Jade arrived home a little later. Her mom sitting in the living room, watching some TV. "Where have you been?" Mrs. Hansen asked. "I got off work early today."
"I went for an evening drive," Jade said. "I picked up some dinner and ate it in the car."
"Hey, please sit down," Mrs. Hansen said. "I wanna talk to you."
Jade sat beside her mom on the couch. "I got a call from your school," Mrs. Hansen said. "Someone from your school killed himself. Aaron Mitchell, I think his name was. Do you know him?"
"I met Aaron a few times," Jade said. "We're having an assembly about it next week. Aaron wasn't really a good friend of mine."
"Do you need to talk about it?" Mrs. Hansen asked.
"You never cared before," Jade snapped. "Why pretend to care now?"
Jade then went to her room.
The next day, Dirk's mom came over for cocktails. Dirk had tagged along. Jade and Dirk were hanging out in her room. They knew that Jade is a lesbian so they weren't strict about keeping the door open. Jade had told Dirk all about the previous night.
"You almost kissed Katie Mitchell?" Dirk exclaimed. Jade was quick to shush him.
"Mom doesn't know what I was up to last night," Jade whispered.
"Why?" Dirk asked.
"She'll ask too many questions," Jade explained. "You said it yourself. I don't do well when I have to continuously make up a story."
"That makes sense," Dirk said. "But let's get back to what we were talking about. You almost kissed your crush! You've been dreaming of that since middle school. Why didn't you two do it?"
"She pulled away at the last moment," Jade said. "And then she told me to leave."
"Your breath might have stunk," Dirk said. "What did you have for dinner?"
Jade hid her mouth self-consciously. "Anyway," Jade said. "I told them that Aaron and I exchanged emails. His mom asked if she could read the emails. I guess she thinks it would help her feel closer to her son. Now I have to fabricate some emails."
"I'll help you," Dirk said.
"Really?" Jade asked.
"I mean, I have nothing better to do," Dirk shrugged. Jade opened her laptop and logged in. She opened Gmail and created a new account for Aaron. She began to draft the email.
"Dear Jade Hansen, we've been way too out of touch," Jade typed. Dirk was staring over her shoulder. Things have been crazy, and it sucks that we don't talk that much. But I should tell you that I think of you each night."
"No," Dirk said.
"Sorry, I got carried away," Jade said. She looked up and saw Aaron standing in the corner. She knew he was just a figment of her imagination.
"I gotta tell you life without you has been hard," Aaron said. Jade changed that word a few times, eventually settling on rough.
"Mm, kinky," Dirk joked.
"I miss our talks," Aaron said. "I like my parents."
"Spoken like a robot," Dirk said.
"I love my parents," Aaron said. He sat in one of the chairs. Jade tried to ignore him, but he said all that she wrote. "But each day is another struggle. Maybe if I stopped smoking drugs, things would be alright."
"Smoking drugs?" Dirk asked. "You're such a virgin."
"Smoking crack?" Jade asked.
"You're going to show his parents this," Dirk reminded her.
"Smoking pot," Jade said. They finished writing the email.
"Are we done?" Dirk asked.
"We need more than one email," Jade said. "We have to convince them Aaron and I was friends."
They started to work on more emails. "My sister is hot," Jade eventually typed.
"You suck at this," Dirk said. "I'll write Aaron's emails. You just write the ones from you."
"Ok," Jade said. Dirk pulled out his own laptop. Jade's phone vibrated.
Unknown: Hey, it's Katie. It took me a few hours, but I finally found your phone number. There's going to be an assembly for Aaron on Monday. Will you talk at it?
Jade knew she couldn't reject this request.