was in a psych ward, undergoing intensive therapy. For her, prom was out of the question. The social order of East Summit was thrown in the blender and turned on high—girls scrabbled to fill the void and take the prom queen crown.
Rosé showed up to graduation, though, and she walked to the podium when her name was called and got her diploma. She looked pale and haggard, and her parents were in the crowd, giving thin-lipped smiles of dry encouragement. I got the feeling they'd thrown her in the loony bin for show, to get her "better" quickly and without caring about whether or not it was really helping her get better. And then, before any of us could blink, she was whisked away to a private college in Connecticut, instead of UCLA like she'd planned. Even if she was a bitch, I keep hoping she'll end up all right. Or at least happier. But Tzuyu was her redemption, her idol, her friend. If I lost all three of those at once, I'd be broken, too.
Chan stared at Tzuyu's casket like it was a TV show, something not real. Jisoo—my best friend and Chan's girlfriend—helped him through the worst of it, visiting his house every day and staying with him in the nurses' office during school when he crumbled. It broke her heart and mine to see Chan so horribly, twistedly sad. Tzuyu had been his friend when they were younger for so long. I reminded him to eat—brought him burritos and potpies—and when he couldn't eat, I texted to remind him to sleep. I probably didn't help much. I probably could have done more. Prom came and went, but none of us attended. We spent it at Tzuyu's grave instead, saying good-bye in our own ways.
By graduation, Chan learned to smile again. MIT was still a very real thing for him, and he'd left early in the summer to earn a few extra credits, or to escape Tzuyu's death. Both, probably. Jisoo was torn up by it, but since she's going to school in Boston in September anyway, she's hurting a little less. They'd been growing closer after Tzuyu's death. Dunno if they'd done anything serious—Jisoo mostly just hugged him. No kissing that I could see, and Jisoo refused to dish on what they do in private, more out of respect than embarrassment. She's grown so much by helping him. She only talks about Vogue once a week now!
I skip another rock. It flies over the waves and jumps twice before sinking.
I'll miss Jisoo. I already do.
The summer was mostly me and her, having last sleepovers and last quiet bottles of wine in cow pastures while looking at stars. We didn't go to parties. I didn't feel like it. She hadn't been friends with Tzuyu, but it was still a death that affected her closest friends and her boyfriend. We'd promised to text every day. And Instagram. And Snapchat. And Facebook. Basically, we'd made a promise to talk. A lot. We might not see each other so much, but a warm blanket of comfort settles over my heart when I think about her. She has my back. I have her flawless backside.
I've never liked funerals. And now I like them even less.
I cried. Of course I did.
Lisa Manoban, though, didn't cry at all.
She should have, but she didn't. She stood in the corner by her mother, who cried enough for the both of them, her black dress and Lisa's black suit mingling as she leaned on her to keep standing. Lisa's face an opaque mask of the darkest ice I'd seen yet, just like her nickname in high school—the Ice Princess. The skin below her eyes was bruised with exhaustion, and her cheekbones seemed somehow sharper. I shivered looking at her. She wasn't putting on the lifeless, emotionless act anymore. She just was lifeless. She was empty. The spark had been sucked out of her eyes, leaving pale shells behind. Her entire body, her entire physical presence, seemed like a shell—an illusion made of mirrors and brittle frost that would shatter at the slightest touch. She was chilling to look at, like something that shouldn't be still living or still moving. A mannequin. A zombie puppet.
I tried once. To bring her back. At the wake, in the musty-smelling funeral home laden with sorrow-cookies and sad-cakes, I said something about Tzuyu, how the priest who called her a selfless and beautiful girl didn't really know her at all. Lisa had been holding a cup of water, staring into it as she stood in a corner away from the noise and crying people. She looked up at me, took in my face—red from my own crying—and closed her eyes.
"It's over," she said, too calmly.
"What is?" I asked, my stomach roiling. She pushed off the wall and walked away with one last word.
"Everything."
She stopped coming to school after that. I talked to Principal Evans about it, and he said Lisa had dropped out. Harvard hadn't revoked its early acceptance offer, and Lisa could still theoretically go even with straight Fs for her last two quarters. But both of us knew she wasn't going. She didn't care anymore.
When April came, at the almost-two-month mark of her absence, I went looking for her. I wanted to look for her before that. Hell, I really wanted to. I fought not to. I thought she needed space; I thought it would help if I stayed away. The last thing that'd help her would be seeing me. Having the crazy girl who was once your nemesis track you down would be stressful for even the most practiced ice princess. Besides, I wouldn't know how to help. I would just mess things up more. Say the wrong thing. Do the wrong thing. Like I had with Tzuyu.
But when Mrs. Manoban came to my door one late afternoon, crying and begging for me to find her, I knew I had to start looking. Even though she only knew Lisa and I were maybe-friends, maybe-enemies, she was desperate enough to ask every one of her acquaintances for help. None of them could—Chan and Rosé were too wrapped up in their own grief.
I was the only one.
I waited until spring break. And then I started chasing a ghost.
Mrs. Manoban gave me the note Lisa left—it was simple and written on plain white paper. She said she was leaving, not to call the cops, and that she loved her. Mrs. Manoban had, in her desperation, gotten the bank to hand over Lisa's account information. She told me the money for Tzuyu's now-pointless surgery had been refunded to Lisa, and Lisa'd then gifted most of it to someone, taking a mere four thousand for herself. Four thousand was enough to live on for a bit, sure. But almost three months was pushing it.
She'd left all her stuff in her room, too. The only thing she took was her father's cigar box with Tzuyu's letters inside. I looked for any sign of her at Tallie's grave—Tallie, her and Tzuyu's daughter who died before she was ever born. Nothing. Lisa wasn't there. A rose was left on Tzuyu's grave, wilted. It had to be weeks old. If she'd come back after that, she would've put down a fresh flower.
Then I checked the hospital. The kids I used to hang out with there, Mira and James, said Lisa came to see them the day after Tzuyu's funeral. Lisa told them she was going away for a long time, and she gave them each a massive brand-new teddy bear as a farewell gift. They'd been Tzuyu's friends, but it was more than that. Tzuyu, before the tumors started transforming her personality, loved them. They were like Tallie to her—the child-Tallie she would never have, and Lisa knew that. Lisa treated them like that.
I called the Jasmine Club in a last-ditch attempt to find her. The operator insisted she quit months ago.
And that was it. All my leads, suddenly dead. Lisa was slipping from my hands like midnight sand.
And then someone named Lily called. She'd overheard the Jasmine Club operator's conversation with me. She was a friend of "Pranpriya," Lisa's escort persona there, which I insanely doubted because the only friend Lisa allows herself to have is her reflection and/or her own massive dumb brain. I let her chat my ear off and agreed to meet her at a café in Columbus.
Lily was blond and beautiful and almost six feet tall. From her expensive purse and perfume, I called her out instantly as an escort. She didn't deny it, which made me like her more. She wasn't wasting my precious time as I tried to save Lisa.
Save?
I shake my head and watch the salt spray of the ocean douse a rock. "Save" is the wrong word. I can't think like that. I can't save myself, let alone another person. But for a while, I wanted to. I really wanted to. Lisa, of all people, deserved help. I thought I could help a little. I thought I could do at least that much for her, after everything we'd been through. After what I felt for her.
I laugh and chuck a rock, not bothering to try to skip it.
I was an idiot.
The old Jennie wouldn't have given up when Lily told me Lisa came to visit her before she left town. Lisa wouldn't say where she was going, but she gave Lily a manila folder and told her if a girl named Jennie ever started snooping around at the club, to give it to her. So she did.
"She must really like you," Lily said, inspecting her nails as I put the folder in my purse.
"Yes, well. Cobras also like mongooses. From afar. On separate sides of electric fences."
"No, listen"—Lily leans in, one cool hand over mine—"I've seen a lot of people, okay? I've seen all types of them, too. Lisa—Lisa is something special. She'll deny it, but she either cares with her whole heart about someone or not at all. She doesn't half-ass things. The people she bothered to leave good-bye stuff for—those are the people she cares about in her life. You're one of them."
My heart felt like a sumo wrestler had flattened it. I tried to inhale to say something, but every breath stung. I didn't want to believe this girl. How could I believe her after Lisa just ran off like that?
Lily took off soon after, leaving me to sneak glances at the envelope.
The old Jennie wouldn't have given up after seeing what was inside.
She didn't leave me a note or a giant teddy bear. She left me a ticket to Paris, with the words "I'm sorry" scribbled on it in her large, neat handwriting.
My eyes burn now like they did then. She was trying to get rid of me.
No, c'mon Jennie, don't be dramatic. Nothing good happens when people get dramatic. Examples: the Titanic, those rabbits that die when their hearts beat too fast, every episode of Pretty Little Liars ever. Lisa may have been heartless, but she was also…? Also what? Also definitely not caring about me. She didn't even say good-bye in person, and then she sent me a ticket out of the country. She obviously wasn't in Paris herself, asking me to join her. That idea is almost stupidly romantic. Lisa's a lot of things, but "stupid" and "romantic" are on the rock bottom of her attribute list, along with "nice" and "generally tolerable."
I told Jisoo multiple times that I wanted to backpack through Europe, mostly jokingly. Lisa was nearby to hear it, though. She must've seen through the joke and realized I really wanted to. Figures.
I pull the ticket out of my pocket. It's worn and crumpled, and the plane left six days ago, but I couldn't throw it away or use it. She must have used Tzuyu's surgery money to buy it for me, after all. No way in hell could I ever accept (or reject) something like that. So I just kept it. A braver Jennie would've used it. A not-guilty Jennie would've used it.
If I close my eyes now, I can remember when I went into Lisa's room to look for clues as to where she went. The beach fades, and I'm lying on her bed, looking at the ceiling and wondering where she is on this hellacious butthole we call Earth. And if she's safe. Happy is too much to ask for. But as long as she's safe, and keeps being safe, one day she can be happy again. Or so I think. I don't actually know for sure. I'm real arrogant, saying these things like I'm sure of them. I never had anyone I love die. Lisa's had three.
She might never be happy again.
She might be broken forever.
Her room fades, and the ocean comes back. The knot in my throat returns with a vengeance.
"I hope you're safe, you idiot," I whisper to the waves.
All I can do is hope and move on. I can't wait around. I have my own life to live. I just wish things had turned out differently, is all. Not like, us dating. Because that would be horribly, stupidly selfish-slash-impossible in the face of Tzuyu's death. I just care about her. As a nemesis. As a rival. As the only person in the world who can challenge me, I want her to be acceptably healthy and functioning so we can meet up and fight again one day. Because the fighting was fun, and I learned a lot and grew a lot from it. Just the fighting. That's all I miss. That's all.
My heart gives a little shuddering squeeze. I start crying. To remedy this, I take my shirt off and wipe the seagull poop on the hood of Kelly's BMW. I start laughing.
And it's great, except for the part where I start crying harder.
..
..
..